by M. A. Grant
Herne and the hunters, even I recognize the name. Lugh didn’t give me all the details, but I know Smith’s kidnapping and torture while Prince Lyne was at university was the reason for his falling-out with Prince Sláine.
“Goddess,” Lugh breathes. “Mother snagged you at last. Was Roark part of that deal? Please tell me he was part of the deal.”
Smith’s laugh is bright and amused, completely at odds with the scowl Prince Lyne throws back over his shoulder. “Not quite. Hurry up,” Prince Lyne orders, which only makes Smith roll his eyes.
“Maybe later we’ll have time to talk,” he tells Lugh.
We all follow in the prince’s steps, crossing the snowy fields at a quick pace. He doesn’t slow for us, but Lugh ends up rushing after him, leaving me and Smith to trail behind.
“The message we were given sounded serious,” I say.
“The war council’s convened,” Smith says. Ahead of us, Prince Lyne disappears into one of the doors of the sídhe, Lugh still at his heels.
“We have important news to share on that front.”
Smith’s expression darkens. “We probably know most of it. It’s all gone to hell faster than we anticipated.”
At the door, he waves for me to precede him. Ahead of us, Prince Lyne and Lugh have come to a halt in the hall. Lugh speaks in his usual animated way, but whatever he says takes Prince Lyne by surprise, because the man rears back like he’s been slapped. His furious shout of “What the fuck?” echoes back to us.
“Or,” Smith begins, his brow furrowed with concern, “we may need to hear you out.”
Lugh
Before we were old enough to create the legend of the Wild Hunt, Keiran and I wandered into the Wylds regularly. One winter, we decided to go hunting. The river between us and the best hunting grounds was frozen over, with a pale dusting of snow coating the top layer of ice, and there was no choice but to cross. Keiran, with his greater age and experience, wanted to take his time and find a safe place to do so. I, being an impulsive boy who thought he knew better, darted ahead across in the widest spot. I still remember Keiran’s shout of warning, the clicking beneath my feet that transformed into a sharp crack, and the terrifying plunge into the water below. The shock of the freezing river squeezed the air from my lungs and seized my muscles. If not for Keiran’s quick thinking and quicker hands, I’d never have survived.
Stepping back into the sídhe reminds me of that moment. The chill of passing shades claws at my lungs, stronger than ever now that I’ve accepted my magick. None offer to help me though. They see me and fear me, a child of their murderess, and their whispers of Mother’s bloodied deeds dog my steps as Roark leads me deeper toward the war room. The redcap guards open the heavy doors and I step inside, hoping for a reprieve. I should have known better. At the head of the table, Mother sits on a simple throne. Two empty chairs, Roark’s and Smith’s, are at her right hand. At her left, my eldest brother, Sláine, sits beside another empty chair.
Sláine sucks in a breath when he spots me and I don’t know what to make of his cautious warmth when he says, “Brother. It’s good to see you.” His voice is unrecognizable, harsh and broken.
“You defected,” I say.
“No. I lost sight of my purpose. Goodfellow used that against me. Trapped me.”
It would be so easy to mock him for that failure. He was quick to mock me when we were children for being distracted and making foolish mistakes. The irony of our reversed circumstances holds its own bitter joy.
As if he knows what I’m thinking, he clears his throat and tries with, “I doubt it surprises you.”
“Not really.” And, because I know Keiran’s probably glaring at me for my rudeness, I decide to be charitable. “You’re not the only one he manipulated. Goodfellow made a habit of killing and using Sluagh across the Wylds to gain power.”
Sláine shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Perhaps we should have listened to you when you told us of their value.”
“You should have. Now he marches on us with a force armed with iron. It’s amazing how easy it is to be convinced of someone’s power when they hold a blade to your throat.”
Sláine nods slowly, but he doesn’t lash back at me for my bitterness as he would have centuries ago. Instead, he says, “True. And after facing them, I admit they are stronger warriors than I gave them credit to be.”
“You were there when the Summer Court fell to their armies?”
