Grave Destiny

by Kalayna Price

  “If she has friends, they will surely tell her we are looking for her,” Falin said.

  “I’m sure she will find out soon enough. But if we don’t know where to look for her, our only other option is to call upon fall, spring, and light and fish for information on whether she is in their courts or lands.”

  He had a point, and the afternoon was dwindling away quickly. We didn’t have any other leads and it was unlikely we would get anything else done before dusk and the start of the longest night festival in the winter court.

  “I guess it is time to start questioning random fae,” I said with a sigh. I just hoped it went better than my conversation with their king had.

  Chapter 10

  Just because the king had guaranteed we could speak to his fae, that didn’t mean he’d promised they would answer us, as I quickly learned. Many of them wouldn’t even commit to whether they had known Lunabella when she’d been part of the summer court, requesting promises or favors for so much as acknowledging that she’d once been here. As I wasn’t about to start offering up boons to likely not learn more than that she’d left, I moved on. Not everyone wanted to bargain; the nobles in particular seemed fond of informing me that while their king might have agreed that I could speak to them, they were under no obligation to listen. It was not going well.

  I walked away from a cluster of fae to the tinkling sound of their giggles. This group of dancers appeared to be as much flower as person, and all I’d gotten for my efforts to talk to them was a purple flower tucked behind my ear and lots of giggles. Falin met me after I’d walked a few yards, his features tight and a frown peeking out of the corner of his lips.

  “You look like you’ve had about as much success as I have,” I said, shoving my hands in my back pockets.

  “No one here wants to get near me, let alone talk.” Apparently his reputation preceded him. He glanced at the slanting angle of the sun. “We need to head back to the winter court. The queen requires me to be at these events. She will likely want to show you off as well.”

  Great. Just what I wanted.

  I glanced around. The Summer King was back at his table, surrounded by no less than four adoring women. The Summer Queen and her prim entourage were nowhere to be seen. I had the distinct impression that the court was divided between those courtiers devoted to the king and those devoted to the queen. Likely she had her own celebration somewhere else in the court with far less general debauchery and many more rules. How those two had held a court together astounded me. Of course, the king had said he was older than any of the other seasonal rulers and that he’d made oaths that bound his queen to him when he’d still been young and foolish, so perhaps once they had held more common ground.

  I spotted Dugan standing with a cluster of Sleagh Maith. They all looked riveted on whatever he was saying, and for his part, he was smiling. I hadn’t seen him often, and I had to admit, he had a nice smile, though I wasn’t convinced this particular smile was real. Something about it was off, fake. He saw me looking his way and met my gaze. He tilted his head back slightly, in an upward nod, and then focused on the small crowd around him again. I could tell by his body language that he was wrapping up the conversation and making his good-byes, and the fae around him were disappointed he was leaving. Being a Faerie prince clearly opened some doors that Falin and I just couldn’t walk through.

  “Tell me you learned something,” I said as he joined us.

  Dugan’s smile spread. “I did. Not exactly what we were looking for, but something.”

  I waited, and the moment stretched. Falin grumbled something under his breath, and the prince frowned at him.

  “Are you planning to make us bargain for it, or are you planning to share?” I asked.

  Dugan looked slightly startled, and then his brows furrowed. “I am . . . unaccustomed to freely sharing information. It does not come naturally to me.”

  Gee, who would have guessed that of the Prince of Shadows and Secrets, but his tone made it clear that this was an unspoken apology. Falin crossed his arms over his chest, but I tried to keep my body language open and encouraging.

  “Lunabella left only a fortnight ago, though no one I spoke to knew where it is she went, or perhaps they were unwilling to share. She did visit a friend in the court last week, and at that time she seemed well so it does not seem she fell victim to foul play.”

  “Who did she visit?” Falin asked. “Do they not know where she went?”

  “One of the queen’s handmaidens.”

  “Who would not be in attendance here,” I said, and Dugan nodded.

  “There appears to be a rather deep schism in this court,” he said.

  And wasn’t that the truth.

  “So you didn’t actually learn anything useful. I hope you didn’t trade anything important,” Falin said, making Dugan’s frown deepen.

  “I have more.” He pulled something from under his cloak and held it out toward me, clasped in his hand.

  I hesitated. I couldn’t see what it was as his fingers covered it completely, but I could feel magic. It wasn’t witch magic, so I couldn’t tell what it did and with the day I was having, I was leery of accepting anything. I already had a curse on me for my time in this court. I didn’t want to accept an enchanted object. Dugan lifted his eyebrow, and I couldn’t tell if he was questioning why I hadn’t accepted whatever it was, or if he was daring me to accept it. Falin reached out, but Dugan shook his head.

  “I did trade for this. Alexis?”

  Damn it. I opened my palm and Dugan dropped into it what appeared to be a golden locket on a chain. Narrowing my senses on it I could feel a warm magic worked deep into the metal, but I still couldn’t guess what it did.

  “Uh . . . ?” Was this a gift? What was this?

  “Open it.”

