Kingdom of Shadow and Light (Fever) Read online

  Kingdom of Shadow and Light is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Karen Marie Moning

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: Moning, Karen Marie, author.

  Title: Kingdom of shadow and light / Karen Marie Moning.

  Description: New York: Delacorte Press, [2021] | Series: A fever novel

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020042381 (print) | LCCN 2020042382 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399593697 (hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780399593703 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Paranormal fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.O527 K56 2021 (print) | LCC PS3613.O527 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042381

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042382

  Ebook ISBN 9780399593703

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Belina Huey

  Cover art: © Stephen Youll based on an image © Maksim Toome/Shutterstock (woman’s face)

  ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  A Note to the Reader

  Prologue

  Part I

  Darkdream

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part II

  Blooddream

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part III

  Faedream

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Part IV

  Shadowdream

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  First Epilogue

  Second Epilogue

  Third Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  By Karen Marie Moning

  About the Author

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  Given the complexity of the Fever World, I’ve included a lengthy glossary at the end of the book, offering definitions of people, places, and things, with reminders of past events.

  However, before you begin reading Kingdom of Shadow and Light, I think you’ll find the following notes helpful.

  PRONUNCIATIONS

  Ixcythe: ix-SIGH

  Aoibheal: ah-VEEL

  Ryodan: RYE-uh-din

  Lyryka: LEER-ick-uh

  Azar: uh-ZAR

  Severina: sev-er-EEN-uh

  Masdann: maz-DAHN

  Y’rill: yuh-RILL

  Draoidheacht: DROWD-hay-oct

  Spyrssidhe: SPUR-shee

  Sidhe-seer: SHEE-seer

  Damhan-allaidh: dah-vin-OLLY

  Gh’luk-sya drea: Guh-LOOK-swuh-dray

  Sidhba-jai: shee-vuh-JYE

  FAE

  There are two courts of Fae: the Light Court/Seelie and the Shadow Court/Unseelie.

  The High Queen of the Fae/Light Court

  MacKayla Lane-O’Connor, mortal sidhe-seer who was altered by Cruce’s Elixir of Life and is now extremely difficult to kill and nearly immortal. Although not fully Fae, she presides over the Light Court, comprised of four royal houses.

  Each royal house usually has both princes and princesses, but many are dead and have not been replaced.

  The Light Court Royal Houses

  The Princess of Winter: Ixcythe (full-blood Fae) (no known prince)

  The Princess of Summer: Severina (full-blood Fae) (no known prince)

  The Prince of Autumn: Azar (full-blood Fae) (no known princess)

  The Prince of Spring: Inspector Jayne (human turned Light Court prince) (no known princess)

  The Unseelie King/Shadow Court

  The original Unseelie king abdicated power and stepped down (Feversong) but has not yet chosen a successor. He watches multiple contenders for his throne including Cruce, Barrons, and Christian MacKeltar.

  There are two Shadow Courts. The original Shadow Court was created by the Unseelie king during his efforts to divine the recipe for the Song of Making, which the first queen refused to share. That court was destroyed when Mac sang the Song of Making to save the Earth from destruction (Feversong) by black holes gouged into the fabric of reality when the Hoar Frost king roamed Dublin (Iced). The current Shadow Court was created by Cruce.

  Three of the king’s four original princes escaped destruction. Cruce survived by magical means. The two humans that transformed into Unseelie princes, Christian and Sean, were unharmed by the Song of Making.

  Original Shadow Court/Unseelie Royal Houses*

  (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse)

  The Prince of War: Cruce (the only original Court, pure-blood Unseelie left in existence)

  The Prince of Death: Christian MacKeltar (human turned Unseelie prince)

  The Prince of Famine: Sean O’Bannion (human turned Unseelie prince)

  The Prince of Pestilence: deceased and not replaced.

  *There are no living princesses from the original court.

  New Shadow Court/Unseelie Royal Houses*

  The Prince of Dreams: Masdann

  The Prince of Fire: not yet seen

  The P rince of Water: not yet seen

  The Prince of Air: not yet seen

  *There are no princesses in Cruce’s court.

