“We would have followed you,” says Lady Nore, going down on one knee. “We made you an offer, and it was you who rejected it. Let us return to the North. Have we not been punished enough?”

“Lord Jarel tried to trick me into bondage. Did you know of it?” I ask, indicating the bridle.

Since she cannot lie, she does not speak.

“And you?” I ask Suren.

The girl gives a frightening, savage little laugh. “I know all the secrets they think they hide away.” Her voice is thin and rough, as from disuse.

There’s a tug on my sleeve, and I am surprised to find Oak beside me. He signals for me to bend down and let him whisper in my ear. Randalin’s frown deepens when I do.

“Remember when you said we couldn’t help her,” he reminds me. “We can help her now.”

I pull back, looking at him eye to eye. “So you want to intercede for Queen Suren?”

“I do,” he says.

I send him back to Oriana, slightly more optimistic that he will one day want to sit on the throne of Faerie. “My brother has asked for leniency. Queen Suren, will you swear your loyalty to the crown?”

She glances at Lady Nore as if looking for permission. Lady Nore nods.

“I am yours, High Queen,” the girl says. Her gaze shifts. “And High King.”

I turn to Lady Nore. “I would like to hear you make a vow of loyalty to your queen.”

Lady Nore looks startled. “Of course I give you my fealty—”

I shake my head. “No, I want you to give it to her. Your queen. The Queen of the Court of Teeth.”

“Suren?” Her eyes dart around as though looking for an escape. For the first time since coming before me, Lady Nore appears afraid.

“Yes,” I say. “Swear to her. She is your queen, is she not? You can either make your vow or you can wear the golden bridle yourself.”

Lady Nore grits her teeth, then mutters the words. Still, she gets them out. Queen Suren’s expression becomes strange, remote.

“Good,” I say. “The High Court will keep the bridle and hope it never needs to be used. Queen Suren, because my brother interceded for you, I send you on your way with no punishment but this—the Court of Teeth will be no more.”

Lady Nore gasps.

I go on. “Your lands belong to the High Court, your titles are abolished, and your strongholds will be seized. And should you, Nore, attempt to defy this command, remember that it will be Suren, to whom you swore, that punishes you in whatever way she sees fit. Now go forth and be grateful for Oak’s intercession.”

Suren, no longer a queen, smiles in a way that’s not friendly at all, and I notice that her teeth have been filed into small points. Their tips are stained a disturbing red. I consider for the first time that perhaps Suren was being restrained for fear of what she might do if she were not.

The last penitent brought forth is Madoc. His wrists and ankles are bound in a heavy metal that, from the pain in his face, I worry has iron in it.

He does not kneel. Nor does he beg. He only looks from one of us to the other, and then his gaze moves to Oak and Oriana. I see a muscle in his jaw move, but no more than that.

I try to speak, but I feel as though my throat has closed up.

“Have you nothing to say?” Cardan asks him. “You had so much before.”

Madoc tilts his head toward me. “I surrendered on the battlefield. What more is there? The war is over, and I have lost.”

“Would you go to your execution so stoically?” I ask. From nearby, I hear Oriana’s gasp.

But Madoc remains grim. Resigned. “I raised you to be uncompromising. I ask only for a good death. Quick, out of the love that we had for each other. And know that I bear you no grudge.”

Since the battle ended, I have known I would be called upon to pass judgment on him. I have turned over the question of punishment in my mind, thinking not just of his army and his challenge, not just of our duel in the snow, but of the old crime, the one that has forever been between us. Do I owe him revenge for the murder of my parents? Is that a debt that must be paid? Madoc would understand that, would understand that love could not stand before duty.

But I wonder if what I owe to my parents is a more flexible view of love and duty, one that they themselves might have embraced. “I told you once that I am what you made me, but I am not only that. You raised me to be uncompromising, yet I learned mercy. And I will give you something like mercy if you can show me that you deserve it.”

His gaze comes to mine in surprise and a little wariness.

“Sire,” puts in Randalin, clearly exasperated by my handing down every final decision. “Surely you have something to say about all—”

“Silence,” says Cardan, his manner utterly changed, his tongue a lash. He looks at Randalin as though the next sentence might be passed on the Minister of Keys. Then he nods to me. “Jude was just getting to the interesting bit.”

I don’t take my gaze off Madoc. “First, you will swear to forget the name that you know. You will put it from your mind, and it will never again fall from your lips or fingers.”

“Would you like to hear it first?” he asks, the faintest smile at the edges of his lips.

“I would not.” This doesn’t seem the place to tell him I know it already. “Second, you must give us your vow of loyalty and obedience,” I say. “And third, you must do both of those things without hearing the sentence for your crimes, which I will nonetheless bestow on you.”

I can see him wrestling with his dignity. A part of him wants to be like the soldiers who denied the desire for atonement. A part of him would like to go to his grave with his back straight and his jaw set. Then there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to go to a grave at all.

“I want mercy,” he says finally. “Or, as you said, something like it.”

I take a deep breath. “I sentence you to live out the rest of your days in the mortal world and to never put your hand on a weapon again.”

He presses his mouth into a thin line. Then he bows his head. “Yes, my queen.”

“Good-bye, Father,” I whisper as he is led away. I say it softly, and I do not think he hears me.

Tags: Holly Black The Folk of the Air Fantasy
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