The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Remy didn’t realize how cold the dungeon was until they dragged her from the belly of the Northern Court castle. Another day had passed with only one meal and a couple skins of water. Her injuries were healing, but slower than the normal fae speed because of her exhaustion and lack of food. She couldn’t seem to sleep enough to fully replenish her red magic either.

She expected sunlight, but darkness greeted her as the two guards dragged her into the throne room. Her dagger’s sheath poked into her side as the two guards dropped her into the middle of a grand celebration. People gasped from all around her. The string band stopped their playing. Remy smelled the warm scents of a banquet table of food to her left and the strong aromas of honeyed mead and wine. They had dropped her in her filth into the middle of a party.

From her periphery, Remy saw a crowd gathered in their finery. They wore velvets and furs lined in satin, appropriate for the cold climate. When Remy had imagined the Northern Court, she had imagined it being cold and bleak, and it was . . . but the people. She had never pictured in her mind that there would be a court of people celebrating with a monster like the Northern King. She had never considered that others had supported him in his quest to destroy her family.

Scanning their faces, she could not find Bri. The warm celebrators stood in stark contrast to the fear twisting in her gut. Remy peeked to her side through a strand of greasy hair. White silver braziers sat at the bottoms of alabaster columns, lighting the throne hall in cool, pale streaks. The braziers’ flames cast dancing shadows across the walls’ banners. Between each banner sat a stone pillar, dripping with white candles.

Through her tousled, knotted hair, Remy saw Hennen Vostemur, the Northern King, lounging on his throne. It was striking silver, topped with an inlaid golden Northern crest, and rested on stubby legs made of pure white stone. Plush, cerulean velvet cushions kept his large body from feeling the icy sting of the metal. Three large wooden seats adjoined the throne. One must be for Renwick, Remy mused, but for the other two she could not think of who would sit on them.

A grand silver chandelier highlighted a long, thin table behind the throne upon which sat two golden crowns. Remy knew those crowns. They belonged to her parents. Beside them lay a blade, its ruby hilt gleaming in the light. The magic emanating from it was so powerful that it bent the surrounding air, like looking through a distorted windowpane.

The Immortal Blade.

It sat right there behind the Northern King. If only she could get to it.

The white marble tiles of the dais sparkled in the light. Something about it looked so familiar to Remy . . . she blanched when she realized it was because she had seen it before. They were the marble slabs stripped from her own court’s throne room.

Remy glared at the King in the eyes as he smiled down at her, knowing full well her train of thoughts. Not only had he taken the High Mountain crowns, he also was heartless enough to recreate the dais where he now sat.

Vostemur held a goblet of wine, his cheeks rosy, as he sat casually presiding over his party. He toyed with the pendant of his necklace: a red stone. It was the amulet of Aelusien.

“Welcome to the Northern Court,” he grinned, “Princess Remini.”

The crowd gasped in unison. Their faces lit with astonished delight. Remy scowled at them.

Where was Hale? She hadn’t seen him as she left the dungeons. She couldn’t see him in the crowd. Panic gripped her. She prayed he had escaped already. She couldn’t see Bri either.

“Do you know what today is, Remini?” King Vostemur glared down at her, mirroring the snake on his crest above him.

“Fourteen years since you slaughtered my family and our whole city.” Remy spat at him. The crowd gasped in excitement, like she was the evening’s entertainment.

The King laughed in a gratingly unpleasant way, as though they were talking about the spring weather and not a massacre.

“It has been fourteen years this night since I became the most powerful ruler in all of Okrith.” He barely got his words out before his court erupted into cheers.

They were cheering. The wretched sheep were cheering for a deranged monster and for his desecration of an entire court. Remy lifted her eyes to them, trying to stare each one of them down. Their laughter cooled from the look in her eyes, as if her look alone could curse them. Thinking to how Hale said her mother could command a room with one look, Remy painted her face in a smirk. She would not let them forget who she was.

Remy put one hand in her pocket as she sat back on her heels. Her fingers brushed over the ring. Poised to slip her finger through the ring, she watched to see if the guards standing on either side of her unsheathed their swords.

Even in her grimy state, barefoot on the floor, she tried to hold a regal pose. She sat with a casualness that matched the King’s own. She knew it would infuriate him.

