The Prisoner’s Throne: A Novel of Elfhame

Half the Court seems to have come out to watch the ship touch down in the water near Mandrake Market. When the hull drops with a splash, it sends salt spray high into the air. The sail luffs, and Oak hangs on to the rigging to keep from stumbling around the deck like a drunk.

He can guess that the onlookers have come, in part, to see the Crown Prince home and, in part, to get a look at the new northern queen, to decide if she and Oak might really be in love, to determine if this is meant to be a marriage, or an alliance, or the prelude to an assassination.

The Living Council stands near the back of the crowd in a knot. Baphen, the Minister of Stars, strokes a blue beard threaded with celestial ornaments. Beside him, Fala, the Grand Fool, dressed in purple motley, pulls a matching purple rose from his hair and chews on the petals, as though he has been waiting long enough for their landing to need a snack. Mikkel, the troll representative of the Unseelie Courts, looks intrigued by the Hying ship, while insectile Nihuar, the representative of the Seelie Courts, blinks blankly. With her bug-like eyes, Oak has always found her to be eerily inscrutable.

Oak’s family members aren’t far off. Taryn’s skirts blow around her from the last of the wind that propelled the ship. Her head is bent toward Oriana while Leander runs in circles, as restless as Oak was as a child, playing while dull, important things happened around him.

Sailors aboard the ship throw down the anchor. Small boats launch off the shore of Insmire to ferry the passengers home. A collection of vessels—none of the armada, but pleasure boats. One in the shape of a swan, two carved to appear like they are fishes, and a silvery skiff.

As Oak watches, Jude emerges from a carriage. Ten years into her reign, she doesn’t bother waiting for a knight or page to hand her down as would be proper, but simply jumps out. She hasn’t bothered with a gown today, either, but wears a pair of high boots, tight-fitting trousers, and a vestlike doublet over a shirt poufy enough that it may have been borrowed from Cardan. The only sign that she is the High Queen is the crown on her head—or perhaps the way the crowd quiets upon her arrival.

Cardan emerges from the carriage next, wearing all the finery she eschewed. He is in a black doublet as ink dark as his hair with lines of scarlet thorns along the sleeves and across the chest. As if the suggestion of prickliness isn’t enough, his boots come to stiletto points. The smirk on his face manages to convey royal grandeur and boredom all at once.

Knights swarm around them, full of the alarm the king’s and queen’s expressions hide.

After the pleasure boats arrive at the ship, Hyacinthe goes below and emerges with Wren at his side. She has recovered enough to dress for the occasion in a gown of cloud gray, which sparkles when she moves. Her feet remain bare, but her hair has been braided high on her head, woven between the tines of the jagged onyx crown. And if she leans heavily on Hyacinthe, at least she is dressed and upright.

“I will go across first,” Randalin informs the prince. “And you may proceed next, with the queen. I have taken the liberty of instructing your armsfolk to bring up the rear, with Bogdana. That is, of course, if you approve?” The question is clearly meant as a formality. The command was already issued, the procession set. The Minister of Keys may have been unusually quiet since the ship was attacked, but that hasn’t cut down on his pompousness.

Once, Oak would have been amused rather than annoyed. He knows the councilor is harmless. Knows his annoyance is overreaction. “Go ahead,” the prince says, trying to get back his equilibrium.

When the councilor heads off toward shore, Oak heaves a sigh and stalks toward Wren. Hyacinthe is whispering something in her ear while she shakes her head.

“If you’re well enough—” Oak begins.

She cuts him off. “I am.”

“Then, Your Majesty,” says the prince, “will you take my arm?”

She looks up at him, as remote and impenetrable as the Citadel itself. Oak feels a little awed by her and then angry on her behalf. He hates that she must wear a mask, no matter how much it costs her, no matter what she’s been through.

As you must.

She nods, placing her hand lightly atop his. “I shall be the politest of monsters.”

For a moment, in the flash of her eyes, in the lifted corner of her mouth, and the glint of a sharp tooth, he sees the girl who quested with him. The one who was fierce and kind, resourceful and brave. But then she is gone again, submerged into cold stiffness. No longer looking like the girl he loved in the weeks leading up to this, but very like the one he loved as a child.

She’s nervous, he thinks.

As Oak leads her ashore, toward the onlookers, he hears whispers.

Witch Queen. Hag Queen.

Still, he is their prince. Their whispers fade as the crowd dutifully parts around him. Tiernan and Hyacinthe both follow, one on each side.

