Misrule, page 18
“It did.”
I want to ask more—want her to let me in like she would have done when we sat together in my Lair. But her eyes go glassy, and I can sense how exhausted she is. I don’t resist when she pulls away and heads to the door.
“Thank you for these, too,” she says just before she leaves. “I look forward to talking with you about them later. Over tea?”
Happiness fizzes in my veins. “Anytime you say.”
* * *
—
“You won’t believe the design of this weapon,” Regan says as we walk together through the corridors the next day. “It fires ten flaming bolts. Malakar has outdone himself.”
Callow warbles her appreciation from my shoulder, and I laugh. “It sounds like it.”
An Imp gallops past with a plate of pastries, and I snag one before he rounds the corner.
“No time for that.” Regan tugs me along. “He’s in the gardens.”
“There’s always time for pastries,” I say around a mouthful.
“In that case—” She snatches the rest from my hand and stuffs it into her mouth before I can stop her.
“That was mine!”
She grins, displaying a mouthful of bright pink filling. “Tomorrow you have to come to the practice yard. We’re going to train with it, and several of the Demons have challenged me to duels. You won’t want to miss out.”
“Fine,” I say. “But there had better be an entire tray of pastries waiting for me. A big tray.”
Regan licks her lips and sticks out her hand. “Deal.”
I shake on it. But I would have gone to the practice yard anyway. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Regan spar, and she’s stunningly good at it. We push through a side door and out into the courtyard. Malakar’s voice rides the chilly breeze, and I expect him to be surrounded by a gaggle of Imps and other courtiers, all eager to watch him show off. But while he has drawn a crowd, there is one among them I did not anticipate.
Aurora stands in the center of a ring of onlookers, holding a crossbow.
“What on—” Regan starts.
I catch her arm and pull her to a halt with me, positioning us behind a statue so that we don’t disturb them.
“You don’t think she’s going to fire that on us, do you?” Regan whispers.
“No.” I’m reasonably sure. “But I’d like to see how she does.”
Malakar stands close to Aurora, pointing out the various features of the bow. And it is a magnificent weapon, fashioned so that it appears as a roaring dragon. Like the other, it has a chamber that lights the bolts as they fire. But this one launches the shafts out of the dragon’s open jaws, creating the illusion that the beast is breathing flame.
“Let this part rest on your shoulder,” Malakar instructs, helping her lift the thing. “Aye, just like that. One hand goes here.”
“Like this?” she asks.
“Aye. And be gentle-like. She’s not going to run away from you.” He corrects her form. “Now set your sights.”
Aurora positions the weapon toward the target Malakar set up. Most of the crowd edges away from her, except for the Imps, who keep cartwheeling into the line of fire.
“Stop that!” Malakar scolds them with a growl. “It’ll serve you right if she turns you into pincushions.”
They giggle and dance away.
“Easy now, Princess.” Malakar’s typical gruffness is replaced with a patience that warms me through. “Just give that trigger a squeeze, and—”
There’s the sound of a bowstring singing. A flurry of flaming bolts whizzes through the air and thunks into the target—directly in the center. After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd cheers.
“Aye!” Malakar laughs, clapping Aurora on the shoulder. “Well done. Like you were born to it.”
Aurora lowers the bow. Her smile lights up the courtyard, and my very soul expands—seeing her so happy among the Dark Court.
“Well,” Regan says. “She’ll have won Malakar’s undying admiration for that.”
She will. The Goblin leader is already reloading the bow and challenging his own to beat Aurora’s shot. She’s still beaming, accepting congratulations from everyone around her.
“You should have a go,” I say to Regan. “Show them how it’s done.”
She smiles at me, but there’s a brittleness to it. “I’ll wait until tomorrow,” she says. “I’ve just remembered something else I need to do.”
“I thought you—”
But she only waves at me and heads back to the palace.
