The Witch King

by H. E. Edgmon

  I can’t explain it. It’s not different, not changing, but it’s like for the first time I’m seeing it in a new way. The soft pink cradling her body isn’t cotton candy or bubblegum, it’s not sugary sweet the way I always thought it was.

  No. This pink is the underbelly of prey before a predator strikes. It’s the sky before the sun vanishes and night descends. It’s the glistening snakeskin shed by a copperhead. It’s blood and water running in diluted rivulets down the drain, hiding evidence of her crimes. It’s organ and muscle tissue when flesh has been ripped open.

  Clarke did this.

  “I am so sick,” she finally says, “of men screwing everything up.”

  “So, you admit to this?” Leonidas asks, voice roughened with shock. “You used the witch’s phone? You tried to kill my son?”

  “Of course I did.” She shrugs one delicate shoulder.

  One of the Guards grabs her arms and yanks them behind her back, snapping those iron cuffs around her wrists.

  She doesn’t seem fazed. In fact, she giggles. “You know, Wyatt, I really thought you would have figured it out a long time ago. After your magic tried to off me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I can barely form words my head is spinning too fast.

  “You’re the one who killed the witch,” Tessa says behind me. “Jin found your bodies together. You did that, didn’t you?”

  Lavender? Clarke...

  Clarke killed Lavender.

  But what does that have to do with my magic?

  Clarke just shrugs. “Mmm. Really, Wyatt, your little black hole trick seriously did not like me. It tried to stop me from ripping the witch’s throat out. Too late, though.”

  I was the one who almost killed Clarke the night of the riot? If what she’s saying is true, when the darkness jumped out of my body and consumed Unicorn Boy, when it tore him to shreds, it tried to do the same thing to her, hidden just outside. Only we didn’t realize it at the time.

  Seriously, Clarke is the one who killed Lavender?

  Briar shakes her head. “What about Jin? How could you do this to them? You’re bound to each other. You love each other.”

  “I am not allowed to love them.” Clarke’s pretty blue eyes have taken on a wild quality, too big for her face, too glassy to see clearly. “The bond was unexpected, but it presented an opportunity. Do you know how easy it is to convince a room full of people you’re on their side once you learn the language? All I had to do was be self-deprecating and talk about all my fae privilege, and every fool there was lapping it up.”

  She laughs like glass breaking.

  This is going to kill Jin, I think. I’m just glad they aren’t here to see this.

  Clarke sighs. “I kept my eye on Wyatt here, and it didn’t take me long to realize there was no way he was going to go through with Derek’s plan—oh, you don’t know about that, hmm? Right. Derek thought he could convince Wyatt to ruin Emyr’s shot at the throne all by himself. I was only ever the backup plan. But as it turned out, the little witchling couldn’t even get fucking up right. Why do we ever send men to do women’s jobs? I only needed to get my hands on Jin’s phone. The arrests certainly made that more convenient, didn’t they?”

  Leonidas appears to be getting with the program. “The riot was started on purpose. As a means to this horrific end.”

  “How did you ever think you were going to get away with this?” Fury seeps into every inflection in Briar’s voice.

  “Well, I never planned on Emyr rising from the dead and opening his big mouth.” Clarke tilts her head at Wade. “And I certainly never planned on my own brother selling me out to his girlfriend. Tessa’s been on my ass since the protests.”

  “You knew about this?” Emyr demands, gaze shooting to Wade.

  Wade, horrified, shakes his head. “No! Well.” He frowns, hands curling and uncurling. “I knew, that night, whose side Clarke was really on. That she was only pretending. But I never thought she would do this—I thought I could convince her to change her alliance. If I’d had any idea...”

  His voice trails off, and he and Emyr stare at each other.

  The night of the riots, when I saw Wade and Clarke arguing in the woods. I’d thought it was Clarke trying to convince her brother to stand with her, to stand with the witches. But she wasn’t. It was the other way around.

