Dark Horse

by E. A. Copen

  I stepped away from Emma, then swung around to stand in front of her. “Tell me you didn’t just suggest what I think you did.”

  She shrugged. “We’re down to the wire, Laz, and this is bigger than one angel’s pride. We need that soul, one way or another. If you don’t have the stomach for it, you can always ask Beth.”

  I thought I was going to be sick. “He was your partner on the force for years, Em. What the hell?”

  “Now he’s an obstacle that needs to be removed. I can either feel bad about it and let that emotion hinder my judgement, or I can act. I choose to act.”

  I recoiled, my head spinning. “I didn’t even know you knew what he was. When did you find out?”

  Emma opened her mouth, but paused. She blinked twice, snapped her jaw shut and looked around as if she were suddenly disoriented. “I...I don’t know. I can’t remember.” She put her head in her hands. “Thinking about it...It hurts.”

  She must’ve been encountering resistance from the spell. It seemed like it’d been trying to dig in deeper ever since I tugged on it, or maybe Emma was just fighting harder to break through.

  I put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her. “Keep fighting, Emma. We’re going to fix this.”

  Foxglove and the dryad waited at the end of the treeline for us. I ushered Emma to meet them, unsure of why they’d stopped. Not on our account. They hadn’t gotten that far ahead, and we were nowhere near the Summer Palace. The dryad lifted a curtain of leaves from a weeping willow and gestured for us to go through.

  I let go of Emma, though I didn’t want to. If I had my way, she’d go in at my side, but even I couldn’t deny the importance of protocol when addressing a foreign court. It wasn’t Remy I was worried about, but her courtiers. They liked to pass rumors, and I didn’t want to send any unintentional signals.

  With a deep breath, I strode through the opening, head held high to find a small clearing on the other side. Though there were no trees in the empty circle, it was strangely dark, the overhead canopy blocking out most of the light. A big tent took up most of the clearing, though there was enough space for a big table full of food and several more human-looking fae to stand around in full armor.

  Remy herself sat behind the huge feast table in a gown of emerald green scales. She’d had a new crown cast, this one sharper, pointier than the last. She sat with her hands gripping the wooden armrests of her throne, a stern expression on her face. The whole scene made her look practically menacing. If I knew anything about the fae, that was on purpose.

  I stopped on the other side of the table and nodded. “Your Highness.”

  “Well met, King Lazarus.” She lifted one hand in a gesture and several dryads stepped away from the tree line to move the table aside.

  This was a show the two of us had to put on for the locals, sticking to customs and formalities whenever we were in front of crowds. Both of us agreed it would be best with all the rumors flying. Remy was the first half-fae queen to rule, and that automatically made some doubt her ability. They questioned whether her connection to me made her too human for the job. Faerie apparently didn’t agree, but we still had to keep up appearances.

  “My knight has informed me that you had something urgent you wished to discuss in person.” I gestured to Foxglove, who was kneeling behind me. “I also have urgent business with your court. I had hoped we’d meet in the palace, as my business has to do with the prisoners in your care.”

  Remy’s throne creaked as she pushed herself up out of it. “So soon to business, and without an introduction.” She gestured to Emma who’d taken a knee behind Foxglove.

  I twisted and gestured for Emma to get up and take my hand. Emma hesitated, frowning at me and glancing to Remy before finally rising. “This is Emma Knight,” I said taking her hand.

  Remy’s dress made a small clinking sound as she stepped toward us. She stopped in front of Emma staring into her eyes. “Emma Knight,” she repeated. Her expression warmed and she took Emma’s hands in hers. “Welcome.”

  I bit my lip and tried not to let anything slip out. This was the first time the two had been reunited since Remy was taken. Watching the scene unfold made something in my chest ache. I wanted to hug her, hug them both and not let them go. It felt almost like we’d put our weird little family back together for a minute.

  Except that Emma wasn’t herself, and something was definitely off inside the Summer Court.

