“What was that?” rasped the king.
“You did it!” Yarrow cried.
“Not yet.” I rubbed King Drayce’s back, encouraging him to continue. “He still needs the ginger to stop the vomiting and a mix of burned ashes to soak up any remaining poison in his system.”
I continued treating him with the herbal medicines until the sunlight faded, and the only illumination was the campfire in the middle of the clearing. King Drayce drifted in and out of consciousness, sweating out the rest of the poison through his brow. I stayed by his side, eating some of the roasted boar the soldiers had prepared, but most importantly, keeping him supplied with water to keep his fever under control.
A blood-curdling bird’s crow filled the air.
“Go,” rasped King Drayce between breaths.
I tilted my head to the side. “But I haven’t finished your treatment.”
“Captain Stipe,” he croaked.
The captain approached, arms folded. “Once again, you have cheated death.”
“No thanks to you,” I muttered.
“Take Neara away,” said the king.
I spluttered. “If you don’t drink the next mixture, you’ll vomit all night!”
King Drayce shook his head, repeating his order. Lysander and Yarrow pulled me up and guided me to the other side of the clearing. Enbarr nickered from behind a tree, and I rushed to the skeleton, unsheathed my dagger, and cut the ropes keeping him tethered. The skeleton whinnied and trotted over to his master.
Satisfaction warmed my insides. Enbarr would do a better job of guarding him now that he was free.
“Don’t take it personally,” said Yarrow. “King Salamander doesn’t let anyone see him after the crowing of the night fowl.”
I turned around to where he lay. “Captain Stipe is standing right in front of him.”
Yarrow gestured at an oak with a thick trunk. “It’s different with him. Is this all right?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Lysander placed both hands on the straightest tree trunk, and it broadened and flattened to about eight feet in width. Then Yarrow took over and created a door. It swung open, revealing a little room with a window and bed platform.
I stepped back. “What’s this?”
“Your accommodation,” replied Lysander.
“Why can’t I sleep in the clearing with everyone else?”
“Get inside.” Captain Stipe shoved me in the back, making me stumble through the threshold of the tree-room.
Once I’d regained my footing, I turned, only to have the door slammed in my face. Shouting to be let out and banging on its rough, splintery surface made no difference. He didn’t even open it to reprimand me for my insolence.
If King Drayce didn’t survive the night, Captain Stipe would imprison me in this wretched oak forever. Perhaps this was where they put the girls who had successfully answered the Keeper’s riddle. That would explain why some of the trunks looked so distorted.
Yarrow’s pale face appeared at the window on the other side of my new cell. He pushed a blanket through and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they let you out in the morning.”
“Can you give King Drayce the second concoction?”
Warmth shone in his eyes. “Of course.”
“Thanks.”
I didn’t believe him for a moment, but a show of politeness and gratitude toward the kinder of these soldiers was only to my benefit. Besides, nothing I said would convince them to help King Drayce if they wanted to kill him. I just had to trust that Yarrow would be true to his word.
The hard, oaken sleeping platform provided no comfort, and it took an eternity for me to fall asleep. I was trapped, terrified, and thinking of Father’s plight. Yarrow had said that the other humans the queen had kept didn’t survive, but he hadn’t explained what was done to them. And I didn’t know if the queen would hold off whatever torment she had subjected them to until I’d found her three items.
I forced my eyes shut, but it did nothing to distract me from wondering whether the captain was trying to kill King Drayce as he slept. When I opened my eyes, the dim light from the campfire made me feel like the walls of the tree’s interior would close in on me and crush my bones. And moments after I’d finally drifted off to slumber, the door clicked open.
“Neara?” said a soft voice.
I sat up, pulling the opening of my cloak closed. “Yes?”
“It’s dawn,” said Yarrow. “I’ve come to let you out.”
A weight melted off my shoulders. I swung my legs off the bed platform and rushed to the open door. Sunlight drenched the clearing, highlighting the autumn shades in the leaf litter. Lysander was dismantling a tent with another soldier, and three others loaded supplies into saddlebags under the supervision of Captain Stipe.
