Shadowfever
Page 81
So the king was faithful, and fairies dont like that.
He gave me a look. Spend a thousand years with another and tell me it is not unnatural. At the very least, tedious.
Apparently the king didnt think so. I liked the king for that. I liked the idea of true love. Maybe, just maybe, some people were lucky enough to find their other half, the one that completed them, like a Janus head.
The king had become a danger to his children. His court began to talk. They decided to test him. Cruce would seduce the king, turn his obsession from the concubine, make him abandon his singleminded focus on the mortal.
Is the king bisexual?
Vlane gave me a blank look.
I thought the Fae were gender-specific.
Ah, you refer to who fucks whom and are wehow do you say itmonosexual?
Heterosexual, I said. Hearing Vlane say the word fuck, in his musical, sensual voice, was foreplay in and of itself. I took a sip of my drink, hung my leg over my chair, and cooled a toe into the surf.
When I speak of Fae seduction, it is different from human lust. It is the captivation of anothers He seemed to be struggling for words. Humans do not have an appropriate word. Very psyche? That which is all one is? Cruce was to become the kings favored, replacing the mortal with whom hed so long been obsessed, who was not even of our kind. Cruce was to make the king once again enamored of our race. When the king returned his attention to the Court of Shadows, he would raise them to their rightful place in the light with the others of their race. His halflings were weary of hiding. They wanted to meet their brethren. They wanted to taste the life their counterparts enjoyed. They wanted the king to fight for them, make the queen accept them, to unify the courts into one. They felt all was as it should be. The queen was the wise and true leader of the Seelie, the king was the strong and proud leader of the Unseelie. They were a Janus head, complete, if only the king and queen would let them live together as one.
Did the Seelie feel the same? I couldnt imagine they did.
The Seelie were completely unaware the Unseelie existed.
Until someone betrayed the king to the queen.
Betrayal is in the eye of the beholder, Vlane said sharply. He closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them again, the angry gold glints were gone. I shall rephrase that properly for you: Someone should have told the queen the truth long before she learned it. The queen is to be obeyed in all things. The king disobeyed her repeatedly. When the king refused Cruce, the Unseelie knew he would never stand up for them. They spoke of mutiny, civil war. To avoid it, Cruce went to the queen to speak on his dark brothers behalf. While he was away, the other princes designed a curse tobe cast into the Silvers. If the king would not give up his mortal, they would forbid him access to her, by blocking him from entering the Silvers and ever seeing her again.
So it wasnt Cruce who corrupted the network of the Silvers?
Of course not. Among my race, the name Cruce has become synonymous with one of your humans I believe his name was Murphy and a certain edict was passed? If something goes wrong, it is blamed on Murphy. It is the same with Cruce. If Cruce had indeed cast the curse into the Silvers, it would not have corrupted their primary function. It simply would have prevented the king from entering. Cruce studied with the king himself; he was far more adept than his brethren.
What did the queen say when he went to her? I asked. It almost seemed that Cruce was a renegade hero. Really, although the Unseelie were vile, so were most of the Seelie Id met. As far as I was concerned, they deserved each other. They should have reunited in one court, policed their own, and stayed the hell out of our world.
We will never know. Upon hearing what he had to say, she confined him to her bower. She then summoned the king and they met in the sky that very day. Although I possess no memory of it, according to our histories it was me she sent for Cruce, and when I brought him to her, she lashed him to a tree, took up the Sword of Light, and killed him before the kings eyes.
I gasped. It was so strange to realize Vlane had been alive during that time. That hed had firsthand experience of it all yet recalled none of it. Hed had to read about it in written histories to recall what hed willingly forgotten. I wondered: What if whoever wrote Fae histories, like our humans, distorted things a bit? Knowing their penchant for illusion, I couldnt see any Fae telling the whole truth. Would we ever really know what had happened back then? Still, I imagined Vlanes version was the closest I might ever get to it. And war broke out.
He nodded. After the king killed the queen and returned to his court, he found his concubine dead. According to the princes, when she learned of the battle and discovered that the king had begun to slaughter his own race in her name, she stepped from the Silvers, lay down in his bed, and killed herself. They say she left him a note. They say he carries it still.
What ill-fated lovers! It was such a sad story. Id felt their love on those obsidian floors in the White Mansion, even though both of them had been deeply unhappy: the king because his beloved was not Fae like him, and the concubine because she was trapped, waiting alone, for him to make her good enough for himthat was how shed felt, inferior. She would have loved him as she was, one small mortal life, and been happy. Still, thered been no question of their love. They were all each other wanted.
