Relief washes over me as she and Lenn stop next to me.
The mean-girl squad backs off immediately.
Becca looks at me for a sec like she wants to say something, maybe even something not-terrible, then her face hardens. “Come on, girls.” She doesn’t wear a high pony like Fiann, but she’s got the hair-flip thing down pat. They flounce away.
I slump against the lockers. “Wow, thanks, guys.”
“No prob.” Pru winks at me. “Looks like they’ve crowned a new Queen of Mean.”
“Gross.” I blow out a breath and scramble to say something normal. “What are you guys doing out of class?”
“Independent study,” Pru deadpans. “Us and another guy.”
As if on cue, a super-handsome blond guy comes sauntering up. I recognize him as one of the triplets from Triiiad, the boy band Fiann hired in December to help her win the Battle of the Bands.
All this seems super-sketchy, but I’m not about to look a gift-Pru (and Lennon) in the mouth.
“I’m Sven.” He puts his arm around Pru’s shoulder. “I’m Pru’s boyfri—”
“Not my boyfriend.” Pru knocks his hand away, but she’s blushing her face off.
It’s so cute I wish I had time to tease her and find out more, but I don’t. “Look, I’m really sorry, guys, but I’ve gotta go. Miss Jardin’s out today, and I really need to talk to her, so…”
I look between them. Only Lennon knows about me and Rouen—the real me and Rouen. She found out last year when Fiann held her hostage.
She’s been keeping our secret ever since.
“Miss Jardin?” Lennon shifts her massive Pusheen backpack. As always, she’s dressed super-cute, her uniform pressed, little monkeys on her knee socks. “She’s here. In the library. Syl, are you all right?”
I’m not, really. I’m a bundle of nerves and bungled-up plans.
But if Becca lied and Miss Jardin really is here, then maybe I can salvage something of this morning.
I can’t rest until I know Roue’s safe. “I’m fine.” Total lie. “I just really need to talk to Miss Jardin, but…” I look at the wall clock. “I’m late for Advanced Algebra, and Miss Mack’s going to kill me.”
The last thing I need is an angry teacher making my life difficult.
“I can get you a pass, if that’d help.” Lennon smiles, her round face lighting up.
“That would be…gosh, that’d be great, Lenn!” I hug her, one-armed. Seriously, I have the best friends. “Is right now okay?”
“Of course!” Lenn smiles at Pru and Sven. “See you guys later.”
“Later, gators.” Pru winks at us, then she and Sven head off down the hall, him trying to put his arm around her and her knocking it off.
Their cute display makes my heart ache for my Roue.
“Let’s go.” I nudge Lennon. “Roue’s in trouble.”
“Oh no!” Lennon picks up the pace. “Can I help?”
“I don’t know even know if I can help.” But as I head off to the office with Lennon, I make a silent vow.
I’ll find Miss Jardin and do whatever it takes to bring my Roue home safely.
10
ROUEN
When the bain sidhe wails,
Don’t cry to me
I’ve got no mercy
When the bain sidhe wails
- “Bain Sidhe,” Euphoria
* * *
The duel is over. I’ve lost. I challenged my father by the old laws, and he soundly kicked my behind. It doesn’t matter that he’s fallen to his dark self, that he’s so infected with Moribund circuits he’s more machine than man.
He won. He’s king. And me?
I’m still a princess, for whatever that’s worth. I’m no better than him.
I called upon my dark self. It was a last-ditch effort to stay alive, but that doesn’t make it right. At least, she’s retreated to the deepest corners of my soul.
Figures. Leave it to her to take off when I’m in pain.
Groaning, I gingerly try shifting positions in the snow bank where I lie, near the moat of Castle Knockma. My back’s knitting together, my enhanced Fae healing kicked in now that I’m not actively taking a beating.
My body’s battered, my mind and soul filled with remorse and guilt.
I couldn’t save him.
I’ve still got my death grip on the hearthstone, though, so maybe I can save my people. Father can’t infect all of Dark Faerie without it. And, at least he didn’t kill me, despite the bain sidhe’s wail. But I’m still in UnderHollow, so I’m not out of the woods yet.
