“Ha,” Adoh said softly, then again in a loud bark. “You and your childish fancies of mercy. You failed!”
Idris smiled at him, and it was a far more terrible smile than anything the Unseelie King could conjure. “Did I? Then how come it was you who brought me the apple?”
Adoh roared, sounding more like a wild bear in that moment than any faerie. “Insolent cur! I will be done with you once and for all!” He sprang upon the prince and caught him fast by the hair at the nape of his neck, jerking his head back to expose his naked neck.
“Before you kill me,” Idris said, wincing at the strain of his neck from Adoh’s grip. “Tell me why. Why have you hated me so?”
Adoh spat a hard laugh. “You ask! Should I not take such a prophecy as a threat to my throne, even if it speaks of a whelp like you? But no…you are right, my hatred runs deeper still. How is it that such a prophecy be spoken of you when it should have been spoken of my son? On this day, when you are dead at last, it is my son who should rise and claim the throne! It was always he who was the more deserving!”
“But Adoh…” Idris said softly. “You don’t have a son.”
Silence.
Silence as deep and dark as the waters in the loch.
“He died,” Idris continued. “As an infant, in the same plague that took my mother. My father sent you a tribute of grief, but you never replied.”
After a moment sodden in grieving understanding, he spoke again, but this time with an edge of suspicion and anger. “To take a human child requires leaving another in its place. Did you exchange your dead son for Keeva? Did you hope somehow she would replace him? And when she couldn’t, was that when you decided she should be nothing more than a tool for your revenge?”
“If taking your tongue did not silence you,” Adoh said, teeth grinding together. “Then I will just have to take your head.” He tightened his fingers in the prince’s hair and yanked back harder, pressing the iron knife to his throat.
“Adoh,” Fuath said.
Both fey men startled at the voice.
Adoh had forgotten that the loch was not so empty and lonely a witness as the silence had suggested. The waters rippled with an eerie glow, and the face of Fuath flickered upon the surface, somehow almost seeming to rise upwards.
Idris, though unable to see the creature, pulled back hard against his captor’s grip and frowned at the uninvited presence.
“Adoh, our exchange for the knowledge of the three keys is not yet complete. I have yet to name my price.”
“Name it then!” the Unseelie King barked.
“Idris,” the monster in the loch said. “I claim Idris.”
13
Adoh stared at the monster in the loch for a long moment, the knife in his hand quivering. “You can have him,” he said at last. “As soon as I slit his throat, I will toss his corpse into your waters.”
“No,” Fuath said, smiling as smooth and slick as the green film upon his surface. “I’m afraid I need him before he is dead.”
His teeth bared in a feral scowl, Adoh dragged Idris back from the water. “What treachery is this, Fuath? Have I not bargained with you for years so that I could accomplish this?”
“The Loresman bargained to protect this prince’s life; you bargained to take it. But you hardly cared to know the price anymore after the second attempt. The price is Idris. Give him to me.”
“Never.” Froth dripped over Adoh’s lips. “You lying wretch…his life is mine to take.”
A horn rang through the bitter cold air. A golden horn of pure light, joined by another, and then another, until the sound was so bright the night was almost forgotten.
As Adoh stared in slack horror, Idris moved. He twisted in the Unseelie King’s grip, jabbing an elbow back into his side, and broke free. The Unseelie reached after him, claws extended, but as he did, something hissed through the air. Adoh screamed and recoiled, an arrow pierced through his hand.
A mighty host broke through the dark forest, bringing the colors of the season with them. All manner of fair folk, armed to the teeth, and at their head was the Seelie King, a troop of snarling goblins, and a stag upon which rode…
Adoh hissed as he met eyes with Keeva, and he snapped her arrow with savage force. But the sight of her had distracted him from his first and more important vengeance, and when he looked for Idris again, he saw that the prince had already reached his people. No. No. NO. Victory would not be stolen from him; he could not come this close and fail! He threw back his head and shrieked and the sound carried to all corners of his realm. For if Deorsa brought his armies here for a reckoning, a reckoning he would have….
