32 LONNIE
ABOARD THE FORESIGHT
“How old are you?”
I demanded.
The fairy looked down at me. His eyebrows pulled low over eyes so dark they appeared black. “Go away, infant.”
I stayed exactly where I was. Fae were terrifying, generally, but mother had told me to trust this male. If mother said something, it had to be true.
Anyway, he looked like a prince from a storybook. Anyone this lovely couldn’t be all evil.
“I’ve only seen gray hair on old people before, but I thought fae didn’t age.”
I continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Unless you are very very old?”
He sighed. “Stop. It is humiliating enough to be sent outside like a servant. I won’t debase myself further by talking to a human.”
I blinked at him, somewhat confused. He’d used several words I’d never heard before, but I understood generally that he was insulting me. “Is it not defacing yourself to bother insulting a human child?”
“Debase,”
he corrected.
“Child, not infant,”
I replied. “Surely you know the difference, unless you are so old you have forgotten.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up ever so slightly. “I have always had this hair color. Now, go away.”
A pang of offense shot through me. “What’s your name?”
He sighed, looking up at the sky. “What’s yours?”
I paused for half a second. Earlier, when he’d asked my name I’d refused to answer. But, if mother trusted him…
“Elowyn,”
I replied, using my full name to sound more grown up.
The Fae glanced sideways at me, black eyes assessing. “That was an incredibly stupid mistake, Elowyn,”
he said, sounding almost bored. “I assume you have some sort of nickname. You should only ever use that.”
My brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Do you know what a powerful fairy can do with your real name?”
I sucked in a breath. I wanted to say yes, but in truth I didn’t know. My mother had warned Rosey and I never to give out our names, but she never said why. Like everything else, she never explained her reasons, only saying that she’d tell us when we were older.
“For the rest of your life, you’ll never be able to deny a direct order. You’ll always have to come when I call you. You’ll never truly be free.”
My stomach sank. “I don’t believe you.”
“Fae can’t lie,”
he said, sounding bored. “But I’d be happy to demonstrate for you. You have a sister, do you not?”
“Yes.”
“What if I told you to go murder your sister?”
Angry heat licked up my spine, dancing over my arms and making my fingers tingle. “Then I would kill you first so you could never make me do that.”
The fairy laughed, a cruel, musical sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Interesting. Well, let me tell you a secret, infant human. I can tell you exactly how unlikely that is.”
He glanced off to the side, as if looking at something far in the distance.
In what was only a couple of seconds, but felt much longer, the fairy blinked and looked back at me.
His brows knitted again, seeming distressed. “What are you?”
“I assume you know at least something about Underneath?”
Ambrose asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Good, then you know that it’s far more dangerous than every city in Elsewhere combined.”
We were standing once again on the upper deck of the ship, but for once there was nothing going on that might require the use of a sword. The sails billowed as the ship cut a silent path through the placid waters, drawing ever closer to the harbor of Underneath. I leaned over the railing of the captain's deck, peering into the heavy mist that hovered on the horizon, trying to catch the first glimpse of the shoreline.
I wondered how many people had sailed this close to the forbidden city before?
How many humans?
Had my mother made the same trip, or had she crossed the Hedge?
There were so many questions swirling through my brain, I didn’t know where to begin.
“Why is it so dangerous?” I asked.
“Unlike Elsewhere, Underneath is an absolute monarchy.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So is Elsewhere, or have you not been living in the same country I have all this time?”
He shook his head. “No. Elsewhere is a kingdom in a traditional sense, meaning the actual day-to-day governing has very little to do with the royal family. I would know, having been part of the court for more years than you’ve been alive.”
I frowned. I sometimes forgot how old he was, because the silver-haired prince looked roughly twenty-five by human standards, and because the other fairies I knew—namely Bael and Scion—were not actually that old in the grand scheme of things. Bael was only about ten years older than me, in his thirties, and to my knowledge Scion was somewhere between fifty and seventy, give or take. Ambrose, however, was over two hundred, and had only been exiled from the royal family for the last several decades. He’d had an entire life at court before I was born, and while it felt unimaginable to me, there were many alive today who recalled when The Dullahan was called “Prince Ambrose.”
How surreal it was to realize that the castle which he’d destroyed, had been his home once. How strange to think he’d likely been friends with Gwydion at one point, had verbally sparred over breakfasts with Raewyn, and terrified servants, just like me. The man in front of me didn't seem to fit that role at all.
I shook my head to clear it, realizing that Ambrose had still been talking the entire time I’d been thinking, and I hadn’t heard a word of it. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
Ambrose gave me an exasperated look, but obliged. “Elsewhere is made up of multiple independent territories, each of which is governed by its own High Lord and Lady. At one time, every province was its own independent kingdom?—”
“Until Queen Aisling mated with all the High Lords and united the country—yes, I know the story.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It’s not a story, it’s a historical account. At the time of Aisling, Underneath did not exist as it does now, nor did the capital city. Everything below the Waywoods was Wilde land, overtaken by creatures either too monstrous, or too uncivilized to assimilate with the Fae—or the Seelie, as we were called in the old tongue.”
“Which is why Underneath is now full of Unseelie.”
“Yes. Back then, the Unseelie were not organized as the Seelie, but they did have a king who was their absolute ruler.”
