by Bec McMaster
“Because she’s going mad,” Andraste snaps.
I draw back.
“Ever since you married Evernight, she’s been spiraling. I could see it happening, but I thought that if I just kept her distracted, then perhaps I could manage her moods. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as destructive as I feared.”
“You may as well have tried to hold back the tides.”
“What was I supposed to do?” she snaps. “You left me. You married the enemy, and Mother lost her mind. You know what she’s like. How could I rein her in? I’ve never had the power to match her—that was always you, wild and erratic, but burning like a wildfire with promise.”
It takes me aback. “I’ve never—”
“Been able to control it,” she snaps. “You nearly shook the castle down around our ears the night that Mother sent Nanny Redwyne away, and you were eleven.”
And there it is, an elusive memory trickling through me.
—anger, screaming, the walls shaking, and guards grabbing Nanny Redwyne as they haul her away—
I suck in a sharp breath.
Fae children are gifted with magic, but they don’t truly come into their own until they’re well into their teens. To display so much power at the age of eleven is an anomaly.
Or maybe it’s not, because maybe it wasn’t the fae half of my heritage that nearly tore the castle apart.
“Yes, you. The prodigy. Mother’s little pet. The one she favored out of the pair of us until she began to fear you,” she grates out, fists clenched at her side.
That doesn’t sound like my recollection of events at all.
Or wait....
Maybe… it does. Because she loved me once. Mother loved me once.
And then all of a sudden, she didn’t.
Andraste’s face hardens. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to. You know what the court is like. They’ll eat each other alive the second they think there’s a chance to get ahead. If I show one ounce of weakness….”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you struck a deal with Mother.”
Andraste merely shakes her head with a tired sigh. “I had to, Vi. I had to fall in line with her.”
“No, you didn’t.” Anger blooms. “If you had stood at my side—”
“She’s have obliterated the pair of us, and you know it. We were both younger, and any power either of us has since gained would barely surmount what she could throw at us.” She hesitates. “And there were… other reasons….”
We’re getting nowhere. “Say what you came to say and then leave.”
Andraste turns toward the arched gateway, raking one hand through her hair in an uncharacteristic sign of nerves. “I need help to try and prevent a war. Our people will suffer if this goes any further. It doesn’t matter who wins, there will be mass casualties.”
“War is coming, whether you like it or not. She crossed the line, not us. And there is no guarantee she’ll win.”
“When does Mother ever lose? Do you think she would march against you with only the Queen of Aska at her side? Think, curse you.”
And so I do.
I test a theory. “She’s made an alliance with Angharad.”
Andraste’s lips thin. “No. That would be too far, too much for her border lords to swallow. And she can’t afford to lose Thornwood.”
“But there is no other alliance she could make….”
“Except for the goblin clans.”
The thought leaves me breathless, blood draining from my cheeks. The goblin clans have been kingless for centuries, though I’ve heard whispers there are several scions of the royal bloodline fighting for the throne.
“She’s in negotiations with Urach of the Black Hand. She will back his claim for the throne in return for foot troops. She has more than one ally, Vi, and that ally is right at your unprotected flank.”
I can picture them marching down through the gap in the mountains, hammering down upon an unsuspecting Evernight northern flank. The unseelie armies would never be allowed through the spine of the world—goblins have no liking for either of their fairer brethren—so the north has long been considered safe.
But there are no defenses against the clans.
They are our protection.
Evernight would be crushed between two powerful forces.
I have to get back to Thiago. I have to warn him.
“Why would you tell me this?”
It would be a swift defeat of Evernight.
Again, she looks away. “Because it doesn’t end there. One kingdom was always enough for me. This is madness. This isn’t just a skirmish. It isn’t just a war. She wants to drag the entire south down, and if she succeeds, then the unseelie are poised in the north, salivating over the prospect of our five kingdoms tearing at each other like dogs. I just want to protect my people. I can’t do this alone.”
Asturians will die with this information. She’s given us the means to turn the tide of an imminent defeat. But perhaps more of our people will die if she doesn’t yield.
I slowly sheathe my sword.
Once we were allies. Once we were sisters. Is there any chance of either of us returning to that point?
“What do you intend?” I ask.
“Hold your generals back,” she says. “I just need time. If our forces clash, then it’s too late—"
“It’s already too late. The only way we survive is if Mother dies.”
Andraste takes a step back, rubbing at her throat, eyes troubled.
“Once you are on the throne,” I tell her, “then there is the possibility of a truce with Evernight. There’s a possibility we can hold the Alliance together.”
“I don’t have the means to kill her,” she finally says.
“Maybe… maybe I do.”
Our eyes meet.
“How did you do it?” she demands. “How did you get the power to defeat her at the Queensmoot? I’ve never felt such power before. I could feel it, shivering up through the earth itself—”
“I was desperate. And so I made a bargain with the Mother of Night.”
“What sort of bargain?” For a second, she’s my older sister, snapping at my stupidity. “Curse it, Vi. Have you lost your mind?”
“Not my mind, no.”
“What did you bargain with? The Old Ones cannot be trusted.”