“You don’t know how to use that necklace, do you?” Remy nodded to the amulet of Aelusien around the King’s neck. If he could use it, he would have shown off, but the fact no red power emanated from him told her he had not learned how to summon the magic.

Vostemur’s eyes sharpened on her. He was not used to having someone speak down to him.

“I think my guests might be able to help with that.” His face twisted into a sadistic grin as he nodded to someone at the great wood doors behind Remy. “Let’s bring them in, shall we?”

Remy heard the doors opening, and five guards herded in five hooded red figures. She couldn’t contain her gasp.

They had captured five red witches and were parading them through the throne room. They marched across the floor, forced to stand between Remy and the King. The guards turned them to face Remy and, one by one, kicked them into a kneeling position. She heard the soft cry as one hostage’s knees crashed into the floor.

The tall, helmeted guards partially obscured the King, only visible from the shoulders up, wearing a violent grin.

King Vostemur looked off to the right of his dais, where heavy blue curtains covered large archways on either side of the throne. Five more soldiers wearing full armor stood in front of each curtain. Remy looked to the back of the great hall. Another ten guards lined the rear of the throne room. They peppered even more around the periphery of the elegant fae crowd.

There was an army in here. Remy’s stomach tightened. The dagger at her hip would not be enough to save her.

From behind the thick blue curtain where the King looked, a hooded figure appeared wearing indigo robes. Her hands glowed a faint blue.

The blue witch came to stand at the King’s side.

“Now, Princess,” the King said, cocking his head to look at Remy. “Tell me where your brother Raffiel is.”

“Raffiel is dead.” Remy tried to keep the shake out of her voice.

“I was not a child on that night fourteen years ago, girl.” Vostemur sneered. “I remember clearly what happened. Your coward elder brother fought his way to a window and jumped out of it.”

Coward. Remy shook with rage.

“Then he was cut down by your guards waiting outside,” she snarled.

“He was not.” The King took another long sip of his wine. “The only members of the Dammacus family I saw die were your parents and that weakling of a son.”

Riv. Remy pushed down hard on the lump that was hardening in her throat.

“Just because you did not see his body in the wreckage does not mean he lives,” Remy hissed.

The King looked to the hooded figure beside him.

“Tell her,” he ordered.

The blue witch raised her glowing blue hands to her hood and pulled it back to reveal her face. Remy contained a shriek at the sight of the witch. She had heard stories of the way the Northern King had tortured the blue witches, but this . . . Burn marks covered her entire head, her skin stretched or loose in an odd patchwork that indicated it was not just one accident that caused the scars, but many over several years. She had no hair or eyebrows, and her eyes were closed. Remy looked closer in horror. They had sewn her eyesshut.

Remy’s nostrils flared, and she stifled a gag. The woman’s mutilation didn’t elicit a single gasp or groan from the crowd. Their silence was a confirmation they had seen these tortured blue witches many times before.

When the witch spoke, her tight leather collar bobbed with her voice.

“I have Seen a vision last night,” she said from thin blue lips, “Princess Remini and her elder brother, Prince Raffiel, grown up and standing in this very hall.”

Gasps erupted from the crowd behind Remy.

“That is ridiculous.” Remy rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you can trust the visions of someone you have tortured.”

“Everything she says comes to pass,” Vostemur said, holding his goblet out to be refilled by a scurrying servant. “Unless the Fates are course corrected, that is. Killing you will be part of it . . . but first you will tell me where your brother is.”

“Why would I tell you anything if you are going to kill me, anyway?” Remy spat.

“I’m glad you asked.” Vostmur’s sinister laugh hit her like another blow to the head. “Because if you don’t, Remini, I will kill the rest of your witches.”

He nodded to the guards standing behind the kneeling red witches, and in unison the guards ripped back their hoods. Two men and three women. Remy’s eyes snagged on the last one: Baba Morganna. The old priestess held Remy’s eyes with a half-smile on her face, as though she were trying to comfort Remy. Baba Morganna had pulled Remy from death that day below the Rotted Peak, and yet here they were only a few days later facing death once more.

“This is all of them?” Remy worried her lip.

“We found thirty of these witches behind that old Yexshiri temple.” Vostemur smiled. “I figured not all thirty were needed to get my message across.”

