Changeling Illusion (Thirteen Realms Book 3) Read online

  The other Lords were murmuring to each other. Even Lord Nox looked concerned.

  “This would certainly be a good time to produce this Lady Allegra,” Willow’s father said, and other noble heads nodded in agreement.

  “I disagree,” Kellith said, rising to stand at my side. I tugged at my wrist, but he wouldn’t release me. “Clearly, this heir no longer exists, and the king has stooped to deceiving his loyal Lords. I fear he hasn’t been the same since his long imprisonment. It’s time he stepped aside in favour of his heir, Princess Lily.”

  He honestly thought Rothbold had cast some enchantment on the princess, and underneath she was still his. After nearly twenty years of indoctrinating her in loyalty to Summer, it was a reasonable assumption, I supposed—or it would have been, if he had been in possession of all the facts.

  The great hall erupted at his suggestion, and several other Lords rose, too. It was impossible to slip away now, even if Kellith would have released me. Every eye was on me, the princess, and the mood of the room was changing, growing uglier. Many sensed they were being played somehow, though they weren’t sure exactly how.

  The Dragon stood in front of everyone, looking all noble and sorrowful and alive, the dirtbag. How the hell had he managed that? I’d been so sure he was dead. And where had he been all this time? If he was alive, why hadn’t he helped me in the frozen wastes of Winter? Why had he left it until now to reappear?

  The timing was dodgy, to say the least, almost as if he was working to further Summer’s interests.

  I was well and truly sick of the royal Court by now. It was rotten to the core, full of Summer spies and adherents wriggling like worms through a festering apple.

  “I fear you are right,” the Lord of Day said.

  I could barely hear him over the noise, but the Lords on either side of him were nodding. Were they all so easily swayed? Maybe Summer hadn’t been the only Realm that had preferred life without a king.

  Further down the table, Eldric was shouting, “Allegra Brooks is not dead!” but no one seemed inclined to listen, too caught up in the drama at the head of the table.

  “It could indeed be time for a change of monarch, if this heir cannot be produced,” the Lord of Day continued. “Where is she?”

  “Does she even exist?” Kellith asked, sneering.

  I chewed my lip, staring helplessly at the king. If only he’d agreed to let someone else impersonate his daughter—or me, for that matter. Now his desire for secrecy threatened his crown. Better yet, my vote would have been for him not to have anyone impersonate the strong-willed Lily in the first place. He could have just put up with her siding with Summer. Sadly, the king didn’t take votes from anyone else. Yay for the monarchy.

  But none of that helped the current situation. The king caught my eye and nodded almost imperceptibly. What did that mean? Behind him, Kyrrim stood, grim-faced, ready for anything. The shouting was getting out of control and too many of the Lords were wavering, while the king merely sat there, watching. Some I had expected to side with Kellith, because they were Summer toadies, but others seemed genuinely uncertain of the king’s sanity.

  I could hardly hear myself think in the uproar. Did he want me, as Lily, to denounce them? Refuse to take the throne from her father? Would anyone listen to Lily anyway if they believed Kellith’s claim that she was under an enchantment?

  Or did he want me to produce the heir that the room was clamouring for?

  In the end, it was the smirk on the Dragon’s face that decided me. He looked so pleased at the chaos his sudden miraculous return had provoked. It was all too convenient and suspicious for my liking.

  “Enough!” I shouted, and the arguments began to die down as all eyes turned to me.

  With Kellith still clinging to my wrist like the world’s ugliest bracelet, I closed my eyes and summoned my magic, letting it burst from me in a great swell of exasperation and anger.

  Gasps and even screams greeted my transformation, but when I opened my eyes, I screamed myself. A complete stranger was holding on to me.

  I stared at the man in total confusion. He was small and slender, with unkempt hair and a thin, downturned mouth. He looked ridiculous in the clothes of Kellith, which had been cut for a much larger man.

  Even the king was standing now, his face mirroring the shock on every face I could see. “You speak of conspiracies,” he said, his voice hoarse, “but now we see an even greater one than anyone could have imagined.”

  At last, the man released me, stepping back as he looked around the hall for support. “She is an Illusionist!” Even his voice sounded different. “She has changed me.”

  “Yes, I changed you. But that was a spell of undoing. This is your true form.”

  “I know this man,” a new voice shouted. It was Morwenna, with a look of loathing on her face such as I’d never seen before—and I’d been the target of some pretty harsh looks from Morwenna. “His name is Hedrik, and he was Lord Perony’s valet.”

  “I thought you died on the Night of Swords,” Tirgen said, outraged. “Almost everyone else on Verelho perished that night.”

  “I knew I had seen him before,” the king said. “And all these years, he has been posing as a Lord of the Realms.”

  “But where is Lily?” the queen asked, in horrified tones. “And my brother?”

  “And my husband?” Lady Brona asked, but her voice was so faint no one else heard her but me. She was looking up at the man she’d thought was her husband with a completely blank expression, as if the deception was too great to take in.

  I knew how she felt. All this time, the Lord of Summer had actually been an Illusionist? I could barely wrap my head around it.

