The Cruel Prince

by Holly Black

  I shake my head, feeling completely out of my depth. “It will go straight to my head.”

  That makes him laugh. “Well then, keep me company a time.”

  “Of course.” That, I cannot possibly refuse. Alighting on an arm of one of the green leather chairs, I feel my heart thud dully. “May I get you anything else?” I ask, not sure how to proceed.

  He lifts his acorn cup, as if in salute. “I have refreshment enough. What I require is conversation. Perhaps you can tell me what made you storm in here. Who did you think I was?”

  “No one,” I say quickly. My thumb rubs over my ring finger, over the smooth skin of the missing tip.

  He sits up straighter, as though I am suddenly much more interesting. “I thought maybe one of my brothers was bothering you.”

  I shake my head. “Nothing like that.”

  “It’s shocking,” he says, as though he’s giving me some great compliment. “I know humans can lie, but to watch you do it is incredible. Do it again.”

  I feel my face heat. “I wasn’t… I…”

  “Do it again,” he repeats gently. “Don’t be afraid.”

  Only a fool wouldn’t be, despite his words. Prince Dain came here when Madoc was not at home. He asked for me specifically. He implied he knew about Cardan—perhaps he glimpsed us after the mock war, Cardan jerking my head by my braid. But what does Dain want?

  I am breathing too shallowly, too fast.

  Dain, about to be crowned the High King, has the power to grant me a place in the Court, the power to gainsay Madoc and make me a knight. If only I could impress him, he could give me everything I want. Everything I thought I lost my shot at.

  I draw myself up and look into the silvered gray of his eyes. “My name is Jude Duarte. I was born on November thirteenth, 2001. My favorite color is green. I like fog and sad ballads and chocolate-covered raisins. I can’t swim. Now tell me, which part was the lie? Did I lie at all? Because what’s so great about lying is the not knowing.”

  I realize abruptly that he might not take any vow particularly seriously from me after that little performance. He looks pleased, though, smiling at me as if he’d found a rough ruby lying in the dirt. “Now,” he says, “tell me how your father uses that little talent of yours.”

  I blink, confused.

  “Really? He doesn’t. What a shame.” The prince tilts his head to study me. “Tell me what you dream of, Jude Duarte, if that’s your true name. Tell me what you want.”

  My heart hammers in my chest, and I feel a little light-headed, a little dizzy. Surely it can’t be this easy. Prince Dain, soon to be the High King of all Faerie, asking me what I want. I barely dare answer, and yet I must.

  “I—I want to be your knight,” I stammer.

  His eyebrows go up. “Unexpected,” he says. “And pleasing. What else?”

  “I don’t understand.” I twist my hands together so he can’t see how they are shaking.

  “Desire is an odd thing. As soon as it’s sated, it transmutes. If we receive golden thread, we desire the golden needle. And so, Jude Duarte, I am asking you what you would want next if I made you part of my company.”

  “To serve you,” I say, still confused. “To pledge my sword to the crown.”

  He waves off my answer. “No, tell me what you want. Ask me for something. Something you’ve never asked from anyone.”

  Make me no longer mortal, I think, and then am horrified at myself. I don’t want to want that, especially because there is no way to get it. I will never be one of the Folk.

  I take a deep breath. If I could ask him for any boon, what would it be? I understand the danger, of course. Once I tell him, he is going to try to strike a bargain, and faerie bargains seldom favor the mortal. But the potential for power dangles before me.

  My thoughts go to the necklace at my throat, the sting of my own palm against my cheek, the sound of Oak’s laughter.

  I think of Cardan: See what we can do with a few words? We can enchant you to run around on all fours, barking like a dog. We can curse you to wither away for want of a song you’ll never hear again or a kind word from my lips.

  “To resist enchantment,” I say, trying to will myself to stillness. Trying not to fidget. I want to seem like a serious person who makes serious bargains.

