Hidden Crown

by Emma L. Adams

  The merrows had had enough. Yanking at the kelp ensnaring them, they swam away into the shadows, leaving us a clear path to escape into the village. I swam with Coral into the blue, above the stone houses and out of the Sea Kingdom.

  As we swam, my left ankle burned with pain, while my right hand felt bruised or sprained. A cut on my face stung painfully, made all the worse by the salt water. My lungs seared, my eyes starting to tear up. More time had passed than I’d thought if the spell was running out. Come on, Hazel. You can do it.

  My head broke the surface of the water, which turned from a glimmering expanse of ocean into the murky pond in my garden. I sucked in air, catching my balance as the torrents of salt water vanished into nothingness. Coral climbed out of the shallow pond, while I stood ankle-deep in pond weed.

  I spat out a mouthful of salty water. “Sorry, Coral, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to the Sea Kingdom anytime soon.”

  “I wouldn’t in your position either,” she said. “I suppose you understand why I didn’t stay at home.”

  I waded out of the pond. “Your brother did.”

  She pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. “Our mother wants him to take her place when she dies. She won’t live as long as a Sidhe since she’s half-blood, like us. Which makes us more quarter-blooded, really, but it’s pretty much the same to the faeries.”

  No kidding. One drop of mortal blood was enough to ensure a lifespan as short as a human’s. “So she hasn’t been Queen that long, in comparison to the Erlking.”

  She shook her head. “She’s been deteriorating for years, too. My brother and I were initially invited underwater to meet her in case she needed to retire early. Then she revealed she was our mother.”

  “So you didn’t know before then.”

  That must be why she didn’t act like the other nobles. She hadn't grown up among them.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t know about her talisman either, for that matter.”

  “I didn’t know the Erlking traded it to the Sea Queen in person,” I said. “I guess that might be why the Sidhe suspected she might have had a role in the Erlking’s death. But it’s not from Summer. The talisman, I mean. Not originally.”

  “Really? Where is it from?”

  The sincerity in her tone disarmed me. I hadn’t known there were still faeries who didn’t know about the gods or their magic. The Sea Queen’s words resonated in my mind. A place with no natural light, cast in shadow.

  “The Grey Vale,” I said. “The part of Faerie with no magic, where the Sidhe send their exiles to die. Has your Queen ever been there?”

  If she never left the water? Probably not. But she’d known of them, either through rumours or some other means.

  “The exiles from the Courts?” Her brow furrowed. “Oh. You mean the ones who attacked Earth. No, of course she hasn’t. She hasn’t left the water in over two decades. If she was ranting at you, she likely didn’t mean anything personally by it.”

  I was sure the Sea Queen knew more than she let on, but if the Sidhe wanted to accuse her of murder, I’d prefer for Coral and me not to suffer the consequences.

  “She seemed insistent that nobody from outside got into the palace and took the talisman, but I’m not sure I trust her judgement.” I removed a strand of pond weed from my circlet. “Still, the Sidhe only said we had to talk to her. If they want to question her further, they can bloody well do it themselves.”

  I headed to the ambassadors’ palace an hour later, after taking a long hot shower and changing into clean clothes. Lady Aiten waited for me in the tapestried room.

  “What is your report?” asked Lady Aiten. The other Sidhe didn’t seem to be around, which was one point in my favour.

  “The Sea Queen is not capable of having committed the murder,” I said. “The talisman is under constant guard in her palace and would be difficult to smuggle out. She herself hasn’t left the Sea Kingdom in decades.”

  “I’m told she’s infirm,” said Lady Aiten. “Weak. Easy to overpower and manipulate.”

  “If you want to verify that, feel free.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I was only able to stay a short time due to the water-breathing spell. I did what you asked and confirmed the Sea Queen wasn’t responsible for the Erlking’s death.”

  “You did not confirm that her talisman wasn’t used to commit the murder,” said Lady Aiten.

  “If the Sea Queen or one of her people had killed the Erlking, they would have brought his talisman back into their kingdom,” I told her. “I saw no evidence of its presence.”

