She looked away from Myris’s boot, her amber-yellow eyes glistening. The dark scales on her neck, shoulders, and arms seemed to be a part of her black dress—like shiny appliques that stretched over her perfect, almost-white skin. Her voice was hypnotizing, but her words were quick to snap me back to the real world.
“This wasn’t magic,” Eva said.
Lumi smirked. “What makes you so sure, darling?”
“I’m half Druid, in case you forgot,” Eva replied, letting her snake-like tongue flicker over her lower lip for a brief moment. Given her genetic heritage, that had to be how she picked up otherwise undetectable scents. It was one of my favorite traits in Druids—the ability to use the tips of their forked tongues to smell lost or forgotten secrets. “Magic of any kind would leave a trace. Even the slightest whiff. Here, I found nothing, and, as you can see, I’m literally inches from where Myris stood.”
Lumi and Kailani joined her, carefully scanning the floor again. Kailani put her hands out, her fingers glowing white as she performed some kind of reading spell. She looked at Lumi, then shook her head.
“Eva is right. There’s no trace of magic. No charms, curses, or hexes, for sure,” she said.
“Where does that leave us, then?” Derek replied.
With my entire body aching, my limbs still riddled with tremors from the aftermath of the explosion, I couldn’t possibly offer an answer to that question—besides “We keep going,” of course. I worked hard to focus on him and Sofia, on Raphael, Herakles, and Dmitri… on Eva, whose name sounded familiar. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out where I’d heard it. I could focus on anyone, as long as I didn’t have to turn around and face the carnage that Myris had left behind.
I could only imagine how Harper and Caspian felt.
Their wedding day, tarnished and covered in blood, soot and tears.
Derek was right. If someone was behind this, then they had to pay.
Taeral
The preliminary investigation didn’t offer any useful insights on the Fenn brothers. They were relatively well known among their royal guard ranks on the Fire Star, but not enough. In the end, no one knew why they’d acted so strangely. Jaffe was still missing. Myris’s funeral had been tense and difficult to go through, especially since it didn’t have a body—we’d decided we needed to analyze and preserve what had been left of him, but his family needed some kind of closure, hence the burial ceremony with an empty coffin. Well, not empty. It had been filled with some of his most precious belongings and family heirlooms.
We couldn’t understand what had happened to him, or whether the explosion had been premeditated or an accident.
The only thing we could confirm was that both Jaffe and Myris had been overheard talking to themselves—apparently. I had a feeling those conversations weren’t exactly one-sided, but without Jaffe to tell us, all we could do was make assumptions.
Lumi, Kailani, and the Daughters were still studying Myris’s remains, while the rest of Corrine’s witches focused on analyzing the blast site. Upon a first inspection back at the blast site, we’d not only found a foot inside the blackened boot he’d left behind, but also other parts of him which had been thrown far wider across the hall than we’d originally thought. The banquet hall had been closed off to allow GASP’s agents to investigate. I felt as though we were temporarily suspended in time and space, since no answer had come to light. We didn’t know why this had happened, and it put a strain on absolutely everybody—including me.
“Tae, darling, are you ready?” My mother’s voice came through.
I’d been staring at my own reflection in a floor mirror. The sunlight poured into my room, glazing everything in a golden hue. It seemed so calm and serene, as opposed to the frustrated storm brewing inside me.
I turned around and found her gazing at me, a loving smile stretching her lips.
“Yeah,” I breathed, then briefly checked myself in the mirror one last time.
“They’re waiting for you,” she said.
Of course they were. It was my official crowning ceremony. The tradition spanned eons through the Fire Star’s history. The crown prince had to go through this. An oath had to be spoken. A Fire Star royal had to place the “youngling crown,” as they called it, on my head. And then, I could proudly wear my full title. Taeral of the Fire Star, Crown Prince and Future King of the Fire Fae. But that label felt like such a joke right now, since I couldn’t even get to the bottom of why one of my own had gotten himself blown up and killed innocent people in the process.
I think they call it impostor’s syndrome.
“I know,” I replied.
I did look like a crown prince. My tunic was tailored to bring out my tall figure and broad shoulders. It was made entirely out of crimson silk, with gold embroidery around the hems, the high collar, and the sleeves. If one looked close enough, they’d recognize a few Fire Star motifs in these details—stylized flames and bursting suns intertwined, seemingly going on forever. The black belt tightened around my narrow waist, and the solid gold buckle depicted our family crest. My knee-high boots were a good match, adding to the black-and-red contrast.
My skin glimmered, ever so slightly, in the invading sunlight. I was more fae now than jinn, for sure. The only thing that reminded me of my mother’s heritage was my short, ink-black hair. In the long run, none of this mattered. The entire ceremony felt like a farce, but I had to do it. My internal struggle had to wait. Tradition was far more important, especially after Myris’s episode. Our people needed a sense of steadiness and unwavering strength.
Father said the ceremony would help. So, I went ahead with it.
“You look so handsome,” Mom said, glowing with love.
I gave her a soft smile. “Good genes,” I replied, then joined her out in the hallway, my custom-made soul-eater blade dangling from my belt. Its sculptural sheath, made of black wood with mother-of-pearl and golden inlays, captured some of the sunshine beaming through the enormous windows to my right.
“Any word from Lumi?” Mom asked, as we headed toward the ceremony hall.
I shook my head, and my mother sighed in return.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I replied. “You and Dad will be the first to know once they find something, anyway.”
“It’ll be okay, Tae,” she said. “We’ve got the resources and the knowledge to get to the bottom of this. That much I’m sure of.”
“It’s just… It’s been a year since the Blackout. A lot of people died then, and we were so thankful and relieved that our fae survived. This feels like the universe reminding us that the fire fae are still vulnerable.”
A dozen fire fae had died in Myris’s explosion. A dozen families had to be notified that they’d never see their loved ones again. We’d lost so many already in the first fleet attack against Ta’Zan. Every single death haunted us, as my parents had promised our kingdom they would keep everyone safe. Of course, all those who had perished were GASP allies and agents, and they knew what they were getting themselves into. But, still, death was permanent and irreversible, and it left a lot of pain and sorrow in its wake.
“We’ll get over this, Tae, just like we got over the fleet attack, the Blackout, and everything else before that,” Mom assured me. “We’re a tough nation. Let’s not let this one incident redefine us.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Mom was quite a firecracker, even though she wasn’t fae. She was tough and resilient. No wonder Dad had fallen head over heels for her. I only hoped that, one day, I’d be as lucky as he was, to land himself such a powerful soulmate.
The ceremony hall opened before us in deep shades of red marble and black obsidian pillars. It was enormous. Almost breathtaking. Above, the pillars extended into arches, crisscrossing the painted ceiling with dramatic black lines. The aisle ahead was cleared, reflecting the wooden benches lined up on both sides—all of them full. Hundreds had come to witness my crowning ceremony, and that just made my palms clammy.
All the noble and military heads turned to see me and my mom as we walked down the aisle and toward the platform at the end. There, standing between two massive copper bowls with bright and feisty orange flames, were my dad and Kerrig, the prime minister—the king and queen’s voice in the fire fae government, and the public servant in charge of performing the actual crowning ceremony.
Between them, nestled on a red velvet pillow on top of a tall and slim black display table, was the prince’s crown. I’d seen it before, but it looked particularly beautiful today. It was simple, yet stunning—a band of white gold with a plethora of rubies and diamonds encrusted all around. They all met at the front, in the middle, to hug a triangle-shaped crimson diamond, the rarest of its kind, thought to have some kind of magical properties. Granted, that was mostly the stuff of legend, according to my dad, but I was still a tad hopeful.
