I feel something wet on my face, like rain.
There are plenty of the Folk who delight in murder and plenty more who delight in spectacle. A kind of giddy madness seems to come upon the crowd, a kind of hunger for even greater slaughter. I fear they may have a surfeit of satisfaction. Two of the knights have seized Eldred.
“I will not ask you again,” Balekin says.
But Eldred only laughs. He keeps laughing when Balekin runs him through. He doesn’t fall like the others. Instead of blood pouring from his wound, red moths stream out, into the air. They rush out of him so quickly that in a moment, the High King’s body is gone and there are just those red moths, swirling up into the air in a vast cloud, a tornado of soft wings.
But whatever magic made them does not last. They begin to fall until they are scattered across the dais like blown leaves. The High King Eldred is, impossibly, dead.
The dais is strewn with bodies and blood. Val Moren is on his knees.
“Sisters,” Balekin says, striding toward them. Some of the arrogance is gone from his voice, replaced with a horrible softness. He sounds like a man in the midst of a terrible dream from which he refuses to wake. “Which of you will crown me? Crown me and live.”
I think of Madoc telling my mother not to run.
Caelia steps forward, dropping her knife. She is dressed in a stomacher of gold and a skirt of blue, a circlet of berries in her loose hair.
“I will do it,” she says. “It is enough. I will make you the High King, although the stain of what you have done will forever taint your rule.”
Never is like forever, I think, and then am angry to be reminded of anything Cardan has ever said, especially now. There’s a part of me that is glad she has given in, despite the awfulness of Balekin, the inevitable horror of his rule. At least this is over.
A bolt comes from the shadows of the rafters—in a completely different trajectory than the last. It strikes her in the chest. Her eyes go wide, her hands flutter over her heart, as though the wound is immodest and she needs to cover it. Then her eyes roll back, and she goes down without a sigh. It is Balekin who cries out with frustration. Madoc gives orders to his men, pointing toward the ceiling. A phalanx breaks off from the others and rushes up the stairs. A few guards fly up into the air on pale green wings, blades drawn.
He killed her. The Ghost killed her.
I push my way blindly toward the dais, past a sluagh howling for more blood. I don’t know what I think I am going to do when I get there.
Rhyia picks up her sister’s knife, holds it in one shaking hand. Her blue dress makes her look like a bird, caught before she could take flight. She’s Vivi’s only real friend in Faerie.
“Are you really going to fight me, sister?” Balekin says. “You have neither sword nor armor. Come, it is too late for that.”
“It is too late,” she says, and brings the knife to her own throat, pressing the point just below her ear.
“No!” I shout, although my voice is drowned out by the crowd, drowned out by Balekin shouting, too. And then, because I can’t stand to see any more death, I close my eyes. I keep them closed through being jostled by something heavy and furred. Balekin starts calling for someone to find Cardan, to bring him Cardan, and my eyes automatically fly open. But there’s no Cardan in sight. Only Rhyia’s crumpled body and more horror.
Winged archers take aim at the cluster of roots where the Ghost was hiding. A moment later, he drops down into the crowd. I hold my breath, afraid he has been hit. But he rolls, stands, and takes off up the stairs, with guards hot on his heels.
He has no chance. There are too many of them, and the brugh is too packed, leaving nowhere to run. I want to help him, want to go to him, but I am hemmed in. I can do nothing. I can save no one.
Balekin turns on the Court Poet, pointing at him. “You will crown me. Speak the words of the ceremony.”