Invincible (28 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

THEY CAME UP GASPING.
Joy stumbled into Ink, solid as stone, holding her steady as she raked earth from her eyes, her hair, her clothes, coughing and sputtering. Coral wiped at her face and sneezed, gills blasting, eyes tearing under the dirt.

Joy had a sudden jolt of panic. She'd been submerged under the earth—dirt caked her face, her arms, her skin. She braced herself to fight the craving, the rush of heat, the thunderous voices, the fury—but there was nothing. No feeling of power or pain. She was simply dirty, tumbled and tired.

They were in a bare circle of earth, the center of the court clearing, surrounded by tall soldiers in banded armor, crosshatched like layers of leaves. They had long beards of grass and stippled helmets like corn, their limbs ending in knotty clubs of wicked, hooked thorns. They'd emerged fully formed from beneath the ground, staring down at the three prisoners. Their eyes were single seeds with flower bud lids, surprisingly delicate in their stern, old-man faces.

“Our Majesties bid you kneel.”

Coral dropped to her knee. Ink stood by her shoulder. Joy was too stunned to do much but blink through the grit. She coughed. “What?”

“Our Majesties bid you kneel.”

The soldiers repeated the command, accompanied by clawed clubs raised in unison.

Joy hesitated. Ink followed her lead, his hand hiding the blade between his forearm and jeans. She knelt slowly, trying to peek past the lines of soldiers to the guards beyond them. Well, they'd wanted to make an entrance—this was it.

“Interesting,” a female voice came from beyond the circle's edge. The soldiers withdrew, revealing guards, posted along the tents, who parted to reveal the King and Queen sitting at ease. Their hair fluttered in the soft breeze, their faces careful masks of beauty and time, with eyes the color of centuries.

The Queen rested like a portrait and only her mouth moved. “Rise.”

Coral leaped to her feet. Joy and Ink cautiously stood. The Queen cast a coy glance at her husband, who gave the barest nod.

“Bring them,” the King said, and the soldiers swept forward, ushering the three of them through the massive tent enclosure. Joy jostled against Ink and he took her arm, slipping something into her back pocket. The entrance was festooned in ribbons and flowers and plaits of gold. The air inside the tent was hot and still, almost stifling until rope pulls drew triangle flaps down from the ceiling, letting in light and fresh air as well as a cascade of flying critters that circled the perimeter, settling along the seams. There were two thrones on a low dais framed by a half circle of nine curved stools. The stools were empty except for the last two, which were occupied by a brown-haired satyr and a thin man in glasses.

“Stef!” Joy cried, rushing forward, but Ink caught her before the soldiers pushed her back.

Stef jumped to his feet, a thin, gold chain looped about his neck clinking like Tinkerbell as he moved. The chain was connected to a ring on the dais floor. Dmitri touched his arm. The DJ wore a stiff robe tied with tassels and sat protectively close to Stef. A half-empty bowl of fruit at their feet was littered with rinds and pits. Dmitri smiled at Joy, shot her a finger-gun and winked, which might have been the strangest thing that had happened yet.

“I'm fine,” Stef said quickly before a guard clapped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back into the stool. Stef sat down solidly, adjusting his glasses and adding ruefully, “I'm fine.”

“You!” Coral shouted, pointing a skinny arm at him. “I
know
you!”

There was an almost audible creak as all necks turned to Stef. No one was more surprised than he.

The Queen spoke softly, dangerously. “Do you know this child?”

“I— No,” Stef glanced between the King and Queen and Dmitri and Joy. Dmitri cocked a wry eyebrow. Coral looked desperate, her gills fluttering. Stef sounded apologetic, both to Coral and the Queen. “No. I'm sorry. I don't.”

“Yes, you do!”
Coral insisted, pleading eyes turned to the Queen. “I know him!” She struggled to find the right words. “He's
mine
!”

Which sounded familiar and undoubtedly true.

“Enough,” the King said. “Leave us.” His gaze barely moved, but the cornstalk soldiers sank swiftly into the ground with a dramatic crunch, the upturned earth burying itself closed. The flock of winged pixies took flight, funneling out the open flaps, and the remaining guards filed out quickly and quietly, their shadows remaining like unsaid warnings along the tent's outer walls. A ward sparkled to life, enveloping the room, singing with gold dust and the buzz of summer bees.

The King flicked his wrist as someone from the back of the tent came forward.

Filly walked into the light, scratched and bruised, her arms secured behind her and her armor scuffed and soiled. One eye was puffy and swelling as she shifted her weight, favoring her left foot. She grinned. Her teeth were red with blood.

“This, then, explains your presence here,” he said.

Filly shrugged good-naturedly. “Ah, well, couldn't evade them forever.” She nodded her head. There was ichor on her braids. “Well met!”

“You have done your deed well, spear-bearer.” The King almost smiled. Almost. “It is good to look upon your face once more.” He opened his hand sharply, and the bonds that held her disappeared. His gaze slipped past her as she rolled her wrists. “You bring us hope,” he said. “Here, at the edge of things. And we do not have much time.”

The Queen did not look as impressed or pleased. Her spine was stiff, her manner brusque.

“You have returned,” she said, a statement with implied inquiry. “Have you brought us proof?”

“Yes.” Joy said, still tasting the grit of dirt in her mouth. “I think so.”

“Do you mean this child?” the King said gently.

The Queen's gaze caressed Coral, who fell to her knees, eyes downcast. Her thin shoulders trembled.

“It's not her, but who she
is
,” Joy said quickly, trying to spare the girl's terror. “Who she
was—
it means that we...”

“If you think this is the answer,” said the Queen. “Then you are asking the wrong question.”

