HOUSE OF CURSES (Royal Houses #3)

5. The Artifact

5

THE ARTIFACT

Kerrigan tugged the black cloak over her frame, hiding her recognizable red curls under the hood. She traced the lines of the red mask in her hand. She had only seen one of these when someone was trying to destroy her life. Holding one in her hand felt wrong.

“Ready to go?” Valia asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Valia nodded in understanding. “Let’s go.”

Kerrigan fell into step beside the spy and assassin. During the tournament, she had thought that she was going to be just like Valia. A steward of the Society—someone tapped to work for the Society but never quite one of them. It’d turned out that was Valia’s cover to get inside the mountain. She had been sent to kill Kerrigan and made another call. They were working together to take down the organization.

“Where exactly are we going?” she asked as they stalked through the shadows of the Row and toward Central.

“There’s a Red Masks meeting tonight. I only got wind of it about an hour ago. We’re notorious for short notice. The less time anyone is told about them, the less likely there’s a leak.”

We. Kerrigan sometimes forgot that Valia was a Red Mask. She had been her friend first. If innocent little Valia could be one of them, then anyone could.

“You don’t think it will be suspicious that you’re bringing me?”

“We won’t go in together. I’ll report to the Father.”

Kerrigan shivered. Valia was a daughter to the Father of the Red Masks. Just like Isa, another one of his assassins that he’d sent to kill her. Isa hadn’t decided to pardon her. She just had never gotten lucky enough to finish the job.

“Okay. How big is this meeting? Because I am rather recognizable. If anyone makes me take my hood down …”

“The last one I went to had a few hundred Fae,” she said, casually upturning Kerrigan’s life.

“A few hundred?”

Valia frowned. “Minimum.”

“So many.”

“Not everyone is doing as well as those Fae on the Row. They might not be in the Dregs, like humans and half-Fae, but they feel as if they deserve more than they are getting. They idolize those on top and punch down to those on the bottom because that is what they are most afraid of.” Valia sighed heavily. “They might look like a group of hardened killers, but they’re not. They’ve been told that they are exceptional and if they work hard enough, then they can have the dream of the rich. When they don’t achieve what is nearly impossible to achieve, then they look for someone to blame.”

“And it’s easier to blame us than to look at themselves,” Kerrigan said.

Valia nodded. “Or the system that created these divides between us. It might look like an accident that half-Fae and humans are put at the bottom of the system and treated this way, but the system is working the way it was designed.”

“That’s depressing.”

“I’ve been doing research in the library about the foundations of the Society. Humans were in Alandria first. They were in this valley before the Fae ever arrived, before Irena ever made her bargain to partner with the dragons, before all of it. They slaughtered most of the humans and enslaved the rest. When Fae and humans began to interbreed, the half-Fae were seen as chattel. Any drop of human in them was a mark against them. And the Guard,” she said with distaste, “began as human and half-Fae slave traffickers. They were never there to protect all the people. Just the Fae.”

“And the records say this? If it’s all readily available, then why doesn’t anyone believe me when I speak out?”

“No one wants to look at themselves, Kerrigan. No one wants to do any work or see how they’re part of the problem. They’re too busy claiming not to be prejudice against anyone to see that they already are.”

It was a sobering thought. An upward battle that made Kerrigan feel like the tiniest cog in the machine. Clearing out one problem was going to cascade a whole new world of them. This would be her life’s work—to correct even an ounce of the pain done upon those the Fae deemed lesser.

“One step at a time,” Valia said, touching her shoulder. “It took a deep dive into the mountain for me to realize that I was a product of what the Father had made me. But I can be so much more and do so much better. You taught me that. And it all starts with one person.”

It would be so easy to get bogged down in the immensity of what she was trying to accomplish. But Valia was right. One person at a time. If Valia could turn, then anyone could.

“This way,” Valia said as they headed north out of the main body of Central and toward the Dregs.

Kinkadia was divided into six main districts with Draco Mountain and the Row along the eastern bowl of the valley. Central made up the majority of the center of the bowl, including the Square and much of the commerce. Directly south of Central was Artisan Village with its little Painter’s Row, the Opera house, local bookstores, and Parris’ dress shop. Along the South River was Riverfront, a wealthy district full of people who couldn’t afford property on the Row. And the rest of Kinkadia, nearly everything to the west and north, was the Dregs, where humans and half-Fae lived like ants.

Kerrigan couldn’t imagine the Red Masks having a presence in the Dregs. That was the wrong clientele for their propaganda. But they stopped right before they reached the unofficial dividing line. A large huddle of people stood before the entrance to a ballroom in a mismatch of workers’ attire and cloaks. Kerrigan didn’t see a single person in nice clothing. She understood why Valia had given her a plain cloak.

