Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
25
Madoc
Ididn’t know it was possible for me to feel the same anguish now as I did on the day the Unseelie warriors slaughtered my parents. I was a child then, and I’ve had decades upon decades to harden myself since. I’ve seen and heard of so many horrific acts. They fuel my determination, but they don’t shake me anymore.
Until this moment, watching an act dealt by the hands of my own king.
I already had the sense that something was wrong from the energy in the air as I hurried to the throne room. When I emerged from my rooms after waking and finding Talia gone, there were murmurs of “traitor” all through the tunnels.
I hadn’t realized they meant her, though. I walked into the throne room not at all prepared to find the woman who’s come to haunt both my dreams and my waking hours hunched in a cage, shivering in terror.
As I make my way to the dais, the voices around me blur into a wordless din. I keep my head high and my strides steady, because if Orion catches any hint that I disagree with his approach, that she’s won any loyalty over what I feel for him, it might be even worse for her as well as for me. But inside I’m aware of little other than her slim form contorted by the size of the cage, the panic in her wide green eyes, the effort I can tell she’s making to try to hide her distress—and the agony the sight provokes in me, twisting through me from throat to gut.
What has she done? What could she possibly have done that would require a punishment like this? She hardly had the means to commit any major betrayal.
But what she said to me yesterday is true. Orion doesn’t see her as one of his people but as one of his belongings, a pet. Caging her after she’s stepped out of line probably makes perfect sense to him.
My king is pacing the dais now with an air more like a lion than a rat. I can’t ask him what she’s done or say anything on her behalf while he’s putting on this display for the audience that’s gathered. Hopefully I can draw him aside soon after he’s done with his spectacle and convince him that outright traumatizing her is only going to make it harder for any of us to earn her support.
Not that I think there’s much chance of getting her to completely abandon her devotion to her former home after the way she spoke to me yesterday. But it’s an argument Orion will understand. We can at least allow her to be comfortable while we keep her cooped up in the Refuge, until we can finally move in on the Mists.
“I shaped this human as a tool of our own,” Orion says now, “and it seems she doesn’t appreciate the special role I gave her. But there are other ways we can still use her against our enemies, hmmm.”
My body tenses. Does he mean to take this punishment even further?
What did she do—try to kill him? That’s the only crime I can think of that would warrant this kind of viciousness.
Ridiculously, I both can’t believe Talia would resort to that kind of violence, and also wouldn’t entirely blame her if she had. I wouldn’t want her to succeed, of course, but it’d be understandable for her to want to after the way he’s mistreated her already.
My king has stopped by her cage, putting on a show of contemplating his options when I’m sure he knew exactly what he planned before he even ordered that cage constructed.
His voice comes out with a lilt that’s both playful and cutting. “So many of the fae of the Mists have staked all their hopes on this fragile creature. They see her as the answer to all their problems, as some kind of blessed being sent by their Heart to protect them. How much do you think it would crush their spirits to watch us crush her?”
My hands start to clench before I catch them. He can’t really—after all the ways she’s advanced our goals, even if she didn’t know what she was doing—she’s been more instrumental in paving the way for our victory than anyone in this room other than Orion, and I have to admit that includes me.
But there’s no respect or even pity in his gaze as he peers down at her, only sadistic glee.
“Yes, that would be perfect,” he says. “We’ll make a show of it. String her up for them all to see, let them watch as we snap every bone and slice through that skull. It won’t do to kill her, of course, because then they’ll be able to mourn her loss. We’ll leave her paralyzed and lobotomized, a broken shell they’ll still be scrambling to reclaim. And in the middle of their distress, we’ll sweep in and slaughter them as if we’re the wolves and they’re nothing but lambs and lame ducks.”
What?My stomach flips, sending bile up my throat. Nausea clamps around my gut.
The memory flickers through my head of the ravens cackling as they rammed my father’s severed head on that branch, echoing into the cheer that’s lifted up around me. For just a second, the world tilts.
The orange light of the Heart catches on the tears that’ve dampened Talia’s cheeks. As she presses her hands to her face, her shoulders shake. When she reaches out again, grasping the bars of the cage, there’s nothing but blank panic in her eyes.
“Please,” she says to Orion. Her voice spills out in a babble, offering other help, other contributions, anything to save herself from the fate worse than death he just described.
How can he just smirk at her as if this is all a game?
And then she looks at me. She doesn’t speak—for fuck’s sake, she cares enough about me and the position I’m maintaining here not to call out to me overtly, even now—but the desperate plea in her gaze is unmistakeable.
Which means Orion doesn’t miss it either. He laughs and taps the top of her cage, and just when I thought the moment couldn’t get any more horrifying, he aims his smirk at me. “Looking to my faithful servant for help, are you, pet? Do you really think he gives a damn what happens to you as long as you serve our cause? He did well then, if you fell for his act. Excellent work, Madoc.”
