The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3)

by Holly Black

  Good, I suppose. The weaker she seems, the more believable her innocence.

  My gaze darts away from the dais even as I move toward it. High King Cardan’s presence seems to infect the very air I breathe. For a wild moment, I consider turning and getting out of there before he spots me.

  I don’t know if I can do this.

  I feel a little dizzy.

  I don’t know if I can look at him and not show on my face any of what I am feeling.

  I take a deep breath and let it out again, reminding myself that he won’t know I’m the one standing in front of him. He didn’t recognize Taryn when she dressed in my clothes, and he won’t recognize me now.

  Plus, I tell myself, if you don’t pull this off, you and Taryn are both in a lot of trouble.

  I am suddenly reminded of all the reasons Vivi told me this was a bad idea. She’s right. This is ridiculous. I am supposed to be exiled until such time as I am pardoned by the crown, on pain of death.

  It occurs to me that maybe he made a mistake with that phrasing. Maybe I can pardon myself. But then I remember when I insisted I was the Queen of Faerie, and the guards laughed. Cardan didn’t need to deny me. He only had to say nothing. And if I pardoned myself, he would only have to say nothing again.

  No, if he recognizes me, I will have to run and hide and hope that my training with the Court of Shadows wins out over the training of the guard. But then the Court will know that Taryn is guilty—otherwise, why have me stand in her stead? And if I don’t manage to escape …

  Idly, I wonder what sort of execution Cardan might order. Maybe he’d strap me to some rocks and let the sea do the work. Nicasia would like that. If he’s not in the mood, though, there’s also beheading, hanging, exsanguination, drawn and quartered, fed whole to a riding toad …

  “Taryn Duarte,” says a knight, interrupting my morose thoughts. His voice is cold, his chased silver armor marking him as one of Cardan’s personal guard. “Wife of Locke. You must stand in the place of petitioners.”

  I move there, disoriented at the thought of standing where I had seen so many before when I was the seneschal. Then I remember myself and make the deep curtsy of someone comfortable with submission to the High King’s will. Since I cannot do that while looking at his face, I make sure that I keep my gaze on the ground.

  “Taryn?” Cardan asks, and the sound of his voice, the familiarity of it, is shocking.

  With no more excuses, I raise my eyes to his.

  He is even more horrifically beautiful than I was able to recall. They’re all beautiful, unless they’re hideous. That’s the nature of the Folk. Our mortal minds cannot conceive of them; our memory blunts their power.

  His every finger sparks with a ring. An etched and jeweled breastplate in polished gold hangs from his shoulders, covering a frothy white shirt. Boots curl up at his toes and rise high over his knees. His tail is visible, curled to one side of his leg. I suppose he has decided it is no longer something he needs to hide. At his brow, of course, is the Blood Crown.

  He regards me with gold-rimmed black eyes, a smirk hovering at the corners of his mouth. His black hair tumbles around his face, unbound and a little messy, as though he’s recently risen from someone’s bed.

  I can’t stop marveling at how I once had power over him, over the High King of Faerie. How I once was arrogant enough to believe I could keep it.

  I remember the slide of his mouth on mine. I remember how he tricked me.

  “Your Majesty,” I say, because I have to say something and because everything I practiced began with that.

  “We recognize your grief,” he says, sounding annoyingly regal. “We would not disturb your mourning were it not for questions over the cause of your husband’s death.”

  “Do you really think she’s sad?” asks Nicasia. She is standing beside a woman it takes me a moment to place: Cardan’s mother, Lady Asha, done up in a silvery dress, jeweled tips covering the points of her horns. Lady Asha’s face has been highlighted in silver as well—silver along her cheekbones and shining on her lips. Nicasia, meanwhile, wears the colors of the sea. Her gown is the green of kelp, deep and rich. Her aqua hair is braided up and adorned with a cunning crown made of fish bones and jaws.

  At least neither of them is on the dais beside the High King. The position of seneschal appears still to be open.

  I want to snap at Nicasia, but Taryn wouldn’t, so I don’t. I say nothing, cursing myself for knowing what Taryn wouldn’t do, but being less sure what she would.

