Prolouge

Prologue

I am the queen of sometimes. Sometimes I am a wife. Sometimes I am a spy. It just depends on what time of day you catch me.

There is a story that sits in the back of my head, and I remind myself of it every time I lie down to sleep. It is the story that recounts everything I had, and everything I lost. It is not the story you know, about war and love. You believe in the tale of Catherine of the Willows, a part fae who fell in love with Edward de Vere, Captain of the King’s Guards. You al-ready are nodding, you know the story like you know your own face in the mirror. It’s been told to you thousands of times. Catherine and Edward fell in love. They married despite their love being forbidden. And then, when the story should have ended with everyone having their happily ever after, the unthinkable happened. Catherine was chosen to take the fae throne. And with that, came a terrible decision. She could keep her mundane life, her marriage, or she could sacrifice her identity and become the Sapphire Queen of the Fae.

She sacrificed. And as she rose, Edward fell. Tossed aside, he became
the tragic hero.

Here is the truth, if you would have it. There were three men who were like brothers: an inventor, a pirate, a romantic; warriors all. And there was a woman, Avriel, neither all fae nor all human, and she lived between the worlds of the human and fae courts. Avriel was the one who enchanted Edward, Avriel was the one he wed, and everything should have been the happily ever after of the stories: flowers and sunshine and perfection.

So why don’t you remember it this way? I don’t know. No one remembers. They know of these three men – Edward de Vere, and Merrick
d’Marison, and Stephan d’Valerian, and all the things they did. They sometimes remember the woman – me, Avriel, now a background character in a much grander story. But no one remembers the truth. In one brief moment everything’s changed, and I do not know how, or why.

All I know is that Edward, my husband and the love of my life, does not remember who I am. But that is not as bad as it would seem. For, you see, except for three blessed hours each day, from nine until midnight, I don’t remember him, either. Or, to be more precise, I don’t remember that he was once mine. He’s just an attractive soldier who once was the Captain of the King’s Guard but now fell from grace, and all I can do is hide in the shadows and long for him.

Each time the clock chimes nine, I remember what it was like to taste his kisses, to have him lean close and whisper in my ear, to fight by his side. I remember what it was like to be powerful and in control of my destiny, to have friends who respected me.

It used to hurt, the remembering. At first it would paralyze me. I used to think I was mad. I would sit in my room and stare at the wall, wondering what to do. There was no one to talk to, to turn to. Everyone had been taken from me.
Oh, I cannot lie. It still does hurt. But I force it away, and instead I consider the day behind me, and the day ahead of me, and I take out some paper and write down some notes. They are different, depending on what needs to be accomplished. I place each note where I will see it in the morning, out of sight of the mirror, because there is a fae courtier who controls me, who can see through mirrors, and who would not allow me to proceed.

One step at a time. We will solve this. I will have my life back.

Chapter One - Avriel

It was a beautiful day, the kind that seemed welcoming and hopeful. The bridges between the fae and human sides of the island were shut down, because today was a day of memorial for the fae people. The Queen of the Humans, Maud, had not been invited. No human was, save for the Crown Prince, Havelock, who had gone to live with the fae a few years ago, at the end of the war – a guarantee that the humans would behave themselves and not start another war. Sometimes the Sapphire Queen of the Fae would trot him out so all could see him. Like today, when the pair could be clearly seen among the magnificent display of the fae on the other side of the river. Huddled behind Queen Maud in a tight group of court ladies, Avriel craned her neck to watch.

“Where is she?” Queen Maud whispered.

“In blue, Your Majesty,” Flora, one of the ladies, ventured.

“I know that,” Maud snapped. “What else would the Sapphire Queen be wearing?”

Avriel narrowed her eyes. Even from a distance, the Queen of the Fae sparkled, as if a thousand stars were hidden in the folds of her gowns. Her hair glittered with dark jewels, her ceremonial mask covering her cheek bones, eyes and forehead. The outfit made her look like a porcelain doll, and not at all like the woman Avriel had known.

“She doesn’t look very somber,” another lady, Kate, muttered beside Avriel.

“Is she supposed to?” Flora asked.

“This is the ceremony to remember the Tree of Pearls,” Avriel supplied. “You’ve heard of it… it’s in the stories.” The stories. Of Edward and Catherine. They always made Avriel feel small and sad.

