Salty Dog

by Shayne Silvers

  “I…” I trailed off, considering the question. Why hadn’t I gone after Temple? I’d been freakishly busy after leaving Fae, for one thing, but I’d had enough downtime since then to seek him out. Hell, to track down Callie or Othello or anyone else I knew who would be eager to see me break bread with the bastard. But I hadn’t. In fact, after returning from Moscow, I’d made an effort not to associate with any of them. To avoid Nate altogether, even tangentially. But why? Was it this “protector” business? Or something else?

  “Well?” the Winter Queen barked.

  I scratched idly at the skin of my forearm before answering. “Nate Temple and I…” I shook my head. “There’s somethin’ between us. Somethin’ I need to sort out before I see him again.”

  Oberon cocked his head, studying me carefully. His royal companion, meanwhile, was leaning forward, face outraged. “That is not what we agreed upon!” she hissed.

  I snorted. “Oh? And did ye put a time limit on our meetin’, then?” I rubbed at the chafed skin beneath my manacles in agitation. “Because I don’t seem to recall that. I also don’t recall ye warnin’ me that, unless I did what ye asked, you’d try to have me killed.”

  Oberon sat up a little straighter at that. “You didn’t—” he began.

  “She needed an incentive,” the Winter Queen hissed, wheeling to face her companion. “How else are we to stop this madness? Soon all of Fae will be a battleground. Their war threatens us all!”

  I frowned and raised a hand, though I didn’t get very far what with the manacles. “And whose war would that be?”

  “Mordred,” Oberon answered. “Mordred Pendragon has declared war on Nate Temple. Indeed, I’ve been told he’s awakened the Knights of the Round Table and that they are in his service.”

  I felt my jaw drop at that bit of news. Mordred Pendragon…as in King Arthur’s son? The one Morgana and the Green Knight had gone off to find? What kind of batshit craziness had I walked into, here? And wait, what about that man…the one my mother had called Pendragon, could he have been…?

  “Is that why ye sent Ryan to Boston?” I asked, shaking my head in an effort to clear it. “To stop the war, I mean.”

  “Ryan?” the Winter Queen echoed.

  “Jack Frost,” I clarified. “The new Jack Frost.”

  Oberon stiffened, then. “You claimed a new Jack Frost?” His tone was somehow icier than any I’d heard from the Winter Queen, and I could see her shifting uncomfortably in her seat beneath Oberon’s stare.

  “It is my right.”

  “It is your privilege,” Oberon clarified. “Is the Summer Queen aware of this?”

  The object of Oberon’s scorn refused to meet his gaze, her eyes tight with anger. “She has her own affairs to tend to, as you well know. Not to mention a Jack of her own. She wouldn’t begrudge me mine.”

  Oberon made a disgusted noise. “And what’s this about letting your Jack roam the mortal realm? I seem to recall that being a rather bad idea last time.”

  The Winter Queen swung a hateful glare his way, then held her chin up in the air. “She must be mistaken. My Jack has not traveled to the mortal realm, not on my orders.”

  I laughed, fidgeting with the shackles. “Your Jack has been galavantin’ all over the mortal realm. He kidnapped, tortured, and mutilated Fae exiles to create a monster specifically designed to kill Nate Temple. Hell, he just stole a devourer from me private bank!” I exclaimed, raising my hands as far as they would go.

  The guards shuffled forward, latching onto my arms as if I were in immediate danger of breaking free from my shackles. I snarled at them, but didn’t resist; as weak I was, there was no point. Except…except there was something going on. I glanced down at my arm to see faint marks appearing, glowing from within as if lit by smoldering coals, that faint itch becoming worse with each passing moment. But, when I looked back up, I realized the two royals hadn’t taken any notice. Instead, they were staring at each other in utter shock, as if I’d dropped an F bomb in the middle of communion and they were trying to decide who was going to punish me.

  “Did you say ‘devourer’?” Oberon asked, turning back to me, voice so soft I barely heard him.

  “That’s not possible,” the Winter Queen replied, shrilly. “She lies. She would say anything to save herself!”

