LITMIR.BIZ

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charge.

      She could not survive on her own.

      It might have been the way she’d been raised; in the Fae tradition, the Royal Heir was never truly expected to inherit the throne. Mabb had gained hers only when her mother had stepped down. That Queene was still out in the world somewhere, but she’d merely tired of ruling her subjects. She’d prepared Mabb for the job, though. No one had prepared Garret. What kind of a King could he have been? Ayla, a complete outsider, had learned what she needed to know about life at Court in such a short time, but she had come armed with the cool, logical head of an assassin. That she had not prepared her daughter to come into her title was not a surprise; she’d left behind what should have been the more dangerous life.

      If Queene Ayla would have been able to see ahead, to know that her rule would be so short, she might have instructed her Heir in the ways of the Court. Not the manners, for as surly as Cerridwen could be, and the poor choices she could make, she knew the graces of the Court and could also make herself a pleasing addition to a gathering. But she did not understand the games, the intrigues, that one needed to be aware of to maneuver at Court. Not knowing, one could not rule, not successfully. And success was measured by how long one could reign before someone stuck a knife in one’s back.

      The truth was, as he had marched through the crowd on deck, he had not seen Cerridwen standing there, but Mabb lying on her bier, limbs twisted to withered branches by death. When Cerridwen’s face had replaced hers, he had known what he was called to do, not simply because of a geis made to a dead Queene.

      “I cannot abandon you,” he repeated, forcing the image of Mabb’s cold face from his mind, “because if I did, you would not survive long.”

      He was not certain how she would accept this explanation. He expected anger, and a heated denial. Instead, she looked up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes, and said in a near whisper, “Then you should abandon me.”

      It was some mortal trait, surely, to wish for one’s own death. He could not think of hearing an immortal creature long for the end of their life. In fact, they feared such an unnatural event. He recoiled without meaning to, and she looked down again, as if his disgust were another weight added to her burden.

      “You should not say that.” He tried to sound comforting, but she had frightened him too much, and it came out stilted and insincere.

      “I should not say it, because it makes you uncomfortable, or because it is true?” A bitter, mocking laugh came from her, as if coming from another body altogether. “I have destroyed them, Cedric. My parents, my fellow Fae. I am nothing, was nothing. If I had not been Garret’s daughter, I would not be the Queene now. I would be some worthless half-breed dying on the Strip, or in the Darkworld tunnels. But I am not Garret’s daughter. I am more mortal than Fae, and somehow, by being both of those things, I am less than either. You should let Bauchan’s Queene kill me. I can bring only despair to those I touch.”

      He raised his hand to stop her. “Cease your self-pity!” he barked, jerking his head toward the curtain, hoping she understood his sudden change in mood.

      Her head lifted, eyes going even wider as she looked at the curtain. She saw the silhouette of someone standing, listening, on the other side of the partition.

      He spoke again, louder, and inched toward the curtain. “And your lies. Garret might have been a worthless King, but you cannot distance yourself from the stain of his ignoble lineage with a falsehood!”

      Cedric turned and launched himself at the figure on the other side of the curtain, but he knew the moment he moved that he would not be successful. He tumbled through the cloth, arms full of empty air, and saw Bauchan fleeing. In the next instant, he saw Cerridwen’s feet as she leaped over him, and he ducked his head to keep from being hit by them. He called after her, but she did not stop. “He heard everything!” she shouted back.

      It took him a shocked second to realize what she’d done, and what she intended to do. It was an increment of time he hoped to make up as he chased after her. If he did not reach Bauchan before Cerridwen did, the Ambassador was dead.

      “Cerridwen—stop!” he shouted after her as Bauchan fled out the door, down the hall that lead to the stairs that took them above deck. Bauchan was halfway up that steep rise, and Cerridwen on the bottom. Cedric knew he was too far when he saw the curved flash of the Elven knife. “Bauchan, look out!”

      Even in his days as a young, untried warrior of fifty years, he would not have done something so foolish. To shout out a warning to someone already engaged distracted them; for Bauchan, it was a fatal distraction. Even as Cedric blanched and heard the echo of his mistake off the metal walls, Cerridwen brought the blade down, down into the base of Bauchan’s neck. The point of the warped blade appeared nearly level with the handle as it protruded from Bauchan’s throat, and Cerridwen jerked it free with a grunt, releasing an arc of blood that sprayed her, the floor, the ceiling, the wall.

      Bauchan opened his mouth to scream. That was unmistakable. The gaping mouth, the ropey lines that stood out against his jaw, as he struggled to make a sound that would not come.

      Cerridwen stepped back, still gripping the knife as though he might attack her. But it was too late. Crystals of ice stole up Bauchan’s face, covering his visible skin like frozen diamonds. From his open mouth, a breath of snow unfurled in a wintery gust. The blood that flowed from him came as clear, crystalline water, and he fell against the steps, shattering as his eyes rolled back into his head and closed over like ice on a pond.

      Within moments, Fae surrounded them. Ones who had heard the commotion from the deck and had come to investigate for themselves, and ones who had seen the confrontation begin only seconds before and had followed. Rough hands grabbed Cedric, jerked him backward with his arms pressed up tightly between his wings. Cerridwen tried to fight her way free with the knife, but lost it embarrassingly quickly. Two Faeries gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to her knees. The meaty sound of a booted foot connecting with flesh cut through the riotous noise, and Cerridwen’s cry cut through him more effectively than her blade ever could.

      “What the hell are you lot doing?” A Human fought his way into the fray. Stocky body, hard, lined face. He would not choose sides. He was afraid of all of them, and that was far more dangerous, Cedric realized, than the murderous horde surrounding them.

      One of Bauchan’s retinue, a sickly thin-looking thing with long, green ropes of hair, called out, “This is none of your concern, Human!”

      Her vehemence startled Cedric; he feared what reaction the Human would have now. He might produce one of those Human weapons, with the devastating projectiles, and kill them all out of fear or malice. He might be moved to contact the Enforcers.

      More Humans arrived. One of them seemed to have more authority than the others, as the rest of them stood down when he barked his command. “Where is Bauchan? I demand to see him!”

      “Then see him, Human!” the green-haired Faery hissed, sweeping her arm and brushing the other Fae away as though they were flies.

      Cedric followed the Human’s gaze to the ground, where Bauchan’s robes lay in a puddle of melting ice that used to be his body. But it was an uninteresting sight, and he used the distraction of the crowd to look for Cerridwen.

      The Fae that had taken hold of her had dropped her. She lay, unmoving, on the floor, her body turned in on itself so that he could not see her face to tell if she was conscious.

      Anger churned in him, flaring red at the center of the tree of life force inside him. Some of it was still directed at Cerridwen herself, for her rash actions. Some was reserved for Ayla, for forcing him into a promise that he could not keep since she had not bothered to teach her daughter to rein in her temper and recognize the consequences of her actions. But those were diminished in the face of the rage that made him wish he could do to these Faeries exactly what Cerridwen had done to Bauchan.

      “What is this? Is this some sort of joke?” The Human looked to Cedric on the ground, at Cerridwen, and back to the green Faery. He recognized her as the representative of the Fae. Cedric ground his teeth.

      The

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