The Terrible

Excerpt

The Terrible
Tessa Crowley © 2024
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Lethfae

“So, about that blood moon.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to me and the room went quiet. After nearly four years of serving as an adviser at court, I probably should have gotten used to the way the bottom dropped out of every conversation the second I mentioned magic.

“I’m sure you all noticed it. Last night?”

But based on their expressions, they hadn’t. I sighed, drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair.

“It’s a portent,” I explained. “Based on the time of its appearance, it’s most likely a sign of nearing political upheaval.”

“That’s not really our…area, Ness,” Muriel said, eyeing me over her golden spectacles. It was her office we’d met in this time, a drab but utilitarian space that perfectly reflected Muriel and her no-nonsense bun and neatly pressed tartan sash.

“I know,” I said as if there was even the slightest chance I didn’t know that my fellow advisers were ignorant to most matters magical. “But it seemed prudent to warn you at the very least. We do tend to be rather involved in politics.”

“Is there anything more specific you can tell us?” Fionn asked as he peered up at me over a hawkish nose, eyes sharp. His back hunched from a life spent bent over tomes on economic theory, creating for him the kind of mind for which I had endless respect and no jealousy. “It’s hard to prepare for something as broad as political upheaval.”

“Blood moons only rise for the greatest forces of man and magic,” I explained. “One rose on the eve of Canmore’s victory over Angliel. Legend says another rose when the Unseelie were first cast out—”

Sinead cleared her throat delicately, drawing my attention to Muriel, who’d gone white at the mention of the Unseelie. Irritation flared familiarly. It was a constant struggle, advising the Crown and my fellow councillors on magic when even talking about it at any level of detail had them jumping at shadows.

“No, I don’t have anything more specific,” I said instead. “I have plans to go into the Faewyld tomorrow to scry.”

“Well, good,” Sinead said and reached behind her head to retwist the bun that had fallen out over the course of the meeting. “Get back to us if you learn anything.”

Assuming I make it out alive, I didn’t say.

“Just don’t take too long,” Fionn said, snapping shut his book of notes and standing. “The Small Council meeting is in four days, and Clans MacDiarmad and MacLaghain are likely to turn it into blood sport with their land dispute.”

My fellow advisers all mumbled their grievances as they gathered their books and quills to leave. I was slightly slower to react, wondering whether or not I should tell them of the nonzero chance that I would die before the meeting of the Small Council.

Eventually, I decided not to bother. They wouldn’t want to hear about the Faewyld, so, wordlessly, I packed my things up.

“By the way, Ness,” Sinead said as she, Fionn, and I exited Muriel’s office into the dark hallway, “more of your correspondence ended up on my desk yesterday.”

She handed me a stack of letters. I frowned as I took them.

“Again? That’s three times in one week.”

“They just hired a new hallboy to run the letters,” she said by way of explanation. “He’s afraid of…well.”

I flinched. “Right.”

He was afraid of me. Most people in the castle were. Never mind that I’d been the ward of the Queen Regent since I was twelve and serving as court sage since I was twenty—I was lethfae, and I could use magic, and that was all most people needed to know.

“You should try introducing yourself to him,” she suggested. “Once people meet you, they usually realize you’re not nearly as scary as you look.”

Fionn chuckled, Sinead grinned, and I gritted my teeth. The joke was that, short and slight and willowy as I was, I didn’t look scary at all. But in my not-inconsiderable experience, it didn’t matter how nonthreatening I looked: my waist-length hair and slightly pointed ears gave my blood away from twenty paces.

“I’ll see you at the meeting,” I said. Fionn nodded at me, Sinead waved, and as we came to the fork in the hallway, we all went our separate ways.

The meeting must have taken longer than I’d realized. As I made my way across the vestibule landing and into the royal wing toward my office and quarters, I realized that the castle was largely silent. I didn’t even see any servants running in and out of various rooms for turndown.

The already long walk thus made sufficiently less interesting, my mind wandered.

