The Queen of Nothing

by Holly Black

  “Put the question of Oak’s marriage aside for a moment,” Madoc says. “Do you want the bridle, Jude?”

  It is a monstrous thing, the idea of tying Cardan to me in eternal obedience. What I want is him back, him standing beside me, him laughing at all this. I would settle for even his worst self, his cruelest trickster self, if only he could be here.

  I think of Cardan’s words in the brugh, before he destroyed the crown: neither loyalty nor love should be compelled.

  He was right. Of course he was right. And yet, I want the bridle. I want it desperately. I can imagine myself on a rebuilt throne with the serpent torpid beside me, a symbol of my power and a reminder of my love. He would never be entirely lost to me.

  It is a horrific image and just as horrifically compelling.

  I would have hope, at least. And what is the alternative? Fighting a battle and sacrificing the lives of my people? Hunting down the serpent and giving up any chance of having Cardan back? For what? I am tired of fighting.

  Let Madoc rule through me. Let him try, at least.

  “Swear to me that the bridle does nothing else,” I say.

  “Nothing,” says Lady Nore. “Only allows you to control the creature it’s used on—if you say the words of command. And once you’ve agreed to our terms, we will tell them to you.”

  Lord Jarel waves forward his servant, who removes the bridle from the chest, throwing it down in a heap in front of me. It shines, golden. A bunch of straps, finely wrought, and a possible future that doesn’t involve losing what I have left.

  “I wonder,” I say, considering it, “with such a powerful object in your possession, why you didn’t use it yourselves.”

  He doesn’t answer for a moment that drags on just a little too long. “Ah,” I say, recalling the fresh scratches along the serpent’s scales. If I inspect that bridle, I bet there’s still drying blood on it from knights of the Court of Teeth—perhaps volunteers from Madoc’s army as well. “You couldn’t bridle him, could you? How many did you lose?”

  Lord Jarel looks ill-pleased with me.

  Madoc answers. “A battalion—and part of the Crooked Forest caught on fire. The creature wouldn’t allow us to approach it. He’s fast and deadly, and his poison seems inexhaustible.”

  “But in the hall,” says Lady Nore, “he knew Grimsen was his enemy. We believe you can lure him. Like maidens with unicorns of old. You can bridle him. And if you die trying, Oak comes to his throne early with our queen beside him.”

  “Pragmatic,” I say.

  “Consider taking the deal,” Grima Mog says. I turn to her, and she shrugs. “Madoc’s right. It will be hard to hold the throne otherwise. I have no doubt you’ll be able to bridle the serpent, nor that it will make for a weapon the likes of which no army in all of Faerie has seen before. That’s power, girl.”

  “Or we could murder them right now. Take the bridle as our spoils,” the Bomb says, removing the netting that covers her face. “They’re already traitors. They’re unarmed. And knowing them, they intend to trick you. You admitted as much yourself, Jude.”

  “Liliver?” says Lady Nore. It’s odd to hear her called by something other than her code name, but the Bomb was held in the Court of Teeth before she became a spy. They would only know to call her by what she went by then.

  “You remember me,” the Bomb says. “Know that I also remember you.”

  “You may have the bridle, but you do not yet know how to work it,” Lord Jarel says. “You cannot bind the serpent without us.”

  “I think I could get it out of her,” the Bomb says. “I’d enjoy trying.”

  “Are you going to allow her to speak to us that way?” Lady Nore demands of Madoc, as though he can do anything.

  “Liliver wasn’t speaking to you at all,” I say, mild-voiced. “She was speaking to me. And since she’s my advisor, I would be foolish not to give her words careful consideration.”

  Madoc barks out a laugh. “Oh, come now, if you’ve met Lord Jarel and Lady Nore, you know they are spiteful enough to deny you, no matter what torment your spy invented. And you want that bridle, daughter.”

  The Court of Teeth backed Madoc to get closer to the throne. Now they see a path to ruling Elfhame themselves, through Oak. As soon as Oak and Suren are married, I will have a target on my back. And so will Madoc.

