The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  Briar nudges me and nods at something behind us, pulling me from my thoughts. A small cluster of Guards trail onto the front lawn and start approaching stragglers. The sounds of chaos from inside have died off.

  “Still think we should spend the night at the cabin?” I ask, swiveling my head toward Emyr.

  He doesn’t answer me. He looks so tired.

  When one Guard wanders over to us, Emyr stands to speak to her. “What damage was sustained inside? Have the aggressors been taken to the dungeons?”

  “The fire is out, Your Highness. The Committee and the servants are clearing the smoke and debris now, and most repairs will be completed before sunrise. Almost all aggressors have been accounted for, except this one.” She motions to Jin. “Jin Ueno. You are under arrest for inciting a riot. Will you come peacefully?”

  Her words set off five shouts in near-unison.

  “Seriously?”

  “What the hell?”

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Jin didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

  The Guard takes a surprised step back, but then her face turns stony. She addresses Jin to say, “You are the leader of the anti-fae hate group. You were at the center of tonight’s events. Of course you are under arrest.”

  “Our group isn’t anti-fae.” Jin shakes their head. “We’re pro-witch. Meanwhile, one of our kind was murdered tonight. You’ll find the body of Lavender Nott around that corner. And the fae protestors tried to do the same to Wyatt, and my girlfriend.”

  “I would like to speak to the commanding officer who gave this order.” Emyr is using his princely voice, the one that makes him sound like an authoritative asshole whose eyes I want to claw out. But in this case, it’s useful.

  The Guard narrows her eyes, glancing between our ragtag little ensemble. Finally, she grits her teeth and mumbles, “Fine.” Turning her head over her shoulder she calls out, “Derek! We’ve got some trouble over here!”

  Derek? Seriously?

  Briar and I exchange a look.

  He would have his own sister’s girlfriend arrested? She frowns.

  I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s capable of.

  But that’s a lie, I realize as soon as I think it. I have a feeling I know exactly what Derek is capable of. I just don’t want to admit it, even to myself.

  Derek’s mouth is set in a thin line when he makes his way to us, followed by one very, very round woman. This must be his wife, Martha. I’ve heard mention of her around the castle. Except for her belly, which looks like an overinflated beach ball, she’s tiny. (Though still a few inches taller than I am.) The second largest thing about her is her red hair, a mess of tangled curls sticking up at odd angles all around her face. Her wings are delicate and velvety like a butterfly’s, her horns too small to make out under all that hair. She’s dressed in a nightgown and a pair of slippers, as if the attacks roused her from bed. A soft teal energy floats around her stomach, protecting the center of her body and nothing else.

  “What?” Derek snaps, coming to a halt at the other Guard’s side. He seems to realize Clarke is with us, his eyes widening slightly at the image of his sister sprawled in Jin’s lap, the edge of her shirt torn. “What’s going on? What happened to you?”

  “Well, right now...” Clarke groans, pushing herself into a sitting position. I think she must still be in pain, despite Emyr’s impressive healing. “You’re trying to have my girlfriend arrested.”

  Derek narrows his eyes, gaze flicking to Jin and back to Clarke. “Jin was responsible for inciting this riot. Of course they are under arrest. I would not be surprised if they were to face execution for this.”

  “EXECUTION?”

  “What the fuck?”

  “There has to be some mistake!”

  Emyr moves to stand between Derek and Jin, planting his hands firmly on his hips as he eyes his head Guardsman. “Derek, I don’t know what scheme you’re trying to pull here, but Jin did nothing wrong. There are dozens of witnesses who will attest to that. If you wish to remain in charge of the Guard, I would think very carefully about your next move.”

  Hatred bubbles in Derek’s blue eyes. His energy cracks like a whip around him, restless, eager for a fight. By comparison, Emyr’s energy is calm and steady, a golden glow that spreads out on all sides as if he thinks to shield Jin with his magic if necessary.

  “Are you threatening me?” Derek demands.

