The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  There is something familiar about the man, but I can’t place him. His wings are bizarre. They remind me of a flying squirrel, big droopy tufts of brown fur attached to the sides of his arms. His uniform has been tailored to accommodate them, slits cut into the biceps instead of the spine like typical fae clothing. That’s not the only way his uniform is different. Most Committee uniforms are identical to those of the Guard, only with red fabric switched out for green. But his pants seem tighter, better fitted to his body. His boots have a heel the others don’t, a subtle glint of metal at the sole. The green rope around his waist isn’t rope at all, but silk, maybe, more like a ribbon. A dozen different earrings decorate each ear on either side of his tan white face, and his long blond hair is tugged into a bun at the top of his head. His horns remind me of a moose’s antlers, so wide he has to twist his body sideways to fit through the cell door. His energy is a deep, dark green that reminds me of getting lost in the forest.

  Maybe he isn’t familiar at all. I think it would be hard to forget someone like him.

  “Sorry about all this,” he says as he moves over to undo my cuffs. His voice sounds like a lumberjack. I don’t know why. Just does.

  He also doesn’t sound particularly apologetic.

  As soon as he frees me, my energy snaps back to life, magic settling underneath my skin. It’s as comforting as pulling the blanket over your head in bed, stealing a few more minutes of sleep in the darkness. It’s weird. For something I’ve spent so long trying to push away, I don’t feel entirely like me when it’s gone. During the months I spent on my own in the human world, before Nadua rescued me, the flames fought to burst free constantly. Every time someone got too close, every time some human man saw me and thought I was easy prey, the fire was always there, begging me to let loose. But it was too soon, after that night. I was more afraid of myself than I was of anything the humans could do to me.

  After I moved in with Briar and her family, ignoring my magic became easier. There were no threats. I was safe. And I got comfortable—too comfortable. I guess that’s why seeing Emyr brought everything back to the surface.

  I flex my fingers, reaching for the hint of fire underneath the tips, feeling the way it burns just under my skin.

  “The Guard can be a little trigger-happy,” the Committee member continues.

  Briar and I exchange a look as he undoes her shackles next. Fae or not, the Guard is just another branch of the police. Briar’s parents have always been deeply entrenched in activism, and they’ve gotten into more than a handful of altercations with law enforcement because of it. Sunny spent a few years in prison for supposedly resisting arrest at a pipeline protest. Even Briar, the sweetest person I’ve ever met and not yet eighteen, has had her run-ins with police.

  She doesn’t trust cops, human or otherwise. And I don’t trust anything she doesn’t trust. This Committee guy saying the Guard can be trigger-happy just confirms what we already know.

  “The Throne has granted permission for you to stay,” he informs Briar as her bright yellow energy comes back to life, dancing in the dimly lit spaces of the dungeon like a spinning top. He steps back and motions for us to follow him toward the flight of stairs.

  I’m more than happy to escape the dungeon. This place is really just a hole in the ground, a tomb buried underneath the castle. The walls are nothing but packed dirt, damp and crawling with bugs, imbued with a crackling magic to keep prisoners from digging their way out. Each cell is a tiny little room not much bigger than a closet, and the doors are made from wood that seems to grow down from the dirt ceiling, like the roots of a tree. They’re always slightly rotted, but protected by the same magic as the walls, impossible to break down. The whole place smells like moist death.

  “You, on the other hand,” he continues as he shoots me a look over his shoulder, “will be expected to sit trial.”

  “Trial, huh? Thought I was just going straight to the gallows.”

  “That is still entirely possible, given the extent of your crimes,” the fae drawls.

  Oh. Okay. An uncomfortable silence settles over the three of us as we make our way up from the dungeon and then through a twisting hallway. The overgrown windows make it difficult for much light to pass through from outside, and Emyr’s attempts at modernizing Asalin have not, apparently, extended to adding more lighting. Everything feels shadowy and wrong. I shove my hands into the pocket of my hoodie and keep my head down.

