A Crown of Ice and Fury, page 45
part #1 of A Crowns of Magic Universe Series Series
Sayyida and I had left the deck in chaos and in our short time below decks, nothing had changed. Blood ran with seawater, fae fought fae, and there was no clear winner yet.
But if I left this ship, the pirates would have gained a valuable hostage. Who was I dealing with here?
Again, I cast a glance around. Save for giants, full trolls, and orcs, it appeared every order of fae was present, and despite their many differences, they all shared a commonality. A mark of three concentric circles was branded on each of their forearms.
Mentally, I ran through the house crests in my kingdom, and the most influential noble houses of the other eight kingdoms. I could not place such a mark, and as the fae carrying me launched into the air, I ceased trying to recall it. I shrieked as we landed heavily and the fae lifted me from his shoulders.
“Look what I got lads!”
Cheers rang in my ears as the oaf presented me to the pirate crew, a host of rugged and scruffy fae. I jerked, trying to fight out of my captor’s grasp, but this time, his grip was strong and unyielding. And as one of his colleagues appeared from the crowd with a metal net in his gloved hands, my mouth dried up.
“Iron,” the incomer hissed.
From the scarred markings on his neck and the broken way in which he walked; I assumed this male was some sort of water fae. Merman, perhaps? They could transform for short periods of time, though they did not walk smoothly, and the area where their gills should be resembled scars. “Stay still, girl.”
“No!” I screamed. “You can’t! I—” a painful cry tore up my throat as the iron weave net landed on my black wings, sizzling the flesh there.
“If ye stay still, it won’t hurt as much,” the fae that had taken me spoke. “Less places for da iron to hurt.”
I swallowed, trying to control the pain rooting me in place, and failing. Few races of fae could handle touching iron, and faeries were not among them.
So I fell in line. I stayed still, because moving felt like my wings were being simultaneously stabbed and lit on fire.
“Good pretty princess,” my captor growled. “Now, let’s get ye below decks. The captain will want to see ye. Prepare to leave.”
The crew dispersed, some rushing to the rigging, others to the bow, and elsewhere. My heart lodged in my throat as the antlered fae gripped me by the arm and guided me. Iron cut deeper into my wings with each step, and I whimpered.
“Soon ye’ll be locked up.”
“Great. Locked up and with iron draped over me. Can’t wait.”
He looked affronted. “We won’t leave those on. We’re not barbarians, we ain’t.”
I did not have the strength to argue. Under the stinging weight of the metal net, it took everything I had to walk across the deck to my prison.
“Prepare to retreat!” someone called out in warning, and my captor swore.
“Not yet!” he screamed back, stopping me. “We needs more time!”
I exhaled a shaky breath. I needed to get my head on straight and try to escape. Eyeing my captor sidelong, I took a chance.
“Take me back,” I wheezed the words, hating that they sounded so much like begging. “I can convince my father to pay you. Only you. But you have to take me back.”
The fae stiffened. “You think I’d mutiny against my captain? My queen?”
His queen? My lips parted. Pirates did not ally themselves to kingdoms, but this fae did. Where did they come from? Where—?
My thoughts stopped as my attention caught on the smoke crawling across the deck, swirling viciously. Others gave it space, as if they feared it, though to me it looked the same as the smoke the ship had been riding when it was transported from one place to another. The mage wielding it had to be near, though I couldn’t see them.
“We gotta move! Ye can’t be out here!” the fae rumbled and shoved me.
I cried out in pain and fell to my knees.
“Get up! Get up, Princess. I—”
“Stay away from her!” a voice I recognized yelled and suddenly the fae shepherding me below decks was on the ground, blood spurting from a wound in his forehead.
Shockingly, he rolled to his knees as if nothing had happened and sprang to his feet. “Harpy!”
“You’re going to wish I was a harpy,” Sayyida growled, and I smelled the fresh apple of her soap a moment before the veil of iron lifted from my back. I was free.
