I followed Tzanith deeper into the irkwood. Not far from the hollow, we entered through a crumbled archway and I started to make out the broken fragments of structures peeking through the tangled forest. More of the Crownsway, I thought, recognizing the architecture.

While the outside world remained under a thin layer of snow, growth was more abundant here. Moss grew over the structures and trees, and creeper vines threatened to trip me with every step. I could make out the hints of statues and mosaic here and there, but it seemed like the forest was trying to swallow all of it.

Tzanith moved at a steady but leisurely pace. Her dragonfly wings fluttered on occasion, and I found it difficult not to notice those glimpses of how her spider-silk dress didn't have a back, and didn't hide her figure so much as suggested it. The rhythmic swing of her long braid strayed near hypnotic.

Perhaps literally. Swallowing and forcing myself to focus, I spoke aloud. "You said your father disappeared into the Wend. Do you lead his clan, now?"

Tzanith glanced back and flashed a green-toothed smile. "What's left of it. I'm one of my lady's handmaidens."

"That's a high honor."

"It is. As is hosting a Vicar of the Credo Ferrum in our halls. My lady offers her respects, lord crowfriar."

The pelt shifted and Vicar spoke. "It is my honor, Lady Tzanith. It has been too long since I enjoyed Sidhe hospitality."

I'd hoped no one would notice that the beast skin I wore still lived. "You're not angry at me for bringing a fiend here?"

"We have no quarrel with the servants of Orkael," Tzanith said lightly. "It is only the Onsolain who resent them so, for past strife. No, we hold the jailers of the Abgrüdai in the highest esteem."

"Do not be surprised," Vicar muttered to me while I chewed on that. "The Sidhe have always been more or less neutral in seraphim quarrels."

We stepped onto a narrow bridge, little more than a cracked arch of stone connecting the two faces of a ravine too deep for me to make out the bottom.

Tzanith paused at the center of the bridge. "I still regret how our meeting at my father's hall went, my lord."

I hadn't yet stepped onto the bridge myself. "You mean when you tried to seduce me?"

Tzanith folded her hands behind her back and half turned to stare at me sidelong. "You rejected me."

I nodded slowly. There's a troll under the bridge. "I did. I won't apologize for it, though I could have been… more courteous."

The she-elf threw her head back and laughed. "I would have hated you for it even had your refusal come with gifts and trumpets! I wanted you…" Her expression turned perplexed. "And you wanted me. I could tell then, and I can tell now. I see it, smell it.

"I do find you attractive, Tzanith. But I'm only human." A human who hadn't been with a woman in nearly a year, but she didn't need to know that. "I haven't changed my mind."

"Why deny yourself pleasure?" The elf asked.

"I deny myself a lot of things. I can feel lust without being a slave to it. Besides, you'll take my wits."

"Only briefly." Tzanith's eyelashes fluttered. "You have a strong will, for a mortal. I am certain it wouldn't be permanent."

I said nothing. Neither did I step onto the bridge.

"I've already paid the toll on your behalf." Tzanith tilted her head to one side, blinking her mismatched eyes at me invitingly. "It's perfectly safe to cross, I assure you."

"I'm not afraid of the troll, my lady. I'm afraid of you."

Tzanith snickered. "Flatterer. Most mortals would consider my affection an honor, you know."

"I'm aware." I wondered how she would react. Last time, she'd fled from my guest room in tears when I rejected her advances.

And then I'd let myself imagine what would have happened if I didn't refuse. She'd come close to succeeding back then, which was part of my caution.

Tzanith's expression shifted into remoteness and she turned her on back on me. Her wings closed together, forming more of a cape as she started walking again. "This way, my lord."

I nodded and stepped onto the bridge. The creature under it didn't make any moves. I felt it below, in the ravine, and knew it was much larger than the troll who'd attacked the camp.

"Don't ask," I muttered as I crossed over.

"I wasn't going to," Vicar said.

As we went further, I got the sense we were elevated well above the forest floor. The stone path seemed to emerge directly from a tangle of roots and branches, but the masonry dipped and rose at seemingly random intervals. The skeleton of an old fortress, probably a great citadel, drowned in this overgrowth.