  Nicasia steps closer, and I am surprised to see sorrow in her face. Locke was her friend, once, and her lover. I don’t think he was particularly good at either, but I guess that doesn’t mean she wanted him dead. “Did you kill Locke yourself?” she asks. “Or did you get your sister to do it for you?”

  “Jude is in exile,” I say, my words coming out dangerously soft instead of the regular kind of soft they were intended to be. “And I’ve never hurt Locke.”

  “No?” Cardan says, leaning forward on his throne. Vines shiver behind him. His tail twitches.

  “I lov …” I can’t quite make my mouth say the words, but they are waiting. I force them out and try to force out a little sob, too. “I loved him.”

  “Sometimes I believed that you did, yes,” Cardan says absently. “But you could well be lying. I am going to put a glamour on you. All it will do is force you to tell us the truth.” He curves his hand, and magic shimmers in the air.

  I feel nothing. Such is the power of Dain’s geas, I suppose. Not even the High King’s glamour can ensorcell me.

  “Now,” says Cardan. “Tell me only the truth. What is your name?”

  “Taryn Duarte,” I say with a curtsy, grateful at how easy the lie comes. “Daughter of Madoc, wife of Locke, subject of the High King of Elfhame.”

  His mouth curves. “What fine courtly manners.”

  “I was well instructed.” He ought to know. We were instructed together.

  “Did you murder Locke?” he asks. Around me, the hum of conversation slows. There are no songs, little laughter, few clinks of cups. The Folk are intent, wondering if I am about to confess.

  “No,” I say, and give a pointed look to Nicasia. “Nor did I orchestrate his death. Perhaps we ought to look to the sea, where he was found.”

  Nicasia turns her attention to Cardan. “We know that Jude murdered Balekin. She confessed as much. And I have long suspected her of killing Valerian. If Taryn isn’t the culprit, then Jude must be. Queen Orlagh, my mother, swore a truce with you. What possible gain could she have from the murder of your Master of Revels? She knew he was your friend—and mine.” Her voice breaks at the end, although she tries to mask it. Her grief is obviously genuine.

  I try to summon tears. It would be useful to cry right now, but standing in front of Cardan, I cannot weep.

  He peers down at me, black brows drawn together. “Well, what do you think? Did your sister do it? And don’t tell me what I already know. Yes, I sent Jude into exile. That may or may not have deterred her.”

  I wish I could punch him in his smug face and show him how undeterred I am by his exile. “She had no reason to hate Locke,” I lie. “I don’t think she wished him ill.”

  “Is that so?” Cardan says.

  “Perhaps it is only Court gossip, but there is a popular tale about you, your sister, and Locke,” Lady Asha ventures. “She loved him, but he chose you. Some sisters cannot bear to see the other happy.”

  Cardan glances at his mother. I wonder what has drawn her to Nicasia, unless it is only that they are both awful. And I wonder what Nicasia makes of her. Orlagh might be a ferocious and terrifying Queen of the Undersea, and I never want to spend another moment in her presence, but I believe she cherishes Nicasia. Surely Nicasia would expect more of Cardan’s mother than the thin gruel of emotion she has served her son.

  “Jude never loved Locke.” My face feels hot, but my shame is an excellent cover to hide behind. “She loved someone else. He’s
the one she’d want dead.”

  I am pleased to see Cardan flinch. “Enough,” he says before I can go on. “I have heard all I care to on this subject—”

  “No!” Nicasia interrupts, causing everyone under the hill to stir a little. It is immense presumption to interrupt the High King. Even for a princess. Especially for an ambassador. A moment after she speaks, she seems to realize it, but she goes on anyway. “Taryn could have a charm on her, something that makes her resistant to glamours.”

  Cardan gives Nicasia a scathing look. He does not like her undermining his authority. And yet, after a moment, his anger gives way to something else. He gives me one of his most awful smiles. “I suppose she’ll have to be searched.”

  Nicasia’s mouth curves to match his. It feels like being back at lessons on the palace grounds, conspired against by the children of the Gentry.

  I recall the more recent humiliation of being crowned the Queen of Mirth, stripped in front of revelers. If they take my gown now, they will see the bandages on my arms, the fresh slashes on my skin for which I have no good explanation. They will guess I am not Taryn.

