The two crowns lay lost in the darkening shadows and the pooling of blood.
15
The slippery, ever moving walls of Loch Mor sent a shudder through Keeva, and then she was creeping across the wet ground, following a pale green light that cast through the shadowed corridors. This faerie realm stank of more horror than even the Unseelie Court, but she refused to consider that. First Idris. Then they could fight whatever came their way together.
She heard muted voices and hurried in pursuit. As she turned a corner, she beheld them. The lord of the loch and the sídhe prince she held dear. Fuath was awful to the eye, but she did not waste a glance on him, instead looking to Idris. An Idris she hardly recognized. He was whole and he was beautiful, and she staggered to a stop in dismay.
He was upon his knees, his head cradled in his hands.
“You feel it.” The monster sneered. “Your father is slain. The crown and the power are yours. Swear yourself to me, and all that you once were I will give back to you. You cannot fulfill the prophecy without your beauty. I can give it back.”
“I will never serve you,” Idris spat.
As she watched, Fuath lifted his dripping arm. “Willing or not, you will serve my purpose. The prophecy cannot be fulfilled if you are here in my realm. The wars which will rage above shall profit many dead, and my halls shall be filled to bursting. Go then to your doom. If you will not accept my gift, go and sleep and dream in the dark.” His arm flung out, caught Idris in the chest, and threw him through the watery walls.
Keeva shouted as the loch swallowed Idris in a slurping gulp, and she charged forward across the hall as Fuath turned to her. He relaxed back against his throne of rotting bones, and waved a hand in the way Idris had vanished.
“So you have pursued him this far, mortal creature? Reckless are you to enter here, but mortals do seek death so often. Continue in your hunt then, I will not stop you.”
She wished for nothing more than to leap up the steps and sink her knife between his ribs, but she knew already that would accomplish nothing. So with a savage snarl, she did just as he said. She plunged through the wall after the prince.
It was the most awful feeling, far worse than even entering the loch. The jellied wall sucked at her skin as if it wished to pull it from her body and she felt as if she sunk downwards. But at the end of the sink, she did not hit ground, but broke free into the open. The loch outside of the halls spread out before her, dark and fathomless. It wavered in front of her eyes and was thick to move though, as if it were still water, but she could breathe despite the panic seizing her heart.
He could be anywhere. He could be in places she’d never reach. Who was she to think that she could find him?
She was his huntress. She would find him if it…if it killed her, and if it did, then her spirit would wander these waters forever in the seeking.
Deeper and deeper she plunged into the loch, and she called his name often. Nothing alive could be seen down here, no fish, no growing plant, just drifting weeds and glowing green souls floating sadly by.
Then something changed. She began to notice that some of the green lights were blinking at her in the dark, and when she turned to look at them, they vanished entirely. A chill crawled up the nape of her neck, resting in a tickle at the edge of her ears. Those were not lost little souls…those were eyes.
She stilled, hunkered as far into herself as she could go. Every sort of unwanted memory squirmed their way to the surface of her thought. Memories of her childhood. For every child is afraid of eyes in the dark, but for her, those eyes had been real. She had no one to come in with a light and banish the monsters away, for she lived with the monsters and she was one of them. A changling child. A pawn of the Unseelie Court.
“Go away,” she whispered, as the scene around her shifted. “Go away, go away, go away.” But it was coming to her, brought in vivid clarity. The thick black forests with their sharp and pointing branches. The bogs in which lurked things with long sticky fingers that reached out for ankles. The eyes became more numerous, winking in mirth at her fear. With a savage cry, she pulled up her bow and strung an arrow. “Stay back, you miserable beasts!”
When she’d finally grown, surviving the court and all its terrors, she’d convinced Adoh to release her to her own kind. To learn of their ways so that she might blend in and be better suited to his use. How terrifying it had been to enter the human lands, but how much better to leave the land of terror behind. And she was not going back, not now, not here, not ever!
Wrenching away from the gathering eyes, she fled. She fled through the forests and their poking branches, she fled through the bog and leapt clear of the reaching hands. Forgetting Idris in a moment of terror, she raced to be free of the surrounding haunt.
Without warning, she ran straight into the open door of the Unseelie Court. She gasped and turned back to go the way she’d come, but whatever door she’d passed through was gone now. So she crouched down in the dark and trembled. It was so pitch black she could not even see her own hand when she held it in front of her face.
This is how it would end. She would be trapped forever in her own nightmare.
Now that the feast is over and the guests have gone, there is a matter I wish to discuss—a private matter, if you please.
She started at the sound of Adoh’s voice, far away. Bile rose in her throat and she began to clamp her hands over her ears when she heard another voice answer. A voice she knew and loved.
“Idris?” she whispered. Struggling up on her weakened legs, she followed the sound of the distant voices.
Please, you are not thinking, you will dishonor your people forever.
The distress in Idris’s voice quickened her steps, but they were yet so far away and she could still see nothing. But already, an uncomfortable suspicion was rising in her mind, and the moment she heard the scream of pain, she knew it was true.
