The Emperor of Evening Stars by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 4 A Mortal Mate

252 years ago

I stare at my first tattoo beneath the bright, colorful lights of one of Barbos’s seedier pubs. The angel gazes down my arm, her expression caught somewhere between mournful and serene.

Right at this moment my mood echoes hers. I rub my eyes.

“So you’re officially a brother now?” Gladia, the barmaid who works here, slides a beer over to me, peering at the ink.

I’ve officially been one for two years now, but getting a tattoo is akin to marrying into the organization. My skin is now a testament to my loyalties, for better or for worse.

And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Farther than ever from my revenge …

“Where are your brothers?” the barmaid asks.

Shaking down one of the king’s officials.

I lean forward. “I could tell you,” my eyes drop to Gladia’s lips, “but then it would cost you.”

Her eyes heat. “I’m willing to pay …”

An hour later I’m pulling on my pants. Below us I can hear the muffled sounds from the bar.

Gladia props her head up on the pillows. “Leaving so soon, Eurion?”

It’s been two years since I’ve adopted a fake name—all the better to evade my father with—but I still sometimes forget that I’m Eurion Nova and not Desmond Flynn.

Gladia reaches for me, and it’s all I can do not to shake her touch off.

“I need to go.”

Need might not be the right word, but the women I bed don’t often want to hear the right words. Like the fact that Gladia is nothing more than a warm body. Or that I won’t think of her again until the next time I see her.

I might no longer be a bastard by name, but I’m a bastard by deed.

“You smell like ale and sex,” Malaki says when I enter the mansion later that evening.

He sees my sleeve, and whistles. “You got a tattoo.” It’s not exactly an accusation, but it might as well be. We’d planned on getting inked together.

In the end, like everything else in my life, I had to do it alone.

Phaedron storms through the room, his eyes locking on mine. “Where in all the realms have you been?” he says when he sees me. “I needed you an hour ago.” His nose wrinkles. “You smell like woman,” he growls. “Is that what you’ve been doing while your brothers waited for you? Wetting your prick?”

“I needed some time to think.”

“Balls deep in some female?” Phaedron growls. “If you’ve taken another lord’s wife, I swear to the gods I won’t bail you out this time. I’ll let them take your head.”

I’m not entirely sure I’d mind.

When his words elicit no reaction out of me, he sighs. “You and Malaki, get your arses to Memnos. We need to move our cursed water shipments within the next ten hours or the deal’s off.”

Fifteen minutes later, after I’ve rinsed myself off, Malaki and I leave the mansion together.

“You didn’t need to wait for me,” I tell him gruffly.

“What am I supposed to do, let you get into trouble all by yourself?”

I crack a smile.

The two of us are quiet for a minute.

Then— “Why do you put up with Phaedron’s shit?” Malaki asks.

He’s the boss,” I say simply.

“Only because you wouldn’t take Hermio’s place that night,” Malaki says carefully.

That night.

The shadows, the screams, the fairy dust that remained behind.

I bid the memory away and look at my friend, really look at him. It took Malaki two years, but he finally decided to broach this subject.

“You think I should’ve,” I state.

My friend gives me an incredulous look. “Of course I think you should’ve. Don’t take offense, Eurion, but why else are you here? You killed off the brotherhood’s previous leader. Fairies only do that if they want to take over an establishment—or end it. But you did neither. Instead you gave the position to Phaedron and became just another errand boy. Why?”

Because I had been beneath other fairies all my life, and suddenly I was expected to be above them when I simply wanted to be one of them.

“Why not?” I respond.

Malaki shakes his head. “If I’d been given the chance to be a leader, I’d have taken it.”

“I got what I wanted,” I say.

“By stopping the skin trade into Barbos? You could’ve also done that as a leader—and you do realize that all you’ve done is given business to our rivals,” he responds. “Remember that I can see into their heads when they sleep.”

I stare grimly ahead of us. “Have you looked into mine?”

If he had, he’d learn just about every damnable secret of mine. My dreams love to parade my secrets around my mind.

Malaki reels back. “You know I haven’t.” He looks wounded by my question.

I shake my head. “If you had, you’d understand.” If I was to survive in my father’s kingdom, I had to stay anonymous. That meant no leadership roles, no grand gestures of power, no valiant deeds. All I needed was to stick to the shadows and scheme out my revenge.

“What’s the issue with you today?” Malaki asks, searching my face.

I glance at him. Everyone who knows me understands I don’t freely share much about myself.

I draw my eyes away from him to squint off in the distance. “Today’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.”

A beat passes, then Malaki says, “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I look off in the distance. “Nothing to apologize about.”

