The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2)

by Holly Black

“You know,” she says as I pretend to admire the room, turning around in it in awe, feeling foolish, “nothing I could do to you will be as terrible as what you’ll do to yourself.”

For the better part of a year, I have been poisoning my body every day. My blood is used to the doses, far higher than they were when I began. Addicted to them. Now I can’t do without the poison.

Sometimes I think about Cardan while I am lying there. I think about what it must have been like to grow up as an honored member of the royal family, powerful and unloved. Fed on cat milk and neglect. To be arbitrarily beaten by the brother you most resembled and who most seemed to care for you. Imagine all those courtiers bowing to you, allowing you to hiss and slap at them. But no matter how many of them you humiliated or hurt, you would always know someone had found them worthy of love, when no one had ever found you worthy.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d admitted he wasn’t out of my system.

Sometimes, when lying on the cold stone floor, I wonder if there’s a limit to what I will let them do, if there is something that would make me fight back, even if it dooms me.

If there is, that makes me a fool. But maybe if there isn’t, that makes me a monster.

My plan has narrowed to endurance, to surviving hour by hour, sunless day by day. Perhaps I cannot be glamoured, but that doesn’t mean I cannot be broken.

“Then perhaps he wants to be High King for Eldred’s sake,” I say. “Or to spite his memory.”

That seems to draw Balekin’s attention. Though I said it only to suggest something that would misdirect him from thinking too much about Cardan’s motives, once it comes out of my mouth, I ponder whether there isn’t some truth to it.

“Now kiss me as though I were Cardan.”

To buy myself a moment of reflection, I gaze into his owl eyes, run my hands up his thorned arms. It is clearly a test. He wants to know how much control he has over me. But I think he wants to know something else, too, something about his brother. I force myself to lean forward again. They have the same black hair, the same cheekbones. All I have to do is pretend.

The next day, they bring me a pitcher of clear river water, which I guzzle gratefully. The day after that, they begin to prepare me to return to the surface.

The High King has made a bargain to get me back.

I think over the many commands I gave him, but none was specific enough to have ordered his paying a ransom for my safe return. He had been free of me, and now he is willingly bringing me back.

“When we return to Elfhame, we won’t be able to see each other often,” he says, as though this is something I will greatly miss.

“You will come to Hollow Hall when you can.”

I suppose his freedom is part of the price of my release, and I am surprised all over again that Cardan agreed to pay it.

“If I need you, I will give you a signal, a red cloth dropped in your path. When you see it, you must come immediately. I expect that you will be able to fabricate some excuse.” “I will,” I say, my voice coming out too loud in my ears.

“You must regain the High King’s trust, get him alone, and then find a way to kill him. Do not attempt it if people are around. You must be clever, even if it takes more than one meeting. And perhaps you can find out more of your father’s schemes. Once...

“Yes,” I say. I take a breath and then dare ask what I really want to know. “...

“Very ne...

“Grimsen needs you to finish your work before he can make it. He needs my brother dead.”

“You will avoid all charms, do you understand? No rowan, no bundles of oak, ash, and thorn. You will not wear them. You will not so much as touch them. If you are given one, you will cast it into a fire as soon as you can conceal doing so.”

“King of Elfhame, as we agreed, now that you have paid my price, I have secured the safe return of your seneschal. And I bring her to you escorted by the new Ambassador of the Undersea, Balekin, of the Greenbriar line, son of Eldred, your brother. We hope this choice will please you, since he knows so many customs of the land.”

“You promised her whole and hale,” says Cardan.

“My daughter Nicasia, Princess of the Undersea, will help her to the land with her own royal hands.”

“Help her?” says Cardan. “She ought to need no help. You have kept her in the damp an...

“Perhaps you no longer want her,” Orlagh says. “Perhaps you would bargain for something else in ...

“I will have her,” he says, sounding both possessive and contemptuous at once. “And my brother will be your ambassador. It shall all be as we agreed.” He nods toward two knights, who wade out to where I am sitting and help me down, help me to walk. I am ashamed of my unsteady legs, of my weakness, of the ridiculousnes...

“We are not yet at war,” says Orlagh. “Nor are we yet at peace. Consider well your next move, king of the land, now th...

“The general has instructed me to take you to his home,” she says. “No,” I say. “I have to go to the palace.” She does not contradict me, nor does she relent. “I must do as he says.”

“When the Undersea sent word it had you, well, the High King and Madoc blamed each other. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

“How long have I been gone?”

“A little over a month,” she says, which seems impossibly brief. I feel as though I have aged a hundred years beneath the sea.

I recall Lord Roiben with his salt-white hair and the promise I made him for supporting Cardan half a year ago. He pledged to the crown and the new High King, but on a specific condition. Someday, I will ask your king for a favor, he said.

What did I say in return? I tried to bargain: Something of equal value. And within our power.

“Now we see what your High King’s loyalty looks like,”

“What happened?” At that, she laughs. “You know very well. Your king gave the Undersea permission to attack us. It came two nights ago, out of nowhere. Many of our people were slain before we understood what was happening, and now we are being forbidden from retaliating.”

“You don’t understand. Your High King did this for you. Those were the terms under which Queen Orlagh would return you. Balekin chose the Court of Termites as the target, the Undersea attacked us, and your Cardan let her. There was no mistake.”

“No,” I say. “That’s not possible.”

“Balekin has long had a grudge against us, daughter of dirt.” I flinch at the insult, but I do not correct her. She may rail at me all she likes. The High Court ha...

I have come to deliver that message and one message more. You owe Lord Roiben a favor, and it best be granted.”

“We have our own spies, seneschal. They tell us you’re a good little murderer. Here is what we want—kill Prince Balekin.”

“I can’t do that,”

“He’s the Ambassador of the Undersea. If I killed him, we’d be at war.”

I keep thinking about what Dulcamara said: that Cardan refused to retaliate for the sake of my safe return.

Which is why it’s difficult to imagine why he agreed to it, especially since, if I stayed stuck in the Undersea, he’d be out of my control. I never thought he liked me enough to save me. And I am not sure I’ll still believe it unless I hear his reasons from his lips.

“Seneschal,” one of the guards at the gate says. “Your pardon, but you are barred from the palace.”

“The general, your father, gave the order.”

“The Grand General told us to call you a carriage if you came and, if necessary, ride in it with you. Do you expect you will require our presence?”