For a while, I watch Aurora. Several others take turns with the bow, and she applauds and encourages them. Every fiber of my body wants to go to her. Bask in a sunlight that I have been denied these last hundred years.
But I stay back. Let her have this moment. And hope that one day—maybe even sooner than I think—we might enjoy another together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Just after dawn the next day, a sharp rapping at my window wakes me. Grumbling about the hour and the cold leaching through the stone, I kick off the blankets to find Callow hovering impatiently on the other side of the glass. As soon as I crank the panes open, she sails in with a fat mouse gripped in her talons and drops it at my feet with a proud chirrup. I yelp and hop away from the mess of entrails spattering from its gaping stomach.
“I told you not to bring me these.” I toss the carcass back outside by the tail.
Callow clacks her beak, highly offended, and perches on the top of a dragon-headed bedpost.
“I mean it. No more. I don’t care if your feelings are hurt.”
She scolds me for being ungrateful and then sets to pruning her tawny wings. White fluff floats like snow onto the floor.
The bedchamber door swings wide. “Oh good, you’re up.” Regan sees Callow, the open window, and laughs. “What was it this time? Ferret?”
The dreary day is cold, and I wrap myself up in a fur-lined dressing gown. “Mouse. I swear, every time I toss one out, she brings me two in response.”
“Maybe start ignoring them?” Regan heads to the wardrobe, moving faster than she has a right to at this time of the morning. “Or eating them. I think that’s what she wants you to do.”
Callow makes a noise that could only be interpreted as agreement.
“I’m not eating them.” I tighten the sash on the gown. “And I’m not letting them rot on the floor. The chamber would reek.”
The kestrel lifts her wing, examining her under-feathers.
“You can fuss about it later,” Regan says, rummaging around.
“You’re in a mood,” I notice. “Is something wrong? I thought we were going to the practice yard.”
She emerges and tosses me a particularly militant gown—a velvet that is the deep green of the Vila, with leather straps and gilded buckles down the bodice. “There’s a rider.”
I catch the garment. “A rider? Why haven’t the sentries shot him down?”
“We tried. But he’s from the High Court and his protections are too strong. And he’s carrying a rowan wreath.” She grins. “It seems the High King would like a parley.”
* * *
—
The courtyard is packed. A Fae steed treads the air within a translucent orb of protection, the collar of gold-dipped laurel leaves and rowan branches wound around its neck—the Fae symbol for peace. And one we have never beheld in the Dark Court.
The Imps lash their barbed tails and launch one another into the air, attempting to reach the Etherian. Goblins and Demons line the battlements, firing arrows and crossbow bolts. His shield trembles but doesn’t break.
“I don’t give a Goblin’s tit about your rowan!” Valmar shouts. His Imps cheer.
Instead of armor, the Fae rider wears a jacket of bark that appears to be molded from sheets of hammered gold. But it moves as fluidly as leather. His body appears cut from the trunk of a yew tree, like Regan’s staff. Pale gray moss climbs over the backs of his knobby-boned hands and up the sides of his neck. He notices me. “Half-breed. Your court disregards the rules of war. A rider under rowan cannot be harmed.”
Raucous laughter from the Goblins.
“You are under the mistaken impression that my court adheres to rules,” I reply.
The Imps swing their clubs wildly, teeth bared. Another volley of arrows whistles from the battlements and bounces off the Etherian’s shield.
He sneers. “Even your ancestors extended some semblance of courtesy in these circumstances.”
A rotted apple arcs into the air and splatters into black sludge against the rider’s protections. “A gift for the Fae,” an Imp squeals. “Plenty more courtesy where that came from.”
The rider’s mount bucks. The Demons on the battlements do not lower their weapons.
“Then I shall make my visit brief. I have come at the behest of the High King, who requests an audience with the Crown Princess of Briar. In Etheria, of course.”
Disbelief undulates through the crowd. And I try to disguise my own flare of shock.
“How did the Fae find out about her?” Regan bullies her way to my side, voicing the very question that screams through my mind.
