Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
7
Talia
The last thing I actually want to do is spend more time in Orion’s unpredictable presence with the glow of that horrific Heart pulsing over us. But when my searing headache has finally faded enough that I can think coherently, I know I have to try.
I’m obviously not going to be able to construct any kind of complex plan with Whitt or rally the fae in the Mists when I can barely get across two sentences over the distance without incapacitating myself. My only real hope of helping stop the war Orion is intent on waging is to change his mind. If that task seems impossible, well, I’ve just got to take it one step at a time.
I limp through the station toward his throne room. It looks as if the Murk are just rousing for the day—if it is day. The lights that had been dimmer when I first emerged are glimmering brighter now.
When I reach the immense alcove, the Murk king is standing beside his regal seat, stretching his arms with a small yawn. A servant hustles over to bring him a steaming mug. I catch a whiff of coffee as she passes me.
His usual companions aren’t with him right now—the dais around him is empty. I guess they must go back to their own houses to sleep.
Where does Orion spend his nights? I glance around, but nothing in the throne room looks like the kinds of houses the rest of the Murk have. Does he just lie there on the platform basking in his Heart’s erratic light?
A shiver travels down my spine at the thought, but at the same moment the Murk king takes notice of me. He gives me a grin as jagged as his spiky white hair and motions me over. “Decided to join me for another breakfast, have you?”
With the first breakfast being just yesterday, was it? I think I only lost the better part of a day to that headache. Does that mean I’ve been gone from the Mists for nearly three full days now? I’m not sure how long they kept me unconscious after Madoc grabbed me in the forest.
I could have been missing for over a week for all I know.
All the Unseelie fae who’ll have been struck by the curse since then—all the efforts my mates must be going to trying to find me—
I can’t do anything about that until I find a way out of here.
Pushing the uncomfortable thoughts aside, I make my unsteady way over to the dais and sit on the edge. Orion appears to have forgotten about me as quickly as he noticed me. He paces along the dais, giving orders in a low mutter to the various underlings who are now gathering in the throne room.
Just as he’s sent the last of them off, a couple more servants stride in carrying platters of food like yesterday. The king drops into the same spot at the base of his throne to consider their offerings.
“Do you want coffee?” he asks, and it takes me a second to realize he’s talking to me, since he didn’t even look up.
I wouldn’t mind being perked up with caffeine, but the bitter scent trailing from his mug makes my tongue recoil. I’m not sure I’d be able to get down the kind of stuff he’s drinking. “No, thank you.”
“Well, eat. We won’t be starving you here.” He snatches up a chicken wing and pulls a strip of meat off it with his teeth. His gaze lingers on my boots, and I suspect he’s thinking of the other mistreatment I suffered at the hands of the Seelie. A pang runs through the arch of my foot at the memory of Aerik’s cadre man snapping the bones.
“I wondered if you’ve had any news from the Mists,” I venture, taking a small roll dusted with dried coconut. “About how they’re doing with me gone?”
He makes an amused sound and peers into my eyes for the first time. The predatory gleam in his yellow ones makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “You’re worried about the pricks you left behind.”
I tuck my feet closer to me. “They weren’t all awful to me. Some might have hurt me, but others did a lot to help me heal. I don’t think you should see them all as horrible.”
“I have many more centuries of experience with the other fae kinds than you do,” he says in a tone that makes me wonder just how old he is despite his smooth face. “But yes, I have people monitoring the Mists. Everything is proceeding well.”
He doesn’t elaborate on that, although I’ve heard enough from him before to assume that “well” by his standards is “badly” by mine. His gaze slides away from me, and he raises his hand in greeting. Madoc has just appeared at the entrance to the throne room.
“I’ve already eaten,” the other fae man says when Orion gestures to his spread, but he sits down on the dais across from me anyway and considers me. “Feeling better now, Talia?”
I nod, my hand instinctively moving to my forehead. “It’s completely gone.”
“You shouldn’t strain yourself,” Orion declares. I assume Madoc told him about the state he found me in. “If I feel I need you to pitch in, I won’t hesitate to tell you. Otherwise you’re at your leisure.”
Does he suspect that I was doing something he wouldn’t like? I fumble for words. “I—I think it was just the stress of… everything.”
He hums to himself. I can’t read him at all.
I’ve got to put out some kind of feelers. “If the fae of the Mists are upset with me gone—you could use that without even needing to attack them, couldn’t you? Negotiate with them. There’s lots of unclaimed land in both realms. I’m sure there’s room for all the Murk to live there as well.”
Orion snorts. “And make ourselves subject to their arch-lords and rules, for however little time until they find some loophole to kick us out again? Didn’t you learn anything about them in your time there?”
