The soldier’s chestnut eyes crinkled with mirth. “No one believes the girl bested Lords Ricinus and Abrus.”
The king turned to me, his brow raised. At least I think it was, as he didn’t have any facial hair. It was the kind of expression meant to prompt me to confess.
I pursed my lips. If he didn’t want to get into trouble, he shouldn’t have tricked me into making that unfair bargain. While he didn’t technically spirit Father away, it was his will and death magic that had commanded the corpses.
He let out a huff, and the soldier’s lips curved into an I-told-you-so smirk.
“Very well,” said King Drayce. “I will delay our departure until the morning.”
“Her Majesty was kind enough to assign you chambers.” The soldier gestured for me to follow him down the hallway.
I stiffened. As much as I despised King Drayce, there was something different about him. He lacked the mindless viciousness of most faeries and didn’t appear to be driven by the urge to consume humans. While he wasn’t completely evil, he was still a lying trickster I should have stabbed instead of clubbed with Father’s iron walking stick. Perhaps his serpentine appearance among the beautiful fae had given him a taste of what it was like to be the subject of others’ cruelty. The guards certainly didn’t give him the respect deserving of a king.
He placed a possessive arm around my waist. “The girl stays with me, Captain Stipe.”
For several moments, the two faeries stared at each other. King Drayce was about the same height to the soldier, but his calm demeanor reflected a confidence that he would be obeyed. Perhaps it was because he had the power to turn anyone into one of his marionettes. I shuddered at the memory of that slain faerie holding Father in his dead hands.
“We meet at the stables tomorrow at dawn.” Captain Stipe spun on his heel and marched down the hallway with his companions.
The tension around my shoulders eased a fraction, and I inhaled.
King Drayce led me back up the stairs to a large bedchamber featuring a huge, roaring fire, and a four-poster bed draped in black leather curtains similar to his armor. Empty, gilded frames hung all around the walls, and I wondered if they had once been mirrors or portraits.
The crow of a bird, far louder than any I had heard from a cockerel, filled the room.
My heart jumped. “What’s that?”
“The night fowl.” His face split into a grin, and he placed his large hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t take you for the nervous type.”
Blood drained from my face as I remembered the bargain we’d made earlier. I’d offered him my maidenhead in exchange for Father’s freedom. Even though the wretched faerie had given me the opposite, I fully expected him to demand his payment.
My gaze darted to the hearth. “I’ll sleep on the floor, and you can take the bed.”
The sharpness of his glare could have cut me in half. “Despite my appearance, I am not in the habit of forcing women.”
An angry, prickling heat surged through my veins, making my heart pound and my fists clench. “Fine words coming from a faerie who bargains for maidenheads.” I prodded him in the chest. “Besides, my bargain with the queen makes ours null and void, seeing as you brought him here, exposing him to danger and possible death.”
A snarl ripped from between his bared teeth. I flinched but held my ground. King Drayce leaned forward, looking like he would suffocate me with that scaly mouth. He loomed so close, I could smell the polish of his leather armor.
Instead of kissing me, he growled into my ear. “If you need saving, scream. Good night, Neara.”
He stormed out of the room, leaving me alone in his chambers and somehow feeling all the more afraid.
Chapter 7
Throughout the night, images of the queen and the faceless gancanagh plagued my thoughts. I imagined them tormenting Father and mocking his suffering. As much as I tried to push them away, they would slip back into the forefront of my mind.
Clad in my clothes and boots and baldric, I lay on the leather bed covering, staring at the ceiling of the four-poster until my vision blurred. My iron weapons pressed into my flesh, a welcome reassurance. Before I knew it, the first signs of sunlight streamed in through the chink in the leather curtains, and the door clicked open.
“Who’s that?” I pushed myself upright.
A sullen, blonde-haired girl set a tray on the bureau. She avoided my gaze and acted as though she couldn’t hear my question, then scurried out.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I swung my legs off the bed and padded across the room. Fluffy, white bread rolls sat on a plate, along with a pot of tea and small bowls, one containing berry conserve and the other containing honey.
