As we crossed the golden bridge over the Crystalline River that signaled the end of the Court of Light, we began to slow. The forest beyond still glowed, but it was nothing like the Court. There were still people there, but nowhere near as many. We were still outsiders, but it was nothing compared to being inside that terrible city.
“Nyx, why don’t we just bring the girl to the Dark Court and hide her? If she can truly draw power from the Immortal Realm, she’s of value to the court. Catarina would never have had her killed.” Nyx silently turned to me.
“Catarina is long dead, Sebastian. Our Queen is Seraphina, and it is not our place to question her demands.”
“You’ll do as the Queen requires,” Nyx said, his words a statement rather than a question. I was his Prince, but he had raised me like a son. That made our relationship more complicated.
“Yes. I know the law. There is no way out of a direct demand.”
Nyx nodded. “Good. I do not want to kill you, Sebastian.” His eyes glowed from under the hood as he looked at me through the cloth. He was not a soft man. It wasn’t in his nature. He was like the stone and fire that he was born of. Harsh and unyielding.
Somehow, he’d decided that I was worth changing for. Not a lot, but enough. Enough to be the rock that I could depend on when the world was just a little too cruel.
I raised my eyebrow. “It’s been a long time since we sparred, old friend. I doubt that you would win a bout with me.”
“I taught you everything you know, Prince. All of your abilities are ones that I helped hone. And the mists are nothing to me. Do as you’re commanded, Prince. I don’t relish a battle with you, but I will not dishonor myself and my guild by disobeying an order.”
I gave him a grin and said, “I’ll do as I’m told like a good little Prince, but I still think you and I need to get into a sparring ring again so I can remind you just how slow you are.”
Nyx shook his head. “I no longer spar. You know this.”
I patted him on the shoulder, feeling the denseness that felt almost like stone. “Fine. We should go drinking when this is done, though. It’s been too long.”
“That would be good. I will see you when all of this is over. When the girl is dead.”
He touched the shadow of a tree and seemed to slide into the shadow, the black cloak becoming darker and then slowly disappearing as though light was suddenly shining on the spot he’d stood.
This was not a fair thing for Seraphina to do. She, along with everyone else, knew that Nyx had trained me as a father would. He’d been there when everyone else abandoned me.
He hadn’t treated me like a son. That wasn’t in him. Instead, he’d given me the tools to survive. He had given me these daggers that hung at my sides, and he’d taught me honor when others had shunned me because of who my father was. Because of what my father was.
I was a half-breed, but so was Nyx. He’d raised me to ignore the slurs, and he’d taught me that my twisted bloodlines gave me power that others didn’t have. Just as his did.
More than anything, he’d taught me to fight. Of all the men in either Court, Nyx was the one man whom I did not want to find holding an obsidian dagger in my direction. Now, if I didn’t kill this girl, that’s exactly what would happen.
I sighed. These thoughts didn’t matter. The girl had to die, or I’d be forced to fight Nyx to the death, and there was no good ending to that fight.
I touched the shadow and slid into the warren that ran between the Court of Light and the Dark Court. I would gather my things, and then I would murder a girl because a woman I hated commanded me to.
Chapter 3
Rose
The repetitive beat of some terrible rap song reverberated through me as I sat at a bar and legally drank for the first time. Sasha, her boyfriend Tony, and another sorority sister named Tiffany danced to the music that filled the building down on the dance floor below me.
The vodka cranberry went down smooth, and I ordered another. It was my twenty-first birthday, and I could get as sloppy drunk as I wanted. That was the ritual, wasn’t it? Drink enough that you don’t remember turning twenty-one?
I looked into the old-fashioned mirror in front of me. Why was something that old in a place that was supposed to be modern? The silver embellishments that surrounded the mirror face were tarnished and looked like they’d never been polished. Maybe that was the modern take on mirrors. Get a nice antique mirror, let it get ruined, now it’s modern. I shook my head. Just one more thing that didn’t make sense to me.
I saw myself in the mirror and grimaced. I knew what people saw when they looked at me. A toad. Okay, maybe my skin wasn’t green, and I didn’t have warts, but my eyes were too big, and they were too far apart. There were other problems with me, but everyone I’d ever known had told me just how unattractive my eyes made me.
I wished that I could have just been plain. Not beautiful. I’d given up on being beautiful a long time ago. My parents had been beautiful. Not me. I’d tried wearing makeup, but makeup could only do so much. They couldn’t move eyes, couldn’t make them smaller. That was life though. We all had our crosses to bear, right? Too bad mine couldn’t have been being too beautiful.
I turned around to look at the dance floor. What was the point of it? I had grown up