  But I will also have the serpent, bound to me.

  A serpent who is a corruption on the land itself.

  “Show me you are acting in good faith,” I say. “Cardan fulfilled what you asked of him in the matter of Orlagh of the Undersea. Release her from whatever doom you hold over her. She and her daughter hate me, so you cannot worry about their rushing to my aid.”

  “I imagined you hated them as well,” says Madoc, frowning.

  “I want to see Cardan’s sacrifice mean what he wanted it to mean,” I say. “And I want to know that you aren’t weaseling out of every bargain you can.”

  He nods. “Very well. It is done.”

  I take a deep breath. “I will not commit Oak to anything, but if you want to call a halt to the war, tell me how the bridle works, and let us work toward peace.”

  Lord Jarel steps up onto the platform, causing the guards to move in front of him, weapons keeping him from me.

  “Would you prefer I say it aloud, in front of everyone?” he asks, annoyed.

  I wave away the guards, and he leans down to whisper the answer in my ear. “Take three hairs from your own head and knot them around the bridle. You will be bound together.” Then he steps back. “Now, do you agree to our compact?”

  I look at the three of them. “When the High King is bridled and tame, then I will give you everything you asked for, everything that’s within my power to give. But you will have nothing before that.”

  “Then this is what you must do, Jude,” Madoc tells me. “Tomorrow, hold a feast for the low Courts and invite us. Explain that we have put aside our differences in the face of a larger threat and that we gave you the means to capture the serpent king.

  “Our armies will gather on the rocks of Insweal, but not to fight. You will take the bridle and lure the serpent to you. Once you put it on him, issue the first command. He will show himself tame, and everyone will cheer for you. It will cement your power and give you an excuse to reward us. And reward us you shall.”

  Already, he seeks to rule through me. “It will be nice to have a queen who can tell all the lies you cannot, won’t it?” I say.

  Madoc smiles at me with no malice in it. “It will be good to be a family again.”

  Nothing about this feels right, except for the smooth leather of the bridle in my hands.

  On my way out of the palace, I pass by the throne room, but when I let myself inside, there is no sign of the serpent except for papery folds of torn golden skin.

  I walk through the night to the rocky beach. There, I kneel on the stone and toss a wadded-up scrap of paper into the waves.

  If you ever loved him, I wrote, help me.

  I lie on my back on the rug before the fire in my old rooms. Taryn sits next to me, picking at a roasted chicken she got from the palace kitchen. A whole tray of food is spread out on the floor—cheese and bread, currants and gooseberries, pomegranates and damson plums, along with a pitcher of thick cream. Vivi and Heather rest on the other side, their legs tangled together and hands clasped. Oak is lining up berries and then bowling them over with plums, something I would have once objected to but am not about to now.

  “It’s better than fighting, right?” Taryn says, taking a steaming kettle off the hob and pouring water into a pot. She adds leaves, and the scent of mint and elderflower fills the air. “A truce. An unlikely truce.”

  None of us answers, mulling over the question. I promised Madoc nothing concrete, but I have no doubt that at the banquet tonight, he intends to begin pulling authority toward himself. A trickle that swiftly becomes a flood, until I am only a figurehead with no real power. The temptation of this line of
attack is that one can always convince oneself that that fate is avoidable, that one can reverse any losses, that one can outmaneuver him.

  “What was wrong with that girl?” Oak asks. “Queen Suren.”

  “They’re not particularly nice, the Court of Teeth,” I tell him, sitting up to accept a cup from Taryn. Despite going so long without sleep, I am not tired. Nor am I hungry, though I have made myself eat. I do not know what I am.

  Vivi snorts. “I guess you could say that. You could also call a volcano ‘warm.’”

  Oak frowns. “Are we going to help her?”

  “If you decide to marry her, we could demand that the girl live here until you’re older,” I say. “And if she did, we’d keep her unfettered. I guess that would be a boon to her. But I still don’t think you should do it.”

