by E. A. Copen
“Declan, get him some water.” Remy knelt next to him. “Are you back with us? You’ve been awake but out of it for a long time.”
Foxglove hovered over Remy’s shoulder. “It’s a form of shock. He hasn’t been conditioned for the large-scale destruction he just witnessed. After the Shadow War, I saw a lot of men with that empty stare. Some got better. Many got worse before they got better. Some never came back.”
“I’ve seen it on television. In movies and games. Heard it described. But I didn’t think it would be like that. It smelled awful.” Finn closed his eyes. “I can’t stop seeing their eyes. Those empty eyes...”
“Why don’t you go take the first guard shift?” Foxglove suggested to Remy, his voice gentle.
She left Finn’s side without another word, making room for Foxglove to settle in.
Finn turned so that his back was to Foxglove and curled up as small as he could, hands on his aching stomach. It’d been upset ever since he woke. “Go ahead and gloat. You were right. I’m a coward. Everyone who died is dead because of me. It’s my fault. I didn’t stop then when I could have.”
“I shouldn’t have said that to you. I misjudged you, Finn. It’s easy for me to say I would’ve stayed to fight, but when the battle was lost, I fled too. Giving up the battle to win the war is sometimes a valid strategy. Sometimes, I forget that.” Foxglove heaved a heavy sigh. “But Declan is right. We can’t change the past. You proved me wrong in Rilvand. While I was still trying to decide what to do, you climbed up on the wall and struck out at them. You acted, put yourself in danger to try to save others. Those aren’t the actions of a coward. In that moment, I saw in you the same thing I see in her when I’m not too stubborn to look.” He nodded to Remy.
Finn groaned. “If you tell me you’ve got a crush on me, I might throw up.”
Foxglove chuckled and patted Finn’s back. “No, Finn. I meant I see the potential to be a great leader. To inspire loyalty and engender mercy. I’ve known enough kings and queens in my time to be a good judge of that. At least, I’d like to think so.”
Finn rolled onto his back and stared at the flickering light on the cave ceiling. “Yeah, I’d be a great king of the ashes of Shadow. There’s no one left alive to rule over. Besides, you heard Adrix. Mask is the king of Shadow now.”
“Since when have you ever given up just because something belongs to someone else? And here I thought you one of the greatest thieves to ever live.”
“One of the greatest?” Finn raised an eyebrow. “Do you know of anyone else who’s broken into the Winter Queen’s vault twice and lived to talk about it? Or how about anyone who’s successfully located and nearly robbed Queen Oonagh’s tomb?”
“Nearly being the key word there.”
He shrugged. “I’ll get that stone eventually.”
Foxglove patted Finn’s shoulder. “Get some rest, Finn. We need you whole if we’re to stand a chance against whoever and whatever Mask is.”
Sir Foxglove’s words were meant to be reassuring, Finn knew, but somehow they only made him doubt more. He didn’t recall how he’d used what Adrix had called the Mastery Stone against the Fomorians. When he climbed up on that wall and started fighting, it didn’t feel as if he were in control of his own actions. His body was moving without any input from him, using magic Finn had no idea how to summon again. Yet now that they’d seen him use it, the others would be counting on him. This was exactly the situation Finn had hoped to avoid, the reason he’d never wanted anything to do with the crown or any position of power. With people counting on him, he could fail. Then it’d be more than him that got screwed. Other people would suffer too.
But if I don’t make it back, Auryn will suffer. He shifted and slipped his hand into the pocket of his coat where the stone rested. It felt heavy, as if it weighed fifty pounds, though it must’ve only weighed about one. The weight of responsibility. It was one thing to be responsible for a little girl who’d eventually grow up and take care of herself, and another to look after the welfare of an entire people. That was the job of a king, wasn’t it? Taking care of all his people. Finn didn’t know if he could do that on his own.
