The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air Book 2)

The trap for Orlagh is set. I spend the day with Madoc going over the particulars. We created three specific times and places where the Undersea could strike with some confidence:

The boat itself, carrying a decoy, is obvious. It requires a hob to pretend to be Oak, huddling in a cloak, and the boat itself to be enchanted to fly.

Before that, there is a moment during Taryn’s reception when Oak is to wander off on his own into the maze. A section of the greenery will be replaced with treefolk, who will remain unseen until they need to strike.

And even before that, upon arrival at Locke’s estate for the wedding, Oak will seem to step out of the carriage onto an open patch of land visible from the ocean. We will employ the decoy there as well. I will wait with the real Oak in the carriage while the rest of the family goes out and—hopefully—the sea strikes. Then the carriage will pull around, and we will climb straight through a window. In this case, the trees near the shore will be full of sprites, ready to spot the denizens of the Undersea, and a net has been buried under the sand to trap them.

Three chances to catch the Undersea in an attempt to harm Oak. Three chances to make them regret trying.

We do not neglect protecting Cardan, either. His personal guard is on high alert. He has his own coterie of archers who will follow his every move. And, of course, our spies.

Taryn wants to spend her last night before the wedding with her sisters, so I pack up a dress and Taryn’s earrings in a rucksack and tie it to the back of the same horse I once took to Insweal. I strap Nightfell across one saddlebag. Then I ride to Madoc’s estate.

The night is beautiful. A breeze runs through the trees, fragrant with the scent of pine needles and everapple. Distantly, I hear hoofbeats. Foxes make their odd screaming calls to one another. The trill of flute music comes from somewhere far off, along with the sound of mermaids singing their high-pitched, wordless songs out on the rocks.

Then, abruptly, the hoofbeats are no longer distant. Through the woods come riders. Seven of them, mounted on the backs of pearl-eyed, emaciated horses. Their faces are covered, their armor splashed with white paint. I can hear their laughter as they split apart to come at me from different angles. For a moment, I think there must be some mistake.

One of them draws an axe, which shines under the light of the first-quarter moon, putting a chill into my blood. No, there is no mistake. They have come to kill me.

My experience fighting on horseback is limited. I thought I would be a knight in Elfhame, defending some royal’s body and honor, not riding into battles like Madoc.

Now, as they close in on me, I think about who was aware of that particular vulnerability. Certainly Madoc knew. Perhaps this is his method of repaying me for my betrayal. Perhaps trusting me was a ruse. After all, he knew I was headed to his stronghold tonight. And we spent the afternoon planning traps just like this.

Regretfully, I think of the Roach’s warning: Next time, take a member of the royal guard. Take one of us. Take a cloud of sprites or a drunken spriggan. Just take someone.

But it’s just me. Alone.

I urge my horse to greater speed. If I can make it through the woods and get close enough to the house, then I’ll be safe. There are guards there, and whether or not Madoc put the riders up to this, he would never let a guest, not to mention his ward, be slain on his own lands.

That wouldn’t be playing by the rules of courtesy.

All I have to do is make it.

The hoofbeats pound behind me as we streak through the woods. I look back, wind in my face, hair blowing into my mouth. They’re riding far apart, trying to get enough ahead of me to herd me away from Madoc’s, toward the coast, where there’s nowhere to hide.

Closer and closer they come. I can hear them calling to one another, but the words are lost in the wind. My horse is fast, but theirs flow like water through the night. As I look back, I see one of them has drawn a bow with black-fletched arrows.

I wheel my mount to one side, only to find another rider there, cutting off my escape.

They are armored, with weapons in hand. I have only a few knives on me and Nightfell back with my saddlebags, along with a small crossbow in the pack itself. I walked through these woods hundreds of times in my childhood; I never thought I would need to be armored for battle here.

An arrow whizzes past me as another rider closes, brandishing a blade.

There is no way I will outrun them.

I stand up in the stirrups, a trick I am not sure is going to work, and then grab hold of the next sturdy branch I pass. One of the white-eyed steeds bares its teeth and bites down on the flank of my own mount. My poor animal whinnies and bucks. In the moonlight, I think I make out amber eyes as a rider’s long sword swings through the air.

I vault up, hauling myself onto the branch. For a moment, I just hold on to it, breathing hard, as the riders pass beneath me. They wheel around. One takes a swig from a flask, leaving a golden stain on his lips.

“Little cat up in a tree,” another calls. “Come down for the foxes!”

