The Cruel Prince

by Holly Black

  I think about what the bird said: My dearest friend, these are the last words of Liriope. I have three golden birds to scatter. Three attempts to get one into your hand. I am too far gone for any antidote, and so if you hear this, I leave you with the burden of my secrets and the last act of my heart. Protect him. Take him far from the dangers of this Court. Keep him safe, and never, ever tell him the truth of what happened to me.

  I think again about strategy, about Dain and Oriana and Madoc. I recall when Oriana first came to us. How quickly Oak was born and how we weren’t allowed to see him for months because he was so sickly. About how she has always been protective of him around us, but maybe that was for one reason, when I had assumed another.

  Just as I’d assumed the child Liriope wanted her friend to take was Locke. But what if the baby she had been carrying didn’t die with her?

  I feel as though I’ve been robbed of breath, as if getting out words is a struggle against the very air in my lungs. I cannot quite believe what I am about to say, even as I know it’s the conclusion that makes sense. “Oak isn’t Madoc’s child, is he? Or, at least, no more Madoc’s than I am.”

  If the boy is born, Prince Dain will never be king.

  Oriana claps a hand over my mouth. Her skin smells like the air after a snowfall. “Don’t say that.” She speaks close to my face, voice trembling. “Do not ever say that again. If you ever loved Oak, do not say those words.”

  I push her hand away. “Prince Dain was his father and Liriope his mother. Oak is the reason Madoc backed Balekin, the reason he wanted Dain dead. And now he’s the key to the crown.”

  Her eyes widen, and she takes my chilly hand in hers. She has never not seemed strange to me, like a creature from a fairy tale, pale as a ghost. “How could you know that? How could you know any of this, human child?”

  I had thought Prince Cardan was the most valuable individual in all of Faerie. I had no idea.

  Swiftly, I shut the door and close up her balcony. She watches me and doesn’t protest. “Where is he now?” I ask her.

  “Oak? With his nurse,” she whispers, drawing me toward the little divan in one corner, patterned with a snake brocade and covered in a fur. “Talk quickly.”

  “First, tell me what happened seven years ago.”

  Oriana takes a deep breath. “You might think that I would have been jealous of Liriope for being another of Eldred’s consorts, but I wasn’t. I loved her. She was always laughing, impossible not to love—even though her son has come between you and Taryn, I cannot help loving him a little, for her sake.”

  I wonder what it was like for Locke to have his mother be the lover of the High King. I am torn between sympathy and a desire for his life to have been as miserable as possible.

  “We were confidantes,” Oriana says. “She told me when she began her affair with Prince Dain. She didn’t seem to take any of it seriously. She had loved Locke’s father very much, I think. Dain and Eldred were dalliances, distractions. Our kind do not worry overmuch about children, as you know. Faerie blood is thin. I don’t think it occurred to her that she might have a second son, a mere decade after she bore Locke. Some of us have centuries between children. Some of us never carry any at all.”

  I nod. That’s why human men and women are the unacknowledged necessity they are. Without their strengthening the bloodline, Faerie would die out, despite the endless span of their lives.

  “Blusher mushroom is a terrible way to die,” Oriana says, hand to her throat. “You begin to slow, your limbs tremble until you can move no more. But you are still conscious until everything inside you stops, like frozen clockwork. Imagine the horror of that, imagine hoping that you might yet move, imagine straining to move. By the time she got me the message, she was dead. I cut…” Her voice falters. I know what the rest of the sentence must be. She must have cut the child out of Liriope’s belly. I cannot picture prim Oriana doing such a brutal, brave thing—pressing the point of her knife into flesh, finding the right spot and slicing. Prizing a child from a womb, holding its wet body against her. And yet who else could have done it?

  “You saved him,” I say, because if she doesn’t want to talk about that part, she doesn’t have to.

  “I named him for Liriope’s acorn,” she tells me, her voice barely more than a whisper. “My little golden Oak.”

