The Queen's Crown (Court of Midnight and Deception Book 3) Read online

  “It’s because I love you that it makes talking about it like this embarrassing,” I complained.

  “You’ve drooled on my pillow. I’d say that’s more embarrassing than discussing our physical relationship,” Rigel said.

  Although I felt like I wanted to crawl in a hole and die, I was weirdly encouraged by Rigel’s sass.

  If my feelings made him uncomfortable he’d avoid them. This is probably a step in the right direction.

  “In the interest of keeping you pleased, we can return to your original complaint about saying we sleep together. Would you rather I call myself the edifice you use as the roof for your cocoon of smothering warmth?”

  “It is not smothering!”

  “Yes, that’s why I have to monitor your breathing to make sure you don’t suffocate yourself; because it’s not smothering.”

  I sputtered, and Rigel brushed his hand down my back, then stepped in front of me and led the way down the hallway.

  Safe from retaliation, I smiled at Rigel’s back as I followed him.

  Something like hope warmed me—not just hope for my relationship with Rigel, but hope that things would get better. If Rigel was king, maybe the Night Realm would finally get better. And in the morning, I’d rouse everyone, and we’d put our heads together to figure out what Rigel’s clues meant.

  I just have to be patient—and on my guard.

  Because if Rigel was willing to be king in order to protect me, whether my opponent was royal or not, it meant they were close to me.

  The day after Rigel kissed me, the first big thaw of the year hit us.

  Snow melted, leaving a big slushy mess everywhere. The lawn was mostly grass—only the thickest ice remained in shadowy corners of the property that didn’t get much sun. Instead everything was muddy.

  “I predict we’ll get another good snow—maybe two—but I think spring is coming. What do you think, Dusk and Dawn?” I fed Bagel a carrot before I continued helping my stable managers dole out afternoon hay to Bagel, Fax, and the night mares.

  Dusk rested his elbow on a stall door and scratched a few of the green leaves that were threaded through his nut-brown hair. “That seems optimistic, my Sovereign. It’s not yet mid March. Last year we had snow in the middle of April.”

  “You’re probably right. But I hate this icy cold slush-and-mud stage.” I stopped at Fax’s stall and stroked the sun stallion’s warm neck. His warmth, and the sweet way he nuzzled my shoulder, grounded me when I felt…numb.

  The Paragon was on his way over to discuss the shadow elf magic used to attack me—although I was hoping to grill him about the Night Realm and whether making Rigel king would fix it.

  We were also going to play a rousing game of “guess 20 questions” with Rigel in hopes that we could pick around his geas and figure out what he wouldn’t tell us.

  I was looking forward to that, which was nice because I’d read up more on the Night Realm this morning, and what I’d found was downright depressing.

  According to several books written by some extremely pompous fae, it seemed like this mythical connection a monarch was supposed to have with their realm should have hit me when the night mares bound me. I should have begun to feel the Night Realm. (None of the books could tell me what feeling a realm meant, it was supposed to be that remarkable.)

  In reading more about the Original Creep, I got the feeling that Rigel wouldn’t be able to fully support the wards and fix the realm since I was the one the night mares had bound, and thus all the ancient magic that made up the foundation of the Court was tied to me.

  Yaaaay!

  Fax lipped my shoulder, and I shook myself from my tense thoughts. “Hey, beautiful. How would you like to get out and stretch your legs a bit?”

  “He could use it.” Dawn traipsed past me, pushing a wheelbarrow of hay. “We haven’t put any of the animals outside since the snow melted—it’s too muddy in the pastures. The night mares have come and gone—going into the Night Realm to run, I think—but Fax hasn’t left.”

  “Poor guy. He probably thinks he can’t go to the Day Realm since I own him. Okay, come on, Fax. Let’s walk you a bit.”

  I slipped the sun stallion’s halter on him, clipped on a lead rope, then grabbed my artifact. The staff was leaning against a stable wall—I’d been carrying it with me everywhere after Amaranth’s kidnapping in the Summer Realm.

