I stare along the arrow and send it flying. It feels good to be doing something physical, even though my shot’s slightly off center.
“Have you heard from Thiago?” I ask as he takes the bow.
Finn puts an arrow through the center of the target with ease. “All is well on the western front. There’s a line of red and gold as far as the eye can see, but your mother’s forces seem to be digging in deep. They’re not pushing forward, but there’s every sign they don’t intend to lose ground.”
Finn fills me in on the situation at the border as we pass the bow back and forth. He manages to hit the dead of center ten out of ten times, until I finally concede.
“Do you ever miss?”
Taking one last arrow, he looks me in the eyes and shoots blind.
Dead center.
“With a bow? No. With a blade?” A faint shrug. “The only time anyone beats me, it’s Eris. Baylor keeps me on my toes too, but I can defeat him.”
“And Thiago?”
This time his smile is bright. “Once. I got the drop on him once, and I’ve never let him forget it. He’s the only one who can match Eris, but I’ve never beaten her. Not yet.”
“You’re good,” I say, examining the target again.
“You should see me when I have a blindfold on. Or on the back of a horse.”
“Let me guess…,” I drawl as we head toward the target to fetch our arrows. “You spend almost as much time practicing with a bow as you do staring in the mirror?”
He claps a hand to his chest as I wrench an arrow from the target. “Straight through the heart, Princess. And while I spend the same time in the training yard as anyone else, I don’t live for it the way Eris does.” He pauses. “It’s my Sylvaren blood that gives me the advantage.”
“You’re Sylvaren?” I’d thought his ears were slightly tapered at the top.
More so than most of the fae.
“I don’t speak about it very often,” he says, glancing at the castle walls as if to check who’s listening. “It’s not the sort of thing one advertises, though the fae here are aware. I tend to keep to myself.”
The Sylvaren were once fae, like us. They were refugees from the mother world who arrived with their queen, Sylvian, nearly two thousand years ago.
Of the five fae kings and queens who led their people to the safety of the new world of Arcaedia, Sylvian was the only one who sought to conquer the creatures that lived here already. The other kings and queens pushed their cities into the forests and burned the monsters out of their caves, but were content to stake out small territories and rule them. She was ruthless and bold, and claimed the lands far to the north, where Unseelie now lies, and she wanted to spread her empire from coast to coast.
Maia, her sister-queen from the home world, was the one to confront her when their peaceful treaties with the monsters of this world threatened to be destroyed. Maia slew Sylvian’s lover, Gethred, and broke her crown. They say Sylvian cried a sea of tears when she buried Gethred deep in his earthen barrow, but when she had finished grieving, she swore that none of her people would ever have peace with the other fae courts.
And so she took her people—her fae—and she warped them with her magic.
She made them faster and taller and more muscular. She gave them the reflexes of a cat and the viciousness of a hunting hound. Hearts grew in darkness and rage, and they pledged, one and all, to serve her. She turned them into the ultimate warriors, until they were so fierce, they could barely keep peace among themselves.
Warsworn. Warriors who were bred for violence.
A tide that broke over the southern part of the continent like a dam bursting.
The four other kings and queens who had fled the home world with Sylvian were forced to join together to fight her people.
And I don’t entirely know what happened—Maia showed her godhood when she defeated Sylvian at Charun, in Unseelie, but in doing so, she gave her life.
The skies wept for her loss, and the remaining three kings and queens bent knee to worship Maia’s sacrifice.
We remember.
Most of the Sylvaren died during that encounter, but those that were left were slaughtered by the thousand, and the rest put in chains. Others fled and went into hiding, though there’s rumor that warbands of Sylvaren still haunt the far north of Unseelie.
Finn sighs. “Don’t look at me that way, Princess. I’m no Warsworn. I’m not even a Follower of the Way. I have enough Sylvaren blood to make it wise to stay out of barfights and tavern brawls and anything that might tempt me to violence. That’s why I’m here and not at the front. Thiago doesn’t want me getting a taste for war.”
“Is it really that hard to abstain?” They say the Sylvaren are born with a thirst for blood.
“Every day. That’s why I prefer to take month-long walks in the snow during winter and swim the bay during summer. That’s why I spend ten hours a day drilling here in the yard if I haven’t found a friend to help me burn off some of the excess energy.”
Is he referring to…?
“Fighting—in a controlled environment—helps me burn off the urge to kill. So does fucking.”
He is. “Right at the top of my list of things I didn’t need to know, thanks, Finn.”
“You’re awfully prudish for Adaia’s daughter.”
If there’s one thing I can grant my mother credit for, it’s keeping her private life well away from me. “When you’re Adaia’s daughter, you become very good at pretending you didn’t see—or hear—anything. And I kept to myself mostly. Andraste was better at dealing with court life. She had her coterie of