I wasn’t looking forward to going into the Faewyld. Even the Seelie, who were ostensibly allies of Leithbrochen, were dangerous in the best of circumstances. My affiliation with the Crown would not mean much if I managed to offend some flinty fae prince who happened to pass through while I was there.

And that was to say nothing of the wayward spirits that tended to get lost in the Faewyld, confused and angry and looking to take out their frustrations—

“Lord Councillor.”

“Hells!”

I’d been caught unawares, and in my haste to spin around, I nearly tripped over my boots. When at last I regained my footing, one hand braced on a nearby statue of Queen Moire the Clever, I looked up toward the source of the voice. To my sudden, overwhelming disappointment, it was: “Your Highness.”

Prince Cathair of Leithbrochen, tall, broad, with dark hair that curled around the crux of his well-defined jaw. Prince Cathair of Leithbrochen, standing in a shadowed alcove beside a statue of King Canmore the Bold as if he’d been waiting for me there. Prince Cathair of Leithbrochen, with eyes like two bottomless pits.

All at once, my heart started to pound frantically against my ribs.

“It’s late, Highness,” I said. “Aren’t you leaving for the hunt tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I wanted to speak with you beforehand.”

My skin crawled; a visceral reaction, the same one I always had when forced to hear him speak. His voice was flat and cold as ice, devoid of any variation in tone or emphasis.

He came closer to me, across the hallway. At once, I stumbled backward and quickly thumped into Queen Moire’s leg. Before I knew it, he’d crowded me against the statue.

He was hardly a breath away when he said, “I wanted to once again offer you an invitation to my chambers.”

“Then I shall once again decline,” I answered.

Cathair did not seem particularly off-put. For as long as I’d known him—over a decade now—he’d never seemed particularly anything. He was all but a statue, himself: meticulously crafted, assiduously maintained, and fundamentally lifeless.

“My birthday ball is next month,” he said. “I expect you will be there.”

“I’ll have little choice in the matter, I’m sure. You know how your mother is.”

“I am looking forward to seeing you in formal wear. I anticipate that the sight will be…pleasing.”

If anyone else had spoken this way to me, I’d have called it flirtation. With Cathair, it was cold analysis, less a compliment and more a dissection.

Truly, there was something wrong with the prince of Leithbrochen. To me, it felt gigantic and obvious and terrifying. The iciness of his tone, the flat affect, the unnatural stillness with which he held himself—he was a great yawning chasm dressed up as a man.

I couldn’t say what made him this way. Even if I’d known, I doubt I would have cared. I preferred to avoid Cathair than understand him.

Cathair, unfortunately, did not feel the same. Despite his reputation for being unaffected by everything from tantalizing desserts to threats of violence to stunning duchesses from Lamarse, he’d always pursued me like this, with dogged determination. Why was I a deviation? Another question I didn’t care to answer.

“You are using a different oil in your hair,” he whispered.

My heart drummed so loudly I was sure Cathair could hear it. I pressed myself harder into the statue behind me. “You are very close.”

Footsteps from the hallway’s far end forced Cathair to move several steps backward. Two courtiers laughed about something together and passed without noticing us.

“One of these days, Lord Councillor, you will relent.”

Cathair turned on his heel and left, the soles of his leather boots thudding dully on the stone. With his parting, a great weight dropped away from my chest, my stomach hollowed, and I shuddered and shook for a while, letting my breath catch up to me.

Everyone in this fucking castle either feared or resented me—except for Cathair. Gods only knew why he pursued me. I had never seen any evidence to suggest that he’d ever wanted anything in the way he wanted me.

At the very least, he’d never forced the issue. If he ever made the decision to openly pursue me, I’d have little choice but to accept his advances. But of course, I was lethfae. A prince could never court a lethfae—he could only ambush one in dark halls, apparently.

I walked the rest of the way to my quarters on wobbly legs. Sleep would be eluding me tonight.

*

I had precious little free time over the next few weeks, booked solid with meetings upon meetings all leading up to the gathering of the Small Council next week and the ball next month. If I was going to determine the meaning of the blood moon that had risen over Castle Balmonach, I would need to do it soon.

“Siomon?”