  I’ve always been aware returning to Asalin would probably end with my death, but this isn’t how I saw it playing out. I can’t put a finger on the way it makes me feel.

  Resolved, I guess. Maybe a little bored. How anticlimactic it would be, coming back here after all this time just to be offed within a few hours. That’s not a very good story. But whatever. I was never meant to have a very good story, I guess.

  A group of giggling fae children rush past us. My teeth grind together at the sight of them. Happy and innocent. Naive and oblivious. I remember racing through these dark halls. Dancing beneath the high, sloped ceilings. Gazing out the tall windows and leaning over the balconies to observe the world around me, daydreaming about how someday all of Asalin would be mine. What a little fool I was.

  The fae drops us at a door, dismissing us with a curt nod and nothing else.

  Briar watches him go, her eyebrows furrowed. “So, he wasn’t a Guard?”

  “No. Committee.”

  Fae government is separated into three branches—the Throne, which makes up the royal family; the Guard, who are basically cops and judges; and the Committee, the glorified assistants who handle planning and arranging things for the other two. If any Big Important Shit goes down, they might be expected to call upon the Court, which is the Thrones from all five kingdoms mashed up into one.

  The Court are the only ones with the power to establish and dissolve blood contracts.

  The door where we’ve been deposited leads into a bedroom. A single four-poster bed made from black wood sits in the center of the room, with gauzy green fabric draped over it to make a canopy. One set of doors leads to the moss-enveloped balcony outside, another to the en suite, a third to a closet.

  “I think this is bigger than our entire house,” Briar says flatly.

  “I think this is the smallest room in the castle.”

  She shakes her head and mumbles something under her breath, moving to the bed and bouncing down on the end of it. “So. Maybe agreeing to come here was a bad idea.”

  I want to say, No shit, you think? but instead just shrug, joining her on the edge of the bed. “It’ll be all right.”

  It probably won’t be, but that isn’t what Briar needs to hear. What good is it going to do anyone to tell her I think I’m going to be dead by the end of the week?

  “I mean, Emyr isn’t going to let them execute you, right? He was obviously upset when they put you in handcuffs. He outranks the Guard, doesn’t he?”

  “Technically? I guess.”

  “Yeah,” Briar whispers, bobbing her head. “Yeah, it’ll all be all right.”

  She’s trying to convince herself, and I let her. One of us should remain optimistic about this whole thing, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.

  I’ve never been to one of Asalin’s executions before, but my parents were frequent fliers there. I know enough about them to know what I can expect. A crowd of people gather in a circular arena surrounding the main stage where the pyre sits. The royal family get special box seats at the top. A member of the Guard drags the prisoner onto the stage. The crowd yells their accusations. The fire is lit. Everyone cheers. The guilty is burned alive.

  There are plenty of ways they could kill a person that don’t involve this level of cruelty. Magic would be faster, cleaner, more effective. But the fae do have a flair for the dramatic, in everything they do. Even murder.

  Anyway, I guess fire’s as fitting an
end for me as anything else.

  I’m feeling oddly resigned about my impending execution. It occurs to me, in a sort of detached way, that this is probably not entirely normal.

  Someone knocks on the bedroom door, and Briar and I exchange a look. We wait a beat, hoping whoever’s out there will turn and walk away when no one responds.

  A second knock comes, followed by a familiar voice saying through the wood, “I know you’re in there.”

  With a sigh, I drag myself to my feet and open the door.

  Emyr takes that as an invitation, brushing past me to enter the room.

  “Gee, come on in,” I snap, slamming the door closed behind him.

  Briar jumps up, pointing an accusatory finger at Emyr’s chest as her yellow energy flares around her. It sort of reminds me of one of those warning signs. But instead of Caution: Wet Floor, hers would read something like Caution: I’m About to Tell You About Yourself. “Dude, what the hell?”

