Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)(75)
It took up almost half the mountainside. The king made a dissatisfied noise, squinting at it, and several of the turrets rearranged themselves and a row of outbuildings appeared where there had been none. Another squint, and suddenly there was a road leading up to the castle, broad and paved in huge cobblestones of ice, each with a different flower trapped inside it. I could see the flowers, because he brought the road all the way to our feet, sending trees crashing to the forest floor. The impact shook the ground so that I almost fell over, and I was soon coughing on the swirl of snow the fallen trees had raised. The avenue was lined with lanterns all gleaming with the same moonlight glow as those of the winter fair.
I didn’t watch only the castle as it reared up out of nothing—I also watched the king, terrified and fascinated. When he is not speaking or moving, he becomes perfectly still. I mean that—perfectly. I speculate that, in those moments, he returns to what he is, a piece of winter given form. It is the same stillness one finds in a frozen lake or trees weighted by heavy snow.
In one last gesture of extravagance, he lifted his hand and, with a sort of brushing motion, moved aside the smattering of clouds in the sky. The aurora shone through, mostly green tonight, or perhaps he summoned it along with everything else, I don’t know.
“Yes,” he said, examining the monstrous spectacle before us. “Yes, it’s a start, I suppose.”
His voice seemed far away; my hearing had been deadened by the tumult of
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* What an intriguing comment this was. Initially I took it as a win for Blythe, to hear one of the common fae link his existence to the natural world (in this case, an icicle). Upon reflection, however, I believe this interpretation to be a tenuous one. The Folk often speak in metaphor. In fact, several years ago I had a conversation with one of the German kobolds in which she referred to herself as a “bud,” meaning a child. Yet I know that she did not originate from this form, as I met her parents several days later. And, indeed, Poe has referenced his own mother numerous times during our conversations.
4th December (?)
Somehow, I drifted away from my journal without finishing that last sentence—it’s unlike me. I have no recollection of deciding to stop. I am so terrified I might one day forget about my journal altogether that I’ve decided to carry it with me wherever I go.
Any inclination I felt to revel in the excitement of my situation faded quickly. For I soon realized that the castle summoned by the Hidden king had caused an avalanche that buried several far-flung farmsteads at the edge of one of the neighbouring villages.
“That’s unfortunate,” he said sympathetically when I told him. “Well, I will give the mortals a great feast to make up for it. It will last for days and days until they are all nearly too fat to move. Will that serve?”
“I should think not,” I said, “given that they’re probably dead.”
“Oh, dear.” He seemed very sorry for a moment, but then one of the servants arrived with a trio of white wolves on a leash made of bone and moonlight (a gift sent from the lord of one of the faerie holdings on the northern coast), and he forgot everything else, including me, as they leapt all over him to lick his face.
I tried not to think too hard about how quickly the faerie servants had arrived. I was half afraid that he had conjured them out of the snow, and for some reason, this disturbed me more than anything else. Though there was a lot to be disturbed about, the palace not the least of it.
We hadn’t had to walk the long avenue to the palace, which was paved with ice-bound flowers. A carriage had appeared made from black wood covered in slippery frost and drawn by two graceful faerie horses, one white and one black, who seemed to change slightly from one moment to the next—I swear, at one point they even swapped colours. The driver and footman leapt from the carriage and threw themselves at the king’s feet in such violent haste one cut himself on the ice.
“Brethilde, Deminsfall,” the king said slowly, as if savouring their names. “Where have you been? Not tending to my tree after my queen locked me away, that’s certain. Oh, a few servants stayed, but their numbers dwindled, and for a very long time I have been alone.”
The servants opened and closed their mouths, trembling, but he only smiled and laid a hand on their heads. “I forgive you,” he said warmly, then helped me into the carriage.
“How do your servants know you’ve been freed?” I said as the horses whisked us along the road.
He gave me a puzzled look. “How do mortals know winter has arrived?” He turned his face towards his castle, and his pale eyes shone. The undead ravens flew ahead, occasionally swooping down to peck at the servants, despite the king’s admonishments (though these were few and far between). “My courtiers will soon arrive—I look forward to introducing them to my betrothed.” He kissed my hand.
Through my terror, a part of me was fascinated. “Then you don’t believe any of your people will remain loyal to the current queen?”
“The pretender? No.” He didn’t seem annoyed by my question, nor did I notice any bitterness in him to belie his confidence. “The winter knows me, the mountains and glaciers, the aurora and the birds. I can be confined temporarily, but I can’t be overthrown, not in the way mortals might think of it.”
I noted that he didn’t say he couldn’t be killed—for certainly the stories suggest faerie monarchs can be gotten rid of that way, not that it isn’t a difficult undertaking. I said quickly, “Forgive my ignorance of your ways, Your Highness. I had thought your people might prefer the queen. Only because I was informed that you had forbade them from having a particular kind of sport with mortals, and many Folk resented you for it.”