Shadowfever

by Karen Marie Moning

  My ticket to hell’s already been punched, bags on board, steam whistle blowing.

  I’m fine with it. Like knowing ’zactly where I stand.

  I freeze-frame out.

  No night. No day. No time.

  We get lost in each other.

  Something happens to me down there in the underground. I’m reborn. I feel peaceful for the first time in my life. I’m no longer bipolar. There’s nothing I’m hiding from myself.

  Being afraid is debilitating. I’ll take truth over fear of it any day.

  I am the Unseelie King. I am the Unseelie King.

  I say it over and over in my mind.

  I accept it.

  I don’t know how or why and may never, but at least now I’ve looked hard at the darkest part of me.

  It really was the only explanation all along.

  It’s almost funny in a way. The whole time I was so worried about what everyone around me might be, I was the biggest bad of all.

  That dark, glassy lake I’ve got is him. Me. Us. That’s why it always terrified me. Somehow I managed to partition my psyche and store him away. Me. The parts of me that weren’t born twenty-three years ago, if I actually was born.

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  I can’t think of any scenario that explains how I came to be what I am. But the truth of my memory is indisputable.

  I did stand in that laboratory, nearly a million years ago. I did create the Hallows and I did love the concubine and I did give birth to the Unseelie. That was all me.

  Maybe that’s why Barrons and I can’t resist each other. We both have our monsters. “You really think evil is a choice?” I ask.

  “Everything is. Each moment. Each day. ”

  “I didn’t sleep with Darroc. But I would have. ”

  “Irrelevant. ” He moves inside me. “I’m here now. ”

  “I was going to seduce the shortcut out of him so I could get the Book. Then I was going to unmake this world and replace it with another, so I could have you back. ”

  He freezes. I can’t see his face. He’s behind me. It’s part of why I can say it. I don’t think I could say it to his face and see myself reflected in his eyes.

  I wasn’t going to unmake the world for my sister. I’d loved her all my life. I’d known him for only a few short months.

  “Might have been a bit strenuous for your first attempt at creation,” he says finally. He’s trying not to laugh. I tell him I would have doomed mankind for him, and he tries not to laugh.

  “It wouldn’t have been my first attempt. I’m a pro. You were wrong. I am the Unseelie King,” I tell him.

  He begins moving again. After a while, he pulls me around and kisses me. “You’re Mac,” he says. “And I’m Jericho. And nothing else matters. Never will. You exist in a place that is beyond all rules for me. Do you understand that?”

  I do.

  Jericho Barrons just told me he loves me.

  “What was your plan?” I ask much later. “When we got the Book locked down, how were you going to get the spell you wanted?”

  “The Unseelie have never drunk from the cauldron. All of them know the First Language. I made a few deals, set things in motion. ”

  I shake my head, frowning at myself. Sometimes I miss the most obvious things.

  “But now I have you. ”

  “I’ll be able to read it. ” That was creepy. Now at least I knew why I had such a strong negative reaction to the Sinsar Dubh. All my sins were trapped between its covers. And the damn thing just wouldn’t go away. I’d tried to escape culpability, and my culpability had had the nerve to take on a life of its own and hunt me.

  I understood why it stalked me. Once it had become sentient—a mind with no feet, no wings, no method of locomotion and nothing else in all of existence quite like it, except me, and I’d obviously despised it—it must have hated me. And since it was me, it loved me, too. The Book I’d written had become obsessed with me. It wanted to hurt me, not kill me.

  Because it wanted my attention.

  So many things made sense now that I’d accepted I was the king.

  I’d wondered why the Silvers had always been so hard for me to get in and out of. “Cruce’s” curse, which had really been cast by the other Unseelie Princes, had sensed me and tried to keep me out. Of course I knew my way around the black fortress and the Unseelie hell. It had been my home. Every step had been instinctive because I’d walked those icy paths millions of times, called greetings to the cliffs, wept for the cruel confinement of my sons and daughters. I understood why the concubine’s memories had played out before my eyes but the king’s had sort of slid into my brain. I knew now why I’d known the command to open the doors to the king’s fortress.

