Page 47

Summer

“ W yn, you came back to me.”

“Summer,” he rasps. “You did it.”

I throw my arms around his neck and try to crawl inside his skin. He’s shaking, covered in dirt, but he’s alive. He’s alive.

“ We did it. Together.” I can’t breathe, can barely speak. “I thought… I thought I’d lost you.”

He holds me so tight it hurts. “You didn’t. You won’t. Not ever. I love you so much, Summer. I always have.”

I pull back, blinking through tears. “Are you sure it’s love? I’m a human who’s been a thrall to two courts of Faery. How can you love someone so unworthy? My own mother didn’t even like me, and my dad was possibly trying to kill me.”

He flinches, pushing me back a little and scanning my face.

“Unworthy?” he says, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

“Impossible. Nothing in life has meant as much to me as you do. From the moment I first saw you, I watched every twirl, every smile and frown, the slightest move you made. I was always there, Summer. All I wanted was to be by your side. If your mother can’t see how perfect you are, that’s her failure, not yours. ”

He takes a slow, steadying breath. His voice lowers. “You were placed under a spell, vile and temporary… but I was the one who was forever enchanted—by you .”

“You didn’t believe I could save you from the curse,” I whisper. “If you had, you would’ve followed me straight to the Shade Court. What took you so long to get here?”

“I kind of told Merri I would never tie my fate to yours. That I’d keep you safe. Far away from Faery. Away from me. I needed her permission to come here so I could try to get you out. And let me tell you, it took some convincing.”

I stiffen. “She thought she was doing us a favor by keeping us apart?”

“Precisely. Merri sometimes sees fragments of the future. Years ago, she saw me buried. Dying alone.”

I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “She told you that, and you came here anyway.”

“I would’ve crawled here if I had to. Anything for you, little sun. Simply name it.”

We sit for a while, just breathing together. Then the questions rattling through my mind break free.

“How will we get out of here? The city walls are warded to prevent escape. We’re probably stuck. I need to get back to Zylah. I can’t bear to think of her wandering around Gravenshade alone, believing I’m dead.”

Wyn hugs me tighter. “There’ll be a portal in the city somewhere. We just have to find it.” Then he says, “Summer… I heard things while I was down there in the dirt.”

I brace my palms on his cheeks. “Were you conscious? ”

“Sometimes. Not often. But when I was awake, the earth whispered secrets. It confirmed the Wild Hunt was stolen from its rightful court by a wager barbed with a trick. King Yurendyl lost the Hunt in a bet with King Moiron. Then Moiron bound Landolin to it with blood, and it’s slowly killing him.

Maybe that’s why the Hunt needs a human necromancer.

To break his curse. Or resurrect him when it does kill him. ”

I blink. “So the Hunt doesn’t even belong to the Shade Court?”

“No. Once, it was bound by ancient, strict rules. And now it’s corrupted, riding whenever its master sees fit. The Hunt is a weapon. But Landolin was never supposed to wield it. It also wasn’t meant to be bound to a single soul. Not for this long. It’s eating him alive.”

Slow, deliberate claps break the stillness behind me. I twist at my waist to look around.

Landolin steps out of the mist, long sword dragging behind him, its tip rasping against the grass.

“Well, well. The Earth Prince returns. Did you give my regards to the worms?” he drawls. “Let me guess. The curse was broken by a single drop of true love’s blood? Or was it seven thousand of her bitter tears?”

“Does it matter?” I ask, standing stiffly and climbing out of the shallow grave. My joints crack from kneeling too long. “Wyn has done what you asked and stuck to the bargain. The curse released him. He’s free. So let us go.”

“A demanding little creature, isn’t she?” Landolin muses as Wyn lurches onto his feet, then toward the Shade Prince.

Landolin lunges forward, sword angled toward me. “Right now, you’re extremely weak, Elemental,” he says to Wyn. “I could kill her with a snap of my fingers. How would you stop me?”

“I likely couldn’t,” Wyn admits, standing tall, his face pale.

“You have all the power here. As you said, I’m diminished.

But If you hurt her, and I survived, I would track you.

Hunt you. Torture you through every century of your miserable life.

There would be no peace between our lands.

My uncle, the king, would see to it. I would dedicate my life to your unhappiness. Don’t think I won’t.”

Landolin laughs, the sound bitter and unpleasant as his shadows swirl around his scowl. “I believe you.” He shrugs. “If you vow to never reveal what the grave told you, perhaps I will let you go.”

Wyn bows and offers his hand to Landolin. “Of course, we both vow to never disclose to any other fae, person, or being what I learned while buried. Do you agree, Summer?”

