Wander The Night, page 31
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m not ready either. But I hope I can get there, and I hope you’ll be there too.”
“What about Nieve? Why not her?”
“Because I picked you,” I say. “Because I’ll always pick you. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
He takes a deep breath. “What if I decide later that I don’t want it?”
“It’s not an oath. You can change your mind.”
“As long as you’ll be there.” Kavi reaches out and plucks the ring gently from my hand.
“I can’t promise that.”
He slides the ring onto his right middle finger and studies the black band. “I know.”
I smile at him, trying to ease his worries and all too aware that I can’t. “I can’t tell you anything more, but you’ll find out the results soon enough.”
“Just… be careful.”
“Of course.”
Without warning, Kavi throws his arms around me. “Please. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
I tighten my grip on him. “I’ll do my best. That I can promise.”
SCENE 5
The next night, soldiers and serving staff prepare supplies for travel. We don’t tell them where we’re going, only what we need. An entourage would normally take a week of travel, but with only two of us, we can cut that time down to four days at most. Ariel’s cloud horses could cover ground more quickly, but with my new, more powerful glamour, I may be able to provide an alternative.
The effort starts out awkward, but as I lean into the feeling, the magic comes with more ease. Though with none of the speed that Ariel had mastered, after a while, I have two horses standing before me. Crafted from the earth, their bodies are winding roots and vines, their hooves uneven stone. They toss manes made of grass and dandelion and stare at me with eye sockets like hollows in a dying tree.
I stare back. I have never made anything quite like this.
Titania expresses her approval of my work, and once we leave, I try my luck crafting an earthen bird. To my surprise, it turns out capable of flight. I send it ahead, carrying a letter to Mab within the grip of its twiggy claws. I don’t want more trouble than we’ll already face, and I’m counting on Mab being honorable enough to speak with us instead of killing us on sight. After all, she technically has every right to do so where I’m concerned.
The horses I’ve created travel far faster than regular steeds, though not quite as fast as the ones made of cloud. Still, they ride well enough, and we’re many miles beyond the Green border by the time day breaks.
We push on a few hours more before we stop for the day. Working with weaker glamour than she has for centuries, Titania prepares a small meal from the supplies we’ve brought and leaves glamouring a hideaway place to me. The new glamour comes less easily here, as though the land resists me. This could prove an issue when facing Mab, and I tell Titania as much.
She looks thoughtful. “I didn’t realize it would react that way. Oberon never mentioned such a thing.”
“What about you? Did you not notice it yourself?”
“My glamour was never as powerful as Oberon’s, but no, I never noticed.”
“Because you were born here,” I say in realization. “It didn’t matter which side you were on. They both worked the same for you.”
Titania eyes me carefully, likely piecing together the same puzzle I am.
I shake my head. “Please don’t ask me if I’ve changed my mind about this. I don’t know what I would say.”
She nods, and we say nothing else on the matter.
When we argue over which of us will take first watch, I teach her how to play ‘rock, paper, scissors’ and then cheat so I can go first. I can’t sleep anyway, and even after I wake her to change shifts, I lie in the grass and pretend for a long while.
The following night of travel passes much the same way, though we’re both more anxious than before. We attempt to distract each other by recounting stories of ourselves from long ago. We keep our voices low and speak of harmless things, just in case anything listens in.
Titania tells me of the time she and Oberon met, a story I’ve only ever heard from Oberon’s perspective. It happened at a ball in the Mound that I, of course, declined to attend. I can’t recall what I did instead, but I’m sure it required far less stuffy clothing.
“I thought him attractive, but truthfully I saw him as an opportunity. I never supposed my feelings might change.” She glances at me from the corner of her eye. “Speaking of changed feelings, what did you think of me that first meeting?”
“Truthfully?” I ask, and she nods. “You were the stepmother Oberon met at a party. I didn’t have very high expectations. What’d you think of me?”
Titania makes an expression that very closely resembles a smirk, yet I’m not sure she can actually do that. “I thought you a pesky child to be easily rid of. I hadn’t counted on just how favored you were.”
I laugh. “Imagine. We could have been friends this whole time if we’d tried a little harder.”
“Imagine that. Friends.” She pauses for a moment. “On that topic, you said Ariel helped you and was punished for it. I know you’re friends, but why would they risk so much for you?”
“Ariel and I have a long history of getting into trouble. Ever since I wound up on Mab’s bad side the first time, Ariel and I have kept up a friendship. They don’t have a lot of allies, and I owed them. We made an agreement.” I shrug, braiding small sections of the grassy mane of my horse. “We’ve fought off a pack of redcaps together when they thought sylph was on the menu. We would trade information on potential threats so we could help our courts avoid war. Sometimes, Mab would be in a mood and take her anger out on random people, especially if they were Green. You know how she is.”
“All too well. I remember Ariel being an acceptable target too.”
“When that happened, Ariel would get out of the Mound for some feigned errand and meet up with me instead. It just became a back and forth thing, helping each other when we could.”
“It’s all too important to have allies.”
I stare at her until I can catch her eye. “Yeah,” I say with meaning I hope she understands, “it is.”
