Page 15 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire

y pencampwr

(THE CHAMPION)

The horse disappears from beneath me and I tumble to the ground in a pathetic heap while Neirin hovers for a second, his coat floating around him like wings, then delicately lands on his toes.

Bright colors bloom behind my eyes and I do far worse than faint—I vomit, only narrowly missing my own hands as I double over on the floor.

“Is that always going to be so horrible?” I gasp.

The entire journey couldn’t have taken more than a moment, but I felt every inch as the forest whipped around us, blurring into a mass of green, grasping hands reaching out from the trees. Neirin swatted them away.

He leans against a wall that has risen from nowhere behind us. “I hope so. It’s terribly funny watching you suffer.”

I curse at him as I drag myself up.

The great limestone wall curves away from us, reaching high enough to caress the sky.

The casual ease with which Neirin touches it is unnerving.

He’s a member of this court, and his fortune and power depend on this king that hates him—and yet he treats its greatest fortification like it’s no more than an old fence.

“Remind me what I must do,” I huff. I’m acutely aware that I’m about to meet a king in my nightgown, coat and old boots, with unbound hair and little dignity. I try to feel careless about it, but I just can’t. It’s humiliating.

“Announce yourself as a potential champion,” Neirin says. “You’ll be invited in. The king won’t ask too many questions. He is bound to accept any human that offers, so you won’t interest him. You’ll just be cannon fodder.”

I nod, more to myself than to him. “And that’s all?”

“That’s all,” he confirms. “It’s easy to say you are a champion, Habren, and far harder to become one. Your word is your bond, and by presenting your intent, the king is bound too, to fulfill our request when you win.”

Somehow, my mind manages to gloss over “our request” and snag, instead, on how certain he sounds when he says that I will succeed.

He was sure I would fail when we first met.

I wonder what’s changed. It’s almost enough to make me believe, too, but then he steps away from me, taking his warmth and confidence with him.

“It’ll be simple,” Neirin assures me. “Just don’t punch the king or something idiotic like that.”

I arch a brow. “You think I’d be that foolish?”

“You’ve never had an impulsive thought that you could ignore, Habren. Two days with you is enough to know that.”

Two days. I suppose I should count myself lucky that I haven’t lost more time than that, but all I can think of is Ceridwen and how far ahead she could be by now. I square my shoulders, more determined than ever to get to the king and get out with his acceptance as fast as I can.

Neirin curls four fingers toward his palm, leaving the thumb up, a ridiculous grin on his face. “You’ll do fabulously.”

My eyes narrow at the gesture. “What is this?”

His eyes widen with surprise. “Thumbs up. Universal sign of positivity.”

I frown in confusion. “Is this a fairy gesture?”

“Decidedly human. I learned it from another traveler.” He waves his hands at me, insistent. “Go on.”

I copy him uncertainly, awkwardly making a fist and sticking my thumb up.

Neirin tuts. “Maybe not so universal. Either way, go forth and conquer!”

I step toward the gate. “And what will you be doing while I’m conquering?”

Neirin grins. “I thought that was obvious.”

I glance around him to the forest and sigh. “Hiding behind a tree?”

“Hiding behind a tree,” he confirms.

I watch as he goes, his dark hair and clothes merging easily with the shadows until one last wink of a silver button is all that remains of him. Then I’m alone, standing before a very tall gate.

I knock on the great wooden door, and it groans and opens a crack.

A guard clad in periwinkle blue fills the gap.

He’s tall and broad, with ram’s horns curling down from his temples to frame his cheeks.

He looks me up and down, eyes snagging on my blunt ears and shabby clothes.

Is this a joke? lingers in the air, before he bursts out laughing.

I stand as straight as I can. “I’m here to—”

“I know what you’re here for, human,” he says. “It’s all any of you come for these days.”

Despite his laughter, the door opens. I cross the threshold into a small town of outbuildings.

Smiths, hunters’ huts, barns and stables, all built to serve the great house.

Other guards lounge around a fortified square.

Some bear swords or polearms; others appear unarmed, perhaps protected by magic instead.