I gasped and spun, my wings still aching, but at least now I could move more freely without fear of burning them more.
Blade in hand, Sayyida slashed at the larger fae, the blows cutting into his chest, shoulder, and cheek in rapid fashion. Her long, dark hair flew around her, a windstorm of black tresses.
“Fly Saga!” she screamed. “Go back!”
“I-I can’t!” I replied. Merely stretching my wings to their full span was too much.
“And she won’t!” Another voice bellowed from behind.
I spun in time to find that Sayyida’s appearance had not gone unnoticed. Three male fae lumbered my way.
“Sassa’s bloody Blade!” Sayyida barked. “Enough is enough!” She pulled back and let her dagger fly. Before her opponent dodged, the weapon sank into his face. He fell, and my friend pointed at me. “Come here.”
I shot to her side, eyes wide. Was she going to fight off all three? Carry me back to the ship? That was a sizable risk with the others on her heels.
Instead, she did none of those things, and rather reached for the dragon necklace. “You owe me, Saga.”
She opened the locket and flames erupted. I shielded my eyes as a roar burst through the air.
“By the Faetia!” I whispered when I caught sight of a beast made of flame, a dragon, soaring in the direction of the fae who were coming after us. The monster opened its mouth and spewed fire so fast the opponents could not beat it. They went up in a blaze. The dragon pivoted and surged upwards, launching into a sail and then shifting to catch the ropes afire.
“Come on.” Sayyida hitched her arm around my waist. I cringed as she brushed the back of a wing. She caught the motion and gave me a regretful look. “Sorry, but we have to get out of here. The others are doing their best to regain the ship, and I have three in the air covering us. We have to seize the moment.”
I nodded, determined not to put us in more danger, and my friend gripped me tighter and lifted us into the air. Her wings strained under our combined weight, but turns of buffeting against wicked sea winds had made her a strong flier. Once we reached two of the fae she’d brought to cover her, both busy fending off more opponents, another sailor joined us.
“‘Scuse me, Princess Saga,” he murmured, as he helped Sayyida bear my weight.
I said nothing, too mesmerized by the pirate ship below. The fire dragon was one thing, but the smoke was also astonishing. Thick black coils of smoke that resembled snakes swirled over the ship and into the ocean, churning the waters.
“Is that helping them sail?” I asked as, despite its burning sails, the other ship moved to retreat.
“Who knows?! All I care about is getting you back to the Trana!” my friend replied as we descended.
Swift heartbeats later, we touched down on our deck. A quick sweep of the ship told me that the battle was over. We’d won, though not without sustaining injuries on both sides.
Hostages were present as well, bound with chains around their hands and feet, and seeing as they were all massive, they were giving our sailors a hard time of keeping them under control. Sayyida shouted a few commands to quell the unrest, and the sailors took to fulfilling them.
Feeling useless and achy and like nothing but a problem, I faced the sea in time to watch the flaming pirate ship disappear into a cloud of smoke, exactly the way it had arrived.
Chapter 4
PRINCESS SAGA
“Saga, come with me.” Sayyida snapped me out of the daze of watching the flaming pirate ship vanish as she took my hand. Her palm was warm and sticky. I looked down to find blood covering her fingers.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, guilty that I hadn’t asked sooner.
“None of the blood is mine.” She smirked. The expression was so familiar it made my heart clench. “It will take more than that to spill Virtoris blood.”
Cocky as ever, that was Lady Sayyida Virtoris. I snorted as she pulled me below decks. I thought we were going to the healer, but when we turned the opposite direction, my eyebrows lifted. Moments later, Sayyida slipped into her own cabin, the captain’s cabin. She shut the door behind us.
“On the settee.”
“You’re incredibly bossy.”
“I’m responsible for the Princess of Winter’s Realm’s wellbeing, so yes, I am bossy and will not apologize for it. Now, sit.”
Slowly, because my wings still ached, I shuffled to the couch and lowered, careful to keep my back from touching the velvet, bluish-gray cushions.