I’m not going to get very far if I’m too argumentative. I can already tell he doesn’t like having his authority challenged either. “You might be right about that,” I say. “But—wouldn’t it be better for your own people to try to find some kind of compromise instead of battling to take over all of the Mists? If there’s fighting, some of the Murk will die too.”
“My people are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to bring us to a better place for the rest of eternity.” Orion takes a big gulp of his coffee and blows out a puff of steam. “The Seelie and Unseelie will never meet us as equals. As far as they’re concerned, we’re dirt under their boots.”
“But you have me now. That gives you leverage. You could even ask for a chunk of the Mist lands to be given completely to the Murk. They’d have to live with displacing a bunch of lords, but oh well. You should have a place there. You’re fae too.”
I must manage to sound reasonably convincing, because Orion pauses for a second as if he’s thinking my statement over. But then he shakes his head. “I can’t risk avoiding a smaller slaughter in the beginning only to lead us to a much larger one later on. To be sure of getting what we deserve, we have to take it by force—all of it. The fae of the seasons have owned the entirety of the Mists for millennia; it’s our turn now. Besides, they deserve some bloodshed of their own after stomping us down for so long.”
“The ones who first cast you out won’t even be alive anymore, will they?” I have to point out.
“I’m sure a few of those pricks have held in there. And their heirs haven’t been any kinder.”
I bite back the urge to point out that the Murk haven’t done anything to warrant kindness from the other fae recently. Does he really expect the summer and winter realms to extend an olive branch when his people are causing all the havoc they can both there and here in the human world?
I’m not sure what else I can say, so I take a handful of raspberries and pop them into my mouth to cover my uncertainty. At least I know more than I did before about what’s driving Orion, what matters to him. There has to be some way I can present a compromise that’ll appeal to him. Even if it only gets him face to face with the fae of the Mists to talk—so that they can get the upper hand and end this war before it really starts.
A couple more of the men from Orion’s inner circle amble into the throne room. Orion grabs a drumstick to take with him and walks over to consult with them by the far end of the dais. I swallow the berries, their juice turning sour in the back of my mouth.
“You’re worrying too much,” Madoc says. “You’ll give yourself another headache.” He gets up and beckons me. “Come. I’ll show you part of the Refuge you won’t have seen yet. Maybe it’ll even reassure you about the future.”
I can’t imagine what in this place could accomplish that, but I get up anyway. Orion seems to trust Madoc quite a bit. Maybe Madoc will listen to me more than his king has and be able to translate my arguments into a version Orion will accept.
He leads me in the opposite direction from the way I went exploring yesterday, through one station and another. The other fae are getting to work throughout the Refuge, more supplies coming and going, more sounds of construction echoing off the ceilings. My skin prickles with apprehension.
Just how long do I have before Orion decides to launch the next phase of his attack? What is he waiting to see in the Mists before he decides to go ahead?
Even if he’s planning on waiting months, I have to get out of here before then. The Unseelie’s curse will be gripping more and more of them, taking their lives without me there to banish it. And how bad will the summer curse be if I haven’t returned by the next full moon? Orion may have ramped up the strength of the curses even more now that he’s taken me away from them.
I can’t express any of those worries to my companion. Madoc clearly doesn’t see anything wrong with his king’s approach. I don’t know where to begin with him.
Thankfully, he starts up the conversation first. “The way we run things here is pretty different from what you got used to in the courts of the Mists, isn’t it?”
A cool draft tickles over my skin in the dark tunnel. I rub my arms as I consider my answer. “I guess. The way everyone supports Orion, it isn’t that different from how things work between a lord or lady and their pack or flock.”
“We’re all united, though,” Madoc says. “Every Murk is happy to follow Orion’s guidance. The fae of the Mists are constantly arguing between themselves, from what I’ve seen. Even the arch-lords. The ones you weren’t tied to picked on you plenty of times, didn’t they?”
I can’t deny that. Maybe I shouldn’t want to if I’m trying to get into his good graces. “They did. There are definitely plenty of them who were… less than kind.” Not that I could call any of the Murk I’ve met exactly “kind” so far either.
Madoc nods. “It must have been hard, being thrust into a situation like that and needing to find your footing with them while showing powers none of them understood. As much as it benefitted us, I’m sorry you had to deal with them on our behalf, unknowingly.”
I blink, peering at him through the shadows. Is he really sorry? His tone has stayed soft, with that hoarse note it always seems to have as if he’s never quite cleared his throat enough.
It’s hard to believe his sympathy isn’t just more Murk trickery.
“What are you showing me?” I ask, wanting to change the subject.
