Misrule, page 4
I had unearthed some of their journals in the royal library, all filled with blather about balls and fashions and favorite courtiers. It was nauseating enough to make me believe that the volumes were either heavily censured, or that the queens were drinking enough wine to take the edge off their mundane lives. Leythana would never have been so complacent. She would have—grackles trade their calls above the jagged spikes of stone that make up the districts—she would have done exactly what I did, rather than let Briar slowly fester from the inside out.
Mortania stirs. You have accomplished it for her, pet.
Yes. And for Aurora.
“It will be a shock all the same,” I say to her. The mattress rises and falls almost imperceptibly with the rhythm of Aurora’s breathing. “This isn’t exactly what we talked about when we were planning Briar’s future. But you’ll understand. I know you will.”
Even so, an unpleasant doubt taps against the base of my skull. Will she understand? I smother the prickling question and go back to the book. I wish I could find a similar account written during Leythana’s time, especially by her own hand, like the journals of the other queens. I’ve scoured the palace a hundred times over—even the royal crypt, where rows of stone caskets, topped with sculpted effigies, house tribute and mementos of the dead queens—but it’s as if Leythana was nothing but a bronzed statue outside the palace gates. A story. Probably the doings of the old kings, who wouldn’t have wanted their wives getting any ideas about governing from their ancestress.
“Ah, here,” I say to Aurora. “There’s something about a parley. That must be about Leythana. She’s the only one who thought to negotiate with the Vila.”
Everyone else who had attempted the Fae challenge went blazing into Malterre with weapons and died for their mistake. I keep reading. But this can’t be right. I recite the passage aloud:
A prince from the Kingdom of Cardon arrived at the border between the unclaimed lands and Malterre. On behalf of his father, he extended his realm’s hand in friendship should the Vila surrender the High King’s staff. An alliance that would continue when the Cardon prince took the throne of Briar for himself. But the mistress of the court knew better than to trust a mortal tongue. She had no interest in such a toothless alliance, and sent him away.
I flick the edge of the brittle page. How strange. I thought Leythana was the only challenger to offer her alliance in exchange for the staff. I’ve never encountered any record of an additional, if failed, negotiation. Had the Vila courts been more tempted by Leythana’s reputation of a warrior queen than that of Cardon’s? My knowledge regarding that realm is limited to the terrible story about a former Briarian princess whose curse was broken by a noble’s daughter. They had not been allowed to be together. Wind whines through the cracks in the stones, and my focus drifts to the hazy outline of the Crimson Cliffs, where the bones of those women are buried beneath the sea. A shudder runs through me, and I squeeze Aurora’s hand.
That was a long time ago. And our story will not end like theirs. I won’t let it.
“Mistress!” The rattling cry of a Goblin reverberates from farther down the hall.
I snap the book closed, and my lingering questions with it. The court may not know about Aurora, but they’re aware of the fact that I disappear into the old wings sometimes. Regan told me that they think I keep a torture chamber back here, where I experiment with the Fae prisoners. I let them have their morbid ideas if it deters them from visiting.
“I’ll be back later,” I whisper to Aurora, hurrying from the library. The branches twist behind me just as the Goblin rounds the corner and skids to a halt.
“Mistress,” he pants, hands on his knees. “You must come at once. The storm last night, and then the Demon sentries—”
“Calm down.” I place a hand on his shoulder. “What’s happened?”
He wheezes a cough, his stubby snout wriggling. “There was a shipwreck. A human washed ashore.”
CHAPTER THREE
If possible, the entirety of the Dark Court is packed into the throne room. Goblins, Demons, and Vila lean over the rotting railing of the mezzanine, with Imps shoving their way through the gaps in their legs. Some have scaled the walls, hanging upside down by their tails from chandeliers as the draft swings them back and forth.
