I smile now, thinking about how both have repurposed their lives, helping the Dark Fae instead of being commanders for war. Adicus helped me train my own owl, Altenni, when I found her as a chick.
I miss her now with a pang that makes my heart clench.
But then I hear a familiar ruffle of soft feathers and a low hoot from a large truffle oak nearby. I glance up as everything inside me brightens. Altenni wings her way down to me on silent tawny wings. Five times my size, she still lands soft as a feather upon the ground as she flaps her wings and hoots at me, eyeing me with her big dark eyes as if to ask where have you been?
Everything inside me sings with joy as I reach up; petting Altenni’s neck feathers, I give her a good scratch, which always makes one talon go like a dog getting a belly rub. Then turning her head, she nuzzles me affectionately, rucking my hair up into a glorious mess as she preens me with her beak. I feel it as Alleno steps from the shadows of the cypress trees that line the field.
Something inside me eases to have my Darkwatch Shadow at my back, once more.
“Lucca.” Alleno’s voice is quiet as he stands behind me, letting me have my reunion with Altenni for a moment.
“How did you get Altenni here?” I turn my head now, looking back to see my cousin waiting in his silvery-charcoal assassin’s leathers in the darkening shadows. It’s nearly night now, but the human world doesn’t have a ring of white around the margin of the sky like the Twilight Realm. It makes the nighttime seem deeper, darker, as stars pop out far above.
Swallowing the sky.
“She found her own way.” Alleno steps up beside me now, smoothing his hand down my owl’s big wing as she gives him an affectionate bump. “Probably a natural portal between worlds, or a portal someone else opened, and she darted through. She came to find you. Must have done it the moment she felt you leave the Twilight Realm.”
“Crazy owl.” I nuzzle her feathers with my face and get more preening to my hair. “Don’t you know humans would freak out to see something of your size here in their world?”
“She’s safe enough here on Summers lands,” Alleno says as he strokes my owl again, admiring her. “Even the humans who work here know something isn’t quite normal with the Summers household. They’re all intensely loyal, however, and don’t talk about the strange things they occasionally see and experience here. Although I think Adicus’ formidable wards on the whole place probably prevent it, somehow.”
“Our old Darkwatch master, the Tempest.” I heave a hard breath, feeling like everything is so known, yet so strange, in this new chapter of my life. “He trained us both to watch over our charges, Alleno. And here we are… me still watching over Quinn, and you tailing me to the ends of the Earth and back.”
“You know I would go to the deepest Realm of hell and back for you, Lucca.” Alleno’s green eyes burn in the twilight as he sets a hand upon my shoulder, gripping it. “When I found out your father knew you were Dark Fae this entire time, and has been treating you like hell all your life because of it, and now what he’s done recently… to say I want to rip him limb from limb is an understatement. That would be too kind.”
I see Alleno’s fierce care for me and wrathful hatred of my father boil in his green eyes now as he professes his stalwart support of me. I nod, feeling the same as I grip his shoulder, grateful.
But my heart still churns—wretched, with everything I’ve lost.
“How bad is it?” I ask Alleno now, because only he knows what I’m truly asking.
“Bad,” he says with honesty. “Your rebellion is dead, Lucca. Though there are many who still think of you fondly with everything you’ve done for the Summer Fae, most of your high-level supporters dried up the moment your father pronounced you cut from the King’s line. You’re still born to a Royal House, but you’re in exile now; your father’s even put a price on your head, for anyone who has information on your whereabouts, to bring you in. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that you’re his son. Only a Dark Fae.”
“He never treated me like his son. Only a rival.” It is a terrible understanding, now that I know the bitter truth. “He’ll hold on to that throne until the day he dies. Nothing, and no one, will ever convince him to give it up.”
“I wish I could tell you that you’re wrong… but we both know you’re not. However… I don’t think all is lost. Despite your rebellion having fallen apart.”
“How so?” I lift an eyebrow at my cousin, as I see a clever gleam in his eyes.
“You know that blue mushroom blight, which took a significant number of fields and farms on the western reaches of Florence a few weeks back?” Alleno watches me with his cunning gaze, and I know something interesting is coming.
“Were the Dark Elves ever able to find a cure for that?” I ask now, cursing myself that I forgot all about it in all my drama with Quinn, Ariana, the Gold Eyes, and the Vampire Council.
“Better.” A subtle smile curls his lips. “Not only did they find a cure for it, but it was a remedy for the blight mentioned in an arcane Dark Fae text that finally cleared it up. The Dark Elves got some of the hidden Dark Fae in Venice to create the remedy, though the Dark Elves added their own ingenious touches to potentize it for mass use. The Rock Giants and Dark Elves made sure to tell every farmer and field hand exactly where the cure came from, however, as they were dispensing it to put on the fields and orchards. Now, there is an additional Summer Fae rumor mill going… that perhaps the Dark Fae are a missing piece of our culture, which we could vastly benefit from. That faction, upon hearing their beloved Prince is Dark Fae—the person who sent them so much aid in their time of need, not to mention invaluable help from some of the Forbidden Lineages—well, it’s got them stirring in a slow tidal wave to find you. And listen to what else you have to say.”
“The lower classes of the Summer Fae haven’t abandoned the rebellion.” I blink, as something inside me brightens at what Alleno said. Though it’s a far cry from the support I was mustering in the military, among the Magistros, and in the Royal and High Houses previously, it’s something that gives me hope now.
Assets we have not even begun to explore yet. Quinn’s statement earlier today lances through my mind, like a portent of things to come.
“Let me be clear,” Alleno says. “The rebellion of the Summer Fae Prince Lucca Bellari is dead. But support for the Royal Dark Summer Fae Lucca Bellari… is churning. And growing, as it whispers throughout the countryside.”
“What does that mean?” My brows furrow now, as what Alleno’s talking about feels like a dead end.
“It means, that for the first time ever, the Summer Fae know one of their most prominent public figures is a Dark Fae.” Alleno lifts a pointed eyebrow now. “Like in Vampire culture, there are those of us Dark Fae who still hide in plain sight amongst the Summer Fae, Lucca. Or did you think I was the only one?”
“I hadn’t considered that.” My eyebrows rise. “I thought my father’s pogroms would have driven all the Cuorante Dark Fae to their safe citadels now.”
“Some of us are still holding strong in high places,” Alleno says with a dark gleam in his eyes now, “precisely so we can get others out safely, those who can’t disguise their magic well. I’m one, and Bello is another. Us Dark Summer Fae are particularly strong amongst the Darkwatch and the Magistros. Two ancient watchdog organizations of the Sumer Fae, meant to serve our people and protect them.”