Chapter 25
KORMAC
I watched as the club met the prince’s head. He collapsed quietly. Compelled, I launched myself at him, got stopped by hands and arms, locking me down and wrestling the sword from my grip.
Manhandled to my feet, I kicked out, striking a cloaked figure in the side. A man’s grunt followed. His hood slipped back enough to show me his face.
Jeremiah?
A human from my village. Here in Summer? The last time I’d seen him, he’d been at work in his smithy, making some crude weapons—no human could make a sword like the Gentry.
Why weren’t they in power with those skills? Oh, yes, because they were slimy, unable to choose a side. Sneaky. At least we all knew the Sidhe were hellpissers.
I opened my mouth to speak, remembering the lack of tongue.
“Nice to see you too,” Jeremiah whispered through gritted teeth. “Fuck. Did you have to kick so hard?”
Two more men I didn’t know were dragging me out of the bushes. Humans. Cloaked. Part of the unseelie cause.
Jeremiah picked up the limp and lifeless prince.
Valance flopped over the man’s shoulder like he’d done mine earlier.
The further I was dragged, the harder it became to bear seeing him like that.
I struggled against these men, got myself free, and darted for Jeremiah.
They caught me again just before I grabbed the prince, the tips of my fingers crushing his hair.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jeremiah said, glancing behind him. “Never mind that now. We have to get back to camp before we’re spotted.”
I calmed down as Jeremiah kept pace with me and the men. It meant Valance was close enough, even if unconscious and bleeding from the head.
My fingers flexed, itching to touch him.
Damn this hellpissing magic!
“Something’s wrong with you,” Jeremiah helpfully pointed out. “And you’re wearing elf armor. Ugly filth.”
Smart of you!
I never really liked him. Always creeping around Lasair, never disagreeing with her opinions, always on hand to be her puppy. Anyone would think he wanted to marry her.
He probably did. Only, Lasair would roast his balls if he ever got down on a knee to offer her a ring.
For Lasair, love was for the weak. She made no qualms about it.
She was the future queen and didn’t need distractions in the war to take the crown and get rid of the seelies’ hold.
I didn’t blame her. Love could come later.
For now, she had sex if she ever had the urge to scratch that itch.
And she did, from time to time. I’d heard the men she’d taken to her bed crying out her name so loud the hut threatened to collapse.
If Jeremiah was here, she was definitely here.
“Can’t you talk?” Jeremiah asked.
I shook my head, my heels dragging across the ground. Hellpiss to it. I let them drag me. The quicker they moved me, the quicker we’d get to Lasair.
What about Valance? She’ll kill him…
“Really?” he questioned. “What happened?”
I ignored him.
“At least we have ourselves the ultimate prize,” he said.
She’ll kill him.
I can’t let her.
I can.
I can’t.
I can.
I…
…I can’t.
We walked for a fair while, the men allowing me to use my legs when they realized I wasn’t about to make a run for it or do anything stupid. After all, I was one of them, and I’d been through some hardships.
I kept my attention on the prince.
If anyone hits him again, they die…
Why? Let someone kill the fucker!
Never!
It carried on like that until we stopped within a dense thicket. A dark spot the moonlight didn’t quite reach. The two men walking me whistled, waited for the returning whistle signal.
It came.
We moved again, pushing through branches and brambles until we arrived in a small clearing the moon’s rays did reach. I felt the shadow magic as we did, saw its dark shimmer in the air. Protection.
Three tents, four horses, men and women keeping quiet regardless of the magic, eating bread. The magic wouldn’t be strong enough for full protection. Maybe if Ren had done the spell.
Poor Ren…
No fire burned. No cooking. Nothing to create any target. They gathered on logs positioned as if around a campfire, all getting to their feet when we approached. I counted seven of them, including our leader.
Lasair waited by the edge of the logs, decked out in her brown armor and black cloak, the hilts of the two swords on her back crisscrossed behind her head.
I stopped feet away from her, bowing respectfully. Because she deserved all the respect the prince didn’t. Gods, the relief at having her near, at seeing this setup. It meant our cause was as alive as it ever was. But she also had some damn explaining to do.
Her scarlet Fomorian eyes fixed on me like bloody fireflies against her copper complexion.
“Hello, Kormac. I think we need to talk.”
“There’s something wrong with him,” Jeremiah got in. “Elf armor for start.”
