Page 21 of Shaedes of Power (Soul Magic #1)

CHAPTER 21

T he normally too hot bath water was like a salve to my worried mind as I fully submerged and let the heat overtake my senses. Edmyn and Ciaran had plenty to busy themselves with all afternoon, so being left to my own devices had not been good for my overall mental state. When I couldn’t take the high temperature anymore and couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I reemerged and relished in the attack the cool air had on my skin. I wanted to cling to any feeling that could distract me from the minutes slowly ticking by.

I asked the servant to bring me my robe. Back in Edmyn’s room, I combed my hair, braiding a few pieces and securing them in the back with a few pins. Another dress arrived, and somehow I thought Edmyn might have had a hand in picking it. It was a tight red leather corset with a hip hugging, black leather skirt to contrast. There was a stretchy black lace overlay that looked like a second skin going down to my wrists, embracing my throat, and flowing all the way to the ground. It had a little train behind it, which did not make it optimal for fighting, but this was not a dress meant for battle. This was a dress meant for seducing. My tattoo had become one with the dress, blending in with the lace design, and I couldn’t help but stand before the mirror in Edmyn’s dressing area and imagine what trouble we could get into—me and this dress… and Edmyn.

For some reason, it had taken me days to notice the tiny clock hidden among the shelves. Fifteen minutes until eleven. There was no more waiting and no more postponing. I practically ran to the throne room and saw much of the court gathered there. The dark lords and ladies didn’t seem to look down on me as much as they once had, for I had liberated their prince. Hustling into the grand room, my gothic train trailing behind me along the stone, I suppose I had even started to look like I belonged here.

Everyone was drinking. There was a celebratory note to the conversation. I even spotted Henrick smiling and laughing with a few ladies dressed in various hues of black. A few fanged smiles greeted me as I passed, but in this sea of monsters, I was only interested in locating mine.

“Here, Mistress Shaede,” gurgled a bald human with a tray of goblets. “We have a variety of delights tonight. A dark shadow beast flavor with a hint of black grape, regular faerie wine with a dash of human blood thrown in, and this boring regular wine for those humans that haven’t acquired a taste for the sweet nectar yet.”

Something told me the servant was not going to take “no” for an answer, so I grabbed the human wine and continued my search. The princes were not on their thrones, and Amira was nowhere in sight. I made it to one of the back walls on the far side of the room, and there they were. Ciaran was sporting dark leather armor and a long, intricate braid. He looked like he was going into battle. Amira was wearing a deep, royal blue velvet gown and a sapphire encrusted headband. She looked like a queen. Edmyn wore only eyes for me. He excused himself from their conversation and ushered me a little way away, moving so quickly that he almost sloshed the drink from his cup.

“You look ravishing,” he said, looking me up and down. “I don’t know why I do this to myself. Dress you up like this, and then not be able to touch you. I could have that lace in shreds within seconds.”

“Promises, promises,” I said, unable to fight a smile. “Are you doing all right? ”

“Yes,” he answered quickly, adjusting his coat. “I think all will be well.”

I couldn’t really question him further, not with so many dark fae around. But seeing as Ciaran looked to be in perfect health and fortitude, I was forced to have faith that Edmyn knew what he was doing.

“Good luck,” I whispered.

Goblets in hand, we walked in step toward Ciaran, just as the portal swirled open.

Ciaran and Edmyn led the way, followed by me, Amira, and three dark fae guards.

The Shaede throne room was surprisingly empty as we entered into the shadows of the vacant chamber. It was rather late, but certainly if the Shaede Court knew of Ciaran and Edmyn’s visit, the faeries of the court would flock to witness the events of the night out of a sense of duty to defend or sheer morbid curiosity.

Without the crowd, there was little separation between our small party and the four High Shaedes perched on their seats atop the dais. I felt my magic awaken, and it was like a long caress from an old friend where neither of you wanted to be the first to let go. My first instinct was to lash out at my captor, but Ciaran and I both knew there was nothing I could do that he couldn’t defend. Not to mention that kind of show of force might ruin any diplomacy that might have a chance of happening tonight. I remained reluctantly by Amira’s side, my hands clasped idly in front of me around my goblet. Looking upon the faces of my friends was like looking at strangers. Not because they were different, but because I was very changed from the person I had been before being stolen away to the Night Court.

