Things are beginning to heat up! Shion's been made aware that he's on the King's watch list, and now Safu knows that he helped Nezumi and let the Fair Folk know about his Sight. But is staying indoors going to help Shion escape the King's sacrifice?
Let's find out!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The black and silver flames blazed high in the obsidian hearth as Nezumi stepped quietly into the Unseelie King's bedchamber. Though the Unseelie King had come from the swamps, accustomed to the chill and darkness of mud, he treated the fires as a luxury. He despised sunlight as much as he despised dirt on his clothing, but the comfortable heat of the fireplace radiated throughout his chambers even if he didn't occupy it.
The Unseelie King sat in front of a massive silver mirror, using his index finger to dab dark blue paint on his lower lip. The top had already been stained a deep blackberry purple; the Unseelie King rarely left his lips bare, even if he had to smear them with blood.
A trembling pixie knelt beside him, holding the tin of paint in her bruised palms. Her scarlet eyes darted quickly to Nezumi as the door closed behind him; she flinched at the King's low exhale, as if she'd been expecting a blow to the face.
The King's fierce black eyes caught Nezumi's reflection in the mirror. He sat perfectly straight, his ruined wings cascading to the floor like a ratty black cloak. The iron wires had been unbound from them, and Nezumi could see the burnt flesh between the separated feathers. The hooked thumb of the avian wing had once sported a sharp claw that could hook into rocks to steady him; when the King's wings were damaged, the thumb had been wrenched free. All that remained was a gnarled stump with a cluster of blackened scar tissue.
The Unseelie King's blackened fingers swiped through the air, and the pixie winced. "Get out," the King announced, his eyes clicking to her so she understood that it was a command intended for her and her alone. "I'm done with you."
With a breathless, terrified mumble of "yes, my king", the pixie rose to her feet and hurried past Nezumi. Her pale ankles twisted beneath her, and she nearly went sprawling on the ground. Her elbows thumped against the heavy door; she made no attempt to stop herself, as doing so would require her to drop the tin of paint in her palms. She hissed in pain, but quickly ducked out of the chamber and let the door click shut behind her.
Nezumi closed his eyes. Scorpia stood on the other side of that door. He'd come to fetch Nezumi on the King's command, and then he'd taken up his typical post outside the door.
Nezumi's fingers twitched toward the hilt of his knife―and then stopped. Scorpia had taken it just before Nezumi entered the King's chambers.
The Phooka assured Nezumi, through a vicious grin, that he'd return the knife to him as soon as he left the Unseelie King's bedchamber. The loss of his knife made Nezumi uneasy. He could never hope to use it against the King―he wasn't even certain if a simple silver knife could hurt the King enough for it to matter―but having it close made him feel a sense less vulnerable.
It was no wonder Scorpia had taken it from him.
The Unseelie King clicked his tongue. The dark paint on his lips had already dried, and his teeth looked pristine and flawlessly white between them.
"Idiots, the lot of them." He exhaled, like a long-suffering monarch, and rose from his seat in front of the vanity. He was imposing enough from a sitting position; standing, the Unseelie King rose several heads above even the tallest of mortal men. His tattooed hand struck the back of the chair. "Sit down. Your hair's a mess."
Nezumi's fingers went instinctively to a loose tangle of his hair. When he'd first arrived at the Unseelie Court all those years ago, his dark hair had grown down to his waist. He kept it loose, often woven through with flowers and tiny glass baubles the Seelie courtiers gifted to him.
The moment the Unseelie King laid eyes on it, he'd seized all of it in his fist, ignoring Nezumi's miserable sniffles and pleas, and sheared it off just beneath the ears. The edge of the blade had nicked the back of Nezumi's right ear, and blood had trickled down his neck and stained the paper-thin pillow he'd been given to sleep with.
The Unseelie King had given the long heap of Nezumi's hair to the hobgoblins to play with; even now, Nezumi sometimes saw them scurrying about with bracelets woven from locks of his dark hair, so similar in color and texture to the King's own that it, too, was considered something of value.
It'd grown back over the years, but Nezumi never kept it too long. He allowed it to brush his shoulders, but if it grew beyond that, he gripped it in one hand and shore off the edges with his knife. He often thought of hacking it short again―but the King had forbidden it.