Sayyida strode to the side of the room and opened a cabinet to extract a bottle. “This potion will help your wings. It has to be applied topically.”
I tilted my head. “Why do you have it in here?”
“A leader sometimes needs to lick their wounds in private. If I sustained a non-fatal injury, I’d want time to think over what happened without others around, so I stocked up.”
She took after her mother in that way—proud, not wanting others to see her pain. Well, most others. As younglings, I’d seen Sayyida cry numerous times. It came with the territory of growing up together.
“Lean forward,” she murmured as she joined me on the settee. “I can get the healer, but he’s probably still working on your guard. Or my sailors. A few were injured. You don’t mind me doing it, do you?”
I swallowed. Parts of a faerie’s wings were sensitive, and others did not usually touch them. Exceptions existed, of course. As a royal, people often bathed and dressed me. And then there were intimate moments, none of which I had experienced yet at eighteen sheltered turns.
My cheeks flushed as I imagined Sayyida running her hands along my dark wings where they met my back.
“Not at all,” I choked out.
Her touch flitted over me, soft and gentle, and my marred flesh tingled beneath her ministrations.
“Breathe,” Sayyida whispered, and only then did I realize that I’d been holding my breath.
I exhaled as she gently rubbed the potion into my membranous right wing. Once she was done, she moved to the left. Where her hands touched, my wings tingled and tightened at the base. I hoped she didn’t notice.
“That was a lot,” I said when the silence and the sensation became too much.
“Being overtaken by a pirate ship? That’s every other day at sea.”
I snorted. “Sure it is.”
“We took care of it, didn’t we? No fatalities on our side, either.”
“A near miss.” Guilt that my guard had nearly died swept through me. He was hurting because of me.
Fingers wrapped around my shoulder, turned me back so that I faced her. “Sir Yagril wasn’t your fault. It’s his job to be there to protect you. He knows the risk. Everyone on my ship understood there was a risk in having you aboard.”
A sharp inhale sank into my lungs. “Are you saying that pirate ship attacked because of me?”
“That came out wrong.” Sayyida set the bottle of potion down and wiped the excess that coated her fingers onto her bloodied trousers. “They didn’t know you were here. They seemed surprised by it, but once they learned, their aim changed from looting to faenapping. And no matter which royal is aboard a ship, that’s always a risk. Even other members of the Sacred Eight are a liability—even me.” She trailed off, her lips pursed in a way that told me she despised that her noble blood was more valuable to a pirate than who she had become through her own sweat and tears: the captain of a royal ship.
“Vale would have been fine.”
“Your brother is a great warrior, but he’s no natural on the sea.”
That was true. Water was one of my older brother’s failings, a fact that his twin reminded Vale of at every opportunity.
“The attack was too fast,” Sayyida said. “You did your best. My crew doesn’t fault you for being taken.”
I nodded, still not feeling great about it, but willing to move on. “What do you make of the smoke?”
“Smoke? Looked more like shadows to me.”
Ice crept through my veins because, on second thought, she was right. Smoke would have smelled and been hazy, it would have thinned with the wind, but shadows lived by neither rule. These had been more a bending of light. Of space too, maybe, seeing as the boat had crossed a large distance in a second. I didn’t understand what I’d seen.
“How do they make them? There hasn’t been a Shadow Fae in so long.” And there shouldn’t be any at all . . .
“At least four thousand turns,” Sayyida agreed. “Perhaps they have a couple of mages aboard though. That’s not outside a mage’s skill set.”
Mage magic varied more than that of other orders. There could be many mages capable of making shadows. Sometimes I envied their magical order, and their ability to continue to learn new types of magic as they aged. However, the downfall to most mages was that they did not heal quickly, and they were not as agile as fae, vampires, elves, wolvea, or dragons. They relied heavily on power to keep them safe, and magic always came at a cost.
