The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

“What sort of contest?” he asks, intrigued.

“I present you with a choice,” she tells him. “We can play a game of chance in which we have equal odds. Or you can duel my chosen champion and bet on your own skill.”

A strange gleam comes into his fox eyes. “I choose the duel.”

“And I shall fight in your stead,” Tiernan says.

Queen Annet opens her mouth to object, but Oak speaks first. “No. I’ll do it. That’s what she wants.”

I take a half step toward him. She must have heard of his poor performance the night before. He’s still got the bruise as evidence. “A duel isn’t a contest,” I say, cautioning. “It’s not a game.”

“Of course it is,” Oak replies, and I am reminded once again that he is used to being the beloved prince, for whom everything is easy. I don’t think he realizes this won’t be the polite sort of duel they fought in Elfhame, with plenty of time for crying off and lots of deference given. No one here will feign being overcome. “To first blood?”

“Hardly.” Queen Annet laughs, proving all I feared. “We are Unseelie. We want a bit more fun than that.”

“To the death, then?” he asks, sounding as though the idea is ridiculous.

“Your sister would have my head if you lost yours,” says Queen Annet. “But I think we can agree that you shall duel until one of you cries off. What weapon will you have?”

The prince’s hand goes to his side, where his needle of a sword rests. He puts his hand on the ornate hilt. “Rapier.”

“A pretty little thing,” she says, as though he proposed dueling with a hairpin.

“Are you certain it’s a fight you want?” Oak asks, giving Queen Annet a searching look. “We could play a different sort of game of skill—a riddle contest, a kissing contest? My father used to tell me that once begun, a battle was a living thing and no one could control it.”

Tiernan presses his mouth into a thin line.

“Shall we set this duel for tomorrow at dusk?” Queen Annet inquires. “That gives us both time to reconsider.”

He shakes his head, quelling her attempt at a delay. “Your pardon, but we are in a hurry to see the Thistlewitch, now more than ever. I’d like to have this fight and be on my way.”

At that, some of Queen Annet’s courtiers smile behind their hands, although she does not.

“So sure of winning?” she asks.

He grins, as though in on the joke despite it being at his expense. “Whatever the outcome, I would hasten it.”

She regards him as one would a fool. “You will not even take the time to don your armor?”

“Tiernan will bring it here,” he says, nodding toward the knight. “Putting it on won’t take long.”

Queen Annet stands and motions to her knight. “Then let us not detain you longer—Revindra, fetch Noglan and tell him to bring the slenderest and smallest sword he owns. Since the prince is in haste, we must make do with what he can find.”

Tiernan bends toward me. He lowers his voice so that only I can hear. “You should have left with Hyacinthe.”

I look down at my feet, at the boots that the Court of Moths gave me for the prince’s sake. If I were to reach up to my head, I know I would be able to feel the braid he wove into my hair. If he dies, it will be my fault.

It is not long before the hall is filled with spectators. Watching the heir to Elfhame bleed will be a rare treat.

As Tiernan helps Oak into his scale-mail shirt, the crowd parts for an ogre I instantly recognize. The one that punched Oak twice the night before. He’s grinning, walking into the room with insufferable swagger. He looms over the spectators in his leather-and-steel chest plate, his heavy pants tucked into boots. His arms are bare. His lower canines press into his top lip. This must be Noglan.

He bows to his queen. Then he sees me.

“Hello, morsel,” he says.

I dig my fingers into my palm.

His gaze goes to the prince. “I guess I didn’t hit you hard enough last time. I can remedy that.”

Queen Annet claps her hands. “Clear some space for our duel.”

Her courtiers arrange themselves in a wide circle around an empty patch of packed earth.

“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper to Oak. “Leave me. Leave Jack.”

He gives me a sidelong look. His face is grave. “I can’t.”

Right. He needs me for his quest to save his father. Enough to make himself kiss me. Enough to bleed to keep me.

Oak strides to a place opposite where the ogre has chosen to stand. The ogre jests with a few folks in the eager, bloodthirsty crowd—I can tell because they laugh, but I am too far to hear what he says.

I think of Oak’s father, who I saw in war councils. Mostly, his eyes went past me, as though I were like one of the hunting hounds that might lounge under a table, hoping to have bones tossed to them. But there was a night when he saw me sitting in a cold corner, worrying at my restraints. He knelt down and gave me the cup of hot spiced wine he had been drinking, and when he rose, he touched the back of my head with his large, warm hand.

I’d like to tell Oak that Madoc isn’t worth his love, but I don’t know if I can.

The cat-headed lady pushes herself to the front and offers Oak her favor, a gauzy handkerchief. He accepts it with a bow, letting her tie it around his arm.