“An enterprising move for an escape,” she said. “But that’s not what’s wrong, is it, Kormac? Tell me.” Lasair tilted her head.
I tapped my mouth and opened it. She stepped closer, peering inside.
“Your tongue. I’m so sorry.” She snapped her fingers at a Fomorian man, and he hurried away. “We’ll get you some water and food and potion.”
“His tongue?” Jeremiah responded. “Why didn’t he let me know?”
“There is more,” Lasair said.
I nodded.
“Acting weird with the prince,” Jeremiah added. “Like he wanted to help him.”
Lasair looked to Jeremiah, and the body slung over his shoulder. “Our prize,” she said. “I’m glad he is here alive. I was expecting so many scenarios, this not being one of them.”
I gave her my best confused look.
She smiled, exposing two gaps in her bottom row of teeth. She noticed me catch them.
“A remnant from an elf I killed,” she said. “He came off far worse. Come and sit with me.”
I followed her to a log, constantly checking on Valance.
“You see this, Lasair?” Jeremiah said. “He keeps doing that.”
“I see it,” she replied. “Bring the prince here.”
Lasair directed him to lay Valance out before her.
He obeyed, putting the prince on his side.
Valance’s chest rose and fell, two rivers of blood running down the side of his face.
I went to my knees to check his wound. It wasn’t too bad.
His head would hurt when he awoke for sure, but I didn’t see anything worse than that.
Other than his hands and cheek, of course.
Please be okay…
What if there was damage beneath the surface? That happened a lot.
Don’t die on me…
Do!
Don’t!
I faced Lasair, acting out a bandage and water.
“For him?” she questioned. “Interesting. I’m surprised to see the prince here with you. I hoped to see you alive, maybe not until we breached the city, possibly out here as you are now after making an escape. Not with the prince.”
The Fomorian she’d snapped her fingers at returned with an armful of items. Lasair instructed him to inspect my mouth. He did, applying salve on my wound, which didn’t hurt anymore since the old woman’s magic.
The man gave me some potion for the nonexistent pain. I took it in case it came back, then he handed me a water skin, some stale bread, and hard cheese. Food for being on the road. I’d been so sick of it traveling with Ren, but now it was the best meal I’d ever had.
Lasair ordered the man to check on Valance. He cleaned the wound where Jeremiah had struck him, confirmed everything to be in order.
Jeremiah… He hurt Valance. No one hurts the prince…
“Is that intolerable in your mouth?” Lasair asked. “We have nothing softer for you, I’m afraid.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t hurt?”
I did the same again, gulping back some water.
“We will need some parchment and a quill,” she told the man.
I chewed some more cheese.
“I’m assuming Ren told you he had to die,” she began.
“I’m afraid there was no other way for him to succeed.
And I hear he succeeded brilliantly.” She gently tugged at one of her black hair plaits.
“Even before you left Riverleaf, Ren had been cultivating his spell, perfecting it for the right moment. In order for it to work, he had to die before the prince in order for the prince to be hit with the curse. Poisoning his best friend started the wheels turning. Prince Valance isn’t a complicated fae.
If you give him the tools to be himself, he will use them appropriately.
I suppose we’re all like that, aren’t we? Tug at our rage and let it run wild.”
The man returned with parchment and a quill. He handed them to me.
“This curse,” Lasair continued, “was designed to ruin Valance. To turn him into a literal monster. And it worked. I would have liked it to run longer, for more to die, but it has now thrown the palace in chaos—especially after the death of the king and.”
I wrote: How do you know this?
“Spies, Kormac. I have many human eyes and ears throughout the two cities and the palace. You met one. Her name is Serena.”
The woman from the bathing. A spy?
Lasair smiled. “You seem surprised by my abilities.”
Me with the quill: Pleased, not surprised.
Gods, and impressed at the scale of this.
“Good to know,” she said. “As I said, I didn’t expect to see the prince here. I assumed he’d be locked away or maybe killed.” She paused for a moment. “Ren’s curse has given him berserker rage.”
Me: As in the ones from the south islands?
“The very same, Kormac.”
Berserker rage was extremely rare nowadays.
In fact, there’d only been one case in my twenty-eight years that I knew of.
A long time ago, too many children were born with infected blood, a curse of rage.
Their anger wasn’t like an uninfected person.
If certain triggers were pressed, which weren’t hard to set off, a berserker flew into a blind fury and didn’t stop until that fury burned out.
