The enemies had come in the day, while the sun was still shining and while the high fae of the Unseelie Court slept. They’d taken the gates two hours ago, pouring into the streets of the city of night, killing all who crossed their path and encountering little resistance.

Devi didn’t understand.

Their land was at peace—had been for hundreds of years. Just a day ago, seelie and unseelie had all been drinking and dancing together, celebrating the upcoming solstice as one.

She just couldn’t comprehend what could possibly have compelled the army of gold-clad soldiers to attack them now. They came from Corantius, if one was to believe their colors, and the soldiers of Corantius answered to Orin Dreigo, their overking, the person who had demanded peace in the first place.

Her utter ignorance and helplessness wasn't helping matters. From the moment the guard post had blown before her eyes, she'd been fighting her own instincts, keeping them in check. Everywhere there had been screams, blood, and chaos. Although she would have loved to pretend otherwise, her response to that hadn't changed in ten years.

Attacking. Lashing out. Destroying everything around her.

Even now, as Valerius’s horse carried them away from the city, her hands trembled under her struggle. She closed her eyes and forced a calming breath. Useless. She'd never felt as volatile. Or dangerous. Not after her dream, not even from under the water all those years ago.

Devi had released some of her energy at the gates, but she'd purposefully kept the most lethal part of her from coming out. If she'd let herself make use of it, she wouldn't simply have destroyed the pile of stones she stood on. None of the people walking ahead of them right now would have been spared. Valerius and his pretty friend would be dead, along with anyone in a mile radius.

She was a fucking mess.

What now? These people were bound for Elham, and no doubt the prince had a plan after that. What was her next move?

She knew her orders. She’d been asked to go to her father. To a place she recalled on the rare occasions where she found herself dreaming. A city high on a snowy mountain, surrounded by ice sculptures and built of polished black stones. A castle more splendid than that of the unseelie queen, older than anything she’d ever laid eyes on. A realm of power and beauty, where she may not be welcome.

There was nowhere else to go, however. The thought of her destination did nothing to ease the torrents blowing in her mind.

She was holding on to the front of the saddle. Feeling a strange tingle at the ends of her fingertips, she glanced down and gasped. The leather under her palms had turned a blueish white. She let go of it, resting her hand on her own legs, where it would do no harm.

A second later, Valerius was wrapping his right arm around her torso.

Bad idea. Very bad idea, for all kinds of reasons. For one, she might lose it and kill him without meaning to.

“Can you please let go of me?”

He sighed. “Now's not the time to argue, Dev.” Dev, he said. No one called her that, save for his mother. She found herself not protesting. “We might be going slow, but if I see anything gold coming out of the gates, I'll have to gallop without any warning. Plus, the horse might spook if we're attacked. You're too tired to hold on, so I'm securing you.”

His tone had changed, she noted. This wasn't the person she'd met five days ago. This wasn't the idle spoiled brat who infuriated everyone he crossed paths with just to pass time. There was no humor in his voice; he wasn't teasing her. If anything, he sounded grave. Burdened. Devi found that she didn't like it.

“Count on you to find any excuse to feel up a gal,” she challenged. She didn't have to turn to know he smiled, if only a little.

“If you think that's feeling you up, you seriously need some action, little elf.”

That was more like it. She found herself smiling too, and to her astonishment, Devi realized that some of her own anxiety had evaporated. Her hands weren't shaking. She wasn't quite back to normal, but she didn't feel like a bomb ready to detonate at the first provocation. Each breath she took calmed her further. She looked down at the hand pressed against her stomach and frowned.

He'd helped. Somehow, he'd achieved what she, and his mother, had attempted for over a decade: getting her under control when she was ready to blow.

“Are you using your brain mojo on me?” she asked, confused.

He chuckled low. “What makes you think so? You and I both know I'm not beyond making use of my powers for my amusement, but I'm actually conserving my resources. I may have to use it later.”

“Oh.”

Then how the fuck was he soothing her deadly edges? She decided against mentioning it, knowing it would simply invite a bunch of questions she had no intention of answering right now.