“I have no idea.”
It’s been over a month since Aurora woke. How did Oryn discover her? And why did he send a rider? There’s another stir as Aurora herself maneuvers her way to the front of the crowd. Her hair is coiled on top of her head—like a crown.
“Princess.” The Etherian dips his chin, which was more deference than I recall the lord ambassador Endlewild displaying for any mortal during his tenure at this palace. “The High King of the Fae bids me to convey his compliments and to inquire after your well-being and safety.”
Murmurs churn like the angry sea.
“I am well enough,” Aurora replies, polite but distant. The way she used to speak to her suitors. It makes my lips twitch up. But I’m still cautious. There are a hundred thousand ways this exchange could sour.
“A relief.” The rider places one stick-fingered hand on his chest in what I assume is a gesture of blessing. “High King Oryn will be gladdened by the news.”
“Will he?” Aurora tilts her head. “Why hasn’t he come himself, then?”
The Fae steed rolls its shimmery wings.
“The High King has many matters to attend to,” the envoy answers. “But you will recall Briar’s alliance with the Fae before the Vila usurped your throne.” Mortania swirls in her cave. “An alliance that, with your emergence, survives.”
I suck in a breath. Damn that treaty. I haven’t thought of it in years, and I never guessed Oryn would care about the agreement now that Briar is sacked. But he does. And my apprehension sharpens instantly to panic. After I saw Aurora with Malakar, after our exchange in my solar, I’d begun to hope that she might be warming to the Dark Court. But if Leythana’s treaty is intact, that means Aurora has an army of Fae at her back. What will she do with it?
“Should we—” Regan starts.
“I have no alliance with Etheria.” Aurora’s words ring in the courtyard, eliciting a flurry of astonishment from the crowd. Relief and confusion collide inside me. “The Fae did nothing when the Briar Queens lost their sovereign rights to their husbands.”
The jeweled sigil of the High Court on a circlet nested into the Etherian’s leafy hair dazzles. “Rights those queens signed away willingly. A poor choice, but a choice nonetheless.”
Aurora doesn’t waver in the slightest. “The Fae also did nothing to aid their own kin—the Graces—when those poor creatures were being exploited by the humans in Briar.”
“The Graces were merely gifted humans. A spoil earned by the mortal court during the War of the Fae, and therefore none of ours. We owed them nothing.”
“And I think one day you will say that you owe me nothing,” she smoothly returns. “Your interest in my ‘well-being’ is quite sudden. Where were you these last hundred years?”
The envoy strains to maintain his composure. His steed nickers, feeding off its rider’s energy. “You were presumed dead, as was the rest of your family.”
“Presumed,” Aurora echoes, folding her arms. “What an interesting word choice. But I’ve learned that Lord Endlewild himself softened my curse. I do not think he would have neglected to send word to the High King about that development. Therefore, I suspect that you possessed some idea that I lived this entire time. And that you chose to let me sleep.”
The envoy…does not refute it. In fact, the orb on his staff blazes citrine, betraying his spike of frustration. Dragon’s teeth, is Aurora correct? Were the Etherians always aware that she was alive? But then why didn’t they fight for her after my siege? Regan is intrigued, looking from Aurora to the Fae envoy like a spectator at one of the Demons’ games.
His bark-like jacket gleams. “Does so minute a detail matter? I am here because the High King wishes to offer his protection.”
“In Etheria,” Aurora says. “But, tell me—if I go with you, can I expect the same kind of protection he offered the Imps when they were captive in your courts?” The barb-tailed creatures shout, brandishing their weapons. “Or the citizens of Malterre, exiled from their homes because of your blight?”
My heart swells. She cares for them—for us.
“Enough.” The orb on the envoy’s staff swirls with power. “The High King will be most disappointed to learn that his generosity is wasted on you.”
