SEVERAL DECADES BEFORE
GODS-DAMNED FAE BASTARD.”
The Prince of Envy stared at the emerald feather that had just fallen from the unfolded parchment in his hand, heart thundering from the taunt. The area between his shoulders suddenly burned, the need to summon his wings almost painful.
That prick certainly knew where to hit Envy the hardest.
The spell tattooed across the feather glowed in invitation.
Be ready.
—L.
He took a steadying breath and glanced up, searching his reflection in the gilded mirror across the room, studying himself with the eye of someone who appreciated art, including the fine art of deception.
Outwardly his expression was calm, bored even. The portrait of royal indolence. His nearly black hair was combed perfectly, his cool, arrogant features set into that troublesome half smirk that easily won lovers to his bedchamber.
It was just another pretty deception.
Inside he raged, that emotion blazing so wildly that his brother Wrath, the king of demons, would sense the disturbance from his circle and eventually come sniffing around.
Envy had gotten good at pretending over the years; a necessity to save his court.
He knew what others saw when they looked at him, the mask he’d crafted of a handsome, devil-may-care prince who liked games and riddles. He understood that the well-dressed exterior and disarming dimples he rarely flashed were simply two more weapons in his arsenal. Clever ways to hide the dangerous demon lurking beneath his chiseled façade, the ruthless prince who’d long since lost any sense of morality when it came to accomplishing his goals.
Envy picked up the feather, his thumb brushing the emerald plumage almost in reverence, until that feeling gave way to something darker.
The feather was a reminder of the time his own edges had been more soft than hard, and the note itself was a warning that a new game was beginning.
Be ready. That at least was a challenge Envy intended to win. He’d been waiting for this game to start for more than half a century now, watching his court slide closer toward ruin every year. In being soft, in making that one mistake, Envy had damned them all.
That was a secret that wouldn’t remain hidden from his brothers for long, especially if things continued as they were.
Already the signs were clear enough, should anyone look closely. It was apparent in the way Envy’s courtiers grew foggy, or that constant half-second delay amid conversation. As if they couldn’t recall where they were or who they were speaking with.
Thus far it only lasted for a heartbeat, but it would worsen. Time would see to that.
And Envy knew that the Fae bastard would draw the game out, wait as long as possible to start, just to weaken Envy as much as he could. Envy, like all his brothers, drew his power from provoking his sin. And a court in peril was the envy of no one.
His court’s falling would toss their realm into chaos, leave an opening for others—like this devious game master—to try to infiltrate.
If Envy’s brothers knew how dire the situation was… well, he’d make sure they’d never find out. Let them think he was playing one more frivolous game, with nothing driving him other than his need to win to inspire envy, to stoke his sin.
They’d expect nothing less after all his careful maneuvering.
Envy stared at his face in the mirror one last time, ensuring that there were no cracks showing, no hint of his true feelings bleeding through his favorite mask, then tucked the feather into his waistcoat and crumpled the note in his fist.
When the time came, Envy would play the game. He’d reclaim what was his, restore his court, and he’d never endanger his circle by becoming intrigued by a mortal again.
Envy tossed the parchment into the fireplace, watching the flames destroy the letter from that cursed prick, vowing to one day see the game master reduced to ash too.
And just like the fire contained within his private study, inside Envy burned.
SEVERAL DECADES LATER
“Oi! Wanna ride the famed one-eyed monster that’s painted on my ceiling, darling?”
As Lord Nilar Rhanes stumbled up the dais to the throne, mocking the Prince of Envy’s legendary bedchamber art, he became dimly aware that something—aside from the obvious treason he was committing—was very wrong with him.
And yet, try as he might, he didn’t exactly care enough to stop his unseemly antics.
“Who wants to see if life truly imitates art?”
Rhanes pointed to the buxom brunette standing nearest.
For the life of him he couldn’t recall her name, which also struck him as rather odd. Deep down he felt as if he’d known her for ages and had never leered at her like some degenerate from House Lust, one of their rival courts.
Any peculiarity he felt swiftly vanished.
“You, there!” he shouted, voice booming.
Knees high, he pranced before the glittering throne like a proper fool, his legs seeming to move of their own accord.
“Come sit on my lap, love. I’ve got a mighty gift for you.”
Rhanes grabbed his limp cock, sending the ladies into titters.
“You’re a dead man if His Highness finds you up there!” Lord… whoever… called out to him.
