Blight

  I lowered my voice. “Spies, Vix. Bekind watches and listens and tells me what people are saying. But she’s only got one pair of eyes. She can’t be everywhere at once. And I know we don’t exactly have a castle full of immortal cat ladies, but there have to be people who can and will work with us. I just need you to find them.”

  “Me?” She looked doubtful. “I thought my only job was to watch over Scarlet.”

  “And when she’s older, that’ll be a full-time job for somebody,” I said. “But for now, it can be a cover for you. We need spies everywhere—in the kitchens, in the tribes, in the army, even in the other courts.”

  A slow, satisfied smile grew on Vix’s face, revealing dimples that matched Sadler’s. “That sounds more like it. You would really spy on them? Those men?”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “You said it yourself, Vix. I can’t trust anyone anymore. Not unless I have proof they’re loyal, right?”

  “You’re playing me,” she said with a laugh. “You’re trying to distract me with this fresh new idea.”

  “Only a little.” I grinned back. “But we do need help. And if the fae need a strong warrior queen, then that’s what I’ll be, but I’ll also be smart and sneaky. So, are you in or out?”

  A flicker of respect shone in her eyes. “When have I ever turned you down?”

  Chapter Eight

  On the day before the guests were due to arrive, a layer of apprehension covered us all. I could see it in the darted looks and sweaty brows of the workers and hear it in the whispered insults of the so-called elite. Everyone was in bad form, and I began to wonder if it was my nervous influence—because I was terrified. Not just of the ceremony or what would come afterward. I was absolutely shitting myself at the thought of seeing Brendan and Drake again. We weren’t exactly on the best terms, no matter what their gifts might say. And if either of them turned against me, I was lost.

  At dinner, Rat knocked over a pitcher of fruit juice. “I’ll get another,” she said as she hurriedly mopped it up.

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  She glanced at the table and shook her head. “It’s only fair.”

  I shrugged and let her go. Scarlet sat next to me in a human safety seat attached to an old-fashioned faery chair, which looked kind of odd. Setanta was next to her in his new wheelchair, which we had recently procured from the human realm. The fae liked the strong and despised the weak, so I perversely wanted to take care of the weak to spite the strong. Fiadh was terrified of the wheelchair, but Setanta had quickly learned that he loved speed. Being carried around and babied wasn’t good for him. He had come to life since he'd started spending so much time with Scarlet. Grey Eyes had even told me she suspected he would walk in a few years.

  I chatted with him while gently persuading Scarlet that green vegetables were supposed to be swallowed rather than spat out in disgust. She ate a couple of peas with her preferred carrots, and I considered that a major win. I knew that those in court were doing their best to slip her sugary treats as soon as my back was turned. Whatever they felt about me, the court was in love with Scarlet for a number of reasons, least of which was the way she radiated joy, counteracting every negative emotion I was forcing on the room.

  The dogs ran under the table, looking for scraps that might have fallen.

  “Dog,” Scarlet called, holding a piece of broccoli out to the black pup.

  “No, that’s yours.” I shooed the pup away. “We really have to settle on names. I like Tristram and Iseult, but they’re a bit of a mouthful.”

  “You could give them nicknames,” Setanta offered.

  “Tris and Issy perhaps,” Líle said.

  “They’re just dogs,” Realtín said, even as she stole meat from everyone’s plates for the animals underfoot.

  Grinning, I watched as the white pup waited patiently for her turn. But when the sprite threw the meat, the dog didn’t even sniff it. For a second, I thought of poison. The pup sat down, held up her head, and let out a long, mournful howl. As one, we flinched at the sound.

  “Somebody found her voice,” Líle joked, but she looked unsettled.

  But then the black pup growled at nothing. He joined in a second howl, and both of them screeched an awful wail that made my blood run cold. I had never heard anything like it before. Scarlet began to cry, a high-pitched shriek that sounded nothing like her. A glass on the table shattered, and a terrible dread clutched me.

  “Death,” somebody whispered.

  “Where’s Rat?” I asked sharply.