He gave me a look. Spend a thousand years with another and tell me it is not unnatural. At the very least, tedious.
Apparently the king didnt think so. I liked the king for that. I liked the idea of true love. Maybe, just maybe, some people were lucky enough to find their other half, the one that completed them, like a Janus head.
The king had become a danger to his children. His court began to talk. They decided to test him. Cruce would seduce the king, turn his obsession from the concubine, make him abandon his singleminded focus on the mortal.
Is the king bisexual?
Vlane gave me a blank look.
I thought the Fae were gender-specific.
Ah, you refer to who fucks whom and are wehow do you say itmonosexual?
Heterosexual, I said. Hearing Vlane say the word fuck, in his musical, sensual voice, was foreplay in and of itself. I took a sip of my drink, hung my leg over my chair, and cooled a toe into the surf.
When I speak of Fae seduction, it is different from human lust. It is the captivation of anothers He seemed to be struggling for words. Humans do not have an appropriate word. Very psyche? That which is all one is? Cruce was to become the kings favored, replacing the mortal with whom hed so long been obsessed, who was not even of our kind. Cruce was to make the king once again enamored of our race. When the king returned his attention to the Court of Shadows, he would raise them to their rightful place in the light with the others of their race. His halflings were weary of hiding. They wanted to meet their brethren. They wanted to taste the life their counterparts enjoyed. They wanted the king to fight for them, make the queen accept them, to unify the courts into one. They felt all was as it should be. The queen was the wise and true leader of the Seelie, the king was the strong and proud leader of the Unseelie. They were a Janus head, complete, if only the king and queen would let them live together as one.
Did the Seelie feel the same? I couldnt imagine they did.
The Seelie were completely unaware the Unseelie existed.
Until someone betrayed the king to the queen.
Betrayal is in the eye of the beholder, Vlane said sharply. He closed his eyes a moment. When he opened them again, the angry gold glints were gone. I shall rephrase that properly for you: Someone should have told the queen the truth long before she learned it. The queen is to be obeyed in all things. The king disobeyed her repeatedly. When the king refused Cruce, the Unseelie knew he would never stand up for them. They spoke of mutiny, civil war. To avoid it, Cruce went to the queen to speak on his dark brothers behalf. While he was away, the other princes designed a curse tobe cast into the Silvers. If the king would not give up his mortal, they would forbid him access to her, by blocking him from entering the Silvers and ever seeing her again.
So it wasnt Cruce who corrupted the network of the Silvers?
Of course not. Among my race, the name Cruce has become synonymous with one of your humans I believe his name was Murphy and a certain edict was passed? If something goes wrong, it is blamed on Murphy. It is the same with Cruce. If Cruce had indeed cast the curse into the Silvers, it would not have corrupted their primary function. It simply would have prevented the king from entering. Cruce studied with the king himself; he was far more adept than his brethren.
What did the queen say when he went to her? I asked. It almost seemed that Cruce was a renegade hero. Really, although the Unseelie were vile, so were most of the Seelie Id met. As far as I was concerned, they deserved each other. They should have reunited in one court, policed their own, and stayed the hell out of our world.
We will never know. Upon hearing what he had to say, she confined him to her bower. She then summoned the king and they met in the sky that very day. Although I possess no memory of it, according to our histories it was me she sent for Cruce, and when I brought him to her, she lashed him to a tree, took up the Sword of Light, and killed him before the kings eyes.
I gasped. It was so strange to realize Vlane had been alive during that time. That hed had firsthand experience of it all yet recalled none of it. Hed had to read about it in written histories to recall what hed willingly forgotten. I wondered: What if whoever wrote Fae histories, like our humans, distorted things a bit? Knowing their penchant for illusion, I couldnt see any Fae telling the whole truth. Would we ever really know what had happened back then? Still, I imagined Vlanes version was the closest I might ever get to it. And war broke out.
He nodded. After the king killed the queen and returned to his court, he found his concubine dead. According to the princes, when she learned of the battle and discovered that the king had begun to slaughter his own race in her name, she stepped from the Silvers, lay down in his bed, and killed herself. They say she left him a note. They say he carries it still.
What ill-fated lovers! It was such a sad story. Id felt their love on those obsidian floors in the White Mansion, even though both of them had been deeply unhappy: the king because his beloved was not Fae like him, and the concubine because she was trapped, waiting alone, for him to make her good enough for himthat was how shed felt, inferior. She would have loved him as she was, one small mortal life, and been happy. Still, thered been no question of their love. They were all each other wanted.
