The Frey Saga Book VI Read online

  Feather and Bone

  Melissa Wright

  Copyright © 2019 by Melissa Wright

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art by Gene Mollica Studio

  Contents

  1. Frey

  2. Veil

  3. Ruby

  4. Isa

  5. Frey

  6. Junnie

  7. Steed

  8. Frey

  9. Thea

  10. Thea

  11. Frey

  12. Veil

  13. Frey

  14. Veil

  15. Frey

  16. Veil

  17. Frey

  18. Veil

  19. Frey

  20. Veil

  21. Frey

  22. Ruby

  23. Frey

  24. Ruby

  25. Frey

  26. Frey

  27. Frey

  28. Frey

  29. Frey

  30. Epilogue

  Seven Ways to Kill a King

  Also by Melissa Wright

  About the Author

  1

  Frey

  I had brought each of my Seven home from battle, alive and nearly intact, but it had not been without cost. The changeling Pitt was gone. We had destroyed him before he was able to carry out the worst of his plans, to unleash a darkness capable of destroying elves and fey alike. But I had made a deal with the fey.

  The first order of business once we’d returned from Hollow Forest was to place a new boundary against the fey. It wasn’t meant as a replacement for the one bordering fey lands but to be a barrier closer to our home—one to surround the castle. There would be no more nobbling of my guard to have them hauled across the kingdom.

  No one would touch Ruby again.

  “The eastern barrier has been completed,” Rhys reported, his cropped silver hair and guard-issue attire in perfect order. “Two more days, and the northern one will be done as well.”

  I nodded. “And what of the manuscript? Have you had any luck deciphering its symbols?” I hoped from the etchings on the cover and the details of energy transfer inside that it might give us some clue to aid in our quest.

  “I’m afraid we have not.” He gestured toward his brother. Rider slid a document forward on the long wooden planks of the library table. “We’ve found several similar etchings on one of Vita’s scrolls. We suggest submitting them to Junnie, as they appear to be related to her line and the light elves.”

  Anvil stood quietly opposite me, his arms crossed over his wide chest. There was something that felt dangerous about meddling in magics we did not understand. But I didn’t suppose there was much we could do to stop it.

  It was bad, and our prospects had only seemed worse the longer I’d had to think about it. I pushed down the fear of revealing my plan, because not doing so would risk too much beyond our own lives. “I believe we have more information than we realized.”

  My Seven, at least those who were present, stared back at me. Steed had fared well in the attack on the castle, and Anvil, Rhys, and Rider had come home from fey lands mostly unscathed. Chevelle stood beside me, but even if he was too stubborn to admit it, he needed time to heal from the battle in Hollow Forest. I swallowed hard at the memory, at the image of Ruby consumed by flame. She rested in her rooms, and Liana was tending to her wounds, which would take longer to knit back together. Grey supervised Liana’s care of Ruby. His wounds were more the visible sort, and together—I hoped—he and Ruby would soon be healed.

  I sat straighter, drawing in a steadying breath. “After the attack on Veil’s home, Junnie confessed her concerns regarding Isa. The girl apparently has a talent with the humans not because of her heritage or the crossing of bloodlines.”

  My guard waited in stillness, the consistent flicker of firelight in the sconces along the wall the only movement in the room.

  “Isa lives because Asher used spellcasting on her human mother while the child was still in her womb. It is how she was brought to term.” This much they may have known.

  My guard had tracked down the other of Asher’s children, the ones who had not been as lucky. They had found broken bodies destroyed by magic. It was the reason that so many disdained the crossing of the bloodlines. That kind of crossing didn’t work. It was wrong—not due to some simple distaste for another’s kind, but because what resulted was nothing but the deaths of the mothers who attempted it and the deaths of their children.

  “But that was not the only casting he performed. It seems Isa’s ability, her control over the humans, manifested due to Asher’s spellwork.”

  I let them sit with that, gave them time to take it in. It was no small thing. Each had been present when I had killed Asher, when I’d forced the human girl he’d been using as a broodmare to drive a knife through his ribs. They had heard Asher’s words, the spell he had cast with his dying breath.

  My forebear had given me the power he’d gained from his ancestors, the power he’d wrought with darkness and spells. It writhed inside of me even as I sat as Lord of the North. It was too much for one body to wield, and I was not Asher. I was only his half-human heir.

  “And now,” I continued, “Isa is safely away from Council and those who might do her harm at the revelation, but what Asher has brought upon us is not so easily undone. Junnie does not have the answers the fey want, and neither do we, but only two halfbloods survive. Only two of us live and breathe.”

  Anvil had always understood the significance of our being halfbreeds, and I suspected it was something Steed had considered of Ruby, but the brothers—born in a faraway land and only recently learning of these treacheries and the fey—seemed to recognize the importance of that connection right away.

  I restlessly tapped a finger on the hilt of my sword. “Ruby’s mother had apparently detailed the process in her diary, but that is gone, traded to Liana in exchange for Chevelle.”