  “She didn’t come back from the kitchens,” Vix said. Even she sounded troubled.

  I rose to my feet. The pups stopped their howling and ran to the door. I followed, almost in a trance. I heard Rumble’s armour clang as he moved after me, and other footsteps besides his, but I was too busy trying not to lose my dinner to figure out who the second person was. When I opened the door, the pups bolted as if they knew where they were going.

  I ran along the corridor after them. They took two turns. Was it the kitchen? Had there been poison in the food after all?

  But then a man stumbled out of a doorway ahead of me, closing his belt as he walked. His black hair was tussled, and long scratches had been dug into his cheek. The black pup growled at him while the white one ran into the room he had just left.

  “Hold him here,” I called out, pushing the startled man out of my way. I ran into the room with the pups and gasped.

  Rat lay on the ground, her arms outstretched, and her legs akimbo. Her pink-tinged eyes were wide open and unseeing. Her neck had turned an ugly purple colour. Her cheek was swollen, and her clothes were in disarray. Rat had been the first to step over to my side, and now she was gone. Vix’s words came to me—that the people who aligned themselves with me would die first.

  “Rat,” I whimpered, kneeling next to her. She was still warm, but no pulse beat in her neck. No thudding in her chest gave me hope. We hadn’t had a chance at saving her. I closed her eyes, feeling the gamut of emotions, from pain and sorrow to anger and rage. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t right. The fae had continually tested me, but this was too much. If they wanted a cruel faery queen, they could have her. I would use everything at my disposal to show them what I was capable of.

  I got to my feet and turned slowly, black and red dots marring my vision. My grief had rapidly turned to an anger that manifested as a vibrating force around me, although I wasn’t even sure if I was imagining it.

  I left the room and found Rumble pinning the faery against the wall. I imagined my rage sparking and burning as I advanced on the man.

  “You,” I hissed in an unrecognisable voice. For once, I wished I were like a banshee, able to call death to me. But I was a queen, and I could call death in other ways. “What did you do?”

  His expression of surprise turned to one of fear. “It wasn’t on purpose. She got out of hand, and I put her in her place.”

  “In her place?” I said in the same dark tone. “She deserved this, did she?”

  “Yes, but—”

  I lashed my hand against his cheek so hard that my stomach turned with the shock of the pain vibrating through my wrist. My fingers clawed, my nails ripping his skin in the process, finishing the job that Rat must have started in self-defense.

  He recoiled and covered his face with his hands. “You called us free men. Raised me up with the rest of the nameless. You said—”

  “I never said this,” I spat.

  It was only then I noticed how many fae were surrounding us, eager to see what would happen next. Vix was right. I had to do something to make them understand that I couldn’t be crossed. Poor Rat’s life had been the cost of that lesson, and I was determined hers would be the last.

  I breathed deeply and opened my palms as though releasing my anger. I hoped they all tasted it. “There are wooden stakes in the gardens,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “The gardeners tried to use them for vines, but the vines died before the stakes were ev
er really needed.”

  The man nodded as if I were telling him a story. I swallowed my disgust and looked at Donncha. “Tie him to the stakes until I’m ready to deal with him.” I looked back at Rat’s body. “I need to take care of Rat first.”

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” the faery protested. “She was nobody. She was nothing. She was—”

  “If he keeps talking, cut out his tongue.” Even I was shocked by the venom in my words. I had to be a Darksider to earn the throne. I had to be a queen to keep it. It was too late to turn back. Hesitation would be our ruin.

  Murmurs filled the hallway as Donncha and Oisín dragged the man outside. I didn’t know what I was going to do to him, and I didn’t care. It was Rat’s time first.

  Realtín was flying overhead, her light a deeper red than I had ever seen before. “Tell Vix and the others to bring Scarlet upstairs,” I said. “Keep her up there.”

  Realtín hesitated before flying off, the dogs trying to keep up. I swallowed my grief as I looked at Rat again. She was so small. Her pink hair was untidy. She would hate that. I bent down, about to carry her myself, when the cook approached, milky tears running down her cheeks.

