Midnight Revelry

23:00

I snapped back to reality as the steady crunch of the dirt road under the carriage wheels turned to a dull rumble beneath us as we began to cross the drawbridge. I shifted the lace curtain to expose just a sliver of the window and peered out into the night. Silver moonlight reflected off of the moat below, the water gleaming in the darkness as black as my hair. My breath caught and I dropped the curtain.

They’re really making me do this.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to dam the wave of thoughts rushing through my mind, visions of everything that could go wrong tumbling over and under each other.

Focus on something tangible, I told myself.

I ran my fingers over the midnight blue silk of my dress, pulling deep, slow breaths into my lungs as I smoothed the fabric across my lap, the racing of my heart slowing with each stroke.

“Sit still,” said one of the men sitting across from me.

I looked into the face of the man who spoke. Beck. His dark curls fell just above his heavy brows, and barely hid the pointed tips of his ears. His face was contorted into a perpetual scowl. I scowled back, and crossed my arms, slouching lower into the padded bench.

Beside Beck sat Adrian, who hadn’t made eye contact with me since he dragged me out of the ocean three days before. I still had five bruises on each ankle, one for every one of his fingers that pressed into my tender skin as he ripped me from my home. His sandy blond hair was slicked away from his face, a nice change from the shaggy look he had been sporting for the past few days. The moonlight shining through the meagre covering of the lace curtains highlighted his sharp cheekbones, and illuminated his even sharper blue eyes.

In the limited space available to us, they sat with one shoulder each pressed against the wall of the carriage, the hilts of their sheathed swords digging into their hips. This gave them an inch of space between them at most.

Their shoulders crashed into each other, as we were jostled again, marking the completed crossing of the drawbridge. My stomach rolled as we got closer and closer to the Fae King’s castle.

We passed through the stone wall that surrounded the palace, and began the loop around the courtyard. The imposing stone castle loomed over us. Crenelations dotted the tops of the walls, giving innumerable places for palace guards to be concealed. Candle light flickered in the windows nearest the centre of the castle, the light fading to pitch black as the windows grew farther and farther from the heart of the party. Lonely towers at the fringes of the castle reached up to claw at the stars. The carriage stopped at the base of a marble staircase. My eyes traced the stairs up to the grand entrance of the castle, a gaping maw that threatened to swallow me whole if I stepped inside.

The door of the carriage popped open, but Beck wrenched it shut, startling me, and, judging by the yelp that came from the other side of the door, the footman who had begun to open it for us.

“Remember why we are here. Remember what happens if you tell anyone who you are before the time is right. Remember what will happen to your sister if we fail,” said Beck.

My sister. My beautiful sister, who was pulled from the ocean alongside me. Who was, at present, chained to the wall of a crumbling tower, hidden from the world. If we failed tonight, no one would ever find her. If I failed tonight, she would die.

“I remember,” I spat.

“Good. I remember, and you remember. Why don’t you remind Adrian what we’re here to do.”

“We’re here to kill the King,” I said softly, lest the footman still prying at the carriage door overhear me.

Adrian nodded, almost imperceptibly, still failing to meet my eyes.

“Excellent. Shall we begin?” Beck asked, a menacing grin taking the place of the scowl I had come to know so well.

23:15

“The Lord and Lady Beck, and the Lord Adrian,” announced the Master of Ceremonies as we entered the ballroom.

I cringed internally at the insinuation that I could ever be involved with Beck.

Few in the room cast us so much as a glance. Those that did hadn’t a glimmer of recognition in their eyes as they took in the three of us descending the grand staircase to join them. The revel had begun hours ago, ensuring that they would be having too good of a time to properly notice our arrival.

Our journey down was slow, each step deliberate. From our elevated position, we could take in the entirety of the room. My eyes followed the loudest sounds to the left side where the band played. A tangle of limbs populated the center of the room as elves, pixies, nymphs, selkies, and sprites danced a drunken reel. To the right, faire folk snatched food from the never ending tables of mouth watering treats. Others filled their goblets in the fountains of wine, uncaringly staining their sleeves in the process. As I watched, one pixie tumbled head first into the stream, sending a chorus of laughter through the onlookers.

On the dais at the far end of the room, atop his golden throne, was the Fae King. The lids of his eyes drooped low, and a drunken smile played across his lips as the selkie woman on his lap laughed. She twined her fingers in his greying hair, as her blood red lips grazed the pointed tip of his ear, and a whisper passed between them.

