The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) - Holly Black Page 0,38
the High King, but Locke’s game is at an end.
Go back to the palace, Cardan said, and I ignored the warning.
I think of Locke’s expression while Cardan spoke, the eagerness in his face. It wasn’t me he was watching. I wonder for the first time if my humiliation was incidental, the bait to his hook.
Tell us what you think of our lady.
To my immense relief, at the end of the reel, the musicians pause again, looking to the High King for instructions.
I pull away from him. “I am overcome, Your Majesty. I would like your permission to withdraw.”
For a moment, I wonder what I will do if Cardan denies me permission. I have issued many commands, but none about sparing my feelings.
“You are free to depart or stay, as you like,” Cardan says magnanimously. “The Queen of Mirth is welcome wheresoever she goes.”
I turn away from him and stumble out of the revel to lean against a tree, sucking in breaths of cool sea air. My cheeks are hot, my face is burning.
At the edge of the Milkwood, I watch waves beating against the black rocks. After a moment, I notice shapes on the sand, as though shadows were moving on their own. I blink again. Not shadows. Selkies, rising from the sea. A score, at least. They cast off their sleek sealskins and raise silver blades.
The Undersea has come to the Hunter’s Moon revel.
I rush back, tearing the long gown on thorns and briars in my haste. I go immediately to the nearest member of the guard. He looks startled when I run up, out of breath, still clad in the rags of the Queen of Mirth.
“The Undersea,” I manage. “Selkies. They’re coming. Protect the king.”
He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t doubt me. He calls together his knights and moves to flank the throne. Cardan looks at their movement in confusion, and then with a brief, bright spark of panic. No doubt he is recalling how Madoc ordered the circling of the guards around the dais at Prince Dain’s coronation ceremony, just before Balekin started murdering people.
Before I can explain, out of the Milkwood step the selkies, their sleek bodies bare except for long ropes of seaweed and pearls around their throats. The playing of instruments ceases. Laughter gutters out.
Reaching to my thigh, I take out the long knife holstered there.
“What is this?” Cardan demands, standing.
A female selkie bows and steps to one side. Behind them come the Gentry of the Undersea. Walking on legs I am not sure they possessed an hour before, they sweep through the grove in soaking-wet gowns and doublets and hose, seeming not at all discomfited. They look ferocious even in their finery.
My eyes search the crowd for Nicasia, but neither she nor the smith are there. Locke sits on one of the arms of the throne, looking for all the world as though he takes for granted that if Cardan is High King, then being High King cannot be so special.
“Your Majesty,” says a gray-skinned man in a coat that appears to be made from the skin of a shark. He has a strange voice, one that seems hoarse with disuse. “Orlagh, Queen of the Undersea, sends us with a message for the High King. Grant us permission to speak.”
The half circle of knights around Cardan tightens.
Cardan does not immediately answer. Instead, he sits. “The Undersea is welcome at this Hunter’s Moon revel. Dance. Drink. Never let it be said that we are not generous hosts, even to uninvited guests.”
The man kneels, but his expression is not at all humble. “Your munificence is great. And yet, we may not partake of it until our lady’s message is delivered. You must hear us.”
“Must I? Very well,” the High King says after a moment. He makes an airy gesture. “What has she to say?”
The gray-skinned man beckons a girl in a wet blue dress, her hair up in braids. When she opens her mouth, I see that her teeth are thin, viciously pointed, and oddly translucent. She intones the words in a singsong:
The Sea needs a bridegroom,
The Land needs a bride.
Cleave together lest
You face the rising tide.
Spurn the Sea once,
We will have your blood.
Spurn the Sea twice,
We will have your clay.
Spurn the Sea thrice,
Your crown will away.
The gathered Folk of the land, courtiers and petitioners, servants and Gentry, grow wide-eyed at the words.
“Is that a proposal?” Locke asks. I think he means to speak so that only Cardan hears him, but in the silence, his voice carries.