When Oak comes to his sister, he bows. Wren, seeming unsure of the etiquette, bobs in a shallow curtsy.

Despite how much magic it must have taken to destroy that monster in the sea, despite how sick she was after, she appears remarkably composed.

“Welcome home, Prince Oak,” Jude says formally, and then her mouth twists into a wry smile. “And congratulations on the completion of your epic quest. Remind me to knight you when I get the chance.”

Oak grins and bites his tongue. He is certain she will have much more to say to him later when they are alone.

“And you, Queen Suren of the former Court of Teeth,” says Cardan in his silky voice. “You’ve changed quite a bit, but then you would have, I suppose. Felicitations on the murder of your mother.”

Wren’s body stiffens with surprise.

Oak desperately wants to stop Cardan from talking, but short of kicking him or throwing something at his head, he has no idea how.

“The Ice Needle Citadel is full of old nightmares,” Wren says after a beat of silence. “I look forward to making new ones.”

Cardan gives her a half smile of appreciation for that line. “We shall dine together at dusk tomorrow to celebrate your arrival. And betrothal, if the frantic messages we received from Grima Mog were accurate.”

Oak’s mind spins, trying to figure out if he should object to any part of this. “We are, indeed, betrothed,” he confirms.

Jude looks over at him, studying his face. Then she turns to Wren. “So you’re to be my new sister.”

Wren flinches, as though her words are the opening move of some kind of cruel game. Oak wants to put his hand out, to touch her arm, to reassure her, except he knows better than to make Wren look as though she needs reassurance.

Besides, he’s not entirely sure what his sister did intend with those words.

A moment later, the black vulture lands on the dirt beside them and transforms into Bogdana, dark feathers becoming her dress and hair.

All around, there is the rattle of swords coming free of sheaths.

“What an appropriate greeting, Your Majesties,” says the storm hag. She does not bow. Nor does she curtsy. She doesn’t even incline her head.

“Bogdana,” Jude says, and there is something that is possibly admiration in her voice. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“How pleasing,” says the storm hag. “Especially since I saved your ship from certain destruction.”

Jude looks toward the Ghost—then checks herself and turns to Randalin instead.

“It is even so, Your Majesty,” the councilor affirms. “The Undersea launched an attack on us.”

A ripple of surprise goes through the crowd.

Cardan raises his brows, looking skeptical. “The Undersea?”

“One of the contenders for Queen Nicasia’s hand,” Randalin clarifies.

The High King turns to Oak with an amused smirk. “Perhaps they were worried you might throw your hat into that ring.”

“They wanted to send a message,” Randalin goes on, as though arguing the case, “that the land ought to keep to itself and let the Undersea work out its ruler business on its own. If we act otherwise, we will have made a powerful new enemy.”

“Their dim view of treaties gives me a dim view of them,” says Cardan. “We will give Nicasia aid, as she once aided us, and as we swore to do.”

It was the Undersea who’d rallied to Jude’s side when Cardan had been enchanted into a serpent, while Madoc and his allies conspired to take crown and throne, and while Wren hid in Oak’s room.

“We are grateful to you for your help,” Jude tells Bogdana.

“I saved the ship, but Wren saved those on board,” the storm hag says, curling her long fingers possessively on the girl’s shoulder.

Wren tenses at the touch or the praise.

“And saved our father as well,” Oak affirms, because he has to make his sister understand that Wren isn’t their enemy. “I couldn’t have gotten to Madoc without her, nor gotten him out—but I’m sure he told you as much.”

“He told me many things,” says Jude.

“I hope we will see him at the wedding,” says Bogdana.

Jude raises her eyebrows and glances in the High King’s direction. It’s obvious they thought Oak being betrothed was a long way from an exchange of vows. “There are several celebrations that ought to precede—”

“Three days’ time,” Bogdana says. “No longer.”

“Or?” Cardan asks, voice light. A dare.

“Enough,” Wren hisses under her breath. She cannot quite call the storm hag to account in front of everyone, and Bogdana knows it, but past a certain point, she will have to do something.

The storm hag places both hands on Wren’s shoulders. “Prince?”

They all look at him, all weighing his loyalty. And while he would marry Wren right then if it were only up to him, he can’t help thinking that anything Bogdana is this eager for can’t be good. Maybe she’s guessed that Wren doesn’t intend to ever go through with it.

