by Ron C. Nieto
“I hold no high hopes she ever will.”
“The vote of confidence is heartwarming,” Lily said, anger and embarrassment hot in her cheeks. Again, she spoke before she could filter her words.
“The mere fact that you are in full possession of your wits is a vote of confidence, Herald,” said Marast in a tone that might have been polite and placating if it hadn’t leaked so much amusement. “Now, to business. I trust you understand the role you are meant to play?”
Lily nodded. It seemed a safe answer, and it also seemed to be satisfying enough, for Marast nodded back and didn’t press for details.
“Then, if you are ready.” He didn’t complete the sentence. Instead, he gestured to the side with an easy flourish and led the way toward the river, which ran a few yards farther down.
It shouldn’t have been possible, not with his finery and his elegant manners, but after no more than two steps, Lily found it was hard to keep up with Marast. He had melted into the forest, blending in with the dappling light as if he were nothing but a mirage of phantom motes and diamond dust. The forest itself didn’t stir with his passing—he flowed through it, much like Troy. The only difference was that he felt less like a graceful predator and more like a soundless ghost.
They didn’t have to go far, but even so, Lily found she lost the trail at one point.
Troy, who had dropped back to take the rear of their loose marching formation and walked at her shoulder, nudged her in the right direction with a discreet hand at the small of her back. She thanked him just as discreetly, with a barely-there nod that had her chin dipping a fraction of an inch for a fraction of a moment.
It was still enough to make him smirk, and Lily felt another blush creeping up on her when she thought of yet another notch in the long, long list of debts Troy didn’t keep for her.
Thankfully, Marast’s voice kept her from dwelling on it.
“Here it is,” he said, brushing aside the branch of a gnarled bush. “Herald, if you will.”
Half-sunken into the mud laid the knapsack. It was stained and battered, but it remained whole and Lily held her breath as she picked it up. The act felt less momentous than it should have, but she choked on emotion anyway.
The contents of the sack shifted in her grasp, and beside the horn, she felt the shape of her grandmother’s notebook.
“Well done,” said Marast in a low croon that contrasted with Troy’s silence. “Now, onward to the heart of Winter.”
C H A P T E R VII
Finally, Winter. After endless walking through mortal and fay realms, and more faerie path crossings than Lily cared to count, they arrived to the unassuming entrance to the Unseelie Court. When they approached, the double gates fell open with a whisper. Beyond the threshold, an open foyer led to a set of marble stairs descending into the hill. Lily couldn’t see where the light came from, for there were no windows and no chandeliers, but the pink, smooth stone sparkled under a warm ambient brilliance that made the cave shine as if it were an open courtyard.
Because it’s a cave, right?
From the outside, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Crumbling gates of harsh, unadorned stone set on the side of a low, barren hill. They would open to a barrow of old times or to a cave, and both options had seemed fitting at the time as the abode of the Unseelie faeries—the monsters of the old tales, hiding alongside the corpses where the light and warmth of summer would never reach.
Instead, those gates had unveiled a grand hall so magnificent it would make royalty weep, and it felt more welcoming than the land under the sun had.
“How does Her Majesty’s court compare to the Seelie lands you have visited so far?” asked Marast, as if he had read her thoughts.
Lily shook her head, swallowing and trying to drink in the view.
“It doesn’t compare to anything I’ve ever seen before,” she replied at last. It was the truth, too. Perhaps she had seen pictures of places as regal, as beautiful as this one. Pictures from the mortal world, depicting palaces in Italy or somewhere like that, carved by centuries of patronage of the arts. They would be places where Michelangelo or Raphael had left their imprint. Perhaps those places existed and she had seen them, and they were as aesthetically astonishing as this one. But the feeling of otherness? The eeriness of finding this when you expected darkness and dampness? The knowledge of standing somewhere impossible out of time? All of that was unique. Breathtaking. Humbling. And the full impact of it must have been written all over her face, plain for all to see, because Marast chuckled and led the way down the stairs without another word.
“An apt answer,” Troy murmured over her shoulder, grazing her limp hand with his fingertips. “Faeries do not like to be compared. Each one of us enjoys believing we are the one and the best.”
There was enough humor in his voice to let Lily know he had realized she truly was speechless and overwhelmed by a sight she didn’t expect, but still he gave her a way to claim it had been a smart move on her part. Very nice of him, but Lily didn’t care enough to thank him—he wouldn’t appreciate such a blunder here, and besides, she was otherwise occupied blushing at his sudden proximity. Biting her tongue before she made a fool of herself, she hurried to catch up with Marast.
The stairs were immense. Low and wide, Lily calculated an armed battalion could easily parade up and down. She certainly felt dwarfed, despite the two tall men flanking her.
Men. Faeries. Whatever.
Something else hit her then. The entrance to the Winter Court was empty.
No guards. No courtiers. Not a single soul.
“Where’s everyone?” she asked when they reached the foot of the stairs. The ceiling, vaulted as if it was indeed the hollowed interior of a hill that rose more than fifty feet over their heads, caught her whisper and sent it echoing down the hall.