  But I wasn’t lying. And, what’s more, I wasn’t entirely sure I needed to say anything, at this point. Because the marks on my flesh had solidified, forming a familiar arc—the dental imprint of a certain hound, flaring up so bright the guards had taken notice, pointing in wordless surprise. Not that I was trying to hide it, or anything.

  After all, that would be rather pointless.

  What with Cathal howling just outside the throne room door.

  46

  You could say a lot of things about Cathal—most of which revolved around him being a sarcastic, pessimistic asshole and smelling like a stiff drink—but there was one thing I had to admit I loved about the mangy mutt.

  He sure knew how to make a fucking entrance.

  The throne room doors were literally blown apart as the blue-skinned troll who’d Faehandled me earlier came sailing through them, rolling end over end, clutching his ragged mess of a leg. Cathal, seeming somehow even bigger than I’d seen him last, shoulders so broad he almost couldn’t fit through the gaping doorway, padded in with all the grace and ferocity of a lion. Hackles raised, his druidic markings burning the same shade of fiery orange as the marks on my forearm, the hound would have made any sane creature piss themselves with fright.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Oberon shouted, hopping off his chair, chest puffed in indignation.

  “Guards!” the Winter Queen shrieked, jabbing her finger towards the hound. “Kill this intruder!”

  Cathal growled, amber eyes flashing with pent-up excitement as he studied the two guards who stood quivering beside me. He juked their direction, then yipped as they fell back, too scared to do anything but assume the position—the fetal position, people.

  “Boo,” Cathal said, licking his chops.

  The Winter Queen made to rise up out of her seat, likely to do something monumentally stupid, like attack, but the Goblin King was already there, arm held out to stay her.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice full of awe. “Hound!” he called.

  Cathal’s ears perked up as he shifted his attention from the guards to the Goblin King, markings flaring for just an instant. “My name is Cathal.”

  “But he prefers to go by Cathy,” I chimed in.

  “I do not.”

  I mimed a series of nods with my finger held to my lips, winking, but the Goblin King ignored me completely. “It’s true then? A Hound of Ulster survived the culling?” he asked.

  I frowned, recalling the Goblin King’s true nature for just a moment. Because Oberon wasn’t merely one of the rulers of Fae, he was also the leader of the Wild Hunt. Which meant it was more than likely he knew precisely what Cathal was.

  “That’s not possible,” the Winter Queen hissed.

  “Ye keep sayin’ that,” I retorted, raising an eyebrow, “and ye keep soundin’ like a fool.”

  “What of it?” Cathal asked, ignoring us both, locking eyes with the Goblin King, who shook himself.

  “It’s good to see one of Cú Chulainn’s pups, that’s all,” Oberon explained, then frowned. “But why are you here?”

  “My Queen called,” Cathal replied, though he sounded awfully bitter about it.

  All eyes swiveled to the Winter Queen, who appeared almost as baffled as she’d been angry only a moment before. “I…wasn’t aware I’d called you,” she said, thoughtfully.

  “Not you, you moron. Her.” He jerked his head towards…me. His Queen. I coughed as all eyes swung to me. “Um, Cathy dearest, as much as I appreciate bein’ dubbed ‘Your Royal Hotness,’ I t’ink ye must have me confused with someone else.”

  Cathal huffed, rolling his eyes. “Trust me, I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.” He
swung that shaggy head to look at me, his markings dimming slightly. “Turns out I serve you now.” He eyed my arm meaningfully.

  I stared down at the mark in surprise. “I don’t understand,” I admitted.

  “May I?” Oberon asked.

  I scowled, realizing just how ridiculous this had all become, but unwilling to bring attention to it lest we all go back to fighting. So, I raised my shackled hands in exasperation. “Be me guest.”

  Oberon bowed as if I’d said something nicer than I’d intended, then strolled past Cathal, though I could tell he was resisting the temptation to reach out and brush his hand along Cathal’s flank, clutching his arms to his chest the same way dog lovers do at a park lest they start petting every pooch in sight. Still, he seemed to have recovered his composure by the time he reached out to study my arm; after a moment, he gasped. “You’ve bound him!” He dropped my wrist as if I’d burnt him, staring at me in utter shock. “But how?”

