A queen does not beseech.
If not beseech it, then—What is it I must do?
The stag’s head tilted, and with it the iridescent antlers. One constellation of an eye regarded me.I need only your promise.
My heart felt like it beat in my throat.Tell me.
The promise Queen Carys made. The promise that led her to the precipice.
The precipice of what?
Of peace.The stag’s hoof rose and drove into the dirt.Of breaking the wheel.
Queen Carys. For a moment, I was back in the square. I straddled the king, the dagger in my hand…
Yes, the spiritstag’s voice said into my head.You felt her. You feel her even now.
I did. I felt her in my veins, in the four chambers of my heart, in the folds of my brain. I had felt her since the trial, and it was because of her.
It was because of her I’d stood across from Rhiannon in the meadow.
It was because of her I’d pulled the arrow from my shoulder.
It was because of her I’d called the rain.
She made a promise to you.I swallowed.What was it?
A new scene washed over my mind’s eye. I hovered high above the earth, a great moonlit vista sweeping below me. Lush forest carrying forth into dark swamp, and issuing into mountains dotted with high waterfalls, and those into wide, green plains.
The four courts. These were their lands.
The lands of Feyreign.
The spiritstag was showing me all of it.
In the center of the four courts’ lands, a great white spire rose. From this height, it looked like the center of a wheel.
Why are you showing me this?
The four courts, the spiritstag said.They are cruel, corrupted, punishing. They are, all of them, as power-thirsty as Rhiannon.They must be set right.
Set the courts right. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I hadn’t set one toe in the lands of another court, hadn’t met their rulers. What promise could I possibly make?
The spiritstag didn’t answer. Perhaps it didn’t know, or perhaps…
Perhaps the answer was up to me.
Below me, the lands glinted and gleamed in the moonlight. And as I stared over all of them, I felt like two people.
Like Eurydice Waters. Small, uncertain, desperate. Desperate always to be, and to be more, and to have more.
And like Carys. Decisive, powerful, desperate. Desperate to be—to be more—to have more.
We were aligned. Perhaps we had always been aligned.
The difference now was that I had the power to choose.
My eyes closed, and all of it disappeared. I was back in the pond. My eyes opened on the spiritstag, and I gave it my answer.