  I curled my arm around the staff and wedged it under my arm pit—I didn’t want it touching the mucky ground—then led the brassy-colored sun stallion outside.

  It was an overcast day, but the sun poked out between the clouds, making the iridescent green and blue shine to Fax’s coat glow brighter than usual.

  Fax sedately walked at my shoulder as we followed the gravel path that led up to the driveway, but he looked around, taking in the mansion grounds.

  He perked his ears and nickered, drawing my gaze to the sleek black car that rolled down the driveway. I wasn’t a car person, but the BMW insignia was pretty hard to miss, so I was guessing it was pricy.

  “Huh. I wouldn’t have pegged the Paragon as an expensive cars sort of guy,” I said to Fax. “Unless he made Killian drive him out here?”

  The two were famously besties—even if their relationship was more than a little unusual.

  I was pleasantly surprised when Solis got out of the car.

  The Day King was wearing his typical gold and yellow robes, but today he had some gold rings on his fingers and a thick gold bracelet that almost looked like a wrist guard.

  He spotted Fax and me, waved, and met us halfway on the gravel path. “Good afternoon, Leila, and Fax!”

  Solis smiled broadly at Fax, who’d maneuvered himself sideways so his back sort of curled around me.

  I planted my staff on the gravel path. “Hey, Solis! What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “I wanted to get out of my home. I decided to drop in on you—I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” Solis asked.

  “Nah. The Paragon is supposed to show up in the next hour, but there’s nothing going on at the moment.” I fed Fax a carrot when he nudged the pockets of my blue jeans. “Feeling boxed in from the slushy weather?” I asked.

  Solis shook his head. “No. I just wished to seek different company.”

  “Sick of your Court? I hear you. Lord Iason has dropped in every day this week and won’t stop harping on about this black cat he’s been trying to domesticate so he has a pet for Pet Appreciation Day. The last two times I saw Lady Galene she complained about being unable to lure a black cat into her house—also for Pet Appreciation Day. I’m starting to wonder if it’s the same cat,” I said.

  Solis laughed. “My Court does not drop by my human home with the same abandon your Court does—though they do wander through my palace in the Day Realm. No, I wished to get away from my guests today.”

  “Angstra and Manith?” I asked.

  Solis nodded.

  I wondered how rude I could be. The pair had seemed polite enough, but it had always bothered me that Solis—Mr. Sunshine himself—kept a distance with them.

  “Can’t you tell them to pack up and leave?” I asked.

  Solis released a bark of a laugh. “I wish I could,” he said. “But alas. I owe them a favor. They are here as long as they wish to be.”

  Ah, yep. That just confirms my rules to live by. Don’t owe fae favors—the interest is always more than you can pay. Unless…you’re married to an unusually honorable one like I am!

  Fax pawed the ground—which was weird for him because he was always perfectly behaved.

  I leaned my staff into the crook of my arm and juggled the lead rope so I could pat Fax’s shoulder. “Do you want to go off the lead?”

  Typically I’d never let an animal off a leash or lead rope, but fae animals possessed almost human levels of intelligence—it was why I always felt awkward whenever I had to keep my shades and glooms on a leash.

  Thankfully, they never seemed to mind, but it occurred
to me Fax might want to be free to go sniff his real master—I’d seen sun stallions react to Solis before; it didn’t matter who had the paperwork, the Day King owned the hearts of the sun stallions.

  I unclipped the lead line. “Watch for cars,” I warned the sun stallion. “If the Paragon is driving himself, I can only imagine he drives like a maniac.”

  Fax twined around me, seemingly content to stick close—though he got between Solis and me so I had to peer at Solis over Fax’s back to see him.

  “I hope you pay back that favor soon so you get your house to yourself again,” I said.

  Solis glanced up at the cloudy sky. “I only have myself to blame. And I’m set against the payment they’ve decided on; it’s why they continue to hang around.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Fax twined around me again and pawed the gravel again.

  I worriedly glanced from the Day King to my gelding.

  Is Fax picking up on his anxiety?

  “Your consort is here today, I hope?” Solis furrowed his brow as he scanned the sloppy yard. “As is your director of security?”

