The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  I watch her for a long moment before turning back to Emyr. “You two are not friends.”

  “You want to come inside?” he asks, ignoring my statement. “I have ileiva.”

  A beat passes before I nod, and the two of us move into the house. Because, okay, he’s not my friend or Briar’s friend, and I definitely didn’t come here looking for him. But I do want ileiva.

  The inside of the cabin is decorated much the same as the outside. Live plants cover most of the walls. It’s laid out like a studio apartment, with a small kitchen and an attached bedroom. A circular hammock bed hangs from the ceiling and a plush-looking, ridiculously oversize dog bed is on the floor next to it. One door probably leads to a bathroom.

  As Emyr begins heating up a coffee percolator over a wood stove, sleep still trying to creep along the edges of his eyes, he pushes a plate of ileiva toward me. I haven’t had one in years. They’re completely self-indulgent without any real nutritional benefit, just spun sugar figurines dusted with some kind of crushed nuts. The ones Emyr offers me are shaped like succulents and covered in green pistachio powder. I eat three before I speak again.

  “So, this is, like, your secret hideout?”

  “Something like that.” Emyr shrugs. “It’s nice to get away from the castle sometimes.”

  “I bet.” I shove a fourth ileiva in my mouth—who even needs asshole bakers when Emyr is around to provide this—and accept the cup of black coffee when he hands it over to me. Typically, I prefer it with heaping amounts of sugar and cream, but this’ll work.

  Boom comes trotting through the door and pushes his nose against my side until I reach over to scratch him behind the ears.

  “He missed you,” Emyr says, watching us.

  “Of course he did, I’m great.” I grin at the hellhound, moving my nails to scratch under his chin. “I’m surprised you’re still taking care of him. I thought maybe he would have rejoined the pack or something.”

  “Of course I’m taking care of him. He’s ours.”

  Briar enters just in time to hear Emyr’s words. She raises her eyebrows at me, silently asking, Oh, you two have a child together?

  I roll my eyes. Shut up.

  To avoid the heavy scrutiny of her gaze, I stand up to explore the rest of the cabin. There are a few things that give hints to the sort of person Emyr might be underneath it all—glimmers of the boy I used to be friends with shining through his new princely demeanor. A stack of books—mostly nonfiction, mostly medicinal, but a few graphic novels tossed in, too—in one corner, topped by a moleskin journal and a very fancy-looking pen. A pile of knit blankets are stacked in the corner by the window, next to a pair of wooden knitting needles and a basket full of yarn. His laptop, nearly identical to the one Jin used at the witches’ meeting, is tossed on his hammock.

  “What were the two of you truly getting up to out here?” Emyr asks, and I spin around to catch him looking between Briar and me with skepticism.

  She stomps right over to me and shoves her hand in my pocket.

  “Hey!”

  That doesn’t deter her. She pulls out a handful of the morghira flowers and moves to Emyr’s kitchen island, slumps against it, and holds them out until he offers her his palm. When he does, she drops them in his hand. “You know what to do with these?”

  Suddenly seeming far more awake than he did a second earlier, Emyr blinks down at the flower. Then up at me. “Where did you get this?”

  I smirk, sidling over to rest at Briar’s side, my elbow brushing hers. I don’t want her being annoyed with me anymore. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  And he will, soon enough. Can’t exactly hide the damage done to the greenhouse. There is a good chance Emyr is going to wring my neck for what happened back there.

  Ah. Hmm. I am not thinking about Emyr touching my neck in any way.

  Emyr huffs at my nonanswer, curling his fingers to press one of the flowers into his palm. His tongue flicks out against his lower lip, and finally, with a long-suffering sigh, he asks, “Do either of you have a lighter?”

  I’m so confused by the question I almost miss the very pointed look he gives me. Almost.

  “I can’t just do it on command.” I shove my hands into the front of my hoodie. “What do you need a lighter for?”

  “I thought you wanted to smoke this.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He raises his eyebrows and leans forward, considering me. He is far too close. He smells like sugar and books and freshly tilled earth. My tongue presses against the back of my teeth. I want to scream. “Do I seem facetious to you?”

