Page 7 of The High Mountain Court

“And what exactly is this mission?” Remy asked.

Heather put her hand on Remy’s arm again. Don’t push them, she told Remy with her eyes.

The prince dusted off his hands and sat, turning his back to the fire. Carys passed him a skin of water. He took it from her with a tip of his chin.

“We are looking for Prince Raffiel,” Hale said as if it were nothing at all that he was looking for the eldest child of the fallen King and Queen of the High Mountain Court.

Fenrin was the one to laugh this time, but when the prince gave him a look, Fenrin turned the laugh into a cough. Fenrin had never seemed so young compared to the warrior prince who sat across from him now.

“You are hunting for a ghost . . . Your Highness.” Fenrin added the title at the end with haste.

“Are you so certain of that?” Hale asked. “I knew Raffiel as a boy. We are the same age.”

Remy’s heart twisted at that. He had known him. She had known him too, long ago, when she was a little girl. She did the math. That would make Hale twenty-eight.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend, Your Highness.” Heather added a touch more gently.

“I do not believe he is lost,” the prince said, scanning Heather’s face. “You have heard the rumors as well as I, I’m sure. There have been whispers of Raffiel’s appearance all around this continent.”

“Whispers,” Remy said.

“Tell me, then, little witch,” the prince said, turning his gaze on her. “If all the High Mountain Court are truly gone, why can’t the Northern King wield the Immortal Blade?”

Silence stretched out between them. That was the question. With all the High Mountain Court presumed dead, the Immortal Blade was free from its blood bond with them. Any fae should be able to take control of the sword. It was a kingmaker, a death blade that, when mastered, could level entire armies in one fell swoop. The blade could kill from a distance without even coming into contact with the recipient of the blow. It was a ferocious magic. While it did not give everlasting life, like its name promised, it made the owner of the blade untouchable in battle. No sword could slay them. If the Northern King created his own blood bond with the blade, it would start a slaughter the likes of which Okrith had never known.

“The High Mountain bloodline carries on,” the prince said, confidently. “Many people have claimed to have seen Raffiel flee the flames of the Yexshire slaughter.”

Remy shuddered and tried to push the images out of her mind: the palace burning, people frantically pounding on barred doors, others leaping from windows. Some escaped only to be cut down by Northern soldiers the second their lungs breathed fresh air. Remy still smelled the smoke, still heard the screams, and still felt the weathered hands of Baba Morganna, the High Priestess of the red witches, pulling Remy away from the bloodshed.

“That was thirteen years ago,” Fenrin said. He shifted closer to Remy as he spoke. Remy realized the prince noted the movement, even though the only visible sign was his jaw clenching. “King Vostemur himself has been hunting endlessly for him, and yet he has not been found . . .” Fenrin didn’t finish his thought: what makes you think you will succeed when the most powerful man in the world has failed?

“The Northern King may be powerful,” the Eastern Prince said, “but he is also arrogant. Raffiel may be glamoured as a human or a witch for all we know.”

Carys chuckled as she sat beside her prince. Remy glanced at the two of them and wondered if they were together. She shook the thought from her head.

“We have no interest in hunting down Raffiel, and so he should have no reason to hide from us. Indeed, we want to help restore him to the throne. Why wouldn’t he reveal himself to his true allies?”

“Why would he think your words mean anything after thirteen years of waiting?” Remy said.

The blow struck true. She saw it on the prince’s face. Over a decade had passed, and the Eastern Court had done nothing to stop King Vostemur as he tracked down every last High Mountain fae and red witch.

“The wrath of the North was too great at first,” the prince hedged. Remy laughed bitterly. “Vostemur had raised the largest army the world had ever seen. He destroyed the strongest fae court in Okrith. Did you really expect us to turn that bloodthirsty army toward the East?”

Remy frowned. The Northern King would have leveled any opposition. Bowing to his power was a strategy for survival. Still, she begrudged the East, South, and West for their inaction. Even with all three of their armies combined, it would not have been enough to stop the Northern Court thirteen years ago.

Remy didn’t care. If her people were going to burn, then so should they all.

“His armies dwindle,” Carys said through the shadowed quiet. “There is not enough coin or conquest to keep an army that size. Many of Vostemur’s legions have disbanded, and he has turned his energies inward. If he cannot find Raffiel, then he seeks to undo the blood bond on the Immortal Blade.”

Heather gasped. “Can it be done?”

“The blue witches enslaved to the Northern King are trying. The King has been using the bodies from his red witch hunts to manipulate the magic.” Carys’s eyes slid to Remy as a sort of apology. She was speaking of Remy’s people. “But we know the remaining red witches are gathering.“

The prince held up his hand to cut Carys off, and she paused.

“We would tell you where they gathered if we thought it inclined you to help us.” His eyes swept over Remy. “But I fear with that knowledge you would run off to your coven and leave us behind.”

Remy’s hammering heart crept into her throat.

“The red witches are gathering?” she gasped.

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