There had been thirty of them, and he had only spared five. Remy scanned the lineup once more and found her mother’s golden brown eyes flecked with green staring back at her. The young woman kneeling directly across from her, third in the line, was her sister, Ruadora.

Remy didn’t let her face crack as she stared at her little sister, but from the look in Rua’s eyes, she knew. Her sister recognized her. Rua had their mother’s eyes but their father’s warm brown hair, unlike Remy’s black. She was a perfect mixture of their two parents. She looked so much like Riv, whereas Raffiel and Remy had both looked like their mother.

Rua was in her human form. No pointed ears or sharp fae features. Remy ached to see what her sister looked like beneath her glamour. She wanted to rush forward and grab her into a hug so desperately her arms shook with restraint. But if she acknowledged Rua in any way, it would put her sister at the end of the King’s blade.

With no warning or provocation, the first guard, standing behind the red witch man, unsheathed his sword. In one sudden swoop, he cleaved the man’s head from his body. The severed head flew into the crowd.

Screams erupted from the hall. The crowd shrieked in a mixture of delight and horror. Rua flinched and screamed as blood splattered her face.

“Silence!” King Vostemur shouted, and the crowd obeyed. Remy shuddered under his violently excited glare. “Now, Remini, would you like to tell me where your brother is, or shall we continue?”

Remy’s eyes widened in horror, her mouth gaping at him.

“Continue, then?” the King said.

Before Remy could scream, the next guard in the line had unsheathed his sword and swung his blade.

The guard yanked on his sword, stuck halfway through the second witch’s neck. He failed to sever her head, a horrifying outcome to a poorly swung sword. The guard put his boot to the witch’s back, kicking her forward and yanking his bloody sword free. The red witch died, her mouth opening and closing like a caught fish. Remy knew she would never be able to get that image out of her mind. If she lived, she would never be able to scrub away the memory of that witch’s body.

Blood dotted Remy’s face and body. She tasted the red witch’s blood on her lips. Another scream rang out through the devastating silence.

She spotted Rua. Her sister trembled so badly her entire body shook. Tears stained her blood-splattered cheeks. She was next in line, flinching and sobbing in turns, waiting for a sword to strike her.

Remy clenched her fist around the ring in her pocket. She would rush to Rua and slip it on her. She could do that, at least. Remy was about to move when the blue curtain opened once more, and Renwick walked in.

He had that same cold, bored air about him as he sat in the ornate chair at his father’s right-hand side.

“The visitors have just arrived, Your Majesty,” he said.

Remy frowned at the way he called his father Your Majesty.

“Excellent,” Vostemur said. He fiddled with the amulet as he spoke. “Bring in the prisoner!” he called across the hall.

The doors creaked open again, and there was Hale, being dragged limply across the floor. His head hung as though he had given up fighting when dumped beside Remy. Two guards loomed on either side of him, waiting for further instructions.

They had given Hale back his dirty tunic, but he was still barefoot. Remy wondered if they gave him his tunic to hide the bruises that had marred his chest.

Hale lifted his head and shook his wavy, brown hair out of his eyes. His face was still purpled with bruises, but he looked mostly recovered, thanks to his fae healing.

“You okay?” he whispered to Remy.

She nodded, choking back tears. She didn’t know why that question broke her so much. He was half dead, and he still worried for her. She was not okay, but she wanted to be for him.

“The Bastard Prince.” King Vostemur sneered. “Consorting with the enemy.”

“Release me at once,” Hale demanded, straightening himself so he looked regal even on his knees.

“Or what?” King Vostemur laughed, inciting the crowd to laugh along with him.

“Or you will feel the wrath of the East.” Hale’s eyes darkened as he glared at the King.

“I see, well . . . I don’t think so.” King Vostemur smiled so broadly his eyes closed to slits.

“My father will not let this go unpunished,” Hale said, his words a biting threat.

King Vostemur’s eyes lit up at Hale, white teeth gleaming through a twisted smile.

“Let’s ask him then, shall we?” Vostemur said, nodding to the blue curtain to his left.

Hale went still as Gedwin Norwood, King of the Eastern Court, strode out from the far corridor. Prince Belenus walked with him, the spitting image of the Eastern King from the snub nose to the pitch black eyes.