  “No.” Emyr shakes his head. “I am warning you.”

  “I am aware you have a soft spot for the witches,” Derek seethes. His gaze darts to me, there and gone just as quickly. “But there was violence on both sides tonight. We cannot absolve them of all guilt because of your disdain for your own kind.”

  “If there was so much violence on both sides, why are you not arresting the fae?” Briar demands. “Maybe because too many of them were Guards out of uniform?”

  Derek stares at her, and my black energy drapes itself over her shoulders to keep him away. I can feel her warmth pulsing under it as easily as if I’ve touched her with my hands.

  “What’s going on here?”

  Wade comes into view, Tessa tucked into the crook of his elbow. He seems to be carrying her, more or less. She doesn’t look at me even when they stop only a few feet from where we’re standing.

  “Derek?” Wade asks again. “What’s going on?”

  For a moment, Derek doesn’t answer. And when he does, he isn’t looking at Briar, or Wade, or Jin, or even Emyr. Now he’s looking right at me, in a way that sets my teeth on edge. In a way that makes me feel like I’m alone in his bedroom again, no matter how many other people are around.

  Like he could do anything, anything, and nothing would be able to stop him.

  “It is time for the witches to face retribution.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  YOU DON’T WANT TO LOOK

  Hours later, in the dead of night, Lavender’s house has filled with people, but only five of us are still awake.

  “FOOLISH boy!” Roman is in the middle of shouting, the way he’s been doing on and off for the last hour now, since we arrived. “I told Solomon—I said when the Guard shows up and starts disappearing people, you get out of there. And what did he do? What did the little twerp do?”

  “He tried to reason with them,” Briar answers softly. She doesn’t look up from her reading, one of Lavender’s many spellbooks that are scattered around the house. She’s heard this story a hundred times already, because we’ve all heard this story a hundred times already.

  “Reason! As if the Guard know anything about reason!” Roman sits back down, skinny body dropping onto the arm of the couch where Lorena is sitting, staring blank-eyed at the wall in front of her.

  Solomon was arrested, along with Jin and a handful of others from their group. Lavender appears to have been the only casualty of the riot, besides Unicorn Boy, but we won’t know for sure until later.

  And she won’t stay the only casualty. Not if the Guard makes good on their threat to execute the provocateurs. They’ll burn the witches at the stake for no goddamn reason. Legal murder.

  Derek’s words from earlier that day play on loop in my head. Get to work. Before things around here go from bad to worse.

  In retrospect, the words feel every bit a direct threat. And though I haven’t told the witches what he said to me—as that would require outing our shameful alliance—their version of events does match up with the idea that Derek knew what was going to happen tonight.

  According to them, the fae protestors started gathering after word spread about the Committee moving forward with arrangements for the wedding. Jin’s group arrived on the scene to counter their protests, a show of strength and unity among the witches. Whispers started on the other side about how none of the fae would rec
ognize my rule, were I to become king. The fire hit my room soon after, a clear attempt to make sure I never took the Throne.

  When the fae stormed the castle, the witches believed they were doing so in order to find me. They followed to protect me. To make sure the fae were cut off before they could actually get their hands on me.

  If all of that’s true, Jin and Solomon were arrested because of me.

  Lavender lost her life because of me.

  She’s not the first.

  “What are we going to do?” Clarke whispers from where she’s folded into herself in the corner of the sofa. Her wings are drawn tight against her back, her eyes wide and vacant, her claws digging into her calves as she wraps her arms around herself. “I didn’t—I never thought they would actually kill them. Not Jin. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “And why didn’t you protect them?” Lorena asks, as if suddenly coming to life for the first time tonight. “You were right there. You couldn’t put yourself between Jin and the Guard? You really think you couldn’t have forced your own brother to back down?”

  Clarke blinks.

  Lorena is clearly not finished. She speaks in a furious stage whisper, trying not to wake the rest of the witches scattered around the house sleeping. “Months I’ve spent defending you to this group. Clarke isn’t like the rest of the fae. Clarke is on our side. But when it came down to it, you just sat back and did nothing. Nothing.”

