“Isay?” Karmuth sounded worried.

He turned me around in his arms to look at me. His gorgeous face came into perfect focus behind only a slight layer of darkening hue. It was like wearing sunglasses inside.

“They… ah… all of them blend together like shadows.”

I noticed Karmuth fixed his eyes out the window again, and his brows furrowed.

He was not seeing it. He didn’t have a black eye like I did. A black eye that made me see things that weren’t really there. Come to think of it, Ferro had been hidden in the shadows too when we ran into him. It was a bad, bad sign.

“Are you sure?” Karmuth asked. His voice was careful, but not judging. He didn’t not believe me, he just searched for confirmation.

I wasn’t going insane; seeing shadows was perfectly normal in dark fae courts. As if… seeing shadows wasn’t normal anywhere, and I was fooling myself if I thought that was okay.

“They’re all one big black hole,” I assured.

Karmuth wasn’t looking at the fae any longer but into my eyes. His hands came up to cup my face between them gently. “Is everything all right with your eyes, beautiful?”

“Aside from the fact that one is black?” A humourless laughter escaped my throat.

“Yes, aside from that, Isay.”

He wasn’t letting me go. With undivided attentiveness, he studied my face as if it held all the answers. I also felt him open the bond between us to tap into my psyche in utmost care as if he didn’t really know what he was doing and was worried to mess something up should he venture too deep.

“I’ve been seeing things that are not really there. Darkness, mostly. It is shrouding some fae like a cloak. Ferro… he was covered by it. And the fae outside… they are, too.”

“Is it only the Felrothians, or are the Hessians looking shadowed, too?” he asked.

“The Hessians?” I said, confused. I hadn’t seen the Hessians, hadn’t been looking at anything other than the dark shape.

Karmuth turned me around in his embrace again to face the window once more. I found the darkness right away and got stuck looking at it until Karmuth placed his palm on my cheek to shift my face to the group on the other side of the courtyard.

My breath caught. Seven bright fae dressed in royal garments lit up their side of the square. “They’re glowing,” I said in awe.

“I think you’re seeing into their souls, Isay.” Karmuth’s breath caressed my cheek as he said it. He wasn’t even looking at the fae; he’d given them but a short glance.

My brows furrowed. “I’m what?”

“Delthers feed on ecos,” Karmuth explained. “It is not unreasonable to think they can see the force inside of living organisms. You’ve still got a part of their essence in you.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want to see the force.”

Karmuth tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Maybe together we can separate the essence and pull it out.”

“What about my shield? It is powered by it.”

“I do not know, beautiful. You might need to wear the ring again. We’ll get you a new one, or we’ll do the soul-binding ritual. Whatever you want. One thing’s for certain, Isay, you never need to be afraid again.”

Chapter 50

ISAY

I’D NEVER SEEN THE THRONE ROOM THIS FULL. ASIDE FROM THE three invited court representatives, every death fae that managed to smuggle themselves in stood guard around the edges of the room efficiently blocking all the exits and trapping the rest of us in. They were on my side, which was the only reason I felt safe.

My mother and Grath were seated on their thrones with me, Hiko and Karmuth standing on a higher platform next to them.

Regar had indeed raided Hiko’s wardrobe, and Karmuth looked as regal as the rest of us. There was no way any of the fae in the room mistook him as only a guard. The rest of the royal guard stood a few steps behind us, fully armed.

I couldn’t focus on the faces of our visitors, seven Felrothians, seven Hessians, and seven from Elverstone. They were all hard to look at for different reasons. Searching for strength I didn’t have, I reached out to Karmuth. Our fingers grazed before he covered my hand with his and squeezed.

King Grath stood and thumped a staff against the floor to quiet the buzz. Even my breath stilled.

“I have summoned the council to get justice for the kidnapping and torture of Princess Isay by the court of Felroth and discuss lifting the feeding mandate from the court of Vindica,” Grath announced, looking at each individual group solemnly until he faced the shadowed mess where the emotion-feeders stood, and his lip curved outward in a snarl.

If he ever had good enough relations with Felroth to sleep with Karmuth’s mother, his dislike for them had grown over the years.

“From what I see, your princess is perfectly fine. If ever she was kidnapped, it does not show,” a low growl came from the midst of the shadows. King Rothian, I presumed. “It is outrageous you’d seek justice for something that’s obviously a farce. This gathering is a waste of all of our time.”

“Shut it, Rothian. It is easy to find out if Grath is lying.” An ethereal calm filled me as the new voice spoke up.

A Hessian covered in a light pastel garment that floated around him as he took a step closer to the throne gave the shadows a distasteful glance before his eyes travelled to me. Tenderness softened his hard, edged features into an attractive sight.

His eyes studied me as if he intended to memorise every aspect, even the way I shifted closer to Karmuth under his attention. That must’ve been Prince Nefari.

“Princess Isay,” my father addressed me as if my title was the most natural thing in the world. To him I suppose it was, since he knew all along he was my father. I’d been a princess long before people started calling me that. “Would you like to join me here below, please, so that we can get to the bottom of this?”

Pressing my lips tight to stop myself from biting at the lower one, I searched his glowing figure for any semblance to what I saw in the mirror. I’ve obviously gotten my hair and eyes from my mother, but the shape of his nose was familiar to me, so was the half-smile on his face.

“This will not hurt you,” Prince Nefari assured me.

I looked to my mother, who nodded in encouragement, and Karmuth, who squeezed my hand one last time before he let go of it. Hesitantly, I took a step closer to the fae beckoning me. I only made it off the podium when another fae spoke up.

“May I suggest that the reading is done by someone not related to the princess?”

I froze in my steps at the authority in that voice. I’d heard that voice exiling me and my mother from Elverstone not too long ago.

“I suppose that means you’re excluding me, my father, and my aunts, yourself, and your daughters. Who then would you like to proceed with?” Nefari’s voice held a cold undertone as he turned toward the King of Elverstone. “Certainly, you don’t wish for the reading to be done by a Felrothian?”

I would have not understood the exchange had my mother not filled me in on my family tree just hours ago.

King Ilario was old, and he looked like it. Fae aged barely noticeably, and a few centuries old fae didn’t look much older than those only several decades old. More than a millennia later, my grandfather’s face wrinkled up in just the right places to portray both laugh lines and frowns that were part of his responsibility-filled lifestyle. Surrounded by a greenish hue that was easier to look at than my father’s glow and much better than the darkness of King Rothian, he did not look threatening. His words, however, did not put him on my side.

I darted my eyes between the three represented courts. Closer now, I could make out a looming shape inside the darkness of Felroth, and it was sneering at me.

“No Felrothian can execute an accurate reading,” another Hessian spoke up, his voice smooth like Nefari’s but not as biting.

He wasn’t insulting the Felrothians, just stating a fact. He also looked like Nefari with his blond cropped hair and blue eyes, a shade darker than Karmuth’s. That was King Neprion, also my grandfather.

He added, “I do not trust the interpreter you brought along.”