Melissa Marr - Radiant Shadows

Ani and Devlin both paused.

Rae looked at Ani. “You have a close bond with one of the kings, correct?”

“Irial, but it’s not a bond like we”—Ani shot a look at Devlin—“have.”

Slowly, Rae stood, keeping the illusion of solidity. “I can find Irial through you. Devlin can come into the dream too because I’ve already tied your dreams together. Let me in, and then we’ll all curl up to nap.”

The Hound frowned at them both. “Let you in where ?”

Devlin stilled. He hadn’t quite explained the possession detail to Ani yet. “Rae is incorporeal. Outside of dreams, she only has a body if someone—”

“Just Devlin so far,” Rae interjected.

“If I let her animate my body.” Devlin added, “It’s a not- unpleasant experience.”

“Not unpleasant?” Rae laughed. “He has a fabulous time, Ani, but he doesn’t like admitting how much he enjoys the freedom of sensation without responsibility.”

For a moment Ani looked at them both. “Huh. Here I thought the High Court was boring. Who knew?”

The tension that Devlin had felt building evaporated at the smiles on both Rae’s and Ani’s lips.

Then Rae was standing directly in front of Devlin. Her pupils were dilated with the usual excitement she felt at blending together into one body. “So let’s see if the Dark Court is resting.”

He looked at her, the spectral mortal who animated his body, and then at the Hound whose dreams he was tied to. “I’m not sure… it’s… I can go to the mortal world quickly, Ani.”

She took his hand and then looked at Rae. “Well? Possess one of us already.”

Rae laughed. “I think I’m going to like having you around, Ani.”

Ani’s answering smile was wicked.

And for a brief, nerve-racking moment, Devlin felt more than a bit frightened. He just wasn’t sure of whom. With as mild a gesture as he could, he motioned to his bed. “Let us dream of the Dark Court then.”

It was an odd sensation, though, to feel Rae within his body—yet still feel Ani’s presence. He’d gone from solitude, to hiding them, to coexisting with them. And I’m not sure which was most difficult. All he did know was that he couldn’t imagine life without either of them.

They followed the path created by Ani’s connection to Irial. In the dream, Devlin suddenly stood with his hand outstretched to the gargoyle on the former Dark King’s door. Ani was beside him, and somehow it was also her hand the gargoyle bit.

Inside a now empty white landscape, Irial stood. “Ani, love?”

“We need to talk to you and Niall,” she told him. “Can we… entwine your dream with his?”

The look on Irial’s face was one Devlin would prefer not to see near Ani, but it wasn’t directed at Ani.

“You have someone I don’t know with you,” Irial said, looking around as if he would find Rae. “Not faery.”

“A dreamwalker,” Ani admitted. “We really are here. You get that, right?”

“I do, pup.” Irial walked away. “I’ve not dealt with emotions this long to miss the taste of the jealousy your”—he glanced at Devlin—“partner is trying to hide.”

A semifamiliar room appeared out of the white landscape. A wallpaper of raised fleurs-de-lis covered the walls; flickering candles crowded the room in freestanding candelabras and in wall sconces. It reminded Devlin of a more decadent home of the former Dark King’s, back when Niall and Irial hosted feasts of debauchery.

Ani sat down beside Irial. “Are you well?”

“Well enough,” he muttered.

She lifted the bottom of his shirt. The skin was an angry red, with black bruises all around the remaining wound. It looked like it was only a moment or two healed. For a faery as strong as Irial, the injury should be almost gone—as the other one was.

“Why is this one unhealed?” she asked. “Iri?”

“Stop.” He took her hand and gently set it back in her lap.

The former Dark King leaned back then, as if he were uninjured. “So… can your dreamweaver leave a path so I can slip into Niall’s dreams later too?”

Niall walked into the room. “Perhaps you should ask me what I think of that idea first?”

“Aaah, there you are.” Irial greeted his king with shadows dancing in his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if you were finally asleep, Gancanagh . You’re fretting too much over things that are beyond your control.”

Niall stopped in the middle of the room and glared at Irial. “I do not accept that answer.”

Then, without another word to him, Niall approached the obsidian throne that appeared in the room, and Devlin idly wondered who was crafting the images in the dreamscape.

I am. From their various imaginings. Rae sounded fascinated.

He heard her laughter.

I am fascinated, Dev, I’ve never been able to do this. I wonder if—

Not an experiment, Rae, he reminded.

With more effort than he liked, Devlin walked toward the throne where Niall sat. Something in him rebelled at standing in front of that throne as if he were a supplicant. He wasn’t even sure what court he served. He wasn’t Sorcha’s advisor in his heart anymore, but he didn’t want to swear fealty to the Dark Court either. In truth, he served Faerie itself. Perhaps he always had.

Devlin stood respectfully in front of Niall, but he didn’t bow or offer any gesture of submission. “You need to return the Dark Court to Faerie.”

“No.”

Devlin pushed back his emotion as he’d done for most of eternity and added, “Sorcha is unbalanced. She wants to come here . Do you have any idea of what that would do to the mortal world?”

Niall—once an almost-friend to Devlin, once an almost-favorite of the High Queen, cherished of several courts—stilled. “Are you telling me what to do with my court, Devlin?”

Across the room, Irial tensed. He didn’t move, didn’t respond in any way that would draw attention, but Devlin saw the change. He knew the hope that led to such a movement. Niall had been a reluctant monarch. Centuries after Irial had first offered the court to him, Niall was finally the Dark King.

“I do not take direction from anyone, nor am I seeking your advice. I still have an advisor.” Niall’s attention flickered to Irial briefly. “Sorcha’s recent ailment is not my priority.”

“Would you sacrifice this world?” Devlin asked.

The look Niall gave him was disdainful. “Sorcha took my friend, made him her subject—”

“Her heir . Seth is far more than a subject.” Devlin still didn’t let his own anger into the words, but it was there all the same. Despite his eternity of loyalty, his mother-sister- queen had chosen a virtual stranger to be her heir.

“I’ve been heir to a court. It’s not writ in stone.” Niall gestured at Irial. “ He kept his court for more than nine centuries after declaring me his heir.”

“You refused,” Irial reminded. He came to his feet and took a position of support behind Niall. “If you recall, Niall, you refused being my heir.”

“Yet look at where I sit.” Niall didn’t deign to glance back at Irial as he spoke.

“Seth is her heir. He is the consort of the Summer Queen, friend of the Winter Queen, and brother to the Dark King. He’s not in danger because of Sorcha’s action. She saved him from mortality, gave him the strength of a king, and other gifts that are not mine to reveal.” In the moment, Devlin wasn’t sure who he resented more.

“She claimed him as a pawn,” Niall said.

Devlin didn’t argue, couldn’t argue. Sorcha undoubtedly had considered the ramifications of her choice when she made the mortal a faery. What she hadn’t considered was the way it would change her. The High Queen had made an error in judgment, and the cost was one to be paid on both sides of the veil.