Page 66 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
He pries open my jaw and thrusts his enormous thumb into my mouth, shoving it so far back I almost gag. But I manage to resist the urge.
With a nod, he steps back and jerks his head, indicating that we can proceed.
My captor carries me along a tunnel so impossibly high that I can’t see its roof. It’s lined with pillars of an equally dizzying height, coated with glowing cobwebs of orange and green. Bioluminescent spiders dangle from gleaming threads overhead and I shudder, praying to every deity I’ve ever heard of that the spiders will stay up there and not decide to drop onto my face while I’m bound and helpless.
The corridor opens suddenly into an enormous chamber, so big I almost feel as if we’re outside again. The entire arch of the ceiling is a crystalline mass of heated, glowing rocks. Hordes of Unseelie fill the room. Some don’t look much different from the Fae I know—colder, maybe, more cruel—but many of them have the limbs or heads of crabs, spiders, or insects. Whether those are actually their heads or merely masks like the rat-soldiers wear, I can’t tell. Some of the Unseelie have dramatic body modifications—thick silver chains, huge golden spikes, razor-sharp blades, long rows of brass rings, or actual thorns embedded through parts of their bodies. One Unseelie, who looks otherwise normal, has replaced her spinal column with one of silver.
There’s a dais of black rock in the center of the chamber, with a twisted mass of thorny carapaces, titanic bone shards, and cracked skulls forming a wretched-looking throne. And in the center of that throne sits the Rat King.
I expected something horrible. But at the sight of him, bile creeps up the back of my throat.
He has one large head—the head of an immense rat, and it’s no mask—the rolling of his red eyes and the champ of his long sharp teeth are unmistakably real. There’s a spiked crown of white bone protruding from the top of his head, as if his skull grew into that shape at his will.
He’s naked, except for a stained red loincloth that conceals an immense and terrifying bulge between his thighs. His thick torso is human-looking, but gray-skinned, coated with coarse pale hair across the chest. His legs are half-human, ending in paws rimmed with sharp nails. His arms are furred like a rat’s, but structured like a human’s. He holds a scepter of white bone in one paw.
The most terrifying part of him is the bodies of smaller rats that have been magically fused with his own. They’re clearly not part of his consciousness; they twitch and writhe and squeal faintly as if they’re trying to get away. But they are definitely built into him, extruding from the muscle and skin of his stomach, his pectorals, his thighs, his arms, even his calves.
Six of the smaller rats’ heads form a sickening, ever-shifting collar around his neck. Their heads protrude beneath his chin, their bodies disappear into his sinewy throat, and their tails emerge again just below his collarbone, wriggling constantly.
If I could capture this scene, it wouldn’t be a painting. It would be a coarse sketch in dark pencil and charcoal, all tortured lines and black spikes and hollows and coils. It would be the most horrific drawing I’ve ever done. If I survive this, I think I will have to draw the Rat King, if only to purge him from my mind, or I have the strangest feeling he will linger there, lurking and gnawing, with his blood-colored eyes.
While I’ve been staring, my captor has been waiting in line behind the other supplicants. But all too soon we’re at the front of the line, and my captor sets me down before the steps leading up to the dais.
“A gift for you, O Unyielding and Unfathomable Majesty,” my captor says. “A fresh human concubine, yours for the taking. I only ask the release of two of my kind, Racers who foolishly took up arms against your Lordship. I would like to take those two Racers with me, confine them at home, and teach them the error of their ways, convincing them that you are the sole liege of this land, to be honored and worshipped.”
The Rat King snuffles and grunts, idly stroking the polished ruby head of his scepter. “Let’s see this gift of yours,” he rumbles.
Tendrils of darkness unspool from his body, coiling like foul-smelling snakes around my cocoon of vine-ropes. The shadows eat through the vines like acid, and they sear through my clothes as well. Everything melts off my skin, leaving me naked on the floor. I curl into myself, covering my breasts, but the shadows wrap my wrists and ankles and tug sharply, splaying out my limbs so the entire Unseelie Court can see all of me.
“Two Racer prisoners, in exchange for this tasty morsel?” says the Rat King.
The Racer who captured me bows low. “By your grace, my lord King.”
“You would offer me a gift, and then propose I pay you for it?” The Rat King’s voice rises, and some of his shadows snake out, writhing around the slender body of the Racer. “That is no gift, but a bribe. A foolish bribe, that would see my enemies running free.”
He’s drawing my captor closer, dragging them up the steps until they’re directly in front of him, right between his huge knees. There’s a small rat sticking halfway out of his kneecap, scrabbling frantically with its tiny paws, trying to pull itself free.
“I cannot grant your boon,” says the Rat King to the trembling Fae in his shadows’ grip. “Because I have already eaten your friends. They were crispy and delicious. As I’m sure you will be.”
And with that, his jaw drops, his maw expanding to four times its size, glistening throat-flesh lined with razor teeth. He shoves the whole head of the Racer into his mouth and rips it from the body. Clear fluid spurts from the Racer’s neck stump, and a loud crunching fills the air as the Rat King chews.
I lie still, transfixed on the floor, still pinioned by shadows.
When the Rat King has finished chewing, he says, “Take my new concubine to be clothed, and then put her in one of the cages. Tonight, we will all partake of my collection of fuckflesh!” He gestures to one end of the immense chamber, where brass cages are hung from the ceiling at different heights. There are a couple dozen of them, filled with various species of Fae, all genders.
At the Rat King’s promise, a great roar rises from the crowd of Unseelie, a roar punctuated by hissing, chattering, and howling. Two servants come forward and begin dragging me away, past jeering, lustful faces and snatching claws.
This is the end of me, then. I will be fucked to death by monsters. Because no one knows I’m here, and no one could possibly have followed me fast enough to reach this place by tonight, and even if they did, they would die trying to get inside. No one can save me.
I dread the horror and pain that will precede my death, but worse is the knowledge that I won’t see Finias again. The sweet savagery of him, the laughter blended with compassion, the intense creative skill with magic, the virile beauty—I won’t ever experience or enjoy it again.
And my sister—my Louisa—things have been so strained between us, yet I wouldn’t let her talk to me. I wouldn’t let her try to fix it, or listen to her apology. The chasm between my sister and me is like a ravine through my heart, one I will never get the chance to bridge.
I refuse to cry openly in the Court of the Rat King. But inside, my heart weeps tears of blood.
20
The first night alone with Lir is terrifying. The forest is darkening around us, and he has no magic.