Sometimes, I forget that I once stood in this room as the Dark Grace, cowed and trembling as King Tarkin threatened and manipulated me. The terrified girl from that time seems like a different person altogether. One I’m glad to say I no longer recognize. And there is nothing here that calls the memory of the old king, either. All of Briar’s finery has been replaced with the trappings of the Dark Court. Six thrones, one for each clan leader, form a semicircle on the dais and are decorated with the broken staffs of the Fae. Gargoyles leer from corners and eaves. Elegant sconces have been magicked into dragon snouts, roaring flame. Royal portraits have been slashed, or wickedly improved by the Imps, or are littered with knife hilts and darts.
The human is on his knees. His shirt hangs from him in ribbons, exposing the labor-hardened muscles of his chest and torso. There’s a nasty cut grazing the high plane of his left cheekbone, and the brushed-copper skin of one of his biceps is sliced down to the bone. Salt crusts his shoulder-length black hair. But it’s the look in his amber-brown eyes that holds my attention, an expression smoldering with fear and disgust. Mortania rumbles in her cave.
“We witnessed the shipwreck last night,” one of the Demon sentries explains. “It was far enough from shore that everyone aboard was presumed dead.”
“Was mine who found him.” Valmar, leader of the Imps, winds his barbed tail around his staff. Smaller even than the stubby-legged Goblins, he has to stand on his chair to be properly seen. “Don’t know how he didn’t drown in that storm. Must be part fish.”
“There were no others?”
“No,” Valmar answers. “But I told a few of mine to keep looking. Might be they find something of value among the bits and bones.”
Strong as he undoubtedly is to have survived the wreck, the prisoner winces with each breath. The sea was not kind to him. But he appears otherwise healthy, with broad shoulders and solid limbs. And his unlined face suggests that he probably isn’t much older than Aurora was when she was cursed by the spindle—twenty, perhaps.
“A sole survivor,” I muse. “And how did you accomplish that?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is strained. “The storm hit, and I was belowdecks. The rest is a blur.”
Callow flares her speckled wings from her perch on the back of my throne.
“What were you doing near our shores? We’ve not encountered a human for more than half a century. Were you unaware of the fate of the previous mortals living in Briar?”
I gesture around the room. And he must have been distracted when he was dragged in by the sentries, for it’s only now that his attention drifts up, then stops on a place above my head. Every muscle in his body stills.
“What in the name of…”
Imps chitter, and I know exactly what the boy has discovered. Rows and rows of Etherian heads are mounted high on the walls. Peeling lips are screwed into silent screams. Brittle veins hang out of empty eye sockets. One of the inciting acts of this war occurred when a Goblin was captured by the Court of Beasts. His head was sent back to us on a golden plate. Regan suggested we start a collection of our own. It was only fair, after so many of ours had been brutally murdered when we were driven from our homeland.
“Do you not approve of our display?” I lean back, rubbing my thumb over the cracked jewel of my signet ring.
“Maybe he wants to join them,” Valmar suggests.
His Imps crow their approval.
“I want to hear his answer first.” I signal for quiet. “Why did you come here?”
The boy inhales a steadying breath. “Our king sent us. Now that the Etherium trade has dried up, our coffers are empty. Diseases not seen in a hundred years are cropping up, sickening entire villages. We’re desperate.”
Etherium. I’d nearly forgotten. The ground-up mineral, mined from the Etherian Mountains, was the reason Briar was the wealthiest realm in the world. Huge crates of the stuff were traded across the sea, as close to a Grace elixir as the Briar Kings would permit to be exported. For the other mortal realms, Etherium was a medicinal powder that could cure almost any ailment. In Briar, it was mostly served at parties or in Grace parlors—to relax patrons and induce a euphoric bliss. But the Dark Court has no need of trade. The mines are abandoned. Maybe even ruined, now that the land is steeped with our dark magic.
“Etherium could not have been your only source of commerce.”
He coughs. Seawater drips from the cliff of his jaw. “No. But Briar purchased much of our other goods, until the gold stopped and crippled our markets. The loss of Etherium was a double blow. The kingdom had none to sell to its people and none to tax, which stripped the coffers even further. Not to mention the healers who relied on the stuff.”
