Kingsbane

Chapter 30

     There were far less people at that evenings festivities than the day before. Rafferty was not surprised. Many of Faeries residents were busy preparing for the oncoming winter and others had simply steered clear after word had spread of Siofra's tantrum. The General had a slinking suspicion that those that had come, had come in hopes of catching a glimpse of the King's human consort.
    "General,"
    Raff jumped, caught off guard by the sudden pat on the rear. He turned to look down at the perpetrator with a scowl. Blair stood there, though her face lacked the usual sensuality he was so accustomed to.
    "What?"
    "The King is back. He wants you to sit with his human while he attends the party."
    "Okay." Sighing, he went to leave, but Blair caught his hand. Immediately, he shook it away. "What is it, woman?"
    "I can't find Siofra."    
    "Did you look in the garden?"
    "Of course I looked in the garden! And in the kitchen, and the tower, and the servants quarters, even the armory."
    "What about the battlements?"
    "Yes, yes. I've looked everywhere. I don't think she's in the palace at all. There aren't any horses missing so-"
    "I know where she is." He muttered, pushing past her and disappearing down the nearest corridor. On his way, he grabbed a lantern from the hook on the wall and hung his pristine jacket in it's place. Where he was going would surely sully his neatness.
    Siofra sat on the cold, damp floor beside her father's tomb, knees drawn to her chest. Her hair fell around her like a blanket, keeping off the chill and giving her a small sense of security. Her coronet sat forlornly at her bare feet. She didn't look up as the steady march of boots on the stone came nearer, nor when the lantern light shone down on her.
    "You know, you can't miss your own party. Even Siva showed up on time." Rafferty stated, retrieving her coronet from the floor and shined it on his shirt. "I thought you were past the rebellious stage."
    "I never had a rebellious stage." She sighed. "He told me to wait for him."
    "Who did?"
    "Sverre. Just before he disappeared, he told me to wait for him. I thought I'd just imagined it, but now I'm absolutely sure. He said 'wait for me."
    Rafferty gently pulled her to her feet, returning the golden band to it's place across her brow and brushing cobwebs from her hair. "We were talking just before you arrived. It didn't sound to me like he intended on returning."
    "But his body returned to Faery as well as his soul. What if he is coming back? I knew Faery was up to something, but-"
    "Siofra." He took her by the shoulders and gave her a small but firm shake. "As sorry as I am to say it, you have to let him go. We all do."
    "He told me to wait."
    "He was weak and sick, Sio. He probably didn't understand what he was saying." Rafferty's dark eyes looked into her, the reddish tint in them visible only in the flickering lantern light. "If Faery was going to give him back to us, wouldn't you be the first to know?"
    Siofra looked away and began to walk down the narrow passage. He fell in step just behind her, holding the lantern high. In order to avoid a silence, she changed the topic. "What did Avalbane say?"
    "Same thing she always does." He replied. "Same thing she always will."
    "You don't think she will ever change her mind?"
    "Not a chance." He snorted.

                    * * * *
    "I heard she's gone crazy."
    "She set a man on fire this morning."
    "It's all over that rotten Unseelie, I bet. Now that it's time to sleep with his brother, she's getting depressed."
    Sed let out an annoyed growl and covered his good ear with his saw-dust filled sack, which was functioning as a pillow, at the moment. If he had to listen to anymore inane chatter he was going to cut off his other ear. The Queen's army had supplied them with tents and food, but they hadn't managed to do more than treat the injured and huddle together in a dysfunctional camp in the three days since they'd lost it all.
    He'd worked all day yesterday building the new frame for the second Red Rabbit, only to find that his lumber had been picked apart and stolen in the night. He'd found the bastards responsible, of course. What they'd been thinking, stealing something from him, he didn't know. What he did know was that they were dead and buried in a shallow grave on the outskirts of the encampment. He'd start building again in the morning, if his gossiping neighbors ever shut the hell up so he could get some rest.
    "I can't believe they're all over there having a party while we're here eating dirt and sleeping on charred bones."
    "Well, they don't think we're any better than either of those things. That's why."
    "They'll get what's coming to them. I heard everything's dying over there."
    "The Queen's really broken up."
    "All over that idiot, Sverre. I don't know why. He wasn't nothing but a damned thief anyway."
    The speaker cried out as a well-aimed dagger tore through his tent fabric, interrupting their card game and taking off the tip of his nose. Sed rose as the two men began to curse and threaten. Their words had not amused him ten seconds ago, and they certainly did not now.
    Donning his bow and quiver, he set out for an evening stroll, stopping next door to retrieve his knife and to sincerely apologize for missing the man's throat. They received him well, agreeing that evening was no time for loud, senseless chitchat. It was an agreement that would be hard to break without their tongues.
    Waving goodbye as they scurried toward the makeshift infirmary, he headed off into what had once been a dark, dead wood, his mood much less foul than it had been previously. There was something about bloody justice that simply made him smile.
    It wasn't a far walk from the camp to the memorial the King had set up for his brother. He'd sent his best men to guard it, and had already had word that there had been many poor fools who had tried to steal the jewels and precious sword. Those that had been spared from death now had no fingers. He would not allow anyone to desecrate his master's memory. No one.
    Sverre had been the only one to reach out to him, a bratty, snot-nosed, grease-smeared little wisp of a kid. He'd been the only father he'd ever known and even if his affections had been nearly absent, he understood that it was for the best of reasons. As of that moment, he felt as though his heart would mourn the loss forever. Perhaps that was why he was feeling especially vehement.
    As he came upon the remains of the Goblin camp, anger and astonishment both rose up inside of him at once and he didn't know how to react. His men were on their knees in a circle, at the feet of a pale-headed man who was in the process of clothing himself in the King's gifts. He notched his bow with shaking hands, but could not draw it back.
    The same hands that had just ruthlessly torn two men's tongues from their mouths could not wield a weapon against this man, this ghost before him. The man donned the crown and pulled the sword from the black ground. As he did so, grass began to grow at his feet, at least what Sed understood to be grass, as he'd never before seen it himself.
    The phantom turned to him, and gave him that familiar smirk. With a wave of his hand, the green carpeting spread. The bowed men murmured and ran their fingers through it, enthralled and elated. Sed backed away from the growth, wary of whatever sorcery was afoot. Something so beautiful, surely could not be trusted.
    "Sedwyck."