Page 15 of Shaedes of Power (Soul Magic #1)

CHAPTER 15

T he two human servants walked us silently down a maze of stone walled hallways. While the general structure of the castle was austere and simplistic, more of a fortress than a castle, inside some of the rooms we passed, we could see the touches of the grand and the opulent. There was definitely an element of darkness to the décor, but overall, it was elegant. Tapestries hung in some rooms, depicting ornately woven scenes of tragedy. Candlelight was amplified in others by gray globes of glass placed over flames to magically enhance the light. Statues cast in ebony hid in dark corners, illustrating cursed faeries frozen in eternal lament.

We were led into a private bathing room where a large hot spring was dug out of the center of the floor, just like the bathhouses at the Shaede Court. Only this one was small, and the windowless room felt claustrophobic. There was no bed of moss or lovely, humidity-loving flowers decorating the space. It was just more candles, more stone, and the scent of something acidic and citrusy hanging in the air.

“Undress,” one of the women ordered. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Maybe even younger.

“Please,” I whispered, in case we could somehow be overheard. “ You cannot agree with this. Please, help us find a way out of here. This cannot be allowed to happen.”

“I said, undress,” she repeated, looking unmoved. The other woman went about pouring some colorless liquid into the water, making the lemony smell burn my eyes.

“Why do you do this?” I asked pleadingly. “Why would you serve someone so rooted in darkness?”

The servant narrowed her eyes and said, “Because when you aren’t good enough for the light, the only place left to turn is the darkness. Now get in.” And she pushed me into the pool, fully clothed, the hot water almost scalding my body.

Glory, watching all this unfold, quickly undressed and climbed into the bath beside me. I peeled the wet clothes away and handed them to the silent servant. She removed them from the room and quickly returned with some silky silver robes. Glory and I bathed in silence. If it wasn’t for the high temperature of the water, I would have been willing to stay there forever. To prolong the inevitable. To spare ourselves the cruelty that awaited us in a different room of this castle.

If the cost of my mating with Prince Edmyn brought any benefits at all to the Shaede Court and the other faeries of the realm, I would have liked to believe myself able to self-detach and make the sacrifice. Never a willing participant—no. But under those circumstances, where the act served an actual purpose, I thought I could learn to live with myself afterward. But this was not that type of surrender. This wasn’t a ransoming; it was an exploitation. And the only one who would benefit from my debasement would be Edmyn himself and ultimately the Night Court.

Glory and I accepted the robes and allowed the servants to comb our hair. They braided it and pinned it up on our heads in an attractive way, but all I could think of was how exposed my neck had become.

We traveled down another dark hall, but this one seemed wider and had a decorative carpet rolling through its center. We arrived at a door made of dark-brown wood with iron filigree mounted around its frame. The servant opened it, and we entered into a very large and lavish bedroom. On the far side of the room was a sitting area where every seat was piled high with red velvet pillows. The rugs that covered the stone floor echoed the same sophisticated design as the hall. Along one wall was a large fireplace that was so huge that it burned tree trunks instead of logs or branches. It created a warm inferno that heated the whole room, causing color to paint my cheeks.

There were—no surprise—an assortment of candles clustered in bunches sporadically placed around the space, and on the other side of the room, near the door, was a dressing area. It was built into the wall. A small rectangular bump-out big enough for someone to dress in, complete with a tufted chaise lounge covered in velvet the same shade as the black flowers that appeared in the desiccated clover on the throne room floor. The walls of the dressing area were covered in shelves with various boots, belts, and folded pants. Hooks held draped coats and heavy tunics. A gilded mirror ran the length from the ceiling to the floor on one side wall. There were also enormous, brocaded curtains in black and gold that were tied up on either side of the space, framing it off from the rest of the room. They were cut from the same fabric that hung from the back of the bed.

The bed was positioned directly in front of the fireplace. It was massive and would look intimidating even under normal circumstances. Like all the furniture in the room, it was made by an artist’s hand, carved from the same dark wood of the door and finished with a glaze that looked almost wet against the dancing firelight. There was a mountain of pillows atop the blankets, which were so midnight blue that they looked almost black. Giant fur blankets from no animal I had ever seen before lay folded at the foot of the bed next to several skimpy night-gowns that were obviously displayed for our choosing.

