The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air Book 2)

Orlagh waits for us in a choppy ocean, accompanied by her daughter and a pod of knights mounted on seals and sharks and all manner of sharp-toothed sea creatures. She herself sits on an orca and is dressed as though ready for battle. Her skin is covered in shiny silvery scales that seem both to be metallic and to have grown from her skin. A helmet of bone and teeth hides her hair.

Nicasia is beside her, on a shark. She has no tail today, her long legs covered in armor of shell.

All along the edge of the beach are clumps of kelp, washed up as though from a storm. I think I see other things out in the water. The back of a large creature swimming just below the waves. The hair of drowned mortals, blowing like seagrass. The Undersea’s forces are larger than they seem at first glance.

“Where is my ambassador?” Orlagh demands. “Where is your brother?”

Cardan is seated on his gray steed, in black clothes and a cloak of scarlet. Beside him are two dozen mounted knights and both Mikkel and Nihuar. On the ride over, they tried to determine what Cardan had planned, but he has kept his own counsel from them and, more troublingly, from me. Since hearing of the death of Balekin, he’s said little and avoided looking in my direction. My stomach churns with anxiety.

He looks at Orlagh with a coldness that I know from experience comes from either fury or fear. In this case, possibly both. “As you well know, he’s dead.”

“It was your responsibility to keep him safe,” she says.

“Was it?” Cardan asks with exaggerated astonishment, touching his hand to his breast. “I thought my obligation was not to move against him, not to keep him from the consequences of his own risk-taking. He had a little duel, from what I hear. Dueling, as I am sure you know, is dangerous. But I neither murdered him nor did I encourage it. In fact, I quite discouraged it.”

I attempt to not let anything I am feeling show on my face.

Orlagh leans forward as though she senses blood in the water. “You ought not to allow such disobedience.”

Cardan shrugs nonchalantly. “Perhaps.”

Mikkel shifts on his horse. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the way Cardan is speaking, carelessly, as though they are merely having a friendly conversation and Orlagh hasn’t come to chisel away his power, to weaken his rule. And if she knew Madoc was gone, she might attack outright.

Looking at her, looking at Nicasia’s sneer and the selkies and merfolk’s strange, wet eyes, I feel powerless. I have given up command of Cardan, and for it, I have his vow of marriage. But without anyone’s knowing, it seems less and less as though it ever happened.

“I am here to demand justice. Balekin was my ambassador, and if you don’t consider him to be under your protection, I do consider him to be under mine. You must give his murderer to the sea, where she will find no forgiveness. Give us your seneschal, Jude Duarte.”

For a moment, I feel as though I can’t breathe. It’s as though I am drowning again.

Cardan’s eyebrows go up. His voice stays light. “But she’s only just returned from the sea.”

“So you don’t dispute her crime?” asks Orlagh.

“Why should I?” asks Cardan. “If she’s the one with whom he dueled, I am certain she would win; my brother supposed himself expert with the sword—a great exaggeration of abilities. But she’s mine to punish or not, as I see fit.”

I hate hearing myself spoken of as though I am not right there when I have his pledge of troth. But his queen killing an ambassador does seem like a worse political problem.

Orlagh’s gaze doesn’t go to me. I doubt very much she cares about anything but that Cardan gave up a lot for my return and by threatening me, she believes she can get more. “King of the land, I am not here to fight your sharp tongue. My blood is cold and I prefer blades. Once, I considered you as a partner for my daughter, the most precious thing in the sea. She would have brokered a true peace between us.”

Cardan looks at Nicasia, and although Orlagh leaves him an opening, for a long moment, he does not speak. And when he does, he only says, “Like you, I am not skilled at forgiveness.”

Something in Queen Orlagh’s manner changes. “If it’s war you want, you would be unwise to declare it on an island.” Around her, waves grow more violent, their white caps of froth larger. Whirlpools coalesce just off the edge of the land, small ones, deepening, only to spin themselves out as new ones form.

“War?” He peers at her as though she’s said something particularly puzzling and it vexes him. “Do you mean for me to really believe you want to fight? Are you challenging me to a duel?”

He’s obviously baiting her, but I cannot imagine to what benefit.

“And if I was?” she asks. “What then, boy?”

The smile that curves his lip is voluptuous. “Beneath every bit of your sea is land. Seething, volcanic land. Go against me, and I will show you what this boy will do, my lady.”

He stretches out his hand, and something seems to rise to the top of the water around us, like a pale scrum. Sand. Floating sand.

Then, all around the Court of the Undersea, water begins to churn.

I stare at him, hoping to catch his eye, but he is concentrating. Whatever magic he is doing, this is what Baphen meant when he said the High King was tied to the land, was the beating heart and the star upon whom Elfhame’s future was written. This is power. And to see Cardan wield it is to understand just how inhuman he is, how transformed, how far outside my control he’s moved.

“Stop!” Orlagh shouts as the churning turns to boiling. A stretch of ocean bubbles and seethes as the Folk of the Undersea scream and scatter, swimming out of range. Several seals come up on the black rocks near the land, calling to one another in their language.

Nicasia’s shark is spun sideways, and she plunges into the water.

