“Their loyalty is unswerving, Your Majesty.” Thorn eased into the chair nearest me. “Whoever the spy in your Court is, the person is not among those here. You should also check your magic-born friends.”
I started to protest—the very thought that Peyton or Luna or Kaylin might be working against me rankled, but then I thought back to Leo. He’d not only convinced Geoffrey to turn him into a vampire, but he’d then turned against my cousin Rhiannon, to whom he was engaged. In the end, he’d kidnapped her and put her through hell before we staked him. So Thorn was right. I couldn’t very well ignore the possibility that one of my friends was no longer my friend.
“Can you . . . Will this ritual work on them, too?” I asked.
Thorn shook his head. “No, it only will work on members of the Cambyra race and on half-bloods. You must seek another method of checking the loyalty of your friends. And I advise you do so as soon as possible. Meanwhile, we will put all the guards to the test, starting with those who wield more power among your troops, as well as anyone who has any close contact with you.”
“How much time are we looking at?” I couldn’t stay here until they’d gone through the entire Barrow.
With a shrug, the shaman held out his hands. “I don’t know, to be honest. These rituals will take time. Our task cannot be accomplished overnight—even we must rest, and this magic for this ritual requires a great deal of stamina and endurance on our part.”
He motioned to the empty seats around the bench. “The others have withdrawn to rest and renew themselves while the next group of guards are being brought to the task. They are on their way now. Meanwhile, we suggest you keep your eyes open and always make certain Check and Fearless are with you, regardless of where you are.”
And with that he turned and walked away. There were baskets of rolls, smoked meats—though no fish—and apples on the side tables. As I nibbled on another roll and a piece of jerky, it occurred to me that, until we’d cleared everybody, Thorn was right. I’d need to have Check or Fearless with me at all times. They were sitting nearby, patiently waiting and eating.
As I watched them, I realized that they’d be hard-pressed to catch any sleep. From now on, their sole duty would be to guard me. And that meant they would have to sleep in the sitting chamber of our bedroom in order to be at my beck and call. Another thought crept in—they’d need to watch themselves. Potential spies or assassins might target them as well.
Feeling overwhelmed, and once again slightly claustrophobic, I contemplated our next move. Myst was on the offense. She had been my mother, lifetimes ago, and we were still connected even though I didn’t like admitting it. I could feel her out there. She had pulled back briefly to regroup and recruit more of her warriors from other nests where she’d left them. But the hard fact remained: She was ready to go on the attack again.
Closing my eyes, I drifted in the stillness that comes with trying to push out a world of thoughts so you can actually see things clearly. And in that second, all sound stopped, and everything around me faded.
I was standing at the top of a ravine as the wind whistled through my hair. The scent of snow rode in on the gusting currents, and before nightfall, the land would be white and it would be, once again, our time.
My name was Cherish, and I was the daughter of Myst, the Queen of the Indigo Court. Myst, the conqueror who had come to this land, where there was still room to grow and expand, to spread out and plunge deep roots. Like the fungi that traveled beneath the earth, that spored and spread through the ground, my mother was planting her seeds, growing a race of hunters. The regional Fae Queens ignored her—or perhaps, they took no notice or did not even know she existed. My mother was good at camouflage and recognized the value of keeping herself a secret. Crafty and cunning, she had passed those traits on to me.
We had come to this land and slowly spread from one end till now, we neared the other coast. All along the way, we laid the foundation for what would—long in the future—become a coup. We had left nests as we worked our way west, to breed and gather strength.
The yummanii who walked these forests knew very little of us, calling us the “blue demons” or the “hunger who walks upon legs.” In both senses, they were right. We were demons, and we knew it and reveled in it. And we were constantly hungry.
The hunger churned in my stomach even now. The hunger for flesh, for blood and bone and sinew. The hunger for life force. The hunger to chase, to corner and rip and tear into body and muscle. I licked my lips as I thought about the taste of blood on my tongue, of fresh meat.
“What do you hear? Are there voices on the slipstream?” My mother’s words echoed from behind me, and I turned to see her lithe, spidery form rising up. She was lean and tall, with eyes the color of the night sky, and stars glimmering in those jet-black pools—the same as my own. Myst’s hair was long, as was mine—again, the black of night—and our skin took on a cerulean cast as the shadows of afternoon lengthened toward dusk.
I did not answer, merely turned back to the ravine to listen. Her question was far from rhetorical—I had a knack for hearing voices in the wind. It helped when we were on a hunt, for I was the best at tracking quarry down, at locating our dinner.
Now I listened, closely. A whisper here, a whisper there. And then—a brief voice crystal clear and shattering to my ears.
You have a split soul, Cherish.
What? Who was talking to me? Frowning, I tried again.
Nature is full of checks and balances. When there is an imbalance in the system, she creates a counterweight to even things out again. You are that counterweight. You are the remedy to the monstrosity who should never have been born. You are the antidote to a creature who stands outside of the balance.
Startled, I reared back, opening my eyes as I searched for the source of the voice. But there was no one in sight. I shaded my eyes with my hand, trying to locate whoever it was that had been talking to me, but not a creature stirred. The birds and animals could smell my mother and me and kept still for fear we would gobble them up.
“What is it?” My mother leaned over my shoulder, resting a thin hand against my back.
Something inside warned me to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t know why, but whatever it was I had heard put me in danger. I had no clue what the woman—for it was a woman’s voice—was talking about, but it unsettled me. She’d been talking directly to me, and it had sounded too definite, too authoritative for comfort.
“Nothing. . . . Just chatter from the Ice Elementals. There’s snow on the way, and you can gather the energy and bring up a strong storm to cloak our path.” The latter was true, but in my heart, I knew that something had shifted. This was the first time I’d ever lied to my mother.
“Ah, then nothing to worry about. Come, my child. Food awaits. I saw a hunting party by the lake, and with any luck, they will still be there. Fresh sweet meat and blood.” And with that Myst held out her hand.
As I took it, a niggling doubt crept through the back of my mind. She believed me. My mother didn’t know I was lying. And that—that was almost more unsettling than having told the lie.
I shook myself out of my thoughts. More and more, memories of my life as Cherish crept in. I didn’t like it that they did, and the fact that they were coming in strong and clear lately scared the fuck out of me. How much of my time as the heir to the Indigo Court had stayed with me? How much of the Vampiric Fae nature did my soul still contain?
Grieve glanced over at our guards. “You know what this means for you, correct?”