“It would pain me to wait even three days,” Oak says, lightly, deflecting. “But if we must, for the sake of propriety, better the thing is done right ”

“There are rituals to complete,” Jude says. “And your family to gather.” She is certainly stalling, as Wren hoped she would.

Cardan watches the interaction. Most particularly, he watches Oak. He suspects the prince of something. Oak has to get him alone. Has to explain.

“We have rooms ready at the palace—” Jude begins.

Wren shakes her head. “There is no need to trouble yourself for my sake. I can keep and quarter my own people.” From a pocket in her shimmering gray dress, she takes out the white walnut.

Jude frowns.

Oak can well believe Wren doesn’t want to be at the palace, to have them observe her every weakness. Still, to refuse the hospitality of the rulers of Elfhame makes a statement about her loyalties.

Cardan seems distracted by the walnut itself. “Oh, very well, I will be the one to ask the obvious question—what have you there?”

“If you will allow us a patch of grass, this is where myself and my people will stay,” Wren says.

Jude glances toward Oak, and he shrugs.

“By all means,” says the High Queen, gesturing toward the guard. “Clear a space.”

A few of her knights disperse the crowd until there is an expanse of grass near the edge of the black rocks overlooking the water.

“Is this enough room?” Jude asks.

“Enough and more than enough,” says Bogdana.

“We can be generous,” says Cardan, clearly choosing his words to irritate the storm hag.

Wren takes a few steps away from them, then tosses the walnut against a patch of mossy earth, reciting the little verse under her breath. Cries of astonishment ring out around them as a pavilion the white of swan feathers, with golden feet like those of a crow, rises from the dirt.

It reminds him of one of the tents in the encampment of the Court of Teeth. He recalls seeing something very like it when he came to cut through the ropes that tied Wren to a post. Recalls listening for Madoc’s voice among those of the other soldiers, half in longing and half in fear. He’d missed his father. He’d also been afraid of him.

The prince wonders if Wren is reminded of the encampment, too, not far from where they currently stand. Wonders if she hates being back here.

Mother Marrow was the one who gave her the magic walnut. Mother Marrow, who keeps a place at Mandrake Market. Who gave Oak the advice that sent him off to the Thistlewitch, who sent him straight to Bogdana, in turn. Passed him from hag to hag, perhaps with a specific plan in mind. A specific version of a shared future.

All his thoughts are disturbing.

“What a clever nut,” says Cardan with a smile. “If you will not stay in the palace, then we have no recourse but to send you refreshments and hope to see you tomorrow.” He gestures toward Oak. “I trust that you don’t also have a cottage in your pocket. Your family is eager to spend some time with you.”

“A moment,” the prince says, turning to Wren.

It’s almost impossible to say anything meaningful to her here, with many eyes on them both, but he can’t leave without promising that he will see her. He needs her to know he’s not abandoning her.

“Tomorrow afternoon?” he says. “I will come and find you.”

She nods once, but her face seems braced for betrayal. He understands that. Here, he has power. If he was going to hurt her, this would be the time to do it. “I really do want to show you the isles. We could go to Mandrake Market. Swim in the Lake of Masks. Picnic on Insear, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Perhaps,” she says, and lets him take her hand. Even lets him press a kiss to her wrist.

He isn’t sure what to make of the tremble in her fingers as he releases them.

And then Oak is herded toward the palace, with Tiernan behind him and Randalin complaining vociferously to the High King and Queen about the discomforts of the journey.

“You insisted on going north,” Jude reminds the councilor.

As soon as they pass through the doors of the Palace of Elfhame, Oriana embraces Oak, hugging him tightly. “What were you thinking?” she asks, which is so exactly what he expects her to say that it makes him laugh.

“Where’s Madoc?” he asks between being released by his mother and Taryn sweeping him into another hug.

“Probably waiting for us in the war room,” Jude says.

Leander comes up to Oak, demanding to be swung around. He lifts the boy in his arms and whirls, rewarded with the child’s laughter.

Cardan yawns. “I hate the war room.”

Jude rolls her eyes. “He’s probably arguing with Grima Mog’s second-in-command.”

“Well, if there’s an actual fight to watch, that’s different, obviously,” Cardan says. “But if it’s just pushing little wooden people around on maps, I will leave that to Leander.”

At the mention of his name, Leander capers over. “I’m bored and you’re bored,” he says. “Play with me?” It’s half request, half demand.

Cardan touches the top of the child’s head, brushing back his dark coppery hair. “Not now, imp. We have many dull adult things to do.”

