Saffron Wilds by Kai Butler
CHAPTER FIVE
Before King Balsamor King Hawthorne could say anything, I spoke. “You are suggesting that Queen Lilacina, the Summer Queen, has something to do with the incursions into King Balsam’s lands and the attack on King Hawthorne’s food supply? What evidence do you have?”
Celandine narrowed her eyes, her pink complexion paling, going nearly white. When she spoke, it was with more caution.
“I would never accuse a fellow monarch of such underhanded dealings, of course. To instigate a war between two other courts would be a great offense.” Celandine chose her next words as though she was picking her way through a room full of set rat traps. “However, we all know of the troubles in Queen Lilacina’s court. What better way to protect her interests than to make sure her enemies were focused on each other rather than on her?”
“You are suggesting the three other Far Realm courts are enemies of the Summer Court.” I looked at her, keeping my reproof mild.
“Am I?” Celandine smiled. “Or am I merely stating the obvious?”
I considered her words. Queen Celandine might simply be trying to avoid a war that, as King Balsam’s ally, her own people would be dragged into. Or she might be onto something.
“I will investigate. King Balsam, I will come to your court and see the evidence you have against the Autumn Court. King Hawthorne, we are a long way off from winter yet. I will examine your crops and herds. If it is true your own people will starve, I am sure the other courts will lend their aid.” I watched him.
Whoever had played the monarchs had played them well. King Balsam was most concerned about war while King Hawthorne was most concerned about how weak his court was without allies. A weakened court wouldn’t have what it needed to keep from starving over the winter.
“And I’m sure it will cost me dearly.” King Hawthorne glared.
“Merely friendship,” Queen Celandine said. “The Spring Court is always available to help friends.”
“This is acceptable as long as you investigate quickly,” King Balsam said.
“I plan to start with our absent member. I’m sure we will all be relieved when we hear Queen Lilacina is well and healthy and has not missed this session regarding the transfer of power to her court on purpose.” Under my palm, one of the symbols on the head of the oak wood staff burned. I didn’t have to look to see it was the stylized sun, symbolizing the Summer Court.
King Balsam and King Hawthorne both settled back into their chairs, and Queen Celandine released us all from the meeting, claiming that without the Summer Court, the meeting was pointless.
The monarchs swirled out, and I winced as both Hawthorne and Balsam closed their doors with more violence than usual. When I was sure I was alone, I shut my eyes tightly.
“Malcolm, I need you.” I slouched forward in my throne, rubbing the head of the cane against my forehead so hard the five symbols engraved on it etched themselves into my skin.
“You fixed it,” Malcolm said lightly.
Blinking open my eyes, I saw him standing in the center of the room, considering the windows. With Queen Celandine in power, the window symbolizing the Spring Court was ablaze, flowers blossoming on a green hill. A fawn paced its way through the stained glass, moving just slowly enough that someone might argue it wasn’t moving at all.
“Shannon did,” I said.
Leaning back in my seat, I considered Malcolm, his warm dark skin and shock of white hair. He fit in the room with its natural wood floor shined to a brilliant sheen and the elegant stained-glass windows. Would I have ever changed this? Or would I have let it remain, a stranger in my own home, a stranger in the role of Windrose?
“So what’s up, kid?” Malcolm turned back to me, hands in his pockets, leaning back on his heels as he considered me. “You didn’t call all the Windroses?”
“I need someone who has a very clear view of Queen Lilacina.” I sighed and looked down at the head of the cane. When I brushed my finger over the Summer symbol, I felt the heat again.
“What’s she done?” Malcolm asked.
“She may be trying to instigate a war between the Autumn and Winter Courts. Or she may just be the scapegoat Queen Celandine is using. Either Balsam froze King Hawthorne’s food supply, or Hawthorne sent assassins into the Winter Court, or both of them did both of those things…” I shrugged. “Of course they both deny it. Which was when Queen Celandine suggested the absent member was the culprit.”
Malcolm drew a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. “What does your gut tell you?”