  He regards me steadily. “You already have True Sight, given to you as a child. Surely you understand our ways. You know the charms. Salt our food and you destroy any ensorcellment on it. Turn your stockings inside out and you will never find yourself led astray. Keep your pockets full of dried rowan berries and your mind won’t be influenced.”

  The last few days have shown me how woefully inadequate those protections are. “What happens when they turn out my pockets? What happens when they rip my stockings? What happens when they scatter my salt in the dirt?”

  He regards me thoughtfully. “Come closer, child,” he says.

  I hesitate. From all I have observed of Prince Dain, he has always seemed like a creature of honor. But what I have observed is painfully little.

  “Come now, if you are going to serve me, you must trust me.” He is leaning forward in the chair. I notice the small horns just above his brow, parting his hair on either side of his regal face. I notice the strength in his arms and the signet ring gleaming on one long-fingered hand, carved with the symbol of the Greenbriar line.

  I slide from the chair arm and walk over to where he sits. I force myself to speak. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  He touches a bruise on my cheek, one I hadn’t realized was there. I flinch, but I don’t move away from him. “Cardan is a spoiled child. It is well-known in the Court that he squanders his lineage on drink and petty squabbles. No, don’t bother to object.”

  I don’t. I wonder how it was that Gnarbone came to tell me only that a prince was waiting for me downstairs, but not which prince. I wonder if Dain told him to give me that specific message. A well-seasoned strategist waits for the right opportunity.

  “Although we are brothers, we are very different from each other. I will never be cruel to you for the sake of delighting in it. If you swear yourself into my service, you will find yourself rewarded. But what I want you for is not knighthood.”

  My heart sinks. It was too much to believe that a prince of Faerie had dropped by to make all my dreams come true, but it was nice while it lasted. “Then what do you want?”

  “Nothing you haven’t already offered. You wanted to give me your oath and your sword. I accept. I need someone who can lie, someone with ambition. Spy for me. Join my Court of Shadows. I can make you powerful beyond what you might ever hope. It’s not easy for humans to be here with us. But I could make it easier for you.”

  I allow myself to sink into a chair. It feels a little bit like expecting a proposal of marriage, only to get offered the role of mistress.

  A spy. A sneak. A liar and a thief. Of course that’s what he thinks of me, of mortals. Of course that’s what he thinks I am good for.

  I consider the spies I have seen, like the parsnip-nosed and hunched figure Madoc consults with sometimes, or a shadowy, gray-shrouded figure whose face I’ve never managed to spot. All the royals probably have them, but doubtless part of their skill is in how well hidden they are.

  And I would be well hidden, indeed, hidden in plain sight.

  “It is perhaps not the future you imagined for yourself,” Prince Dain says. “No shining armor or riding into battle, but I promise you that once I am the High King, if you serve well, you will be able to do as you like, for who can gainsay the High King? And I will put a geas on you, a geas of protection from enchantment.”

  I go very still. Usually given to mortals in exchange for their service, geases grant power, with a kick-in-the-teeth exception that comes upon you when you least expect it. Like, you’re invulnerable, except to an arrow made of the heartwood of a hawthorn tree, which just so happens to be the exact kind of arrow that your worst enemy favors. Or you’ll win every bat
tle you’re in, but you’re not allowed to refuse invitations to dinner, so if someone invites you to dinner right before a battle, you’re not going to be able to show up for that fight. Basically, like everything about Faerie, geases are awesome, and also they suck. Yet, it seems like that’s what I am being offered.

  “A geas,” I echo.

  His smile widens, and after a moment, I know why. I haven’t said no. Which means I am thinking of saying yes.

  “No geas can save you from the effects of our fruits and poisons. Think carefully. I could grant you the power to enrapture all who looked upon you instead. I could give you a spot right there.” He touches my forehead. “And anyone who saw it would be struck with love. I could give you a magical blade that cuts through starlight.”

  “I don’t want to be controlled,” I say, my voice a whisper. I can’t believe I am saying this out loud, to him. I can’t believe I am doing this. “Magically, I mean. Give me that, and I will manage the rest.”

  He nods once. “So you accept.”