I push myself to my feet, mindful of the Ghost’s lessons as I run along the branch. Three riders circle below me. There’s a flash in the air as the axe flies in my direction. I duck, trying not to slip. The weapon whirls past me, biting into the trunk of the tree.

“Nice try,” I call, trying to sound anything but terrified. I’ve got to get away from them. I’ve got to get higher. But then what? I can’t fight seven of them. Even if I wanted to try, my sword is still tied to my horse. All I have are a few knives.

“Come down, human girl,” says one with silvery eyes.

“We heard of your viciousness. We heard of your ferocity,” says another in a deep, melodious voice that might be female. “Do not disappoint us.”

A third notches another black-tipped arrow.

“If I am to be a cat, let me give you a scratch,” I say, pulling two leaf-shaped knives from my sides and sending them in two shining arcs toward the riders.

One misses, and the other hits armor, but I hope it’s enough of a distraction for me to tug the axe from the wood. Then I move. I jump from branch to branch as arrows fly all around, grateful for everything the Ghost ever taught me.

Then an arrow takes me in the thigh.

I am unable to bite back a cry of pain. I start moving again, pushing through the shock, but my speed is gone. The next arrow hits so near my side that it’s only luck that saves me.

They can see too well, even in the dark. They can see so much better than I can.

The riders have all the advantages. Up in the trees, so long as I can’t hide, all I am presenting is a slightly tricky target, but the fun kind of tricky. And the more tired I get, the more I bleed, the more I hurt, the slower I will become. If I don’t change the game, I am going to lose.

I have to even the odds. I have to do something they won’t expect. If I can’t see, then I must trust my other senses.

Sucking in a deep breath, ignoring the pain in my leg and the arrow still sticking out of it, axe in hand, I take a running jump off the branch with a howl.

The riders try to turn their horses to get away from me.

I catch a rider in the chest with the axe. The point of it folds his armor inward. Which is quite a trick—or would have been if I didn’t lose my balance a moment later. The weapon comes out of my hand as I fall. I hit the dirt hard, knocking the breath out of me. Immediately, I roll to avoid hoof strikes. My head is ringing, and my leg feels as though it’s on fire when I push myself to my feet. I cracked the spine of the arrow sticking out of me, but I drove the point deeper.

The rider I struck is hanging in his saddle, his body limp and his mouth bubbling red.

Another rider wheels to the side while a third comes straight on. I draw a knife as the archer coming toward me attempts to switch back to his sword.

Six to one is much better odds, especially when four of the riders are hanging back, as though they hadn’t considered that they could get hurt, too.

“Ferocious enough for you?” I shout at them.

The silver-eyed rider comes at me, and I throw my knife. It misses him but hits the horse in the flank. The animal rears up. But as he tries to get his mount back under control, another barrels toward me. I grab for the axe, take a deep breath, and focus.

The skeletal horse watches me with its pupil-less white eyes. It looks hungry.

If I die here in the woods because I wasn’t better prepared, because I was too distracted to bother to strap on my own stupid sword, I will be absolutely furious with myself.

I brace as another rider bears down on me, but I am not sure I can withstand the charge. Frantically, I try to come up with another option.

When the horse is close, I drop to the ground, fighting every instinct for survival, every urge to run from the huge animal. It rushes over me, and I lift the axe and chop upward. Blood spatters my face.

The creature runs a little farther, and then drops with a vicious keening sound, trapping its rider’s leg underneath its bulk.

I push to my feet, wiping my face, just in time to see the silver-eyed knight preparing to charge. I grin at him, lifting the bloody axe.

The amber-eyed rider heads toward his fallen comrade, calling for the others. The silver-eyed knight wheels around at the sound, heading toward his companions. The trapped rider struggles as I watch the other two knights pulling him free and up onto one of the other horses. Then the six wheel away through the night, no more laughter following them.

I wait, afraid they might double back, afraid that something worse is about to leap from the shadows. Minutes slip by. The loudest sound is my ragged breath and the roaring of blood in my ears.

Shakily, painfully, I walk on through the woods, only to find my own steed lying in the grass, being devoured by the dead rider’s horse. I wave my axe, and it runs away. Nothing makes my poor horse any less dead, though.

My pack is gone from her back. It must have fallen off during the ride, taking my clothing and crossbow with it. My knives are gone, too, littering the forest after I threw them, probably lost in the brush. At least Nightfell is still here, tied to the saddle. I unstrap my father’s sword with cramping fingers.