Belenus smirked, looking down his pig nose at the prisoners and sitting beside his father. He was still a complete spoiled brat.

The Eastern King peered at them, unsmiling, from under bushy gray eyebrows. He wore a dark metal crown, the Eastern crest carved into its front peak.

Remy looked to Hale. Horror froze her Fated, paralyzed with an expression of terrible pain. The two beheaded bodies still leaked blood onto the stone floor, though they had stopped moving. It felt terrifyingly strange to carry on with the bodies lying there. Rua kept trembling, waiting for the moment the guard behind her might strike.

“What have you done?” Remy shouted at the Eastern King. She would speak for Hale. “You would sacrifice the life of your son—”

“He is not my son.” King Norwood sneered, his lip curling in disgust. Murmured whispers broke out in the crowd.

“How can you even say that?” Remy’s fingers twitched to grab her dagger. Where in the Gods’ names was Bri?

“Because it is the truth, and it is time he knew it.” King Norwood had a thick, syrupy voice. He cleared his throat every few words. He pointed his gnarled finger at Hale. “I did not sire that male. I caught his mother in an affair with another. She was a commoner, and I had been willing to make her a queen, the ungrateful whore.”

Hale shook out of his stupor enough to gnash his teeth.

“Why claim me at all?” he said.

“You know why. It’s because of her.” King Norwood’s black eyes darted to Remy. “The oracle proclaimed you were her Fated. You were to be shipped off to the High Mountain Court when she came of age and I would be rid of you, gaining a powerful alliance through the union. So I claimed you,” King Norwood darted a look to the half-drunk King Vostemur. “It seemed a wise decision at the time.”

“Ha! I am sorry I ruined those calculated plans, Gedwin.” The Northern King laughed, lounging back on his arm. “You tried valiantly to rid yourself of the boy, but even the Rotted Peak could not kill him. I am glad you trusted in me, friend, to finish the job.”

“You ally with him just to kill me?” Hale balked. “You are a fool.”

“My motivations are none of your concern,” King Norwood said. “But any fool would know that an alliance with the North means security for the future of our court. You think I didn’t know when I saw her? She is the spitting image of Rellia Dammacus, raised from the dead! You think I couldn’t see it in your eyes, too, that you found your Fated? A mate that would make my King very happy to be in possession of.”

Hale gaped as Norwood said my King. So the Eastern King bowed to the North then, so as not to get swept into the storm he was brewing.

King Vostemur smiled through wine-stained teeth. His attention darted to the bodies on the floor and back to Remy.

“I will ask you this one last time, Remini. If you do not answer me, I will make you watch as we kill your mate before turning the blade on you. Let Raffiel come to find you in pieces.”

“No!” Remy screamed and dove for Hale.

He reached out, grabbing her, crushing her against him in the tightest embrace as he whispered, “I love you.”

She only had a second in his arms before they ripped away again from her, but it was all she needed. Hale watched her, wide-eyed for what she had done as a guard dragged her away.

Remy struggled under his grip.

“Stop,” the guard whispered.

Remy turned to face him then. She only saw a flash of light blue eyes before he pushed her to the ground. Remy knew those eyes. She had seen them once before across a card table in Ruttmore.

Bern.

The same fae male who warned Remy and Hale that Abalina was after them. What was he doing here?

“How romantic.” King Vostemur’s voice was lethal and sharp. The Eastern King and Prince watched like birds of prey from their chairs. “Now tell me where your brother is.”

Remy shook her head. Unwelcome tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

King Vostemur shrugged. Shrugged, as if her answer were no great hardship, and nodded to the other guard beside Remy.

Remy screamed as the guard unsheathed his blade. She choked on a sob as Hale looked at her one more time with a grim smile. This may be the end for them.

The guard lifted his sword high in the air as excited “oohs” rang out in the crowd. Everything in Remy clenched, bracing for that sword to swing. But the guard lowered his sword and with his free hand he reached for his helmet, removing it and baring his person to the room.

“If you wanted to talk to me so badly, Hennen, you should have just asked.”

Raffiel Dammacus, Crown Prince to the High Mountain Court, stood before the Northern King.