She responds with a small smile and urges her horse forward.
Halfway through the third night, the Mound finally comes into view. The sight of it brings both a relief to have made it this far and a fresh anxiety for events yet to unfold. With shaking hands, I open a carefully packed bundle and don the black crown.
A trio of guards is waiting outside for us. I allow the glamoured horses to fall away into sticks, and the guards check us over to catalogue any weapons we have. They flank us closely as we descend into the Mound, as though we go to our execution rather than a negotiation. It remains to be seen which will happen.
Courtiers, Gentry, and rabble alike watch with rapturous intent as we’re led past them into the throne room. Titania keeps her head high and haughty, and I try to mimic her feigned confidence, knowing the effort falls flat. The Grey Courters snicker and snarl in anticipation.
I try to ignore the large tree that grows up on one side of the room, noticeable despite its blending in with the rest of the dark roots along the walls.
Mab sits on her throne, stroking the earthen bird perched on the arm of the chair. The queen’s black eyes watch our procession with calculating intensity, a smile playing about her rouge-darkened lips. Our compulsory entourage marches us about twenty feet from the throne before moving aside to let us face royal wrath on our own.
“It would seem, my dear, that you are incapable of knowing when to give up or simply die,” Mab says, meeting my eyes, hand still upon the earthen bird. “However terrible you are at accepting failure, you are dreadfully skilled at stealing away those I once thought loyal to me.” She turns her piercing stare on Titania. “Hello, sister. So it comes to this at last, does it?”
“I would have chosen a thousand different outcomes were I given the choice,” Titania says. Her brow is creased with conflict, but her voice never wavers. “I only wish to make things right.”
“And whose version of right do you seek so blindly? You are a traitor to your court,” Mab sneers. “I knew you’d spent too long among the weak-willed. You have lost your taste for violence, if ever you truly even had it. You fail to show either strength or power, but I expect I might remind you of my own.”
“We aren’t here to discuss your opinion or your sentiment,” I interrupt, trying to ignore my heart beating its way up my throat. “Your sister has abdicated the Green throne. By right of birth, she has yielded the court’s rule to me. I am the new King of the Green Court. I am here to ask your acceptance and recognition of this.”
Mab scoffs, baring her teeth in a smile. “I see no king before me. Only a boy in a crown.”
“I didn’t come to trade barbs,” I say, trying to measure out my words into something unlikely to provoke her. “I came here to ensure your acknowledgement of my reign…” I take a steadying breath. “Or to challenge you if you refuse.”
Mab’s smile turns vicious. “Well then. It would seem my choices are rather limited.” The court squeals and cackles in raucous delight. “Tell me, were my sources correct? Did you really trek across the human world and Chaos lands only to die painfully?”
I press my mouth shut and refuse to answer.
My earthen bird puffs up its feathery leaves and pecks one of Mab’s fingers, drawing blood that beads up on her pale skin. One of the guards steps forward with a hand on his sword, but Mab raises a hand to still him. She examines her bleeding finger with intrigue before returning her gaze to me. “I seem to have offended your bird.”
Laughter rises among the crowd. Mab waves a hand, and the bird dissolves into dust and ash. She meets my eyes, challenging and triumphant.
“I believe I said I would kill you if you returned to the courts. Therefore, I’m afraid I cannot merely accept your claim to the Green throne. What would my people think should I rescind my word?” She pauses, and ‘her people’ chuckle and hiss in amusement. “However, I like to think myself a fair queen. Name the terms of your challenge. Should I find them satisfactory, I shall accept.”
“A duel, one on one, you and me. Just glamour and a blade, honorable combat. You determine if we fight to first blood or to a certain number of hits. If I win, I retain rule of the Green Court, and you forfeit the Grey Court to Titania.”
“A bold request.” Her black eyes narrow, and she smiles. “I should warn you, I don’t like to leave a fight unfinished, and I should very much like you dead. Besides, first blood is quite uneventful, and I do have a reputation to maintain. Therefore, if you are to win, you shall have to see me dead first. But what if I win?”
I grit my teeth. “If you win, you can do whatever the hell you want. I figure I’ll be too dead to object in that case.”
She grins wider. “And what makes you think I’ll accept?”
“Are you afraid you’ll lose?”
Mab’s smile evaporates. I’ve hit a nerve. I hope it gets me what I want rather than getting me impaled before the duel even starts.
“You think you can cajole me with your silver words?”
“I’m hoping.”
She gives me a thorough look, like she’s seeing me for the first time and isn’t sure what to make of me.
“I have a few clarifications,” she says. “One on one, as you ask. A sword each. No shield, no glamour—”
“That’s not what I said.” I stop myself before I can say it isn’t fair. Mab would not take kindly to that.
Her eyes flash. “I know what you said. You’re in my domain now, child. You don’t make the rules here. We play by mine.”
I take a measured breath as anger threatens to overtake me.
