The Cruel Prince Read online

  The door to the study swings open, startling us both. Prince Dain drops my hand, and I shove it into my pocket, the pain of which nearly staggers me. Oriana stands there, a wooden tray in her hands with a steaming pot and three clay cups atop it. She is dressed in a day gown the vivid hue of unripe persimmons. “Prince Dain,” she says, making a pretty bow. “The servants said you were sequestered with Jude, and I told them they had to be mistaken. Surely, with your coronation so close, your time is too valuable for a silly girl to take up so much of it. You do her too much credit, and no doubt the weight of your regard is quite overwhelming.”

  “No doubt,” he says, giving her a tooth-gritting smile. “I have tarried too long.”

  “Take some tea before you leave us,” she says, putting down the tray on Madoc’s desk. “We could all have a cup and speak together. If Jude has done something to offend you…”

  “Your pardon,” he says, not particularly kindly. “But your reminder of my duties spurs me to immediate action.”

  He brushes past Oriana, looking back at me once before stalking off. I have no idea whether I passed the test or not. But either way, he does not trust me as he once did. I have thrown that away.

  I don’t trust him as much, either.

  “Thank you,” I say to Oriana. I am shivering all over.

  She doesn’t scold me, for once. She doesn’t say anything. Her hands come down lightly on my shoulders, and I lean against her. The scent of crushed verbena is in my nose. I close my eyes and drink in the familiar smell. I am desperate. I will take any comfort there is, any comfort at all.

  I do not think of lessons or lectures. Shaking all over, I go straight back to my room and climb into bed. Tatterfell strokes my hair briefly, as though I am a drowsy cat, and then returns to the task of sorting my dresses. My new gown is scheduled to arrive later today, and the coronation will begin the day after. Dain’s being named as the High King will kick off a month of revelry, while the moon wanes and then swells anew.

  My hand hurts so much that I cannot bear to put moss on it. I just cradle it against my chest.

  It throbs, the pain coming in staggering pulses, like a second, ragged heartbeat. I cannot bring myself to do more than lie there and wait for it to ebb. My thoughts drift dizzily.

  Somewhere out there, all the lords and ladies and lieges ruling over far-flung Courts are arriving to pay their respects to the new High King. Night Courts and Bright Courts, Free Courts, and Wild Courts. The High King’s subjects and the Courts with which there are truces, however wobbly. Even Orlagh’s Court of the Undersea will be in attendance. Many will pledge themselves to faithfully accept the new High King’s judgment in exchange for his wisdom and protection. Pledge to defend him and avenge him, if need be. Then all will show their respect by partying their hardest.

  I’ll be expected to party along with them. A month of dancing and feasting and boozing and riddling and dueling.

  For that, each of my best dresses must be dusted off, pressed, and refreshed. Tatterfell sews on cunning cuffs made from the scales of pinecones around the edges of frayed sleeves. Small tears in skirts are stitched over with embroidery in the shape of leaves and pomegranates and—on one—a cavorting fox. She has stitched dozens of leather slippers for me. I will be expected to dance so fiercely that I wear through a pair every night.

  At least Locke will be there to dance with me. I try to concentrate on the memory of his amber eyes instead of the pain in my hand.

  As Tatterfell moves around the room, my eyes close, and I fall into a strange, fitful sleep. When I wake, it’s full night, and I am sweaty all over. I feel oddly calm, though, tears and panic and pain somehow smoothed over. The agony of my hand has turned into a dull throb.

  Tatterfell is gone. Vivi is sitting at the end of my bed, her cat eyes catching moonlight and shining chartreuse.

  “I came to see if you were well,” she says. “Except that of course you’re not.”

  I force myself to sit up again, using only one of my hands. “I’m sorry—what I asked you to do. I shouldn’t have. I put you in danger.”

  “I am your elder sister,” she says. “You don’t need to protect me from my own decisions.”

  After Sophie plunged into the water, Vivi and I spent the hours until dawn diving into the icy sea, calling for Sophie, trying to find some trace of her. We swam under the black water and screamed her name until our throats were hoarse.

  “Still,” I say.