  I was skeptical, but I released the clasp and the locket popped open. A woman, no larger than my thumb, appeared in the air above the locket. She had long brown hair and soft dark eyes and she laughed, waving someone unseen away playfully. Then she paused and smiled, clearly posing, before blowing a kiss. Her image blurred, and then she laughed again, the image looping back to what we’d seen when I first opened the locket. I stared. I’d never seen a spell like this. It was like someone had used magic to create something out of a science fiction movie. Except the magic in the locket felt old. Very old. So maybe it was the opposite way—the idea for recorded holograms came from glamour and magic.

  “Now we know what she looks like,” Dugan said, and there was a smug note to his voice.

  I had to admit, that would probably come in handy. There was a chance Lunabella might attend the revelry, and we would have walked right by her without knowing it if someone who knew her didn’t point her out. We might even be able to use this image in a tracing spell. Though considering the image was magic, maybe not.

  I studied the woman as she smiled at me in miniature size. She was pretty, her features a little rounder and less severe than seemed to be common among the Sleagh Maith. She blew her kiss before blurring and looping back to laugh again. I couldn’t imagine her being capable of the kind of brutal murder that had befallen Stiofan, but appearances were often deceiving, especially in Faerie.

  “Do I want to know what you had to trade for this?” I said as I closed the locket, sealing the magical image away.

  Dugan shrugged. “Nothing pressing. We are only borrowing the locket. I must return it before we leave.”

  “Oh.” Well, there went the possibility of using it as a focus. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway—fae magic and witch magic didn’t tend to play well together.

  I opened the locket again and the miniature image of Lunabella appeared. I studied it, trying to commit her features to memory. Then I held it out to Falin, allowing him to study it as well.

  The small gaggle of fae Dugan had been speaking to waltzed up to us, smili
ng and all but pushing the red-haired fae in the front of the group forward with their merriment.

  “Did you see what you wanted?” she asked, rolling her shoulders back so that her breasts, which were only covered by the necklaces of flowers she wore, were prominently displayed.

  Dugan smiled and held out his hand for Falin to return the locket to him. Falin frowned, but closed it, making the image vanish.

  “I believe it was what we needed,” he said, unclasping the golden chain. “Your locket, my lady.”

  He didn’t hand it to her, but waited, one side of the chain in each hand. She lifted her flame-colored hair and stepped forward. Dugan bent, fixing the chain around her neck. Once it was secured, she fingered the locket, fidgeting with it where it dangled just above her cleavage.

  “You will consider my proposal?” she simpered. I’m not sure I’d ever actually used that word before, but there was no other way to describe the coy way she gazed up at him.

  Dugan gave her a small bow. “I promised I would consider it. But now we must go.”

  She pouted but didn’t stop us as we walked away. The smile melted from Dugan’s face as soon as his back was to her.

  “What exactly did she propose?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  Dugan frowned at me. “She proposed.”

  I blinked. “Marriage?”

  “A contract for one, yes,” he said, and his voice was completely flat, as if the topic was boring. Then he looked at me and gave me a smile very similar to the one he’d adorned her with when he’d returned her necklace. Both smiles were completely fake. “I will, of course, not accept any proposals that complicate our betrothal.”

  Beside me, Falin missed a step. He covered it almost instantly, but I saw it.

  “Don’t say no on my account,” I muttered under my breath. So far most of Faerie didn’t seem to know that my father had promised me to the Shadow Prince, and I planned to keep it that way. The Winter Queen was far too likely to consider that complication as “compromising her planeweaver,” and that wouldn’t turn out good for anybody.

  We approached the table where the Summer King lounged with several members of his court. He looked up as we approached, but made no other acknowledgment.

  “We will take our leave now. Would you like us to have a guide?” Falin asked, inclining his head more or less a respectful degree toward the king.

  For a moment, I thought the king wouldn’t provide one and we would have to wander around searching for the door. But letting powerfully placed members of other courts roam his halls apparently didn’t seem like a good idea to him—not that we wanted to do anything more than leave. Or at least that was all I wanted. I had no idea what secondary agendas Dugan and Falin might have. The king waved a hand in the air and a faun trotted over.

  “Take them to the exit,” the king said, and the faun bowed, a movement that looked very awkward with his thin hoofed legs. As we turned to follow our guide, the king called after us, “I will see you at the revelry tonight, and, planeweaver, I shall contact you soon about your extended visit.”

  An angry flush burned the tips of my ears, but I didn’t turn back or make any other indication that I’d heard him. I’d agreed to the visit, so I would have to do it. Even though he’d tricked me and we’d gotten little from this trip, I couldn’t go back on our bargain. He was right about one thing: I had to learn to be much more clever.

  * * *

  • • •

  We parted ways with Dugan in the grove that connected the seasons. As he would be attending the revelry with his own fae, he needed to return to the shadow court before all the doors moved to winter. He walked into one of the shadowy patches between trees and vanished.

  “Well, that was . . . different,” I said after he was gone.

  “Sometime soon, in a very brightly lit room with no shadows and maybe your little privacy spell, you are going to tell me all about this betrothal,” Falin said, his voice sounding very dangerous, though the venom in it was aimed at Dugan. Not me.