Mab continues. “Leather armor, so that I might take my time with you. No one wishes for the matador to kill the bull too quickly, after all. If you win, you may have the Green Court, and my sister shall have the Grey. Let her see if she can keep it.” She cuts a razor-sharp glance at Titania. “If I win, I keep the Green Court, and my sister will be lucky to keep her head. Maybe she can earn back my love in a few decades.”
Titania takes a single step forward. “I have only ever tried to earn your love. Instead, you conflated it with fear until I could no longer tell the two apart.”
The room is silent for a breath before Mab responds. “If you need help discerning love from fear, little sister, I shall teach you the difference once I’ve won. And you—” She returns her attention to me. “You will die by my hand, knowing that I will work that bastard brother of yours to death and feed his corpse to the redcaps.”
The crowd screams in elation. My entire body goes cold at the sound.
“Do we have a deal?”
From the time I returned to court, there was only ever one choice. I stand tall and stare death in the eye.
“We have a deal.” The typical pins-and-needles sensation that follows a bargain burns instead this time. I force myself to ignore the desire to shake my hands or clench them into fists.
“Perfect,” Mab croons. “You have an hour to prepare. I suggest you make peace with the time you have left.”
The crowd begins to chant in excitement, and several glasses of dark wine are raised to the ceiling.
I don’t try to barter for more time. Titania warned me that Mab would turn this into a display. She won’t risk the enthusiasm of her spectators to give me a few moments more of existence, so I don’t even bother asking.
We’re corralled out of the throne room and into another room, much smaller and scattered with various bits of furniture that bring to mind a Victorian parlor. Titania requests Cobweb’s presence, and I mentally bemoan the fact that part of what little life I have left will be spent with him of all people. The guards close the door, and we’re left to our own devices for the time being.
“Why did you ask for Cobweb?” I ask, trying to keep the contempt out of my voice.
Her expression tells me I don’t succeed. “I need to speak with him about something. Even now, I love my sister, but I do not trust her. I have to be sure of something, and I need the means to do so.”
“That’s rather cryptic and vague.”
“Forgive me for keeping my secrets. If I’m right and know my sister, you’ll be glad I chose this.”
I’m horribly curious, but Cobweb appears then, squeezing through the space beneath the door like a runaway hamster. He flashes me a rude gesture and flies to Titania. They spend a few minutes in quiet conversation before he slips back out the way he came.
I attempt to drill Titania once more about her intentions, but she refuses to speak to me, choosing instead to pace one end of the room until I’m certain the flooring will need to be replaced.
For my own part, I sit against the wall and lean my head back, reciting one-liners I accidentally memorized from the action movie I watched with Kavi. It keeps my mind occupied on something other than the present. By the time someone returns to retrieve us, I feel wound tight enough to snap. I’m almost relieved that I’ll have somewhere tangible to direct my nervous energy.
Titania is taken in one direction, and I in another. My escort leads me to a different room, in which we’re greeted by frustrated curses and the sound of metal clattering on metal and stone.
A familiar winged creature zips out from the open door, stops long enough to bear shark-like teeth at me in what may or may not be a smile, and darts off down the hallway.
“Damned menace, what Cobweb is,” mutters a large and furry bugbear, the owner of the voice that had been swearing. “Undoin’ my work. Should be turned into a stew.”
My first thought is that said stew would cause terrible indigestion, but my second thought zeroes in on the two fine dueling rapiers that have been knocked to the floor, along with a strand of rubies. Did Titania have something to do with this?
The grumbling bugbear picks them up, looks between the two and nods at the one in his right hand. He takes the strand of rubies and threads it through the guard. He places the other rapier in my hand and then sizes me up before pushing folded brown leather armor into my arms.
The bugbear grins. “No one will have any fun if it’s too easy killin’ ya.”
I scowl back at him though I don’t refuse the chance of added protection. Rapiers may be almost comically long for the one-handed swords they are, but it’s hard to laugh while being eviscerated by one. The thin point can kill you before you’ve fully realized you’re hurt, and while not all rapiers do, these blades have sharpened edges as well. Mab clearly wishes to draw as much blood as she can before this is over.
Once I’m armored and armed, my escort leads me not back to the throne room as I had expected but out of the Mound entirely. I will my legs not to fail me as we ascend the winding staircase and step out into the night.
SCENE 6
Down the stone stairs, at the foot of the Mound, the crowd has formed a ring, the interior of which is lined with the same glowing mushrooms as the throne room. A figure inside the large open center tosses their arms up in the air over and over, shouting and riling up the onlookers. I don’t see Titania until I’m shoved through the crowd and into the center of the frantic circle.
She catches my eye. “Don’t die,” she mouths.
The huff of breath that leaves me is somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. Titania tilts her head, expression tight with worry. I cave and give her a nod, for whatever good it may do either of us.
The circle around me goes wild with sudden intensity, and I whip around in the direction they have all turned.
Mab approaches the ring, her red hair secured in long complicated braids that lie close to her scalp. She’s dressed in leather armor too, hers black as a new moon and close-fitting as a hug. Her face seems paler by comparison, and her lips are smeared with gold. Her ruby-strung rapier sits ready in her hand. Her crown sits over her braids in a crystalline circlet. She is beautiful and terrifying.