Using it as a cane, I manage to drag myself the rest of the way to Madoc’s stronghold and wash off the blood in the pump outside.

Inside, I find Oriana sitting near a window, sewing on an embroidery hoop. She looks at me with her pink eyes and does not bother to smile, as a human might, to put me at ease. “Taryn is upstairs with Vivi and her lover. Oak sleeps and Madoc schemes.” She takes in my appearance. “Did you fall in a lake?”

I nod. “Stupid, right?”

She takes another stitch. I head for the stairs, and she speaks again before my foot can hit the first step.

“Would it be so terrible for Oak to stay with me in Faerie?” she asks. There is a long pause, and then she whispers, “I do not wish to lose his love.”

I hate that I have to say what she already knows. “Here, there would be no end to courtiers pouring poison in his ear, whispers of the king he would be if only Cardan was out of the way—and that, in turn, might make those loyal to Cardan desirous of getting Oak out of the way. And that’s not even thinking about the biggest threats. So long as Balekin lives, Oak’s safest far from Faerie. Plus there’s Orlagh.”

She nods, expression bleak, and turns back to the window.

Maybe she just needs someone else to be the villain, someone to be responsible for keeping them apart. Good luck for her that I am someone she already doesn’t much like.

Still, I remember what it was like to miss where I grew up, miss the people who raised me.

“You’ll never lose his love,” I say, my voice coming out as quietly as hers did. I know she can hear me, but still she doesn’t turn.

With that, I go up the stairs, leg aching. I am at the landing when Madoc comes out of his office and looks up at me. He sniffs the air. I wonder if he smells the blood still running down my leg, if he smells dirt and sweat and cold well water.

A chill goes to my bones.

I go into my old room and shut the door. I reach beneath my headboard and am grateful to find that one of my knives is still there, sheathed and a little dusty. I leave it where it was, feeling a little safer.

I limp over to my old tub, bite the inside of my cheek against the pain, and sit down on the edge. Then I slice my pants and inspect what remains of the arrow embedded in my leg. The cracked shaft is willow, stained with ash. What I can see of the arrowhead is made of jagged antler.

My hands start to shake, and I realize how fast my heart is beating, how fuzzy my head feels.

Arrow wounds are bad, because every time you move, the wound worsens. Your body can’t heal with a sharp bit cutting up tissue, and the longer it’s there, the harder it is to get out.

Taking a deep breath, I slide my finger down to the arrowhead and press on it lightly. It hurts enough that I gasp and go light-headed for a moment, but it doesn’t seem lodged in bone.

I brace myself, take the knife, and cut about an inch down the skin of my leg. It’s excruciating, and I am breathing in shallow huffs by the time I work my fingers into the skin and pull the arrowhead free. There’s a lot of blood, a scary amount. I press my hand against it, trying to stop the flow.

For a while, I am too dizzy to do anything but sit there.

“Jude?” It’s Vivi, opening the door. She takes a look at me, and then at the tub. Her cat eyes widen.

I shake my head. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“You’re bleeding,” she says.

“Get me…” I start and then stop, realizing that I need to stitch up the wound, that I didn’t think of that. Maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I was. Shock doesn’t always hit right away. “I need a needle and thread—not thin stuff, embroidery floss. And a cloth to keep putting pressure on the wound.”

She frowns at the knife in my hand, the freshness of the wound. “Did you do that to yourself?”

That snaps me out of my daze for a moment. “Yes, I shot myself with an arrow.”

“Okay, okay.” She hands me a shirt from the bed and then goes out of the room. I press the fabric against my wound, hoping to slow the bleeding.

When she gets back, she’s holding white thread and a needle. That thread is not going to be white for long.

“Okay,” I say, trying to concentrate. “You want to hold or sew?”

“Hold,” she says, looking at me as though she wished there was a third option. “Don’t you think I should get Taryn?”

“The night before her wedding? Absolutely not.” I try to thread the needle, but my hands are shaking badly enough that it’s difficult. “Okay, now push the sides of the wound together.”

Vivi kneels down and does, making a face. I gasp and try not to pass out. Just a few more minutes and I can sit down and relax, I promise myself. Just a few more minutes and it will be like this never happened.

I stitch. It hurts. It hurts and hurts and hurts. After I’m done, I wash the leg with more water and rip off the cleanest section of the shirt to wrap around it.

She comes closer. “Can you stand?”

