How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

by Holly Black

  He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.

  When she stood up against him, she was so good that it was almost possible to believe she hadn’t let him win.

  The seeds of Prince Cardan’s resentment came full bloom. What was the point of her trying so hard? Why would she work like that when it would never win her anything?

  “Mortals,” said Nicasia with a curl of her lip.

  He had never tried like that for anything in his life.

  Jude, Cardan thought, hating even the shape of her name. Jude.

  C

  ome back with me to the Undersea,” Nicasia whispered against Cardan’s throat.

  They were lying on a bed of soft moss at the edge of the Crooked Forest. He could hear waves crashing along the shore. She was sprawled out in a robe of silver, her hair spread beneath her like a tide pool.

  It was a relationship they had fallen into, slipping easily from friendship to kisses with the eagerness of youth. She whispered to him about her childhood beneath the waves, about a foiled assassination that nearly ended her life, and recited poetry to him in the language of the selkies. In turn, he told her about his brother and his mother, about the prophecy hanging over his head, the one that foretold he would be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne, the one that set his father against him. He could not imagine being parted from her.

  “The Undersea?” he murmured, turning toward her.

  “When my mother returns for me, come away with us,” she said. “Live with me forever in the deep. We will ride sharks, and everyone will fear us.”

  “Yes,” he agreed immediately, thrilled by the idea of abandoning Elfhame. “With pleasure.”

  She laughed, delighted, and pressed her mouth to his.

  Cardan kissed her back, feeling smug at the thought of being consort to the future Queen of the Undersea while the rest of his siblings squabbled over the Blood Crown. He would relish their envy.

  Even the prophecy that once seemed to doom him took on a new meaning. Perhaps he would destroy Elfhame one day and be a villain above the waves but a hero beneath them. Perhaps all the hatred in his heart was good for something after all.

  Princess Nicasia would be his destiny, and her kingdom would be his.

  But as he moved to kiss her shoulder, she pushed him away with a grin. “Let’s dive down into the deep,” she said, springing up. “Let me show you what it will be like.”

  “Now?” he asked, but she was already on her feet, wriggling out of her dress. Naked, Nicasia ran toward the waves, beckoning him.

  With a laugh, he kicked off his boots, following her. He liked swimming and spent hot days in a pond near the palace or bobbing in the Lake of Masks. Sometimes he would float, staring up at the sky and watching the drifting of the clouds. In the sea, he threw his body against the waves, daring them to drag him out with them. If he liked that, then surely he would like this better.

  He disrobed on the beach, the water cold on his toes as they sank in the sand. When he waded into the surf, his tail lashed unconsciously.

  Nicasia pressed a finger to his lips and said a few words in the language of the Undersea, a language that sounded like whale song and the screeching of gulls. Immediately he felt a sting in his lungs, an interruption of his breath. Magic.

  Orlagh had many enemies in the Undersea, and she sent her daughter to the land not just to firm up the alliance with Elfhame but also to keep Nicasia safe. He wondered if he should remind her of that as he let her lead him out into deeper water. But if she was determined to be daring, then he would be daring with her.

  Water closed over his head, making Cardan’s dark curls float around him. Sunlight receded. Nicasia’s hair became a banner of smoke as she dove, her body a pale flash in the water. He wanted to speak, but when he opened his mouth, water flowed in, shocking his lungs. The magic allowed him to breathe, but his chest felt heavy.

  And even though her enchantment protected him, he could still feel the oppressive cold and the stinging of salt in his eyes. Salt that curbed his own magic. And darkness, all around. It didn’t feel like the expansiveness of splashing through a pond. It felt like being trapped in a small room.

  Give this up and you’ll have nothing, he reminded himself.

  Silver fish swam past, their bodies bright as knives.

  Nicasia swam lower, guiding him until he could see the lights of an Undersea palace in the distance, glowing buildings of coral and shell. He saw a shape that looked like a merrow pass through a school of mackerel.

  He wanted to warn her, but when he opened his mouth, he found that speech was impossible. Cardan fought down panic. His thoughts scattered.

  What would it truly be like to be a consort to Nicasia in the Undersea? He might be as inconsequential as he was in Elfhame, but even more powerless and possibly even more despised.

  The weight of the sea seemed to press down on him. He no longer had a sense of up or down. One was always suspended, fighting against the current or giving in to it. There would be no lying on beds of moss, no barbed words easily spoken, no falling down from too much wine, no dancing at all.

  Not even that mortal girl could leave a footprint here without it being instantly washed away.

  Then he spotted a glow, distant but sure. The sun. Cardan grabbed hold of Nicasia’s hand and made for it, kicking his way to the surface, gasping for air he didn’t need.

  Nicasia broke the surface a moment later, water flowing from the gills on the sides of her throat. “Are you all right?”

  He was coughing up too much water to answer.

  “It will be better next time,” she told him, searching his face as though she was looking for something, something she rather obviously didn’t find. Her expression fell. “You did think it was beautiful, didn’t you?”