And with that, I take to the sky, my wings enchanted to look like those of a drab grey moth.

It’s only much later, after we’ve moved several crates of Memnos’s cursed waters to earth and returned to the Land of Nightmares, that Malaki and I have another chance to talk alone.

We wind through the streets of Memnos, the wilds of the island pressing in on all sides. Dark liquid slithers across the cobblestone road. I can feel the gazes of dozens of creatures who cloak themselves in the darkness.

“Care to stick around a little longer?” Malaki says. These are old stomping grounds for him. He lived on Phyllia, Memnos’s sister island, but from everything he’s told me, he spent most of his time here, running with monsters. “We can head over to Phyllia,” he continues, “where the women change faces and the ale never stops flowing.”

I’m not much in the mood to linger, nor am I all that interested in ale or women—despite the day’s earlier activities.

Malaki nudges me with his arm. “C’mon, Eurion. You’re in no shape to be alone.”

He’s right. If I had it my way, I’d sit in the darkness and think of all the ways I might kill my father.

A low chuckle comes from the dense foliage to my left. “Malaki Phantasia,” a creature steps out from the darkness, “it’s been awhile.”

I stare at the hobgoblin, with his pointed nose, and pointed chin, and the rows of pointed teeth that fill his mouth. 

“Good fellow,” Malaki says, approaching the man with a smile. The two of them clasp hands. “I thought you had moved to earth.”

“I had.” The hobgoblin eyes me. “A witch banished me back here after I ate her familiar.” He picks at a tooth.

Malaki shakes his head. “Of all the luck …” The two men talk, and while they do so, I wander off the cobblestone road, stepping into the thick brush that presses against the pathway. There are things that hide in the wilds here, things that even fairies are scared of.

I don’t much care.

I move deeper into the forest. Dark pixies glow deep crimson and violet colors; they perch on branches, watching me. I hear the slick slide of scales over dead leaves and the howl of beasts better left alone.

I’ve heard so many cautionary tales about staying away from the woods here, but right now I don’t have it in me to fear this place.

From where I stand, the stars are all but invisible, cloaked by the dense foliage that greedily feeds off the darkness.

I can almost pretend the canopy above me is the arching ceiling of my cavernous home. And the haunted cries of banshees and wraiths I can almost imagine are my mother’s weary sighs.

“She was a brave one, hiding you like that.”

My head whips around.

Standing amongst the twisted trees is a beautiful woman, her silver hair hanging in spirals to her waist.

“Your mother,” she adds.

I furrow my brows, leaning back just a little. It’s not smart to trust the things that dwell in the forests of Memnos. Especially beautiful, dreadful things.

She smirks, picking her way towards me through the underbrush.

“Who are you?” I ask, my eyes flicking over her.

She clucks her tongue. “Desmond Flynn, you know better than most that if you want answers, you have to first pay.”

How does she know my real name?

… She knows many things …

She reaches out to cup my cheek. I stare at her, not sure whether I should turn and leave, or linger and hear what she has to say.

She doesn’t give me a choice.

I feel a tiny bite of pain as one of her sharp nails slices through the skin above my jaw. I push her hand away just as she presses her thumb against the cut.

She laughs, the sound like bells, as she backs away from me. A few droplets of my blood coat her thumb. She rubs it between her fingers then slides her bloody thumb along her tongue.

“Mmm,” she says, briefly closing her eyes. “That’s unusual.”

I breathe in her magic.

Some sort of prophetess.

Her eyes open. “Perhaps I should call you Desmond Nyx, heir to the Night throne, the son who should’ve died.”

Instinctively, my hand moves to the dagger at my waist.

Her lips curve. “Was I not supposed to know that?” She presses a finger to her mouth, tapping it twice. “Fine, Eurion Nova, bastard-born whoreson, you are a nobody from nowhere who will do nothing with your life and the slave you’re soulmated to. Is that what you want to hear?”

Soulmated to … a slave?

No. Gods’ hands, no.

“You lie,” I say.

The fae woman cocks her head. “About what? Your mother being a whore? Or you being a bastard?”

“I don’t have a soulmate.” Fae or otherwise.

“Oh, that.” Her eyes flick over me and she smiles. “I thought you’d be happy to hear you have a mate. Not all fairies do, you know.”

My stomach bottoms out at the possibility. Can a fairy even be mated to a human?

She must be lying.

The woman studies me, her pleased expression growing. “So the mighty Desmond Flynn is okay freeing slaves but not marrying one?” She tsks. “Awfully hypocritical for the man who was raised powerless and penniless.”

