I had yet to determine for how long.
Elidor faced us, crouching forward, clinging to the bars for support. He spat in my direction; it could have easily passed through the bars but instead rebounded back into his face.
“The cell is enchanted,” said Lyel. “Anything he tries to do will either fail or reflect back upon him.”
That was useful to know.
Elidor squinted at me and swore under his breath. “You play at justice, I see.”
I considered the scales in my hand. “I tired of playing at mercy. I played it before and, well, this was the result.”
Lyel stood beside me, green eyes glinting like peridot, harder than I had ever seen. “Lord Elidor. You stand guilty of regicide, attempted regicide, and attempting to poison the queen’s ward.”
“Ward, is it now?” Elidor crossed his arms and paced the cell. “Well, it seems you follow your mother’s precedent, showing favoritism to mortals. He is a worm I should have stepped on to squash—but I did nothing to deliberately harm the whelp.”
My eyes narrowed. He could not have said it were it not true, but there is a difference between intending to cause harm and doing it. “You have nearly made me forsworn. I said I would protect the lad, keep him safe from harm. Yet he had a rash for three weeks, and he could have eaten the foxglove. I am not certain even I could have saved him then.”
Elidor did not so much as blink.
“Do you deny your part in trying to kill the queen?” Lyel demanded.
Elidor rolled his eyes. “I do not call her queen.” He spat on the ground. This time it fizzled but did not bounce back. “She is a foul abomination of a half-blood slut.”
Lyel leaned forward and drew his sword. “You will not speak of her that way.” He nearly seemed to glow with his righteous outrage, and a warmth settled around my heart.
“Or what?” Defiance still shone in Elidor’s eyes. “Am I not to die soon in any case? Who’s to keep me from saying what I want—ahh!”
For I raised a finger with its long, sculpted nail and pointed at Elidor’s throat. Invisible vines shot out and twined themselves around him. I flexed one finger, and they grew thorns. Made a fist and squeezed until his face went red and his eyes bulged.
“Never assume I have already done my worst,” I told him, as he clawed at his throat and gagged. “You will always be mistaken. I could give your skin over to the nucklavee to wear as a coat. Let the Leannan Sith drain you of your blood and senses.”
I let my vines lift Elidor off his feet, then drop him rather heavily to the ground. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, peering through sparse, greasy strands of hair, his beautiful eyes now red with dust. I rather liked having him on all fours.
“Do that and you show my family how little you respect their long years of service,” Elidor croaked out. “Do you know how long we had to content ourselves with being minor nobility, only for your whore of a mother to invite a mortal into her bed? He wasn’t even of royal blood, just some upstart musician. And you spurned us just as badly!”
Spurned them?How dramatic.“I refused you one dance, you petty little hobgoblin.”
Elidor sat, fire blazing in his eyes. “Don’t you ever think I am alone in this. There are others, too, who would prefer an unsullied throne.”
“Unsullied.” It seemed to me Faery must cease its dalliances on the other side of Veil, if that was to be the case.
Elidor snarled, and hatred rose off him like steam from a boiling pot. “Kill me if you must, but there are stronger powers at work, and they are closer to you than you know.”
The menace in his words was palpable, and the chill of that deep, forgotten place wrapped around me like a shroud.
“Reveal them!” Lyel commanded.
“I would sooner bite off my own tongue.”
My seneschal lunged forward, as if he might leap through the very bars into the prison beyond. I held him back with a single hand.
“Whether he bluffs or will come to reveal his fellow traitors in time,” I said calmly, “it is clear I need to make a public example of Lord Elidor. He shall render us one last service.”
I raised my chin, let my power flow through and around me, crashing like waves against the shore, while my seneschal looked upon me in wonderment. For I kept the nature of this service to myself.
With Elidor’s blood I would pay the Teind.
Forty-Three