Situated on a smaller throne next to him was his most recent bride. She was disturbingly young to be married to a man his age. The plumpness of her cheeks, paired with her small stature, and understated hips suggested a girl hardly old enough to bear children, certainly not one old enough to be a queen. Each wife he took grew younger and younger as he continued to age. I couldn’t help but feel pity for her. It would be my fault she would be branded a widow so early in life.

As soon as we stepped off of the staircase, Adrian disappeared into the crowd, leaving me alone with Beck, our arms linked together as if we really were Lord and Lady.

“We have three quarters of an hour to spare. What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” I said through my teeth, as I smiled politely at a pair of pixies gesturing for us to join them for a drink.

“We blend in,” Beck whispered in my ear, his breath caressing my cheek.

He took my hand and attempted to move us to the dance floor.

“I would rather drink to blend in than dance with you,” I said tugging free of his grasp.

Beck grabbed my wrist, hard. “Do not cause a scene, Lady Beck,” he spat, pulling me close, “unless you want to get us caught and have your sister spend the rest of her days alone in that tower.”

I glared at him.

His face darkened, and his grip tightened at my defiance.

He pulled me to his side, one of his arms around my back gripping my left arm, his other across his front, still gripping my wrist. Unable to free myself from his grasp, he was in complete control of where we moved.

“You want a drink?” he sneered, as we moved towards the fountain, “Have a drink.”

Beck flung me forward. The world became a blur as I stumbled towards the spouts of wine. Peals of laughter echoed around me, but I couldn’t place where they came from. My arms flailed as I tried to catch myself to avoid a swim in the fountain or cracking my skull off of the ledge.

An arm shot out around my waist at the last moment, righting me so fast the world spun. I looked up into the face of my rescuer.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Adrian.

I rolled my eyes, and jerked myself out of his arms.

“I’m fine,” I answered, smoothing my dress.

“Lady Beck!” Beck called, feigning concern, “Are you alright? I must say, you seem to have had enough wine this evening, you nearly tripped into the fountain. Had it not been for Lord Adrian, I don’t know what would have become of you.”

The onlookers surrounding us had begun to lose interest. They had wanted to see me hurt. As soon as concern was expressed for me, their attention began to drift.

“Yes, had it not been for Lord Adrian I might have hit my head and ruined our evening,” I hissed.

“I believe your wife would find a goblet of water to be quite useful, Lord Beck,” suggested Adrian.

Beck took off, leaving me alone with Adrian.

“Ruined our evening indeed,” muttered Adrian as he turned to me. “Really, are you alright?”

“As long as my husband doesn’t push me again, I should be just fine.”

Adrian shook his head, running a hand through his hair. A few strands dislodged, and hung down over his forehead.

“He should be gone for the next while,” he said quietly.

We stood awkwardly for a moment, never having been without Beck as an intermediary between the two of us.

“Have you been to a revel like this before? Above water, I mean,” asked Adrian.

“Not for about ten years,” I replied, “certainly not while I was old enough to really partake.”

“Would you care to dance with me?” he asked.

I looked at him, taken aback.

“To pass the time, I mean,” he added quickly.

I nodded, still unsure. “To pass the time.”

He took my hand in his, and guided me to the dance floor.

23:30

I can’t believe I was actually starting to enjoy myself.

Sweat had formed across my brow, as dancing on land wasn’t nearly as easy as dancing underwater. Adrian had twirled me around the ballroom to three songs. He was a marvelous dancer.

“Who taught you to dance so wonderfully?” I shouted above the music and the cacophony of the dancers moving in time around us.

“My mother,” he called back.

The music slowed, moving us into a waltz.

He took my hand in his, and placed his other on the small of my back, pulling me close.

“She died when I was eleven,” he said, quieter now, no longer needing to shout to be heard.

My stomach dropped.

“I’m sorry, Adrian.”

“She was killed by the King,” he whispered, his voice steely.

I tripped over my own feet at his revelation. Had Adrian not been holding me, I surely would have fallen.

His blond hair. His sharp features. He looked just like her. Adrian’s mother had been the Fae King’s third wife. How had I not seen it before?

“You’re the Prince,” I breathed. “So I don’t have to be the one to-”

“You still have to,” he interrupted, his eyes downcast, “I’m sorry. I’m sure the stories reached the sea. My father was not the King. That’s why my mother was killed.”