He looks away, but I catch his haunted expression. Whatever he saw, whatever Goodfellow did, is something he can’t escape. “I was.”
“Goodfellow wouldn’t have let you escape easily.”
“No. I broke free with others’ help. Later I’ll tell you everything.” My brother takes a breath and adds, “If you want me to, that is.”
A tentative offer of peace. Not an apology for our past, but an opportunity to try to reconnect. I don’t know if I’ll like my eldest brother any more now than I did as a child. But I’m curious how Goodfellow destroyed our Summer cousins so easily, and how Sláine survived it. “I’ll think about it.”
Mother’s bored by our pleasantries. “Lugh,” she calls, making no move to rise. “What fortuitous timing.”
I swallow against the bile rising in my throat and look away from her and the bevy of shades hovering at her back. They’re ancient, flaking and paper-thin, staring about the room with hollowed eyes. They’ve been trapped here so long, they’ve no words left. If they offered their memories to me, or spoke of how Mother created them, I don’t know if I could stay here another moment. If I could look her in the eyes again.
Keiran’s warm hand at the small of my back grounds me enough to take another step forward. He nudges me toward the last empty seats at the opposite end of the table to Mother as Roark announces, “We need to delay the attack.”
“What attack?” I ask.
“Why?” Sláine asks Roark. There’s no real challenge in his voice. He’s curious, not defensive, and I’m not sure how to feel about that change. The candlelight falls across the scar on his face. “There isn’t time to delay.”
“What attack?” I repeat.
My brothers both turn to me. They wear twin expressions of weariness, as if I’m too slow to understand a problem they’ve already solved.
“Goodfellow landed on our shores this morning,” Sláine says. “He was following your Sluagh.”
“It’s a small group, probably for scouting while the rest of his army catches up,” Roark adds, settling into his seat next to Smith. “We intend to keep it that way. Cut the head from the snake, if you will. What you’ve learned could help us. Tell them what you told me about Goodfellow.”
The draugr offers its memories to me again and I know if I accept, if I take hold of them, I’ll be lost to those flashes of the past once more. They’re too powerful, too consuming thanks to the draugr’s strength. Instead, I rely on the bits it’s shown me, the impressions it’s left. Pacing the floor behind Keiran helps distract me from looking too deeply. The stones here are slightly uneven, easy to count and memorize as I cross back and forth over them.
“Lugh,” Keiran murmurs from his chair, and I stop mid-stride from his gentle redirection.
“Goodfellow has betrayed Faerie,” I say.
“We know,” Sláine says. “He took the Summer Court first because it was the easier target. Nearly took Seb too, after learning he was the Green Man.”
“Seb?”
A dark-haired man steps forward from one of the corners of the room. I don’t know how I didn’t notice him before; his glamour glows despite casting no light. But it’s the sight of his face that makes me clutch at my head against the sudden explosion of the draugr’s reaction.
The last time I saw this man, he hung above a marble floor, bleeding out.
The last time I saw him, I thought I’d die from the pain of inhabiti
ng Goodfellow’s body as he murdered an innocent fae.
Seb is a shade, and I don’t know how Sláine can see him.
“You’re dead,” I declare. Keiran swears.
Seb gives me a strange look. “Was. Green Man though, so rebirth and all that.”
“You’re the...” I trail off, staring at this unassuming man. There’s no indication that he is the wellspring of all power in Faerie. He’s young and kind-looking and far, far too relaxed to wield so much magick. At least, that’s what I think until our eyes meet. I have to look away first, too unnerved from his eldritch gaze to dare to question his presence further. Far easier to accept it and move on. “Fine. You’re the Green Man. Goodfellow bled you out.”
Seb and my mother are the only ones at the table who don’t flinch. Even Roark, for all his careful dissembling, can’t hide his reaction. This time, Seb’s inspection of me is much more thorough. “He did.”
“He wanted your power.”
“Yes. And he succeeded in getting it, for a brief time.”
“Sebastian has told us this already. But how do you know? We haven’t heard from you for months.” Mother’s fingers have tightened around the arms of her throne, the only obvious sign of her unease.