She was not trapped in her nightmare.
She was trapped in his.
The scream drew her in a race to its end, and she willed the sound of her own feet and heaving breath to drown out the cries of pain from the prince. This couldn’t be happening to him again, not even in a dream. She had to stop it.
And at last they appeared before her. Not the court, just the figures in the dark. None of them seemed to see her as she shoved through them for they were too intent in their glee towards the white figure huddled on the ground in their midst. A figure whose beautiful golden hair was now dark with ink and whose fair skin was now stained in red.
The horror of the sight stumbled her to a stop, and she stood among the jeering crowd, gaping at the ruin of the faerie prince. It shouldn’t have been this way. He hadn’t deserved it. Why and how could anyone, even Adoh, be so cruel? But he was not the only cruel one. She stared around at the surrounding folk and she thought that there were many more of them than had been in the real event. In reality, she had heard it was only Adoh and his greatest lords, but here many of the Unseelie folk watched and guffawed and worse still she thought she saw some of the Seelie folk observing without pity.
She was one of them. The knowledge descended upon her as if a great stone had been strung about her neck. She choked, falling to the ground. Here, she judged these monsters for harming him, but how was she any different? Had she not gone to deceive him, to strip him of the protections upon his life? She had hurt him, first by stealing his breath, and then by prick of iron. Small but vital steps to his destruction.
Still on her hands and knees, she crawled through the nightmare till she was by his side. Her hand clutched his bloody one and she bent her head to his. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry for what I have done, Idris. I am a monster like the rest of them, but I am sorry.” Her tears splashed down upon his fingers.
His head tilted and turned to her. She gasped, for she had thought him no more than a vision same as the rest of those who cavorted about them, but as his hand tightened around hers, she knew without a shadow
of a doubt that this was the real Idris.
Impossibly, he smiled. “I know,” he said softly. “I’ve known for some time. I forgave you long ago.”
She gaped at him, not sure whether to feel hope, confusion, or anger. Possibly all of them at once. “Why didn’t you say so?! Why did you play along with my deception instead of confronting me?”
“I wanted you to tell me. I wanted you to make your own decision.” He brushed his mangled hand up her cheek, melting her rigid stance, and his lips brushed her cheek. “I only ever wanted you to be free.”
At the touch of his kiss, the visions around them blurred and swept apart. They were alone in the dark but they could see each other, and the blood and fresh wounds were gone, leaving him behind as he was…still scarred, but the Idris she knew and loved.
“Thank you for finding me and pulling me out of that,” he said squeezing her hands. “You remind me of my purpose.” He took a deep breath and straightened, drawing both of them back up to their feet.
“Fuath!” he shouted, and the ring of his voice cut through the murk of the loch.
Fuath appeared, the lingering flesh on his face twisting into the sourest form possible. Keeva braced at the sight of him, her hand falling to her knife, but Idris had her other arm looped through his and he patted it comfortingly.
“Fuath, you have made an error,” Idris said.
“Have I?” the monster of the loch snarled.
“Indeed you have. As you yourself stated, I am now King of the Courts and so its power is mine. And you are the Lord of the Dead. Fuath….I am not dead.”
With those words, the world around them began to swell and move with water, not stagnant water, but living and rushing. The darkness faded back as more and more of the loch came forward. Vines shot up somewhere from the murky floor and spread along the invisible walls of the dark realm, piercing and shattering them. From somewhere above, light began to shimmer in starburst brilliance, casting rays of pale gold into the deep.
Fuath wailed and surged forward, but in that moment Idris stepped to the door that his vines had sundered, and they broke from his realm.
The loch was merely a loch in truth again, and the Lord of the Dead could be seen no more. Keeva choked in surprise, bubbles bursting up in front of her vision, and she was overwhelmed by the coldness of the lake. For a moment they floundered there, and then Idris caught her to his side and struck for the surface. They emerged with a splash, choking on what drops of water they had swallowed in the struggle.
Keeva splashed forward and felt her feet touch the silty floor of the loch. She tried once to stand, but fell over, and so instead crawled up onto the bank. She flung herself onto the solid ground and rolled over to stare up at the stars. She was certain she had never really appreciated their lively sparkle until now.
Idris collapsed beside her, heaving for breath. His hand felt about for her and she grasped it in assurance. “You did it,” she wheezed. “We’re safe now.”
“Idris! Idris!”
The goblins were the first to notice them come up from the water, and they rushed to their side, heaving them up and patting them in a harsh but loving inspection of their living existence. Right behind them came the Loresman, face slack with relief, and after him came Deorsa.
When Deorsa touched his son in an effort to get past the goblins for an embrace of his own, Idris drew back as if stung.
“Father?” he said, face wrinkling in confusion. “But…but…I am king…I felt the transfer of power. I thought you had died.”
Without an answer, his father caught him close and held him, and Idris relaxed with wonder and joy despite not understanding. But at last, Deorsa leaned back. He smiled as he looked upon his son, stroking his wet hair away from his face. “Yes, you are king,” he said. “I gave up the throne so I could kill Adoh.”
