Page 44 of The Fae Queen's Captive
“And Morgana knows all this,” Morven continues. “And so her choices were these: to kill her mortal lover, kill herself, or refuse to pay the tithe altogether. She could not stomach the first, and the last would potentially leave the blood of billions on her hands. I know you’ve not known my sister long, but between these choices, which do you think she would choose?”
I’m still numb, my mind as frozen as my body. I look at him. “Swear to me this isn’t a trick. That this isn’t a way to lure me back to the castle or the tithing place to kill me.”
His eyes are as black as the storm above us when he meets my gaze. “I swear to you, Janneth Carter, that I speak the truth. My sister will try to pay the tithe with herself tonight; I believe you are the only one who can convince her otherwise. I cannot promise your safety if you go to the tithing place to stop her, but Icanpromise it is not my intention, aim, or hope that you will come to harm there yourself.”
I mentally sift through his words as best as I can. I think he is telling the truth. I think it might also not matter even if he isn’t. Because I can’t risk Morgana dying.
I can’t.
“Are you admitting you’re doing this to help your sister?” I ask, taking a step forward. Closer, I can see the beginning of his glassed chest, the pink, red, and russet parts of him peeking from the open collar of his shirt.
He gives me a sour look. “Yes. But if you tell anyone else that I wanted to help her, I will do everything in my power to make you look like a fool.”
“Fine,” I say. When he offers me his cape to drape over my shoulders, I take it and knot it tight at the neck. “Take me to her.”
Come what may.
Chapter18
The tithing place is near the market, deep in an ancient grove of trees by the sea. Morven doesn’t take us there by any marked roads or paths—instead, we creep through the moss-carpeted trees and clamber up boulders, my torch doused and Morven’s better eyesight guiding us.
My feet hurtso much.
“Why can’t we just take the easy way through the market?” I ask in a low voice. The woods seem empty save for the thunder and creeping mist, but I don’t know how close we are to the stones yet, and I don’t want to risk being overheard.
“It’s the tithe. It’s secret,” Morven says, as if that explains everything, but when I make an exasperated noise, he sighs.
“Most creatures, including the fae, believe the rituals used to lower and raise the veil are vestiges of our old worships, carried forward purely for the reason of hosting the market. And they are partly right—the market is a vital thing, and if that were the only reason for continuing our ancient rites, we would still do them. But those tasked with running a court of Faerie—a ruler and their closest advisors, Seelie and Unseelie alike—are given the truth. That death renews life, and that this renewal is due every seven years. And that’s just here, in this part of Faerie. There are other parts of Faerie where tithes are demanded too.”
I recall Felipe’s mention of a tome from Devonshire.The people there had once paid the tithe another way…
“The rites used to lower the veil and then close the veil on a non-tithe year are an echo of the old magic. But the titheisthe old magic, the original magic. And it’s so old and so secret that even our own people only hear rumors of it. Because it is an awful thing. Necessary, maybe, but awful. And so, on tithing night, it’s hardly something we advertise by prancing through the market in full panoply. Fae rulers dislike speaking of it even with each other; it’s that much of a taboo to acknowledge it aloud.”
And yet the Queen of the Thistle Court had spoken of it quite readily to me in the Sanctuary. “I think Acanthia wanted this,” I say, the truth of it feeling clearer and clearer as I speak. “I thought she was helping me escape just to upset Morgana, but I think she knew that if I left, Morgana would take my place, and no one else.”
“That sounds like her,” Morven says. “I suppose they think they’d have an easier time coaxing me into marriage…or war, after Morgana died and I took the crown. And they might be right. I’d make a terrible king.”
He doesn’t sound upset when he says it, nor does he seem like he wants a response. So I don’t give him one, focusing instead on following him and keeping my bare feet mostly intact.
The lightning flickers constantly as we finally reach the place where the grove thins into a clearing, revealing the standing stones in their silent, crooked glory, ringed with blue will-o’-the-wisp torches. Morven gestures for me to stop well before we’d be in sight of anyone inside the standing stones, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. Everyone in the circle is very, very preoccupied with themselves. Preoccupied with Morgana, who stands in the middle wearing nothing but her white silk gown and her antler-bone torc.
Her dark hair is unbound, hanging in soft waves down her back, but the breeze lifts and pulls at her hair, revealing over and over the exposed glass of her back. She is arguing, I think, with Sholto, who looks wildly upset, and Idalia, whose moths flit around in darting, panicked movements.
There is one other person here, dressed in simple clothes of white and green, with a leek pinned to their chest. They have long hair and a slender frame, and they stand with their hands laced in front of them. Morven tells me they are named Ynyr and that they come from the Court of Harps some ways south of here. Every Tithe must have a witness from another court, Morven says, and Ynyr has come to ensure the Stag Court pays their due. From the warm way Morven speaks of the Court of Harps, I sense they’re not assholes like the Thistle Court.
“There is no other way, unless you are offering to volunteer,” Morgana’s voice carries over the wind. The trees around us creak like a boat in a storm. “It must be me. I choose for it to be me.”
“So you will pay with your own life?” Idalia asks, her voice breaking. She’s crying, and I don’t think I’d considered before now that Morgana beingbelovedmeant something more than the land being attached to her. Idalia is agonized right now. “You will end yourself because Acanthia wanted you to suffer?”
Pay.Pay.
I think again of Felipe and his riddle.
A life paid didn’t have to mean a life killed.
“Morven,” I ask quietly. “Is there a way to pay a life without that person dying?”
He looks at me, a line of confusion between his straight brows. “You mean, like dying and being reborn? Like a god?”