Before that day with Amira in the meadow, I was intractable. My powers were dormant and a mystery. My greatest skill, perhaps my only skill besides the forbidden artwork, was my ability to wallow in self-pity and look at the world for all it owed me. My questions to the Balance were self-centered and adolescent. My parents had died, and I was in mourning. Now I stood before them, a woman of great known power, steeling herself from worry and fear. I had seen the demons at the Night Court. I had resided among the shadows. And love had found me there, along with my legacy.

Leyanna, Lennyx, Dru, and Glory, all wearing their shining circlets and donning their official High Shaede robes, looked so much like the Five that had come before us. I was hyperaware of the magic that Amira had mentioned might lay latent inside me. Without much effort, I sensed Leyanna’s fire magic and felt that it had a pulse. There was now no doubt in my mind—I had access. There was also no doubt in my mind that I could have access to them all. With the exception of the dark fae, it was strange to think I would normally be the most dangerous faerie in the room.

The bond I had with Edmyn was also more tangible and electric here. I wondered if he could feel me behind him, willing him to do the thing we most needed him to do. But I was having a hard time seeing how this was going to go our way.

Ciaran wasted no time waiting to be an asshole. He walked over to the stone bridge, crossed over the moat, and climbed the dais. “Is this seat taken?” he asked the Shaedes, pointing to my empty throne. To their horror, he picked up my circlet from the throne and turned it over in his hands a few times. “Did we come to an agreement? Or not?” I saw Dru’s knuckles go white as she resisted the instinct for violence against this man who dared come near her after what he did to her father and best friend. “Listen, I’ll get this ball rolling since no one seems overly talkative tonight.” Circlet in hand, he pointed to me. “I’ve taken one of your queens and made her a whore of the Shadowlands. I’ve bent the Balance to my will and broken my curse as well as that of my brother’s.” The Shaedes exchanged tense glances. “Look, I’ve mated with a Shaede from a respectable family. All I ask for is the equality and respect I’m owed, and that my brother and I be included in decisions made that effect all fae. The first topic up for discussion is doing what needs to be done to bring more of my subjects into the light.”

He made it sound like it was nothing, as if his requests were trivial and the Shaede Court was acting like a sulky child for disagreeing with him .

Leyanna was the next to speak. “Dark One, you seem to think you were invited here to negotiate. But you are sorely mistaken. We allowed you here so you could answer for your crimes.”

Ciaran’s smile was sickening. “If you think I came here to negotiate, then it is you, fire faerie, who is mistaken. And the only real crime I am guilty of is existing at your displeasure. I have waited for this moment for a length of time that your infantile minds can’t even fathom. My patience is up, and I want what is mine.”

Glory was watching me intently as I stood passively among our captors. I could feel her guilt for leaving me with them. I could see it in her eyes. Her magic reached out to me, like an offering, but I pushed it away. She stood up, mere feet away from Ciaran, and said, “Enough of this. I cannot stand to listen to another word you have to say until we get Opaline back. Release her now, or there will be no more discussion.” Lennyx didn’t look like he liked the sound of that. Dru’s eyes also widened at Glory’s bold words.

To my surprise, Ciaran said, “Done.” He turned and gestured for me to join him on the dais. As I walked slowly toward the thrones, I stole a look at Edmyn’s face, which was once again a stoic painting of the most handsome and bored courtier in the realm. “We are done with her anyway. She’s served her purpose, eh, Edmyn?” The man in question cracked a smile for his brother and gave a little bow. Ciaran actually handed me the circlet and backed up so I could take my seat.

Dru looked at me skeptically, as if to say, what the fuck happened to you? I knew I looked a little different, but what little she might have been able to sense of my magic most likely felt different too. It was not till I was on the dais, facing the front of the room, that I noticed a man with pale-green hair and a crooked smile gazing at me from across the room near one of the fire pillars. It was Farris. My magic recognized him immediately, like a happy puppy would when its beloved owner returned home at the end of the day. He was dressed as a faerie warrior—a little more than I’d like. It was incredibly reckless for him to still be at court, let alone here in the throne room where all the monsters were. Still, seeing his face was a comfort. It always was.

“The prodigal has returned,” said Ciaran with a dramatic flair. “So if your answer is no, let’s hear it. For I shall have my answer one way or another this night.”

Glory sat back down. “I say the answer is no. Black Shaedes had a place here at court once upon a time. But faeries like Draku never wanted to accept their fate. The faerie realms should not be punished for falling under the Balance’s favor.”

Ciaran’s anger sparked. “Black fae, Naturals, Shaedes like Amira—humiliated, pressured, told who they were and what they were allowed to do, ignoring their gifts.”