Tzanith kept the silence, dropping her flirtatious manner as she led me up several flights of stairs, and then over a tree bough wide as a drawbridge. On the far side lay a dense cluster of towering trees that grew into a single coiling tangle, with a narrow opening at the end of the branch-bridge wide enough to walk through.

I knew we'd arrived at our destination even before the elven handmaiden stopped at the opening and turned. "She waits for you inside," Tzanith said demurely dipping her upper body into a formal bow.

I nodded and stepped past her through the hollow's entrance, passing through a long tunnel. Tzanith did not follow.

At the end of that tunnel, I found a space worthy of myth. The corridor ended at a set of roots grown into a rudimentary stair, which descended roughly five feet to a floor of stone carpeted in soft moss. More ruins dotted that space, the remnants of decayed walls and columns, rising together with the forest in a way that seemed wholly natural, like even the architecture had been grown rather than built.

Peeking out of the moss near the center was a collapsed statue, still intact enough to tell that it'd once been the likeness of a kingly man in a cloak and armor. His crowned head had cracked off at the neck, so it lay face up at an angle where the rest of the ancient king lay on his stomach. Flowers grew on the shattered fragments of a spear and gauntleted hand not far away.

It must have once been massive. The head alone was taller than me, blocking my sight of the far side of the space. Trees grew around and over the rest of the scene, and I guessed it had once been some sort of courtyard, perhaps the nexus of the fortress.

Birds flitted through the trees, and wisps bloomed here and there as they whispered their secrets to each other. Some drifted towards me, but their glow dimmed when they drew close and they fled.

The courtyard was open to the sky, revealing the moons and stars, though clouds were crawling to shadow the night sky. There were no torches, all the light coming from the heavens and from the Wil-O' Wisps.

And from her.

She stood next to the stone king's head, in the space separating it from the statue's shoulders. A gentle light surrounded her, a radiance in orange and yellow shades, like the fading gleam of sunshine through autumn trees. She wore a red dress with ivy-green trim, and red too was her hair. A brilliant red, like fire, with shades of gold in tumbling curls that fell almost to her ankles. Her braids were sewn with holly and crocuses. Her skin was sun-bronzed and smooth, her bare arms decorated with golden bracelets from shoulder to wrist, and toned with the faintest hint of strong, slender muscle.

When the Princess of the Seydii turned to look at me, it was like the sun peeking over a hill after the darkest and most bitter of nights. She had the beauty of green hills in spring, of tumbling leaves just before winter bleaches color from the land.

I couldn't define exact features, or describe the contours of her face. She was like Eanor and Nath. An idea in the form of a woman, an elemental beauty given hands and lips and eyes.

And her eyes… They shone a brilliant, near liquid gold. They were the same eyes her father possessed, which my own and every other Alder Knight only reflected.

"I greet thee, Headsman of Seydis." Maerlys Tuvonsdotter placed one hand at her navel and swept the other out in a regal gesture as she turned in a flurry of ginger waves. "Be welcome to mine court. I pray thee forgive its lack of comforts."

I took a few more cautious steps forward before stopping some distance away from the faerie princess, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the uncanny light in the courtyard before bowing. "High Priestess. Thank you for seeing me."

The light around Maerlys seemed to dim a touch as she studied me. "I have not heard that title used in some years, Alder Knight, though it does thee credit to acknowledge it."

High Priestess was the official title Tuvon's child used in Seydis. She led the Alder Knights in ritual and focused on the spiritual affairs of the Seydii elves. While her father might have ruled, and we answered to him, Maerlys was our caretaker.

"You live here now?" I asked, glancing around the ancient courtyard again.

Maerlys shook her head. She hadn't moved from her spot by the statue. "We are a court in migration now, like those who wandered these shores before my father established his throne at Tiir Ilyasven. We have not been here long, nor do I suspect we shall be here much longer."

I replied with a slow nod as I chewed on my words. Caution was required here, though part of me didn't want to be cautious.

"Thou art angry," Maerlys said softly.

I stared into her face, and felt the boiling energy that'd driven me through the forest after leaving Rosanna's camp rise back up to the surface. Despite the intensity of that feeling, my voice came out cold. "You tried to murder the Empress."

