The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  In the darkness, I reach for my parents, and fire reaches back. Only this time, when it touches my skin, it burns me, too. It crawls its way up my arms, twisting around my wrists, my elbows, trying to drag me down.

  Screaming. Choking.

  Pain. Endless, never-ending pain.

  Somehow, in the midst of it, I manage to find my footing. And I flee.

  * * *

  I don’t realize I’m right back in that night until Briar steps up against me and curls one arm around me to press her palm into my belly. She tugs me against her chest and nuzzles her curls to the side of my face. I don’t realize I’m choking, sucking in the same smoke that floated off my parents’ bones, until my best friend whispers in my ear that I need to breathe.

  That night was the last time I performed any magic, until the day Emyr showed up and my flame rose, unbidden, to the surface again. Besides the daily tarot reading, I’ve done everything I can to excise myself from my power. I don’t want it. I certainly don’t deserve it.

  For the most part, magic is cruelty. Mine and the fae’s.

  Briar pulls me, shaking, back into the present, ripping me away from the flashback with tender touches and soft words and the glow of her yellow energy wrapped around us both like a cocoon.

  Her familiar eyes, so dark they could be black, are the first thing I see when I finally blink myself into my body. I have to blink a few more times to be rid of the burning tears gathered at the corners of my own eyes, but finally, I can make out the rest of her face. Her lips twitch and tighten around her teeth, and her eyebrows furrow over the bridge of her nose. She stares down at me and I stare up at her, and for a moment, we both just breathe.

  You’re okay, she says without saying it. I’ve got you.

  My Briar has always had this strange magic of her own.

  Or maybe I’m just obsessed with my best friend.

  Finally, I find the willpower to turn my head from Briar’s face to look back at Tessa. She is unreadable, mask firmly in place, armor unrelenting. She stares back at me without an ounce of discernible emotion.

  Wade is the one who speaks, unexpectedly. “Tee, I told you not to come.”

  Tee? It takes me a moment to realize he’s speaking to Tessa. He steps around Briar and me to flutter to my sister’s side, reaching out and putting one hand at the small of her back. As if consoling her.

  “I needed to see this for myself,” she says. She does not look away from me, though her purple energy mingles with his green, the two of them swaying back and forth like swooshing fabrics. “A fine for property damages. You murder my parents, and you can just waltz back in here under the protection of the prince, with nothing holding you back but a fee.”

  Of course she hates me. Of course she needs Wade to console her. I murdered her parents. I lost control and now I can’t ever take it back. Nothing I can ever do will make this better.

  Bile sloshes against my molars, threatening to choke me. Briar holds me tighter. I don’t breathe. I don’t deserve to.

  “Hey.” Wade touches his nose to Tessa’s jaw and lowers his voice. “Let’s get you home now, hmm?”

  “Actually, it’s good that you came,” Emyr’s voice comes from behind me. Very close behind me actually, so close that I actually jump a little out of Briar’s grip.

  I whip my head around to find he’s sidled up to her and is looming over me, wings outstretched.

  My energy seems to have gotten tangled with his and Briar’s, the three of them creating a mess of threads hanging over us.

  “My parents have requested Wyatt join us for dinner tonight in their private dining room. They would like his family to attend also.”

  Tessa’s upper lip curls over one beautifully sharp fang. She does not say whatever nasty thing is gurgling on her tongue, whatever hideous comeback springs to mind at Emyr’s words.

  I am pathetic enough to be grateful for her silence.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A GAME I DON’T HAVE A RULEBOOK FOR

  Briar doesn’t let go of my hand the entire way to the dining room. She keeps our fingers twisted together as we follow Wade and Tessa to the belly of the palace, the very center of it all where the king and queen live. Every now and then, Wade turns his head to look back at us, as if making sure we’re still following. Tessa doesn’t look back at all.

