The Cruel Prince (24 page)

The crow on Val Moren's shoulder takes to wing, cawing as it flies toward the roots hanging down from the hollow roof of the hill.

“
Guards
,” Dain says, in a voice that expects to be obeyed. None of the knights advance toward the dais, though. As one, they turn so their backs are to the royal family and their swords to the assemblage. They're allowing this to happen, allowing Balekin to stage his coup.

But I cannot believe that this is Madoc's plan. Dain is his friend. Dain campaigned with him. Dain is going to reward him once he's the High King.

The crowd surges, carrying me with it. Everyone is moving, pushing forward or away from the gruesome tableau. I see the salt-haired king of the Court of Termites try to wade toward the fight, but his own knights get in front of him, holding him back. My family is gone. I look around for Cardan, but he is lost in the crowd.

It is all happening so fast. Caelia has run to the High King's side. She has her small knife, barely long enough to be a weapon, but she holds it bravely. Taniot crouches over Elowyn's body, trying to stem the tide of blood with the skirts of her dress.

“What do you say now, Father?” Balekin demands. “Brother?”

Two bolts fly from the shadows, thudding into Balekin's side. He staggers forward. The cloth of his doublet appears ripped, a gleam of metal underneath. Armor. I scan the rafters for the Ghost.

I am an agent of the prince as surely as he is. It's my duty to get to Dain. I shove forward again. In my head I can see a vision of the future, like a story I am telling myself, a clear, shining narrative to contrast with the chaos around me. Somehow, I will get to the prince and defend him against Balekin's treachery until the loyal members of his guard reach us. I will be the hero, the one who put herself between the traitors and her king.

Madoc gets there before I do.

For a brief moment, I am relieved. His commanders' loyalty might be bought, but Madoc would never—

Then Madoc thrusts his sword through Dain's chest with such force that the blade emerges on the other side. He drags it up, through his rib cage, to his heart.

I stop moving and let the crowd flow around me. I am still as stone.

I see a flash of white bone, of wet red muscle. Prince Dain, who was almost the High King, falls on top of the gem-crusted red cloak of state, his spilling blood lost in the jumble of jewels.

“Traitors,” Eldred whispers, but his voice is amplified by the space. The word feels as though it rings through the hall.

Madoc pauses and then sets his jaw, as though he is doing some grim duty. He is wearing his red cap now, the one I saw sticking out of his pocket, the one I have studied in its case. Tonight he will freshen it. There will be new tide lines. But I cannot believe he is doing this on anyone's orders.

He must have allied with Balekin, misdirected Dain's spies. Put his own commanders in place, to keep the royal family isolated from anyone who would help them. Urged Balekin to orchestrate a strike at the one time no one would expect it. Even figured out that the only way not to trigger the crown's death curse was to move when it rested on no one's head. Knowing him as I do, I am sure he planned this coup.

Madoc has betrayed Eldred, and Dain is gone, taking all my hopes and plans with him.

Coronations are a time when many things are possible.

Balekin looks insufferably satisfied with himself. “Give me the crown.”

Eldred drops the circlet from his hand. It rolls a little ways across the floor. “Take it yourself if it's what you so desire.”

Caelia is making a terrible keening sound. Rhyia stares at the crowd in horror. Val Moren stands beside Eldred, his narrow poet's face pale. With the knights circling it, the dais is like a terrible stage, where all the players are doomed to run through their roles to the same bloody end.

Madoc's hands are gloved in red. I cannot stop staring at them.

Balekin lifts the High Crown. The golden oak leaves glitter with the light of candle flame. “You waited too long to depart the throne, Father. You have become weak. You let traitors rule little fiefdoms, the power of the low Courts goes unchecked, and the wild fey do as they like. Dain would have been the same, a coward who hid behind intrigues. But I am not afraid of bloodshed.”

Eldred does not speak. He makes no move toward the crown or toward a weapon. He simply waits.

Balekin orders a knight to bring him Taniot. A female redcap in armor steps onto the dais to grab the struggling consort. Taniot's head lashes back and forth, her long black horns cutting into the redcap knight's shoulder. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. There are too many knights. Two more step forward, and there is no more struggling.

