It left behind an enormously powerful magical relic created by a goddess, and filled with the power of ancient dragons.
And every fae in the land wanted it.
A wise old king at the time stole the cauldron and sailed out to a small island off the coast of the Court of Storms. He begged the Goddess of the Sea to take the cauldron and hide it, for fear that one would rise with the power to wield what should never be wielded.
The other courts hunted him but they were too late.
The sea rose in anger, driving their boats back to shore. By the time the storm died down, the island had vanished. The king and the cauldron with it.
No one has seen it since.
“Well, fuck.” I stare down at my bodice. Clots of soft goat cheese are spattered across my breasts, and leaves of thyme cling to my skirts. The fig is nowhere to be seen. I haven’t been that clumsy since I was a girl.
“That’s all you have to say?” Keir looks amused. “I’ve just offered you the greatest quest of all time and this is your response? You could be famous.”
“Or dead,” I point out. “The answer is no. No, I will not steal your cauldron—”
“I don’t need you to steal my cauldron,” he purrs. “I just need you to find it for me, and to do that, I need you to get your hands on the Horn of Shadows.”
More myths. “The horn that leads the Wild Hunt?”
He leans toward me, every inch of him fixed in predatory intent. “The hounds of the Wild Hunt were born of the cauldron. They can find it. But to control them, I need the horn.”
There’s a moment where I consider pushing my chair back, climbing onto the railing, and diving into the water far below.
And right now, I hate water with a passion.
Maybe I can appeal to the Goddess of the Sea? Maybe she’ll make me disappear too?
But this is his realm.
He’ll probably simply pluck me out of the sea. There’s no escape there.
“The hounds of the Wild Hunt make Wyrdhounds look like a child’s bedtime story,” I grind out. And one of them nearly killed me three months ago. “To blow the horn means binding your soul to it forever.”
“’Til death,” he corrects. “Only one fae can blow the horn at a time. Once bound, the horn becomes useless to anyone else. Unless the blower is killed.”
“There’s an easy solution to that problem, Your Highness. If you get your hands on that horn, every prince in the land will make it their personal prerogative to slit your throat.”
“Worried about me?” There’s a slight quirk to his lips, and his eyes flare gold as he lets his glamor slip, just for a moment.
I don’t know how I never saw it before.
The dragon peers back at me, smoldering in golden flames.
My heart skips a beat. “You can still die. The fae managed to kill the rest of the dragon kings. Even you can’t survive the removal of your heart.”
“Did they?” Another faint smile.
I stare at him.
Keir sips his wine. “Some of my brethren chose to fight. Some of them chose to sleep. And some of them… chose another way to live.”
He’s not the only dragon out there?
“How many? Who?” Because surely they wouldn’t be masquerading as lowly peasants. No, they’d be kings. Princes.
“If I tell you that, my love, then I will either have to kill you or capture you.”
“Capture me?”
His smile holds all manner of sin. “Bind you to me forever. Lock you away in a tower where you can’t ever escape me.”
On second thought…. “Keep your secrets then.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Not that curious.”
“About the horn,” he whispers, a dangerous hint of smile tugging at his wicked mouth. “About the cauldron. An ancient prophecy states it will be reborn, Merisel. Someone’s going to find it. Don’t you want to be the one who does?”
My thief’s soul quivers at the thought.
But I wipe at the goat’s cheese staining my lovely gown. “There’s always an ancient prophecy. There’s always an angry goddess—or god. And there’s always some idiot thief who finds themselves talked into a job like this.” I toss the crumpled napkin aside. “Do you know what happens to that thief? They die. I know how this story ends, and my answer is no. Find yourself another thief. I don’t want fame. I don’t want glory. I don’t want anything to do with power-hungry fae princes and a mythical cauldron everyone wants to get their hands on.”
“You haven’t heard all the details.”
“I don’t want to hear all the details!” I drag my finger across my throat. “Because this is what happens to curious thieves.”
“What do you want then?”
Freedom.
“Something I can’t have.”
He gives me a considering look, but wisely, he doesn’t pursue that line of thinking. “You owe me a debt.”
I set both hands on the table and glare over it at him. “Then take it out of my hide.”
He leans forward. “You tried to steal from me, and I’m just as dangerous as any of the fae princes in the lands. Don’t tempt me, Merisel, because if I demand payment, then you won’t like my terms.”
Every inch of me stills.
“Perhaps this will help you change your mind.” He tosses something on the table between us, though I swear his hands were empty just now.
It’s a sheet of paper, curled up on itself. I unroll it and a line drawing of my sister’s face appears, along with the word “Wanted.” The reward is ten thousand groats, which makes my shoulders deflate.
For ten thousand groats, every hob and selkie and brownie in the lands will be looking for her.
Soraya and I have a complicated history.
Once upon a time, she was the other half of
