Chapter Thirty Two #3
“The Day Court, Summer Court, and Winter Court. And no—it didn’t even get far enough to be considered an open rebellion.
She used the High Lords’ powers to bind us to the land.
So the rebel lords tried calling for aid from the other Fae territories using as messengers whatever humans were foolish enough to enter our lands—most of them young women who worshipped us like gods.
” The Children of the Blessed. They had indeed made it over the wall—but not to be brides.
I was too battered by what I’d heard to grieve for them, rage for them.
“But Amarantha caught them all before they left these shores, and … you can imagine how it ended for those girls. Afterward, once Amarantha also butchered the rebellious High Lords, their successors were too terrified to tempt her wrath again.”
“And where are they now? Are they allowed to live on their lands, like Tamlin was?”
“No. She keeps them and their entire courts Under the Mountain, where she can torment them as she pleases. Others—others, if they swear allegiance, if they grovel and serve her, she allows them a bit more freedom to come and go Under the Mountain as they will. Our court was only allowed to remain here until Tamlin’s curse ran out, but … ” Alis shivered.
“That’s why you keep your nephews in hiding—to keep them away from this,” I said, glancing at the full satchel at her feet.
Alis nodded, and as she went to right the overturned worktable, I moved to help her, both of us grunting at the weight.
“My sister and I served in the Summer Court—and she and her mate were among those put down for spite when Amarantha first invaded. I took the boys and ran before Amarantha had everyone dragged Under the Mountain. I came here because it was the only place to go, and asked Tamlin to hide my boys. He did—and when I begged him to let me help, in whatever small way, he gave me a position here, days before the masque that put this wretched thing on my face. So I’ve been here for nearly fifty years, watching as Amarantha’s noose grew tighter around his neck. ”
We set the table upright again, and both of us panted a bit as we slumped against it.
“He tried,” Alis said. “Even with her spies, he tried finding ways to break the curse, to do anything against it, against having to send his men out again to be slaughtered by humans. He thought that if the human girl loved true, then bringing her here to free him was another form of slavery. And he thought that if he did indeed fall in love with her, Amarantha would do everything she could to destroy her, as her sister had been destroyed. So he spent decades refusing to do it, to even risk it. But this winter, with months to go, he just … snapped. He sent the last of his men out, one by one. And they were willing—they had begged him to go, all these years. Tamlin was desperate to save his people, desperate enough to risk the lives of his men, risk that human girl’s life to save us.
Three days in, Andras finally ran into a human girl in a clearing—and you killed him with hate in your heart. ”
But I had failed them. And in so doing, I’d damned them all.
I had damned each and every person on this estate, damned Prythian itself.
I was glad I was leaning against the table’s edge—or else I might have slid to the floor.
“You could have broken it,” Alis snarled, those sharp teeth mere inches from my face. “All you had to do was say that you loved him—say that you loved him and mean it with your whole useless human heart, and his power would have been freed. You stupid, stupid girl.”
No wonder Lucien had resented me and yet still tolerated my presence—no wonder he’d been so bitterly disappointed when I left, had argued with Tamlin to let me stay longer. “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes burning.
Alis snorted. “Tell that to Tamlin. He had only three days after you left before the forty-nine years were over. Three days, and he let you go. She came here with her cronies at the exact moment the seven times seven years were over and seized him, along with most of the court, and brought them Under the Mountain to be her subjects. Creatures like me are too lowly for her—though she’s not above murdering us for sport. ”
I tried not to visualize it. “But what of the King of Hybern—if she’s conquered Prythian for herself and stolen his spells, then does he see her as insubordinate or as an ally?”
“If they are on bad terms, he has made no move to punish her. For forty-nine years now, she’s held these lands in her grip.
Worse, after the High Lords fell, all the wicked ones in our lands—the ones too awful even for the Night Court—flocked to her.
They still do. She’s offered them sanctuary.