  “I don’t want to marry her—or anyone,” Oak says. “And I don’t want to be High King. Why can’t we just help her?”

  The tea is too hot. The first sip burns my tongue.

  “It’s not easy to help a queen,” Taryn says. “They’re not supposed to need helping.”

  We lapse into silence.

  “So will you take over Locke’s estate?” Vivi asks, turning toward my twin. “You don’t have to. You don’t have to have his baby, either.”

  Taryn takes a gooseberry and rolls the pale citrine fruit between her fingers. “What do you mean?”

  “I know that in Faerie, children are rare and precious and all that, but in the mortal world, there’s such a thing as abortion,” Vivi says. “And even here, there are changelings.”

  “And adoption,” Heather puts in. “It’s your decision. No one would judge you.”

  “If they did, I could cut off their hands,” I volunteer.

  “I want the child,” Taryn says. “Not that I am not scared, but I’m also kind of excited. Oak, you’re not going to be the youngest kid anymore.”

  “Good,” he says, rolling his bruised plum toward the cream jar.

  Vivi intercepts it and takes a bite.

  “Hey!” he says, but she only giggles mischievously.

  “Did you find anything in the library?” I ask Heather, and try to pretend that my voice doesn’t quaver a little. I know she didn’t. If she had, she would have told me. And yet I ask anyway.

  She yawns. “There were some wild stories. Not helpful, but wild. One was about a king of serpents who commands all the snakes in the world. Another about a serpent who puts two faerie princesses under a curse so they’re snakes—but only sometimes.

  “And then there was this one about wanting a baby,” she says with a glance at Taryn. “A gardener’s wife couldn’t get pregnant. One day, she spots a cute green snake in her garden and gets all weird about how even snakes have kids but she doesn’t. The snake hears her and offers to be her son.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Oak laughs.

  “He’s an okay son, though,” Heather says. “They make him a hole in the corner of their house, and he lives there. They feed him the same dinners they eat. It’s all good until he gets big and decides he wants to marry a princess. And not like a viper princess or an anaconda princess, either. The snake wants to marry the human princess of the place where they live.”

  “How’s that going to work?” Taryn asks.

  Heather grins. “Dad goes to the king and makes the proposal on behalf of his snake kiddo. The king isn’t into it, and so, in the manner of all fairy-tale people, instead of just refusing, he asks the snake to do three impossible things: first, turn all the fruit in the orchard to gems, then turn the floors of the palace to silver, and last, turn the walls of the palace to gold. Each time the dad reports back with one of these quests, the snake tells him what to do. First, Dad has to plant pits, which make jasper and jade fruit bloom overnight. Then he has to rub the floors of the palace with a discarded snakeskin to make them silver. Last, he has to rub the walls of the palace with venom, which turns them to gold.”

  “The dad is the one putting in all the effort,” I murmur. It’s so warm by the fire.

  “He’s kind of a helicopter parent.” Heather’s voice seems to come from very far away. “Anyway, finally, in despair, the king admits to his daughter that he basically sold her to a snake and that she has to go through with the marriage. So she does, but when they’re alone, the snake takes off its skin and reveals itself as a banging hot guy. The princess is thrilled, but the king bursts into their bedroom and burns the skin, believing he’s saving her life.

  “The snake guy gives a great howl of despair and turns into a dove, flying away. The princess freaks out and weeps like crazy, then decides she’s going to find him. Along the way, because this is a fairy tale and literally nothing makes sense, the princess meets a gossipy fox, who tells her that the birds are talking smack about a prince who was under the curse of an ogress and could not be cured without the blood of a bunch of birds—and also the blood of a fox. So you can pretty much figure out the rest. Poor fox, right?”

  “Cold,” Vivi says. “That fox was helping.”

  And that’s the last I hear before I fall asleep to the sound of friendly voices talking over one another.

  I wake to the dying embers of the fire, with a blanket over me.

  Sleep has worked its strange magic, making the horror of the last two days recede enough for me to think a little better.