  That’s about as close as I’ve ever seen Briar come to being truly rude, which means she must be apoplectic.

  “I apologize,” Emyr says with the barest inclination of his head, a fractional sign of respect for her. Even his golden energy submits to hers, backing down instead of confronting hers head-on. “I would have had you both freed sooner, but my parents were on dragonback. It seems they lost track of the time. It took me a while to reach them.”

  Briar blinks at him. I can practically see the way the anger poofs right out of her, the way all of her sort-of-hateful words die on the tip of her tongue. She stares at him, her lips parting. “Dragonback?”

  “Yes. Riding their dragons.” At Briar’s continued gaping, he adds, “It’s one of my mother’s favored pastimes.”

  It’s the favored pastime of most of the fae, at least those privileged enough to get close to the herd. I’m not sure why the fae would be able to fly on their own in Faery but not on Earth, maybe something about the gravity here being different, or maybe it’s a skill they have to learn, old knowledge that was lost a long time ago. I don’t know. What I do know is that dragonback’s as close as they can get to who they used to be.

  “Dragons.” Briar says the word like she doesn’t know what it means.

  Emyr nods, slowly. “You should be able to see the herd from your balcony. They like to come into the southern fields around this time to sunbathe.”

  Any scrap of indignation gone, she all but trips over her feet as she races to burst through the double doors that lead to the balcony. A moment later, she shouts, “Wyatt! Wyatt, oh my god! Look at this!”

  I don’t move, though. I’ve seen dragons before, and I don’t trust Emyr enough to take my eyes off him. Instead, I cross my arms, lean back against one of the bedposts, and narrow my eyes. “You promised to protect me.”

  He’s changed clothes since arriving, traded in the human sweats for a pair of low-slung black harem pants and a sheer white shirt. I actually can make out his nipples through this one.

  Not that I’m looking at them or anything.

  It seems like he’s had a shower, too. Lucky him. Must have been nice, getting pampered while Briar and I sat in our coffin-like cell, the life force sucked out of us.

  “I had you released, didn’t I? You aren’t dead yet.”

  “I only needed to be released because I was arrested.”

  “Yes, well. Perhaps you should have considered that before setting the village ablaze.”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “Fuck you.”

  His wings twitch behind his shoulder blades, their clawed tips flexing with tension. After a moment, he sighs. “I had no idea Derek was going to do that. I thought I’d taken care of it.”

  “It sounds like Derek is better at strategizing than you.”

  “Maybe he is.” Emyr shrugs. “I don’t believe that means he’d make a better king.”

  I don’t know enough about Derek to have an opinion on that. Back when I was prone to fanboying over him, I was far more interested in his jawline than his skills in diplomacy. These days, I don’t know anything about the guy except that he had me arrested. So, I say nothing.

  Emyr’s eyes roam away from me to the king-size bed in our suite. Then his gaze flicks toward Briar, still standing on the balcony, her delighted giggles filtering through the open doors. Bed. Briar. Bed. Briar. Then back to me.

  “You’re both staying in here?”

  “This is the room they gave us.”

  “They should have given you two rooms. I will make a call and have her moved somewhere on her own.”

  “I’d prefer she stay with me.”

  “Then I will move you both to a larger suite.”

  “We’re fine here.”

  “There is only one bed.”

  “Bravo. You can count to one.” I shrug one shoulder. “We usually sleep together.”

  His eyes flash their inhuman gold. Wet paint dripping across a brown canvas. “I suppose I have my answer, then. She’s your girlfriend or something?”

  “She’s definitely something,” is all I offer.

  Emyr studies me for a long moment before shrugging and looking away. “It doesn’t matter. Kings throughout history have been known to keep concubines. You can sleep with whomever you want. You’re still going to marry me.”

  I barely have time to register my own indignation at him giving me permission to sleep around before the bedroom door swings wide open.

  “I can’t take this anymore,” exclaims a pale waif of a girl with a mountain of blond curls and deerlike antlers instead of horns. “Did you seriously just say that to him?”

