A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 6

I stood deathly still as Queen Lyra Cedarfall’s words rested upon me. They echoed within my head so violently that if I closed my eyes, I’d be confident she spoke them repeatedly just to taunt me.

It would’ve been easier to look away rather than see the burning sorrow that lingered within the queen’s tear-filled eyes. The way she looked at me, as though I was the most precious thing in the world, caused my skin to itch with discomfort. Because if she truly cared, she would have given me what I had requested.

“Mother,” Althea snapped, putting her body between me and the throne upon which Queen Lyra sat. “Find some heart!”

“I cannot allow it, Althea. My decision does not negate the grief I feel for Robin. Regardless, it is the right one to make.” Her response was final, even I knew that. “One day you will be in my position and understand that difficult judgements are required to be made by someone whose shoulders are already heavily weighed down from the responsibility of ruling. But I cannot grant Robin our army.”

Althea’s grunt of disapproval sounded through the throne room as she turned her back on her mother and faced me. “I am sorry, Robin.”

Four short words and she dismissed herself. Did I expect her to fight harder for my cause? Or did I expect her not to? I couldn’t see the difference as the twisting of anger only gripped its claws deeper into my soul.

“I need your army.” My voice trembled, but not from sadness. I didn’t feel sad. It was strange, as I expected that to be the emotion that came naturally with losing a loved one. All I felt was unbridled vehemence. As if that anger kept the grief at bay. And it came in waves. The moments of emptiness felt as though time itself didn’t exist. It was the same feeling I experienced when Althea found me within the centre of the rubble where Welhaven had been, sheltering my father’s broken body with my own. The journey back from Welhaven to Farrador had been a blur. I couldn’t remember a single detail. Only the silence. And him . Father’s body, draped over Althea’s mount and covered in Gyah’s burgundy-fringed cloak. How it moved with the rhythm of the stag’s trotting, tricking me into believing that he was waking beneath it, ready to tell me this was all some twisted trick.

He never did.

Father was dead and there was nothing in this realm, or the next, that would bring him back to me.

I was thankful for my wrath. The moments of anger sharpened my mind, giving me a sense of refreshing clarity. I saw every expression of those who filled the throne room. The flick of an eye or the turn of a lip, I noticed. Even the tones in which Queen Lyra and her consort, King Thallan, spoke to me when we had arrived carting the dead and broken body of my father back to Court.

Pity oozed from everyone around me, and I despised it. Because if they truly pitied me, they would give me what I want. But alas, they refused my request for an army over and over.

I’d gone from stopping a war to desperately wanting one.

“Our numbers are stretched thin across the border of Wychwood. It would not be a wise choice to send the little we have to Oakstorm’s gates to demand revenge. Robin, I understand you have lost more than many of us will ever experience. However, I cannot fulfil your request.”

“You don’t understand,” I muttered, body rigid as my nails dug crescent moons into my palms. “He killed my father. There was no reason, yet Doran commanded Erix to do it anyway. If you think that I will stand here and do nothing…” I choked on my next words, taking a moment to breathe and calm myself. “Lyra, if you will not stand beside me as the ally I had come to believe you were, then I will find another.”

Another ally who’d hate the king as much as I did – someone who would enjoy the chance to kill a fey.

King Thallan leaned forward in his throne, elbows resting upon his knees. “You are a king now, Robin. You have the Icethorn Court ready and habitable. In time you will grow an army, although I hope you see that war is not the answer. Focus this emotion into rebuilding the Court and the support will come in an abundance of numbers.”

“Time is not a luxury I have,” I replied through gritted teeth. “Doran’s life is mine. I will destroy him before he takes another life. He had my mother, now my father. Erix is gone. You may be happy waiting for him to shift his gaze to…”

Who? Who did I have left?

“Doran has angered a god, leave his fate in Altar’s hands.”

“No,” I snapped with great urgency. “Altar will not take this from me. Doran. Is. Mine.”

My words silenced the room entirely.

Lyra shared a look with her husband. She nibbled on her lower lip, eyes flashing wide for a moment. “Something has changed, Robin. News from Wychwood and Durmain’s border reached us alongside your arrival back at Farrador, reporting of strange happenings. Altar is angry about what occurred in Welhaven, that much was clear when the ruins crumbled after your father’s murder. A storm is coming, one conjured by the Hand. We must focus our efforts on them before we see any more fey under threat.”

Plans formed in my mind. I couldn’t focus on anything but the fact that Lyra was right.

This mysterious figure hated the fey, I wondered how they’d react if I gave them the chance to destroy one of the fey leaders.

