Chapter 11
GARRICK
Before
“Do not speak unless the king addresses you directly,” my mother said.
She reached down to adjust my surcoat for the third time in as many minutes.
The deep burgundy fabric and mother-of-pearl buttons edged in gold had cost almost the entirety of the bounty from selling our meager cottage and parcel of land.
Every possession inside had been sold as well, including our clothes.
The entirety of our life’s savings had been put toward the garments now on our bodies.
“I should have paid for the pure gold buttons,” she fretted. She wet her thumb with saliva and rubbed the button fastened at my throat.
I sidestepped her before she could lift that wet thumb to my face.
“You needed a gown, too,” I reminded her.
She jerked upright. Even at twelve, I was as tall as her.
It made it impossible for me to miss the emotions that scurried across her face.
Worry made lines around her mouth. Anxiety about her appearance had her smoothing her hands over her dress.
It was wool, but well-made. I’d tried to get her to buy silk; she’d protested it was too expensive and spent the money on velvet ribbon to edge my surcoat, which she’d quilted by hand on the ship as we crossed the Northern Death.
She exhaled through pursed lips. “It does not matter how I look,” she said. “You are the one he wants.”
The thought filled my chest with warmth. Until the scarlet letter arrived, my mother had never spoken about my father. I’d asked, of course, but she’d always demurred, and I could see with my own two eyes that her life was hard enough without me adding to it.
But then the letter arrived, and everything changed. We’d been summoned. We were crossing the sea. My father was not just a mysterious man—he was not even a man at all. He was fae. A race of beings that people in our homeland only whispered about. He had magic. He was a king.
Did that make me a prince? When I’d asked, my mother’s eyes glossed over with moisture. I wasn’t sure what that meant, and I did not ask again.
Sharp footsteps sounded, and a guard appeared.
“His Majesty will see you now,” he said. He turned away without waiting for a response, his wooden-heeled boots clicking against the herringbone-patterned red brick that lined every corridor of the fae palace.
Balar Shan, I corrected myself. My mother had taught me about the fae city and its desolate continent in the dark, quiet evenings aboard the ship.
The port city where we’d disembarked had been quiet too, occupied by humans who kept their heads down.
Then we’d traveled north, snowy mountains rising from the west, a frigid ocean to the east.
But when Balar Shan came into view, it had not struck me as a dying city. Everything was coated in ice, but it only made it more brutally beautiful. The bright colors were not muted by the frost; they sparkled because of it.
This was where my family awaited.
I’d always been stronger, faster, taller, different than the other boys. Now I knew why. I was different. I was not even fully human. I was fae. I was the son of a king. Illegitimate, yes, but it had to mean something that my father had summoned my mother and me to his court.
We followed the guard across an open courtyard, then along a strangely curved corridor, up and up and up. It felt like we were going in circles, spiraling around and around. My heart beat faster in my chest with each foot we climbed upward. Mother was a half-step behind.
She would not be alone anymore, either. She would not have to work herself to exhaustion. My father would provide for us. I might even have siblings. A brother who could keep up with me, maybe, unlike all the boys I’d befriended in the past.
I worried if my heart beat any faster, it might come right out of my chest.
I was breathless by the time we reached the top. At my side, my mother took shallow breaths, each one moving her chest a measured amount.
Tall brick pillars rose on each side of a set of rounded arched doors, the pillars an echo of the ones we’d entered through below the courtyard.
The doors themselves were painted a luminous cream adorned with a vibrant geometric floral motif gilded with gold that extended beyond the pillars, up toward a domed ceiling a hundred feet overhead.
I’d thought the exterior of the palace was grand.
But the inside was just as magnificent—and not crusted in ice.
“Deep breath,” my mother said. Her fingers twitched toward my buttons again, but she forced them back to her sides. “And exhale,” she ordered. “Do not let them see that you are tired by the climb.”
I was not tired. I was exhilarated. But I did as she said, modulating my breath in time with hers.
Then the doors opened, and I forgot my breathing as all the air went out of my chest. The dome we’d stood in before was an antechamber, and a meager one at that.
