Dethroned_An Inimical Prequel Novella

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  A murky spark jumps as he touches the water, and with a poof of gross bog gas—sclorch!—swampy muck rains down, plop, plop, plop, all over me, Miz, the cage, Marrow. Kshirin lets out a squall as some hits her already-stained silk sari.

  Gross.

  Groans and sighs erupt among our little cluster of cages.

  “You did that on purpose!” Miz accuses, her teal scales turning an angry shade of red.

  “Did not!” But Marrow hunches his shoulders, cringing.

  “Try harder!” Kshirin scolds.

  “Yeah. You’re supposed to make the water solid.” Einslie pantomimes making a long column of stairs. “So we can climb up.”

  “I’m tired.” Marrow kicks the iron bars and huffs into a position I’ve come to call “full sulk:” head down, arms crossed, bottom lip extra pouty.

  We’re all tired. We’ve been at it for hours—Miz shooting her water funnel, and Marrow trying to curse it solid so we can climb it. We’d have to duplicate that trick at least five times to have the barest hope of reaching the doors.

  We can’t even do it once.

  Beneath me, Einslie moans softly. “I wish I could help.”

  One look into her sincere little face, and my black heart aches. Her liannan sidhe powers of charming people aren’t really handy against cold iron and the elements.

  “It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I tell her. “It’s mine.”

  Maybe I’m the stupid one for hinging all my plans on a bunch of kids who can barely use their powers.

  “I’m pushing everyone too hard.” I let Miz go gently, and she lands on the floor of her cage. I slump down into mine. “Besides, we can’t even get out of these chains, so what’s the use in making stairs?” I put my elbows on my knees, hands in my hair.

  I rack my brain. There’s gotta be a way. Syl would find a way.

  But me? I’m not the hopeful one. I’m not the look-on-the-bright-side girl.

  I’m the realist. And it’s very real that we probably won’t get out of here.

  Miz wilts, the summersteel’s heat searing across her skin. Poor thing, she flumps down in her cage, and great big tears well up in those teal eyes. Kshirin presses her cute tigery face against the bars, her lip quivering. Marrow sniffs. Even Einslie’s eyes glisten suspiciously.

  Panic lights me up. Uh-oh. I try to shush them. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t—”

  “Waaaahhaaaahhaaaaa!”

  The next thing I know, all the kids are crying, big tears spilling, lips trembling, snot running down their wee little faces. Gah! They’re cute and gross all at once. I just want to sweep them up and squeeze the stuffing out of them.

  Okay, can I say I’ve never been one for kids, but…I’m starting to soften.

  Like butter. In their tiny, adorable hands.

  Tell no one.

  Even so, you’ve gotta admit, Roue, my dark self nudges. There’s no way out of here.

  Then, a familiar presence touches my mind. “I’m counting on you, Roue.” Syl’s sending is weak—the first I’ve felt since I was thrown down here. I shoot to my feet, banging my head on the cage.

  “Ow! Blast it all!” I reach for her down the bond. “Syl! Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “Not sure…” Her voice is so faint, so weak. “A lab…somewhere…near the Adamant Hall maybe?”

  “Etana’s laboratory.” A shiver runs down my spine. My father’s long used the liannan sidhe for their knowledge of herbs and sorceroscience, a blend of black magic and scientific knowledge.

  “Roue…” Syl’s voice weakens, the feel of her fading down the bond.

  He’s draining her right now! my mind screams. “Syl, hold on! I’m coming!”

  I pace my cage, restless as a jungle cat. There has to be a way out. There has to be a way. A sizzling sound buzzes in my ears. Ugh. Must’ve hit my head harder than I thought. Sizzle, sizzle, sizz…

  “Quiet down. I need to think!”

  Sizzle, sizzle…POP! to my right.

  I whirl around, frustration expanding my chest painfully, to see Kshirin leaning on the bars. Her claws are glowing a weird green, and the metal is…melting.

  “Wait.” I take a breath to make sense of this. Rakshasi have poisonous teeth, not poisonous claws. I look again. Nope, Kshirin’s claws are definitely glowing green—a mixture of venom and acid. That’s rakshasi poison, all right. “Your claws are poison?”