  It’s frightening to have a choice like this in front of me, a choice that changes all future choices.

  I want power so badly. And this is an opportunity for it, a terrifying and slightly insulting opportunity. But also an intriguing one. Would I have made a good knight? I have no way of knowing.

  Maybe I would have hated it. Maybe it would have meant standing around in armor and going on dull quests. Maybe it would have meant fighting people I liked.

  I nod and hope I make a good spy.

  Prince Dain rises and touches my shoulder. I feel the shock of the contact, like a spark of static. “Jude Duarte, daughter of clay, from this day forward no Faerie glamour will addle your mind. No enchantment will move your body against your will. None save for that of the maker of this geas.

  “Now no one will be able to control you,” he says, and then pauses for a moment. “Except for me.”

  I suck in a breath. Of course there’s a sting in the tail of this bargain. I cannot even be angry with him; I should have guessed.

  And yet, it is still thrilling to have any protection at all. Prince Dain is only one faerie, and he has seen something in me, something Madoc wouldn’t see, something I have yearned to have acknowledged.

  Right then and there, I go down on one knee on the ancient rug in Madoc’s study and swear myself into Prince Dain’s service.

  All night, as I sit through dinner, I am conscious of the secret I hold. It makes me feel, for the first time, as though I have a power of my own, a power Madoc cannot take from me. Even thinking of it for too long—I am a spy! I am Prince Dain’s spy!—gives me a thrill.

  We eat little birds stuffed with barley and wild ramps, their skins crackling with fat and honey. Oriana delicately picks hers apart. Oak chews on the skin. Madoc does not bother to separate off the flesh, eating bones and all. I poke at the stewed parsnips. Although Taryn is at the table, Vivi has not returned. I suspect that hunting with Rhyia was a ruse and that she has gone to the mortal world after a brief ride through the woods. I wonder if she ate her dinner with Heather’s family.

  “You did well at the tournament,” Madoc says between bites.

  I do not point out that he left the grounds. He couldn’t have been too impressed. I am not even sure how much he actually saw. “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?”

  Something in my voice makes him stop chewing and regard me with narrowed eyes. “About knighthood?” he asks. “No. Once there is a new High King in place, we will discuss your future.”

  My mouth curves into a secretive smile. “As you wish.”

  Down the table, Taryn watches Oriana and tries to copy her movements with the little bird. She does not look my way, even when she asks me to pass her a carafe of water.

  She can’t keep me from following her to her room when we’re done, though.

  “Look,” I say on the stairs. “I tried to do what you wanted, but I couldn’t, and I don’t want you to hate me for it. It’s my life.”

  She turns around. “Your life to squander?”

  “Yes,” I say as we come to the landing. I cannot tell her about Prince Dain, but even if I could, I am not sure it would help. I am not at all sure she’d approve of that, either. “Our lives are the only real thing we have, our only coin. We get to buy what we want with them.”

  Taryn rolls her eyes. Her voice is acid. “Isn’t that pretty? Did you make it up yourself?”

  “What is the matter with you?” I demand.

  She shakes her head. “Nothing. Nothing. Maybe it would be better if I thought the way that you do. Never mind, Jude. You really were good out there.”

  “Thanks,” I say, frowning in confusion. I wonder again over Cardan’s words about her, but I do not want to repeat them and make her feel bad. “So have you fallen in love yet?” I ask.

  All my question gets me is a strange look. “I am staying home from the lecture tomorrow,” Taryn says. “I guess it is your life to squander, but I don’t have to watch.”

  My feet feel like lead as I make my way to the palace, over ground strewn with windfall apples, their golden scent blowing in the air. I am wearing a long black dress with gold cuffs and a lacing of green braid, a comfortable favorite.

  Afternoon birdsong trills above me, making me smile. I let myself have a brief fantasy of Prince Dain’s coronation, of me dancing with a grinning Locke while Cardan is dragged away and thrown in a dark oubliette.

