“Oh, for the sake of Mother Mab!” I gathered fistfuls of skirt in my hand, glaring at the Fool.Will you never stop tormenting the boy?“I will find him and return shortly.”
Lileas nodded but looked rather uncomfortable as Amadan took his seat beside her. I did not blame her. I didn’t much want the Dark Fool’s company myself.
I rushed to the garden to find that, indeed, there was a new fishpond, with a treacherous fideal hiding in the weeds beside it. Jamie and his goat boy were playing in the water, splashing about happily; it did not appear to be very deep. Yet the fideal reached out its long reef-like arms towards the mortal boy, and only a sharp cry from me made the arm recoil back into the brush.
Jamie and his friend looked up, confused.
“Enough playing in the water for today,” I said. “Jamie, please go indoors and wash up. I want you clean and in bed early tonight.”
The last thing I intended was for him to be awake to witness the Teind. I had to be a brutal queen now, someone I didn’t want Jamie to meet.
I returned to the courtyard to find Lileas and Amadan sitting equally uncomfortably, although Amadan had a rather smug look on his face. He rose quickly and chucked Lileas under her chin. She looked away in disgust.
“Big night tonight,” said Amadan. “I shall round up the others to make the rade.”
Our procession through Carterhaugh, he meant, with great pomp and ritual, to carry out the Teind. My first, though I had been told what to expect. My seneschal would ride beside me, the Teind on a white horse, escorted by riders on horses red and black. The trooping fae would follow, from sylph to goblin, trow to brollachan, and everything in between. I only had to preside over the procession and, of course, carry out the sacrifice myself.
Thank Mab it would only be Lord Elidor, not someone I cared about or even really knew. And speaking of Elidor—
“Weren’t we discussing the Teind just now?” I asked Lileas. “I thought there was something you wanted to tell me.”
Lileas looked down at her hands. “There are things you do not yet understand, Majesty. Things I am not at liberty to divulge. Well, not any longer, at least.”
What was that supposed to mean? “But Lileas, I value your counsel—”
She cut me off with a look. Her face seemed to shimmer in the air, briefly appearing like her kinsman’s, and then like no one’s at all. She stood. “Let me get the wee bairn ready for bed. He should not stay up this night to see.”
She echoed my earlier thoughts, yet I was not ready to drop the subject. “If Amadan has done or said something that disturbed you, I need to know.”
Her eyes were hollow and her expression blank. “I can report no bad behavior that the Dark Fool has done. Excuse me, Your Majesty.”
“I am Fia,” I said, for so I always wished to be for her, but she did not turn around.
Let me help you,I thought at her, but had no idea what she needed or how.
In Faery, the days and hours move according to my will, but when the Veil thins it is different. I felt the sun set in the mortal realm almost as if it literally hit the horizon. Every hour after that thudded on, like a footless trow climbing up a hill. Then, at last, ’twas nearly the witching hour, and I sent my guards to fetch Lord Elidor, to bathe and purify him and set him upon a horse so white. ’Twould be a good sacrifice if such there may ever be.
Lyel I summoned to my side. “Ready the horses, then on to Carterhaugh,” I told him. “The others will meet us at the well.”
He did not meet my eyes. “The Teind is Elidor for certain, then?”
Why did he and his kinswoman both seem reluctant to have this traitor die? “I must make an example of him. The Aos Sith are only as good as their loyalty to their queen, you understand that, do you not?”
He nodded.
I put a hand against the side of his face; his skin was rougher than his kinswoman’s, but the bones were the same.
“Una shall have her justice, finally,” I told him.
“I am glad of that.” But his eyes were still troubled, and I nearly wished to shake him, that whatever he concealed would come out.
As we rode out, we attracted an entourage of knights and guards, Aos Sith and sylphs, all garbed as for battle, glistening even without the light of the sun. Their cloaks unfurled, thick velvet on the breeze; jewels hung from their ears, and garlands were set atop their silvery helms. ’Twas a momentous and ceremonial occasion: my first faery rade.
The land hungered, my people hungered. Their eyes burned and their lips were wet; I felt their racing pulses as if they were my own.
Blood is easily come by. But Faery starves for want of souls.
One way or another, tonight we would feast.