  He was steady beside me, and I didn’t look at him when I spoke, but I was still annoyed that he’d bargained his own life away to get me out of my bonds.

  “Ruby has assured me that anything of import was long ago removed from its pages. That means only one of us has the secret to the casting that allowed Ruby to live.” Ruby and Ruby alone had memorized the passages her mother had written then destroyed them so no one else could see. “We may be able to use her knowledge to understand how the fey were planning to implement it, how to untie those bonds to the base energy beneath fey lands.” Once she is well enough to tell us, anyway.

  I cleared my throat. “Unfortunately, none of us knows the method Asher used to impart unto Isa the ability she has. No one but the changeling fey.”

  My guard let out a collective breath. The changelings had let loose a darkness that was eating away at the base magic—the very lifeblood of the fey—and none of us knew how to stop it. It was our most pressing problem.

  “And what do we know of the spellcaster?” Rider asked, his expression solemn.

  I glanced at Chevelle. He looked a little pale, but I assumed that was owing to the pain in his side. He stepped forward. “We have sent out scouts, and the fey have set a bounty, but no dependable leads have come to any of us yet.” He took a shallow breath. “The caster made an attempt on a Council head’s life. Junnie has set a vow to repay the debt.”

  Rhys shifted. “Has she healed from the attack?”

  Chevelle nodded. “Word is that she’s making arrangements to gather more trackers now.”

  Steed threw Chevel
le a sharp look. “The call?”

  “Yes. She’s reinstituted the calling, but service is voluntary.” His tone seemed to imply “for now.”

  None of us had much taste for the calling, a term of servitude put in place by the previous Council heads. Junnie had to take a firm hand in her new role as head of the light elves, but the fact that she’d resorted to falling back on old traditions didn’t bode well for any of us.

  “And what of our own?” I asked. “What news from the rogues and Camber, now that we’ve traipsed once again onto fey lands and into a plaguing mess?”

  Anvil’s expression was level.

  “Tell me,” I said, thinking that it couldn’t be any worse than the bargain I’d made with a fey lord.

  Anvil uncrossed his arms only to tuck his thumbs into his sword belt. “Your mother was a driving force in the events that brought about the massacre of the North, even if it was Council who cut down our people. Her sister burned and razed the villages and Council temples of the South. Between the two, they’ve done more damage than any fey war has ever managed.”

  I stared at him flatly.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “It certainly has not helped foster the idea that halfbloods should be allowed to live.”

  Let alone rule. “Will there be any open challenges to my rule?” I asked.

  The corner of his mouth drew down, leveled out. “Not if this is resolved before the fey cross onto our lands.”

  I nodded. “Then we will see that it is done.”

  The meeting adjourned, Anvil and Steed took up a conversation about the goings-on in Camber while Rhys and Rider went back to their research of the fey energy. I turned to Chevelle. His expression told me he understood that I meant to ask him to rest in our rooms but that he had duties of his own—a castle to run and a guard to oversee. I frowned. It was not the first conversation of the sort we’d had. “Walk with me, then?”

  He nodded, standing slowly before following me out. In the long corridor outside the study, our steps were measured.

  “This is not the first mistake I’ve made.”

  He kept his gaze forward, his tone steady. “There will always be time to second-guess your actions. What counts is that you make decisions and take action when it needs taking. No one can fault you for that.”

  “I can. And I do.” I ran a hand over my face. “I’ve put everything at risk, time and again.” I’d done worse—I’d made a deal that was terrifying in its open-endedness with a fey lord. All to save Ruby.

  We walked past ornate doorways, the crest of my line carved into metal plates over dark wood and woven into scenes on the tapestries. No one was left of Asher’s line but Isa and me. “Maybe they’re right,” I said. “Maybe I have no business taking his throne.”

  Chevelle’s jaw went tight, his gaze snapping to mine. “It was never his throne. He stole it by deceit and trickery by making deals with the fey.”

  My hand went up to gesture vaguely at his words, because I’d just made a similar deal.

  He shook his head. “It is not the same, and you know it. There was nothing honorable about his rule.” Chevelle’s tone seemed to add that there was nothing honorable about the man, either, but Asher was gone, and my second would not speak ill of him merely for sport.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing. I can barely keep my feet on the stone, let alone secure the entire kingdom.” I ran a palm over the leather at my hip, which was uncomfortably bare of staff or sword. “The right thing to do was let Ruby go. Let the fey play their games and strike them only when we were sure, when we had the upper hand and good standing.”

  Chevelle glanced at me.

  “I was weak,” I told him. “I was weak then, and I will be weak again the moment I’m tested. For any of you.”

  The words sounded too much like Asher’s long-ago warnings against my relationship with Chevelle, and he turned, taking my arm and drawing me to a stop beneath a pair of ornate metal sconces. “Caring about your people, your guard, is not a weakness. It is what makes you worthy to rule.”

  I cast my eyes down, and he tightened his grip, the act bringing my gaze back to his.

