Page 30 of Crown of Wrath

Da just smiles and walks around the fire to where I’m sitting, and he sits next to me. Cole moves to the other side of me at the table. “You know, when you talk to him like that, your shadows get darker. Remember that I’m married to a Lady of Shadows, so I know what that means.”

I can’t help but blush at the comment. I shouldn’t be ashamed, and coming from any other person in the world, I wouldn’t be. But my Da? So I say nothing at all. I’m sure that the pink in my cheeks says more than enough, though.

“I hear that you built this village,” he says to Cole.

Cole shakes his head. “My friends and I rescued a few people and set up wards to protect them from being found. We couldn’t have made these trees as large as they are or even really built the cottages. We just… kept finding people who needed a safe place, so we brought them here.”

Rivertail’s smiling from across the table. “I don’t think that you’re explaining well enough. You, Darian, and Lee rescued all of us from either unfair punishment or eternal slavery. A High Fae lady from the House of Earth decided that I’d looked at her lustily while I was in the market. I was, in fact, looking past her at the chocolate merchant’s stall behind her. Maybe I had a bit of lust in my eyes thinking about those chocolates, but it wasn’t for her.”

Da frowns. “You didn’t act on anything, though, did you?”

“I didn’t need to. Fauns and satyrs are considered lewd by the High Fae, only meant to be seen in brothels and other sexualized environments. Except that we have to eat, too.” Rivertail shrugs.

Lirael the banshee huffs, her thick black hair flowing in the air. “As if the High Fae are always so proper. The House of Shadows doesn’t wear any clothes at all. You can’t tell me that the way they wear their shadows wasproper.”

I think back to my midnight dresses and realize that I could have made them in any style, and after seeing some of the high fashion at the ball, I know Lirael isn’t wrong. “So you were going to be imprisoned?” Da asks.

No, that wouldn’t have been Rivertail’s punishment. “No, I was not,” he says. “Theladythought it would have been an appropriate punishment for me to serve her as a slave. She said that if I was that desperate for her, that she could teach me to use that lust in a useful way.”

Cole interrupts the conversation then. “The House of Earth was well known for their dislike for anyone outside of their House. They were just as quick to punish the Lesser Fae as the House of Steel are, except that they did it from a place of hatred, while the House of Steel does it from a place of power. I’m not sure which is more detrimental.”

“The House of Flames isn’t blameless,” Duncan the gnome says. He runs a small hand over a thick brown beard that hangs nearly to the ground. His eyes sparkle with youth, but there’s anger behind the light. “They may not believe in enslaving everyone, but they certainly don’t like any of the folk from the ground. Goblins, brownies, and gnomes are ridiculed and tormented simply because we’re smaller than you. All the High Fae push around the Lesser Fae, and if we try to fight back, we’re punished or killed. Present company excluded, of course.”

At the end of his tirade, he pulls his stocking cap off and balls it in his hand, exposing a bald head. He’s obviously nervous talking to Cole like that. I didn’t spend that much time with Duncan the last time I was in Aerwyn, but from what I remember, he was very deferential.

I look at Cole, whose eyes are cold and uncompromising. “You’re right, Duncan. The High Fae have forgotten the role they were given when the dragons left. Instead of protecting Nyth, they’ve become overlords. While I don’t believe there are any alternatives currently, a shift is happening. When this war is over, things will change. For the first time in almost fifteen hundred years, a new group of rulers will step up. My father will not be King of Flames again. Maeve will be the Queen of Earth, and by the end of the war, Gethin will be dead.”

There’s a silence as Cole’s statement of intent reverberates in our minds. We’re not just fighting to fix the world. We’re fighting to remove the corruption within the High Fae as well. I don’t think that’s actually been stated yet. I didn’t agree to fight against Gethin for the High Fae. The mess they’re all in is self-inflicted for them, but the Lesser Fae? The humans? The magical creatures? They can’t fight back, and I’m willing to step up for them. When this is all done, the world won’t be the same for them.

“Well, those are some lofty plans,” Da says. “It’s strange thinking about you doing anything more important than worrying about your plans for the day, Little Star. A week ago, in my mind, you were only eight. Now you’re talking about overthrowing the most powerful people in the world. In my head, you’re still my little girl, though.”

He has a smile on his face, but there’s sadness in his eyes. “I missed so much,” he finishes.

There’s no response to that statement that will be any reconciliation. Instead, I just put my arm around him and give him a side hug, reminding him he’s here now. He looks at me and smiles. “Even without me around, you turned into a wonderful young woman that I’m so proud to know.”

There’s a lingering sadness, though, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Chapter 15

What is a god, you ask? A god is a beingmadeof power. Power that was given to it by people and animals and the very world around it. A god is an idea made manifest, and every time that idea is thought of, prayed to, or feared, the god gains more power, becomes more real. It’s no wonder the Goddess of Death is so powerful.

~Maeve Arden, The Future of Magic and Dragons

Maeve

My father is not a genius, an artist, a warrior, or even very charismatic. There is one thing that he does better than anyone I’ve ever met, though.

Tell stories.

From the time I was a little girl until I sent him into the void, I remember the stories he told. There were gods and dragons, kings and princes and princesses, and little girls who didn’t go to bed when their father told them to. Iespeciallyremember those…

Tonight, he’s standing in front of the fire in his linen shirt and breeches, both of which are dirt-covered from a day’s work in the village. Sandor Arden is anything but regal, and yet, when he stands in front of the fire, no one can turn their eyes away from him. The only thing I can call it is stage-presence. It’s a way of being more than the storyteller. It’s about beingthe story.It’s about embodying these characters that are so large they take over, and that’s who you see in front of the flames.

For a people as long lived as the Immortals in this village, you’d think they’d have heard every story imagined, yet the same stories I heard as a child are fresh for them. The story ofLysara’s Lossis his current tale, and it’s obvious that they’ve never heard of it. Maybe it’s because Immortals seem to ignore anything to do with the gods, or maybe it’s because we want to hear about the story of a human becoming a goddess. Either way, it’s certainly a story only humans know, and tonight, the Immortals are getting a taste of a master storyteller doing it every bit of justice it deserves.

Using the fire as a backdrop is a dangerous business when the story is one of darkness and betrayal. My Da uses it to his advantage, keeping his face in the shadows and turning his body into a silhouette.

“Lysara was unlike the other gods of Nyth,” he begins. “She wasn’t created as they were. She was just a woman who’d been kind to someone no one else would show a pittance of mercy towards. In return, Eldrin, the God of Death, infused her with a spark of immortality. She was not made into a goddess, but shewouldn’t age. No sickness could find purchase in her, and mortal wounds weren’t quite so mortal any longer.”

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