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CHAPTER 10: THE WICKED KING
As the Hunter’s Moon approaches, the level of debauchery in the palace increases. The tenor of the parties change—they become more frenetic,
more wild. No longer is Cardan’s presence necessary for such license. Now that rumors paint him as someone who would shoot a lover for sport, his legend grows from there.
Recollections of his younger days—of the way he rode a horse into our lessons, the fights he had, the cruelties he perpetrated—are picked over.
The more horrible the story, the more it is cherished. Faeries may not be able to lie, but stories grow here as they do anywhere, fed on ambition and envy and desire.
In the afternoons, I step over sleeping bodies in the halls. Not all of them are courtiers. Servants and guards seem to have fallen prey to the same wild energy and can be found abandoning their duties to pleasure.
Naked Folk run across the gardens of Elfhame, and troughs once used to water horses now run with wine.
I meet with Vulciber, seeking more information about the Undersea,
but he has none. Despite knowing that Nicasia was trying to bait me, I go over the list of people who may have betrayed me. I fret over who and to what end, over the arrival of Lord Roiben’s ambassador, over how to extend my year-and-a-day lease on the throne. I study my moldering papers and drink my poisons and plan a thousand parries to blows that may never come.
Cardan has moved to Eldred’s old chambers, and the rooms with the burned floor are barred from the inside. If it makes him uncomfortable to sleep where his father slept, he gives no sign. When I arrive, he is lounging nonchalantly as servants remove tapestries and divans to make room for a new bed carved to his specifications.
He is not alone. A small circle of courtiers is with him—a few I don’t know, plus Locke, Nicasia, and my sister, currently pink with wine and laughing on the rug before the fire.
“Go,” he says to them when he sees me at the threshold.
“But, Your Majesty,” begins a girl. She’s all cream and gold, in a light blue gown. Long pale antennae rise from the outer edges of her eyebrows.
“Surely such dull news as your seneschal brings will require the antidote of our cheer.” I’ve thought carefully about commanding Cardan. Too many orders and he’d chafe under them, too few and he’d duck beneath them easily. But I am glad to have made sure he’d never deny me admittance. I am especially glad that he can never countermand me.
“I am sure I will call you back swiftly enough,” Cardan says, and the courtiers troop out merrily. One of them carries a mug, obviously stolen from the mortal world and filled to the brim with wine. I RULE, it reads.
Locke shoots me a curious glance. My sister grabs hold of my hand as she goes, squeezing it hopefully.
I go to a chair and sit down without waiting for an invitation. I want to remind Cardan that over me, he has no authority.
“The Hunter’s Moon revel is tomorrow night,” I say.
He sprawls in a chair opposite mine, watching me with his black eyes as though I am the one to...
more wild. No longer is Cardan’s presence necessary for such license. Now that rumors paint him as someone who would shoot a lover for sport, his legend grows from there.
Recollections of his younger days—of the way he rode a horse into our lessons, the fights he had, the cruelties he perpetrated—are picked over.
The more horrible the story, the more it is cherished. Faeries may not be able to lie, but stories grow here as they do anywhere, fed on ambition and envy and desire.
In the afternoons, I step over sleeping bodies in the halls. Not all of them are courtiers. Servants and guards seem to have fallen prey to the same wild energy and can be found abandoning their duties to pleasure.
Naked Folk run across the gardens of Elfhame, and troughs once used to water horses now run with wine.
I meet with Vulciber, seeking more information about the Undersea,
but he has none. Despite knowing that Nicasia was trying to bait me, I go over the list of people who may have betrayed me. I fret over who and to what end, over the arrival of Lord Roiben’s ambassador, over how to extend my year-and-a-day lease on the throne. I study my moldering papers and drink my poisons and plan a thousand parries to blows that may never come.
Cardan has moved to Eldred’s old chambers, and the rooms with the burned floor are barred from the inside. If it makes him uncomfortable to sleep where his father slept, he gives no sign. When I arrive, he is lounging nonchalantly as servants remove tapestries and divans to make room for a new bed carved to his specifications.
He is not alone. A small circle of courtiers is with him—a few I don’t know, plus Locke, Nicasia, and my sister, currently pink with wine and laughing on the rug before the fire.
“Go,” he says to them when he sees me at the threshold.
“But, Your Majesty,” begins a girl. She’s all cream and gold, in a light blue gown. Long pale antennae rise from the outer edges of her eyebrows.
“Surely such dull news as your seneschal brings will require the antidote of our cheer.” I’ve thought carefully about commanding Cardan. Too many orders and he’d chafe under them, too few and he’d duck beneath them easily. But I am glad to have made sure he’d never deny me admittance. I am especially glad that he can never countermand me.
“I am sure I will call you back swiftly enough,” Cardan says, and the courtiers troop out merrily. One of them carries a mug, obviously stolen from the mortal world and filled to the brim with wine. I RULE, it reads.
Locke shoots me a curious glance. My sister grabs hold of my hand as she goes, squeezing it hopefully.
I go to a chair and sit down without waiting for an invitation. I want to remind Cardan that over me, he has no authority.
“The Hunter’s Moon revel is tomorrow night,” I say.
He sprawls in a chair opposite mine, watching me with his black eyes as though I am the one to...