  FAERY

  The realm of Faery includes all of the Light Court, all of the Shadow Court, the Unseelie prison, the king’s castle that adjoins that prison, the Hall of All Days, all the Silvers but not the worlds to which they connect, the White Mansion, the IFPs, which are fragments of Faery created when the walls between realms fell on Halloween (Faefever), and the queen’s private aerie. Originally there was no Shadow Court. There was a single Faery Court until the Seelie king left, declared himself the Unseelie king, and created the Shadow Court. From that moment on, Faery not only continued to expand and grow but also to fracture in countless ways.

  PROLOGUE

  Once upon a time in a sun-kissed kingdom across the sea, there lived a fair princess whose life was an enchanted summer’s dream. Her parents, the king and queen, were kind, generous, and wise, and there were no uprisings in the land.

  The sunny-natured princess loved every acre of her demesne, from silvery lake to forested glen, from the quaint, cobbled streets of her provincial town to the sophisticated city beyond, and she knew precisely how her future would unfold. She would fall in love with a prince, marry and raise children, and live happily ever after in their halcyon demesne.

  In that splendid, magnolia-drenched kingdom across the ceaseless blue, no one warred for the throne. No one thought about the throne. The royals sat it so well and justly, all hoped the king and queen would live forever.

  That’s not this story.

  The princess of this story will never have children.

  She fell in love with the beast.

  The human part of me—I’m not sure how much of that remains—feels a poignant regret for babies that will never be born. But a life with Jericho Barrons is worth the price.

  If I did have a daughter, I know what I would tell her, and it’s not what the blithe pastoral princess across the cerulean divide would have said. That princess would have raised her offspring to be cheerful, kind, enjoy life. She would have told them small lives hold great rewards and gazed through the castle window, smiling at her children as they sunned with friends by the pool.

  That princess would have taken her daughters shopping for prom dresses then wedding dresses as she aged gracefully, lavishing love upon her grandchildren and greats, and, after a long, happy life, she’d have been tucked gently beside the headstones of her beloved king and queen.

  That princess is dead.

  I’m Mac Lane-O’Connor, High Queen of the Fae, and the path to my throne was paved with grief, lies, betrayal, war, and murder, much of it committed by me.

  My kingdom isn’t sunny. Nor is it completely known to me. Dark, rain-drenched, cold, often iced, it encompasses multiple realms: the Mortal lands; both the Light and Shadow Courts of Faery, including the abandoned Unseelie prison; the White Mansion; the Hall of All Days; the corrupted Silvers, and who knows how far beyond.

  My castle is a temporally and spatially challenged bookstore I conceal from the world, as there are many that hunt me.

  My entire court—with the exception of the banished, fertile Spyrssidhe—wants me dead and will stop at nothing to strip me of power and remove me from the coveted throne.

  As this woman, I would tell the daughter I’ll never have: You are elemental, essential, connected to all things in the universe. You are a creature of alchemy, transmuting all you touch, for better or for worse. Choose wisely both what and how you touch.

  I would raise her to stand for her beliefs no matter the cost, because at the end of the day, shadows come lean, mean, and hungry to devour those of uncertain principle. A divided will cripples. You must know what you want, what you believe in, and be willing to live and die for it.

  I would tell her hope is priceless and fear brings death—not mercifully swift on an enemy’s sharp blade, but slowly and far more painfully, rotting you from within.

  I would charge her with the protection of the many who can’t defend themselves, because some are born with great strength, resilience, and ability to endure, while others are not.

  I would empower her to be the thunder. Be the storm. Be the lightning that crashes. Be the hurricane that whips the ocean into crashing waves, become the wild tsunami that reshapes the shoreline.

  Because if you aren’t the thunder and you aren’t the storm, someone else is, leaving you a fragile leaf caught on the biting, chilling, killing wind of another’s making.

  I would share with her the wisdom and grief of a brutal yet immutable truth. For some of us life is not an enchanted summer’s dream.

  It’s deadly.

