“I see you found him,” Sadler said.
Startled, I jumped and stepped away from Deorad. Sadler stood in the doorway, the shadows on his face making him look as mired in darkness.
“It took you long enough,” he said.
I moved farther from the bed. “What… what are you doing to him?”
“Me? I don’t touch him. This is what the woman wanted in exchange for bringing you here.”
“Who? Ronnie?”
“The human,” he said offhandedly.
I shook my head. “She thinks she’s getting the baby. I thought that was the deal you made.”
“Short-term and long-term prizes. She comes here and vents. Tries to give him the pain he once gave her. It won’t work. She can’t kill him.”
“Why not?”
“Magic keeps him alive, keeps so many things alive.”
I shivered, wrapping my arms around my waist. What kind of screwed-up world was I trapped in?
“You need to leave this room soon,” he said. “And when you do, you’re not to come back nor tell anyone else. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “She’s insane. Why would you let her near your son?”
“She did me a favour,” he said with a curl of his lips. “He was nothing. A nobody. Given a name when he had none. The outsider. He was less than that. Less than you. Born of a whore and no better than a—”
“She wasn’t a whore,” I whispered. “It wasn’t her fault.”
“So you say. But I hear that even you were able to think for yourself. To say no. No amount of magic could change that.”
“I was prepared,” I insisted. “I’d been warned about the dangers of—”
“And so was she,” he snapped. “But she loved the attention, loved being the favoured one in court. You draw attention to yourself, but not like her. She thrived on it, on the looks, on the appreciation. She blossomed in front of their gazes, put on a show until we all noticed her. And I watched her slip out of my fingers.”
“It’s not real. It’s never real. We’re playthings to you people. There’s never anything of substance.”
“What I felt had substance! I gave up everything for her, and we both lost it all because she was lacking.” He laughed. “Do you know what I wish? I hope that she is watching me from a cage in hell every single day, that she sees everything I do in her name. I hope she knows the suffering she’s caused, the pain I’ve inflicted on everything she’s created. And when your child is born, I’m going to do the same—make a new Deorad. Except this one will be my puppet. This one will speak in my voice. And I will live forever, burning the memories of what they did wrong into the fae.”
I inched back. “Live forever? Is that what you’re doing? Living… because of him? Keeping him alive to do what… to nourish you? You were an old man close to death when I saw you at the provings. Is this… is Deorad the reason you’re the way you are now?”
“Don’t pretend to understand this world.” He strode into the room.
I side-stepped around the table. “You won’t use my child in this way.”
“The child already belongs to me. Everything will belong to me, and I will outlive them all.” As he spoke, he stalked me across the room. “Don’t think you’ll die straight away. You don’t have my blood, so you can’t sustain me, but the doctor will find a use for you.”
My back hit the wall, and I started moving to my left, thinking maybe I could make a dash around him. But he cut me off and stood in front of me with a hand pressed against the wall on either side of me.
“I will enjoy you before you slip away, and you will know that, even after you’ve lost your mind, your body will still be here, still available for use.” He laughed and slipped his hands around my neck. He caressed my skin then started to squeeze. “And when the kings come to find out what happened to you, they’ll see you, bound and naked and wasted away. And while the hypocrites rage, I’ll stab them in their backs. I don’t care a whit about the rules. The laws and traditions didn’t save my marriage from the likes of Brendan. The laws of the gods themselves didn’t keep him in the Fade. No, my dear, all I care about is timing, and timing is something I’ve always been good at.”
He squeezed harder, but he didn’t even see me anymore. He muttered something, and my vision started to turn black.
“My lord,” Rumble said from the doorway, “it’s ready for you.”
Sadler blinked a couple of times, coming back into reality. He let go and shoved me away.
“It’s about time,” he snapped, turning on his heel to leave.
I sank against the wall, gasping for air.
“Come,” Rumble said. “This is not the place for you.”
“Why?” I rasped. “Because of Deorad?”
“Because it’s filled with death and bad memories. It’s time for you to sleep.”
When I didn’t move, he came over and reached down for my arm.
“Rumble,” I whispered.
He tilted his head to look down at me.
“That’s what I call you,” I explained. “Because I don’t know your name.”
He helped me to my feet. “When I was a boy, someone called me Comhaill, but they died, and it was a very long time ago. You may call me whatever you wish but know that I can’t save you from your fate. None of us can be saved.”
He led me to the door. I looked back at Deorad, horrified to think his own father was living because of his suffering.
“Did you ever meet Deorad?” I asked as Comhaill pushed me out of the room.
“Yes,” he said. “And it left its mark.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Anya covered her face with her hands. I waited for her to stop panicking, but in truth, I felt as though I might be about to succumb to a panic attack.
“This is bad,” she whispered. “This is so very bad. We can’t tell Drake this. Ever. He’ll go insane. He’ll come here, and he’ll bring whatever army he has. We’ll be the first to die, Cara.”