“You’re right. A storm is most certainly coming.” I turned from the ruling monarchs of the Cedarfall Court until my back was to them. Althea and Gyah waited before the closed doors, expressions pinched from inner turmoil. “My desire to see Doran dead is far more than a threat. It’s a promise. Your god did little to stop my father’s neck from being snapped. His rules warned us against spilling blood, yet for such a powerful being he just simply watched without intervening.”

“Careful,” Lyra warned. I glanced over my shoulder to see her stand from the throne, flames dancing between her clenched fingers as she called back at me. “I would choose your words wisely, Robin. You are in my Court and I do not care to listen to your disregard and blasphemy.”

My jaw tensed as I carefully picked my next words. “I thank you for your strained hospitality, but my stay here has come to an end.”

I raised a hand, willing a gust of frozen wind to screech through the throne room. Gyah and Althea moved in time before my power slammed into them. Instead, it crashed into the doors, throwing them wide until they slammed against the walls beyond.

Someone was shouting after me, but I no longer cared. For I had nothing left to care about. My father was gone. Erix was gone. And I was alone.

And as I warned Doran, there was nothing more terrifying than someone with nothing to lose.

No one had stopped me from leaving Farrador with my father’s corpse resting across the stag I’d claimed. When I reached the outer walls of the city and the grand gates, I almost expected resistance. But what I found was them already open for me.

If anything, it proved that I truly was alone.

For hours I rode without stopping, until the air thinned and snow began to settle over my shoulders, coating the lump of my father’s corpse in white. I didn’t have a destination, but I felt the overwhelming desire to go home. To take my father back to Grove, to our house, and shut myself away from the world.

But I couldn’t bring myself to get that far. I felt the draw of Icethorn land and followed it, passing the marker stones until I was in a different home – one which I’d never known existed months ago.

Only then did I stop. My body moved on instinct. It was better to do something than sit around, staring at the corpse, waiting for my dark thoughts to consume me. So I built a pyre from wood and set my dead father upon it. As wild winds ripped around me, it took countless strikes of the flint and steel from my pack to get the single spark. But that spark was all I needed for the fire to burn. And as it caught and built into an inferno, I laid myself upon the floor, curled into a ball and closed my eyes.

That was when the tears began. Once the flood gates opened, it was as if the anger stepped aside and finally let the grief rear its ugly head. And ugly it was. Painful and sharp, all-consuming and devouring. My broken-hearted sobs that shattered out from my chest and filled the night, blending in sympathy with the crackling pops that were my father’s bones and flesh charring to ash.

I closed my wet eyes as the warmth of my father’s burning body embraced me. I pretended he was here, arms wrapped around me, offering me comfort in the moment I needed him most. There was another I longed to be here. Erix. The man who once offered me everything, but aided in breaking my world apart. I don’t know when sleep finally claimed me, but I was glad for the darkness. For the first time, I wished it took me and never spat me out again.

The leather of the reins rubbed my palms raw. I refused to let go. The pain helped keep me from slipping into my dark thoughts. The little sleep I had next to my father was interrupted as distant howls woke me. I thought it was wolves, but anything could’ve been possible. I almost lay there and waited for them to come and get me. But something told me to keep moving, a focus that I now had and which was all I could contemplate.

An army. I needed an army. But for that, I had to focus on the path ahead instead of looking back at the smouldering pyre that glowed proudly against the night. It was hard not to turn and watch as the glow of orange shrunk in the distance the further the mount clopped away.

I left my father’s body to burn beyond the border of Icethorn land. I didn’t know exactly where I was, but the feeling of being home had told me I was within my Court. But where I needed to go was South, towards the border of Durmain and beyond. And that was where I guided my stag, using the compass I took from Farrador to aid me in the right direction.

I rode for hours, the dark grey cloak tugged tightly around my shoulders to keep out the night. Most of the journey was exposed as I clambered over steep hills laced with snow or passed through empty, forgotten hamlets and villages that reminded me of Berrow.

Icethorn was a quiet place, which was both a blessing and a curse.

Eventually, I gave up fighting the heavy droop of my eyes. Sleep came in brief waves. Not even the horror of what waited for me during sleep could keep me from finally giving in, aided by the steady rhythm of the stag, who showed no signs of slowing.

I woke again only when I nearly slipped from the stag’s side. Time passed in a haze of exhaustion.

Eventually my in-and-out rest broke as I was greeted by clear blue skies and the end of Wychwood forest. Once I passed into Durmain, leaving the snow-dusted ground behind, my focus was sharp as a blade.

It didn’t take long for me to find a human village. My plan was simple. Locate someone who could give me clearer directions back to Grove. But the welcome I received, as the stag trotted into the first village I found, was not what I expected.

Faces looked up at me, all with wide eyes and expressions of disbelief. From both sides of the street, people watched as I rode upon my mount before them. It took me a moment to register that the people were humans, evident from the rounded ears and now more noticeable lack of grace that the fey held.

