Queen of Stars and Shadows (Dark Fae Guardian #3)

Sarielle

Chapter Eleven

Sarielle

W hen I emerge from the darkness, the first thing to hit my senses is the smell of mold. Mold and urine.

I blink, taking in my surroundings as everything rushes back to me. Stone walls, covered in a sheen of moisture. Stone beneath me, too, where I’m sprawled on the floor. Iron bars near the toes of my boots. I’m clearly in a cell somewhere. And just before I’d been knocked unconscious, Lilette had been there. She’s alive…

“Sarielle!” An urgent whisper from a few feet away. “Are you awake?”

I never would have thought I could be so happy to wake up behind bars.

“Lilette!” I shove up on my elbows and turn toward her voice. She’s in the cell to my right. We sit and stare at each other for several long moments. I take in her dirty golden hair, the bruise on her left temple. No doubt I have one now, too. But I’m so glad to see her that in this moment, every other horrible thing falls away completely.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she whispers, pressing her face up against the metal of the cell.

I slide across the rough floor toward her, my entire body feeling like one big bruise. When I reach the row of bars between us, I reach through them and grab her hands in mine. “I prayed you were safe, and that the nightmares hadn’t…” I trail off. I can’t even say it.

She sniffles, her smile dropping. “Not everyone was so lucky. So many of the women from the palace…” She shakes as a sob works its way up her throat.

“It’s okay,” I coo, “It’s over now. The nightmares are gone.”

“You killed them all?” Her tear-filled eyes search mine.

“No.” I won’t lie to her, even after everything she’s been through. “No, some escaped. But we’re safe for now, and that’s what matters.”

Lilette’s gaze travels around her cell. “I’m not sure safe is the word I’d use.”

“We’re going to get out of here. Wherever here is.”

“We’re in the barracks outside the Court of Oaks,” she says.

Which makes sense. I turn, looking left and right as far as I can see in the dim light. We’re clearly underground, there are no windows. A single torch burns in the distance, so far I can barely see the flickering glow of it. There are small cells like ours for as far as my eyes can see, running on each side of a long corridor. On the opposite row, I think I can make out a figure lying on the stones, but whoever it is isn’t moving. I don’t see any guards.

I swing my gaze back to Lilette. “Did you see where they put the others?”

“I think some of them are further down the row.”

“Did you see the man who was with me? Tall, dark hair, pewter-colored eyes?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. Who is he? And where in Aureon have you been this whole time?” Her lips tremble as she speaks, her eyes still wet with unshed tears.

“That’s an incredibly long story.” I squeeze her fingers. “First, do you have any idea why the royal guard captured us? Why would the king and queen want us locked up? We fought and killed most of the nightmares that had been terrorizing the countryside.” I shake my head. It doesn’t make any sense.

“I think they’re accusing us of having something to do with that,” she whispers, trembling. “I heard snatches of conversion from the guards. They think, since they found us at the hiding place of the… the monsters. Nightmares, whatever they are. That we were working with them.” She cocks her head to the side. “Why did you call them nightmares?”

“That’s preposterous. Of course we weren’t helping them.” Fury simmers in my voice. Not only do I have Avonia and Jonavus to contend with, but now the king and queen of Eldare have imprisoned us without just cause?

“You seem different,” Lilette says softly. “Stronger. Not that you weren’t plenty strong before.”

I suck in a breath and let out a deep sigh. “Oh, Lilette. I’ve lived a lifetime since I left you.”

“Tell me everything.” Her eyes and her voice implore me.

“It’s all going to sound crazy,” I warn her. “But to start with, apparently, I wasn’t born in Eldare at all. I was born in… in Valaron.”

Her face wrinkles in disbelief, but she lets me continue.

“You remember, no doubt, the night when I was to be initiated as High Priestess…”

And I tell her everything. From Zyren sweeping me off to Valaron, the whole tale, up until earlier this evening. I even tell her all the things I can’t bring myself to tell anyone else. How Zyren and I made love in the meadow the night before I was to wed his brother. About the curse I kept secret from him for so long. Too long. About the nightmare blood that runs in my veins, and in Zyren’s too. And even about the deal I made with the demon, how I’ve damned everyone with my stupidity. How I now have roughly four days to solve a half dozen impossible problems before that evil creature is set free to prey on my people.

When I finish, Lilette’s eyes are as big as the moon. “That’s… that’s incredible,” she says softly. “I can’t believe it… you’re queen of a realm we thought was only a fable. And you’re married .”

I raise a brow. “Out of all the wild tales I told you, that’s the part you latch onto?”

We stare at each other, and then a ripple of laughter rises from my throat, and Lilette’s face breaks into a smile, and the next moment we are utterly dissolved in laughter until tears pour down our cheeks.

“You’re making my ribs hurt,” I groan, clutching one arm around my abdomen, where it’s been battered so many times I lost count.

Eventually the mirth subsides, and I meet her gaze, my expression becoming serious once again. “Now I need to hear what befell you when I was gone.” I pause, swallowing past a throat which has suddenly gone dry as sand in an hourglass. “I think I know part of it. Something the demon showed me.” I lock eyes with her. “You had to take my place, didn’t you? As High Priestess?”