He’d bent his white head over the desk at such an angle that, but for the furious scratching of his quill, I’d have thought him asleep. He didn’t look up. Though he’d never admit it, he was going a bit deaf.

I slipped through his ajar office door and knocked on the corner of the desk. “Siomon.”

He looked up with a start. He was well into his seventies, with wizened, papery skin and brown eyes going cloudy with age. Every line and furrow on his face—and there were many—had set to a permanent frown.

I smiled hesitantly. He scowled back at me.

“Oh, what now?”

Reflexively, I drew back a step. I’d known Siomon a long time—he’d been my tutor when I first arrived in Balmonach as a child—and he’d always been brusque. I tried very hard not to take it personally as all indications were that he was just as cantankerous with everyone, but it was hard. I’d always wanted to be on better terms with him. Or anyone.

“Sorry,” I said. “I need access to the garden. I can take the key if you’re busy.”

“And leave you and your witchery unchaperoned? Not bloody likely.”

He stood, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor, and shuffled over to the eastern wall. There, hanging next to several cloaks, a broom, and a framed sketch of a butterfly was a rack of keys on hooks. He took a large tin one and walked past me.

Though his office was small and dark and cramped—just how Siomon preferred it—the library itself was enormous, with towering shelves all teeming full and a mezzanine for the rarer and more delicate tomes. It was probably my favorite room in Balmonach, and certainly the one I spent the most time in.

“What are you chasing down this time, hmm?” Siomon asked as we walked—or as I walked, at least, and he hobbled—toward the back of the library.

“I’m going to scry. There was a blood moon two nights ago. I need to know what it heralds.”

Siomon eyed me sideways. “That’s it? Are you sure it’s worth the risk?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Be it on your own head, then.”

In a dark corner of the library, tucked away in one of the more obscure sections, a heavy wooden door stood mostly forgotten. It led to a garden, and long ago, as the story went, it was a popular spot for courtiers to promenade during the day and rendezvous by night. Then a servant, seduced and discarded by a lord most cruelly, threw himself out a window and died there. The tragedy had weakened the wall between this world and the Faewyld, and the garden fell into disuse.

The story was likely apocryphal, but the fairy ring was real. It made for a convenient way into the Faewyld—but then, getting into the Faewyld was never especially difficult. Getting out was the trick.

The door wailed as Siomon pushed it open. Walls completely contained the courtyard, but it remained open to the sky. A single massive willow tree stood in the center of a cobblestone ring, nearly swallowed up by flowers and brush. This time of summer, glowworms swarmed, little pinpricks of yellow light fading in and out as they twirled among the leaves.

“Thank you.” I dared a small smile. “If you leave the door ajar, I’ll lock up after myself when I return.”

“I’ll see you out,” Siomon said shortly, folding his arms over his chest. His scrutiny prickled under my skin. Whenever I went into the Faewyld, he always insisted on staying until I was gone. I told myself it was because he was concerned for my safety, but knew it was more likely he just didn’t trust magic. No one ever did.

“All right.” I turned to stride toward the willow tree, projecting as much confidence as I could manage. I always did my best to give the impression to others that going into the Faewyld was a small matter and not the perilous risk of death it was in truth. Honesty wouldn’t have brought me any additional resources, anyway—no one else would dare go with me, even to keep me safe.

When I was a few paces away from the trunk of the willow, I looked down. The ring of little white mushrooms was nearly invisible under all the greenery, but with some gentle persuasion from the tip of my boot, the leaves parted, and two of them came into view.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

I stepped over the ring and toward the tree, stretching out one hand to rest against its bark. Magic tingled against my fingertips, wild and dark. I shut my eyes and took a steady breath, knowing that when I opened them—

*

I was somewhere else.

For those sensitive to magic, it was easier to recognize the Faewyld by feel rather than by sight. And I could feel it, instantaneously, under my skin and twisting down my throat with every breath. The magic here was thick and sickly sweet, like syrup.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes.

Gone was the willow, the garden, the door to the library. Instead, I stood in a coniferous forest, surrounded by pine trees so towering and dense they hid all signs of sky. The underbrush around my ankles hissed and swayed, as if it had a mind of its own.