  I might be the king, but at least I was the “good” king. I preferred to think of myself as the Seelie King, because I’d eradicated all my evil. The obsessed maniac who’d done experiments on anything and everything to achieve his ends was out there in Book form, not inside me, and that was no small comfort. I’d chosen to get rid of my evil—I’d made a choice, like Barrons had said—and I’d been trying to destroy those blackest parts of me ever since.

  Barrons was speaking. I’d forgotten we were talking.

  “I’m counting on you being able to read it. Makes everything simpler. We just have to figure out how to capture it with three stones and no Druids. I’m damned if I’m letting those fucks near it again. ”

  I looked down at the silver and gold chain, the stone housed in the ornate gilt cage. Did I even need the stones or the Druids to trap my Book, or was the amulet what I’d been hunting for all along? I certainly fit into the “inhabited” or “possessed” category. I was the king of the Fae inside a female human’s body.

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  I wondered how the concubine had lost the amulet. Who had taken it from her, betrayed me? Had someone abducted her, faked her death, then whisked her off to the Seelie court while I’d been insane with grief, busy divesting myself of my sins?

  She never would have taken it off willingly, yet here it was, in the world of man. If someone had come for her, might she have cast it off rather than let it fall into the wrong hands, patiently sowing clues, taking her chances that one day events would align, I would remember, and we would escape whatever had been done to us and be together again? Too bad I didn’t want to be with her.

  She’d always hated illusion. When she’d planted gardens and added on to the White Mansion, she’d done it in the old ways. The Faery court reverted to nothingness if the Fae attending it failed to maintain it. The White Mansion had been fashioned differently and would stand the test of time with or without her, apart from anyone.

  How had she become the Seelie Queen? Who had kidnapped her, interred her in a tomb of ice, and left her to a slow death in the Unseelie hell? What games were being played, what agenda was being pursued? I knew the patience of immortality. Who among the Fae had been biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment, the ultimate payday?

  The timing would have to be flawless.

  All the Seelie and Unseelie Princesses would have to be dead and the queen killed at the precise moment—there could be no contenders to the throne of matriarchal power—once whoever it was had merged with or acquired all the knowledge from the Book.

  All the power of the Seelie Queen and the Unseelie King would be deposited in a single vessel.

  I shuddered. That could never be permitted to happen. Anyone with that much power would be unstoppable by anyone, by any means. He or she would be undefeatable, uncontrollable, unkillable. In a word: God. Or Satan, with the home court advantage. We would all be doomed.

  Did they believe me dead? Gone? Apathetic? Think I would just stand by and let this happen? Was this unknown enemy responsible for the condition I was currently in—human and confused?

  My power and the queen’s magic.
Who was behind this? One of the dark princes?

  Perhaps it had been Darroc all along, and the Book had popped that plan like the grape his head had been. Perhaps Darroc had only been taking advantage of someone else’s cunning, riding on the coattails, so to speak, of a more clever and dangerous foe.

  I shook my head. The magic wouldn’t have gone to him, and he’d known it. Eating Fae wasn’t enough. The successor to Fae magic had to be Fae.

  The concubine had awakened and said a Fae prince she’d never seen before, who had called himself Cruce, had entombed her.

  According to V’lane, he’d brought Cruce to the original Queen of the Seelie (the bitch) and she’d killed him in front of my eyes.

  Did I possess that memory?

  I turned inward, searching.

  I clutched my head as images slammed into me. Cruce had not died easily or well. He raged and ranted, was ugly at the end. Denied being the one, denied having betrayed me to the queen. I was ashamed of his death.

  But who’d faked my concubine’s death?

  How had I been deceived?

  Deceived.

  Was that the key?

  ONLY BY ITS OWN DESIGN WILL IT FALL, the prophecy said.

