by Evelyn Avery
“No.” Puck scoffed, making a gesture as if to say look around. “At least, not yet. I suspect that he will not rest until he has recovered what he lost, or destroy himself in the attempt.”
The tattoos on his arms wavered before my eyes, and the longer I stared, the more I realized they were moving pictures. Like a black and white movie playing out on his skin. I saw a cat running through trees as arrows flew over its head, inches from hitting their target. When it reached his chest, the cat turned, and it wore Puck’s face.
I blinked, and the image was gone.
Before I could ask any of the dozens of questions waiting on the tip of my tongue, Chloe jogged back to us, cheeks pink from the effort as she took a deep breath. Physical activity had never really been her thing. “The castle gates are locked. Tamlin thinks we have to play the game to open them. Do you want to be white or black?”
“White, obviously,” I said, thinking of the obvious corollary of good versus evil. “I used to play chess all the time when I was a kid. This should be easy. And white gets to go first, which gives us an advantage.”
She had the grace to look abashed. “Good, because I already tried to move the first piece. Good thing it didn’t work because Tamlin told me it was the worst opening move he’s ever seen.”
Rolling my eyes, I hustled her forward. “Let’s go.”
But as we moved behind the clear glass pieces, I couldn’t shake Puck’s words from my mind. This place had been precisely how I imagined it in some ways and completely the opposite in others. In my dreams, the Underground had been as Puck had described, full of creatures both beautiful and terrible because they were the products of both dreams and nightmares. This barren landscape was reminiscent of that, but only in the way that an abandoned building carried remnants of what it had once been. That didn’t make it the same.
It was impossible to imagine what the Erlking could have lost that would account for the difference.
“Ready?” Chloe called from her position behind me, drawing me from my reverie. “We’re running short of time here.”
I didn’t need to look down at the lariat to know that all but one of the stones had completely darkened. And the last had already begun its shift from clear to tinged with color. The thirteen hours were almost up, and I was wasting time on history lessons. It should thrill me that the Erlking’s world was dying because that asshole might go with it.
But a strange feeling burned in my chest that I didn’t understand. It felt like regret.
Or guilt.
“Any time now,” Chloe called again.
“Yeah, I got it.” I took a position next to a rook because I refused to be a pawn. Chloe had already claimed the queen, Tamlin stood sentry next to a knight while Puck moved next to a bishop. “Now what?”
She looked a little confused and shrugged. “I guess you have to move the pieces. Should I start with this one?”
“Uh, no.” Considering that she was standing next to the king, which would be both inadvisable and impossible to move as an opening, I decided to start. The Queen’s Gambit was an aggressive opening, but one of my favorites. “Pawn to Knight’s four.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me when the pawn moved under its own powers, gliding soundlessly across the grass, but it still did. I’d been strangely removed from the magic of this place and the reminder that different rules governed the Underground made me feel a little sick to my stomach.
In response to my opening, a black pawn moved next as if pushed by an unseen hand. It shifted to meet the white one at the center of the board, not exactly unexpected. Whatever magic created this setup had obviously been trained with classical responses.
By the third move, I was feeling more than confident. The black pieces were moving slowly toward a trap that would ensure our victory. We were still playing a cat and mouse game with all of the pieces remaining on the board, but I was setting us up for a sweeping victory. I opened my mouth to shout the move that would put them in check when Chloe interrupted.
“Their queen is open, that’s like the most important piece on the board,” she shouted. “Hey knight, take black’s queen.”
“No!”
But it was too late. The knight that I had in place blocking access to our queen, the piece Chloe stood next to, had already slid out of position to take the black queen. Of course, I’d noticed that the queen was unguarded, but I also recognized it for the trap that it was.
What happened next seemed like it was in slow motion. The black bishop slid across the grass straight toward Chloe and the white king. For a moment, I thought that the bishop would crash into them, and I opened my mouth to scream at her to run. Before I could say or do anything, the ground opened up at her feet, revealing a gaping chasm.
I heard her shocked cry and watched as she disappeared into the earth.
My body had already rushed forward before I connected the intent to dive after her, but Tamlin’s grip on my arm held me back.
“She’s gone,” he said as I tried to fight him off. “Those chasms go on forever; there is no coming back from one.”
“No,” I wrenched my arm from his grip, but Puck had already come to my other side, their combined strength too much for me to overcome. I could only watch in horror as the hole disappeared. Bright green grass sprouted where it had been just as the black bishop slid into place.
They released my arms, and I fell to my knees, so overcome by disbelief that initially, the grief didn’t penetrate. And then it hit me in a wave, accompanied by rage. I shoved at the bishop that might as well have been a boulder for all that it moved and tore at the grass around it. Puck and Tamlin pulled me back as I screeched that we had to dig Chloe out of there. They had to tell me a dozen times that the Erlking’s chasms have no end and a beginning only when he wishes it.
Chasms without end, falling forever.
Chloe was gone.
And it was all my fault.
