Misrule, page 25
The grooves of Torin’s skin fade from amber to pale yellow. “You have our attention.”
Aurora takes a steadying sip of wine and taps the cover of the book. It’s one of the volumes I’d provided at her request. “I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading recently. And something that has always interested me about this current conflict is Oryn’s refusal to invade Briar. His courts are falling, but he only engages when the battle is within his domain. Am I wrong?”
Regan crosses one leg over the other. “No. Besides the Shifters, we’ve had none of our own blood spilled on our lands.”
“And has there been any communication from Oryn’s side?”
“Nah,” Valmar answers. “Just the envoy.”
“An envoy dispatched decades into a war?” She looks around at us. “Doesn’t that seem odd, even for the Fae?”
I’d never considered it much before. But yes. It does. I sit back in my chair. Even Regan’s brow is pinched beneath her bone spikes. Neve leans forward. “And I suppose you have a theory to explain his disengagement?”
Aurora opens the book. “When he came for me, the envoy alluded to the Fae treaty with Leythana, which would have afforded protection for me should I have asked for it. In fact, it was protection Alyce and I were counting on when we planned the coup against my father.”
“Yes,” I confirm. “But Laurel told us that the Fae wouldn’t intervene unless summoned.”
“Exactly.” She finds a page. “At the time, I thought the summoning was a Fae formality. But it’s stronger than that. I believe that Oryn can’t send forces unless the Briar Queen calls him.”
Dragon’s teeth. Is she right?
“And you didn’t know this before?” Torin asks. “You were Briar’s heir. Surely the treaty—”
Aurora laughs, but it’s hollow. “I read the version of the treaty kept in Briar’s royal library. It had been edited, no doubt, by some Briar King who was quite content to know that the Fae were powerless to overthrow him without his wife’s consent. No king would have wanted his queen to understand the extent of her sovereign power. This”—she swivels the book toward us—“is probably closer to the real version of the treaty.”
Regan snatches the book and scans the wording. “But it doesn’t say that Oryn can’t attack.”
“Not explicitly. But as I’ve learned about the Fae, there can be more power in what isn’t said. Here.” She underlines a phrase with her fingertip. “No mortal foot shall tread within the Fae courts, and none but the Crown may call the Crown. I assumed it was some obscure phrasing to keep the mortals from pestering the Etherians. Oryn didn’t want to be receiving petitions from the humans, and so only the heads of the realms could communicate.”
“Sounds like Oryn,” Valmar grumbles.
“But then I remembered how the High King used to ignore my father’s letters. Any missive from Oryn was delivered directly to Endlewild, and then given to my mother—who of course immediately handed it over to him.” I don’t miss the bitterness in her words. If only Queen Mariel had possessed the courage to stand up to her husband. “I thought Oryn was just being haughty by excluding my father. But if strictly read, this treaty dictates that Oryn could only communicate with the recognized Crown—the Briar Queen—and no one else. As there hasn’t been a queen for the last century, Oryn was blocked by his own restrictions.”
“But the envoy,” Torin argues. “He communicated with you and he wasn’t the High King.”
“No, but he came at Oryn’s behest, which must have been enough to allow for a message to be sent by proxy. And that’s probably why the envoy wanted me to return with him to Etheria, where Oryn could speak with me himself and gain my permission to invade.”
Her words sink into our skulls. I’m not sure anyone at the table is breathing.
“If this is accurate,” Torin says slowly, “it is…interesting.”
“It’s more than interesting,” Aurora says. “It’s a weapon we didn’t realize we had.”
“Weapon?” Renard’s ears prick.
“I know you’re all convinced that we have to use Mortania’s power to crush the High Court and the rest of the Fae. But it isn’t Oryn we have to worry about—it’s his power. Which is why we need to find a way to wrest control of that magic.”
“And how would we do that?”
She folds her arms. “Aside from their latent magic, what is the source of Fae power?”
It takes a moment, but then comprehension dawns. A laugh punches up my throat. “Oryn’s staff? What do you want to do—steal it?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time the High King was robbed.”
Long before the first war, a faction of Vila snuck into the High Court and snatched that staff right out from under Oryn’s arrogant Fae nose. The theft sparked the Fae challenge, which earned Leythana her Briar Crown. No wonder Aurora is attracted to the scheme.
“What’s the point of stealing anything?” Renard growls the question. “We’ve enough blight elixir to blast the High Court to pieces, and—”
“Do you?” Aurora challenges. “Because it’s my understanding that you have no idea what waits behind Oryn’s protections. But if we succeed in stealing his staff, we can bring it here.”
“Where Oryn can’t attack,” I say, pulse kicking up in anticipation. “We could hold it for another hundred years if we wanted to.”
“And why would we want to?” Regan asks, inspecting the hilt of her dagger. “Let’s use the staff to lure Oryn here and then finish him.”
Valmar and Renard loudly voice their agreement.
But Aurora holds up her hand. “I understand the sentiment, but—”
“I’m not certain you do, Princess,” Neve interrupts. “Shifters have been dropped on our doorstep in pieces. Malakar’s head served to us on a platter. Do you expect us to sue for peace?”
