Page 1 of A Book of Royals and Deities

Chapter One

Page One?—

Within this book you will find the truths of the deities.

It all began in the Twilight Dynasty…

Ican’t read. It’s a sad truth, but as I stare at the endless books on display in the king’s library, oh, I wish I could. I might not be able to read, but I learnt the language of flowers, regardless.

Roses, red and bright as blood, are for passion.

The king regularly leaves them on my nightstand.

I regularly dream of throwing them in the fire and watching them burn.

But to do that would be an insult to my king, and an insult could mean a painful death for me when I’ve spent years doing everything I can to survive. I keep my soul alive by dreaming offreedom and of flying high enough in the skies that no one can hurt me.

The king throws yet another book onto the ground, making the fae workers jump before rushing over to his side, their brown cloaks rustling in the silence. It smells like them in here, the sweat on their brows and the fear lodged in their throats. A fae male comes close to grab the book off the floor nearest the king, but he doesn’t back away. Move. Run. Don’t say a word. I can’t voice any of the warnings on the tip of my tongue. He bows his head, but I already know the fae male has made a grave mistake and nothing and no one can save him. “Your majesty, may I ask which book you are looking for and I might be able?—”

The king lunges like a snake, sinking his teeth into the fae man’s neck, and the metal tang of blood invades my senses. Draining him, destroying him as he takes his life, and the man screams into the void of the library. I can’t help him. I can only look into his horrified and scared eyes as he dies.

I can only dream of a future where I might be able to save people like him.

But dreaming doesn’t work. Hope is fruitless in this world, and the fae is dead within a minute. The king releases his body, letting him drop unceremoniously onto the tiled floors with a thump that echoes. Right next to the scattered books the king has thrown. I don’t know his name, if he has kids or parents, or what his dreams might have been. It all means nothing to the vampyres, and it never will do.

No one else dares to offer the king help as he reads for hours, frantic and unhinged as he always is when he is around books. We stay long after the fae man’s blood has dried on his chin.

When he throws the last book, he stalks out of the room, and I dutifully follow him. He is fast, but he has always kept to a slower pace to almost mimic the fae he hates so much.

Except me. He tells me I’m more than the others. I’mdifferent.

I hate it. I hatehim.

My detest has festered for so, so long that it’s become my own private song, repeated over and over in my mind. It’s a song that I can never let come out into the open. I can never admit to the fire in my soul that wants revenge or even acknowledge my true feelings. I have to act like I’m in love with the king and want nothing more than his pleasure. The truth can’t be seen out in the light of the day, but there are those I trust in the darkness, like my sister and her husband.

The fact that the king likes me as much as he does is the sole reason I’ve managed to stay alive, and whenever I speak of him, I speak of love. The Valin lands of the south are brutal, and my childhood was worse than this. The orphanage where I grew up was not a kind place for pretty girls who had hair like mine and stood out in a crowd. The king did save me from it and gave me the opportunity to save my sister later on, when I became his lover at fifteen.

It doesn’t mean I truly love him. I can’t. Love doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t scar and bleed red. The king heads to the throne room with his red cloak trailing on the ground behind him, and any fae or vampyre lurking in the corridors quickly bows their head. The warm air is thick and humid tonight, and I can smell the sage incense that the king likes and constantly has burned throughout his home.

The throne room is old, revealing the past of this legendary castle in every direction I look. This is the only older part of Valin that the king didn’t destroy and remake years ago. The walls are the deepest orange and yellow; paintings of incredible sunrises fill tapestries that are hung between massive open archways that overlook deserts that surround the castle. The castle is made of sandstone, and despite its age, it is still rich with beauty.

The king heads straight to the glass jugs of blood. Blood from fae blood slaves like me. They just drain us like we’re nothing. Our blood sits on a table by the throne, and a fae stands nearby to serve. A nervous fae servant in a thin brown cloak pours a heavy crystal glass and hands it to the king with her head bowed.

I never know his mood or what causes him to lose his temper, but every fae in this castle knows, when he loses it, death is coming. He takes the glass and walks over to the throne, sitting on it like he does every single morning for a few hours. He sits in dead silence, and I listen to the wind for company. My own thoughts are something I like to avoid.

When the day begins, just when the dawn light casts through the castle and hits the throne, the king smiles. Maybe he was handsome once, and young and something else, because for this second of the day, I can see it. It makes him look vulnerable and I wonder if it means there is a way to kill him. The light makes it almost seem like the crystal throne glows orange and red. I don’t know why he is so fixated on this time of day, but I know better than to make a sound, to dare interrupt. Even his children and his queen don’t dare come in here at this time. He tolerates me here, as I go onto my knees, my red dress fanning out around the white stone floor, and bow my head on the steps.

I never liked the day or night, but there is something about the twilight of midnight that makes me feel alive for a second. The very opposite to this time of day. It’s the only time I usually get alone, to pretend I don’t feel used and broken in this pretty cage I call my body. If I was born ugly, perhaps I wouldn’t have been forced to this fate. The light makes the sun highlights in my black hair glow, and I almost enjoy that colour. Almost. It’s the same colour as my blood and the very reason I am a slave.

The throne room doors slam open, the echo of the wood creaking fills the silent throne room. My eyes widen as I watch Prince Emyr Valerian Vampirion, crown prince and heir to the throne, walk in with three guards trailing after. He is in red armour that glistens in the orange light, spread across his thick and muscular body. The crown prince is a pretty prince but empty. Cold and evil. There is something deeply wrong with him, and he gets it from his father. The guards shut the door behind him, and the prince walks right up next to me, looking at his father and standing on my cloak. From what I’ve seen and heard of the crown prince, he is every bit of a cruel psychopath like his father. The entire royal family is the same, and him being here can only mean trouble.

He usually stays in the dark lands of Nightwell, where he has a castle and a big city to rule. His name is never far off the lips of the nobles and royals at court, though. The prince who fell in love with a lessborn fae blood slave and declared her his. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t met her myself and saw how she is. Even I know Story Dehana is a force to be feared or loved. She escaped, if the rumours are right. Those rumours, or even mention of Story’s name, are dangerous. The idea of a favourite to the crown prince escaping is pure hope to all of the fae. But it’s true and everyone knows it. Story Dehana has become quite famous. Even a powerborn fae wouldn’t have managed to escapethe royals. A lessborn fae, who somehow managed to conquer the prince’s heart and then abandon him? She is now whispered of as a god walking among fae. I wonder if she knows about the far-reaching effects of her escape.

It was very embarrassing for the royal family. The king killed three hundred fae for sport to quell his anger, and I suffered many nights of pleasing his mood. The king looks at his son with boredom in his orange eyes, the dullness in them matching the sheen of his skin that looks more broken with cracks than my soul. His silver hair matches his son’s, but the king’s is long and braided down his spine, whereas the prince keeps it kept and short. “What do you want now?” He makes a point of looking around. “Unless you’ve finally found that runaway fae girl of yours. I want to meet her.”

I don’t know why he still allows the prince to have such freedom. If anyone else came in here, he would have beaten and bit them, whether they were his queen or daughter. But not him. For some reason, he manages to get past every rule with a charming bow. Emyr straightens his shoulders this time, and I wonder if he has finally found his limit with the king. “I need an army, and I’ve lost the city of Nightwell to our new enemies. I’m here to report to you what has happened.”

This catches the king’s attention. He looks around the room at the fae servants. “Leave.” I go to stand but the king shakes his head once at me, and I kneel. I’m surprised he is letting me stay, and I try not to shake with nerves as the room empties until it’s just us three. Me and the two most powerful vampyres in my world. “A rebellion?”

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