Chapter 30
T here’s an almighty clattering and clanging as I throw every one of the Styrlanders’ weapons against the floor, then pull them across the ground and sling them out of the orchard. Almost immediately, I see several of the High Fae relax at the removal of its oppressive presence.
“Surrender,” I say. “And this doesn’t have to turn ugly.”
The commander takes a look at his men, each face wearing a different shade of fear. I imagine they were promised an easy victory, with the fae powerless against their cold iron. But now the element of surprise they used to take the palace is very much turning against them.
The commander throws his hands up, and his men follow suit. I don’t think the quick surrender is all thanks to my intimidation. One look at these humans tells me they don’t want to be here. I doubt they have any love for the fae—and who could really blame them? But that doesn’t mean they wanted to leave their whole world behind to take part in a conflict that has nothing to do with them. I struggle to believe Albrecht inspires enough loyalty to have them overlook that and happily risk their own safety.
“Bind them,” General Sunshard says to Zastel’s men, who get to work tying the soldiers’ hands behind them.
“Better yet, have them follow me,” Ruskin says, striding across the orchard. I catch his arm.
“What are you going to do?” I murmur.
“Throw them out of the monarch gate and shut the door,” he says. “We don’t need hostages right now. Frankly, they’ll get in the way.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask, dropping my voice to a whisper. “The monarch gate won’t open for you anymore.”
He scowls. “Getting kicked off that stone is very inconvenient.”
He turns on his heels, beckoning Kellspring forward. “Would you lend me one of your trustworthy men, Captain, and Lord Sunshard, may I ask for your help too?”
The High Fae have barely moved from their seats, but I see some of them sharing confused or suspicious looks. This Ruskin is different, asking favors rather than giving orders, suggesting that his allies have a choice in the matter. Of course, Kellspring immediately supplies a tall guard and Lord Sunshard steps forward.
“Would you escort these humans back home through the common gate?” Ruskin asks. “I want them returned to the human realm unharmed. I’m sure our Low Fae friends would also lend us a few more bodies, if you think you need more numbers to keep the humans under control.”
Ecistan murmurs to Gapir, and they both nod, signaling for some of the resistance to go with the humans and High Fae. The Styrlanders look on edge, like they’re just waiting for this to turn into some kind of trap. No wonder, really. In their shoes, I wouldn’t believe it either, if I’d been told I had to attack the vicious fae in their own realm, and all I got for it was being sent home. It’s not what anyone expected—not the humans…or the fae.
And that’s a problem for the others.
“You’re just going to let them go ?” asks an appalled voice. I turn to the speaker: Lady Petra Wildplume, a High Fae I’ve had a run-in with before, when she accused me of letting her son die in the iron attacks.
“And why not?” Ruskin asks, his voice quietly threatening as he shows some pointed teeth. He’s reminding them that he’s still dangerous.
“Because it’s not your place!” Lady Petra continues. “These humans attacked the court; it’s for the monarch to say what should happen to them.”
Ruskin spreads his hands. “And where is your precious monarch?” he asks. “Why, when she has all that impressive power at her fingertips, would she disappear just when her subjects need her?”
Ruskin prowls closer to the tables, sliding loose his claws, and letting one of them drag against the wood, leaving a deep furrow in its wake. The noise makes many of the High Fae flinch. I meet Destan’s eye and we both suppress a smile. We can tell he’s enjoying settling into his old role again. And frankly, this spoiled, vicious bunch has it coming. Whether they ally with us or not, they need to learn that some kinds of behavior won’t be tolerated.
Lady Petra doesn’t immediately respond, clearly lacking a good answer to Ruskin’s question.
“I must say I’m surprised you , of all people, would be siding with my mother, Lady Petra. After all, it was my mother’s iron that killed your son.”
Lady Petra goes pale at the mention of him. I’d feel sorry for her, but then she did try to attack me almost as soon as it happened, so my sympathy has its limits.
“It wasn’t her iron then,” says a small, wiry male. “It was a curse,” he says, glancing at me, “And she learned how to control it in Interra.”
Ruskin releases a brittle, mirthless laugh. “You’re not telling me you actually believe that story? When every spell she casts is dripping with the stain of dark magic?”
