5. Blake

“What you ask is ludicrous, Daigh.” Queen Morgana took a delicate sip from her nectar wine and placed the glass daintily back on the table. One of her sprites darted forward and refilled the cup, flitting back to the wall of the sidhe and pressing her back hard against the earthen walls – dark brown skin camouflaged perfectly against the dark dirt. “Seelie and Unseelie will never be united.”

My gaze swept from the Seelie Queen’s attendants (a brownie winked at me. I’d be chatting to her later) to the Lady of Summer herself. From my place at my adoptive father’s right hand, I had to turn my head to glance upon her. But Queen Morgana was used to captivating every eye in the room. Her cloak shimmered with emerald light, casting a warm glow around the gloomy space. A waterfall of sunshine-gold hair flowed down her back, wreathed in a crown of wildflowers and elder branches.

If she was frightened of my father, she did not show it. Her features remained serene, although I noticed her gaze never wavered from his face.

Daigh – my adoptive father and the King of the Unseelie Court – raised his own cup and took a deep swig. We did not usually have nectar wine in our court – the Seelie brewed it, and they limited our supply, for they knew it set off our dark revels. I usually had to content myself with the horrific Unseelie mushroom beer, which tasted about as good as it sounded and sometimes made my vision disappear for hours at a time, giving a new meaning to the term ‘blind drunk.’

Everything in the fae realm made me sick. The beer made me blind, the honey cakes made my stomach swell up, the berries made me lose complete control of my limbs and other aspects of my body I won’t mention in polite company. Daigh had food brought back for me whenever he sent his fae to the human realm, but there was never enough to fully satisfy. The Unseelie thought it was the best fun to mix their fae food into my human supplies and watch as I fought for control of my body.

Haha, yeah, hilarious. With friends like these…

It was recorded in our annals that one of the human witches – the red-headed one – once said that all fairies were wankers.

He wasn’t wrong.

There hadn’t been a food delivery for me in a couple of days. We could only send one fae at a time into the human realm, and then only for a few hours at most. Each one came back weakened, many without completing their assignment, thanks to the witches. My stomach growled with hunger, but there was nothing on the feast table that I could eat. That may have been on purpose.

Daigh could’ve procured enough food for me to eat like a prince, but near-starvation was an ideal way to make sure I’d never grow strong enough to usurp his throne or run away back to the human realm.

You can’t run very fast when you’re too weak to lift your head.

Say what you like about my father (and there is quite a lot to say), but he treated me as if I was his true, biological son – ie. with mistrust and disdain. Weirdly, he’d shown me a great honor tonight by allowing me a place at the table for this unique meeting.

I turned my attention away from the delicious food I couldn’t eat and focused on the conversation. My father said this would be an historic day for the fae. I had no inkling what he was planning. As his words registered, a coldness seeped into my veins.

“—an alliance is not so ridiculous,” my father was speaking ardently, wringing his hands through the air. “For years we have let this feud between our courts divide us, keeping our power and our focus inward. But now, the High Priestess of Briarwood is coming to England. This changes everything.”

The fae – a bean-sidhe, or banshee – who was tending to the table whisked my untouched plate away and replaced it with another platter. This one was filled with various dried fruits rolled in honey and seeds. They smelled like happiness, but I knew from past experience that eating one of them would have me out of action for a week.

What I wouldn’t give to try a curry. My adoptive brother, the prince Kalen, told me about how humans lined up for the chunks of slow-cooked meat drowning in greasy brown sauce. That sounded amazing, like the dogs bollocks (to quote a phrase the fairies had stolen from the witches. Contrary to the way it sounds, the Dogs Bollux refers to a good and excellent thing.)

But curry wasn’t an option as long as I stayed in this realm. Fae didn’t eat meat. They also couldn’t deep fry anything. Bread was forbidden, as it symbolized the agriculture that had destroyed England’s forests and wild places and led to our imprisonment. It was fruit and vegetables in berry sauces or slathered in honey, three times a day, every day until the Old Gods returned, and if you couldn’t eat that, you got bruised apples that fell over the orchard wall from Briarwood and occasionally half-eaten pork pies the giant blond witch hurled into the meadow for a laugh.