Oh, no. At the crumpling of Talia’s face, misery written all through her expression, I feel as if he’s stabbed a knife right into my chest.
It isn’t true, I want to tell her. It wasn’t an act—not all of it. If I’m being honest, in the past few days I’ve had to do more acting to avoid showing how much I’m coming to care rather than how much I don’t.
But Orion is grinning at me in the wake of his compliment. How can I throw it back in his face? I nod just slightly, fixing my gaze on him, keeping my posture as still as I can. If I look at her now, I’m not sure I can hold onto my self-control.
Some part of me wants to kill him now.
Orion glances down at Talia again and speaks in a croon. “I choose who stands beside me carefully, Talia. You obviously didn’t realize that. Has he seemed to dote on you, to be there for you when you needed it? Anything he offered you, it’s because I ordered him to win you over. You’re a tool to him as much as you are to me. He doesn’t care about you any more than he does a bar of lead. But illusions are his speciality, and from the expression on your face, he wove quite a good one.”
With every word, he drives the knife deeper—into both my chest and Talia’s, from her reaction, which I can’t help marking. Her whole body folds in on itself even tighter than before. The panic in her eyes dulls, but only because it’s shifted into a sort of dazed hopelessness that brings my claws prickling to the tips of my fingers.
She looks like that fierce spirit of hers has already died.
I drag my gaze back to my king as he says a few dismissive remarks. He waves off the crowd and motions for me and a few of his other knights to join him at the other end of the dais. My feet move of their own accord, carrying me away from the wounded figure in the cage.
It takes a minute before I’m sure enough of my voice to speak. The conversation has started around me, but I’ve barely heard it. As soon as there’s a lull, I tip my head to Orion and then toward Talia. “What’s the reason for all this? Did she hurt someone?”
Orion guffaws, as if the notion of Talia managing to harm one of us is absurd—which it actually kind of is, knowing her to the extent I do now. I don’t think he’s assuming that based on his knowledge of her personal values, though.
“She thought she’d flee,” he says in a derisive tone. “Got her hands on some kind of tool and was working at the bolts on an air vent in the maintenance room that someone missed as a possible exit. Now she’s seen what her lies and her commitment to the fae of the seasons earn her.”
He goes back to discussing the best timing for his gory demonstration and our attack to follow. Should we launch it while the Seelie are wild with the curse, when they’ll have little control but won’t understand what’s happening, or afterward, to amplify their helplessness? Are the other colonies prepared to march within the week? Have we stockpiled enough equipment?
Practical considerations in the lead-up to destroying the woman crouched just twenty feet from us, bit by painful bit. All because she wanted to get away from this place, to return to the mates she loves. That is the treachery Orion objects to so violently.
I’m standing right next to him, but I watch him as if from a great distance, adding little to the conversation other than occasional nods and noncommittal murmurs. I note the way he cuffs one of the young fae who comes with a report across the ears, for no reason except the girl stutters a little. I observe as Bren enters the room, and Orion jokes to the others about the scars that the fight he incited will leave behind. And all the while, Talia’s clear, soft voice filters through my thoughts.
There’s no way of knowing how far he’ll go, how much worse he might treat me than anyone else here, is there?
He made you kill someone like Bren the other day, didn’t he? Just another Murk, just because he likes seeing people being torn apart.
You want to save your people. As far as I can tell, Orion is more interested in hurting fae—and not just the fae of the Mists.
I told her she was wrong. I told her he only wanted to make us as strong as we could be, that his methods were necessary to have brought us the power to win against the other fae. But she’s chipped at my certainty, and now…
Now I’m not so sure she wasn’t seeing things more clearly than I ever have, when I was so focused on both the vengeance and the brighter future Orion promised.
Our king has done amazing things. No one could deny that. The Heart blazing away beside us is the clearest possible testament. But is this what I want a new era for my people to look like? Celebrating torture, reveling in violence and pain…
Arewe really better than what the fae of the seasons think if we’ll stand back and even cheer Orion on while he breaks every part of the woman in that cage, who’s done nothing worse than try to live her own life? Who’s managed to care about at least some of us regardless of what we’ve put her through and what she’s heard about us before?
Although it’s hard to imagine she cares after this latest assault. We’ve just proven everything the fae of the seasons would say about us true, haven’t we?
And I helped, by standing there saying nothing to challenge it. By acting as if I appreciated Orion’s praise and his plan.
Nausea grips me all over again. I said to Talia once that all the tests I went through were worth nothing if I threw away what I won with them. But what are they worth if I don’t use the position I won to fight for a future where we really aren’t living in fear—of the wolves and the ravens, and of each other? Of this man who calls himself our king?
I go through the rest of the conversation and then my other duties of the day as if sleepwalking, most of my focus inward. There is a line I’m not willing to cross, and my king has just drawn it for me. So what am I going to do about it?
The pieces of a plan of my own start to come together in my mind alongside a growing resolve.