I nodded. I knew this part of the story as well.
The unseelie king had been furious at not being included in Aisling‘s circle of mates, and had therefore attacked her kingdom. He killed her mates, and all but one of her children, before stealing the crown of Elsewhere, raping the queen and taking her as a hostage back to his court. As punishment, Aisling asked the source to curse the Unseelie king, and all his descendants with never-ending misery until such time as the crown was returned to its rightful wearer.
It was a story I understood well, because the Everlast family were the many generations removed descendants of Aisling and the Unseelie king. For thousands of years, they’d been unable to find the worthy wearer of the crown, and therefore remained cursed with unhappiness.
“You do not have to explain your curse to me,”
I said. “I’m all too aware already.”
He looked at me gravely, and nodded. “Fine, then I won’t bore you with details you already know. What I mean to make you understand is that there is only one power that matters in Underneath, and that is the king. There are no lesser lords, no governors or dukes, and no real court to speak of. The position of Unseelie king is not inherited, but won, by way of killing the previous monarch.”
I snorted a humorless laugh. “That sounds familiar.”
He shared my smile. “Yes, quite. Only Underneath has never put as many rules or arbitrary events in place as we have. There, one simply challenges the current king, and the victor gets the crown.”
“That sounds messy,”
I mused. “And violent.”
“For many years, it was. They used to cycle through kings as often as seasons.”
“All kings?”
I asked. “Were there no queens?”
“The term “king”
is not gendered there, as many of the Unseelie are fluid shapeshifters, or don’t ascribe to a humanoid gender. Anyone can be the ruler, but for many years now the position has been held by only one male. King Gancanagh.”
As if summoned by the king’s name alone, the shoreline emerged out of the mist on the horizon. It was still too far out to make out any distinct details, but mountains seemed to rise in the distance, like the back of a dragon, or the sharp points of the obsidian crown.
“I’ve heard of him,”
I said vaguely.
“From Bael?”
I nodded. “And because of the dust. You trade your drugs with the kingdom, do you not?”
I asked, tearing my eyes from the first glimpse of land I’d seen in a week.
“Yes,”Ambrose said. “And I won’t pretend that’s merely a ruse to cross the border. Gancanagh’s dust has been instrumental in the success of the rebellion thus far. In fact, we’ll be entering the kingdom because I have a meeting planned with the king, but it should also provide a good opportunity to search for Bael and Scion, as well as your mother.”
“Right,”
I said nervously. “But do you not think anyone will question my presence there? Who am I meant to be?”
“Yourself,”
he replied, as if it were obvious. “Believe me, King Gancanagh will not question why I’d have a hostage with me, especially one who matters to the royal family. He, himself, has two consorts.”
“I thought you just said that the king was the only one with power?”
“He is. The consorts don’t control anything. I don’t even know their names.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How is that possible when you’ve met them?”
“You’ll see when we arrive.”
The shore was well and truly visible now, and I stared out over the landscape of red-rock cliffs, and jagged mountains. It looked similar to the landscape of Aftermath, if perhaps, dryer. Where the valleys in the north were green and full of life, it didn’t look to me as if a single green thing had ever been seen growing in the sandy soil of Underneath.
"It’s beautiful," I remarked, my gaze lingering on the city's skyline, where the dying light cast sinister shadows that danced like specters against the rock face.
"Yes,”
Ambrose replied with a bitter laugh. "Beautiful like a siren song. Alluring, yet deadly."
As dusk fell, we sailed into the bustling harbor of Underneath.
The harbor was set into an alcove in the rock face, mostly hidden until we were right upon it. The water itself glistened with a reddish sheen, no doubt caused by the red and orange sand that cascaded down the sides of the crimson mountains. It gave the harbor an almost blood-like appearance.
I hoped it was not an omen.
I leaned over the edge of the ship as we arrived, fascinated by the activity of the harbor.
Though it was evening, the docks bustled with life, like the market vendors had only just begun work for the day. Ships of every conceivable design jostled for space along the crowded docks—galleons with sails like the wings of giant moths, sleek vessels that shimmered with a pearlescent sheen, and rough-hewn barges that looked as if they'd been carved from the very bones of the earth. Still, our ship glided to a gentle stop, and was tethered securely by the deft hands of the crew. They moved as if they’d done this many times before–which, I supposed, they had.
Ambrose stepped up behind me and put a large hand on my lower back. “Ready?”
I turned my head to look up at him, and jerked back in surprise. He was wearing a long, black cloak with a hood pulled up to cover all of his gleaming silver hair, but that was not what startled me. “Why the mask?
“Because this will draw far less attention than my face would, I promise you.”
I cocked my head to the side, unable to imagine how that was possible. He was wearing the same stag-skull mask I’d first met him in, and it added a dark, powerful quality to him that was impossible to ignore.
“Everything will be fine,”
he promised. “Underneath is only two thirds as frightening as everyone says.”
I stared at him, and it took me a long moment to realize he was joking. “Two thirds? So there are no dragons at every gate, or horrible Unseelie monsters lurking at every turn.”
“Oh, there are,”
he replied, “But I won’t let anyone touch you.”
A slight shiver traveled up my spine, and it had nothing to do with my nerves.