Page 60 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

All around, dozens of partygoers stare in bald-face shock. They’re human. That’s something—at least I’m not the only one. I spot Grand Cleric Beneveto in the crowd. Captain Tatarin, too. None of them seem surprised by the fae seated around the table.

I’m the only one.

I’m the only one who didn’t know.

“Tsk tsk.What a mess you’ve made of the feast in Thracia’s honor. If she were here, she’d be livid.”

I flinch as Whisper’s voice cuts through the air, his wicked smile curling as he plucks a fallen grape from its tray. As he pops it in his mouth, his chocolate-brown lips glowfaintly at the edges, connected to fey lines running across his face’s contours like crushed glowworms.

“You’re—you’re Immortal Samaur.” The words slip out, my breath catching at his terrible, ethereal beauty.

The certainty crashes over me. Whisper is the God of Day. Our convent’s copy of The Book of the Immortals showed Samaur as a white man with auburn hair, but that was an artist’s guess. No one has actually laid eyes on him in a thousand years.

Regardless of his appearance, there’s no denying his identity. The burnish on his dark skin is warm as sunbaked soil, and his blazing irises are the exact color and intensity of midday sun, so much so that I have to shade my face. Above all, there’s his defense of Immortal Thracia. Goddess of Night. His other half.

“And here we were feeling sorry for you for feeling unwell.” The man—no,fae—I knew as Ghost casually sips from a silver chalice. Long, white-blond hair falls around his perfect face, somehow even more beautiful now in its full fae glory. His eyes are the vibrant green of new-growth hemlock, flashing impishly beneath eyebrows that slope upward as sharp as a bow’s point. The tops of his ears rise at a sharp angle, decorated with a small pewter arrow piercing through his ear’s shell.

If his arrogant sneer didn’t give away his identity, the arrow piercing would.

“You’re Immortal Artain,” I murmur, the words like ash in my mouth.God of the Hunt.

When he lowers the chalice, a drop of blood stains his lips. Fear cramps my stomach.

Blood—like Iyre drinks.

“Guilty,” he says as he teasingly bites his pointedincisors against his bottom lip. “Does this change your mind about spending a night together? One night with a fae, and you’ll never be satisfied with a human lover again.”

I shove up to a seated position, knee knocking a boar flank off the table. The smell of roasted meat and sticky-sweet raspberry jam makes my stomach seize, and I dig the heel of my hand against my nightdress.

Even corsetless, I can’t seem to breathe. Panic sets in. My vision starts to blur.

Run.

Instinct takes over, and I follow the boar flank off the table, rolling unsteadily to a stand, my limbs still so clumsy from the fall that I have to brace myself against the table’s edge.

I glance over my shoulder at the doors.

Open. Unguarded.

“Sabine.” King Rachillon—no, not a king, at least not of humans—holds out his hand as though sensing I’m about to bolt for the door. His anatomical heart brooch catches the light, blinds me. “Breathe. Just breathe.”

The air is tense as poison gas. So many bated breaths waiting to see what I’ll do. I feel like one spark could ignite the entire ballroom into a fireball.

“I told you she wasn’t ready for the truth,” Iyre hums from her seat at the end of the table, barely glancing up from her meal. She plucks a glazed carrot from her plate and blows off the ashes, unconcerned by the wreckage I caused.

Captain Tatarin, dressed in linen trousers and a silken doublet, suddenly rushes up from the crowd to take my wrist’s pulse. Her lips move, but it’s like I hear her words through water.

“Highness? You’re okay. Hold on—let me see if you’re hurt.”

I barely register her presence as she checks for injuries. Her hands feel miles away. My mind spins.

Whisper is Samaur.

Ghost is Artain.

And my father isn’t just fae. He’sImmortal Vale—King of Fae.

I can’t deny it. The broad shoulders, the wild hair the color of honey, the quicksilver beard. It’s all there, this time exactly like the illustrations from the Book of the Immortals. But seeing him like this—not wearing King Rachillon’s delicate crown, but the heavy Battle Helm Crown from legend, forged of dark iron to resemble ancient Golathian war helmets—is too much. The weight of this truth presses down on me, crushing my lungs.

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