Maeve
The grand balcony overlooking the glimmering city of Moonrise spills soft light into the complex and lovely front garden. Beyond the tall, exterior castle walls, the city stretches under a blanket of stars, lights flickering in tune with my own heartbeat.
What a day it’s been. I’m not sure how I feel. Relieved that Brie and Kieran are okay? Yes, I feel that. Happy to be an aunt? Of course. Anxious about the future and what it holds for my sister and her son?
I look down at my hands as they curl around the railing then sink into a nearby chair and hang my head.
Minutes creep by in silence. The entire family is going to be gathering here over the next couple of days to celebrate Brie, Logan, and Kieran, and his safe, but early, arrival into the world. Yet, I feel shockingly alone as I gaze out over the city and the lake, which reflects the stars above like a pool of diamonds.
There will come a time when… I’m alone here. I know Grandpa and Grandma mean to move back to Veiled Valley. That was always the plan. It was their first real home together. They raised my mother there until this city–the city Grandma pulled from the lake using her powers–was ready to be lived in by all, not just the king and queen.
Veiled Valley is the ancestral home of Grandpa Ryatt’s people–the Shadowsyngers, and I know it’s been calling him back for many years now. They’ve ruled for over forty years… they deserve to rest, to just be Ella and Ryatt again, after all this time.
But that means the weight of the world they built will fall on my shoulders.
Brie told me once that I wasn’t ready to be queen. It broke my heart at the time–sliced me into pieces, actually. I doubt I’ll ever recover, but only because she was right.
I turned twenty a few days ago. It was a quiet birthday. For the past year, ever since Brie disappeared and the family dealt with the fallout of me using my powers to break a veil, KiloKilo taking that as an offensive move and promising war if anyone from the Allied Kingdoms ever came near their oceanic territory again, I’ve been keeping a low profile.
I stay in the castle. If I’m not here in Moonrise, I stay in the castle in Veiled Valley. I haven’t been seen in public, at least, according to the news outlets, for a year, and I mean to keep it that way until my coronation.
Footsteps echo nearby, and I turn my head as Blake steps onto the balcony, his violet eyes shining in the starlight. He arches a brow as he comes to stand against the railing, looking down at the city below. “You missed dinner.”
“I wasn’t hungry,” I murmur. “And since when do you show up for family dinners, anyway?”
“I just started to do so tonight,” he says. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
“You act like you’re allergic to our own family.”
“Maybe. I should probably get that checked out. I’m sure Cole could refer me out to someone.”
“Are you being… sarcastic?” I laugh, glancing at him.
He shrugs one shoulder, his eyes still downcast on the city below. I haven’t seen Blake in months, not since Brie’s elopement. He kind of just disappeared after that, but through the family grapevine I’ve learned he’s just a busy man. He’s an engineer, like his father. He often goes to the northern kingdoms, Celestoria and Lunaria, for work, but… he’s also staying out of the public eye–like me.
Yeah, it’s smart. Now that Brie's married, and the queen of her own kingdom, the tabloids are betting on who will be next–Me, Blake, or Aris?
But it’s not just the royal family who’ve been quiet lately.
“Is there any news on Hannibal Arachnis?”
He shakes his head, his eyes scanning the lake. “No.”
“There haven’t been any new assassinations, either. Not a single one in months. Do you think the Blade is dead?”
“The Blade?”
“That’s what the news called the assassin. I’m assuming it’s a him, not a her?”
“It’s a man.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugs again. “I may have used my powers to the family’s benefit to try to find him, but that’s about all I could see. Hannibal has powers, but no one is sure what he is exactly. A warlock? A wizard, like the royals in KiloKilo? Something else… like Gabriel of the Draven Coven, and the old kings of Eastonia, or, like Richard of the Arcane Umbra? Using stolen magic?” He licks his lips. “I can’t see him. He has shields around himself, which has made it impossible for any warriors from any army to locate him and his lair. His assassin is the same.”
“Could Hannibal be his own assassin?”
“No.” He answers quickly, sharply, before dropping his voice with a sigh, “No, he’s an old man from what we’ve been told by the cronies we’ve been able to catch and interrogate, but they’re all under his spell. His assassin–Blade, or whatever you want to call him–is young. Healthy and active. A shifter, we believe.”
“Well, there’s millions of shifters between the Allied Kingdoms alone, so that narrows absolutely nothing down.”
“Well,” he mimics on a breath, “it doesn’t matter anymore, seeing as there hasn’t been another murder for almost a year.”
“It matters to me. In two years’ time, I’ll ascend the throne, and therefore, this will be my problem, and I won’t be wasting time.”
He arches a brow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… I’ve given it a lot of thought–how I want things to go when I begin my reign. KiloKilo will bend the knee to me or else,” I say, holding up a finger, “I will break their veil and unleash hell on their capitol. Knowing what they did to that Alpha’s mate Brie and Logan are so close with, I imagine they’re hiding other atrocities behind that veil, and I’m not okay with it. I’ll destroy them if I have to.”
“Unprovoked?” he laughs, but I don’t find anything funny about the situation.
