Page 11 of Milk and Honey

He brandished a knife, and with a hasty glance at Glade, I got up and left the cell obediently, worried they’d take it out on her if I didn’t. I found myself back in the small courtyard from earlier, Vanor and Jerid on horseback above me, along with a portly older man with unkind eyes. The uncle, I imagined. “What is your name, wench?”

I crossed my arms, radiating as much disrespect as I could manage. “Melisandre, why?”

The older man huffed, unimpressed, and gathered his horse’s reins, leaning down. “You called Elim your fiance. Our soothsayer tells us that is a human word for intended. Are you bound to my nephew, human?”

I tilted my chin up, staring at him defiantly, trying my best to look like I had a ghost of an idea of what the hell I was doing. “And so what if I am? He accepted my proposal.”

The smile he gave his sons didn’t fill me with confidence. “And how many boons have you asked of him, my dear?”

Blegh. Gross. Unwanted terms of endearment from crusty old men was one of my least favorite parts of my job, and I wasn’t even on shift right now. “Boons?”

He raised an eyebrow curiously, sitting further back on the saddle. “Gifts. Requests. Favors. Tasks. How many of the three have you asked him for? One, or two? We know it isn’t all three because you haven’t been forced to wed him yet.”

I processed this information carefully, trying my best not to let my confusion show. Apparently whatever ritual I’d accidentally done to bind Elim and I together had more to it. I’d only asked him for one favor, unless you counted the fun sexual begging, but if that counted, I was already at three, so it likely didn’t. “Two.”

He broke into a broad grin, clapping his hands once with excitement. “Splendid! Consider this my formal invitation to the wedding, then. You’ll be a guest of honor.” He snapped at a nearby guard, and I was roughly manhandled into a pair of leather wrist bindings, which in turn were lashed to the old guy’s reins. I was forced to walk at a brisk pace alongside the horse to prevent being dragged, screams behind me telling that Glade was putting up a hell of a fight as they bundled her onto another horse. Good girl, kick em in the teeth.

I was about ready to let myself get dragged when we finally arrived at some sort of stone circle at the edge of a cliff. A somber-looking Fae stood in front of a stone platform, wearing some sort of robes edged in gold, a pair of crowns—one small for Glade, one heavy and ornate for creepy uncle, placed in front of him. The man cleared his throat, looking expectantly at us.

“Lord Gretvir, do you have the shards-of-night necessary for the ritual? It’s nearly moonrise and this ceremony has been delayed several times now since Lord Shadowcourt’s disappearance. The absence of the shards directly calls into question the legitimacy of his abdication letter.”

Creepy Uncle Gretvir climbed down from his horse and stalked to the platform, grabbing the priest by the front of his robes and pressing him dangerously close to the cliff edge. “You dare address the future Lord Shadowcourt so disrespectfully? You are here as a formality only, and I don’t want to hear another word from you beyond the ceremony, else you’ll meet my dearly departed wife firsthand. Do I make myself clear, chancellor?”

The man’s eyes went wide, darting over his shoulder to take in what seemed to be a very long drop. He nodded hastily as Jerid and Vanor both pushed the edges of their tunics aside to reveal knife hilts behind their father. “A-abundantly, my lord. Shall we proceed?”

Jerid brandished his knife and sliced through the strap tying my wrist restraints to the horse’s reins, using the cut end like a leash to pull, stumbling, up to the platform. Vanor struggled carrying a kicking, shrieking Glade up to the platform beside me, to the visual discomfort of the chancellor. She stilled as her captor brandished his own knife against her throat, the darker edge raising a raw, red welt on her pale skin as she whimpered.

“Now, Melisandre. Use your final boon to wish for Elim to bring me the shard-of-night from around his neck, and declare your refusal to wed him, or we will discover all the ways we can hurt my dear, sweet little grand-niece without completely ending her life.

“No! You can’t!” Glade struggled against Vanor’s hold, sobbing desperately. “Uncle Elim will die if she refuses him!”

“I’m counting on it, little one.” Gretvir smiled and tapped the tip of her button nose with a finger, dodging her furious attempts to sink her tiny, pointed teeth into his finger. “That way I can get rid of all of your meddling family at once. Well, save for your mother, but she doesn’t even know you’re alive.” He shrugged amicably, eyes sliding appreciatively over the ostentatious gold crown in front of him.

My mind spun quickly, trying to figure out the best way to give Elim an advantage. I didn’t know much of anything about Fae, but I did know about genies, and I remembered from my storybooks that phrasing was very important. “I wish that….”

The three men looked at me with undisguised glee, holding their collective breaths as I finished. “I wish that Elim’s planned method to return to this place works flawlessly so that he can come and give me the shard-of-night.”

Gretvir roared with rage, backhanding me so hard my vision swam and I fell backwards onto my ass. “You insolent whore! I’ll gut you like a mudfish and take the shard from your corpse. You know damn well what I asked!”

It had been unendingly chilly and overcast since I’d arrived here, the damp kind of cold that got into one’s bones. That’s why, as the horses whinnied and stamped restlessly and a soothing wind full of warmth swept the plains around us, I knew the cavalry had arrived.

Mat was the first one through the blazing ring of fire, and he looked pissed. Four flaming fox tails swept and undulated behind him like angry serpents, and a great ball of blue fire burned above his head. He turned to me, his eyes white fire lined in gold. “You good, Mel?”

I grunted, trying to pull my wrists free of the stupid leather straps as I kept my eyes on the portal. “I will be now. Good to see you, Mat.”

He nodded and grinned, his teeth too sharp, his mouth transforming into a vicious muzzle as the chancellor looked nearly ready to toss himself off the cliff in terror. “Hey, go easy on the priest dude, he wasn’t down with this.” Mat nodded, advancing on Vanor, who immediately held Glade in front of him like a shield.

Bailey came hauling ass out of the portal next, brandishing a rusty crowbar and…was that a purple plastic water gun? She gave a close approximation of a Xena warrior princess battle cry and swung the crowbar in a menacing arc towards the assembled Fae. She glanced over at me with a grin and stage-whispered. “I always wanted to do that.”

Jerid howled with rage, dropping my tether and lurching towards her as he pulled out his knife, apparently intent on revenge for his unscheduled plastic surgery. As I watched Bailey lift the water gun with a savage grin, I smirked: dude doesn’t know what he’s up against, clearly.

Elim emerged from the portal at the end of a running leap, immediately beelining for me and pulling me out of reach of his uncle and cousins. An anguished cry of pain came from a crumpled Vanor, Glade frantically crawling towards us and away from the flaming mess Mat was making of him.

Just as Elim pulled his necklace off and dropped it on over my head, Gretvir reached for me, tearing me away from Elim’s protective grasp. The kiss of metal at my throat, delicately clinking against the necklace chain, told me some tables had just turned. Devastation stormed across Elim’s face as he froze in front of me, Gretvir’s knife digging at my throat until my would-be savior backed away a step. “That’s right, keep your distance. Now, girl. Deny him the bond. End this, and my damned nephew, and I might even let you live. Declare your refusal.”

Tears sprung to my eyes as I channeled all the fear and stress I’d been through, doing my best to play the damsel in distress to keep my throat intact. “Oh, no, please—don’t make me deny my love! He’ll die!”

“Do. It.” Gretvir growled through clenched teeth, pressing the knife too close for comfort. Elim looked stricken but confused as I straightened with a fake sob.

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