When a bain sidhe wails for Death, there’s no escaping it.
I should get out of here before he comes back to finish the job. I shift in the snow, and pain shoots through my shoulder, rocketing down all my limbs, leaving me a wheezing, heaving mess.
Maybe not just yet.
Panting, I lie back, looking up at the twilight sky. The flashing darkness of the hearthstone plays over my face. The cold seeps into my leathers, but I’m a dark Fae. Cold is my ally. It invigorates me. I watch my breath plume up to the thumbnail moon and try to gather my strength.
“Syl…?” In my dizzied state, I reach out for her, for a moment forgetting she’s a world away. “Syl?”
No answer.
All right, Roue, time to get off your behind and go get your girl.
I push myself up to my elbows in the snow. Bad idea. My head spins with dizziness, my shoulder screaming. I touch it, fingers scraping over something freezing and solid. My hand comes away slick with blood, cold with ice.
Urgggg… Father’s ice spear is stuck in my shoulder.
It’s probably for the best that Syl can’t hear me.
First, she suspected long before I did that there was no way of saving Father from his dark self. She went along with our plan for me. Because she loves me. Second, explaining that I had my butt handed to me by my old man is not on my Top 10 Ways to Impress a Girl. Third, Syl’s a bit of a mother hen, so telling her in person—where she can see with her own eyes that I’m not dead—is definitely the way to go.
I lie back in the snow drift, agony shooting through my shoulder, making my guts churn like I’m going to vomit. The spear, Roue, remember?
Right.
Syl needs you.
Right!
Choking back my nausea, I summon my own Winter power. I’ve never used my power this way, but I’ve seen my father do it on more than one occasion. It’s harder than it looks—dispelling the gramarye of the true king. Gritting my teeth, I pull the power of UnderHollow to me and push it toward the ice spear.
Come on, come on. Melt!
Slowly, little by little, the wintersteel melts away. The pressure in my shoulder eases. Gasping, exhausted, I let go the power of UnderHollow and sag back into my snowy drift. The ice and snow melting into my leathers brings sharpness back to my senses.
For the first time, I look around.
The edge of the moat where it meets the river. A tiny hut made of thatched blackthorn and birch. The stench of smoke and decay lingering like a shroud.
I’m at the bain sidhe’s ford. How did I get here?
There’s only one logical answer: she saved me.
But why? Bain sidhe don’t take sides in Death duels.
Unless she’s got some stake in it.
“Princess Rouen.” The voice is raspy, claws on rotten ice.
Despite my pain, I sit up fast. A bain sidhe is not the kind of dark Fae you trifle with. She saved me. That means she definitely wants something.
To finish what my father started, maybe?
She hunches a few yards away, a broken-backed crone, moss-green cloak thrown over her blood-red gown. Dead leaves and cobwebs cling to her hems, swishing ominously as she draws closer. Her hands are desiccated claws, the skin stretched like sallow parchment over her bones. The stench of death and age wafts off her.
My instinct tells me to run, but I stomp it down.
You never run from a
dark Fae. It triggers the predator inside us.
Instead, I incline my head in a bow. “Milady.”
“We like that. Sounds like malady.” Chuckling rustily, she claws back her hood, revealing a fall of raven-dark hair shocked through with white. Her eyes are black pools pinpricked with red, her teeth sharp and crowded into her mouth like a shark’s.
To mortals or fair Fae, she’d be terrifying, hideous—a grotesquerie to run screaming from. To me, she has a savage sort of beauty. Not all my people are super-model pretty, but we’re all memorable.
I smile, careful not to show my teeth. “I am glad it pleases you, milady.”
“Brought you here, we did.”
At the “we,” I look around, but she’s the only one here besides me.
A bain sidhe outcast who uses the royal “we.” I’ve seen stranger things. One thing’s clear: I’ll have to deal with her before I can get back to Syl.
I steel my nerves, trying to shake off the dizziness from losing so much blood. I need to be careful. A cranky bain sidhe can shatter your bones with a single scream.
When dealing with dark Fae of her power level, it’s best to be straightforward, but not too straightforward. They insult easily.