He drifted into a restless sleep, the nightmares no different than the scenes that replayed while he was awake. When Finn awoke sometime later, the fire had burned down to embers, though the torches at the mouth of the cave were still burning bright. They’d changed guards in the night, leaving Declan at the mouth of the cave. Unfortunately, he’d fallen asleep. It was a good thing none of the monsters had come for them.
As silently as he could, Finn pushed himself to his feet. He studied the sleeping faces of the people around him. They shouldn’t have come out to this forsaken place, none of them. He’d known from the start that they would be helpless against the blight, a fact the battle against the Nightclaw in the Summer palace had already proven. Dragging them all the way into the heart of Shadow had been selfish and cowardly. He hoped with a handful of swords at his back, he wouldn’t have to do much, that he could just show up, put in the minimum effort, and collect his reward. Yet even as he had hoped it, he knew it wouldn’t be that simple.
Only his blood could stop the spread of the Blight, and now that he had the Mastery Stone...
Finn drew it out of his pocket and looked down at the lustrous, polished rock. I could still take it to Earth and sell it for a good price. Enough to buy Auryn a big house and send her to a nice school. Between this stone and the one I’ve already got, I could set us up for life and we’d never have to worry about blights or royal blood ever again.
His gaze shifted from the stone to Remy where she lay, shivering next to the dying fire. That’s not what she would do. Or him, he thought looking at Foxglove. They had their flaws, both of them, but they were good people. The sort of people that made Finn wish he was braver, stronger, smarter... better. Worthy of the way Auryn looked at him with hope and trust in her eyes. As much as Finn wanted to give her all the things he had promised, it would mean nothing if she found out he wasn’t the hero she thought he was.
Finn’s fingers closed around the stone. He dropped it back into his pocket before kneeling and tugging their one remaining supply pack away from Foxglove. As quietly as he could, he opened the pack and took out a day’s rations. With a little finesse and a lot of luck, he managed to get one of Foxglove’s daggers free. It wouldn’t do him much good against most of the creatures inhabiting Shadow, but he took it just in case. It was better to have a weapon and not need it than need it and not have it.
With the dagger, stone, and rations tucked away in his pockets, Finn rose with his borrowed cloak in hand and gingerly laid it over Remy’s shoulders. Then he went to the mouth of the cave, stepping carefully by the sleeping Declan, removed the smallest of the torches from where they’d planted it in the ground and started walking.
Shadow didn’t truly have a night and day cycle like the rest of Faerie, but it did have a beautiful dawn. The sun peeked over the horizon, bathing the black and boggy land in sparks of gold. Naked trees cast long, thin shadows on the swirling mist. In the morning light, the dense green fog looked less like a dangerous, toxic cloud and more like an inviting magical haze floating lazily over the land.
Finn headed for the deepest shadow at the edge of the bog.
A twig snapped behind him and he spun around, dagger drawn, ready to fight. Remy froze twenty paces behind him, her hand on her sword.
Finn sighed and lowered his weapon. “Go back. You can’t follow me.”
“Not until you tell me where you’re going.” Brittle blades of grass snapped as she took several steps closer.
If I tell her where I’m really going, she’s going to be mad at me and demand to come along. Some part of him felt she deserved to know the truth. “I’m going to do what I should have done the minute I knew where we were going. I’m going to walk through this shadow and into the Shadow Palace to take back what’s mine.”
Remy stopped in front of him, her face an unreadab
le mask. “Alone?”
Finn nodded, then waited for her to yell at him. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I didn’t do it before? I dragged the three of you all the way out here. You didn’t have to come. I could’ve walked through any shadow I wanted. I put all of your lives at risk. So go on. Yell at me. Slap me. Threaten to put me in iron.”
“Why would I do any of that?” she asked shaking her head. “If you’d walked through any shadows before now, you would’ve been going in without the stone. You wouldn’t have been ready.”
“But all the people at Rilvand—”
Remy cut him off, cupping his face in her hands and forcing him to meet her eyes. “What happened was not your fault. People are going to get hurt. They might die. Your people, Finn. Yes, it’s your job to protect them, but you’re not perfect. You’re going to fail. And when you do, it’s just as important that you be there to pick up the pieces and help them heal as best you can.”
