An Heir to Thorns and Steel

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  He laughed softly. “Ah... I look forward to learning you better, my brother.”

  “I shall do everything in my power to give you the opportunity,” I said, and ducked back into the corridor. I made it to the end without thinking; from there I went to the well. As I poured bucket after bucket of water over my head, I fought the flutter of my heart, and still I continued until my teeth chattered and my skin wrinkled and my fingers went numb and sore from the hard wooden handle. Leaning against the well frame, I thought that I was punishing myself, but it was too late. I had had the indecency to fall in love with a king.

  The following morning I woke from the gossamer of dreams and into a body that remained compliant. I reached outward, twisting my wrist and watching the play of light over the ropy muscles in my forearm. Stretching for the pleasure of stretching was a foreign concept, and just feeling it... I closed my eyes. I wanted to be healthy, oh how I wanted to be whole! But I didn’t think I could pay for it with Amhric’s life. I was not so naïve as to think he would fare well in the care of someone of Sedetnet’s obvious depravity. In folklore, it was the villain who gave good and gentle men to evil sorcerers, not the hero.

  Except kings could not be good and gentle men. I was not living in the realm of folklore, but in the realm of history, and history had ample evidence of that nasty truth.

  I covered my eyes. I couldn’t, just couldn’t imagine bringing that man to the tower. But I couldn’t imagine living my life in the kind of pain that had become my world.

  With a sigh, I hefted myself from my warm bed and decided on breakfast. For once I was hungry; I thought I should at least enjoy my appetite while it lasted. I dressed and took myself cautiously to the kitchen, keeping a watch for any signs of Thameis or his entourage and finding the compound silent. Perhaps it was to be expected—the sun was still new in the east and I had never observed any elf to rise with the common laborers. Sheval and his assistants, however, would have been at work for at least an hour and I looked forward to sampling whatever partially-baked delicacy their artistry had conceived.

  “You’re early,” Sheval said when I entered. The energy in the kitchen was greatly depressed, from the sounds: the knives did not chop briskly, there was no laughter, no banter.

  “I thought I’d steal some breakfast,” I said. “I hope you did not suffer overmuch due to our unexpected visitor?”

  “A drunk and a debutante.” Sheval waved his arms. “What good is it to educate the palate of one’s diners if they dull their senses with too much wine?”

  “Good wine, at least,” I said with a grin.

  “Ah!” he said. “Useless! Just useless. At least he ate what we sent. But so much wine!” He sniffed. “I imagine he’s sprawled unconscious in his suite.”

  “No doubt,” I said, looking over the counter at the dough proofing in giant bowls near the oven. Sheval had trailed off and ceased to meet my eyes. “I have never noted our masters to have much by way of self-control. So is there anything edible yet...?”

  “I came for breakfast,” Thameis said behind me into the silence I hadn’t noticed. “And here I find just what I need.” His hand lit on my shoulder and then smashed me against the counter, bending me until my face hit the wood and my glasses skewed off my nose.

  “Delicious,” he said, and ripped from me all the well-being and the power that Amhric had so gently bestowed. He sucked it out of every finger, out of my wrists and arms, out of my feet, up through my legs and hips... and nothing filled the hollows so that I felt my body collapse in on the empty spaces, crushing my breath out of my chest, my thoughts out of my head, and there was nothing but agony, white agony, stronger even than humiliation. And still he took, carving great gaping holes, and through those holes the demons came, laughing and nibbling the interstitial spaces with their needle teeth.... perching on the counter and sneering.

  The Prince lives, one of them said.

  The Prince suffers, said another.

  The Prince is impotent, said the last, laughing. And while he writhes beneath the bodies of his masters we will be free to wreak our evil.

  “What?” I whispered, trying to clasp the broken bits of stories through the fog of pain in my head. “What did you say?”

  We will come again, the demon said, leaning down to lick my temple. To kill and maim and eat the dead and raise them to follow us. And you will let it happen.