“Or utilizing them,” interjected Lennyx, trying to appease. “You think of it as exploitation. But really, this is a disagreement of perspective. No Shaede is above a Natural—we all need each other to survive.”

“Include me now, or don’t,” answered Ciaran with an air of fatigue. “I’m not going to beg. But if it is a ‘no’ to the seat, then it is a ‘yes’ to a war.”

The tension in the room was becoming thicker than a Corewood tree. I could sense all the magics in the room licking their lips, salivating with the hope of being unleashed. Just when I thought Leyanna was about to start spewing fireballs at will, Edmyn moved toward the dais, goblet still in hand from the party.

“You all have a death wish if you think a war with the Night Court is preferable to collaboration with my brother,” he said, coming to stand next to Ciaran. He was very at ease, almost too comfortable in the midst of discord.

Dru glared at him, seething with repulsion. “Go back to your Shadowlands. High Shaedes have trapped your kind once before, and we are prepared to do it again.”

This was news to me. They were prepared to die for this, but I wasn’t ready for anyone to die for this.

“Oh, we will go back to the Night Court,” purred Ciaran. “But when we do, we will be dragging your corpses behind us.” He raised a hand, and I felt his magic augment. I felt myself bracing for impact and was ready to go nuclear with my own magic, but then it stopped. Edmyn had placed a hand on Ciaran’s back .

“Brother,” he began. “This has been a long time coming. This night is momentous for you, for me, for all the children of the dark. Before we spill their blood, may I make a toast for your vanquishing of the prejudiced?” He raised his cup, making direct eye contact with me. “May the Balance choke on the bones of our enemies, and may the magical creatures of the Seam one day bow to your vision of equality and authority.”

He bowed low and handed the goblet to Ciaran, who feigned embarrassment but would never pass up an opportunity to be praised. The other Shaedes looked like they were going to be sick. “Well said, Edmyn. Well said.” Ciaran took a sip and raised the cup back to his brother, but Edmyn didn’t take it. He just took a step back and watched as Ciaran’s face quickly faded to gray.

Black veins crawled out from under Ciaran’s sleeves and collar. The whites of his eyes turned a pallid yellow. His hands and feet turned inward. His wrists snapped quickly backward, breaking instantly. His eyes looked surprised and horrified, his mouth open in a silent scream. His breathing had been reduced to gasping in between strained coughs of blood and phlegm.

“You go too far, brother,” said Edmyn quietly. My eyes welled up with tears. The other Shaedes were exchanging worried looks. This was not at all what anyone was expecting. But even though I had been expecting it, I was still not prepared to watch Edmyn torment his brother. “We will never be taken seriously with methods such as these. I have warned you and pleaded with you, but you do not listen. And it might very well be too late.”

Ciaran’s left eyeball was starting to droop. “I made you, Edmyn, and I can unmake you,” he gurgled while dark blood started pooling in his mouth. “You betray me for faeries that won’t let you near their own power. You think they will reward you for this? You think anything will change?” He spat blood onto the white stone. “Don’t let daylight or some minxy little half-Shaede blind you to our mission. These fae will never accept you… and that whore—” Edmyn’s magic rose before Ciaran could finish his thought and sent the deteriorating corpse of his brother flying across the room, slamming him into a wall .

Ciaran laughed as some of his teeth fell out. Instead of lashing out at Edmyn, he used what little magic he could summon and cast a spell at the nearest pillar of fire to spill over and ignite a wall of fire, blocking him from the rest of the faeries. Lennyx jumped up and sent moat water to squash the firewall, but all it did was create a wall of smoke so dark and thick that Ciaran was completely hidden from view. Amira, standing protected behind the Night Court guards, was whispering and sending healing spells at Ciaran with incredible force. Their bond did something to increase the impact of the spells, and I was worried the strawberry poison wouldn’t hold.

Enchanted swamp vines had materialized in Edmyn’s hands. He looked devastated, frozen in place, while the smoke cleared. At first, I thought it was Ciaran breaking through the smoke, staggering into the throne room, his black hair shredded, his skin sagging off his face, revealing its ivory skeletal structure, rotting nail beds exposed, and bare forearms that showed signs of sores and gangrene. But it wasn’t Ciaran.

Through a portal Ciaran must have opened on the other side of the smoke, fifty or so walking corpses entered the throne room at varying speeds, their eyes dead, their bodies in various stages of decay. But though their appearance looked dilapidated and forlorn, they were aggressive, unyielding, killing machines. Ciaran had made a zombie army. And in the first row, I spotted what used to be Meridee—the daffodil clip still attached to her matted hair. Her gray face, covered in scars, wore a murderous expression as she lunged forward with the rest.

