Page 18 of The Crimson Throne
I’d been walking in the forest nearby. Few went as deep in as I did, and for good reason. Power calls to power, and the woods outside Mugdock Castle had been increasingly occupied by fae creatures since I was born.
“Slàinte mhath,” he said formally.
I knew he was my father. For one, he was too handsome, too tall, too elegant to be human. We call members of the Seelie Court “fair folk” not because they are beautiful—most are not—but because we want to flatter them into not harming us. But my father was a handsome man, so beautiful that it would have hurt if I didn’t hate him.
It wasn’t just his appearance that told me he was my father. His accent was strange, not French or English or Flemish or Spanish, all accents I’d heard at my uncle’s castle at one time or another. His voice was like song, and while his words meant that he wished me good health, he said them all wrong. We were in the forest, not cheering over mugs of ale.
“I am your father,” he continued in that same rigid tone that belied the musical accent.
“What do ye want?” I demanded, and I liked the way he flinched at my voice. The Scots language can be beautiful, but a proper Scot knows how to wield it like a blade too.
The arsehole told me all about my duty as the highest-born Leth in Scotland, even though he’d never done his duty as my father. And he never once asked about my mother. Or about me.
So I let him tell me all he felt I should know, and then I very politely told him, “Ith mo chac,” and walked away, ignoring the sputtering rage behind me as he declared he would not, in fact, eat excrement despite my command.
The bean-nighe is full fae,I tell myself.She sees the threat.
Which means my father must too. I don’t need to inform him of the danger. I’ve sent him all the weapons I’ve intercepted so far, except for the needle I saved Mary from today. That’s tucked into my bodice, safe until I can dispose of it.
The bean-nighe’s warning might have even come from my father. It’s like him: send someone else to communicate so he doesn’t have to see me directly. He’s certainly not going to come here himself.
That would require him to stop doing whatever the feck he does in the Seelie Court and give a damn about me for once.
No, it’s easier for him to just let this responsibility slide to me. And let the blame fall to me too.
I kick the horse faster.
4
Samson
I’ve never been outside London. Dreamed of it, over and over, held the idea so close to my chest that it left a bruise I’d grown used to, a constant ache of wanting. But leaving costs money.
It’s a three-day trip to the border, and Cecil accompanies me himself, along with two men. Soldiers? Other spies? I don’t care to ask, and they don’t speak to me.
But each morning, we leave the inn Cecil’s arranged. Each day, we spend hours in the saddle, my body screaming from the shift and sway of a horse. I’ve never ridden, but I mimic Cecil and the guards, fake my way through that task with only a few slipups. Each moment, we peel farther and farther from the congestion of the city.
My soul lifts. Weights are gone, and I find myself so often just closing my eyes and breathing that it’s honestly a wonder I don’t drop off the horse. The air is frigid but sweet, smelling of dried grass and packed earth and all manner of living things hunkering down for the season. Itsmells of campfire smoke and ice on the wind, and I can’t get enough of it, gulping it down like a greedy idiot.
It’s my one distraction—a consuming one, but a distraction nonetheless.
Still can’t work out what Cecil really wants with me.
Every task he’s given me, I’ve completed. Every fae item he’s sent me after, I’ve retrieved. When a highborn lord comes slumming it in Southwark brothels, and he somehow got his hands on a glowy bit of nasty fae magic, I don whatever persona best lures him in: A bumbling-drunk sycophant? A poor sewer rat he can laugh at? I weasel my way into his confidence, close enough to snag the item, then I’m gone before he comes out of his alcohol stupor enough to realize what’s what.
That’s what happened with the baron—the damn fool poured me a glass of wine before I snuck Hal and Oskar into his room. ’Course, everything went arseways after that, but we still got the item.
Even that task Cecil sent me on against his rival—I still lied my way into the man’s house, claiming to be a new servant before he found me out, and I got the item, though it was never about that.
Sometimes I think lying is the only steady thing I’ve ever had in my life.
So I’ve got skill, I know. But skill enough to take on a job this monumental?
Skill enough not to get ensnared in Cecil’s true plans again?
The afternoon of the third travel day wears on, and just before dusk, Cecil halts our journey. We left roads behind yesterday, traveling cross-country, our horses damn near breaking their legs on knolls that can’t decide whether they wanna be grassy or rocky.
Cecil points ahead. The scenery looks no different from everything else we’ve been traveling through: barren, scraggy trees and sloping hills.
