In Ashes Lie

by Marie Brennan

  But Lune flinched again, as she had done when he suggested sending knives after Nicneven. “No! She would kill him.”

  Jack spread his hands in bafflement. “He’s a condemned traitor, Lune! From what I gather, you were about to sentence him to death yourself, before you decided it was somehow more merciful to stick him in an iron box for all eternity. You would not kill him then; you will not kill him now. Why?”

  Lune turned her back on him—to conceal, Jack thought, the emotions she was too weary to hide behind her accustomed mask. The long, stiff line of her bodice kept her back straight; above it, her shoulders were rigid with unspoken tension. “You have heard of Invidiana?”

  “Some, yes.”

  “She did not hesitate to kill any she could not use. Any who threatened the security of her power. Killing Vidar...” Lune’s breath wavered when she released it. “He said it to me himself, during his trial. It is what she would have done.”

  Jack’s lips parted, but no words came out. He blinked several times, trying to encompass what she said, trying to find some response that would not send her out of the room in a rage. Finally he bowed his head, tucking the forgotten rings into his pocket, lest he drop them. “Let me see if I understand. We have here a fellow who has been traitorous to every sovereign he ever served. He betrayed Invidiana to her enemies and sold Nicneven to the Irish; in fact, he will sell anyone to anybody if it might gain him power. He confessed his guilt during his trial. Your own people want him dead. And you can buy peace for your entire realm simply by letting Nicneven carry out the sentence you intended to deliver—had he not said the one thing that would convince you it was wrong. But because he said it, you will not do what you should.”

  Lune stiffened even further. “Invidiana—”

  “Is gone! Will you let her shadow dictate your choices?” Jack buried his hands in his hair, and realized too late he had just destroyed Lewan Erle’s careful arrangement. To Hell with elegance. “Are you Lune, or merely not Invidiana?”

  She spun to face him, eyes wide. But what answer she would have given, Jack never learned, because at that moment Valentin Aspell bowed himself into the room. He could have strangled the Lord Keeper.

  The serpentine fellow’s words, though, explained his intrusion all too swiftly. “Your Grace, my lord—the Gyre-Carling has arrived.”

  Lune had spent hours planning what she would say to Nicneven, and now all the words had fled.

  Are you Lune, or merely not Invidiana?

  No respite, no time to regain her equilibrium. They could not afford to keep Nicneven waiting. Side by side, Lune and Jack Ellin hurried through the Onyx Hall to the great presence chamber, where they would receive the Gyre-Carling of Fife.

  Her subjects were flooding toward the chamber as well, humble and grand alike. Lune even thought she glimpsed the Goodemeades, before taller figures hid them from sight. “We must keep everyone back,” she murmured to Aspell, noting more than a few vengeful expressions. I should order them out, and hold this audience in private. But that would only raise questions, undermine their trust in her. If they even trust me at all, after what they have endured.

  I do not even know if they should.

  Her breath was coming too fast. “Where is the Onyx Guard?” she demanded, noticing for the first time their absence.

  Valentin shook his head. “Madam, they are not returned.”

  Worry clutched at her gut. She had felt the collapse of St. Paul’s, but knew nothing more. Prigurd, and her loyal knights—they could all be slain, and she unaware.

  More concerns she could not address. For now, the Gyre-Carling was all, and the threat of the Cailleach Bheur. Ahead loomed the bronze doors, and beyond them the great presence chamber, where Ifarren Vidar’s spirit lay trapped in iron beneath the stone.

  Will you let her shadow dictate your choices?

  Quickly as they moved, they were only just in time. One of Aspell’s underlings hurried up to his master’s side and said, “My lord, the embassy approaches.” Running her thumb over the nearly bare fingers of her good hand, Lune hurried onto the dais, Jack at her side. Like actors upon a stage, her courtiers rushed into their places. The last settled just as her herald bellowed out, “The embassy of Fife: her Majesty the Gyre-Carling Nicneven!”

  For the first time in decades of conflict, Lune saw the face of her enemy.