As they approached, Kerrigan saw that they were handing red masks out at the door for those who didn’t already have them. Kerrigan felt dirty, but she put her mask on and double-checked that her hair was hidden in her hood.

“I’m going to go inside and open a side door for you. Head to the western side of the building and wait for me.”

“Wait,” she said, grabbing Valia’s arm. “Why can’t I go in with everyone else?”

Valia shook her head. “Look. Tell me what you see.”

Kerrigan followed her gaze back to the entrance. She’d been preoccupied by everyone’s clothing and the red masks that were being handed out. Somehow, she had missed there was another barrier for entrance. She narrowed her eyes and tried to make out what she was seeing.

A woman at the entrance was holding what looked like a large coin. It was roughly an inch thick and apparently solid gold. The reason there was a crowd was because every person entering had to put their thumb against the center of the coin before they were ever handed a mask. But as far as she could tell, it didn’t seem to be doing anything to them. She doubted it was entirely innocuous.

“What’s with the coin?”

Valia nodded approvingly. “Father calls it the Collector. It’s a magical artifact that takes a magical fingerprint of everyone who touches it.”

Kerrigan blinked. “A magical fingerprint? For what purpose?”

“It catalogs the person’s magical abilities. Every person has to touch the Collector to prove their worth to the Red Masks.”

“So, you’re telling me, it has a full list of every Red Mask?”

She shrugged. “It’s not really a list. And I don’t know how it can be accessed, but yes. Everyone touches it to get inside. Which is why we aren’t taking you through the front.”

“And you’ve touched it?”

Valia nodded once solemnly. “Now, I’m going.”

It was only a matter of minutes before the side door discreetly opened and Kerrigan was inside the Red Masks meeting. Valia had already disappeared as Kerrigan stepped farther into the ballroom. It was a sterile space with no ornamentation or frivolity. The opposite of the ballroom she had just been in on the Row. The room was positively packed with Fae. Their identities hidden behind masks as they waited anxiously before a sturdy wooden stage.

Kerrigan kept to the shadows of the room, leaning her shoulder against a wooden beam with her back to the door she had come through. The press of bodies continued until a solid clunk told everyone that the doors had been closed. The volume increased as excitement grew, like a hurricane gathering steam before crashing into the coast.

After a moment of tittering, a figure stepped onto the stage, and everyone cheered. It was a slight woman with olive-toned skin and a drape of waist-length black curls. She approached the podium and projected her voice through a magic charm.

“Welcome, Red Masks!”

Another roar of approval filtered through the audience. Kerrigan clapped with them to ensure she fit in. Though truly just being in a room with this many Red Masks made her feel queasy.

Six years earlier, when a human, Cyrene, had won the dragon tournament, the Red Masks had boldly walked the streets of Kinkadia. Kerrigan had been young and wild with excitement over the win. In an empty alleyway, a group of Red Masks had cornered and brutally assaulted her. She would have died that night if not for Dozan Rook.

For years after that, her nightmares had been full of Red Masks, circling ever closer. She had found out that her spirit magic had saved her that night. That Dozan had just found her and nursed her back to health. But none of the facts stopped the fear rippling through her.

“We’re at the dawn of a new age. Males and females alike are here to see the birth of that era, to see Fae once more on top.” She raised her hand into a fist. “We’ve had to share the valley with the humans and half-Fae. They’ve taken jobs and money and magic from us. And now, they have the audacity to rise up beyond their position. You know who I speak of.”

The audience booed, and Kerrigan shrank further back into her hood. She knew who they were talking about too.

“A half-Fae has joined the Society. A half-Fae is a noble in tribe Bryonica and will marry a Fae prince. A half-Fae has been nominated for the Society council.”

Kerrigan gulped as everyone sneered and yelled their distaste.

“And just as the House of Shadows was opened and our allies were released from their unjust prison, she is there to put them back into their isolation. And worse, she released all the human and half-Fae and brought them to our city. The streets are full of refugees. More flies on the wall, more mouths to feed, and not enough room for them all.”

Kerrigan forced a calm. She wanted to rush the stage and put her fist through this woman’s mouth. Releasing slaves was a good thing. But she hadn’t been the one to bring the refugees into the city or to isolate the House of Shadows. In fact, she’d argued against the forced isolation. Not that anyone would believe her.

“It’s nearly time to show them that we will not be held down. We will not fall to the human and half-Fae scourge. We will rise above.”

A cheer erupted from the crowd.

“And without further ado, the Father!”