  “Still,” she echoes fiercely. “I wanted to help. I wanted to help that girl.”

  “Too bad we didn’t.” The words catch in my throat.

  Vivienne shrugs, and I am reminded of how, despite her being my sister, we differ in ways that are hard to comprehend. “You did a brave thing. Be glad of that. Not everyone can be brave. I’m not always.”

  “What do you mean? The whole ‘not telling Heather what’s really going on’?”

  She makes a face at me but smiles, clearly grateful I am speaking of something less dire—and yet both of our thoughts went from one dead mortal girl to her beloved, also mortal. “We were lying in bed together a few days ago,” Vivi says. “And she started tracing the shape of my ear. I thought she was going to ask something that would give me an opening, but she just told me my ear modding was really good. Did you know there are mortals who cut human ears and sew them so they heal pointed?”

  I am not surprised. I understand longing for ears like hers. I feel like I have spent half my life wanting them, with their delicate, furred points.

  What I do not say is this: No one could touch those ears and believe they were made by anything other than nature. Heather is either lying to Vivi or lying to herself.

  “I don’t want her to be afraid of me,” Vivi says.

  I think of Sophie, and I am sure Vivi is thinking of her, too, pockets full of stones. Sophie at the bottom of the sea. Perhaps she is not so unaffected by what happens as she wants to seem.

  From downstairs, I hear Taryn’s voice. “They’re here! Our dresses! Come look!”

  Slipping off my bed, Vivi smiles at me. “At least we had an adventure. And now we’re going to have another one.”

  I let her go ahead, as I need to cover my bandaged hand with a glove before I follow her down the stairs. I press a button, ripped from a coat, over the wound to divert direct pressure. Now I have to hope that the bulge on my palm isn’t too noticeable.

  Our gowns have been spread out over three chairs and a sofa in Oriana’s salon. Madoc is patiently listening to her rhapsodize over the perfection of their garments. Her ball gown is the exact pink of her eyes, deepening to red, and seems to be made of enormous petals that spread into a train. The fabric of Taryn’s is gorgeous, the cut of her mantua and stomacher perfect. Beside them is Oak’s sweet little suit of clothes, and there are a doublet and cape for Madoc in his favorite shade of crusted-blood red. Vivi holds up her silvery gray dress, with its tattered edges, sparing a smile for me.

  Across the room, I see my gown. Taryn gasps when I lift it up.

  “That’s not what you ordered,” she says, accusatory. As though somehow I have deliberately deceived her.

  It’s true that the dress I am holding is not the one that Brambleweft sketched for me. It’s something else entirely, something that reminds me of the mad, amazing garments that Locke’s mother’s closet was stuffed with. An ombré ball gown, its color deepening from white near my throat, through palest blue to deepest indigo at my feet. Over that is stitched the stark outlines of trees, the way I see them from my window as dusk is falling. The seamstress has even sewn on little crystal beads to represent stars.

  This is a dress I could never have imagined, one so perfect that for a moment, looking at it, I can think of nothing but its beauty.

  “I—I don’t think this is mine,” I say. “Taryn’s right. It doesn’t look anything like the sketches.”

  “It’s still lovely,” Oriana says consolingly, as though I am displeased. “And it had your
name pinned to it.”

  I am glad no one is making me give it back. I do not know why I was given such a dress, but if there’s any way I can fit into it, I will.

  Madoc raises his brows. “We will all look magnificent.” When he walks past, departing the salon, he ruffles my hair. In moments like these, it is almost possible to think there is no river of spilled blood between us all.

  Oriana claps her hands together. “Girls, come here for a moment. Attend me.”

  We three arrange ourselves on the couch beside her, waiting, puzzled.

  “Tomorrow, you will be among the Gentry from many different Courts. You’ve been under Madoc’s protection, but that protection will be unknown to most of the Folk in attendance. You must not allow yourselves to be lured into making bargains or promises that can be used against you. And, above all, give no insult that might excuse a trespass of hospitality. Do not be foolish, and do not put yourself in anyone’s power.”

  “We are never foolish,” Taryn says, a blatant lie if ever there was one.