Balekin draws himself up before his father. “Declare me the High King, put the crown on my head, and you may go from this place, free and unharmed. My sisters will be protected. Your consort will live. Otherwise, I will kill Taniot. I will kill her here in front of everyone, and they will all know that you allowed it.”

My gaze goes to Madoc, but he is on the steps, speaking in low tones to one of his commanders, a troll who has eaten at our table, has teased Oak and made him laugh. I laughed, too, then. Now my hands are shaking, my whole body trembling.

“Balekin, firstborn, no matter whose blood you spill, you will never rule Elfhame,” Eldred says. “You are unworthy of the crown.”

I close my eyes and think of Oriana's words to me:
It is no easy thing to be the lover of the High King. It is to always be a pawn.

Taniot goes to her death with grace. She is still. Her bearing is regal and doomed, as though she has already passed into the realm of ballads. Her fingers are laced together. She makes no sound as one of the knights—the redcap knight with the slashed shoulder—beheads her with a single swift and brutal strike of her blade. Taniot's horned head rolls a short ways until it hits Dain's corpse.

I feel something wet on my face, like rain.

There are plenty of the Folk who delight in murder and plenty more who delight in spectacle. A kind of giddy madness seems to come upon the crowd, a kind of hunger for even greater slaughter. I fear they may have a surfeit of satisfaction. Two of the knights have seized Eldred.

“I will not ask you again,” Balekin says.

But Eldred only laughs. He keeps laughing when Balekin runs him through. He doesn't fall like the others. Instead of blood pouring from his wound, red moths stream out, into the air. They rush out of him so quickly that in a moment, the High King's body is gone and there are just those red moths, swirling up into the air in a vast cloud, a tornado of soft wings.

But whatever magic made them does not last. They begin to fall until they are scattered across the dais like blown leaves. The High King Eldred is, impossibly, dead.

The dais is strewn with bodies and blood. Val Moren is on his knees.

“Sisters,” Balekin says, striding toward them. Some of the arrogance is gone from his voice, replaced with a horrible softness. He sounds like a man in the midst of a terrible dream from which he refuses to wake. “Which of you will crown me? Crown me and live.”

I think of Madoc telling my mother not to run.

Caelia steps forward, dropping her knife. She is dressed in a stomacher of gold and a skirt of blue, a circlet of berries in her loose hair.

“I will do it,” she says. “It is enough. I will make you the High King, although the stain of what you have done will forever taint your rule.”

Never is like forever
, I think, and then am angry to be reminded of anything Cardan has ever said, especially now. There's a part of me that is glad she has given in, despite the awfulness of Balekin, the inevitable horror of his rule. At least this is over.

A bolt comes from the shadows of the rafters—in a completely different trajectory than the last. It strikes her in the chest. Her eyes go wide, her hands flutter over her heart, as though the wound is immodest and she needs to cover it. Then her eyes roll back, and she goes down without a sigh. It is Balekin who cries out with frustration. Madoc gives orders to his men, pointing toward the ceiling. A phalanx breaks off from the others and rushes up the stairs. A few guards fly up into the air on pale green wings, blades drawn.

He killed her. The Ghost killed her.

I push my way blindly toward the dais, past a sluagh howling for more blood. I don't know what I think I am going to do when I get there.

Rhyia picks up her sister's knife, holds it in one shaking hand. Her blue dress makes her look like a bird, caught before she could take flight. She's Vivi's only real friend in Faerie.

“Are you really going to fight me, sister?” Balekin says. “You have neither sword nor armor. Come, it is too late for that.”

“It is too late,” she says, and brings the knife to her own throat, pressing the point just below her ear.

“No!” I shout, although my voice is drowned out by the crowd, drowned out by Balekin shouting, too. And then, because I can't stand to see any more death, I close my eyes. I keep them closed through being jostled by something heavy and furred. Balekin starts calling for someone to find Cardan, to bring him Cardan, and my eyes automatically fly open. But there's no Cardan in sight. Only Rhyia's crumpled body and more horror.

Winged archers take aim at the cluster of roots where the Ghost was hiding. A moment later, he drops down into the crowd. I hold my breath, afraid he has been hit. But he rolls, stands, and takes off up the stairs, with guards hot on his heels.