“I thought the tree was long gone. What are they doing over there?” Flora gestured to the fae gathered across the way. They were lined up, each throwing an offering toward the cliff edge. The place where, only a handful of years ago, the Tree of Pearls and its garden used to be. Catherine stood a few feet away, facing the twisted arch that used to be the entrance to the garden, so that the offerings had to be thrown quite hard to make sure they went past her and over the edge.

That is odd. Why not let them go closer to the edge? Perhaps it is unstable.
Avriel tried to follow the offerings over the cliff to the sea, but she wasn’t close
enough to see it. The number of fae – with wings, with bark for skin, in silks and in furs – was both beautiful and bewildering.

“The Tree of Pearls was real, and its roots reached deep into the key lines. The royals of the fae… ” Kate explained to Flora.

“Not the royals, the queens.” Maud interrupted. “They were all queens. The Diamond Queen was preceded by Citrine, Citrine by Opal. And on and on. The Tree of Pearls was the main source of their power and stability. When it was destroyed, it should have weakened the Queen of the Fae.”

“There he is, Your Majesty.” Kate placed her hand on the Queen’s arm, then pointed at Prince Havelock stepping to the front of the fae crowd, dressed in silver and brown.

“His hair is too long. It’s not fashionable to wear it that long anymore.” Maud muttered.

“He looks good,” Kate said. “Happy.”

Maud nodded, and turned to go. They all fell into place behind her. Avriel glanced back one more time. She caught sight of Baramis. Tall and swathed in black, he looked like a carrion bird considering what morsel to pluck next. He stood close enough to the Prince to push the young man off the cliff, and against
reason, Avriel felt nervous.

As if sensing her thoughts, he looked across the gorge and directly into her eyes.
He can’t possibly see me, she thought, and as if to prove her wrong, he bowed slightly before turning away. Avriel shivered, and hurried to catch up with the Queen’s retinue.

She was released as soon as the Queen got back to the palace. Avriel

felt out of sorts, so she wandered up the stairs, seeking the one place that always made her feel better. The Dragon Room.

The palace was a sprawling maze, built up over the years as monarchs added their own wing or changed the layout to suit their needs. As Avriel made her way through the hallways, she noticed the occasional patches of old stone work, peeking out of the more recent coverings of brilliant blue paint and white molding. In the gallery, she looked out of the long row of windows at the lush gardens below, and the palace wing beyond them that contained an elaborate chapel and a conservatory. Next to it, another wing, burned down during the war between human and fae, was still being rebuilt. From here she couldn’t see the outer palace wall, but she thought of the deep valley on the other side, and the citadel of the fae across the gorge, home to the Sapphire Queen and her court.
Before taking the throne, she used to be called Catherine of the Willows, and Avriel knew her well in those days. And then Catherine’s given up everything – her name, her family, her husband. Edward. Avriel wondered if she felt badly for Catherine, sacrificing everything for the right to be the queen of all the fae, her whole identity now reduced to the color of a gem, her face covered by a mask.

The Dragon Room was near the old gates. Many years ago this was the main palace entrance, away from the open front of the river. Envoys and courtiers alike once had to travel around a grand sweep of the road that was now the gardens. The architecture here looked older, marble giving way to wood paneling, wood giving way to stone. Some attempts, here and there, had been made to bring the interior up to modern tastes. But by the time Avriel got to the former front gates – tall, elaborately carved dark oak and iron panels opening into a hall with a sweeping double staircase – it was evident that the palace decorators had given up on the idea of change.

She looked down into that grand hall as she passed, running her hand along the ornate stone railing. The doors to the outside had not been opened in so long that the hinges and bolts looked rusted. They were
closed and locked tight the day the dragon egg was carted into the main hall and up these stairs, to be stored securely behind another set of massive wood and iron bound doors, which she approached now.

A pair of King’s Guards kept stations on either side of the door. The one on the left gave her a smile of recognition and bowed his head. His partner regarded her more suspiciously, probably checking for weapons. The heat that came out of the room was intense. It hit Avriel full in the face as she stepped in. She took a deep breath, the hot, damp air settling into her lungs.