I see a few of the fae exchange sheepish looks. They have noticed the changes in Evanthe, the nasty flavor of her magic, and they have been turning a blind eye, more interested in maintaining the status quo than challenging it by speaking up. But I can tell she’s far from universally beloved.
“It’s time that you know the truth, my court,” says Ruskin, settling down against a table. He surveys them with a cool demeanor, but I’m sure he’s nervous underneath. This is his bid for their hearts and minds, and they’re biased against him from the start. They always have been. This won’t be an easy battle for him to win.
“You think the humans coming to the palace is coincidence? Do you think that they stumbled upon the secret of cold iron? Evanthe has made an alliance with a king of the human realm. Why else would she have hosted those humans for the last few weeks? She told him how to make cold iron, how to kill us, and in return he agreed to use his men to keep her court under control while she sets her real plan in motion.”
“This is some kind of deception,” hisses Vanis, seconded by other members of the Wild Hunt. I glare at them, disgusted at the sight of them. They know what Ruskin is saying is true. They’ve seen the proof of Evanthe’s true nature. But they don’t care—not as long as she lets them do whatever they want. As far as I’m concerned, they should already be behind bars.
“Yes,” says an older fae seated beside Galaphina’s sister. “You’re nothing but a usurper, Ruskin Dawnsong, hoping to trick your way back onto the throne. It’s all you’ve ever been interested in: power. Gathering it, keeping it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the queen’s illness wasn’t all a plan engineered to steal her High Monarch powers.”
“It was,” says Ruskin.
There’s a collective intake of breath from the fae.
“But not by me. You may remember my sister, Cebba, and her father? They told the human king how to make cold iron—and how to use it to trap my mother. They set her up to be tortured and killed in the hopes that they would be able to seize the throne. The only reason my mother lived—and that our vulnerability stayed secret for so many years—was that I rescued her and eliminated the king.” He glances around the room, cold eyes lingering on the members of the Wild Hunt. “I imagine even those in the room who schemed and hunted with Cebba don’t know the real reason she was banished.”
I watch the High Fae carefully, wanting to see how they’ll take this, and find even the Wild Hunt looking genuinely shocked. That surprise only deepens when Ruskin tells the rest of the story: how the dark magic that Cebba seeded inside Evanthe grew, poisoning the queen they once knew and turning her into the unhinged tyrant she’s become, a traitor to her own kingdom as she seeks to destroy it.
That seems to be a bridge too far for some of them, because the old fae pipes up again.
“ You are the traitor, Ruskin Dawnsong. You bear a Seelie name, but we all know the moment you can make yourself High King, you’ll have your father’s kind marching in here and?—”
“Oh, bite your tongue, Cressweir,” snaps a High Fae lady with blue hair. “Let him talk.”
But Ruskin is smiling, as if he finds Cressweir’s words amusing.
“It’s interesting you should theorize what would happen if I were to become High King,” he says. “Because I have been High King of the Seelie Court for the last two centuries.”
For a few moments, the Seelie Court almost resembles its Unseelie counterpart, the orchard erupting with the same kind of baying and babbling that I’ve seen in Lisinder’s cavernous throne room.
I exhale. That’s it now, one of Ruskin’s biggest secrets, out in the open at last. I know how much he’s resisted it, fought wearing the mantel of High King for all to see, but now it’s out, it has power. Ruskin goes on, explaining how he took over the role from Evanthe, though editing certain personal parts. What he’s revealing is more than enough to have stunned them—the pure, blinding truth of it.
Ruskin has never been as honest with his court as now, and it’s more effective than I could have imagined. I think in this cutthroat world, the truth has surprised them more than anything else could. It’s the one tactic they could never have expected—and it’s something they can’t ignore. Cressweir sits, wan and stunned-looking, in silence, and when Lady Petra tries to raise another sneering point, Lord Zastel quickly cuts her off.
“For star’s sake, don’t you see? Prince Ruskin had the High King’s power, and this kingdom lived in relative peace for hundreds of years. Now Queen Evanthe is back on the founding stone, and we have been overrun with iron and jingoistic humans. Present company excepted,” he says, looking apologetically at me.