Lilette’s lips tremble at the edges, and she nods. “Don’t blame yourself, Sarielle. I know you.”

That now familiar black rage boils in my veins once again, and I can feel my face storming over. “How can I not?” I ask harshly.

“It’s what we were raised for. I knew it was my duty, and I was honored to fulfill it. It was only the once I had to join with the High Priest. Once, before the nightmares came.”

I let her tell the rest of her tale, tamping down my anger so she can share her story. She needs her voice to be heard, just as she had heard mine. She shares, in a shaky voice, the terror of being kept by the nightmares while they picked people off one by one. When she’s finished, her cheeks are streaked with tears.

I squeeze her hands and reach out and wipe her tears away. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had been there with you.”

“But you’re here now. You came back for me,” she says with a trembling smile.

“Of course I did.” I lean against the bars, resting my forehead against hers for a moment. Then I straighten back up. “And the High Priest—was he taken by the nightmares, too?”

Her expression sours. “No, he left the Amethyst Palace ‘on business’ five days ago and never came back.”

“That pathetic coward,” I growl. “Of course he ran off to save himself. He has never done anything but lie to us.”

I had shared with her what Zyren told me—the truth of magic, and how the priest was somehow controlling all the magic in Eldare, keeping most of the citizens from possessing it.

“If we survive the next few days, I will find him, and I will make him pay.” A low pulse of power moves off me and my nightmare growls within me. “I will return the magic to Eldare.”

“Why don’t we focus on saving ourselves first,” Lilette says softly. “You have enough on your plate already.”

“Excellent point.” I sigh. “I just wish I knew where the others were.” I stand and walk to the front of my cell, looking up and down the narrow row. “Zyren!” I call in a low voice. It echoes through the stone corridor. “Zara! Asher!”

There’s no reply, so I try again a few moments later. Nothing.

“My magic may be weakened here,” I mumble, “but I still may be able to do something as simple as break us out of these cells.” I turn my gaze to Lilette. “Your magic might, also.”

A range of expressions moves over her face. Up until now, she, like I once did, believed that her magic should only be used in rituals under the watchful eye of the High Priest. He’d manipulated all of us for so long.

“It’s okay,” I say, giving her an encouraging smile. “Your magic is yours. Yours alone. It was never meant to be controlled by anyone, least of all that deceitful man.”

Lilette worries her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then nods in determination. “I’ll try.”

“That’s the benefit of living in a land where almost no one possesses magic,” I say with a shrug. “It will never have occurred to them that we can bust ourselves out of here.”

I place my hands on the lock at the front of my cell, feeling the rough, rusty metal against my skin, and I call on my power. A faint warmth moves through my chest, and a golden glow emits from my fingers. It’s not much when facing a nightmare, but an old lock is no match for it. After a few moments, I feel the lock break and it falls with a clang to the floor.

Cautiously, I step out into the narrow aisle between the cells, half expecting someone to come running to stop me. But I hear nothing. I turn to see if Lilette is making progress. She has her hands around the lock on her cell as I had, her magic a pale yellow like sunshine. I am once again reminded of Merla, whose magic was the same color. They would have been friends, I have no doubt. A stab of grief slices through me at the thought.

“There!” Lilette says with a triumphant smile as her lock falls to the ground.

She steps out into the corridor to join me. She lifts her gaze to mine, jubilant. I remember that feeling well—the freedom when I realized that my magic was mine. That no one could claim it ever again.

And just like that, my joy crumbles as I hear footsteps moving quickly down the hall.

Lilette’s eyes lock on mine, stricken. I lunge for her lock and place it in her hands. “Put this back on as if you hadn’t broken it,” I whisper urgently. “If I don’t come back, make your escape without me.”

“Sarielle, no—”

I shove her back inside her cell and hang the lock back where it had been, almost closed, but not quite. Then I stride down the hall toward the approaching footsteps.

“You! Stop!” shouts a guard.

I do as instructed, freezing in place. But I don’t cower in fear. I lift my head defiantly. “I am Sarielle Otreyas, Queen of Valaron, and I demand an audience with the king and queen.”

The two guards standing before me look at each other, disbelief written all over their faces. “Valaron? You speak nonsense, girl.”

“Then how do you think I got out of my cell?” I level my gaze on them, letting the full power of it burn brightly. “I possess great magic. Something, I believe, the king and queen are desperate to return to Eldare.”

The guards stare at me a moment, then at each other, clearly unsure how to proceed.

“If they find out you imprisoned a visiting queen from another realm, one who possessed magic that could save this realm, and didn’t tell them , they will have you both hanged for sure.”

That finally jolts them from their stupor. One of them steps forward and roughly turns me, placing a pair of metal cuffs around my wrists.

“You’re the one who’ll be hanged if you’re lying,” says the other guard as the first spins me back around and shoves me down the corridor.

I suppress a laugh. If they even knew half the enemies I’d faced, and the fate that hangs over me, they’d know that their king and queen were the least of my worries.