Maerlys turned her attention back to the statue. "Thou maketh a serious accusation, Ser Headsman."

I knew faeries liked to play games, but it still took a great effort of will not to snarl my next words. Instead, I spoke through my teeth. "You deny it? I was in her tent. One of your raiders tried to put a magicked arrow right through her heart."

"How doth thee know twas' not a stray shot?" Maerlys asked. "An unhappy misfortune?"

"Elven archers don't hit anything they don't mean to. That was an assassination attempt."

"Yet the archer did not hit her…" Maerlys glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. "You struck the dart away. The Rose of Karles lives. Her child lives. And now thou art here."

I shook my head. "You can't expect me to believe you orchestrated a fake assassination attempt just to get my attention, Princess. That goes beyond the realm of belief."

The elf's eyes narrowed. "I know many things thou wouldst strain to believe, mortal man."

Harsher words surged up my throat, but Vicar spoke into my ear before I could spit them out. "Calm yourself, Alken. Remember why you are here. Answers are useful, but she still holds the child. Play along for now."

He was right. I bit back my anger and tried to take a breath, a moment to think. She wouldn't out and explain herself, that wasn't the way of the Sidhe. She would insinuate, misdirect, lie with truth. If I wanted to save Darsus, then I needed to be level-headed.

Pride was an indulgence. Maerlys wanted something from me. Otherwise, she'd have never let me through the front door.

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"Where is the boy, Princess? Where is Prince Darsus?"

"Safe," she said. "For now."

"Do you know what you've risked by doing this?" I asked. "This isn't some country lord's son."

The shadow of a smile touched the corner of the Princess's berry lips, but her attention seemed to keep wandering to the statue's fallen head. She nodded to it and spoke in a distant voice. "Do you know him?"

I realized she referred to the statue. "No."

"I knew him. When he was but a babe, I gave my blessing to him in his mother's arms, kissed his cheek right here." She ran her fingers along the head's cheekbone, close to the slope of the nose. "He became a legend."

I said nothing. I didn't really care about the statue, and had no patience for games. If she wanted to play them, she would find me a dull participant.

"Edvard Agrion. Ah! I see by thy face thou knowest that name, Ser Headsman. Yes, he was Urn's first emperor, the first man acknowledged by all thy little kingdoms as King of Kings. He toppled giants, conquered nations. He was as great a hero of thy species as ever there has been…"

Maerlys took her hand from the ancient monarch's face. "And now his palace is swallowed by weeds, and his likeness is not recognized by thee. His legacy is a road. My kiss blessed him with the power to grow a forest in a day! And instead he came to fear the wilds, and built this; a vain, crumbling ruin that he tried to raise above my power. And look! The forest is higher now."

"Why?" I asked her. "Why are you doing this? Why kidnap the heir to the throne of the Karledale, why risk war with your allies?"

Maerlys turned and stared at me, her golden eyes widening. "Is that what thou thinkest I am doing, Alken Hewer? Dost thou think the death of thy sweet rose wouldst drag me into a war with the Accord?"

I hoped my incredulous stare was blunt enough. "Of course it would."

"An interesting opinion. Tis' mine that the hold of the Silver Queen and the Forger King over the human lords is not so strong, and that they have many enemies. It is also mine opinion that thy Emperor would breathe a sigh of relief at the death of his lady wife."

"You're wrong," I said.

"Believe as thou wishes. Thy belief is that the death of Rosanna Silvering shall end the world. I assure you, it will not. I shall blink one day and no one will remember her. She is a gust of air, a passing thing."

Maerlys gestured to Emperor Edvard's statue. "Just like him."

Vicar spoke directly to the Sidhe princess then, entering the conversation where he'd only listened before. "I would think, lady elf, that you would be more cautious of the delicacy of the Accord's current circumstances. It is already stressed to the point of breaking. Unless that is your intention?"

I tried to avoid reacting. Maerlys wants the Accord to break? Why?

The Princess glanced at the hellhound and scoffed. "The devil on thine shoulder is shrewd, Ser Knight, though the plot he suggests is more the habit of devils than faeries, is it not?"