Stepping out of a similarly fashioned treehouse was King Drayce. It was hard to tell the state of his health, as the scales covering his face were opaque and didn’t show the condition of the flesh beneath, but the fact that he was walking was proof of his survival.
A trickle of pride filled my chest. I, the mortal hostage, had healed a faerie Prince when the others would have left him for dead.
His gaze caught mine, and he smiled. “I hear that I owe you my life.”
I lifted my chin. “Amongst other things.”
He strolled over, and his large, warm hand encased mine. The skin on his palm was as smooth and soft as worn leather. “Thank you. I will not forget your kindness.”
No, and I would make sure he repaid me tenfold. I glanced at Enbarr. Perhaps it was a trick of the sun, but light flared in his socket, making him appear to wink.
“Time to return to the palace,” said Captain Stipe.
“Return to Her Majesty empty-handed if you like,” said King Drayce. “But Neara has a lead.”
“What is it?” snapped the captain.
I stepped closer to King Drayce and deliberately cast my gaze toward Enbarr’s saddlebags. There was no way I would tell Captain Stipe about the ring in my skirt pocket. Something about that faerie was off. He claimed to serve the queen, but he tried to kill both the king and me. Either he didn’t want the queen to get that blood, or he had a vested interest in keeping Father in the realm of the fae.
I raised my chin and glared him in the eye. “Her Majesty said King Drayce was supervising my quest. She didn’t permit me to confide in anyone else.”
Captain Stipe mounted his capall, his lips twisting with disgust. “Let’s go on this… quest of yours.”
I glanced at King Drayce, who sagged with fatigue. “I didn’t finish his treatment.”
Relief softened the king’s eyes, and he stumbled to a tree trunk and sat at its base. Beads of sweat gathered on his hairline, and his breaths fought their way out of his lungs like bellows.
I soaked a piece of torn petticoat in water and asked Yarrow and Lysander to grind more of the wild ginger.
The pupils of King Drayce’s eyes rounded, ringed by darkest green. I rested his head on my lap and dabbed at his forehead. “It’s just a fever.”
He groaned. “I have never felt this bad in all my life.”
“How old are you?”
His face split into a grin. “How old do I look?”
I huffed. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t know why I bothered to make conversation.”
“Sorry.” His breaths evened out, and his eyes fluttered shut.
* * *
King Drayce’s fever lasted throughout the day, but he made good progress, considering he’d been poisoned by a venom whose effects were unknown. The soldiers busied themselves with hunting food and gathering roots and herbs to create a meaty stew.
Since Captain Stipe was keeping Yarrow and Lysander busy with menial tasks, I was left with my thoughts and with King Drayce’s head on my lap. All the significant events since that Samhain night came to the forefront of my mind.
The queen’s eyes had widened and gleamed when she’d caug
ht sight of me. Perhaps she could see the resemblance between Father and myself. I hadn’t been wearing my bonnet, and this younger version of Father had the same distinctive, carrot-orange hair.
I ran my fingers through the silken strands of the king’s locks and over the damp scales covering his brow. He twitched, and I snatched my hand away. “Sorry!”
Yarrow had mentioned mortal magic when speculating on why Father had survived longer than any of the other captives. What did that mean? That night, I had escaped the faeries by jumping into mushroom rings. They had led me into other parts of the forest, sending me further away from the riders. Did I also have the same mortal magic as Father? I hadn’t demonstrated any kind of power so far.
“Neara.”
My gaze dropped down to King Drayce. “Yes?”
“I am thirty years old.”
My brows furrowed. “Isn’t that young for a faerie?”
“Obscenely.”
I nodded. That explained why he didn’t command the respect of a Prince. “Why did you bring us here?”
“There is a geas. One powerful enough to bind even me…” He swallowed. “I cannot explain yet, but when the gancanagh told Her Majesty of your presence, I had to accompany Lords Ricinus and Abrus. Things would have ended… differently, if I hadn’t been there to intervene.”