Amira screamed as the zombies advanced on her. Her guards jumped into action, the undead unbiased in who they attacked. All the Shaedes got to their feet, ready to battle. Farris came nearer the dais, sword drawn. Who gave him a sword ? I wondered angrily. But there was no time for that—this was a fight they might be able to win if they all worked together.

Glory called birds, small black ones that swooped and darted in and out of the crowd, blinding many of the enemies, but mostly just distracting them. Leyanna started throwing fire, and Lennyx directed ice daggers to heads and hearts, testing pressure points to find what would ultimately take them down. Dru summoned more green faeries to flood the throne room. She charged in with her swords and Farris followed. Amira was backed against the wall, throwing out force spells that pushed the enemy back, but it didn’t really harm them, and she couldn’t keep that up forever. One of her guards got too close to an undead, and it ripped out his throat with its broken teeth. Edmyn was wielding dark magic that was making individual corpses explode, but it was taking too long. There were too many, and every time something succeeded in destroying one, three more entered the room through the portal.

I flexed my magic and threw it at the portal, trying to close it, but it didn’t even flicker. Ciaran must be healing if he was strong enough to keep it open from the other side.

Looking around the room, everyone was active, with elements, spells, and swords shocking, decapitating, and wreaking havoc on bodies, but more of the enemy continued to replace the newly dead. Farris was now single-handedly defending the exit so no zombies made it out of the throne room. Lennyx had turned the moat into a lethal crossing of lava-like liquid. The steam made my eyes burn, but several zombies had already tried to cross it and had instantly dissolved into goo.

My magic itched and begged for release, but I wasn’t sure if I had enough control to do what needed to be done. The front line of zombies got smarter and started getting ready to throw one of their companions over the lava moat to reach us. I opened my hands at my sides and closed my eyes. Sensing all the Shaedes in the room, including Edmyn, I accessed their magic, like running down a hallway and opening all the doors as I went. It was easy—too easy. I reached in and grabbed only a handful of everyone’s magic—enough to fatigue them, but not enough to bankrupt them. I then moved to place my palms together, took a deep breath, and when my fingertips touched, a sonic wave blew over Ciaran’s monsters, flattening them into piles of bones and dust. My reach went far, even through the portal and a little way into the Shadowlands. It bought us enough time to close the portal before more cursed ones could advance.

I turned to Edmyn, my eyes drunk with power. “Stay,” I said, to the surprise of all who could hear me. It was all I could do to not get on my knees and beg.

“I cannot,” he said, breaking both our hearts. “This isn’t over. I had no idea that he had raised the dead. But he’s my brother, Opal. For better or for worse. And we both belong to the darkness.”

“I know,” I said. I knew that this attempt to tame his brother cost him so dearly, but that the love that he was turning away from felt like it was going to be the end of us both. Tears burned down my cheeks, but I had to close the portal. He took a step closer and touched my hair like it was just us and no one else. He gave us a moment to cherish amid all the death and smells of decomposition. And then he turned to cross the stone bridge and exited through the portal.

Amira was abandoned by the two remaining guards who jumped into the portal, and I gestured to her that it was now or never. “Go,” I said impatiently, my raw sorrow turning into bitter rage. “I’m closing this thing now.”

“I choose to stay,” she whimpered against the wall.

“Now that is a surprise,” I said while I slammed the portal shut and locked up all our defenses with the effort it took to bat an eyelash. “Guards, take her to a holding room. Don’t let her out of your sight.” Two warriors stepped forward to usher her out, but she was shaking and muttering to herself. She needed to lean on them for support to walk.

Glory came running up to me and wrapped her arms around me. “Opal! By the Balance do you have some explaining to do.” She squeezed my neck and cried happy tears. “Welcome home.”

“Yes, you do,” echoed Dru, hugging me next. Then Leyanna, and then Lennyx.

Farris walked over to the dais, still slightly out of breath from the fight, still clutching his enormous sword. My magic swirled around happily as I watched him approach, despite my drying tears. We remembered him well .

“May I request a hug from the opalescent High Shaede?” He smiled coyly, and I walked over the stone bridge to meet him. He dropped his sword to the ground with a clang, and I remembered just how comforting his enormous arms had always been.

“Well, this is a beautiful fucking reunion, but we are going to need some answers,” said Leyanna in her loving and gentle way. “Why do I feel like my magic could barely light a match right now?”