He has no chance. There are too many of them, and the brugh is too packed, leaving nowhere to run. I want to help him, want to go to him, but I am hemmed in. I can do nothing. I can save no one.

Balekin turns on the Court Poet, pointing at him. “You will crown me. Speak the words of the ceremony.”

“I cannot,” Val Moren says. “I am no kin to you, no kin to the crown.”

“You will,” Balekin says.

“Yes, my liege,” the Court Poet answers in a quavering voice. He stumbles through a quick version of the coronation as the hill goes silent. But when the crowd is asked to accept Balekin as the new High King, no one speaks. The golden oak-leaf crown is in Balekin's hand, but not yet on his head.

Balekin's gaze sweeps over the audience, and though I know it will not settle on me, I still flinch. His voice booms. “Pledge yourselves to me.”

We do not. The monarchs do not bend their knees. The Gentry are silent. The wild faeries watch and measure. I see Queen Annet of the southmost Unseelie Court, the Court of Moths, signal to her courtiers to leave the hall. She turns away with a sneer.

“You are sworn to the High King,” Balekin booms. “And I am king now.” Balekin lifts the crown and sets it on his own head. But a moment later, he howls, knocking it off. A burn is on his brow, the red shadow of a circlet.

“We do not swear to the king, but to the crown,” someone cries. It is Lord Roiben of the Court of Termites. He has made his way to stand in front of the knights. And although there are more than a dozen directly between him and Balekin, Roiben does not seem particularly concerned. “You have three days to get it onto your head, kin slayer. Three days before I will depart here, unsworn, unchecked in power, and unimpressed. And I am certain not to be the only one.”

There is a smattering of laughter and whispers as his words spread. A motley group still fills the hall: glittering Seelie and terrifying Unseelie; the wild fey that seldom leave their hills, rivers, or grave mounds; goblins and hags; pixies and phookas. They have watched nearly all the royal family be slaughtered in a single night. I wonder how much more violence will spring up if there is no new monarch to caution them. I wonder who would welcome it.

Sprites glitter in air that stinks of freshly spilled blood. The revel will go on, I realize. Everything will go on.

But I am not sure that I can.

I
am a child again, hiding under a table, with the revel spinning around above me.

Pressing my hand to my heart, I feel the speeding thud of it. I cannot think. I cannot think. I cannot think.

There is blood on my dress, little dots of it sinking into the blue sky.

I thought I could not be shocked by death, but—there was just so
much
of it. An embarrassing, ridiculous excess. My mind keeps going back over Prince Dain's white ribs, the spray of blood from Elowyn's throat, and the High King's denying Balekin over and over as he died. Over poor Taniot and Caelia and Rhyia, who were forced to discover, each in turn, how the crown of Faerie mattered more than their lives.

I think of Madoc, who had been at Dain's right hand all these years. Faeries might not be able to lie outright, but Madoc had lied with every laugh, every clap on the back, every shared cup of wine. Madoc, who'd let us all get dressed up and given me a beautiful sword to wear tonight, as though we were really going to some fun party.

I knew what he was
, I try to tell myself.
I saw the blood crusted on his red cap. If I let myself forget, then more fool me.

At least knights had led my family away before the killing started. At least none of the others had to watch, although, unless they were very far away, they could not have failed to hear the screams. At least Oak would not grow up as I have, with death as my birthright.

I sit there until my heart slows again. I need to get out of the hill. This revel is going to turn wilder, and with no new High Monarch on the throne, there is little holding any of the revelers back from any entertainment they can devise. It's probably not the best time to be a mortal here.

I try to remember looking down on the layout of the throne room from above with the Ghost. I try to recall the entrances into the main part of the castle.

If I could find one of the guards and make them believe that I was part of Madoc's household, they might take me to the rest of my family. But I don't want to go. I don't want to see Madoc, covered in blood, sitting beside Balekin. I don't want to pretend that what happened is anything other than horrific. I don't want to disguise my disgust.