I’d never spared any concern regarding what happened across the sea as the result of my siege. A strange, guiltlike feeling wends through me.
What did they ever do for you, pet?
She’s right. I snip it back, close to the root.
“You will find no Etherium here,” I tell the prisoner. “Nor sympathy. Your king’s gold supported a realm that grew fat off the exploitation of Graces and commoners alike. If you are suffering now as a result of it, I’d say you are reaping what you sowed.”
His fists clench at his sides. “And the merchants who can’t feed their families? The children battling plague? Are they to pay for the sins of our ancestors?”
Unrest reverberates from the mezzanine.
“Any debt must be paid,” Regan replies. The russet streaks in her tight braid light up in the dull sunlight streaming through tall windows. “A lesson our ancestors taught us well.”
Callow flaps to the armrest of my throne, talons clacking against the metal.
“What did you predict would happen when you came here?” I continue, stroking my kestrel’s back. “Assuming you hadn’t made a spectacular mess of your arrival?” Snickers. “Did you suppose that we would let you pass with nothing more than a friendly greeting?”
He hesitates, tugging at the hem of his sodden shirt. “We did not…”
“Well?” A Demon sentry prods him with the toe of his boot.
“The stories we heard about this realm were too impossible to be real,” he confesses. “We assumed it was abandoned.”
A beat as his answer sinks in. And then the court roars. A troupe of Imps dances from a corner, swarming the prisoner and pulling grotesque faces. Their long barbed tails thrash at him. Valmar is doubled over, tears streaming down his face.
“Does it look abandoned?” He swipes at his long nose.
“You don’t understand.” The prisoner tries in vain to fend off the Imps, who are now taking turns charging him and slamming their thick skulls into his body. “The things we heard—” He grunts at a particularly vicious blow. “That there’s a princess, asleep for a hundred years. That there’s a dragon guarding the mountains. It’s madness!”
Panic spears through me, hot and swift. I knew the wretches who escaped my wrath would spin their various tales about my siege. But I never thought the story of Aurora would make its way across the sea, especially not one so hauntingly accurate.
A pair of Goblins elbow each other in the ribs, each claiming to be the legendary princess and curtsying. Regan catches my eye and shakes her head. I need a distraction.
Callow complains and relocates to another chair as I shrug off my cloak. The Imps slide back from the prisoner like drops of oil. I bid the bones of my back expand. It’s been a long time since I’ve Shifted, but Mortania’s influence on my own magic makes the change as easy as it was on the day of my siege. Talon-tipped wings rip through my bodice, fanning out behind my shoulders. I see my outline reflected in the twin saucers of the prisoner’s brown eyes—a monster from a nightmare, as I was to every other human during the time of the queens. All but one.
The boy’s lips open and close, and I think his fragile human heart may explode. I can almost hear it knocking against his ribs. Mortania cackles. “You—are the dragon?” he splutters out. “We never…”
“Believed? That’s your own misfortune.” I bare every one of my daggerlike teeth and let my wings stir a breeze to ruffle his sea-matted hair. “Which pompous king sent you to your death?”
His throat bobs. “I’ve come from Terault. But, please. I must go home. My family needs me. I was just a ship’s boy. I meant you no harm.”
A laugh kicks its way free of my lungs. “Moments ago, you were all bravado. And now you plead to go home? Weak character, I think.”
“Weaker limbs.” Valmar smacks his lips. “Tender organs. Crisp bone.”
“Please.” The wound on the boy’s arm weeps. A drop of his warm human blood splashes onto the floor. “I will tell my king never to return. I will give you—”
Regan sneers. “What could we possibly want from you?”
“Save his innards.” Valmar pats his rounded belly. Goblins begin throwing out various ways to roast the human. The prisoner shades greener at the mention of a spit.
