Darkest Mercy

“Good. Well, not good, but . . . I thought maybe it was me.” The Summer Queen blushed. “I’m trying, but I’m not sure if I’m messing up sometimes. He promised to help me figure this out, but I don’t know where he is, and I’m not even sure they’re mine to lead.”

“They are yours.” Donia narrowed her gaze at the doubt in Aislinn’s voice. “You are the Summer Queen—with or without a king, this is your court, Ash. They don’t make as much sense to me as Winter or Dark . . . or even the High Court, but I do understand faeries. Don’t let them see your doubts. Frighten them if you must. Wear whatever mask you need to convince them you are sure—even when you’re not. . . . Actually, especially when you’re not. Bananach is luring our fey to her, and we can’t be weak.”

As Donia spoke, slivers of ice extended into small daggers in both of her hands. It was instinctual, but it proved her point all the more.

“Right.” Aislinn’s expression shifted into something more regal. “It gets easier sooner or later, doesn’t it?”

Donia snorted. “Not yet, but it had better . . . or maybe we just get used to it.”

“How did he do it without the strength we have?” Aislinn asked tentatively, bringing him back into the conversation.

And to that, the Winter Queen had no answer. She shook her head. It was a question she’d been asking for most of her life. She couldn’t imagine dealing with her court with her powers bound. “Advisors. Friends. Stubbornness.”

“People who believed in him,” Aislinn added with a bold stare. “You believed in him enough to die for him, Donia. Don’t think either of us will forget that. If not for you, I wouldn’t be their queen, and he wouldn’t be unbound.”

At that, Donia paused and asked the question she’d wondered in silence: “Do you regret it?”

“Some days,” Aislinn said. “When I think about fighting the embodiment of war? Yeah, I regret it a little. Life was a lot easier when I thought all faeries were ‘evil.’ Now I worry about keeping them from dying, ruling them, trying to be a queen, and dealing with the impulses that aren’t me but Summer. Sometimes it’s like being me and someone else all at once . . . if that makes any sense. I’m not impulsive, or, umm, so concerned with pleasure, but Summer is—and I’m Summer. It’s like fitting parts of a season into me. You know?”

“I do.” Donia nodded as the ice in her hands retracted. “I thought the ice was going to kill me when I was the Winter Girl, so becoming a queen was a lot easier. I like the calm, the sense of quiet. Before, it wasn’t easy. I carried the pain of the cold without being at peace for decades, so being filled with winter and having the power to handle it . . . I don’t regret that—or the choices I made. Any of them.”

They stood silently for a moment, and then Aislinn nodded. “I can do this. We can . . . even with our mortal ‘taint.’”

Donia smiled. “Indeed. I will talk to Niall and Sorcha. Niall has a bit of sympathy for mortals—and for your court, however much he may try to deny it—so he’s been plagued by the same sort of unrest that Bananach has provoked in our courts. We can do this, Ash, without Keenan, without failing our courts or breaking under our natures.”

And in that minute, Donia believed it.

Chapter 4

Aislinn walked toward the edge of the park where her guards waited. She’d considered keeping them nearer to her, but she’d wanted to show Donia that they were rebuilding trust. Aislinn was still wary of the Winter Queen—and didn’t entirely understand why Donia had thought it was necessary to stab her last year—but she knew enough about the Winter Queen and Summer King’s love that she had resolved the stabbing as an act of passion. Aislinn understood passion. There were a lot of things she still didn’t grasp, but as the embodiment of the season of pleasure, she had no difficulty accepting that passion could make a faery impulsive, desperate, and sometimes utterly irrational.

She paused and looked at the trees that lined the sidewalk. They were still coated in snow, but spring was only a few weeks away, so she exhaled and melted the frozen branches. In these next two weeks, she’d continue to grow stronger, and as Donia wasn’t going to try to prolong winter, there was no reason not to begin warming the earth now. Her skin tingled with the realization that summer was in reach.

There was a strength in that if it was harnessed; she understood this now. These past six months that Keenan had been away—and Seth had been refusing her best efforts to be together—she’d learned a lot about being the Summer Queen. Accepting her nature was coming easier, and accepting that other faeries’ natures were foreign to her was becoming reflexive. In truth, she’d learned more in half a year without her king than she could’ve expected.