Finn swallowed. “I don’t know if I can be a king, Remy. I don’t know how. Being responsible for all those people, it scares me.”
“It should. It’s a lot of work, but you won’t have to do it alone. There are people who will help you.”
“What about you? I could use your advice from time to time.”
Remy smiled. It was the first time she’d ever offered him a warm, genuine smile, and it was brighter than the golden dawn shining through the trees. The sight of it made his heart jump into his throat.
She pulled him into a hug. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.”
“Just friends?”
Remy pushed him back by his shoulders and gave him a doubtful look up and down. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Go save your kingdom first. Then we can talk.”
He grinned and took a step back toward the shadows. “And your kingdom too, Your Highness. Don’t forget.”
She rolled her eyes playfully and crossed her arms. “If you think I’m letting you do this on your own, you’ve got another thing coming. I might not be able to follow you through the shadows, but there’s nothing stopping me from storming the castle. You’re just getting a head start.”
“I’ll make sure you’ve got nothing to do once you arrive.” Finn spread his arms wide and backed into the shadow, letting it swallow him whole.
Chapter Twenty
The throne room doors burst open while the impostor was hearing a petition from a farmer. Every head in the room turned to Mask as he stormed through the open doors, a company of guards at his back, though they didn’t see Mask. His disguise was too well crafted. They saw only the most loyal of all the queen’s knights: Sir Malcom.
He halted a few paces in, letting the guards stream past him toward the throne. The poor petitioner had to scramble to keep from falling underfoot.
The impostor rose from the throne, a stern look on her stolen face. “What is the meaning of this interruption?”
“In the absence of the queen, it is the duty of the highest-ranking member of the chivalry to uphold order,” Mask declared, his voice booming through the hall. “As Her Majesty’s longest-serving and most trusted knight, that duty falls to me.”
The guards grabbed the impostor queen by the elbows and tried to usher her from the throne, but she jerked away. “Unhand me! Let me go! I order you to let me go!”
Mask drew his sword and walked swiftly forward. “You won’t be ordering anything from anyone anymore.”
She flinched as he cut it through the air, but she wasn’t fast enough. The sword sliced several hairs from her head. Mid-air, the hairs transformed from Remy’s deep brown to a fiery red.
“Behold,” he said, gathering the hairs and holding them up for all to see, “an impostor.” Mask nodded to the guard standing at the ready. “Douse her.”
The guard opened the pouch he wore at his side and flung a thin coating of black dust at the impostor. Wherever it fell, the glamour melted away, revealing the truth beneath. It was the queen’s attendant sitting on the throne and not the queen.
Gasps filled the hall followed by stunned silence.
He marched up to Jessica gripping his sword tightly while the guards restrained her. “Where is the queen?”
Jessica’s eyes blazed with the promise of vengeance if only she could get her hands free. She raised her chin and addressed the crowd rather than speaking to him. “I have a letter in Queen Remy’s own hand explaining everything if you would but allow me to retrieve it—”
“You mean this letter?” Mask produced a single sheet of paper.
It hadn’t been easy to find; Remy was a smart girl. She’d hidden it behind a loose brick in the wall she thought no one knew about, but Sir Malcom knew everything. He knew how she slipped out of the palace at night whenever she wanted to go for a ride, and about how she still mourned the death of her grandmother. All her secret hiding places weren’t so secret from a man charged with the defense of his queen and kingdom. Such secrets were the first things Mask plucked from his mind when he enslaved Sir Malcom, but he held onto the secret about that loose brick the longest. To his credit, it took many hours to break Sir Malcom. More time than it would take to break down the rest.
Jessica’s face paled at the sight of the letter.
“A falsification,” Mask declared in Sir Malcom’s voice. “I know the queen’s hand, and this is not it.”
“You lied,” Jessica breathed. “How? How are you doing it?”