The egg was centered in a pool of light, and it shimmered oddly, changing colors – more like a large opal than a carrier of life. Like all things made by the fae, the eternal light pouring over the egg seemed purposely designed to make everything it touched more beautiful.

Avriel walked around the egg. Its slightly translucent sheen made her fancy that she could see the dragon inside, curled up around itself, waiting to rise. But she knew that was only a trick of light.

As she circled, she noticed a man seated on one of the two benches in the depths of the room. Her breath caught as she came to a stop near him. Edward de Vere, former Comte, former husband of the Queen of the Fae. The one Catherine betrayed for the sake of her power, thus ending the greatest love story of all times.

Oh, dear.

He rose as she approached. Of course, a proper gentleman would never sit in the presence of a lady. She searched her suddenly empty head for something to say.
He was tall, her head just reaching the top of his shoulder. Not perfect, by any means. His hair was a little too long to be in fashion and his beard was in need of trimming along the edges. But his eyes – oh. Green, expressive, they held a melancholy even when he smiled, a melancholy that made the ladies swoon even as they vied to elicit a real smile from him. Avriel felt regret when they shifted away from her face to regard the egg, his expression unreadable in the red-gold light. She shifted her gaze too, to his black gloved hands folded over where his sword belt should be. Of course he would have left his sword with the guards outside. No weapons were allowed in here.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” His voice was like the semi-darkness they stood in: deep, unfathomable, warm.

Now is the time I prove that I am not a brainless idiot fawning over a handsome man. “It is.” She took a breath. “The colors are magnificent… unearthly.”

“Indeed,” was all he said, leaving her casting around in her head again for something that might pass for an intelligent reply.

“They say you are the one who found it.” It felt as if she was dancing delicately around the edges of something. Trying to remind him of one of his greatest triumphs, hoping she did not remind him of the failure that followed.

She was rewarded with a quick flash of a grin. “That I did, I and my friends. But you know that tale, I am sure.” He stepped toward her, and now, in the golden light, she could finally see his face clearly. Tired, but his expression was kindly.
This was Edward de Vere, she reminded herself again. The star of the greatest of all love stories. He could not regard her, a plain little bird, with anything more than kindness.

But why ever not? She smiled up at him, confident and sweet. “I would not mind hearing the story from the person who was actually there. The bards embellish so much, one does not know what is truth and what is embroidery.”
He smiled at that. “Perhaps. I…” He paused, looked at the egg again, then stepped back into the inky red darkness at the edge of the room and bowed.

“Perhaps it is best to leave such things for the bards. Forgive me, Mi’lady. I am late for an appointment.”

He walked to the stone bench he’d been sitting at, and she realized that he had not left his sword outside after all. Perhaps they allowed him to keep it if he promised to put it aside?

As he buckled his belt and swept his cloak around his shoulders, he said, “I shall tell you, though, to take care. They say staring at the egg for too long makes a person mad.” And with that, he put his hat back on his head, and left the room.

Avriel looked at the egg, then back at the now empty doorway. “Well, I feel like an idiot,” she told the egg. The egg, of course, didn’t
answer. But then, she always felt like an idiot when it concerned Edward de Vere.

Chapter One - Edward

I should never have stopped to look at that damnable egg, Edward chided himself as he strode from the palace.

He had gone to train with the King’s Guard as he often did, even though after three years of being expelled from their ranks it was still a less than comfortable experience. He wasn’t one of them anymore; not a guard, no longer a noble. A man who fell in disgrace and lost all his titles and wealth when cast aside by the love of his life. But what he was, still, even disgraced, was one of the best swordsmen on the field. And he was willing to teach, as long as he and his fellow friends in disgrace were allowed to continue training at the barracks. He loved the discipline, the sharpening of skills and the passing on of technique. It gave him some solace, even if sometimes things were whispered about him, even if eyes that were once filled with respect were now derisive.

The fall would have hurt less if he had not taken Merrick and Stephan down with him. His two closest – well, perhaps to be honest, only friends
stuck by him when others would not.