“You seem to have helped me, and I am wondering why.” Bain sidhe are sluagh—outcasts, pariahs—outside Winter Court affairs. They have one job, to wail for Death and Doom.
They’re not exactly Miss Popularity.
She lifts a needle-sharp blackthorn and picks at her sharky teeth. “The duel is not over, no, no, it’s not.”
Shock strikes through me like lightning. “It’s not?”
“No, no, my poppet.” The bain sidhe sucks noisily at her teeth. “Cheated, he did, oh, yes.”
“Cheating? That sounds like my father.” Or at least his dark side.
That’s all that’s left of him, Roue, my own dark side reminds me.
Only, something about her words doesn’t sit right. “But I challenged him. How could he have cheated when the fight was fair?” More or less. I mean, he was infected and super-charged with Moribund.
The bain sidhe sniffs the blackthorn toothpick then flicks it onto the frozen ford. “These things must be done in a certain way, yes, yes! You challenged him, you did, but he should have offered you terms.” Her eyes are two glittering chips of black ice. “Challenge. Terms. Duel to the death. That is the order of things, it is.”
“So…the duel’s not over then?”
“Dearie-girl, the duel’s not even begun.”
“What!” I heave myself to my feet, fighting off another wave of dizziness. “But I challenged him, we fought. He…” I swallow back my shame. “He defeated me.”
The bain sidhe only shakes her wild mane. “Challenge. Terms. Duel to the death. Can’t put the carriage before the horse, poppet.”
My mind whirls. “That means…I haven’t lost yet. The challenge stands.” Hope and dread mingle inside me—hope that I can still save my people, but dread over what that entails.
Can I really kill my father?
First, there’s the question of whether I can actually defeat him. His dark self is powerful, merciless, cunning, and the Moribund makes him nigh indestructible. The amount of raw power I’d need is staggering.
I’d have to seriously up my game.
Then there’s the second question, the one I almost dread more.
“Can I really become queen?” I wince as the words escape my mouth.
The bain sidhe clackers those claws. “Could you? Yes, yes, dearie-girl, we say you could, so you could.”
I give a short snort. “If only it were that easy.” I’m not ready. That much became clear to me the last time I was in Dark Faerie. I had all I could do to get four bickering kids to work together as a team, never mind govern an entire people who are naturally warlike and aggressive, who’d sooner stab you over the last custard tart than look at you.
I’m not fit to rule them.
And then there’s Syl.
I look around at the snow-bitten landscape, the frozen pond, the jagged paths of Summer carving through it all. Syl and I caused this, just by loving each other.
Imagine if we tried to rule together. My people would revolt. It’d be chaos, war, both of our people slaughtering one another until all of Faerie ran red with blood.
Straightening up, I look the bain sidhe in the eye. “I can’t be queen. The Great Convergence—”
“Is upon us, yes, yes.” The bain sidhe hunches closer, her hem scraping the icy ground ominously. “You and your sleeper-princess saw to that when you soul-bonded.”
A pang of guilt spears my heart. “We didn’t know.”
“Your father did.” Her black eyes glitter on mine. “Always knew a sleeper-princess would set the Great Convergence in motion, he did.”
Realization hits me like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, my father’s seemingly blind faith in Agravaine and his willingness to support the Huntsman over me, his own daughter, all makes sense. “That’s why he wanted all the sleeper-princesses dead.”
Maybe it’s the blood loss, but suddenly, I feel like all the wind’s been let out of my sails. I sag against a gnarled birch tree.
“He feared their power, he did, yessss.” The bain sidhe’s chuckle is a rusty knife being sharpened. “He knew you would be drawn to their light, and he feared you would choose a sleeper-princess over your own people.”
Guilt throbs inside me, hurting more than my real-life wounds. I look down at the hearthstone. “I can’t choose one over the other. That’s what would make me a terrible queen.”
“Mayhaps you won’t need to, dear girl.”
“What?” Again, hope stirs in my heart, dangerous, dangerous hope.
The bain sidhe’s claws clacker as she reaches into the sleeve of her cloak and pulls out a dark shard. She holds it up so it catches the twilight.