There's another way out. I can crawl under the tables to the steps and go up them to the ledge near Madoc's strategy room. I think from there I can climb directly through and be in the part of the castle most likely to be deserted—and the part with access to secret tunnels. From there, I can get out without worrying about knights or guards or anyone else. Adrenaline makes my whole body sing with the desire to move, but although what I have feels like a plan, it's not one yet. I can get out of the palace, but I have nowhere to go after that.

Figure it out later
, instinct urges.

Okay, half a plan is good enough.

On my hands and knees, heedless of my dress, heedless of the way the sheath of my sword drags against the packed-earth floor, heedless of the pain in my hand, I crawl. Above me I hear music. I hear other things, too—the snap of what might be bones, a whimper, a howl. I ignore all of it.

Then the tablecloth lifts, and as my eyes adjust to the brightness of the candlelight, a masked figure grabs for my arm. There's no easy way to draw my sword, crouched as I am under a table, so I grab for the knife inside my bodice. I am about to strike when I recognize those ridiculous spike-tipped shoes.

Cardan. The only one who can legitimately crown Balekin. The only other descendant of the Greenbriar line left. Everyone in Faerie must be looking for him, and here he is, wandering around in a flimsy silver fox half mask, blinking at me with drunken confusion and swaying a bit on his feet. I almost laugh outright. Imagine my luck to be the one to find him.

“You're mortal,” he informs me. In his other hand, he's carrying an empty goblet, tipped over absently, as though he's forgotten he still carries it. “It's not safe for you here. Especially if you go around stabbing everyone.”

“Not safe for
me
?” Absurdity of the statement aside, I have no idea why he's acting as though he's ever thought about my safety for a moment, except to endanger it. I try to remind myself he must be in shock and grieving, and that might make him behave strangely, but it's hard to think of him as a person who could care about anyone enough to mourn. Right now, he doesn't even seem to care about himself. “Get down here before you're recognized.”

“Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt? Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity.” He laughs unsteadily, like he expects I am going to laugh, too.

I don't. I ball up my fist and punch him in the stomach, right where I know it will hurt. He staggers to his knees. The goblet drops to the dirt, making a hollow clanking sound. “Ow!” he shouts, and lets me tug him under the table.

“We'll get out of here without anyone noticing,” I tell him. “We stay under the tables and make our way to the steps to the upper levels of the palace. And don't tell me it's beneath your dignity to crawl. You're so drunk you can barely stand anyway.”

I hear him snort. “If you insist,” he says. It's too dark to see his expression, and even if it wasn't, he's masked.

We make our way through the underside of the tables, with ballads and drinking songs sung above us, screams and whispers in the air, and the soft footfalls of dancers echoing around us like rain. My heart is hammering from the bloodshed, from Cardan being so close, from striking him without consequences. I concentrate on him shuffling behind me. Everything smells of packed earth, spilled wine, and blood. I can feel my thoughts spiraling away, can feel myself start to tremble. I bite the inside of my lip to give myself a fresh pain to focus on.

I must keep it together. I can't lose it now, not where Cardan will see.

And not when a plan is starting to form in my mind. A plan requiring this last prince.

I glance back and see that he has stopped moving. He's sitting on the ground, looking at his hand. Looking at his ring. “He despised me.” His voice sounds light, conversational. Like he's forgotten where he is.

“Balekin?” I ask, thinking of what I saw at Hollow Hall.

“My father.” Cardan snorts. “I didn't much know the others, my brothers and sisters. Isn't that funny? Prince Dain—he didn't want me in the palace, so he forced me out.”

I wait, not sure what to say. It's disturbing to see him like this, behaving as though he might have emotions.

After a moment, he seems to come back to himself. His eyes focus on me, glittering in the dark. “And now they're all dead. Thanks to Madoc. Our honorable general. They never should have trusted him. But your mother discovered that a long time ago, didn't she?”

I narrow my eyes. “Crawl.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “You first.”

We go from table to table, until finally we're as close as we're likely to get to the steps. Cardan pushes back the tablecloth and reaches out his hand toward me, in the gallant manner of someone helping up the person they've been trysting with. Maybe Cardan would say he was doing it for the benefit of onlookers, but we both know he's mocking me. I stand without touching him.

The only thing that matters is getting out of the hall before the revel gets bloodier, before the wrong creature decides I am an amusing plaything, before Cardan is gutted by someone who doesn't want any High Monarch in power.