  “Yeah, Chase and Lord Linus are prepping for a meeting. Rigel is hanging around somewhere.”

  “Good.” Solis nodded, and he relaxed a little. “Very good.”

  I eyed the king. “Is everything okay?”

  “As well as I could ever hope for.” Solis sighed deeply, then offered me a tired smile, before extending his hand. “Hello, Fax.”

  Fax flared his nostrils as he studied Solis.

  Abruptly, he drew his head back and crowded me again, pressing his muzzle to my temple.

  Images and sensations crashed into my mind.

  Dawn creeping over the horizon, shedding pink light and the whisper of warmth as the sun rose higher and higher. Sun stallions galloped across a green field as the blazing sun beat down on them. Heat—the warm kind that sank into your heart—spread through my body, and I tasted sunshine on my lips.

  Magic—shining and explosive—swirled around me like a powerful embrace.

  I almost dropped my staff and fell, but Fax was there.

  He watched me with his intelligent eyes and breathed on me, letting me lean against his shoulder until I recovered.

  I gripped my staff and sucked in a breath of air. “What was that?”

  “What happened?” Solis asked.

  I blinked, and Fax snapped.

  The normally sedate and gentle sun stallion screamed. It wasn’t the high-pitched, glass-shattering cry the night mares used, but rather a hot, crackling noise that sounded like a fiery inferno.

  His scorching mane and tail—a pleasant blue color—flared, and the brassy color of his coat rippled and disappeared as blue and white fire encased the sun stallion.

  It burnt my eyes to even look at him, and he produced a hot, inescapable heat that singed the nearby grass and blackened the gravel we stood on.

  When the fire faded, Fax was about two feet taller. His coat was pure white that was too dazzling to directly look at, and the fire that made up his mane and tail had turned white with shades of light blue. His eyes were whirling balls of flames, and when he snorted, sparks drifted from his nostrils.

  He was terrifying, and my heart beat frantically as Fax drew closer to me.

  Gently, he brushed his muzzle against my temple, then whipped away from me and lunged at Solis, screaming again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Leila

  Solis jumped backward, landing on the lawn with a squelch.

  I thought he’d try to soothe the fiery sun stallion, but he watched him with tense wariness.

  High pitched squeals echoed from the stable—the night mares calling to the sun stallion.

  I opened my mouth to call Fax off, but as I felt the weight of my staff in my elbow, I paused.

  Rigel agreed to be king, because he was concerned about my safety in meetings with monarchs. He knows who is attacking me. He was hired to kill me when the night mares found me.

  Fax drove the Day King back. “Leila, can you call him off? I think he’s gotten confused in his old age,” Solis shouted to me.

  The Day Court has thrived even though it’s supposedly linked to the Night Court. It has a perfect realm and a great deal of power, even though the original checks put in place by the original king were to leash both the Night and Day Court…and now Solis owes a favor to Angstra and Manith…who aren’t from the Midwest, just like the fae that had kidnapped Amaranth.

  “Solis…what did you do?” I asked.

  Solis nimbly dodged Fax when he charged, but his robe passed too close to the gelding and caught fire. “What are you talking about?” He scrambled to put out his burning clothes.

  I had to be wrong. I wanted to be wrong.

  But the more I thought of it, the more I realized statements I took as signs of Solis’s innocence were carefully phrased pieces of typical fae wordsmithing.

  He’d been late to the Summer Realm and kept the gate open because he kept having to run back to his palace. But why would he leave the gate open in the first place? That’s a pretty careless thing to do when his sun stallions could make gates for him at the snap of a finger.

  And I’d never bothered to straight up ask him if he had been behind the attacks on me. He had said he hadn’t brought the skull monster to the Autumn Realm—which I thought meant he couldn’t have attacked me, but as Rigel had pointed out it seemed like there were two attackers. He probably just wasn’t involved in that particular attack.

  Finally, something he’d said to me the day we went sledding slammed into me like an icy avalanche.

  “He’d kill until the ground ran with blood if he could figure out how to fight against those who attack you.”