"That isn't a denial," I noted.

Maerlys smiled and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "As I said, thou overestimates the consequence of this act. And this is all digression. It is not why I was sought by thee, Ser Headsman, unless I am mistaken? Didst thou not wish to inquire about the whereabouts of Rysanthe Miresgal, who some call Death to the Deathless?"

It took me a moment to register the change in topic. "You already know about my mission?"

"Of course." Maerlys's violet lips tightened into a knowing smile. "After all, that old bull has been dogging my steps for weeks. I expected they might dispatch thee on the same errand, Headsman."

She lifted a single forefinger into the air. "I am willing to share what I know, and it shall assuredly help thee… My one condition is that the matter of Rosanna Silvering's son be dropped. I assure thee, the child is safe in my care. Forget this matter. Your queen lives, and we have both taken our share of blood from the other. Let us have peace, you and I, and discuss how we can aid one another."

A long minute of silence passed. Vicar did not speak up this time to offer insight or council. Maerlys watched me intently, her flame-bright hair framing her slim form so she seemed the epicenter of a candle in the ancient fortress's center.

It was a clever bargain. She knew it put me between a rock and a hard place. I didn't know where Darsus was, which meant any attempt to rescue him — either through subterfuge or violence — might only cause his death. I also knew her assurances of his safety were genuine, as the word of a faerie, especially a monarch, was binding. The potency of her spirit would diminish if she broke it.

And the Choir would want me to focus on finding Rysanthe. If I didn't play along and Maerlys refused to help, then the trail would go cold. I'd be floundering in the dark.

And yet…

"You are aware," I said quietly, "that Prince Darsus is my godson?"

Maerlys blinked. "Is that so? Interesting."

I nodded. We'd never made that information public, and by the Princess's reaction it didn't seem like she knew. Perhaps an act, but I trusted my hunch. They didn't know everything, only liked to act like they did.

"This does change things." Maerlys laced her fingers together and studied me with a more pensive manner. "Then I shall ask for thee to leave him in my care, for his sake."

"His sake?" I asked.

"I know what shadows the child," the faerie princess said. "His hunger will consume him, and quickly. I am certain there have already been signs. He will not even be a man grown before he becomes something neither you nor his mother shall recognize. A monster, driven by gluttonous impulses."

My hand tightened on Faen Orgis's haft. She knew about the ghoul curse. We'd tried to suppress that fact as well.

"We can help him," Maerlys insisted. "Perhaps even heal him, in time, before the affliction affixes itself deep enough to become permanent. So I pray thee consider my offer for the sake of thy godson."

I did not want to consider it. Maerlys had proven herself hostile and malicious with the attack on the encampment. She kidnapped the boy. And I knew elves, better than I liked to. That mask of being the wise, fair allies to humanity was just that; a mask.

They were chameleons. They took the shapes that suited them in the moment. Fair when they wanted to seduce, monstrous when they wished to kill, and beneath that facade hid something old and twisted.

Perhaps Maerlys could help Darsus. I didn't know how to, much as that fact frustrated me. Yet, I could not dismiss the knowledge that she might also make him into a wholly different and even worse monster.

Things weren't adding up. This conversation right after the attack on the camp, the bargain she offered me…

It all felt half baked. Desperate.

"You didn't know I was going to be at Rosanna's camp," I said softly. "Did you?"

Maerlys blinked. "What?"

I took a steadying breath and met her gaze. "You wanted to capture Darsus and leave no survivors. No one would know it was you. There would be no clear ruler of the southern realms, blame would be passed around — some would probably think it was wild irks, or even the Gatebreaker, but just as many would expect other humans. It would cause some years of chaos, but you don't mind that. After all, the northern realms are strong enough, so even if thousands or hundreds of thousands died, it would just be a passing thing."

Maerlys's expression went blank, but she didn't interrupt me. I waited a beat before continuing. "And all the while, you would have Darsus Silvering. The heir to the throne of Karles, high king in waiting for all the south. Raised by you, his very own faerie godmother. When the time was right, you would reveal that you'd rescued him from that tragedy, probably cook up some story about how he fled through the woods from demons. You would have everyone think that you kept him safe all that time, while you prepared him to bring peace and unity to his war-torn homeland. Just like his mother did."

