The Autumn Queen’s chilling voice snapped Knox out of his panic. Her words were sharp enough to cut glass, but he hadn’t heard them. Only their shape, their intent. A moment later, the sound of a body falling to the floor. Silence blared in response, and the stone in Knox’s stomach sunk further.

“Abandon the idea I will be won by your pretty words, Lias.” Merindah continued, every fae in the room could feel her anger.

Her lack of restraint, the open threats. The gold circlet in her hair caught summer sun filtering in through the canopy. Sparkling with the raise of her chin as she spoke. It was hard for Knox to remember she was a queen at times like this, instead of a wild force of nature. 

“Do I need to fell another of your kin? I will cut down every last one of you if that is what it takes.”

The once thundering voice of King Lias was lost. Nothing but a murmur swallowed by the size of the throne room.

Heart racing, Knox willed his head to turn. Just enough to catch glimpse of an empty throne, just long enough to see which Ashwillow had the misfortune of Merindah’s wild ruthlessness. It was no use, though, the strain only tired him. Leaving the curiosity to turn his imagination to streams of red seeping into the grass between floor tiles. 

“If you are so set in your way, Merindah, fight against the one who defies you,” King Lias spat.

He was always noble, uplifting and fair. The fae of the Summer Court loved and celebrated his reign because of it. But in reality the fae of the Summer Court were fools because of it. With noble blood came a breed of stubbornness so powerful, Knox knew it to be the most frequent downfall of greatness. What had been worked relentlessly for torn to shreds, all in the blink of an eye.

But here, compromised and one child less, the fiery rage on the faces of his subjects finally reflected in his voice. Sweet whispers and pretty words were no more. “Let them go, Merindah. There is no need to spill the blood of innocence, fight--”

“Enough.” The crackling of frozen thorns echoed behind Merindah’s voice. 

Knox had felt them dig into his skin before, breaking off into brittle pieces only to turn over with sharper points. He knew the sound, and feared it more than the darker depths of the ocean. It was more than enough to silence the king of summers once again.

“Their fate will be the same as yours.” A sweetness entered Merindah’s voice, dangerously thick. She strolled forward, far enough from the center of the room to veil her from Knox’s view, stopping just behind one of the Great Oaks that made up the throne room pillars. “No one needs to die, Lias, you foolish king. But they will. If you continue to deny me what I want. I will humor you, just this once. You ask me to be fair in the matter, give them a choice, is that all?"

Her words were mocking. On a melodic rise so pleasant on the ears that Knox knew there was a smile on her face. She was going to punish every delay of getting what she wanted, with things so small and insignificant as a smile, or as drastic as a more prominent smell of iron in the air.

“Yes,” King Lias said. Careful to keep the desperation in his voice as low and under wraps as possible.

Passing through gently, a breeze ruffled the dark green leaves of the Great Oaks lining either side of the room. A soft whisper that the room had been void of. Bringing with it tentative hope of resolution. 

All it brought Knox was reminder that he was not safe, and all he could hope for was the sunlight drifting through the branched ceiling above him as time ticked on didn’t draw more attention to him being very out of place.

Merindah continued her stroll, heels clicking on the worn tiles until she came into Knox’s view once more. Stopping in the middle of two Great Oaks, she stood poised directly in front of the thrones he couldn’t quite see. She had lowered her hand, but the spell keeping thorns at throats had not ceased.

“My ever radiant, Navae,” her voice was still honeyed as she gave a dramatic curtsey. “We could rule as untouchable Queens, you and I. Imagine the lives we could give our young ones. Free of human tarnish. Or will you defy me and join hands with your mother?”

The princess choked on words clearly meant to be angry retaliation. Pained accusations filled the room in an incomprehensible flutter. They ended abruptly. 

Knox didn’t have to see, he knew the cause. It made his eyes screw shut at the picture. Navae was kind, and encouraging. The only timid heart the Ashwillow family had ever produced. Now she was dead.

“Now, now… Vander, do not look at me like that.” Merindah’s voice had returned to its bitter air. Her steps past the King were without hesitation. The same delicate hand was lifted, but instead of murderous intent, she swiped away the line of tears on the prince’s cheek. “Do not be the same fool your father will die for being.”