  “Unlike anything I could have imagined,” he agreed between breaths.

  Nicasia sighed, happy again. They swam toward the beach, wading onto it and gathering up their clothes.

  On their way back toward their homes, Cardan tried to tell himself that he could grow used to the Undersea, that he would learn how to survive there, to make himself consequential, to find some pleasure. And if, as he had floated in the cold darkness, his thoughts turned to the curve of an ear, the weight of a step, a blow that was checked before it could land, that didn’t matter. It meant nothing, and he should forget it.

  A

  s Cardan was no longer in disgrace from the palace, Eldred expected him to come to dinners of state, although he was placed at the far end of the table and forced to endure the glare of Val Moren. The seneschal still believed Cardan was responsible for the murder of a man he loved, and now that Cardan had committed himself to villainy, he took a perverse delight in the misunderstanding. Everything he could do to get under the skin of his family, every vicious drawling comment, every lazy sneer made him feel as though he had a little more power.

  Playing the villain was the only thing he’d ever really excelled at.

  After the dinner, there was some speechifying, and Cardan wandered off, heading into one of the parlors, on the hunt for more wine. With guests present, Eldred had no way to reprimand him, and, unless he got completely out of hand, it would only amuse Balekin.

  To his surprise, however, his sister Rhyia was already there, candles flickering beside her, a book in her lap. She looked up at him and yawned. “Have you read many human books
?” she asked.

  He liked Rhyia best of his sisters. She was seldom at Court, preferring the wild places on the isles. But she had never paid him any special attention, and he wasn’t sure how to behave toward her now that she was.

  “Humans are disgusting,” he said primly.

  Rhyia looked amused. “Are they?”

  There was absolutely no reason to think of Jude in that moment. She was utterly insignificant.

  Rhyia waved the book at him. “Vivienne gave me this. Do you know her? It’s nonsense, but amusing.”

  Vivienne was Jude and Taryn’s older sister and Madoc’s legitimate daughter. Hearing her name made him feel uncomfortable, as though his sister could read his thoughts.

  “What is it?” he managed.

  She put it in his hand.

  He looked down at a red book, embossed in gold. The title was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. He frowned at it in confusion. It wasn’t what he’d thought a mortal book would be like; he thought they would be dull things, odes to their cars or skyscrapers. But then he recalled how humans were frequently brought to Faerie for their skill in the arts. Flipping the book open, he read the first sentence his gaze fell on.

  “I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn.

  Cardan had to flip a few pages back to see whom the Unicorn was discussing. A child. A human girl who had fallen into a place that was apparently called Wonderland.

  “This is really a mortal book?” he asked.

  He leafed through more pages, frowning.

  “Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

  Rhyia leaned over and pushed a fallen strand of his hair back over one of his ears. “Take it.”

  “You want me to have it?” he asked, just to be sure.

  He wondered what he’d done that was worthy of being commemorated with a present.

  “I thought you could use a little nonsense,” she told him, which worried him a little.

  He took it home with him, and the next day he took it to the edge of the water. He sat, opened the book, and began to read. Time slipped away, and he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him.

  “Sulking by the sea, princeling?”

  Cardan looked up to see the troll woman. He startled.

  “You recall Aslog, don’t you?” she asked with something acid in her voice, an accusation.

  He remembered her as something nightmarish and dreamlike from his boyhood. He had half thought he’d invented her.

  She was dressed in a long cloak with a pointed end to her hood that curled a bit. She was carrying a basket with a blanket over it.

  “I was reading, not sulking,” Cardan said, feeling childish. Then he stood, tucking the book under his arm, reminding himself that he was no longer a child. “But I am happy enough to be distracted. May I carry your basket?”

  “Someone has learned to wear a false face,” she told him, handing it over.

  “I had lessons enough,” he said, smiling with what he hoped was a sharp-toothed smile. “One from you, as I recall.”

  “Ah yes, I told you a tale, but that’s not how I remember its conclusion,” she said. “Walk with me to the market.”

  “As you like.” Her basket was surprisingly heavy. “What’s in here?”

  “Bones,” she said. “I can grind those just as easily as I ground grain. Your father needs to be reminded of that.”

  “Whose bones?” Cardan asked warily.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know.” Then she laughed. “You were quite young when I told you that story; perhaps you’d like to hear it again with new ears.”

  “Why not?” Cardan said, not at all sure that he would. Somehow, in her presence, he couldn’t manage to behave in the polished, sinister way he’d cultivated. Perhaps he knew how quickly she would see through it.

  “Once, there was a boy with a wicked heart,” the troll woman said.

  “No, that’s not right,” Cardan interrupted. “That’s not how it goes. He had a wicked tongue.”

  “Boys change,” she told him. “And so do stories.”

  He was a prince, he reminded himself, and he knew now how to wield his power. He could punish her. While his father might not care for him, he would do little to prevent Cardan from being horrible to a mere troll woman, especially one who had come to threaten the crown.

