Flame and Starlight (The Esteria Series Book 1) Read online

  “If you’re getting a stitch in your side,” he said, sounding not out of breath at all, “breathe out for as long as you can before you take another breath in. That should help.” I could feel my ponytail slapping the back of my neck. The layers that I was thankful for earlier were now going to smother me. I was going to literally sweat to death. Trickles of it rolled down my spine. I peeled my gloves off and shoved them into my coat pockets.

  “Can you…magick away…some layers?” I asked between breaths.

  “How many layers?” He wagged his dark eyebrows.

  “If I wasn’t so out of breath, I would punch you.” He turned around and started jogging backwards. “Show-off!” He smiled and snapped his fingers. And just like the night before when Asher had made food appear out of nowhere, Emric had made a couple of layers disappear. The icy air made the sweat on my skin feel like it was freezing in place, but at least I was cooler now. “I need a minute,” I said, slowing to a walk.

  “We’re halfway through—I think you should just keep going. We need to push your body, Alys.” He jogged circles around me as I stopped and bent over, hands on my knees, heaving gulps of air into my lungs.

  “Fuck off, Emric. I’m not a full Faery. I’m a human, with a barely healed gash on her face and a body that is very much not used to physical exertion.”

  He studied me for a minute, trying to see how serious I was. He must’ve decided not very.

  “Okay, Wheezy, you’ve had a minute,” he said, giving my ponytail a tug. I whipped around on him, but he was already running again. “If you can catch me, you can punch me. How about that for incentive?” he yelled back at me. I took off after him, pushing through the fire in my legs and lungs. I was determined to catch him. One thing I knew for sure: when I did reach him, and I did punch him, I would be imagining it was Asher’s smug face my fist was making contact with.

  I did not catch him. And when we got back and he took me to a big open room on the first level of the castle, he proceeded to kick my ass. I was assigned hundreds of crunches, lunges, multiple types of upper-body workouts, and even some boxing. My legs were pudding, and my arms were heavier than my entire body, so every punch I threw probably hit as hard as falling paper.

  My hair had almost completely fallen out around my face, and it clung to my forehead, my cheeks, and my neck. I felt disgusting. I could not imagine how I must smell. When Emric told me we were done for the day, I fell down on the floor in pure exhaustion and relief that it was over.

  “Humans are so dramatic,” he said, looking down at me.

  “Shut up, Emric, and just sit down here for a minute before making me walk a mile to my room.” He sat down next to me and took a drink of water. I stared up at the ornate ceiling and followed the gold swirls in the molding. “My friend Ashley did this to my head.” I pointed at the cut on my forehead that was almost healed thanks to that little tin of magick. “I’m not sure why she would’ve done that? Could Asher have forced her?”

  “I don’t know if that’s a conversation for us to have. Ash would probably prefer to answer your questions.”

  I sat up and looked at him. “I would have a hard time believing anything your High Lord says anyway. So why don’t you just tell me?” I took a drink of my own water, and he rolled his eyes, resigned that I probably wasn’t going to give up on it.

  “Most High Fae have the ability to glamour humans. There was no other way to get you out of there without causing suspicion.” He watched me from the corner of his eye. “I’m sure he used a lot of glamour that night on a lot of people to get you out safely.”

  “Safely,” I snorted. “Minus my head being thrown full force into a mirror and then a hard-ass sink. Minus the bruises all over my arm from him supposedly forgetting his strength. Minus the river water I unintentionally swallowed and then vomited back up.” I mentally gagged at the memory. “You people must have a very loose definition of safe.”

  “You people?” he said, gripping his chest. “You wound me.” I kicked his thigh as hard as I could, which was more of a tap. My muscles strained at the effort. Tomorrow was really going to suck. “He got you here alive. I think that’s safe enough.”

  “He also has his own version of a microchip on my shoulder,” I said, motioning to the dust. “I’m basically his dog.”

