Half-fae Arlo becomes entangled in the courtly intrigue at the Seelie Summer palace as danger for ironborns mounts in this "beautifully written and deliciously complex" (Nicki Pau Preto, author of the Crown of Feathers trilogy) sequel to A Dark and Hollow Star that's The Cruel Prince meets City of Bones. After thwarting the man behind the gruesome ironborn murdersâand breaking several fae laws to do soâall Arlo wants is a quiet summer. As the deity of luck's Hollow Star, capable of bringing about endless possibilities, this shouldn't be too much to ask, right?But someone is still trying to summon the mythical Seven Deadly Sins. All signs point to immortal meddling, and if this is the gods' attempt at returning to the Mortal Realm, it's Arlo they're going to use to do it.When Queen Riadne offers to host Arlo at the Seelie Summer palace, she jumps at the chance. She'll get to see more of Vehan and Aurelian and perhaps even work out her complicated feelings for the gorgeous ex-Fury, Nausicaä. But no one trusts the infamous Queen of Light, even as Arlo wonders if she's just been greatly misunderstood.With the Summer Solstice quickly approaching, everyone expects Riadne to finally challenge the High King for his crown. And as Arlo struggles to get control of her powers and take charge of her destiny, she'll soon be faced with a choice that won't only change the fate of the Mortal Realm forever but could condemn it to a cruelty the likes of which the Courts have never known.
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Yes, you can access A Cruel and Fated Light by Ashley Shuttleworth in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
THE REVERDIE WAS QUIETâUNUSUALLY so. Arlo had never seen its reception so entirely deserted. Even on weekends, when most of the palaceâs government services were closed to the public, folk still made use of things like the Tim Hortons off to her left and the Falchion Police Headquarters beside it.
Today, there was no one, not even staff.
No one sat at the information booth in the center of the room, and no one patrolled the moss-and-marble floor. No one posed for pictures around the gilded statues of former High Sovereigns or by the enormous waterfall across the way. Where normally the budding forest canopy magicked onto the vaulted ceiling would rustle and sway in some illusory breeze, at the moment it was perfectly still. The only signs of the hummingbird faeries that tended to the palaceâs flora were glimpses of their vibrant rainbow plumage peeking out from the dark-leafed ivy that climbed the walls, from the lilac and rose and rhododendron bushes that flourished between ornate fixtures, and from the handsome oaks growing in place of random soapstone pillars with bluebells, crocuses, snowdrops, and black-eyed windflowers gathered around their bases.
This silence was eerie.
This all-around emptiness was practically unheard of.
Not once in Arloâs eighteen years had the Palace of Spring been shut so tightly to what seemed like everyone save a handful of its guards, and she couldnât help but wonder why the High King had chosen to do so nowâand knew this meant nothing good for the meeting that called her and her mother here.
âExplain.â Thalo, as always, got straight to the point.
Orenâthe burly ogre whoâd seen Arlo and her mother through the doorsâwas quick to supply an answer to what Thalo demanded. âOrder from the High King himself, Commander. Effective immediately, the palace is closed until tomorrow morning.â
âBut why?â
âIâŚâ Oren grimaced. âIâm sorry, Sir. I canât tell you that. Iâm not permitted to speak it.â
The frown on Thaloâs face etched deeper.
Oren wasnât one of the Reverdieâs usual guardsâin fact, he wasnât a guard at all. As a Falchion officer, it wasnât his normal duty to mediate the palaceâs comings and goings, and that had been Arloâs first clue that something was going on today beyond the High Kingâs requested debriefing. The fact that Oren very clearly wanted to tell his superior exactly what was happening here but couldnât meant heâd been ordered not to say by the only person whose command ranked higher than Arloâs motherâs, and that didnât bode well for today at all.
Arlo felt her anxiety ratchet even higher.
âCommander.â
Head snapping in the direction of this newest voice, Arlo saw the Lieutenant Commander making quickly for them. Klair Cardale, second to Thalo in the ranks of the Falchion and a few years her senior, had exited the FPF Headquarters so silently that he was almost right beside them by the time Arlo registered his presence.
Thaloâwith her acute fae sensesâwas less surprised.
