Chapter 17 The Emissaries from Hel
The courtyard below my window had been transformed.
I stood at the balcony railing, still in my nightgown, and stared down at the chaos unfolding below. A contingent of Hel nobles, at least two dozen of them, had taken over the palace's eastern courtyard. They had arrived through a temporary portal, its edges still shimmering with violet light. Crates were being unloaded. Banners of the Morrigan bloodline, a silver dragon on a field of black, fluttered in the morning breeze. Somewhere in the crowd, a Stone-Wight was arguing with an Aurelian guard about where to park the shadow-steeds.
And at the center of it all, directing traffic with the imperious flutter of moth-wings, was Vesper.
"No, no, no!" her voice carried up to my balcony, sharp and familiar. "The ceremonial brazier goes on the LEFT. The LEFT, you absolute disaster of a guard. Do you not know left from right? Were you raised in a barn?"
A laugh bubbled up from my chest. A real laugh. The first one in weeks.
"She's been like that since we left," Maz said, leaning against the railing beside me. "She threatened to hex three different portal-keepers. I think she missed you."
"I missed her too."
"Also, Grandmother Silk is here. And Lord Malachai. And Lady Nocturne and her consort. And about a dozen other nobles who insisted on coming even though we told them it would be a tight fit through the portal." He paused. "Oh, and the selkie child. The one you gave the wilted flower to. She's here too. Her parents couldn't say no after she told them the Princess had promised."
I pressed a hand to my mouth. "The selkie child?"
"She's been telling everyone she's your personal emissary. It's adorable. Also slightly terrifying. She's five and she's already better at politics than Eris."
Below, the Selkie, whose name, I remembered suddenly, was Wren, was marching across the courtyard with a scroll nearly as big as she was, giving orders to a pair of bewildered Aurelian servants.
"My eyes and ears," I murmured.
"What?"
"Nothing. Something I told her before I left."
I turned away from the balcony and faced my brother fully. The morning sunlight caught his silver hair, turning it almost white. He looked older than I remembered. More tired. The lines around his eyes were new.
"How bad is it?" I asked quietly. "In Hel. With Eris. With everything."
Maz's expression flickered. "We're managing."
"Maz."
"It's not that great," he admitted. "The border tensions are worse than we let on in our letters. The Wraith Courts are testing the wards. Some of the northern territories are making noise about secession." He shrugged, but the gesture was too casual, too practiced. "Eris is handling it. He's good at handling things."
"And you?"
"I'm good at looking pretty and making inappropriate jokes at state dinners." He grinned. "It's a vital diplomatic role."
"Maz."
"I'm fine, Nyx. Really." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "Worried about you, mostly. Your letters have been... short."
"I didn't want to complain."
"Since when? You used to complain to me about everything. Remember when you were twelve and you sent me a six-page letter about how the palace chef kept putting too much salt in the witches broth?"
"The soup was ruined, Maz. It was a culinary tragedy."
"It was soup. You were lonely." He held my gaze. "You're still lonely."
I didn't deny it. There was no point. Maz had always been able to see through me, the way I could see through shadows, the way our mother had been able to see through time itself. It was his gift. His curse.
"I'm better now that you're here," I said.
"Good. Because we brought some of Hel with us, and Vesper is already terrorizing the locals. It's going to be a very memorable wedding."
I laughed again. It felt like breathing after being underwater for too long.
"Come on," I said, tugging his arm. "Let's go downstairs before she actually hexes someone."
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The next few hours were a blur of joy.
I was passed from noble to noble like a beloved relic, embraced and kissed and exclaimed over. Lord Malachai, a towering Stone-Wight whose skin was cracked like ancient marble, presented me with a ceremonial blade forged from the heart of the Abyssal Ridge. Lady Nocturne, a wraith of immense age and dignity, draped a shawl of living shadow around my shoulders and told me I looked thin.
"Have they been feeding you at all?" she demanded, her hollow voice echoing strangely. "You look like a skeleton."
"I've been eating fine."
"You've been eating Aurelian food. That's not food. That's decoration." She snapped her fingers, and one of her attendants produced a basket of moon cakes. "Eat. All of it. Before the ceremony. I refuse to watch a Morrigan get married on an empty stomach."
Grandmother Silk examined my palm again and tutted over the lines she found there. "Your fate has shifted," she said, her eight eyes glittering. "The handsome stranger is no longer a stranger. But the choice between shadow and sun... that remains."
"What choice?"
"That is for you to discover."
Cryptic as always. I hugged her anyway.
And little Wren, the selkie child, attached herself to my leg and refused to let go.
"You kept your promise," she said, her silver eyes enormous. "You said you'd come back."
"I haven't come back yet. You came to me."
"It's the same thing. I'm your emissary. I decided."
I knelt and straightened the tiny coronet of night-flowers someone had woven into her hair. "You're doing an excellent job, Emissary Wren. Have the Aurelians been treating you well?"
"The gold one tried to tell me I couldn't come in. I told her the Princess of Hel invited me. She made a face like this." Wren scrunched up her features into a remarkably accurate impression of Elowyn's pinched disapproval. "Then I walked past her."
"Good girl."
"I know."
Somewhere in the chaos, I caught a glimpse of Maz deep in conversation with a cluster of Aurelian courtiers. His posture was relaxed, his smile easy, but I recognized the sharp glint in his eyes. He was assessing them. Cataloging threats. Being charming in the way that was really just reconnaissance.
He caught my eye across the courtyard and winked.
I winked back.
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It was Vesper who finally extracted me from the crowd and dragged me back to my chambers to prepare.
"Enough socializing," she chittered, her wings fluttering with barely contained stress. "You are getting married in three hours, and you still smell like sleep. This is unacceptable. This is a disaster. This is..."
"Vesper." I caught her claws in my hands. "I missed you."
Her compound eyes shimmered. "I missed you too, my Princess. Every moment. Every single moment."
"I know. I'm sorry I couldn't bring you with me."
"Do not apologize. You were protecting me from the small-minded golden fools." She sniffed—or made the chittering sound that passed for a sniff among the Nocturni. "But I am here now. And I am going to make you the most beautiful bride this realm has ever seen. Even if it kills me."
"It won't kill you."
"It might. The sunlight here is very offensive."
She bustled me into my chambers, where Liriel, Thalia, and Sera had already laid out everything we needed. The wedding gown hung on a mannequin near the window, its shadow-silk fabric drinking in the light. The obsidian beads glittered like dark stars.
Vesper stopped dead when she saw it.
"You kept it," she whispered.
"Of course I kept it. You helped me choose it."
"But the Aurelian princess said, she sent that white monstrosity..."
"The white monstrosity is in a crumpled heap in my wardrobe. I'm wearing this."
Vesper made a sound that might have been a sob, if Nocturni could sob. Then she straightened her wings and clapped her claws together.
"Right. We have work to do. Liriel, fetch the hair pins. Thalia, the rouge. Sera, make sure no one interrupts us. The Princess of Hel is getting married, and she is going to look like a goddess of darkness and terror."
"That's the goal," I said.
"I know. I raised you."
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