  “I’ll help carry her,” she said. “She was just a… let me help.”

  I nodded, and between the two of us, we carried her body to the baths. More women followed, some I recognised, some I didn’t. They watched over me as I cleaned her, and my sorrow must have leaked outward, because I heard more than one woman sob.

  With all the tears, I couldn’t see who was helping me prepare Rat's body. I chose a dress of my own for her to wear. I'd never worn it, but she had looked at it longingly more than once. I painted her nails a sparkling pink because that was the kind of thing that brought her joy.

  It was my fault. My weakness had led to her death. I needed to make hard decisions. I needed to lead. And I needed to use every advantage I had over the fae. I needed to make them feel.

  I let my grief and guilt spill outward and drench the entire castle. The fae were no longer sullen. Instead, I forced them to feel devastated. Brendan had said I'd been blocking my feelings, but now I was using them as a weapon. Since the Darksiders had begun pledging fealty, it had been so easy to douse them in my emotion. I'd tried not to because it had strange side effects sometimes, but in this case, it would be their punishment. Their lesson.

  And it had never been easier to share my influence. I knew I was making even my own friends suffer—everyone in the castle except Scarlet felt pain and regret because of me—but it was the only way to make them understand that I had a power they couldn’t fight, a power I wasn’t afraid to use. I wasn’t going to grieve alone.

  “What would she like to happen to her body?” I asked, finally wiping my face dry.

  “She was afraid of being brought back,” the cook said in a shaky voice. “She was afraid that a god like the one Sadler worshipped would use her. Necromancy, you know. I told her that god wouldn’t want her, but she was afraid all the same. She’d want to be burned, in the old way, so her body would cease to exist.”

  “It has to be tonight then,” I said. “Before the visitors invade.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Thistle said gently, taking my hand. “You get something warm on. It’s a cold evening.”

  I nodded, but I found a new fur cloak for Rat first. I wore my old cloak, the one the Watcher’s wife had given to me on the way to free Brendan’s soul.

  In my room, Realtín was sobbing against Líle’s neck. Grim called my name in a sorrowful voice.

  “Don’t,” I snapped. “It’s time I picked a side, and I don’t want to talk about it with you. Scarlet’s asleep? Let her rest. We’re going to say goodbye to Rat, and then I’m going to deal with the animal who did this to her.”

  “Good,” Vix said viciously. I felt vicious myself.

  Within an hour, I was standing in front of Rat’s funeral pyre within the castle grounds. The wind whipped my cloak around me, biting at my skin as though it were made of glass. The weather had turned treacherous. The sky was a violet grey, and storm clouds hung overhead. Crows cawed, flying around us in circles.

  Despite the wind, or perhaps because of it, the fire blazed almost out of control. Many of the fae retreated from the flames as if in terror, and I knew they saw the weather and the flames as omens, too. Sadler had often pushed his will on the weather, maybe unwittingly. I wondered what was causing this storm.

  I stepped closer to the fire, so close that my skin threatened to sear. Rumble subtly held me back. I watched Rat burn, smelling the smoke and oils in the air, and my sorrow turned into an intense, dark rage the likes of which I had never felt before. Rat was innocent. Rat was gentle. Rat hadn't deserved to die.

  The sky darkened, and the fire raged, and the flames of anger in my heart burned keenly. “You should go inside,” I warned Rumble. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  “I will never leave your side.”

  Something in his voice hit me like a hammer to the chest. I felt… but no, it was gone, and the rage returned. Every second I spent staring into Rat’s funeral pyre fuelled my anger. The fae slowly began to retreat from me—all but Rumble. I didn’t blame them. The anger kept growing, flying out of control as I seethed with it. And then it reached the point of no return, and my feet began to move.