  “Not if she cast it into the ocean,” she said.

  Anyone would think she’d drop dead on the spot if she admitted she’d been wrong. “She wouldn’t have done the same to the crown. Didn’t you put an enchantment on it that stops it from being removed from Faerie? I understand why you wouldn’t do that to the staff, but if you need the crown in order to name a new monarch, it seems like common sense.” Whatever the case, I was sick to the back teeth of the Sidhe aiming for the easiest target instead of doing their own dirty work.

  “That is none of your concern, mortal,” she said. “The independent Courts have everything to gain from removing the Erlking.”

  “Gain?” I said. “More like lose. The Summer Court’s army is bigger than any other except Winter’s. Besides, if I’d pushed further, she might have turned that talisman on me, and you’d be one Gatekeeper short.”

  “You overvalue your life,” she said coldly.

  I stared right back. “I wasn’t aware that not wanting to meet an early death was such a foreign concept to you. Your entire society is built on evading death, isn’t it?”

  Her sharp gaze hit me like a slap to the face, and I found myself deeply glad for the defensive shield preventing her from striking me with magic. “Be careful, Gatekeeper. Not everyone believes you should retain your position. If the new monarch decides to remove your status, you will lose all the protections that come along with it.”

  She thinks the next King or Queen will try to get rid of the Gatekeepers? Maybe the Sea Queen’s comment about me being a tool was the truth, at least in terms of the vow that held my family captive, but I hadn’t forgotten my childhood promise to escape the curse. On the other hand, turning my back on the Courts in a time of peril didn’t sit right with me. If I walked away, who would stop the Sidhe’s wrath from engulfing humanity along with their own realm?

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her. “In the meantime, I’d invite you to reconsider arresting the Sea Queen based on pure conjecture, unless you want to make enemies of all the other independent Courts.”

  And with that, I left the room, almost walking into Darrow in the lobby.

  “Oh, hi,” I said without much enthusiasm. “Please tell me I don’t have any more ambassadorial missions today. I just got threatened by the Sea Queen for accusing her of murder on behalf of a group of people who can’t even decide whether to celebrate their leader’s death. I’m not in the mood for diplomacy.”

  “The Sidhe have come to a decision,” he said. “The Erlking’s funeral has been scheduled for tonight. They wish to honour his memory before the heir is crowned, and it’s their belief that this will settle some of the animosity that has been brewing in the Court.”

  “Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow. “They want to put a bunch of Sidhe in the same room with a vat of elf wine and expect the hostility to just go away? You know, I take it back. I think the indecisiveness was better.”

  “There’ll be strict rules on who can enter,” he said.

  “So we’re not invited.”

  “We are,” he said. “As security.”

  Well, shit. “Security? For whom? If the Sidhe get into a brawl, I’m staying out of it, thanks.”

  “Our task is to watch for outside trouble,” he said. “In other words, those rebels who believe the Erlking survived.”

  Oh. “That, I can do. Those three fought like they’d just crawled out of Lord N
iall’s wine barrel.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m more concerned that their message will get through to the other attending Sidhe, but they shouldn’t be any trouble to handle.”

  “They still have their magic, though. Not like the other outcasts.” If another king took the throne, they were in the shit, but they could still make our life difficult in the meantime.

  “They do,” he said, “but there are long-term effects to betraying their Court vows. Besides, as soon as a new monarch is crowned, they’ll be forced to either pledge their loyalty to their ruler or to find a new home.”

  A new home. Aka, the land of the outcasts… and where the person who’d stolen the Erlking’s talisman must be hiding.

  I wished I could talk to someone in the know about the Sea Queen’s bizarre comments. Coral knew little about the outcasts, and now Lord Kerien was dead, too. Who else could possibly be trustworthy enough not to blab to the Sidhe? Not Darrow. Like hell was I making him my confidant after he’d approved the Sidhe’s plan to throw me into the deep end—literally.