  My nails dig into my palms, fists twisting in my pocket. “You seem like an uptight dick.”

  “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “I have a lighter.” Briar shoves her peach Zippo knockoff into the space between our mouths.

  When did Emyr get so much closer to me? When did I move closer to him? I growl and step back.

  He plucks it from her fingers with two of his claws, sharp talons clicking against aluminum. “Well, come on, then.”

  When we step outside again, the sun is lower on the skyline, painting everything in warm tones. Emyr hands Briar all the flowers back but one, which he nestles into the palm of his hand. He looks up, considering us through his eyelashes as if double-checking we aren’t going to back out. When he seems satisfied with whatever it is staring back at him, he brings the lighter to the tip of one petal and flicks the flame to life.

  Instantly, the morghira seems to simply evaporate in his palm. One moment it’s there, a perfectly composed flower, and the next there is nothing in his hand but a cloud of deep gray smoke.

  Emyr tilts his head forward and inhales.

  Not one to be shown up, I lean forward and do the same.

  The scent is what hits me first. It’s deeply floral, which isn’t unexpected, but it isn’t exactly sweet. There’s something spicy about it, cinnamon and black pepper that burns my nose hairs. And there’s an undertow of earthiness to it, a heavy, rich, damp smell, like mud puddles in the heart of the forest after it rains.

  The ground rises up to meet me. That or I fall to my ass. Either is possible.

  I can feel the smoke inside me, the way it winds its way from my face down my throat, into my chest, spreading into my arms, my stomach, down into my legs. The way it makes me feel heavy, too heavy to stand, but also light, like I might float away at any moment. The way it makes my face flush with heat, warmth chasing the smoke like embers from a fire, but it isn’t anything at all like the fire I feel beneath my skin. There is nothing uncontrollable about this feeling, nothing to be afraid of. No. Right now I could be a goddamn fat cat curled up in front of a fireplace.

  My vision shifts next. It’s hard to explain. It looks as if someone grabs the edges of the world like a bedsheet and shakes it, sending ripples dancing in front of my eyes. Colors blend into one another—greens and browns and blacks and the rainbow of flowers decorating the walls of Emyr’s cabin—all swirling together like they aren’t sure where to settle. I roll onto my stomach and press my face into the ground, laughter bubbling up and out of me without warning. Grass tickles my cheeks.

  “What—” Briar, seated somewhere behind me, takes a deep breath and tries again. “What is this supposed to do, anyway?”

  I know Emyr is a few feet away, but his voice is so close he might as well be on top of me. I can imagine it, his body draped over me, mouth pressed to the shell of my ear, those viper’s fangs brushing against my lobe...

  What is Emyr saying? Right. Something about what the morghira does. I miss the first part of his sentence because I’m too focused on the sound of his voice—it reminds me of warm honey drizzled over fresh, crusty bread.

  “—long as you don’t try to fight it, nothing bad will happen. Just relax. It’ll wear off in a few m
inutes.”

  Relax. Hmm. I cannot, in that moment, imagine doing anything but relaxing.

  I laugh again, quiet enough that it might be silent, and turn my cheek so I can look up at Emyr. The sun setting behind him sparks a halo of light between his horns, making them glow along with the tips of his wings and that gold hoop in his nose. He’s already staring at me when I find his face. His tongue wets the corner of his mouth.

  “Didn’t think you had it in you, Your Highness.”

  “You should really stop underestimating what I might have in me, firestarter.”

  “Hmm.” Another soft laugh and I have to turn my eyes away to look down at the ground again. “Pity about this whole marriage and monarchy thing. We might be able to have a bit of fun if we could fuck off to the human world together.”

  Briar makes a delighted sound, and I turn my head to look back at where she’s sitting up with Boom’s massive body stretched over her knees, her hands working their way up and down his back. “Fun!”

  “Were it that simple,” Emyr drawls, “I might consider it.”

