Tithe A Modern Faerie Tale Page 0,38

you doing here?"

"They said it wasn't for me."

"What wasn't for you?"

The hand with the goblet in it stirred slightly.

"The wine?"

"Not for me. So I drank it. I want everything that's not for me."

"What happened to you?"

"This," he said, and twitched his mouth into something that might have been a smile. "I saw him."

She looked quickly back into the throng. "Who?"

Corny pointed toward a raised dais where tall, pale faeries spoke together and drank from silver cups. "Your boy. Robin of the white hair. At least I think it was."

"What was he doing?"

Corny shook his head. It hung limply from his neck.

"Are you going to be sick?" she said.

He looked up into her face and smiled. "I am sick."

He began singing "King of Pain," softly and off-key. His eyes focused on nothing, and he was smiling a little, one of his hands toying idly with a button on his shirt. It seemed as though he was trying to rebutton it. "'There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out. There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt. Oh-oooh, king of pain, I will always be, king of pain.'"

"I'm going to find him," Kaye said.

She looked at Corny, who was muttering, wiping the inside of his goblet with a finger that he brought to his lips.

"Wait for me here, okay? Don't go anywhere."

He didn't make any reply, but she doubted that he could stand anyway. He looked well and truly wasted.

Kaye reentered the throng, weaving toward where Corny had pointed.

A woman with thick braids of crimson hair sat on a tall wooden throne with edges that came to worn peaks and spires. It was wormed through with termite holes, giving it the appearance of a lattice. At her feet, goblins gamboled.

Roiben walked up to the throne and went down to one knee.

Kaye had to get closer. She couldn't see. Then she noticed there was a small indentation in the wall where she could hide herself, close enough to observe what was going to happen. She would watch and she would find a way to make him sorry for what he had done.

Rath Roiben Rye walked through the crowd, past a table where a sprite was squirming in an ogre's embrace, perhaps with pleasure, perhaps in dread. His old self would have stopped, surely. His silver blade was at his hip, but his Lady awaited him and he had learned to be a good little slave and so he passed on.

Lady Nicnevin, Queen of the Unseelie Court, stood with her courtiers gathered around her. Claret hair blew around a white face inset with sapphire eyes, and he found himself halted once again by her cold beauty. Four goblins frolicked at her side. One tugged at her skirts like a toddler. Rath Roiben Rye dropped to his knees and bent his head so that his pewter hair puddled on the ground. He kissed the earth in front of her.

He didn't want to be here tonight. His chest still ached, and he wanted nothing more than to lie down and close his eyes. But when he did close his eyes, all he saw was the human girl's face, full of shock and horror as he threw her down on the dirty floor of a diner.

"You may rise," the Lady said. "Approach me. I have a task to set you to."

"I am yours," Rath Roiben Rye said, brushing the soil from his lips.

She smiled a little smile. "Are you? And do you serve me as well as you served my sister?"

He hesitated before answering. "Better, perhaps, for you try me harder."

The smile curled off her mouth. "You would jibe with me?"

"Your pardon, Lady. I mean no scorn. It is seldom merry work you set me to."

She laughed at that, silvery cold laughter that rose up out of her throat like crows going to wing. "You have no tongue for courtliness, knight. Yet I find you still please me. Why is that?"

"Sport, Lady?" he ventured.

Her eyes were hard and wet as blue beach glass, but her smile was beyond loveliness. "Certainly not wisdom. Rise. I understand that I have a mortal girl to thank for your presence here tonight."

His face was grave as he stood; he made sure of that. It would not do to let his surprise show. "I was careless."

"What a fine girl she must be. Do tell us about her." A few of the Unseelie Gentry that attended her smiled openly, watching this game as eagerly as they would a