Page 1 of A Deception of Courts

CHAPTER 1

The rancid stench of shit, ale and coal-infested smoke burned away at my nose as I navigated my way through the slums of Lockinge. Flies pestered me with their buzzing, but I’d grown far too familiar with their presence, I hardly bothered to swat them away.

With my head kept low and hood pulled over my brow, not even one of the human patrons – cursed to dwell within the city’s slums –noticed me. In their eyes I wasn’t out of place, and neither was the equally concealed figure at my side.

Nefarious happenings were expected in these parts of the human city.

The Cage, as the slums had been aptly named, was rife with strangers harbouring secrets and dangerous desires. No one looked for too long, for fear of being bottled by a drunk or captured by a vagrant, only to be sold in one of the many back-alley markets.

Although the dirtied streets and shoddy residences were full of humans at the best of times, the Cage turned out to be the best place for a group of fey, a mutated human, and a nest of assassins to hide out in. Which had been exactly what our band of unlikely allies had been doing in the weeks following the events with Aldrick and his demonic apparition of Duwar.

Hiding. Biding our time. Waiting for the moment to strike.

If Althea had gotten her way, we would’ve been back in Wychwood by now. Elinor Oakstorm, mother to the deceased Tarron and Lovis and widowed queen to Doran Oakstorm, had returned to Wychwood safely, as her letter four days prior had confirmed. Accompanied by Cedarfall guards, the Queen of Oakstorm was required back in her court. A court that’d believed her dead, killed by Hunters, many years ago.

Information my brief stay in Lockinge Castle’s underground prison had uncovered was not the case at all. Thatprisonbeing the very reason I’d yet to return to Wychwood.

Elinor’s return home had many benefits to our cause. Mainly to rally the aid we required in the human capital city of Lockinge. Which, to Althea’s great disdain, was where we’d been hiding after we had escaped Aldrick’s clutches.

Truth was, I slept better knowing Elinor was far from Aldrick. Her innate power of healing was crucial to Aldrick’s ability to mutate humans into powered beings. Without her blood, Aldrick couldn’t kill then reanimate any more unwilling humans, like he had done to Duncan.

Duncan. The thought of his name alone conjured the feeling of his calloused hands rubbing up my back and his full, wet lips tracing secrets into the skin of my neck.

Every day that passed only added to the ever-growing panic in my chest. I expected him to break beneath his change, but his resilience surprised me every day. The iron-willed Seraphine, our gracious host who so happened to be one of the lead assassins in the infamous Children of the Asp guild, had gifted him an iron bracelet – thin and delicate – much like the one my mother had left me as a child. It kept Duncan’s new power buried. But I could see, deep in his verdant eyes, it lurked. Waiting, like a snake, to strike.

Deep in the belly of the human city wasn’t the place for explosions of unnatural lightning. It would’ve given us away before we wanted it to. And the little time Duncan had without the band, his magic seemed to control him more than he had control ofit. I knew there’d be a time to understand what had happened to him, but untilmyplan was complete, those wonderings would have to wait.

A shrill cry of a bird tore me from my mind, back to the moment at hand. I didn’t need to look up to recognise the call. Lucari, Kayne’s hawk, sliced through the night sky, a smudge of grey and white against the backdrop of obsidian. The creature moved with such speed that the drunk men who sang from the steps of derelict taverns would blink and miss it.

Sober to the bone, I knew what it meant. Lucari’s two sharp calls gave an obvious message.

Our time of waiting was almost over, and the time for action mere moments away.

“You know, Robin, it is not too late to put a stop to this. If you tell me you have changed your mind, I will stand by you and help you come up with another solution.”

I peered to my side, catching the glint of bright eyes beneath the faded burgundy cloak. Even within the shadows, Althea Cedarfall’s presence burned as bright as the inner flame which sang in her soul. Cedarfall power – fierce as a raging flame.

She’d yet to reveal what she had promised the Children of the Asp in return for their help in rescuing me from the clutches of the Hand. Then again, I too had paid a price for their continued help – one I was not ready to reveal either. That was the thing about me and Althea, we were both as stubborn as a rock amidst a river. I was just thankful she was at my side tonight.

Sighing, I lifted my gaze to the dark outline of the castle far ahead. Lockinge was built on an incline of land. Seraphine had explained that the humans once believed the castle itself was constructed on an extinct volcano as a tribute to the Creator. A way of ensuring they were as close to his heavenly domain as possible.

Just the thought alone made me cringe. The castle was once a signal of faith and love for the Creator, but it now housed the one person hellbent on bringing forth a time of demons and their vengeful power.

“There’s nothing more important to me which would make me put a stop to these plans, Althea. We’ve worked too hard, I’m going to see them through.”

Her fingers snaked from beneath her cloak and into the sleeve of my under jacket, where she found my hand and held it. The moment of her touch was brief yet comforting. “This could end terribly; you understand the risks, don’t you?”

Of course I did. I exhaled, my breath clearing space within the dank, heavy air. “And it could also work. Ithasto work.”

When I slept, I ran over my plans. During my waking hours they lingered clear in my mind. There was not a moment of the day or night I’d wasted, always thinking about what waited before me.

“Your belief inspires me, friend. Let us do it. Not that you need a reminder, but I am by your side until the end.”

As I had said many times over the days, I repeated two words that began to lose all meaning. “Thank you.”

My mind, as it did during every moment of silence I was awarded, drifted to the warren-like caverns far beneath Lockinge’s castle and to the countless fey trapped there. How could I have returned to Wychwood knowing what was left behind? The answer was simple: I couldn’t.

I thought of Jesibel often. Her face burned hot in my mind whenever I contemplated giving up on my wild idea of saving all of them from Aldrick. She, like the others trapped within the Below, had been stolen from her home and used like cattle. All so Aldrick could see through his fucked-up wishes to create an army of powered human beings that would help bring forth a promise of a demon in a world that had turned its backs on its gods.

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