by A. R. Kahler
Star treatment right there.
Finally, after staring daggers at us for another few moments, Oberon leans forward and speaks.
“Why have you brought this thing here?”
Instantly, someone rips the rope from my mouth. I lick my lips. It’s not exactly coy, but it’s not exactly not.
Oberon’s a hornball if I ever saw one. The austere, self-controlled ones usually are.
“He’s my partner,” I say, nodding to Eli. He kneels right beside me, looking for all the world as though he’s perfectly comfortable being roped up. I know for a fact that he is. Just as I know he could escape if he wanted to. “Now, my turn: Why are you after my mother?”
A small smile plays over Oberon’s lips.
“I was wondering when Mab would let that little cat out of the bag.”
“Answer the damn question.”
Faeries can’t lie, but they sure as hell can stretch the truth like taffy. When they aren’t just spinning circles around it.
“Because she is mine,” he says. “And I am taking her back.”
“She’s not yours. She’s not anyone’s. She’s a mortal.”
“That is where you are wrong,” he says. “On many counts. Your mother swore herself to me. Before you were even born. Just as she swore you to Mab in order to get her powers back.” He smiles. “And your current goal is to get her to remember her powers, is it not? The irony is not lost on me.”
I barely hear his final words. My gut is somewhere far beneath the floor, my skin cold. I feel heavy as death.
She gave me away. No, she bargained with my life.
I’d always thought that I was the bad end of a deal, that Mab had manipulated Viv into giving me up. But to hear that, to have it confirmed, to know that my mother willingly gave me up, for what? For power? She was willing to sacrifice her own child for magic.
And look at you. You’re willing to sacrifice your mother for that very same power. For that very same leader. Looks like you two have more in common than you thought. You’re both horrible people.
Oberon seems to read my inner thoughts.
“Ah, she never told you?” He stands and walks toward me, then crouches in front of me and puts one rough hand on my cheek. “Mab never mentioned that your own mother deemed your life so unimportant, she could barter it without fear? Well, of course she could—Vivienne knew that with enough magic, she could forget the whole thing. Your mother has done a great deal of forgetting over her short life. She’s made it an art.”
I stare up at him, and it’s like looking through frosted glass. Everything is blurred around the edges, and for the longest time I wonder what sort of magic he’s using on me.
Then I realize he’s not. I’m crying. Second time today, and I can’t even mentally berate myself for it.
“I wouldn’t take it too personally,” he says softly. His hand hasn’t moved from my cheek. “You weren’t even conceived when she made the deal. How could she have known she would be giving up such a perfect child?”
In some small corner of my mind, I know he’s manipulating me. He’s called me many things in all of our encounters, but perfect was never one of them. Unless it was followed by something particularly derogatory.
“Why now?” I ask. “Why are you telling me this now?”
He’s had me locked up on many occasions. Many opportunities to share this secret.
“In life and war, timing is everything.” He smiles. The grin is vicious, just as cold and calculating as Mab’s.
He pats my cheek and stands.
“So you see, there’s very little you could offer me that would make me call off my dogs. Vivienne has already given you up once, so your life is no good as an exchange. And you have nothing I desire.” He shrugs. “I’m actually rather disappointed in you, Claire. You were raised by one of the best manipulators in the world. And yet here you kneel, with no plan and no way to bargain. What did you hope to do? Appeal to my humanity?” His voice drops. “You forget what you’re dealing with.”
He waves his hand, and the guards that brought us in—rather hunky humanoid dryads with vines in their hair—lift me to standing. My body is numb. It doesn’t want to move. It doesn’t want to feel.
“You asked why I’m after her,” he says as his guards turn us away. “Your mother swore her next life to me, and those words were binding as iron. That is why I will have her killed. She is no use to me as she is in her current state. Even if her powers resurface—which I know you think they will, I’m not blind as to why you’d seek her out after all this time—her body can’t support the magic within. She would be a simple spark before burning out entirely. But when she dies, the powers of the Oracle will find a new host, one at the height of her power. And in that new life, she will be mine.”
“But the Pale Queen,” I mutter. My brain slowly kicks back to life. Too slowly.
“The Pale Queen is no threat to me,” Oberon says. The guards pause at the door while Oberon continues to speak. “She may take those who are disloyal. She may even try to raise an army. But she is nothing against the Oracle, not when the Oracle is restored to power. Was that your ace? Thinking I would perhaps band with you to fight her? No, Claire. It serves me more to kill Vivienne and have the Oracle returned to me. That is better than any peace treaty. Though it does please me greatly to see you begging for my help. Does Mab know you are here?”
He smiles.
“No, of course she does not. And what will she think when she learns her one ally has gone behind her back in hopes of striking a deal?”
“The Oracle just tells the future,” I say. I try to shrug off one of the guards. If I keep him talking long enough, I can figure a way out of this. He has to see reason. I can’t just let him kill her. “Why do you want her so much?”