"Every hair on your head belongs to me now," the Unseelie King had purred, watching Nezumi's face twist with thinly veiled fury as he gave the order. "I don't give a damn if you cut the ends now and then, but anything beyond that is forbidden."
Nezumi hated him. He hated that even his own body didn't belong to him anymore.
He moved swiftly across the chamber and dropped into the chair without a sound. He didn't like being alone with the King in his chambers, but it was better than being out there with an audience. With so many eyes on them, the King's punishments and abuse were far harsher. Inside his bedchamber, he was still a sadistic bastard who sought nothing more than to watch the world burn, but at least Nezumi might leave without bloodshed or bruises.
When it was just the two of them, the Unseelie King's verbal barbs weren't aimed at humiliation. He focused on Nezumi's insecurities and fears, but he didn't go out of his way to back Nezumi into a corner, forcing him to stand foolishly in the center of the Court while the rest of the Folk watched him, snickering behind their hands or silently pitying him.
Nezumi stared into the silver mirror. His own raven-sharp face stared back, and over his shoulder, the Unseelie King towered.
Though he often tried to ignore it, Nezumi couldn't deny the similarities in their appearance. Both had the same heart-shaped face and pointed chin, high cheekbones, and fierce eyes. The Unseelie King's were the cavernous black of nightmares, sometimes burning with the same purple flames as his magic. Nezumi's were a sharp silver―a perfect replica of his mother's irises―but he tried not to compare them. Nezumi would never be as flawlessly beautiful as his mother.
Dressed from head to ankle in black fabric, the Unseelie King's skin seemed moon-pale and almost sickly, but even that looked hauntingly beautiful. Bogs were not known for their beauty, but the Unseelie King, it seemed, was a strange exception. Nezumi hadn't known him before he was the Unseelie King―that had been centuries before Nezumi's birth―but he couldn't picture the King toiling away in the swamps, coated in muck to keep the sunlight from burning his sensitive skin.
Before he'd become the Unseelie King three centuries prior, he'd gained a reputation as Izumi the Indestructible. A nightmare of a creature with a thirst for bloodshed and death, Izumi's vicious reputation had gained the attention of the Unseelie Queen. She'd quickly drawn him in as a consort, giving him a taste of the high life beyond the misery and laborious nature of the swamps.
Izumi's time as a consort had been short-lived. Following the disastrous attack on a local mortal kingdom―which left Izumi's black, feathery wings severely damaged and broken―Izumi sought out his Queen's mortal lover and brutally slaughtered him. When his crime was discovered, he'd murdered the Unseelie Queen and ripped her crown from her head. In an instant, the broken-winged commoner from the swamps became the ruler of the Dark Court. He'd managed to keep a strong grip on his throne for well over three centuries, transforming from Izumi the Indestructible into the nightmarish Unseelie King Nezumi had known his entire life.
The King lifted his hand―in his reflection, Nezumi could easily make out the patterns of vines, thorns, and little woodland animals composing his tattoos―and dropped his palm on Nezumi's head. He dragged his fingers through Nezumi's hair, pulling the tie keeping his hair in a tight knot on top of his skull loose.
Nezumi winced as the tie yanked his hair. The strands fell around his shoulders, tangled and ratty from galivanting through the mortal world and the depths of the Unseelie Court.
"Tell me you're not planning to dress like this for the Equinox," the Unseelie King said, combing the tangles out of Nezumi's hair with his fingers. Nezumi had a fine-toothed comb down in his bedchamber, but sometimes the King stole it just to torment him. Nezumi had gotten better at working the knots out of his hair with his own fingers.
"I didn't plan on attending," Nezumi said calmly. He'd never participated in the Autumn Equinox in the past, avoiding the revelry by ducking into the mortal world or hiding in his bedchamber.
"Oh, you're attending this one." The Unseelie King found a large knot at the nape of Nezumi's neck and gave it a harsh tug; Nezumi sucked in a pained hiss as he deftly unraveled it, severing the worst of it with his sharp nails. "I told you, this Equinox is going to be our best one yet. You don't get a say in the matter. You're attending."
Nezumi sunk his teeth into his lower lip. Dammit. He could already smell the stench of blood on the stones, could already hear their King's shrieking laughter bursting around him like a flock of crows.
The Unseelie King dragged his fingers through Nezumi's hair for a few moments longer before becoming satisfied with the result. He grasped a strand of Nezumi's hair, wound it tightly around his index finger, and gave it a fierce tug. Nezumi flinched, grateful when the King slowly retracted his hand without yanking a strand of his hair loose.