A mysterious smile plays with his lips. “You’ll see. It’s a spot I set up for myself for when I need to think beyond what’s right in front of me.” He glances sideways at me. “When we do go to the Mists, we won’t treat every fae the same, of course. If there’s anyone who particularly deserves to be crushed, or any you think we should go easier on, we could take your suggestions into account with whatever guidance you can offer.”
My chest constricts. I don’t want them crushing anyone at all, not even the vicious fae like Aerik and Tristan who barely see me as worthy of having a life. But that definitely isn’t what he wants to hear.
“I’ll think about it,” I say instead.
He seems to accept my answer. I study what I can see of his profile in the darkness. “It doesn’t bother you at all, the thought of all that violence? It’s not really the Murk way to get into direct combat, is it?”
Madoc lets out a dry chuckle. “That much might be true. But some fighting will be worth it to claw our way back to the position and the home owed to us. And I’m sure we’ll find ways of bringing our own approach to the battles that lie ahead.”
He touches my arm, just a brief graze of his fingers over the skin above my elbow that makes the muscle there jump, guiding me with him into a narrow passage I hadn’t noticed in the tunnel wall. It’s a stairwell, the steep concrete steps leading up to a narrow landing and then another. After the first couple of flights, a faint ache wakes up in my warped foot. I wonder how far under the ground we are here.
At the third landing, Madoc pushes open a door with a creak of its hinges and moves to usher me into the room on the other side. My legs balk automatically. It’s just starting to sink in how far we are from the other Murk now… not that I could expect any of them to leap to my aid if Madoc wanted to hurt me in front of them. But being in an enclosed space with him sets my nerves jangling.
Madoc watches me, maybe guessing at the reasons for my hesitation. “If you don’t want to see it after all, we could leave,” he says without a trace of judgment.
His lack of urgency and my desire to earn his trust win out over my worries. In his eyes, I belong to his king, don’t I? He wouldn’t want to damage his ruler’s belongings.
I shake my head and limp past him into the room.
It’s a small space, windowless like every other part of the Refuge I’ve seen, with a few cushions along one side and a box that holds an assortment of human snacks—chip bags and prepackaged brownies and that sort of thing—by the other. Papers tacked to the walls show a speckling of penciled dots, some with lines sketched between them. But what draws my gaze is the telescope set up at the far end of the room, pointed at the spot where the wall meets the ceiling.
“I know it looks ridiculous,” Madoc says, going to it, “but it’s enchanted. Not easy to get a good look at the stars when slinking through the human world. When our Heart grew strong enough that I had enough power, I tied this telescope magically to one in a science lab up above. Its view of the universe is projected to this lens.”
He runs his fingers over the device, and in that moment I can tell I’m seeing genuine appreciation. Whatever else he cares about, that telescope matters to him.
“Why do you want to see the universe?” I ask.
Madoc shrugs, dropping his hand with an abruptly sheepish air. “I’ve always found the stars fascinating. All that energy and light, so far out of reach. And there’s something both wonderful and awful about the thought of how much more there is beyond the worlds we can visit here.” He makes an awkward gesture as if he thinks he’s said too much and tips his head toward the drawings on the walls. “There’s also an art to it, a sort of soothsaying you can perform looking at the constellations. I’ve been developing my skill at that.”
I take a closer look at the patterns of dots and lines. “And what have you found out from them?”
“As I imagine you’ve realized, any kind of fortune-telling magic is never very exact.” He considers the drawings as I do. “But I believe they show a better, less confined future for the Murk. What I do outside this room is to make sure as many of us reach that future as can. Hope shouldn’t be as distant as the stars.”
Something in those words resonates straight through my chest and brings a lump to my throat. “You know,” I say, quietly but with total honesty, “I hope you get that better future, all of you.” I just don’t want it to happen through the deaths of everyone I care about back in the Mists.
Madoc’s gaze jerks to me. In that instant, he looks startled. But then his expression relaxes with another smile, and he motions me over to the telescope. “Here, get a glimpse of the universe and see if it doesn’t put everything in some perspective.”
He pushes one of the cushions over so I can kneel at it by the telescope’s eyepiece. I bring my face to it tentatively.
As I peer through the device, closing my other eye, my whole vision fills with a dark sky dotted with blazing stars, closer than I’ve ever seen them when gazing up at the sky on my own.
I thought it was morning, but it’s actually night outside, at least in whatever part of the human world we’re near. I guess it isn’t surprising that the Murk have their schedules upside down, sleeping through the day instead.
And now, after hearing the way Madoc talked, I can’t help wondering if there’s more to him than I’ve realized as well. I can’t believe he’s only looking to “sow spite,” no matter what the old rhyme says.
But if his goal is still to see the fae of the summer and winter realms fall, does that really make a difference? I’m not any closer to stopping that destruction.
He’s right about one thing. Staring up into the heavens makes me feel very, very small.