  “I nearly died for the witches,” Clarke bites back. “I was still half-dead when they dragged my mate away! And what about you? Your mother’s in the Guard, isn’t she? Which side was she on tonight?”

  “This isn’t going to help anyone.”

  It’s only when everyone looks at me that I realize I was the one who spoke. With the room’s attention on me—including Briar, finally tearing her gaze away from the sigils she’s been quietly studying—I want to shrink, want to disappear. But I don’t. I can’t.

  I owe it to everyone here to fix this. However I can. “Whatever we did or didn’t do before doesn’t matter. We can’t change that. All we can change is what we do next.”

  “And what do you suggest?” When Roman asks the question, it lacks his usual venom. And I realize he’s serious. He’s looking to me for an answer.

  They all are.

  “We can’t let them go to trial,” I find myself saying. “We have to get them out of there.”

  A beat passes. Briar shuts her book. “Wyatt, are you suggesting we break them out?”

  Am I? “Yeah.”

  “How are we supposed to do that without ending up behind bars ourselves?” Lorena demands.

  I slide my tongue over my fangs. “You aren’t.”

  If I’m understanding things correctly, Roman has done a good job at making himself a target in the months leading up to today, pressing fae buttons by lecturing their children and just never shutting up. Lorena was at the front of the battlefield, making more moves than anyone except Jin themself. And Clarke... Clarke doesn’t exactly look like she’d be much good to anyone right now.

  When I head for the door, Briar jumps to her feet and scurries after me.

  “What do you want us to do?” Roman asks at my back.

  “Stay here and stay out of trouble.” Since when did I start giving people orders?

  “What’s your plan?”

  I glance at him over my shoulder and shrug when I meet his eye. “I’ll burn it all down if I have to.”

  Outside, the world feels too still. A glance at my phone tells me it’s past two in the morning. Everyone’s retreated to their homes for the night. The air smells like darkness and smoke still coming off the palace.

  Briar touches her knuckles to the back of my hand. “I guess if anything was going to get you thrown out of Asalin, helping a terrorist group escape from jail is probably it.”

  I don’t say anything back. I’m not sure what to say, since it’s the first time that occurred to me tonight.

  Wanting to get Jin and the others free has nothing to do with my own plans to cause chaos at every turn. I’m not going to examine what that might mean. Least of all right now.

  It’s a ghost town in the village. Not even the animals in the forest around us make a peep. It’s eerie. As if all of Asalin has fallen still. Eventually, the cobblestone streets turn to dirt, and the turrets of the castle come into view. The smell of smoke is stronger the closer we get, though I’m pretty sure the fire’s out by now. People aren’t running around screaming, so that seems like a safe enough assumption.

  Good. I have no idea how I’m going to get the witches out of the dungeon; I don’t need the added stress of fighting a fire while I’m at it.

  “Hey!”

  Briar and I freeze at the sound of a stranger’s voice, and when we turn, we see a man in a Guard uniform crossing the path to get to us. He glowers, hand already poised on the iron cuffs at his hip.

  “What are you two doing out here?”

  “Just heading back to the palace, sir.” Did I just call this man sir? Has someone taken control of my body? Is this what dissociating feels like? “Is there some kind of problem?”

  “You’re damn right there’s a problem. Your kind tried to burn the palace down.” His eyes narrow. “Where’ve you been all night, kid?”

  “With me.”

  That warm, familiar voice hits me hard enough it almost takes my knees out from under me. When I look up, I see Emyr walking toward us from the direction of the castle.

  And he isn’t alone. Tessa and Wade flank him.

  After Jin’s arrest, Emyr went to meet with his parents in their chamber while Briar and I left for Lavender’s house with a beside-herself Clarke. We haven’t seen one another in a few hours.

