Page 27 of Shaedes of Power (Soul Magic #1)

It was impossible to share a mirror with Leyanna, who kept elbowing me in the shoulder as she combed and re-combed her fire-red hair. I gave up and flopped down in one of the high backed, oversized chairs that took up space in my enormous new High Shaede living quarters. Leyanna had her own rooms but insisted on getting ready with me and then proceeded to raid my closet and monopolize my combs and now my mirror.

“It’s a little bit weird, though, isn’t it?” she asked her own reflection as she rummaged through my vanity and started using my perfume. “Who would have thought… Maybe your parents won’t be the only wedded High Shaedes in faerie history after all.”

“Relax,” I grumbled. “It’s your first official outing together, and you’re not even going alone.”

“It may be our first outing, but we’ve been spending plenty of time together indoors .” She turned around, hoping to find me embarrassed, but if she only knew the intensity of which Farris and I approached the time we spent indoors and sometimes outdoors, on the roof, behind the scrolls in the library …

“But I don’t know,” she continued, full of nervous energy. “There is just something about Lennyx. He calms me down, which sometimes I like and sometimes I don’t… but he is a great kisser. And at least I didn’t fuck him and accidentally turn him into an arugula plant, a hedge bird, or a—” I chucked a pillow at her in an effort to get her to stop, but a part of me welcomed the teasing. It was easier to talk about it with humor than trying to pretend it didn’t happen at all.

I smiled watching her primp and fuss over her reflection, quite happy that her and Lennyx had found some common ground—that ground being that he was slightly obsessed with her and didn’t mind being bossed around by her one bit. It was fun to watch him attempt to tame her, and after so much stress, danger, and loss, their romance was like a cool salve on a burn, and we were all in various stages of needing healing.

Besides Lennyx and Leyanna and their budding relationship, lots of things had changed at the Shaede Court since we had saved the realm from the Dark Prince. We all moved into our own rooms in the palace and had regular meetings to discuss what was going on in the Seam and answers to problems that actually had reasonable solutions.

Farris and Dru kept disappearing to practice a list of concentrated battle magic spells that he found during some of his extensive exploration of the Room of Records. He had spent nearly all of our High Shaede meeting times in there alone, roving over documents and living his best life. Otherwise, we spent our time together exploring the castle grounds. I even took him to Pellshaeven one weekend, where we spent two glorious afternoons dipping our feet in the pools and bathing in the rain.

In addition to her training sessions with Farris, Dru routinely left the palace on excursions to hunt down rare materials to enhance weapons at court. Although the realm had seen peace for all of our short lifetimes, the conflict with Ciaran opened everyone’s eyes to just how quickly things could change. She was determined to make our palace as safe as it could be, but that included upping our offenses. And when she wasn’t dealing with the possible horrors of our future, she was spending a lot of time with her mother. When High Shaedes die, whether by choice or by force, the families pick a tree to bury them under, and that tree watches over them till the end of days. If a tree is cut down, its neighbor takes up its pledge. It is why some say the Corewood Forest has such a generous canopy and is so in tune with what the palace and faeries need, they’re roots are sewn together with the best of us, and Dru and her mother spent many hours sitting together and taking comfort in the shade of Brilan’s tree.

Glory was still coming to terms with somehow living up to the expectations of all her parents had wanted her to be, but also becoming her own person—one who needed hobbies and friends and more independence. She still spent more time in the Room of Records than even Farris but had randomly taken up painting her favorite animals and creatures the way she saw them. They were sights to behold, actually, and I smiled every time I passed one of her bright and cheery paintings on display in the hallway that connected our rooms. When Dru, Leyanna, and I wanted to get together for some girl time, we started inviting her to come along, and just last week she made it through an entire conversation without correcting someone or mentioning her parents. It almost felt like we had always been together; how could we not have been friends? Everything started to have an air of normalcy about it, an ease and contentedness.

There was a knock at the door, and Leyanna spastically combed through her hair one, two, three more times. She was wearing a gauzy red dress that framed her ample cleavage and left little to the imagination of her undergarments. It was a bit much for a picnic at dusklight, but I wasn’t going to say anything; otherwise, we’d never make it out of there. Glory had told us about a spring well in the Corewood where she had enchanted all the fish with starlight. It sounded dreamlike, and we were eager to go check it out.

I opened the door to Lennyx, who seemed to be stuck in permanent surprise that Leyanna was happy to see him. He complimented her, and she glowed. I stuck my head out, searching the hallways for Farris.