Vicar chuckled on my shoulder. "Clever. A scheme worthy of the Sidhe."

"Everyone would be grateful to you," I continued. "A story worthy of legend, and a good way to cement your influence over new generations of mortals, rebuild some of what you lost when Elfhome fell. Hell, I'd probably have been grateful to you when all was said and done."

Some time passed after I finished my narrative. The trees shifted and creaked, the wisps danced, and the faerie and I faced off across the center of Emperor Edvard's fallen citadel.

When Maerlys broke that silence, she almost sounded impressed. "Thou art not so much the simple brute I took thee for, Alken Hewer."

"Where is the boy?" I asked again, my voice hardening. "Give him to me, and then we'll discuss this matter about Rysanthe."

"A shame," the elf sighed. "This could have been cleaner."

I felt Vicar tense up. He started to say something, but before he could utter a syllable Maerlys stood right in front of me. She didn't move fast — no, it was more like what Urawn did when he first appeared at the Fane. She simply ignored the space between us, did not acknowledge it. She took a step from fifteen feet away, then her palm was on my chest.

"Sleep, Alder Knight. Your thoughts will be less troubled when you wake."

It was only then that I recalled that Maerlys, Daughter of Tuvon and High Priestess of the Alder, was not just an elf. She was an honorary member of the Choir of Heaven, a peer to angels and demigods, a Power of the land.

She's got me. I'd barely even registered the thought when I felt her power move through me like a blade of sharp daylight through a stormcloud. Piercing, bright, blinding. It struck on the golden magic within me, the Alder's magic, and resonated with it.

My vision blurred. I felt heavy all the sudden, so damned heavy, like my bones were lead. I swayed on my feet, barely braced in time to stop from falling.

No, it was Maerlys who caught me with one hand, caught me easily by just placing her palm against my chest as I pitched forward. She said something, and I didn't hear the words, but they sounded soothing. Gentle. Her voice rippled through the waters of my soul.

And those waters rose up to drown me.

But there was another voice within. A darker one.

Resist, Alken!

That voice wasn't soothing. It was grating, guttural, an evil voice.

Resist, damn you! If you fall asleep, she will rewrite your thoughts and you will not remember this conversation.

Tired. I was always tired. Never any damn rest.

You are stronger than this. You still see yourself as the humble soldier, the dutiful knight, but you are more. You are a Power too. It is only within your own mind that you are no match for these immortals. Shuck that collar!

I was only a man. Just mortal flesh. Perhaps I wasn't cut out for this. Urawn was right.

To hell with Urawn. I didn't do any of this for his approval, for any of theirs. Respect and validation had motivated me once, but not for a long time.

She is counting on you. So is the boy.

I know, I snarled. Now get out of my head, crowfriar.

Gladly.

The fire inside of me had burned down to mere embers, cooled into a stupor by the elf's power. With a surge of will and anger I stoked it back to roaring strength, and woke.

I still stood where I'd been. Only moments had passed. The air filled with the crackling sound of flame and a panicked shriek. Maerlys recoiled from me, throwing her arms up as pale fire scorched her. I was shrouded in it, the flames licking up my legs and arms and crowning my shoulders. My red cloak flapped as though in a strong wind, its edges trailing with heat.

There were shapes in the flame. Ghastly faces, skulls, stretched mouths and gaping eyes. Their phantom wails melded with the snapping roar of a small inferno.

Vicar wasn't on my shoulders anymore. He'd slipped off before I summoned the Alder's power, and slunk along the floor behind me like a huge, furry caterpillar.

I would remember to thank him later. For the time being, all I felt was a consuming rage. The angry spirits tethered to my soul fed it, and fed off of it, and this time I didn't push them away.

The change in Maerlys was just as dramatic. As she stumbled away from me, the wraith fire ate its way along her limbs. The delicately muscled arms, the clear, soft skin, her brilliant hair — it all peeled away to reveal the horror beneath.

