An Heir to Thorns and Steel

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  “The frogs,” Seven whispered. They had fallen silent.

  Three cats burst from the underbrush and leaped for us. I shoved Amhric out of their way and ducked, and in my mind I executed a perfect roll that put me at the feet of the drake where I could jump to my feet and unhook the staff in a single, graceful motion.

  Instead, my knees dumped me to an unceremonious halt. I counted myself fortunate that the cats had apparently been bred to hunt but not to kill; one of them, in fact, leaned down and scraped my cheek with its rough tongue. I thought to push its face away, but my arm refused to lift.

  In the wake of these spotted hunters came our elven scout, flowing past the leaves so that they did not even sigh at his passage. He wore his arrogance like divine raiment, square chin held high so that he gazed down the plumb line of his nose at everything around him. I had become accustomed to the glimmer-glory of the elves, but not inured to it; my eyes caught on his hair, an unlikely shade of twilight blue that rippled like a wind-stroked lake.

  “Ah, our escapee,” he said in a tenor that would have been mellifluous had it not been poisoned by disdain. “The port is in the opposite direction.”

  “We would never have guessed,” I said.

  The metal head of the arrow nocked on his bow threw off a wet gleam as he pointed it at me, which was when I realized he was armed. “Well, then. And a fled servant to boot. Were you the one who freed him? Did you think he’d treat you any better for it? Fool.”

  The genets and Amhric did not move. We outnumbered our opponent and his hunting animals, but that presumed any of us were in a condition to fight, or even knew how. Somehow I couldn’t imagine the genets taking on an elf. Which left the king, who had become very very still... and me, against someone armed with a ranged weapon.

  And then I remembered that I could not die.

  Just one leap, I promised my aching, screaming body... and I vaulted.

  The arrow sliced open my shoulder as I bowled into the elf’s knees, knocking him down. He flung the bow away and the light ran the length of a curved edge just before he plunged it into my side. A knife? A sword? Wildly I felt as if he’d pinned me to the earth with it. My miscalculation almost dragged a laugh from me—I couldn’t die but God, oh God, I could hurt!

  “What did you hope to accomplish?” the elf asked as he rolled to his feet, almost conversationally. He put a foot on the hilt of whatever he’d stabbed me with and drove it through my side until it struck the ground. “Were you really so eager to die?”

  I forced my eyes up to look at him, licking my lips. They had become bloody.

  “One less human,” the elf said. “No loss there.” He turned away.

  —and his head ripped from his neck in a spray of blood and viscera. The suddenness of it was such a shock that I disbelieved it until his body crumpled, smacking the ground with a wet, dull sound. One giant foot spread on the elf’s back, pressing until blood welled up from its talons, and over that body the drake extended its bloody face and nuzzled my cheek, painting it with gore.

  I wanted to speak, but when I parted my lips a bubble of blood broke and skidded down my skin to the earth.

  “Morgan!” Amhric exclaimed. I did not see so much as sense the warmth of him over me, for my vision had grown spotted and strange. “Fetch water.” Thick fabric ripped near me in long, regular strips, the sounds confident and quick. I heard a distant female voice, garbled and sweet, and in response: “No... ah. The drake is... taking care of that for us.” Another melody line, wistful. The king said softly, “If you must.”

  Then his hands lit on the locus of the fire and cruelty in my side and I thought to brace myself for what he did but his touch, oh God! Was like the goodness of an autumn sun, of the first breath in morning after a refreshing sleep, like a lullaby. I wept as he tended me, and it was not for pain.

  “Brother mine,” he said after an eternity of his ministrations that lasted only for a single squeeze of my heart. “Are you with me again?”

  I licked my lips and found I could speak, though everything ached. “That was not... one of the smarter things I’ve done.”

  “On the contrary, Prince of Elves,” he said, “you did very well indeed.”

  “What... happened to... him? We have to... burn him, something!”