“She does much, much more than that, my dear. Your sweet mother is the greatest weapon the worlds have ever seen. Once she is mine, I will show you just how powerful she is, and how far those powers extend. By my estimation, that should be quite soon. Your circus won’t stand forever, not with Mab’s attentions diverted as they are. You see, for Mab, this Pale Queen is a true threat. But to me, Mab’s distraction is worth losing a few peons. There are much greater players at stake.”
“I won’t let you have her,” I say.
Oberon waves his hand. The guards resume dragging me away.
“You’ve already shown me where she is,” Oberon calls. “Just as you’ve unleashed the Pale Queen. By my estimate, Claire, you’ve already damned the woman you swore to serve. Forgive me if I’m not terrified by your empty threats.”
The door slams shut behind us, and I’m left wondering if Oberon meant Mab, or my mother.
“All things considered,” Eli says, “I’d say that went exceedingly well.”
I don’t laugh, even though I know he’s trying to make light of the fact that we’re currently locked in separate cells in the lowest part of Oberon’s dungeon. I don’t trace the walls and look for a weak point in the magic running through the stone. I don’t even stand up. I just sit there against the wall and look out the bars at the empty hall beyond.
What’s the point?
I could just stay down here, let them take my mother—
Pain shoots through my body, so hard and so fast I gasp and fall over, clutching my chest. I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe . . .
And then it’s gone.
“Let me guess,” Eli muses as I gasp and push myself up to sitting. “You thought of going against your contract.”
“Something like that,” I reply. I drop my head back against the wall, taking some small delight in the painful thud. For some reason, that pain is enough to root me down into my body again. Not that I want to be here. But I don’t really have much of a choice apparently. “So how are we going to get out?”
“I assumed you already had a plan. After all, it sounds like you’ve been here many times before.”
I look around. The cell is barely bigger than
a closet, and every inch of it is covered in runes.
“I have been. But the bastard’s learned from his mistakes.”
“So do we bribe a guard with our bodies?” Eli says with a hint of excitement.
This gets a chuckle from me. He’s trying to make me feel better, which is really strange. But I’ll go with it.
“You can try,” I say. “Don’t know if it will do any good.”
“Oh, it would do some good.”
I shake my head and close my eyes. I try to force out the images of my mother bargaining me away. How does that change things? Does it make my next move easier? After all, if she never cared about me, I can’t exactly bring myself to care about her. I’m not that masochistic or starved for familial love.
“Was that really your grand plan?” he asks after a moment. He actually sounds tentative, which means this isn’t a joke—he’s worried about my response.
“What? Getting locked up?”
“No. Using the Pale Queen as a bargaining chip.”
I don’t bother mentioning that it was his idea.
“I thought he’d see reason. You know, back off, focus on the common enemy. I didn’t know about my mother’s vow.”
“So I gathered. Which means we are locked away with nothing to bargain with and no way to fight. I must say, of all the expeditions I’ve agreed to go on with you, this is definitely the least thought-out.”
“Shove it.”
“I’m just saying, I would have thought you’d have a fallback.”
“I don’t have time to craft a fallback.”
“And here we are.”
I roll my head against the stone. If I had known I’d be locked in a cell, I wouldn’t have summoned Eli. Solitary confinement is a much better fate.
I hate that he has a point. I should have thought this through. I should have had contingency plans in place. I had gone in with only one ace up my sleeve, but Oberon was playing a different game. This is what happens when you get sloppy: you get caught. Trouble is, I truly had thought that he’d see the Pale Queen as a mutual threat, that he’d be hurting enough to put down his quest for my mother. Instead, I’ve just buried the point home for him: the sooner he has my mother killed and reborn, the sooner he can rise to greater power.
“Are we going to kill him?”
Eli’s question makes my eyes snap open. I half expect a platoon of guards to storm us the moment the words leave his lips. The fact that they’re met with silence only hammers in just how empty the kingdom is.
“What are you talking about?”
“He refuses to bargain,” Eli says. “Your mother’s life still hangs in the balance. According to your contract, you must use any means necessary to keep her safe until she divulges the location of the Pale Queen, am I correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, if Oberon won’t pull back, you must kill him. It’s the only way to keep her safe. Especially since there’s no telling how long the circus’s protection will last.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I may be bound to the lower planes, Claire. But that does not mean I can’t watch what you do on high.”
I sigh.
“You can’t kill Oberon. Just as you can’t kill Mab.”
“They are Fey. They may be immortal, but even immortality can be brought to an end.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say. “It’s not like in the circus, where they’re only immortal because of a contract. They’re forces of nature. Manifestations of winter and summer, light and dark.”
“Good and evil?”
“Those lines are blurred,” I say. I rap a fist on the concrete. “Obviously.”
Eli doesn’t say anything for a while, and it makes me believe he’s lost interest in the conversation. I close my eyes again and try to figure a way out of here. About the only option I have is letting him loose from his bonds, but there’s no telling whether he’d help me and no telling whether it would work. The wards on these cells are ironclad. So I guess we just . . . what, wait? Until Oberon gets my mother.
Pain shoots through me again, sends me reeling to my side. It’s only when I convince myself okay, okay, I’ll get out of here that it releases.