“Father!”
Somehow, it both surprised and didn’t surprise Keeva that there was actual and real regret for Adoh’s fate in Idris’s tone. He would pity him; he just would.
“I do not regret it,” his father said stubbornly. “But…” A soft pride glinted in his eyes. “But your compassion is why you are the Fairest. Why you are King of both the Courts.”
He stepped aside as he spoke so that behind him could be seen a great gathering.
The courts had watched the battle between the kings and they had watched both crowns strike the ground. They had looked in distress to the body of Adoh and the figure of Deorsa, and they as one had looked to the water where Idris had vanished. Everyone remembered the prophecy’s words and waited to see if it would come to pass.
They looked at him now, both the beastly and the beautiful, and their faces were filled with hope and anxiety.
Idris stepped towards them, feeling their thoughts if not seeing, and held out his hand. After a few steps forward, it came to rest on an Unseelie fey, who flinched but did not draw back.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Tolork, Fairest One.”
“Torlork. I once was fairest, but that is now lost. But would you take me for your king?”
The fey eyed him up and down. “If I am honest, I am more comfortable with you now than I ever was before. I feel perhaps you might understand me.”
“I will strive to,” Idris said honestly. “I will try to be a just and fair ruler to all the people.”
“Then yes, I will follow you.”
“And so will I,” cried another Unseelie.
“So will I!” a Seelie shouted.
“So will I, if you can forgive me for my foolishness,” the Loresman said.
“I will follow you as my king,” Deorsa said with a smile. “And perhaps learn from your ways.”
Keeva dared not speak any words to draw his attention, although she longed to. She could only watch in amazement as both the courts gathered to him. Yet though most rushed forward, there were many from both courts who slunk away and disappeared into the shadows, for they had never wished the prophecy to be fulfilled.
His hand touched her arm and she startled, looking up at him with wide, anxious eyes. She would learn now exactly what his forgiveness meant.
“Be my Queen?” he asked.
She blinked. Her mind stalled. “Is…that the same thing as your bride?”
“That’s what I meant, yes,” he said, reddening.
She stared at him in consternation, wondering if he even felt any doubt that he should be asking such a ridiculous question. She, a mortal, and one all too recently his enemy. But it didn’t matter to him, and suddenly, it didn’t matter to her either. So what if she wasn’t worthy? He had deemed her so, and the realization of that swelled her heart so full that it hurt. She was forgiven, she was wanted, she was loved, and it felt better than she’d ever dreamed.
“Yes,” she said simply and smiled.
The court followed their new King and the huntress upon his arm, and they passed through the forests together in a procession of light and shadow like the glowing of embers. The banshees and sylphs led the way in wild song, all the creatures of the forest gathering to see.
Fairest one, fairest son,
All together, under one,
Kingdoms twain, now together
A crown to last, for now, forever
And even in the villages far away, men stopped their work and listened. For upon the wind, there was a sweet sigh, a sound of spring and promise and the beginning of lives restored.
Finis
Now behold a new court.
The sundered sídhe are together again and they dance in the same glades. Not all of them are fair, but there is loveliness even in the strange and broken. Nowhere is this seen better than in their King and Queen.
For the Queen was once mortal and outcast, but there is pride now in her eye and her hand is strong. A bow is often upon her back as she leads the Court in the Hunt, for there is no one else with an aim more true.
And see now the King robed in forest leaves and summer sun. A gre
at crown of glittering branches sweeps from his brow and along his shining hair, and a scarf of emerald is bound across his scarred face. His smile is kind and the wise hand with which he rules is bright with gold.
For the broken are beautiful when they rise from the shadows and welcome the brightening dawn.
Acknowledgements
Where would I be without my beloved family? You are the best in the world, giving me joy, encouragement, and love. Thank you for supporting my dreams of writing and for listening to my stories aloud.
A huge thank you to my beta readers: Bryn Shutt, Rebeka Borshevsky, Clara Darling, and Melanie Morgan. You have always been the best of writing buddies, so sweet and supportive! And thank you, Bryn, for helping educate me on this crazy world of publishing.
Thank you to Rachelle Rae Cobb for being such an awesome editor! Your enthusiasm was a complete blessing.
Thank you to Anne Elisabeth, who first inspired me to write fairy tale retellings. Your example of beautiful excellence gave me a vision for my own aspirations.
And thank you, Rin, for creating such perfectly lovely illustrations of Idris and Keeva!
About the Author
From the beginning, H. S. J. Williams has loved stories and all the forms they take. Whether with word, art, or costume, she has always been fascinated with the magic of imagination. She lives in a real fantastical kingdom, the beautiful Pacific Northwest, with her very own array of animal friends and royally loving family. Williams taught Fantasy Illustration at MSOA. She may also be a part-time elf.
About the Artist
Irina Plachkova is an acclaimed artist, freelance illustrator, and fashion designer, better known as PhantomRin. You can find more of her work at phantomrin.tumblr.com.
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