Page 2 of Taken By the Shadow Prince

“Funny.” Mair shoots her a look offering her a not-quite-real smile. She leans back in her seat. “I’m suddenly very jealous of my father who no longer remembers he’s my father. I’d like to forget who I am and whittle my life away on chunks of wood in an old cottage.”

“Too bad,” Ellis says, cutting in with a wink. “You’re here for life, Mair. The only one of us who gets to practice their carpentry and live in a cottage after this is Finch.”

He chuckles. “Well, I think I’ll read. Whittling doesn’t interest me. But… yes, you do still owe me a cottage, my Queen. Preferably by the lake.”

We’re all doing our best to cheer her up. She’s scared, clearly, and who can blame her? It’s not her fault—not at all—but she did just become Queen, and now she’s faced with a civil war. I can’t imagine it’s a very easy thing to navigate.

And we’re all scared, too. In our own ways, but… terrified, that these lives we live, are coming to an end. That we’re going to have ruined everything simply by trying to save it.

That if we die, Aligris will, too.

Chapter 1

Mavey

a request

I wish Mair would permit me to brew a tonic that would give the soldier lockjaw, but I know without asking that she would deny the request, so I keep it to myself.

I don’t mind the rest of the team that has been assembled to come with me, though I find they talk much more than I would prefer.

The girl from Vorella, Kelsa, however, I do enjoy. Though her shameless flirting with Kal—the soldier I would like to subject to lockjaw—confuses me. Perhaps he is handsome, but there’s a cockiness in his eyes that has me wishing he was not a part of my team so that I could invite him to a fight. Show him that those muscles mean nothing if he doesn’t know how to use them.

Kelsa, when not flirting with the Iulean soldier, flits between Mair and I. It’s clear they share a strong bond, though I can’t quite figure out why. They’ve got little in common, from what I can tell. Mair is calm, calculative, an unmoving stone in the wind. Kelsa seems to bubble about wherever she goes, spontaneous and unimaginably creative, if I had to guess. More like a wave of water crashing against the beach.

I suppose I’m not entirely surprised Mair finds herself endeared to the girl, considering the man she plans to marry. Leven is clever, like Mair, but he is also so unserious in his temperament that I wonder what arguing with him must be like.

He catches my gaze. I am motioned with a singular, slender finger to join him and Mair. I glance around, assessing the room for potential threats, before following them to a dimly lit corner, away from everyone else.

“Hello, Mavey,” Leven says to me. “You seem in good spirits today.”

I cock my head at him. I’ve yet to figure him out completely. I think I’m missing pieces of him, but since I’m being sent away with brutes, I won’t have a chance to find them. “As do you,” I finally say, pressing my lips to a thin line. Pleasantries are a waste of words. Leven seems to enjoy them very much, especially when he doesn’t really mean them.

Mair says, “I—we—want to ask you something.”

“Will you be our third?” Leven interjects.

Mair hisses at him and smacks his shoulder. “That joke isn’t funny,” she says, but her lips are curling into a smile.

“I will do it,” I say.

“Be our third?” Leven clarifies.

“No,” I say, the syllable cutting through the air. No time for jokes in a world like ours. “I will do whatever it is you have really called me here for.”

“You don’t know what it is.”

I don’t blink. “You’re my Queen. I will do it.”

I think this sort of loyalty scares Mair, that she has a team of people who are wholly hers to conduct. But there is nothing I would not do for her, not after everything she has done for everyone else. If the soldiers she was asking for were to dominate the continent, or the entire world, then I would still be out at first light tomorrow, ready to gather them for her.

It’s good that she fears it, though—I would worry if I found she relished that sort of power.

“Mavey,” Mair says, voice tight, “Listen first, okay? I want you to at least give yourself the opportunity to say no.”

I nod, though I know just as both she and Leven do, from the glance they exchange with one another, that saying no is the last thing I’ll be doing.

“We’re going to need more people to fight than what we’ll get from the hidden villages. I know that, and you do, too. Leven’s family has agreed to provide support, but...we can’t rely on Iules. We need more. We need fighters strong enough to challenge the onslaught of fae.” Mair casts a glance around us and hesitates.

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