Queen Grethe takes my hand, gives it a gentle squeeze, and then heads off. I walk over to Kenric and play with a strand of his hair while he and Lord Eldert talk.
Lord Eldert smiles at me. “So this is the lovely creature that won your heart. Come and sit with us. Tell me everything.”
I tell Lord Eldert about seeing Kenric on the bridge, the trade cart, and feeling disappointed when he was gone. I mention hearing a rumbling baritone when I got home that made me stop in the hall to listen to the tone, even though I couldn’t understand the words. I explain how I was too tongue-tied to speak to Kenric during our first meeting and walk. I tell him about our first kiss and how I had a death grip on Kenric’s jacket.
Lord Eldert finds this very amusing. “I’m so happy for you, my boy. I was afraid that you might not find anyone else. You should be happy, and this little spitfire seems to make you happy.”
Kenric grins widely. “I absolutely adore her, Eldert. I hope you can make the wedding. Perhaps we could persuade you to walk her down the aisle. Her father can’t be here.”
I could almost kick Kenric under the table. I doubt Lord Eldert has more than a month left, and I suspect Lord Eldert knows this. The sickness that is eating away at him is painful and difficult. Many who have it choose to end their suffering when the pain becomes too much and too relentless.
Lord Eldert looks sad for a moment. “If I’m still here in Dobile, then I’d be delighted to. I have other unavoidable business that may call me away.”
Tentatively, I reach over and take his hand. I pretend to hug him and whisper in his ear, “If you can do it, we’d love it, but if you cannot, I, at least, will understand. If it comes to that, I’ll explain it to Kenric.”
When I release him, Lord Eldert cocks his head and looks at me.
I nod and explain, “I am Fey, and we have a very good sense of smell. The time to tell people that you love them is while they can still hear you.”
I give Kenric a look. “There will be no cross words today, or I shall be quite cross with you later.”
Lord Eldert laughs, “I think you are in quite good hands, my boy. You, my dear… I see why Kenric loves you so. Be good and kind to each other. Kindness for yourself as well as each other is the secret to a happy marriage.”
Lord Eldert sends Kenric to mingle with me.
I quietly tell Kenric in Fey, “I don’t know if he’ll be here in another month or if he is, whether he’d be able to walk down the aisle with me. Why don’t you invite him to stay here with us for a while? You two can stay up late, play cards, drink whiskey, and do whatever manly things men do here. Now go back over there and ask him.”
Kenric dutifully returns and asks Eldert to stay with us. To his surprise, Eldert agrees to stay as long as he can. That man also loves Kenric. As Kenric walks back to me, Lord Eldert winks at me, and I smile. I think Kenric will appreciate this time with him. Finally, the dinner bell rings, and I find myself seated across from Kenric and between two of the princes, Jannick and Bastian. Jannick is still drinking heavily, and I see Bastian watching him with concern.
Bastian eyes me and smirks before speaking quietly.”Jannick will try something as soon as he’s consumed enough liquid courage. Somehow, I suspect you can handle him without really hurting him.”
I shrug.”He’s not the first to try. I doubt he’ll be the last.”
Bastian chuckles. “It’s your dead calm about it that puts him off.”
I smile at Bastian. “I do hope it’s during the soup course.”
Bastian finds this funny and laughs. I speak more openly as I describe the flying fish we encountered on our way to Centis. Bastian is fascinated and asks me to describe them in detail. I promise I’ll sketch one and send it to him. Jannick asks what it’s like to live among the Fey. I smile, and this seems to unsettle Jannick.
I launch into an explanation of our flora and fauna. “Everything there is dangerous. Inside the cities, it’s the other Fey that you have to be wary of. Many things roam outside the cities that would love to gobble you up. Even many of the plants will eat you. Magenta Bay shrubs have long, flexible branches. If you touch one, it will wrap you up, drag you into the center of the plant, and grind you into fertilizer. Cursed Poplar sing, and anything too close falls asleep. They stay there sleeping until, well, it’s not sleeping anymore.”
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Jannick looks bored and pretty tipsy. I smile and keep telling my story. “Screechers grow on some trees. If they sense anything warm-blooded, they start making a noise like a tea kettle. Every predator knows that sound. It’s their dinner bell. When it comes to creatures, size isn’t always a warning. Some smaller ones are actually more dangerous than larger ones. I’d rather face a snowcat than an angry pixie. Pixies are tiny, no bigger than my hand, and they have a poisonous bite that can kill or disable you. Other creatures are just big enough to swallow you whole.”
The rest of the table is now captivated as I describe the predators of my homeland. “The great thorn worms aren’t as common near the cities anymore, but if you’re close to one of their lair’s exits, they’ll hear you. When they hear something, they pop out of the ground and devour you whole. Then there are creatures that hunt in groups. Clicker beetles are about the size of a wolf hound. One clicker beetle is manageable, but they rarely hunt alone. They come in swarms of hundreds. Swarms of clicker beetles will eat anything in their way, and gods help you if you find yourself in their path. Other creatures prefer to hunt by ambush. Tree octopuses drop out of the branches, land on your head to smother you, then they can eat you at their leisure.
