Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

Irrith straightened with renewed vigor and plowed into the hob a second time, clawing and biting, tangling his feet with her own so he fell to the ground, where she kicked him until his own flailing defense upset her balance. But she collapsed with intent, her knee colliding with his head, and he went suddenly limp.

She stumbled to her feet almost immediately, recoiling from the table, although the hawthorn shielded her from the iron within. Antony’s candleholder had been upset by the struggle; he righted it, and beat out the flaming papers with his hat.

Then, and only then, did he look at the figure on the floor.

Ifarren Vidar.

We should have known.

The accusation would not leave Lune’s mind. Yet how could they? Who would have dreamt that Ifarren Vidar would find his refuge beneath their very eyes?

They found evidence enough of it in the Billingsgate warren. Vidar lived there like a rat—the sight afforded her some vindictive satisfaction—but he had been there for a long time. Perhaps years. There was no safety for him in Scotland, or elsewhere in England, and so he had concealed himself in the one place no one would think to look for him. Lune had not sought him there since the battle ended, and to know who was in the Onyx Hall required effort she no longer had reason to exert. He could have returned to the palace the very next day.

And somewhere in that chaos, he had stolen the iron box and its protective shell from the treasury. Lune should have paid heed to the things there far sooner, but too many of them had been gifts to Invidiana; she was loath to see what the old Queen had kept. From Antony’s description, the thing was obviously a prison—one that would hold even a faerie.

“I expect I was to be a peace offering to Nicneven,” the Prince said, with more equanimity than Lune thought the situation deserved. “She has threatened to kill me before.”

“Perhaps.” Lune tried to think past her instinctive revulsion, and the throbbing of the old wound in her shoulder. Irrith had been green, and understandably so, when a few brave souls came running to see why there was iron in the Prince’s chambers. The sprite was abed now, with a draught from the Goodemeades to restore her, and Lune had every intention of rewarding her with a knighthood. Irrith would likely not see the point of such a title, but Lune meant to acknowledge her valor. “Or perhaps Vidar meant something worse.”

Antony paled, showing he was not so sanguine about his close escape as he had seemed. “Worse?”

She paced across the chamber, stabbing the heels of her shoes into the Turkish carpet. She wanted stone beneath her feet, the hard impact and ringing noise. “It is no secret any longer that you are an integral part of my connection to my realm. What if you were severed from me by iron?” Despite her control, her voice wavered on the last word.

He did not answer. Like her, he could only imagine—but the possibilities ranged from bad to horrific. Lune doubted it would destroy the palace on the spot, but it might vitally weaken the enchantments, and at the very least it would leave her vulnerable, lacking half her power.

She had been one drop of blood away from finding out.

Vidar was locked beneath the Tower now, and the hawthorn box with its dreadful contents secured. But too many fae knew what had happened; they knew Vidar had been found.

Sooner or later, Nicneven would hear.

Antony knew that as well as she did. Leaving aside the question of the traitor’s purpose, he asked, “What do you intend to do?”

It was not a safer or more cheerful direction of thought. Lune was no faerie philosopher, but she had spoken to a few, in roundabout fashion, of Nicneven’s threat. She began with the death of mortal sovereignty in England, reborn when Charles the Second reclaimed his throne, and the philosophers found much of interest in that. But when she asked them to consider faerie sovereignty, their speculation had turned much grimmer.

Her instinct was correct. If she permitted Nicneven to hold the Onyx Hall to ransom—if Lune, a sovereign Queen, bent to the will of another—then she surrendered her realm. To give in to the threat would be to recognize the Gyre-Carling as a greater authority than Lune herself, one with power over the Onyx Hall she could not contest.

And if she did that, she would be Queen no more.

What came after that, even the philosophers could not say. Either Nicneven would be Queen in London, or no one would—but neither fate was acceptable.

She had shared this with Antony, reluctantly, and even begun to hope in the privacy of her heart that the Gyre-Carling would find Vidar before she did. It didn’t matter whether the Queen of Fife got what she desired; it only mattered that Lune not let her realm be used to force her into surrendering him.

But Vidar’s attempt on Antony, and Irrith’s valor in stopping him, had left her with only one option. “I must execute him,” Lune said.

Antony nodded. “So I presumed. I meant something more, though. What will you do before that?”

Lune’s brow furrowed. “Summon all my court…do you think I should send word to Berkshire, and wait for any who wish to attend?”

“If you like. Let me put it more bluntly: will you place him on trial?”

He might as well have spoken French, so little did Lune expect his words. “Trial? Antony, you cannot doubt his guilt. Even were his earlier crimes in question, you saw what he tried to do to you!”

“I do not doubt it,” Antony said. “But if it is certain, then it is easily proved—and why not do so? Conduct a proper trial.”

“Proper?” It came out a disbelieving laugh. “We are not mortals, Antony.”

What made him propose this so somberly? “No, you are not,” he agreed. “But that does not mean you have no concern for justice.”

“ Justice will be his death.”

“Because you will it?” The question startled Lune into silence. “That is your royal prerogative, Lune. But you know my opinion on such things; it has not changed these many years. I disagreed with Pym on too many points to count, his endless attempts to strip power from the King and place it in Parliament’s hands, but in one matter he and I were in accord: we detested Charles’s prerogative courts. Justice must be an orderly thing, not the whim of a single person.”

“You think it a whim? ” Pain tightened Lune’s heart. “Antony, the fate of a traitor is death, among fae as well as mortals.”

He nodded again, but this time there was irony in it. “I see. And that, of course, is why you executed all the other traitors—like Sir Prigurd.”

A dozen answers, all trying to emerge at once, choked Lune’s attempt to reply. Prigurd had tried to help, in his belated fashion; as for the others, to kill them all would have been an act of unthinkable murder. She had her reasons—

But that was Antony’s point. She had made her decisions alone, on her own judgment, without recourse to any standard save that she set for herself.

Quietly, without accusation, Antony said, “Arbitrary behavior is made no more attractive because it comes from a faerie.”

Lune winced. “You were upset that I dealt with Prigurd in your absence; I understand that. I will not exclude you a second time. The exile almost killed you, Antony, and it was Vidar’s doing; you have every right to take part in his judgment.”

He smiled, as if she had said exactly what he hoped she would. “Good. Then for my part, I demand you put Ifarren Vidar on trial, and prove his guilt before all.”

Lune closed her eyes, despairing. “You will not give this up, will you?”

“Indeed I will not.”

She gritted her teeth. “He will be shown guilty.”