  Remy’s smile warmed slightly as she turned to me. I thought she’d give me one of her scripted greetings as she had Emma, but instead she threw her arms around me and squeezed. “Welcome, Father.”

  I hugged her back. “Told you to call me Dad. Father is too formal. I don’t really do formal.”

  She stepped back but kept her hands in mine as she looked me over, still smiling. “I can tell. Foxglove, I thought you said you were going to help him with his wardrobe.”

  “Some things are beyond even my help, Your Highness,” Foxglove answered, rising.

  I squeezed Remy’s hands. “I’d love to hang around and catch up, but I’m on a tight time limit. Is there somewhere we can go to talk without so many eyes and ears?”

  Remy’s smile finally faded. “There is, and I have something to show you. Something important. Come. No one will follow.”

  A few armored guards stepped forward as Remy retreated, heading for the edge of the tree circle. She waved them off and they took up positions next to the throne instead, guarding it as if she were still seated there.

  The hem of Remy’s dress whispered across the grass as we walked. She and I stayed silent until we were past the edge of the circle and several yards into the trees. Her pace slowed, and I altered mine to match.

  “I’m sorry to ask you to come directly,” she said. “Foxglove told me about your situation. If I had any other choice, I would’ve waited, but time can be so fickle here, as we both know.”

  I glanced over at her and couldn’t believe I was looking at my daughter. Just months ago, she’d been a baby. She didn’t even have teeth yet. Now she was a queen with a crown and the beauty to rival any of the other Faerie queens. She must’ve gotten her looks from Odette because I sure wasn’t what anyone would call attractive. It struck me every time I thought about it, enough to make my breath catch, the amazement that someone so perfect and beautiful was my kid. I’d made her, though I couldn’t take all the credit. If only Odette had lived to see how beautiful she was.

  I stopped walking and Remy turned so we were face to face. “I need a fae soul to fuel a spell, and I can’t bring myself to ask my court for a volunteer. They’ve already been through a lot.”

  She blinked in surprise. “And so you come to my court to ask?”

  “No, not like that. I was hoping you might have a prisoner or someone interested in redeeming themselves with a final act of bravery. They could be remembered as a hero instead of for their crimes.”

  “A tempting offer for anyone who’s been in the dungeons for any length of time.” She pressed her lips together and turned, striding further away from her camp. “Unfortunately, I freed most of Titania’s prisoners when I came into power. Only the truly evil and monstrous remained, and I have slowly been executing them on a schedule.”

  The casual way she mentioned executing fae made me suppress a shiver.

  “You don’t approve?” She looked over at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “It’s not that I don’t approve. You can run your court your way. It’s just... Well, on Earth we have other ways of dealing with criminals.”

  “Yes, you lock them in cages with other criminals and somehow believe this will rehabilitate them. Then the worst you inject with lethal substances. Don’t try to convince me that anything is better on Earth. Your people execute criminals just as I do here. Arguably, my way is kinder.”

  I shook my head. “I know. I just don’t like the idea of you having blood on your hands like that, I guess. Shouldn’t you have a knight or something to do all of that f
or you?”

  “Are you willing to part with Sir Foxglove?” Her face hardened.

  She already knew my answer to that. It was a point of contention between us and had been for some time. She thought I was holding onto him solely to keep them apart, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t keep Foxglove on Earth against his will; he’d volunteered himself as my knight and I wouldn’t dismiss him unless he asked to be free of his oath. I’d half-expected him to ask the moment things settled down, but he never had.

  “Foxglove gave me an oath,” I replied. “I’ll hold him to it until his duty is done.”

  “Then I shall have no knight. I trust no one but him to protect me in that capacity.”

  I sighed. “You are stubborn like her. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  The corners of her mouth quirked up. “Only you would dare.”

  As we approached the edge of the forest, the ground changed, becoming rockier. Green moss turned to brown and then curled in dead, black tendrils that crunched underfoot. Soot and scorch marks marred the south side of every tree until eventually all that was left around us were the burnt-out stumps of trees that once were. Acres and acres of land stretched on, burned.