I start toward the steps, but he stops me. “Not like that. Your father's knights will recognize you.”

“I'm not the one they're looking for,” I remind him.

He frowns, although his mask hides most of it. Still, I can see it in the turn of his mouth. “If they see your face, they may pay too much attention to whom you're with.”

Annoyingly, he's right. “If they knew me at all, they'd know I'd never be with you.” Which is ridiculous, since I am currently standing beside him, although it makes me feel better to say it. With a sigh, I take down my braids, rubbing my hands through my hair until it hangs wild in my face.

“You look…” he says, and then trails off, blinking a few times, not seeming able to finish. I am guessing the hair thing worked better than he had expected.

“Give me a second,” I say, and I plunge into the crowd. I don't like risking this, but covering my face is safer than not. I spot a nixie in a black velvet mask eating a tiny sparrow's heart off a long pin. Slyfooting up behind her, I cut the ribbons and catch the mask before it hits the floor. She turns, searching for where it fell, but I am already away. Soon she will abandon looking and eat another delicacy—or at least I hope she will. It is just a mask, after all.

When I return, Cardan is swilling down more wine, his gaze burning into me. I have no idea what he sees, what he's even looking for. A thin rivulet of green liquid pours over his cheek. He reaches for the heavy silver pitcher as if to pour himself another cup.

“Come on,” I say, grabbing for his gloved hand with mine.

We're to the steps out of the hall when three knights move to block our way. “Look elsewhere for your pleasure,” one informs us. “This is the way to the palace, and it is barred to common Folk.”

I feel Cardan stiffen beside me, because he's an idiot and cares more about being called common than anyone's safety, sadly even his own. I tug his arm. “We will do as we are bid,” I assure the knight, trying to move Cardan away before he does something we will both regret.

Cardan, however, will not be moved. “You are much mistaken in us.”

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

“The High King Balekin is a friend to my lady's Court,” Cardan says, silver-tongued in his silver fox mask. He wears an easy half smile. He's speaking the language of privilege, speaking it with his drawling tone, with the looseness of his limbs, as though he thinks he owns everything he can see. Even drunk, he's convincing. “You may have heard of Queen Gliten in the Northwest. Balekin sent a message about the missing prince. He is waiting for an answer.”

“I don't suppose you have any proof of that?” one of the knights asks.

“Of course.” Cardan holds out a fisted hand and opens it to reveal a royal ring gleaming in the center of his palm. I have no idea when he took it off his finger, a neat bit of sleight of hand that I had no idea he could do, no less while inebriated. “I was given this token so you would know me.”

At the sight of the ring, they step back.

With an obnoxious, too-charming smile, Cardan grabs my arm and hauls me past them. Although I have to grit my teeth, I let him. We're on the steps, and it's because of him.

“What about the mortal?” one of the guards calls. Cardan turns.

“Oh, well, you aren't
entirely
mistaken in me. I intended to keep some of the delights of the revel for myself,” he says, and they all smirk.

It is all I can do not to knock him to the ground, but there's no dispute he's clever with words. According to the baroque rules that govern fey tongues, everything he said was true enough, so long as you concentrate only on the words. Balekin is Madoc's friend, and I am part of Madoc's Court, if you squint a little. So I am the “lady.” And the knights probably
have
heard of Queen Gliten; she's famous enough. I'm sure Balekin
is
waiting for an answer about the missing prince. He's probably desperate for one. And no one can claim that Cardan's ring isn't meant to be a token by which he's known.

As for what he wants to keep from the revel, it could be anything.

Cardan is clever, but it's not a nice kind of cleverness. And it's a little too close to my own propensity for lying to be comfortable. Still, we're free. Behind us, what should have been a celebration of a new High King continues: the shrieking, the feasting, the whirling around in endless looping dances. I glance back once as we climb, taking in the sea of bodies and wings, inkdrop eyes and sharp teeth.

I shudder.

We climb the steps together. I let him keep his possessive grip on my arm, guiding me. I let him open the doors with his own keys. I let him do whatever he wants. And then, once we're in the empty hall in the upper level of the palace, I turn and press the point of my knife directly underneath his chin.