“In a minute.” I shake my head.

“What about Madoc?” she asks. “We could tell—”

“No one,” I say, and, gripping the edge of the tub, kick my leg over, biting back a scream.

Vivi turns on the taps, and water splashes out, washing away the blood. “Your clothes are soaked,” she says, frowning.

“Hand me a dress from over there,” I say. “Look for something sack-like.”

I force myself to limp over to a chair and sink into it. Then I pull off my jacket and the shirt underneath it. Naked to my waist, I can’t go any further without pain stopping me.

Vivi brings over a dress—one so old that Taryn didn’t bother to take it to me—and bunches it up so she can lift it over my head, then guides my hands through the armholes as though I were a child. Gently, she takes off my boots and the remains of my pants.

“You could lie down,” she says. “Rest. Heather and I can distract Taryn.”

“I am going to be fine,” I say.

“You don’t have to do anything else, is all I’m saying.” Vivi looks as though she’s reconsidering my warnings about coming here. “Who did this?”

“Seven riders—maybe knights. But who was actually behind the attack? I don’t know.”

Vivi gives a long sigh. “Jude, come back to the human world with me. This doesn’t have to be normal. This isn’t normal.”

I get up out of the chair. I would rather walk on the wounded leg than listen to more of this.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t come in here?” she demands.

Now that I am up, I have to keep moving or lose momentum. I head for the door. “I don’t know,” I say. “But I do know this. Danger can find me in the mortal world, too. My being here lets me make sure you and Oak have guards watching you there. Look, I get that you think what I am doing is stupid. But don’t act like it’s useless.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she says, but by then I am in the hall. I jerk open the door to Taryn’s room to find her and Heather laughing at something. They stop when we come in.

“Jude?” Taryn asks.

“I fell off my horse,” I tell her, and Vivi doesn’t contradict me. “What are we talking about?”

Taryn is nervous, roaming around the room to touch the gauzy gown she will wear tomorrow, to hold up the circlet woven with greenery grown in goblin gardens and fresh as the moment they were plucked.

I realize that the earrings I bought for Taryn are gone, lost with the rest of the pack. Scattered among leaves and underbrush.

Servants bring wine and cakes, and I lick the sweet icing and let the conversation wash over me. The pain in my leg is distracting, but more distracting yet is the memory of the riders laughing, the memory of their closing in beneath the tree. The memory of being wounded and frightened and all alone.

When I wake the day of Taryn’s wedding, it is in the bed of my childhood. It feels like coming up from a deep dream, and for a moment, it’s not that I don’t know where I am—it’s that I don’t remember who I am. For those few moments, blinking in the late-morning sunlight, I am Madoc’s loyal daughter, dreaming of becoming a knight in the Court. Then the last half year comes back to me like the now-familiar taste of poison in my mouth.

Like the sting of the sloppily done stitches.

I push myself up and unwrap the cloth to look at the wound. It’s ugly and swollen, and the needlework is poor. My leg is stiff, too.

Gnarbone, an enormous servant with long ears and a tail, comes into my room with a belated knock. He is carrying a tray with breakfast on it. Quickly, I flip the blankets over my lower body.

He puts the tray on the bed without comment and goes into the bath area. I hear the rush of water and smell crushed herbs. I sit there, braced, until he leaves.

I could tell him I’m hurt. It would be a simple thing. If I asked Gnarbone to send for a military surgeon, he’d do it. He’d tell Oriana and Madoc, of course. But my leg would be stitched up well and I’d be safe from infection.

Even if Madoc had sent the riders, I believe he’d still take care of me. Courtesy, after all. He’d take it to be a concession, though. I’d be admitting that I needed him, that he won. That I’d come home for good.

And yet, in the light of the morning, I am fairly sure it wasn’t Madoc who sent the riders, even if it was the sort of trap he favors. He would have never sent assassins who hung back and who rode off when the numbers were still on their side.

Once Gnarbone goes out, I drink the coffee greedily and make my way to the bath.

It’s milky and fragrant, and only under the water can I allow myself to weep. Only under the water can I admit that I almost died and that I was terrified and that I wish there was someone to whom I could tell all that. I hold my breath until there’s no more breath to hold.

After the bath, I wrap myself in an old robe and make it to the bed. As I try to decide if it’s worth sending a servant back to the palace to get me another dress or if I should just borrow something of Taryn’s, Oriana comes into the room, holding a silvery piece of cloth.

