Fae's Power

Griffin O’Shea is Forgotten.

Maybe it’s a good thing no one outside the prison realm remembers everything he did to earn his place in the dark kingdom. 

Now that he’s back in the world of the Light Fae, he wants to earn their trust, their loyalty, and that means going after the missing prince and princess of Iskalt, children who call him uncle. It means searching through the human realm for a vanishing village only he can see and a book full of dangerous magic and devious secrets that are better left alone. 

With a human leading the search, Riona at his side, and a profound lack of magic, the chances of finding anything they seek have never been worse. 

But the odds won’t stop them. Nor will an illness threatening Griffin’s life. 

Even if he has to crawl through the portals and face the king of Myrkur on his knees, he cannot stop. 

Because there are things worse than death:

Watching those he loves die before him. 

Seeing the realms of the fae crumble into dust.

Returning to the prison realm means being forgotten once again. Returning without the book could mean certain death. 

But when all roads point to war, Griffin has no other choice. 

The king must be defeated. His vast army must be stopped. 

And this time, Griffin wants to be the hero instead of the villain.

I’m losing my patience. 

Riona read the words as they appeared in front of her, wishing she could wipe them from her mind as easily as she could from the spelled journal. 

I’m losing my patience. 

She knew what would happen to her and Griffin if they didn’t return to Myrkur soon. 

King Egan. He was the only king she’d ever known until stepping foot outside what the Light Fae called the prison realm. Egan raised her from a small child. He’d given her a purpose, a calling. And at one time, she’d loved him for it. 

Maybe not in the way a normal fae loves. She’d watched how Queen Brea looked at her children, the heartbreaking agony she’d felt when Callum O’Shea tore them from her. Riona had never felt that way about anyone. With Egan, she’d appreciated all he’d done for her and let herself be blinded, unable to see the cruelty. 

His words sent a shiver down her spine. 

Glancing toward the door of the bedroom she shared with Gulliver, she watched for any activity in the hall. She couldn’t afford an interruption now. Riona pulled out the inkless quill and began to write. Living her life without magic had left her vulnerable to awe. Like the first time Egan showed her the set of books that could communicate with each other. 

Despite the lack of ink, black words appeared as she wrote. 

This is not an easy task, sire. But we will not let you down.

She’d written to Egan every chance she got, telling him stories of the world beyond their borders where beauty was more than the stars in the perpetually dark sky. 

She stared out her window overlooking  the Iskalt fields. Children chased each other through the snowy courtyard, reminding Riona why she was still here. She cared—which was a new sensation for her. 

Two months ago, the twins of Iskalt were stolen away. In the aftermath, it was like Iskalt lost its soul. The entire kingdom mourned two royal children they most likely had never met. 

It was a far cry from Myrkur where citizens stole from each other, only caring about themselves. 

Riona wiped a hand over her words, and they disappeared. A knock sounded on her door, and she shoved the book under her pillow and stood, smoothing out the dress the queen had given her. The woman had even been nice enough to have it altered for Riona’s wings. 

Where did such kindness come from? 

Stepping into the hall, she found a grim looking Griffin waiting for her. He’d changed since the kids were taken. Even if no one here remembered him, he was still their uncle. 

“Have you been in there all morning?” He tried to peek around her, but she moved to shut the door behind her. 

“I needed a rest.”

He ran a hand through his unkempt auburn hair and pushed out a sigh. “I know what you mean. I’m exhausted.”

“Then why don’t you take a rest as well?” She studied him closer, examining the signs of his weariness that grew each day. Dark circles under his eyes. Pale, ashy cheeks. 

He leaned against the wall as if he needed it to hold him up. “I can’t. Not until we find Tia and Toby.”

“You’ll be no good to them half-dead.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. “That’s what Brea keeps saying. She’s become the voice of reason for the O’Shea men. Never would have seen her as the reasonable one.”

Riona wasn’t sure what to make of the Iskaltian queen. She was kind and thoughtful, but there was a layer of distrust beneath everything else. Life had made her wary, like it did for most fae, and losing two of her children exacerbated the feeling. 

“Griff.” Riona nudged his arm. “Was there a reason you came to get me?” 

“Yes.” His eyes slid open. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

Over the last two months, they’d made the jump to the human realm ten times, following leads that never panned out. It was hard on all of them, but they couldn’t stop. “I’m fine, but you look like you’re about to keel over.”

“That’s because I am.” He stumbled, and she caught him around the waist. 

“Come, you need sleep.” She tried to lead him back into her room, but he pulled away. 

“No, they need us in council chambers.” 

