Page 1 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Prologue

Alyth

Holyrood Palace, Scotland

There are two types of power:

The kind that you’re born with, and the kind that you take.

Mary Stuart was crowned Queen of Scots when she was less than a week old because of her birthright. She is always obeyed. Which is why when she turns to me and orders me to do magic, I know I have no choice.

We’re in the queen’s private supper chamber, and Mary trusts the people in the room with us—David Rizzio, the queen’s noble secretary from Italy, and her half sister, Lady Jean.

She trusts them with my secret. My power. Meant to serve only her.

“Don’t be boring, Alyth,” Mary whines, waving her hand at me. “Just do something.”

In Mary’s court, I’m Alyth Graham, a bastard daughter allowed to run too wild by an indulgent grandfather. I’m low-ranking enough to be ignored but high-ranking enough to be tolerated, so I’m pretty much invisible. Which suits me fine, of course.

Because I’m only a Graham on my ma’s side.

I’m only human on that side too.

“I am not a performing bear,” I grumble.

“Please?” Lady Jean asks. She was born illegitimately but to the former king, so no one cares about a little bastardry. There’s lots of that in the Scottish court.

“You can trust us,” David adds.

I know he speaks the truth. I see the auras all around this room. Loyal purple wafts off David from the chair he rests on. Pink love and orange security weave around Jean and Mary, sitting together on the lounge couch.

Everyone here feels safe.

Even… I twitch to think it. Even me.

“Aye, all right, then,” I say, offering a tentative smile.

All along the wooden walls are tapestries in lush greens, depicting forest scenes.

David and Jean gasp in shock and delight as the woven plants come to life.

Ferns waft in a breeze that’s not real; leaves sway on the trees. The delicate flowers stitched in pink and red and yellow pop their heads up, tilting toward David as he steps closer, his violin forgotten on his chair.

“This is…” he starts. His hand reaches up, trying to touch a bunny peeking around a tree trunk. It blinks at him, real as anything, but as soon as he actually touches it, the illusion is gone.

The tapestry is just cloth. It always was. I merely made it forget its limits for a while. Glamours don’t change reality. They only change the appearance of things.

David turns to Mary, eyes wide, his aura wrapped in curious green. But I can already see a dark shadow passing over the queen. She rules us all, but she is human. Not a drop of magic in her.

“Enough, Alyth,” she says coldly. It’s all fun and games until the queen gets jealous. She might not have the same power I do, but she thinks she can control mine.

I pull my magic back. She can have this. She wanted to show me off, but I cannot show her up.

David, bless him, knows when to keep his mouth shut. But when he looks at me, I see a change in him. He has always been polite, but now I see awe in his eyes. Respect.

He holds one hand to his heart. “Thank you, Lady Alyth, for showing me—”

A scream rends the night, rising from the stone stairwell outside the queen’s chambers. Mary’s hands go to her round belly. She’s not just the queen; she’s carrying the future monarch inside her. Jean whirls to me, eyes wide.

My heritage comes with a price. I was born to protect Scotland and the queen with my life.

Gunshots echo off the stone stairwell.

“Behind me!” I order, standing and throwing up my hands. Human guards can only do so much. Glamours are easy enough, but the protective barrier I call forth is much, much stronger.

Strong enough to stop bullets, though?

“David!” I shout. “Get closer!” He cannot see the wall I’ve made, but expanding the bubble of protection would spread my magic too thin. Already, sweat beads on my forehead.

David’s eyes are panicked. “I must defend the queen,” he says, all foolish nobility as he reaches for the dagger at his hip.

“No, just get behind—” I start, my voice strained.

The door swings open.

All hell breaks loose.

Men pour into the small room, crowding the doorway. I immediately spot the red plaid of Ruthven’s clan, but the man is pushed aside as Lord Darnley—the queen’s own husband—swings a pistol around the room, shouting something I don’t quite catch.

It’s all too much. The queen clutches her pregnant belly. Jean’s frozen in shock. And David, noble David, is still beyond the reach of my barrier, still holding that little dagger of his, hardly big enough to skewer a rat.

Glamours aren’t real, but they seem that way, especially to humans.

I weave one of the most complicated glamours I’ve ever made, winding the threads of time to force them to slow down.

Ruthven’s sword is still not fully out of his sheath; the men at the door barely inch forward.