“Idris,” Keeva gasped as he finished assuring his father of his safety. He turned to her, hand searching for something to touch, and he found the head of the stag. He smiled in surprise and scratched its jaw as it nuzzled into his shoulder, and then reached with his other hand for her.
“I knew you would come,” he said, his smirk far too light and airy for one who’d skirted death.
She stared at him dumbly. “What do you mean, you knew?”
“Well, you got my message didn’t you?”
“But you were…you were….are you saying, you knew Adoh wasn’t m—”
A cry rose up from the fair folk. In the forest, further away from them, a great many things were moving, and as they watched, all kinds of ugly creatures spilled from the dark roots and boughs. They gathered at Adoh’s back, slavering and scraping at the ground.
Keeva’s heart sank. The Unseelie Court had come, and they’d come in droves. Adoh would have war.
“They would seek mastery over us,” the Unseelie King cried to his armies. “Tonight, take our fate back into our hands!” The court stirred at his words, shaking their weapons and growling in a rising swell.
The Seelie folk tensed in response, looking to their king. Deorsa scowled at his enemy, but before he could utter a command, the dark court of foul folk surged forward with the anger of their ruler at their backs. In response, the Seelie shouted and brandished their weapons. The goblins growled and hefted huge hammers of stone. Keeva leapt from her stag and knelt on the steady ground as she strung an arrow to her bow and waited for a clear shot.
Upon the shore of Loch Mor, the fey rushed one another, the vision of blood already spilling from their eyes.
“ENOUGH!”
The word shouted in every mind, loud enough to send many cringing. They could not have escaped the voice had their ears been stuffed with cotton or if they’d been miles away. It spoke within them and reverberated to the core.
Idris strode between the two armies, his arms held out, and his voice called forth again, “Enough of this! Why do you fight, Unseelie? Because your king summoned you here? Do you know why? Someone tell me why!”
“Slay him!” Adoh thrust his arm out like a javelin. “Strike him down before he utters another word.”
“They will not,” Idris said calmly. Indeed, the throng of wild creatures and dark monsters had halted and they glanced back and forth from the terrible and glorious Seelie Court to their own furious king. Then their gazes returned to rest upon the snow white prince, and there they remained entranced. “You see, Adoh, not all of them hate me as you do. I believe there are many who have longed for peace and goodwill between the Day and the Night. They welcomed me in your court so long ago. But did they know what you did?” He whirled to face the forces of the dark folk. “Do you?”
And he illuminated himself in light so that they could look upon the ruin their king had wrought. A wave of stunned sorrow rippled through the mass, and many of them whimpered or winced at the harsh sight of what they’d heard only through whispers and jeers.
Keeva had never seen such a display of regret from the Unseelie folk, and she marveled that they had loved and wanted this being of light to bring them a hope they hardly knew.
“You fight tonight,” Idris said, “at the bitterness and hatred of another man. I want only for the animosity amo
ng our peoples to end. No more blood. Not tonight.” He reached up and touched his face, uttering a small growl. “What was done to me is done. I do not know if it is still possible to fulfill the prophecy as so many of you had hoped. But I would try, even so.”
“No!” Adoh screamed. “You will die!” Even as he lunged forward, blade raised for the kill, Idris stepped deftly out of reach.
But the step took the prince to the edge of the loch—and the waters moved.
Fuath rose from the lake.
As flat and wavering as his reflection, he seized hold of Idris by the shoulders. And then he pulled him straight back to fall into the loch with a sharp slap. The water rippled once and then stilled.
Keeva screamed and she was the first to reach the lake’s edge. Without a thought, she plunged in and waded out to Idris’s body which lay strangely placid under the surface. She reached in to seize him and…her blood ran cold, far colder than even the chill of the dark loch. She could not touch him. She could not feel him. It was like he wasn’t even there. Yet there he floated, as still and serene as a corpse in a coffin and the lake surface as a glass lid. Even his hands were folded over his chest. Only his hair moved in the water’s pulse. She thrashed at the water, trying her hardest to reach him or even disturb the image. But it was no use. No matter what she saw, he was not there.