  Kshirin jerks upright, her face that of a kid caught in a cookie jar. “Nuh-uh.” She shoves her hands behind her back. “No, they’re not.”

  “Don’t lie!” Marrow hollers.

  “Not lying!”

  Hoo-boy, it’s about to turn into another bickerfest. Did I mention that I can destroy Circuit fiends, battle Môrgrim, and take down Ouroboros, but when kids start to cry or bicker or freak out, I turn to complete Jell-O?

  Seriously, if any of this gets out, there goes my rep.

  “Listen up!” Einslie comes to my rescue, clapping her hands. “Don’t make me faestrike the lot of you.” She puts her hands on her hips, tossing her red curls. “The princess is speaking. So be quiet.”

  All the kids shut up and look to me.

  I bend down to look Kshirin in her golden eyes. “It’s okay if you’re different, and you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. It’s your choice.”

  “But…” Her lip quivers. “My claws…they could really help, couldn’t they?”

  I nod. “Yes. They could.”

  “Will I get in trouble?”

  Her young face is so earnest and vulnerable. I want to tell her she won’t, but the rakshasha are part of the Brood, the shapeshifting class of dark Fae. I don’t know their culture at all. I can’t lie to her.

  “I don’t know,” I say solemnly, and when her face falls, I lift her chin up. “But one thing I do know is that I’ll be right there with you. I won’t leave your side.”

  Golden eyes narrowed, Kshirin thinks about this for a second, then she perks up. “Okay!” She unsheathes her claws. They glow bright green like sunlight through jade.

  Slash! With a single cut, she carves through my chains, hot knives, butter, and all that. Summersteel links fall to the cage floor, hissing as they melt into golden goo.

  All right, that is one powerful kiddo.

  As soon as my bonds fall away, a small fraction of my power comes back, coiling in my limbs. Thank the ancestors. The iron’s still sapping me, but at least I no longer feel like death on a stick.

  “Now the bars, Kshirin. Free the others.”

  I watch, incredulous as the little rakshasi melts her own chains, the bars, and then leaps like a teeny sari-clad acrobat to the other kids and melts off their chains.

  “Yay!”

  “Whee!”

  “Good one, Kshirin!”

  Three of them drop into my cage, Marrow landing on my lap. “Oof!” He’s a solid little kid, stout as a rock troll. “Good going, everyone.” I ruffle the top of his seaweedy mop. I don’t even mind the bog stench. I give a special wink to Kshirin.

  “I’m very proud of you,” I tell her. “You risked yourself for others, and that’s a really big deal.”

  “Is it?” she asks.

  “The biggest.”

  Kshirin preens, licking her fur with a delicate pink tongue.

  Meanwhile, Einslie climbs up to my cage, already slumping into full sulk. “I didn’t help any.”

  “It’s all right.” I squeeze her tiny hand. “You’ll get your chance.”

  I look to the rest of them. “All right now, let’s go.” I clamber out of my cage and stand on top of it. The doors are way up high, but in between us and it, a few empty cages hang by chains from the unseen ceiling.

  “Everyone climb on.”

  I beckon them, and they climb aboard the Rouen Train—Kshirin clinging to my leg, Miz wrapping her tail around my right shoulder, Marrow tucked like a football in the crook of my arm, and Einslie in piggyback.

  I look ridiculou
s. But really, I don’t care. Syl’s in danger. I’d do anything for her. “Ready, everyone?”

  “You can do it, Highness!” Einslie cries.

  Awww, I’d do anything for these kids, too.

  But first… “I’m going to leap to that cage there.” I point to the closest one. “Then Miz and Marrow, you’ll create stairs out of your powers, we’ll climb up to the doors, break out, and go save Syl.”

  “Who’s Syl?” Marrow asks.

  “Ummm…” What to say? What to say? “She’s a very good friend of mine—someone who’s different, like all of you.”

  “Cool!”

  “Yay for different!”

  “Will she like us?” Einslie asks shyly. Her hopeful look melts even more of my black heart.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” I reassure her. “She’s going to love you.” I leap, hoping like hell that once I’m free of the iron I can windwarp. If not, this is going to be one short trip.

  Whoosh! For once, luck’s with me.