We must be at the very top of the palace, in the highest spire.
The floor here was brick, too, but laid in an ornate circular pattern, each ring a different but equally intricate design.
The brick pillars that held the domed roof were painted cream, blue, and gold.
The dome itself soared so far overhead that I struggled to make out the images etched at the top, even with my supernatural eyesight.
The people were as beautiful as Balar Shan itself, ornamented in an array of colors as vibrant and varied as the designs painted on the walls.
Not people—not human, at least. Fae. A race I’d believed no more than faerietales.
Every day since the arrival of the scarlet letter had opened my world a little bit more.
But as those doors swung open, it felt like my world exploded.
I wanted to reach for my mother’s hand. But she folded hers before her daintily and bowed her head. I understood. My father was the king of this land, and I must meet him on my own, as a man.
The crowd was already parted, leaving us a clear, direct path to the center of the room, where two thrones stood on a raised dais.
I understood why my mother had spent so long perfecting my clothing.
She’d wanted me to fit in. She’d made sure of it—at her own expense.
My eyes tried to find her, but she walked behind me, and turning back felt like a mistake.
I could imagine her perfectly, anyway. Her dark hair hung in an elegant braid down her back.
She’d woven in a spare bit of the red velvet she’d used to pipe the edges of my surcoat.
But the modest wool gown she’d made for herself, which I’d thought so flattering with its soft gold color, paled in comparison to the opulence around us now.
It must have been an oversight on my father’s part, not sending enough coin for both of us to be outfitted appropriately for our arrival at Balar Shan.
My feet shifted their path, just slightly. I hoped imperceptibly. But by the time we arrived before the set of thrones, my mother was angled nearly half behind me. It felt better, at least until my mother’s status could be rectified.
The set of thrones was not a set, I realized now that we were closer. One sat at the center, grand and gilt. On its left was a more modest, miniature version. On the right, a chair. A nice chair, engraved and decorated with gold paint, but a chair nonetheless. Not a throne.
And on them, what could only be the fae royal family.
But I did not have time to study them.
I dropped one knee to the ground and bowed my head, keeping my eyes averted and my lips sealed. I did precisely as my mother had instructed me.
Behind me, I heard the rustle of her woolen dress as she did the same.
For a few seconds, the only sound was my thunderous heartbeat. I was certain that every courtier in the expansive domed room could hear it.
Then the king stood. His footsteps echoed against the domed heights of the roof overhead. I could not even see his boots. But who else could it be? Who else could hold the entire court in thrall?
I tracked his footsteps down the dais.
“Rise.”
My legs moved on instinct while my heart grappled with that singular word. I had not expected his voice to be so cold.
I devoured every detail as my eyes rose in time with my body. The luxurious, metal-toed and fur-lined boots reached his knees. His trousers were a deep burgundy in the same color family as my surcoat. Another intentional choice by my mother?
His hair glowed the same singular, bright silver hue as my own. I could see the promise of my awkward body in his fully developed, powerful one.
I got only a glimpse before he turned, cloak swinging behind him, but it was enough to recognize. My eyes. Verdant green with rings of cobalt that together turned his irises a luminous turquoise.
My father moved back to the throne, taking it casually.
But the action was not quite right. He crossed his legs, but only after he made a show of leaning back.
He stroked a hand over the thick beard on his chin, while his other hand drummed out a pattern on the gilt arm of the throne.
Every motion was careful. Choreographed.
Meant something. It reminded me of our old neighbor, Walden.
“Greet the duke,” he ordered in a voice that echoed around the room the same way his footsteps had a minute before—with unquestioned authority.
Was he speaking to me? I slid my gaze from side to side, trying to ascertain who he meant.
But no one stood out from the crowd gathered around the dais.
I could not turn back and ask my mother; that would mean putting my back to the king, which she’d specifically instructed me was the height of disrespect.
But before I could move, the two women seated on either side of my father stood. My heart was galloping again. I would follow their lead, I decided. Wherever this duke was, they would go to meet him as well.