Rhanes shook his head, attempting to clear it. He must have had much more demonberry wine than he recalled. Even in his younger years he’d never gotten so pissed that he’d forgotten the names of his friends.
They are his friends, aren’t they?
He glanced at the semifamiliar faces of the lords and ladies gathered—a drunken group of twelve, thirteen including himself. Aside from Rhanes, who wore red, they were all dressed in a deep hunter green. The colors and numbers both felt significant somehow and a bit foreboding as he noticed that the hour was nearing twelve.
Midnight.
Flashes from earlier that evening crossed his mind. He was almost certain he hadn’t started the night wearing the red suit—it wasn’t one of Envy’s House colors.
His pulse pounded as words emerged in his fog.
“Same lie Lilac.” The phrase was bizarre. He couldn’t recall whether he’d heard it before; he must have, though.
Everything in his head was jumbled and wrong. Except…
Something was happening in their court. Something spoken only in whispers, in shadows, then forgotten… but something was missing. Something vital.
Rhanes disregarded his worry almost as quickly as it had appeared, compelled to keep up his mockery as if he were a puppet whose strings were controlled by some unseen force.
“Come here, you little minx.” Rhanes thrust his hips, pretending he’d bent the giggling brunette over. “Forget the bedchamber, let’s make everyone jealous as you suck me off right here!”
“She can’t suck what she can’t find, now can she?” someone else heckled.
Rhanes squinted, unsure whether this foggy haze was real or only his imagination. A tall blond male with a razor-sharp smile cut through the crowd.
Recognition slowly filtered in. Alexei. The prince’s second-in-command.
If the vampire was here, His Highness was likely nearby…
A flutter of panic stirred in Rhanes’s belly before his attention was yanked to the sudden tolling of the clock tower’s bells. The witching hour was upon them.
Voices, hundreds of them, began whispering as each stroke of the second hand brought the top of the hour ever closer.
Are those memories? Are they purging at last?
Why had he thought such a ridiculous thing? He struggled to recall the last time he’d drunk from the chalice. Perhaps that would make this end. Whatever this was.
Rhanes covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as the cacophony grew.
The voices unified and that same odd phrase broke free, loud and clear.
Same lie Lilac. Same lie Lilac. Same lie Lilac. Same lie Lilac.
“Shut up!” he yelled, earning a few more jeers.
Rhanes cracked an eye. Bloody hell. He was drunk as sin. No one else was speaking now.
He staggered up toward the throne, willing to take his chances with angering his prince in favor of stopping the room from spinning. He just needed one moment of stillness, one beat to breathe, to think. If he could only remember…
Everything screeched to a halt the moment he sat.
Each lord and lady crumpled to an unmoving heap on the checkered floor, like chess pieces knocked astray.
A game. That had to be what was happening. The prince would know for certain. And Alexei would find the prince.
Rhanes stiffened, searching for the vampire, but Alexei was nowhere to be seen.
“What the—”
The bells stopped ringing. Midnight had finally come.
Dark smoke suddenly twisted up and around the throne, forcing Rhanes to hold his sleeve to his nose, eyes stinging. He searched out the source and caught sight of himself in a mirror across the chamber, his mouth falling open in horror.
Half the throne was untouched and the other half, the part where he sat, now chained by magic, was engulfed in flames.
He was burning.
Whatever fog had been hovering vanished and reality hit Rhanes hard and fast. He screamed as the very real flames whipped him like a sadistic lover, melting his flesh.
He wanted to save himself, run far from the deadly flames, but for some reason, all he could scream was “SAME LIE LILAC!”
As the blessed darkness of unconsciousness slowly descended, Rhanes could have sworn the prince finally emerged from the shadows, emerald eyes glittering.
A tiny spark of hope lit within him. The prince was stronger, he’d resist the madness before they were all damned. He had to.
“Same lie. Lilac,” Rhanes whimpered.
Same lie Lilac. Same lie Lilac. Same lie. Lilac.
The prince stood over him, merely surveying the scene, as if committing it to memory.
With Death hovering seconds away, Rhanes finally gathered the last of his will. “What… does… it… mean?”
“It means the game has finally begun.”
Anger flickered in the prince’s face before he strode from the chamber.
Soon Rhanes was alone. Or maybe he wasn’t…
He closed his eyes, his mind growing dark. Still.
Maybe Prince Envy had never truly been there and maybe he wasn’t burning on the Hexed Throne at all.