  Nicneven could never have passed for an Onyx courtier. Her face—neither handsome nor unhandsome—had a wildness to it that made Irrith look tame, from the sweep of her cheekbones to the high wings of her brows. The garb she wore would not have seemed out of place in Scotland these thousand years or more, a kirtle of intense woad blue and leather shoes cross-gartered on her legs. But for all her rustic dress, she carried herself with the presence of a queen.

  Lune met the fierce eyes of the Gyre-Carling and understood the truth of Cerenel’s words. This was not the cold, passionless evil of Invidiana. Nicneven simply held fast to the old ways of the fae—and hated the lord who had betrayed her.

  So fixed was Lune upon her fellow sovereign that she took no notice of anything else, until Jack gasped quietly and nudged her hand.

  The attendants behind the Unseely Queen made a surprising crowd, far more numerous than she expected. Lune recognized Sir Cerenel, of course; but it took her a moment longer to realize she recognized others, as well. Not attendants at all. Stumbling forward, prodded by the goblins who followed behind, were the ragged and soot-stained figures of her missing knights.

  Her attention leapt back to Nicneven just in time to see the Gyre-Carling smile. “We found them escaping the ashes of your City,” she said in her broad Scottish accent, the words carrying to the far corners of the hall. Behind her, Peregrin and all the rest jerked to a halt—but not Prigurd. Lune could not see the giant anywhere among them. “And I thought to myself, this Onyx Queen is reluctant to give up Vidar. Perhaps we shall give her more reason.”

  The threat struck home. How Nicneven had brought in the prisoners without anyone marking it, Lune could not guess; Aspell looked honestly stunned. Some charm, perhaps. For prisoners they most certainly were: tight twists of grass bound their hands and gagged their leaf-stuffed mouths. All their proud dignity was worn and broken, lost in the exhaustion of their battle above—but if Segraine could have killed with her eyes, the Gyre-Carling would lie cold on the stone.

  Instead that Unseely Queen stood in the heart of Lune’s own realm and smirked. And this blow, coming without warning, shattered Lune’s last attempt at cool serenity. With Jack’s words ringing in her ears, she came to one stark realization, diamond-edged and clear.

  Ifarren Vidar was not worth the lives of these loyal subjects.

  Indeed, he was worth very little at all. These, who had fought so hard to preserve their home, were worth far more. If by surrendering her throne Lune could preserve the Onyx Hall and its people, she would have done it. Better that than to betray the service these had given, and all the loyalty she had won from her own subjects, both during the exile and after it. They deserved more from her.

  Which told her, quite simply, where Ifarren Vidar was wrong.

  Not my power. My people. They are what I wish to protect.

  Lune fought her expression under control. Though her hands shook upon the arms of her throne, she could not simply concede Vidar to Nicneven. Not to save his life, but rather to save the Onyx Hall. It would survive no longer in Scottish hands than it took the Gyre-Carling to break the enchantments. But would it be enough to let Jack capitulate on her behalf?

  “My heart,” Jack drawled, into the gap left by her faltering. “And here I thought they came under the aegis of a safe conduct.”

  May all the powers of Faerie bless John Ellin. “Indeed,” Lune replied, narrowing her eyes. “I do believe this would violate the terms by which the Gyre-Carling was invited into our court. But I cannot believe she would err so foolishly as to threaten our subjects; why, if she did that, then she in turn could not expect us
to keep our word as given.”

  The Onyx Guard might be in Nicneven’s grasp, but there were other knights in the chamber, and goblins aplenty. Now all those toothy grins served Lune well. The Scottish folk had been chosen too well to flinch obviously, but she saw them note the odds, and mislike them. Cerenel, to his credit, looked unhappy with the entire affair.

  As well he might be. If it did come to battle, he would fall with the Scots. And he did not deserve that, either.

  But Nicneven simply laughed. “So it would be. Our paths crossed, as I said, and now we return them to you, like lapdogs found wandering. Besides—they have something to tell you.” She nodded, and Cerenel leapt to unbind Peregrin, not bothering to hide his relief.

  The weary knight spat out the leaves that filled his mouth. Before his hands were even free, he gasped, “Your Grace—the Dragon is not dead!”