Unimpressed, Jannick eyes me. “What’s it like, though? You still haven’t answered my question.”
I smile at him and Queen Grethe, who seems amused. “I’m getting there. Where I’m from, everything is a predator. All the jostling and competition between predators creates even better, more efficient predators. Something that can contend with anything, even others of its own kind. Have you ever watched a pack of wolves and seen how they contend for dominance among themselves?”
Jannick nods, and I smile again. “Imagine what wolves would be like after thousands of generations in a place like my home. Now imagine them living in cities and still vying for supremacy. That’s what living among the Fey is like.”
From down the table, Duke Kempe looks at me and snorts.”We never saw anything like that while we were there.”
Dabbing my mouth with my napkin, I chuckle.”Did anyone ever smile at you with their teeth showing while you were there?”
Duke Kempe thinks for a moment and nods. “All the time. What of it? They were just being friendly.”
“Like this?” I demonstrate, and Duke Kempe nods.”Yes, as I said, just being friendly.”
I shake my head.”Not among the Fey. Smiling like that doesn’t mean they’re friendly. It’s quite the opposite. When a Fey smiles at you like that, it’s because they want to rip out your throat. Showing your teeth among us is a threat. That’s why there were always so many helpful Fey around you. You have no idea just how closely guarded all of you were in Imelenora.”
Duke Kempe shakes his head.”We never saw any guards.”
Smirking, I nod. “Not that you knew they were guards. Perhaps you recall the group that hauled all of you out of the bar fight at The Misty Moon. Maybe you remember the ones who shooed you out a side door at The Six Cats when one of the other patrons was upset and stabbing people. Then there were the ones who locked you in a closet at The Magic Moth because the rival factions started fighting. More yet, who shoved you into the attic at The Dryad’s Daughter when the fight broke out there? Or Honeysuckle House, when the rival chefs went after each other with all the cooking tools? All the ones who seemed to magically appear as you were about to follow someone into a dark alley or some other shady place.”
He nods slowly. “They were just bystanders.”
I shake my head. “Ellisar’s staff realized fairly quickly that smiles and other gestures among you mean something quite different. The social cues are too different. With so many former soldiers in the capital, Ellisar’s staff hired quite a few of us to keep an eye on all of you.”
Now Kempe is angry. “Were you following us around?”
I shake my head. “I had entire teams of people do that. Mostly, we focused on making sure that nothing ate you, Duke Kempe, because you kept sneaking out of the city at night. That’s when some of the worst things of all come out to hunt. There you were, practically serving yourself up like a willing snack. We wondered, briefly, if you were suicidal, Your Grace.”
I leave out the part about who and what he was meeting outside the city.
He’s lucky we were able to stop his attempts to seduce the creature, or he wouldn't be sitting here angry with me at all. What is that saying? No good deed goes unpunished. So true when it comes to saving this ignorant duke from his own foolishness.
Duke Kempe frowns at me, so I explain. “We quickly figured out that none of you were aware of the dangers. That was another reason Ellisar’s staff hired us. That thing you kept sneaking out to meet was another ambush predator. It will appear to you in whatever form you most desire and lure you in to be eaten.
There are a few types of these in Fey lands. One kind is called The Echoes. They mimic voices and will call out to you, sounding like someone you know well, but their goal is to lure you out to be eaten. Others are called The Mirrors. They will change to look like whoever you most want to see. If you get too close, they’ll devour you in a single bite. Then some simply appear desirable and can take on various forms. If you are hungry, they’ll look like a banquet table. If you want treasure, they’ll look like a dragon’s hoard.
If you want water, they’ll appear like an oasis. If you’re cold, they’ll resemble a warm bed with a roaring fire. No matter what form they take, they’ll still devour you whole.
Duke Kempe still looks quite upset, so I shrug. “Having come here and seen this place for myself, I understand why you were unaware of just how much danger you were in. None of those things exist here. I haven’t heard an Echo or seen a glimpse of a Mirror or any of the others of its kind. I haven’t seen a single carnivorous plant, not even the smallest spring of speckled stickweed. I haven’t spotted any tree octopus nests or screechers. Many of the creatures I grew up watching for aren’t here. It’s entirely outside your experience.”
Duke Kempe looks doubtful. “I spoke to her.”
Yes, that's one of the nastier ones. It charms its victims with more than just appearance. The teams struggled to get him away from it without falling prey themselves. I doubt that Kempe will ever be able to admit that females protected him.
“It is one of the worst, since it's smart enough to tell you what you want to hear and keep urging you to come closer, bit by bit, until you’re close enough to become dinner. They all say more or less the same things. Just come a bit closer. That’s it. Oh no, nothing to be afraid of here. It's so lonely out here, outside the city. Don’t you want to be my friend? You’re still so far away. I want to be your friend. Come, take my hand. Just a few more steps.”
Your turn:
- Who do you think will betray the queen next—and why?
- If you had to pick one character to survive this chaos, who would it be?
Let me know your answer in the comments.