Page 68 of Once Broken Faith

Madden drew back his lips, showing his teeth, while his throat vibrated in an almost silent snarl. I placed a hand on his head, letting him know I understood, before drawing Sylvester’s sword and starting into the room. If anyone came at me, I would be prepared. More importantly, I would be between them and Quentin.

Would it be murder if I killed the people who’d hurt Tybalt, who’d killed King Antonio? Or would it be punishment for their own violations of the Law? I’d been forgiven by the High King once before, when I’d killed Blind Michael. He could forgive me again if it came to that, and in the end, it didn’t matter. If I killed them, it would be because they needed to die. Because they’d done too much damage. Because they’d come into a situation that could have been bloodless, even peaceful, and turned it into something terrible. Would Duke Michel have attacked Dianda if there hadn’t already been a murder, giving him a convenient scapegoat for the crime? We had never needed to fight this way.

And that was all just pretty words. If I killed them, it was going to be because they’d hurt Tybalt. They had tried to take him away from me. They might even have succeeded, at least for a century. A century! I was a changeling. No one had the right to make me wait that long for anything. I wanted them to hurt.

We crept across the parlor, Madden in the lead, until we reached a half-closed door in an ornate frame that looked like pile upon pile of evergreen branches. We stopped there, Quentin behind me, Madden still slightly ahead, although he was crouching until his belly brushed the carpet. Someone on the other side of the door was weeping.

“Stop your caterwauling and lay out my dress,” snapped a voice. “The cat’s dead by now. There’s no way he survived a shaft to the lung. The High King will call the conclave back to order at any moment, and we need to be in our seats looking properly contrite when the lecturing begins. As if that foolish populist knows the first thing about ruling, or how it’s meant to be done.”

The crying continued. Another voice, this one male, said, “Be glad we haven’t punished you for missing the first time. You should have killed him before, not wounded the other one. She would have been off the scent if you’d killed the cat. Everyone knows the little Torquill bitch is besotted with the cat-king. She’ll never be able to serve with him gone.”

It was nice to have some of my suspicions confirmed. I tensed, motioning for Quentin to stay behind me, and stepped forward. It was a simple matter to kick the door open, slamming it against the wall and revealing the dressing room on the other side. The King and Queen of Highmountain turned to gape at me. Their silent, shivering handmaiden was standing between them, her hands pressed over her face. She was pale, seeming to have less substance than she should have, even though she took up space like anyone else. I breathed in almost unconsciously, looking for the scent of her magic. I couldn’t find it, but I didn’t need to.

The Barrow Wight had been the attacker, at the orders of her lieges. Her heritage explained the strength behind the attacks. Barrow Wights are surprisingly strong for their size, probably because they need to be able to move heavy stones in order to access the burial mounds where they traditionally make their homes.

“You can’t be here,” snapped Verona.

“Is that blood? Is it yours?” asked Kabos, sounding fascinated and horrified at the same time. He was Daoine Sidhe; of course he wanted to know whose blood I carried with me, whose secrets could be teased from the stains on my clothing and skin.

I moved Sylvester’s sword between us, aiming the point at his chest. In that moment, I wished for a gun, a bow and arrow, for anything that would have allowed me to end his pitiful existence without having to depend on my paltry skills with a blade. Sylvester had done his best to teach me, but my lessons had been more than a year ago, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if they fought back.

“In the name of High King Aethlin and High Queen Maida Sollys of the Westlands, you are under arrest for the death of King Antonio Robertson of Angels,” I said, voice tight and angry in my throat. There was nothing I could do to keep my fury from showing, so I didn’t even try.

Verona looked momentarily surprised. Then, slowly, she smiled. “One death,” she said. “You’re accusing us of one death. Is your beast-man lover still breathing, then? That’s a pity. It would have been nice if the world could have been that much cleaner. Whoever hurt him was trying to do you a favor, darling. Imagine the children.”

I snarled and started to step forward. A hand on my arm stopped me. I glanced to the side. Quentin had hold of me and was shaking his head, expression grim.

“Don’t,” he said. “She’s not worth it.”

“I am a Queen, child,” snapped Verona. “You’re what, a squire? The second son of some noble too minor to keep their spare offspring from being given into a changeling’s care? You have no right to judge my worth.”

I’d been there when people said similar things to Quentin, but that had been before I knew his true identity. This time, I could see the struggle in his eyes. He outranked this woman, even as a Prince; it would have been well within his parents’ power to strip the regents of Highmountain of their thrones and give them to whomever Quentin chose. And instead, for the sake of his blind fosterage, Quentin had to let them say whatever they wanted to him, and just take it. He’d been living with this ever since he’d arrived in the Bay Area, and it was a miracle he’d borne it as well as he had.

“I suppose I don’t,” he said. “But I’m not a murderer, so there’s that.”

“But neither are we,” said Kabos, sounding offended, like he couldn’t understand why we were still talking about this when it was so clearly unnecessary. “I never hurt anyone. Neither did my dear Verona. We can’t be held responsible for the actions of our servants.”

The handmaiden was still covering her face with her hands, narrow shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping herself together. I gaped at the rulers of Highmountain, the extent of what they’d done—if not why—finally beginning to make itself clear.

Oberon’s Law was simple, to prevent misinterpretation. Killing a pureblood outside of a formally declared war was a crime punishable by death. Forgiveness for breaking the Law was possible only under the most extremely extenuating circumstances, such as when I had killed Blind Michael—and even then, there would always be people who thought the punishments laid down by Oberon should have trumped any forgiveness the world chose to offer. Nowhere in the Law did it say “but it’s okay if someone else made you do it.” Nowhere did it say “if the people who control your life order you to take someone else’s, we will find a way to forgive you.”

“Arrest her,” said Verona, flapping a hand in the direction of her handmaid. “Take her away. She was never a very good servant, anyway. Always wrinkled my gowns and pulled my hair. Her little sister will be a much better ladies’ maid, I’m sure, now that she understands what the job entails.”

The handmaid’s shoulders stopped shaking. It was a small change, but a palpable one. Before, we’d been in the company of a living, if terrified, person. Now we were standing next to a statue.

“We did nothing,” said Kabos. “The High King can ride our blood, and all he’ll find is the truth: that we never laid a hand on anyone. We are innocent.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I spat.

“No?” Verona raised an eyebrow. “We can’t be held responsible for our thoughts, surely. That would be unjust and wrong. You, of all people, who has fought so hard for the rights of the deposed, must want us to be judged on what we’ve done, and not what we may have thought of doing.”

The handmaid lowered her hands from her face. She was pretty, if pale, in the way of Barrow Wights; most of them stayed in their mounds, avoiding the company of the living, who moved too fast and wanted too much. Stacy’s ancestors, whoever they may have been, would have been considered strange by their pureblood kin for loving another of the fae, even if it had only been for a night. Barrow Wights kept to themselves.

“Don’t touch my sister,” she said, in a voice like wind through a graveyard, thin and cold and filled with ghosts. “She isn’t yours. That wasn’t what you promised me.”

“We never promised you anything,” said Verona.

“I’m the one with the sword here, so maybe you could stop arguing and just agree that I’m arresting you all, okay?” I straightened the arm holding Sylvester’s sword, trying to look like I wasn’t confused and covered in blood. Tybalt’s blood. The thought made it easier to lock my shoulders and glare. “The High King can sort this out.” I could ask him to be merciful, if he found that the Barrow Wight girl really hadn’t been given a choice in what she’d done.