Princess of Shadows: A Dark Fae Fantasy Romance Read online

Chapter 31

  Rose

  I awoke in a dreamscape that I’d never seen before. A field near a cottage. It was based on the Immortal Realm without a doubt. The smell of citrus filled the air as I looked out on the twilight scene. Tall trees that were shaped like evergreens had varying shades of pinks and purples that seemed to glow under the purple moon. The grass was so dark, it was almost black here.

  Sebastian stood watching a woman and a child doing magic very similarly to how he’d begun teaching me. She moved his hand slowly, and I could feel her pulling on his power with her own. It was so lifelike. I could even smell her scent. A mix of lilacs and clove. Strangely intense.

  The edges of the vision were frayed, turning to dark mists. This was a memory, and he’d pulled me here for some reason. Sebastian had told me that he didn’t sleep. As an incubus, he wandered dreams instead of sleeping, letting his body rest while his mind wandered.

  “You were tired,” he said softly without turning to look at me. I walked closer to him, seeing the vision laid before him.

  “Who is it?” I asked as the boy pulled a thin stream of mist from the ground.

  “My mother and me a very, very long time ago.” His words seemed sad. Nostalgic.

  “You’ve never talked about your mother before.”

  “My mother was the last Dark Queen, and her death still hurts. Even nine hundred years later. She was the only one who understood me. My father was a full-blooded incubus, and he was her consort, a position like a husband in the Mortal Realm. He never strayed from the bounds of his position. They were inseparable until he died.”

  “How did he die?” I’d never heard Sebastian so melancholy. What was it that I didn’t know?

  “I don’t know. I was too young. It isn’t uncommon for a full-blooded incubus to die suddenly. Their powers are almost exclusive to the dreamscape. Any assassin could have killed him if he weren’t protected while dream walking. Glass cannons, they can cause incredible damage if they decide to, but they are easily killed by people in the physical.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know him well, but my mother knew him well enough to be able to teach me about my powers. And about my curse.”

  Sebastian sighed. “I miss her, Rose. She’d know what to do. She’d know how to handle everything, and then we could live in the Dark Court in safety and peace. We could visit the village anytime we wanted without fear.”

  “You don’t have to leave the village, Sebastian. We have to talk to Seraphina tomorrow, but then we’ll return here and live like we’ve been living. We’ll be happy here.”

  He turned to me, his eyes full of sadness behind the mists. “I am the last of her line. The last of the strongest blood in the Dark Court. Seraphina wants you dead, but she wants me dead even more. She blames me for her husband’s death. Tomorrow, I’m going to give her what she wants.”

  “I’m going to lock you in this dreamscape. Then, I’m going to break the portal before you wake up, and I’m going to give myself to Seraphina to kill. There was never a way to convince Seraphina not to hunt us. Not now. This is the only way.”

  “No! You will not sacrifice yourself like some martyr to save me. That’s not the way that this works. Sebastian, I love you. You’re bossy and annoyingly male, but I fucking love you, and you don’t get to die on me. Especially not like this! Stop trying to save me, and we’ll figure something out.”

  He gave me a sad smile and said, “It’s either this or Seraphina hunts us forever. Everyone you care about dies. Everything in the world that brings you happiness will be taken from you. No Rose, I’m not going to let you lose everything you love.”

  “I love you more than anything. Including myself. My life has been one terrible experience after the next. Until you. You’re obnoxious and talk too much, but you’re also the only good thing left in my life, and I’ll be damned if I let you end up miserable like me.”

  Tears began to fall as I looked at him. No! No! No! This was not happening. This was not the way that things were supposed to turn out. We were supposed to live out our immortal lives in peace in the place that finally felt like home with friends.

  “You’ll find happiness without me. Enivyn, Sinivyn, Kasia, Cara, and everyone else will help you. Goodbye, Rose. I love you.”