  Flashes... bone warriors and scythes and immortal prices paid. I shuddered beneath Thameis’s assault. No... surely some things were truly tales.

  We will come again, the demon promised, purring into my ear.

  “The hell you will,” I said, and spit at him.

  Thameis jerked me back into the world, grabbing a knot of my hair at the back of my head. “Did you say something?”

  I stared up at him past the tilted edge of my spectacles, trying to make sense of the blur of color and malevolence.

  “Because I don’t tolerate insolence in my food,” he said and shook me. “Understood?”

  I planned defiance, but before I could work up another mouthful he scowled and said, “What’s cut me?” As I tried to jerk away he raked my hair to one side, exposing the nape of my neck... and the necklace tangled there. “Jewelry? Did you steal it off the dresser of your bette—”

  I closed my eyes.

  Thameis flipped me around and arched me against the counter, framing my face with a hard hand and scrutinizing me. “Surely not,” he said. “And yet...” He looked up and said, “You. Send messengers to Temeret and Iris. Tell them to meet me here as soon as possible... and to bring their mages.” He yanked the pendant free, tearing some of my hair with it, and then wrapped the chain around my wrists, binding them flush to each other with magic. The pendant hung between them like a lock, or some kind of cruelly ironic ornament. Unbidden from the annals of history sprang the accounts of princes arrested by their own kings for conspiracy, chained by the populace for rough justice, found dead, dragged off by rivals or kin. I wondered if any of them had been so weak as to almost collapse in the wake of their captors as I did when Thameis led me away. The humans did nothing, of course... what could they do? Though as I stumbled after the elf I glimpsed the fleeting regret on Sheval’s face. But soon enough I was beyond their aid.

  “Let’s see, let’s see,” Thameis said, scanning the grounds. “There, that should do.” He tugged me along behind him; when I faltered, some invisible force propelled my feet. That same force trammeled me when he came to a halt before the Black Pearls and opened the topmost cage with a sharp gesture. “This should do for now,” he said, and pulled me up by my tunic. I was never more aware of the surrealism of magic than in that moment when a man lifted me twelve feet in the air and shoved me in a wire cage. It was so unbelievable I could not remember the details of how it had been accomplished moments after he’d done it.

  And then he shut the door on me, flicked the lock closed and left me there, exposed to wind and weather, still bound and trembling from his assault. Too, the cage was meant for slim, furred creatures almost two heads shorter than I was. I had to contort myself to fit and still it chafed.

  “We did not expect you to come to us this way,” one of the genets said from beneath me.

  The wind ruffled my hair and cooled my face, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before what felt pleasant became uncomfortably chill. “I didn’t quite expect to join you thus, no.”

  “Are you to be our new Fount, then?” one of the ones beside me asked. They were so close I could smell their musk, feel their body heat.

  “I hope not,” I said. “No offense meant.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I assume to keep me from escaping,” I said. “Though being locked in a room would have been sufficient. This is rather excessive.” The first tremor traveled my arms to my shoulders, cramping my neck. “May I trouble one of you for a favor?”

  “What’s that?” the one next to me said.

  I managed, clumsily, to remove
my spectacles and offer them to her through one of the holes in the mesh. “Hold these for me.”

  “For how long?” she asked.

  “Until I stop thrashing,” I said, resigned. There was no room in the cage; when I came to, I would be hurt, even with the pendant chaining my hands together. But at least I would be able to see. Another aching shiver traversed my spine to nestle against the base of my skull. I clenched my teeth against the next. And the next. Small mercy: the convulsions had barely begun in earnest before my mind sank into the dark. I felt only the first few scrapes and blows.

  I returned to consciousness enclosed in musk and warmth, with nearly the entirety of my world circumscribed in fur. Every genet in every cage adjoining mine had pressed herself against the wall closest to me; even the ones beneath me were on their feet, pushing themselves against their ceilings. I had expected to be battered, and I was... but there was no blood. I felt the weight of their contentment and shuddered.

  “Here,” the one on the near side said, passing me back my glasses.