  I don’t blame her for the way she feels. I’ve had three years to get used to seeing my own reflection in the mirror without wanting to claw my skin off. She’s only had thirty minutes.

  When we finally reach our destination, Wade deposits us in front of a set of ornate, golden double doors and informs us to go in and wait. He gives Tessa a long, deliberate look, and she offers him a subtle nod in return. Finally, he leaves us.

  Past the doors is a dining room. It’s smaller than one might expect for the king and queen, just one long table with ten chairs, all carved from beautiful raw wood. There’s another door toward the back of the room from which voices and clanging can be heard, presumably the kitchen. One wall is made entirely of stained glass, little shards of color that remind me of a kaleidoscope. I think I can make out the mountains outside through the rainbow.

  I suppose if dinner goes really, really poorly, I can throw myself through the window.

  Briar squeezes my hand tighter, as if reading my thoughts. When Emyr said the king and queen wanted to have dinner with my family, there was no hesitation on my part that Briar was coming. Emyr seemed less than impressed, but he didn’t fight it.

  I’d thought Tessa might keep Wade around for the meal. The two of them seem close—I wonder if they’re together together, though I don’t actually know enough about her life now to speculate. We weren’t exactly close before... Well, we just weren’t close, even before.

  She came alone, though. She gives Briar and me a wide berth, hands clasped in front of her, gaze sweeping the room to take it all in. Tessa’s never been here before. While my parents were dressing me up in gaudy gowns for dinners at the palace—“date nights” with the young prince—my sister was off enjoying her childhood.

  No one has spoken a word in a while. I’m fine keeping it that way. I still don’t know what I would say. Since I first laid eyes on her in the Tribunal room, I’ve been trying to figure that out. So far, I don’t have shit. My tongue feels like wool.

  Briar, though. Briar apparently isn’t as comfortable with the silence as I am.

  She clears her throat softly and then asks, the question a raspy half whisper blown in Tessa’s direction, “What does that mark mean?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see Tessa’s spine tighten. Lavender threads itself like a brace up her back, worms its way down her arms and across her stomach.

  She doesn’t answer.

  Most people would take that as a cue to let it go. Briar swallows and continues. “The one on your hips. It’s writing, isn’t it?”

  Tessa drapes one arm over her pelvis, effectively covering up the mark, and turns her back to us.

  The front doors of the dining room swing open.

  “Wyatt!” Leonidas North, king of the North American fae, addresses me by name. “It is so good to see you again.”

  He extends a hand, mouth split into a dazzling smile. I don’t know what to do besides shake it, as I shift from one foot to the other and clear my throat. “You, too.”

  Leonidas laughs, a too-loud sound that booms and echoes around us like thunder, if thunder was feeling celebratory. It matches his energy, a ridiculous neon green that bounces around the room, taking up too much space.

  There are stories about Leonidas North that paint him like a god. In his youth, when his own parents were still sitting on the Throne, Leonidas formed an insurgent group of fae to travel through the door to Faery. It was an unheard-of feat that had not been attempted in all the generations since the fae left their homeworld for this
one. The door, kept sealed shut with magic for so long, was left open long enough to let Leonidas and his crew slink through. Their mission was to assess the state of the world, to determine if the fae could return.

  A return was deemed impossible. In fact, Faery’s climate had become so hostile that many of the fae in Leonidas’s group died before they were able to make their way back to Earth. They slammed the door closed behind them once more, resealing it and declaring it would never be opened again.

  The only good that came from it was Leonidas securing his spot as some kind of fabled badass.

  Supposedly, he was also a big ladies’ man back in the day. Partly because of his reputation and partly because he was beautiful. And though his tanned white skin has begun to wrinkle, he’s still beautiful in a distinguished kind of way. His baby-blue eyes and blond curls, turning smoky with age, remind me of his niece and nephews. He has a row of horns stretched across his forehead, almost concealed under his hair, like their own sort of crown. His wings are as brightly colored as his magic, like a parrot’s.