The fall. He winced when his thoughts strayed to it, the memories painful like a sore open wound that refused to heal. It all started with Catherine. He’d loved her – with all his soul, he’d loved her. She’d been funny, charming, gentle, and beautiful enough to make his heart hurt. If he thought about it too long he’d have to admit he missed her, and he refused to give her that. He stopped to catch his breath, tried to remember exactly what happened. Had the fall started when he and his friends had stolen the dragon egg in a last ditch effort to end the war? No. No. It started when Catherine chose to rise to the fae throne and become the Sapphire Queen. She divorced him in the most humiliating way possible. He never fully understood why she wanted to so utterly – and publicly
gut him.

And then he’d made some less than political choices. He went from being a Comte with his own lands to nothing. If you made him sit down
and try to figure out exactly why the King and Queen of the human court no longer welcomed him, he’d not be able to answer. Ruined by drink, perhaps, he thought wryly as he went on. The memory of his past was always a little foggy. Things didn’t always add up. When he tried to recapture it, to create a logical timeline of it all, it set his head to spinning. Ah well. Perhaps if I keep my eyes open, I will have my chance to redeem things yet. As long as there is life, there is hope. But he didn’t really believe it. Instead, he strode down the hill from the palace, letting the slope do the work as he thought of Lady Avriel.

There was something about her that he liked. He clearly remembered each time they had spoken – perhaps not that much of a miracle, considering that interactions between court ladies and former members of the King’s Guard were rare. Had he ever seen her before the war? It seemed to him that he should have, but he could not bring her to mind. He wasn’t quite certain what was it that he liked about her. Of course she was pretty – quite so. And sweet-natured – he’d seen her handle some of the less kindly ladies of the court with tact and gentleness. She had sharp wit too, like a knife concealed in a bodice, ready to cut, if needed. But none of it was the reason. There was something quiet about her. When he was with her, his mind fell silent. The strange, constant melody that seemed to always be in his head – the song that ground away at him in snatches and pieces day and night – went away, and he felt like himself again.
Dangerous, that. You might become addicted. He grinned humorlessly.

He put these thoughts aside as he worked his way down through the layers of the town, past Stephan’s warehouse, where even now his friend was tinkering with inventions he hoped to someday sell, to where the less law abiding people of the land occupied themselves without fear. He needed money for wine, which was a much safer way to drown out the noise in his head, and his current employer would brook no lateness. Gone were the days when he could live off the revenues from his holdings of land, or depend upon awards from the King and Queen for some heroic effort on his part… now he had to work for his living.

He strode down the boardwalk that followed the silver river. As he walked, the flower pots disappeared, the wood stopped being painted by
anything but salt water and wind. At the very edge of the land, just before the stairs led down to the docks that decorated this part of both human side and fae side banks, stood the Gimlet Eye, a large, rambling inn with a detached kitchen.

He crossed the muddied planks to the kitchen, brushed past one of the maids cutting chunks of meat and throwing them into bowls. In the pantry he put his cloak and hat down with care, then removed his jerkin and hung it on a peg. He unlaced the sleeves on his doublet, knowing that the fewer clothes he had on, the fewer he risked ruining. He could not afford for anything to get damaged. He frowned at the cuff of his undershirt. It was fraying, and he’d already turned it once. He shrugged it away. He didn’t have the funds for better clothes.

When he was finished, a maid handed him a loaf of bread and a slab of meat that he did not want to guess the origin of, and, most importantly, a pot of ale. He sat on a stool away from the other workers and ate quickly. The food and ale were part of his wages and sometimes they were the only meal he had in a day. I’ve not died yet, so it can’t be too terrible for me.

Edward didn’t know the name of his employer. Everyone simply called him the Eye, either because of the name of the establishment or because he was down to only one, which watched his employees with a relentless glare. The man liked to keep everyone jumping. But he made sure everyone was fed – and paid them, if not much, timely and without grumbling.

“You better keep a sober mind tonight,” Penny yelled over her slender shoulder.
Edward arched an eyebrow and took a deep drink of his ale.

“I mean it,” she said. “Three ships docked in tonight, one from the Straits of Galor, and they’ll be looking for a fight.”

Edward nodded. Navigating a ship through the fog was not impossible, if the right men were at the helm, but it was unsettling. Merrick likened it to lying down on an anthill. The fog seemed to get under the clothes, crawl across the skin, make even the most even-tempered men spoil for a fight.

