Chapter 37
ANOTHER DAY PASSES in the labyrinth without seeing Drystan and without getting killed by anything. It’s a kind of victory, I suppose.
But the Collector is on my mind. When I return, they haven’t slept. They’ll only rest if I promise to keep watch. Even then, they thrash in their sleep, whimpering about the Devourer, until I have to wake them gently and hold them while they shudder.
I have no problem giving them that time, even though instinct tells me I should be doing. Moving. Pushing. Because there are thoughts circling that I’m not ready to dwell on.
Instead I busy myself with my notebook and remind myself that if I push my body to the brink, I’ll lose days, and I’m not foolish enough to think Drystan will extend his mercy a second time.
So, sunset finds me back at the fortress not utterly exhausted, but frustrated and restless—those thoughts catching up with me.
Ever since we narrowly evaded the Devourer, a dark corner of my mind won’t shut up.
Whispering. Wondering. What’s really driving me through the labyrinth?
Is it for Lowen—or for me? To help him… or to ease my own guilt?
Maybe it’s better if I never return. Maybe he’ll assume I’m dead.
Maybe that will be the thing that finally sets him free.
Thoughts circling, I make an appearance at the Great Hall, since I’m conscious that I’ve been neglecting my future queenly duties. There’s no sign of the king.
I leave my pang of disappointment unexamined.
The fae around me seem agitated, their dancing frenetic, the shadows around their feet stuttering and twitchy. It puts me ill at ease, so after a circuit of the room, I slip away.
But my feet don’t take me back to my room. Instead I find myself, of all things, climbing every staircase I come to, until eventually I’m dragging myself on burning thighs up the tower Drystan showed me on his tour.
The air here is cool and clear. There are no creeping shadows and no fae, just me and the cloudy night sky and the Underworld stretching endlessly into the darkness.
It looks different from the last time I was here.
The snowy shroud seems thinner, revealing mounds and what might be roads.
The trees within the fortress walls look different and it takes me a while to realize why.
Buds form along their branches, tightly furled for now, but a suggestion that spring is coming.
Further out, the river carving through the land glimmers, rather than sheening dully. It’s moving.
A laugh flies from my lips, snatched by the stiff wind. The river has thawed.
I turn, ready to rush back inside and find Min to tell her.
A massive, dark shape blocks my path, glinting eyes its only feature.
I gasp, but then the moon comes out from behind a cloud and reveals Threnn. My sigh comes out laced with a chuckle as I clutch my chest where my heart limps its way back to a normal pace. “Gods, Threnn. You made me jump. I don’t need guarding up here, but I appreciate your dedication.”
The redcap’s expression is even more severe than usual, though. Forbidding, even.
A cold vice grips my heart. Did I misread the ink in the scrying bowl? Did I fail to save Asti? “What’s wrong? Is it Asti?” I can barely speak past the dread freezing inside my chest. “She rode the chestnut horse, didn’t she?”
“Astrid is well.”
My relief is powerful but short-lived.
“The problem is here.”
I cock my head and search the tower’s roof for some danger I’ve missed, but his massive shoulders block much of my view. There’s the distant cry of a raven—a warning. At least I have a guard.
“I’m sworn first to protect the king.”
I look out past the tower’s battlements. Knowing the Underworld, there are probably monsters that can fly. “Of course. We should go inside if there’s trouble.”
“I should protect him from you.”
Laughing, I turn to him. “Oh yes, very funny. The tiny human is such a danger to the King of Death.”
Threnn isn’t laughing, though. There isn’t even a glint of amusement in his eyes. They’re dark. Utterly dark. The moonlight makes his light skin appear gray, like one of Drystan’s risen dead.
Dread slams back into me in full force. It grips my throat in a fist of ice. Because Threnn blocks my escape. And now I’m sure he isn’t joking.
“I’m—I’m not a danger to the king.” I try to lace my words with a chuckle, like that’s a ridiculous idea, but it comes out strangled.
Threnn takes a step closer. I take a step back.
“You are. You will be the end of him.” His nose wrinkles, making his next words come out on a snarl.
“Your weakness.” He takes another step, which I match.
“Your mortal frailty.” Another step. “Your pathetic lack of magic.” Another.
“You are not fit to be our queen. You are not fit to sit at his side.”
I match his next step and the crenelations bite into my back.
Nothing he says is untrue. I am weak. I am a lowly mortal.
He looms over me, a solid mass that blocks the way. “You are weak, fragile, foul, like all humans. You’re not worthy of him and the sooner he realizes that, the better.”
I hate that he’s right. I wish those things weren’t true.
But I would make an awful queen for Drystan, exposing him, especially once my illness is discovered, which it inevitably will be if I stay.
Yet I don’t want Threnn to be right. I don’t want those things to be true.
I try to smile, but I know it’s tremulous. “Maybe he won’t be stuck with me much longer.” Meanwhile, my mind searches for some of those paths it’s usually so good at. My pounding pulse fractures my thoughts, chasing them to find a solution.