  Planned. This whole thing’s been planned, maybe since the moment I got here. I was always going to be their scapegoat.

  “You’ll be executed for this.” Leonidas shakes his head, staring at his niece as if seeing a stranger. “Have you no remorse?”

  “Remorse? I did what needed to be done. I am a heroine.”

  “For attempting to kill your own cousin?” Briar demands. “For trying to assassinate the prince, just so your brother can have the Throne? In what world does that make you a good person?”

  “Do you think this is only about Derek?” Clarke scoffs, shaking her head. “You people really are so shortsighted. I am saving everyone.”

  “From what?” The question snaps from my tongue like the crack of a whip.

  It’s Derek who speaks up. “From the destruction of life as we know it. Every move Emyr makes puts us in danger. Coalescing with the humans? Thoughts of opening the door to Faery once more?”

  It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to look at Briar.

  Oops?

  “Reopening that door would kill us all, wouldn’t it, Uncle?” he continues, raising his eyebrows at Leonidas.

  Slowly, my gaze drifts across the room to land on the king. Stiff, staring slack-jawed at his nephew, he can only shake his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really?” Clarke giggles that maniacal giggle again. “Because Derek told me all about what really happened in Faery, and—”

  “Enough!”

  The force of Leonidas’s roar is enough to rustle the wings of every other fae in the cabin. I press myself tight to Emyr’s body, black barbs threading into the air around us. I do not like listening to cis men yell. It makes me want to rip out their larynxes. And after the night I’ve had, Leonidas North does not want to push me.

  “Leonidas?” Kadri’s voice is cold as she rises to her feet and turns toward her husband. “Is there something you would like to tell us?”

  The king’s face pales.

  Clarke sighs, shaking her head so that her bundle of blond curls bounces around her face. “I suppose I’ll have to be the one to do it. So, here it is. Are you ready? Faery is inhabitable. And Uncle Leo knows this.”

  Wait...what? Briar and I find one another’s eyes again, but I quickly look away. We still haven’t heard any accusations about the open door. I don’t want to draw attention.

  The group gathered casts their glances around, confusion bubbling along the energy in the room. Even the Guards standing attention at Derek’s side don’t seem to know what’s really going on.

  “Leonidas,” Kadri says firmly. “You will stop gaping as if your brain is oozing from your eardrums and tell me what these children are speaking of.”

  Leonidas winces, and his voice is soft when he begins to speak. “When our group entered Faery, it was a wasteland. But things...were not as bad as they could have been. Over time, it appears the climate there has shifted back. Life is possible in that realm. We encountered some of it.”

  “Life? Like nature?”

  “Yes...among other things.” He swallows, eyes unfocused as if he isn’t in this room at all. As if he’s reliving the story itself. “There were animals. And—and fae. But you have to understand, these fae were like animals themselves. Primitive, wild. They’ve adapted to their new world by turning to carnage. They attacked us as soon as we were spotted.”

  “Why?” Wade demands. “Why would they attack their own kind?”

  “Because five hu
ndred years ago, we left their ancestors to rot,” Derek offers. “We fled to Earth to escape Faery’s destruction and we left them to deal with it alone. Everyone believed they would all die, that no one could survive what was happening to that planet. And perhaps death would have been kinder than what they actually became. Now, they aren’t only beasts. They’re beasts whose history paints us as the greatest villains of all time.”

  My blood runs cold.

  No. That can’t be right. What they’re saying definitely cannot be true, because—

  “Why keep this a secret?” Tessa asks, shaking her head. “Why lie about what you saw?”

  “Because if he did that, he’d have to come clean about the people he killed while he was there,” Derek answers smoothly. “Anyone in his own group who wanted to reason with the inhabitants of Faery, who wanted to try and bring them back through the door to Earth. My father and a small handful of others were the only members of his campaign to make it back alive.”

  “It was a risk we could not take!” Leonidas argues. “You didn’t see these creatures! You don’t know what they are capable of!”

  And Briar’s impulsive blood magic has left the door wide open for them to walk right through whenever they want.