“You really should rest. I don't need to probe your mind to feel that you're all over the place, in pain, and depleted.”

Well, that showed how much he knew. Out of his three observations, only one was accurate. All over the place? That, she couldn't deny. But she felt no pain, and the very core of her problem right now was that she was very, very far from depleted.

The incident at the river hadn't been the first time her power had lashed out that way, just the most notable. The first time around, no fae had died.

Devi recalled the days when she played around the family manor so innocently, plucking flowers in the spring, making angels in the snow during the winter, and talking to her shadow friend. The creature who watched her from the Graywoods at least once a week. By age ten, she was brave enough to actually venture to the dark, misty woods and seek it out, her favorite bow on her back.

“I'll catch you today!” she'd say, running after it as fast as her bare feet could carry her and laughing at their games.

She knew the shadow played with her. Sometimes it almost let her get close enough, and then, when she was but a few yards away, it took to the trees, moving at an impossible speed. She'd never catch it, but little Devi didn't intend to stop trying.

Her mother had been right when she'd told her no one would harm her on their land; no living creature had every tried. This was perhaps why it took ten years for her power to come to her.

It happened because of a stupid little root she hadn't seen. Her feet hooked inside it, and the next instant, she fell face-first with a cry. Devi felt it then. Something came out of her along with her voice, something that resonated deep inside her.

Her head hit the ground, hard. Harder than it should have; it wasn't the first time she fell on a bed of grass, but it was the first time that it felt like a solid wall. Opening her eyes, she blinked in confusion, for it was summer and yet the ground was ice.

She looked around, fearful and confused, only to find nothing but white as far as her eyes could see.

“Shadow?”

She felt it—it had come back, and it was close.

“I'm scared.”

That day, the shadow had a voice—a voice deeper than her sword master’s and softer than the wind. “There's nothing to be afraid of,” it had said, and she'd believed it.

“Go home, little princess.” He'd called her that, just like her mother did. “We'll play again someday.”

And then it disappeared, leaving her alone in her midsummer winter.

Devi turned and retraced her steps, heading back to the manor. In her path, she found all sort of creatures: rabbits and foxes, those forest dwellers who ran from her heavy steps, knowing to fear her bow. They didn't run that day. They stood there like ice sculptures, entirely frozen and—she could tell—dead.

She'd killed everything.

“There's nothing to be afraid of,” the shadow had said. That day, she learned that the shadow lied. There was something to be very afraid of, and it was a girl called Devi Star Rivers.

She told everything to her mother, and found that Loxy was also a liar, because she echoed the shadow's words. “Don't be afraid of your own power. It's quite normal, and I'll show you how to control it.” Loxy Rivers held her arms high up toward the ceiling, and before Devi's wide eyes, her mother created the most beautiful thing out of nothing: a delicate sculpture of ice. She'd made a fae with large, extended wings.

“Someday, you'll be able to mold water and ice as you please, just like me. And you know, a hundred years ago, when I was just your age, it burst out of me too. Now I'm a danger to no one.” Then Loxy tapped the tip of Devi’s nose with her index finger. “Unless they want to hurt my little girl, that is.”

Devi sighed in relief, glad to know that she'd be okay, someday. Loxy kissed the side of her head and moved to her desk, pulling out some writing paper, ink, wax, and her seal. “Go get some rest now. You must be very tired. And we have a lot to do tomorrow.”

The very next day, Loxy started her training.

“How did you learn to walk, sweet?” she asked, and Devi frowned.

“I don't remember, I was too little.”

Loxy chuckled. “Very true, that. Well, your little wiggly bottom started to crawl first, and then you had to learn to stand up on your own. Only after that did you take your first step. And you fell on your face.”

Devi had pouted. "Doesn't sound like fun."

“Indeed. It was a long, tiresome process, because you had to learn to use new muscles without quite understanding how it worked. But by mimicking, and then strengthening them, you got there in good time. I'm not going to tell you that this is the same. It's worse. It will take years. Decades, perhaps. And when you've lived a hundred years, you'll find that you're learning a little more about it. But you walk just fine now.” Loxy winked. “You'll figure it out.”

