Chapter 18 #3
“I promise.” This is one vow I should have no trouble keeping. I try to give the words weight, so she’ll believe I mean it. “Seriously. I promise.”
She releases me. “You may go. Rest well, Jude. When you rise, the coronation will be upon us, and there will be little time left for resting.”
I curtsy and take my leave.
In the hall, Taryn is waiting for me. She sits on a bench carved with coiled serpents and swings her feet. As the door closes, she looks up. “What was going on with her?”
I shake my head, trying to rid myself of a jumble of feelings. “Did you know she used to be the High King’s consort?”
Taryn’s eyebrows go up, and she snorts, delighted. “No. Is that what she told you?”
“Pretty much.” I think of Locke’s mother and the singing bird in the acorn, of Eldred on his throne, head bowed by his own crown.
It is hard for me to picture him taking lovers, no less the quantity he must have taken to have so many children, an unnatural number for a Faerie.
And yet, perhaps that’s just a failure of my imagination.
“Huh.” Taryn looks as though she’s having the same failure of imagination. She frowns, puzzling for a moment, then seems to remember what she’d waited to ask me. “Do you know why Prince Balekin was here?”
“He was here?” I am not sure I can weather more surprises. “Here, in the house?”
She nods. “He arrived with Madoc, and they were shut up in his office for hours.”
I wonder how long they arrived after Prince Dain’s departure. Hopefully, long enough for Prince Dain not to overhear anything about a missing servant. My hand throbs whenever I move it, but I am just glad I can move it at all. I am not eager to face any more punishment.
And yet Madoc didn’t seem angry with me just now when he saw me with my dress. He seemed normal, pleased even. Perhaps they were conferring about other things.
“Weird,” I say to Taryn, because I am commanded not to tell her about being a spy and I cannot bring myself to tell her about Sophie.
I am glad that the coronation is nearly here. I want it to come and sweep everything else away.
That night, I drowse in my bed, fully dressed, waiting for the Ghost. I have bagged out on lessons for two nights straight—the night of Locke’s party and last night, searching the water for Sophie. He’s bound to be annoyed when he comes.
I put that as far out of my head as I can and concentrate on resting. Breathing in and out.
When I first came to Faerie, I had trouble sleeping.
You’d think I’d have had nightmares, but I don’t remember many.
My dreams struggled to rival the horror of my actual life.
Instead, I couldn’t calm down enough to rest. I would toss and turn all night and all morning, my heart racing, finally falling into a headachy sleep in the late afternoon, when the rest of Faerie was just rising.
I took to wandering the corridors of the house like a restless spirit, thumbing through ancient books, moving around the game pieces on the Fox and Geese board, toasting cheese in the kitchens, and staring at Madoc’s blood-soaked cap, as though it contained the answers to the universe in its tide lines.
One of the hobs who used to work here, Nell Uther, would find me and guide me back to my room, telling me that if I couldn’t sleep, then I ought to just close my eyes and lie still.
That at least my body could rest, even if my mind wouldn’t.
I am lying like that when I hear a rustling on the balcony.
I turn, fully expecting to see the Ghost. I am about to tease him for actually making a sound when I realize the person rattling the doors isn’t the Ghost at all.
It’s Valerian, and he has a long, curving knife in one hand and a smile every bit as sharp pulling at his mouth.
“What…” I scramble into a sitting position. “What are you doing here?”
I realize that I am whispering, as though I am afraid of his being discovered.
You are my creature, Jude Duarte. You will strike only when I tell you to strike. Otherwise, stay your hand.
At least Prince Dain didn’t glamour me to obey those orders.
“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Valerian asks me, striding closer. He smells like pinesap and burned hair, and there is a light dusting of golden powder streaked over one cheek. I am not sure where he’s been before this, but I don’t think he’s sober.
“This is my home.” I am prepared for training with the Ghost. I have a knife in my boot and another at my hip, but thinking of Dain’s command, thinking of how not to disappoint him further, I reach for neither. I am flummoxed by Valerian’s being here, in my room.
He walks up to my bed. He’s holding the knife well enough, but I can tell he’s not particularly practiced with it. He is no general’s son. “None of this is your home,” he tells me, voice shaking with anger.
“If Cardan put you up to this, you should really rethink your relationship,” I say, finally, now, afraid. By some miracle, my voice stays steady. “Because if I scream, there are guards in the hall. They’ll come. They’ve got big, pointy swords. Huge. Your friend is going to get you killed.”
Show your power by appearing powerless.
He doesn’t seem to be absorbing my words. His eyes are wild, red-rimmed, and not entirely focused on me. “Do you know what he said when I told him you’d stabbed me? He told me it was no more than I deserved.”