“Pick one and get dressed,” the young servant ordered us next.

“You cannot be serious,” Glory said in a panic. “You cannot seriously be asking us to choose the clothing we are going to be defiled in?”

“Fine, I’ll choose,” she replied. She picked up two long, glossy white slip dresses and threw them at us. “Get dressed. Prince Edmyn should be here soon.” They collected the remaining garments and, without any further instruction, left us alone, shutting the door behind them.

“This is really happening,” Glory said, frozen in place. She had gone somewhere in her own head, and I had no words of comfort for her, so I remained silent. I quickly slid into the sheer nightgown and helped Glory into hers, as nothing with her seemed to be properly functioning at the moment. She had gone out of her own body, just staring at the bed as if it contained invisible horrors only she could see.

I walked around the room to give my own body purpose but couldn’t get my mind to focus on anything besides Edmyn’s jagged finger tips. I tried pulling Farris’s face into memory, but quickly pushed it away. He didn’t belong here. His goodness and gentleness did not belong in this realm of darkness and pain.

The door opened, and Glory immediately went hysterical. She was screaming, crying, and shouting awful things at Edmyn, who looked as tired and uninterested as ever. He waved a hand which sent her flying unconscious onto the bed.

“What did you just do to her?” I shouted accusingly. I ran to her side, and placed my hand on her cheek.

“Relax,” said Edmyn, clearly drunk and staggering into the dressing area to hang up his leather coat. He started unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s only a sleep spell; she’ll awake in the morning feeling like she’s had the best sleep of her life.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, gently shaking Glory’s arm to rouse her.

“Well, you don’t really have a choice, do you?” The way he looked at me from across the room would have made a dragon bend in submission. I dropped Glory’s hand, praying she was in fact asleep, because I didn’t need her to witness whatever was about to happen. Edmyn walked over to the other side of the bed, his bare, sculpted chest and arms painted orange in the firelight. I was no match against him.

“I will not lay down without a fight,” I said with more bravery than I actually possessed .

“As much as that offer is very much in alignment with one of my favorite forms of carnal desires, alas, I must disappoint us both. I am not going to mate with you, Little Prism.” He unbuckled his belt and went to put it on a shelf.

I stood there, confused, a thousand questions vying for priority on my tongue. “You aren’t going to force me to mate with you tonight?”

He was seated on the chaise lounge and pulling off his boots now, smiling at my confusion. “No,” he said with the devil in his eyes. “Not tonight, nor ever if you do not wish it. I’m always eager for a chase and happy to win a struggle, but only if my lover is willing to play with fire.”

“What about the power of daywalking? And Ciaran? And what about Glory?” The questions were pouring out now.

“There is no doubt in my mind that you and your shiny refracted shaede might hold special magic that could indeed unlock the secrets of our curse. But after the many years I have lived on this planet, both living and undead, I’ve learned enough to know that magic of that caliber always involves soul magic. Very powerful but equally unpredictable, with soul ingredients being among the most difficult to procure. I do love my brother, but ambition has always rendered him blind. He can’t see it, but if any bit of Amira’s soul was used in the undoing of his curse, then the main ingredient was love. It has to be. They are nauseatingly in love, and it has changed them both. Since the very opposite of that is what is going on between you and me, I’m not going to hold my breath for being able to once again feel the sun upon my face. Mating with you would be a chore, one that I might have even enjoyed, but there is really no point. As for Ciaran, leave my brother to me. And as for your friend, what about her? I’m just thankful she doesn’t snore.” It was definitely the longest speech I’d ever heard him give, but I was still not satisfied. Edmyn, on the other hand, tossed the boots in a corner and draped his long, muscular frame along the lounge chair. Framed by the drapings, he looked like a baroque painting. He closed his eyes, waving the dozens of candles to extinguish themselves, clearly done with the conversation. But I wasn’t .