Dammit.There I was, dreaming about real food and missing all the conversation again.

The Queen must’ve said something about the High Priestess, because Daigh was talking again.

“—she is within our grasp. My spies overheard the witches’ lawyer gossiping in the village. Apparently the girl has decided to take up her place at Briarwood. She will arrive within the week. I think we should be ready for her, take her as soon as we see a chance. She does not know what she is, and from what my spies have heard of her, she’s a skeptic who will take some time to be convinced. If we act before she fully realizes her powers?—”

The Queen laughed, a tinkling sound like the flow of a river. “We? You keep using this pronoun as though we are somehow in this together. Unlike you, the Seelie are content to remain here in our realm, to make our revels amongst the ancient trees and pristine waters. We do not lust after an old world that has been tainted by the human race with their factories and combustion engines and computer chips.”

“Are you certain of this? You have been Queen for half a century. Perhaps you should ask your subjects if they wish to roam over high mountains and across glades, if they long to stretch their legs beyond the walls of our prison.” Daigh gestured to the row of sprites and brownies lining the wall behind the Queen. Faint whispers rose up as they twittered among themselves.

“I do not have to ask them,” Queen Morgana simpered, but her eyes flashed with anger. Abruptly, the twittering behind her ceased. “I am the Summer Queen. I speak for the Seelie Court.”

I folded one hand across my lap, watching my father’s face. He looked as relaxed as ever, but I caught the slight glint in his crystalline eyes.

“As you say,” Daigh sipped his drink again as if he had no real interest in the suggestion. “I merely point out that now the Briarwood coven are at their weakest. If we combine our forces, we will be able to overpower the spell that keeps us here. My fae have consulted the auguries. We believe this is our time, our chance. And with the girl arriving?—”

“I tire of this conversation.” The Queen waved her hand dismissively. She picked up one of the honey-coated fruits and slid it into her mouth, her tongue flicking around her green-tinged lips. “Your idea is foolish, and I cannot see you giving up the throne of the Unseelie Court for a human girl, especially not an American?—”

Daigh smiled. The Queen didn’t catch the menace in that smile, but I did.

As the Queen reached for another fruit, he flicked out his wrist. His bone knife soared across the table, burying itself in the Seelie Queen’s neck.

Her mouth hung open in shock. She grabbed for the knife, but it was too late.

The blade exited between her shoulder blades, burying its tip into the back of her wooden chair and pinning her upright. Her hands groped uselessly at the air and a gurgling sound came from her ruined throat. Blood bubbled from her mouth, streaming down the front of her gossamer gown.

Her attendees gasped. Several sprites darted forward, their tiny hands grabbing at the knife handle, trying to wrench it free. One of our soldiers kicked them away.

“You are correct,” Daigh grinned, as the life drained from the Queen’s eyes. “The witch will not be taking over my throne. She will be taking yours.”

He rose and, with the elegant strides so ubiquitous of the fae, approached her chair. Sprites and brownies leapt out of his way as he leaned over the table and yanked the knife from her chest. An arc of blood splattered across the table, drenching the food.

The Queen slumped forward, her face smashing into the plate in front of her. Sticky fruit and pale green blood splattered across the tablecloth.

Daigh wiped the blade of his knife with the edge of the tablecloth, and slid it back into his belt. “Send word across our realm,” he addressed the courts. “Tell all that the Seelie and Unseelie Courts are now united as one. There is to be no more fighting amongst ourselves. We are unified by a common goal – to reclaim our ancestral lands and rid them of the human scourge, once and for all.”

The Court broke out into rapturous applause – some of it genuine, some of it tinged with fear. Seelie sprites leapt into the air, dancing around their dead Queen’s corpse, lifting her wildflower crown from her head and placing it atop Daigh’s thorny circlet. The boggarts and warriors of the Unseelie Court rapped their claws against their weapons and cheered.

I cheered loudest of all. But not for the reason Dear Father believed – I had no interest in returning the fae to the human realm. I had my own plot involving the indomitable Maeve Moore, and the first part of it had just fallen perfectly into place.