Misrule, page 26
“Well, well.” The buzz of the court dulls. “You certainly seem to be making a habit of dramatic entrances, Your Highness.”
Laughter.
“What do you have to say for yourself? I suggest you do not waste our time with lies. There is much we know already, and my court is ravenous.”
Spears and staffs bang against the marble, and Derek shades impossibly paler.
“You’re right.” His voice is hoarse. “I am Ryna’s prince. The shipwreck that brought me here was staged as an attempt to disguise the fact that I was on a mission from the High King of the Fae.”
The Vila prowl closer, and I know they ache to let their magic boil his blood. If I wasn’t so interested in what he had to say, I would let them.
“What of your family?” Aurora demands. “Were they a fabrication as well?”
“No.” He swallows. “My father is dying and, as both of my siblings succumbed to plague, I’m the last heir. You know what that’s like.”
Her icy expression thaws in the slightest. Meddlesome prince.
“We’ve guessed at how you circumvented my binding curse, with the blessing from the High King,” I say, drawing his attention back to me. “But what we do not understand is why he would have wasted his magic on such an inept mortal. What did Oryn task you to do?”
Derek’s jaw works like he doesn’t want to answer. Several of the Goblins cry out that we should kill him and send his head back to the High Court on a golden plate, like Malakar’s.
“Keep your secrets if it pleases you.” Tendrils of smoke unspool from the surface of Torin’s skin, signaling her temper. “But you will die with them. And I suspect there is a reason you fled the High Court.”
Resignation settles over his features. “Some years ago, long before I was born, a Fae lord came to Ryna.”
I exchange a look with Torin. We were aware that the Fae are visiting the mortal realms, but not that they’ve been doing so for decades. “What did they want?”
“They presented a bargain, similar to the one in place before the time of the Briar Queens. They needed someone to infiltrate these lands.” He pauses. Reddens. “And to wake the sleeping princess.”
A hush falls over the crowd. Aurora’s fists ball at her sides. I share her anger. I knew there was a larger reason Derek had found himself in that library with his lips where they didn’t belong. Mortania’s presence canters through my limbs.
“You knew about me?” Aurora breathes. “All that about ‘stumbling upon’ me while I slept, and how you were ‘just acting’ when you kissed me. You were deceiving me. Manipulating me.”
His flush deepens, a bright scarlet guilt. “Yes, I lied. I am sorry for that. But I had to intervene on behalf of my realm.”
“I would have done whatever was necessary,” he’d said in the garden, what feels a lifetime ago.
“And what did the Fae promise you in return?” Aurora goes on. “My hand in marriage? Briar?”
“Both,” he admits. Aurora lets out a rueful laugh. “The Fae said we would rule together, so as not to violate Leythana’s treaty regarding the Briar Queens. But I would never have coerced you into marriage. The only relationship that I intended to form between us was a beneficial arrangement for our realms. Ryna needs money and Etherium, and Briar needs to rebuild. We could have helped each other.”
“Until you decided to rule alone, as every other Briar King did.”
“You must believe me. I wouldn’t have…”
He strains against the ropes, and the sentries yank him back.
“No one cares,” I say, waving my hand dismissively. The cracked jewel of my signet ring flashes. “But I admit that I’m puzzled. You clearly held up your end of this bargain. Aurora is awake. But you are rather far from being Briar’s king.”
Callow grumbles from her perch on the back of the throne.
“I’m not entirely sure what happened,” he replies. “The Fae never specified when they would honor their side of the arrangement. But my guess is that their delay has to do with Aurora. After she woke, I suppose they assumed she would go to Etheria as soon as the opportunity presented itself. But she…didn’t.”
A smile tugs up the corners of my mouth, recalling how thoroughly Aurora had rejected Oryn’s so-called generosity. The Imps and Goblins cheer.
“I’m sorry to hear I’ve dashed all your lofty aspirations,” Aurora comments.