  Once, there was a boy with a wicked heart.

  “Very well,” he said. “Continue.”

  She did, her smile showing teeth. “He put stones in the baker’s bread, spread rumors of how the butcher’s sausages were made with spoiled meat, and scorned his brothers and sisters. When the village maidens thought to change him through love, they soon repented of it.”

  “Sounds despicable,” Cardan said, raising an eyebrow. “The clear villain of the piece.”

  “Perhaps,” said Aslog. “But unfortunately for him, one of those village maidens had a witch for a mother. The witch cursed him with a heart of stone since he behaved as though he had one already. She touched a finger to his chest, and a heaviness bloomed there.

  “‘You will feel nothing,’ she told him. ‘Not love nor fear nor delight.’ But instead of being horrified, he laughed at her.

  “‘Good,’ the boy said. ‘Now there is nothing to hold me back.’ And with that, he set out from home to seek his fortune. He thought that with a heart of stone, he could be worse than ever before.”

  Cardan gave Aslog a sidelong glance.

  She winked at him and cleared her throat. “After traveling for a day and a night, he came to a tavern, where he waited for a drunk to stagger out, then robbed him. With that coin, he purchased a meal, a room for the night, and a round of drinks for the locals. This made them think so well of him that they soon told him all the interesting news of the area.

  “One story was that of a rich man with a daughter he wanted to marry off. To win her, one must spend three nights with the girl and show no sign of fear. The men at the tavern speculated long and lewdly over what that might mean, but all the boy cared about was that he feared nothing and needed money. He stole a horse and rode on to the rich man’s house, where he presented himself.”

  “I told you the moral of the tale was obvious last time, but don’t you think this is a little much?” Cardan said. “He’s awful, and so his punishment is getting eaten.”

  “Is it?” asked Aslog. “Listen a little longer.”

  The market was in sight, and Cardan thought that when they got there, he would buy a wineskin and drink the whole thing in one go. “I suppose I must.”

  She laughed. “There’s the princeling I remember! Now, the rich man explained his daughter was under a curse—and if the boy could survive three nights with her, the curse would be broken. ‘Then you may marry her and have all I possess,’ the man told the boy. And looking around the massive estate, the boy thought he could be satisfied with that.

  “But as evening came on, although the boy wasn’t afraid, he was disturbed to feel nothing at all. He ought to be nervous, at least. Though he had been served an enormous meal at the rich man’s table, with food and drink finer than he had ever tasted, it had given him no pleasure. For the first time, the witch’s curse haunted him. No matter what happened, he could never find happiness. And perhaps it was no good thing that he couldn’t feel fear.

  “But he was committed to his course and so allowed himself to be led into a chamber with a curtained bed. On the wall were scrapes disturbingly like claw marks. The boy went to a low bench and waited as the moon rose outside the window. Finally, she entered, a monster covered in fur and her mouth filled with three rows of razor-sharp teeth. He would have screamed or run and fled, but for his heart of stone. She gnashed her teeth, waiting for him to show fear. But instead he climbed up into the bed and beckoned for her to join him so that he could swive her.”

  “This is most certainly not the story you told me when I was nine,” sai
d Prince Cardan, eyebrows rising.

  “How better to show that he had no fear?” The troll woman’s smile was all teeth.

  “Ah, but without the terror, surely it had not half the savor,” he returned.

  “I think that says more about you, princeling, than about the boy,” Aslog said, resuming her tale. “The next morning, the rich man’s household was in an uproar when they found the boy asleep in bed, apparently unharmed. He was brought breakfast and a fresh suit of clothes, finer than any he’d ever owned, but he felt so little pleasure from the wearing of them that they might as well have been rags. All day he wandered the grounds, looking for where the monster spent her days, but he didn’t spot her.

  “The second night went much as the first. She roared in his face, but again he didn’t flee. And when he went to the bed, she followed.

  “By the third night, the household was in a state of giddy anticipation. They dressed the boy like a bridegroom and planned for a wedding at dawn.”

  They had arrived at the edge of the shops. Cardan handed the basket back to her, glad to be rid of it. “Well, I’ll be off. We both know what happens on the third night. The boy’s curse is broken, and he dies.”

  “Oh no,” said the troll woman. “The rich man makes the boy his heir.”

  He frowned. “No, that’s not right—”

  She cut him off. “On the third night, the boy went into the bedchamber, expecting that all would proceed as it had before. When the monster came into the room, he beckoned her to the bed. But a moment later, another monster slunk in, this one larger and stronger than the first.

  “You see, the rich man hadn’t told the boy the whole truth about the curse. His daughter had spurned a witch’s son and been cursed by the witch, a curse forcing the girl to take for her husband anyone—no matter how poor or hideous—who could spend three nights with her and show no fear. But what the witch didn’t know was that the girl had rejected the son out of fear for him. For she loved the son, and her father had threatened to have him slain if they wed.