Page 20 of King of Storms and Feathers

Arrow

“It is time you visited the mines,” said Raiden’s father, Stormur, from his seat beside me at the high table.

Stormur had been my father’s trusted High Counselor, and now he served as mine. The fae was wise, fair, and extremely measured in his opinions.

When he spoke, it was in my best interests to listen. If he gave advice, I knew I should heed it. But whenever he brought up the Auryinnia Mines, my ears suddenly became defective.

“There is no logical reason not to resume your duties at Auryinnia,” he continued. “Enough time has passed since the incident, and now you must honor the agreements between the reavers and your kingdom.”

I nodded absently and let my attention slide from his frowning brow as I inspected the chaos playing out in the hall. Burnished by candlelight, my courtiers ate, drank, sang, and groped and fought each other with joyous abandon, reveling in their good fortune to reside in the most prosperous kingdom in the realms.

Over thousands of years and an ocean of sweat and blood, my ancestors created order from mayhem. They established peace between the four fae realms and formed a system that not only benefited the indispensable reaver elves, but regulated the gold trade.

Of course, since Light Realm fae controlled the supply of auron kanara feathers to the elves, we also controlled the gold and all the wealth in the realms. An extremely fortuitous side benefit for my kingdom.

Watching my court enjoy themselves pleased me greatly. Let them dance and fight and hump each other senseless on the floor of my hall. Part of me longed to tell Stormur to shut his mouth so I could leap off the dais and join them. Instead, I sat in my gilded chair and let my counselor berate me for neglecting my diplomatic duties.

I took a slow sip of wine. “As king, I thought I wasn’t required to do anything that didn’t please me immensely.”

“Your father certainly ruled according to that principle,” said Stormur. “I was under the impression you wanted to be a different kind of king.”

Stormur was right. I had loved King Darian, but didn’t much like him or the way he ruled Coridon. He was a good father, occasionally a devoted husband, a frequent violator of courtesans, but much too self-indulgent to rule a great kingdom with the necessary discipline.

Discipline happened to be my specialty, a passion that had developed after my family died. Any form of control made me feel good. Made me stronger. And I particularly enjoyed wielding it over others.

“Arrow,” Stormur leaned close, his dark curls sticking to the sweat beading his forehead. “Granted, your first visit since the accident will be uncomfortable—”

“Accident?” I slammed my goblet on the table, and Stormur’s wife, Ildri, who sat beside him, dropped her spoon in her pheasant stew. “What happened to my family, Counselor, wasn’t a slip of fate or an unfortunate alignment of circumstances. It was a calculated attack. I should have blown the mountain and all the gold inside it to dust on the day it happened.”

The boom of their carriage exploding, the sight of what was left of their bodies, nothing but bone and gore, those sounds and images haunted my dreams and plagued my days.

Three years ago, in the time it took for my heart to beat thrice—my father, mother, older brother, and sister—everyone I’d cared about was killed, obliterated from my life, changing me forever. Transforming me into the man I was today—a king without a heart. A fae who would never be so weak and foolish as to love anything or anyone again.

For indeed, love was the worst, most insidious of weaknesses.

“Remember,” said Stormur, gripping my arm, “your parents chose to ride in an unmarked carriage that day. The gold raiders assumed it carried valuable cargo. And the humans responsible have been punished. Quite severely.”

Yes, indeed they were. I remembered it well—the power of the storm moving through me and the smell of scorched flesh as it burned off their bones. Days later, the scent was still with me, in my nose, on my skin, as difficult to eradicate as the guilt that had infected me because I’d survived and my family had not.

“Your father went against my advice that day, and you, Arrow, to avoid a similar fate, vowed you never would. Wearing a crown of anger and guilt does not serve you.”

I took a deep drink. “But being an irresponsible son, I chose not to join them and, instead, rode with Raiden at the back of the procession. Perhaps if I’d been with them I—”

“No,” barked Stormur. “You couldn’t have.”

Ildri tucked long red hair behind her ears and concentrated on her meal, wisely not giving her opinion on the matter. She was terrified of rousing my temper since it had scorched her so often in the dark days following my family’s death each time she had tried to console me.

Her son, Raiden, who sat on my left, leaned closer to reinforce his father’s point, recounting stories about recent sightings of gold raiders moving along the border between our kingdom and the Sun Realm, recruiting humans for future attacks on the mines.

“Arrow,” said Raiden, “if you show your face at the mines, even briefly, any reaver elves who had plans to help the humans steal your gold would rethink them.”

Those close to me assumed I had withdrawn from the Auryinnia Mines because I was terrified to confront horrific memories. They were right about my fear, but for the wrong reason.

I worried that when I saw the enormous golden columns that flanked the mountain’s opening, I’d do what the gold chasers had done to my family and turn the mine and every elf and slave within it to dust, singlehandedly destroying the source of our kingdom’s wealth, power, and supremacy over the realms. A fucking stupid thing to do.

I shrugged a shoulder at Raiden.

“Do you not believe me?” he asked.

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