I moved around the bed quietly and climbed into the other side. I laid my head on one of the velveteen pillows and tried to stifle an involuntary sigh of comfort from my lips. I was tired, warm, and I could just barely hear the calm, steady breaths coming from Glory trying to lull me to sleep. I was so weary.

I looked over at Edmyn, still as a corpse in the firelight.

“Why are you willing to defy your brother?” I asked softly. I wasn’t even sure he was still awake, but then he rolled his head to the side and looked at me.

“You ask a lot of questions, Little Prism,” he said lazily. Sleep was calling him too, but I needed to know. Why was one of the biggest monsters in the Night Court offering us sanctuary? Could he be right about the soul magic needed to back the Renaissance Spell? If that were the case, Ciaran raping and pillaging all of the faerie realm would never bring about any of the results he was looking for. It was folly. Moreover, my sister and I were the only two faeries I knew of that had access to the refinement magic also needed to drive the spell. It would explain why my kisses had such an effect on Farris but not on Astor. It was somehow easier to admit now, as I might never see Farris again, how much I had come to love him. Had I been close to giving him a piece of my soul?

“My name is Opal,” I said, forcing Farris out of my thoughts again.

“I know,” he replied softly, and then turned to close his eyes again. I thought he was going to go back to sleep, but he kept talking, eyes closed, as if he were in a dream. “You and your sister are a new shaede entirely. I see it in your eyes. You are just like how she was when she first came to court. Full of self-loathing and lacking confidence when there is so much magic at your fingertips. Vibrancy of shaede is a myth really. If one appears more powerful the darker they are, that is just coincidence.” He was slurring his words a little between the wine and the lassitude, but his was the wisdom that came with age. “Ciaran was also like you, once upon a time. He hated being a Natural, hated it enough for the both of us. He constantly watched the Shaedes and allowed every minor grievance to fuel his hate. I learned hate from Ciaran, as it was an easy enough emotion to understand. But when I went on my conversancy and got away from Ciaran and his toxic opinions, I made friends with another Natural and a blue Shaede named Lyara. She was beautiful, and having feelings for her should have been reaching way beyond my grasp. But she didn’t see it that way.” He was suddenly more lucid and laced his fingers behind his head as his shiny, dark eyes bore into me.

“I was happy. I went home to court, making plans to spend more time with Lyara, whose kisses I can still feel on my lips even now. My brother had disappeared, they said. It didn’t concern me, as he was always so angry and I didn’t want him to slander what Lyara and I were creating. So yes, I admit that a part of me hoped he was off on a long adventure and might leave me to my own devices.” Edmyn paused, and I realized in that moment how unhappy he must be. I knew what was coming next and wondered how hard it must be to relive the choice his brother made on his behalf.

“You know he murdered me in my sleep a few weeks later; all the realms know that story,” he said bitterly. “But what no one knows, not even Ciaran, is that two days before he returned to slit my throat, my shaede had come in. I was a yellow. A golden sheen appeared on my skin. My hair was the color of lemons ripe on the tree. Overnight, the sun turned into an old friend, and I only got two days to plant. Two days to create new flowers, to feel the soil and hear its needs. It was so much magic. It was a purpose and a life, and then it was over.”

Nothing in my heart told me that I could trust this man—this cursed thing that feigned disinterest all day at court and then revealed a damaged soul and broken heart to someone who he openly mocked and kept imprisoned. But his story was undeniably tragic. Ciaran had also been changed against his will, but both brothers had had very different outlooks on life before they were turned. Being a dark faerie only seemed to amplify Ciaran’s hate, while I wasn’t sure what had happened to Edmyn. He just seemed lost.

“Anyway,” he said, adjusting himself to get more comfortable. “That is why I would defy my brother. He stole an entirely different eternity from me. And although I love him, I will never forgive him for that. ”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, my eyes squinting through the darkness as the fire was starting to fade.

“I’m going to sleep, and so are you. Enough questions, Little Prism.”

I reluctantly closed my eyes and let the sleep that had been begging finally come, bringing with it dreams of war.