  “You are far too important to be considered a dog, Alys.” He stood up and offered me his hand, and I grabbed it. A jolt of emotion went through my arm at the contact, flooding my mind with amusement and the all-too-familiar taste of worry. I yanked my hand out of his and stood up on my own. I stared down at his hand, still hovering there in midair. “You okay, Wheezy?”

  I wiped my hands on my pants. That was the second time I felt emotions that weren’t quite my own.

  “Yeah,” I said and changed the subject, hoping he thought I was just weird. “And why am I so important?”

  “That one is definitely going to come from him.” He cut me off when he saw my mouth open to protest again. “You won’t get this one out of me. You can ask Ash tonight at dinner.”

  My shoulders slumped at the thought of having to get in another dress instead of just sleeping until tomorrow. “Do I have to dine with him every single night?”

  “I have a feeling, Alys, that the answer to that is yes.”

  I groaned and followed him out of the training room and back up to my own.

  “Mav,” I groaned hours later, “I swear to whatever gods you believe in that I will die if I have to get out of this bed.” I had already decided earlier after my bath and clean clothes that I would beg like my life depended on it to stay in bed until Emric dragged me out of them the next morning. Mavka tsk’d at me as she went in search of another dress. “You can tell him that his stupid training has literally killed me and that he doesn’t have to worry about keeping me alive any longer.”

  “I think this dark green will go beautifully with your eyes,” she said, walking out of the bath chamber with a heavy-looking swathe of emerald velvet. I peeked over my mountain of covers at it. With its long slim sleeves and slits that would go up to either thigh, it was beautiful. “And I know you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten since breakfast because you were, what was it? ‘Literally too dead to eat’ when you came back with Emric?”

  I was hungry. I sighed and got out of bed to let her dress me.

  “I heard the first day of training went…well,” Asher said as I walked into the dining hall. I gave him a sarcastic smile before hanging my cloak up and making my way over to him. He pulled out the same seat for me, the food already on the table tonight. The shadows around his body moved more this evening, restless and whirling around him like storm clouds. I half expected to see lightning flashing through them.

  “I learned some interesting things today.” I filled my own plate tonight.

  “Did you?”

  “Do you have wings like Emric?”

  He gave a soft laugh. “I do have wings, yes. But they do not look like Emric’s. Mine are much bigger,” he said with a wink.

  I groaned at his massive male ego and asked, “Can I see them?”

  “Oh, Alyssandra.” He leaned into the table and locked his eyes on mine, a stormier shade of grey blue. Everything about him tonight seemed more tense than the night before. “Let’s save that for later. I wouldn’t want to get you all hot and bothered at the dinner table.”

  I leaned back in my chair, rolled my eyes, and quickly changed the subject. “I also learned that you used your glamour to convince Ashley to throw my head into the mirror like a football.”

  No hint of a smile on those lips then as he took a drink of his wine and leaned back. Even the wine was dark to match the night around him. “Mm, indeed I did. I didn’t think she’d resort to such harsh tactics, but then again, my magick was spread very thin that night, so I probably wasn’t very clear. I was glamouring an entire bar, I’ll have you know.”

  “How does it work? And why not just use glamour on me to get me to come peace
fully? I think it would’ve saved you some grief.” I was shoveling food in my mouth tonight, not really caring about any decorum I should probably have in front of a High Lord. I was starving from the training this morning. He watched each bite with rapt attention.

  “In that instance, I had to do it from a distance so it wasn’t as strong as it would have been one-on-one. But time was of the essence. So I reached my magic out, just like I did with a bit of my dust with you. I reached out and told them all to think you were drunk, so drunk that someone had to carry you out. I glamoured away the blood. And all I asked Ashley to do was incapacitate you a little. I think Ashley has some underlying anger issues.”

  He took a few bites as I processed.

  “But I assure you, the excuse she gave to your friends will be a good one. I was able to glamour her directly in the bathroom. I also didn’t glamour you because I wasn’t sure how well it would work with your Fae blood. And I didn’t want you to be following me like a blind puppy. I figured it would be easier to experience it all happening instead of just closing your eyes in a bar and then opening them in a foreign place with no idea how you got there.”

