Page 2 of Dark Sun (Wicked Lovely 6)

If only more of them would.

With more poise than she liked to have to use with him, the High Queen looked at Irial and repeated the same argument they’d been having since he’d learned of his children: “Thelma wasthe destined Summer Queen, and had you not hidden her away from Keenan and impregnated her, shewouldhave been queen. Ergo the crown could have moved to Urian or to Elena.”

“But Thelmawasn’tthe Summer Queen, so the throne isn’t theirs.” Irial kicked his feet out in front of him and pouted. He somehow managed to look like an indolent boy even after all these centuries.

Sorcha lowered her voice. “Do you thinkIforget, Irial? I saw you rescuing Thelma’s granddaughter. Moira was destined to take the Summer throne, too.Twiceyou intervened. Twice the world risked death because of your meddling . . . and the world was in peril becauseyoucursed the Summer Court. You are reaping the seeds you have sown, Irial.”

He had become far too used to a life where he got what he wanted—or some facsimile thereof--but Sorcha believed in balance above all else. There had to be a balance for the things he’d stolen.

His debt was past due, and they both knew it.

Irial switched to attempted negotiation. “Could you at least help me mitigate—”

“No. I allowed your rescue of Thelma, however dangerous it was. She was able to have time with you. She gave you children. I allowed her to live here to let you know her and your eldest child.” Sorcha couldn’t understand his refusal to at least attempt to be logical. “Children, Irial. You have children.”

“Children I didn’t recall fathering until they were grown,” he grumbled. “Had you ever planned to tell me?”

Sorcha laughed at his sullen expression. He was far happier these days, but a happiergancanaghwas still a dangerous creature. And she saw threads of how wrong things could veer if he lost his happiness. Niall wasn’t the only faery who needed the love the two men found with each other—and their increasing faery partner.

That’s a truth for another day, though.

Sorcha reached out, uncharacteristically, and took his hand. “You demanded my vow that I would not tell you until Elena or Thelma sought you out. Would you have me believe the rules of our kind no longer apply tome?”

Sorcha pressed the matter, enjoying his flash of genuine fear. She had no desire to bring about the destruction that would follow if she entered the mortal world, but it was nice to terrify him.

“To bring Urian here would require that I walk there.” Sorcha released Irial’s hand. “I suppose I could meet your Leslie, and that absurd Summer Queen who refuses to visit here, and Winter . . . It has been a moment since I saw Keenan or the new Queen.”

The former Dark King stared at her, silent now. She enjoyed his fear more than was strictly logical. Of all of their kind, she was the first—and since her twin’s death--Sorcha was thelastto embody pure faery magic.

As the first of her kind, she remade the world at a thought. Here, in Faerie, that was fine and normal. If she walked where the rest of her kind had fled, the human world, madness would consume their world.

So few humans remembered that magic was real.

So few humans saw their sort.

And so, Sorcha was bound to remain in Faerie, lest she release magic into the human world in ways that changed everything.

“The rules still matter,” Irial allowed, his voice a whisper of defeat that disappointed the High Queen. A part of her felt toppled toward dangerous whenbothIrial and the Shadow Queen were here—and she liked it.

For a flicker of a moment, Sorcha wanted to help ease his worries, tell a pretty lie that everything would be fine, but the future was as of yet undetermined. The best she could say was, “Your son cannot be trapped in Faerie, Irial, and I cannot advise you on what steps to take. I cannot tell you where he is. I cannot even tell you what choices to make. The boy has a right to his grievances.”

Irial took her hand. “As a friend and a parent yourself, can’t you offer me anything?”

“He’syourson, Irial. Maybe you ought to ask whatyouwould do in his position.”

The look of sheer alarm that met her hints was enough to make the High Queen sure that she had made the right choice. In his youth, the Dark King had no restraint, no awareness of long-term complications. He was id without conscience.

And his son was just as reckless so far.

ChapterOne

Katherine

Katherine saw the faeries. Every day, she saw the fey walk past her as if she wasn't worth noticing. Strange, lovely shapes and forms that seemed to defy reason, legs too long and skins too thin. She was enchanted by their curious shapes: feathered, beaked, winged, and the most peculiar of all--those who looked nearly human. Sometimes they were ugly in a way that seemed to wrap right back to beauty. Teeth and talons, wings and whiskers, bones bared to the world, hands red with blood, there was no end to the variety in the invisible things she saw.

And not a one of them seemed to recognize her.

They had no idea that she shared half her blood with them, that she saw and heard them.

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