She made a stupid decision, but I was the reason she was here in the first place. I wrote down the words that I knew were charged with forbidden meaning, even if I didn’t truly understand the consequences. I summoned the Erlking to us, and the responsibility for what happened here rested on my shoulders.
Puck knelt down next to me, expression creased with concern. He reached out to touch my shoulder, but then hesitated and pulled away. “I am so sorry, Izzy.”
Tamlin remained silent but even his usual neutral air had morphed into one of sympathetic resignation. He didn’t say anything, as if he understood nothing would help at this point.
I stayed on my hands and knees on the grass for several minutes. Only the dull glow of the last stone of the lariat dangling from my neck pulled me from my self-pitying trance.
“Let’s finish this,” I growled, pushing to my feet.
The rest of the game went quickly. I sacrificed nearly every piece on the board to accomplish the task, but we managed a checkmate. Chasms opened under each one as it was taken, and I watched them fall into the ground, imagining that I was throwing the Erlking in after them.
As soon as the black king piece disappeared into the earth, I heard the sound of creaking gates behind me. The way into the Erlking’s castle was clear. Nothing stood in between me and claiming victory. But that victory was hollow, enough to leave a bitter taste on my tongue. I had jumped from the top of the tallest building in Los Angeles to save my friends, both of them.
And I had failed.
But something else kept me moving forward: rage. I would finally face the Erlking. If there was a way to destroy that monster, I would find it. Even if it killed me.
The Erlking’s castle barely deserved the name. As we entered, the sun had fully set against the distant horizon, but even in the meager light, it was obvious the place had seen better days. Long passageways coated in dust and smelling of decay stretched out before us. Vines twisted through the stone walls as if nature were desperate to overtake the decaying structure completely.
Only h
is throne room retained any remnants of the glory I had imagined when I first dreamt of the Underground.
The Erlking himself lounged in a throne made of dried, twisted branches and wicked thorns. I had a picture on the wall of my room depicting this very same throne, one I painted years ago. But in it, the vines were lushly green, blooming with flowers of every variety and color. I didn’t recognize this twisted thing, neither the throne or its occupant.
My angry determination left me in a rush when I finally saw him. Fear squeezed my heart with icy fingers, and I had to force myself to put one foot in front of the other. I approached him slowly, alert for any tricks. No way was he about to make this easy for me, considering everything he had done.
He watched us with an unreadable expression, although I saw no trace of disappointment. Was he just going to sit there? I was expecting some final showdown or at least a villain speech, but his preternatural calm took the wind from my sails.
“I have met your challenge, reached your castle before thirteen hours were up.” My chest puffed up with the words as they were wrenched from my throat like some sort of mantra. “That means I win.”
He waved his hand, and the necklace disappeared from my throat and then reappeared twined in his long fingers. Bringing it close to his face, the Erlking inspected it with a sigh. “So you have. It appears congratulations are in order.”
That was it? He couldn’t possibly just roll over at this point.
I pointed my finger at him, voice thick with anger. “And you lied.”
Puck gasped behind me but didn’t say anything. Both he and Tamlin had hung back when I marched inside the throne room, hesitating near the doors. Both of them seemed to fear their king’s wrath, but they still wouldn’t let me face him alone.
But only a raised eyebrow met that accusation as the Erlking asked, “Did I?”
“You said that my friends would be returned home if I reached the castle in time. I’m here, but one of my friends disappeared into a chasm, and I don’t see the other. That makes you a liar.” I was keeping myself calm with a Herculean effort. All I really wanted to do was launch myself across the distance that separated us and then do my best to claw his eyes out. “Where is Vaughn?”
“Where he belongs,” the Erlking drawled. “Safe at home in his bed, sleeping like a well-fed child.”
“What about Chloe?” I demanded. “Falling forever into an abyss isn’t that much different from dying.”
“The chasms respond to my will as much as anything in this realm does. The girl has been returned to where she belongs as well.”
Confusion tempered my anger as I stared at him. “Then what the hell am I still doing here?”
“Making a choice,” the Erlking replied enigmatically.
“Just let me go home—”
But he interrupted before I could complete the request. “I sent you on this journey in the hopes that it would jog your memory, although I see that failed. Then I hoped to lure you into staying with the love of your human boy. Even allowing you companions was a kindness, though you refuse to see it. I have turned my world upside down for you, and still, it is not enough. What more can I offer you?”
I swallowed hard, nothing about this was what I expected. “How about the damn truth?”
With a flick of his fingers, a book appeared in my hands. So suddenly that I nearly dropped it before my fingers closed around smooth leather. I looked down and recognized it without even needing to read the cover.
The Tale of the Erlking.
“You’ve read it hundreds of times,” he murmured, voice lazy even as his eyes narrowed with alert attention. “At least the version that circulates in the mortal realm. You must have the story memorized by now.”
“You steal people, mostly young girls. And if they succumb to your advances, then you use their life force to sustain your magic until they wither away and die,” I said flatly, in response to the questions he was obviously asking. The rational part of me knew that I should insist he send me back right now with none of the verbal tricks, but I couldn’t stop myself from engaging in the confrontation I’d been waiting thirteen hours to have. “You’re the villain if that’s not obvious.”
