| |
PAST: The Unseelie Winter Court
My father, King of the Unseelie Court, hollers at his subjects, "Clear out of the ring! All of you out! Re-cage the white tigers. Re-cage them, now!"
The small circular forum is his favorite venue of entertainment. Everyone scrambles to obey his wishes. Everyone but me. I stand, barely half his height, barely thirteen years of age, waiting warily to see what fresh torment he has in store.
I know it will be brutal. And I know there will be more bloodshed, more maiming. Likely even more death. His nightmarish spectacles were destined to unfold that way.
"Zanthiel!" he bellows my name, and I come forward, feigning a casual stance. I am anything but, inside. I do not wish to have any part in whatever demonic display this man is plotting.
He lifts his hand and motions for a servant to come forward. He carries an embroidered pillow, garnished with the King's emblem and several small ice daggers. Blades like razors, sharp enough to slice a sliver of air as easily as an ear.
I scratch my brow with my knuckle, fearing what he has in mind.
The far door opens and a girl is dragged in. She is small. So small. Barely beyond the door of childhood. Fourteen perhaps. She thinks she is dreaming, for to find oneself in Faery is often like that. The sense of it being unreal—a nightmarish hallucination—but not real.
Humans do not know the truth and if they did, they wouldn't be so eager to find our world. If they live beyond the supposed dream, they awake with such trauma and shock they cannot reconcile their experiences, any more than they can make the rest of the humans believe. Only those who know...know.
This girl, with her dark hair and wide eyes, does not know. She shivers uncontrollably as they lead her to a round target painted on the far wall. The knife-throwing target, used when the Fey—in their most drunken state—decided it was the best method for settling their disputes.
Today my father's intentions are nauseatingly clear. He wobbles toward the pillow, lifting one dagger after another, measuring the weight in his hand as though carefully selecting hunting gear, instead of weapons to lance at this poor, frightened girl.
Soft flakes of snow begin to fall. My stomach knots. This cannot happen. He has drunk far too many spirits through the course of the afternoon already. I know better than any how poor his coordination will be. If he manages to hit her at all, she is as good as dead.
"How many points if I miss her?" the King hollers, then laughs uproariously.
I enjoy good sport as much as the next Fey, but his cruelty sickens me. I take the pillow from the guard’s hand, then face my father and his bloodthirsty audience.
"It is no sport to watch your drunkard king throw blades at a defenseless human child," I say, gesturing to where she cowers against the wall of snow. Her feet are bound and her mouth tied with silk to muffle her voice. Tears stream freely down her cheeks. I turn my gaze away.
"I suggest you let me throw," I say. At least I can avoid hitting the girl if I choose. Which I will. Then once they'd tired of their sport, I'd find a way for her to be returned to her world.
Everyone cheers and claps. All but my father, whose cold stare burns into mine.
He lifts his hand, throwing his entire body off balance. His heavy frame staggers to the right, but he defies gravity and manages to keep from toppling over.
"No." He says it quietly. With enough cold for another layer of frost to creep across the terrain of the coliseum ground and up the girl's body. "I have a better plan."
He takes the knives from me, casting the pillow aside.
"You should take her place. And I will throw these spectacular daggers at you." He points the tip of the blade in my direction.
The collective gasp echoes through the stunned crowd. To waste a human girl for pure sport was one thing, but to risk the life of a future king—sole heir to the Winter Court—he is as good as planning to murder his own son. Everyone here knows my father is not capable of throwing a blade and hitting a target in full sobriety. If he misses me at all, it will be by dumb luck. And if he hits me, he will likely hit me in the eye, or the throat, or somewhere equally as fatal. And he will get his wish.
"Let us make it more interesting." He pulls out a small vile, filled with the poison used to coat arrows in battle. As he pours the contents over the blade, I watch in horror as the pink liquid sloshes over the metal, spilling to the ground in a rose-hued pool.
I stiffen, then stride across the field, offer the guard a handsome sum if he returns the girl to her home, and then step into her place.
"You ready, boy?" My father slurs his words, then begins to count aloud.
"One."
"Two."
"Three."