“The servants tell me you brought no luggage,” she says. “I assume you forgot that your sister’s wedding would require a new gown. Or a gown at all.”

“At least one person is going to be naked,” I say. “You know it’s true. I’ve never been to a single revel in Faerie where everyone had clothes on.”

“Well, if that’s your plan,” she says, turning on her heels. “Then I suppose all you need is a pretty necklace.”

“Wait,” I say. “You’re right. I don’t have a dress, and I need one. Please don’t go.”

When Oriana turns, a hint of a smile is on her face. “How unlike you, to say what you actually mean and have it be something other than hostile.”

I wonder how it is for her to live in Madoc’s house, to be Madoc’s obedient wife and have had a hand in all his schemes being undone. Oriana is capable of more subtlety than I would have given her credit for.

And she has brought me a dress.

That seems like a kindness until she spreads it out on my bed.

“It’s one of mine,” she says. “I believe it will fit.”

The gown is silver and reminds me a little of chain mail. It’s beautiful, with trumpet sleeves slashed along the length of the arm to show skin, but it has a plunging neckline, which would look one way on Oriana and a totally different way on me.

“It’s a little, uh, daring for a wedding, don’t you think?” There’s no way to wear it with a bra.

She just looks at me for a moment, with a puzzled, almost insect-like stare.

“I guess I can try it on,” I say, remembering that I had joked about being naked just a moment ago.

This being Faerie, she makes no move to leave. I turn around, hoping that will be enough to draw attention away from my leg as I strip. Then I pull the gown over my head and let it slither over my hips. It sparkles gorgeously, but as I suspected, it shows a lot of my chest. Like, a lot.

Oriana nods, satisfied. “I will send someone to do your hair.”

A short while later, a willowy pixie girl has braided my hair into ram’s horns and wrapped the tips with silver ribbon. She paints the lids of my eyes and my mouth with more silver.

Then, dressed, I go downstairs to join the rest of the family in Oriana’s parlor, as though the last few months haven’t happened.

Oriana is dressed in a gown of pale violet with a collar of fresh petals that rises to her powdery jawline. Vivi and Heather are both in mortal clothes, Vivi in a fluttery fabric with a pattern of eyes printed on the cloth, and Heather in a short pink dress with little silver spangles all over it. Heather’s hair is pulled back in sparkling pink clips. Madoc is wearing a deep plum tunic, Oak in a matching tone.

“Hey,” Heather says. “We’re both in silver.”

Taryn isn’t there yet. We sit around the parlor, drinking tea and eating bannocks.

“Do you really think she’s going to go through with this?” Vivi asks.

Heather gives her a scandalized look, swats at her leg.

Madoc sighs. “It is said we learn more from our failures than our successes,” he says with a pointed look in my direction.

Then Taryn finally comes down. She’s been bathed in lilac dew and wears a gown of incredibly fine layers of cloth on top of one another, herbs and flowers trapped between them to give the impression that she’s this beautiful, floating figure and a living bouquet at the same time.

Her hair is braided into a crown with green blooms all through it.

She looks beautiful and painfully human. In all that pale fabric, she looks like a sacrifice instead of a bride. She smiles at all of us, shy and glowingly happy.

We all rise and tell her how beautiful she looks. Madoc takes her hands and kisses them, looking at her like any proud father. Even though he thinks she’s making a mistake.

We get into the carriage, along with the small hob who is going to be Oak’s double, who switches jackets once we’re inside, and then sits worriedly in a corner.

On our way to Locke’s estate, Taryn leans forward and catches my hand. “Once I am married, things will be different.”

“Some things,” I say, not entirely sure what she’s talking about.

“Dad has promised to keep him in line,” she whispers.

I recall Taryn’s appeal to me to have Locke dismissed from his position as Master of Revels. Curbing Locke’s indulgences is likely to keep Madoc busy, which seems like no bad thing.

“Are you happy for me?” she asks. “Truly?”

Taryn has been closer to me than any other person in the world. She has known the tide and undertow of my feelings, my hurts, both small and large, for most of my life. It would be stupid to let anything interfere with that.

“I want you to be happy,” I say. “Today and always.”

She gives me a nervous smile, and her fingers tighten on mine.

I am still holding her hand when the hedge maze comes into view. I see three pixie girls in diaphanous gowns fly over the greenery, giggling together, and beyond them other Folk already beginning to mill. As Master of Revels, Locke has organized a wedding worthy of the title.