Not a shard. A chess piece.
The Adamant Queen.
It’s from my own chessboard—the one Father gave me on my thirteenth birthday. Seeing it after all these years sends a whirlwind of emotions cascading through me: frustration, anger, disappointment, loss, fury, fear. In my younger years, I played Father every single night.
And every single night, he beat me. It wasn’t even close.
Worse, he mocked me the whole time we played. “You’re more suited to checkers, Rouen,” he’d always say as he boxed me in, taking me out piece by piece.
He never taught me anything. Just beat me over and over.
He’d prolong my defeat. Until all I had left was my Queen.
Now, the bain sidhe holds that very same Adamant Queen out to me.
My hand trembles as I reach back. “I…”
“Be queen, Rouen.” The bain sidhe’s voice rings like prophecy. “A queen finds her own way.”
Unlike my father, she leaves off the Kill Syl part, and I get the sneaking suspicion it’s no accident. Suddenly, my heart is racing to beat the band. “Who are you?”
“Don’t you know, dear girl?” Her voice loses its rhymey cadence. Something vulnerable glimmers in her eyes “I’m—”
A hard crunch of snow cuts her off.
“He’s coming.” She thrusts the piece into my hand and closes my fingers over it. “Be queen.” In her eyes, I see there’s so much more she wants to say.
It’ll have to wait.
“Daughter.”
I’d know my father’s baritone rumble anywhere. I take a deep breath, pushing down the blood-loss dizziness. I won’t show weakness. Slowly, I turn to face him, chess piece in one hand, hearthstone in the other. Anger spikes every word. “Did you forget something, Father? Like giving me terms?”
“Give me the hearthstone.” His eyes burn Inimical red, the runic spiral on his cheek blazing. “I won’t ask nicely again.”
“Funny.” I cock my head. “I don’t remember you asking nicely the first time.”
Snarling, he calls on his Circuit Fae power. Ozone hits the air, acrid and b
itter. His fingers elongate into Moribund spikes teeming with black circuitry. “You will hand it to me or pay the price.”
In a swirl of red and green, the bain sidhe steps between us. “Speaks the truth, she does, yes, yes. Made the challenge, she did. You must make the terms.”
“Terms?” Father’s lip curls in disdain. “You wailed for Death, bain sidhe. Now stand back, and I shall give you Death.” His eyes, pulsing with the Inimical’s red glow, find mine. “When we’re through, Rouen, I’ll deal with your fair Fae princess.”
Cold rage races though me. This is the last time he threatens Syl. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“Tch!” The bain sidhe makes an annoyed noise somewhere between a scoff and a tsk. “Stubborn king, yes, yes. Choose terms for you, we will.” She folds her hands into her sleeves. “You shall duel on Midsummer Day.”
Midsummer. The same day as the Great Convergence.
She’s up to something, this bain sidhe.
Father knows it, too.
The heavy force of his will hits the air as he calls on UnderHollow. The temperature drops, the stench of decay, ozone, and burning asphalt bursting from the sudden snow around him. He steps in, looming over her, all of Dark Faerie white and lashing and ready to enforce his command.
“I am king. I do not obey any rule but mine own.”
Casual as you please, the bain sidhe twiddles her claws. The temperature comes back up, the snow vanishes, the ford stops raging and becomes placid, clear and still as glass. “The realm obeys you, King, but when a duel has been called, it obeys me.”
I try to hide my smirk. Well, then.
But my victory’s short-lived.
Father’s quick to adapt. “Very well.” His composure’s strained with all those circuits inside him, and his voice is tight. “You named the time, bain sidhe. I will name the terms.” His smile is cruel. I remember it from all of our chess games. “Let it be a Battle of Wits and War.”
Wits and War. A game of skill and a one-on-one battle.
I doubt I can beat him at either. The dizziness returns full-force. I sway on my feet. Exhaustion waves over me.
“Let it be so,” the bain sidhe agrees. “A Battle of Wits and War on Midsummer Day.” She steps in, plucks the hearthstone from my hands. “We’ll just hold onto this for the winner, yes, yes.”
Inimical Page 9
