Curse of the Fae King

by Delia E Castel

  “Let’s go.” He grimaced, tried to rise, and then fell back to the forest floor.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing a night’s sleep won’t cure.”

  A gash gaped on the side of his ribs from one of the Keeper’s spikes having torn through his leather jacket. Droplets of milk-white liquid oozed out of the cut. I pointed at the wound. “That will need cleaning.”

  “There’s a water skin in Enbarr’s saddlebags.” He jerked his head out from the skeletal horse’s snout and winced.

  Enbarr snorted and turned his body to the side, revealing the saddlebag containing the water.

  I walked around, and without letting my fingers graze his rib bones, unfastened the brass buckle, and pulled out a round, leather canteen. “Thank you.”

  Captain Stipe jogged out of the cave with five other comrades. I straightened, glancing further into the vestibule, checking for more soldiers, but these six were the only survivors. My stomach twisted. I didn’t know whether to feel guilt that they had died trying to save me, or triumph at having caused fae deaths. Since the captain had swung his sword at my head, I settled myself with worrying about the health of King Drayce.

  “Three-quarters of the queen’s men perished in that mess,” he snarled. “Did you at least get the blood?”

  The accusation in his words made me flinch. “He wasn’t really the Keeper of All Things. He just knew where all things were kept.”

  His chestnut eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me you left his lair empty-handed?”

  “Leave the girl alone,” said King Drayce. “She’s on an important mission: washing my wounds.”

  Captain Stipe stepped aside and let me pass. I rushed to King Drayce, uncorked the leather canteen, and drizzled water into the gash in his jacket.

  “No need to ration it.” Amusement laced his voice. “These water skins provide an endless supply.”

  I tilted the canteen, making sure to drench his jacket. An annoyed snarl reverberated in his throat, but I ignored it, focusing on his wounds.

  BOOM!

  Fiery boulders exploded from the cave’s mouth. One of them struck Captain Stipe on the shoulder, knocking him down. King Drayce grunted, held onto the tree trunk, and pulled himself up. Then he staggered to Enbarr, who knelt low and mounted, yanking me up like a rag doll.

  My rump slid on the saddle, and I fell back into his arms. “Hey!”

  “With one explosion comes another,” he said through gritted teeth.

  The skeletal horse stood, then leaped into the air toward the midday sun. I clung onto the king’s middle, stifling a whimper. We flew several feet above the trees and back toward the clearing. Two heartbeats later, another explosion rocked the forest. My heart jumped, and I leaned forward to check on the debris below.

  Trees collapsed into a deep chasm above the Keeper’s cave.

  “What is that?”

  “The fire probably reached his supply of the fat he leached from his brides.”

  A shudder ran under my skin. The Keeper probably used it to oil his scales or something even more grotesque.

  “You should have left when I told you,” he murmured.

  A gust of wind blew the scent of burned oil up to where we flew, filling my sinuses and making me gag. “There was a ring. I think it will lead me to the Blood of Dana.”

  My insides cringed. The Keeper hadn’t exactly told me that. It could have been a wedding ring or a valuable but useless trinket. But the way it pulsed in my closed fist indicated otherwise.

  “Your little jaunt prolonged the battle,” he said.

  A flush heated my cheeks, and I spat hair out of my face. “Whose fault is it that I’m on a deadly quest to find three impossible items for a wicked Queen?”

  “Careful.” He glanced over his shoulder at the approaching riders on their mounts. “Any ill talk of her Majesty is treason.”

  “This is your fault!” I prodded his chest. “You shouldn’t have brought me here. We had a bargain. You could have been an honest faerie and let Father go, but you had to fall back on your trickish faerie ways.”

  He snorted.

  “Why are you laughing? If anyone’s to blame for getting those soldiers killed, it’s you!” I thumped him hard this time.

  King Drayce rocked backward, his green eyes widening. With a gasp, I seized a handful of Enbarr’s mane with one hand and clung to his arm with the other. “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he lost consciousness. The dead weight of his body pulled me down.