That’s impossible; Valerian must have misunderstood. Cardan must have been mocking him for letting me under his guard.
“What did you expect?” I ask him, trying to hide my surprise. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the guy is a real jerk.”
If Valerian wasn’t sure he wanted to stab me before, he’s sure now.
With a leap, he slams the blade into the mattress as I roll out of the way and onto my feet.
Goose feathers fly up when he draws back the blade, drifting through the air like snow.
He scrambles to his feet as I pull out a dagger of my own.
Do not reveal your skill with a blade. Do not reveal your mastery over glamour. Do not reveal all that you can do.
Little did Prince Dain know that my real skill lies in pissing people off.
Valerian advances on me again. He’s intoxicated and furious and not all that well trained, but he’s one of the Folk, born with their cat reflexes and blessed with height that gives him better reach. My heart is hammering in my chest. I should scream for help. I should scream.
I open my mouth, and he lunges at me. The scream comes out as a whuff of breath as I lose my balance. My shoulder hits the floor hard as I roll again. I am practiced enough that despite my surprise, I kick his knife hand when he comes toward me. The blade skitters across the floor.
“Okay,” I say, as though I am trying to calm us both down. “Okay.”
He doesn’t pause. Even though I am holding a knife, even though I’ve avoided his attacks twice and disarmed him, even though I’ve stabbed him once before, he grabs for my throat again.
His fingers sink into the flesh of my neck, and I remember how it felt to have fruit jammed into my mouth, soft flesh parting against my teeth.
I remember choking on nectar and pulp as the horrible bliss of the everapple stole over me, robbing me of caring even that I was dying.
He’d wanted to watch me die, wanted to watch me fight for breath the way I am fighting for it now.
I look into his eyes and find the same expression there.
You are nothing. You barely exist at all. Your only purpose is to create more of your kind before you die.
He’s wrong about me. I am going to make my mayfly life count for something.
I won’t be afraid of him or of Prince Dain’s censure. If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.
Despite his fingers against my windpipe, despite the way my vision has begun to go dark around the edges, I make sure of my strike before I drive my knife into his chest. Into his heart.
Valerian rolls off me, making a gurgling sound. I suck in lungfuls of air. He tries to stand, sways, and falls back to his knees. Looking over at him dizzily, I see the hilt of my knife is sticking out of his chest. The red velvet of his doublet is turning a deeper, wetter red.
He reaches for the blade as though to draw it out.
“Don’t,” I say automatically, because that will only make the wound worse. I grab for anything nearby—there is a discarded petticoat on the floor that I can use to stanch the blood. He slides down onto his side, away from me, and sneers, although he can barely open his eyes.
“You’ve got to let me—” I start.
“I curse you,” Valerian whispers. “I curse you. Three times, I curse you. As you’ve murdered me, may your hands always be stained with blood.
May death be your only companion. May you—” He breaks off abruptly, coughing.
When he stops, he doesn’t stir. His eyes stay as they are, half-lidded, but the gleam has gone out of them.
My wounded hand flies to cover my mouth in horror at the curse, as though to stop a scream, but I don’t scream. I haven’t screamed this whole time, and I am not going to start now, when there’s nothing more to scream about.
As minutes slip by, I just sit there beside Valerian, watching the skin of his face grow paler as the blood no longer pumps to it, watching his lips go a kind of greenish blue.
He doesn’t die very differently than mortals, although I am sure it would gall him to know that.
He might have lived for a thousand years, if it wasn’t for me.
My hand hurts worse than ever. I must have banged it in the fight.
I look around and catch my own reflection in the mirror across the room: a human girl, hair tousled, eyes feverish, a pool of blood forming at her feet.
The Ghost is coming. He’d know what to do with a dead body.
He has certainly killed people before. But Prince Dain is already angry with me just for stabbing the child of a well-favored member of his Court.
Killing that same child the night before Dain’s coronation won’t go over well.
The last people I need to know about this are the Court of Shadows.
No, I need to hide the body myself.
I scan the room, hoping for inspiration, but the only place I can think of that will even conceal him temporarily is beneath my bed.
I spread the petticoat next to Valerian’s body and then roll him onto it.
I feel a little queasy. His body is still warm.
Ignoring that, I drag him over to the bed and push him and all the skirts under, first with my hands and then with my feet.
Only a smear of blood remains. I get the pitcher of water near the bedpan and splash some on the wooden planks of the floor and then some on my face. My good hand is shaking as I finish wiping up, and I sink to the floor, both hands in my hair.
I am not okay.
I am not okay.
I am not okay.
But when the Ghost arrives on my balcony, he can’t tell, and that’s the important thing.