  I mulled that over and reluctantly agreed with him. I groaned inwardly. I did not like agreeing with him. “And what excuse did Ashley give? Are you sure they’re all going to blindly believe her? They’re like my family, and if one of them just disappeared, I would have questions.”

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. I know you’re thinking that your precious Thomas will be worried and wondering where you are. That boy has a lot less going on”—he tapped his temple—“than you so wildly wanted to believe he did. He’s weak, and her excuse will suffice.”

  My chest felt tight at the harshness in his words. I didn’t even realize until he said it that I was, in fact, thinking of Tom. My stupid crush in the grand scheme of things now I guess would seem trivial to someone like Asher.

  “I was trying to get you out of there quickly, Alyssandra.” He paused and took another long drink. “Quickly enough that Aoife wouldn’t be a problem,” he said under his breath.

  “Why would Aoife be a problem?” My fork clanged on the plate at the mention of her name.

  “Because Aoife is Fae and was sent to watch you.” He drank the rest of his wine in one mouthful. “And she was there to eventually take you.”

  Chapter Six

  “You’re lying.”

  “I have not and will not lie to you, little duck. I need you to trust me.” He watched me closely. I twirled my hair nervously in between my fingers, tying little knots and then loosening them.

  “I think I would’ve noticed her ears. And she doesn’t have any Faery dust. She doesn’t look any different.” I thought back to all the times I had been with Aoife. We had so many classes together, nights out, and coffee dates. Had I ever seen her with her hair up? There was no way she had skin like Asher’s, luminescent and silver. But…had she seen Asher’s dust when she tried to brush whatever it was she could see off my neck? Was that what she was staring at in the break room at work?

  “She is High Fae. She has more than enough magick to hide the less-human things about her. Also, she isn’t High Fae of the Night Court, so she wouldn’t have the dusting as I do. She’s from Autumn, and they have blackened fingertips, like they’ve been dipped in soot, from their ability to harness the power of fire. She would be able to hide that from you—it really doesn’t take that much out of us to hide those types of things.” He waved a hand in front of himself, and the dusting that normally covered his skin disappeared. His hands pushed his obsidian hair back from his face, and his ears were rounded like mine.

  “So, let’s say I believe you. You’re saying she was sent there to watch me and eventually take me. Take me back here? Which means that instead of being dragged here unwillingly and thrown into a place full of people I don’t know, I could’ve gone with Aoife in a much less jarring way. I could’ve stayed with Aoife, someone who actually likes me. An actual friend. But because you stole me, I’m stuck here with you.”

  His eyes narrowed as he relaxed, and his dust settled back over his skin, barely shimmering but definitely there. The shadows around him stretched to cover his entire body, covering him in a storm cloud of temper. I finished all the food on my plate while he watched me, taking deep breaths and willing his shadows back into place. They didn’t scare me as much as they had previously, I realized. I leaned back in my chair, full and a little chuffed at how upset I had made him.

  “She will figure out that you took me, Asher. She will come for me.”

  “I would very much like to see her try.” The power that seeped into the air was almost suffocating. “You should believe me when I say, Alyssandra, that Aoife was not and is not your friend. She was sent there to eventually bring you into this world, and what would have met you at her father’s court would not have been safety. The High Lord of the Autumn Court is cruel and would not have treated you as nicely and as fairly as I am treating you.”

  I scoffed, and he stood quickly, his chair flying several feet back and toppling over. He loomed over me, his shadows snuffing out the candles on the table, leaving only the light from the fireplaces. I kept my breathing easy. I refused to let him taste my fear.

  “Your shadow work was intimidating the first couple of times, Your Highness,” I ground out and stood up to close some of the height difference between us. He still towered over me, but I held my ground, our noses so close they almost touched. “But now I recognize them for what they are—mere parlor tricks.”

  “Is that so, little duck?” he asked as his shadows crept closer, that scent of jasmine and cedar heady in the air as they came closer. My breath hitched as they touched my cheeks and then wound their way through my hair.