As if conjured by her question, the double doors at the end of the hall opened on silent hinges and a single figure walked through. It was a woman, her impossibly long hair the same shade of blond as Marast’s. It fell in waves that framed a delicate face with skin white as snow, and her light blue-gray eyes were big and luminous but did little to add color to her figure. She wore a simple gown that might have been made of white silk, except for the fact that silk would be too coarse compared to the flowing material of her skirts. By all accounts, the woman should have looked bland, too pale and wearing too much white, but that was as far from the truth as one could get. She was gorgeous, ethereal, and the smile she gave them when they met halfway transformed her quiet and regal visage into a radiant sun. Just as Lily had known the moment she saw Marast, now she could tell that the woman was an Unseelie sidhe, and the feeling of inadequacy she got from standing in front of her almost made her cry.
“No comparisons,” Troy reminded her in a whisper at the same time the stunning woman greeted them.
“Welcome back, Royal Hunter,” she said, her voice both husky and musical. “The tidings you bring will gladden many a heart. Her Majesty invites you to share your success at her table tonight. Welcome back, wanderer,” she continued, addressing her smile to Troy. “A long time you have spent away from home, but your heart has remained always loyal. Her Majesty is pleased to have you before her once again. And you, dear guest”—she finally turned her attention to Lily—“be welcome to our fair court. Her Majesty recognizes your role in the events that will come.”
Neither Troy nor Marast replied a single word, so Lily bit her tongue and tried hard to believe she wasn’t being awfully rude. It didn’t work, so she compromised by offering an awkward half-curtsy that made the sidhe woman smile wider while she fought not to die of embarrassment.
“Come,” she said, turning to the doors she had come from with a graceful swirl that made her gown dance around her ankles. “I shall lead you to your accommodations. It is Her Majesty’s hope that you shall be comfortable while you remain with us.”
She led the way out of the hall and into a corridor, somehow airy and as warmly bright as the ent
rance had been. Their steps resonated off the polished marble floors, echoing a thousand times and more under the tall arches and around the ornate columns. The echo drew Lily’s eye to yet another detail—everything was empty. Beautifully, starkly empty. No paintings, no tapestries, no statues hiding in the alcoves meant to house them. The corridor led to another corridor, and then to another, and the reality of it didn’t change. A pair of guards stood by a set of doors they passed by, but other than that, the court was quiet and lonely and devoid of any adornment beyond the smooth pink marble and the excellent craftsmanship that had shaped it.
At one point, Marast stopped and turned to take a different direction.
“I will see to it that you are summoned before Her Majesty tonight,” he said, breaking the heavy silence. “As per our agreement, the honor shall be mine, but I have decided to inform her of your role in my success. It is only fair.”
Lily looked back over her shoulder and studied him. There was a twist to his lips that wasn’t quite a smile, and when she turned to Troy, she saw the wicked smirk that confirmed her suspicions. Marast wasn’t doing them any favors by putting them in the spotlight, but how could they protest? They had agreed to do as told, after all.
Besides, if the sidhe woman’s greeting was anything to go by, the Unseelie Queen already knew about Troy’s and her involvement.
“Okay,” she said.
“It shall be our pleasure,” Troy added, sounding like it would truly be all about pleasure.
Marast nodded, unperturbed by Troy’s tone, and then he left. The sidhe woman, who had clearly followed the exchange with interest, began walking once more.
“Come,” she said. “Your rooms are close, and I am sure you are eager to reach them. It appears you must prepare for this eve’s feast, and I imagine there will be much to do after your travels and trials.”
They weren’t close, by Lily’s standards. They still had to walk what felt like miles of empty corridors, until she felt hopelessly lost, before they stopped in front of a set of double doors identical to any other set they had passed by before.
“These will be your chambers while you remain with us as an honored guest,” the sidhe said, throwing the doors open to reveal a huge room dominated by a queen-sized bed. Closer to the door, almost partitioning the space, a settee and two matching chairs arranged around a low table acted as an antechamber of sorts. Beyond, against the far wall, a solid table topped with writing implements served as an office. To the side, a chest of drawers and a vanity completed the ensemble.
It was nothing at all like the sumptuous rooms they had been assigned at the Seelie Court, but the simple decoration, reliant on noble wood and sparse adornments, still made Lily feel like rabble.
“Th—” She bit the inside of her cheek. “They are adequate,” she amended.
“A bath will be sent for you, along with anything else you might have need of to prepare for this eve’s event,” the sidhe said, graciously ignoring Lily’s unsteady words. “Now, if you will, Kelpie? I shall accompany you to your suite.”
Lily had begun to make her way into the room, but she stopped as if struck by lightning.
She had thought Troy would stay with her. She had counted on it.
Whirling around, she fixed him with a look that might have shown more desperation than she cared to admit. His expression didn’t change, but still she could read his thoughts like an open book. “You feel safer sleeping with the monster?” He had thrown her the question like a challenge before, and now the words kept playing over and over in her mind. He knew it, and that’s why his lips pulled up into that infuriating smirk of his. She was sure of it.
“I always stay in the same suite, dear Hevana,” he said after a moment, not making a move to either leave nor cross the threshold into the room. “I shall find my way to it.”