  Lune’s heart might have stopped. All her thoughts were on how to manage Nicneven without surrendering too much; his cry made no sense at first. Then it penetrated, and all her blood went cold. “What?”

  “We saw it,” Segraine rasped, chafing her freed wrists. “In the ashes of the City. Prigurd cut it to bits before he died, and we thought it dead, too. But it has reformed.”

  Prigurd dead. The tears that threatened took her by surprise; Lune had not thought herself capable of grieving for the giant who had betrayed her. But in the end he was loyal—to the point of reason, and beyond—and the great cruelty was that she could not mourn him as he deserved.

  Not with her oath suddenly binding her soul tight.

  In Mab’s name. I swear to you that I will do everything I can to preserve London and its people from disaster—and let fear hinder me no more.

  The Gyre-Carling’s smile deepened, as if anticipating blood. “So again you face your choice, as I gave it to you before. Give me Ifarren Vidar—or your realm shall be destroyed.”

  Not just the Onyx Hall, but the City. The Cailleach alone was no threat to the mortals above, but with the Dragon still alive...Lune had escaped the trap of her oath thus far by seeking parley, by battling it at the Stone, by making plans to slay the beast. Any means of saving London that did not mean giving in to Nicneven. If she had failed, at least she had fought, had done everything she could.

  Now only this remained: to surrender her realm and her throne. To sacrifice the Onyx Court for the mortals above.

  The oath tightened its grip, forcing the words toward her lips. Lune clenched her teeth until her jaw ached, knuckles rigid and white. Jack Ellin’s gaze bored into her, but he could not save her from this; she was caught. It was too late for any more evasions.

  She might as well have surrendered days before, when that first street began to burn. Lune wished she had. But she had not foreseen the terrible price of resistance—and now she must give her realm into the hands of Nicneven, who was glad to see London burn.

  And upon that thought, the pressure vanished.

  Breath rushed back into her lungs. Lune released her grip on the arms of her throne, steadied herself, then said, “And when we have given you the traitor—why, then, we still have a Dragon on our doorstep, and the Cailleach under your command. You, madam, have sought the destruction of our realm since first you sent a man to the Aldersgate tree, flint and tinder in hand. What reason have we, in this world or any other, to believe that you will simply take your prize and go home?”

  Those who lived in the Onyx Court soon learned to lie very well. Nicneven, Queen of a simpler and more honest land, had no such skill. Anger flared across her wild features, obvious even to the most naïve of hobs.

  Lune lifted her chin and turned her attention to those hobs, and the goblins and pucks, the sprites and elves, and those few fae of the natural world who brought themselves within her stone halls. “You see the truth upon her,” she said, pitching her voice more loudly. “She would burn us out, with Ifarren Vidar or without him. London lies in ashes because she, seeing the Fire driven on by the wind, refused to spare the City you love. We are twisted, she thinks, every one of us corrupted by the mortal shadow in which we dwell. Nothing less will suffice for her but the utter destruction of our home—below and above.”

  She returned her gaze to Nicneven then, and took strength from the throne on which she sat, the London Stone lying concealed at her back. Lune had traveled the breadth of England as a beggar Queen, a supplicant to the courts in which she dwelt; now, for the first time, she faced a fellow sovereign as an equal, from the seat of her own power.

  This is my throne. Not Invidiana’s, nor any other.

  Her throne, her realm—and her people. Lune let a fierce smile curve her lips, and addressed a question to her subjects, even as she stared unblinking into the Gyre-Carling’s wild eyes. “My lord Prince—my lords and ladies of my council and court, my faithful knights, my devoted servants, you who are the humblest of my subjects—I ask you then, what answer shall I make to this threat from the North?”

  She meant it to be rhetorical, a mere flourish before she threw her defiance in Nicneven’s teeth. But a hoarse voice answered her, from among the battered remains of the Onyx Guard: Segraine, standing proud on the last ragged edge of her will. “Tell her to go home; she’ll find no victory here. We’ll kill this Dragon for you, madam, and anything else she sends at us.”

  “Me and my pretty mortal guns will help you,” Bonecruncher growled. “They’re a corruption I like well.”