  He pulled me to him, and I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t open. His magic stopped me. I couldn’t even tell him how I felt about him. That he was my world. That I’d rather watch the world burn than see him do this. That I’d go through any kind of hell to keep him with me.

  He wrapped his arms around me, bent down, and I felt his lips press against mine as he turned to mist and faded away.

  The dream didn’t end though. I was left screaming, with tears running down my face, as I was forced to watched little Sebastian and his mother moving a stream of mist between them.

  Chapter 32

  Rose

  I woke up screaming as I twisted and turned in the bed. My power clung to my skin, a shadowy shield coating my body. Eyes wide, I flailed in the bed, trying to find Sebastian. He was gone.

  That bastard had purposefully ignored teaching me about dream magic so that he could do this if he wanted to.

  On a table was one dagger in the hartskin sheathe. A second to my one. He’d left it for me. He wasn’t going to fight her. He was going to die. I screamed in anger and sadness.

  Andryn broke open the door, tearing the latch from the wall as he came in, a golden sword in his hand. I pulled the sheet over my body. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he glanced around the room, his eyes trying to find the source of my pain before finally looking at me.

  “Sebastian’s gone,” I whispered as the tears began to fall again.

  “Yes, he said that he was going settle things with Seraphina. Isn’t that what the two of you had planned?”

  I shook my head. “We were supposed to settle things with her. Not him. He’s not strong enough to protect himself against her. He’s not going to settle things. He’s going to sacrifice himself to protect me.”

  Andryn sheathed his sword. “Did you think that there was another way? Seraphina will not stop hunting him. Ever. The only reason he is still alive is because he’d never given her a good reason to have him executed or assassinated. The Assassin’s Guild would never have fought him without a reason. He was their Prince.”

  “She has her reason now. He didn’t assassinate you as she ordered, and he killed Nyx while Nyx was under her orders. Both of those things were worthy of an execution.”

  “Now, unless you became responsible for him by taking the throne, she would never have stopped.”

  “Then why didn’t he tell me that?” I screamed, the tears falling even faster. The portal would already be broken, and there were no shadow walkers in the village. There was no way to get to the Courts fast enough to stop him from becoming a martyr.

  “He didn’t want to force you to become Queen for his sake.” Andryn said it as though it made any kind of sense. Why couldn’t he have just told me? We could have talked about it, could have figured out a way to make it all work.

  “It wasn’t his decision to make. How could I make a decision without knowing all the facts?” I sobbed.

  “Because he was protecting his Queen. Whether you sit on the throne or not, you’re all of our Queen. Even me.”

  I gritted my teeth. I was not going to let this happen. I was not going to let Sebastian die for me. Or anyone else.

  “Get out,” I said, my tone of voice no longer full of anger or sadness. “Sebastian is not going to die. Not like this. I may kill him when I find him, but Seraphina certainly isn’t going to.”

  Andryn nodded and tried to close the door, but it hung at an odd angle after he broke into the hunt. As soon as the door was closed, I pulled on the linen dress that Sebastian had pulled off me last night. I didn’t know how I was going to find him or save him, but I was going to.

  Then the sound of screaming rose above my anger. I reached out with my powers
, touching the villagers. I felt their emotions and knew that Sebastian hadn’t left yet. If he’d gone through the portal, I wouldn’t have access to his empathy.

  The first thought I had was that I still had a chance to catch him, but then I realized what the emotions of the villagers were. Fear. Pure and utter fear.

  I stepped out of the hut and saw black cloaks fluttering in the moonlight that we lived in. The assassins had found us.

  Chapter 33

  Sebastian

  The portal was nearly invisible here. Just a piece of tinsel wrapped around a rock. I stood next to it, looking at it with a set jaw. This was it. Go through the portal, break the portal, shadow walk to the Court of Light, and tell Seraphina that Rose was dead, that I’d finished the task.