  I can’t let that happen. I summon all the dignity I can muster, trying to imitate my stepmother, Oriana, and the way she projects authority. “My husband was murdered,” I say. “And whether or not you believe me, I do mourn him. I will not make a spectacle of myself for the Court’s amusement when his body is barely cold.”

  Unfortunately, the High King’s smile only grows. “As you wish. Then I suppose I will have to examine you alone in my chambers.”

  I am furious as I walk through the corridors of the palace, steps behind Cardan, followed by his guard to keep me from trying to slip away.

  My choices now are not good.

  He will take me back to his enormous chambers and then what? Will he force a guard to hold me and divest me of anything that might protect me from glamour—jewelry, clothing—until I am stripped bare? If so, he cannot fail to notice my scars, scars he has seen before. And if he peels off my gloves, there can be no doubt. The missing half digit will give me away.

  If I am undressed, he will know me.

  I am going to have to make a break for it. There’s the secret passageway in his rooms. From there, I can get out through one of the crystal windows.

  I glance at the guards. If they were dismissed, I could get past Cardan, through the secret passageway, and out. But how to get rid of them?

  I consider the smile Cardan wore on the dais when he announced what he was going to do to me. Maybe he wants to see Taryn naked. He desired me, after all, and Taryn and I are identical. Perhaps if I volunteer to undress myself, he’ll agree to dismiss his guard. He did say he’d examine me alone.

  Which leads me to an even more daring thought. Maybe I could distract him thoroughly enough that he wouldn’t know me at all. Perhaps I could blow out the candles and be naked only in the half light. …

  Those thoughts occupy me so completely that I barely notice a hooved servant carrying a tray supporting a carafe of a pale celery-green wine and a collection of blown-glass goblets. She is coming from the opposite direction, and when we pass, the tray digs into my side. She gives a cry, I feel a shove, and we both tumble to the floor, glass shattering around us.

  The guards halt. Cardan turns. I look over at the girl, baffled and surprised. My dress is soaked with wine. The Folk are seldom clumsy, and this doesn’t feel like an accident. Then the girl’s fingers touch one of my gloved hands. I feel the press of leather and steel against the inside of my wrist. She is pushing a sheathed knife up my sleeve under cover of cleaning up the spilled contents of the tray. Her head dips close to mine as she brushes shards of glass from my hair.

  “Your father is coming for you,” she whispers. “Wait for a signal. Then stab the guard closest to the door and run.”

  “What signal?” I whisper back, pretending to help her sweep up the debris.

  “Oh no, my lady, your pardon,” she says in a normal voice with a bob of her head. “You ought not lower yourself.”

  One of the High King’s personal guard catches my arm. “Come along,” he says, lifting me to my feet. I press my hands to my heart to keep the knife from slipping out my sleeve.

  I resume my walk toward Cardan’s rooms, my thoughts thrown into even more confusion.

  Madoc is coming to save Taryn. It’s a reminder that while I am no longer in his good graces, she helped him wriggle out of his vows of service to the High King. She gave him half an army. I wonder what plans he has for her, what rewards he’s promised. I imagine he will be pleased to have her no longer encumbered with Locke.

  But when Madoc comes, what’s his plan? Whom is he expecting to fight? And what will he do when he comes for her and finds me instead?

  Two servants open heavy double doors to the High King’s chambers, and he goes inside, throwing himself down on a low couch. I follow, standing awkwardly in the middle of the carpet. None of the guards so much as enter his chambers. As soon as I step over the threshold, the doors shut behind me, this time with a grim finality. I don’t have to worry about persuading Cardan to dismiss the guard; they never lingered.

  At least I have a knife.

  The parlor is as I remember it from Council meetings. It carries the scent of smoke and verbena and clover. Cardan himself lounges, his booted feet resting on a stone table carved in the shape of a griffin, claws raised to strike. He gives me a quicksilver, conspiratorial grin that seems completely at odds with the way he spoke to me from his throne.

  “Well,” he says, patting the couch beside him. “Didn’t you get my letters?”