I knew Drake was desperate for the chance to kill his father. He would be his own downfall. “There’s magic or something keeping him alive, and none of the kings have an army large enough to guarantee a win at any battle. And the army that defends has the advantage. That’s why it hasn’t happened yet. The realm is too divided while they’re gathering fealty and troops. We’re safe.” For now.
“How can Sadler leech from his own son?” Anya asked.
“He doesn’t see him as a person, never mind a son. Do you know how he does it?”
She peeked through her fingers. “I’ve heard stories, old horror tales designed to inspire fear. I never once thought there was truth in them.”
“He was away from the courts for a long time. Who knows what he was doing, what he was looking for… what he found? And the Darkside isn’t like the rest of the realm. We both know that.”
“Sadler lives as long as Deorad survives,” Anya whispered. “And Deorad survives because of some kind of dark magic.”
I sat on the bed next to her and lowered my voice. “When you escape from here, you have to tell Brendan what you know. No, tell Arlen. Let him figure out what to do with the information. If Brendan ever needs Sadler dead, then Arlen will know how to go about it. Sadler’s like some kind of living zombie—Deorad, too—and if they want to beat Sadler, they need to know everything about him. That’s what you have to do, Anya. Everything you learn, you have to tell to Arlen. It’s important. Who knows what Sadler will do next? What if everyone here becomes his victim to make him invincible? This is bigger than anything else going on.”
“But… what about you?”
“We both know I’m not going to live long enough to tell anyone, so stop making me talk about it,” I snapped. “Do you know what it’s like to have a death sentence hanging over your head? To have time ticking by without being able to do anything about it? Every day my baby grows is one step closer to her living and me dying. There’s nothing I can do about that, but I can make
my child’s world safer before I go. And I need your help for that, yours and Bekind’s.” I gripped her hands. “Promise me, Anya. Say you’ll help.”
A cloudy tear ran down her cheek. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
We huddled together until we were called down to court. Anya remained very quiet, but I knew she had listened to me and finally understood. Bekind, on the other hand, had vanished again.
Glic had been allowed to return to court. He approached the throne. “My wife hasn’t returned.”
I raised my eyebrows, and he walked away immediately. He sat with the others, but he glared at me for a long time.
An uproar by the doors interrupted the proceedings. I strained to see what was happening through the crowd of so-called lesser fae that streamed into the great hall.
“What is this?” Sadler demanded. There was a tone of apprehension in his voice, and I wondered what he was afraid of?
The head gardener burst through the crowd, holding a sack. His face was red with excitement rather than exertion. “We found one!”
“What?” Sadler leaned forward in his throne. “What did you find?”
But the gardener was looking at me. He raised the sack. “We searched and searched the trails you took. And finally, finally, we found one.” He opened the sack and held it out to me.
Inside was a plant, roots and all, and at the very top of one stalk was a single white flower in bloom. I inhaled deeply. Brighid’s flower. A spark of hope flickered in my chest.
The court went into an uproar, everyone talking at once.
“Quiet!” Sadler roared. “What is this?”
“Brighid’s flower,” the gardener said, looking fearful and confused by all the fuss.
“And did I give orders to find this?”
The gardener hesitated. “I thought—”
“I did,” I said quickly. “He asked me if there was anything I would like to see in the garden, and I said this. I saw them, and I wanted one here.”
“You gave a command?” Sadler glared at me, his jaw clenched. “Take it then.”
I took the sack and set it on my lap. I brushed my fingertips over the petals. The scent rose in the air.
“Enough of this.” Sadler grabbed the flower’s stem.
The bloom wilted before my eyes, each petal decaying until it was black and withered. Sadler clasped the flower in his fist. As he squeezed, black liquid seeped between his fingers. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word. He pushed the sack off my lap and onto the floor, stood, and left the room without another word.
“Uh, we break,” I said, looking to Vix for confirmation.
She shrugged, appearing as unsettled as I felt.
“We can plant it still.” The gardener knelt to gather up the plant. “It was just the bloom that died. Perhaps if we plant, it will take root. You may see it bloom again.”
“Just don’t bring it to court,” I said.
“Would you like to pick a place to plant it?” he asked.
“Okay,” I replied, eager to get back outside.
Anya and I followed the gardener outside, aware that half the court were traipsing behind us. I had to watch myself.
Rows upon rows of vegetables had been planted since I’d last seen the gardens. I hoped fervently that they would grow, but even I could see the seedlings had weakened in the tainted soil.
I led my entourage to a spot I could see from my window. An old tree, withered and bent, reached to the ground as if trying to embrace something. Maybe the flowers would be a nice addition.
When I pointed it out, the gardener looked concerned. “It might not grow so close to the tree.”
“But the tree will shelter it.” I thought of the Guardian’s tree, how the flower’s roots had twisted around it as if in embracing the trunk.
“Overmuch,” he said, but he shook his head when he saw my hopeful expression. “But we can try.”
He let me help him plant Brighid’s flower into the Dark Court’s soil. The stick I was hiding in my pocket pulsed again. Maybe the flowers would do some good, take some of the toxicity away. Some of the crowd dispersed, but a few came closer as if desperate to see what would happen to the flower in that foul earth.