"You'd best get to the arachne and have them make you something decent for the Equinox. I won't have you looking like a guttersnipe." The Unseelie King pressed the tip of his finger into the back of Nezumi's skull and pressed. "The Equinox is tomorrow night, you recall?"
Nezumi did. How could he forget? He'd made a foolish attempt to sabotage the King's chosen sacrifice, but even he couldn't hope to put an end to the celebration. The Autumn Equinox had been a large celebration in the Unseelie Court since the dawn of time―seconded only by the Winter Solstice, for it was the longest night of the year.
In the two days since Nezumi had threatened Shion to stay inside, the boy hadn't left the safety of the bakery. Nezumi was impressed. He'd been certain that Shion would ignore his warnings.
Nezumi's heart clenched at the memory of the tears that'd tracked their way down Shion's cheeks before his friends came to haul him away. He closed his eyes and shook away the thought. Two days and the kid hadn't been foolish enough to leave the bakery. None of the Unseelie King's messengers had found a defense in the bakery's iron-laden walls, returning to the King with frustrated grumbles.
The Unseelie King, for his part, didn't seem concerned. He made no remarks about their inability to breach the bakery walls, nor did he seem particularly upset about the loss of his sacrifice. Humans were a dime a dozen, and locating another one would be a simple enough task. There were plenty of pretty men and women in Kronos to snatch off the streets.
Any one of them would make a perfect sacrifice for the Autumn Equinox.
The Unseelie King's hands clamped down on Nezumi's shoulders and squeezed. He reeled back from his thoughts―cursing himself for letting his thoughts wander in front of the King―and peered into the mirror.
"Are you worried about our sacrifice?" the Unseelie King purred. He'd lowered himself so that his chin rested on Nezumi's shoulder.
"I'm... wondering about the sacrifice," Nezumi said, because it was as close to the truth as he would allow himself to get in the King's presence. "That... human you wanted has proven to be difficult to obtain."
"Hmm, yes." The Unseelie King closed his eyes and hummed thoughtfully. "No matter. There are bigger things to worry about now." He gave Nezumi's shoulders a harsh squeeze, the tips of his fingers digging into his shoulder blades. "Like what I'm going to wear for the Equinox."
Nezumi forced back a groan, despite it all. The only thing greater than the Unseelie King's blood lust was his vanity. He could spend hours in his bedchamber, pulling on clothes and yanking them off again in a huff. His closets were stuffed full of expensive silks and fabrics, all in a variety of blacks and dark purples, but nothing ever seemed suitable enough for his tastes. He bullied gnomes into crafting creams and paints for his face, but if there was nothing "better" readily available, the King would placate his lust for carnage and high fashion in the same instant and paint his lips and nails with blood.
The King pulled back from Nezumi, but not before digging his thumbs into the deep scars on Nezumi's upper back. He ducked forward, his painted lips brushing against the shell of Nezumi's ear as he whispered, "I'm so glad you hate me, you know. If you'd been like the rest of those sheep, I would have slaughtered you."
Nezumi's spine went straight with terror. He struggled to keep his expression neutral as the cold pain lanced through him again. In an instant, he was slowly bleeding back to that day―the day the Unseelie King stole the skies from him.
Nezumi knew the story of his birth well enough. His mother had been a messenger for the Seelie Court, in close favor with the Seelie Queen. She'd been sent to the Unseelie Court to wish them well on the night of the Winter Solstice.
One thing had led to another. Half a vat of spiced apple wine later, the Unseelie King and Nezumi's mother had ended up in bed together. It didn't mean much, as faerie trysts often didn't, but their one-night stand had resulted nine months later in a tiny boy born in the heart of the Seelie Court.
The boy's dark parentage had been clear from the moment of his birth. Bogs were easily identified by two factors―their feathery black wings and horns―and though the boy had no horns, he did have a fluffy set of little wings attached to his shoulder blades. In his infancy, they were small and soft, like dandelion fluff coated in volcanic ash.
Nezumi's mother adored him, and the Seelie Court had slowly grown to accept him. Despite his dark heritage, Nezumi was, for all intents and purposes, a member of the Seelie Court. The Unseelie King had a plethora of bedfellows, and children were nothing new to him. The lineage of the Unseelie Court was passed through bloodshed and murder, not bloodlines, and biological heirs were a concept no one in the Unseelie Court recognized or acknowledged. From the day of his birth, Nezumi had been as invisible to the Unseelie King as a buzzing gnat around a rotten carcass.
