Grave Destiny

by Kalayna Price

  Well, that did complicate things. And I had no doubt it was true. On one of my first visits to Faerie, I’d lost my dagger in the winter court and it had reappeared later in the shadow court. Faerie wasn’t exactly sentient, but it definitely had a will of some sort.

  While Kordon had very little blood on his back, and no puddle of blood around where he’d been pinned to the floor, now that he was flipped over, we could see that dark blood soaked the front of his pale tunic. Unlike the blood near the bed, this blood was dry and crusted, flaking in places. None of the blood had transferred to the floor where he’d been lying. He definitely didn’t die here.

  I avoided the hole in his chest where the sword had protruded, though that wasn’t even where the darkest concentrations of blood were gathered. Falin touched the green skin at Kordon’s neck and it shifted, revealing the deep gash nearly bisecting his throat. I looked away.

  Falin tried to lift one of Kordon’s hands, but the goblin’s joints were locked, his hands stuck in position, slightly elevated from the floor now that he was on his back. Falin tried to turn his head with the same result.

  “He’s in full rigor mortis?” I asked, trying to only watch from the corner of my eye.

  “Seems that way,” Falin said, moving to examine the goblin’s hands instead of trying to break the rigor.

  “Is that important?” Dugan asked.

  I glanced back at him. “Have you ever seen a body in rigor before?”

  He looked thoughtful before shaking his head. “I do not believe so. I’m only familiar with the term from having read it in a human novel once. Honestly, at the time I assumed it was something fanciful the author invented.” I must have looked surprised, because he gave me a small half smile. “Very few tangible things make it from the mortal realm to such a deep place in Faerie as the shadow court, but novels are one I go out of my way to acquire. Fantasy novels from before the Magical Awakening are a personal favorite, but I’ve acquired a few mystery novels over the years.”

  The Prince of Shadows and Secrets was a reader. You learn something every day.

  “It’s not fictional,” I said. “You haven’t seen it because bodies don’t decay here. But for Kordon to be in full rigor, he had to have been in a realm that touches the land of the dead for at least six hours, probably closer to twelve—if goblin physiology passes through the same predictable patterns humans do, that is.”

  “Then . . .” he said, a truly mournful expression on his face. “It truly is already too late to revive him.”

  It seemed like I should try to console or comfort him, but I wasn’t good at that. Instead I turned to Falin. “Does the FIB have a medical examiner?” I knew they didn’t have their own morgue. He’d had me raise a shade in the Nekros City Precinct morgue once, but human authorities weren’t allowed to autopsy fae and any fae body found had to be turned over to the FIB. It was part of the agreements and peace treaties the fae had forged with the human government back in the early years of the Magical Awakening. I assumed the fear was that humans might murder fae for the sole purpose of dissecting them for science. So surely he had someone with a forensics background.

  Falin shook his head. “The fall court has a bean sidhe who has gone through a human university and internships, but while I have discussed it with the queen, no progress has been made on that front.”

  Sounds like the queen didn’t prioritize it. I wondered if Falin would agree to letting Tamara look over the bodies. She was Nekros City’s lead medical examiner as well as one of my best friends. I’d trust her completely with the task, but I doubted the court would feel the same way. Of course, depending on how my ritual went, it might be a moot point.

  After looking over Kordon, Falin moved on to Stiofan. I was curious to learn more about Stiofan’s condition after discovering Kordon was in rigor and soulless—he must have been in the human realm at some point—but I couldn’t get past the blood. It was everywhere. Splatters were on the curtains and the inside of the canopy top. Pools of it had soaked into the sheets and the pillow, as well as trailing down to puddle on the floor. I shivered and looked away.

  If Kordon had been planted in the court to throw suspicion on the shadow fae, the true murderers did a crappy job. Not only was Kordon suspiciously bloodless from his own wound, but there was no way he could have stabbed Stiofan so many times—let alone rip his rib cage open and remove his heart—without getting absolutely covered in the other fae’s blood as well. Who would believe such a sloppy frame job?

  I glanced at the ice guard. He’d believed it. Dugan had taken it at face value as well. The killer likely hadn’t considered that anyone would look deeper. A plausible enough story had been told with the bodies, if the viewer was only looking to confirm the preconceived conclusion of what was presented. It was the small details that made that story impossible. So whoever staged this probably had little knowledge of crime scene investigation.

  Which narrows our suspect pool down to almost every fae residing inside Faerie. Maybe most of the older changelings as well. Awesome.

  Falin made a sound and I looked his way before my brain caught up with the motion. He held a pillow splattered with blood and was studying it intently as if it held some new secret he hadn’t noted before.

  “Isn’t everything over there covered in blood?” I asked. My stomach begged me to turn away, but I forced myself to look, to try to see what had drawn Falin’s attention.

  “Yes, but this was beside him, bloodied-side down. That means it was flipped over at some point.” Falin examined both sides of the pillow, and then he leaned forward, studying Stiofan’s head. “I think it’s possible his face was covered with it.”