  I see Taryn on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. I walk through the silent rooms and find Heather and Vivi in my bed. Oak isn’t there, and I suspect that he’s with Oriana.

  I leave, finding a knight waiting for me. I recognize him as a member of Cardan’s royal guard.

  “Your Majesty,” he says, hand to his heart. “Fand is resting. She asked me to watch over you until she returned.”

  I feel guilty not to have thought of whether Fand was working too long or too hard. Of course I need more than a single knight. “What shall I call you?”

  “Artegowl, Your Majesty.”

  “Where are the rest of the High King’s guard?” I ask.

  He sighs. “Grima Mog has put us in charge of tracking the serpent’s movements.”

  What a strange and sorrowful change from their previous mission, to keep Cardan safe. But I do not know if Artegowl would welcome my thoughts, nor if it is appropriate for me to give them. I leave him outside the doors to the royal chambers.

  Inside, I am startled to find the Bomb sitting on the couch, turning a snow globe over in her hands. It has a cat inside and the words CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION—the gift Vivi brought for Cardan after his coronation. I didn’t realize he kept it. As I watch the glittering white crystals swirl, I recall the report of snow falling inside the brugh.

  The Bomb looks up at me, her shoulders slumped. The despair in her face mirrors my own.

  “Probably I shouldn’t have come,” she says, which isn’t like her at all.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, coming fully inside the room.

  “When Madoc came to make you his offer, I heard what Taryn said about you.” She waits for me to understand, but I don’t.

  I shake my head.

  “That the land healed you.” She looks as though she half-expects me to deny it. I wonder if she’s thinking about the stitches she removed in this room or how I survived a fall from the rafters. “I thought that maybe… you could use that power to wake the Roach.”

  When I joined the Court of Shadows, I knew nothing of spying. The Bomb has seen me fail before. Still, this failure is hard to admit. “I tried to break the curse on Cardan, but I couldn’t. Whatever I did, I don’t know how I did it or if I can do it again.”

  “When I saw Lord Jarel and Lady Nore again, I couldn’t help remembering how much I owe the Roach,” the Bomb says. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have survived them. Even aside from how much I love him, I owe him. I have to make him better. If there’s anything you can do—”

  I think about the flowers blooming up out of the snow. In that moment, I was magic.

 
I think about hope.

  “I’ll try,” I say, stopping her. “If I can help the Roach, of course I want to. Of course I’ll try. Let’s go. Let’s go now.”

  “Now?” the Bomb says, rising. “No, you came back to your chambers to sleep.”

  “Even if the truce with Madoc and the Court of Teeth goes a lot better than I suspect it will, it’s possible that the serpent won’t allow me to bridle him,” I say. “I might not survive much longer. Better to do it as soon as possible.”

  The Bomb puts her hand lightly on my arm. “Thank you,” she says, the human words awkward in her mouth.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I say.

  “Perhaps a gift instead?” From her pocket, she pulls out a mask of black netting to match her own.

  I change into black clothes and throw a heavy cloak over my shoulders. Then I don the mask, and we go together out the secret passage. I am surprised to find it has been modified since the last time I went through it, connected to the rest of the passageways through the walls of the palace. We go down through the wine cellar and into the new Court of Shadows. It’s much larger than the old rooms and much better appointed. It’s clear that Cardan financed this—or that they robbed the treasury behind his back. There is a kitchen area, full of crockery and with a fireplace large enough to cook a smallish pony in. We pass training rooms and costume rooms and a strategy room to rival the one belonging to the Grand General. I spot a few spies, some I know and some I do not.

  The Ghost looks up from a table where he’s sitting, laying out cards in one of the back rooms, sandy hair hanging over his eyes. He looks at me with suspicion. I roll up my mask.

  “Jude,” he says with relief. “You came.”

  I don’t want to give either of them false hope. “I don’t know if I can do anything, but I’d like to see him.”

  “This way,” the Ghost says, rising and leading me to a little room hung with glowing glass orbs. The Roach lies on a bed. I am alarmed by the change in him.