Since he claimed to be under the strongest of faerie enchantments, I changed the subject. “If you’re a king, why do you call the queen Her Majesty and not by her given name?”
A harsh laugh caught in his throat. “She married my father.”
“The King of the Fae?”
“No.” His lips pressed together. “My father was King Donn… of the Otherworld.”
My fingers stilled, and I stared down at the being slumbering on my lap. Everyone knew King Donn and his realm. I shook my head. King Drayce had to be mistaken.
His father couldn’t be the god of death.
Chapter 11
We stayed at the clearing for another day before King Drayce announced himself well enough to travel. The rims of his eyes still shone as pale as milk, and his slitted pupils still rounded with fever. He needed an extra day of rest, but I could understand why he chose the pretense.
Captain Stipe had grown impatient with each passing hour and threatened to call reinforcements from the palace. He also stayed close, making sure to listen to our conversations.
We needed Enbarr’s speed to create a distance between the soldiers and us. Questions burned within my gut, and the king said he knew a way to give me answers without activating the geas.
The morning sun illuminated the clearing, making the leaf litter shimmer like shards of bronze. We sat beneath a gnarled oak, leaning our backs on its trunk, and eating the remnants of the soldier’s stew from bowls carved out of an oak log. Captain Stipe stood a few feet away, deep in conversation with Lysander and two of the other soldiers.
“Do you still have the ring?” murmured King Drayce.
I pulled it out of my skirt pocket and dropped it into his leathery palm. “Do you know if it’s magical?”
He held it up to the sun and squinted into the red-and-white agate crystal. Light shone through its red streaks, and for a moment, I thought it was actual blood.
“It’s a cartographer’s stone,” he said. “Whoever wears it will find what they seek. Let’s leave, now.”
Hope, like the first shoots after a long winter, pushed its way through the snowy wasteland that had blanketed my chest. I pulled his arm over my shoulder and tried to stand. Yarrow broke off from his conversation with the captain and rushed to the king’s other side and pulled him upright.
For a moment, King Drayce swayed on his feet, blinking hard as though he might collapse again. I held my breath. Since he couldn’t be an ordinary high faerie, I wasn’t sure how much I needed to worry about his health. But he had spoken about his father as if he was deceased, which meant his kind was capable of dying.
Enbarr nudged him in the back.
His eyes regained their focus, and he straightened and squared his shoulders. “Thank you.”
I exhaled a long, relieved breath. At least he’d recovered from the worst of his fever.
King Drayce crossed the clearing and held the gemstone high. He closed his eyes and muttered words I didn’t understand. A beam of sunlight filtered through the ring, projecting an image of a pond onto the clearing floor.
He opened his eyes and blinked several times before saying, “It wants us to go to Ecne’s Pool.”
Yarrow gasped, and Captain Stipe scoffed.
I glanced around at the other five soldiers, examining their reactions. They ranged from skeptical to fearful. Dread, dry as ash and dense as coal, filled my stomach.
“What’s Ecne’s Pool?” I asked.
“A children’s story,” said the captain. He turned to his men. “Saddle up. We are returning to Her Majesty.”
“To tell her you ignored a vital clue to getting her blood?” I spat.
“Indeed,” drawled King Drayce. “One would think you were working behind the scenes to sabotage her plans.”
The captain’s nostrils flared. “Nobody can question my loyalty to the queen.”
“Your loyalty was never in doubt. What is unclear is which queen holds your devotion.”
His words jolted me alert. If there was more than one queen, there might be a chance for Father and me. Another queen meant opportunities for conflict and sabotage, as well as opportunities for escape.
The image projected on the forest floor disappeared, leaving leaf litter in varying shades of gold and brown. King Drayce closed his fist around the ring, tilted his head to the side, and placed it in my palm. “It wants to lead you to the Pool.”
“Me?” The ring pulsed twice in my hand. “Is it alive?”
Captain Stipe curled his lip. “If it speaks to King Salamander, then it’s dead.”