  “What?” I am confused enough that the word comes out like a croak.

  “You never replied to a one,” he goes on. “I began to wonder if you’d misplaced your ambition in the mortal world.”

  This must be a test. This must be a trap.

  “Your Majesty,” I say stiffly. “I thought you brought me here to assure yourself I had neither charm nor amulet.”

  A single eyebrow rises, and his smile deepens. “I will if you like. Shall I command you to remove your clothes? I don’t mind.”

  “What are you doing?” I say finally, desperately. “What are you playing at?”

  He’s looking at me as though somehow I am the one who’s behaving strangely. “Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.”

  I shake my head, reeling. “That’s not possible.” If he knew it was me, then I wouldn’t be here. I would be imprisoned in the Tower of Forgetting. I would be preparing for my execution.

  But maybe he’s pleased I violated the terms of the exile. Maybe he’s glad I put myself in his power by doing so. Maybe that’s his game.

  He stands up from the couch, his gaze intense. “Come closer.”

  I take a step backward.

  He frowns. “My councilors told me that you met with an ambassador from the Court of Teeth, that you must be working with Madoc now. I was unwilling to believe it, but seeing the way you look at me, perhaps I must. Tell me it’s not true.”

  For a moment, I don’t understand, but then I do. Grima Mog. “I’m not the betrayer here,” I say, but I am suddenly conscious of the blade in my sleeve.

  “Are you angry about—” He cuts himself off, looking at my face more carefully. “No, you’re afraid. But why would you be afraid of me?”

  I am trembling with a feeling that I barely understand. “I’m not,” I lie. “I hate you. You sent me into exile. Everything you say to me, everything you promise, it’s all a trick. And I, stupid enough to believe you once.” The sheathed knife slides easily to my hand.

  “Of course it was a trick—” he begins, then sees the weapon and bites off whatever he was about to say.

  Everything shakes. An explosion, close by and intense enough that we both stumble. Books fall and scatter over the floor. Crystal orbs slip off their stands to roll across floorboards. Cardan and I look at each
other in shared surprise. Then his eyes narrow in accusation.

  This is the part where I am supposed to stab him and run.

  A moment later, there’s the unmistakable sound of metal striking metal. Close by.

  “Stay here,” I say, drawing the blade and tossing the sheath onto the ground.

  “Jude, don’t—” he calls after me as I slip into the hall.

  One of his guard lies dead, a polearm jutting out of her rib cage. Others clash with Madoc’s handpicked soldiers, battle-hardened and deadly. I know them, know that they fight without pity, without mercy, and if they’ve made it this close to the High King, Cardan is in terrible danger.

  I think again of the passageway I was planning to slip through. I can get him out that way—in exchange for a pardon. Either Cardan can end my exile and live or hope his guard wins against Madoc’s soldiers. I am about to head back to put that deal to him when one of the helmeted soldiers grabs hold of me.

  “I have Taryn,” she calls gruffly. I recognize her: Silja. Part huldra and entirely terrifying. I’d seen her carve up a partridge in a way that made her delight in slaughter very clear.

  I stab at her hand, but the thick hide of her gloves turns my blade. A steel-covered arm wraps around my waist.

  “Daughter,” Madoc says in his gravelly voice. “Daughter, don’t be afraid—”

  His hand comes up with a cloth smelling of cloying sweetness. He presses it over my nose and mouth. I feel my limbs go loose, and a moment later, I feel nothing at all.

  When I wake, I am in woods I don’t recognize. I don’t smell the ubiquitous salt of the sea, and I don’t hear the crash of the waves. Everything is ferns, leaf mold, the crackle of a fire, and the hum of distant voices. I sit up. I am lying on heavy blankets, with more on top of me—horse blankets, albeit elegant ones. I see a solidly built carriage nearby, the door hanging open.

  I am still in Taryn’s dress, still wearing her gloves.

  “Don’t mind the dizziness,” says a kind voice. Oriana. She is sitting nearby, dressed in a gown of what appears to be felted wool over several layers of skirts. Her hair is pulled back into a green cap. She looks nothing like the diaphanous courtier she’s been the whole time I’ve known her. “It will pass.”