  “Sssh,” Amhric said, touching my shoulder to keep me from a vain attempt to rise. “That particular scout won’t trouble us again.”

  “Don’t... see a fire....”

  “The drake ate him,” Kelu said from near my feet.

  My eyes widened.

  “A loyal beast,” Amhric said, his voice gentle. “When the scout demonstrated that he was unquestionably your enemy, it defended you.”

  My gorge rose. With difficulty I reined in my nausea and said, “I’m glad we managed to dispatch him.” I looked with exhaustion toward the king but my eyes had not cleared enough to see him. “You don’t fight, do you.”

  “No.”

  “I haven’t learned either,” I said. “My body has never been healthy enough for any manner of exertion.”

  “I imagine not,” Amhric said, swabbing the blood from my back.

  Something in his manner... “But you, it’s not about never having learned, is it.”

  “No,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t is a strong word,” I said. “Are you using it precisely?”

  “The king-gifts make it impossible for me to destroy anyone,” he said. “The ability to balance the magics of a nation would be tyrannical if I could also kill with it.”

  “But without magic...?”

  “I can’t,” he said. “Not with my hands and not with my magic.”

  “And that’s why you ended up in the hands of Suleris,” I said. “You let them take you.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Appalled, I exclaimed, “Then you are defenseless! Anyone’s to destroy! I can’t imagine that the removal of your capacity for even the barest of self-defense is in the best interests of your nation... or else any citizen with the smallest of complaints could incapacitate the government by attacking you! It makes no sense!”

  “The king,” he said quietly, “was not meant to rule alone.”

  “A queen?” I asked. And then it struck me. “Me. You were missing me. I’m your sword.”

  He met my eyes, grave. “Yes.”

  “God!” I said with a bitter, disbelieving laugh. “Me? I am your defense? With this wreck of a body? I can barely lift a staff!”

  “You seemed to do very well indeed just now,” Amhric said, voice still quiet.

  “Only because my cannibalistic mount decided it was in need of a meal!”

  “Do you think a warrior always fights hand-to-hand with every enemy?” Amhric asked. “Sometimes you must command others to fight for you.”

  “This was not a war,” I said. “This was a single scout armed with a bow and a dirk that I am now sure was the length of a polearm.”

  “And your loyalty commanded an army of one,” Amhric said. “Who saved us from another turn in Suleris’s breeding compound.”

  “God and all His saints,” I said again. “This is insane. It makes no sense, no sense at all. What kind of government would charge the heir to power with the safety of the current ruler? It is an invitation to regicide!”

  “Tell me,” Amhric said. “In a dichotomy of responsibility where one individual sits apart, doing nothing but assessing and recalibrating the flow of magic across the world... and the other sits on a throne in a palace, surrounded in light and laughter and people, making critical decisions and dictating laws that shape society... where do you believe the true power lies?”

  “I... I don’t know,” I said. “I have so little knowledge of magic and what a society is like that relies on it.”

  “But the latter life sounds more appealing, yes?”

  “To most,” I said. And then quietly, “But not to you.”

  “No,” he said. “And that is why the king-gifts ro
se in me.”

  “So that I have the prince-gifts, does this make me a lover of power, parties and the trappings of a monarchy?” I asked, arch.

  “No,” he said. “Only that you are suited to the defense of what you believe rightful.”

  I closed my eyes and struggled for breath; where the elf had impaled me I felt only a numb restriction that made it difficult to expand my ribs, but that restriction was nothing, nothing compared to the desperation I felt at the thought of having sole responsibility for the safety of the man sitting at my side, holding rags stained with my blood in his small and gentle hands. I thought of Chester’s sword, taken from me with such contempt by that roadside inn. I had not been worthy of it; I could not have used it to defend myself from my attackers then. And yet the fate of a kingdom depended on my ability to become a warrior.

  Didn’t it?

  I turned my face just enough to look up at him. “Is it solely because of my absence that you have not been crowned?”