“I am fae,” lied Mask. “I can bend the truth, but I cannot break it. Everyone knows that. Take her away and put her in the smallest cell we have.”
She screamed and fought all the way out the door, though it did her no good. Mask supposed he could’ve just executed her; she was human, after all. Unlike the fae, humans were fragile beasts and quite easy to kill. But if he killed her so soon it would be a waste for once he was done with Faerie, Mask had been ordered to invade the Human world. His interactions with humans had been minimal at best. He intended to learn all he could from Jessica Frieder. Oh yes, they would come to be very close in the coming months.
While the crowd erupted into panicked murmurs at his back, Mask ascended the stairs and ran his fingers over the finely carved wooden arms of the throne. Finally, after all his hard work...
“Where is the queen?” The question rose from several people at once in the crowd.
Mask rolled his eyes and turned around, his expression grave by the time he faced the crowd. “I do not know. Interrogation of the prisoner will begin immediately, and we will get answers from her. Do not despair, people of Summer. We must hold out hope that Queen Remy will return to us alive and well. In the meantime, I shall act as head of state.”
“You?” The farmer who had been petitioning earlier stepped forward, his face twisted in disgust. “Why you? What do you know about running a kingdom?”
Plenty, Mask thought. I’ve been sitting on the Shadow throne for quite some time, you pathetic meat sack. Oh, I cannot wait for my masters to make a meal of all of you. But he put on a humble face for them in the meantime. “Very little, I’m afraid, which is why I have requested the aid of our closest ally.”
“The Court of Miracles?” questioned the farmer.
As if in answer, the throne room doors opened again, revealing the Winter Queen and her entourage. She was tall and thin with sharp features and even sharper eyes. Those eyes had been the most difficult to duplicate when Mask made his avatar of the Winter Queen. But they had to be right. He’d spent an entire day just on the eyes to make sure. Of course, Noelle hadn’t been the Winter Queen then either. She’d been the Winter Knight, trusted by the former queen. Even the Pale Horseman hadn’t noticed when Mask switched out his avatar for the real Noelle.
The false Winter Queen strode into Summer’s throne room all benevolent smiles, flanked on either side by her best swordsmen. She extended her hand to the false Sir Malcom who kissed it and invited her to stand before a secondary throne one of his guards had brought out.
“In the
se times of crisis,” said Mask through Sir Malcom’s mouth, “it is more imperative than ever that we fae work together.”
“We must put aside old rivalries and present a united front against the darkness to come,” Mask said as Noelle. “Winter will share its resources with Summer until the blight has passed, and the two kingdoms shall function as one, ruled by myself and Sir Malcom as the interim king.”
People in the crowd exchanged worried glances. Their doubt wasn’t unexpected, but it was also inconsequential. Anyone who could oppose Mask had already been removed, and no one had raised a finger to stop it from happening. Not the High Court, not the Horsemen, not the gods, and not the fae. They had busied themselves with trivial squabbles, wars over transient royalty, and an apocalypse.
By the time anyone realized anything was wrong, it would be far too late to do anything about it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Finn stepped out of the shadows and into a narrow stone hallway. The air was warm and damp, more like a cave than the Shadow palace. His torch flickered as if a heavy breath had been exhaled next to it. It was the only light as far as he could see. The shadow he had used had been cast by the dawn coming through a small window above. A window he recognized as his own.
He turned to the left, holding the torch out in front of him as far as he could, casting a dim light on familiar surroundings. His bed lay in pieces, smashed and gored by deep claw marks, the blanket down comforter slashed. Somehow the bedside table had survived, though the lamp was shattered.
Finn pulled open the drawer and carefully lifted a worn travel magazine, running his fingers over the rough surface of it. Once, those pages had been his only link to the outside world. It was cruel really, the way Titania would bring him travel brochures from Earth to look at. He’d spent whole afternoons staring at the smiling faces of Colonial Williamsburg or the Florida Everglades. She’d brought him a guide to Scotland’s castles once, but he left it unopened. Finn had seen enough stone towers to last him a lifetime.