Derek slumps like a chastened child.
“Is that why the member of the Hunt came here?” Torin asks. “Was Larkspur relaying instruction to you regarding Aurora?”
“I don’t know that, either,” Derek says, as it appears he is woefully uninformed about most things. “The Fae never explained why they wanted me back at the High Court.”
“How convenient.” Regan flips her snake-handled dagger from one hand to the next, and I share her suspicion. “And how long before another member of the Hunt comes to collect you—Theodoric?” The Vila laugh, cold and cruel. “Or perhaps Ryna’s army, charging in to rescue their prince?”
Derek studies the floor and says something I can’t make out.
“Louder,” I order.
One of the Vila prods him with the toe of his boot.
“No one is coming for me.” There’s pain in his voice, and it almost makes me feel sorry for him. Almost. “King Elias, when he returned from this land a century ago, refused to let any Ryna ships cross the sea for the Fae. He made his successor swear to remain out of the conflict, and every king after him—including my father—adhered to that command. No matter how dire the circumstances. I never understood why, and I judged it ridiculous to be so stubborn. Without Briar’s trade, there was no future for my realm. And so much time had passed since King Elias’s return that I presumed the tales of the monster were nothing but overinflated rumor.” He pauses. “So I accepted the Fae challenge in secret.”
Interesting—and foolish. Perhaps this is why Neve’s Starlings reported that the Ryna prince was “missing,” and that there seemed no inquiry into his whereabouts. The king wanted to keep his son’s defiance concealed.
“I don’t believe it,” Regan declares. “There are far too many auspicious gaps in the prince’s knowledge. If the Fae can stage one arrival, they can stage another. He’s here for Oryn.”
The boy doesn’t shrink. “Kill me, then, if that’s what you want. But think—why would Oryn send me back here, knowing that’s what you would do? What sort of idiot would I be to agree, when I have no protection?”
“The tasty kind!” A Goblin raises his spear, the long handle decorated with stacked skulls.
“Then why,” I ask over the tumult, “are you here?”
He meets my gaze without wavering. “Because it was a mistake to ally with the High King.”
“Oooo a mistake?” Valmar leaps onto his seat, long ears pointed back. “Why’s that? Was the crown the Etherians gave you not pretty enough? Had you no taste for their ambrosia wine?”
The Imps cackle, but Derek’s expression hardens. And something scratches at the corners of my mind. I lean forward, signaling them to be quiet.
“The Etherians lied,” he says.
More laughter.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, princeling.” Neve’s gown, which is rough and textured as if it is made of crushed-up gemstones, glimmers in the torchlight.
Blood from a cut on Derek’s forehead tracks down the side of his face and he swipes it away with his bound hands. “Maybe they didn’t lie like one of you could, but they tricked me. Tricked Ryna and all the other realms they visited.”
“And this is a surprise to you, mortal?” Regan drawls. “What did you assume the light Fae did—grant wishes?”
But Aurora inches nearer. “What did they tell you?”
Gratitude shines warm umber in his eyes. “I accepted the Fae challenge to help Ryna. But after I escaped these lands and arrived in the High Court, I discovered that nothing I did for Oryn would have mattered.”
“What do you mean?” Torin studies the prince closely. Beneath her iridescent sleeves, the grooves in her body pulse orange and gold and red.
“Oryn cannot come here himself. His treaty with Leythana prevents him from encroaching on these lands without invitation from its queen.”
Aurora’s attention flits to me.
“We guessed that might be what’s happening,” she says.
“And it’s irrelevant.” Regan waves her dagger as if the prince is no more than an annoying gnat.
“I assure you it is of the utmost importance,” he says, with a firmness that intensifies my curiosity. “Oryn has spent the last century crafting a weapon. An enchantment. It was a last resort, should anything happen to Aurora. But after her rejection, he’s decided to use it.” He pauses. “It’s a cage. No creature, human or otherwise, will be able to come here or leave. Ever again.”
