Foul is Fair (7 page)

“The knights seem a bit smug about mentioning that the Queen goes first,” Megan said.

“That's just water getting wetter,” Cassia said, still looking around.

Finally, the trees gave way to a wide clearing. Even half a mile away, the castle at the center was clearly visible. While she'd seen pictures of European castles in books, this was more like something out of a tale. Instead of a mere four, a dozen towers stretched into the skies. Security walls and watchtowers ringed the main building, all of it covered with climbing ivy.

"It still doesn't seem real," Megan breathed.

Lani paused, stepping back to reassure her. "It's as real as anything. They call it An Teach Deiridh: basically, The Last Home." She glanced at their multiple honor guards for a moment. "I think we're expected."

Chapter 10: The Queen and Her General

The route through the castle to the Queen was a sort of torture to Megan's attention span. The castle itself didn't appear to be so much built as carved, with most of it looking like it was made of one piece of stone. The walls were lined with artwork that ranged from paintings to ornate mirrors to more suits of the fancy armor the knights wore. Everything was laid out to catch the golden light that came streaming in through the windows, giving it a shine that gave the place the feel of a treasure horde.

Catching her even more off-guard was how alive things felt. The ivy from the walls outside continued in through the windows in many places, winding around the treasures and up the walls. The expanses of green, as they reached inside, bore sudden new flowers of various colors, dozens of varieties coming from the same plant. While most of these were similar to blooms she could identify, others appeared to be almost more crafted than grown, with petals of near-translucent gold and silver. More than once, Lani and Cassia had to help urge Megan along in the correct direction before she got drawn into her mental notes to paint one part of this scene or another.

The residents of the place were, if anything, even more striking. Some of them she recognized. Pixies and apparently related species were especially omnipresent. They mostly gathered together in large groups, whirling about in complex dances on both the ground and in the air, while similarly tiny things with cricket legs and dragonfly wings fiddled or played reed flutes. All manner of butterfly wings were colorfully represented, and the moth-like pixie-kin, though more muted, were no more sedate. Sometimes they clustered with their own varieties, but sometimes they mixed freely.

People that reminded her of Kerr, mostly short and dressed in layers with muted tones, moved about, some socializing, others cleaning or carrying food. Many of the rooms also held suitable tables for bigger folk. The sidhe—people who looked like what she could see of the knights—mostly gathered together, talking, laughing, and entertaining each other or illustrating their stories with small illusions, such as flickering lights or images of tiny dancers, summoned at the wave of a hand. In others, things she guessed might best fit the description of leprechauns drank with redcaps. These stories were considerably louder, though she did her best to ignore them, pretty sure she wanted nothing to do with the types of tales redcaps would tell. After that, she ran out of names. There were people with the features of animals. Tiny fae mingled with fae who had to hunch down to get through even the massive castle doors.

Megan noted, however, that when they ran into other gatherings in the hallways, size and space permitting, everyone moved to the side to let her guarded procession pass, or moved around them, hugging the walls, rather than trying to insist her group move. Some of the less savory-looking figures around, such as at least one redcap and a tall woman-like thing with grayish green skin and too many joints, gave the sidhe knights less-than-pleasant glances but moved aside anyway. While they were making their way along, one of the redcaps, this one in a ‘49ers cap, looked Megan's way, grinning and giving her a playful little salute. Megan quickly looked away from the all-too familiar figure. At least this time he let them be.

Finally they came to a stop. “This is the ballroom,” the knight said, gesturing at the large doors. “The Queen will see you here.”

Megan was a little taken aback by that, having assumed there would be a throne room. Despite the revelry elsewhere, the ballroom was silent aside from their footfalls. Though clearly designed to host a massive crowd, the only people present were all at the far end of the room. A raised dais held an ornate throne. The wooden structure of the grand chair seemed to grow directly out of the stone floor, winding and twisting itself into the proper shape, before expanses of gold were added. At least Megan supposed they had to be added, though she couldn't see any seams between wood and metal. Settled on a crimson cushion on the throne sat the Queen, with one figure standing just to her right and a few attendants waiting in the wings.

Megan had never fully held with the idea that attributed the majority of human beauty to symmetry. She'd try to use meeting the Seelie Queen and seeing the small, light scars on just the right side of her face as the prime refutation of the idea, but … it didn't apply. Because there was nothing remotely human about the beauty involved. As it was, the scars took her just enough out of the uncanny valley to … Megan couldn't describe it, not even to herself. She might have to paint the thought, someday. Regardless, uncanny beauty, scarred face or not, the woman had the bearing of a ruler. The knights, along with most of Megan's company, dropped to a knee before the throne. Even Cassia and the Count bowed. Megan felt a little awkward being the last to show her respects, but dropped to one knee and lowered her head.

As for the man beside the Queen ... Megan's grandparents had taken her to church a few times, whenever she visited them in Idaho. Her mom didn't hold with it much, but she'd made a bit of effort to reconcile with her family as long as they didn't push. And so Megan had spent the occasional Sunday in St. Michael's Catholic Church, staring at a stained glass window of an armored archangel serenely stabbing some kind of devil-dragon under his feet. It was on the little medals of the archangel as the patron saint of cops, too. That, Megan immediately decided, was what this guy looked like. He seemed like he absolutely ought to be stabbing a demon or a dragon in the face, right this moment, in a calm and highly professional manner.
He wasn't quite like the other sidhe about, being bigger and broader than most, but there were enough similarities, and Megan was uncertain enough about what the options were, that she decided he must at least be a close relative.