Every time I enter the throne room, Orion is there, but that’s not unexpected. I have to wait just a little longer, even though that means more time for Talia to dwell on the threats and the claims he made.
When the lights dim, I head off to my room as if I mean to turn in for the night. I know Orion will do the same soon, down the tunnel to the large chamber carved into the rock beyond the throne room walls. He casts enough magic around its entrance that he doesn’t bother posting guards there. He trusts his skills more than any of us.
After I’m sure he’ll be asleep, I intone the words of one of the illusion spells I helped perfect around me. Orion didn’t lie when he said that kind of magic is a particular affinity of mine, and it’ll hide me from my fellow Murk as well as any other fae. Then I shift into rat form and slip down the stairs and through the tunnels.
Talia has lain down on the floor of the cage, curled into a ball. There isn’t room for her to extend her limbs much more than that anyway. Her eyes are closed, her face blotchy with past tears and present stress. Seeing her like that wrenches at my heart all over again.
She’s stayed so strong through so much… He hasn’t finally broken her, has he?
I glance around the throne room once more to confirm that there’s no one here before shedding my rat form. Then I weave a more detailed illusion, one that’ll reflect the image of Talia I’m seeing now to anyone who glances this way. It doesn’t do any good to keep myself hidden if a random passerby could notice she’s talking to someone.
I ease within that illusion and pull back the one that was hiding only me. Reaching through the bars, I brush my fingers over Talia’s hand.
She jerks awake in an instant, faster than I expected. All at once she’s scrambling as upright as she can get, shoving herself against the far side of the cage.
“What do you want?” she asks, but the fierceness I’d have expected in her voice has faded. It wobbles with a trace of fear.
She thinks I might have come to inflict some new torture on her.
Staring into her strained but still pretty face, taking in the distrust in the eyes I never meant to admire, I have trouble remembering what I wanted to say. My hesitation dredges up a wash of shame. She’s adjusted her opinions about the Murk after the things I’ve shown and told her, admitted to being wrong. How can I still balk at doing the same for her, after all the suffering she’s faced since I brought her here?
“I want to help you,” I say. “I don’t agree with what Orion’s done to you or anything he talked about doing to you.”
Talia makes a noise of disbelief. “Are you still trying to trick me into trusting you, after he’s already told me that was all his idea? How stupid do you think I am?”
I swallow thickly. “Not stupid at all. Smarter than me in many ways, I’ve come to realize.” I glance away and then back at her, not knowing how to convince her. “It’s true that he ordered me to be friendly with you to try to get you to open up about your knowledge of the Mists. But the rest of the things he said aren’t.”
Her gaze is still full of doubt. I force myself to go on.
“I might not agree with all your allegiances, but there’s so much I respect about you. Your bravery, your resilience, your compassion, your willingness to listen…” We won’t get into the emotions I’ve felt that went beyond respect, but the thought of those compels me to add, “Even your loyalty to your mates. You’re not just a pet, and you don’t belong to Orion. You’re your own person. I have come to care about you, and you don’t deserve this.”
“But somehow Orion isn’t aware of any of that,” she says.
“Orion is… Orion. He wouldn’t have appreciated me feeling conflicted over the job he’d given me, so I’ve let him continue thinking I was only spending time with you on his orders. But I can’t stand with him if this is how he’s going to rule. I’m drawing that line.”
Talia studies me through the bars. Her expression doesn’t give away any clue of how much she believes me. When she speaks, her tone is skeptical. “And how are you drawing that line? By coming to talk to me? Because you talked to me plenty before, and it didn’t stop this from happening.”
“No, it didn’t.” I rub my hand over my face. “I didn’t think it’d come to this—maybe I should have realized. Maybe I was too caught up in my own hopes for the future to see clearly. But I see now.”
“What does that even mean?” she asks.
“I—” There are things I still need to be sure of. It’s not just Orion but all of the Murk I have to consider. “If you went back to your mates, what would you say to them about the Murk? Would you tell them to slaughter us all?”
Talia frowns. “Is this some trick to get me to reveal something about how they work or what their strategies are? I’m not falling for it. Why don’t you just go away, if all you’re looking to do is ask me more questions?”
She turns her head, leaning her cheek against the bars and closing her eyes, shutting me out the only way she can.
I sit there, torn. But the answer isn’t really all that difficult to arrive at, is it?
She’s taken more than one leap of faith for me. I can’t expect her to make another if I won’t offer one of my own. And deep down, I do know what her answer would be, don’t I? It’s only selfishness that makes me want to hear her say it in so many words before I trust it.
I trust her. I trust the love and determination I’ve seen burning in her soul.
“That’s not all I’m looking to do,” I say, summoning all the firmness I can into my voice. “I’m here to help you leave the Refuge.”
Then I reach up to the top of the cage and mutter the words to bring the side of it swinging down, opening up the way to her freedom.