  “You killed Lavender because you wanted the witches disbanded,” Briar says quietly, eyes on Clarke. “Because they were beginning to talk about opening the door.”

  “I was protecting the whole world,” Clarke says, and I think she believes it. “Sometimes people have to die for the greater good. You don’t understand that yet. But you will, soon. Soon, you will all understand.”

  “For the love of shit, what is she talking about now?” Wade groans, snatching a fistful of his hair.

  Clarke turns her big, glassy eyes on him. “Can’t you feel it? This world is dying now, too. Just like Faery was, all those years ago. But we have the chance to save it. If all the humans were gone, we might have a chance of saving it. This is why integration is not possible. This is why Emyr’s plans to modernize and adapt hurt us more than help. We cannot acclimate any longer. We have to overcome.”

  The ease with which she speaks of genocide silences the room in one hush.

  It’s Briar who finds her voice first. “You really are like every other colonizer who’s come before you, aren’t you?”

  Clarke’s gaze flicks to Briar’s face. Don’t like that, don’t like that one bit. My black magic swirls up and around her body, a cloak. “You think that now, but you don’t understand. We are the victims here. We are forced to live in hiding, to protect ourselves from what the humans might do, from what Faery might do. We are only trying to survive.”

  “You are not hiding,” Briar snarls. “You sit comfortably in your kingdoms, using prophecy and influence to grow richer instead of doing anything to help heal the planet you’ve usurped. You say you fear what humans might do if they find out about you. But those humans, the rightful inhabitants of the ground you walk on, have no idea there are real-life monsters lying in wait for them. You are not victims. You are a plague, biding your time.”

  A beat passes. Clarke juts out her lower lip. “That was not very nice.”

  “Take them to the dungeons,” Kadri demands, and all eyes turn to look at Derek.

  Clarke might’ve been the backup plan, but Derek was still the one moving pieces on the chessboard.

  The Guards at either side of him hesitate. They don’t grab for him, don’t reach for their cuffs. Not right away. They give him a moment’s head start to throw open the front door.

  Boom leaps up, snarling, saliva dripping from his massive teeth. His paws fall heavy against Derek’s shoulders and nearly take the fae off his feet.

  Instead of falling, Derek wheels around toward us again, like he’s looking for another way out. His wings shoot out, his eyes going wild. Magic begins to build in his hands and spread up his arms, something dangerous and electric sparking along his skin. That blue energy, like a fog, begins to fill the cabin, and as his magic swells, the very plants lining Emyr’s walls begin to wither and die right before our eyes.

  “You will never—”

  Wade’s fist slams hard enough against Derek’s jaw that something cracks. Derek lets out a yowl, and the magic sloughs right off him as he hits his knees. The Guards finally seem to remember their jobs, scrambling to get him in the cuffs.

  “Anyone else tired of listening to straight men speak?” Wade asks, shaking out his fist and looking down at his knuckles. Tessa tsks, taking his hand in hers.

  As the Guards drag the siblings from the cabin, everyone moves to the sides to clear a path for them. Only Emyr and I stay where we are, him still lying across my lap, my arms still curled around him.

  Clarke meets Briar’s eye as she passes and gives a small, nearly imperceptible shake of her head. “It’s a pity. You really are so cute. I was even thinking of letting you live.”

  Tessa curls her free hand around Briar’s shoulder. It might be the only thing that prevents another Pierce with a broken jaw.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  LONG LIVE THE KING

  The next day, Tessa comes to my room and tells me Leonidas and Kadri are stepping down from the Throne. I suspect, and she does, too, it’s because of what happened in Faery, the truth Leonidas has been hiding from everyone, even his wife. The rest of the Court is headed to Asalin for an emergency conclave to crown Emyr. He’ll be king before the week’s end.

  I text him from my bed.

  can we talk?

  i heard about your parents. are you okay?

  please say something.

