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NOT ENTIRELY ALONE

Loch

For all my wits, my machinations, my deals, my experiences, I am admittedly a little confused as to what to do with the high court. Probably because I was never supposed to survive to see it. My purview was the art of making bargains to ensure the snakes would owe the high queen. I never thought of what one would have to do to keep the court together once it was formed. I suppose I only expected to witness it as a ghost.

Still, these are my folk; the puppets I've played for hundreds of years.

"Lords and ladies."I clap my hands together. I know them. All they want is a spectacle, and I can give them that. "The high queen welcomes you."

Because this is my sister's court. Not mine. Never mine.

I swore. I swore .

Then I release you of any and all previous oaths, Loch Oberon Night of the house Harthorn.

My true name. She only had to look into the depth of my eyes to see it, to feel it, and to undo everything I've ever been.

I swore and now it means nothing. I could steal her place if I wished. She made sure of that.

I may be standing in front of all the lords gathered for the rites, hundreds of gentry and their retinues, each more dangerous than the last, but I barely see them, my mind forever replaying the moment where she turned the blade to her chest and pressed the iron into her own heart, killing herself. Undoing me.

Which is why this is her court. Her throne. Her crown.

Ryther better bring her back. He has to. And in the meantime, my job is holding on to this house of cards to make sure her palace is still standing when they return. And they will return. They must.

"And where is the queenspawn?" the duchess of the court of wings sneers.

What's her name again? They change rulers so fast in those frozen peaks, murdering each other as a Sunday brunch game.

"Yes. Is the little queen hiding?" I recognize Junis, the new winter leader, though he's too boring for me to have dealt with him yet.

He only stands out in his unsuitability for his position.

Rena of the bright court huffs a sunny laugh. She's distinctive enough, if only because she's been in power as long as I've been alive, one of the few rulers to have kept her head along with her crown for so long. In fact, I'd say there are only three alive who can boast as much: herself, Ryther Crow, and his elusive brother, the leader of the hunt, notably, and inconveniently absent.

I could have used some support. Without him or Valdred, it falls to me; Ryther's pup, Caenan; and a vapid sea whore to hold the fort.

Kingdoms have been held by worse odds, I'd wager. None come to mind right this moment, however.

"Hiding?" I chuckle brightly. "Whatever for? She's run circles around the lot of you for three days, and none could so much as get a teeny tiny bite. She's won the rites and is our queen. She'll see you at her leisure. Likely when she's done mourning the parents you butchered."

I sweep the crowd with a glance, catching far too many sneers and not enough shivering.

I could make them shiver. I could make them suffer. I could make them respect me. But every ounce of deference they show me would be detrimental to Darina upon her return. The folk should only fear one power.

"Stay. Rest. Be merry in these long-forgotten halls. All rooms are at your disposal but the queen's quarters. Feel free to squabble over them."I turn on my heels, whispering to my right. "Your assistance was greatly appreciated."

Caenan stiffens, caught out. "I was scanning the crowd. Reading the minds I could reach, in order to identify the biggest treats."

Oh. That is helpful. "And?"

"The bright court. She's less hateful than some, but there's a clear plan in place already. She's going for the sister. Valdred ought to reach her first, I believe. Junis, if only because he suspects he may still be able to compel Darina, and is likely right. But the lords have already decided to reform the original Council. Three seelie, three unseelie seats. They'll demand to see her in close quarters, and soon. Try to wrest power when they can."

I groan. I really would rather be dead for the ruling part. That was the deal .

"And where's the sea whore?"

To say I'm not fond ofRelva would be an understatement, and not all of it is her doing. If I were in a fairer mood, I'd say none of it is. It's not her fault one of her mortal kin wronged me--nor that she looks so much like the witch-bitch.

"Being considerably more efficient than you, as far as providing distractions goes," she retorts, appearing from a servant's entrance off the dais.

She's dragging a heavy cart behind her, so large it must have been meant to be pulled by a pair of horses. In one glance, I can tell she's right.

She brought wine.

Lots and lots of wine.

"And I resent ‘sea whore.’ I don't restrict my whoring to under the waves--you may call me the unseelie whore."

I make a mental note: she's smarter than she appears. I'll try to look past the fact that she wears the face of a savage murdering bitch who owes me a pound of flesh.

"That is helpful," I admit, trying not to sound begrudging.

I suppose that for once, I'm not alone. I don't have to be the only one thinking, planning, plotting. Once we reach the queen's quarters, I press a thumb to the door, and wince as the hungry metal pricks my skin, opening at its taste of my blood.

"All these deflections worked because it's dawn," I say, sidestepping to let them into the room.

It's not dusty. No spider has dared make her way into the elegant room, still lit by candlelight, and smelling of flowers.

I wave and the queen's doors lock themselves back up behind us.

"And everyone's already drunk, or exhausted. By the next sunset, they'll have a plan. Any idea what to do if they aren't back by then?"

"Why didn't you take this palace before?" Relva muses. "It truly does recognize you as its owner."

My jaw tightened."I gave my word."

She's completely baffled as to why anyone would give away that much power, I suppose. Caenan seems just as intrigued.

I sigh. "How were you raised?"

Relva frowns. "Sorry?"

"As a child. You're a bloody princess. I'm guessing there were mermaid nurses or something else."

"Yes, I had a few maids, nurses, tutors."

"You?" I check with Caenan.

He shrugs. "A human wet nurse, for a time. Then mostly tutors, or my brothers."

I nod, having expected as much. "Yes, well, I was raised in a swamp, with my mother, the queen and then no one. She fed me from her own breasts, sang me to sleep, and taught me things from the moment she pushed me out to the day I turned seven."

They all seem shocked, either by the swamp, or the simple fact that the former high queen could lower herself so much as to actually nurse a child herself. No doubt they think her a loving mother now.

"And do you know what she ensured my first words would be?"

They exchange glances.

"‘I swear.’ For a whole year, I swore to many things—everything she ever asked. Long before I understood those words. And I was given songs of my sister's rule, stories as to why my sacrifice would be noble. And I swore, and I swore, and I swore again. I was bound more thoroughly than any prisoner in shackles by the time I could piss in a pot."

"But then—" Caenan clears his throat. "By the cruel gods, how don't you hate Darina, after all that?"

I could tell them I did. I could tell them I've never hated anyone or anything as much as the unknown older sister who would have everything as I faded to shadow and bones, forgotten. Not even my mother did I hate as much as that child I never knew. I could tell them when I sought her out, when I traced my own blood to find her stone, I intended to do my utmost to find a way to carve it up, destroy it before it could crush me.

I could tell them I cried the first time I saw her because it was a baby, cursed and seven times cursed, not the monster I conjured in my mind. I could tell them I would have destroyed her still, if one or another or my many vows hadn't prevented me to.

I've never been a person, just a tool of the former high queen, meant to mold the next.

And then Darina brought that damnable blade to her own chest, and freed me with her last breath.

I ceased hating her the moment she started to show me what it is to be loved. Unconditionally. Illogically. Recklessly.

"Because I'm a better person than you," I retort with a haughty snort. "Now, at sunset. Any ideas?"