  I turned a full circle. “What happened here?”

  “Fire.” She said it as if it explained everything, but her answer left me with more questions than answers.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We climbed to the top of a small rise where Remy finally stopped to look out over her kingdom. When I reached the summit, my mouth fell open at the scene.

  Black, tendril-like vines spread over the land like twisted tree roots. All around them, the ground was a greenish, putrid color like a rotting corpse. A mist had settled in the valley over several pools of boiling slurry. Occasionally, the mist would flash and catch fire, exploding into miniature mushroom clouds. Nothing grew but those disgusting vines.

  I turned to Remy. “What is this?”

  “An infection. We know it doesn’t like fire. We tried a controlled burn to stop it. So far, that’s only slowed it down.”

  I frowned at the destruction. Summer was supposed to be the court of light and life, joy and celebration. Yet this infection was choking the land, destroying it. What kind of magic could do that? It had to be magic, right?

  “May I?” I gestured to the sword Remy wore at her hip.

  She pulled it free and handed it to me.

  I’ve never been much of a sword guy. Couldn’t have stabbed someone even if I wanted to, but even I could hit a stationary target. With a grunt, I stabbed the point of Remy’s sword into one of the nearby tendrils. It screeched like a living thing and spat black blood that hissed and steamed when it hit the ground. When I pulled Remy’s sword free, the thing’s blood was quickly chewing through the blade.

  “We thought we could kill it,” Remy said, taking the sword back. “We struck it with magic, with fire, with weapons, all to no avail. What it doesn’t grow over, it dissolves. There’s no stopping it. Not as far as we’ve been able to deduce.”

  I frowned and shifted my staff to nudge part of the tendril that wasn’t bleeding so the metal wouldn’t dissolve. Everything in Faerie reacted to iron, so it stood to reason that if this was a creature or a spell tied to Faerie it would freak out if iron touched it, right? The little black tentacle laid there, inert despite repeated strikes.

  I huffed out a breath and leaned over for a closer look. “If it bleeds, you can kill it. Just a matter of finding out how. Where’d it come from?”

  “Shadow.”

  I straightened and looked back out over the infected land. To say I had a poor opinion of the Shadow Court in Faerie was an understatement. They’d tried to assassinate Remy while she was still in the womb. Of course, I’d killed their former queen when she attacked Odette. Last I heard, their court was in shambles. Leadership was up in the air with no clear heir to the Shadow throne and things had devolved into several civil wars as people fought over the crown. Like Summer and Winter, I was content to let them fight it out themselves. Getting involved seemed like a bad idea. Eventually, someone had to win.

  I stepped back from one of the tendrils as it crawled forward blindly. “Do you think the Shadow Court is making another move against Summer?”

  Remy shook her head. “The Shadow Court’s lands are overrun with the same infection, except it’s worse there. Shadow fae are fleeing their lands in droves. We’ve taken in thousands of refugees over the last few months and they just keep coming. With us burning fields to keep the infection at bay, we’ll soon face food shortages. I’ve had to start turning refugees away.” She started back down the hill.

  I took one last long look at the dying land below and rushed to catch up with her. “But if you’re turning them away, where are they all going?”

  “Some go to Winter,” Remy said, picking up her pace. “They can’t go to the Light Court, and the High Court has closed its borders. We believe it was a pre-emptive move, that perhaps somehow they knew about the infection before we did.”

  I wouldn’t put it past them. I didn’t know much about the High Court, except that Foxglove had been born into it, and they didn’t like me much. They thought I was mocking them by founding the Court of Miracles. Bunch of sticks in the mud, the High Court.

  “In the end, some of them are fleeing Faerie and going to Earth. I’m more concerned about the infection here. We have it contained for now, but at a huge cost. We cannot keep it contained. We need help.” Remy turned to me. “You’re more well-versed in magic, and well-traveled than anyone in my court. I was hoping you’d know something about it, but you seem as surprised as I was.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that.” I shook my head. “I promise I’ll look into it. It’ll be my main priority once Typhon is dealt with.”