Everything around me was too intense, the colors too vibrant, the sounds too loud. The magic here amplified it nearly past the point of what was tolerable. Even sensations that should have been soft—wind on my skin, distant birdsong—were nearly too much to stand.

Gods, I hated the Faewyld. The first time I’d come here, I’d fallen to my knees from the sheer beauty of it. I’d learned my lesson, though, moments afterward, when I’d nearly died.

Don’t linger, I told myself. Go.

Casting magic was all about intention and energy, and in the Faewyld, magic was everywhere and intention was loud. For those with any inclination toward spellcraft, the world itself would reshape to their will with ease.

So I shut my eyes and focused on my intent: I was here to scry. I had seen the grim blood moon and needed to know what it meant.

Wind rushed past me, catching my robes and sash and hair. When I opened my eyes, I was at the edge of a small pond, fed by a spring babbling down a stony embankment. The water was crystal clear, full of smooth river stones and tiny golden fish darting between them. The pond sat in the middle of a large clearing, making visible the pale violet sky, silver clouds, and dull blue sun.

I looked around apprehensively. I seemed to be alone, but I knew better than to assume that meant I was alone.

Slowly, I sank to my knees at the water’s edge. I pressed one hand lightly against the surface, and the fish swarmed me, sending currents of water rippling against my skin.

“Show me,” I whispered. “Lay bare the fractal of time. Tell me of the calamity that raises the red moon in warning.”

Images flashed in my mind’s eye one by one, disconnected and obscure. A sick man coughing blood into his fist. A hut in the middle of a wintry forest. An infant, unnaturally still and serene in his mother’s arms. Two blazing white eyes in a dark forest.

I frowned. If these images were an answer to my question, I didn’t understand how. Granted, I’d never been very good with scrying. Perhaps the fault was mine.

“I need more,” I said under my breath. I pressed my hand deeper into the water. The fish grazed against my skin and slipped between my fingers. “I don’t understand.”

A cave in the woods. A bloodied claymore. A great cataclysm of magic as bright as the sun.

My shoulders began to shake from the exertion. Scrying was difficult even under the best circumstances, even in the Faewyld where magic dripped from every surface like dew. My lack of expertise was not helping.

“I don’t understand,” I ground out.

“That’s because you’re asking the wrong question.”

I scrambled upright so quickly I nearly toppled into the water. When I wrenched around, a fairy stood a few feet off.

But no, not just a fairy. He could only have been a fae prince, his hair black as ink, so long that it trailed the ground behind him, crowned with glimmering starlight. His eyes, large and mercurial, shifted wildly from blue to gold to violet to green.

I had to tread very, very carefully if I was going to make it back to Balmonach alive.

“You cannot ask the sands of time to explain a calamity,” the fae prince said and closed the distance between us without, it seemed, moving at all. “They will give you too much context—every action, every decision, every chance that leads up to it. When questioning fate, you must be specific.”

He grabbed my wrist so tightly it pulled a startled sound from my throat. He was three heads taller than me at least, but when he used his grip to force my hand back down into the water, he stooped his frame as though even the bones of his body held no dominion over him.

My eyes were drawn, almost against my will, back to the surface of the water.

“Specific,” the fae prince muttered, directly into my ear.

I shuddered. I wanted to rip my wrist from his grasp, wanted to run, but the only thing more foolish than running from a fairy was insulting it.

So I took a steadying breath and asked, “What danger comes to Balmonach?”

For a time, no answer came.

Then the water darkened, a stain spreading slowly from the tips of my fingers. Before long, the shadows took shape. A head, a torso, too-long limbs. And again, those blazing white eyes.

The shape seemed oddly familiar.

“There,” the fae prince purred. “That’s much better, isn’t it?”

I swallowed. I didn’t have time to wonder where I’d seen this shape before. My mind raced with frantic thoughts of how to escape. Knowledge of this oncoming danger would be useless if I died here, or worse.

“I thank you, Lord of Fairies,” I said delicately. “You are generous to share your knowledge with me.”