The night Nezumi's mother died at the hands of a mugger, the Unseelie King and the Seelie Queen argued over who would get the chance to eliminate him. The Unseelie King had taken something of a liking to Nezumi's mother―enough to have at least one more tryst that resulted in another child, a little girl with a tiny pair of black horns and cavernous black eyes―and claimed that it was his right to bring her murderer the same pain he'd caused her.
The Seelie Queen, however, believed the honor of slaying her messenger's killer fell to her. To placate the Unseelie King, the Seelie Queen offered him one of her messenger's children in exchange for the chance to punish her murderer.
The Unseelie King, ever the greedy type, had demanded both of his children. The Seelie Queen had argued against it, as the children were "all they had left of her". She offered him the body of the murderer once she'd dispatched him from this world, and the Unseelie King had reluctantly accepted the terms.
The next night, Nezumi had been bathed and dressed in black. He'd never worn anything dark in his life―favoring the pale greens and sky blues of the Seelie Court―and the sudden shift left him trembling and teary. He'd bidden goodbye to his sister, who screamed and wept and clung to him so hard two Knights had been instructed by the Seelie Queen to pry her off and hold her back.
Nezumi had then been marched through the woods, away from the vast, flowery fields of the Seelie Court into the dead, dark mountains of the Unseelie Court.
The Unseelie King had found the quickest way to keep Nezumi terrified of him. Though his little wings were still too small to lift his body from the ground, their mere presence meant Nezumi could one day claim the skies and tear away from the Unseelie Court. The Unseelie King's wings were shredded and broken; the skies were the one place he could never follow.
So he'd stolen the skies from Nezumi with the blade of a sharpened ax.
The Unseelie King made a sound in the back of his throat, and Nezumi ripped himself from his dark memories. Disgust curled in his stomach like a serpent. What had Shion done to him? Prior to meeting the human boy, Nezumi had been a master at keeping those thoughts at bay. He'd been a master at hiding his emotions and seeming as if the world didn't bother him.
Nezumi turned to find the Unseelie King standing with his closet door open. He'd yanked out two different black outfits, holding them in his hands and heavily scrutinizing each of them. His dark hair fell down his back, scraping the backs of his knees. Nezumi wondered what he'd do with it for the Equinox; if he'd pile it on top of his head like a crown again, highlighting his curling horns.
"Hmm... No." The Unseelie King held one of the black robes against his front and peered down at it. His nose wrinkled. "Ugh, no." He tossed it onto the cold marble floor. Nezumi knew a sprite would be in shortly to pick it up and dispose of it. If the King tossed it aside, it meant he was no longer interested in its presence. The fabric could not be reused. If the Unseelie King spotted a member of his court wearing it, he'd rip their limbs off in front of the rest of his courtiers and nail the body to the walls as a warning.
The Unseelie King turned back to the closet to grab another robe, and Nezumi saw the spot between his shoulder blades, the place on his back where his wings didn't protect.
His hands itched for his knife. The desire to seize it and plunge it into that spot on the King's spine ripped through him like an uncontrolled blaze. The blow might not be enough to kill him, but just the pained shriek that would emit from his throat at the strike would be more than enough. Nezumi could practically taste the King's black, rotten blood on his tongue.
"I know you're worried about the sacrifice," the Unseelie King said over his shoulder, "but really, you shouldn't concern yourself with it."
Nezumi hadn't been concerned with it. But letting the King know that meant exposing himself, so he forced back the sudden rise of hatred and said, "You've found another human for your ceremony, then?"
"Ha!" The Unseelie King whirled around and flashed Nezumi a fierce grin. "Oh, no. There is no better human than that boy. A mortal man who'd risk everything for the life of a faerie? I'd be a fool to pass up such a blatant offering."
Nezumi's blood went cold.
The King misread the horror that twisted across his face. His grin grew, the tips of his sharp, perfect teeth glinting in the silver firelight. "As for the iron he's surrounded himself with, it won't prove to be an issue."
He turned back to the closet, humming to himself as he sought out an outfit for the Equinox, and Nezumi's world shattered like glass.
To Be Continued...