I pick up my staff—Endlewild’s, which I’d fished out of the wreckage ages ago—and bang the end on the marble floor. “Now, now. The other humans at this court were given an opportunity to save themselves from such dire fates. This guest deserves the same courtesy.” I nudge his chin to face me with the broken orb of the staff, the same one that gifted me the half-moon scar on my torso. “Swear my oath, ship’s boy, and you will live.”
His lips are salt-dried and cracked. “What does that mean, an oath?”
“Does it matter? If you decline, I’ll let the Goblins experiment with how long you’re able to survive without your entrails. And it’s not as brief a period as you might expect.” The snout-nosed creatures whoop.
The prisoner’s attention snags on something to our right. One of the servants hovers in the fringes of the crowd, still clutching a scrubbing brush. He blinks in shock at the sight of another human.
He gestures in her direction. “Has she sworn?”
“Yes.” The servant flits away into the shadows. “And you can see she’s perfectly fine. Better than fine, considering that I’ve practically granted her immortality. She’s bound to my magic, and my life is just beginning.”
The boy’s jaw works. The pulse at his temple is rabbit-quick. A long moment passes, and I suspect that he might actually prefer death over an existence in this macabre court. Plenty of the other humans had. But I’ve underestimated him. Something changes in the depths of the brown pools of his eyes, like a spark flaring. He steels himself. “Very well.”
“Smarter than he looks.” Regan flips her dagger from a sheath at her boot and passes it to me. The jade eyes glint. “It’s too bad, though. I know the Goblins were counting on a meal.”
Tooth-studded cudgels and skull maces droop in disappointment. Some mutter that they should at least be allowed to use the boy as target practice.
Regan pulls the prisoner’s arm out and holds it firm. Three slashes down the inside of his forearm are all I need for the binding ritual. He curses. I cut my own palm. Green Vila blood wells on my papery skin, and then I press my wound into his.
My magic uncoils and slams into the prisoner, finding his wisp of human power almost instantly. I could extinguish his fragile mortality right now, as easily as snuffing out a candle flame. Instead, I send my intent through the connection between us. A green aura limns my hand. Heat pulses between us. He grits his teeth, his body rigid as the Demons pin his shoulders.
“Swear to serve me from this moment on,” I say.
This is the crux of the ritual. The binding requires the human’s magic to accept and submit to mine. If he rejects me, it will falter. And then the Goblins will get their meal after all.
Sweat beads on his forehead. He hesitates for a heartbeat, long enough that the bow-legged creatures inch closer. But then, “I-I swear.”
Fire blazes beneath my hand. The prisoner howls. The scent of charred steel and rich wine fills me up and sings across every nerve. There’s a flare of light, then everything stills. The wound on his forearm seals, and in its place is the wreath of bramble and thorn. The boy slumps, examining the mark with an expression of pure horror and revulsion. It’s a look I’ve endured too many times to count.
“Don’t forget what she said. Betray us, and”—Regan bends close to his ear—“your blood literally boils.”
Mortania laughs. I do hope we see it.
The troupe of Imps from earlier bounds toward me. “Give him to us, Mistress. We’ll show him around.”
“Got lots for him to do.” Another cartwheels.
“What shall we call him?”
The first’s nose scrunches. “Squid.”
“No, Cat. He has enough lives.”
“Teacup.” Another giggles. “Bet he breaks as easy as one.”
“Derek,” the prisoner interrupts them with more sterness than I would expect given the circumstances. “I would prefer Derek.”
The Imps grumble, and I doubt they will ever call him that.
“Try to be gentle with Derek,” I tell them, picking a scrap of seaweed out of the boy’s hair and flinging it away. “Welcome to the Dark Court. Do take care where you sleep. The Goblins have a penchant for midnight snacks.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Imps herd Derek off, claiming they’re going to determine which of the nobles’ old clothes suit him best and calculate the precise number of seconds he can stay conscious if they hang him from his ankles. I don’t envy the boy. It’s been a long time since the barb-tailed creatures had a new mortal to play with.