He finished his food and stood with a bow. “You can depend on me,

Madame.”

Cindy Lynn Speer

She frowned at him, and he stared back impassively. She patted his chest as she went by. “Make sure you come back in a few hours. I’ll save you some pie. You can eat it before they get really out of hand.”

“Thank you,” he said to her scrawny, retreating back. The woman was shaped like an old wooden cane. But he liked her, and they watched after each other.
She didn’t say anything else to him, and he went to take up his usual post in the inn’s large common room.

The room was already busy, a mix of fae and humans crowding around scarred tables. Edward looked over the blue furred shoulder of a sailor whose shaved arm bore an intricate tattoo. Two other men at the table had different tattoos, meaning that they were from different ships. Sea ships, all; airship men rarely came to the sea docks. There was no rancor in their card playing, everyone seemed peaceable enough, so he walked on.

“They say that Pandroth is looking for a way through the fog.” Edward overheard someone say.

This sailor was fae, a woman, but her skin had that oddly soft porcelain look that he knew to belong to the Stone Kindred. She moved like a hired fighter, and sported deep scars – impressive, for the Stone Kindred’s skin was as hard as their name implied. If he ran ships, that’s exactly the kind of fae he would hire. Stone Kindred were heavy, and useless for climbing rigging, but they were hard to take in a fight.

“Do you think they’ll find it?” her companion responded.
A human, Edward guessed. It was not always easy to tell, but there was something about the speaker that seemed mundane. (Which, he thought with a smile as he pretended his attention was elsewhere while he eavesdropped, probably meant that she was as fae as the Elder Fae that lived in the high mountains.)

“No, and when you go on your first voyage, you’ll see why. The wall of fog is thick and nigh impassable, unless you are on a ship made from the trees of our Nathrium forests, navigated by people of this land’s blood. Anyone else gets confused and lost, sailing forever until the crew dies of hunger.”

That seems terribly grim. Edward had heard stories of a foreign craft recovered from the fog, its crew dead.

A group of patrons vacated their table, leaving a half unfinished pot of wine. He casually took it as he passed, seating himself on a stool in the corner to better observe the room. I shouldn’t be drinking. He knew that Penny had meant it when she said he needed a sober mind, but this was one of those nights when the strange buzz at the back of his head seemed to redouble itself, and the constant push of it against his will was harder to bear. Wine silenced it, if he drank enough, and he was not one to waste an opportunity for a free drink.
It is, to be honest, the main reason I am so often not in funds. He drank most of it away.

The Eye also provided him a tiny room in the loft of the inn because the owner liked to keep his watch dog close. It was the only reason Edward was able to keep a roof over his head.

And what else would I spend money on anyway? My wife? She never needed anything from me.

Summer was coming, and the fields of his old home would be crimson and gold with flowers. Not for the first time he wondered who had taken over his family’s lands, who bore the title he used to carry with such resignation. He finished the pot and handed it to a maid as she passed.

They are better off. They are all better off. People still called him Comte, and he used to protest it. The title was often uttered with derision, but some called him that out of respect, and yet others were so used to the song that the title just popped out of their mouths without thinking, even though anyone who knew the song also knew he was no longer anything resembling the man he’d been.
The song. It felt like there were a thousand versions of the blasted thing, and all of them mashed together in his head. In the song, he was rich, handsome, dashing… one of the verses even called him elegant, which was a laugh. He was the man everyone wanted to be, if the popularity of the song could be believed, right up until the part where Catherine was crowned Queen of the Fae.

He cast about for something to divert his attention, and got it. A fae,

who looked more goat than human, rammed his hands at the chest of a human man who looked like he could eat goats by the dozen for breakfast. Seeing potential trouble, Edward rose, and sauntered over.

All Edward had to do was step between the arguing pair just as the human raised his fist and arched an eyebrow. He was a head taller than Edward and more muscled, but he stepped back, nodded at Edward, and walked away.
Edward looked at the goat-fae. “It’s good to be known. Want to know why?”
The fae shook his head and took his drink to another corner of the room.
Edward sighed, looked at the maid behind the bar. “May I have some wine? Being frightening is busy work.”

“You know I can’t,” she admonished.

He sighed dramatically, pushed away from the bar, and walked around the room again.