I avoided the berry conserve, but the bread looked safe enough, as it was the usual wheat-flour and buttermilk fare. I wasn’t sure about the tea’s fragrant aroma, and I lifted the lid of the teapot to check for bits of fruit.
Of all the things a faerie could use to attack humans, their fruit was the worst. And that includes the venom of a gancanagh. The gancanagh toyed with women, drove them to ruination, and fed on their souls, but at least their torment ended after death. Faerie fruit kept humans in a stupor of servitude.
The magic of their fruit kept the body alive, pliant, subservient, while the soul stared out of seemingly dead eyes, screaming for release, screaming for death. It’s how the fae ensured their human servants never poisoned or killed them while they slept.
“What are you sniffing for, poison?” said a voice. From the rasp in its timbre, it could only be one person.
I replaced the lid. “It could be anything.”
“Queen Melusina won’t move against you until you’ve fulfilled your end of the bargain.”
I shuddered, imagining myself drained to a husk to extend the life of one of her human favorites. “And what about you?”
He stepped into view, wearing the same leather armor from yesterday. I could only see his profile, and in the dim light, he looked almost handsome with his long, black hair falling into his face. The way he positioned his body was peculiar. It was pointed toward the door, as though he was giving himself an escape route.
“I have no interest in causing you harm,” he said.
“Yet you dragged us here against our will. And now Father is suffering God-knows-what with the queen.”
He turned his back, shoulders hunched toward his ears. “If you have finished, we will leave.”
Clenching my teeth, I stuffed the bread rolls in the pocket of my skirt. If King Drayce was the type to get upset at every reminder at his own wrongdoing, then he shouldn’t have tricked me into that unfair deal.
We rushed through the palace’s dark passageways, with me jogging to keep up with his long, fast, and angry strides. The dagger and short sword in my baldric jumped with every movement. If he was offended or upset by any of my words, I didn’t care. The only thing keeping him from a dagger in the ribs was the fact that he served as a barrier between me and some truly hostile faeries.
I stared at a stretch of wall that comprised of blackened windows set within polished flint. “This isn’t the way we left last night.”
“The Apex Palace shifts itself to the whims of the queen. I am sure she will let us go eventually.”
I grunted and continued after him down a spiral stairwell and through a hallway whose walls opened into a vast, sunlit forest. “I thought the palace was up in the sky.”
He muttered something about this being the stronghold of the Fae Queen’s realm and explained that the magic of the Apex Palace allowed access to each of its courts. I stopped listening. Faerie magic, courts, and politics were no business of mine. All I cared about was getting the Blood of Dana and being one step closer to rescuing Father.
At the bottom of a narrow staircase stood a heavy, silver door. It opened into a sunny stable yard of glittering white stone. I stepped into the crisp morning, inhaling the citrus scents of birch and magnolia on the breeze. Translucent shards
of quartz crunched underfoot, stretching out to a series of buildings that seemed rendered in moonstone. White capall mounts snorted within their stables, tossing their heads.
Captain Stipe had already mounted his steed, a ruby-eyed beast whose breath curled out of its mouth like woodsmoke. “You are late.”
King Drayce turned to one of the human grooms. “Fetch my stallion.”
The servant’s eyes widened, but he bent into a quick bow and edged toward the single door that was locked. With hands that shook, he unhooked the latch and leaped aside. The door burst open, and a horse skeleton, larger than any of the capall, trotted out.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I swallowed back the urge to scream. I’d never seen a dead and fully decomposed horse before, but even I could tell that stallions didn’t have four-inch incisors curving out of their jaws. A breeze blew its long, silver mane off its face, revealing glowing-red coals within its skull sockets.
A bone-deep shudder seized my body, and I clenched my fists. To call it a creature was too optimistic a definition, and to call it a corpse would suggest that it had at least a covering of rotting flesh. The skeleton stood on its back legs, unfurled its wing bones, and roared.