  And now I was about to go back to the first place I’d witnessed the dead arrive in Faerie from the depths of the outcasts’ land and hope it didn't end up being a repeat performance.

  15

  I was far from in the mood for a party or a funeral, but Darrow left me to my own devices when I returned to the Gatekeepers’ training grounds. After a meal and a power nap, I felt almost normal again.

  Back to her cheery self, Coral bounded into my room with a dress draped over her arm and a bottle of healing salve.

  “For your wounds,” she added. “Those merrows are nasty.”

  “They are.” I took the dress from her. It wasn’t a dress, in fact, but some kind of robe with gold trimmings. “This is my guard uniform?”

  “You’ve got it,” she said. “Some of us will be stationed outside the palace to make sure nobody gets close to you.”

  “You’ll be guarding the security guards.” I tipped some of the salve into my palm and rubbed it into the marks left by the merrows’ fingers on my upper arms. “Do the merrows typically come so close to the palace?”

  She moved in to help me reach another cut on my upper back. “They aren’t supposed to, but they probably caught your scent.”

  “Ugh.” I massaged the salve into the sharp gouges left by their webbed fingers. “Yeah, I know they don’t typically attack sea faeries. Are you sure they weren’t sent after me?”

  “No.” She reached for the salve and helped me massage it into my shoulders. “You might have gathered that the Queen has not been well for a while. I think things will be better when my brother takes her place on the throne.”

  “As long as Summer doesn’t declare war by then,” I added. “I hope I did the right thing. Lady Aiten didn’t really give me much leeway, and the last thing I wanted was to have to go back down there and threaten someone who owns a bow that can’t miss.”

  “You fulfilled the requirements of the mission, so the Sidhe can’t complain,” she said. “I think the mission was an excuse to get us out of the Court while they argued over the Erlking’s funeral arrangements.”

  “You aren’t wrong.” Though the funeral itself would offer ample opportunity for them to make mischief.

  Coral left to change into her own uniform, while I slipped on the robe. Green with gold cuffs, it made me look oddly regal for a security guard. I adjusted the circlet above the Gatekeeper’s mark. I’d hardly been able to feel it underwater, perhaps due to my distance from the Court. You had a lucky escape back there, Hazel.

  Someone knocked on my door. “Are you ready?”

  “Sure.” I walked to the door and found Darrow waiting outside. He wore a mirror of my own outfit, a fitted green-and-gold ensemble that brought out the greener side to his eyes and made his silver hair look even brighter. Damn, his magic was strong today. He must be glamoured like hell to hide any traces of his Winter magic in case any of Summer’s fae sniffed it out. “You clean up nicely.”

  “Likewise.” He reached out and I tensed, expecting him to undo my glamour. Instead, he traced the edge of one of the cuts on my collarbone, covered in salve but not quite hidden. “You didn’t say you were injured.”

  “Those merrows hit harder than you do,” I said.

  “Merrows,” he said. “In the Sea Court?”

  “They thought I was a free snack,” I said. “Lucky me. Please tell me that’ll be the last diplomatic mission involved in my Trials.”

  “I can’t promise that, but you did pass,” he said. “There won’t be an official announcement of your presence at this celebration.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not offended. I already had my party, remember?” I walked with him into the main cave, where the other half-Sidhe gathered in groups. Their own uniforms were green and black, nowhere near as fancy as Darrow’s and mine. “Are they our bodyguards or the guests’?”

  “Both,” he said. “Since Lord Niall’s revels have been attacked twice in the last year.”

  “Haven’t they considered using a different venue?” I said.

  “There was a vote, and Lord Niall won.”

  I’m not surprised. He’d probably bribed the other Sidhe with free elf wine. “This is a Trial, isn’t it?”

  At a guess… yes, it was. I was starting to think the Sidhe adapted the term whenever it suited them. Or whenever they wanted to make my life difficult.

  Oh, well. At least a party was familiar territory for me, unlike the depths of the ocean, and would help dispel my lingering unease about the Sea Queen and her ominous words.