  “Lily is quite safe,” the king said. “But Kellith …”

  “How could you?” Morwenna demanded, her eyes flashing as she faced the stranger. “You’ve persecuted our people for twenty years—practically driven us to the point of extinction—and you were one of us? How could you do it?”

  Panicked, the man looked around the great hall, finding not a single friendly face among the whole gathering. Kyrrim strode toward him, sword drawn, and he lost his nerve entirely and tried to bolt for the door.

  Morwenna’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm, pulling him up short. Tirgen took his other arm and, together, they hauled him back before the king.

  “Never mind that,” the queen said, pushing past me to stand right in front of the man. “Where is my brother?”

  The king moved to stand behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Oh, Ceinwen, don’t you see? This man killed him twenty years ago. Everything he has done since then has been in an effort to hide that fact.”

  24

  “Willow is going to be so pissed that she missed all the excitement,” Sage said.

  We were sitting on the grass by the lake, watching the sun rise for the first time over Arlo since it had returned home. The really strange part was that there was now a view of Verelho rising in the background beyond the lake and, past that, the waving forests of Autumn on the distant bank of the river. I’d gotten used to the endless vista of sky from here, and it was odd to think that Arlo was finally grounded, back in its rightful place.

  I nodded. “There hasn’t been that much excitement in Faerie since …”

  “Since we brought the king home.”

  “So not that long at all, really.”

  Sage laughed. “Girl, you are just a magnet for trouble.”

  “Pot, meet kettle.”

  Raven appeared out of the gloom, hands in his pockets. “Who’s a magnet for trouble? Who must I challenge for the crown of king of misrule?”

  “Allegra,” Sage said, shifting over to make room for him.

  He laughed and sat down beside her. “In that case, I admit defeat.”

  “How’s everything back at the castle?” I asked. “It was too intense for me. I had to take a walk.”

  “The king has everything under control.”

  Right.
In the heat of the moment, it hadn’t even occurred to the queen to question why I’d been impersonating her daughter, but I bet that topic had come up by now. I had decided it was prudent to be well away before it did.

  “I suppose the Hawk is still with him?”

  “All his knights are still on high alert.”

  I snorted. “Then who’s watching the Dragon?” I was still bitter about that. He’d abandoned me in the mountains of Winter. I’d actually mourned the ungrateful bastard, thinking he was dead, while he had disappeared somewhere for days. “When the dust settles, someone better find out where he’s been. I don’t trust him anymore.” Which was a shame, because I’d quite liked him, despite Kyrrim’s misgivings.

  “The timing of his return from the dead was highly suspicious,” Raven agreed. “Though vastly entertaining. You people certainly know how to put on a show. I’d expected fireworks, but you went above and beyond.”

  “How was I to know that I wasn’t the only one in that hall pretending to be someone else?” For once, I was glad that my magic was still a little out of control. If I’d managed my own transition better, we might never have found out that Kellith was actually someone else entirely.

  “I feel sorry for Kellith’s family,” Sage said. “Especially his wife. All these years she’s been sleeping with a complete stranger.”

  “Probably an improvement on sleeping with Kellith,” Raven said.

  “He’s got a point,” I said, and Sage laughed. “I still can’t believe he went after Illusionists the way he did, when he was one himself.”

  “Guess he liked being Lord of Summer,” Sage said. “He had a lot to lose if his deception was ever discovered.”

  “And who better to find him out than a fellow Illusionist?” Raven said. “He wouldn’t have felt safe until the very last one was ground beneath his heel.”

  “But still …” I said, shaking my head. “Everyone he had ever known … systematically murdered. That takes a special kind of psychopath.”

  “It must have seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime when the real Kellith fell into his power that night,” Raven mused, and we all fell silent, trying to imagine it.

  The smoke and fire, the screaming. So many dead, and Hedrik running for his life, or perhaps cowering in fear somewhere. And out of the chaos, a chance for life—but only if he was bold enough to seize it with both hands. Had he killed Lord Kellith, or merely stumbled across his dead body and realised the opportunity it represented? He must have kept a remarkably clear head in the circumstances.

  It was just a shame that a different kind of Illusionist hadn’t taken that opportunity, one who might have used it to make different choices, to end the feud between Summer and Illusion before it really took hold. So many lives could have been spared, including my mother’s—both my adoptive mother and perhaps even my real one.

  The sky lightened as we sat there, and I watched a flock of rainbow drakes circle over the lake, the rising sun glinting on their diamond hides. I had no trouble picking Squeak out of the crowd now. “Look at him up there, keeping up with all the others.”

  “You sound like a proud mother,” Sage said, shading her eyes against the sun’s glare.

  “I’m just so happy to see him flying.”

  He must have felt me watching him, because he arrowed down out of the sky and landed on my knee. I stroked his head, and he warbled in contentment, rubbing his face against mine. Then he looked away and chirped a welcome.

  Kyrrim stood there. The sight of him lifted my mood, though it took me a moment to realise what was different about him. And then I had it—Ecfirrith was on full display at his side, instead of hidden as it normally was. I sighed. It had been that kind of night.

  “I’m surprised the king could spare you,” I said.

  “I’m looking for Yriell. The king wants her. Have you seen her?”