  We’d been talking about Rigel at the time, and Solis had specifically said Rigel would kill if he could figure out how to fight…not who to fight.

  He knew Rigel was under a geas, and the protective clause of a contract. Something he’d only know if he made the contract.

  “Leila?” Solis called to me as he avoided Fax some more.

  It’s Solis. Solis has been trying to kill me.

  The Day King watched me, a hint of a smile playing at his lips. “Can you stop fooling around and help?”

  I’d seen enough real smiles from the Day King that I knew this one was as false as they came.

  “Rigel!” I slammed my staff into the ground, letting purple magic twine around me.

  “Finally figured it out, did you?” Solis stood tall, and the metal bracelet on his arm glowed. Fire ignited around his feet, and he seemed to blaze.

  He extended a hand. Light so dazzling and thick it almost seemed tangible shot toward me.

  I forged a ward, then hurriedly threw it in front of me, forming a defensive barrier. Leaning into it, I braced when the light hit my ward, holding it up, even though Solis’s light pushed me back by a few inches.

  My heart screamed at the betrayal, and I struggled to make sense of it.

  “Why are you doing this? You said we’re friends!” I shouted above the clash of our magic.

  “Instead of asking why, you should focus on defending yourself,” Solis advised. He slammed into me with enough magic that I had to focus on my control over my ward, and my palms grew sweaty as my whole body tensed.

  Just how powerful is he?

  “Rigel!” I shouted again. “Chase! Linus!”

  I gritted my teeth as I poured more magic into the ward, fighting to stabilize it as Solis blasted my barrier with the fire of a star.

  The night mares shot out of the stable, trumpeting their anger. Some of the shades chased after them, howling.

  Distantly, I heard the warbling screams of my glooms grow closer.

  Help is coming. I just need to hold on.

  Fax circled back to my shield and reared, releasing his inferno-crackling cry again. And just as the night mares surged around me and the changed sun stallion, Rigel stepped out of the shadows behind Solis.


  Rigel struck at the back of his neck, but something—an invisible barrier or magic of some sort—stopped him just short of stabbing the Day King.

  Solis peered over his shoulder. “You’ve tried that move several times, Wraith. But if you recall the terms of our contract, you can’t harm me.” Solis’s voice was too bright—like a wildfire ripping through a forest.

  “The contract was canceled,” Rigel snarled.

  “Ahh, yes. But the geas and terms remain. That’s why you’ve been unable to tell your beloved queen everything, is it not?” Solis asked.

  I gripped my staff. The wooden pole bit into my palm. “You were the one who hired him to kill me.”

  “Correct,” the Day King said. “Though if I’d known you were gutsy enough to marry an assassin who tried to kill you, I would have worded his geas differently. Think hard enough, and you’ll likely figure out what other damage I’ve caused you.”

  Solis created a ward, protecting him as Fax and the night mares charged.

  Solstice kicked at the ward, while Eclipse and Comet body slammed it.

  The barrier shook, but held—even when Fax rammed it and bodily pushed Solis a foot back.

  I was barely aware that Rigel circled around Solis, coming to stand at my side.

  My mind whirled as I tried to connect the dots. “The spiders, the attack in the market and the theater—that was your work, wasn’t it? Did you give Myron the spell that attacked me in the race?”

  “No, I had nothing to do with Myron,” Solis said. “That particular attack was…” He shut his mouth and went silent.

  “The same person who delivered the skull monster, I imagine?” I snarled. “Since you plainly said you weren’t involved in that. But you purposely left your gate to the Summer Realm open so those fae could get in, didn’t you? You just made sure you didn’t see them so you could claim you didn’t know,” I said. “You were open with select details because it gave you a chance to instantly deflect any suspicion.”

  “Congratulations, you’ve found me out.” Solis swept his eyes across the mansion. He’d double layered his ward—something I wish I had known was possible previously—with the outer layer being the usual gold, and the inner layer being the blue of a star. With his thickened ward, he held off the night mares, shades, and glooms with ease. “More importantly, your people are surprisingly bad at defensive tactics. How long have you been shouting at me, and they still haven’t appeared?”