The Wicked King by Holly Black
I spend the rest of the night in the Court of Shadows, preparing plans to keep Oak safe. Winged guards who can sweep him up into the air if he is lured by the delights of the waves he once played in. A spy disguised as a nanny, to follow him and dote on him and sample anything before he can taste it. Archers in the trees, the tips of their arrows trained on anyone who comes too close to my brother.
As I am trying to anticipate what Orlagh might do and how to know as soon as it happens, there’s a knock on my door.
“Yes?” I call, and Cardan walks in.
I jerk to my feet in surprise. I don’t expect him to be here, but he is, dressed in disarranged finery. His lips are slightly swollen, his hair mussed. He looks as though he came straight from a bed and not his own.
He tosses a scroll down on my desk.
“Well?” I ask, my voice coming out as cold as I could ever wish.
“You were right,” he says, and it sounds like an accusation.
“What?” I ask.
He leans against the doorjamb. “Nicasia gave up her secrets. All it took was some kindness and a few kisses.”
Our eyes meet. If I look away, then he will know I am embarrassed, but I fear he can tell anyway. My cheeks go hot. I wonder if I will ever be able to look at him again without remembering what it was like to touch him.
“Orlagh will act during the wedding of Locke and your sister.”
I sit back down in my chair, looking at all the notes in front of me. “You’re sure?”
He nods. “Nicasia said that as mortal power grows, land and sea ought to be united. And that they would be, either in the way she hoped or the way I should fear.”
“Ominous,” I say.
“It seems I have a singular taste for women who threaten me.”
I cannot think of what to say to that, so instead I tell him about Grimsen’s offer to forge him armor and swords to carry him to victory. “So long as you’re willing to fight the Undersea.”
“He wants me to have a war to restore him to his former glory?” Cardan asks.
“Pretty much,” I say.
“Now that’s ambition,” Cardan says. “There might be only a floodplain and several pine trees still on fire remaining, but the four Folk huddling together in a damp cave would have heard the name Grimsen. One must admire the focus. I don’t suppose you told him that declaring war or not was your call, not mine.”
If he’s the true High King of Elfhame, whom we are to follow to the end of days, then we’ve been a mite disrespectful, running the kingdom for him. And if he’s playacting, then he’s a spy for sure and better than most of us.
“Of course not,” I say.
For a moment, there is silence between us.
He takes a step toward me. “The other night—”
I cut him off. “I did it for the same reason that you did. To get it out of my system.”
“And is it?” he asks. “Out of your system?”
I look him in the face and lie. “Yes.”
If he touches me, if he even takes another step toward me, my deceit will be exposed. I don’t think I can keep the longing off my face. Instead, to my relief, he gives a thin-lipped nod and departs.
From the next room, I hear the Roach call out to Cardan, to offer to teach him the trick of levitating a playing card. I hear Cardan laugh.
It occurs to me that maybe desire isn’t something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.
I am unsurprised to find Madoc in his strategy room in the palace, but he is surprised by me, unused to my slyfooting.
“Father,” I say.
“I used to think I wanted you to call me that,” he says. “But it turns out that when you do, good things seldom come after.”
“Not at all,” I say. “I came to tell you that you were right. I hate the idea of Oak’s being in danger, but if we can engineer when Undersea’s strike comes, that’s safer for Oak.”
“You’ve been planning out the guarding of him while he’s here.” He grins, showing his sharp teeth. “Hard to cover every eventuality.”
“Impossible.” I sigh, walking deeper into the room. “So I’m on board. Let me help misdirect the Undersea. I have resources.” He’s been a general a long time. He planned Dain’s murder and got away with it. He’s better at this than I am.
“What if you only want to thwart me?” he asks. “You can hardly expect me to take it on faith that now you are in earnest.”
Although he has every reason to, Madoc’s distrust stings. I wonder what it would have been like if he had shared his plans for putting Oak on the throne before I was witness to the coronation bloodbath. Had he trusted me to be a part of his scheme, I wonder if I would have waved away my doubts. I don’t like to think of that being possible, but I fear it might be.