Fucking contracts. This is why I spent so long freelance.
“She has to know we’re here,” I say, trying not to pant. “Mab will force Oberon to let us out.”
“And what makes you think he’ll listen?”
I shrug. “He has to.”
“I don’t think he and Mab are as infallible as you are led to believe. Or as immune. You must remember, Claire, that I come from a completely different plane of existence. We exist without Summer or Winter. So, too, could your world.”
Oberon never comes down to gloat. Not like all the other times I’ve been locked away in here. No one comes down. No one brings food or water, and it becomes immediately clear that the cell I’m in isn’t made for a human—no toilet, for one thing. Thank the gods the runes on my spine allow for more than just a little extra magic or power; a quick flash of magic and my metabolism slows to a near halt. It’s not a fun skill—the fallout on the other side of it is pretty nasty—but it’s saved my ass on more than one occasion like this. I should be able to go at least a week without eating or sleeping or . . . anything else. But once the magic fades, I’ll basically be a zombie.
Just what I need.
Trouble is, I’m bored to tears, and I can’t sit here much longer wondering what’s happening in the outside world. Is my mother still safe? Have her powers resurfaced yet? It kills me, knowing I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs while she’s in trouble. But I’m trying to figure a way out. I trace the runes and glyphs and magical seals in the walls. Oberon’s covered everything, from astral travel to radio waves to shape-shifting. Clearly he’s not taking any chances this time around.
I close my eyes. I might not need sleep, but I can trick my body into it, just to pass the time. Oberon has to come down here. Eventually. What’s the point of holding me captive if not to taunt me about it? It would be easier to just kill me and get it over with. He knows I’m not one to crack under pressure. The thumbscrews he tried out on me should have been proof enough of that.
Sleep comes slowly. My body grows heavy; my thoughts begin to diffuse. I feel the room drop away, feel my body dissolve into something more spacious.
But I don’t lose consciousness. I don’t forget that I’m dreaming. Instead, I watch the room blur and shift with a distant sort of interest.
Until my body congeals again, and I find myself standing in a forest.
I know this place.
I saw it in the vision from the Pale Queen’s ticket.
The woods shift around me in shadow and light, nothing truly solid, everything red and orange like the world is bathed in sunset. Or maybe it’s not the sun at all, but the Dream. It fills the air like ribbons of smoke, so thick even I can feel the high of it, the power that floods through my veins. So much Dream, so much power, and it isn’t bottled or woven or sold as in Mab’s kingdom. It floats freely, ripe for the picking. Intoxicating. Delicious.
“This is my kingdom,” comes a voice. Feminine and old, pulled from the depths of the sea. “This is my rule.”
And the world shifts. Suddenly, I’m not in the mess of trees; I stand on a pillar overlooking a field as vast as Winter is cold. Fey flood below me. Some laughing and dancing. Some building with stone and wood, coaxing trees to grow as arches or simple huts. There are streams of glittering water and hills of slate-grey ice. Even from here, I can see that there are no boundaries between the Fey of Winter and Summer: snow drifts against hot springs, saplings rise from patches of ice. It’s as though the seasons hold no sway here. As though no one cares about the age-old rift.
Above it all, above the trees and the ice and growing monuments, the sky flutters like a crimson aurora, the Dream so thick it nearly blocks out the sun.
And then I realize, it’s not a pillar I’
m standing on, but a tower of a castle that stretches behind me like a maze, everything within glittering and gorgeous in the light. How could she have built all this so quickly?
“My followers have known I would rise for ages. And they have been preparing for my arrival.”
“Why are you showing me this?” I ask. My voice is hollow, and I wonder if I’m talking aloud in my sleep, if Eli can hear my question from his cell. “When you know I’m just going to kill you.”
“I believe we are after the same thing,” she says. “A world free from tyranny. A world of balance.”
“I’m only after your head,” I respond. “And trust me, if this wasn’t a dream, you’d be dead already.”
“You will understand, in time. You will see how truly alike we are. When freed from the shackles of your monarchs, our kind can flourish.”
“Our kind? What the hell are you talking about? I’m a mortal.”
“And yet so much more. Your mother is in danger, is she not?”
I don’t answer. I’m not negotiating with terrorists. Even in the dream world.
“I could keep her safe, you know. In my kingdom, neither Mab nor Oberon could trespass. And I have more than enough magic at my disposal to ensure she lives comfortably, for as long as she likes.”
I can’t help but stare at her. Her mask is back on, and her crown glitters like the sun. Despite the glare, I can tell she’s smiling.
“You’re lying.”
“I do not lie, Claire. I have no vendetta against you, or your mother. I feel your pain. Truly. I know what it is like to be subject to the whims of the Faerie Kingdoms. Under my rule, you both would be safe.”
Laughter peals from the valley below, and when I glance around, the thought actually crosses my mind: What if I came here? What if I let the Pale Queen win? It looks peaceful. More pleasant than Mab’s kingdom, and definitely better than the life Vivienne had been living in the mortal world. Here, she could have a future. That’s more than I can offer her.