  You must be deadlier.

  PART I

  The fog comes on little cat feet, Carl Sandburg said.

  When I was young, I loved foggy mornings in Ashford, Georgia. Peering deep into the mist in our backyard, I’d imagine all kinds of fantastical creatures: unicorns, dragons, perhaps even the great Aslan bursting forth from those billowy, low-hanging clouds, as friends from beloved childhood tales slipped into my day via a mystical, smoky portal.

  The Fae have more than a hundred names for ice, which I used to think was overkill, but now that I live in Ireland, I’ve found I need nearly as many names for the nuances of fog that are as much a permanent fixture in my life as those infernal Dublin roundabouts I never manage to exit properly without looping around a half dozen times, muttering curses beneath my breath.

  Shika, a lacy, delicate mist that frosts the streets with whimsical beauty; Barog, a depressing, oppressive, grayish vapor that clings damply to your skin; Playa, dry, ground-level, ribbon-thin smoky tendrils that kick about your ankles in gusts before vanishing; Macab, a sullen, bruised, bone-chilling effluvium commonly found in cemeteries that doesn’t drift in on a brine-kissed breeze but oozes with palpable menace from the soil; Oblivia, a sense-distorting, sinister cloud of opaque white that settles abruptly and seemingly from nowhere, to send you tearing off in the worst possible direction, certain sanctuary is directly ahead.

  But, here, it’s not just the fog that creeps up on you on little cat’s feet and sits back on silent haunches, watching you with slitted predator eyes.

  Here, it’s betrayal that stalks stealthily, inaudibly nearer, watching with eyes that are a hundred-shades-of-Fae-ice, for the perfect moment to stab you in the back.

  From the Journals of MacKayla Lane-O’Connor

  High Queen of the Fae

  DARKDREAM

  You were my town

  now I’m in exile seeing you out

  Dublin, Ireland.

  After the war to end all wars, my city is perfection.

  Flanked by princes, the full complement of the Light Court marching behind me, I glide through the streets of Temple Bar.

  Looming beyond the rooftops of shops and pubs, a blood-rimmed moon hangs so round and low it nearly obliterates the night sky, reminding me of another planet where—a thousand lifetimes ago—I stood between Cruce and the Unseelie king and felt I might ascend to the edge of night, hop a pine-board fence and bridge planet to moon in a single leap.

  Earth continues to change, becoming more like Faery with each passing day, growing lusher, more opulent and fantastical, befitting a species of jaded palates and hungers extreme. We who rule this planet alter the very fabric of the universe. Mortal physics do not apply. We shape reality; it cedes to our will.

  Hunters fly overhead, gonging deep in their chests. I glance up as they glide past the moon, and their obsidian wings against the scarlet-ringed orb causes an unwelcome lightning flash of memory to explode, briefly illuminating my mind—a gaze of midnight stained with crimson, a man’s hard, challenging, measuring stare: Who the fuck are you?

  Demented laughter might bubble up inside me, but there is ash where once embers b urned, and laughter doesn’t bubble.

  Nothing does. I am a bottomless, still abyss.

  The clarity granted by the memory fragment fades. I turn from the sky and back to the street.

  Phosphorescent fog, driven by an azure ocean lapping at Ireland’s shore, drifts in lacy skeins across cobblestones shiny from yet another rain, draping streetlamps and storefronts in pearlescent webs. As we continue our parade through the district, canopies of velvety blooms explode in our wake, tumbling from window boxes, erupting from rooftop gardens, while a thick carpet of sea-foam and cerulean grasses push up through stones.

  Cobbled streets will soon vanish, reclaimed by rich mocha soil. Buildings will be enfolded in the embrace of vines and dragged down until entombed in the earth. This world will be as it should be again.

  Pristine. Natural. Fae.

  Fog soothes me; concealing, distorting, making all things seem possible. Creates a frame for illusion, brushing the world softer, more malleable. Narrowing my eyes to blur my vision, I fill that frame with things that once mattered to me, hold the images suspended about me, try to insert myself into the frame but…