  At her side, the tallest person I’ve ever seen in my life grins, shaking their head. No wings or horns, so a witch. They toss shaggy black hair from their dark eyes and flash a grin. “Truly, Emyr, you are tragic at flirting.”

  “Clarke. Jin.” He says the names through clenched teeth. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Oh, on the contrary,” The blonde—Clarke, I think—snickers, gliding deeper into my room and tossing herself on my bed as if she owns the joint. Her feathers rustle behind her, white and poofy and dainty, more like an angelic Halloween costume than anything else. Her sequined corset shows off a stretch of white skin on her stomach and a pierced navel before her low-slung white skirt begins, the soft-looking fabric gathering around her knees where her legs hang off the edge of my mattress. “As the self-appointed Head Gays of Asalin, it is absolutely our responsibility to make sure you don’t screw this up beyond repair.”

  She tilts her chin toward me and winks, bright pink energy snapping around her like a popped bubblegum bubble. “Hey there, dollface.”

  Something about her tone strikes a memory in me.

  Clarke. I remember her now. She’s a few years older than me, was about my age now when I ran from Asalin. She’s Emyr’s cousin—and Derek’s sister.

  She was already this obnoxious when we were children, though back then she didn’t have the time of day to call me dollface. She was too busy terrorizing her maids and throwing tantrums in the village square.

  “It’s good to finally meet you, Wyatt.” Jin grins, reaching up to push a hank of hair away from their dark eyes. They’re even louder in appearance than their counterpart. Huge muscles and their giant stature are compounded on by the piercings in their lip, between their eyes, two in one nostril, and each eyebrow. Several colorful tattoos decorate their beige skin. Their leather pants are held together at the sides by ombré rainbow-colored ribbons, and their top is little more than a black sash across their chest. “Being the token trans witch was getting old.”

  “Oh, please,” Clarke chides playfully. “You adore the spotlight.”

  “I adore you.”

  My face screws up in consideration of them. Relationships between fae and witches are not unheard of, but they aren’t exactly common, either.
Especially not this close to the Throne, hence the shitshow of opposition that followed my and Emyr’s betrothal.

  I suppose I could take this as an indication that Asalin is changing for the better, but as I was just released from the dungeon, that seems unlikely.

  Jin grins at Clarke before looking back down at me. “Really, it’s nice not being the only out trans person in Asalin anymore. I’m what you might call a theydy.”

  It doesn’t surprise me that news of my arrival—and transition—has already spread through the palace. Not much happens in a kingdom that’s more or less cut off from the rest of the world. Anything remotely exciting tends to move through the grapevine like wildfire.

  “Theydy?” I am absolutely sure I would never call anyone that without being prompted.

  “Nonbinary lady. They pronouns, very lesbian.”

  Oh. I’ve never actually met another trans person before—not off the internet, and not as far as I know, anyway. I try not to stare too hard, though there’s an obnoxious part of me that would like to analyze everything about Jin. I find myself standing up a little straighter, tugging at the front of my hoodie, chin jutting out to pretend I’ve got a decent jawline. Don’t know what the hell that’s about except that maybe, as much as cis people’s opinions don’t mean shit, this is different. There’s some weird desire to be recognized by someone like me. To be acknowledged as community.

  Ugh, I hate myself.

  Anyway, Emyr asking for my pronouns the other night suddenly makes a lot more sense. This must be the witch in his pocket, the one who built him his magical little iPhone knockoff.

  Jin inclines their head toward the balcony. “Now, who’s your friend out there? The whole palace has been talking about you two. Helloooo? Human?”

  I gnash my teeth until the sores from chewing the insides of my cheeks threaten to reopen. I have no idea how to interact with these people. A glance in Emyr’s direction tells me he probably feels the same way, upper lip wrapped over his fangs, eyes narrowed into slits. His fists are curled so tightly I think his claws are probably drawing blood in his palms.