  When I look back at him, he’s closed his eyes and tilted his head back. The long line of his neck is exposed, the apple of his throat, the tendons and veins that stretch down to the sharp planes of his shoulders. The sunset bathes his black skin, illuminating him in iridescent light. Or maybe that’s the morghira.

  “Why isn’t it?” I can hear the pout in Briar’s voice.

  “I have responsibilities.”

  You’d think he’d just informed us all he was going to have his eyeballs removed, for as excited as he sounds about the prospect of becoming king.

  Or perhaps it’s more about the prospect of marrying me.

  “Still don’t understand why you can’t put it off for a while longer.” I sigh, tongue trailing my own dry mouth. I can already feel the morghira beginning to wear off, as if the smoke in my body has found an air vent and has begun leaking out. “You’re eighteen. Why do your parents want you taking over already?”

  Emyr doesn’t answer, but I’ve never been particularly good at letting things go.

  “You’re being very shady about this whole thing, you know.” I draw lines in the dirt with the tip of my finger, connecting swirls and slashes. They look like sigils. Maybe they are sigils, buried somewhere deep in my subconscious, untouchable magic that I’ve been trained not to go anywhere near. “Why is it so pressing that you step up and take on the Throne? They’re old, but they’re not decrepit.”

  “My mother is dying.”

  He says the words so softly, so earnestly, that it forces the world to stop spinning. My hand freezes, my head snapping up as I stare across the grass at Emyr’s profile. He’s pointedly not looking at me, gazing down at Briar’s lighter, still in his hand. His wings curl in toward his body, as if he’s trying to lock himself away. The golden glow of his energy is so dim it could be the sun, almost gone over the horizon.

  “Oh, Emyr.” Briar has her arms wrapped around Boom’s shoulders, her face pressed into the fur of his throat, and her dark eyes have gone huge and wet. “What’s wrong with her?”

  He flicks the lighter open, one tiny little flame budding to life in his hand. Then flicks it closed again. “She nearly died once before, you know. A long time ago. It took all the best Healers in Asalin to save her.”

  I know he’s talking about the night Kadri fell from the tower.

  Or the night she jumped.

  Or was pushed.

  Whatever happened that night, I also know she didn’t merely almost die. She did die. They managed to bring her back, the kingdom’s most powerful Healers pouring their strength into her to breathe life back into her body. But she did die.

  Still, I don’t correct him.

  “But it’s been years since then. The magic that’s kept her alive all this time is starting to waver.” He sniffs. His claw flicks at the lighter again. On. Off. On. Off. “We’ve met with other Healers. Influencers. Feelers. They’ve done what they can, but the truth has become clear. She’s been living on borrowed time for a while now. She won’t make it much longer.”

  Well...fuck.

  I want to try and offer him some companionship, to find some camaraderie in the dead-or-dying-parents club. But I can’t imagine he would want it from me. After all, Emyr isn’t the one responsible for his mother’s death. And the two of them actually seem to care for each other. All of his innovations in Asalin, his technological advances and the agenda he’s trying to push forward, his mother has cosigned right alongside him.

  Boom gives a soft whine and untangles himself from Briar’s body, then lopes over to Emyr and flops down against his thighs. He nuzzles at his belly, whimpering quietly until Emyr lowers one hand to tangle in the fur at the top of his head, thumb grazing the hellhound’s soft ear.

  Briar scoots closer to me, and I roll onto my back and push myself into a sitting position. She takes my hand—I think maybe because she can’t take Emyr’s.

  “If they saved her once before, can’t they do it again?” Her yellow energy crawls across the ground toward him, like it’s testing the water. Emyr’s gives a hesitant slither in her direction before giving in, and the two of them push up against each other.

  For the first time, I’m forced to acknowledge how similar the shades of yellow and gold are. They’re still discernible from one another, Briar’s brighter and more inviting, Emyr’s glittering and toasted. But they’re close.

  If our energies are meant to be a reflection of who we are as people, it stands to reason that anyone with similar energies would be kindred spirits. What might it mean that I disappeared into the human world, only to attach myself to someone whose energy was a near-mirror of my fiancé’s?