The bottom fell out of my stomach, and I snapped my gaze to the scaly faerie. His foul death magic had to be making the bones walk.
I hissed, “What is that thing?”
“Enbarr. He was my father’s mount.” With the widest of smiles, King Drayce walked ahead and stroked the skeleton’s luxurious, quicksilver mane.
The beast calmed, and he nodded at the human, who threw on a saddle and fastened it with unusual quickness.
Enbarr tossed his head and snorted as if he thought the groom an idiot for his fear. My own feet shuffled back to the door on their own accord.
“I’m sorry for riding that mare,” crooned the king. “We were going to the mortal world, and—”
The creature interrupted him with a roar that rang in my ears.
“But the humans would have seen us.” The wheedling tone in King Drayce’s voice made me squint. Surely, he couldn’t be trying to placate a skeleton he’d animated with his own magic?
“Enough!” bellowed Captain Stipe. “We leave now.”
King Drayce mounted the skeleton and rode it over, holding his hand out to me.
I stepped back, hitting my rump on the door handle. “I’m not riding on that! Where’s the one from yesterday?”
He grabbed my arm and hoisted me, sidesaddle, onto the horse’s back. I screeched, expecting my hands to land on one of the protruding bones, but instead felt firm, yielding flesh.
King Drayce’s arm wrapped around my waist, encasing me with his warm, leathery scent. “We’re ready when you are, Captain Stipe.”
The captain and his soldiers cantered down a path carved out of the mountainside, and I wondered how the horses weren’t slipping on its smooth, flint surface. More importantly, why did King Drayce insist on riding a skeleton?
My insides trembled with every step the skeletal horse made on the hard rock. The beast’s warmth radiated through the leather saddle, making it feel like a living creature, yet one glance down at the ground visible between its ribs told me otherwise.
I snatched my gaze away, focusing instead on the landscape. Gentle, rolling hills of forestland stretched out for miles, a canopy of greens richer than anything I’d seen in the mortal world. The wind blew fresh, clean air, tinged with the scent of pine needles. My shoulders drooped. I was already missing the saltwater air of Calafort.
Enbarr nickered.
“Will it be able to fly?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Enbarr?” When I nodded, he said, “This horse is older than the fae. Older than Bresail itself.”
Two-by-two, the soldiers launched themselves off the mountainside, their steeds spreading wide, feathered wings. My pulse quickened. King Drayce hadn’t answered my question, and I couldn’t see how those wing bones could keep anything airborne, let alone a skeleton and two people.
My tongue darted out to lick my dry lips. “I don’t think we should—”
The skeleton leaped into the air, over the waiting soldiers, and into the sky. I jerked back, stomach lurching, then I fell into the faerie’s broad chest with a noisy gasp.
“What were you saying?” he murmured.
“N-nothing!”
A gust of wind rocked me back, and I clutched his strong, leather-clad thigh for balance, eliciting a playful growl from the wretched faerie. It was difficult enough understanding that a winged horse could fly, but yesterday’s trepidation was nothing compared to how my flesh crawled at being transported by a flying skeleton.
From behind us on the mountain’s ledge, Captain Stipe shouted at King Drayce to slow down, but Enbarr continued his ascent, soaring above miles of mist-covered forest.
It was hard to tell whether my teeth chattered because of the cool breeze or out of dread for his answer, but I had to ask, “What were those voices we passed yesterday?”
“Did your history books explain the Fomorians?”
I bowed my head. They were a race of supernatural beings, thought to be ancestors of the fae, but I’d always thought of them as mythical creatures. “I’ve never read a history book.”
“Can you even read?”
Bristling, I glanced away and fixed my gaze on the forest below. The patch we passed consisted of evergreens so tall, the spaces between them appeared black. Thin tendrils of mist meandered through the trees, making me shudder. Right now, my offense at King Drayce’s question was a welcome distraction for whatever lurked within the mist.