I stare at her for long seconds. I don’t know if I trust her. She’s given me precious information, but as I said, she always did play the game better than I did.
Maybe I can play the game too. A little bit of information, though not all of it…. “She wanted my firstborn child—”
The blood drains from her face. “Vi!”
“But if I can give her the crown that sits on the Briar King’s head, then the debt will be repaid.”
Andraste shakes her head in horror. “And if you can’t get the crown?”
I merely stare at her.
“No. No!” She rakes her hands through her braids again. “Gods, how could you be so stupid! How could you—”
“I was desperate!” I snap. “And there is still time. There has to be a child.”
“This is my fault,” she whispers, staring blankly at nothing. “This is all my fault. I thought…. I thought….”
Eris appears from the shadows, stalking slowly across the cobbles. “It’s none of your business, Princess of Thorns. Vi.” She gives me a look. “We need to get moving. She’s stalling.”
“I’m not stalling,” Andraste whips her blade free, backing away from Eris warily. “I came alone.”
“Really?” Eris curls her lip. “Then why is there a cloud of dust moving toward us? There’s at least one squad of Asturian soldiers riding this way.”
“What?” both Andraste and I say.
“It’s a trap.”
“Not by me!” Andraste strides to the archway as if she wants to see.
Eris is quicker. Hauling Andraste back into her arms, she sets a knife to her throat. “Drop the sword.”
“Make me.”
Eris presses the knife tight enough to draw blood, and my sister’s sword clatters to the ground.
“Wait!” I reach for them. “Don’t kill her,” I tell Eris. “I need her.”
“She’s the enemy, Vi.”
“I know.” But… for a second. “Was any of it the truth? The goblins? The Alliance? Your intentions?”
Andraste’s chin tilts higher as Eris tightens the knife. “All of it. You need to get out of here. Now! I swear I had nothing to do with this. Take the west trail. If they’re coming from Hawthorne Castle, they’ll expect you to flee directly north, toward the Thornwood Hallow.”
I glance at the cloud of dust. “We can’t leave. Not without the crown.”
“Besides,” Eris says with a smile. “Why would we flee when we’ve got such a pretty hostage?”
Andraste growls under her breath. “I can’t be caught here!”
“You should have thought of that earlier.” Eris withdraws the blade, hauling my sister’s arms behind her back. She takes a thin leather cord from behind her belt and binds Andraste’s wrists together.
“Vi!” Andraste looks to me. “If Mother knows I was here—”
I ignore her. The coincidence is just a little too uncomfortable for my liking. “Let’s head inside the ruins. We can set her free in the forest on the way out.”
“Inside the ruins?” Andraste gapes at me. “The keep is haunted by the Briar King. Only the outer towers are safe to enter. Fae who try to explore the ruins never come back out.”
Eris hauls her to her feet. “It’s all right, bitchspawn. I’m the scariest creature in these woods. Nothing’s going to get the slip on me.” And then she gives me a certain look. “And we can decide what we’re going to do with her later. There’s no need to set her free. Not just yet. She’s your mother’s heir. If we have her in our grasp, then your mother’s not going to strike the first blow, is she?”
This is the sort of ruthless decision I need to make. I’m still acting as though Andi’s my sister. “Fine. Let’s go get the crown. We’ll work out what to do with her once we’re done here.”
It all goes back to the start.
The Briar King sits on his dusty throne, his hollow skull pierced with brambles that twine through his empty eye sockets and out his mouth. It looks like he’s screaming, and perhaps he was when my mother killed him with her thorns.
Each bleached hand lies on the arms of his throne, his fingers curled around the arms, but it’s the crown on his head that draws my eyes.
Black as my mother’s soul, when the light of my torch shines on it, it doesn’t so much reflect the light as it absorbs it.
“What if there’s a trap?” Andraste asks as Eris shoves her into the throne room.
“Then I’ll send you in first to spring it,” Eris says.
“Vi, I need to talk to you,” Andraste says urgently. “Alone.”
“There’s nothing you can’t say to me that Eris can’t hear,” I reply.
“Yes, there is,” Andraste stresses.
“Permission to gag her?” Eris asks.
I stare at the Briar King, trying to work out if there’s an easy way to approach him. “You’re actually asking for permission?”
“Well, you are my queen.”
I shoot Andraste a look. “No more talking, or I’ll let her stuff a sock in your mouth.”
Andraste glares back.
All lies still.
Grimm suddenly appears, sniffing around the base of the throne, his nose itching. “It took you long enough.”
“Where have you been?” Eris demands.
“Investigating,” he replies, and the spider webs clinging to his whiskers tell the truth of his tale. “There’s something in the ruins, and I haven’t managed to work out what it is yet.”
“You’re right.” Eris shoves Andraste forward. “There was something in the ruins, and we had to deal with it.”
“Oh, her. She’s harmless. It’s not she who makes the hairs down my spine creep. This smells like a trap.”
“A trap in particular, or is it the situation setting your hackles on edge?”