  Nicneven had not expected the responses, either. Until now, she’d spoken only to Lune, not acknowledging with so much as a glance that anyone else stood in the hall; now her hair flew like snakes as she whirled to face the goblin and the knight. “You are mad,” the Gyre-Carling said flatly. “Why dwell here, locked in stone, with a hundred churches above your head? This lunatic Queen of yours has robbed you of your common sense.”

  Angry murmurs greeted her words. Not threats, but arguments: fae speaking in defense of their home, and then a lighter voice rising above them all. “Why?” Irrith asked. “Because of the mortals. No one robbed me of anything; I came here by choice, because I was curious.” The sprite managed one of her impudent smiles, as if aware of how much it would infuriate Nicneven. “I’m afraid London’s not at its best right now—taverns burnt, people camping in fields outside the walls—but if you come back next year, I could guide you around. You might find you like it here.”

  A handful of pucks took that jibe and embroidered upon it, turning the anger to mocking laughter. Like barbed darts, the laughs pierced the Unseely Queen’s skin and lodged there, maddening her like a boar brought to bay. Her attendants drew closer, fearful again of violence—all except Cerenel, who stood apart, unreadable, watching as Nicneven’s rage crested and finally broke.

  “This City of yours,” she shouted above the laughs, spitting the word as if it were an obscenity, “is gone! And soon your palace shall be, too.”

  The laughter stopped. And in that silence, Jack Ellin stepped forward.

  For one blind instant, Lune feared he would throw the courtesies of safe passage into the midden, and incite her subjects into attacking the Scottish party. They would do it, too; Lune had not meant for this to happen, for the confrontation between her and the other Queen to spring so suddenly from her control.

  But it was Jack. Not a soldier, but he wielded words like a weapon.

  “The houses are burnt,” he said, as if it were no great matter. “Some churches are gone, taverns, shops—but not the City. London, madam, is more than its walls and its roofs. So long as there are Londoners, there will be a London.”

  Then he turned to Lune and made her a courteous bow. “I dare-say our subjects are of equally hardy stuff. Perhaps you would care to instruct me in the building of a faerie palace?”

  She stared at him, trying not to release the disbelieving laugh that trembled in her throat. He is mad. But he was not the only one; from down on the floor, she heard Rosamund Goodemeade say, “We can help you with that, my lord.”

 
; “I don’t know if we can fit everyone into Rose House,” Gertrude said, with artful doubt, “but I’m sure we’ll find homes for the rest, while we rebuild.”

  “Might redesign a few entrances while we’re at it,” her sister mused.

  “And try for something more cheerful than all this black stone.”

  “Make my bedchamber larger!” one of the pucks called out, and another jested in response, “What for? You’re the only one who uses it.” As if the floodgates had opened, a hundred other suggestions filled the air, for the improved design of a new Onyx Hall.

  They were mad, every last one of them. Lune did not know if it was the strain of living under the Cailleach’s assault, or the transmuted fire she and Jack had poured into them, the radiant heart of London. But their madness gave her heart, because it meant they stood behind her, even in the face of a Dragon.

  Without them, she was Queen of nothing. With them, there was no distance she could fall that she could not climb back up again.

  Fierce pride swelled in her heart. Lune waited, letting her subjects have their say, and then when the shouts subsided she spoke once more to the dumbfounded and furious Nicneven.

  “You can destroy the Onyx Hall,” she admitted, mimicking Jack’s casual tone. “But not the Onyx Court. So long as these people call London their home, you cannot destroy us. Not without killing every last fae who chooses to dwell in this city, and every mortal who stands beside us. And that will start a war you cannot win.

  “So this is your choice, Gyre-Carling. You can raise the Cailleach once more and hope the Dragon burns us out. If it does, you lose Ifarren Vidar, for he will be destroyed with the palace. In the aftermath, we will rebuild our home, and you will have nothing but the vindictive satisfaction of putting us to that work.

  “Or you can stand aside and let us destroy this beast. When we are done, you shall have Ifarren Vidar—but in exchange, you will return to Fife, and make no further war against us.”