Page 70 of Flirting with Darkness

MISDEEDS

MAY SAGE AS ALEXI BLAKE

1

AEDRON

When first I return to my halls, I am a thing of shadow, thinking in deeds rather than words, and invisible to the eyes of my court. Between one thought and the next, my footsteps appear on the polished stone floor, covered in dark, vile ooze: the blood of the eldritch.

A pooka boy is first to notice; his mouth gapes and the beast in me catches the stench of fear. It likes it.

I like it.

I’ve been too long away, running with Calreth’s Hunt instead of playing the part of a civilized thing. The disguise of flesh is uncomfortable at first, but to preside over the unseelie courts, I must wear it.

It is time. The trials are coming, and none here but me has the slightest chance of winning them.

“Aedron!” the lord of flies breathes in horror and delight, just as the last of my flesh forms around my shadows.

The gray, stout powrie is a king in his own right, so while he bows, he doesn’t bend too low, unlike most in the great cavernous keep.

Silevra alone doesn’t think to present her throat, though I could have her neck for the offense. She’s too stunned and too hurt to think of deference.

I pardon her foolishness. One moment I warmed her bed, and before she succumbed to sleep, I was gone, and stayed gone for many winters.

“You’re alive,” the sea princess whispers, her honey eyes filling with tears—of rage or gladness, I cannot tell.

“Your lord leaves for three score years, and you presume him dead?” I laugh, strolling to the empty throne carved of bloodstone. “Ye of little faith.”

I sit, the cool stone accepting my touch even as it would have burned anyone else who’d dare to attempt to claim it in my absence.

Most lords of the courts similarly charmed their seats of power against usurpers, much to our sorrow.

High Queen Morrigan protected her throne, and her crown, and her scepter, and the red doors of her keep, and the waters of her lake and the fruits from the tree of knowledge. Nigh on everything in the Hollow that housed her high court was thus poisoned when she fell.

The heirs of her house long in vain attempted to open the doors, to coax the keep into accepting that their master has changed, but ever do they remain shut. So the high court fell. So the power of the Folk fades, because of magic none here can tame.

Since the end of Morrigan, it was decreed that every hundred years, there would come trials, to determine which house would be regent of the realm.

I ruled the civilized folk for as long as I could bear, though my spirit does not like to confine itself to the bounds of the courts. But I did not attend the last trials.

I expected that this here lord of flies, the great Grimgol, or Caenan, son of the sky and ruler in the icy mountains, or perhaps Silevra, princess of the treacherous seas, would win the reins of our world. Instead, the mantle passed to Valdred, a seelie princeling, green behind his ears and with too many ideas.

Valdred may be young, but he’s a redoubtable foe all the same. The blood of the eldritch flows in his veins, like it does in mine.

A hundred years, the courts have suffered under seelie boots. They meddle in all affairs, crafting laws and rules, seeking to make order among the folk, when order is against our very nature.

And so here I am again, to reclaim the regency for the good of the realm.

But first… “What does a king have to do get a drink in his hall?”

The horde of gentries, lords, and creatures of the wild howls and claps so loud I don’t doubt Valdred feels the ground tremble under his pointed boots, from his keep across the vale.

Only one can unite the unseelie courts under the mountain under one single cry.

He’ll know I have returned.

He’ll know his rule is ended, for I will bow to none but the high queen.

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