“Rarely do I see one of your kind in the Faewyld.” He gripped my wrist harder, tight enough to bruise. “Halfblooded.”

“The Seelie take their spouses from the mortal world all the time.” I chose my words carefully. Take was the tamer word for it—the more accurate word was kidnap. It was always a political nightmare for me when it happened. “Surely you have sons and daughters just like me.”

“Any child born in the Faewyld is fae, regardless of parentage. But you? You were born in the mortal world and thus carry only half our blood. I believe the word you mortals use is lethfae, is that it? How did such a thing come to be?”

I swallowed against the knot forming in my throat. The more he knew about me, the more power he had over me. “I…I…”

“Are you shy?”

His face was all but pressed to mine. His breath ghosted past the shell of my ear. My heart slammed against my ribs as though trying to escape my body.

“What’s your name, halfblooded?”

I knew better than to give a fae prince my name, so I didn’t answer, which seemed to amuse him. I felt his chuckle against the side of my face.

“Exotic and wise,” he said. “Finding a prize like you would normally take me years by your mortal reckoning. And now, here a perfect spouse has wandered right into my lap. I think I will keep you, lethfae of the autumn hair.”

With his grip on my wrist, he spun me around. Water flew from my fingertips in a broad arc, scattering across the surface of the pond, until it stopped by the fae prince’s face. He watched raptly as droplets sluiced down my fingers.

“Even a great Lord of Fairies is bound by the laws of magic,” I stammered out. I sat uncomfortably on two knees that had been wrenched to the side, but the fear pounding through my veins made me all but immune to the discomfort of it. Every part of me was dedicated to the singular purpose of getting out of this place alive. “You cannot demand. You must ask the question and wait for my true answer.”

“I am a fae prince of the Seelie Court,” was his low, snarling reply. “I can snap the flimsy laws of the Faewyld with will alone.”

“Then what stops you?”

He paused. My words walked the razor’s edge of courtesy. A fae prince could not take a spouse without their consent or their name, but he could certainly tear me in half with his magic if he decided I wasn’t showing due deference.

After a time, his mouth twitched upward on one side to something approximating a smile. “Exotic, wise, and sharp as broken glass. What a lovely consort you will make. Very well, lethfae. I will ask. Will you spend your paltry sum of years with me? Will you live in luxury, a prized consort to a fae prince, wanting for nothing? Will you be my husband?” He dropped his voice and muttered against my jaw: “Will you warm my bed? Will you be mine and only mine for what few years you have left?”

Twice in two days, royalty had tried to tempt me into their bed, and still, somehow, I’d never been properly courted.

“We mortals have a short count of years,” I said, “it’s true, but our memories are long, Fae Prince, and all our knowledge inherited.”

He tilted his head as if in query to some unasked question. Strands of night-dark hair slipped past his long, pointed ear and brushed my cheekbone like a kiss.

“Five hundred years ago, the woman who held my title came here just as I have, seeking answers from the scrying pond—”

His frame stiffened against mine. “No,” he whispered.

“—and when she returned, wrote down all she knew of you. I invoke the Law of Names—”

“No!” he roared as magic flared around him, with fire and lightning and great crashes of thunder.

“—to aid me in my magic. I name you, Fae Prince Endymion! Begone!”

The ground beneath us heaved and broke in half, throwing me in one direction and the fae prince in the other. He screamed, and the sky darkened, and I summoned every ounce of magic in me to send me back, send me back, send me back, send me back—

*

I landed hard on thorns and bramble. My mind spun, my limbs shook. I tried to lift my head, and pain screamed down my spine in protest. I had, my mind supplied unhelpfully, perhaps expended more magic than I ought to have.

“Siomon,” I said, or tried to say, my voice dry and brittle like burnt paper.

I was back in the garden, but night had already fallen. Scattered recollections of time dilation passed through my mind; what had felt like minutes to me had been hours, perhaps days in the mortal realm, and Siomon was probably long gone. There was no one to hear me, no one to help.

My body weakened, overexerted, and my vision faded. Before I could even think of what to do, I collapsed facedown and slipped into oblivion.