“They provoked me the moment their messengers told my grandparents and your parents they’d invade Maatua again if they felt like it.”
He smirks but still isn’t looking at me.
I raise a second finger. “Secondly,” I begin slowly, drawing out the word, “I’m over this Arachnis business. It’s tiring and boring, and I have plans to bring him to slow, torturous justice by any means necessary. I’ll sic every mystic on him and his people until they’re found, taking them out one by one until he’s the only one left, and he can no longer hide.” I turn to my cousin. “Anyone in my way will meet a swift end; that’s a promise.”
He looks at me, stars dancing in his eyes. “You want people to fear you?”
“I have already accepted that I will not be loved.” I bite out, the words sinking into my skin, the truth painting me like a tattoo, like a scar. “My reign will not be a merciful one. I will not be known for my kindness. I will be known as the first full-blooded Firestone Queen of the modern era, a Golden era for Eastonia, and I will ensure that, even if my name is written into the history books, naming me as ruthless, merciless, and bloody.”
I slowly raise my third finger, holding his gaze without blinking, “And thirdly,” I say in a whisper, “you will be serving as my second, my Beta.”
The corner of his mouth lifts into a disbelieving smirk, like he thinks I’m joking. “That’s hilarious. I didn’t realize you were so funny, Maeve. If this whole queen thing doesn’t work out, you could be a comedian–”
“I’m serious, Blake.”
He stares at me, his tongue sliding along his lower lip as he processes what I’ve just said to him–demanded of him.
“You’re going to abdicate your place in line for the throne of Crescent Falls, giving your spot to Liam. Let him rule. He’s a child of Crescent Falls. You are meant for more.”
“You forget who you’re talking to,” he sneers, chuckling darkly.
“I haven’t forgotten. I’m reminded every time I look at you and your mystical, all-seeing eyes that you are meant for Eastonia. Just like your mother. Just like what creepy little kids you’ll produce in the future. You are king of the Mystics,” I grind out, arching a brow.
“I am the royal prince of Crescent Falls above all else–”
“Wrong,” I demand, crossing my legs and looking up at him.
His jaw clicks as he frowns at me. I can feel that he’s on the verge of simply disappearing, going back to his darkened, unstimulating apartment high in the sky overlooking the city where he’s never once felt like he belonged.
“You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re going to grow up to fill your father’s shoes. You’re delusional if you truly believe you’ll marry some basic shifter and have children–heirs to that throne–boys who won’t possess your same skillset. You’re like me, Blake.” I growl, rising slowly from my chair. “Look at the rest of your side of the family and tell me the powers passed from our great-grandmother aren’t waning. You are the only one in that entire line, in our generation, who has power. Real, dangerous, power. Power that’s only going to grow, not fade, in the next generation, like mine. I will birth Firestone females–women who will eventually outdo me in power. Aris has more Shadowsynger gifts than my grandfather and his father have combined.”
His eyes narrow as I continue, “You are meant for more. You are meant for here. And you will be my second. I command it of you.”
“I will not bend the knee to you, Maeve. You are not my queen–”
“I will be.”
Silence settles heavy and thick between us. I silently dare him to challenge me, to try to prove me wrong, but he can’t.
“You feel at ease here. It’s why you spend so much time in Eastonia.” I step toward him, pressing a finger over his heart. “You run from Crescent Falls at any chance you get, and it’s not only because of Marianna–”
“Do not bring her into this.”
“Serve me as Beta of Eastonia.”
“No.”
I step away from him and sit back in the chair, gracefully crossing my legs while inspecting my nails. “Then we will go to war against each other. You can’t stand here and act like you haven’t seen that in your visions because I know you have.”
He pales but only slightly. I chuckle at the confirmation.
“See? We’re either going to be the greatest rulers Eastonia has ever seen or enemies. You decide, Blake, which tangled path to take. A mundane life spent trying to control your powers to blend in, or a life here, being what you were always meant to be?”
He turns away, resting his elbows on the railing, and sighs.
I smirk, knowing I’ve won.
Well, that’s a weight off my shoulders, another line to cross off the checklist of things I need to do before my coronation day.
“In the meantime,” I breathe lazily, closing my eyes. “I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Find the assassin and kill him.”
“What makes you think he’s the bad guy here, Maeve?”
I open one eye. “What do you mean? He’s a murder–”
“Every Alpha he killed had a seedy past. Secrets they thought would never live to see the light of day. Yet, in death, all of that information was anonymously released.”
“Well, five Alphas are still missing as well–”
“And they are the good ones, with families who then decided to fade into obscurity. Is that not strange to you? That their Lunas and children disappeared from the public eye in the wake of their absence?”
“What are you saying?”
“I believe the assassin is… working to undermine the Spider.”
“That’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t be able to do that by himself. He’s only one man.”
“How do you know he’s only one man? What makes you think he’s doing this alone?”
I stare at Blake, unsure what to make of his tone. “What do you know?”
“As much as you. Nothing. It’s just a theory.”
He turns back into the castle and disappears, leaving me reeling, and wondering, what our futures hold in more ways than one.