Unfortunately, she still didn’t have the confidence that echoed in Donia’s voice—yet. I will. Be assertive. Believe. She smiled to herself. Sometimes being a queen wasn’t that different from being a Sighted mortal: rules, reminders, pretending to feel differently than she did on the inside. And a horrible cost if I fail.

She had just stepped onto the sidewalk, not yet beside her guards, when a faery she did not know appeared seemingly from nowhere.

He asked, “Are you in need of escort?”

At first glance, she thought he was one of Donia’s fey, as he seemed as pale as the snow around them, but when she looked again, he seemed to be as dark as the sky at new moon. Light and dark shifted in and out of his skin, and his eyes flickered to the opposite of the hue his skin was in that instant. She furrowed her brow as she tried to study him.

Her gaze kept slipping to his garishly red shirt. It was hard to miss. Along with being an assaultingly bright shade of red, it clung to his chest and arms so much that it would look foolish on most people. On him, it looked natural. Despite the chill, he wore no coat over the thin shirt. She tried to lift her gaze to his eyes, and again, she had to glance away.

“You’ll get used to it in a moment,” he said.

“To what?”

“The shifts. I’ll settle into one or the other for our visit.” He shrugged, and as he spoke the words, he did just that: his skin became the dark of all colors combined, and his eyes blanched to a complete absence of color.

“Oh.” Somehow, she’d believed that she’d stopped being astounded by faeries, but she was at a loss. She tried to think of anything she knew that would explain him, but he was unlike any other faery she’d encountered—which wasn’t at all comforting. She offered a false expression, a surety she wished she felt, the confidence the Summer Queen should feel.

“You are safe. I came to your”—he gestured expansively— “village for other reasons than finding you, but I am intrigued.” The faery smiled at her then, as if she’d done something of which she should be proud. “I mean you no ill this day, Queen of Summer. If I had better manners, I would’ve said that first.”

No ill this day?

This far outside of her park, when it was not yet spring and she was standing in the cold, Aislinn wasn’t at her strongest, but she concentrated on summoning sunlight to her hand should she need to defend herself. “I’m afraid that you have me at a disadvantage. I’m not sure who you are or why you would be here.”

“Do you ask, Aislinn?” The faery caught her gaze. “Not many ask questions of me.”

“Is there a cost for asking?” Her nerves were increasingly unsettled. As a faery monarch, she was safe from most threats, but she’d been injured by two of the other regents—faeries she’d trusted—so she knew very well that she was not impervious to injury. Her first year of being a faery had made that truth very clear to her.

The second year isn’t going very well either.

The strange faery in front of her extended a hand as if to touch her face. “I would accept permission to caress your cheek.”

“For an answer?” Aislinn rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

“The recently mortal are”—he shook his head—“so brash. Would you refuse my offer if you knew who I was?”

“No way of telling, is there?” Aislinn turned and resumed walking toward her guards. The skin at the back of her neck prickled, but she didn’t feel like playing guessing games.

And I am afraid.

“If you allow me to cradle your face in my hands, it will not injure you, and I will allow two questions or one gift for the privilege,” he called.

She stopped walking. One of the detriments of being so new to ruling was that she had no favors to call in, no years of bargains to rely on, and—of late—no king with such connections to help her. If we are to fight Bananach, I have no secret arsenal. She looked over her shoulder at him and asked, “Why?”

“Would that be one of your questions, Summer Queen?” His lips curved slightly so that he looked like he would begin laughing in another moment.

“No.” She folded her arms over her chest. “You know, I’ve been fey for a while now, but faery word games still don’t amuse me. Later, I suspect I’ll understand this, but right now, I’m irritated.”

“And curious,” he added with a laugh. “I’ll allow one free answer. Why? Because the recently mortal fascinate me. Your king assured I had no business with the other girls when they became fey. You are here; he is not . . . and I am curious.”

“I’m not sure bargaining with you when you seem to want to so badly is wise.” Aislinn stayed where she was, admitting in action if not in word that she was willing to consider negotiation.

Don’t let this be a mistake. Please don’t be a mistake.

The faery walked several steps closer to her. “One question now, and one held in reserve. What if I know things you’ll want to know later? What if a question owed could be an asset to your court?”

“One question now, and one question or favor later, and”—she took one more step away—“your assurance that no harm will come to me by your touch . . . which can only last for less than a minute.”

He stopped a few feet from her. “I’ll allow the terms, if you allow me to escort you to your loft.”

“To the door, but not inside, and we walk there directly with no detours, and my guards will join us.”

“Done.” He came forward.