  Oriana makes a pained face. “I would keep you from the revels, but Madoc has specifically instructed that you participate in them. So heed my advice. Be careful, and perhaps you will find ways to be pleasing.”

  I should have expected this—more cautions, another lecture. If she does not trust us to behave at a revel, she certainly will not trust us at a coronation. We rise, dismissed, and she takes each of us in turn, pressing her chilly mouth against our cheeks. My kiss comes last.

  “Do not aspire above your station,” she says softly to me.

  For a moment, I don’t understand why she would say that. Then, horrified, I get her meaning. After this afternoon, she thinks I am Prince Dain’s lover.

  “I’m not,” I blurt out. Of course, Cardan would say that everything I’ve got is above my station.

  She takes my hand, her expression pitying.

  “I am only thinking of your future,” Oriana says, voice still soft. “Those close to the throne are seldom truly close to anyone else. A mortal girl would have even fewer allies.”

  I nod as though giving in to her wise advice. If she doesn’t believe me, then the easiest thing is to go along with her. I guess it makes more sense than the truth—that Dain has selected me to be part of his nest of thieves and spies.

  Something about my expression causes her to catch both of my hands. I wince at the pressure on my wound. “Before I was Madoc’s wife, I was one of the consorts to the King of Elfhame. Hear me, Jude. It is no easy thing to be the lover of the High King. It is to always be in danger. It is to always be a pawn.”

  I must be gaping at her, as shocked as I am. I never wondered about her life before she came to us. Suddenly, Oriana’s fears for us make a different kind of sense; she was used to playing by an entirely different set of rules. The floor seems to have tilted beneath my feet. I do not know the woman in front of me, do not know what she suffered before coming to this house, no longer even know how she really came to be Madoc’s wife. Did she love him, or was she making a clever marriage, to gain his protection?

  “I didn’t know,” I say stupidly.

  “I never gave Eldred a child,” she tells me. “But another of his lovers nearly did. When she died, rumor pointed to one of the princes’ poisoning her, just to prevent competition for the throne.” Oriana watches my face with her pale pink eyes. I know she’s talking about Liriope. “You don’t need to believe me. There are a dozen more rumors just as terrible. When there is a lot of power concentrated in one place, there are plenty of scraps to fight over. If the Court isn’t busy drinking poison, then it’s drinking bile. You wouldn’t be well suited to it.”

  “What makes you think that?” I ask, her words annoyingly close to Madoc’s when he dismissed my chances at knighthood. “Maybe it would suit me just fine.”

  Her fingers brush my face again, stroking back my hair. It should be a tender gesture, but it’s an evaluating one instead. “He must have loved your mother very much,” she says. “He’s besotted with you girls. If I were him, I would have sent you away a long time ago.”

  I don’t doubt that.

  “If you go to Prince Dain despite my warning, if he gets his heir on you, tell no one before you tell me. Swear it on your mother’s grave.” I feel her nails as her hand comes to rest against the back of my neck and wince. “No one. Do you understand?”

  “I promise.” This is one vow I should have no trouble keeping. I try to give the words weight, so she’ll believe I mean it. “Seriously. I promise.”

  She releases me. “You may go. Rest well, Jude. When you rise, the coronation will be upon us, and there will be little time left for resting.”

  I curtsy and take my leave.

  In the hall, Taryn is waiting for me. She sits on a bench carved with coiled serpents and swings her feet. As the door closes, she looks up. “What was going on with her?”

  I shake my head, trying to rid myself of a jumble of feelings. “Did you know she used to be the High King’s consort?”

  Taryn’s eyebrows go up, and she snorts, delighted. “No. Is that what she told you?”

  “Pretty much.” I think of Locke’s mother and the singing bird in the acorn, of Eldred on his throne, head bowed by his own crown. It is hard for me to picture him taking lovers, no less the quantity he must have taken to have so many children, an unnatural number for a Faerie. And yet, perhaps that’s just a failure of my imagination.

  “Huh.” Taryn looks as though she’s having the same failure of imagination. She frowns, puzzling for a moment, then seems to remember what she’d waited to ask me. “Do you know why Prince Balekin was here?”