  We land on the cage. I give Miz and Marrow a boost to the top.

  “All right, M&M, you’re up.”

  “Do we have to?” Miz asks seriously. “Water drakes and bog-hags don’t get along.”

  “Nope. Sure don’t.” Marrow huffs. “Stuck-up lizard.”

  “Muck-eating frog!”

  “Nyeh!” Miz sticks out her tongue.

  Marrow doubles-down by sticking out his tongue and pulling his lower eyelids down into a scowl. “Mweh!”

  “You don’t have to work together.” I look at them each in turn. “But if you don’t, we won’t get out. You two are our only chance right now.”

  They give each other the side-eye, and then, slowly, with the grind of a tide turning, they relent.

  “Okay.” Miz shoots her water funnel. Marrow steps up.

  “Think solid,” I tell him.

  “Solid, right. I’ll try but curses are unpredik…unpredik…abble?”

  “Unpredictable,” I say without overdoing it. “All right. Fingers crossed, the rest of you.”

  Marrow touches the water. Just like before, muck rains down, slop, slop, slop.

  “Gross, Marrow!”

  “Ewww!”

  “Focus,” I tell him, giving his little shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “Try again.”

  The two of them sigh, but Miz shoots again, and Marrow leans in, puffing out his bottom lip. His cute little face scrunches up, both of them concentrating.

  “You can do it, M!” Miz encourages him, and bam! The water turns solid.

  All right, it’s messy, but we’ve got one column of mostly solid bog muck towering up from our cage toward the doorway.

  Swinging from the cage, I leap to it, all the kids clutching me. After some slip-sliding, I get to the top. Now we’re standing on a single mucky stair suspended above the green-glowing Oubliettes. Their cage doors clang and gnash, waiting for us to fall.

  This time, their glow says. There won’t be any escape.

  But Miz and Marrow are in the zone now. Encouraging each other, they make column after column—the muckiest staircase ever—and we climb up, up, up until we reach the rusted double doors.

  “Great job, everyone!” I’m congratulating them when Einslie tugs on my sleeve.

  “Princess Rouen?”

  “Yes, Einslie.”

  “How are we going to get through the doors?”

  The light goes out of my heart. All that work, and we’re still trapped down here. Because the only way to open the doors is by using royal dark Fae magic.

  And the only one powerful enough to do that is my father.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Syl

  Long ago, a merging of power

  Between Witches and dark Fae

  Resulted in the creation of

  Sorceroscience

  - Glamma’s Grimm

  I’m not really religious, but if there were a time to pray, it’d be now.

  I’ve been captured and separated from Roue, I’m strapped to a lab table deep in the bowels of the Dark Faerie castle, my blood pours out on an altar glowing with runes, and Reinghûl, King of the dark Fae, my mortal enemy, stands over me with a vorpal blade. I’m barely keeping myself alive with Summer magic.

  Things don’t get much worse.

  He leans in so close I can smell the dark, twisted magic on him—a gross death-decay and asphalt stink that makes me gag.

  It’s like his connection to the hearthstone is…rotting.

  Even now, I see through his Glamoury to the wrecked, hollowed-out shell that he is, all that shadowy corruption cloaking him. A manifestation of his dark self, it waves and wefts in the air, smoke and shadow.

  The vorpal blade plumes with frost as he brings it close, the edge so sharp it cuts the very air. “Forsake your soul-bond with my daughter.” A thin layer of ice freezes across my skin. “And I’ll make your end quick, painless.”

  What he doesn’t know is that breaking up with Roue would be the worst pain of all. “Nope,” I tell him. “Is there an Option B?”

  He snarls, baring his fangs in anger.

  Sure, Syl. Egg on the evil megalomaniac dark Fae king. Great idea.

  “Perhaps this will change your mind.” He grips the hilt, and I feel the crushing weight of his will wash over the vorpal blade, calling it to do his bidding.

  Hsssssshhhh! The icy blade flushes from glassy clear to deep, dark red in a single pulse.

  Agony stabs me in the side, a piercing pain that makes me gasp, and then it starts pulling, sucking, jack-knifing me on the altar. I scrape and scrabble, but nothing helps the pain. The screams that come from me are ones I don’t even recognize.