  A flash of white startles me from my thoughts. It’s a stag—a white stag, standing not ten feet from where I am. His antlers are threaded with a few thin cobwebs, and his coat is a white so bright that it seems silver in the afternoon light. We regard each other for a long moment, before he races off in the direction of the palace, taking my breath with him.

  I decide to believe this is a good omen.

  And, at least at first, it seems to be. Classes aren’t too bad. Noggle, our instructor, is a kind but odd old Fir Darrig from up north, with huge eyebrows, a long beard into which he occasionally shoves pens or scraps of paper, and a tendency to maunder on about meteor storms and their meanings. As afternoon turns to evening, he has us counting falling stars, which is a dull but relaxing task. I lie back on my blanket and stare up at the night sky.

  The only downside is that it is hard for me to note down numbers in the dark. Usually, glowing orbs hang from the trees or large concentrations of fireflies light our lessons. I carry extra stubs of candles for when even that is too dim, since human eyesight isn’t nearly as keen as theirs, but I’m not allowed to light them when we study the stars. I try to write legibly and not get ink all over my fingers.

  “Remember,” Noggle says, “unusual celestial events often presage important political changes, so with a new king on the horizon, it’s important for us to observe the signs carefully.”

  Some giggling rises out of the darkness.

  “Nicasia,” our instructor says. “Is there some difficulty?”

  Her haughty voice is unrepentant. “None at all.”

  “Now, what can you tell me about falling stars? What would be the meaning of a shower of them in the last hour of a night?”

  “A dozen births,” Nicasia says, which is wrong enough to make me wince.

  “Deaths,” I say under my breath.

  Noggle hears me, unfortunately. “Very good, Jude. I am glad someone has been paying attention. Now, who would like to tell me when those deaths are most likely to occur?”

  There is no point in my holding back, not when I made a declaration that I was going to shame Cardan with my greatness. I better start being great. “It depends on which of the constellations they passed through and in which direction the stars fell,” I say. Halfway through answering, I feel like my throat is going to close up. I am suddenly glad of the dark, so I don’t have to see Cardan’s expression. Or Nicasia’s.

  “Excellent,” Noggle says. “Which is why our notes must be thorough. Continue!”

  “This is dull,” I
hear Valerian drawl. “Prophecy is for hags and small folk. We should be learning things of a more noble mien. If I am going to pass a night on my back, then I’d wish to be lessoned in love.”

  Some of the others laugh.

  “Very well,” said Noggle. “Tell me what event might portend success in love?”

  “A girl taking off her dress,” he says to more laughter.

  “Elga?” Noggle calls on a girl with silver hair and a laugh like shattering glass. “Can you answer for him? Perhaps he’s had such little success in love that he truly doesn’t know.”

  She begins to stammer. I suspect she knows the answer but doesn’t want to court Valerian’s ire.

  “Shall I ask Jude again?” Noggle asks tartly. “Or perhaps Cardan. Why don’t you tell us?”

  “No,” he says.

  “What was that?” Noggle asks.

  When Cardan speaks, his voice rings with sinister authority. “It is as Valerian says. This lesson is boring. You will light the lamps and begin another, more worthy one.”

  Noggle pauses for a long moment. “Yes, my prince,” he says finally, and all the globes around us flare to life. I blink several times as my eyes try to adjust. I wonder if Cardan has ever had to do anything he didn’t want to. I guess it is no surprise that he drowses during lectures. No surprise that he once, drunk as anything, rode a horse across the grass while we were having classes, trampling blankets and books and sending everyone scrambling to get out of his way. He can change our curriculum on a whim. How can anything matter to someone like that?

  “Her eyesight is so poor,” Nicasia says, and I realize she’s standing over me. She has my notebook and waves it around so everyone can see my scrawls. “Poor, poor, Jude. It’s so hard to overcome so many disadvantages.”

  There’s ink all over my fingers and on the golden cuffs of my dress.

  Across the grove, Cardan is talking with Valerian. Only Locke is watching us, his expression troubled. Noggle is flipping through a stack of thick, dusty books, probably trying to come up with a lesson that Cardan will like.