CHAPTER TWELVE
CARDEN
The earth shook beneath us, but the roaring noise changed. I opened my eyes to see Arabella glancing around. We were in the throne room surrounded by cheering fae. The clock began to chime loudly, drowning out the din of noise in the room. Arabella and I stood still as the clock chimed eight times. Queen Coeur was perched on her throne.
Arabella stepped back, her metal shoes clinking on the tile. Coeur stood, and the room went quiet. She wrinkled her nose. “Clean and present yourselves to me in one hour. And congratulations.”
“On what?” Arabella snapped.
It didn’t rattle Coeur at all. “Surviving the first day, of course.”
Coeur disappeared with a flourish and the rest of the fae in the room scattered like cockroaches exposed to sunlight. We wouldn’t want to be late to her party, I scoffed.
Arabella watched the fae pile around the door, each shoving and squeezing to get through the only exit the guards would open, her face tight. “Bend down,” she instructed. I bent at the waist and she reached up and eased the crown off my brow. “You look better without it.” She threw it across the room, the metal clanking across the floor, startling a circle of tusked, pig-faced fae huddled nearby. They snorted, raising their heads, drool spilling in thick rivulets down their chins. She didn’t flinch when they began slinging insults like smelly mud; she just unfastened her boots and stepped out of them, leaving them in front of the clock.
They called us weak. Human. Miserable wretches who would beg their queen for mercy before it was over…
But I saw strength today. In Arabella. In me. We weren’t going down without a hell of a fight.
I wondered if the boots would still be there in an hour, or if they would disappear, some Cursed servant sweeping them from the room in an effort to keep the Queen from losing her mind and killing us both on the spot. Or maybe they had taken a bet that we’d make it three days, and didn’t want to ruin their chances at collecting.
But I loved that she threw the crown. I loved that she was walking out of here barefooted, and wished Coeur could see the storm that roiled in Arabella now, because the storm in her was greater than any Coeur could conjure. It was real, bubbling up from a place deep within that she didn’t want anyone to see but couldn’t contain.
The yellow clothes we wore were as wet, tattered, torn, and dirty as we were, the color barely discernable. I wondered what the color tonight would be, and if Arabella would arrive barefooted again. Not because I was worried about what Coeur might do, but because I wanted to dress to match her.
We marched through the crowd that was left and straight through the doors, the fae moving away to avoid touching the “filthy humans”.
Arabella just smiled.
I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
ARABELLA
“Brave?” I called out when I entered the room. It quickly became apparent that she wasn’t there, but someone else was. A Cursed and Unseen who refused to speak, but moved around the room quickly and efficiently, completing her tasks before leaving the room with a slamming door. Someone who didn’t care whether I won or was late.
What happened to Brave?
It was my fault. I sank into the steaming water, feeling the sweat and dirt and flecks of grass peel off my skin. I felt the stinging burns of grass cuts all over me, and my muscles were sore and weak. Even the heated water did little to ease the tiredness. I ran the bar of soap through my hair and flesh until I was as clean as I could get, and then dried and tugged on the hideous orange dress the Cursed servant had left on the bed for me.
It took a few tries to figure out which hole was for my head and which were for my arms, but I got it. This orange was pale, like the sunset. The fabric wasn’t sheer, but stiff, forming a bell from waist to floor. It flared up from the waist as well, stiffly hugging my arms and holding them tightly against my ribs.
The leather cord holding my sliver of mirror was wet against my skin, but no damper than my wet, tangled hair. I braided it as best I could and pinned it into a coil at the back of my head. The guards opened the door as I was contemplating whether or not to wear the silken shoes Coeur had given me to match the monstrosity I wore.
I decided to leave them. She wouldn’t see my feet anyway. And if she did, I didn’t care. She was going to kill us. I knew that now. After today, it was apparent that she was the cat and we were mice. She was toying with us; holding us by the tails and batting at us to make us scream. She hadn’t even shown her claws and teeth.
The guards wore orange so bright, it was painful to look at. The goop in their hair glowed. “Hurry up!” one shouted, pointing out the door with his spear.
When we arrived, the throne room was already full of people. Instead of round, floating tables, this time the tables and chairs were made of giant split logs. A vein of moss ran through the table middles and thousands of fireflies flickered throughout the room, winking on and off, flying from space to space in only a second. My eyes couldn’t keep up with a single one.
The fireflies were the only source of light, and in the dimness, I couldn’t find Carden. A waterfall of faery wine fell over the back wall, pooling below where the Cursed and Unseen dipped glass after glass, the goblets seemingly floating in air.
My mouth watered. I remembered exactly how it tasted and how it made me feel just after a sip. But that euphoria was short-lived and certainly not worth getting sick over. I needed to be strong for tomorrow, because I knew it would be infinitely worse than today.