There’s a moment of uncomfortable silence. And then a storm of interrogation. Derek winces against the onslaught. Mortania undulates in her den, her own dread bleeding through my limbs. She’d been trapped in a similar enchantment once before. Now we might all share that fate. All our work undone. Another home lost.
“Why would you come back here if you knew what Oryn intended? Do you have some reason to believe he won’t trap you with us?”
“Because if I stayed with the light Fae, I might have avoided the cage, but Ryna would be lost. Once the enchantment takes hold, there will be no Etherium trade. No help for the mortal realms. The Fae care nothing for any of us.”
Chatter rumbles around the throne room. And my mind spins with this information. I have no doubt Oryn would cast such an enchantment. But am I powerful enough to stop it? Is there time?
“You’re offering quite a lot of information.” Regan cocks her head and fingers the hilt of her blade. “But I find it hard to accept that the light Fae would confide all their plans to a mortal, prince or not.”
“Aye.” Valmar’s tail thrashes. “Smells off to me.”
“They did not confide in me,” he says. The blossoms of blood on his shirt continue to widen. “Oryn granted me his blessing, but I was hardly welcome in Etheria. The Fae ignored me, and I took advantage of that.”
The same way he took advantage of us. Dragon’s teeth, I knew I hated him. Callow ruffles her speckled wings.
“We shall have the Starlings investigate the matter,” Torin determines. Neve dips her chin in acknowledgment. “And in the meantime?”
The court volleys a hundred suggestions as to what to do with the prince, each one nastier than the last. The Goblins are already goading him with the serrated tips of their spears. My first inclination is to let them do whatever they wish. Who cares if he survives the night? But the fear snarled on Derek’s face—the blood still weeping from his wounds. I despise the prince, but I also believe he found himself caught in a web of the Etherians’ making. That he chose poorly but for good reasons.
“Wait.” I hold up a green-veined hand. “I can think of a better use for him.” Imps complain, pulling faces at my spoiling their sport. “As the prince has been in Oryn’s keeping, perhaps he knows something else of value. Something about the High King’s staff.”
“Perhaps he feeds us more lies and sends us to a waiting battalion,” Regan retorts.
“If that’s his ploy, he’ll die for it. Oryn will not spare him. But if what he claims is accurate…stealing Oryn’s staff may be the only way to prevent the Fae king from casting his enchantment.”
Murmurs of grudging agreement.
“It seems I’m overruled.” Regan grabs Derek by the collar of his shirt. “I rather hope you are lying, princeling. I’d quite like to see the yellow of your innards.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
For the entirety of the next day, the council interviews Derek in the war room. He tells us of ponds in Oryn’s mountain palace, teeming with singing fish. Of the land that is veined with quicksilver rivers and mirror-smooth lakes and ambrosia groves with jewel-bright fruit that twinkle on their boughs like stars. The nymphs that can divine the future in the whorls of bark on a tree. The wish-granting pixies who live in the puckered buds of giant flowers. Details that have eluded Neve’s Starlings since the beginning of the war. And the fact that Derek provides them only further fuels my suspicion of the Shifter leader.
Derek places a marker in the exact center of the High Court, where Oryn’s mountain palace is said to climb far enough that it almost scrapes the translucent, domed ceiling of the court’s shields. The tallest peak of the structure juts into the clouds like a spire, and countless others corkscrew their way down the sides. Tunnels and bridges lead from one section to the next, which house apartments and audience chambers and ballrooms. Derek, an insignificant human prince, was afforded only the cramped rooms that might have been reserved for servants. In his short tenure at Oryn’s palace, he glimpsed just the massive, hollowed-out cavity that served as a throne room, as well as a few dining halls and libraries and many well-guarded doors. All the intelligence he provides was gleaned during gatherings in which the Fae spoke too freely among themselves.
I believe him.