Oak wonders if Cardan sees Locke in the boy. Wonders if he sees the child he and Jude do not—and will not anytime soon, it seems—have.

When she turns toward him, Oak holds up a hand to forestall whatever his sister is about to say. “May I speak with Cardan for a moment?”

The High King looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Your sister has precedence, and she would like some time with you.”

At the thought of Jude’s lecture and then the lectures of all the other family members who took precedence, Oak feels exhausted.

“I haven’t been home in almost two months and am sticky with salt spray,” he says. “I want to take a bath and put on my own clothes and sleep in my own bed before you all start yelling at me.”

Jude snorts. “Pick two.”

“What?”

“You heard me. You can sleep and then have a bath, but I am going to be there the moment you’re done, not caring a bit about your being naked. You can bathe and put on fresh clothes, and see me before you sleep. Or you could sleep and change your garments, no bath, although I admit that’s not my preference.”

He gives her an exasperated look. She smiles back at him. In his mind, she has always been his sister first, but right at that moment it’s impossible to forget that she’s also the Queen of Elfhame.

“Fine,” he says. “Bath and clothes. But I want coffee and not the mushroom kind.”

“Your wish,” she tells him, like the liar she is, “is my command.”

“Explain this to me from the beginning,” Jude says, sitting on a couch in his rooms. Her arms are crossed. On the table beside her is an assortment of pastries, a carafe of coffee, cream so fresh that it is still warm and golden, along with bowls of fruit. Servants keep coming with more food— oatcakes, honey cakes, roasted chestnuts, cheeses with crystals that crunch between his teeth, parsnip tarts glazed in honey and lavender—and he keeps eating it.

“After I left Court, I went to see Wren because I knew she could command Lady Nore,” he begins, distracted by someone putting a cup of hot coffee into his hand. His hair is wet and his body relaxed from soaking in hot water. The abundance that he has taken for granted all his life surrounds him, familiar as his own bed.

“You mean Suren?” Jude demands. “The former child-queen of the Court of Teeth? Whom you call by a cute nickname.”

He shrugs. Wren is not precisely a nickname, but he takes his sister’s point. His use of it indicates familiarity.

“Tiernan says that you’ve known her for years.” He can see in Jude’s face that she believes he took a foolish risk recruiting Wren to his quest, that he trusts too easily, and that’s why he often winds up with a knife in his back. It’s what he wants her to believe about him, what he has carefully made her believe, and yet it still stings.

“I met her when she came to Elfhame with the Court of Teeth. We snuck off and played together. I told you back then that she needed help.”

Jude’s dark eyes are intent. She’s listening to all the nuances of what he says, her mouth a hard line. “You snuck off with her during a war? When? Why?”

He shakes his head. “The night you and Vivi and Heather and Taryn were talking about serpents and curses and what to do about the bridle.”

His sister leans forward. “You could have been killed. You could have been killed by our father.”

Oak takes an oatcake and begins tearing it apart. “I saw Wren once or twice over the years, although I wasn’t sure what she thought of me. And then, this time . . .”

He sees the change in Jude’s face, the slight tightening of the muscles of her shoulders. But she’s still listening.

“I betrayed her,” Oak says. “And I don’t know if she’ll forgive me.”

“Well, she’s wearing your ring on her finger,” Jude says.

Oak takes one of the shredded pieces of oatcake and puts it into his mouth, tasting the lie he can’t tell.

His sister sighs. “And she came here. That has to be worth something.”

And she held me prisoner. But he isn’t sure that Jude will be at all moved by that as proof of Wren’s caring about him.

“So do you really intend to go through with this marriage? Is this real?”

“Yes,” Oak says, because none of his concerns are about his own willingness.

Jude doesn’t look happy. “Dad explained that she has a unique power.”

Oak nods. “She can unmake things. Magic, mostly, but not exclusively.”

“People?” Jude asks, although if Cardan can congratulate Wren on the death of Lady Nore, he clearly knows the answer, which means she knows, too.

Still, his sister wants to hear it from him. Maybe she just wants to make him admit it. He nods.

Jude raises a brow. “And that means what exactly?”

“Scattering our guts across the snow. Or whatever landscape she has to hand.”

“Lovely,” she says. “And are you going to tell me she’s our ally? That we’re safe from that power?”

He licks dry lips. No, he cannot say that. Nor does he want to confess that he’s worried Wren will take herself apart without meaning to.

Jude sighs again. “I am going to choose to trust you, brother mine. For now. Don’t make me regret it.”