I taste a bit of bile at the back of my throat.

“You lie,” I repeat, my voice hoarse.

She gives me a pitying look. “Oh My Lord, what that I were.”

What this woman says is lunacy.

“I’m not a lord,” I respond, swallowing.

I’ve never even bedded a slave. To take one as my wife, my soulmate …

“Right,” she says saucily, “you’re a bastard. I forget, we’re still playing pretend.”

I watch her as she begins to circle me.

Shit, could she be telling the truth? She knew other things about me.

If what she says is true, I’ve been destined for heartache. Even if I look past how coarse and petty humans can be, there’s still their insignificant lifespan to deal with. A mortal life can begin and end within the snap of my fingers.

“Eurion?” Malaki’s voice rings out in the night air.

I close my eyes. This moment, which I’d assumed couldn’t get any worse, just did.

I glance over my shoulder. Malaki stands several feet behind me, looking between me and the fae woman.

The woman lifts her eyebrows. “Does My Lord have friends? My, have you come a long way since your humble beginnings. Too bad he doesn’t even know your real name. Hard to keep a friendship when it’s built on lies.”

Malaki steps forward. “Leave us, wench.”

She doesn’t budge. Instead she licks the last of my blood off her finger. Her eyelids flutter closed.

“Oh, what future awaits you!” she says, her eyes darting back and forth beneath her lids. All at once, they snap open. “I’d tell you the rest, but where’s the fun in living if you already know how it all ends?”

She begins to back away into the foliage. “Son of Galleghar Nyx, you’re going to need more than sheer fury to kill your father. Join the royal guard. Find your valor. What you seek lies on the other side of it. Perhaps then a different sort of ruler will reign over the Kingdom of Night.

“Oh, and be kind to your dear human mate. You really don’t deserve her.”

The prophetess disappears into the trees, and now I’m left with the mess she made.

Several seconds pass in silence.

“Galleghar Nyx … is your father?” Malaki finally says.

Should I flee? Should I kill my closest friend—my brother?

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I feel shame wash over me. I am not my father, who kills his foes the moment he senses a threat.

Lying always works.

I piece together the excuse I plan to say. The lie already tastes bitter, and I haven’t even spoken it.

My eyes meet Malaki’s, and I just … can’t. Not tonight, on the anniversary of my mother’s death. I don’t have all that much fight left in me. I’m not even two decades old and I feel as weary as the ancients.

Rather than answering him, I force my wings into existence, dissolving the enchantment that normally cloaks them. I stretch the taloned tips of them as far as I can, the sinewy flesh brushing nearby trees.

Malaki staggers back, his eyes transfixed on my wings, wings that only the royal bloodline inherits.

“You escaped the Purge?” he asks, his gaze finding mine.

So far.

“My mother and I lived in hiding,” I explain. “My father didn’t know of my existence until a little over two years ago. He found us a few days before I joined the Brotherhood.”

Malaki’s eyes spark with understanding. Galleghar visits, mother dies, son flees. It’s fairly easy to piece it all together.

“You survived an encounter with the Shadow King?” he says, astounded.

I wet my dry lips and nod.

Malaki swears. “That information could get you killed—it could get me killed.”

Or it could make him rich—very, very rich. And men like my brothers … the only thing they love more than their comrades is money.

He rubs his face with a darkly tanned hand. “Gods.” He reaches behind him for his holstered dagger.

My power stirs as I stare at Malaki’s blade. This is why my mother taught me to keep my secrets to my damn self.

But rather than attacking me, Malaki presses his other hand against the dagger and slices the blade across his cupped palm. Immediately the scent of blood fills the air. The wilds of Memnos seem to still.

Fisting his bleeding hand, Malaki lets the crimson liquid drip onto the ground. He stares at me intensely. “I swear to the Undying Gods that so long as you ask it, your secret will not leave my lips.”

The air shimmers with magic, and then it implodes, sucking itself into Malaki’s exposed wound and binding him to his oath.

It takes several seconds for me to find my voice.

“Why would you do that?” I finally ask, shocked.

He pulls a kerchief from his pocket and presses it to the wound. “Besides being your friend?” he says, as though that should be enough. He eyes me. “Have you ever considered the fact that you might not be the only person who wants the Night King dead?” Malaki shoves the kerchief into his pants’ pocket. “The tyrant king hasn’t just screwed over your life.”

I search Malaki’s face, wondering what my father did to earn my friend’s ire.

“Eurion—or whatever your name really is—I’m not going to hand you over to the king,” he says. “I want you to fulfill that woman’s words and kill the Night King—and I want to help.”