  “Enbarr,” I yelled. “Land!”

  The skeleton nosedived toward the ground at an incredible speed. Ignoring the lurch of my stomach, I clung onto them both. His weight strained my biceps to tearing point, and I clenched my teeth, clinging onto King Drayce.

  Enbarr landed and lowered himself to the ground. I released the king, and he rolled off.

  Captain Stipe’s capall landed beside us with a thud. “What’s wrong?”

  I scrambled off the skeletal horse, fell onto my knees, and rolled the king over. “The poison got to him.”

  The captain grabbed my aching forearm. “Time to return to Her Majesty, then.”

  Alarm rippled through my gut. “Wait!” I couldn’t let them take me back to the palace without that blood. the queen would torture Father for the book he was accused of stealing, and if she didn’t kill me, she’d return me to Calafort eyeless. “I’m a herbalist. If he’s poisoned, I might be able to heal him.”

  He folded his arms. “You have an hour. If King Drayce shows no sign of improvement by then, I will hand you over to the queen.”

  I nodded and checked the wound. The slash on his leather jacket had closed up. I placed my fingers on the patch, frowning at the way it shifted and warmed under my skin. It was probably part of his body and had healed. King Drayce was not like other faeries.

  “He’s too heavy.” I raised my head. “Please, someone help him onto his front.”

  None of the soldiers approached, and I turned my gaze to Enbarr, who lowered his bony snout to King Drayce’s shoulder and rolled him over.

  Dried twigs snapped under my knees as I shuffled to his side and inspected the king’s broad, leather-clad back for gashes. A small one had sliced through his shoulder blade but didn’t expose any skin.

  I turned my gaze down his breeches. They were made of the same kind of hide as his jacket and covered the kind of taut, leg muscle I’d only seen on men who worked the land. Before I could admonish myself for lingering on his physique, my gaze caught on a horned spike jutting out from the rim of his boot. Silvery-white fluid sloshed within the confines of a translucent sac.

  “What is that?” I murmured.

  Enbarr lowered his bony snout to the horn and flinched. Nausea churned in my stomach. How foul could it be if it made the skeleton recoil?

  Wrapping my hand in the fabric of my skirts, I shuffled close to King Drayce’s boots. One of the soldiers stood over me.

  He was a white-haired male who looked no older than twenty. A flush bloomed on his cheeks. “Will Salamander survive?”

  My mind blanked for a fraction of a second, and I blinked. The king had introduced himself to me as Drayce Salamander. It seemed odd that the soldier hadn’t used his title.

  “I don’t think he absorbed much poison.” I pointed at the full venom sac.

  Hope glimmered in his eyes. “Can I help?”

  “I’d like to drain the poison. Do you have a cup?”

  He dashed away to the horses and rifled into the packs. After a few moments of searching, he returned with a small, round crystal tumbler.

  I took it from his outstretched hand and asked for fire. A caramel-haired soldier brought a flaming torch, and the pair of them knelt at my side, watching me treat his wound.

  After removing the venom sac, I held the cup upside down and placed a flame into its cavity, creating a vacuum, then I attached the warm cup to the wound, which oozed a mixture of
silver venom and red blood. I turned to the white-haired soldier and asked for some of the salt crystals I had seen at the edge of the spring.

  “Come, Lysander,” said the white-haired faerie. “I’ll need you to watch my back in case the oilliphéist had a mate.”

  Wrinkling my nose, I tore a large strip off one of my petticoats and wrapped the venom sac in the cloth. In enemy territory, there was no need to waste such an excellent weapon. The soldiers returned ten minutes later with a kerchief full of the salts. I thanked them and wrapped it around his wound.

  Captain Stipe stood over where I crouched beside King Drayce. The sun shone through his sandy hair, making it glow like spun gold. “He’s dying.”