Dangerous fae, all sent to the southern isles after slaughtering them had been deemed immoral, their families petitioning the crown for a better solution.
Surprisingly, the Sidhe came up with one when it would’ve been easier for a mass extinction.
Those isles were cut off from the rest of Faerie, so as long as the infected were away from the rest of society, they could live.
What a horrible thing. I’d heard so many stories about the berserker curse coming out in later life to perfectly decent folk.
Tales of murdered families, of the cursed one not understanding, not knowing what they’d done.
Blind rage, there and not there. I should’ve seen it when the prince killed those in the royal box.
But the blood curse wasn’t a fact of life anymore.
Reminded me of the hounds. Every hound had been put down across the world after the rabid sickness drove them to kill.
From large hunting dogs to small pets, they were all wiped out after no cure was found.
There hadn’t been one born in five years.
Which was so sad. I’d had a pet hound. Sparky.
I loved her so much, and she’d tried to kill me, eyes wild one morning, frothing at the mouth.
Killing her broke my heart. The hound grief in Faerie wouldn’t ever lift. Too heavy, too fucking awful.
On the flip side, there’d been no hounds to hunt me and Valance in the forest.
“This chaos is what we need,” Lasair continued, “to break into the palace. To make our moves. There is an army set to march on Summer. I know Preston planted that fear because those ten were sent to do just that. Now that fear is spreading, along with the king’s death.
Fear is a potent weapon, highly contagious.
It will tear them apart, and then we will strike. ”
I wrote: Where is this army?
“Waiting in Spring.”
What?
“Wonderful, isn’t it?”
I don’t understand.
She told me about Spring and their new iron proficiency, of the upcoming alliance between the prince and Lord Florent.
“But the lord doesn’t want to marry the seelie prince,” she said. “He wants a princess, not being one to enjoy the company of men like you and I.” She laughed her breathy laugh. “This is where I come in.”
To be his queen?
“Yes. How can a royal family survive when the prince has committed regicide and patricide? It can’t. Valance can’t be king now. Yes, he could take the crown for himself, but his rule would be swift. There is a vacuum left to be filled by the most powerful man on Faerie.”
Lord Florent?
“Of course. To wield iron? Incredible. And to have the backing of the entire unseelie court, a force unbreakable despite seelie efforts after all these years? He can be unstoppable with such a force, and with such a queen by his side.” Her eyes brightened as she grinned.
I took back every doubt I had about Lasair. She’d planned everything, come up with a scheme to bring down the Rosestar regime for good. Yes, there would be war, but iron would end it quickly despite the size of the seelie army and their seed magic.
If only I could be fully behind it.
So now what? I wrote.
“Now we kill him,” she answered. “I don’t want him in this camp. He’s dangerous. The plan was to storm the palace and have him humiliated and executed there before an audience of his own people.”
She saw me struggling with that. “Which brings us to your story.”
Where to begin with this hellpiss of a nightmare?
It took me four pieces of parchment to relay the details.
By the end, her attention moved to the sleeping prince.
“I should cut his throat now for what he did to you, for who he is. But I want him to see my face for the first time before he breathes for the last.” She stood up.
“Mark my words, Ren’s death will not be in vain.
The loss of him and his special power will not be wasted.
” She paced. “We also have to find this old woman because I hate seeing the unease on your face when I talk about his death. Whatever game she is playing, I will end it. You will rejoice at the end of the prince and not try to protect him. He took your tongue. He fed Preston to his orchids. He killed Ren.”
You killed Ren…
I ate some more bread, contemplating with my chews.
The prince might be literally cursed now, double cursed even, but so was I.
Cursed to want to help him. The desire gnawed at my mind and insides, irritated everywhere from my skin to my soul.
I couldn’t allow Lasair to kill him, but I also couldn’t betray her.
“Kormac?” Lasair said.
I looked up at her.
“It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry I’ve manipulated you like this. It will be worth the deception when we’re in the palace. Mark my words: Your part in this, for making it possible, has earned you a place at the top table.”
This was really it. The new dawn we all wanted was really coming.
Where was the damn excitement?
She snapped her fingers for the Fomorian man again.
He bowed, ready and willing to serve.
“Prepare a space for Kormac to sleep…” She paused, then frowned. “Actually, wait.”
That’s right, I thought at her. I’m not leaving his side.
“I think our guest is waking up.”