“Opal, he might live right next to me, but I am not his keeper,” Lennyx chided playfully and leaned in to kiss his girl. In an effort to make him feel more at home, and maybe even as a gesture of gratitude for all he did for the realm, the High Shaedes all agreed Farris should get his own set of rooms at the palace, even if he spent every night in my bed.

I could feel him before I could see him. My magic relished in the fact that he was nearing, and suddenly he was coming through the door looking shimmery and perfect and equally happy to see me.

“Are you ready?” Farris asked, his hand in his pocket. He had taken to wearing loose fitting linen pants and gossamer tunics in gray-and-white tones, unless he was dressed to fight Dru. But it didn’t matter what he wore. He was always attracting attention everywhere we went. Every time I introduced him to someone at court, never mind that he saved the realm from certain doom, people stared at him like some kind of mystical object and then looked at me like something to be feared. I was so far from caring what anyone thought anymore. I knew what we had accomplished, I knew what we had sacrificed, and I knew that we were doing the Balance’s work and serving the realm to the best of our abilities. There was freedom in confidence, and Edmyn and Farris had helped me find mine.

We headed to the kitchens to collect what was needed for our picnic and then took the main entrance out of the palace to portal deep in the Corewood. For good measure, we had agreed to keep the palace defenses up, which meant portaling was still disabled in and around the grounds. The moon was not yet up, so the Corewood was framed in the dusty pinks, purples, and oranges of another perfect sunset.

Farris and I were walking a few paces behind the new couple, holding hands and trying to spot the glowing lizards and other wildlife, when a furry black bat swooped down above our heads, its wings flapping frantically, trying to hover. In its tiny claws was an envelope, which it happily released into my hand and then flew away.

“What is that?” asked Lennyx, perhaps worried that something was going to interrupt his special night. But we were all tense—experiencing severe trauma did that to you. We had all found a rhythm in daily life, but was there ever true relaxation when you had seen the kind of evil that was out there?

I turned the envelope over in my hand and noticed its seal was very clearly the image of a Moonflower set in black wax. We hadn’t heard from the Night Court since we had left it, but there wasn’t a day that had passed that Edmyn and the empty throne beside him didn’t weave their way into my thoughts.

I broke the seal and read its contents aloud, hoping my voice didn’t betray my emotions.

“Dear Shaedes of the High Seat, the Shadowlands have found peace during this long month, healing from Ciaran’s treacheries and making other changes to ensure a more lasting and intimate relationship with the other courts of the realm. Might I test our new friendship soon and accept at long last the unspoken invitation that was given to me on the night we warred with the dead?” Then silently, I read the part addressed only to me. “And a note to Opaline—the fruit from Ciaran’s tree is sweet indeed. I shall bring you some, Little Prism. I look forward to it gracing your lips.” I finished the final line out loud. “Your servant, the Moon King.”

My throat was suddenly dry, and my heart quickened. His words brought heat to my face and to other, more intimate places. Craving Edmyn had become like breathing oxygen—it was involuntary and vital to my survival.

“Well, I guess we aren’t going to be able to slither out of that deal,” said Leyanna. “‘Unspoken invitation.’ He’d better not end up being more trouble than his brother. But I guess we pretty much all became allies on that hillside, so entertain the Moon King we must.”

“Without him, we would have never made it through the Shadowlands,” said Lennyx. “We need to be better than the High Shaedes that came before us; we owe him a chance.”

Leyanna pouted, but ultimately conceded by wrapping her arms around him and kissing him passionately.

I held the letter to my chest like it was a forbidden treasure as we continued walking to the portal spot. Farris was quiet but untroubled.

“You know,” I said quietly. “It just dawned on me that you could have killed Amira at any time. Why not do it here at the palace and save us all from the danger of the Shadowlands?”

“It would have been more expedient,” he admitted, “but she deserved to see him one last time. Being separated from him was torture to her soul. No one deserves to live in that state, or die in it, for that matter.” I paused, really thinking about that for a moment. He seemed to understand the bond and the Renaissance Spell more than the rest of us, but the compassion he exercised toward Amira must have come from his humanity. It was a piece of him that no spell could erase.

“My soul is affected by being separated from Edmyn, but I am not tortured—not like Amira was. I miss him terribly, and the bond makes my soul ache, but I can bear it,” I explained. “Why do you think that is?”

He grabbed my hand and looked at me from the corner of his eye wearing his crooked smile and said, “Because you have me.”

Up ahead, Lennyx made a portal spin to life. The giant swirl of light cast electric shadows on the trees and caused wildlife to scatter. I clung to Farris as we crossed the portal, whose silver eyes still promised the playful, reckless, carefree things that only a human could. If he could be content with the fact that I existed with a foot in two different worlds, I could enter the heart of the Corewood and enjoy this night.