“I learned who Goodfellow was at the beginning,” I tell her. “He grew up in a cottage on the Mainland. His mother was Seelie, his father was Sluagh. She’d been cast out by the Summer Court for falling in love with an unaffiliated fae and getting pregnant. She came to the newly established Winter Court for help.” I meet Mother’s gaze. Some of the leftover whispers of the draugr’s presence stir. Its bitterness seeps out when I continue, “You refused her aid. She returned home and gave birth. She died. A magickal child was left alone with a Sluagh father passing for human. There was no one to help, no way to hide his child’s strangeness.”
The draugr growls its agreement. Memories flash behind my eyelids, of baby Goodfellow’s constant crying, of his ill temper and the uncontrollable tantrums. As he aged, of the village children’s cruelties to him, of the human villagers’ refusal to trade with his father, of the growing whispers of witchcraft and devil-worship when strange tricks befell those who had treated him cruelly. And underneath it all, the seed of the draugr’s fury—the wish that it was Goodfellow who had died, not his mother.
“He let Goodfellow wander the Wylds, hoping he’d go missing or die. Instead, Goodfellow found other Sluagh, other fae. He learned how you led the Unseelie rebellion and established a separate Court. He learned about magick and he grew angry at his father’s ruse. Eventually, they fought over exposing their powers, and Goodfellow won.”
The memory sharpens, drives me through with pain low in the gut, as if Goodfellow just plunged a knife into my belly. I’m trapped in that moment I saw while facing Dreher at Krigsmöte, with a younger Goodfellow stabbing the blade into me over and over. My blood stains his clothes, his body, his face. He works me until there’s nothing left but a sense of emptiness when my small quantity of magick drains away with the last of my blood, soaked into my son’s skin. The memory starts to splinter, but not before I see Goodfellow standing at the hearth, his bloody fingers smearing over the bricks, muttering to himself, Robin. Robin. And such a good man. Such a good fellow. Robin—
“Lugh,” Keiran barks.
Too far. Too deep. I surface and shove the draugr’s memories back into the darkness where they belong. Keiran doesn’t offer to assist me and his expression doesn’t change, even when I give an unsteady nod and keep going. “Goodfellow learned from murdering his father that bloodletting gave him his victim’s power. He’s been using it to gain enough power to claim the Courts.”
“His mother was abandoned and he suffered for it,” Sláine says. “It’s no wonder he killed Oberon and Titania.”
“Or why he comes for us now. He wasn’t allowed to fit in either Court, so he’ll create his own.” It’s the closest I can come to condemning my mother’s actions without facing severe consequences.
Nevertheless, her eyes narrow and her lips press tightly together.
“He’s strong,” I tell her, desperate to make her understand our enemy. I need her to see how she helped create him, how her actions have shaped this war from the beginning. “He learned from you and has made his army up of the youngest Sluagh, those who view their people’s suffering as proof that death would be better than continuing on in such a way. And now that he has the Green Man’s power at his disposal, can use that to bolster his troops, he won’t stop his advance. He’ll know he has to use it before it fades.”
“Which is why we should wait to attack,” Roark says, louder this time. His pale eyes are fixed on Mother’s face, trying to read her through her glamour. He’s the only one of us who ever could. I wonder what he sees now. “The sealing holds. We’ll wait him out, then finish him off.”
“No.” The single word crackles with Mother’s power. “Our sealing weakens every day. We do not know how long it will take for his stolen power to fade. He routed the Summer Court, and I will not wait for him to break through our barriers and slaughter us in our beds. He is camped on our shore with a paltry band of Sluagh. Every moment we wait, his army comes closer and his threat to our people grows. It is wiser to risk facing his magick than facing an army of that size, with such deadly weapons, in the halls of this sídhe. We attack. We kill him. We end this here and now, no matter the cost.” She points at me. “Your Sluagh will fight beside us.”
“They aren’t mine,” I tell her.