  He shook his head, copper hair gathering the star-gleam in every strand like beads. “It has been long and long again since our people have been led by a king. Not since we were exiled from human lands and human arms. And the king of elves cannot rule without consent of his people, to make the pact work. We have become besotted with the dream of unfettered power and forgotten that we never had it—have forgotten our responsibilities. There is a council that will support no king, and a people divided over whether to allow a monarchy to return after the disaster of the last. There was a reason Amoret was able to sell me to my enemies... because I inherited them with the blood-gifts.”

  “Did you say—” I heaved myself onto an elbow, reaching for his arm to steady myself. Some vague memory of my first meeting with the genets surfaced. She was supposed to marry the King, but he vanished…. “Did you say Amoret? Amoret was your betrothed?”

  “Was, yes,” he said, bemused.

  “Amoret with the yellow hair and blue eyes?” I asked.

  “Yes...?”

  “God!” I said. “Why—her—you were engaged to her?”

  He watched the emotions traveling my face and from them divined I knew not what. “It seemed like a good idea to our parents.”

  I could hardly imagine two people more poorly suited to one another, but that mattered less to me than, “But the genets said that she believed you to have vanished, and this was why was she searching for me.”

  He hesitated. “She said this?”

  “The genets reported it so. She had been sending them out for...” I glanced at Kelu. “How long now?”

  “Ten years,” Kelu said.

  “Ten years she’s been hunting the human mainland for me,” I said. “After betraying you! Why? Because having been rejected by one elf with royal gifts, she felt the need to procure herself another? Is it that she wanted power?”

  “It’s possible,” he said. “I didn’t know you lived, and even had you lived you might not have had the gifts. They do not always follow bloodlines.”

  “Then why...?”

  “Master,” Almond whispered at my elbow.

  I looked down at her, found her quivering with terror to have interrupted us. I did not have the strength to touch her face, so I put all my gentleness into my voice. “Yes, Almond?”

  “The lady wanted a baby.”

  “She... what?” I asked.

  “She wanted a baby,” Almond whispered. “And the royal gifts are powerful.”

  I looked then at my brother, who said, “She’s right. With our gifts come virility.”

  Everything in me grew still. “In this world where children are impossibly rare and a woman can become famous and powerful merely for having one, you refused her?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. And then, eyes closed. “I took a vow.”

  “Of what?” I exclaimed. “Celibacy?”

  “It is part of the path of the king-reclusive,” he said. “It heightens our ability to handle the energies of the world.”

  “What in the name of hell is so important about handling the energies of the world that you would make an everlasting enemy of a woman—admittedly a hag of a woman, but a powerful one nonetheless—your mortal foe?”

  “Because if the energies of the world are out of balance and cruelty and sorrow and grief have sway,” Amhric said, honey-yellow eyes meeting mine, “then the demons come.”

  Their howls rose suddenly, piercing, and I fell forward onto my chest, half-twisted. You will open the way for us, they whispered, jeering. Needle-teeth scraping in sensuous abandon against my side beneath the bandage, raising fire and screams beneath my skin. The first tremors of a seizure ran the length of my side, rippling over my body like a wave against the strand. Red Prince! The Prince lives! And he will betray his people!

  “No!” Amhric said. His small hands had grasped my shoulders. “Morgan! Look at me!”

  I was beyond sight, could barely feel his fingers. The shaking had grown violent. The shadow of their wings fell over me, leather and bone, shrouding me in night.

  “No,” his voice said from a great distance. A sliver of light swelled there and burst free, bright as dawn, chasing back the bleak shadows, the pain, and the convulsions. I found myself sitting across from him, his hands holding me steady and his eyes on mine, implacable.

  “No,” he said again, more gently.

  I looked at my hands, my lap, back up at him. I was still human, but... “You drove it away.”

  “You bar the way to war,” he said. “I bar the way to suffering.”