  Lord Niall’s estate lay behind a gate made of living thorn bushes. While the half-Sidhe dispersed around the perimeter, we waited outside for our host.

  “So you’re the Gatekeeper,” said a soft, lilting voice.

  The master of revels himself stepped into view. His long silver hair was topped with a crown made of golden thorns. Loose green robes flowed to his feet, while vivid magic hummed in the depths of his eyes, making it impossible to look directly at him yet also impossible to look at anything else, either. I blinked hard, keeping my expression blank.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m Hazel Lynn.”

  “And you’re here to celebrate the life and death of our king.” He chuckled. “I imagine you had quite the start to your tenure as Gatekeeper.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  He was already halfway to wasted, at my estimation, given how his green eyes glittered with magic. I had more immunity than most, but I still found my body swaying towards him. Darrow placed a hand on my arm, and I jerked my gaze away from his impossibly beautiful face.

  Lord Niall’s attention went to Darrow, and a frown puckered his brow. “Do I know you?”

  Darrow dipped his head. “I’m in charge of the Gatekeeper’s Trials.”

  “Half-blood.” Lord Niall sniffed, then walked away, swaying with every other step.

  “He’s been at the elf wine,” I murmured to Darrow. “Better hope we’re not the only security on duty tonight. I doubt he’ll be much help if anyone crashes the party.”

  He wasn’t even carrying a talisman. Annoyance prickled at me. If not for their immortality, half the Sidhe would have perished from sheer stupidity by now. It was just like faeries to put on a magnificent revel when their Court was falling apart around their ears, too. Still, maybe it was better to let them blow off steam, celebrate their leader’s long life, and then get on with figuring out the important things. Like the heir, for instance.

  Darrow and I took up our positions on either side of the gates, and before long, the first Sidhe began to arrive on horseback. They hadn’t taken their cues from funerals in the mortal realm, because everyone dressed in the same bright finery as usual. Some wore coats made of feathers, flowers or leaves, some wore armour, others wore little clothing at all. All were armed with swords and spears, knives and bows. With each new arrival, the current of magic humming around the place built, until
Lord Niall’s manor house shone with so much glamour that if I was a normal human, I’d have been knocked senseless within five seconds.

  Between the royals came their attendant brownies, elves, and hobgoblins, while piskies and sprites flitted above our heads. There were also a surprising number of Unseelie who thought they could get away with pretending to be on the guest list.

  “I am from the borderlands!” a goblin insisted. “You can’t throw me out.”

  “You have frost on your ears,” I said. “And I can smell Unseelie on you. If the Winter Queen wants to meet with the Summer Sidhe, she can send someone at a more appropriate time. I’m not going to be responsible if one of the Seelie knights brains you.”

  He tried to slip some gold into my pocket, and I trod on his foot. “None of that.”

  “Cruel, cruel human!”

  “Good lord.” I rolled my eyes after him as he scuttled away. “I should have seen that one coming.”

  “He’s one of her spies, of course,” said Darrow. “The Unseelie Queen is keen to hear the news of the Erlking’s successor.”

  “I bet she is.”

  Is she your Queen? I still couldn’t puzzle out who his loyalties lay with. Definitely not the Sea Queen. I couldn’t think of any small independent Courts who employed half-bloods with both Summer and Winter magic and a talent for glamour, but Summer had trusted him enough to stop any riffraff getting into Lord Niall’s house.

  Once the gates closed to new guests, we moved back into the grounds to keep a closer eye on the festivities. I understood why the others had voted to host the revel here, because Lord Niall’s home was magnificent even by Sidhe standards. A maze of cobbled paths wound between elaborately carved statues, glittering fountains, and opulent tables covered with all manner of dishes and wines. The walls and ceiling shone bright with flowers, while vibrant Summer magic surrounded the Sidhe in a green haze.

  Thorny plants cloaked arched windows with a clear view of the courtyard on the right-hand side, where a band played a melody that wormed into my head despite my best efforts. Darrow arched a brow at me as my walk turned into a waltz, and I gritted my teeth, managing to steer my limbs under control.