I turned around, no longer caring for the gasps of those who watched, likely expecting I would lash out. A slow smile spread across my face but it only lasted a moment. I could’ve lifted my hood and hid my ears, but I needed word that a fey had entered human land to spread. It had to reach the right people.

My pocket of happiness for my success was ruined by the realisation that my father was dead. For a brief moment I had forgotten.

All at once, grief rushed over me, intensified by guilt as a result of my forgetfulness. The rage followed swiftly.

But I had to focus.

“Where am I?” I called out, pulling on the reins until the stag stopped in its tracks. I was almost certain I felt the wobble of the mount as though its legs were seconds from giving out.

There was a long pause before someone brave enough to shout at me broke the silence. “Go back to where you came from.”

“No one wants you here.”

“Yes!” Another voice chimed in. “Fuck off.”

All around me humans, young and old, hurled abuse towards me. They, as I would have been before my life turned down its chaotic path, would’ve been shocked to see a fey beyond the Wychwood border. Perhaps that was because they never made it far enough before the Hunters found them. But I’d grown up around humans, and never experienced such a reaction.

How far had the Hand’s poison spread. Most importantly, how quickly?

All around me the humans reacted with both shock and anger, encouraged more by each other. Even the small voices of children cried out.

I gritted my teeth, glowering through the shadow of the cloak’s hood as I studied the faces to see if there was anyone or anything I recognised. Besides the black-beamed and white-panelled buildings, the town around me looked no different to any other settlement that peppered Durmain’s expansive lands. And from the carts and stalls that the people stood amongst it was clear the town relied heavily on street trade rather than the traditional experience of shops in the bigger cities.

I was close to Grove. Home. But how close still remained a secret.

The stag huffed in discomfort as the crowd grew in confidence and stepped closer to me.

“Keep your distance.” My warning was wasted, drowned out by the cries of the crowd gathering around me. I yanked my arm towards me as a man with dirtied hands and a mouth full of missing teeth reached for me. “I said stay back.”

“Lost, are you?”

“Looks like it. Took a wrong turn.”

“Fucking fey scum.”

“Someone call for the Hunters!”

Yes , I thought. Let them know I am back.

Something wet crashed into the side of my face. I whipped my head around, my fingers reaching up only to come back wet with a thick, white liquid that made my stomach heave.

I blinked once and saw red.

“Enough!” My cry tore through the crowds, sounding no different to a torrent of screaming winter winds. All around me the crowd tumbled backwards, forced by the hands of my storm. A chorus of their frightened shouts froze, immortalised in a cloud of breath that fogged beyond their mouths.

No one else spoke, not as they looked up at me with intense fear.

I didn’t blame them for their reaction. Power radiated from my very skin. It spread across the cobbled street, lacing up the closest building’s outer walls until everything was devoured in a glittering layer of ice.

My stag bucked, causing the humans closest to me to get out of the way. I would’ve kept spilling out the powerful magic to instil fear, but my eyes caught the terror-stricken face of a child, no more than five, gripping onto his mother’s skirt where he hid. His wide, tear-filled eyes reminded me that this fury could be controlled. I reined in my power, calling it back within.

“I asked a question.” I drew out my words, struggling to force some decorum. “And would very much appreciate an answer. Where am I?”

My heartbeat drummed in my ears as I waited for a response.

“You have no dealings here.” A woman spoke, the very same who had her child tucked behind her in protection. “There’s nothing for you.”

“Answer the question and then I shall leave,” I called out, allowing everyone to hear. “It’s rather simple actually.”

Her lip curled in disgust, then parted as the answer came out. “Ashbury.”

The moment the woman confirmed our location my brain raced with pinpointing it upon the blurry map in my mind. Perhaps it was my sense of urgency to leave that made the destination familiar. Ashbury was half a day’s ride to Grove, a trading town that sat in the heart of a collection of villages; many could get food and items they required without travelling miles to Lockinge. I hadn’t been here for many years which was why I’d not recognised it.

Now I had my answer, there was no need to hesitate to leave. I was already clapping my heels into the stag’s side and urging him forward with a click of my tongue when the shouting began again. Keeping my head down and body tight to the stag, I allowed the loud clatter of its hooves to signal the crowd ahead to move out of the way.

As I rode against the wind, cheeks stinging with cold, I wondered how long it would take for the Hunters to catch word of my appearance. I hoped my short stop in Ashbury had piqued the interest of those whom I wished to know I was here. Just not yet. There were some rather pressing matters I wanted to take care of before the Hunters caught up to me. Then they were welcome to find me.

Let them come. My dark thought encouraged a grin. I have use for them.