“Ever since then, I have controlled every part of the Teind, choosing the victim like I choose the lovers who fill my bed. They are often one and the same. A consort is a most delicious sacrifice.”
“There is no king, and no one the queen loves,” says Tam Lin.
That had better not be a hint of pity in those handsome grey eyes.
Janet is still quiet, thoughtful. Still looking for the humanity in me, I suppose. Good luck.
“With due respect, Your Majesty,” she finally says. “You did not kill your mortal self. The Dark Fool was right; she was only a semblance, a shell you wore for a brief moment is all.”
She is still so bold. I do not want to admire it, but perhaps I do. Janet’s face is scratched, from Tam Lin’s bear claws; her hands burnt from the iron brand. Unlike her partner, she wears clothes, but they are not warm, and she goes great with child.
Yet she is not cowed. How is this girl not cowed?
“You ended her suffering. Put her out of her misery.” Janet steps forward, and while I might deny it with Tam Lin, it is impossible not to recognize the pity in her face. “It is all so sad.”
Sad? She thinks the Queen of Faery is sad? I want to laugh at the very thought.
She takes my hand, and I feel all the whorls of her fingertips, the warm blood beneath her skin. Janet is young and pretty, but one tooth sticks out slightly in front of the others, her pores are large on her nose and chin. The ends of her yellow hair are paler than the rest of it.
Mortal beauty, so perfect in its imperfection, so quick to fade.
Why does her touching me make me think of holding Glenna’s child, only half-mortal but red and wet with the stain of iron in her blood? I think of Thomas Shepherd sleeping beside me of a morning, rough stubble coating his cheeks, sour breath stirring my hair.
Why is their very mortality so irresistible? I am so nearly undone.
Nearly.
I yank my hand out of Janet’s, letting my nails grow to thorns. I am the queen gone cold; I need no mortal sympathy. I despise it with every breath of my being.
It is Faery that I hold most dear. I was wrong to think, once I killed Thomas, I was incapable of love. For I love Faery still.
There is naught I would not do to preserve Her life. And that includes revealing Her to these mortals here. Faery, not as She is, but as She might be. Will be, if the Teind is not paid.
I do not know if another human has ever seen it before. I wonder if Janet and Tam Lin will appreciate that fact.
Humans always find their way into our lands. The curious ones fed by stories, such as Mairi Grieve and Janet’s nursemaid Isabel once told. Such tales cannot hope to capture the magnificence of Faery, but even a speck of it wakes a hunger of the soul, that no ordinary mortal lands can sate.
“Oak and ivy,” I chant, holding my long fingers out before me. “Straw and stone. Show me lovely Faery when no sacrifice is done.” I close my eyes and part the Veil.
Again, Faery is revealed in all Her beauty. Grass soft as velvet, dryads twittering in the trees. Lights dance above the canopy of the forest, tiny gems in the sky of velvety blue, close enough to outshine the stars. In the distance stands my palace, majestic yet ethereal with its undulating curves and graceful spears. In the courtyard stands a figure glistening in silvery armor, his yellow hair a radiant banner in the breeze.Seneschal, I think, with a smile.
Almost I regret what I am about to do next.
Janet stares in wonder, as if I have not already shown her this very sight. I can use that wonder, twist it into something not unlike regret.
Ipull. I do not know how to describe it any better than that. I reach deep into the heart of Faery, which is after all my own. I pull and leech and suck, like bone from a marrow. Like the Leannan Sith does her lover victim, like a cruel lord taxing his bondsmen, like squeezing water from a stone. I make my hands into fists, and I steal from Faery. Every drop of mortal blood within the land fills me, staining my lips, my fingernails, my hair. Every soul lost to pay the Teind joins to my spirit, cries with a singular voice inside me. I become engorged, bloated, enormous, like one of the ticks who feasted on Thomas’s flock.
All that feeds Faery, saves Her, fills Her, I have temporarily channeled into myself.
Tam Lin cries out in alarm. No, I am not lovely now.
I ameverything fae.
Janet does not look at me. She stares at the sky of Faery, dust-filled, dry, and red. At the ground filled with cracks and craters, but no life. Far off, my seneschal still stands, but his armor falls off in pieces. No, wait. Hisbonesare falling apart, that is why the armor cannot hold. His yellow hair thins over a skull-like visage, not unlike the Horned One.
And speaking of the Hunt, the sound of hoofbeats fills the air. Hoofbeats and the baying of unearthly hounds. But only for a moment before the sound dies off, drowned out by carrion birds. Then they drop from the sky, brittle skeletons. For though they feast on the dead, there is no longer anything to eat.
The opposite of life is not death, it is this.