But we know—we know she’s building her army, biding her time before launching an attack on your world, armed with the most lethal and vicious faeries in Prythian and Hybern. ”
“Like the Attor,” I said, horror and dread twisting in my gut, and Alis nodded.
“In the human territory,” I said, “rumor claims more and more faeries have been sneaking over the wall to attack humans. And if no faeries can cross the wall without her permission, then that has to mean she’s been sanctioning those attacks. ”
And if I was right about what had happened to Clare Beddor and her family, then Amarantha had given the order for that, too.
Alis swiped some dirt I couldn’t see from the table we leaned against. “I would not be surprised if she has sent her minions into the human realm to investigate your strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of the destruction she one day hopes to cause.”
This was worse—so much worse than I had thought when I warned Nesta and my family to stay on alert and leave at the slightest sign of trouble.
I felt sick to think of what kind of company Tamlin was keeping—sick at the thought of him being so desperate, so stricken by guilt and grief over having to sacrifice his sentries and never being able to tell me …
And he’d let me go. Let all their sacrifices, let Andras’s sacrifice, be in vain.
He’d known that if I remained, I would be at risk of Amarantha’s wrath, even if I freed him.
“I can’t even protect myself against them, against what’s happening in Prythian … Even if we stood against the blight, they would hunt you down—she would find a way to kill you.”
I remembered that pathetic effort to flatter me upon my arrival—and then he’d given up on it, on any attempt to win me when I’d seemed so desperate to get away, to never talk to him.
But he’d fallen in love with me despite all that—known I’d loved him, and let me go with days to spare.
He had put me before his entire court, before all of Prythian.
“If Tamlin were freed—if he had his full powers,” I said, staring at a blackened bit of wall, “would he be able to destroy Amarantha?”
“I don’t know. She tricked the High Lords through cunning, not force.
Magic’s a specific kind of thing—it likes rules, and she manipulated them too well.
She keeps their powers locked up inside herself, as if she can’t use them, or can access very little of them, at least. She has her own deadly powers, yes, so if it came down to a fight—”
“But is he stronger?” I started wringing my hands.
“He’s a High Lord,” Alis replied, as if that were answer enough. “But none of that matters now. He’s to be her slave, and we’re all to wear these masks until he agrees to become her lover—even then, he’ll never regain his full powers. And she’ll never let those Under the Mountain go.”
I pushed off the table and squared my shoulders. “How do I get Under the Mountain?”
She clicked her tongue. “You can’t go Under the Mountain. No human who goes in ever comes out.”
I squeezed my fists so hard that my nails bit into my flesh. “How. Do. I. Get. There.”
“It’s suicide—she’ll kill you, even if you get close enough to see her.”
Amarantha had tricked him—she had hurt him so badly. Hurt them all so badly.
“You’re a human,” Alis went on, standing as well. “Your flesh is paper-thin.”
Amarantha must also have taken Lucien—she had carved out Lucien’s eye and scarred him like that. Did his mother grieve for him?
“You were too blind to see Tamlin’s curse,” Alis continued. “How do you expect to face Amarantha? You’ll make things worse.”
Amarantha had taken everything I wanted, everything I finally dared desire. “Show me the way,” I said, my voice trembling, but not with tears.
“No.” Alis slung her satchel over a shoulder. “Go home. I’ll take you as far as the wall. There’s naught to be done now. Tamlin will remain her slave forever, and Prythian will stay under her rule. That’s what Fate dealt, that was what the Eddies of the Cauldron decided.”
“I don’t believe in Fate. Nor do I believe in some ridiculous Cauldron.”
She shook her head again, her wild brown hair like glistening mud in the dim light.
“Take me to her,” I insisted.
If Amarantha ripped out my throat, at least I would die doing something for him—at least I would die trying to fix the destruction I hadn’t prevented, trying to save the people I’d doomed. At least Tamlin would know it was for him, and that I loved him.
Alis studied me for a moment before her eyes softened. “As you wish.”