“The stories always get bits and pieces of it wrong, things are lost in translation or misunderstood by the few humans who survive their encounters with creatures of magic,” he said with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. He adjusted his position on the throne and leaned forward, but made no move to rise. “There were never multiple girls who sustained the realm. I only ever needed one.”
Nervous premonition shivered up my spine. “I don’t understand why you think I’d care. This is ridiculous, and you have to send me back.” Remembering the words from my play as I glared at him, I took a deep breath. “I am my own—”
“Wait,” he commanded, his voice washing over me with the force of a strong wind, blowing my unspoken words away. The Erlking looked past me to the two men at my back, the men who had helped me on this journey without asking for anything in return. “Would you like to tell her, or shall I?”
I turned back to look at them. Tamlin stood with his arms crossed over his chest, sheathed sword hanging at his hip. Unshed tears glistened in eyes that otherwise seemed indistinguishable from stone. Puck stared at me with incredible intensity as his lips tightened, but I didn’t understand the emotion that I saw in his gaze.
Guilt.
My hands squeezed into tight fists. “Tell me what?”
But neither of them said a word.
“Can you really say honestly that you don’t feel it? Whatever draws you to me cannot be denied. You’ve dreamed of me every night since we were first apart.” His voice was stern, barely contained rage in his eyes. Coming to his feet, the Erlking stormed to a nearby table covered in crystal orbs. He picked them up and threw them hard enough at the wall that they smashed to pieces, one after the other, to punctuate his words. “I’ve shown you so much, and still, you cannot see. I had thought that being reunited with them would do the trick—the court jester who befriended you then led me on a merry chase so I could not thwart your escape and the member of my castle guard who carried you off to be reborn in the human world after you magicked away your memories of me.”
That last seemed to set him off completely. With a groan of rage, he upended the table, so all the orbs went flying, most crashing to the floor where they cracked and shattered. The deliberate destruction seemed to bring him a measure of calm, and he turned to me with eyes lit by cold fire, voice almost plaintive. “Why won’t you remember.”
“This is fucking crazy.” The stone walls of the throne room felt like they were closing in on me as my vision swam. Nothing that had happened in the last thirteen hours came close to what I would call reality, but this was on a whole different level. “I don’t belong here.”
“You do, even though it pains me to admit it. I convinced myself that my love would sustain you through the worst of it. It’s clear that my love wasn’t enough.” Straightening, the Erlking returned to his throne and collapsed into it. His hands pressed against the sharpened thorns, and I realized as I stared into his eyes that they hurt him and always had. “If I had known how desperate you had become, then I might have changed things. Before I kept you all to myself, but it’s better that you have found companions. They will make what I must do to you easier to bear if you decide to stay.”
The book dropped from my numb fingers, falling open on one of the dozens of hand-drawn pictures through the text. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the girl in the long dress kneeling at the Erlking’s feet wore my face. “This is a trick.”
“The fae cannot lie,” he replied simply. “You have no choice but to believe me when I say that you are Princess Liminalia, sole daughter of Morgause, the Queen of Air and Darkness who rules the Unseelie Court. You are the other half of my tortured soul.”
I wanted to convince myself that he was lying, this was just another trick. But his words resonated like a pa
in so deep that I felt it in my bones. “This doesn’t make sense. I have a life and human parents. I remember my childhood, even the terrible parts.”
“The magic you used to be reborn in the human world is beyond my understanding, but somehow you managed it.” The Erlking closed his eyes, seeming pained. “You accomplished much in your quest to escape us.”
“Us?”
“The power of your life force sustains my magic,” he replied simply. “The same magic that I use to maintain this realm. Without it, everything here will fade away into dust and darkness.”
I turned back to Puck and Tamlin. “Including you?”
Puck’s lips trembled as Tamlin bowed his head.
“You should not blame them. They had no idea who you were when I first set them on your path.” The Erlking held up the lariat so that the colored stones caught in the light. “And they did not understand until much too late that you hold the key to our very survival.”
Without warning, the Erlking launched from his throne and rushed toward me. Before I could react or run, his hands were at my throat and squeezing hard. Darkness filled my vision as my chest burned from lack of oxygen. The sounds of a sword swinging through the air and grunts of pain filled my ears, although I saw nothing. The hands slid from my neck, and I collapsed into comforting arms. When my vision cleared, I saw that it was Puck cradling me against his chest while Tamlin stood between us and the throne with his sword drawn.
“My apologies. Our nature compels me to violence that will worsen with time.” The Erlking was back lounging on his throne, one leg thrown over the arm with its razor-sharp thorns. “Their feelings for you are legitimate, fully forged by this journey you took together. I can only hope they continue to protect you from my worst impulses. Perhaps this time, things could be different.”
I wanted to be angry with them, castigate their lies of omission. But if I chose to believe all this was true, then it only made sense that they would do whatever it took to fix it. And neither of them had sabotaged me, I never would have reached the castle in time without their help.