AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’s all smiles, ever the charming prince.
I only nod, though my mouth curls up to obey my directives. One perfect toy, coming right up.
“I thought he might.” The prince hands me one of the goblets. “Junis is desperate for my approval, given the mess he’s in.”
“What mess?”
I need to know every single one of my captor’s foibles. Maybe I’ll find something to exploit, to get myself out of this nightmare.
“You’ll find the politics boring.”
That might have been true if we’d been talking about Republicans and Democrats at home. I tune that talk out as much as I possibly can.
“Not at all,” I say, meaning it. “They are fairy politics.”
And a potential glimpse into my enemy’s weakness.
Valdred is obliging. “The court of winter is one of the most powerful unseelie seats on the eastern shores. It is an echo of the seelie court of day—the same kind of folk are attracted to the seasonal courts, and depending on their affinity, they favor either summer or winter.”
“Seelie, unseelie…” I repeat. “That means good and bad?”
He laughs out loud. I bristle, still sensitive after being called stupid.
“Pardon me, it’s just…so very human to look at things that way. No, pet, the courts aren’t good or bad—nor are the folk. We just are.”
My confusion must be evident once again, as after one glance at me, he sees fit to expound.
“Imagine a tree, tall and beautiful above, and its roots, stretching just as deep below. All parts are exactly the same tree, are they not? You could not have the leaves if you destroy the roots, and strong as they are, they wither after you cut down the trunk.”
The concept is all well and good, but… “Doesn’t everyone prefer the branches to the roots?”
“Spoken like a true seelie,” he replies with an easy grin. “The courts do not understand each other well. What one finds repulsive, the other revels in.”
I don’t have anything against roots per se, but I’ll posit that in a survey, everyone would vote for leaves and flowers in the spring.
“Over time, the unseelie courts settled in the east isles, and the seelie court in the west. Now, we’re in the Hollow, land of the high queen, right in the middle. She used to rule the monarchs of both sides fairly, and kept the peace.”
Fascinating as all that is, I decide we’ve drifted too far from anything useful to me.
“So, Junis?” I prompt.
What I need is information on the dick. And preferably, a list of his enemies. With their phone numbers.
Do they use phones here? A glance around the medieval surroundings, and I guess that the answer is a firm no. I’ve really been sucked into a strange version of the Middle Ages.
With magic toilets, at least. Some people dress for a night clubs, and I even spot a man in a tuxedo, but most things, and folk here, seem to adhere to ancient rules.
“Well, the court of winter is unseelie by nature. When its last ruler passed, she had one daughter, set to take it over, but the daughter made an unsuitable match, angering her court.” Valdred gestures to the banquet. “Food?”
I haven’t eaten in the last three days and reminded of its existence, my stomach growls its approval. The smell hits me like a punch.
I’m a picky eater—and not in the way people who only stick to fast food mean it. I only like my fruits ripe, my meat bloody, and my cream freshly whipped. I’m hard to please. Yet the looks of everything on the spread he leads us to pleases me. It might be because I rarely go so long without food, but something tells me that’s not it.
I pause anyway, my mind remembering something, though I can’t quite pinpoint where or when I heard it. It’s not the annoyingly smug and factual voice that told me about redcaps and true names; just a vague memory.
“Isn’t it dangerous? Fairy food,” I specify. “I remember a story saying after just one taste, mortals can’t go back home.”
Valdred shrugs. “You’re already stuck here.”