“The soil is so black here,” I commented.
“It’s the taint.” The gardener helped me to my feet. “We can’t overcome it. It spreads and leaves damage in its wake. There used to be gardens here. All destroyed. We keep trying, keep hoping that, someday, something will stick.”
“What would happen if the taint spread to the Great Forest?”
He wiped his face with his sleeve. “The realm would be lost. The trees would die, the forest tribes along with them. The animals and the fruits that grow there naturally, all would be lost. The courts would survive for a time, but eventually, the taint would kill everything.”
“Do you think it could really happen?”
“It already is,” he said. “We used to say it was our punishment, but for what?”
“How long will it take?”
“Hopefully, a very long time. But until then, everything will grow warped and diseased.”
“Like the children.”
His black eyes were filled with sadness. “Exactly like the children. But I hear they make good soldiers. All children must grow up one day.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone. My bitter thoughts are mine alone.”
He walked away before I could question him any further. Stepping through the crowd of waiting faeries, I tripped on a rock and almost fell, but a number of hands reached out to catch me. Surprised, I thanked them.
Anya slipped her hand in mine and led me away from the murmuring faeries. “What did the gardener mean?”
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” I said. “The longer the Dark Court is tainted, the better an army Sadler will have. Those children, all condemned to live where the taint is the strongest… that can’t be coincidental. And what about Deorad’s children? There were so many of them, but they were all young. Drake’s not a child, so there have to be others like him, grown-up children of Deorad’s. What happened to them?”
People assumed Deorad was an unbalanced, sadistic freak of nature, but what if he had been trying to create an army for the father who couldn’t love him?
Later, on the way to dinner, Anya frowned and asked, “Have you seen Ronnie today? I saw her earlier in the kitchen, crying her eyes out, but I haven’t seen her since.”
“She’s probably sulking because she’s not allowed to torture Deorad anymore.”
A strong hand gripped my shoulder. I turned with fright. Anya bared her sharp teeth in warning.
“Quiet, pixie.” Vix stared at me, her black eyes hard and cruel. “What did you just say?”
“You obviously heard me,” I said haughtily. “Now get your hand off me.”
She squeezed my shoulder, her fingers digging into my flesh. “I heard you mention Deorad. What were you talking about?”
I glanced at Anya, who shrugged.
“You know Deorad is alive,” I said accusingly.
A quiver of emotion flashed across Vix’s face. “I… what about him? What were you saying?”
“I said Ronnie is probably sulking. I bet she’s no longer allowed to torture him after losing the key and letting me see what was really going on around here. That was her deal to help you, right? Every night alone with Deorad when he can’t defend himself. And Sadler lets her because he knows she can’t possibly kill him. That’s it, isn’t it?”
If possible, her face paled even further. She swallowed hard, a thousand emotions running across her face. “I…” She spun on her heel and hurried away.
“What was that about?” Anya asked. “Did you see her face?”
“Yes.” And I felt as though the pit of my stomach might fall out. “I saw her.”
Sadler didn’t turn make an appearance at dinner. Neither did Vix or Ronnie.
That night when I began to doze off, I awoke with a
start, thinking I heard a scream. I waited, but nothing else happened, so I closed my eyes again. But every inch of me trembled until I fell asleep.
***
A roar of rage made me sit up in the dark.
Anya jumped, too. “What on earth was that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, but my heart was thumping hard.
A crashing sound came from downstairs, followed by another inhuman shout. We got out of bed, hearing footsteps, crying, yelling, and the sounds of things breaking.
The door burst open. Anya screamed with fright, but it was just Bart, his usual smirk missing.
“Quickly,” he whispered, holding out a key. “Lock yourselves in. Open the door for no one until morning.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The king.” He shook his head. “He thinks… no matter. Do as I told you. Hurry!” He walked away.
With shaking hands, I locked the door. I sat on the bed with one arm around Anya’s shoulders as somebody began screaming as if in great pain.
“Should I find out what’s happening?” I whispered, squeezing Anya every time another cry came.
“No!”
We sat there, waiting for it to be over, but the sounds only worsened. I flinched with every loud noise, trembled as the cries increased. Then something hit the door, but the frame was so sturdy that it didn’t even shake—unlike me.
Anya wept as somebody banged on the door, shouting incoherent words. I watched the door, praying it would hold. Eventually, whoever it was grew bored and moved on. It had to have been Sadler, but it had sounded more like a giant on a rampage.
Suddenly, a loud crack echoed in the hall, followed by an unearthly scream, then silence. Just silence. Somehow, that was worse. Anya and I held on to each other, waiting for something else to happen. Nothing did.
After an hour or two, Anya dozed off. I couldn’t sleep. My heart was too tight in my chest. I tried to rest, but my mind kept racing. There were so many secrets there, and I had only begun to scratch the surface.
Bekind mewled outside the door and scratched at the wood. I hurried over and let her in. Once she was inside, I locked the door again.