If the flash flood was any indication of Queen Coeur’s hatred for us, we didn’t have five days. We might not even have tomorrow. Maybe that was her game. Maybe she would just wipe us out and show her subjects that she didn’t owe them anything—not even a show.
“Did you know that your skin wrinkles the tiniest bit between your eyes when you’re thinking?” a deep voice whispered into my ear. I turned to find Rule wearing a lop-sided grin and a fine suede suit that was only a shade darker than my gown.
“I didn’t know that.”
He made a sound of confirmation in the back of his throat, but was staring at the ceiling. I hadn’t even noticed it, too focused on finding Carden, but now I realized it was a sunset, the same sunset in the game. The same painted sky streaked with gold. Only here, there was no storm trying to cover its glory.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
Rule moved closer. “It certainly is.”
“Have you seen Carden?” I asked, watching his smile fall away. It was no wiser of me to provoke him than it was his mother, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
“Here’s a fact you should know before I take you to him… facing death changes humans.”
“It hasn’t changed me.”
He tutted. “Hasn’t it? Aren’t you grateful to still be drawing breath?”
“I appreciate what I took for granted before walking into this castle, that’s for sure.”
“Not everyone can see the good within the bad, Bella.”
I turned to Rule. “Don’t call me that again.”
“Why?” His brows nearly kissed as he watched me warily.
“Because giving someone a nickname is intimate, and we don’t know each other well enough for all that.”
Rule chuckled. “Didn’t I help you with my mother?”
“You call that help? Have you convinced her to stop the game?” I challenged.
“Of course not. I don’t know you well enough to offer that kind of assistance.”
“Then what good has come from our brief friendship?” I scoffed. “You know what? I’ll find Carden myself.” I left Rule behind, walking between tables until I came to a smaller one that sat alone in a corner. Carden’s dark hair hung limply in his face, still damp as mine, no doubt.
He glanced up, eyes fastening on the shard of mirror sticking to my chest. The mass of bodies in the room, despite its enormity, made it sticky and hot. “It’s a wonder she didn’t skewer us both with that piece of glass.” Carden’s tone was a sharp bite. He glanced away from me, preferring to stare at the tabletop. His fingers brushed over the plush moss in the middle.
“Why would something so trivial make her want to kill us?” I asked, sitting across from him. The fabric of my stiff dress adjusted, barely squeezing beneath the table.
“Who knows what makes her tick?” he growled.
“Exactly. So if it wasn’t my necklace, it could’ve been the way you bandaged your feet. Or the way our hair looks after it rains, or my mother. What angers Coeur is beyond our control, for the most part. Unless, of course, you go and call her a beast….” I teased.
He didn’t think it was funny. His fist tightened on his glass.
“Is that faery wine? That’s the last thing you should be drinking.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he barked. “Especially after you drank so much last night you passed out in the garden.”
“Who told you that? I went outside and puked my guts out, but I never passed out in the garden.”
He snorted dismissively, looking away from me and into the crowd of fae who danced like they didn’t have a care in the world.
They were good liars.
Her subjects behaved that way because they were terrified of their queen, of upsetting the careful balance she demanded. Their dance was merely part of the act. They weren’t dancing because they wanted to; they danced because she required it, because they lived to make her wants reality. She was like a petulant child and they would appease her any way they could, because the child had razor-sharp teeth and wasn’t afraid to bite.
I hated every last one of them. From the beautiful ones with flowing hair and skin as soft and luminescent as the moon, to the fae with heads like horses or those who were no larger than Carden’s wine glass.
I should never have lost control last night and drank their terrible wine and ate their awful food. Because as much as I enjoyed it, I lost a piece of myself I couldn’t get back. I acted just liked Father.
Shaking my head, I stared at Carden, who defiantly gulped the rest of his glass. What he and I did last night wasn’t the issue here. We should’ve learned a lesson never to trust what they gave us—both of us should have. Drinking and eating wasn’t the real issue.
The issue was that tomorrow would be harder than today, and today nearly pummeled us into nothing. We had to be at our best, and starving would be better than being sick. Who knew if Coeur would erase our wounds this time? The game had begun in earnest, and she wasn’t about to put herself at a disadvantage.
And anyway, why was he so angry at me? “What’s your problem?” I bit out.
He laughed and shook his head, scooting his chair back as he stood. “I think I’ll call it a night.”
Fine. Whatever.
Carden disappeared into the gyrating fae assembly and I lost sight of him. I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I was fairly certain Coeur wouldn’t let him leave this room. What hurt was that he didn’t care who he was with, as long as it wasn’t with me.
The thought tightened in my throat. Picturing him enjoying the company of another woman was revolting. The taste of bile burned my tongue.
Glancing around the room, I wished for fresh water. A cooked, steaming sliver of hare… no, a slice of beef or goat. Potatoes, fresh from the ground, washed and boiled and rolling around in butter on my plate. I was starving. My mouth was cotton. And Carden didn’t care. He just wanted to enjoy the evening without me, but was forgetting we were a team. If he wasn’t dedicated to winning, we would both lose.