As we move through the corridor, I keep careful watch of our distance, and dart my gaze into each cell we pass, hoping to get a glimpse of Zyren or my companions. The prison is quite large. After a hundred paces, we turn left at an intersection. Another hall that seems as long as mine leads into the distance. I get only a glance as we turn away from it.

The corridor we now travel down is shorter, also lined with cells. Up ahead, I see a brighter source of light coming down a set of rough-hewn steps. That way must lead to the ground floor of the building. I doubt very much that the prison ward is located beneath the royal palace, but we must be somewhere nearby.

Just before we reach the steps, I catch sight of a familiar face in a cell to my left. Owyn. His eyes dart up at me as we pass, but I shake my head imperceptibly and he stays quiet. There are two more guards stationed here by his cell, which must be the reason he hadn’t escaped yet. But where are the others, and why hadn’t they made a break for it?

Zara and Asher won’t leave without freeing those who had been abducted by the nightmares, I know that much about them. But Zyren? I’m not so sure he won’t leave me here and go back to his brother and Avonia. He’d been my guardian before he’d been my husband, and his entire existence revolved around my safety. But with his memories gone, he doesn’t remember any of that. I swallow past the bitterness and tears that rise in my throat.

I don’t have time to worry about that now. What was it Lilette had said? I am stronger now, no longer the girl who vanished from the Amethyst Palace. I am a queen . My heart may be broken, but I have a realm to save first and foremost.

The guards take me up the stairs and out into a bright hallway. After my eyes adjust, I can see that my surroundings are rustic and utilitarian. Undecorated stone walls. Basic wooden tables dotted here and there. Weapons hanging from racks. The smell of stew hanging in the air.

I’m marched back and forth through a maze of corridors, and I worry I’m going to forget how to get back here. I try to make note of landmarks in my mind. The wooden shield with the swan on one wall. A glimpse of a practice field for the warriors through an open archway. A row of iron suits of armor that don’t seem there just for display.

We move beneath a wooden portcullis and out into the night sky. Off in the distance, I see shimmering lights above a wall made of white stone. The moon illuminates the palace, only half risen meaning it is early still. The palace is made of the same white stone, making it glow like a diamond beneath the dark sky. All those years living in Eldare, and never once had I set eyes on this place.

Of course, now I have my very own white castle. If I can ever reclaim it.

Within a few short minutes, we’ve passed through a side gate in the palace wall, clearly intended for the guard only, and then a few steps beyond we enter the palace itself. The guards we pass, of which there are many, shoot me curious looks. I can only imagine how I look—worn clothing, covered in blood and dirt. I look about opposite of any queen from the storybooks.

But those queens were not warriors, as I am. Those queens do not reign over a land of nightmares.

My heart begins to race as we move through the palace. It gleams, dripping in opulence and luxury. White marble walls, veined in gold. Painted ceilings. Enormous crystal vases filled with exotic flowers. Huge chandeliers lighting each corridor with a crystalline glow. Even the air is decorated with a faint floral scent.

In all likelihood, the king and queen will laugh at me and throw me back in my cell. But I have to try to convince them that we chased off the nightmares and saved those who could be saved. The injustice of imprisoning us after everything we’d done… surely, they can be reasoned with.

And then, I am standing at the massive double doors of the throne room, each one etched with the gilded swan that is the emblem of Eldare. Across the vast room, two thrones rise, one gold and one silver. Marble pillars line both sides of the room, and a guard stands like a statue before each. My captors lean in and whisper to the guards standing on alert at the door, and one of them strides to a man wearing deep red and gold attire. The bejeweled-looking man turns to me, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, but then he steps forward into the center of the purple velvet runner that leads to the throne. His voice rings out loudly, echoing down the chamber.

“Your royal highnesses King Estavon and Queen Julina, I announce a visitor. The Queen of Valaron!”

The guards shove me forward, following behind me as I walk what seems a mile to the two shining thrones. It’s clear from the courtiers dotting the room that I’ve interrupted their evening revelry. As we approach, the king leans forward in his throne, eyes narrowed, thin mouth pinched in suspicion. The golden crown on his gray-haired head is so large I don’t know how he carries it without injuring himself. The queen, who looks about twenty years younger, bears a look of surprise. Her ebony hair is wound into a coil atop her head, emeralds pinned throughout it.

When I stop before them, the king speaks first, voice trembling in anger. “What is the meaning of this? Valaron was lost thousands of years ago. This is outrageous!”

“I assure you it is not outrageous,” I say, lacing power into my voice. I pin him with my golden gaze. “I am Sarielle Otreyas, Queen of Nightmares. My realm very much exists, and right now both of our realms are in danger. I helped destroy the nightmares that were plaguing your land and your people, only to be repaid by being thrown into a prison cell.”

The king opens and closes his mouth several times, as if undecided on what to say next, but the queen leans forward. “Continue,” she says softly.

But at that moment, a small door opens on the left side of the room behind the thrones, and a robed man walks forward. He stops next to the king and points a pale finger at me.

“This girl is no queen,” says the robed figure.

I stare into the eyes of the High Priest, the man I grew up with, the man who lied and manipulated everyone in Eldare.