  A fist of panic seized my heart and yanked. Every drop of moisture in my throat dried, leaving behind an out-of-control pulse. Without King Drayce, Captain Stipe would make another attempt on my life.

  “An hour hasn’t even passed yet,” I snapped. “Give me time!”

  He walked away, ushering his men to stand. “Leave the girl to her corpses.”

  I clenched my teeth and remained silent. If the captain wanted to make taunts, I wouldn’t waste time getting aggravated. It was clear by now that King Drayce didn’t command the respect his title and power demanded. Since he was the only person who had demonstrated an ounce of protective instinct toward me, I needed to keep him alive.

  “Neara?” murmured King Drayce.

  Warm relief flooded my body. My poultice had worked. “I’m here.”

  “Captain,” cried Lysander. “The king lives!”

  “Heh, so the legend is true,” said the captain. “Throw him on the back of his horse and return him to the palace to see a healer.”

  King Drayce’s eyes moved under their lids, causing their covering of tiny scales to shift. He placed his fingers on the ground and raised his chest, trying to pull himself up.

  “Stay down.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “You’re still under the effects of the poison.”

  “How did you—” Saliva foamed in the corner of his mouth, and his body spasmed.

  “He’s dying!” shouted the captain.

  “He needs a purgative for the poison,” I shouted back. “What do you people do when one of your comrades is injured, stand there and panic?”

  “Two of our companions were natural healers,” he said. “But they were killed during your little stunt with the Oilliphéist.”

  I could have pointed out that a commanding officer shouldn’t have told all his men to charge into the den of such a deadly creature, but there was no point. Instead, I turned to Lysander and asked, “Could you make sure he drinks a lot of water? I need to find some herbs.”

  The caramel-haired faerie took the water skin and knelt by King Drayce’s side.

  I stood and headed for the patch of woods beyond the gnarled oaks. The captain stepped into my path. “You’re not going anywhere on your own.”

  “Where would I possibly escape with no map, no horse, and my Father being held hostage?”

  He raised his chin, glaring at me down his nose.

  A huff escaped my lips. Did he really think I had the means to go home? “Come with me, if you’re afraid.”

  Captain Stipe flicked his head at the white-haired faerie. “Go with her, Yarrow.”

  Yarrow stepped forward and gestured with his arm for me to follow. We walked through the woods in silence. Oak trees created a shelter from the afternoon sun, letting in dappled light through their canopy. Cicadas chirped in the background, a stark contrast to the silence of the area formerly occupied by the Keeper.

  When we were far from the clearing, he asked, “Are you really Ailill’s daughter?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “I sometimes brought his meals.” He shrugged. “Got to talk to him a bit about the mortal world and what it was like to be human. He was different from the others.”

  “Others?” I stared into Yarrow’s face. Tendrils of white hair obscured his features. “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t Ailill tell you about Her Majesty’s special captives?”

  “He did.” I twisted my face into a grimace, hoping he wouldn’t see the lie in my expression. “But you know what parents are like.”

  “I suppose.”

  “What was so different about Father?”

  “He lasted longer than the others. I suppose that was because of his strange, mortal magic.” When I drew in a sharp breath, his eyes widened. “You didn’t know.”

  My mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. It was hard to bluff when unaware of the rules. “I’m sorry for lying to you, but nobody’s telling me anything. All I want is our freedom, and if there’s any information you can share to help me complete my tasks—”

  He held up a silencing hand. “Save your efforts for healing King Salamander. He’s the only one Her Majesty can’t kill for spilling secrets.”

  “Sorry. I hadn’t even thought of that.” I glanced away, rubbing the back of my neck. It had been unfair to squeeze out the information I’d had and hypocritical for me to accuse King Drayce of being a trickster when I was guilty of the same kind of dishonesty.

  “All right.” I continued walking until we reached a patch of crawling plants, whose poppy-shaped leaves shone like jade. I parted their waxy leaves and revealed three-spoked purple flowers. “This is wild ginger. We need the roots.”