  “Are you jealous?” I teased.

  He glared at me, and while those ice-blue eyes did hold perhaps a touch of jealousy, it was nearly buried under worry. He was concerned for me.

  I dropped my teasing leer and shrugged. “I’m not marrying anyone. Pretty sure I was born under a bad star or something because relationships just don’t work out for me.”

  He reached out as if to take my hand, but I stepped away. We’d had our moment once. Well, maybe a few moments. One rather memorable one being at the last revelry, when he’d told me he loved me and in the same breath pulled daggers on me and told me never to trust him as long as he was the queen’s knight. Yeah, our relationship was complicated. But that was par for the course with me and relationships these days. A cursed bad star at my birth seemed pretty damn likely, if such a thing could happen. I was a witch, not an astronomer, so I wasn’t sure.

  We reached the door to winter and Falin paused. “She isn’t going to be happy. Let me do the talking unless you can’t avoid answering.”

  Neither one of us had to clarify who “she” was. In the winter court, there was only ever one “she.” The queen.

  Falin pushed open the door and stepped into the frozen halls to learn what misery our ill-begotten trip to summer had earned us.

  Chapter 11

  “She wants to see you,” a gravelly voice said from behind an icy cowl as soon as we entered the halls of winter. There were twice as many guards in the entry as when we’d left, so clearly the queen had noticed.

  Falin only nodded. “Lead the way.”

  As I expected, a full half of the guards that had greeted us broke off to escort us to the queen. I stuck close to Falin and watched our escorts from the corner of my eye. I’d long ago given up trying to memorize halls or count doors in the winter court. There must have been a secret to how to navigate the court, but I didn’t know it.

  After the sunshine and thriving plants in the summer court, the icy halls of the winter court seemed sterile and cold. Not temperature cold; even the flurries that fell from the cavernous ceiling and vanished before reaching our heads or the walls that appeared to be carved from pure ice didn’t lower the temperature to uncomfortable. Faerie tended toward pleasant, never too hot nor too cold. No, the frigidity of winter was in the decor, which, while beautifully carved, seemed too controlled and monochromatic when compared to the chaotic explosion of life in summer.

  The lead guard stopped in front of a large archway and stepped aside, gesturing for us to enter. Without a word, Falin stepped through the threshold and I followed on his heels.

  A folding screen blocked our view of most of the room. Thick sheets of frosted ice composed the panels of the screen, obscuring the room beyond, but not completely obstructing it. I could see shapes moving on the other side, but I could only discern their general size with no details that betrayed which was the queen and who was attending her.

  “My queen, may we enter?” Falin asked, not moving beyond the entry.

  “Come, Knight,” the queen’s voice said from beyond the screen.

  Falin turned toward me and tapped a single finger over his lips, as if I needed a reminder to keep my mouth shut. Then he walked around the screen. He knelt as soon as he reached the main part of the room, head bowed and down on one knee. I considered curtsying, but I didn’t want to get stuck in a curtsy again. I took a knee as well.

  Peeking up through my lashes, I took in the room. It was small and appeared to be some sort of dressing room. The queen sat primly on a backless chair, the skirt of her very full ball gown billowing around her. Three fae deftly worked her dark curls into an elaborate updo on the top of her head with shimmering silver pins and combs. It struck me as odd. Couldn’t she save a lot of time and annoyance by using glamour? Though she was the regent supreme at the revelry tonight, so maybe that warranted something more re
al.

  The queen, whose back was to us, regarded us in the reflection of an enormous ornate mirror that took up nearly one entire wall of the room. Her rosebud lips compressed into a thin line as her gaze fell on me.

  “Lexi, really. That is so very unladylike. Get up,” she said, and I counted that as a win as I climbed to my feet. Her gaze swung in the glass toward Falin. “I see you’ve lost your princely tagalong. I don’t suppose you found a good reason to kill him?”

  “No, my lady.” Falin hadn’t been given permission to rise yet, so he remained kneeling.

  “More’s the pity. And your trip outside our lands, I trust it had to do with the case?” There was a frosty edge to the question, an unspoken expectation and a warning if it hadn’t been.

  “We were following a potential lead.”

  “And?” One of the queen’s dark eyebrows arched daintily where it was reflected in the mirror.

  “We are still early in the investigation,” Falin said, his voice even and matter-of-fact. I was glad he was the one answering the questions. If it had been me, I likely would have sounded defensive or apologetic. Incurring the queen’s wrath for visiting the summer lands would have added insult to injury after how badly deceived I’d been by the Summer King.

  The queen waved a hand and the attendants working on her hair stepped back. She turned so she could look at us directly. She made the move look effortless, though I had no idea how she managed it under all the layers of her gown. Maybe it was just centuries of practice.

  “That isn’t good enough,” she said, rising to her feet. “I must welcome all the courts in less than an hour’s time, and I have no idea if one or more is plotting against us.”

  “Don’t you always assume they are scheming against you?” I asked, and then cringed as her gaze moved from Falin to me. Why couldn’t I keep my big mouth shut?