  Briar comes in and out. We don’t talk much. At least not with our mouths. She touches the back of my hand. I squeeze her wrist.

  The door between us reopens.

  We’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. Just not right now.

  I forget to draw a card.

  * * *

  The day after, Wade, Tessa, Briar, and I sit on the balcony and watch as members of the Court start to appear.

  “Amin and Pari Darwish, King and Queen of Oflewyn, the fae kingdom of Eurasia,” Wade whispers.

  Amin Darwish’s energy is bright red. It sort of reminds me of a candy apple from the fair. It bounces around the courtyard as soon as his car door opens, the first thing any of us can see. He’s smiling when he steps out, dark brown hair falling in the sort of devil-may-care way that looks effortless but probably takes a lot of time to perfect.

  His wings are ridiculous. They look like peacock feathers, massive blue and green swirls sticking straight up from his back. Two simple, nondescript black horns sit on either side of his forehead.

  Amin takes Pari’s hand and the two of them make their way up the steps to the spot where Kadri and Leonidas are waiting, looking somber. Pari’s energy couldn’t be more different from her husband’s. Hers is a dark navy blue that wraps around her like a cocoon, a protective shield between her and the world. Her baby-pink headscarf and bright white dress clinging to her rounded belly are a stark contrast to her golden skin, nearly every visible inch of which seems to be decorated with tattoos, intricate designs in dark brown ink.

  Her wings are strange, thin strips of what looks like scales sliding down behind her back. But it’s her horns that are the most unusual thing about Pari. They start at her temples and wind down instead of up, like most horns do. They slope down to meet in front of her nose, the tips of each horn almost touching each other just above her upper lip.

  She’s one of the most unique-looking people I’ve ever seen.

  As soon as they reach the top of the stairs, Pari and Kadri embrace like long-lost friends, the queens wrapping their arms around one another. Pari says something against Kadri’s ear and Kadri smiles, reaching down to press her hand against the other woman’s baby bump.

  “Robin and Gordon Bell,” Wade tells us sometime later when t
he next car arrives. “King and King of Monalai, the fae kingdom of Oceania.”

  Robin Bell is a mountain of a man, taller even than Jin and almost as wide as he is tall. His oversize brown wings and massive antlers, the furs he wears around his huge body, and the giant, bushy beard hanging down to his gut only make him look bigger. As if to avoid taking up any more space than he already does, his energy, a diluted yellow-green color, just sort of flops around him.

  On the contrary, Gordon Bell is built more like me than his husband. He’s a tiny, slender little guy with fluffy gray wings and sharp silver horns like blades. His energy is so dark gray it could be black in dim lighting, and it spreads across the courtyard like smoke.

  Their driver, a witch, unloads a wheelchair from the back of the SUV, and Gordon slides into it. Another witch holds her hand above the palace steps until they transform before our very eyes into a ramp.

  From inside the car, Robin produces two very fat, happy-looking babies, and hands one to his now-seated husband.

  “So many babies,” Briar coos, leaning forward to watch the tiny fae children bouncing in their fathers’ arms. Their itty-bitty wings jut out from their onesies, the twins’ teeny little horns almost concealed behind tousled curls.

  “Must be mating season,” I mumble in response, watching as the family of four walks right past Kadri and Leonidas and into the palace.

  Wade drags one claw against the balcony railing. I don’t know how much time has passed between one kingdom’s arrival and the next. “Loureen and Calvince Muia, Queen and King of Kitaraq, the fae kingdom of Africa.”

  I assume—and seriously hope—these people aren’t lugging around a baby with them, because they look to be about seven billion years old. Or at least a hundred.

  Loureen’s horns—long, slender, and brown—are curled in a circle around the top of her head. They’re tangled in with the white coils of her hair, the whole thing looking sort of like a (very elegant) bird’s nest. Her wings are huge, gray downy feathers, hanging down gracefully from the tops of her shoulders. She moves slowly but fluidly, like she’s gliding through water, and her movements don’t betray her age the way her many wrinkles do.