Deorsa had taken only one horrified step forward before he froze. Because without looking, he knew. He felt it. The bright warm sense that always rested against his heart flickered and went dull. Gone. His beautiful, beloved son was gone.
The eyes of the Seelie King snapped to Adoh.
Adoh stood as one transfixed, a cruel satisfied smile jarring his teeth. The satisfaction was a bitter one, a dream realized in an undesired way, but achieved nonetheless. He knew the moment Deorsa looked at him, and his smile bared wider.
The ground rippled beneath Adoh’s feet, and his smile slipped. Gripping the hilt of his sword, he edged back along the tree-line, hooded eyes snapping with dark lighting. Deorsa circled opposite him, and death stared out from his gaze.
14
Idris opened his eyes.
It took him a few moments of staring at the wavering dark waters around him to remember he shouldn’t be seeing anything at all. He gasped and then choked, immediately expecting his lungs to be filled with liquid. He discovered then the second impossibility. He wasn’t wet, and he knelt on something solid….not quite ground, but solid despite its slippery gloss.
As he stared down in disbelief at the strange floor, he saw that the hands braced in front of his face were healed and perfectly whole. “No,” he whispered. “No….” Confusion turned to panic, and he surged up to his feet, reeling backwards to catch his balance.
He stood in a throne room unlike any other. Its pillars and walls were clear as glass, yet utterly dark for whatever lay beyond. Something about them was not right; they moved as if made of jelly. A putrid order filled the hall, a stench of decay and mud. As he slowly turned in observation, he came to face the master of the realm.
Upon a throne of bones and slime, Fuath sat. He was little more than that himself, an enormous skeleton upon which clung rotting flesh and algae. His eyes were like that of a sea serpent, green and bulbous. The weeds of the loch robed him and a rack of horns was upon his skull. He dripped with darkly stained water.
Idris scowled at the sight of him, little questioning whose he presence he stood in. His hand flew to his belt and he withdrew a knife, something he rarely ever relied on, but felt better with now. “What have you done?” he demanded, gagging over the feel of using his own tongue again. “What kind of glamour is this?”
Fuath waved a careless hand at the knife. “Do not bother yourself with that, dear one, I am already dead. As for you, you should be thanking me. It is because of me that you are still alive.”
“It is because of you that I am here,” Idris snarled. “I owe you no thanks.”
It was strange for a skull to yet bear expression, but Fuath’s visage twisted in amusement nonetheless. “Ah, you owe me far more thanks than you realize, prince. It was I who gave the Loresman the enchantment to protect you to begin with.”
“Which you gave Adoh the keys to in some kind of deal. A deal to acquire me,” Idris said quickly.
“You see clearly for a man who was blind.”
Idris’s hand tightened on his knife, not caring that the weapon was useless. “Perhaps blindness improved my listening. So explain, Fuath. Why would you pit us against each other? Why would you want me alive?”
For a long moment, Fuath did not answer. He only tapped his bony finger upon his throne arm, letting that sound linger in a tick-tock around them. “I hear of little in these wretched halls save what whispers are left on dying lips. But I have heard of your prophecy. A prophecy of hope. A prophecy where you rule the fair and the foul and there is peace. A prophecy….you are no longer able to fulfill. Unless—”
At the final tap of his finger, the wall beside Idris swelled and moved forward. He jerked to face it, startled at the figure within, but then he paused. For he looked upon his own reflection. The reflection of the prince he once had been, the prince he seemed to be now.
“What would you say,” Fuath purred, “if I could give you back what was lost.”
The knife shook in Idris’s hand. “This is a lie,” he said. “You’re lying.”