  Yarrow and I dug at the ground in silence, and I considered everything he had said about Father’s imprisonment. Before he’d been prematurely aged, Father had been in his forties: older than Eirnin the blacksmith, but still vital and full of life.

  If he’d been captured at the age of twenty and had been kept by the queen for a century, that would make him about a hundred and forty years old, taking into account the time he spent in the mortal world with Mother and me. Memories of a raven-haired woman surfaced to the front of my mind. She had died when I was five, and we’d had to move to another home.

  We moved onto a patch of plants that looked like oversized daisies with long, pointed petals. “We need the roots of this one, too.”

  Moments later, Yarrow presented me with a handful of long roots the color of blood. “Is that enough?”

  I offered him a weak smile and gathered the herbs I had picked in my apron. “Let’s go back.”

  By the time we returned to the clearing, Enbarr had been lashed to the trees, and King Drayce was no longer breathing.

  Chapter 10

  Falling to my knees, I dropped my collection of herbs and roots to the forest floor. King Drayce lay as still as death, and not a single container of water lay near his body. The afternoon sun shone down on his face, accentuating the pallor of his scales. Cracks appeared on the corner of his mouth, which I took to be signs of extreme dehydration. It was almost as if no one had given him anything to drink while I was gone.

  Or worse.

  What if one of the soldiers had performed an enchantment to rid his body of water? I glanced around at the faeries, who stared back at me, their expressions blank.

  “What happened?” I spat.

  Captain Stipe raised his shoulders. “Salamander died of natural causes.”

  “Did you even give him the water?” I glared at Lysander.

  The caramel-haired faerie bowed his head, avoiding my gaze.

  That was all the answer I needed. “What will the queen say when I tell her you deliberately let him die?”

  Captain Stipe folded his arms. “You’re not the first girl to have perished at the hands of the oilliphéist. And you won’t be the first to die in an unfortunate accident, either.”

  My stomach tightened at the implied threat. The captain could blame my disappearance on the Keeper and probably say that the creature had finished off King Drayce. I slipped my hand into my cloak and gripped the pommel of my dagger. “One would think you didn’t want the queen to get that blood.”

  He bared his teeth. “You would dare—”

  “Then don
’t interfere with the king’s treatment!”

  Captain Stipe stormed off to the other side of the clearing, and I let go of my weapon and checked on King Drayce. He lay as still as death, but his flesh retained some of its usual warmth.

  “Is he really dead?” asked Yarrow.

  “Hope not.” I placed my hand on his broad, unmoving chest. “Pour fresh water down his throat, while I grind the roots. Someone else needs to heat a cauldron of water. I’m making two concoctions: one to make him vomit, and the other one to make him stop.”

  According to the leather book Father made me study, many poisons, both magical and mortal, put their victims in a state that emulated death. A deadly poison would at least cause its victim to show symptoms, such as a change in skin color, vomiting, difficulty in breathing, or intoxication.

  The Keeper’s venom had been too fast-acting to be deadly. It probably paralyzed their nerves and rendered them immobile so that he could slaughter them later at his leisure. Unfortunately for him and the soldiers, King Drayce had set his skin on fire, and it had spread to the rest of his lair, killing them all.

  A shudder ran across my skin. Burning was a brutal way to die. I only hoped that the Keeper’s venom had rendered them senseless before the flames had consumed their bodies.

  Lysander, Yarrow, and I worked together throughout the afternoon and past sunset, doing everything we could to fill King Drayce with liquids and herbal concoctions. They took turns massaging his back and chest.

  It was something I’d made myself learn after once seeing a lake sprite pull a fisherman’s son off his boat. When the man finally retrieved his motionless boy from the water, he performed a series of chest presses and back slaps that caused his son to return to life.

  As the sun had dipped below the trees, darkening the sky and lengthening the shadows cast by the gnarled tree trunks, King Drayce hacked up several mouthfuls of murky liquid. We rolled him to his side and let him finish expelling the mixture of water and bloodroot and poison.