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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

S unlight sparkled off the milky turquoise water as Ione pulled oars through the canal.

The fresh breeze on Tristan’s face and the warmth on his feathers inspired flashbacks of a time two centuries ago when he’d been the one steering their boat.

“I can help, you know.” He offered her a small smile.

“I know you can,” she said, returning it. “But the exercise is good for me.” She raised an arm and flexed her biceps, showing off the muscle tone of the mythic Fae warrior she’d become. “Keeps me big and strong.”

Tristan huffed a laugh, turning to the floating city around them.

Delos was arranged on a series of islands, radiating out from the largest which housed the Imperial Palace. That one in particular was a true island, rising up from the seabed thousands of feet below. Very few of the others were connected to the land; most floated atop Lake Phaeban and stayed above the water by some feat of magical engineering. The islands were connected by curved bridges, underneath which flowed the canals that small boats used to traverse the city.

Delos had been built by a Beastrunner king from a time when the vast majority of Ethyrios, both Fae and humans, had worshiped Adelphinae. Legend had it the king and his wife were powerful water magic wielders and had decided to build their kingdom on the largest lake in Ethyrios. And they’d crafted the Crystal Throne in honor of their preferred element.

It was Tristan’s great-grandfather Phaeban who’d taken the city. The Beastrunner king and his queen had passed by then, the water magic in their bloodline barely a trickle, so his progeny hadn’t been able to challenge Phaeban, who renamed the lake for himself.

Yet another example of Tristan’s terrible family taking whatever they wanted from whomever they wanted.

Tristan and Ione had used their cuffs to portal to a smaller island on the city’s western edge this morning, where Ione had procured them this boat.

They wore hooded cloaks to hide their faces, and Ione had coated her feathers with mud before they’d left Lebaedia. Though white wings weren’t rare, the shimmery iridescence of hers was, so she’d done her best to dull it. Tristan’s black beauties were less of an issue, as they were sported by every member of the Erabis family including cousins and distant relatives still living in Delos.

There were plenty of boats on the canals, so he and Ione didn’t inspire any more than a few passing glances. She guided them on a circuitous route, cutting back and passing the same islands multiple times to throw off attempts to follow their progress.

As the little boat glided across the water, Tristan drank in the sights and smells of this glittering jewel of a city: its winding waterways, its majestic multistory homes with their arched windows and ornate balconies. The opulent Imperial Palace perched like a bleached, bloated grande dame atop the center island.

He’d loved Delos as a boy. The Imperial capital was a cross-section of Fae from every continental territory, every sub-species. A city of strivers with grandiose dreams. Of artists and chefs, musicians and scientists, architects and storytellers. All who’d wanted nothing more than to showcase their talents in the most important city on the continent.

At least, that had been his impression at the time. Now there was something sinister about the wealth on display—a pristine facade masking a tormented history.

The tip of the boat bumped against the stony lakebed, and Tristan and Ione hopped out to drag it onto a small sliver of shore beneath a rocky cliff.

Above, Tristan could barely make out the white marble walls of the Imperial Palace. He was sure there must be Vasilikans up there on patrol, but the entrance was well hidden. The top of the cliff jutted out over the water, creating an overhang that led into a small cave where they hid the boat.

“This way,” Ione gestured, tucking her wings. Her boots crunched along the pebbled cave floor as they came upon a circular wooden door. Ione rapped on it—three short knocks, followed by a single pound, followed by another two short knocks.

They waited several seconds before the door swung inwards to reveal a handsome Beastrunner male—a lion bi-form, based on his scent and his golden hair and eyes—wearing a red jacket and gold helmet. The tell-tale uniform of an Imperial soldier.

“Darius,” Ione said, clasping the male’s hand, then turned to Tristan. “One of ours.”

Darius swept down to one knee. “Your Highness.”

“Report?” Ione asked.

“The Emperor’s been particularly unhinged these past few weeks,” Darius sneered as he rose. “Worse than you can even imagine. Ever since the battle in Staurien Pass, he’s been calling his soldiers back to Delos.”

Ione’s lips flattened. “Have you figured out how he learned we were after that shipment?”

“Not yet,” Darius said, head bowed.

Ione turned to Tristan. “If someone from our group is feeding him information, he may know of our plans to take the city. Why else would he be concentrating his forces here?”

A thought crept into Tristan’s mind, a flicker of something he remembered from the colonies. “He was having obliviated humans shipped here. Do you have any idea what he’s doing with them?”

Darius shook his head. “The ships unload daily, herding scores of humans onto an island behind the palace. Every few days, he has several delivered to his quarters, but what happens to them there, we haven’t been able to tell.”

Tristan looked to Ione. “What’s he planning? Could it be another weapon? Something even our Anointed couldn’t combat?”

“I don’t know,” Ione said, frustrated. “Let’s go before we lose our chance to get the Compendium.”

Darius held the door open for them. “I was able to buy you a sliver of extra time. Sent the first shift guards away early. You’ve got twenty minutes. Make it count.”

Ione slapped her cuff onto his wrist. “You too. Your assignment’s over. Tell the others as well.”

Darius reared back. “Why? It’s the worst possible time for us not to have eyes and ears within the palace.”