Cracked flesh and the ruin of skinless muscle were exposed. Ribbons of blasted skin, charred black like bacon left on a pan too long, hung off her forearms and shoulders like tattered cloth. Pits formed in her body, exposing the bone beneath, and the reek of cooked meat assaulted the air.

Her hair vanished, revealing a bald, earless head with patches of skull exposed. Her cheeks melted away, so I could see the white teeth beneath strips of clinging skin. She seemed to shrink, her figure losing its fullness, so she looked more skeletal. Her fine red-and-green dress now hung off her like a shroud, the rich material despoiled by leakage from the elf's own blistered ruin.

My power hadn't done this. She'd been wearing a glamour the whole time, to make herself look as she had before the war. This burnt cadaver, cursed with life, was the truth of the Daughter of Tuvon.

She hid her face with clawed fingers for a moment, then looked up at me. Her eyes were still gold, but they were artificial, fashioned from glass and metal. There were no eyelids to frame them, so their glare seemed wide and mad.

"How?" Maerlys hissed. Her voice rasped out of scorched lungs.

I stood tall, Faen Orgis planted and still grown to the length of a staff, towering over the burnt faerie as she cringed from me. She looked shrunken and shadowy now, smaller yet somehow more solid, more real. Just as dangerous.

"I'm not an Alder Knight anymore." Whispering flames still framed my body. No guards had come to help the Princess. Interesting.

"That trick you just tried to pull…" My eyes narrowed. "How often did you and the other elves used to do that to us?"

"When necessary." Maerlys took another step back and straightened, though her arms remained bent inward and her spine curled slightly, perhaps permanently so from her wounds. "I heard rumor thou stole power from the remains of the Table. It should have obeyed me… What hath thy done?"

"What I had to. Your father sends his regards."

Maerlys flinched, and though her eyes were artificial and did not display emotion, I could feel the intensity of her rage.

"The boy," I said darkly. "You will return him."

She didn't seem to hear me. Her blackened face moved, glass eyes roaming over my body as though they could still see. "Thou art wasted on them."

"My patience is gone," I growled. "Enough games, Maerlys. You've lost, and you can't keep me here."

She let out a hoarse laugh. She had no tongue, I realized, yet somehow that didn't seem to impede her speech. "I make the same offer as before, Headsman; leave the child in my care, and I shall save him from his curse and raise him to be a hero amongst both mortal and elf."

I started to reply, but she spoke quickly, excitedly. "Thou hast sworn many vows, but those sworn to my father bind thy body and soul more fiercely than any other even now. Stay with me. Become mine First Sword. Protect the boy thyself, and be a True Knight again. Enough of enduring the squabbles of thy petty kingdoms! Enough of thy slavery to the Onsolain! They art a shadow of themselves."

Maerlys seemed to calm and paced a few steps, the hem of her dress trailing behind her almost like a tail. She lifted a hand, palm up, and the golden bangles on her skeletal wrist rattled. "Take mine handmaiden, Tzanith, for thyself. I will wed thee both, and thy children shalt be lords of the Sidhe."

My cloak of flames slowly died as I listened, though I was ready to call it back if needed. I wondered how much of this the faerie actually planned, and how much was improvised. I expected she might have tried to recruit me to her service this way eventually, and now it made sense why she'd tossed Tzanith in front of me, let the pixie flutter her pretty wings and flash her smiles.

No doubt that'd been intended as a longer game, before I showed up early to beat her door down and take Rosanna's son back.

"And what does the Lady Tzanith think of this?" I asked.

Maerlys's head tilted, and I heard the flutter of insectoid wings behind me. I glanced back and saw the handmaiden standing near the courtyard's entrance, her hands folded and her mismatched eyes fixed on me.

One guard, then. If I'd tried to attack the Princess after she failed to ensorcel me, no doubt the handmaiden would have intervened.

Tzanith caught her lady's stare and gave a demure bow. "I am at my queen's service, of course."

I blinked at the title. "Queen?"

Maerlys said nothing, though I sensed her satisfaction even in her ruined visage. It was Tzanith who made the formal announcement.

"The clans of the Wyldefae and the Seydii have acknowledged Maerlys Tuvonsdotter as her father's successor. She is now queen of all elvendom in Urn."

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