Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 698(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
“Why would he poison her before the wedding?” I ask. “If he was really out for the power, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s partly why the lie was so clever,” Kane says. “Deaglan claimed that Finnigan had intended to poison her on her wedding night, but the queen had found the chocolates before the ceremony, ruining Finnigan’s plans.”
“For whatever reason,” Finn says, “the people believed the lies and demanded that Finnigan be hanged for treason.”
Kane shakes his head in disgust. “He declared his innocence until the moment his neck snapped, but no one listened.”
“Mab was distraught,” Finn says. “She’d lost her son and her grandchild within a week’s time, and she knew Deaglan was responsible. She sent a warning to the palace, alerting them that she’d cast a powerful curse that would break the kingdom if the one responsible for her son’s death came to rule beside Queen Gloriana. The curse, as she cast it, said that the kingdom would suffer endless days, so the wicked rulers could never hide their misdeeds under the blanket of night.”
“But Deaglan didn’t realize how powerful Mab was,” Kane says. “He dismissed her as a peasant and proceeded to worm his way into the queen’s court.”
“In the months that followed Finnigan’s execution,” Finn says, “Queen Gloriana fell deep into her grief and abandoned all her duties as ruler of the kingdom. Deaglan carried the load, helping her keep her head above water so the people didn’t rebel against a neglectful queen and take her throne. After a time, she agreed to marry him, if only out of gratitude for what he’d done for her kingdom while she was too tangled in her grief to serve her people.
“But Mab’s curse was still in place, and the moment Gloriana bonded to Deaglan and had him sit on the throne beside her, the kingdom was cursed to endless days. Deaglan’s sentinels tracked Mab down and dragged her into the Goblin Mountains. They couldn’t risk killing her outright, so they left her bleeding in the mountains. Her blood drained out of her, along with her tears, forming what we now know as the River of Ice. And when the last drop of her blood spilled, her curse was broken, bringing night to the kingdom for the first time in weeks.”
“If she died, how did she become queen?” I ask.
“Mab never intended to rule,” Finn says, drawing two lines in the dirt. “She never intended to do anything but seek justice for her wrongfully accused son, but the gods rewarded her for her deep love in a world that had too little of that. They resurrected our Great Queen and presented her with a choice. She could choose magic, keep her immortal life, and have more magical power than anyone in the history of the realm. If she chose the power, it would pass down to every generation after her. Or she could relinquish her immortality and her magic altogether. In exchange, the gods would create the Court of the Moon and allow her to rule with the remaining years of a mortal life span.”
“But Mab was too clever for choices,” Kane says. “She wanted both, and both is what she got.”
“How?” I ask.
“She convinced the gods that two courts were vital to the realm,” Kane says, “and she made them see how Deaglan’s duplicity could spread like a sickness if he were allowed to rule over all the land. The gods saw the truth of her argument and divided the land into opposing courts. They fractured the kingdom in two, right down the center of the Goblin Mountains and along the River of Ice.”
Finn nods. “Thus, they presented her with the Court of the Moon, which would draw power from the night, the stars, and the moon. For balance, they gave her enemy the power of the day and the sun and called it the Court of the Sun.”
“But Mab had tricked the gods,” Kane says. “She hadn’t chosen the court with its curse of mortality, merely explained the merits of two courts. Once the kingdom was already divided and she wore the Crown of Starlight, she made her choice. She wanted to be more magically powerful than any fae in history and have her offspring gifted with the same power.
“She was a priestess who’d tricked the gods, who’d died and come back to life,” Kane adds, “so naturally the Court of the Sun painted her as the doer of dark magic, as someone wicked, someone to be feared and avoided at all costs.”
“It worked, too,” Finn says. “Droves of fae left what’s now known as the Unseelie land. They declared their loyalties to the Court of the Sun. Perhaps Mab wouldn’t have had a kingdom to rule at all, but Deaglan was a cruel king, casting out anyone who didn’t have something to offer him, demanding tithes from the poor and building that shining quartz palace through the labor of slaves. All those Deaglan cast out of his court, Mab gave refuge; those he persecuted, she rescued.”