  “Sedetnet sent me to fetch you,” I said suddenly, compelled. “To free you. In return for the unraveling of the enchantment.”

  He sat back.

  “But it’s not worth it,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

  His gaze was somber.

  “I...” A shiver ran my length, but it was not sickness. “I don’t know if there’ll be any other way. To fix this thing that was done to me. And he says it’s killing me. But... I can’t do it. I can’t.”

  “He may not hurt me,” Amhric said, voice gentle.

  I thought of the dice rolling across the carpet, felt the hand pressing me down, thought of pleasure too close to shame and ecstasies too close to tears. “I don’t want to take that chance,” I said. I looked up at him. “You said yourself. He’s mad.”

  “Yes,” Amhric said. He pulled one of the packs over, which was how I realized he’d been holding me up all this time. I wanted to protest when he guided my head it, but he shook his head and touched a finger to my mouth. “No. You are exhausted, and so am I. We rest for the night’s remainder.”

  “What are we going to do with the cats?” I asked, wearily.

  “We’ll decide when we wake.”

  His hand lit on my forehead. The warmth of his palm was the last thing I felt before falling asleep.

  In the morning we set off again. Kelu vanished a few hours later and returned leading a blood bay gelding of rough conformation; after that, we mounted two of the genets on the drake and two on the horse behind Amhric and we made better time. I could not help but think it a bizarre party, nonetheless... an elf king and his menagerie of animals, like something out of a particularly strange story. But beautiful, I thought in surprise when we paused at a crossroads: autumn king seated on red mount bracketed by black genets and followed by golden cats streaked in black, and his pale prince in monochrome, dark-haired, black mount, with silver and gray genets in attendance. Someone, I thought, should sketch a cartoon for the inevitable fresco. Except cleaner and in less bedraggled clothes. History, I thought, always dressed its participants better than they no doubt lived.

  “Morgan?”

  I glanced up. “Sorry... distracted.”

  “Which way?” Amhric asked.

  So calm he was. A king, but strangely easy relinquishing control to me. Was it the elven system that created such monarchs, who could entrust their heirs with so much temporal power? Or was it Amhric in particular a special case? My
heart softened, looking at him. Did it matter when he lived and trusted me? “For the coast... if we can find a cut through the mountains.”

  “And then?” Kelu asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.

  “And then,” I said, “God help us, because I’m not sure who will.”

  Hugging my waist, Almond said softly, “There is Lord e Sadar, Master.”

  “Our one helpmeet.” I sighed, kneeing the drake onward. “Would that he were here.”

  Behind me, Amhric said, quiet, “I can call him.”

  I reined in the drake, startled. “Like in fae tales? You can summon him?”

  “I can call,” Amhric said. “And he would know where I was, and that I needed him.”

  I stared at him, then removed my glasses and carefully wiped them on the grimy hem of my pants. By the time I had them back on my nose I had controlled my urge to hysteria. Instead, I said, “Of course. But why didn’t you use it before, to aid in your rescue?”

  “I did,” he said.

  We stared at one another across the distance between our beasts. Faint as the memory of distant bells, I remembered... something. A voice I had taken to be my own but older, a hallucination of beauty and desperation and need. That was you, I wanted to breathe, to ask. And I heard you. And so many other things besides, tangled with my choked breath in my throat. What finally squeezed out was a self-conscious, “I came as fast as I was able.”

  “I know,” he said in that so gentle voice, and kneed the horse forward.

  To his back, I said, “Why me? Why only me? If you could call any of us... why not an army to free you, to defend you?”

  “Without the prince, the king can only call... not compel.” I noticed strain in the set of his shoulders. “And the elves that would answer the call of a king today are too few to free me, much less defend me.”

  Not in all my studies could I recall a situation where the king had been virtuous and the people depraved. But history always had the same answer for unwanted royalty, no matter why he was unwanted. In the end there was only a sword and a revolution.