The stories had reached the sea. I looked into his eyes. The eyes that looked so similar to those of the King’s most trusted Advisor. The pieces of the puzzle began to come together in my mind.

“That’s why I am a part of this,” he said, “That’s why Beck is a part of this.”

Beck was older than Adrian, but no male heirs were born to the King’s first or second wives. Adrian watched my face as the gears turned in my head.

“Beck’s mother gave birth to the King’s bastard son. She was killed along with her baby when the King found out she had given birth to his progeny. Beck was ten. He saw the whole thing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. All three of our mothers had been killed by the Fae King. I had come to terms with my mother’s death long ago, but Beck and Adrian wanted revenge.

“I still don’t understand why I have to be a part of this. Why you and Beck dragged me and my sister from our home. We made our peace with our mother’s death. We made our peace with our own.”

“How can you not see?” he asked, his eyes growing frantic, “He has killed so many women. What a humiliation for him to lose to the sex he so despises. To have his throne taken by a woman he killed.”

“I have told you over and over and over. I do not want his throne.”

“You must take it,” he implored, “You must ensure that no man can erase the suffering of the women in this kingdom. You can’t let our mothers be forgotten.”

I jumped as a hand latched onto my arm, and whirled to see who had grabbed me.

“Whatever you two are doing, it needs to stop,” Beck said, his voice low. “Do you see the space around yourselves?”

The other dancers had given us a wide berth. We were alone, dancing in the center of the room. We were drawing attention.

Adrian released me into Beck’s grasp, and we quickly made our way to the edge of the room.

23:45

“Is the queen taken care of?” asked Adrian.

“She’s locked in her chambers,” Beck replied softly.

The Fae King’s young bride had disappeared off of the dais. Perhaps becoming a widow was a better hand than she had previously been dealt as his wife.

“It’s almost time,” Beck stated, his eyes flicking to the enormous clock at the top of the staircase, “Get to your places. Do not deviate, and remember, we must wait until midnight.”

We separated into the throng of revellers, flowing through with the rhythm of the crowd. I made my way to the band, standing on the edge of the crowd until there was a break in the music. In the slightest pause between songs, I joined them. Their previously lyricless songs took new life as I sang. Many in the flock turned to look at me, as I crooned, smiles breaking across their faces.

Adrian and Beck’s heads bobbed through the crowd, as they wove their way towards the King, but nobody but me seemed to notice them. Everyone was too inebriated or too self involved to pay enough attention. I finished two songs before they could make it to their places, leaving us five minutes to midnight.

We were right on time.

At the end of the second song, I motioned for the band not to begin another. The revellers grumbled in protest. They had all turned to see why their music had stopped, but I hardly noticed them. The only pair of eyes I felt on me were those of the King.

“I apologize for the break in your music, dearest drunken dancers, but there is a song I would like to sing that requires no instruments behind it,” I began.

“That’s the Lady Beck,” a sprite whispered.

“She just about fell into the wine earlier tonight,” an elf said to his partner.

“I am not the Lady Beck,” I called, my voice carrying clearly through the room. “But you will soon know my true identity.”

With that, I began to sing. I sang a song that chronicled the King’s first marriage. A marriage to a woman rumoured to be a siren. The room was still, the revellers and the royals frozen, enraptured by my tale. Not once did my eyes release those of the Fae King.

The first wife of the Fae King had hair as black as the deepest parts of the ocean. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, for the sunlight did not touch those that lived at the bottom of the sea. On their wedding day, the King and his bride were married under the moon. She wore a silk dress as blue as the midnight sky.

The King and his Queen had two daughters, Adella and Arista, but his bride failed to produce a son. A male heir. He became angry. He became resentful. In a rage as deadly as a hurricane, his wife was killed, and his daughters were drowned in the ocean.

By the magic of their siren mother, the drowned girls lived at the bottom of the sea, with the merfolk and the naiads, not welcome on land with the faire folk, not able to truly live. They grew beautiful like their mother and her siren sisters, with voices made to enrapture those around them. Even after all this time, they sing their days away, under the crushing weight of their past and the water above them.

A wet thud broke the silence that followed my song.

The Fae King lay dead on the dais. Adrian and Beck stood over him, their swords dripping with blood. They each pulled pieces of cotton from their ears.

00:00

The clock at the top of the staircase chimed. I was now eighteen. I was now eligible to rule.

“I am Adella, firstborn daughter of the Fae King,” I declared, “And I am your queen.”