  “So the shade might not have seen who attacked him.” That would suck. I frowned. “That also means we are up to multiple killers. Someone to stab. Someone to hold the pillow and pin his arms.” Or someone with more than two arms. I glanced at the three-armed goblin. But no. Everything indicated he’d been dead before the attack.

  Falin had walked in the blood pool to get close enough to examine the body. Nori’s messenger bag had provided covers for his shoes, and he stripped off the now-bloody covers carefully and bagged them before heading back toward us. I frowned. His first two steps, before he removed the covers, now had bloody, vaguely shoe-shaped prints. They were the only recognizable footprints in the room. There were a couple other smudges, but they weren’t large enough or consistent enough to be footprints. So could the killer—or killers—fly like Nori? Or had they cleaned up the scene? I knew there was a technique the cops used to detect residual blood, but I had no idea what it was, only that it involved sprays and maybe special lights. I was guessing if Faerie didn’t like cameras, it would tolerate such techniques even less.

  I needed to raise the shades. My head was starting to hurt from all the speculation, so I was glad when Falin rejoined us and said, “I think we’ve learned all we can from the scene.” But then he had to spoil my relief by adding, “It’s time to see the queen.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The guard who had escorted us to the scene earlier had returned to his post, and the two that had been guarding the outside of the door were now collecting the bodies, so we were on our own to find the queen. Not that it looked like Falin needed any help.

  He set a quick pace down the seemingly endless halls. My pace was considerably less quick, Dugan getting ahead of me as I dawdled. I didn’t want to get left behind, though—getting lost in these icy halls was not how I wanted to spend my afternoon.

  Falin stopped at an archway that looked no different from dozens of others we’d passed. He waited for me to catch up and shot me a thin smile I could only guess was supposed to be encouraging, or perhaps a show of camaraderie, but it came off as worried. We did not have good news for the queen. It wasn’t bad news either. It was just rather . . . uncertain news, and from everything I knew about the qu
een, she would not be pleased by the ambiguity of the scene.

  “Wait here,” he said, shooting a glance at Dugan. The prince gave him an incredulous look, clearly assuming Falin intended to leave him behind, but when Falin grabbed my wrist and motioned me to the side, not through the door, Dugan simply crossed his arms over his chest, watching and waiting.

  “What?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

  Falin shot a conspicuous glance at my wrist, or, more accurately, the charm bracelet around it. “Do you still have that privacy charm?”

  I frowned but nodded, drawing the raw magic in my ring and pushing it into the small, lock-shaped charm dangling from my wrist. I hadn’t paid much attention to the persistent soft sounds of music that seemed to drift through all of Faerie until they all fell silent as the bubble of privacy snapped into place around us.

  Falin noted the change and began speaking immediately, though he kept his voice to barely a whisper. “The queen is likely to react badly to the Shadow Prince’s presence, even if the guards have already reported that he is with us.”

  “Shouldn’t you be telling him that, not me?”

  Falin ignored my interruption. “Do not get between the two of them. Do not come to my defense either, no matter what happens.”

  My eyes widened. “How bad are you expecting this to get?”

  Falin’s gaze went distant, considering the question, and he shook his head. “I’m not sure. The queen is still . . . not herself.”

  That surprised me. “I thought she was sane again now that she is no longer being poisoned.”

  His wince was small, only visible at the very edges of his eyes and mouth, but I caught it, and for a moment I thought he’d decided he’d said too much and wouldn’t answer. Then he whispered, “She is better, and she is not. The fact that her powers are nearing their peak with the approach of winter helps, but when it begins waning during spring . . .” He grimaced. “I’m not sure she will be able to hold her court, or even that Faerie will allow her to.”

  Which was bad news. I’d witnessed what had happened when she’d been poisoned and began losing control of her court. These halls had been a mix of blizzards and slushy ice melt. Faerie itself, at least in the winter court, had been a miserable and discordant place. And Falin had lost a lot of blood fighting duels as nobles noticed the faltering queen and tried to take her throne. When spring came, if Falin was correct, the duels would begin again, and as the Winter Knight, Falin would have to fight them. How long could he continue to win?

  “Do we have a plan I should know about?”

  He gave a half shrug. “Go in; I’ll report our current findings and that you intend to raise the shades. Hope to get out without bloodshed.”

  “Great. I’m guessing that since she summoned me, I can’t skip this?”

  The look he gave me was answer enough. “Keep your head down. And whatever you do, don’t mention that you’re betrothed.”

  My turn to wince. Yeah. That wasn’t high on my to-do list.

  He turned when I nodded my agreement. I followed, dropping the privacy bubble as I walked. Dugan watched us both, his dark eyebrow raised speculatively, but he didn’t say anything as we returned to the doorway.

  Falin walked in first, Dugan following close behind. I stepped into the doorway barely a heartbeat later, and emerged into an enormous room lined with shelves upon shelves of books. I’d never seen so many books in all my life, and I’d seen some pretty impressive libraries in my lifetime. The shelves were at least twenty feet high, and every last visible piece of wall space sported books in the enormous room. I was so busy gawking at the sheer volume of books that I didn’t immediately spot the people.

