Page 19 of A Deception of Courts

“You’ve got this wrong. I believe the person you speak of – this Defiler – is Aldrick.”

“Aldrick,” she hissed the name, proving it was not unfamiliar to her. “He will die for his treachery.”

“A feeling we share. Make it known that we don’t stand with him butagainsthim.”

Her expression didn’t waver. It was stoic and unmoved, clear that my words did not have the effect that I wished them to.

“Lies born on the tongue of a snake. Enlighten me, fey. What serpent are you?”

I shook my head, ready to fall on my knees and plead for this to end. From the sickening distrust in her obsidian eyes, I knew it would not make her believe me.

“I’m Robin Icethorn, King of the Fey Court, and I beg you to hear my words and seek the truth in them. We are not allied with Aldrick… the Defiler, the Hand, whichever name you wish to best recognise him as. Those ships you send to the ocean floor are rescue vessels for the fey who wait, in fear and desperation, in that castle. Fey whom we have promised to save. And I swear to Altar, on the Creator, on anything worth naming, that if you stand in our way, Iwillstop you even if it destroys me.”

My entire body trembled. I felt my chance for peace ebb away as she shifted her hammer in a sharp motion. This time, it wasn’t the heavy head that she brought down to me.

It was the handle, as though she was offering her weapon to me.

I looked up the length of polished gold until my gaze settled back on her face. Her expression, although still filled with something that would spark fear in the weakest of souls, had seemed to soften.

“Take the hammer in your hands, and I will pursue the truth or unveil the deceptions you sputter toward me,” she said, the bite in her tone almost softening. “Do it and you may save them all or seal the doom we have arrived to provide.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. Swallowing back my hesitation and pride, I reached out and wrapped my hands around the handle of her hammer. It was warm to the touch. Alive, almost.

The nameless warrior held the head of her weapon in her hands, tethering us both until we were connected by the length of gold. Instantly, I felt its hefty weight. If she had released her grasp on it I would’ve fallen beneath its mass, crashed through the ice at my feet and sunk to the bottom of the dark ocean with no hope of coming back.

“One question, that is all I will give you.”

Nodding, I gritted my teeth and waited for what she had to ask me. I couldn’t understand how touching a weapon would grant me the safety of my people, but it was a chance I was prepared to take for them.

“Are you allied with the Defiler, aiding him to bring forth Duwar to this realm?”

It was the easiest answer to give. My mouth opened so quickly that I hardly took a breath before. Then I felt it. A strange, drawing pull from within the weapon that tugged at my very bones as I spoke.

“We are not.”

The winged woman hesitated, looking down at her weapon as my words settled over her. With bated breath, I waited for her to speak as she contemplated something silently. The sound of battle still raged behind her. It seemed louder than before.

“That is the truth,” I reiterated, my fingers tightening their hold on the handle. “You would be the fool to think otherwise.”

Suddenly, she withdrew the weapon from my grasp. The powerful pull I felt in my chest disappeared as my hands met empty air.

“The Creator has recognised your truth.”

I expected something more, but then she turned, wings almost knocking me backwards. She faced the remaining Cedarfall ships and her own armada. Not once had I questioned her authority. It seemed to seep from her pores, leaving no room to deny it.

“Wait,” I spluttered. “Do not do this.”

“It,” she replied, “is done.”

She threw back her head and released a sound that I had not heard another person make before. It was a mix between a scream that had the power to curdle blood, but also a song. A pitched note that soon became one of many as the other winged beings stilled in the air and returned her call.

I watched, stunned, as the fighting ceased. The clouds broke apart, and the bolts of lightning diminished. My heart skipped a beat as I searched for Duncan on the wall far behind me, but I couldn’t see him. His presence within the air faded quickly, so much so that I knew he had finally discovered his limitations.

“Robin Icethorn,” she said, turning my attention back to her. Regret drew down at her face as she landed upon my stretch of ice to stand before me. In the air, she seemed tall, but standing before me, we were similar in height. “I fear our grave misunderstanding has cost you.”

Fury coiled within my chest, but I forced it down long enough to get my next words out. Carefully chosen and full of demand, I spoke as softly as I could force. “As penance for your mistake, you are going to help me fix this. And then you are going to tell me exactly who you are.”

CHAPTER 7

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