Riona sighed. Another meeting discussing leads and trying not to give in to the hopelessness of their task. The twins could be anywhere, and it wasn’t like the human realm was small. 

Taking Griffin’s arm to steady him, Riona led him down the long hall. And then another. And another. The palace of Iskalt was a labyrinth of never-ending stone walls, colorful tapestries, and elaborate carved doors and statues. Torches burned in brackets, lighting the way, and braziers smoldered in corners, warming the hallways. There were no windows this deep in the palace aside from the bed chamber that abutted the outer wall, and Riona had started longing to see the sun everywhere she went. As soon as their mission was complete, they’d return to the darkness of Myrkur, and the sun would be just another memory of her time here.

When they reached council chambers, the magnificent carved doors stood open, and voices poured out into the hall. 

Lochlan, sounding just as tired as Griffin, argued with a man Riona hadn’t seen in months as he’d chased his own leads. Finn, King Consort of Eldur, had refused to return to Iskalt until he had something to tell his friends. Brea stood across the table, staring down at a set of maps. 

“Lochlan,” she snapped. “You aren’t making any sense. You’ll be no good to the twins if you die trying to find them. Go.” 

“Did she just give a king orders?” Riona whispered. 

Griffin nodded, the first hint of a grin appearing on his face. It dropped when Lochlan stalked toward them. He sent an icy glare Riona’s way, and she felt it all the way down to her toes. The distrust. The King of Iskalt did not like her much. 

If only he knew how right that instinct was. 

Magic flooded Riona as she watched Lochlan walk away. Not her magic—that would require her to have some. No, this was by Egan’s design. A powerful spell. She’d seen him recite it once from a scrap of ancient looking paper he kept under lock and key. It allowed him to steal magic from the barrier, but as Dark Fae, she never understood how he wielded it. 

She held back the cry trying to push past her lips as the magic pulled at her, sending a searing pain into her chest. She dropped Griffin’s arm and backed away until her butt hit the wall. 

What would Griffin say if he knew? 

She betrayed him with every breath she took. 

Because Riona would always belong to the king of Myrkur, and the magic he’d placed around her like a noose reminded her of that at every turn. 

Brea spoke about something, but Riona couldn’t concentrate with Egan’s magic squeezing the life out of her. He wasn’t happy with her response in the journal. She closed her eyes, counting backward from ten. The magic loosened and faded. Egan never went too far to remind her she was his, at least not yet. 

Riona searched the room to make sure no one noticed her distress. Griffin gave her a worried frown, and she averted her eyes. 

“Finn.” Brea sighed. “You saw him. He can’t keep going on like this.” 

Finn scratched his chin. “Do you think he’ll actually rest?” 

“He needs to.” She shot Griffin a pointed look. “As do you.” 

“Not a chance. I’m ready to go back into the human realm when we have a new lead.”

Brea rolled her eyes to the ceiling and grunted a word that sounded way too much like “Men!” 

Riona moved closer to the table where maps were strewn over the surface. “This is the human realm?”

“Part of it.” Brea ran a finger over a land mass. “The problem is they could be anywhere. Callum is an O’Shea, he can open portals anywhere in the human world so long as he’s been there before. We don’t know where in Iskalt he left from. If we did, we could wait for him to return.” 

“Do we know how he escaped yet?” The investigation had been going on since he left. 

Brea nodded, her hand curling around the edge of the table. “My girl…” She sucked in a breath. “We think Tia released him. It may not have been on purpose, but there are traces of her magic in the cells. It’s the only logical answer.” 

Tia released her own kidnapper? 

Riona never wanted to feel for these people. She didn’t want to worry about Griffin or find herself thankful Gulliver hadn’t been taken along with the twins. 

Yet, here she was. 

“Do we have another lead?” 

Finn stepped forward. “Of a sort.” He scratched the top of his head where Riona knew a crown sat when he was in his home kingdom of Eldur. He’d married Queen Alona, but apparently these Light Fae royals just dropped everything to help each other. Who did that? 

“Finn.” Brea sighed. 

“Right, Lochlan dropped me in the human realm a few days ago after you all came back—in Ireland again. My time there was more enlightening this time. Humans chronicle every bit of history, including strange happenings. If Sorcha’s book has been in the human realm for a while, there would be evidence in the form of things humans couldn’t explain, a power they didn’t understand.” 

Griffin dropped into a chair near the table. He gave Finn a wary look. Was he another fae who’d forgotten Griffin? “What did you find?”

At first, they’d tried to search for the kids in the human realm, but they’d eventually realized it was a futile search. There was only one thing Callum would truly want—Sorcha’s book. If they found that, they’d find the kids. 

