Vidar
It’s a decade before I really think about going back to the girl in the cage – which is no time at all when you are one of the fair folk. We’re a busy people and I am particularly busy. The King of Iceheim sees to that. When I am not weaving schemes and fighting sly wars with others of my kind there are strong magics to unweave and places to explore. I am always busy, but the memory of that pale mortal seer holding the apple has stuck with me.
She appears before me as I work the machinations of my king as often as memories of my mother appear before me – but unlike the memories of my youth, thoughts of her are pleasant. Somewhere out there, she is covered in mayflies dreaming dreams for her mortal kin. The thought keeps me warm in the vast swirling winds of the ice plains and melts my core when the ice-claws of the silvren tigers sink into my chest. She is becoming to me almost the talisman she is to her own people. And I cannot explain it except to say what a comfort it is to know there is someone else out there whoknows.To speak of my fate to anyone else would be to court death, but she has seen it all, and so she must know how my birthright was plucked from me and how I am left to dangle, waiting for the final order that will strike me down.
“You’re a puzzle, Vidar,” Precatore says as he swills his spiced wine and keeps an arm around the antlered lady of the Court of Antlers who deigns to spend her precious hours with him. “You’re not entirely ugly and yet I’ve never seen you with a lover. You’re not in love and yet you’re always looking off into the distance with the look on your face of a man deep in the throes of infatuation. Perhaps, you ought to ask the king to make you his bard. Poetry is the only solution to such folly.”
Fortunately for me, he has forgotten our trip to the Mayfly Seer. He never mentions her, and I would know if he had gone to visit her. To him, she was just one more oddity we saw together in our misspent youth. No more important than the emerald tiger or the striped dryad. I do not ever let him see that she meant more than that to me.
I am riding to the courts of the Court of Madness, ordered there by Rowan, King of Iceheim, just days ago.
“A single diplomat, I think,” the king said to me when he called me to court. “We will show them what we think of their garish display of power with a display of our own. One of our youngest courtiers, riding alone. Wear no armor, Vidar of Wolventooth. Carry no sword. Bring only your sharp wits with you.”
He leans his crowned head down and picks at the glaze-eyed fish on his plate, its flesh split into delicate segments. He is thoughtful, his hoary hair bright around his gleaming, clever eyes. They’re sharper than his antlers are and I’m not so young among my own kind that I don’t know what he’s asking of me or why.
My mother has already been banished from these courts to wander the mortal lands, her immortality stripped from her, reduced by illusion to appear as any mortal. My father was never known to me or to the court. And I have inherited her icy hearth and the pitiless creatures that tend it. And since she has been stripped from me, I have been sent on one frivolous errand after another, each a little harder than the last, each a little more likely to get me killed. This errand today is both test for me and a test for the Court of Madness.
My liege wants to know if he can negotiate with them – if they are only here for war or here for words, too. And he wants to know if I’ll do his bidding without question – even now when it will certainly bring my death. He wants to know if I am a traitor, too. The stink of it is on me. It’s what everyone whispers when they think I can’t hear them and mutters about when I dance or drink or game with them. It’s a cloud I’ll never be rid of, even if I succeed at this, but if I don’t succeed, I will die, so that’s reason enough to try.
Better still for the King of Iceheim if his gamble fails there will be no reckoning. I’m worse than nothing to him. I’m a gaping hole reminding him that a woman who was once his consort is banished in disgrace and even his bright crown is tainted by it.
I smiled, of course, and acquiesced. I am not rich or well connected. What I am is clever and my wit is sharper than even he can hope for. “It will be as you have commanded, King of Iceheim. Who am I to gainsay the King of Iceheim or to keep from him all he is due?”
What he’s due is a dagger straight to the jugular, but I’m careful not to let that show on my face. Even Precatore does not know how deep my hatred of my king has grown.
My bow is straight-backed and noble as I ride. If I go to my death this time, I will do it in style. I will be noble in action even if I can be no longer be such in name.
And that is why I am not riding directly to the Court of Madness where an army assembles to test our borders. I am making a detour. I have already stopped once, leaving the spies of Iceheim utterly confused.
“Why has he stopped to buy such an odd offering?” they must be asking themselves. That alone pleases me. I like to confuse. I like to maneuver. I like to shift the tides in my favor when no one is watching. I especially like to keep my liege in the dark.
I was careful to lose those spies after that. If this works, I don’t want them to know about my hidden ace. We play for high stakes, we fae. Any advantage I can winkle out of the world I will keep entirely to myself. I don’t think they’ll find this another way. Fae are rarely interested in mortals and usually only to play in their fates or tangle them up in contracts and words to choke their lives out.
My caribou’s feet pound the earth and the tiny silver bells in his harness – mirrors to those in my hair – play the song of swiftness and surefootedness and we are as one as we plunge forward.
We reach the mortal lands with hardly any effort. I avoid their contact. I need no guide today. Nor do I want an audience. Not this time.
I would say luck favors me if I did not know she only favors herself. But I am still fortunate. Today is May Day in the mortal world. And if I am quick, I will arrive in time.
The mortals do not see life as we do. For them, ten years is a long time. For me, it might as well have been last week. And that is what it will be like for the oracle, too – she who lives but one day a year. Even so, I have brought her a gift. We fae do not take favors without returning them. We do not like to be in debt.
Last time, I gave her a single apple as my present. This time, I have an even better surprise.
When I reach the black shores, I do not hire a boat, I take one. I do not wish to negotiate with the crew or explain myself. I am running out of time. The boat I steal is small and the way to Mayfly Island is etched into my mind like a name carved in the bark of a tree. Time has changed and worn it – but not so much as to lose the shape that has been set there.
I reach the island late in the afternoon.
I would never admit that I am relieved, but I am.
She is there, seated calmly on her dais, her hands raised, her hair and body covered in a layer of mayflies, leaving only her pale face free and clear. Around her cage on the carved stone steps, mortals lay prostrate, looks of agony on their faces as they fight for a glimpse of what is to come.
I tie my boat to their dock ring and leap out into the frothy surf, striding up the black sand beach to her cage as if I own it and the beach and all else I survey.
Her eyes follow me, and I sense she recognizes me, though her expression does not change.
“Have you memory of me, fair lady?” I ask when I am close. I rest the fingers of one hand lightly around the black bar of her cage. I hold my breath, and to my delight, she stands and slowly sways toward me. Her eyes never leave mine, not even when I reach into my jacket and pull out what I have brought her. I smile. This will please her. “I have returned to take, but also to give.”
She tilts her head slightly as if asking a question.