If he attacks, would leaping over the battlements be survivable? If I landed in a deep enough snowdrift? Could I duck between his legs and slip through the door? Then fall down the stairs. No. Just as deadly as falling from the tower.
He peers down at me like I’m a creature at his feet and not a person. “Such a fragile thing.” His eyelids twitch and he raises his chin as though he’s just had an idea. “It would be a service to my king to rid him of you.” His gaze skips to the crenelations behind me, and I see the idea forming.
He’s going to throw me off.
He might not think as quickly as me, but he’s not stupid. It would look like an accident. No one would know it was him. And he would have “protected” his king from dangerous little me.
I press against the wall, muscles not aching but ready. If he moves, I’ll leap to one side, between his legs—wherever a space opens. Then I’ll run. I’ll take my chances falling down the spiral staircase.
“If you just hold on a few days, I’ll be out of your way.”
“Disgusting humans and their lies.” He sneers, crowding the last few inches into my space. “Is that what His Majesty sees in you? Enjoys playing with a pretty little toy that can lie? He’s had his fun. It’s time to put the toy away.” He reaches up.
There is no opening.
His bulk blocks everything. He’s too big. Too strong. Even if there was a space, he’s fae—too fast.
All I can do is dig my fingers into the wall as I stare at him bending closer, at his hand rising toward my throat.
His eyes bulge. There’s a terrible squelching sound and something hot sprays me.
At last, a path opens up.
But I’m rooted to the spot.
Because Threnn is collapsed against the battlements, a hand around his throat, fingers embedded in his throat.
At his side, smaller yet standing straight, teeth bared, is Drystan. “What did you say to her?” His voice is the whisper of the north wind on a frozen night. Its cold fury makes me shiver.
Threnn gurgles, chokes. Blood bubbles from his mouth.
If I thought the squelching was bad, the rending of flesh is worse as Drystan pulls his hand away and tears out Threnn’s throat.
The huge fae slumps to the ground. His blood slicks the stones, running between them in thick rivulets. He doesn’t move.
Chest heaving, Drystan looks at his handful of flesh.
I can’t help thinking he looks magnificent.
His anger is heady. Powerful. And he’s unashamed of it.
He doesn’t hide or even shutter it, like it’s something to temper.
He let it tear Threnn apart. And he let it inhabit his entire body.
He is the embodiment of rage. Embracing it.
Becoming it. The power in that makes me dizzy.
“He insulted and threatened you with this tongue. It’s only right he present it to you.”
Perched on the battlements, his ravens croak in agreement.
Threnn’s body jerks and rises. Its head lolls to one side, the remains of its neck too weak to hold it.
I stare and stare, brain stuttering over what I’m seeing. Because it can’t be real.
Yet it continues as Drystan drops the throat, tongue still attached, into its hand. Two steps brings the dead thing before me.
Drystan glowers at the broken thing, mouth set in a flat line. “Kneel before your queen.”
It drops to its knees, head wobbling as it stares ahead, eyes empty. It gurgles like it’s trying to speak or breathe or something else equally impossible. Then, bowing forward, the thing presents its tongue to me. Fleshy and pink. Still dripping blood.
I don’t want it. But I can’t speak. And I can’t scream. I probably should. It seems like the normal, human thing to do when faced with this. But I also don’t want to. What has the Underworld done to me?
I manage to shake my head, declining the offering.
“See? Not even your tongue is worthy of her.” Drystan jerks his chin to one side and the dead thing tosses its tongue from the tower.
The ravens take to the air at once, racing after it. I don’t look over to see who wins.
Threnn’s body slumps once more, and this time it stays still.
Like that signifies it’s over, Drystan’s shoulders sag. His breaths heave as he tears his gaze from the dead redcap at my feet and trails it up me. The rage has faded now, replaced by something tighter, closer to fear or perhaps desperation.
He opens his mouth, but before he can say a word, the door to the stairwell flings open.
Asti bursts through, followed by the rest of the Twylth. “Rhiannon?” Her wide eyes turn from me to Threnn’s body as she steps over him. Her hands close over my shoulders as she examines me. “Are you all right?”
I nod like my tongue went over the battlements with Threnn’s.
While Asti issues orders to the other guards, I steal a glance at Drystan.
He’s still. Lips pressed together. Closed. But he watches me.
He murdered someone. That’s not just cutting a singer’s tongue out. That’s… death. A life. Taken with so little regard.
I remind myself of that as Asti hustles me inside. She keeps one arm around me as she takes me back to my room, and there’s the whisper of wings as one of the ravens follows—Bran, I think. “We’ll get you cleaned right up. You’ll be all right. A good sleep and you’ll forget all about that.”
She thinks I’m in shock. And I am, a little. I feel more dazed, like my head is struggling to catch up with everything that’s happened.
I have to keep telling myself the important thing is Drystan is a killer. And so cold about it.
That’s the kind of thing that should matter.