“I’m not really sure.” Finn rubbed his eyes before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded piece of odd-looking parchment. 

Riona stepped closer. “What’s that?”

Finn unfolded it. “It’s what the humans call paper.” He slapped it down on the table, making Griffin jump. 

A series of numbers stretched across the lined page. “I don’t understand.” 

“There’s a story most humans don’t believe to be true, yet they still documented it in the Irish archives. There is a local legend that tells about a small village that disappeared three hundred years ago.” 

“What do you mean disappeared?”

Finn fixed his eyes on her. “It’s just gone. Archeologists from all across the human realm have studied the location intensely, trying to figure out what happened. They never did. But stuck in between pages of an old book recounting the story of this village, I found these numbers. I don’t know what they mean, or really if they have any meaning at all, but right now, they’re the only clue we have. I think it could be a coded message.” 

Brea wrapped an arm around Finn’s waist and leaned into him. “Thank you for coming when we needed you.” 

Riona studied them, wondering how this queen could be so open with her affections. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Emotions were something to be contained and controlled. Egan had taught her that. Show someone your emotions, and you showed them your weakness. 

“You should go home to Eldur and my sister, Finn. You’ve done enough here, and she needs you.” 

No one argued with Brea, it seemed. She took careful care of many grown men—kings even—as well as small children. There was something so … human about that, at least what Riona had heard of humans. She didn’t possess an ounce of fae cruelty or wicked tendencies. She wasn’t cold like her husband. 

Riona looked down at Griffin, whose eyes hadn’t left Brea and Finn. He stared at them with a longing that tugged at her—this time without magic. 

Griffin wanted them to remember him, but she’d seen a reluctance in that as well. He’d told her enough for her to know he’d supported the wrong queen on the wrong side of a war. If the people he loved remembered him, they’d also remember everything he’d done. 

“I don’t think there’s anything more we can do today.” Riona gave Brea a pointed look before flicking her eyes to Griffin. 

Brea nodded. “We’ll come back at this with fresh minds tomorrow. Griffin, you have to rest.” She rounded the table and put a hand on Griffin’s shoulder without saying anything. 

Riona helped him from the chair, and together they went back the way they’d come. 

Riona pushed open the door to their sitting room to find Gulliver asleep on the settee.

Griffin sort-of smiled when he looked at the boy, his tail curled around his legs. “He has the right idea.” 

Riona led Griffin to his room before dumping him on the bed. His hand shot out to snatch her wrist. 

“Griff…”

“Please, Riona. Don’t leave.” 

She’d never heard such desperation in Griffin’s voice before. 

“I have so many images running through my mind every time I close my eyes.” He turned glassy eyes on her. “I can’t sleep in the human realm. I can’t sleep here. There’s so much at stake, and all I can see are Shauna and Nessa. We’ve been gone too long. What do you think he’s doing to them?”

Riona couldn’t leave him, not with a question like that hanging over him. Bending down, she unlaced her boots and kicked them off before climbing on to the oversized bed. Her wings curled in against her back, letting her settle on her side. 

“You’re afraid,” she whispered. 

He nodded. “I’m supposed to be finding Sorcha’s book, and we keep coming to dead ends. What if Egan decides enough is enough? What if he assumes we aren’t coming back, that we’ve escaped?”

The truth was on the tip of her tongue. She could never truly escape Egan, not with his magic in her veins. 

But she couldn’t tell him. 

“Shauna and Nessa are survivors, Griff.”

He nodded. “That won’t stop Egan. And now Callum has my niece and nephew. You don’t know the man. He is everything that is wrong with this world. I’m scared for them, Riona.” He didn’t mention the dream they’d all come to a silent agreement not to speak about. What brought Griffin to Iskalt so quickly months ago was news that Brea’s daughter was dreaming of him, of the prison realm.

Of the fact he was supposed to save her. Griffin didn’t say it, but Riona knew it drove him. 

She reached forward and put her hand over his heart. “Fear is the biggest motivator. We’ll find the children, and then we’ll bring Egan the book and save your family.”

His eyes slid shut. “But what if bringing Egan the book ends up killing us all?” 

A chill raced through her from the tips of her wings to her toes. She knew so little about magic, about this book, but what if Egan used it to start a war? 

The man sleeping beside her had done a lot of evil, and he was paying for it now. 

But for the first time, she wondered if they weren’t playing on the same side. 

Griffin would complete Egan’s mission, he’d find the book. She was sure of it. 

But would he hand it over to Egan? Or would he get them all killed?