I don’t want to. I want some reason to push him off the Crimson Cliffs and remove him permanently from our lives. But he details the elaborate Fae costumes—the brooches made of clustered hummingbird nests set with pearls and headdresses sculpted from coral. The cavernous bark-walled halls and the hundred instances of magic he couldn’t possibly fabricate with his pea-size brain. And his disdain toward Oryn is a fanged, wild thing—seething with the white-livid sourness of a deal gone wrong. Whatever was between the prince and the High King is over now.
But I still think he would betray us if he had the chance. So our captured prince is escorted to the cells after we’ve finished with him, and then we settle in for another long night spent in strategy and counterplans.
* * *
—
The court is restless. Neve has gone ahead to inform her Starlings of our plans. And there’s a constant charge in the air, coupled with the sound of the Goblins hammering and sharpening their weapons. Of Imps gallivanting through the corridors, one atop the other’s shoulders, calling for a hundred Etherian heads to be brought back as trophies. Of Demons whirling about in their shadow forms and Vila honing their magic on statues and other targets. Most will be staying here, with Valmar acting as head in my absence. Too large a party will only attract unwanted attention, and we must have the palace defended in case Oryn devises another loophole that allows him to attack.
On the night before we are to set out, I’m standing at the windows in my solar, observing the ruins of the districts and the black silken line of the sea. Callow, a warrior in her own right, hops from perch to perch, as ready as the rest of them to soar into battle. A cold draft leaches in through the open panes, laced with the scent of a storm. This night reminds me very much of another. In the black tower, when I’d waited for Laurel to bring me an item of the king’s to curse. Just like then, I feel my fate—and everyone else’s—hangs on what happens in the next hours.
And just like then, there’s only one person I wish was beside me. Instead of fighting the impulse, I make my way to Aurora’s rooms.
* * *
—
“May I come in?” I ask. It’s late, but she’s still in her gown when she answers the door. It’s an Imp creation, an indigo deep enough that it’s nearly black, with patterns of bramble and thorn embroidered into the satin.
She steps aside and allows me access. Piles of books teeter on tables and cushions. Her Imps are in various contorted sleeping positions—wedged into corners or curled beneath blankets, snoring with abandon.
“At least some of us are sleeping,” I comment.
Aurora laughs softly and greets Callow, who, though not particularly in the mood to be touched, acknowledges her before flapping to a post on the back of a chair that looks like a dragon spreading its wings.
“Do you still want to come with us?” I ask. “Because you could change your mind.”
“You know I won’t.” She stirs the embers in the grate. “This is my home. I will defend it in any way I can.”
A warrior queen to her core. “You’ll stay with me. No firing crossbows.”
She shrugs, stubborn as ever. “We’ll see.”
I shake my head. One of the Imps mumbles and kicks in his sleep.
“You may not believe this, but I am sorry about what happened with Derek. I know it was a shock to learn he was the Ryna prince, but then to hear that he knew about you…”
She sets the poker down. “I felt like such a fool. I spent most of my life entertaining suitors. Learning the machinations of court. And yet he thoroughly deceived me. I should have seen through him.”
I reach her for. “Don’t. He deceived us all. If it’s any comfort, I’ve given him the worst cell in the dungeon. And assigned Imps to keep him awake all night with whatever annoyances they devise.”
A ghost of a smile flickers across her face.
“If you’d like a turn, I’m sure Renard would open the armory to you. You were very good with that crossbow.”
“Alyce, that isn’t funny.”
But she’s laughing again. One of the Imps snorts and turns over.
“I was joking,” I say. Aurora arches an eyebrow. “Mostly.”
“I’m actually glad you came tonight.”
She selects one of her books and thumbs through it. The glow from the hearth catches in the threads of amber-gold in her hair. And I notice that there is absolutely no evidence of our late nights etched on her face. No dark circles or tired lines. “I take it Rose’s elixirs are working. I’m glad she was able to finish them before she left us.”
