Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

Bile scalded her throat. Sun and Moon…

How many had Invidiana sent to their deaths, from this very seat? For a whim, for an evening’s entertainment—Lune was not like that. But amusement was only the secondary force driving the former Queen’s actions. Foremost, always, was the security of her own power.

Invidiana did not always kill those who posed a threat. If they could be punished in other fashions—disgraced, exiled, forced into penance, and thereby used to serve some larger scheme—then they lived.

Lune tried, and failed, to banish Cerenel’s voice from her memory, swearing the oath she forced upon him.

But if a courtier had no further value to Invidiana, if the danger they presented outweighed their use…then she ground them beneath her heel, to keep all the rest in line.

I am not like her.

Or was she? How often had she dreamed of Vidar’s death, sought it with every power at her disposal? She hesitated to kill—except for him. Not because he threatened her immediate safety, as Kentigern had when they called down the stones to crush him, but simply because he could serve no purpose but to threaten her power.

Silence reigned in the chamber. Few even seemed to be breathing. Vidar waited, smirking. Why would he do this? He gains nothing by admitting his guilt, save his own death!

But his death was a foregone conclusion. By advancing to meet it, he achieved the one victory left to him: he hurt Lune, struck at the very heart of her confidence upon the throne.

And if she executed him, every faerie who remembered Invidiana would recall his words forever.

Yet he could not live. Casting desperately about for any escape from this trap, Lune felt a smile spread across her own face, rising out of the vindictive triumph growing in her soul. He thought to claim one final victory, but she would deny him.

“Lord Valentin,” she called out, not looking away from Vidar, and heard a startled reply from the audience. “We have need of the item we recently entrusted to your safekeeping.”

“The b—” The Lord Keeper’s answer cut off abruptly. “Your Majesty—”

“We are waiting, Lord Valentin.”

At the edge of her vision, she saw him bow and exit the chamber, dragging one of the remaining mortals with him. Murmurs ran through the hall, fae asking one another what the Queen referred to.

“Silence,” Lune commanded, and received it. “We have delegated our authority to judge these crimes; we therefore ask the jury to render their verdicts.” How long would it take Valentin to return? Once out of her sight, he would run very fast. “Ifarren Vidar has confessed his guilt to all the crimes named. Do you acknowledge and confirm that guilt?”

Mere pageantry, making a grander occasion out of the truncated trial, and giving Valentin time to return. Vidar waited with the patient smugness of an incipient martyr. One by one, the nine jurors stood and stated their recognition of his guilt. We shall leave it beyond all question.

And when they were done, she said, “What sentence do you advise for such a traitor?”

Fae were often reluctant to kill, but not now. Every group had chosen the individual most eager to have a part in punishing Nicneven’s chief lieutenant in the long struggles between London and Fife. One by one, the jurors stood and called for death, Antony last of all.

The Prince would not like what she was about to do. But in the end, she was the Queen; she might listen to advice, but in the end the decision was hers, for the good of her realm. Antony was not here as Prince, and this faerie matter was not his to judge.

Vidar thought it nothing more than a means of shedding the guilt for his death. His smirk grew ever wider. But when Aspell and his companion reentered at the back of the hall, and Lune dismissed the jurors from the dais, a hint of confusion began to creep into the traitor’s expression.

The watching fae turned, and saw the box of hawthorn in the mortal’s hands.

The chamber rang with a gasp of horror so loud it was nearly a shout, and everyone shied back, forgetting the solemnity of the occasion. It left a wide aisle down which Valentin passed, followed by the mortal bearer.

While all eyes in the hall were upon them, Lune slipped a piece of bread free of her pocket and swallowed it. She carried some with her always now, for safety, and was glad of it.

The two reached the dais. All others had shifted well back, save Lune, Vidar, and Angrisla, who held the traitor forcibly in his chair. At Lune’s gesture, the mortal placed the box at her feet, and then gladly joined Valentin in retreating.

“Ifarren Vidar. For your crimes,” Lune said, “you merit death. But the murder of fae is abhorrent to us, and so we grant you this measure of mercy. We sentence you to imprisonment eternal—guarded not by lock and key, which may be broken, nor by watchmen, who may be bribed, but by the elemental forces that bind all fae.”

She lifted the lid of the hawthorn box.

The thing inside was small, no wider than the span of Lune’s hand. But it exuded a cold aura far beyond its size, that chilled her even through the protection of the bread. Iron had tasted of her flesh; its taint lingered in her blood, inside the defense of the mortal tithe. Lune had not expected that. Her intention had been to lift the box free herself, but she could not bring herself to hold it so closely. She had to gesture the mortal forward again, and have him set it atop the replaced hawthorn lid.

Now everyone could see it. The black sides were unadorned; its lid bore only a blank shield. But it was the one prison nothing could break free of, not even a faerie spirit—and she had in mind a way to ensure no one would ever let him out.

Vidar knew it, too. All the smugness was gone, and sick horror had descended in its place. But this was the fate he would have condemned Antony to; Lune remembered that, and used her fury as armor and goad alike. It is no mercy, but then again, he deserves none. She forced herself to reach out.

The touch of the iron was like the hottest fire and the coldest ice, and it called forth an excruciating answer from the half-healed wound in her shoulder. Lune was dimly aware of a scuffle, but had no attention to spare; clenching her teeth until she thought her jaw would break, she lifted the lid, and snatched her hand back the instant it was done.

The scuffle, it seemed, had been Vidar’s attempted escape. He now lay face-down on the floor three paces from his chair, with Angrisla on his back, twisting his hands in a tight grip. He might be sanguine about his death, but not this.

Lune was more than ready for the box to be gone. “Bring me the prisoner’s blood,” she said, and the mara grinned toothily. A demented light shone in her eyes as she faced down the iron aura, holding her position by will alone. Bonecruncher would not come near, but slid a knife along the polished floor to her. Angrisla carved a long slash down Vidar’s arm, then glared at the mortal until he fetched it and bore it to Lune.

She took the dagger and held it over the black interior of the box. “Thus do we carry out the traitor’s sentence,” she said, through her nausea and pain. Three taps of her finger sent three droplets flying from the tip, swallowed up by the impenetrable darkness.

Vidar howled. He writhed with abrupt strength, hurling Angrisla from his back, but then his body locked into a rictus; frozen, contorted upon the stone, he was a picture of perfect agony. Then he was insubstantial, then faint as a ghost; then he was gone, leaving blank marble and empty chains where his body had been.

A new light shone within the box, bloodred and murderous.

Lune slammed the lid shut. A spider now stared at her from the formerly blank shield. Shuddering at the sight, she gestured the mortal to retreat. He did so, with visible relief.