  “Roue! Rouen!” I send, but I can’t hear her, can’t feel her.

  The pain is everywhere, everything.

  “Roue…”

  “Majesty!” Etana’s voice cuts through my screams. “If you tax her too much, her fear will spoil her blood. It’ll be no use to you.”

  She’s lying her face off, but I appreciate the effort, and hey, it works.

  Reinghûl loosens his grip on the blade, and the horrible sucking pain stops. “You are fortunate I need your blood to heal.”

  “Y-yeah,” I gasp out. “Real fortunate. Jerk.” It’s all I can do to hold on to my Summer power, to keep from not bleeding out on their creepy horror-movie altar.

  His sneer is sharp with fangs. “Let’s see if you’re so funny when you’re being torn apart.” He grips the vorpal blade again. It flushes deep, throbbing red.

  Oh, no. No, no, no, n—

  The icy shards hooked inside my vorpal wound throb and pull, stitching pain through my guts. The king yanks at the air, and without warning, the teeny shard-teeth rip out of me and fly toward him, tiny icicles bloated with blood.

  He captures them in his fist and drops them into a goblet.

  His eyes on mine, he drinks, upending the cup and then throwing it to the side. My blood drips from his fangs.

  And in the next moment, his withered, cracked skin heals, smoothing over into youthfulness, his knotted, broken back straightening out as he rises. Reinghûl is in “the blush of health,” as Glamma would say.

  Great.

  I lie on the altar, my blood running in rivulets along the table, the rune’s glow fading away. Etana and Reinghûl are talking about my blood. She looks alarmed, but he wants to use it to…to…

  I don’t know. My head is woozy, my stomach sick. I feel like I’m going to simultaneously hurl and pass out. Only two things are keeping me conscious: one, my Summer power, and two, the hope that I’ll get through to Roue.

  I reach for her down the bond. “Roue…”

  She’s there, but so faint. I feel her worry, her love, her despair at not being able to save me. “Roue, don’t give up.”

  I haven’t. Even though, yeah, I’m in a pretty bad position. The worst.

  Reinghûl leans close to me. “You’re talking to her now, aren’t you?”

  I give him my best stin
k-eye. I’ve saved it up for just this occasion. “Like I’d ever tell you, King Fancypants.”

  His face turns purple. “You won’t be so arrogant when I finish draining you. On the Adamant Throne.” The next thing I know, he’s cut my straps with the vorpal blade. He yanks me off the table. My back is wet with blood. My legs go out, but he catches me.

  I slap his hand away. I want to call my white flame, but I can’t. It fizzles. Damn sorceroscience.

  I try to reach Etana. “You can change this. You can fix this.”

  “I can’t.” She looks down at her hands, her face full of regret.

  “She knows the price she’ll pay for disobedience,” Reinghûl sneers, dragging me to the door.

  “Etana!” I call. “He won’t give your daughter back. Not as long as he can control you with her!” I see the panic in her green eyes, and then I’m dragged from the lab, down the hall.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

  Grim-faced, Reinghûl tightens his grip on my arm.

  I’m too weak to fight with anything but words. “You’re no king. You’re just a great big bully.”

  “Whatever gets the job done.” Even though my blood’s healed his body, his magic still reeks. The rotting stink is worse than a dozen high school locker rooms.

  “Ugh.” I cough, trying to breathe through my mouth. “Roue must take after her mother.”

  He only yanks me harder, dragging me down gloomy hall after gloomy hall, each one lined with soulless, black-armored Rooks. I fight, but I’m so weak I nearly pass out about five times. Thanks to my Summer power, though, I’ll live.

  Small favors, but I’ll take it.

  I come to just as we reach the archway before the throne room. The archway’s carved of dragons and wolves looking down, the dragons’ claws brushing Reinghûl’s heads, the wolves’ tongues lolling out.

  I’m about to be devoured by that chamber.

  “Roue!”

  Nothing. The vorpal blade’s taken too much from me.

  I’m on my own.

  Despair shoots through me as Reinghûl yanks me into the throne room. For the first time, I realize Etana is trailing behind us. She sweeps past to join the other arch-Eld on the half-circle riser. Reinghûl pulls me before them and throws me down.