  Giving your word to a fae was a binding contract, one with magic laced into it. I felt the power rise and snap into place between us and winced. I had done it on purpose to make sure Remy would trust me to keep my word, but that didn’t make the feeling of the debt comfortable.

  Remy nodded, unmoved by the magic that had affected me, though she must’ve felt it. “You need your soul first. As I said, I don’t have anyone in my dungeons who would fit your needs. However, when Foxglove explained the situation to me, I sent word to Winter. Queen Noelle keeps many more prisoners than I do, and I’d heard she was having problems with one in particular.”

  “I don’t want to execute someone for Noelle. I’d rather take a volunteer.”

  She tilted her head to look at me. “You’ve met the Winter Queen. Seen how she is. Trust me when I say whomever she has in mind will likely gladly part with his soul to escape whatever torture she’s put him through.”

  I shuddered at the thought. Noelle was a stone-cold bitch. When she was the Winter Knight, she and I had struck a deal that gave her the chance to kill her queen in exchange for helping me get to Remy. Fae knights shouldn’t have been able to hurt their monarchs, but Noelle was sneaky. While fae couldn’t lie, she was extraordinarily good at telling half-truths.

  She was also cruel and seemed to enjoy hurting others. Winter would suffer under her rule. Had I seen that sooner, I would’ve found another way to get to Remy without helping her with regicide.

  We made it back to the clearing. Foxglove, who’d been talking to another guard, greeted us with a nod. Emma had taken up a spot near the edge of the clearing halfway between two guards. She stood still as stone, as if she were a guard like any other.

  One of Remy’s armored guards bowed in front of us. “My queen, King Lazarus. The Winter Court has arrived. Will you receive them?”

  “We will,” Remy answered, and the guard ran off.

  Remy took her seat in the throne and gestured for me to stand on her right side, so I did, while she put Foxglove on her left. Noelle wouldn’t miss the unspoken communication in the way Remy had arranged us. We were allies, Summer and the Court of Miracles, and we had jointly invit
ed Winter into our domain. There was an important distinction there that would force Noelle to play the role of a gracious guest, putting her in opposition to two monarchs instead of one if she spoke out of turn.

  A trumpet blew somewhere in the distance and a horse whinnied. A moment later, the Winter Queen rode in on a white horse. Noelle wore a dress of sparkling blue and a crown of icicles that didn’t melt, despite the heat. Glass slippers adorned her feet and diamonds dripped from her neck and ears. Her horse stopped just inside the clearing, and one of her people came forward to help her down. Rather than offering his hand, he bent over on all fours and let her step down onto his back before she floated gracefully to the ground.

  “Cousin!” Noelle beamed and approached the throne without an invitation.

  Remy’s guards stepped in to block her from coming further.

  The smile faded from Noelle’s face. A glint of rage touched the corners of her eyes. “Am I not a welcome guest in your lands, Queen Remy?”

  Remy extended her hand and the guards stepped back. “You are welcome, but we are not cousins.”

  “It was a friendly expression. We may not share blood, but I hope that we can be like family as our alliance grows and strengthens.” Noelle inclined her head first to Remy and then me. “King Lazarus. It’s good to see you’ve managed to hold onto your title for so long. I’m relieved to see you’re well.”

  Translation? She expected I’d be dead by now.

  “Seems to be a lot of changeovers happening these days,” I answered and wiggled my staff in my hand. “Fortunately for me, I’m responsible for most of them. I think most fae recognize it’s dangerous to cross me.”

  “Which is why we are allies, and as your ally, I have brought you a gift.” Noelle lifted two fingers into the air and made a circular motion.

  Her guards each pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves, the kind welders might use, and went to the back of the horse. A moment later, they came back, dragging heavy iron chains. At the end was a fae so coated in dirt and filth he was barely recognizable. They dropped the chains on the ground at Remy’s feet and the fae fell to his knees with a grunt.