I cannot truly stop time, but the people all around act as if I have, believing their slow motions to be normal speed.

All but one.

Darnley. Like me, he has fae blood. His is diluted through the generations, though, so he’s not strong enough to counter my magic.

“What are you doing?” I snarl. Where are the royal guards? Have they all been killed?

Darnley’s eyes are ice chips. In his right hand is a pistol. In his left is—

“No,” I whisper.

A red stone no bigger than a robin’s egg is caged inside golden wire. I’ve only ever seen drawings of this sort of thing, but if the ancient books are right…

“I will be king,” Darnley says. He may be the queen’s husband, but she refuses to grant him the Crown Matrimonial. She will not raise him in rank to be her equal, and he cannot abide the idea that a woman is more important than him, not even when she’s Queen of Scotland.

Darnley smashes the stone to the ground, and a red mist rises from it. The fog creeps toward the queen, who remains motionless, trapped in the same fearful position as when the attack started, like a field mouse frozen as an owl descends, talons out.

This is the work of the Red Caps. Vicious fae who feed on bloodshed and war.

That mist still leaks from the stone. When that reddish cloud touches a human, the person will become a target.

The men Darnley has charmed and tricked and bribed will become mindless murderers focused on that one person.

And it’s painfully clear Darnley intends the victim to be his own wife.

Treason, yes, but with both the queen and unborn babe dead, Darnley will be in the ideal position to take the throne.

I must move fast. The mist is not affected by my glamour; it does not believe that time is slow. It rises and weaves, a snake about to strike, aimed at Queen Mary.

My protection barrier will not be enough. Not against something made by a Red Cap.

I pull all the magic within me, all the power I own, and call wind down from the hearth. Glamours cost me nothing, but this— real magic—it comes from the very wild nature of the land.

The wind answers my call. The fire flickers, flames reaching like claws, and I push—

The mist floats away from the queen—

And wraps around David.

My heart screams, but I have no energy remaining to even whisper my horror. I had not meant to make David the target, but I can barely keep the protective bubble around me, Mary, and Jean, and wind is hard to control, and—

My glamour breaks, and time resumes as normal. Ruthven’s sword is free of its sheath. His eyes are black—possessed—as he plunges his blade into David’s heart.

“No!” Mary roars.

But it’s too late. The bloodlust is upon the men. Their blades sink into David, stabbing him over and over and over again, long after his body stops spasming on the stone floor. The blades plunge down, arc up, hot blood forming a red rainbow, cascading crimson droplets.

I count each blow, barely able to hold on to my consciousness as I focus what little power I have left.

Fifty-five.

Fifty-six.

Fifty-seven.

It’s so cold. So methodical.

No steel can cross the barrier I’ve made, but today I learn that blood follows no such rule. It rains down over us all.

The rebels kneel before the body, not in prayer but in desecration.

Mary stares, shock silencing her voice, her arms wrapped around her belly, unable to look away even with blood splatters all over her face.

Jean holds me up, lending me physical strength to keep me upright so I can protect us from these savages.

Darnley watches from the threshold. He ignores the viscera sliding over his coat.

He snuck a Red Cap weapon into the royal palace and used it in an attempt to murder his own wife and unborn child.

I did not stop David’s death, but I have saved Mary’s life.

And we both know it.

“I can wait,” he tells me casually, his voice barely audible above the squelching noise of blades ripping through flesh. “Meanwhile, this is…useful.”

Useful? Useful? David is— was —a noble secretary, an innocent, a…

a friend. One of Mary’s few friends. The royal court of Scotland is full of snakes and vipers—I doubt it took much convincing to make Ruthven and these other men take up arms against the queen.

Scotland is a harsh land, a wild land, and blades settle disputes more than words.

Splintering wood sends my gaze across the room.

David’s body is mutilated beyond recognition, blood seeping out over the stone, but one of the rebel’s swords caught the edge of his violin.

The musical instrument is smashed into the corpse, the stone, the blood, the strings snapping, the music as dead as its master.

A useful death for Darnley. If he cannot kill the queen, he will kill the music. The joy. The friends she has.

You’re a monster! I want to scream at him, but that would take away my focus, make my protection weaker.

From the cruel twist of his lips, I know Darnley guesses my thoughts anyway.

A slow smile creeps across his face, one that doesn’t reach his icy eyes.

“Your magic cannot always stop me, little fae bastard.”