“When did I summon you?” I surely would have recalled such a dreadful lapse in judgment.
Every hair on my body pricked up. I felt as though I grew larger, more formidable, someone to be feared.
Amadan scratched his chin. “What was it you said, again? ‘The Dark Fool, does he make no appearance before the mortal moon grows full, I will bar from Faery evermore.’ Your exact words, my liege.” A wicked grin crossed his features. “But, little changeling, I have told you. I come and go at will.”
I closed my eyes and slowed my breath; opened them again and looked him straight in the eyes. “My name is Fia, not ‘little changeling.’ For you, it is ‘Your Majesty.’ And I will not be gainsaid.”
Amadan straightened, lifting his brows in mock innocence as he leapt off the bed. “I do beg your pardon, Your Majesty,” he said, in a tone suggesting he did nothing of the sort. He made a big show of smoothing the covers, then stood before me, hands clasped, eyes wide, meek as a small child.
As if I buy that for a moment.
Holding my fists closed and keeping all my anger inside me took more control than I would have sworn I possessed. “Where have you been?”
He pouted just enough to draw my attention to his sensuous lips.
I would like to slice them off with a knife.
“Your Majesty is sending me conflicting messages,” he said. “You are angry I am here, but first you were upset I was not. How do you truly feel?”
Like I would burn you to cinders and let the redcaps piss on your ashes.
“You missed my coronation,” I said coolly. “I chose my council today, and you were not there.”
“Oh, I would have made an abysmal advisor, Your Majesty. Nor have you seemed eager to take my counsel in the past.”
“That is not the point. I needed you to lead the revels at my coronation. You should have been present. The council would have had your head.”
“I needed time to think.” Amadan scratched the side of his cheek. I imagined there the palest shadow of a rountree branch, marking his skin. “Queen Una died eighteen years ago. We were a people without a leader. A people suffering from the absence of one. Twice seven years and more past, and the Teind was not paid. You do not know what danger we were in.” He swallowed roughly. “Are in?”
All at once, the flower canopy over my bed collapsed in a shower of petals, which dried to dust and blew away. The bedposts turned skeletal, pitted as bone; the green carpet beneath us turned brown, then dried up completely; the floor became rock-hard. Through the windows the skies turned a hideous shade, red seen through their veil of green, until that died as well, becoming brown and rust. I smelled bone dust and metal, almost choking on the dryness of the air. My nose bled.
This is a trick. Some illusion. The Dark Fool is master of those.
I was Queen of Faery. Surely, I could see through his illusions.
Amadan glided forward, his face a skull upon which clung only a few bare strands of ebon hair. He placed fingers of cold bone on my shoulders. “Then there you were, seemingly the answer to all our problems. The child we never knew existed. I am not the only one who questioned our seeming good fortune, I am certain.”
I thought of Lord Elidor and his partisans, who resented Una for having chosen a mortal lover over them.
I pulled away in revulsion, even as the nightmare vision vanished, and the Fool turned comely again. I stared out the window. The courtyard erupted with flowers. A little faun and a young boy around three played there together—my eyes snagged for a moment on the one’s red-gold curls.Jamie.
“And now?” I demanded. “Are you convinced I have the power to restore the land?” I rested my hand on the bedpost. From out of my vibrating fingers grew lush vines, curling their way upwards and sprouting leaves and flowers along the way. The branches grew heavy with fruit, and I plucked an apple, glistening gold. I bit into it, and the taste was sweeter than any fruit I had ever known.
I am the land; the land is me.
Amadan’s face softened, an almost mortal concern in his eyes. “If only it were so simple.” His voice was gentle, lacking the hint of mockery that brought out the fire in my blood. “The land has suffered greater neglect than you know. Than the others see. It hungers for more than its ruler restored. Your healing powers will not be enough.”
The fruit grew tasteless in my mouth.
“You say this to frighten me, for some evil scheme all your own.”
He shook his head slowly. “I am not scheming. Not in this.”
My eyes widened; my fingers went instinctively to stroke the birthmark that had once marked my throat.
Amadan moved close to me again, and he was his irresistible self once more—not to mention irritatingly taller than my new form. “What you need right now,” he whispered, “is a friend.”
My skin prickled. The scent of him, his overwhelming nearness surrounded me, sending my senses into a frenzy.