  “The lack of those very traits is what caused Asher to risk us all. He was the catalyst for this mess, not you.”

  I sighed, unconvinced.

  Chevelle drew me closer, his words a vow. “There is no other I would trust with untangling our land from the foul mire we are in. You are lord because you have earned it with your blood, your honor, your very life. I follow you—we all follow you—because you are the rightful lord. We trust in you. You are worthy.”

  My throat went dry at the conviction in his tone. “Even if I am…”

  He didn’t argue further, because I was right: there was no guarantee that anyone, worthy or not, could stand against the forces at play, let alone the strange darkness corrupting the fey energy. “You should eat something,” he finally said.

  I gave him a look. “Are you implying I’m ill-tempered when I’m hungry?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked, but he shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  2

  Veil

  Veil sat reclined in a vine-woven chair, its seat padded with thick palm-blossom bedding and scattered with pillows. He stared unspeaking at the changeling fey seated across from him, but she only watched as two of Veil’s attendants cleaned his skin with oils. He was shirtless, weaponless, and only partially healed, but everyone present understood that he was strong enough to kill her on a whim.

  His new attendant, Kel, brushed Veil’s amber wing, and Liana’s eyes roamed over Kel’s fingers as if counting the bones beneath his flesh. Veil did not want Liana there. He did not want any of them there, but his other home had been destroyed. The changeling Pitt and his vile spellcasters had destroyed the showplace where Veil had hosted guests. So he sat with his personal guard and the changeling Liana in one of the last secure spaces that had been unknown to his previous guard, the heliotrope warriors who had betrayed him.

  Liana’s lips tilted into a grin. “You look good with a solid brood on. It fits you well.”

  Veil rolled his eyes heavenward, but his gaze only met the dark wood of a tightly braided canopy. It was like being trapped in a cave, and there was nothing he could think of worse than being constrained by stone and earth.

  Cyren, the second of only two attendants Veil had chosen when the others had been removed from their posts, moved to clean Veil’s feet, but the fey lord gestured the pair away. The act felt too intimate with the changeling fey watching. Her black eyes made everything feel too near, too seen.

  The fey gave Liana a glance as they walked from Veil’s private room. Her answering smile was predatory. “They are quite lovely,” she purred as she stood, “though I can’t say their talents will be as useful as their predecessors’.”

  His wing twitched at the reminder, and Liana’s smile went soft. “There, now,” she said, “let me have a look at you.”

  Liana peeled back a layer of the leaves and bandages covering Veil’s arm, her dark eyes examining the wound as her careful fingers cleared away the ointments and tonic. She’d had to leave it longer than she’d wanted, she’d explained, because her bargains bound her first to the elven lord and her Seven.

  Veil had not believed Liana in the least, because the changelings always had motives beyond their word, but he had not pressed her. “And how fares the halfling who survived the fires of Hollow Forest?”

  Liana’s brow tilted, but she kept to her work. “She will live, should she not tempt the fates again.” She tossed a bit of frond and stitching over her shoulder then reached into the pouch at her waist for a thin vial. “She wakes occasionally, ranting of winged horses and flying elves.” Liana’s gaze brushed Veil’s.

  He did not respond.

  She let out a huff of air that might have been a laugh, had she bothered to spell it to life.

  “And what of you?” he asked. “Do you plan to tell me how you manage to draw on t
he base energy outside of fey lands?”

  Her fingers stilled, but only for a heartbeat. There was no other indication she’d even heard him speak.

  “As I suspected.” Veil glanced at the small table beside his reclined chair, which held the dark-red wine she’d laced with something for the pain. The decanter was still as full as when she’d left it. He would not trust anyone enough to fall into a state of distrait or into anything other than vigilance and allow himself to be caught. Not again.

  Liana tugged at his wound, and Veil’s finger twitched. “I cannot stay long,” she told him. “They will know where I’ve been. They have set a full guard on me and have the most vexing collection of sentries dropping in on me throughout the day.”

  “Where do they think you are now?”

  “Resting.” She met his gaze, the orange glow of the light flickering against depthless black in her eyes. “But that won’t last long. They’re constructing a barrier to keep out all fey.”

  Veil sat up. It pulled his wound. His skin felt of the burn of ice, and Liana pushed him back down.

  “Be still,” she warned. “We will work out a means around it. Even if it costs a bit of work.”

  Veil sighed, closing his eyes as the cool flesh of Liana’s fingertips grazed his skin. There was something unsettling, so unlike the other fey, about the changeling. He’d yet to distinguish what it was, exactly, and it was driving him to distraction.

  A sharp scent cut through his ruminations, and he opened his eyes to find she’d bitten into a caddlefruit. She held half between her fingers, pulling the other half free to rub over the edge of the wound. The pulp was deep red, dark, and pungent. He watched the color that stained her lips give light to her cheeks, trailing briefly toward the line of her jaw. It spread, flushing her skin as it crossed her neck and shoulders, dipping into the thin silks of her clothes. He wondered if she was toying with him. He wondered why he was bothering to look.