Ink flinched. Joy sputtered. The royal couple looked unimpressed.

Joy cried, “Then you
know
?”

“Of course we know,” the Queen said, a surprising flare of emotion cracking her mask like an egg. Her ethereal beauty became terrible, a storm of wonders behind jeweled eyes. “We've known for ages what we have wrought! It is the reason above all others why we must Return!”

The King addressed the water nymph, kindly but firmly. His voice had a flavor, a music all its own. “Go now to your family.”

Coral peeked at Stef through her apple-colored curls.

“Soon, Water's Daughter,” the King promised. “Until then, you will honor us with your obedience.”

Coral quietly rose to her feet and bowed, averting her eyes as she scurried from the tent. Joy saw that there were tears and unanswered questions staining her face, not daring to look back at those she left behind.

“Who is she?” Stef asked from his seat. Joy stared at him and he stared back. “Joy?”

“Here she is Coral,” she said, glancing at the monarchs. “Back home, she was Caroline.”

Her brother's confusion flipped to wonder and then understanding and rage. Dmitri flinched at the look on his face. With the memories of their great-grandmother, the old hate returned.

“You could easily say it the other way around,” the King said, placing a gentle hand on his wife's wrist. His manner exuded a preternatural calm of oceans and mountains unruffled by time. “By locking ourselves safely behind Faeland's walls, the cycle was disrupted, our people truly trapped. Once we had discovered our error, it was too late—the door was closed and our courier lost. Our hope was that the Council would determine that it was safe to Return before too much time had passed.” His gaze remained focused, but it was as if he was looking through them into a distant past or future. “Unfortunately, the longer we waited, the more convinced we were that our people had perished, that the world had lost its magics and the door would only open in time for us to take up arms in their name.” He turned slowly to his Queen, who had composed herself enough that the tears had absorbed back into her flawless gaze. “We were angry—very angry—but have been despondent ever since.”

“When the children began to arrive, we knew our punishment was complete,” the Queen said, her pain still clear. “Children are not born in Faeland—they are born in the world once they pass through this realm, but with nowhere to go, they were reborn here. This is not a place for us to tarry and by doing so, we condemned what remained of our kin to perish, either by human hand or slow extinction, abandoning that which we swore to uphold forever and always.” She lifted her chin. “That was our third mistake.”

Joy could feel Ink on the edge of her thoughts,
There are no mistakes.

“Our second error was to lay foolish conditions upon our release, binding all of us to our word that we would not Return until such conditions had been met—when our people were ‘safe' from human entrapment...” The Queen faltered as she looked more lovingly at her King. “We should have known better. With those words, we condemned ourselves and our people to remain on this side of the door until the Council brought word.”

“Hence why we need you to find proof—irrevocable proof—that will pave the road for our Return,” the King said. “Without that, we are all condemned to wait in paradise, even as we know our faithful few in the Twixt suffer because of our failures.” The King and Queen held one another's hands like a single fist.

“And therein lies our greatest mistake,” the Queen said. “By insisting ourselves inviolate, we became slaves to order. Without the flexibility of fallibility, we condemned ourselves and all our people.” She straightened in her seat. “We destroyed those who chose to disobey our laws, who would not bend to our commands, an act of arrogance masked as righteousness—” She looked back the way that Coral had gone. “The Folk of the Wild, those who eschewed our order, were our other halves and yet, we called them enemies instead of kindred. We broke those who would not bend.”

The King settled back in his chair, his hair wafting in intangible winds, catching blues and blacks and iridescent greens. “It was a grave error to declare war on the Elemental Wild.” It was a confession that cost him to say aloud. “Our way required rules, and those rules came with a price. And we've paid it. The Wild Folk were our key to this lock, but we did not know that for what it was. Without them, we were lost.” His gaze settled on Joy. “But now, you are here.”

Filly turned sharply, looking at Joy with new eyes. Suspicious, wary, scary eyes.

“Your ancestors hid themselves in your blood,” the King said kindly. “And now you are the answer to the long-awaited question, our broken promise, our penance, our chance to Return.” His eyes were a thousand mirrors pointing inward, reflecting forever. She fell into their void, caught up in infinity. “In order to fulfill all of our destinies, you
must
bring us proof to undo the wrongs that are destroying our worlds.”

The Destroyer of Worlds.

“She must obey your rules by breaking your rules,” Ink said. It was as if his voice broke the spell. Joy blinked her dry eyes.

“Not so simply done, we admit, for it must be someone who can bend the rules, but is also loyal to us.” The Queen's voice was just shy of mocking, but her eyes were sparkling, alive. “You are born human, with Wild magic in your ancestry, yet by accepting your True Name, you became part of the Twixt, the land of our Making, and thereby under our rule. You fulfill all the requirements, as I foretold.” Her hair fanned around her, a corona of beauty and light. “You, child of Elementals, bringer of destruction, of correction, are the key to our salvation—all of our hopes lie with you.”

“But we require our proof,” said the King.

“The
signaturae
,” Joy said, her voice rusty with awe. “The True Name sigils. That is your proof.”

The monarchs wore twin expressions of hope and doubt.

“Explain.”

“You were afraid of entrapment by humans, afraid what they could do if they discovered your True Names, so Aniseed developed the
signaturae
, which could lock the power of your Names into a symbol, a glyph, that could never be spoken aloud, so that you and all your people would be safe.” Joy gestured to Ink. “Your daughter invented the Scribes, who could draw these symbols on humans instead of the Folk doing it themselves, keeping them from risk of discovery and harm. Well, it worked. The
signaturae
work. They keep the Folk from being controlled. Once you accept a
signatura
, your True Name is safe.” She chanced a look at her brother. “And I can prove it.”