  Before I even realised what I was doing, I was striding into the gardens where the man who'd killed Rat had been uncomfortably tied to large pieces of wood. Those who dared, followed. I barely noticed them. All I could see was the man who had hurt Rat. He was one of the workers, and his muscles bulged as he strained against his restraints. I imagined him with Rat, towering over her, taking advantage of her, toying with her before killing her without remorse. And that hair. He was his father’s son, and I would wipe his bad blood away. I wasn’t thinking anymore, wasn’t planning, wasn’t even trying to survive. All I knew was that I wanted payback.

  Somebody had taken my words seriously, it seemed. The man's mouth was full of blood, and although his lips moved, he formed no words I could understand. His tongue was gone, and I didn’t feel an ounce of regret.

  “You killed one of our own.” I didn’t have to speak loudly. My voice had taken on a life of its own, and it rang out so that everyone nearby could hear. “That makes you a traitor.”

  He shook his head, pleading with his eyes. But I saw Rat’s eyes instead, and my anger deepened.

  “You killed one my daughter loved.” I gazed at him, throwing every ounce of my disgust into the stare. “And that makes you a fool.”

  I slid my dagger into his gut, and I twisted it, hoping that his pain was a thousand times worse than Rat’s had been and that it lasted much longer. And as I watched the pain in his eyes, my anger melted away completely.

  I could have asked for help. I could have told the fae to cut him down and save his life. But I didn’t. I watched him bleed, and then I walked away, the Darksiders following in my wake. We left him to die alone, and I was glad.

  At the doors of the castle, the pups began to howl, and I knew he was dead. I hesitated, feeling a tinge of regret, but deep down, I knew the truth: a queen could never hesitate. I could never hesitate again. And I would do whatever it took to control the fae so that Scarlet didn’t have to.

  When I washed the blood from my hands, I noticed that the blackness in my veins had spread to my wrists. I was well on my way to becoming the being I had seen in the mirror.

  Rumble was the only one who followed me as I cleaned up. “Come with me,” he said when I finished.

  “Why?”

  “Please.”

  I shrugged and followed, glad of the excuse to avoid returning to my room. I didn’t want to face my old friends just yet, and I couldn’t hold my daughter with death still fresh on my hands. Rumble led me to the back of the castle to older rooms so decayed they weren’t in use.

  “What’s this about?” I asked warily.

  “This used to be a training
room,” he said as he pulled a stuffed dummy into the centre of the room. He handed me a blunt sword.

  “What’s this for?”

  He pointed at the dummy. “Kill it.”

  I shrugged and whacked the dummy with the sword. The thing was harder than it looked. I stabbed it through the chest, and some straw fell onto the floor. “Now what?”

  “Keep killing it.”

  I threw the sword down in exasperation. “But why, Rumble?”

  “You might have put on a scary display tonight for a reason, but I already warned you about controlling your temper. When Vix was a child, she was full of rage. Yes, even more so than now. She’s tame compared to the feral wildcat she used to be. She suffered, and Sadler looked on without helping her because he wanted to make a monster out of her.”

  I winced. Poor Vix. She would despise my pity.

  He gestured around the room. “I found her one day, spitting and hissing and cursing whenever anyone went near her. I decided to take care of her, and when I got to know her, I made her take her anger out on these dummies. She got stronger in mind, in body, and in spirit. She learned to focus her anger more wisely. Maybe this approach will help you, too.”

  “A miracle cure?” I scoffed. “I doubt it somehow.”

  “At least try. You wanted to be strong and be able to take care of yourself. Well, start with your own mind.”

  Tutting, I picked up the sword and started hitting. I saw everything I was angry about in that dummy, and I hit it until Rumble made me stop. By then, my arms were aching, and sweat rolled freely down my back.

  “Okay,” I panted. “It maybe helped a little. Take off the bloody helmet though, or I’ll start hitting that next.”

  He hesitantly removed the helmet, letting me see his disfigured face. I reached out to touch his cheek. He flinched, but he stayed in place.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For helping, I mean.”

  “You’re my queen.”

  “We’re family. You’re related to Scarlet. Stop acting as if you’re not.”

  “By that standard, so is the man you killed today,” he said. “He was Deorad’s son, just as I was.”