  I smothered my disappointment that he’d only come on official business. “She wasn’t at the feast. Said she couldn’t stand the company of that many stupid people.”

  “Have you looked in the cellars?” Sage asked.

  Raven laughed and suggested, “Perhaps at Morwenna’s?”

  After a rocky start, it was true that Morwenna and the king’s sister had formed a friendship of sorts, based on a mutual dislike of most of the rest of the people in the world.

  “She’s probably digging for dirt on Hedrik,” I said.

  “Does it matter?” Raven asked. “I can’t see the king letting him live much beyond sunrise.”

  Even hating him as much as I did, I wanted to object. The idea of a fair trial for everyone was deeply ingrained in me after only a few years in the mortal world. Mainly due to TV shows, if I was honest. But the fae Realms didn’t work that way. No one would be fool enough to defend what Hedrik had done, and too many people were baying for his blood—including both the king and the queen, united for once. The man’s remaining life could only be measured in hours, and I couldn’t say I was too sorry about that.

  “Yriell loves gossip. She’ll want to know everything Morwenna knows about him.” I stood up, and Squeak hopped neatly from my lap to my shoulder, then took off. “I’ll help you look.”

  As I walked off with Kyrrim, Raven moved closer to Sage, their two dark heads leaning together.

  “I think he likes her,” I murmured to Kyrrim.

  “Who, Raven?” Not surprisingly, he seemed preoccupied. “He probably shouldn’t get too attached. I heard Lord Nox was looking to arrange a marriage for him.”

  “Can’t anyone fall in love with whoever they want around here?” I asked, exasperation in my voice.

  “You know it’s not that easy when you have other duties and responsibilities.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was talking about Raven or himself—or me—which didn’t do anything to improve my mood.

  “The Lords pretty much lost interest in the question of the heir to Illusion after Kellith’s big reveal, didn’t they?” I said.

  “They’ll get back to it soon. Hedrik may have been an imposter, but he wasn’t wrong. No one outside the noble houses can lead a Realm.”

  “What if I don’t want to lead the damn Realm?” What if I just wanted to live a normal life with my friends and the man I loved?

  He took my hand and kissed it. “We can’t always choose our path in life. All we can do is make the best of it.”

  Now he sounded like Yriell. It annoyed me so much because I knew they were both right. Well, if life was change, I’d hope for a change for the better. I sighed. “Morwenna would be better at it anyway. She’s been doing it for years.”

  “Morwenna doesn’t have Lord Perony’s blood,” he said, in the patient tone of someone explaining something to a very small child.

  “Then she can be my deputy.”

  He stopped and turned to face me. The early morning sun caught his tawny eyes and made them glow like topaz. “Lords and Ladies don’t have deputies.”

  A thought occurred to me. “But they do have stewards, right?”

  His eyes gleamed as his arms encircled me, pulling me firmly against him. “They do indeed.”

  “Then she can be steward and run the show. She’d like that.”

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “Probably ravishing my favourite knight.”

  “The king might have something to say about that.”

  “The king owes me. I’ve saved his bacon so many times now. Surely, he can spare you now and then.”

  His lips dipped lower, tasted mine. “I’m not sure if knights get ravishment leave.”

  “I’m sure we can work something out,” I said a little breathlessly. I would take whatever crumbs I could get. Nothing was sure in this world, as Kellith’s—or Hedrik’s—endless attempts to kill me had shown. I would do my living while I could.

  He kissed me, hard, then suddenly drew back. “You are an endless delight. Not to mention an eternal temptation. But right now, I’m supposed to be finding Yriell.
”

  He turned, pulling me along the path with him.

  “Better hurry up, then. Ravishment is due to begin any moment. The Lady of Illusion commands it.”

  His mouth quirked in a smile. “Yes, my lady.”

  “Ooh, obedience! I like it.”

  Maybe there were some good things about being a Lady after all.

  ***

  Don’t miss the new series, Thirteen Realms: Thief of Souls, in which Sage takes the starring role. The first book, Assassin’s Blood, is coming soon! For news on its release, plus special deals and other book news, sign up for my newsletter here or by visiting my website, www.marinafinlayson.com.

  Reviews and word of mouth are vital for any author’s success. If you enjoyed Changeling Illusion, please take a moment to leave a short review at Amazon.com. Just a few words sharing your thoughts on the book would be extremely helpful in spreading the word to other readers (and this author would be immensely grateful!).

  ALSO BY MARINA FINLAYSON

  MAGIC’S RETURN SERIES

  The Fairytale Curse

  The Cauldron’s Gift

  THE PROVING SERIES

  Moonborn

  Twiceborn

  The Twiceborn Queen

  Twiceborn Endgame

  SHADOWS OF THE IMMORTALS SERIES

  Stolen Magic

  Murdered Gods

  Rivers of Hell

  Hidden Goddess

  Caged Lightning

  THIRTEEN REALMS SERIES

  Changeling Exile

  Changeling Magic

  Changeling Illusion

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks once again to Mal and Jen for their beta reading, to my family in general for their support, and to my friends in the Authors’ Corner for always having my back when I need help.