  “Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “How long...?”

  They passed a series of looks amongst one another. “Hour?” one of them said at last... Seven, I thought.

  Only an hour and already I felt distorted and sick. How long did Thameis intend to keep me here? “Do you know the name of your master?” I asked.

  “We are the property of the blood-flag Suleris,” the one next to me said. The Dam.

  “Then you know Thameis,” I said.

  “We have heard the name of the blood-flag’s head,” Seven said. “Yes.”

  “Do you know of a Temeret or an Iris?” I asked.

  “Kin,” Nine said. “As we are kin.”

  “His brother and sister,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  Worse and worse. I couldn’t imagine such an interview going well. I had to free myself and Amhric before they decided to consign me to a prison as cruel and effective as my brother’s. If I could only open the lock, I could sneak back into his room and the two of us could flee; even unprepared we stood a better chance of escape if we left before Thameis and his kin could descend on us with their mages and their experiments and their curiosities. Amhric was a small man, and stripped nigh unto fleshlessness by his time here; the drake could surely carry us all. The only thing I had to do was open the door of my cage. I turned my eyes to the lock.

  “It’s no use,” Nine said.

  “It’s been tried,” the Dam said.

  “There has to be a way.” I grasped it awkwardly through the mesh and turned it, looking for any interruption in the smooth metal and finding none. The wind cooled my fingers, making them clumsy. God, how I hated the cold.

  “Only the elves can open it,” Seven said.

  “I’m an elf,” I growled. It was hard to keep the thing in my hands with my wrists chained together; my arms had lost most of their mobility. “Why doesn’t it open for me?”

  “Perhaps you are not the right blood,” one of the others said. “All magics are built from blood ladders.”

  If she was right... but I couldn’t afford to believe she was. I remembered the calm that both Kemses and Amhric had emanated just before their own uses of magic and tried to regulate my breathing... to close my eyes and concentrate on the world outside my aching skin and raw senses. The wind snaked into every seam of my clothes, pebbling my flesh and then stinging my face with my hair. The warmth of the genets around me pulsed like a furry heart, shifting, musk and cinnamon-scented. But beyond the wind, beyond the presence of the creatures sharing my suffering, I felt... something. Something that slid along the shifting currents of the wind, riding them, heavier than the air and lighter than sunlight, something that smelled wild and rich, as mysterious and vast as the ocean. Almost I could reach for it, touch my fingers to it... caress it out of the air. Almost I could see a knot of it nesting in the lock. I willed it to unravel, and it... it became aware of me, as if it had the ability to focus attention.

  Unravel, I told it, my fingers trembling.

  Its attention grew more distinct.

  Undo, I commanded, praying. Open. Unknot.

  Nothing happened. The ethereal winds that clothed the world around me continued to blow, but the lock remained obdurate. Perhaps it needed more than command; perhaps it required a key. But if merely wishing it open wasn’t enough, what was?

  The lock fell out of my numb hands and I pressed my knees to my chest, frowning. The breeze skated over my body and as expected the weather had gone from pleasant and mild to clammy and chill. I had reached an impasse, without clear notion of which direction to turn in for fresh answers; in the past, I had dealt with such blocks by setting my mind to completely different endeavors, but I was hard-pressed to think of one I could accomplish while trapped in a cage in the dark.

  One of the genets petted my knee from beneath, tickling.

  “I don’t suppose you know how to make a magical key,” I said.

  Seven said, “I’m afraid not, Master.”

  I sighed. Though it made me uncomfortable, correcting their use of the title would only upset them... but they had reminded me of something I could do while imprisoned here. “While this wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to keep my promise about coming to talk to you, I am here. Shall I tell you stories?”

  “Stories?” the dam asked.

  “It was my area of study before I came here,” I said.

  “We like stories,” Nine said, and the others murmured agreement.