  I wanted so badly to believe that being in Dain’s service was an honor, that he was someone worth following. That’s what comes of hungering for something: You forget to check if it’s rotten before you gobble it down. “Did you know it was Dain who poisoned Liriope?”

  Oriana shakes her head. “Not for a long time. It could have been another of Eldred’s lovers. Or Balekin—there were rumors he was the one responsible. I even wondered if it could have been Eldred, if he had poisoned her for dallying with his son. But then Madoc discovered Dain had obtained the blusher mushroom. He insisted I never let Oak be anywhere near the prince. He was furious—angry in a frightening way I had never seen before.”

  It’s not hard to see why Madoc would be furious with Dain. Madoc, who once thought his own wife and child were dead. Madoc, who loved Oak. Madoc, who reminded us over and over that family came before all else.

  “And so you married Madoc because he could protect you?” I have only blurry memories of his courting Oriana, and then they were sworn, with a child on the way. Maybe I thought it was unusual, but anyone can have good fortune. And it had seemed like bad fortune to me at the time, since Taryn and I worried what the new baby would mean for us. We thought Madoc might tire of us and drop us somewhere with a pocket full of gold and riddles pinned to our shirts. No one finds bad fortune suspicious.

  Oriana looks out the glass doors at the wind blowing the trees. “Madoc and I have an understanding. We do not pretend with each other.”

  I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like it makes for a cold and careful marriage.

  “So what’s his play?” I ask her. “I don’t imagine he intends for Balekin to keep the throne long. I think he would consider it some kind of crime against strategy to leave such an obvious move unexploited.”

  “What do you mean?” She looks honestly baffled. They don’t pretend with each other, my ass.

  “He’s going to put Oak on the throne,” I tell her, as though it’s obvious. Because it is obvious. I don’t know how he intends to do it—or when—but I am sure he does. Of course he does.

  “Oak,” she says. “No, no, no. Jude, no. He’s just a child.”

  Take him far from the dangers of this Court. That’s what Liriope’s note had said. Maybe Oriana should have listened.

  I remember what Madoc told us at the dinner table ages ago, about how the throne was vulnerable during a change in power. Whatever he intended to happen with Balekin—and now I am wondering if what he imagined was for Dain to die and Balekin to die, too, for the High King to suspend the coronation, for Madoc to make a different play—he had to see the opportunity in front of him, with only three royals left. If Oak was the High King, then Madoc could be the regent. He would rule over Faerie until Oak came of age.

  And then, who knew what might happen? If he could keep Oak in check, he might rule over Faerie forever.

  “I was just a child once, too,” I tell her. “I don’t think Madoc was enormously concerned about what I could handle then, and I don’t think he will be too worried about Oak now.”

  It’s not like I don’t think he loves Oak. Of course he loves him. He loves me, too. He loved my mother. But he is what he is. He cannot be other than his nature.

  Oriana grabs my hand, squeezing it tightly enough that her nails sink into my skin. “You don’t understand. Child kings do not survive long, and Oak is a frail boy. He was too little when he was brought into this world. No king or queen from any Court will bow their heads to him. He wasn’t raised for this burden. You must stop it.”

  What might Madoc do with so much power unchecked? What might I do with a brother on the throne? And
I could put him there. I have the winning card to play, because while Balekin would resist crowning Oak, I bet Cardan wouldn’t. I could make my brother the High King and myself a princess. All that power is right there for the taking. All I have to do is reach out my hand.

  The odd thing about ambition is this: You can acquire it like a fever, but it is not so easy to shed. Once, I was content to hope for knighthood and the power to force Cardan and his friends to leave me alone. All I wanted was to find some place to fit in here in Faerie.

  Now I wonder what it would be like to choose the next king.

  I think of the tide of blood running over the stone dais to drip down onto the packed-earthen floor of the hill. Running over the bottom edge of the crown so that when Balekin had lifted it, his hands had been smeared red. I imagine that crown on Oak’s brow and flinch from the image.