“Which brings us to the matter at hand,” says Ruskin. “My mother means to do serious harm to this kingdom, and I plan to stop her. So, will this court pledge itself to me and my cause?”
Lord Zastel stands almost at once. “You have my vow,” he says. Lady Naniva quickly follows suit.
“And mine,” she says.
The words echo through the orchard as swathes of the court pledge themselves to Ruskin’s rule. But as the chorus of support comes to an end, it leaves the handful of fae who have so far remained silent: Hadeus’s and Galaphina’s bloodline, the Swallowtails, and Vanis, Cressweir, and Lady Petra, among others. They glare back at us with defiance, looking as if they’re preparing themselves for whatever punishment Ruskin might dish out for their refusal.
Ruskin stares back, making them shift uncomfortably under his gaze.
“For those who will not stand with me, you’ll forgive me if, for practical reasons, I can’t have you walking free. Find them some secure cells now, won’t you, Captain?”
I won’t lie, I enjoy seeing Vanis and his friends getting shackled, and seeing the way the rest of the High Fae avert their gazes, turning away from their peers’ shouted protests, as those who wouldn’t accept Ruskin are removed from the room.
Lady Petra is the last to go, and she spits at my feet when they drag her past me.
Before Petra is out of sight, a streak of black feathers swoops into the orchard. The raven drops down, circling Ruskin, until he reaches out his arm so the bird can land. I recognize the behavior of the messenger ravens the fae use. An unexpected pit forms in my stomach before it opens its mouth.
“ Nephew, I have news from the border.”
Ruskin meets my gaze and then he ducks swiftly into one of the orchard’s private side rooms, beckoning for me, Destan, and General Sunshard to follow.
The raven continues its message, its harsh caws shaping themselves into Lisinder’s words.
“Our spies have been keeping an eye on the borderlands as our forces approach. They have spotted a great army, led by Evanthe and a human man, heading east towards us.”
Albrecht must’ve given her more than a couple of hundred men, then. It seems he’s gifted her a whole army.
“They have passed Amethyn Valley and seem to be approaching the mountains via Irnua. We fear they seek to invade the Unseelie Kingdom once more.”
I shake my head as the message concludes with Lisinder requesting an update from us in Seelie.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I argue. “She doesn’t want to invade Unseelie, she only cares about punishing this kingdom.”
“Wherever she’s going with the human king,” General Sunshard says, “it must be the next step needed to destroy Seelie the way Ephor Jorna saw. I doubt the army is there to help her conquer land, regardless of what King Lisinder fears. It’s there to protect her. To hold the forces of Faerie at bay while she completes her plan.”
I think General Sunshard’s right, but it still doesn’t tell us exactly what Evanthe is planning.
“Let’s look at this another way,” I say, watching out the window as the raven takes off for the towering heights of the aviary. “What do we already know? Why did Evanthe wait until she was High Queen to bring Albrecht's army in?”
“Because becoming High Queen isn’t the end goal.” Destan offers. “There’s still something else she needs.”
“Exactly. Becoming High Queen gave her a connection to the land and made her stronger. And thanks to my failure yesterday, she still has her command of iron. But…”
I search my mind, trying to understand what else she could still be missing.
“But she’s still not strong enough,” Ruskin says, a look of dawning realization on his face. “Her iron does an excellent job of destroying things—look at what it did to this court. But even with the High Monarch’s connection to the land, she wouldn’t be strong enough to poison the entire kingdom with iron. Think about it—it took two centuries for Cebba’s curse to start showing up in the land through my High King connection.”
“So she’s looking for a way to get even more power? How?”
Ruskin’s expression is dark. “The same way she suddenly powered up last time. My uncle was saying she was traveling via Irnua, but I think that’s her final destination. Portals leave marks on a realm. The more you open one on a specific spot, the thinner the fabric between realms become. It’s part of how permanent gates are made between here and the human realm.”
“And Irnua was where you went through a portal,” I say, putting his thought process together. The space between realms is a strange, mysterious place, but one thing’s for certain: Interra is home to plenty of powerful magic. Evanthe only brought a fraction of it back with her last time.
“I think she’s going to reopen the portal to Interra,” Ruskin confirms. “And she’s going to use its power to spread her iron across the whole kingdom.”