Mortania writhes in the place where my magic lives, mirroring Neve’s wrath. I grip the arms of my chair, bracing myself for this meeting’s inevitable souring. Truthfully, I can’t even argue with the Shifter leader. I want justice as much as the rest of them do. But I’d promised Aurora I would try.
“And how many more need to die?” There’s no edge to Aurora’s voice. Only cool calculation. “Will you be sated when Oryn’s head is on the throne room wall? What about after, when there are no more Fae to conquer?”
I glance around at the others. None of us have ever spoken about after. And it makes me wonder yet again about Torin’s philosophy. The wounds we do not allow to heal.
“It would be easy to kill Oryn,” Aurora goes on. “But think of the fate you really want for him. Do you desire him dead and buried, nothing but a severed head? Or alive and powerless, subject to the authority of the Dark Court?”
The question hits like an arrow striking home. The table goes perfectly still, and I imagine Oryn being unbreakably bound to us. Oryn, who murdered so many of ours, reduced to nothing but a shell of his former glory. For a fleeting instant, I’m almost sorry I killed Tarkin. It would be far sweeter to have him toiling away in the palace, watching me destroy everything he built up. Mortania whirls with pleasure.
“I like it,” Torin says. The rivulets on her arms brighten and dim, scarlet to umber. “It means we trap the High King in his own turn of phrase. He’ll never expect that we’re capable of outsmarting him.”
“Aye.” Valmar’s barbed tail swishes in a thoughtful tempo. “Could make him dance to our tune for a change—the way he’d made mine dance at his revels.”
And just like that, Aurora has won them over. Myself included. Even Mortania thrums with something akin to appreciation.
I pour out a fresh goblet and raise a toast. “Let us make the High King of the Fae live out his days as a servant to the Dark Court.”
Aurora lifts her own glass and smiles at me. And I know in my bones that this is not the last time we will sit here together. That this is the first day of a new beginning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
We spend the rest of the day and into the evening strategizing. In the end, it is decided that we’ll go to the High Court with a small number. As powerful as my magic is, I’m not convinced it is capable of fully breaking Oryn’s protections. But I think I can cause them to falter for long enough to let us through. Then Torin, Renard, and their regiments will position themselves around the border and divert the court’s attention with the blight elixir, allowing Regan and I to infiltrate the palace and steal Oryn’s staff.
But as meticulously as we’ve planned the details, there remain a thousand avenues for failure. Long after the council meeting, my mind buzzes with the unknowable variables. After sufficiently haunting the corridors, I find myself on the battlements, unable to let my mind rest. Callow keeps me company, and I’m grateful for the pressure of her feathered body. A fine mist begins to fall, like shards of ice. Only the Demons, with their molten fire blood, could endure sentry duty tonight.
“Here.” A mug is thrust in front of me. “You’ll freeze to death.”
I blink in surprise. Aurora stands beside me. Callow mutters a greeting, relocating to roost on the ledge of a turret. Torchlight plays on Aurora’s luminous skin.
“You’re not tired?”
“I’m exhausted, as I’m sure you are. But I can’t sleep.”
The mulled wine steams in the chill. I wrap my hands around the cup to thaw my stiff fingers. A few sentries pass us and dip their chins.
“You were wonderful today,” I tell her. “I had no idea you’d been reading so much and planning. I’m sorry that I…”
“Tried to order me back to my rooms?” She slides me a sideways glance.
I drink the wine. Spices burn down my throat and web outward. “I didn’t mean to treat you like your father would have.”
“I know,” she says softly.
Wind whistles over the battlements.
“But I should have guessed you’d think of something so brilliant. I can’t believe we missed it. All this time, and Oryn cannot attack us.” I shake my head. “The reason for his reluctance has been staring us in the face.”
A grin twitches at the corners of her lips. “I was rather proud of it.”
“You should be.” I nudge my shoulder against hers. “You put the first Briar Queens to shame. Your father had no idea of the strategist he housed under his roof.”
Callow warbles in what I interpret as agreement.
“My father possessed little idea about a lot of things,” Aurora says, and I don’t miss the salt in her tone, the same as in the council chamber. “Neither did my mother. I never understood why she let my twenty-first birthday creep closer and closer. Why she let my sisters die. She should have figured out about the treaty. Called on Oryn long before we thought to do it.”
Her knuckles are stretched white around her mug, and there’s a deep-seated rage to her rigid posture. Without thinking, I pry one of her hands loose and hold it in mine. She doesn’t pull away.
“Whatever happened, or didn’t, I’m glad you’re here now. I hope you understand how much it meant to the rest of the council to hear that you respect them. For so many in this court, Briar is a symbol of the fall of Malterre. No one in that room could have imagined that one of its princesses would support them.”
Faraway thunder growls.
“I meant what I said.” Aurora stares out at the bottomless black of the horizon. Torches snap in the wind. “And I hope that isn’t the last council meeting I attend.”
Her wish is so close to my own that fresh happiness shimmers in my blood.
“Oh, no. I’m fairly certain that after today they’ll demand you join us. Torin, especially, was impressed.”
“How could you tell?”
“Her veins turned bright yellow. That always happens when she admires something.”