  She wouldn’t believe me, but it would make it harder for her to have me killed. I’d be imprisoned undoubtedly. She’d starve me, torture me, and maybe eventually, she’d have me put to death in front of the Dark Court to show that even the Prince of the Shadows was fallible and subject to the law.

  Regardless, she wouldn’t know if she were right or not. As long as I didn’t break from the torture. I took a deep breath. Rose was worth it. She was worth every last ounce of pain, every bit of molten iron that Seraphina would pour over my body, permanently scarring my body so that I would never have willing prey again.

  I should already be gone. The dream was only meant to last until twilight when the first moon would shine its silver light across the land.

  I bent down toward the rock, but I was interrupted by a voice. A voice I remembered clearly. One that should be dead.

  “Prince Sebastian, why are you here?”

  I turned around and saw the old Queen of the Light, Aurora. The one that Seraphina had taken the throne from. There was only one way to unwillingly lose the throne as a Queen: death.

  Dressed in a simple silver dress, she stood just as tall as she ever had. Barefoot, she walked across the field towards me. Sadness filled her face. She’d always been a kind Queen. The kind of Queen that I’d hoped that Rose would be.

  “You should be in the void, Aurora. Seraphina killed you.” The woman smiled, but sadness tinged her lips.

  “She believes this to be true, but she is not as clever as she thinks she is. It does not matter, though. The Princess of Shadows needs you, Prince. For many reasons, but this night holds many dangers. You would let your future Queen stand against Seraphina without you?”

  Her eyes were daggers as she questioned me. The intensity that her eyes burned told me that her powers were not gone. She was no spirit.

  “I have to do this, Aurora. Seraphina will hunt me until I’m found. She will never forgive this grudge.”

  “How do you know that she has not already found her quarry?” A shiver ran through me.

  “They’re here?” I stepped towards Aurora, rage and fear filling me with the need to move.

  “A battle has already begun, Prince of Shadows. A Queen holds the forces at bay, but she is young still. She needs your blade beside her own.”

  I blinked, letting the words fill me. Rose was as good a warrior as any in a spar. In place with no real repercussions for failure. She was good when she knew the wounds would heal and no tears would be shed. When no lives hung in the balance.

  I took off at a sprint, burning through my power as I enhanced my speed. No. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to keep her safe. No matter what, she had to be safe.

  What had I done?

  Chapter 34

  Rose

  Black cloaks fluttered as the assassin’s ran from the forest edge. Fear filled my body, but my training with Sebastian reminded me that fear had no place on a battlefield.

  Kasia ran by me, spear and shield in her hands, and I leaped onto her back as she passed, my wings carrying me towards her. “Get me to the front,” I hissed at her as I prepared myself.

  There were too many for me to fight alone. Cara stood next to the fire that always burned. Her eyes had turned sorrowful. She was remembering the day that she had saved those children while her village burned.

  “To battle, Cara,” I commanded. “Andryn,” I yelled as I passed him, “gather the others. Have the pups and foals gather around the fire. Keep them safe, and send everyone else to me.”

  Cara began running behind me, her eyes turning milky white as she saw the future. Andryn turned around, belting out people’s names. I couldn’t think about what to do. Battles weren’t about thinking. They were about knowing, about doing.

  The shifters were already arrayed in the front of the village. Four of them. They’d be cut down immediately. They were faster than the assassins, but the assassins had magic and blades that would keep them from healing. They were the foot soldiers of the supernatural world, and there simply weren’t enough of them.

  Touching the ground, I smiled at them. They yelped in surprise as stone flowed up from the ground like molten steel. Wrapping around them and coating their bodies in the thinnest layer of granite I could manage. Nearly weightless to them, it would shield them from much of the magic and the blades.

  The gnomes showed up next, and I felt for their magic, combining it with my own. The shifters seemed to become pure shadows, hidden even while in plain sight. As they moved, you could see flashes of them, but otherwise, they were as close to invisible as I believed possible.