  He looks exhausted. The kind of exhausted that doesn’t come from staying up until two in the morning, but from watching everything around you burn to the ground.

  The Guard looks skeptical. “Your Highness, what are you—”

  “I am here to accompany my mate to the palace. He has spent the last few hours grieving the senseless death of an elder in his community, and now I intend to make sure he gets back to his room safely. What are you doing?”

  Exhausted Emyr does not have time for this man’s shit.

  And, unlike Derek, this Guard does not seem to have it in him to argue. He stumbles over his own words—something something apology something—and darts off down the street toward the village. Probably to try and find some other witch to terrorize. I hope Roman and Lorena heed my command to stay out of trouble.

  We wait. We watch him disappear. We say nothing, not until his shadow has long gone and the world is too silent once more, and even then we say nothing. As if sharing a single brain cell, the five of us turn and head into the woods in search of a moment of privacy, putting as much distance between us and the rest of the world as we can. The farther we retreat, the darker it gets. The quieter. The creepier.

  Briar is the one who speaks first. “What is that?”

  It isn’t until she says it that I realize where we are.

  Wade is the one who answers her. “That’s the door to Faery.”

  Although “door” is pretty far from what this thing looks like. I remember venturing here once as a child, Emyr and I sneaking out to catch a stolen glimpse at the dark and twisty-looking portal from which our ancestors came. It looks just the way I remember it.

  Two elm trees, dead and blackened, have grown together to form one ugly, unnatural archway. Their branches, dark and sharp like talons, twist around each other and jut out at odd intervals, creating bleak silhouettes against the sunrise. Between the tree trunks, beneath this abysmal arch, is...nothing.

  I don’t know how else to describe it. My eyes can’t focus on it. When I try, it makes my jaw hurt, the sound of static like crinkling aluminum blaring in my head.
<
br />   Witches can’t see through the door, but fae can. It’s sort of the way humans can’t find Asalin on their own because of the cloaking magic, but they can get here if they’re brought. The first time Emyr and I wandered over to sneak a peek at the door, I was so angry that I couldn’t see it. I stomped my feet and curled my fists and gnashed my teeth, confused and hurt because I wanted to know! I didn’t understand why I couldn’t look!

  But Emyr, crouching down next to me, little body trembling, whispered, “You don’t want to look.”

  I still don’t know what he saw that day. But the doorway gives me the creeps. I look away from it.

  “Are the two of you all right?” Emyr reaches for me, and I don’t shove him away. He takes my hand and tugs me closer, as if to examine me, but instead presses his nose to the top of my head and takes a deep breath. I lean my head against his chest, warm and solid, my eyes sliding halfway closed.

  “As all right as anyone is tonight,” Briar answers from behind me. I hear something tucked into her tone that I don’t want to recognize, so I ignore it. “How did your meeting with your parents go? Are they going to do something about the arrests?”

  Emyr says nothing. His hand settles on the back of my neck. Have I been this tired all night? I feel like I could fall asleep on my feet, that I could lean into him and close my eyes and drift right off.

  But I can’t. And after a moment too long of quiet, I pull away, shaking myself free of him, blinking up into his face. “Your parents?”

  “It—”

  “They aren’t going to do shit,” Tessa offers succinctly. “They are choosing to defer to Derek Pierce and his infinite wisdom.”

  “Are you serious?” My eyebrows draw together as I stare at Emyr. He can’t seem to meet my eye. “They’re going to let them die.”

  Emyr swallows. “Derek is the head of the Guard. He holds a considerable amount of power, and—”

  “YOUR PARENTS ARE THE KING AND QUEEN!” Briar throws her hands up. “What exactly is the point of the Throne if the Guard can do whatever the fuck they want?”

  Emyr—well over six feet tall, with his horns and wings and fangs, with all his magic and his money and his power—takes a step back when Briar yells at him. He stares at her, lips parted, for a long moment, before saying, finally, “The Throne makes the rules. The Guard enforces them. My parents can stay an execution, but...”