“That Queen Celandine is right. Thistle has been nipping at Lilacina’s heels. He wants the crown. If she is going to take him on, it makes sense she wants her enemies distracted.” A brisk breeze flowed through the room, a reminder of spring showers and sprouting buds. I shivered.
Underneath me, my throne was solid. I might be helplessly reaching for explanations, but my power was secure. The Winter and Autumn Courts held their steel sheathed because I had promised peace.
“It’s a good theory. You need to go talk to Lilacina to see if it’s true. From my experience, it does sound like something she would do.” Malcolm considered me.
“I can’t help but think if I only hadn’t given Thistle Queen Aster’s signet ring…” I trailed off.
Absently, I put my hand in my bag, feeling for the spider silk pouch. I still bore no affection for Queen Lilacina, but in my haste, I might have done something I didn’t intend.
“You might have prevented some bloodshed?” Malcolm laughed, a short, aborted sound.
He turned and regarded the windows again. When he looked over his shoulder at me, I could practically smell something burning like a spark of Hawthorne’s fire from earlier had gotten under the floors and was consuming the house beneath our feet.
“There will always be bloodshed among the courts. You are going to be Windrose long enough that you’re going to see skirmishes and battles and outright war.”
Malcolm’s face was molded from the ash on a hundred battlefields.
“I don’t want war.” I looked down at the five symbols carved into the head of the cane. “I can keep them balanced. I can keep the peace.”
“No,” Malcolm said harshly, “you can’t. What you can do is bring them back to peace, bring them back to balance. War will find you, Parker Ferro. And you know that better than I do.”
The silence in the air around us settled as though Malcolm had shot the last bullet in a battle. The echo of it made my ears ring.
Slowly, I exhaled. “I can try to avoid this war.”
“You can,” Malcolm agreed. “And you might succeed. You also might fail.”
“This is the worst pep talk I’ve ever gotten,” I said. “And I’m counting that time my high school algebra teacher told me even McDonald’s employees need to know how to do math to make change.”
“You know all the parties involved. Your gut instinct about Queen Lilacina is good,” Malcolm relented. “She’s smart. She’ll make sure her borders are secure while she deals with the viper in her nest.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “You had a human wife.”
“Patty.” Malcolm smiled, not even looking surprised at the change of topic.
“You loved her?” I watched him, and his face softened. He was no longer someone that had survived backstabbing and court politics. He was a man who’d lost the love of his life.
“More than anything,” Malcolm said.
“You didn’t give up being Windrose for her,” I pointed out.
“No. Maybe that was cowardly of me, but it was also the only way I knew how to keep her safe.” Malcolm rocked back on his heels again, sweeping his hand to gesture at the windows in front of us. “If I had left the position, who would have taken it up? Puck? Someone else with their own agenda? The four courts trusted me. I knew the monarchs, and I knew the job. It was only right for me to stay.”
In the stained-glass window symbolizing the Spring Court, the fawn lifted her head and turned to regard us. I could practically smell the sweet grass, freshly grown from damp soil.
“How did you deal with the obligations in your relationship before you got married?” I was curious. My own discomfort with them might not be felt by other fae.
Maybe it hadn’t bothered Malcolm that Patty had constantly owed him.
Malcolm chuckled, ducking his head, grinning toward the floor. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, still grinning. With a shake of his head, he turned to look at me, and I saw his eyes were bright.
“Well, there wasn’t much of a chance for her to owe me anything. She and I got married almost as soon as we met.” At the expression on my face, he laughed again. “It wasn’t like it is now, kid. Back then, you could date for years, or if you knew, and if you were ready, then it was just that simple. I met her at a dance, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of her life with her. Patty was that kind of woman. So I called on her, asked her to marry me, and she said yes.”
“After one dance?” I blinked, my cheeks heating. I wasn’t sure why his certainty made me so uncomfortable. Maybe it was that I had taken so long with Nick.
“I knew I wanted to marry her after one song.” The smile trailed off Malcolm’s face, and the lines around his eyes that had meant laughter now looked sad.
“But she died,” I said.
Malcolm’s throat worked as he swallowed. Nodding, he said, “Yes. She died.”
