Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

“We’ll find out soon enough,” said Mark.

“I am afraid,” said Kieran, naked honesty in his voice. “Manuel Villalobos was at the Scholomance when I was hiding there. He is a terrible person. There is nothing he would not do. Most of the Cohort strike me as followers rather than leaders, even Zara. She does as her father tells her, as she has been taught, though they are teachings of hatred and cruelty. But Manuel is different. He does what he does because he wishes to cause people pain.”

“Yes,” said Mark. “It’s what makes him dangerous. He isn’t a true believer.” He glanced around them; they were passing near to a patch of blight. He had started to get used to the sight of them, annihilated landscapes of ashy grass and dead trees, as if acid had been poured onto the earth from the sky. “We can trust in Cristina,” he said in a near whisper. “She will be looking for help for us, even now.”

“Did you notice something curious?” said Kieran. “Oban did not ask us about her. Where she might have vanished to, or who she might have sought out.”

“Perhaps he was aware we did not know.”

Kieran snorted. “No. Manuel did not tell him Cristina was ever there, mark my words. He would prefer Oban not be angry he had let a Shadowhunter escape.”

“What is Manuel doing with Oban? No offense, but Oban doesn’t seem like the brightest of your siblings.”

Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “He is a drunkard and a turnip.”

“But an ambitious turnip.”

Kieran chuckled reluctantly. “It seems to me that Manuel has stoked Oban’s ambition. It is true that the Cohort cannot influence my father, but perhaps they hope to influence who the next Unseelie King might be. A weak one, that they can influence easily. Oban would be perfect for that.”

They crested another hill. Mark could see the tower rise in the distance, a black thorn piercing the blue sky. He had flown over the Unseelie Tower with the Wild Hunt, but he had never been inside. He had never wanted to go. “Why would Manuel think that there would be a new Unseelie King anytime soon? Your father has been King for so long no one can remember what King Bram looked like.”

Kieran glanced at the tower. A fresh burst of laughter came from Oban and the others ahead. “Perhaps it is because the people are angry with my father. I hear things from Adaon. There are whispers of discontent. That the King has brought this blight down upon our land. That his obsession with Shadowhunters has left his people divided and impoverished. The elder faeries of Unseelie have mistrusted him since the disappearance of the First Heir. They feel that the King did not try hard enough to find her.”

Mark was startled. “The First Heir was a girl? I thought that the King murdered all his female children.”

Kieran didn’t say anything. Mark recalled the last time they had faced the King in Faerie, when Mark had come with Emma and Julian and Cristina to save Kieran from the Lord of Shadows. Things were different now. He flashed back suddenly to the clearing, awakening to see Cristina and Kieran in each other’s arms, just before the guards had come.

“Why did you kiss Cristina?” Mark said quietly. “If you did it to upset me or make me jealous, that was a terrible thing to do to her.”

Kieran turned to him with surprise. “It was not to upset you or make you jealous, Mark.”

“She likes you,” Mark said. He had known it for some time but had never spoken the words aloud before.

Kieran flushed. “That is very strange to me. I do not deserve it.”

“I am not sure I deserve her fondness either,” said Mark. “Perhaps she does not bestow her heart with the care she should.” He glanced down at his bleeding wrists. “Do not hurt her.”

“I could not,” said Kieran. “I would not. And I am sorry, Mark, if you were jealous. I had not intended that.”

“It is all right,” Mark said with a kind of puzzlement, as if he were surprised at the truth. “I wasn’t jealous.” Not of either of you. How is that possible?

The shadow of the tower fell over them, darkening the ground where they stood. The air seemed suddenly colder.

In front of them, the massive thorned hedge that ringed the tower rose up like a wall of spikes. White bones hung from the thorny spikes, as they had hung for hundreds of years. It had been a long, long time since a warrior had challenged the wall. And Mark could not remember ever having heard of one who had done so and lived.

“Mark,” Kieran whispered.

Mark took a step forward and nearly stumbled; the chain connecting them to the horses lay limp on the ground. Oban and the others had paused in the archway of the enormous gates that were the only way through the thorn hedge.

Kieran reached for Mark and caught at his shoulder with his manacled hands. His lips were cracked and bleeding. He stared into Mark’s eyes with a look of terrible pleading. Mark forgot their strange discussion about Cristina, forgot everything but Kieran’s pain and his own desire to protect him.

“Mark,” Kieran breathed. “I have to warn you. We will walk the path of punishment to the tower. I have seen this happen to others. It is—I cannot—”

“Kieran. It will be all right.”

“No.” Kieran shook his head wildly enough to make his dark-blue hair fly around his head. “My father will have lined the path to the tower with the gentry. They will scream at us. They will throw rocks and stones. It’s how my father wants it. He threatened me with it after Iarlath’s death. Now I am responsible for Erec’s death as well. There will be no mercy for me.” He choked on his words. “I am sorry you have to be here for this.”

Feeling strangely calm, Mark said, “Isn’t it better to have me with you?”

“No,” Kieran said, and in his eyes Mark thought he saw the ocean, black and silver under the moon. Distant and untouchable. Beautiful and everlasting. “Because I love you.”

The world seemed to rush away into silence. “But I thought—you said we would be done with each other.”

“I am not done with you,” said Kieran. “I could never be done with you, Mark Blackthorn.”

Mark’s whole body hummed with surprise. He barely registered it when they began to move forward again, until Kieran’s grip slid from his shoulder. Reality came rushing back in, a smacking wave: He heard Kieran suck in his breath, steeling himself for the worst as they passed through the gates after Oban and the others.

Their chains rattled over the cobblestones of the path that led from the gates to the doors of the tower, an obscenely loud noise. The courtyard on either side was packed with Unseelie faeries. Some carried stones, while some held whips made of thorny vines.

Fumbling slightly, twisting his wrist against the manacles, Mark managed to take Kieran’s hand in his. “We will go forward without fear,” he said in a low voice. “For I am a Shadowhunter, and you are the son of a King.”

Kieran threw him a grateful look. A moment later they were moving along the path, and the crowd, bearing their whips and stones, had flanked them on either side.

Mark raised his head. They would not see a Shadowhunter cringe in fear or pain. Beside him, Kieran had straightened his back; his expression was haughty, his body braced.

Braced—for blows that did not come. As Mark and Kieran walked between the rows of faeries, they stood as still as statues, their rocks unthrown, their whips unmoving.

The only sound came from Oban and his guards, their muttering rising in the silent air. Oban twisted to the side, his angry gaze raking the crowd. “Bestir yourselves, imbeciles!” he shouted. “Don’t you know what you’re supposed to be doing? These are murderers! They killed Iarlath! They murdered Prince Erec!”