He said nothing else, but Lily heard the unspoken words loud and clear. Alone. At a later moment. She swallowed while the sidhe woman—Hevana—allowed her surprise to manifest in a slow, deliberate blink.
He has just dismissed her, Lily thought, unable to wrap her mind around it.
“As you wish,” Hevana said, apparently having reached the same conclusion.
Troy just nodded.
He’s staying for me, Lily realized, and that was even harder to understand.
She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to.
C H A P T E R VIII
Troy closed the door as soon as Hevana left and waited a few moments, his head tilted to the side. Then, he nodded to himself and approached Lily at the center of the room. The hint of the amused smirk still danced about his lips, and it helped her crawl back from the edge of shock and focus on mundane matters.
“This is not what I expected,” she said, gesturing around to encompass the room, and by implication, the whole court. Walking to an upholstered settee and dropping the knapsack with the Horn and the notebook by her feet, she sat down with a heavy sigh.
“What did you expect?” Troy paced slowly around her, forcing her to crane her neck to watch his features. They displayed true curiosity.
“Ice. Snow. Cold. Foreboding Gothic castles?”
Troy laughed. “Truly, Lily?”
“Well, this is supposed to be the Winter Court, isn’t it? I thought it’d be more . . . wintry.” Lily closed her eyes and allowed herself a small smile. She could see now how naive that must sound to him, but she had expected every silly cliché to be true.
The settee shifted a little as he sat beside her and she blinked, turning and finding him closer than expected. He felt more intense than expected, too.
“What do you believe winter entails, Lily?”
She frowned, not only because the question was strange, but also because he was strangely serious about asking it.
“As I said, winter is about cold and darkness.” She licked her lips, and Troy just waited her out in silence, until she shrugged and went on. “It’s about dead things, bare trees buried in the snow, and about waiting until spring comes about so everything can start over again.”
“Ah.” Troy sat back and smiled wryly. “Your concern about facing the Unseelie monsters is no wonder then.”
Lily studied him and then thought back to endless wintry days back at her parents’, in Manchester. Night came early and left late. The cold air cut through to the bone, until you were so frozen not even your teeth could chatter. Snow storms followed the wild rains of fall, and some weeks it was impossible to walk anywhere, despite the salt and the hard work of the emergency teams. No one wanted to be outside, under the cruel weather, any longer than strictly necessary. People ran from one safe place to the next, hunched shoulders and bent heads.
She didn’t remember ever spending the winter in Scotland, but she imagined it would be even harsher than down in the Midlands.
“What is Winter all about, then?” she asked.
His wry smile became a sharp grin, full of teeth.
“Survival,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Pointless questions again?”
“Would it kill you to explain?”
“It just might. You mortals do have a saying, do you not? ‘Being bored to death?’”
Throwing her head back, she groaned. It was childish and silly, but she really felt like throwing a temper tantrum right there and then, to demand he speak like a normal person would.
Holding a conversation. Is it too much to ask for?
Except he wasn’t normal. He wasn’t even a person. She needed to stop forgetting that. And in his own way, having a conversation was just what he was doing at that very moment.
He had stayed for her, after all.
“So, the whole point of winter is surviving it. I don’t see how that improves any upon my view.” The ceiling wasn’t marble, she noted while staring skyward. It had been painted an iridescent white that looked a bit like the smooth inner side of a seashell.
“Not the act of surviving, but the fact of survival,”
he said.
“That’s the same thing.” Upon closer inspection, maybe it wasn’t painted. Maybe it had been covered, like some icons of Saints would be wrapped in gold leaves back home. “Sometimes I think you make up your own word games just to mess with me.”
“Sometimes I do.” Troy ran a fingertip down the line of her nose, as if he were drawing her profile, and Lily stopped breathing. “Not this time.” He reached the upturned tip, causing her to cross her eyes, and continued down with a feather touch across her lips and down her chin. “The Unseelie are called the Winter Fay, and the name suits us well. However,” he tilted Lily’s head back down and to the side so she would meet his eyes, “what defines us is not the hardship we survive, but our being alive despite it.”
“Why do you get the evil faerie tag then?” She tasted a drop of fresh water on her lips when she spoke, left behind in his meandering trail.
“Because mortals do love their neat labels.”
“Troy.” Twisting to face him more fully, she took the chance to escape his lingering grip. It didn’t let her think straight. “I saw the bogeys. And the redcaps. They did fit the label. They were monsters.”
“Were they?” He shrugged, reclined on the settee, facing her, the very picture of ease.
“They tried to eat me.” In case he had forgotten. She never would. Sleep hadn’t eluded her so far because she was bone-deep tired by the time she caught a chance to rest, but she knew the nightmares would come the moment she stopped running.
“A starving fox would eat the hen. I imagine the hen would feel quite traumatized by it, too.”
He had a point, but Lily ignored it. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward. She had caught on to something, and she chased it down like a hound. “You don’t usually do this. You don’t usually spend this long talking about something that isn’t a plan.” She paused. “You don’t even discuss your plans all that much.”