  “He was here?” I am not sure I can weather more surprises. “Here, in the house?”

  She nods. “He arrived with Madoc, and they were shut up in his office for hours.”

  I wonder how long they arrived after Prince Dain’s departure. Hopefully, long enough for Prince Dain not to overhear anything about a missing servant. My hand throbs whenever I move it, but I am just glad I can move it at all. I am not eager to face any more punishment.

  And yet Madoc didn’t seem angry with me just now when he saw me with my dress. He seemed normal, pleased even. Perhaps they were conferring about other things.

  “Weird,” I say to Taryn, because I am commanded not to tell her about being a spy and I cannot bring myself to tell her about Sophie.

  I am glad that the coronation is nearly here. I want it to come and sweep everything else away.

  That night, I drowse in my bed, fully dressed, waiting for the Ghost. I have bagged out on lessons for two nights straight—the night of Locke’s party and last night, searching the water for Sophie. He’s bound to be annoyed when he comes.

  I put that as far out of my head as I can and concentrate on resting. Breathing in and out.

  When I first came to Faerie, I had trouble sleeping. You’d think I’d have had nightmares, but I don’t remember many. My dreams struggled to rival the horror of my actual life. Instead, I couldn’t calm down enough to rest. I would toss and turn all night and all morning, my heart racing, finally falling into a headachy sleep in the late afternoon, when the rest of Faerie was just rising. I took to wandering the corridors of the house like a restless spirit, thumbing through ancient books, moving around the game pieces on the Fox and Geese board, toasting cheese in the kitchens, and staring at Madoc’s blood-soaked cap, as though it contained the answers to the universe in its tide lines. One of the hobs who used to work here, Nell Uther, would find me and guide me back to my room, telling me that if I couldn’t sleep, then I ought to just close my eyes and lie still. That at least my body could rest, even if my mind wouldn’t.

  I am lying like that when I hear a rustling on the balcony. I turn, fully expecting to see the Ghost. I am about to tease him for actually making a sound when I realize the person rattling the doors isn’t the Ghost at all. It’s Valerian, and he has a long, curving knife in one hand and a smile every bit a
s sharp pulling at his mouth.

  “What…” I scramble into a sitting position. “What are you doing here?”

  I realize that I am whispering, as though I am afraid of his being discovered.

  You are my creature, Jude Duarte. You will strike only when I tell you to strike. Otherwise, stay your hand.

  At least Prince Dain didn’t glamour me to obey those orders.

  “Why shouldn’t I be here?” Valerian asks me, striding closer. He smells like pinesap and burned hair, and there is a light dusting of golden powder streaked over one cheek. I am not sure where he’s been before this, but I don’t think he’s sober.

  “This is my home.” I am prepared for training with the Ghost. I have a knife in my boot and another at my hip, but thinking of Dain’s command, thinking of how not to disappoint him further, I reach for neither. I am flummoxed by Valerian’s being here, in my room.

  He walks up to my bed. He’s holding the knife well enough, but I can tell he’s not particularly practiced with it. He is no general’s son. “None of this is your home,” he tells me, voice shaking with anger.

  “If Cardan put you up to this, you should really rethink your relationship,” I say, finally, now, afraid. By some miracle, my voice stays steady. “Because if I scream, there are guards in the hall. They’ll come. They’ve got big, pointy swords. Huge. Your friend is going to get you killed.”

  Show your power by appearing powerless.

  He doesn’t seem to be absorbing my words. His eyes are wild, red-rimmed, and not entirely focused on me. “Do you know what he said when I told him you’d stabbed me? He told me it was no more than I deserved.”

  That’s impossible; Valerian must have misunderstood. Cardan must have been mocking him for letting me under his guard.

  “What did you expect?” I ask him, trying to hide my surprise. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the guy is a real jerk.”

  If Valerian wasn’t sure he wanted to stab me before, he’s sure now. With a leap, he slams the blade into the mattress as I roll out of the way and onto my feet. Goose feathers fly up when he draws back the blade, drifting through the air like snow. He scrambles to his feet as I pull out a dagger of my own.