A headless man came forward and bowed before me, a whip like a human’s spine coiled at his side. The brollachan oozed towards me, blending so well with their surroundings I could only see their mouths and eyes. Jenny Greenteeth greeted me, beaming unbearably wide—surely those teeth were not only green but too many—and pink drool dripped from her jowls.
“’Tis grand to see you again,” I said, and almost meant it. At least she was a familiar face.
“So kiiinnnd of you to visssit, my queen,” she hissed, throwing out an arm draped in duckweed. “Sssshall we walk along the rrrrrrivvverrrr? It iss fressshher than the marrrrsssssh.”
My gaze followed where she pointed, a thin ribbon of water glinting silver in the distance. IthoughtI had a rapport with Jenny, but those green teeth were so sharp, and her uneven eyes appeared too menacing for my comfort. “Perhaps some other time.”
“Verrrrry well.” She waded out into the blood-marsh, sinking lower and lower until all that remained visible was a cluster of duckweed floating on the surface.
I shuddered, wondering what ungodly fate I had just spared myself.Jenny behaves only according to her nature—as do they all. Ye are not a coddled noblewoman. In your lifetime, you have seen mangled limbs, eyes lost to a misaimed arrow, pus and piss and rotting limbs. Men who were shot down by reavers and those who lost their lives in war. This is not so bad as that.
I must become accustomed to these dark folk. I had slain the only man I loved. However beautiful my appearance, I was just as monstrous as they.
A tiny redcap came forward, dove-grey skin not nearly mottled as his murderous elder peers’, lisping through tiny fangs, and holding out a bonnet merely pink.
Just a wee bairn like Jamie.I dropped to my knees, heedless of how the reeds and clawlike stumps of rotted trees grabbed at my gown, so I could meet the redcap’s eyes. “What a brave little murderer you must be!”
He gave back what I believe was a grin, and not a simple baring of teeth. ’Twas difficult to tell.
Soft I have always been to the littlest ones. This it was that first made me able to see these creatures not as monsters, but as kin. Not to let any among those assembled think me for a moment unfit to rule.
If I had behaved poorly—shocked, repulsed, or merely dismayed—Amadan could claim I had no liking for the Unseelie, that I had showed greater indulgence towards the mortal changelings, who were not even my own kind. If any among the Unseelie harbored doubts about my half-blood nature, Amadan’s actions would magnify these tenfold. On the other hand, if I behaved as a kindly ruler towards them, the Fool could play the innocent and make the claim he had, that he was simply “filling in the gaps in my education,” showing me the parts of Faery I might not otherwise see.
He played both sides, and I no longer thought that by killing Elidor I had refused the dissent in my ranks.
I have passed your test, Fool. But do not ever think I will forgive you for using us this way.
Amadan smiled, fanning out his sleeves and clasping his hands together, like a gracious host. “Well, now we have made our introductions, Your Majesty, shall I take you back to the palace, and the pretty Aos Sith?” He whistled for his horse, which came surging out of the bloody river.
“The Aos Sith are like jeweled snakes, sipping my nectar and offering venom in return. I think I am happier here.” I smiled sweetly. It was not a lie. The Unseelie were my maggots, as Amadan had said, and my worms. There was a place for them in my realm.
I would embrace them all.
I opened my arms wide, staring into the twilight sky while I gave myself up to the deep. My palms opened wide, and my nails grew thick and black as talons. From my collarbones, above the wide neckline of my gown, grew dark vines, twining around my arms and interweaving with my fingers. The branched crown grew spikes and thorns, dripped black ooze that ran down into my blood-red hair.
I released my inner darkness, and worried not whether I could get the light back again.
A hush took over the blood-marsh.
I turned to the Fool, with a smile far too calm for the imposing figure I now cut. “The queen is the land, and the land the queen,” I said, my voice as beautiful and destructive as flame. “My land and my people—nothing matters more to me. Have I not, even now, paid the Teind?”
I had paid it with my own heart.
Let the dark embrace me, let me embrace it. Let it whirl about inside me and numb all emotion, all heartache, all love. I did not believe I could survive, as queen or as woman, else.
My pain receded into a pit inside me where it would ever hide but never vanish, no matter how I might wish otherwise. I lowered my arms and the vines slid away, slithering into the underbrush. My crown retreated, and I shook the black from my hair. My heart thumped in my breast, and my limbs shuddered, not meant to encompass such enormity all at once.
What have I become?
Yet I must not display even a hint of alarm, lest I lose what ground I had gained. “I am glad for the opportunity to meet so many of my subjects, and to see more of my new home.” I spoke with exaggerated calm. “But I have grown weary and wish to return to the palace.”
I heard sighs of disappointment, muffled moans.
I put on the most benevolent smile I could muster. “I hope you will all feel free to come to me and know you will be heard.” My manner remained that of a caring queen, but in the distance thunder crashed. The hair prickled at the back of my neck.
The Unseelie roared their approval, clapped, and hissed.
My people. They are Faery. Faery is me.
