Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

Manuel knelt to take it. An etched glass vial of scarlet liquid. Interesting. He placed it in his jacket pocket.

“What’s that?” said Oban. For a moment Manuel felt a spark of worry that Oban had chosen to take an interest in something important. Fortunately, it was not the case—Oban had caught sight of a gleaming elf-bolt necklace among his father’s remains. He bent to grab the shining thing, letting it dangle from his fingers. “Kieran?” he said incredulously. “Kieran killed our father?”

“Does it matter?” said Manuel in a low voice. “The old man is dead. That is good news.”

It was indeed. The previous King had been an uneasy ally, if one could call him an ally at all. Though the Cohort had helped him spread the blight in Idris and that had pleased him, he had never trusted them or interested himself in their greater plans. Nor had he warned them of his intention to seize the Black Volume, an event which had irritated Horace greatly.

Oban would be different. He would trust those who had put him in power.

He was a fool.

“It might give Kieran claim to the throne if it were known,” said Oban, his slack, handsome face darkening. “Who saw the King slain? What of Kieran’s Nephilim companions?”

“My redcaps saw, but they will not speak,” said Winter as Oban moved to the throne. The King’s crown rested on its seat, gleaming dully. “Prince Kieran has fled with most of the Nephilim to the human world.”

Oban’s face tightened. “Where he might brag of slaying our father?”

“I don’t think he will do that,” said General Winter. A look of relief crossed Oban’s face. He did tend to respond like putty to anyone in authority, Manuel thought. “He seems to love dearly those Nephilim he has befriended, and they him. I do not think he wants the throne, or would endanger them.”

“We will keep a watch out,” said Oban. “Where is Adaon?”

“Adaon was taken prisoner by the Seelie Queen.”

“Adaon taken prisoner?” asked Oban, and when Winter nodded, he laughed and tumbled into the throne’s seat. “And what of the Queen’s son, the brat?”

“Gone with the undead witch, through the Portal,” said Winter. “It does not seem likely they will survive long.”

“Well, the kingdom cannot go on without a ruler. It seems my destiny has found me.” Oban handed the crown to Winter. “Crown me.”

With the death of the King, the Portal was disappearing. It was now the size of a porthole on a boat. Through the small circle, Manuel could see a dead city, ruined towers and broken roads. Something lay in a heap on the floor near the Portal, among the signs of a fight. Manuel stopped to pick it up; it was a bloody jean jacket.

He frowned, turning it over in his hands. It was a small jacket, a girl’s, slashed and bloody, one sleeve partially burned. He slipped his fingers into the breast pocket and withdrew a ring stamped with butterflies.

Fairchild.

Manuel returned to Oban just as Winter placed the crown on the prince’s head, looking extremely uncomfortable.

Manuel shook the jacket in Winter’s direction. “You said most of the Nephilim returned to the human world. What happened to the girl who wore this? The girl and the boy, the Nephilim prisoners?”

“They went through the Portal.” Winter gestured toward it. “They are as good as dead. That land is poison, especially to those such as they.” He stepped back from Oban. “You are King now, sire.”

Oban touched the crown on his head and laughed. “Bring wine, Winter! I am parched! Empty the cellars! The most beautiful maidens and youths of the Court, bring them to me! Today is a great day!”

Manuel smiled down at the bloody jacket. “Yes. Today is indeed a day for celebration.”





PART TWO


Thule




I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light.

—Lord Byron, “Darkness”





17


IN A STRANGE CITY


It wasn’t a desert. It was a beach.

The blackness of the Portal had been like nothing Julian had ever experienced before. No light, sound, or movement, only the stomach-dropping feeling of having tumbled down an elevator shaft. When the world returned at last, it was a silent explosion rushing toward him. Reborn into sound and movement, he hit the ground hard, sand spraying up around him.

He rolled to his side, heart pounding. He had lost hold of Emma’s hand somewhere in the hurtling darkness, but there she was, struggling to her knees beside him. Her faerie clothes were shredded and bloodstained, but she seemed unharmed.

A gasping pain went through him, sharp as an arrow. It took him a moment to recognize it as relief.

Emma was scrambling to her feet, brushing herself off. Julian rose dizzily; they were on a wide, familiar-looking beach at night, dotted with half-eroded rock formations. Bluffs rose behind them, rickety wooden stairs twisting down their faces to connect the road above with the sand.

Music was playing, loud and jarring. The far end of the beach was thronged with people, none of whom seemed to have noticed their abrupt arrival. It was a peculiar crowd—a mix of humans, vampires, and even a few faeries dotted here and there, garbed in black and metal. Julian squinted but couldn’t make out details.

Emma touched the Night Vision rune on her own arm and frowned at him. “My runes aren’t working,” she whispered. “Same as in Faerie.”

Julian shook his head as if to say, I don’t know what’s going on. He started as something sharp prickled his side—glancing down, he realized his phone had been smashed to pieces. Jagged bits of plastic stuck into his skin. He dropped the phone with a wince—it would be no use to anyone now.

He glanced around. The sky was heavily clouded, and a blood-red moon cast a dull glow across the sand. “I know this beach,” he said. The rock formations were familiar, the curve of the shoreline, the shape of the waves—though the color of the ocean water was ink black, and where it broke against the shoreline it left edgings of black lace.

Emma touched his shoulder. “Julian? We need to make a plan.”

She was gray with fatigue, shadows smudged under her deep brown eyes. Her golden hair fell in thick tangles around her shoulders. Emotion exploded inside Julian. Pain, love, panic, grief, and yearning poured through him like blood from a wound whose sutures had torn open.

He staggered away from Emma and crumpled against a rock, his stomach heaving violently as it emptied itself of bitter bile. When his body had stopped spasming, he wiped his mouth, scrubbed his hands with sand, and returned to where Emma had partly climbed one of the rock formations. Sea stacks, they were called, or something like that.

He clenched his hands. His emotions roiled like a hurricane tide, pressing at the inside of his skull, and in response his mind seemed to be running all over the place, catching at random pieces of information and tossing them up like roadblocks.

Focus, he told himself, and bit at his lip until the pain cleared his head. He could taste blood.

Emma was halfway up the sea stack, staring toward the south. “This is really, really weird.”

“Weird how?” He was surprised by how normal he sounded. In the distance, two figures passed by—both vampires, one a girl with long brown hair. They both waved at him casually. What the hell was going on?

She jumped down. “Are you okay?” she asked, pushing back her hair.

“I think it was the trip through the Portal,” he lied. Whatever was going on with him, it wasn’t that.