  Limited in form, what was the Book’s design? How did it get around and accomplish its ends?

  Its currency was illusion. It deceived people into seeing what it wanted them to see.

  Was that why the fear dorcha—who was probably one of my good friends if I had time to pick through all my memories—had given me the tarot card, pointing me toward the amulet?

  The amulet could deceive even me.

  I’d worried about giving it to the concubine for that very reason. What enormous love, what dangerous trust.

  The Book was only a shadow of me.

  I was the real thing, the king who’d made the Book.

  And I had the amulet capable of creating illusions that could deceive us.

  It was simple. In a contest of wills, I was the guaranteed victor.

  I felt almost giddy with excitement. My deductions had the ring of truth to them. All arrows pointed north. I knew what had to be done. Today, I could put the Book down once and for all. Not inter it to slumber with one eye open, like the first prophecy had said, but defeat the monster. Destroy it.

  After I’d gotten a spell of unmaking for Barrons. Ironic: I’d given all my spells over to a Book to get rid of them, and now I needed one back from it.

  Once I had it, I would roust the traitor, kill him or her, restore the concubine to being the Seelie Queen (because I sure didn’t want her, and she didn’t remember anything, anyway), where she would grow strong enough to lead again. I would walk away, leaving the Fae to their own petty devices.

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  I would return to Dublin and become just-Mac.

  That couldn’t happen soon enough for me.

  “I think I know what to do, Jericho. ”

  “What would you want if you were the Book and it was the king?” Barrons asked later.

  “I thought you didn’t believe I was the king. ”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe. The Book seems to. ”

  “K’Vruck does, too,” I reminded him. Then there was the dreamy-eyed guy. When I’d asked him if I was the Unseelie King, he’d said, No more than I. Was he one of my parts?

  “Have an identity crisis later. Focus. ”

  “I think it wants to be accepted, absolved—prodigal son and all. It wants me to welcome it back into me, say I was wrong, and become one again. ”

  “That’s what I think, too. ”

  “I’m a little worried about the part where it says once the monster within is defeated, so shall be the monster without. What monster within?”

  “I don’t know. ”

  “You always know. ”

  “Not this time. It’s your monster. Nobody can know another person’s monster, not well enough to cage it. Only you can do that yourself. ”

  “Speculate,” I demanded.

  He smiled faintly. He finds it amusing when I throw his own words back at him. “If you are the Unseelie King—and note the word ‘if’ there, I remain unconvinced—one might speculate that you have a weakness for evil. Once you acquire the Sinsar Dubh, it’s conceivable that you would feel tempted to do what it wants. Instead of trying to lock it away, you might choose to relinquish human form and restore yourself to your former glory—take all the spells you dumped into it back and become the Unseelie King again. ”

  Never. But I’ve learned never to say never. “What if I am?”

  “I’ll be there, talking you out of it. But I don’t think you’re the king. ”

  What other possible explanation was there? Occam’s razor, my daddy’s criteria for conviction, and my own logic concurred. But with Barrons there to shout me back and my determination to live a normal human life, I could do it. I knew I could. What I wanted was here, in the human world. Not in an icy prison with a pale silvery woman, caught up in eternal court politics.

  “I’m more concerned about what your inner monster might be if you’re not the king. Any ideas?”

  I shook my head. Irrelevant. He might be having a hard time accepting what I was, but he didn’t know everything I knew, and there wasn’t time to explain. Every day, every hour, that the Sinsar Dubh was free, roaming the streets of Dublin, more people would die. I had no illusions about why it kept going to Chester’s. It wanted to take my parents from me. Wanted to strip away everything I cared about, leaving only it and me. As if it could force me to care about it. Force me to welcome its darkness back into my body and be one again. I now believed Ryodan had been right all along: It had been trying to get me to “flip. ” The Book thought if it took enough from me, made me angry and hurt enough, I wouldn’t care about the world, only about power. Then it would conveniently appear and say, Here I am, take me, use my power, do whatever you want.