  I remember, too, what it had felt like to be glamoured by Oak. Over and over I’d slapped myself until my cheek was red and hot and sore. A bruise bloomed the next morning, a bruise that didn’t fade for a week. That’s what children do with power.

  “What makes you think I can stop it?” I demand.

  Oriana doesn’t release my hand. “You once said that I was wrong about you, that you would never hurt Oak. Tell me, can you do anything? Is there a chance?”

  I’m not a monster, I’d told her, back when I said I would never hurt Oak. But maybe being a monster was my calling. “Maybe,” I tell her, which is no answer at all.

  On my way out, I spot my little brother. He is out in the garden, picking a bouquet of foxgloves. He’s laughing, sunlight turning his brown hair gold. When his nurse comes toward him, he darts away from her.

  I bet he doesn’t even know that those flowers are poison.

  Laughter greets me when I return to the Court of Shadows. I am expecting to find Cardan as I left him, cowed and quiet, perhaps even more miserable than before. Instead, his hands have been untied, and he is at the table, playing cards with the Roach, the Ghost—and the Bomb. At the center are a pile of jewels and a jug of wine. Two empty bottles rest beneath the table, green glass catching the candlelight.

  “Jude,” the Bomb calls happily. “Sit down! We’ll deal you in.”

  I am relieved to see her, here and unscathed. But nothing else about this tableau is any good.

  Cardan grins at me as though we’ve been great friends all our lives. I forgot how charming he can be—and how dangerous that is.

  “What are you doing?” I burst out. “He’s supposed to be tied up! He’s our prisoner.”

  “Worry not. Where’s he going to go?” the Roach asks. “You really think he can get past all three of us?”

  “I don’t mind being one-handed,” Cardan interjects. “But if you’re going to restrain both of my hands, then you’ll have to pour the wine directly into my mouth.”

  “He told us where the old king kept the really good bottles,” says the Bomb, pushing back her white hair. “Not to mention a stash of jewelry that belonged to Elowyn. He figured that in the confusion, no one would notice if it got lifted, and so far, no one has. Easiest job the Roach has ever done.”

  I want to scream. They weren’t supposed to like him, but why wouldn’t they? He’s a prince who’s treating them with respect. He’s Dain’s brother. He’s Folk, like them.

  “Everything is spiraling into chaos anyway,” says Cardan. “Might as well have some fun. Don’t you think, Jude?”

  I take a deep breath. If he undermines my position here, if he manages to make me an outsider, then I am never going to get the Court of Shadows to go along with the plan that is still jumbled up in my head. I can’t seem to figure out how to help anyone. The last thing I need is him making everything worse.

  “What did he offer you?” I ask, like we’re all in on the same joke. Yes, it’s a gamble. Maybe Cardan didn’t offer them anything at all.

  I try not to seem like I’m holding my breath. I try not to show how small Cardan makes me feel.

  The Ghost gives me one of his rare smiles. “Mostly gold, but also power. Position.”

  “A lot of things he hasn’t got,” said the Bomb.

  “I thought we were friends,” Cardan says halfheartedly.

  “I’m going to take him in the back,” I say, putting my hand on the top of the chair in a proprietary fashion. I need to get him out of the room before he gets the better of me in front of them. I need to get him away now.

  “And do what?” asks the Roach.

  “He’s my prisoner,” I remind them, squatting down and slicing through the strips of my dress still tying his legs to the chair. I realize he must have slept this way, sitting upright, if he slept at all. But he doesn’t look tired. He smiles down at me, as if the reason I’m on my knees is because I am curtsying.

  I want to wipe that smile off his face, but maybe I can’t. Maybe he’ll go on smiling that way to his grave.

  “Can’t we stay out here?” Cardan asks me. “There’s wine out here.”

  That makes the Roach snicker. “Something bothering you, princeling? You and Jude don’t get along after all?”

  Cardan’s expression shifts into something that appears to resemble worry. Good.

  I lead him into Dain’s office, which I guess I’ve just commandeered for my own. He walks unsteadily, his legs stiff from being bound. Also possibly because he has helped my crew down several bottles of wine. No one stops me from taking him, though. I close the door and turn the lock.

