Vengeance Throne (The Callistra Chronicles #2)

ONE

"What's happening?" Circe breathed. She was the mirror image to Pasiphae even without trying, dressed in a thin nightgown that their unruly, pitch-black hair blended into. "Are those—"

"Sylphs," Pasiphae confirmed.

Circe was blinking with utter incomprehension. "Why are they here?"

Before Pasiphae could answer, the sound of glass shattering sounded from her bedroom. A gust of cold air blew into the hallway, and she was jolted into action.

"Magic doesn't work on them," she shouted quickly, already moving down the hallway. "Take Ma and Pa to the town hall."

Since they were children, they had been drilled tirelessly to go to the town hall—and only the town hall—if the sector ever descended into a state of emergency. There was no doubt that a sylph attack would classify as such.

Usually, the town hall could fit five of the twenty-one covens in Eo with a bit of a squeeze.

After Arche's massacre in the trials for Divine, Pasiphae thought bitterly, it's probably a lot more roomy.

The trials that Pasiphae had missed because she was in the Unseelie Court trying to clear her name.

The massacre that she could have stopped if only she had been around to help.

"Wait, where are you going?" Circe yelled after her.

Pasiphae threw her head back, just in time to catch a sylph fly into the house and scare Circe, who tried to blow the creature back with magic. It didn't work, just as Pasiphae had said.

"These things have a special interest for the guest in our house," she screamed back. "I'll meet you at the hall."

Knowing that Circe would be all right, Pasiphae threw open the door at the end of the hallway, the one leading into a small guest room at the back of the house. Usually, it was empty, but for the past week, it had been hosting a very peculiar occupant: the heir to the Seelie throne.

Pasiphae slammed the door after her, keeping her body weight pressed against the entrance just as something on the other side rammed itself against the dull wooden structure.

"Wake up!" she yelled.

To Pasiphae's absolute bemusement, Seth was still blissfully asleep in the bed tucked into the corner of the room, unaware of witches screaming and running for their lives outside.

With their lack of fingers, could sylphs operate door knobs? As she darted away from the door, she would have to hope not, and trust that the door would hold up without her body pinning it closed.

"Seth!"

Pasiphae shook his shoulder roughly, by chance with the hand that was wearing his ring. The ring that had stopped an impending invasion from Queen Evara of Airesi, his mother, and subsequently halted the world from dropping into war.

And if anyone outside of Pasiphae's immediate family found out the marriage was faked, then Callistra would immediately descend into chaos—more chaos than they were currently experiencing, if that was possible.

"What—?" Seth came awake, blinking slowly. "Saf?"

"We need to go," she told him, hauling him up by his arms. She caught a flash of gold as his wings poked out of his shirt, before he shook himself fully awake and tucked them neatly against his back again.

"We have to go?"

"Seth!" Pasiphae hissed. "Come on!"

The door shuddered, and then a low laugh echoed into the room. Seth froze, his dark eyes widening.