In a grand gesture, Merindah turned, smiling to the garden of frozen Summer Fae. The red train of her dress pooled in a circle around her feet, glittering with crystals that caught the direct sunlight shining on the dias. Against the cool colors, the greens and blues that draped over thrones and hung between branched archways, she did not belong.  

“Tell your loyal subjects, Vander, show them the start of your successful reign as king.”

“Get. On with it.” Prince Vander said. It was a fuming command, given between grit teeth. He was always the fierce one. An undefeated champion with a blade, a sight that drew attention on the dancefloors of festivals. He was the roar of summer, forced into a single living being, and the only Ashwillow close enough for Knox to see between heads taller than him. Stood straight, and without an ounce of confidence diminished by the thorned threat around his neck.

Merindah turned before Knox could make out her expression. The glittering of the circlet in her hair was a spotlight, enough distraction to keep Knox’s eyes off her hands, off Vander.

“Is that your final decision?” She asked.

A second chance to answer was never so freely given, terms were changing. Or perhaps, Knox thought, they had never been definite. Vander’s answer was silence. Leaving silence to hang in the air once again. 

The crackling sound of Merindah’s spell subsiding broke the suspense with a wave of her hand. Brittle pieces of ice shattered around him like an explosion of glitter, and against the stone dias at Vander’s feet. The sight made Knox flinch; not wanting to watch the death of another fae with his own eyes, he leveled his gaze with the train of Merindah’s skirts. It would only be a matter of time before the prince’s body fell lifelessly next to the others.

“Join me.” Merindah said.

They were words Knox hadn’t thought would be the next to hear, let alone with a tone so full of pride. Panning slowly back to the dias, Knox watched as Vander, not crippled over in a pool of crimson, moved in two simple strides from the place he’d been held in front of his throne to Merindah’s side. 

“Your mother would be so disappointed.” King Lias said. 

The king’s face did not need to be seen, the betrayal in his voice felt as clear as the sky above the throne room. So cloudless, so crystal clear.

“She would be alive.” Vander spat back. How alike he seemed to Merindah in that moment, with words brimming with poison waiting to be spilt. Posture so sharp and sure a sword would shatter if it collided with him, and not the other way around. It frightened Knox into listening much more closely. “She would be alive if you had done this, ages ago. Do not preach disappointment to me when blood never had to be spilt.”

The prince turned his back to his father, addressing the court still held at bay by Merindah’s spell. There was an emotion on Vander’s face Knox didn’t know. It lingered there, almost calculative, before he faced Queen Merindah. Another stall, time seemed to freeze on the rise of a breath, before he began taking measured steps down the dias stairs. Every ray of sun that shone through the trees lit his hair aflame. A bold reddish brown, cooled only by the ring of silver that crossed his forehead. 

He was a stunning distraction. 

But just as Knox thought the situation was to charge on in one direction, it veered into another. The air of purpose now on the prince’s face settled the nerves twisting and turning in Knox’s stomach. Vander held a sort of grace that made the authority Merindah demanded look like a candle held against the sun.

“How many have we lost?” Vander called to the room in a voice that didn’t hide the pain of the subject. “How many more will we lose, to one foolish decision? None.” He’d been spared only moments ago but now, he held the room captive with a lionhearted promise. “I will not see our court fall further, or stand stubbornly aside while we lose more of those dear to us.” Without so much as a pause, he spoke demandingly, “Merindah release them.”

A whisper slipped through the room, following Vander’s command. In the form of swords returning to sheaths, and skirts shuffling against the floors once again. A single sweeping breath of relief. They had all been released. All was eerily silent. Not even the breeze dared to misplace a leaf. Knox was sure he heard crying near him, hushed by a stern voice. 

No one dared to move, but he could no longer find the set of green eyes across from him. The dread returned, and with his own freedom regained, Knox retreated several steps. Pacing carefully back into the shadows once more. Then nearer to a window, Knox finally let out the desperately needed breath. Relief found for only a moment. 

A hand firmly clasped onto his shoulder, halting him from going any further. 

Whether it was a fae of the Summer Court, or another wandering Shadow, he did not know. But it summoned the cruel, quick forming lump of anxiety to his throat that forcing down felt like swallowing a mouthful of chalk.

He’d been caught.