  I glance back to the door just as Emyr and his mother sweep into the room.

  There are stories about Kadri North, too.

  When Leonidas met her while on a trip to Oflewyn, the fae kingdom in Eurasia, their bond was immediate. Within months, she moved to Asalin and they were married.

  And everyone here hated her, because she was strong-willed and defiant and different. Asalin has always hated things that are different.

  Regardless, Kadri had only one real responsibility. People were willing to set aside their distaste for such an outspoken and modern queen because she was going to give them the one thing the fae have always valued above all else. Babies. Precious, perfect little fae children to carry on the royal line.

  And then more than twenty years passed without any living children.

  Healers attempted to fix what was broken within her that meant she could not carry heirs. Influencers forced her blood to pump faster, her heart to beat harder, changed her hormone levels and her moods. Feelers laid hands on her stomach and tried to sense the distress of each child she lost, tried to see it coming soon enough to stop it. Even witches brewed potions, read cards, threw dice, painted her body in sigils, consulted the stars. Nothing worked.

  The whispers about her grew louder and louder and crueler and crueler until the proud queen began to fold into herself. People began to whisper of a false bond. She must have bewitched him. She must have convinced him he felt something for her that he did not, that she was faking her own bond just to steal Asalin’s Throne. Why would fate saddle their king with a queen who could not do the one thing she was meant to?

  It was a desperate hope. If she was not his true mate, another could still be found. It was not too late for Leonidas to have children. The fate of Asalin’s Throne could still be sealed.

  The incident happened sometime after the rumors began. One night, Kadri plummeted from the north tower to the ground below, her body crashing and breaking on impact. Some believe she jumped. Others say she was pushed.

  She was discovered, but not quickly enough. Leonidas called for the most powerful Healers in the village to come to her aid. Working in tandem, they managed to revive her, but she awoke with no memory of her fall or how it happened.

  I consider her as she and Emyr move toward us.

  Her shock-white hair in thin braids down her back. Her umber skin covered in pink scars. One silver horn halved on her head, the other with a crack down the center. Both white wings limp, dragging over the floor behind her like the train of a dress. The long claws on one of her hands clutch the head of her cane, black marble shaped to look like the heads of a chimera. Her other hand rests in the crook of her son’s elbow.

  Her energy is a soft, quiet gray, hovering around her shoulders. Clouds just before the rain comes.

  When she catches me staring, I turn my head away.

  After the incident, the couple stopped trying to have children. Kadri’s fire returned, and she no longer allowed herself to tolerate the whispers, or the prodding, or the blame that Asalin’s citizens had spent so long throwing her way.

  A few years later, she and Leonidas received word that one of her relatives in Oflewyn was expecting a baby she could not keep. She wanted to know if they would take him. A few months after that, they brought Emyr home.

  Emyr has traveled to Oflewyn with his parents more than once. He’s met his birth mother, one of Kadri’s cousins. Though I’ve always been curious about her, there doesn’t seem to be much of a story there.

  “Please, everyone, take a seat.” Leonidas is still smiling, and he claps me—hard—on the shoulder, too startlingly fast for me to react.

  As we sit, staff begin pouring out of the kitchen, pushing carts laden with food and drink. They arrange our food in golden bowls, pour wine into matching glasses, and set down the goldenware with quiet clinks before slipping away again. Best not to be in sight unless they’re needed, I guess.

  “I hope you’re still a fan of kavera, Wyatt.” Leonidas is watching me, still smiling that big smile. “It was your favorite when you were little.”

  Kavera. My stomach gurgles at the thought, tongue rolling up against the roof of my mouth as I look down at the bowl in front of me.

  Kavera is a dragon meat stew, made with a dark red, almost black, bone broth, melt-in-your-mouth slices of meat, potatoes, carrots, and onions. The best part, though, is the topping. The stew is topped with thin pieces of dragonskin, deep fried and sprinkled on top as a heavy-handed garnish.