“I wouldn’t put my brother at risk,” I say, half in response to him, half in response to my own fears.
“Oh?” he asks. “Not even to save him from my clutches?”
I guess I deserve that. “You said you wanted me to come back to your side. Here’s your chance to show me what it would be like to work with you. Persuade me.”
While I control the throne, we can’t ever truly be on the same side, but maybe we could work together. Maybe he can channel his ambition into beating the Undersea and forget about the throne, at least until Oak comes of age. By then, at least, things will be different.
He indicates the table with a map of the islands and his carved figurines. “Orlagh has a week to strike, unless she means to set a trap back in the mortal world in Oak’s absence. You have guards on Vivienne’s apartment—ones you’ve engaged outside the military and who do not look like knights. Clever. But nothing and no one is infallible. I think the place most advantageous for us to tempt them into striking—”
“The Undersea is going to make its move during Taryn’s wedding.”
“What?” He gives me a narrow-eyed evaluation. “How do you know that?”
“Nicasia,” I say. “And I think I can narrow things more if we work fast. I have a way to get information to Balekin, information that he will believe.”
Madoc’s eyebrows rise.
I nod. “A prisoner. I’ve already sent information through her successfully.”
He turns away from me to pour himself a finger of some dark liquor and flop back into the leather chair. “These are the resources you mentioned?”
“I do not come to you empty-handed,” I say. “Aren’t you at least a little pleased you decided to trust me?”
“I could claim that it was you who finally decided to trust me. Now it remains to be seen how well we will work together. There are many more projects on which we could collaborate.”
Like taking the throne. “One misadventure at a time,” I caution him.
“Does he know?” Madoc asks, grinning a slightly terrifying yet paternal fashion. “Does our High King have any idea how good you are at running his kingdom for him?”
“Keep hoping he doesn’t,” I say, trying for a breezy confidence that I don’t feel when it comes to anything to do with Cardan or our arrangement.
Madoc laughs. “Oh, I shall, daughter, much as I hope you will realize how much better it would be if you were to be running it for your own family.”
Cardan’s audience with Balekin takes place the next day. My spies tell me he spent the night alone—no riotous parties, no drunken revels, no contests for lyres. I do not know how to interpret that.
Balekin is led into the throne room in chains, but he walks with his head up, in clothing far too fine for the Tower. He flaunts his ability to obtain luxuries, flaunts his arrogance, as though Cardan is to be awed by this instead of annoyed.
For his part, Cardan looks especially formidable. He wears a coat of mossy velvet, embroidered all over in bright gold. The earring given to him by Grimsen dangles from his lobe, catching the light as he turns his head. No revelers are here today, but the room is not empty. Randalin and Nihuar stand together near the dais to one side, near three guards. I am on the other, standing near a patch of shadows. Servants linger nearby, ready to pour wine or play harps, as suits the High King’s pleasure.
I arranged with Vulciber for Lady Asha to get a note just as Balekin was being brought up the stairs and out of the Tower for this audience.
The note read:
I have thought over your requests and want to negotiate. There’s a way to get you off the island, immediately after my sister’s wedding. For his safety, my little brother is being brought back by boat because flying made him ill. You can go, too, without the High King being the wiser, as the journey is, of necessity, secret. If you agree that this will suffice, send me word back and we will meet again to discuss my past and your future.—J
There is some chance that she will say nothing to Balekin when he returns to his cell, but since she has passed on information to him already and since he doubtlessly saw her get the note, I believe he will not stand for hearing there was nothing to it, especially as, being a faerie, she must engage in evasions rather than outright lies.
“Little brother,” Balekin says without waiting to be acknowledged. He wears the chained cuffs on his wrists as though they are bracelets, as though they add to his status instead of marking him as a prisoner.
“You requested an audience with the crown,” Cardan says.
