These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)(119)
“Beautiful too,” Emmaline adds.
Why do I look so sad? Why do they sound so joyful? “Queen Arya,” I say, swallowing. “She passed while I slept?”
Emmaline’s eyes go wide, and she and Tess share a long look before she looks back to me. “No, no, milady. The queen is well. Prince Ronan will take the Throne of Shadows.”
I stumble backward until my legs hit the bed. I sink into the mattress, shaking my head. Oberon’s crown would have shifted to Sebastian when I died, but . . . “I don’t understand. I thought only a fae with royal Unseelie blood could take the Throne of Shadows.”
“Yes, milady,” Tess says. “And Sebastian is both Seelie and Unseelie royalty.”
Emmaline nods. “We were unable to speak of it until he wore his father’s crown and the curse was broken, but now we can celebrate who he is.”
“A joyous day,” Emmaline says, and all the other servants in the room chorus in agreement.
His father’s crown? Anger surges, even as I grapple with this information, trying to reorder the puzzle pieces, make sense of them. “I thought King Castan was the prince’s father.”
“King Castan, rest his soul, raised the boy,” a servant behind Tess says. She has horns, and her wide blue eyes glow like a summer sky. “But Prince Ronan is Oberon’s blood. Conceived in the mortal world during the eclipse, our prince brings day and night together. Light and dark. He is the new king who has been raised to unite our kingdoms.”
Sebastian is Unseelie.
He’s Unseelie, and he knew I’d die when I bonded with him. He knew I’d have no choice but to take the Potion of Life, even though I never wanted to be a faerie.
“A prayer answered,” another servant says. “He and his mother have searched long and hard for his father’s crown. Then he found you.”
“He . . .” I swallow, remembering his whispered promises to me.
I vow to do everything in my power to give you a good life. To make you happy and protect you.
He lied to me. Manipulated me. He let me believe that Finn was the only one trying to trick me into a bond, let me believe that he only wanted to love me, to protect me. “He knew.” My words are sharp and hard, but they don’t hold a fraction of the anger that’s surging through my blood.
“No one could speak of it until his father’s crown was returned to him,” Tess says. Her joyful expression has shifted to one of worry. “Should I . . . get him for you?”
“It’s time to dress now,” Emmaline says. She approaches me slowly, extending a hand like she might toward a frightened animal. “After the coronation, you and the new king will be married. You will be a beautiful bride and an honorable queen.”
Queen to a male who appeared in my life right after my mother’s protection ran out. To a male who’s been planning for years to trick me out of the Unseelie crown. A male who stole my power and lied to me about his own.
Something in my chest cracks open, and the servants scream as darkness floods the room. My darkness.
Sebastian may have the crown, but somehow this power—the power that came with Oberon’s life, with his crown—it remains my own. Magic is life. Life is magic. Maybe in choosing to give me the Potion of Life, Sebastian unknowingly tied these powers to me.
The servants scramble for light. Someone calls for the sentinels in the hall, but I silence their screams, wrapping them in shadows.
They expect me to dress pretty and show up to be his queen.
I am not a pretty thing to be manipulated. I am darkness, and the power rushing through my veins is stronger than ever. This is what it’s like to be fae and have magic. Magic is life.
And with the darkness swirling about the room and my shadows becoming one with it, I feel more alive than I ever have.
I walk past panicking servants, past guards scrambling to summon fae light. I walk past Riaan and the royal guard as they command light to fill the halls. I walk and watch their magic fail next to the might of mine. Rage pulses through my blood, demanding vengeance, retribution.
But . . . there. Beneath that rage is something else. An emotion that is not mine. A thread of panic, a tightening bond that tells me Sebastian will be turning the corner a second before he does.
Sebastian races down the hall, runs toward me. In the darkness I’ve cast upon the palace, the crown of twinkling starlight is visible atop his silver-blond hair. I see him more clearly now than ever, and I stare at the tattoos on his chest and neck. Dozens of rune tattoos I’ve never seen before. Another glamour. Another way to deceive the human.
He stops near me and spins in the darkness. “Abriella.” His panic hums in my blood. He feels me, but he doesn’t see me. I see him, though. I see him and I feel him. I am shadow and darkness and stronger than the girl he sacrificed for that crown. “Stop this, Brie. Lift the darkness. We need to talk.”
But he can’t make me stop. And he can’t keep me from walking away from the Golden Palace with nothing but my darkness and the betrayal that has wrapped itself around my immortal heart.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my writer friends, who encouraged me with this project—for squeeing with excitement rather than warning me off of diving into a new genre and for cheering me every step of the way. Mira Lyn Kelly, my bestie, my brainstorming buddy, queen of hair stroking and reassuring—thank you for being there for me while I drafted this book and for batting down my insecurities. Carrie Ann Ryan, Jeffe Kennedy, Kyla Linde, Lisa Maxwell, Meghan March, Sawyer Bennett, Zoe York, and everyone else I pestered when this story wouldn’t leave me alone, thank you for your enthusiasm. Thanks to Rhonda Merwarth, who provided feedback when this book was just a proposal. Thanks to my Goldbrickers, who blow me away every day with their work ethic and support. I am better for being around you all.