“No, they aren’t.” Keiran stands and faces her. “I command the Sluagh forces.”
“You?” Mother scoffs.
He bears her scorn with the resignation of a man used to facing such cruel doubt. All her statements about him—her derision at his humanity, her doubt of his strength—come back in a miserable rush. His subtle avoidance of Mother and his discomfort in speaking about her make sudden sense. How he keeps his tone polite as he answers, “Yes,” is beyond me.
“How?” She gestures to me. “Did you betray my son for his title?”
A muscle in Keiran’s jaw tightens. “No. I earned my own.” He lifts his chin. “I am thegn and my warriors will follow no one else.”
Keiran
Queen Mab’s lip curls in disgust when I make my declaration. I’d expect no less from her, though I can’t deny how much it hurts when she waves her hand at Lugh and orders, “Lugh, speak to him.”
So dismissive. So disgusted by my daring she refuses to acknowledge me further. I’m little more than a misbehaving hellhound in need of a firm hand.
Lugh stares at her, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched, even as he steps closer to me. “It wouldn’t change anything. I’ve pledged myself to his service. His commands are mine.”
Prince Lyne and Prince Sláine exchange wary looks. Smith watches Lugh with something akin to fascination.
“You’ve pledged yourself,” the queen muses darkly. She taps a finger against her throne. Lugh doesn’t justify himself. He leaves the truth at her feet and waits.
At long last, she asks me, “What is the cost for your warriors’ support?”
The about-face is hard to follow. Days of conversation with my huscarls, their desires and wishes, spin through my mind. I must stand for them. I need to prove myself an equal to the other powers here.
But I’m human. No matter what I do, or how eloquently I plead my case, the queen’s view of me won’t change. Aage’s voice whispers his advice from Krigsmöte. Do not believe her poison.
I faced down Goodfellow. I won the Sluagh’s support. I will earn their trust now and not quail to bring forth their greatest hopes. I lift my chin and answer, “Equality. Acknowledge us as a Court, with the same rights and safeguards you won after your war for independence from the Summer Court. It will grant us access to other pantheons’ goods, provide security through the Accords, and protect our lands’ boundaries. F
ighting against Goodfellow at your side is deserving of such a prize.”
Her finger stills. “And if I refuse?”
I smile, bitterly amused by her attempts to deal. Does she truly think me so stupid I would forget all the lessons I’ve learned from observing her over the centuries? She worships balance. She will do anything to maintain it, and Goodfellow threatens the natural order. Her only hope lies with the strength of my warriors, and we both know it. “If you refuse, then we will sit on the edge of the battlefield and watch your world burn.”
We stare at each other. If she expects me to change my mind, she will be sorely disappointed. Recognition sparks in her gaze. She looks to Prince Sláine, then Prince Lyne. Whatever she sees in their faces confirms her decision. “So be it. Fight with us, prove your rabble worthy, and you will have your parlay.”
It’s Lugh who steps forward now. He rests a hand on my arm, a warning to not speak, and demands, “Swear it.”
The queen’s glare freezes my blood, but Lugh faces her without fear. Once more, he dares to chase a prize I never dreamed possible. A faerie promise is binding. He intends to win me one from the Queen of Air and Darkness herself.
“I promise,” Queen Mab hisses and the temperature jolts as her glamour reacts, tying her to her words.
Prince Lyne glances from her to Lugh and me. I’ve no idea what his true expression is under the glamour he always wears, but he has the grace to incline his head before asking, “Will you gather your troops?”
His courtesy is heady. I offer him a scant bow of my head in return, grateful to be acknowledged as someone of value, even if he’s only doing it to appease me because I can offer military support. “To honor our agreement of a parlay, I will.”
He rises from his seat. “Good. We march in an hour.”
* * *
A shard of the full Mainland army, maybe two hundred fighters, sits and laughs around their campfires as the afternoon slips into midwinter dusk. Goodfellow’s tent is toward the center and he’s appeared outside of it enough times to prove he’s here. It makes this a tempting trap, despite the danger posed by the army’s iron weapons.