Handsome as any other fae Arlo had ever encountered, Klair was also immaculate down to his perfectly pressed Falchion uniform of black trousers and a sage button-down shirt with the crescent moon and windflower sigil of UnSeelie Spring emblazoned in dark emerald thread on its back. He was one of the rare few whoâd supported Thalo as both Commander of the Falchion and the High Kingâs Sword and Shield right from the beginning, a fact even more surprising to Arlo given how obsessed she knew him to be with rules and traditions. He was a no-nonsense sort of person. Arlo honestly couldnât say whether he liked her, but he liked Thalo⌠or at least tolerated her.
Although his stoic mannerisms made that difficult to tell sometimes.
âLieutenant Commander.â Thalo faced her subordinate, eyeing him warily, clearly apprehensive of what he had to say on this troubling mystery. âPlease tell me this isnât what I think it is.â
Arlo looked between them, curious.
She was too used to keeping herself in her motherâs shadow by now, small and silent whenever they were together at the palace, to ask anything outright. Thalo, of course, had never requested that of her. Sheâd never once given Arlo reason to suspect she was embarrassed of her ironborn daughter in any way, never made it a secret how much she enjoyed being a mother, even if sheâd taken to the role with the same intensity she brought to being the High Kingâs Right Hand, which had made everything from bedtime stories to school bake sales just a touch dramatic.
But Arlo knew how incredibly hard her mother had been forced to work to get where she was, harder than she would have if sheâd been born a male, and many of her personal choicesâsuch as taking a human for a partner instead of a well-to-do faeâhadnât helped that along. Jealousy looked for any ammunition it could find to knock people from their highly envied pedestals, and Arlo was determined not to lend it any more than it already had.
She was already a significant reason Thalo couldnât live at the palace with the rest of her family, Arloâs ironborn status conflicting with the strict tradition that declared only fae could hold permanent residence here. She was already a significant reason their relationship with the many Viridians was fraught with tension.
Her mother would have already been fully apprised of whatever situation had put the palace on lockdown this morning if sheâd been here around the clock as she should beâif she didnât have to hand over her duties to Klair at the end of the day just to return to her separate residence with her daughter. Arlo wouldnât allow herself to be the reason Thalo lost this job altogether.
âSorry, Sir.â Klair shook his head. âI canât tell you this isnât what you think it is, as that would be a lie. Official protocol has been enacted. We canât be certain. She didnât give a reason for her visit on arrival, only said sheâs here for the meeting. We thought it best to take precautions, because if sheâs here for what we fear, weâll now have a few hours to control how that gets out to the Courts.â
Thaloâs mouth pressed into a fine line. She drew a deep, steadying breath through her nose.
Arloâs stomach twisted, because really⌠it could only be one person.
The meeting today was a private affair, meant to fill the High King in on what had happened mere days ago in the cavum factory. It had been held off in respect for the injuries Nausicaä sustained while protecting Arlo, but now that she was recovered, they couldnât postpone this any longer. Arlo would have to tell her great uncle everything theyâd learned about the ironborn deaths, the abducted humans used to sew together a monstrous undead army, and the philosopherâs stones heâd been thoroughly unwilling to entertain were being made.
Of course, there was absolutely no way she was going to tell him sheâd made a deal with a Titan to become their Hollow Star, nor that she was waiting on Luck to train her in a magic that would definitely be just as forbidden as alchemy, if the Courts knew about it. As for when that training was going to happen, well, Arlo had been waiting⌠and waiting⌠and waiting. Luck hadnât shown themself once over the last few days, and Arlo already had enough to worry about even without this monumental promise hanging over her head.
So she wouldnât say a word about any of that today, if she could help it. But very possibly, she was going to have to admit to using alchemy to get them inside the factory so they could catch the evil scientist responsible for all the murders and mayhem.
Just thinking about betraying that secret sent Arloâs nerves into hyperdrive, especially considering the not-at-all kind warning the High King had given her the last time theyâd come together like thisâthat heâd punish Arlo if she ever dared use that forbidden magic again. She didnât like her chances of the High Kingâs mood being any more forgiving than last time, even less if the one person in the whole of the Courts who could put him on edge was including herself in this meeting.
âWalk with me,â said Thalo to the Lieutenant Commander, setting off toward the carved oak doors that marked the throne roomâs entrance.
Klair followed immediately after Thalo. Arlo did too, trailing close behind, watching the hem of her motherâs thick emerald cloak as it snapped around her legs.
âTell me what we do know,â Thalo continued. âHis Majesty?â
âTense, to put it mildly,â Klair replied, falling into step beside her.