“Was it worth it? Was…loving her worth it? Was binding yourself to her worth it?” I desperately needed the answer and found myself profoundly grateful that Malcolm was still there to give it to me.
“It was hard. When a fae binds himself to a human, it isn’t like when two fae bind themselves together. The Spring Queen and the Winter King? They’re powerful. More powerful because they have each other.” Malcolm looked down again, considering the smooth wooden floor.
I tried to hear what he wasn’t saying. “Does binding yourself to a human make you weaker?”
“Not in power, not in any way that will risk what you’ve built or what you can do as Windrose. But it will say something about your character to other fae. And it makes it clear how they can hurt you.”
My throat was dry, and when I swallowed, it felt like dragging a wet washcloth across the desert, the spit immediately absorbed. “One of the monarchs didn’t…”
“No. Cancer. Maybe lost us a decade of time. But I can’t regret it.” Malcolm looked at me, his assessing gaze picking up my number immediately. “You’re worried about your beau dying.”
“We have only a few decades together. And what if it’s less than that? What if some stray bullet gets him?” I turned and began pacing back and forth, dragging the oak wood staff beside me. “Or what if one of the monarchs tries to use him against me? What if they put him under an obligation or something worse the way Lover did? What if—”
“You have a lot of worries for a man in love,” Malcolm interrupted.
I continued pacing, my strides getting longer as I spiraled, thinking about every possible thing that might go wrong.
“You’re forgetting that’s the reason you fell in love with him in the first place.” When I turned to stare at Malcolm incredulously, he shot me an amused look. “Humans have the briefest of lives, and they burn through them, loving so strongly. They hate and yearn and wish. That’s the beauty of them.”
“The beauty of them is that they aren’t here forever?” I said. “That’s not enough. I need him here with me.”
“And he will be for as long as he is able. You know what Patty said when she found out what I was? She said, ‘How marvelous. What a view you must have of the world.’” Malcolm took a moment to breathe, inhaling through his nose in a long drag of air. “But that wasn’t true at all. It’s so easy for our kind to get jaded, to stop seeing the beauty of the world and let our bitterness color what we see. That’s what happens when you live as long as we do. But humans? They always seem to find the beauty in the world around us.”
I shook my head, understanding what Malcolm was saying but unable to think my life would be anything worth living without Nick in it.
“As to the monarchs using Nick against you, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. Once you bind yourselves together, it offers him some measure of protection.”
“What do you mean?” The staff in my hand was heavy, and I released it and the throne from my mind. It left me alone in the room with Malcolm, the stillness soothing.
“The ceremony binds your spirits together, meaning what is given to one of you is given to the other.” Malcolm stared at me, smirking when I nodded in understanding.
“So if someone attacks Nick…”
“They’re attacking you. And the monarchs have no interest in doing that, not if they want to keep their thrones.”
We stood in silence for a moment as I considered everything he had told me. My mind was like a mouse exploring an endless maze. Just when I thought I had reached the end, I realized something else and was sent down a new, twisting pathway.
“How does the ceremony work?” I asked.
“When you talk to your spirits, you reach out with your magic and wake them. You’ll do the same thing with his. When it’s between two fae, you reach for each other, twisting your souls together. Because he’s human, you will reach for him, and he’ll answer as best he can.” Malcolm held up his hand where he still wore a golden wedding ring. “Patty had no magic to speak of. She was as human as they come, so for me, it felt as though I was wrapping her soul with mine. When I was done, even when we were apart, I felt the beat of her heart. I felt the pulse of her alive in the world.”
“When she died, it must have felt like a part of you did.” I thought of what it felt like when Archer had snuffed out most of the fire that lived in my ring. It had been like someone had cut off one of my fingers.
How much worse would it feel if I had my entire soul wrapped around it?
“Yes. I was expecting it, but it still hurt.” Malcolm’s face looked gray.
“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked.
“Do it soon, kid. These humans live so short a time. It’s not worth wasting another minute.”
I sighed, considering the fawn in the Spring window. When I looked back, Malcolm was gone.
I checked the time on my phone. It was well past dinner, and I wasn’t surprised to see a text from Nick.
Picking up food. I’ll be home soon. I have something to show you.