Gade
at the water’s edge. Surely you don’t wish to hide from me,” calls a voice, soft as the summer breeze and just as sweetly cloying.
I know exactly who that voice belongs to, and I definitely want to hide from her.
Scooping my sword from the ground, I duck behind a tree trunk and quickly tie my belt around my hips. When I glance up, she’s in front of me—Aer, standing in the forest, her impossible golden beauty shining as bright as the midday sun.
“Hello, Gade,” she says, smiling and blushing like the maid I’m well aware she isn’t. Far from it, for she is as old as the earth beneath my feet, more lovely than the sky, as tempting as a cool lake, and more terrifying than the wildest of flames.
“Kiss me,” she breathes, pressing her palm against my still-wet chest.
To balance my powers, I’ve bathed in the Lake of Spirits—the source of our kingdom’s magic—and now, the six-pointed star glyph on the back of my hand glows brightly, fully charged, Aer’s hungry gaze fixing on it.
“I knew you’d come soon,” she says, the thin straps of her creamy gown slipping halfway down her arms. “I knew you couldn’t stay away.”
A wry smile twists my lips. “Of course I couldn’t. It’s been a month since I last visited the lake, and my powers were ebbing.”
She steps closer, crushing pine needles underfoot, the smell invigorating. “How old are you now, Gade?”
Why she asks when she already knows the answer is beyond me.
“Eighteen.”
Her fair brow rises. “A man now, and so tall and strong. I predict that today will be the day you’ll finally kiss me.”
“You’re an Elemental mage, not a faery. Me dallying with you would be like a forest stag trying to win the heart of a princess in the highest tower. Or the dark sea longing to hold the moon in its slippery embrace. Ridiculous and impossible.”
The pine trees groan. Limbs and twigs snap as her gold eyes darken; the first signs of her anger. She steps back, her long fingers curling into fists. “I’ve been patient, young princeling. I have courted, and I have waited, and my desire for the great king you will one day become has been my only sustenance these long years past. And you repay my dedication and steadfast love with insults?”
A sour taste fills my mouth as I recall her past attentions, the lavish presents she gifted me each celebration of my birth, the precious jewels, the poems. The many times her regard made me feel akin to an insect drowning in a pot of the sweetest honey.
For many moons, I’ve thought nothing of her lingering touches, her heated stares. Why would I? She is a mage. I am a prince. Never in the history of Faery has one been interested in the other.
“Oh, Gadriel, how I tire of this game.”
“What game? If you play one, I do not know it.”
Her brittle smile twists into a snarl. “Are you really so naive, handsome Prince of Five?”
I’m not. It is only with Aer that I pretend to be.
Her knuckles bleach white around a thin branch as she snaps it from the ash tree behind me, leaning too close. “I am ready to be yours and can wait no longer for this to be done. But I can’t force you. You must choose me, and the time has come to do so.”
My frown grows. “Choose you for what?”
“To be your bride, of course.” A sly smile spreads over her face. “In all the seven realms, there is no one who will love you as I do. I shall be your forever queen.”
With those words, the first tendrils of fear snake through my stomach.
She is deadly serious, and a deadly Aer is a grave problem.
I draw a quick breath, then force a smile. “You’re an Elemental mage. It cannot be. What about your sisters? Think of Ether, Terra, Undine, and Salamander.”
“What of them?”
“It would put the Elements, no, it would put everything out of balance—the whole kingdom would be at risk. You, the air mage, cannot rule over your sisters. It is impossible.”
Translucent yellow eyes turn opaque, and she strikes, pulling me close as her sickly sweet lips coax mine to open.
The air mage kisses me.
Fingers digging into her shoulders, I shove her away. “I do not want you, Aer. What you wish for will never be.”
Thunder shakes the sky as her fury surges through the air, an acrid scent. I have made a grievous mistake. A terrible error of judgment. I should have taken more care with my words and let her down gently.
“I insist that you do desire me.” Her gown wavers then melts away, and she stands before me naked, her body luminous, glorious, and a bizarre contrast to the ugly contortion of her features. Eyes squinting. Brow lined. Teeth bared and elongating.
It’s such a strange sight that laughter explodes from me.
Aer’s gold eyes turn black as she covers her chest with her arm, and then the gown appears, enfolding her curves again. “You dare to laugh at me? You ignorant, ungrateful fool. Do you not realize I hold your fate in my hands?”
My blood rushes through my veins, and I shake my head, stepping backward. “Aer… You misunderstand…”
She opens her mouth, and a screech like the sound of a thousand wailing harpies shreds the air as I fall to my knees, clutching my chest.
Then there is only pain.
And more pain.
Agony is my blood, my soul, my very name.
I am agony.
“Aer…” The word croaks out of me, the taste on my tongue like bitter poison, thick as it slides down my throat. “What have you done?”
Silver fire licks over her arms, the wind whipping her hair around her shoulders like serpents seeking prey to strike. Purple clouds race above, then explode with a thunderous boom. Lightning flashes. The forest floor shakes.
“I curse you, Gadriel Raven Fionbharr and all the future heirs of the Throne of Five. In your blood, the blackest poison will bloom, gifting you the cruelest death. You will burn, and you will moan, and pray to all the gods that love will find you fast. Your pure heart will turn to coal heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath. You will hate and, finally, you will love, but find your true mate you must—or die a slow and painful death.”
My every muscle taut and trembling, I struggle to my feet and face her, my hand crushing my sword pommel. “You must truly loathe me.”
“No, fair prince, it is the opposite. I will love you beyond the veil to the depths of the underworld and back. This is the price you’ll pay for not surrendering your heart to me as you should.”
But the punishment isn’t equal to my supposed crime. Aer’s revenge is savage. Never-ending.
“Punish me if you will, but not the innocent souls in my line who come after me. In what way will my children’s children have wronged you? Your curse is unjust.”
“All is fair in matters of love and rejection. But I am not without mercy. You are the most fortunate of your line, for you will keep your Powers of Five. Future princes of your land will rule one element only, yet I’ll allow you to retain them all. See? Am I not a merciful mage, Gadriel?”
There is only one answer to that question, and she would not like to hear it.
“And you still live, Gadriel. I could slay you this moment with one breath, but I do not. And I’ve given you part of the key to easing your misery—to remain alive, you must find a mate before the poison has run its course. It won’t be an easy task because the mate I select may not be fae and may view you as a monster, just as you view me now.”
“Not fae? What else could she be?”
“Perhaps a troll. Or a human.”
“No, wait, Aer. Please do not—”
Closing her eyes, the mage begins to chant, softly at first, then growing louder and louder until blood trickles from my ears.
Through the pain, I can only make out a little of what she says: “Black will fade to gray, gray to white, and white to never. Never was the darkest taint and never will it ever be.” Then she mutters in a low, guttural voice, the words an incoherent song that splinters my bones and grinds them to dust.
Clutching my head, I drop to my knees again. “Please, Aer. Stop!”
The sky clears as she turns away, her billowing robes dissolving into the forest until only her voice remains. Floating on the breeze come whispered words of ruin—a halfling, a king, dark and light, and Faery born. They all mean naught to me.
“Farewell, Black Blood Prince, first of your cursed line. Your pain will one day cease, but your kingdom’s suffering will be endless. My gift to you is the Black Blood poison. This gift is your curse, and when your bones are ash, your son’s curse to bear, and so on and so on. Until the end of time.”
Like a volley of poisoned arrows have pierced my chest, agony shoots through my veins and settles in my skull. And then there is no Lake. No forest. No warmhearted Prince of Five.
Only blackness remains.
And then nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