“I thought so too, actually, but I didn’t see a mage on the ship.” Amidst the fae they’d be noticeable. Most mages could easily pass for human, but no fae could.
“Seems more likely. Mage magic can move ships quickly like theirs did too.” Sayyida shifted in the seat and the gold glint of her dragon locket caught a beam coming in through the port window.
I motioned to it. “You never told me your locket did that.”
“This?” She fingered the necklace as though it were nothing and not the exact thing that had helped us escape. Her gaze dipped to pause on my lips. “Not anymore. It’s only supposed to work once. The dragon lord I got it from said to use it wisely. On a loved one.” She stiffened and looked at the ground, but there was no going back, no taking away what she’d said.
The words rang between us and the very air in the room warmed, became electrified. Though she could have meant as a friendly sort of love, her actions spoke differently. And so did the pounding of my heart.
Could it be?
Did I dare?
“Sayyida?” I whispered.
“I—that . . . I meant—”
Stammering. Confident, bold Sayyida Virtoris was stammering. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time because it became crystal clear she’d meant what she said, what she’d done.
She just hadn’t realized it.
Slowly, I cupped her cheek. “Thank you for using the locket to save me.”
Gray-blue eyes met my own, and the cabin’s temperature seemed to rise even higher. I leaned forward, closer to her.
Sayyida leaned in too and slowly our lips met, soft and exploring. Goosebumps erupted along my arms. I was kissing her—the girl I’d secretly fancied for many turns.
And it felt so right. So perfect. I wanted more.
I wanted it all.
Had anyone been around, I doubt we’d have noticed. The world became Sayyida and me, and unsaid words and unexplored moments come to life in a kiss.
But like all good things, the kiss came to an end too soon. Sayyida pulled away and we stared at one another, chests heaving, hearts pounding.
“Saga,” she whispered. “What are we doing?”
“I—I don’t know,” I replied, taken aback.
“You’re betrothed to my brother.”
The heady excitement crashed down to the depths of the Shivering Sea. The worst thing was, I could say nothing against her claim. It was true. The entire kingdom knew it. Though my brothers were older, I, alone of the Aaberg children, was betrothed because Father thought females were best for creating alliances and bearing heirs to tighten those alliances. My throat tightened.
“That’s arranged,” I whispered through the pain.
“Does that matter?” Sayyida rose, her eyes dashing to the window, the cabinet, anywhere but to me. She was looking for an excuse, and luckily for her, it came in the form of a rap on the door.
“Captain?”
“Yes?” Sayyida replied, tone too high to be natural.
“There’s been a problem.”
She straightened her hair and shirt and, sparing me a glance, strode to the door and opened it. “What’s that?”
“The captives.” His voice dropped, “they’re dead.”
“Bleeding stars! How?”
“They had poisonous crystals on them. Ate ‘em when their guard turned his back.”
“Did we get information from them before that?”
“Not enough to know who they are, where they came from, or why they attacked.”
Sayyida swore and turned to face me. “I have to go. Stay here as long as you wish. And use as much potion as you want.”
I studied her and the mask she’d been able to put on while I sat in place, frozen and exposed. And broken.
“Sure.”
For a moment, my friend paused, but then she exited the cabin.
I stared at the door, brokenhearted, knowing the only person I’d ever wanted had shut me out.
Finish the series with A War of Winter and Wrath!
The Nine Kingdoms of Isila
The Blood Kingdom - vampire
The Elven Kingdom - elves
The Winter Kingdom - fae of various races
The Autumn Kingdom - fae of various races
The Spring Kingdom - fae of various races
The Summer Kingdom - fae of various races
The Wolvea Kingdom - wolvea shifters
The Dragon Kingdom - dragon shifters
Each kingdom is colloquially described as a court, though technically, the court is a specific place or places in the larger kingdom.
Some kingdoms have additional names, such as the Winter Kingdom being called Winter’s Realm or the Dragon Kingdom being called the Kingdom of Flame.