âDamn it. Of all the days, she chooses this one. The Wild Hunt?â
âPresent. Minus one.â
Lethe.
When Arlo had filled Nausicaä in on what sheâd missed after being stabbed by Hieronymus Aurum and slipping into some sort of healing coma, the ex-Fury hadnât said much. That in itself was odd; Nausicaä had something to say about everything, constructive or otherwise. But when Arlo had mentioned that a Hunter had come to their rescue in the labâone who admitted not only to working with Hieronymus but also with the person behind the philosopherâs stones as wellâsheâd fallen silent. Grim. Contemplative. All kinds of things that werenât Nausicaä at all, and the only thing Arlo had been able to wheedle out of her was the Hunterâs name.
âGood. He actually listens to Eris, so at least thereâs that. And if nothing else, for Cosminâs sake, I hope heâll remember he can call on Eris to serve as Champion ifââ
Champion.
And there it was.
âThe queen,â Arlo groaned, then instantly dipped her chin to her chest in sheepish apology for interrupting Klair and her mother. But Arlo knew without a doubt now who they were talking about. She knew who was here, causing a stir, because it was pretty near clockwork for this particular fae to make her appearance.
After all, she had come at the same time every year for about a decade.
They approached the doors, and the stone-faced fae on duty snapped to attention, saluting Thalo and Klair. At a wave of Thaloâs hand, the throne roomâs doors swung open, and all Arloâs shorting-out brain could think as she followed them through was that she was very possibly about to witness the beginning of the end.
Riadne Lysterne, Queen of Seelie Summer, had come to issue her annual Challenge for Azurean Lazuli-Viridianâs Crown, and there was no doubt in Arloâs mind (or anyone elseâs, it seemed) that this time, sheâd follow through with it.
CHAPTER 2 Nausicaä
THE PALACE OF SPRINGâS throne room was beautiful, Nausicaä supposed, with its marble floors and soapstone pillars carved into the likeness of towering oak trees; with the happy little springtime flowers that clustered around their trunks, and the dark-leafed ivy that grew like tapestries up the walls and dripped from the branchlike network of beams overhead. She hadnât been in much of a mood to appreciate the aesthetic the first time sheâd been dragged here, and if she was being perfectly honest, wasnât any more interested in it now. Nausicaä was getting bored, and nothing was happening despite all the fucking tension in the air, and she was trying, damn it, to be on her âbest behavior,â as Arlo had begged of her in a series of texts this morning at the hellscape-crack-of-dawn, but that was getting harder and harder to do the longer all this silent nothing wore on.
A rustling in Nausicaäâs periphery caught her attention.
She turned her gaze from the high-flung ceiling where it had wanderedâwhere dozens of brightly colored hummingbird faeries sat watching her curiouslyâto the person whoâd stolen everyone elseâs attention already, but whom Nausicaä had been dutifully ignoring.
Riadne Lysterne, Queen of Seelie Summer.
Riadne looked nothing like her son, Vehan, Nausicaä observed, for all that they shared the same electric bright blue eyes and raven black hair. Her beauty was almost frigid, much like what people said of her late, UnSeelie Winterborn fatherâjutting sharp bone under icy white skin that reminded Nausicaä of a wraith sheâd once encountered in the wilds of Eastern Europe.
At the moment Riadne stood perfectly composed against the far wall, hands clasped in casual grace in front of her, as though she werenât in the thick of âenemy territoryâ with no one but herself for support, and fully aware she was under even closer scrutiny than Nausicaä was. There wasnât a single strand of feather-soft hair out of place in the glossy sheet that fell to her hips; there wasnât even a hint of a wrinkle in the white silk and gold-embroidered robe she wore over an ivory blouse so sheer it was almost transparent, and tucked into tight-fitted pants so dark a bronze they were almost black. The crown on her headâshocking yellow shards of jagged-cut sapphire, quartz, and garnet set into a gleaming circle of goldâwas polished and perfectly centered on her head.
And what would Riadne have to be concerned about?
Azurean might wear the Bone Crown, that coveted amplifier of magic that all knew full well Riadne wanted for her own, but she was easily the most dangerous person in this roomâand when that room contained Nausicaä and three members of the Wild Hunt, that was saying something.
It meant nothing good that Riadne was here.
Nothing good⌠but interesting. Very, very interesting, to Nausicaä at leas...