Step one—wiggling her butt, as Loxy had eloquently put it—was finding the damn muscle in the first place. It had come to her out of nowhere, but consciously managing to make it come back wasn't as easy as it seemed. Loxy got her to jog around the house, or dance, or even read a book. Then without warning, she'd poke at her, surprising her. It took weeks, but they were out in the gardens and Devi tumbled, kicking a bucket of water, and magic finally came to her. She'd stopped the bucket in midair, still full, and instinctively she'd managed to hold it in place.

“Look, Mama!”

And Loxy had looked, but contrarily to what Devi had expected, she didn't seem happy at all. She seemed frightened.

Loxy did a lot more writing after that, sending plenty of letters.

“Who are you writing to, Mama?”

"Friends. It's nothing to worry about, little princess."

She definitely knew by then: those words really were a lie.

Masters came to observe her, and within months they'd all come to the same conclusion.

“I don't know what to say. It shouldn't be possible, and yet here we are. Your child displays an aptitude for controlling every element. She's learning at an unprecedented rate. I wouldn't be surprised if she surpassed you by the time she's of age, my lady.”

Loxy sighed. “Well, she will be pleased. You may report to the queen. Let her know that her little experiment has paid off.”

“I'm sorry,” said the master, and Loxy laughed.

“What for? I knew what I signed up for. And I'm glad that my daughter may have a purpose.”

When the master left, Loxy said, “You know, eavesdropping is quite unladylike.” Devi opened the door her ear had been plastered against, unapologetic. “Although, I can't blame you. I'd be curious too if people talked of me behind closed doors. Come, Devira.”

She'd walked to her mother, asking, “What did you mean? What purpose am I supposed to have?”

“Sit. Let me explain.”

So, she'd sat and listened.

“If we were to put a fae, an elf, a mage, and a dragon in a cage, who would win?”

“The dragon,” she'd replied immediately.

“Probably. But what if the elf, mage, and the fae worked together against the dragon?”

She'd had to ponder it. “Then they'd probably win, I think.”

“Indeed. They'd at least have a fair chance.” Devi was very young then, but Loxy didn't hesitate to tell her, “We're in a cage. This island of ours is circled by walls, and what lies beyond is too formidable to face. We've nowhere to go, and there are creatures living among us who are much, much more powerful than dragons. Some among them believe that because we're weaker, we ought to be nothing but slaves to do with as they please. Our peace will last another thousand years perhaps, but my friend, the unseelie queen, has spent a long time working on a way to make us stronger, to give us a fighting chance when the time comes.”

“How would we fight something worse than dragons?” At ten, she couldn't imagine a creature more formidable than a great fire-breathing beast.

Loxy's reply remained branded in her mind, even now. “We'd make dragons of our own, little princess. I come from a very old family, and my great-great-great-grandma, your ancestor, was one of those creatures.”

“The things who want us to be slaves?”

“That's right. You may call them scions. In my veins, there's an old power that I gave you. And in the veins of your father, there's another power, something just as strong. But before you were born, the queen had a strange idea. What if she was to also bless you with her strength? And with another strength too. We had hope that it might make you a lot stronger than any of us. And we were right. You will be.”

Devi took everything in and decided that she quite liked the idea of being stronger than even a queen someday.

“So, my purpose is fighting bad guys?”

Loxy laughed. “Not quite. I doubt there will be anyone to fight at all for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Your purpose is to have strong children, who'll have children of their own. Now that we know it works, the queen will arrange for other children to be blessed just like you, and when the dark times come, our kind will have thousands of warriors strong enough to defend us against the scions.”

Devi pouted, for the thought of having children wasn't as appealing as that of defending her mother with her sword, her bow, and her magic.

Eighteen years had passed, and the dark days Loxy had believed would come to another generation were upon them now. It looked like she was getting her wish after all.

She'd been bred to be a weapon of the unseelie queen, in defense of their entire kind, and that was exactly what she intended to do.