The grimalkin leaps up on the edge of the throne, its paws delicately avoiding the skeletal bones. “The situation. I can’t smell anything other than dust. But if the Crown of Shadows has the power I think it does, then it would hardly be unguarded.”
“Crown of Shadows?” Andraste mutters. “It’s just an old rusted crown.”
Eris hauls her pack over her shoulder and tugs something from it, as Andraste backs away with a mutinous expression.
I circle the throne as she and Eris argue.
Just a long-dead king sitting there, pierced through with briars.
I slice through the thorns curling around the crown and lift it from his head. Nothing moves, but it feels as though the room somehow exhaled.
Grimm and I share a look.
And…
Nothing.
Rust crumbles in my hands, revealing part of the metal is breaking away. Iron? What sort of fae king would wear a crown of iron? The ache in his temples must have been horrific, and his skin would have burned. If I wasn’t wearing gloves it would have blistered my skin.
Unless… this is not the Crown of Shadows.
Something clicks within the crown.
Sharp needles suddenly stab through the crown’s grooves, slashing through my fingers. I cry out and drop the cursed thing, and it vibrates on the ground as if my blood has activated some long-dormant spell. Little mechanical clicks come from within it. Each prong realigns itself, turning upside down, until the bloody thing looks like it has eight legs. The hollow circlet that once sat upon the Briar King’s head forms an armored carapace.
I back away.
Why does everything that is dark and unseelie have such a hankering for spiders?
The grimalkin hisses as the thorns in the room start to shiver and shake. Stone grinds in the walls, dust falling from the ceiling. And the Briar King’s skeleton vibrates on its throne.
We need to get out of here now.
“Grimm!”
The furry meld of shadows leaps into my arms, clawing its way up onto my shoulder. “Move, you cursed meat suit!”
I leap from the dais, drawing my sword.
“What in the Darkness just happened?” Eris yells.
“It’s a trap!”
But who set it?
The oracle said that if I took the crown from King Myrdal’s head, then I would understand everything.
But none of this makes sense.
“Thief,” hisses the Briar King, his hollow eyes turning to somehow lock upon me. Blue lights gleam in the center of his eye sockets like a pair of will-o’-the-wisps. A wight. I’ve roused a wight. “Now you shall pay the price for disturbing my slumber.”
The ground starts shaking as the Briar King lifts a metal-clad hand, clenching the fingers of his gauntlet shut.
“W-what is that?” Andraste demands.
“All that remains of King Myrdal after Mother was through with him.”
Eris spins around, her knife held in her fist and the whites of her eyes showing. “We need to leave. Now.”
“The real crown has to be here somewhere! Distract it.”
“Vi!” Andraste slices her ropes on Eris’s drawn blade, which is a gutsy move at the best of times. “As much as I hate to agree with your… friend, this is not the time. Give me my sword!”
“No,” Eris snaps.
“Give her the sword,” I yell, because three swords are better than two.
Eris shoots me an incredulous look, then tosses Andraste’s sword at her.
“Maybe the clue was in that thing!” Eris points at the spider-crown scuttling over the walls. “There has to be a reason the oracle sent you to find it.”
“I’ll get it.”
I sprint across the stone flagstones, sliding beneath a whip of actinic blue fire as the Briar King stands. Snatching at the
crown, I scrabble to my feet, and shove it in the bag slung over my shoulder.
Andraste lunges forward, slashing through one of the whip-like vines. Her blade sheers through the thick trunk, but the mess of thorns writhes toward her.
I leap over the thorns, grabbing Andraste’s gauntleted wrist as I go. “Run!”
Together, the pair of us sprint toward the archway, where Eris is gesturing to us.
“I’ll cover you!” Eris yells.
Stone columns collapse ahead of us, the arch crumbling across the entrance. I skid to a halt, throwing my hands up to protect my face.
When the dust clears, the entrance is completely covered.
“Curse it.” I turn around breathlessly. There has to be some way out.
“This way,” Andraste says grimly, yanking me toward a set of broken doors that lead further into the ruined keep.
Thorns lash out, and I leap over them, landing with a jarring thud and throwing myself forward into a roll. One slashes through my cheek, the sting like the hot kiss of a blade. “Eris!”
She clears the way, the sweep of her sword hacking through brambles and thorns.
The thorns don’t touch her, I notice.
Instead, they recoil, as if not even they are certain what sort of magic stalks within their midst. But there are more of them, crawling over the walls and seeking to cut off our only path to freedom.
I drive my sword through the thorns, slashing and hacking. Sweat drips down my spine, and I can feel that cursed creature trying to break free of my bag.
Eris cuts an entire wall of thorns free, revealing a gaping tunnel. Andraste summons a faelight, and a thick layer of dust on the carpets stretches into infinity. Nothing has come this way for centuries, but I can’t help staring into the dark and wondering if this is the only way out.
There has to be a way out.
There has to be—
There.
Something shivers, deep below me.
“I can feel the Hallow,” I gasp, turning toward an ancient spiral staircase. “It’s still alive.”
Eris grabs my arm. “This Hallow has been forbidden for centuries. We don’t know if it’s even usable.”
“Do you have a better idea?”