Some look ellyll, their difference from us marked only by pointed ears, while others have more animalistic qualities—horns and tails and feathered wings poking from their uniforms.

The ram guard leads me on a winding path. The grounds are hectic. It must take a great many organs to keep the body of a palace alive, even one run partly on magic.

Above it all towers the ellyll palace. Like the Branshaws’ house, it’s startlingly white against the blue sky, and it casts a shadow over the servants’ village.

As I climb the high steps, I finally let myself stare.

The palace is a thing from myth. Turrets rise in a hundred layers, with waterfalls interrupting staircases and forests where buildings would be.

Golden roofs touch the sky and wink down at us, while thousands of windows observe Eu gwlad for what must be miles.

People on balconies take tea and gossip.

Gardens recline around the base, organized by color and hue to create a rainbow of flowers.

I’m making a pig’s ear of this. Let me try something else.

Imagine what magic smells like to you (we can’t all love wisteria and baking bread), then picture wonders to rival the ocean. Imagine the place where the fairy tales of your childhood happened, when your mother lay beside you in bed and whispered stories in your ear.

You’re halfway there.

Great ivory doors tower over us, but we avoid them entirely. They’re carved with tales from the Mabinogion, and I search for heroes within them as if they are old friends, but we’re gone before I can find my sister’s namesake.

We round the base of the palace to be faced with a small, nondescript door, and I understand exactly where we’re going—the kitchens.

Workers always enter the big house through the kitchens.

The kitchen is hot as a furnace. Elements of it I recognize—a pot over a roaring fire, large counters to prepare food—but others are wholly foreign.

A copper door opens and a waft of freezing, ghostly air escapes from it.

Great glass windows contain a blazing heat.

A pipe of endless water pours into the sink without anyone to pump it.

I’m caught so off guard that I almost miss the teg that operate the kitchen.

They’re bwbach: house helpers who perform chores in exchange for offerings.

They stand no higher than my knees and use a maze of platforms suspended from the ceiling to reach each station.

Among them a lumbering ogre barks orders, ducking inelegantly to avoid the walkways.

We take a narrow passage to a tight, winding servants’ staircase that lets out into a grand hall.

It has the tallest ceiling I’ve ever seen, by which I mean real clouds float across the fresco above us.

Marble corridors sprout from the hall in every direction, twisting away from us, and paintings line the walls, though the scenes from teg history they depict mean little to me.

An oak door blocks our way, until it opens without being touched by the sentries on either side.

Beyond it, a short set of stairs descends into a vast sunken reception area, framed by walkways and pillars on all sides, that runs toward a raised throne.

A rug of spun metals—silver, gold, copper, platinum—runs in a straight line to a dais set before four stained-glass windows.

Every few moments the shards shift and create new pictures: the seasons blur into times of day, and times of day into a bestiary.

The throne atop the dais dwarfs all: gold rises high and spills over the steps like a wave, and within it there are carvings of fairies and revels, animals fleeing a hunt, and entire towns and villages flanked by bountiful farms.

The excess is unfathomable. Disgust creeps up my throat.

I hardly register the movement of my feet toward the dais until the guard stops a few steps away from it. He sweeps into a low bow that I copy. We rise, and I get my first glimpse of the king.

His profile is angular, and his eyes are blue—the only color in his otherwise ghostly face.

His skin is unlined, but age radiates off him in waves.

He feels old. He’s like a Roman ruin: eternal against the seasons, against the growth of nearby towns, against time.

We could make a museum of him and he wouldn’t notice.

That sense of timeless, withering weariness is at odds with his beauty.

His robes match the white and gold of his palace.

Suddenly it feels comforting that Neirin tries to dress like a boy from my village, because if he wore the jeweled garments favored by this court I don’t think I could look at him.

But my eyes are drawn away from the king quickly to the woman in white at his side.

She has waist-length red curls and a face like that of a girl in a fashion plate, all plump lips and rosy cheeks.

Butterflies, dragonflies and furry-winged moths cling to her white slip like she’s both a flower and a flame.

They’ve eaten holes in the fabric, and some burrow in her hair.

Their wings flutter, but they never fly away. I can’t imagine why they would want to.