“No, brother, it was you I wanted to speak with, not the ornament on your head.” Balekin’s sly disrespect makes me wonder why he wanted this audience in the first place.
I think of Madoc and how around him, I am perpetually a child. It’s no small thing to pass judgment on the person who raised you, no matter what else they have done. This confrontation is less about this moment and more about the vast sweep of their past, the warp and weft of old resentments and alliances between them.
“What is it you want?” Cardan asks. His voice remains mild but empty of the bored authority he usually wields.
“What does any prisoner want?” Balekin says. “Let me out of the Tower. If you mean to succeed, you need my help.”
“If you’ve been trying to see me only to say that, your efforts have been to no purpose. No, I will not release you. No, I do not need you.” Cardan sounds certain.
Balekin smiles. “You’ve locked me away for fear of me. After all, you hated Eldred more than I did. You despised Dain. How can you punish me for deaths you do not regret?”
Cardan looks at Balekin in disbelief, half-rising from the throne. His fists are balled. His face is that of a person who has forgotten where he is. “What of Elowyn? What of Caelia and Rhyia? If all I cared for were my own feelings, their deaths would be enough reason for me to revenge myself on you. They were our sisters, and they would have been better rulers than either you or I.”
I thought Balekin would back down at that, but he doesn’t. Instead, an insidious little smile grows on his mouth. “Did they intercede for you? Did any one of your dear sisters take you in? How can you think they cared for you when they wouldn’t go against father for your sake?”
For a moment, I think Cardan is going to strike him. My hand goes to the hilt of my own sword. I will get in front of him. I will fight Balekin. It would be my pleasure to fight Balekin.
Instead, Cardan slumps back down onto the throne. The fury leaves his face, and he speaks as though Balekin’s last words went unheard. “But you are locked away neither because I fear you nor for revenge. I did not indulge myself with your punishment. You are in the Tower because it is just.”
“You can’t do this alone,” Balekin says, looking around the room. “You’ve never cared for work, never cared to flatter diplomats or follow duty instead of pleasure. Give me the difficult tasks, instead of giving them some mortal girl to whom you feel indebted and who will only fail you.”
The eyes of Nihuar and Randalin and a few of the guards go to me, but Cardan watches his brother. After a long moment, he speaks. “You would be my regent, though I am of age? You come before me not as a penitent, but as before a stray dog you would call to heel.”
Finally, Balekin looks discomfited. “Although I have sometimes been harsh with you, it was because I sought to make you better. Do you think that you can be indolent and self-indulgent and yet succeed here, as a ruler? Without me, you would be nothing. Without me, you will be nothing.”
The idea that Balekin can say those words without believing them a lie is shocking.
Cardan, for his part, wears a small smile, and when he speaks, his voice is light. “You threaten me, you praise yourself. You give away your desires. Even were I considering your offer, after that little speech, I would be sure you were no diplomat.”
Balekin takes a furious step toward the throne, and guards closes the space between them. I can see Balekin’s physical urge to punish Cardan.
“You are playing at being king,” Balekin says. “And if you don’t know it, then you are the only one. Send me back to prison, lose my help, and lose the kingdom.”
“That,” Cardan says. “The second option, the one that doesn’t involve you. That’s the one I choose.” He turns to Vulciber. “This audience is over.”
As Vulciber and the other guards move to escort Balekin back to the Tower of Forgetting, his gaze goes to me. And in his eyes, I see a well of hate so deep that I fear that if we’re not careful, all of Elfhame may drown in it.
Two nights before my sister’s wedding, I stand in front of the long mirror in my rooms and slowly draw Nightfell. I move through the stances, the ones Madoc taught me, the ones I learned in the Court of Shadows.
Then I raise my blade, presenting it to my opponent. I salute her in the mirror.
Back and forth, I dance across the floor, fighting her. I strike and parry, parry and strike. I feign. I duck. I watch sweat bead on her forehead. I battle on until perspiration stains her shirt, until she’s shaking with exhaustion.
It’s still not enough.
I can never beat her.