  “She is my Queen,” Cathal drawled. He looked at me over the Goblin King’s head. “I take it back. Humans are brilliant. It’s the Fae I worry about.”

  I coughed a laugh, careful not to show too much amusement with Oberon standing close enough to tear my throat out on a whim. “Cathy,” I chastised. “Not nice.”

  Cathal rolled his eyes. “Don’t you two get it?” he asked, glancing back and forth between the two rulers. “She’s my Queen. Which makes her yours, too.”

  Now that was funny. I snorted a laugh, unable to hold back this time, throwing my head back in the process. Except…no one else seemed to be laughing with me. I cleared my throat, studying the two rulers, both of whom had backed considerably away from me.

  “I didn’t see it before,” the Winter Queen whispered, hand hovering over her mouth in horror as she hid behind her throne. Oberon made a noise, and she glared at him. “I didn’t! Her power was stripped away, how was I supposed to see it?!”

  “See what?” I interjected, mouth suddenly dry.

  “You’ve accepted your mother’s mantle,” Cathal explained, pawing idly at the floor. “You are the third sister. Morrigan reforged. The Phantom Queen reborn.”

  47

  Even with the chains off, I decided I still felt like a prisoner. Though, if I was being honest with myself, the majority of my angst stemmed from the royal label Cathal had so generously bestowed upon me—a title the Goblin King and Winter Queen weren’t stipulating. All four of us sat in the throne room, now, though my seat was the floor, my back propped up against Cathal; he’d begrudgingly allowed it as my first royal decree.

  “So, what the hell does me bein’ the Phantom Queen even mean?” I asked, addressing the Jabberwocky in the room. Cathal gnawed on the long-bone of a creature somehow larger than he was, procured for him by Oberon, who seemed inclined to fawn over the hound the way some pet owners do their prized poodles. As I waited for the response to my question, the mutt chomped, wrenching free a sliver of bone.

  “Would ye quiet down?” I asked, elbowing him in the side.

  Cathal grunted. “That a command?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  He bit down harder this time, the ensuing snap of marrow that much louder.

  “It’s more an unofficial title,” Oberon explained, ignoring our banter. “Your mother and your aunts were once rulers among the Tuatha de Danann, but more in name than actual fact. Their combined power was such that they were obeyed, even as they appointed others to look after the Fae they left behind.” He and the Winter Queen exchanged glances. “The Tuatha de Danann were concerned with their own pursuits, more often than not. We don’t expect that to change.”

  I frowned, reading between the lines. “Are ye suggestin’ I might try and overthrow ye, or somethin’? Meanin’ I should, what? Pretend this never happened?”

  “I’m suggesting you think long and hard before you share that title outside this room,” Oberon clarified, shaking his head. “You may not understand the way we do things here, and that’s precisely why you should listen to me, now. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to be responsible for the Fae. Not really.”

  The Winter Queen sniffed, scowling at Oberon. “Besides, what good have the Tuatha de Danann ever done us?”

  “Amen,” I replied absentmindedly as I mulled over what the Goblin King was saying. I realized he was right: the fewer people who knew what I’d become, the better. I already had enough of that “my Lady” bullshit back in Boston; I could only imagine how obnoxious it would be to be treated like a freaking Queen. I nodded to myself, resolved, only to find the Winter Queen glaring at me when I looked back up.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  It took me a second to realize what she was asking, but eventually I waved a hand. “Oh, I was agreein’ with ye. See, I’ve been stuck in the Otherworld for months t’anks to their machinations, not to mention yours,” I added, eyeing the Winter Queen from the corner of my vision. “And I’m not sure if the Tuatha de Danann deserve to rule anythin’, at this rate.” I thought about the state of the Otherworld, the Blighted Lands, and my mother’s flimsy defense of their choices in both instances. I scoffed, shaking my head at the preposterous notion that the Tuatha de Danann should have any say at all in what happened from now on. “Would ye believe me ma’s ghost actually insisted I chase after Ryan to find Lugh’s Spear?”