“And it’s about to get far too dangerous for those eyes and ears. Especially if the Prince and I succeed today. I will not lose good people to Eamon.”

Darius turned to Tristan. “May I speak freely?

Ione gave an annoyed snort, but Tristan waved a hand, encouraging Darius to continue.

“I’ll send the others back to Lebaedia, but I’d like to stay. You cannot take back your throne if you are blind to the goings-on inside this palace.”

“Are you sure?” Tristan asked. “If he discovers what you’ve done today, he could torture you for information about our movement. You’d be a liability to us.”

“I’d sooner die than break.” Darius drew up to his full height.

Tristan glanced to Ione, who merely shrugged as if to say your call .

“Permission granted,” Tristan said. “Use that cuff to get the rest out. And for Creator’s sake, be careful .”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Darius bowed gratefully as Ione pushed past him into the hallway, Tristan a step behind. Ione slid Tristan a smirk, then wrapped her wings around her body, shaking them to activate her…camouflaging feathers?

Tristan tried to reign in his shock. He had no idea she’d inherited his Ghostwalking abilities. She grabbed his hand as he did the same with his own wings, then pulled him through the maze of marble hallways.

They passed a set of stairs, the bottom half of which was crafted of rough stone that led down into the dungeons. The marble upper half led into the palace proper.

A memory flashed through Tristan’s mind, there and gone in an instant, of he and Eamon walking down those same stairs centuries ago. Back when they’d been close. Back when he was fretting about having fallen in love with Ione and Eamon had told him he may have a solution for him. Back before Eamon had betrayed him and he’d been exiled to the colonies, believing Ione was dead.

If Tristan had known she was alive all these years, how different would his life have been?

He shook those thoughts away—they would do him no good right now anyway—as they approached an opalescent door with a Teles symbol carved into the center.

Something hummed through Tristan’s veins. Like every choice he’d made had led him to this moment.

Ione parted her feathers and reappeared before him as he did the same. She plucked a dagger—regular steel not Typhon—from her waist and grabbed his hand, raising a questioning eyebrow.

Tristan nodded his permission, then tried not to close his palm against the sting of the blade. A line of blood bubbled up from where she’d sliced across his Turning scar.

Her eyes darted toward his, glistening with regret, and though he couldn’t remember the last time they’d done this—his memories of the Turning ceremony had been pulled by Shrouded Sisters before he was exiled—he wondered if Ione did.

She lifted his palm toward the door and pressed it against the Teles symbol. His blood seeped into the carving, and a faint rainbow pulsed through it before the door swept backward, then rumbled aside.

Ione glanced up at him, holding her breath.

“After you, Prince,” was all she said before Tristan stepped into the chamber.

Not a chamber.

It was a chapel.

Though it looked very different from any other house of worship Tristan had ever visited.

He supposed technically he had visited this one before, though his memory of it was hazy.

The chapel was crafted entirely from the same opalescent stone as the door. Columns ringed the outer edges of the room and the soaring ceiling above showcased faded frescoes—pastoral scenes of various Fae sub-species cavorting with humans. The ceiling’s center panel had been scrubbed raw, though faint traces of paint signaled there’d been a fresco there as well. Along the edge of the ceiling, just under where the dome began to curve, symbols were carved into the stone in a repeating pattern: an upright triangle, an inverted triangle, a lightning bolt, and a wavy line. Symbols of the elemental powers Adelphinae had bestowed upon her creations.

Ione dashed away a tear as she walked toward the center of the chapel. Tristan followed.

Concentric circular benches rose from the floor, and four aisles at north, south, east, and west flowed toward an obelisk carved with Teles symbols. And next to the obelisk was a single stone pedestal, atop which sat a book.

The book.

The Compendium of Creation.

He wondered why neither his father nor Eamon had destroyed it—the book or the chapel. They’d decimated the art, but had left this sacred space intact. He could almost hear chanting voices, could imagine the Fae gathered around a priestess of Adelphinae, who would have been on the same level as the congregation rather than up at a pulpit preaching downward. A difference in the Goddess’s principles, versus the hierarchies imposed by the religion of the High Gods.

As they approached the pedestal, he couldn’t help thinking that the book looked so ordinary . And small. Tristan didn’t recognize the words embossed on the cover—an ancient dialect from the days of the Fallen Goddess, no doubt. When Eamon had shown Tristan the book in their youth, he hadn’t known how to read the language either. They’d figured out the Turning ceremony thanks to crude drawings that represented the process.

Ione’s hand hovered over the book, afraid to touch it lest it crumble to dust. “I… It doesn’t feel real. How can so much knowledge be captured in such a tiny package?”

“What language is that?”

“Senskrish,” Ione answered, her mouth wrapping confidently around the word. “An ancient dialect of Aramaelish.”

“You can read it?”

“I can speak it, too. I’ve been studying it. Some of the older Teles Chrysos members who were alive before the war had texts written in it.”

Holding her breath, she plucked up the small book, then nestled it in her sack. She glanced to the cuff on her wrist.

“These won’t work within the palace,” she said. “We need to return to the boat and clear the shield around the Imperial island before we’re able to?—”

A boom cut off her speech.

The chamber door had shut.

Sealing them within the chapel.