“I’m afraid I have not yet experienced his generosity.” Sunlight glints off the buckles on Aurora’s gown. She is straight-backed and fearless, and Leythana would be proud to see her. “Nor do I wish to, if it includes another century-long sleep.”
The answering bellow of the court is deafening. Goblins shout all manner of curses, promising death and disembowelment and anything else their twisted minds can conjure up. Even from here, I can hear the creak of the Demons’ bows as they nock their arrows.
A gilded laurel leaf falls from the steed’s neck and drifts toward us. “I would not be so hasty to deny the blood oath your kinswoman earned.”
“I deny nothing relating to Leythana,” she says. “And if she knew what her blood oath wrought, she would break it herself. Relay this to your king: I will have none of your Fae bargains, full of traps and unseen costs. And I will not forget you the way you forgot me.”
Shouts and taunts crash together in a cacophonous, jeering chorus. The Goblins stamp their boots on the flagstones, so loud that the Fae beast whinnies, and the rider has to jerk the reins to regain control. Some chant Aurora’s name. Because, in this moment, they view her as one of us, firm and resolute against the Etherians. On our side.
The Fae envoy spurs his steed and wings away. Demons and Goblins fire arrows and hurl spears at his retreat. Aurora watches him go, utterly glorious, and then she turns to us. Her face is lit with triumph. I smile back, pride blazing inside me.
But then that euphoric feeling curdles.
Her smile is not for me. It’s for Derek.
* * *
—
Aurora is instantly transformed into the princess of the Dark Court.
The Imps conjure up mountains of roasted game, including a peafowl whose emerald-and-violet train of feathers is promptly plucked and used to annoy the Demons. There’s also a pie that frightens a Vila out of her wits when crows erupt from the crust as soon as it’s cut. And the Imps must have learned of the parties of former Briar, for there are pyramids of gold-dipped pastries and fountains of peach-colored fizzy wine. A few of the Goblins pry down mounted Etherian heads and parade them around the throne room, smearing creamy filling over their gaping lips and pouring wine into their hollow mouths.
Regan sits beside me on the dais, her foot tapping along to the melody of the Goblins’ playing. “Well, that was an unexpected turn of events.”
Aurora is on the other side of the hall, speaking with Torin. Smoke curls from the Demon leader’s skin in lazy tendrils, as it does when she’s in a particularly good mood.
“Perhaps I was wrong about the princess after all.” Regan selects a small cake from a passing tray. The Imps conjured it so that it looks like one of the ossified Etherian heads. And the icing is bright gold, so it appears that they’re bleeding with each bite.
“I told you she just needed time,” I say.
The dance ends, and one of the humans scuttles over to the princess and presents her with an arrangement of pastries topped with sugared miniature roses. It’s Elspeth. She laughs at something Aurora says, but then the nearest Imp yanks Elspeth’s hair and the whole tray goes flying. Typically, such a scene wouldn’t trouble me. In fact, I’ve encouraged similar slights and humiliations when it comes to the servants. But this time…
“Do you ever feel bad about the way we treat the humans?”
The question surprises us both. I hide my embarrassment with a deep drink. The offending Imp claps his hands and cackles, but Aurora roundly scolds him until he picks up the cakes and hands the tray back to Elspeth.
“What we do with them has never concerned you before.”
No. But the way Elspeth shrank from me in the library. She thought I would burn her mother’s portrait simply for the thrill of hurting her.
She does not matter, Mortania insists.
But I can’t rid myself of the shame. “I know. It’s only…the Imps were abused in the Fae courts—tormented for the Etherians’ enjoyment. Aren’t we doing the same thing here with the mortals?”
“And what would you rather do?” Regan asks. “Give them rooms? Reinstate their titles? Should one of them hold a place at council?”
Each prospect is worse than the last. What would the humans do if we allowed them even a sliver of power? How would someone like Rose behave if my necklace wasn’t keeping her in check? The possibilities are endless—and horrifying. Even so, the pleasure I used to experience when demeaning the former nobles has considerably paled.