  I don’t even bother answering the king, spooning a giant pile of it into my mouth and practically moaning at the sharp, earthy, so ridiculously good I could actually cry taste.

  Okay. So, the human world might have McDonald’s, but you can’t get kavera anywhere else but a fae kingdom. I guess I can see one upside to sticking around.

  Leonidas doesn’t seem bothered by my bad manners, as he chuckles and digs into his own food. I grab a piece of toasted bread from the center of the table, ladle some stew onto it, and tear into it with my teeth in one big bite.

  For a while, we eat in silence, apart from the sound of utensils clinking and my occasional groans of pleasure. The queen is the one who speaks next.

  “I apologize we were unable to see you before tonight, Wyatt.” Kadri’s voice is smooth and slow, as if she is choosing her words very carefully. “Given the circumstances of your arrival, we thought it best to wait until the trial had come to a close. There are already so many whispers of your preferential treatment, after all.”

  She’s watching me, dark eyes sharp. I’m being tested. I know this. I can see it on her face. But I don’t know what the test is.

  “It’s fine.” I shrug. “It’s over now.”

  Kadri tilts her head toward me. “Indeed.”

  Suddenly, finally, Tessa breaks her silence. “You truly still intend to go forward with this marriage?”

  The queen slides her discerning gaze to my sister’s face, while Leonidas continues smiling in a way that doesn’t quite crinkle around his eyes. It’s he who answers her. “Of course. There is no union more sacred than that of fated mates.”

  “You don’t believe choice matters as much as fate?” Tessa demands. Her tone is sharp, a blade fresh off a whetstone, but her posture remains loose. Her hands remain folded over her belly, her thumbs circling each other slowly.

  I’m not sure where she’s going with this. Briar and I exchange a look.

  “Well, certainly the choices we make are important.” Leonidas speaks slowly, choosing each word carefully.

  It almost seems as if he and Tessa are playing a game. A game I don’t have a rulebook for. A game for which the winner’s prize is beyond me. They stare one another down from opposite ends of the table, green shards of broken glass against purpling bruised knuckles.

  “But Wya
tt and Emyr have chosen to be here today,” he continues.

  “Not exactly.” I offer the room a smile when all eyes flick toward me. “Under threat of a blood contract and all.”

  I can feel Emyr’s glower burning the side of my face before I look at him. He’s slumped forward with his chalice in the palm of his hand, grip so tight I think his black claws might rip right through the metal.

  I smile. He bares his fangs at me, and the hair on the nape of my neck rises. I flash one black slicked middle finger in his direction and his wings twitch over his shoulders.

  “Well...” Leonidas coughs, dragging the attention back to him. “Yes, there is that. But you are still making the choice to be happy in this arrangement. And that’s something.”

  Oh, am I? That’s what I want to ask. But Tessa doesn’t allow me the chance.

  “It was also his choice to murder our parents. To burn them alive, to cook them like meat until they couldn’t be saved by any Healer in Asalin.”

  The only part of her statement that takes me off guard is when she genders me correctly.

  Briar decides to take up the torch on my behalf, though. Because of course she does. “Your parents attacked him that night. And not for the first time. What happened was an accident, but it never would have happened if he’d been given an ounce of compassion. If he’d been allowed around other witches so he could learn how to use his power to begin with.”

  Tessa stares, unblinking. “My parents loved her—”

  Ah, there it is, the inevitable slip of the tongue. Tension cords it way up my shoulder blades, screws tightening in the bones in my back.

  “Him.”

  I expect the correction to come from Briar. And it does.

  But only at the same time it comes from Emyr.

  He took me by surprise when he asked for my pronouns in Laredo, and he’s managed to do it again. It sets off something inside me I don’t want to name, some warmth that wiggles down from my chest, my gut, into my thighs, my freaking toes. Fondness, maybe. Ugh.