  Fuck.

  They were cold but soft as feathers. I breathed in for the first time with them being so close, and they brought fresh mountain air into my lungs. They spread down my neck and over my shoulders. Before I knew it, I had closed my eyes and leaned into them. They were the cold side of a pillow in the dead heat of summer, comforting and refreshing.

  And then gone.

  I stumbled back a step and met his gaze. He cleared his throat and adjusted the front of his suit as the night crept back around his entire body like an onyx halo.

  “You’ve finished your dinner. I have something to take care of tonight, so you are dismissed. Go rest.” With that he left, walking through the door to the right of one of the fireplaces, leaving me alone.

  I scoffed at the dismissal and gathered the heavy velvet in my hands, running over to where he’d disappeared through the door. Behind it was a small servants’ stairway, dimly lit with torches and steps that were carved out of stone. I could just barely hear his footsteps down below. I took off after him.

  “You know,” I said as I grabbed a torch off the wall. “I’m not so easily dismissed.” My words echoed and vibrated off the stone. The stairs twisted and twisted down around sharp corners. Holding the swaths of my dress in one hand and the torch in the other, I focused on the steps, praying I didn’t fall. I was never known to be graceful. Every few corners I made, there was a landing with a door that led off somewhere else in the castle. “Asher, hold on!” I yelled as I rounded another corner.

  And as soon as I had, I ran directly into him face-first, one of my legs sliding between his and down a couple of steps. My dress fell from my hand, ready to catch myself from falling. It circled in the air and connected with his bicep. His free hand wrapped around the wrist of my arm holding the fire. He held my hand up and away from his face, keeping the fire far enough away from anything that could be set alight. Because my left foot had slid down to the step behind him, my entire body was pressed against his. He was still as stone, and my nose still hurt from the harsh contact it made with his chest. His arm I was holding slid slowly around my back.

  “If this is what you wanted, little duck, you only had to ask.” His voice was gravel and heat, and my breath st
opped at the sound of it. Only for a moment before I caught myself, but long enough for him to catch it. It had been too long since anyone had spoken to me like that. With his arm still around my back, he smirked like he could read my mind and then lifted me up so that I stood on a single step in front of him and released my hand. “You won’t need this,” he said, taking the fire from my hand and hanging it on an empty perch behind him. “My magic lights this castle anywhere anyone needs it.”

  “Oh,” I said, adjusting my dress around my legs where the slits on my thighs had wound up closer to my hips. “Well, I came down here because you don’t get to just dismiss me like that. We were having a discussion.” I crossed my arms and stared at him. With me a few steps above him, he was still taller than me, but not by much, and I could meet his cold glare.

  “I am High Lord, princess. I can dismiss who I want, when I want.” He gave me a full smile, the firelight glinting off his sharpened fangs, and turned on his heel, descending once again. I lifted my dress again and followed him down.

  “Where do these go? We’ve been going down them for a long time. Do they go underground?”

  He sighed. “No. If you continue all the way down, as I am doing, they open up to the ground level.”

  “Is that where your room is?”

  At that, he laughed. “No, I am on the same level as you. I can show you later if you wish.” He glanced back and winked at me. I huffed and continued to follow. After a couple more minutes, the stairs ended into a dark wooden door. He turned the black handle, and it opened out into a wide hallway that lit up as we entered. The floor was covered in a midnight-blue carpet that was so soft I could feel myself sink into it with each step. The walls were covered in grand paintings of Fae in crowns and suits and gowns, each one’s skin wrapped in a soft silver-blue sheen.

  “Is this your family?” I asked, stepping up to a painting of a female that caught my eye. Her hair was as white as snow and fell in waves to her waist where the image stopped. Atop her head was a crown of stars and gemstones. Her eyes were the color of lavender and seemed to glow while following me where I moved. The smirk on her mouth wasn’t playful like Asher’s. There was something awful behind it. Like she was thinking of eating me alive. I shivered.