Casting Shadows by E A Copen

Author:E A Copen [Copen, E A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642024548
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-09-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Of all the courts in Faerie, the High Court was the grandest. It had everything from the other courts—the ivory columns, gold filigree, crystal chandeliers, velvet rugs, and garden views—except everything there was dialed to eleven. The gardens were bigger, the chandeliers grander, the columns taller. Each corridor the guards led us through seemed bigger and more decorated than the last.

Elves in silk gowns and suits walked the hallways with their heads down. I would’ve guessed they were normal servants except for the black chains clinking around their ankles and wrists. They were slaves, not servants.

Sir Braes and company took us to a set of giant doors where we waited for two dwarves—also in chains—to turn wheels on either side to roll them open.

“Is there anybody not wearing chains around here?” I mumbled. “I might not be at the height of fashion, but I’m pretty sure slavery wasn’t in this year’s fall catalog.”

“They’ll be freed when they’ve accepted their place.” Sir Braes smiled and lifted his chin. “These High Court nobles believe themselves above everyone, even the other rulers of Faerie. But they’re nothing but meat to be devoured. When my master takes Shadow again—and he will—every fae will bow before the lords of madness as our queen has done. The ones you see wearing chains are still learning that.”

“Why doesn’t Mask just take over their brains and control them like he did with Foxglove?” I asked.

Braes’ smile faded. He pressed his lips together and stared straight forward.

Guess I touched a nerve. “He can’t, can he? Bet it’d spread him too thin. I guess even he’s got limits.”

“For now,” said Sir Braes. “But once he has all the Speaking Stones again, his power will be limitless. The Nightlands will flow into Faerie and on Earth, and all living things will understand we are nothing but food for the old gods.”

I squinted at the knight. “You got dropped on your head a lot as a kid, didn’t you?”

He pushed me through the open doors. “Move.”

If you stacked two two-story houses on top of each other and another two back to back with the first set, all four of them could fit inside the throne room. It was big enough it could’ve fit giants inside. Huge columns held up a domed roof crawling with black vines that twitched and shifted. Purple light filtered in through stained glass windows and reflected off of unlit crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The occasional torch lit the way forward, but there was no other light in the chamber.

On either side of the crimson carpet running through the center of the room, dark things slithered and crawled just out of sight. Strange shapes hissed and spat while bony bodies scraped over the floor in a cacophony of sound that made me cringe.

A dais at the head of the room held a single throne, occupied by a woman whose skin was the gray of death. She’d thrown a streak of blush the color of a fresh bruise over each pointed cheekbone and painted her lips black.

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