“Am I? You doubt my power. I withheld death itself for you. You would be a fool to not at least consider the possibility. Do you really want to bear the shame of this face forever? Do you want this to be what others look upon?”
As he spoke, the reflection in the mirror changed. Idris could still see it, and he looked for the first time upon his own ruin. His breath sucked in sharp and short, and his fists clenched. It…it was difficult to look upon, made worse by the perfection that had stared at him a second ago. The scars of his missing eyes were so strange and unnerving, and his hands so clumsy and awkward.
“It’s still me,” he whispered, but his voice shook. “The people who love me know that.”
“The people who love you. As if that were all that mattered. There are two kingdoms depending upon you, upon that fair face, upon the prophecy! It would only require a very simple price.”
“A price of what?” Idris growled, his hand slowly falling to his side as he stared at his long-lost face.
“Three drops of blood. No more.”
Idris wheeled on him. “My blood? You would seek to control me! You are nothing but a carrion scavenger! You deceived the Loresman! You manipulated Adoh in his grief! I will never enter into a deal with you!”
Fuath rose from his throne, stained water gushing from his robes and his teeth bared in a predatory gleam.
Something changed.
Something tore and shifted in the fabric of the worlds.
Idris fell to his knees as a weight descended upon him. For one moment, he thought it was the power of Adoh. But it was something else. Something far greater, far more terrible. His blood rushed with energy unlike any other, and he felt the confines of his spirit stretch and expand in a painful thrill.
He felt the power of his own kingship.
His only thought was one broken word.
Father…
∞∞∞
“Loresman!” Keeva shouted, racing to the faerie’s side. “Is there any way we can go in after Idris?”
“Impossible,” the Loresman said, tearing his gaze away from the forest where the two kings battled in a fury of sparks and bracken. “Fuath’s enchantments are strong, and I cannot break through the locks on his doors.”
“But what about the door that has no lock?” She held her knife tight in her hand, although none of the Unseelie Court had moved forward to attack. “I am a mortal. If Fuath thinks like the Unseelie Court, he will leave openings for mortals to stumble into. He is a predator, and he hungers. Mortals such as I are prey, and not a threat. Send me through. I’ll help Idris as I can.”
; He looked at her in surprise, brow furrowing. “It might work…he may let you pass.”
“Send me.” She turned away from the sounds of chaos and raced back to the lake. She could already feel the Loresman’s magic racing after her, propelling her speed. And when she dove into the water beside Idris’s body, she felt the change. The press of resistance, the tearing of seams, and then—she was through.
She opened her eyes and found herself in the halls of the Loch Mor.
∞∞∞
The air bristled with the smell and sound of burning needles, crackling and disintegrating from inner embers.
“What did you want, Adoh?” Deorsa demanded as he advanced. “Is all this because you wanted me to know the pain of losing my son? Did you want me to feel the ache of knowing all my hopes for him were stolen to the east wind? Did you want me to understand the burning, consuming need for revenge? DID YOU?” The next sweep of his hand brought the roots bursting from the ground and knocked Adoh from his feet. The Seelie King loomed above him, robes swelling in the shift of heat and cold. “If that was indeed your intent,” Deorsa whispered, blade gleaming as he drew it from the scabbard, “then you succeeded.”
Adoh scrambled back to a stand, but the earth beneath his feet could no longer be trusted and the trees themselves were the enemy, reaching out with clawing branches, glittering eyes glaring from between the boughs.
A crazed laugh spilled from Adoh’s lips, and he flung a snarl of scorn at the avenger. “You cannot kill me! It is written in the Law that no King may take the other King’s life with his own hand! Is it not so, Deorsa? You would not disobey the Law!”
The Seelie King reached up to the crown atop his own head and cast it to the ground.
Adoh stared as one condemned at the crown as it rolled through the mud and vanished under a tangle of brambles. The sickened smile was still frozen on his lips in that moment that Deorsa’s sword cleft his head from his shoulders.
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