I turned to King Drayce, but he was too busy beckoning Enbarr over to notice my unasked question. The skeletal horse trotted across the clearing and allowed his master to mount. Then the king pulled me up into his arms, placing me side-saddle on Enbarr’s back.
With one mighty leap, Enbarr soared over the forest and flapped his wing bones, leaving the soldiers behind. I clung to Enbarr’s mane with one hand and to King Drayce with the other, in case he lost consciousness again.
“Um….” The wind blew through my hair and into my ears. I had to raise my voice to be heard over its roar. “Why were the soldiers so scared at the mention of that pool?”
“Everyone has heard the fable of the Maiden at the Pool,” he said into my ear.
A jolt of anticipation shot down my spine. King Drayce’s arm wrapped around my back, holding me in place with more intimacy than I’d ever experienced from another person. And after nursing him for two days, the closeness felt oddly comforting.
“A faerie maiden named Ecne married a redcap, who treated her worse than a servant. Every day, she would walk through the rushes at the bottom of her garden to pray for a way to escape her predicament, sobbing until her tears became a pool. One day, as she was lamenting to her reflection about her fate, the pool spoke back, telling her that it would give her the escape she needed in exchange for her hearing one terrible truth.”
I glanced over King Drayce’s shoulder. The soldiers were tiny specks on the distance, backlit by the morning sun. “What did the pool tell her?”
“That her husband planned on marrying a high fae noblewoman for her dowry. It showed an image of him sharpening his knives and hiding behind the door of her chambers. Then it showed her husband kneeling at her body, dipping his cap into her blood.”
My stomach twisted, and I bowed my head. I’d always thought of faeries as all-powerful beings, ranging in malevolence from tricksters to bloodthirsty monsters. To hear that faeries victimized their own kind made me wonder if there was more to them than using humans for sport.
“Did Ecne run away?” I asked.
“She
did not share your bravery or warrior spirit.” He squeezed me around the waist for emphasis, sending more jolts of pleasure shooting up and down my spine. “The pool showed Ecne a fast and painless way to escape and pulled her into its depths.”
Despite my cloak covering my arms to the wrists, goosebumps prickled across my skin. “Would the pool want my life in exchange for the blood?”
“The legend says that it will give you what you want in exchange for showing you a terrible truth.”
An insistent pulsing in the palm of my hand broke my thoughts. I loosened my fingers and stared into the ring. “I’m not sure how I know this, but it wants us to go left.”
King Drayce shuddered. “That takes us over the mist.”
After hearing of how Ecne’s pool had drowned a faerie, I didn’t want to ask any more questions about the trapped Fomorians. A person could take only so much of a waking nightmare, and I needed to gather myself before hearing that dreadful voice. I gripped the mane tighter and retreated a little into King Drayce to share his body heat.
Enbarr dipped his wing left, and we headed toward a patch of forest covered by mist. My breath caught. Every hundred feet, large mounds of earth protruded through the treetops. Some were as pointed as a sharpened pencil, and others were as rounded as the tip of an egg.
Since we hadn’t yet reached the mist, which seemed busy whirling around those peculiar protrusions of earth, it seemed safe enough to whisper, “What’s that?”
“Many lower faeries dwell in mounds,” he murmured. “Each represents a different clan.”
“But there are—”
“Hundreds of them, yes.”
“How many faeries exist?”
He raised a shoulder. “They outnumber humans four-fold.”
I clenched my teeth. No wonder there were so many of them in the mortal world. “Do they breed like rodents?”
“The opposite is true,” he replied. “Immortality compensates for a low birthrate.”
Faeries were immortal unless killed. I left that unsaid, as I didn’t want to remind King Drayce that he’d taken the blame for the two fae Lords I’d slain.
A strong wind carried us forward, pushing a chill through my cloak and hastening Enbarr’s flight over the forest of mounds. I dared a glance into the horizon behind us, but the mist had risen, obscuring my view of the soldiers. A wicked part of me hoped that the voice would speak to Captain Stipe.
Curse of the Fae King Page 9