Turning back to my captor, I let out a sigh. My earliest memory was of sitting on Father’s lap, learning my letters while Mother baked fruit bread. I’d spent so much time studying with priests and alone with the leather-bound book that I could read as well as any scholar.
“I can write, too.”
“The Fomorians ruled over Bresail a millennium ago,” he said, as though he hadn’t caused me any offense. “They were demigods, I suppose, and monsters who used faeries as their slaves and humans as their cattle.”
My gaze slid down to the mist stretching around the treetops. “What happened to them?”
“The fae and druids worked together to bind their power and rid them from the land. It took the sacrifice of a thousand lives to banish the Fomorians, and now they dwell in the mist.”
“If humans and faeries were once allies, why are we enemies now?”
He drew back, looking me straight in the eye. “I was not aware of any animosity between our races.”
I bit my bottom lip. The last thing I wanted to do was admit to all my acts of sabotage and slaughter. Instead, I focused on what I’d seen in the palace. “The queen took the life force of two boys. That’s hardly the act of an ally.”
He raised his shoulders. “Those humans in the palace aren’t so innocent. Many of them are paying off debts with their servitude. Some pay with their lives.”
“That’s unfair!”
The sun dipped behind a thick cloud, casting the landscape in gloom.
“Everything has a price,” he said. “The difference between you and them is that you offered a fair exchange. If you don’t tell a faerie what you will give in return, he or she is entitled to take anything they deem suitable.”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I considered his words. Last night, he had prompted me to ask the queen for more items. That action was consistent with his beliefs about fair exchanges, so why had he tricked me?
The wind blew strands of orange hair into my face. Somehow, between yesterday and this morning, I’d lost my bonnet. “Y-you should explain that before you make deals!”
“That is the punishment for blind greed. Nothing in this world is freely given.”
I clamped my lips shut. What use was ranting and expressing my disagreement? It wouldn’t change the mind of these ancient and cruel beings. “Do you know anything about Father’s bargain?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
Some fae secrecy lore, I supposed.
Enbarr’s wings sliced through the air, taking us higher, and the clouds parted, letting in some warming sunlight. After half a day of flying, the mist left the forest and rose to cover the sun. Enbarr glided through a patch as thin as a wisp. I held my silence, not wanting to awaken those awful voices from the night before.
King Drayce stopped annoying me with his chatter, and even Enbarr seemed to hold his breath. Whatever those Fomorians were, they had to be terrifying beyond belief to disconcert a skeletal horse.
After passing a stream with salt crystals gathering at its banks, we landed in a clearing of bare earth surrounded by oak trees whose branches twisted and curved into the ground like agonized serpents. A cool wind permeated my cloak, making goosebumps prickle across my skin. I leaned into King Drayce’s chest to lessen the chill. Since the faerie had stolen my freedom, I may as well steal his warmth.
“Is this where I’ll find the blood?” I whispered, for fear of being overheard by the mist.
King Drayce nodded at two of the largest trees. Between them lay a twisting path strewn with deep tree litter and dead leaves. “There’s a creature who dwells in this part of the forest. He is the Keeper of all Things.”
I pictured an old man sitting in a library of dusty tomes and crumbling scrolls. “You said creature. Is he not a faerie?”
“An oilliphéist.”
“Olly-fee-est?” I had seen that name in my book but hadn’t paid it much attention because they didn’t venture out in the mortal world. “What is it?”
“A great reptile that likes to hoard the most precious treasures.”
I gulped, now imagining myself sneaking past a dragon. “Does it breathe fire?”
He chuckled. “Not quite.”
Captain Stipe and his soldiers landed around us in the clearing, disturbing dirt and debris with the beating of their mounts’ wings. Before I could close my eyes to protect them from the flying dust, Enbarr galloped down the path. King Drayce wrapped an arm around my middle, keeping me from falling off. I couldn’t even consider what it meant to feel safe with him because my stomach churned at the thought of facing yet another reptilian beast.
Curse of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 1) Page 6