I repeat the words of the promise Wyn made as he beckons me closer.

With no warning, he unsheathes a knife from his belt, slashes it lightly across his palm, Landolin’s, and then mine. We press our hands together in turn, sealing our vow in blood.

“Good. I don’t want a never-ending war with your court and your sister’s court when I’m finally crowned king.

Especially when Summer isn’t the one I need after all…

though she certainly smelled like it both times the Hunt took her.

I am sorry for the pain I’ve caused. Perhaps one day you’ll forgive my errors. My missteps.”

Wyn’s eyes narrow. “Explain something to me, Landolin. If you thought she was important all those years ago, why sell her to the mage from the Merit Court? ”

Landolin’s smirk fades. “My father sold her to torture me. It was a loan. She was always meant to return. But your sister interfered, and then we lost her.”

I step forward, fury trembling through my limbs. Wyn doesn’t stop me. He knows better.

“You call my kidnappings missteps ?” I snap. “You treated me like your least favorite toy. You refused to let me go—out of jealousy, arrogance—and you were never even sure you’d stolen the right person. You let me believe I killed my own parents. You stole everything from me.”

“Everything?” he says, his shadows winding up his limbs. “Now that’s a lie. There was so much more we could have taken from you, Summer Brady. You were meant to be my bride. But your body was never assaulted. I made certain of that.”

“Oh, wonderful. Should I thank you for your restraint? You destroyed my sanity. Robbed me of my self-worth. Made me believe I was capable of terrible, disgusting violence. You’re a monster.”

Landolin’s expression hardens. “How soon you forget, human. I saved you from your father. My own father is a collector of your kind, and it is my duty to retrieve what he is owed. Promises were made prior to that night by your mother, but naive mortals never actually believe the Hunt will claim their dues. But we always do. King Moiron insists upon it, especially if the human might prove useful to his son and heir.”

“And that’s you,” says Wyn, his voice low.

“Yes. This conversation has put me in a bad mood. Even so, I will give you leave to find your way back to Gravenshade and this Zylah person who waits for you. ”

Nausea rips through my gut at Landolin’s revelation. My mother didn’t just stop caring, she sold me to the fucking fae. How am I not a monster too, born of a murderer and a cold-hearted narcissist?

“Zylah?” I blurt, suddenly realizing that Landolin probably heard every word Wyn and I said while he was lurking around after Wyn clawed his way out of the earth.

“There was a reason I positioned your grave in this exact spot, Wynter,” Landolin says. “I suggest you think upon it. Take your human and go before your sister and her husband come to retrieve you and turn my city to ash. Act swiftly if you wish to escape the shadows.”

He gives us a mock salute, then vanishes in a coil of black smoke that folds in on itself, leaving a silver glowing outline in his place and an absence of smirking, arrogant fae.

I stare at the empty space. “Where the hell did he go?”

Wyn shakes his head, his freckles stark against his pale face. “He opened a portal. I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea where he’s gone. I really hope I’m wrong.”

A howl sounds as Ivor breaks through the magical barrier, which dissolved along with the Shade Prince, and barrels toward us. He leaps up as Wyn crouches to greet him, licking his face.

Wyn strokes Ivor’s fur, then straightens, eyes fixed on the horizon over the sea. “Are Zylah’s parents dead?”

My heart stutters. “Yes. Car accident. She’s practically lived at my house since grade school. I don’t think my mom and dad ever noticed how often she stayed over. Her uncle lived a block away, and she hated him. Why do you ask? ”

“Shit.” Wyn rubs a hand over his mouth. “There’s a rumor about how the Wild Hunt find their brides. By scent. Zylah’s would be all over your home. To Landolin, you probably smell similar. It wasn’t you he needed. It was her.”

“But why couldn’t Landolin and the Hunt see her? Why fix on me instead?”

His jaw tightens. “Yeah. That’s what I can’t figure out. Maybe something’s shielding her—magically, I mean. We have to get back to Gravenshade Hall.”

Wyn’s eyes skim over me, then he summons a silver-hilted dagger and threads it through a black-studded belt. “You’ll need this.” He buckles it around my waist, then his mouth twitches like he’s hiding a smirk. “Try not to stab me with it.”

“Sorry. Can’t promise I won’t,” I reply, my breath catching. “But I’ll do my best not to fatally wound you. Where are we going?”

Wyn nods toward the cliff’s edge. “Down there. It’s the portal Landolin left open on purpose.”

My stomach drops. “What?”

He grips my hand and calls Ivor over. “Do you trust me?”

I nod, and he tugs me forward. Then, together, we tumble off the cliff into the dark, churning sea below.