Steam billows up from the waves, blowing hot. A huge white cloud rolls across my vision. When it clears, I can see that new earth is coalescing from the depths, hot stone cooling as we watch.

With Nicasia kneeling on the growing isle, her expression half amazement and half terror. “Cardan?” she calls.

One corner of his mouth is turned up in a little smile, but his gaze is unfocused. He believed that he needed to convince Orlagh that he wasn’t feckless.

Now I see he’s come up with a plan to do that. Just as he came up with a plan to throw off the yoke of my control.

During my month in the Undersea, he changed. He began scheming schemes. And he has become disturbingly effective at them.

I am thinking of that as I watch grass grow between Nicasia’s toes and wildflowers spring up all along the gently rising hills, as I notice the trees and brambles sprout, and as the trunk of a tree begins to form around Nicasia’s body.

“Cardan!” she screams as bark wraps around her, closing over her waist.

“What have you done?” Orlagh cries as the bark moves higher, as branches unfold, budding with leaves and fragrant blossoms. Petals blow out onto the waves.

“Will you flood the land now?” Cardan asks Orlagh with perfect calm, as though he didn’t just cause a fourth island to rise from the sea. “Send salt water to corrupt the roots of our trees and make our streams and lakes brackish? Will you drown our berries and send your merfolk to slit our throats and steal our roses? Will you do it if it means your daughter will suffer the same? Come, I dare you.”

“Release Nicasia,” says Orlagh, defeat heavy in her voice.

“I am the High King of Elfhame,” Cardan reminds her. “And I mislike being given orders. You attacked the land. You stole my seneschal and freed my brother, who was imprisoned for the murder of our father, Eldred, with whom you had an alliance. Once, we respected each other’s territory.

“I have allowed you too much disrespect, and you have overplayed your hand.

“Now, Queen of the Undersea, we will have a truce as you had with Eldred, as you had with Mab. We will have a truce or we will have a war, and if we fight, I will be unsparing. Nothing and no one you love will be safe.”

Orlagh pauses, and I suck in my breath, not at all sure what will come next. “Very well, High King. Let us have an alliance. Give me my daughter, and we will go.”

I exhale. He was wise to push her, even though it was terrifying. After all, once she found out about Madoc, she might press her advantage. Better to bring this moment to its crisis.

And it worked. I look down to hide my smile.

“Let Nicasia stay here and be your ambassador in Balekin’s stead,” Cardan says. “She has grown up on these islands, and many who love her are here.”

That wipes the smile off my face. On the new island, the bark is pulling away from Nicasia’s skin. I wonder what he’s playing at, bringing her back to Elfhame. With her will inevitably come trouble.

And yet, maybe it’s the sort of trouble he wants.

“If she wishes to stay, she may. Are you satisfied?” Orlagh asks.

Cardan inclines his head. “I am. I will not be led by the sea, no matter how great its queen. As the High King, I must lead. But I must also be just.”

Here he pauses. And then he turns to me. “And today I will dispense justice. Jude Duarte, do you deny you murdered Prince Balekin, Ambassador of the Undersea and brother to the High King?”

I am not sure what he wants me to say. Would it help to deny it? If so, surely he would not put it to me in such a way—a way that makes it clear he believes I did kill Balekin. Cardan has had a plan all along. All I can do is trust that he has a plan now.

“I do not deny that we had a duel and that I won it,” I say, my voice coming out more uncertain than I’d like.

All the eyes of the Folk are on me, and for a moment, as I look out at their pitiless faces, I feel Madoc’s absence keenly. Orlagh’s smile is full of sharp teeth.

“Hear my judgment,” Cardan says, authority ringing in his voice. “I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life.”

I gasp. “But you can’t do that!”

He looks at me for a long moment, but his gaze is mild, as though he’s expecting me to be fine with exile. As though I am nothing more than one of his petitioners. As though I am nothing at all. “Of course I can,” he replies.

“But I’m the Queen of Faerie,” I shout, and for a moment, there is silence. Then everyone around me begins to laugh.

I can feel my cheeks heat. Tears of frustration and fury prick my eyes as, a beat too late, Cardan laughs with them.

At that moment, knights clap their hands on my wrists. Sir Rannoch pulls me down from the horse. For a mad moment I consider fighting him as though two dozen knights aren’t around us.

“Deny it, then,” I yell. “Deny me!”

He cannot, of course, so he does not. Our eyes meet, and the odd smile on his face is clearly meant for me. I remember what it was to hate him with the whole of my heart, but I’ve remembered too late.

“Come with me, my lady,” Sir Rannoch says, and there is nothing I can do but go.

Still, I cannot resist looking back. When I do, Cardan is taking the first step onto the new island. He looks every bit the ruler his father was, every bit the monster his brother wanted to become. Crow-black hair blown back from his face, scarlet cape swirling around him, eyes reflecting the flat gray emptiness of the sky.

“If Insweal is the Isle of Woe, Insmire, the Isle of Might, and Insmoor, the Isle of Stone,” he says, his voice carrying across the newly formed land, “then let this be Insear, Isle of Ash.”