  The queen sat at a large table near the center of the room with a dozen scrolls spread across the icy surface before her. Two other tall figures leaned over the scrolls on either side of the queen, deep in discussion about something I couldn’t hear from the doorway. As I followed Falin closer, I could see that some of the scrolls appeared to be maps, while others boasted strings of text that were written not only in a language I didn’t know but also an alphabet I couldn’t identify.

  The woman beside the queen looked over first, straightening when she saw us, and I nearly stumbled. All thoughts of maps or scrolls fled from my mind as I registered her familiar features. I’d only met Maeve a handful of times before, but the last time I’d seen her, she’d been dead on the floor of the queen’s throne room.

  Apparently Falin wasn’t exaggerating about death being less permanent in Faerie.

  Lyell, another member of the queen’s council, was still saying something, gesticulating to the map, so the queen hadn’t looked up yet. I took a moment to dart a glance around the room. I half expected to see Blayne, the final member of the queen’s council. He’d also died last I heard, but judging by his absence, his condition must have been more lasting.

  We were only a few yards from the table when the queen finally turned. Falin immediately dropped to one knee, bowing deep before his queen. When I didn’t follow suit, he shot me a look and I obediently dropped into a curtsy, dipping my head but keeping my gaze up and locked on the queen. I didn’t want to be caught unaware because I was staring respectfully at the ground. Dugan remained standing.

  The queen gave us a grim smile and then her gaze landed on Dugan. Her eyes widened slightly, her smile failing, but that was the only overt sign of surprise she revealed. Pretty much everyone else we’d encountered so far had moved to attack Dugan on sight. The queen only raked her cold gaze over him before turning to Falin. Either she’d been forewarned so her surprise was only that he was still in the winter court, or she was biding her time.

  “Did you bring me a snake, Knight?”

  Falin shook his head, still bowing. “The Shadow Prince is here as a guest to help us in our investigation.”

  “I was unaware we needed help.” She smiled at Dugan, but it was a cruel thing, cold and menacing. “Though I imagine it would be of great help if an enemy of war were to walk right into my torture chamber. I have not spent much time in Rath recently.”

  “Hello to you as well, Cousin,” Dugan said, inclining his head fractionally to the queen.

  It was my turn to gape at him. Cousins? I had been told before that the nobility of Faerie were rather interconnected, and now that I looked at them, I could see some family resemblance. They had the same ebony hair with light eyes. The same sharp features, though those were common on most Sleagh Maith. I had to wonder if the Shadow King had sent the prince on this particular mission hoping the queen would show some leniency to her own cousin if he was caught in her territory. It certainly didn’t sound like the family tie was helping him much.

  “Declaring war prematurely would be unwise, my lady. And of the many traits I’ve heard attributed to you, ‘unwise’ has never been one of them,” Dugan said. His own smile was equal parts dazzling and menacing, and I wasn’t sure exactly how he accomplished that one, but it made me want to take a step away from him.

  “And why would it be unwise to attack an adversary, little prince?”

  And all pretense of familial friendship dropped.

  “Because it appears we have a mutual enemy who would like to see us at each other’s throats. If you waste your resources and energy on attacking shadow for perceived crimes, you will leave yourself weakened and an easy target for whoever it was who actually killed our fae.”

  “You say that as if you do not know who killed my noble. Was your courtier not found at the scene?”

  Dugan inclined his head. “He was. But your knight and Alexis have found evidence that he died before your fae was killed.”

  “Lexi?” The queen turned the nickname she’d given me into a purred question.

  Crap. I’d really been hoping I would not come under her scrutiny. I started to straighten from my curtsy, but her eyebrow shot up. Behind her, Lyell shoo
k his head ever so minutely. Right, she hadn’t released me to rise yet. I held back my sigh and hoped my legs wouldn’t shake from holding the awkward position as I considered her implied question.

  What Dugan had said wasn’t strictly true. It wasn’t a lie either, but we didn’t know when Stiofan had died. Without the land of the dead, his body could have been lying in Faerie for hours or for centuries unchanged. All we really knew was that Kordon’s body had been outside Faerie for a period between when he’d died and when he’d been pinned to the floor of Stiofan’s room. It seemed unlikely, but it was conceivable that the goblin had been complicit in the murder, left, been killed, and then his body returned to the scene of the crime. I couldn’t know for certain until we had more answers. The scene didn’t add up, but that didn’t exclude shadow from being behind the deaths.

  “Talking to the shades will hopefully shed some light on what really happened,” I finally said, committing to little.

  The queen considered me, her blue eyes narrowed and her full red lips compressed in a thoughtful line. “And I suppose you wish to bargain for a payment for raising these shades?”

  There was censure evident on Maeve’s face at the idea, and Lyell, whom the queen couldn’t see, looked worried at the queen’s tone. I wasn’t sure if his worry was on my behalf or simply because his day didn’t go well when she was unhappy, but it didn’t matter. I shook my head.

  “Not necessary. Your knight has already retained my services.” I didn’t mention that he was splitting them with Dugan.