“Really?” Aurora’s brow scrunches. “I’ll have to pay more attention.”
“I’m sure you’ll be seeing it often.”
She squeezes my hand, and I realize that this is the longest we’ve touched in a hundred years. A heat that has nothing to do with the wine blooms in my belly.
“You know I’m going with you to the High Court,” she says.
The next press of wind cuts close. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous.”
She extracts herself from my grip and regards me with the same expression she wore in my Lair when she’d been determined to experiment with the summoning ritual. “Stealing Oryn’s staff was my idea. And I will not stay here and watch the Imps cartwheel into themselves while the rest of you carry it out.”
“But we haven’t planned for—”
“Then adjust.” She shrugs. “I’m going. If I have to hide myself in a weapons chest, you know I will.”
Dragon’s teeth, she can be so stubborn. I gulp down the rest of my wine. Moonlight paints the copper threads in her hair. “Fine. But you have to stay with me. No wandering off, doing Dragon knows what.”
She waggles her eyebrows and doesn’t even pretend to promise.
But instead of annoyance, a heady lightness expands through my limbs. I’ve missed her—missed this—so much.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
Embarrassment nips at me. “For actually trying, like you said you would. When Malakar came back to us, I automatically assumed the only way forward was with violence. I didn’t even consider another path, and I shut you out. But you didn’t let me.”
She finds my hand again. Her thumb traces circles over my knuckles. “Because I know you, Alyce. You can pretend to be Nimara all you like, but your heart is the same. You must promise me to keep trusting it, no matter what happens.”
Aurora’s lips look velvet-soft in the torchlight. And the sentries are away on their rounds. I wonder what would happen if I leaned in and—
“Here you are.” Regan emerges from the shadows, and I jerk back from Aurora. Callow chuffs and rearranges herself. “I see you’re not alone.”
“No.” I fuss with my mug. “Aurora and I were discussing the council meeting.”
For the briefest instant, Regan’s emerald eyes harden. But then she recovers. “That’s exactly what I was coming to see you about.”
“Then I’ll go.” Aurora turns.
I catch her arm. “You don’t need to. Does she, Regan? We were all at the meeting.”
Regan folds her arms. Bone spikes line the ridge of her forearms, visible through the slashes in her leathers. “We were,” she says slowly. “But—”
The sound of a sentry’s horn reverberates between us. Callow screeches and takes flight.
I peer over the battlements. All I can make out are the thick, churning clouds and the coin of the moon struggling to be seen. I sharpen my eyesight. There—a dull speck speeding toward us with the Etherian Mountains at its back.
“A rider!” I shout.
The three of us sprint down the winding stairs and back through the palace. The rest of the court streams out with us, calling for weapons and shields and vengeance as we stampede into the main courtyard. Regan commands her Vila into formation.
But when I scour the skies, I don’t see a horde of Fae beasts with armored warriors. There’s only the one. And its flight is haphazard, as if both steed and rider are drunk.
I dart through the crowd, toward the main palace gates, where the rider is making a clumsy descent. He’s wounded. Badly, as is the mount. The beast lands heavily. The Fae rider somersaults from its back and rolls on the ground.
Vila flank me as we creep closer. At least a half-dozen arrows protrude from the steed’s hindquarters. Bright amber blood seeps from the wounds at its neck. Its mane is snarled with debris and crusted with sweat and grime. And the Fae is much worse. He’s wearing armor, but it’s dented and covered in what looks like charred marks. He’s unusually small for a Fae. Perhaps a female. Her limbs look short and stocky compared to the other Etherians I’ve encountered. Definitely not a member of the Hunt.
A Goblin races forward and pulls on the gilded helmet until he tumbles backward with it. Instantly I know why the rider does not resemble a typical Fae, and why his steed is riddled with wounds.
The rider is Derek.
The Vila are not a wicked race.
For all the slain princes and kings who failed the Fae challenge before me, it was a remarkably simple endeavor to request a parley with the purportedly malicious creatures.
Even easier to convince them to ally with me.
They will be angry, of course, when they learn the truth of our arrangement. I suppose there will be a price to pay for what I did to solicit their trust.
But it matters not. There was no alternative. What the Vila seek is unattainable. They would understand that eventually. And then it would be too late.
The hatred between the two realms is too deeply rooted to ever be mended. A weed choking a garden. It will continue until there is nothing left.
I must protect my realm against its blight.
—From the lost writings of Leythana, first Briar Queen. Age of the Rose, 20
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
For the second time, Derek—prince of Ryna—is bound and kneeling before my dais.
Regan and her Vila proposed hauling him straight to the dungeons, but the rest of the court wouldn’t hear of it, especially the Imps. I think they imagined him as one of their own, or at least their most entertaining plaything, and therefore his escape was nothing short of betrayal. And the Goblins are sharpening their curved blades and cracking their bone whips and claiming the bits of his body they’d like to devour.
Derek slumps in his bindings. Several of his wounds need tending, but that is a privilege reserved for those who have not been hiding their identities and plotting against us. He received wrappings on only the worst of his gashes before this interrogation began. Even Aurora stands stone-faced at the foot of the dais.