  I inhaled sharply. That was exactly the frame of mind I’d been in when I’d thought Barrons was dead. Hunting the Book, ready to pick it up and merge with it and unmake the world. Believing I would be able to control it.

  But I was on guard now. I’d experienced that grief once. Besides, I had Darroc’s shortcut in my hand. I had the key to controlling it. I wasn’t going to flip. Barrons was alive. My parents were well. I wouldn’t even be tempted.

  I was suddenly impatient to get it over with. Before anything could go wrong.

  “I need to be certain you can use the amulet. ”

  “How?”

  “Deceive me,” he said flatly. “And convince me of it. ”

  I fisted my hand around the amulet and closed my eyes. Long ago, in Mallucé’s grotto, it had not been willing to work for me. It had wanted something, had waited for what I’d thought was a tithe, as if I needed to spill blood for it or something.

  I knew now it was much simpler than that. It had flared with blue-black brilliance for the same reason the stones did, because it recognized me.

  The problem was I hadn’t recognized myself.

  I did now.

  I am your king. You belong to me. You will obey me in all things.

  I gasped with pleasure as it blazed in my fist, brighter than it had ever burned for Darroc.

  I looked around the bedroom. I remembered the basement where I had been Pri-ya. I would never forget any of the details.

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  I re-created it now for us, down to the last detail: pictures of Alina and me, crimson silk sheets, a shower in the corner, a Christmas tree twinkling, fur-lined handcuffs on the bed. For a time, it had been the happiest, simplest place I’d ever known.

  “Not exactly incentive to get me out of here. ”

  “We have to save the world,” I reminded.

  He reached for me. “The world can wait. I can’t. ”

  45

  I knew
the moment he began to reconsider.

  I could feel the tension in his body, see the tightening around his eyes, which meant he was thinking hard and not liking the topic. “It’s not enough of a plan,” he said finally, and got out of bed.

  It was nearly impossible to make myself move. I wanted to stay in bed forever. But until this was over, no one I cared about was safe and I wasn’t going to be able to relax and get on with life. I pushed up, tugged on my jeans, buttoned the fly, and yanked my shirt over my head.

  “What do you suggest? That we get everyone together and make them all hold the amulet? See if it responds to anyone else? What if it lights up for someone like, say, Rowena?”

  He glared at me as I slipped the amulet around my neck and tucked it beneath my shirt, where it lay cool against my skin. I could see the strange dark light of it through my shirt. I tugged my leather jacket on over it and belted it.

  It didn’t flare with blue-black light for him. I knew if it had, and he’d known what the second prophecy said, he’d have gone after the Book long ago.

  “I don’t like this one bit. ”

  Neither did I, but I didn’t see any alternative. “You helped make this plan. ”

  “That was hours ago. Now we’re about to walk out into the streets and you’re going to pick the bloody thing up, believing in some prophecy scribbled by a mad washerwoman who used to work at the abbey, with no concrete idea what to do, trusting that the amulet will help you deceive it into submission. It’s the ultimate in seductive evil, and you expect to wing it. The plan stinks. That’s all there is to it. I don’t trust Rowena. I don’t trust—”

  “Anyone,” I finished. “You don’t trust anyone. Except yourself, and that’s not trust, that’s ego. ”

  “Not ego. Awareness of my abilities. And the limitless nature of them. ”

  “You got killed on a cliff by Ryodan and me. Classic case of a time when a little trust might have gone a long way. ”

  His eyes were black and bottomless. I was just about to look away when something moved in them. I trust you.

  I felt like he’d handed me the keys to the kingdom. That sealed it: I could do anything. “Prove it. You’ve been training me since the moment I got here to make me strong enough, smart enough, tough enough to do whatever has to be done. I’ve been through hell and back and survived. Look at me. What is it you say? See me. You made me a fighter. Now let me fight. ”