  “Then let me think of a good one,” I said. Something to entertain the hopeless, something that wouldn’t be too cruel to tell slaves... and then I laughed. “Ah... I think this one will strike you as interesting. The Witch and the Maiden-Queen.” I felt their concentration like an embrace and began the recitation, the story as I’d first learned it before I’d uncovered its four or five variations. The original folktale dated from just before Eddard, the first king, a man without siblings or cousins and whose queen remained mysteriously barren for many, many years before producing a single son in her twilight years. They’d called Victor the miracle child; his mother had died in childbed but rumor reported she’d gone to her rest with a smile on her face. Not long after, this particular folktale had become popular again... in which the maiden-queen, widowed before the consummation of her marriage to the elderly monarch, had gone to the witch at her mountain hermitage to request a child, begotten without dishonor and without the aid of a man. The witch set her a task—in later versions, the number of tasks varied—which she completed after much hardship and misadventure. This proved her worthy of the baby, which the witch enchanted into her womb, and she returned to her kingdom to deliver an heir to her people and ensure the peaceful succession.

  When I’d finished, Seven said, “That is a pretty story.”

  “But why did she have to prove herself to the witch?” the dam asked. “Isn’t it enough that she wanted to be a mother?”

  I chuckled. “Ah, but wanting something isn’t good enough, particularly in folklore. There must be a test. A sacrifice. The hero has to be willing to give in order to receive.”

  “Tell us another,” a fourth genet said.

  I smiled and indulged them, choosing the songbird tale for the similarity of its theme; in it a charboy whose life had been greatly enriched by the daily visit of a beautiful songbird went on a quest to the realm of the fairy king, there to negotiate for its life after a passing nobleman slew it in a fit of pique.

  “He really gave up his voice for a bird’s?” one of the genets asked, eyes wide.

  “So the stories say,” I replied, and chose another. The girl who bargained with a talking fish to feed her family through a terrible famine; the king who died on an altar to win the attention of a god and save his people from war; the lord who cut off his fingers and toes and planted them in the earth of his people’s farms to ensure the harvest.

  My voice had grown hoarse when at last I trailed to a halt.

 
“Those were good stories,” one of the genets said. “True stories.”

  “I cannot attest to their truth,” I said. “Only to their importance.”

  “They must be true,” Nine said. “To have so much blood in them. Everyone knows that everything important must be paid in blood.”

  “On that I’m sure the elves would concur,” I said with a hoarse laugh. And then I froze. Of course. What an idiot I was. I tested my fingers and found them almost too stiff to bend, but I reached out anyway. If my suspicious were correct, I didn’t have to hold the lock anyway; merely touching it would suffice. I abraded my fingertips on the wire until they grew wet and tender and then stroked the lock with my chained hands.

  Open, I whispered.

  The lock tingled beneath my fingers.

  Open, I said again, and then drew in a shaking breath. Open now!

  The lock jumped against my palms and then something lunged for me, wrapping around my wrists. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it digging past my skin and catching on the web beneath it. Startled, I jerked backward, banging my hands against the wire and falling awkwardly against the other side, but whatever it was came with me. It felt like Thameis’s assault only sharper and without sentience.

  “Master?” the Dam asked, pressing against our shared cage wall.

  “The lock is trying to eat me,” I said, struggling to maintain a sense of humor as involuntary tears streaked my cheeks.

  “You gave it blood,” the dam said. “It must want more.”

  “I don’t fancy emptying my veins on the behalf of an inanimate object,” I said, gritting my teeth as the jaws of the thing crawled up my arms. “God! But it has teeth like broken glass!”

  “Maybe it wants your arms the way the fairy king wanted the boy’s voice,” a second genet offered.

  “Magic,” Seven said. “It is magic it wants, not the arm. Smell it. He smells like champagne.”

  Crazed, I wondered just how genets in cages had come to know the smell of champagne, and then her words snapped into focus. “Magic. Magic must be the key.” I ignored their curious looks and grabbed the lock with my stiff and trembling hands. “Here, then,” I said. “Take it!” And forced the stream of life I could just barely sense beneath my skin into the questing jaws.