  I decide I’m having this thought only because I’m high, and yet it’s right out the mental window.

  “They’ve tried. I’ve tried.” Emyr looks small, somehow, like this, lying on the grass and staring up as the sky turns purple and pink overhead and the sun disappears. He is suddenly my Emyr again, not the prince, not my future husband, but my best friend, the one who writes shitty poetry and chases me through the halls of the palace with our laughter trailing after us. I hate it. It makes me want to pick my own skin off. “But she uses up the healing faster and faster each time. Soon, it won’t be able to sustain her at all. She may simply slip away, unable to ever be revived again.”

  He curls a palm over his face and trails his claws down the bridge of his nose, over his mouth. “When that happens, my father will not be able to rule Asalin without her. I have to be ready to ascend when the time comes.”

  “Why? Why would Leonidas need to step down?” I pick at blades of grass next to my thighs, absentmindedly tearing them from the ground and tossing them into a pile at my side. “He was king before he met her.”

  Emyr does not answer. Instead, he takes another flower from the pile he gave back to Briar, then holds it in his palm and uses her lighter to set it ablaze. He dips his head forward, inhaling the smoke as it rises.

  Briar and I lean forward in unison, breathing in that floral, heady scent. The effect is immediate, another wave of calm washing over me. Once again, the colors at the edges of my vision tug and swirl together, brighter, closer. I drop onto the ground again, on my side, elbow keeping me raised a little.

  When Emyr finally speaks, he’s still staring at his palm. “It is very difficult for a fae to survive the death of their fated one. Imagine that a piece of your own soul has been carved away. He will not be fit to be king.”

  Though I don’t know what that means, the finality in Emyr’s tone tells me he probably knows what he’s talking about. I swallow.

  “Did you think Wyatt had died?” Briar asks suddenly. I can feel her at my back, but her voice sounds far away. She’s floating somewhere, an ocean on another planet. “Tessa did. When he disappeared. Did you?”

/>   Finally, he turns his head to look at me again. “No. I knew he was alive.”

  “How?” Who asked that question, me or Briar? I guess it doesn’t matter.

  “Because I felt it. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. It was the first thing I felt when I woke up in the morning. It was the last thing I felt before I fell asleep at night. I knew you were out there. I knew I had to find you. And so I did.”

  I can’t look away. He doesn’t, either. How have I never noticed before that Emyr’s eyes are the same shade of brown as the wet soil Asalin is built on? As if this kingdom built this boy from the roots up. The fae might not’ve come from here, but these forests are in Emyr’s bones.

  What’s that human saying? Bloom where you’re planted. That’s Emyr.

  Briar hums, suddenly draping forward and pressing her body atop mine, nuzzling her face into my shoulder. I can hear her thoughts playing like Briar Radio in my head, a singsong collection of incoherent babbling that makes me feel close to her and disconnected all at once. She’s happy, I think. She’s full of love.

  The world tugs at the edges again, a swirl of incomprehensible color until it all narrows down to a single pinpoint. Until all I can see is Emyr, and the lighter in his hand, and Boom curled up in his lap.

  “What does the bond feel like?” This is probably the hundredth time I’ve asked over the course of our lives. I don’t know why I can’t let it go. “You can’t avoid the question forever.”

  He studies me through the veil of smoke just beginning to disappear between us, gaze heavy enough to press me deeper into the grass. Or maybe that’s just Briar’s body weight on top of mine. When he finally looks away, I can just make out the way his throat bobs as he swallows. “Do you remember the first day we met?”

  “No,” I answer, like a liar.

  “You tried to steal my shoes.” Emyr laughs. “Your mother had made me a custom piece for a dinner my parents were hosting. I was trying it on, and you waltzed right up, all forty pounds of chaos, and grabbed my shoes. They were these...slip-on things with gold chains that jingled. I think you liked the jingling. Anyway, your mother’s yelling, I’m yelling, you’re running down the hall, I’m chasing you, half-naked, utterly indignant at having my shoes stolen by some tiny fiend. And finally I caught up to you.”