  “Sit down,” I tell him, pointing to a chair.

  He does.

  I walk around, settling myself on the other side of the desk.

  It occurs to me that if I kill him, I can finally stop thinking about him. If I kill him, I won’t have to feel like this anymore.

  Without him, there’s no clear path to putting Oak on the throne. I’d have to trust that Madoc had some way of forcing Balekin into crowning him. Without him, I have no cards to play. No plan. No helping my brother. No nothing.

  Maybe it would be worth it.

  The crossbow is where I left it, in the drawer of Dain’s desk. I draw it out, cock it back, and point it at Cardan. He draws a ragged breath.

  “You’re going to shoot me?” He blinks. “Right now?”

  My finger caresses the trigger. I feel calm, gloriously calm. This is weakness, to put fear above ambition, above family, above love, but it feels good. It feels like being powerful.

  “I can see why you’d want to,” he says, as though reading my face and coming to some decision. “But I’d really prefer if you didn’t.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have smirked at me constantly—you think I am going to stand being mocked, here, now? You still so sure you’re better than me?” My voice shakes a little, and I hate him even more for it. I have trained every day to be dangerous, and he is entirely in my power, yet I’m the one who is afraid.

  Fearing him is a habit, a habit I could break with a bolt to his heart.

  He holds up his hands in protest, long bare fingers splayed. I am the one with the royal ring. “I’m nervous,” he says. “I smile a lot when I’m nervous. I can’t help it.”

  That is not at all what I expected him to say. I lower the crossbow momentarily.

  He keeps talking, as though he doesn’t want to leave me too much time to think. “You are terrifying. Nearly my whole family is dead, and while they never had much love for me, I don’t want to join them. I’ve spent all night worrying what you’re going to do, and I know exactly what I deserve. I have a reason to be nervous.” He’s talking to me as though we’re friends instead of enemies. It works, too: I relax a little. When I realize that, I am nearly freaked out enough to shoot him outright.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want,” he says. “Anything.”

  “No word games?” The temptation is enormous. Everything Taryn told me is still rattling around in my head, reminding me how little I know.

  He puts a hand over where his heart should be. “I swear it.”
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  “And if I shoot you anyway?”

  “You might well,” he says, wry. “But I want your word that you won’t.”

  “My word isn’t worth much,” I remind him.

  “So you keep saying.” He raises his brows. “It’s not comforting, I’ve got to tell you.”

  I give a surprised laugh. The crossbow wavers in my hand. Cardan’s gaze is locked on it. With deliberate slowness, I set it down on the wood of the desk. “You tell me whatever I want to know—all of it—and I won’t shoot you.”

  “And what can I do to persuade you not to turn me over to Balekin and Madoc?” He lifts a single eyebrow. I am not used to the force of his attention being on me like this. My heart speeds.

  All I can do is glower in return. “How about you concentrate on staying alive?”

  He shrugs. “What do you want to know?”

  “I found a piece of paper with my name on it,” I say. “Over and over, just my name.”

  He flinches a little but doesn’t say anything.

  “Well?” I prompt.

  “That’s not a question,” he groans, as though exasperated. “Ask me a proper question, and I’ll give you an answer.”

  “You’re terrible at this whole ‘telling me whatever I want to know’ thing.” My hand goes to the crossbow, but I don’t pick it up.

  He sighs. “Just ask me something. Ask about my tail. Don’t you want to see it?” He raises his brows.

  I have seen his tail, but I am not going to give him the satisfaction of telling him that. “You want me to ask you something? Fine. When did Taryn start whatever it is she has with Locke?”

  He laughs with delight. This appears to be a discussion he isn’t interested in avoiding. Typical. “Oh, I wondered when you would ask about that. It was some months ago. He told us all about it—throwing stones at her window, leaving her notes to meet him in the woods, wooing her by moonlight. He swore us to silence, made it all seem like a lark. I think, in the beginning, he did it to make Nicasia jealous. But later…”