  “She said what?!” Oberon bellowed, rising to his feet, his wild side appearing like a clap of thunder, sprouting horns that brushed the ceiling, eyes aflame, hulking body towering over us all like an ominous rain cloud about to break and ruin our entire day.

  Cathal raised his head and stared, bone spilling from his open mouth.

  “Uh, Lugh’s Spear,” I repeated, quailing a bit beneath the monstrous figure, my current fragility even more in focus now that I was figuratively standing before Oberon’s true self. “She wanted me to find it. To get back the devourer…” I coughed, sensing the sudden uptick in tension.

  “Your Jack,” Oberon said, rounding on the Winter Queen.

  “I didn’t know,” she insisted. “He must be working with someone else.” Her eyes narrowed, expression turning hateful. “Never before has Jack Frost crossed me.”

  “Oh? And how many of your Jack’s took the position just to kill a single man?” I asked, an errant thought crossing my mind.

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “Nate Temple.” I looked up, locking gazes with the Winter Queen.

  She blinked first.

  “I don’t follow,” Oberon replied, flopping back into his seat, a diminutive goblin once more, glancing back and forth between the two of us with suddenly bloodshot eyes, seemingly exhausted from even the brief revelation of himself.

  I filed that away for later.

  “Was he angry with ye? For not takin’ on Temple yourself?” I asked scanning the queen’s face. A curt nod was all I received. “So,” I mused, “it’s possible he sought out someone who was goin’ after Temple. A certain Pendragon.”

  Oberon hissed through his teeth as he realized what I was implying. “You think he’s going after one of the Four Jewels for Mordred?”

  I shrugged, though there was some sense to it. My mother’s ghost had inadvertently named me Nate Temple’s protector, not to mention dubbed Ryan a fated enemy. There certainly seemed some cosmic hand in all this, engineering our confrontation. But where was it all leading?

  “Where is the spear?” Oberon asked, when none of us immediately spoke up.

  “Atlantis,” I replied, deciding in that moment—not to trust these two, necessarily—but at the very least to open up to them. Frankly, I was beginning to sense there was no alternative, especially if I wanted to truly discover more about my legacy, my role among the Fae. Maybe learn more about the duties of the Phantom Queen reborn…whatever the hell they might be.

  Oberon barked a laugh. “That’s impossible. No one can even get there, anymore. Not unless they…” he drifted off, shaking his head.

&nb
sp; “Unless they what?” I asked.

  “There is a way,” the Goblin King said in a hushed voice, huddled in his seat. “A path through the Greek realm. A backdoor. My…other self knew of it.”

  I frowned at the use of the past tense, wondering what “other self” he was referring to, but decided not to ask; something in the Goblin King’s haunted expression told me the answer would be one of those sad stories you never really want to hear, but people tell you anyway just to make themselves feel better. Indeed, looking down at his hands, I could see them straining, the wood of his chair splintered beneath his fingers. Something passed between us, then—an errant blast of power that set my teeth on edge. “Well, how do I get there?” I asked, instead, choosing to ignore the brush of power.

  The Goblin King glanced up, meeting my even stare, and grunted. “You’ll need a guide.”

  “Where can I find one?”

  “I can take care of that,” Oberon said, sighing. “I still have some…pull, with that side. But you’ll also need a ship.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that.

  “She can take a few of mine,” the Winter Queen suggested. “I’ll even give her troops. I want that traitor executed for what he’s done.”

  “No,” Oberon said, leaning back in his chair, rapping his fingers against the wood thoughtfully. “No, I believe she’s got a ship of her own. Don’t you, Quinn MacKenna?” That gleam flickered to life behind Oberon’s eyes, and I realized I knew exactly what—who—he was talking about.

  A certain ragtag group of pirates…and maybe a few Lost People.

  “Aye, I may indeed have a ship. And a crew, if they’ll sail with me,” I replied, thoughtfully.

  Oberon held out his hands as if all were settled, grinning like a merchant who’d just sold his finest piece of junk for a small fortune.

  “But first,” I said, resting my head on the hound at my back, “I really need to stop by me apartment and take care of me plant.” I eyed the Goblin King, expectantly.