  “That’s great! Now do me! Armor. A sword. I’ll keep you safe, Rose.” I glanced at Enivyn and took a breath.

  “Stay behind me, Enivyn. Keep your back against mine and don’t touch anyone except assassins.”

  Light swirled from me to the gnomes, wrapping around them, covering their bodies in the same blinding white brilliance that Cara had used on me. They glowed so brightly that many of the assassins had to pull down their hoods as they approached.

  “Watch for the elements of water and fire twinning,” Cara said from beside me.

  I nodded. A combination I’d never used or seen used. There was no one with control of either of those elements in the village. The only person to control fire that I’d ever seen was Nyx.

  I glanced back and saw that Andryn had his golden sword out and was standing in front of the children of the village.

  I pulled on the stone in front of us and right before the assassins reached us, I pulled a ten-foot tall wall out of the ground. Using the combination of mist and stone, I created stairs to the top.

  “Deal with any that make it around the wall,” I said to the shifters.

  I heard yips but couldn’t see them. Leaping into the air, my wings came to life, carrying me to the top of the wall. Two of the assassins were fairies, and they’d begun to fly over the wall.

  I put out my hands and glowing tendrils of light flew from either side of me, ignoring the assassin’s bodies and clinging to their wings. They were unprepared for the attack and did their best to not let the tendrils hit their bodies, but they had never fought a Queen who could burn their wings.

  Their daggers were in their hands almost immediately, but they were too slow. With a single burst of power, I felt their wings burn. Screams rang in the air, and the tendrils disappeared as the fairy assassins fell to the ground, their shadowed wings red hot and burnt. Their bodies crumbled as they hit the ground. They weren’t dead, but I’d felt every ounce of their power burn up as they tried to heal their wings.

  Others were climbing the wall, and I let loose stream after stream of liquid shadows at them. Some hit. Others didn’t. It slowed them down as the shadows stuck like glue to their faces and bodies.

  A commotion came from behind me, as several of the assassins had sprinted around the wall. The shifters were tearing them apart. Completely unseen, they’d waited for the assassins to approach the gnomes, their eyes closed against the blazing white shields I’d given them. Then the shifters had lunged, taking them unaware.

  Searing pain shot through me as an explosion hit me from behind. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as I fell
to the ground. As I fell, the ground under me turned to ice, and I slid, the edge getting closer and closer.

  I tried to scramble to catch myself, but the ice was slicker than anything I’d ever felt. Combining mist and stone, I created a wall in front of myself. I hit it hard, and my vision blurred for a moment.

  Without looking, I knew another fireball would be coming. I’d replayed the fight between Nyx and Sebastian over and over again in my head. Raising my hand, shadows expanded outward, and the fireball hit it with an explosion.

  Arrows began to rain on the two assassins who had managed to climb the wall. I looked down and saw several of the villagers firing hunting bows at the assassins. Two arrows hit the one that controlled fire in the chest. He pulled them out, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  Wings propelling me forward, my daggers appeared from shadows just as Sebastian’s would have, and I flung the first at his chest, but he dodged, twisting out of the way. A blast of water came towards me, but that meant nothing when I had my shadow shield.

  I stabbed the flame assassin in the chest and felt his powers drain. He pulled his dagger from his sheath, but with a burst of power, I ripped the dagger upward through his chest and into his skull. He dropped to the ground, blood pouring from his body.

  The water assassin stared at his comrade for a moment too long, and an arrow caught him in the chest. He grunted in pain, and as he began to pull it out, I’d already stuck a dagger in his neck.

  As he crumpled to the ground, I sighed and looked over the wall. There were another fifty assassins. We’d killed less than a dozen, and I was fighting as quickly and efficiently as I could.

  We were going to lose. No one here was a warrior but Kasia, and she was powerless against people able to throw fireballs. I was the only chance, but I could only do so much.

  I set my jaw. I had to try. These were my friends. Closer than any family I’d ever had. I wasn’t going to let them die without a fight.