I tried to cross my arms over my chest, but the damned dress limited my movement. Rule emerged from the crowd like a crab crawling out of the sea. He slowly and deliberately strode toward me and took Carden’s seat without asking if he could. He snapped his fingers and a covered dish appeared in front of me, accompanied by a carafe of water and an empty glass. Never had something as simple as fresh water made me want to cry. I wanted it to be real so badly.
“Is this an illusion?”
Rule clasped his heart playfully. “Madame, I never joke about food or drink. It’s from your world. No fae hand has touched it. Not even mine.”
“How did you manage this?”
He grinned. “I am most resourceful.”
I poured the glass full of water and sniffed inside the glass.
Rule chuckled in response.
It smelled like water. Fresh. Pure. No magic stung my nose. The liquid was still, nothing bubbling to the top. I pressed the edge to my lip and let the liquid slide into my mouth. It was soothing, quenching, and so damn good. In the short amount of time I’d been here, I’d forgotten how good plain water was. How it could make me feel like a sponge, healthy and full, instead of dried up and brittle.
“I’d be perfectly happy to watch you gulp every drop of the water, but aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about what’s beneath the lid?”
He sat back, arms crossed over his middle, staring at my lips. Instinctively, I pressed them together and cleared my throat. I lifted the lid away from the plate beneath and the smell hit me first. Fresh hare, twin cobs of corn, and long, green string beans. Hare had always been my favorite, but I couldn’t help thinking of the white rabbit—O’Hare, who lured me here with the promise of this very thing: a satisfying meal.
“This isn’t…?”
Rule sat up, laughing out loud. “Of course not. It was cooked in Brookhaven by a friend of mine, who caught it in a snare in her back yard. It was a wild hare, not fae like our late Mr. O’Hare.”
I let out a pent-up breath. “Thank goodness. I didn’t like him, but wouldn’t want to eat him.”
“Didn’t you, though? When you thought he was a rabbit?”
Rule snapped his fingers and a fork and knife appeared on either side of the plate, an orange napkin draping itself neatly over my lap. “Thank you,” I told him. “And yeah, I wanted to eat him. I would’ve, too, but I would’ve done so thinking he was a rabbit. I couldn’t eat a fae.”
“I’ve eaten several,” he asserted without a care, watching me as if he was waiting for a reaction.
Had he really eaten his own kind, or was he just messing with me? “Which are the tastiest?” I asked, cutting into the meat and placing a sliver in my mouth. It was buttery soft and exactly what I needed.
“The pixies are bitter. Never eat a pixie.”
I grinned, biting into a bean. “Noted.”
“The tastiest are the Narul. See the fae huddled around the throne? Their wings are disgusting, but you can tear those off. Their flesh is much like that of your swine. Their meat is fatty and delicious.”
The fae he spoke of were rotund. Their feet were cloven, but their skin was a revolting shade of deep red. They looked bloody. Even though their blood was golden, on the outside they looked like human blood and flesh, raw and… ugh, they were gross.
Just the sight of them would’ve made some lose their appetites, but I was too hungry to pass up a real meal. I focused on my plate, the glass of real water, and Rule.
Picking up my corn, I spun it around as I took bites out of the fleshy bits. “This is delicious. Thank you.”
He inclined his head.
“Isn’t this against your mother’s rules?”
He scooted his chair closer to me until I felt his knees brush the stiff skirt beneath the table. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I can.”
He leaned in close. “I make my own rules.”
I leaned in to him. “Then you were appropriately named.”
“I would feed you for an eternity if you’d only let me,” his voice rumbled.
“You won’t have the chance.”
The ugly truth wedged itself between us. I was going to die.
“She won’t kill you. She’ll make you an eternal servant,” he corrected, looking away and picking at the moss in front of him.
“Cursed and Unseen? That’s what she’s done in the past, but is that what she’ll do now? She says we’ll be executed if we don’t die in the game. Can the fae lie?”
He was bitterly silent.
“And anyway, being Cursed and Unseen isn’t really living, now is it? Not like this—like I am now.”
Rule took a deep breath. “It’s better than being completely dead.”
“Is it?” I challenged, finishing the corn and pushing the mostly-empty plate away. Only the remnants of gristle and empty cobs remained. I wiped my mouth, threw the napkin on the plate, and replaced the cover. Rule re-filled my glass from the carafe, his eyes fixed on me instead of the water.
“I would still be here with you. I would still be able to see you.”
“But I wouldn’t be me, then. And you wouldn’t like what you saw,” I argued.
He scoffed. “What makes you think I like what I see now?”
“You can’t stop looking at me.”
He simply grinned and watched patiently as I drank every drop of water in the glass he’d filled.