"So you're Riocard's daughter," the Queen finally said. "He did a fine job hiding you away for your protection. And now he's the one in need of aid. I can respect a dutiful child." Her voice had an almost stereo effect: where Megan recalled her father's voice being quiet and smooth, Queen Orlaith's carried, echoing off the walls, even if she didn't look to be putting much effort into projecting.

"Yes, yes, Ma'am." Megan stammered, finding it harder and harder to pull her eyes away and not get lost in some sort of odd fascination with Orlaith's features. The thought occurred that it might be something like the paralytic fear the redcap induced before, even if Orlaith didn't seem to be doing anything actively magical. She finally settled for keeping her gaze forward, but studying the intricacies of Orlaith's ornate dress, which looked to Megan like it might have been spun from spidersilk and dew drops, somehow held together with metallic platinum strands and highlights.

"Then you won't mind taking on a bit of a challenge. Dear Ashling has shared her information with me. From that, and what I've been able to deduce, Riocard is trapped in a prison warded against our magics, and likely well guarded. We will be investigating as well, as securing his release soon is critical. I also already sent one agent out to attempt to gain the only thing I'm certain could work—but we've lost track of him. Unfortunately, that quest is not one that can be completed by faerie-kind."

"And you'd like us to follow up?" Megan guessed.

"Clever girl," the Queen agreed. "The city of Findias was lost to us." At the name, she heard Cassia suck in a breath, while Lani looked a little stunned. "But it still stands, encased in iron. It was once a place of great festivals, known for its art and music, even among the Gods. Now, it stands silent as a tomb. Even so, within lies one of the greatest gifts the Gods left for human hand: the Claiomh Solais, the Sword of Light. Among its legends is the ability to bypass, or destroy, all manner of enchantments. In the right hands, it would readily melt away those chaotic walls of ice, lead a person to the enchanted prison, and allow them to free Riocard."

Megan glanced among the members of her group, with Lani and Cassia alike looking at the Queen incredulously. "So, this sword, we go to the city, get it, and we can free my dad?"

"If you should happen upon my other agent," the Queen said, "I would appreciate his return as well, if he still lives."

"If he..." Megan looked back at the Queen again. "So, this isn't as easy as it sounds, is it?"

"When the Sword falls out of use, whatever else happens to it, it always hides itself behind challenges, to make sure its next wielder is worthy of it. Findias is the closest of the lost cities, but still quite remote, and beyond the Huntsman's plains." She smiled, the expression—and especially those eyes—briefly transfixing Megan entirely. "But I have no doubt that Riocard's daughter is up for the challenge."

Megan tried to draw her gaze away from eyes the color and intensity of a sunrise, but only managed once Orlaith looked away from her to the man standing next to the throne. When the Queen didn't address them again, Megan took it as a dismissal, and was glad for it.

Once they were out of obvious earshot of the Queen and her attendants, Megan took another look around the room, before asking her question. “So this is where my dad has to show up for a waltz or whatever?”

Ashling giggled. “By the standards of Court tradition, the waltz is so newfangled, it's practically in the same category as twerking.”

Chapter 11: The Gray Lady

“So what's next?” Megan asked.

“The Unseelie King's tower, in the west wing of the house,” Cassia said, pointing in the right direction.

“Right. We were supposed to meet someone else. With lights?”

“The Gray Lady, your dad's seneschal. She runs the Unseelie Court whenever he's gone,” Lani said.

"Should we really be going into, you know, the area that's all
U
nseelie, without the guards and things?" Megan asked.

Cassia snorted. "Speaking as a card-carrying Unseelie, we're far better off going there without the guards than with them."

"Ok
ay
, point taken, if not quite what I meant."

"Yes," Lani said. "We need to go there. It
'
s dangerous, but with Cassia and Ashling along, we should be fine.
Besides, your Dad's place may be the best spot to sleep, with this crowd. It's getting too late to head out into the wilds now, and we could stand to stock up on supplies, anyway. I've got some, but a few more won't hurt, and we might find something useful.”

They got a lot of questioning looks as they left the main section of the castle and moved through the winding halls. Without Ashling guiding them, Megan, at least, was pretty sure she'd have gotten lost a few times over. When they reached the west wing, the decor took on a decidedly darker edge. There were fewer windows, and while the suits of armor remained, most had weapons at the ready, and not all of them were entirely cleaned of what appeared to be bloodstains. The artwork depicted frenzied revels instead of pastoral scenes and witch burnings instead of gatherings around firelight. The paintings of glorious heroes were replaced by a theme of great hunts, where tall figures, one of whom had horns, chased down hapless mortals with hordes of faeries and giant hunting hounds.

Even the ivy changed, trading in its multi-colored flowers for hooked barbs. She quickly learned to be careful about the thorns after brushing one. Despite her barely touching the vine, the barb drew blood from the back of one hand—and she watched while the droplet of blood on the tip of the thorn was absorbed into the vine.

She once again had to be hurried along at times by her companions, particularly Lani, who seemed especially eager to keep moving. They were challenged in the halls for right-of-way once or twice, but between Cassia and the cats, whom she had chosen not to leave outside with the chariot, the other fae always elected to move aside.

They finally reached what Ashling identified as Riocard's chambers. While the door was initially locked, some protective enchantment on them recognized Ashling. The pixie whispered a few words, which a light wind picked up. Megan listened in fascination as the same syllables repeated over and over, muted by a whistling wind in the formerly still hallway, and then the door simply creaked open as the winds stilled.

The leopard without a helmet pushed through the doorway first, followed by his brother. Cassia followed. Megan and Lani exchanged a glance, then followed. Megan paused, noticing Ashling wasn't following. Instead, she remained astride the Count as he settled on top of the open door. "Coming?" Megan finally asked.