The Seelie King's War Read online

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  The Seelie Wars

  The Hostage Prince

  The Last Changeling

  The Seelie King’s War

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple

  Original map conceived by John Sjogren, rendered by Eileen Savage

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN: 9781101998540

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Yolen, Jane, author. | Stemple, Adam, author.

  Title: The Seelie king’s war / Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.

  Description: New York, New York : Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016. | Series: The Seelie Wars ; book 3 | Summary: “Aspen (the hostage prince) and Snail (the midwife’s apprentice) must gather an army to face the Unseelie forces that want to destroy Aspen’s home country”

  —Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015040304 | ISBN 9780670014361 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | Princes—Fiction. | War—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.Y78 Sci 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040304

  Version_1

  For the real Maggie Light.

  —J.Y.

  For Tom and the Lady Jody,

  landed gentry of the highest quality.

  —A.S.

  CONTENTS

  Books by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  1. Aspen, the New Seelie King

  2. Snail on the Road

  3. Aspen’s Meetings

  4. Snail’s Mission

  5. Aspen and the Wizard Games

  6. Snail’s Mountains

  7. Aspen’s Long Fall

  8. Snail’s Second Mountain

  9. Aspen Gets Good Counsel

  10. Snail and the Giant Spider

  11. Aspen Leaves Home

  12. Snail in the Encampment

  13. Aspen Goes to War

  14. Snail Looks for Odds

  15. Aspen on the Road

  16. Snail Lays Out the Plan

  17. Aspen Makes Some Magic

  18. Snail Readies for War

  19. Aspen Makes a Name for Himself

  20. Snail Rides the Wind

  21. Aspen Finds an Army

  22. Snail Adds to Aspen’s Plan

  23. Aspen Faces an Old Enemy

  24. Snail Learns a Lesson

  25. Aspen Learns a Lesson

  26. Snail Joins the War

  27. Aspen Chooses the Way

  28. Snail Falls

  29. Aspen Goes to War

  30. Snail Makes a Decision

  31. Aspen at the River

  32. Snail Sings

  Afterwards

  About the Authors

  1

  ASPEN, THE NEW SEELIE KING

  King Ailenbran Astaeri, Bright Celestial, Ruire of the Tir na nOg, and Lord of the Seelie kingdom, who for a brief time had been known as Karl the minstrel, and who still thought of himself as Prince Aspen, looked out the throne room window through the shifting panes of glass that showed both near views and far. He looked at the green fields of Faerie, the golden fields of the farmland full of wheat, the scrub fields of the mountainsides where only wild flowers flourished on the disturbed ground—poppies and willow herb and wild onion. He watched for a time and tried not to think about what they would look like in a fortnight or two.

  He failed.

  The crops will be trampled flat by Unseelie feet, the roads clogged with siege engines and soldiers. The smoke of burning buildings and bowers will darken the sky, and the night creatures will march in the day.

  Aspen shuddered and chewed at the already savaged thumbnail on his left hand. Karl the minstrel would find it hard to play the lute with that finger, he thought bitterly. Not that he’d been much of a minstrel. And he certainly wasn’t going to have time to be much of a king. A king only because his father and brothers had died in the first days of the Seelie Wars.

  A war I started, he thought miserably, because I was tricked into it. Because I was stupid, cowardly, and much too easily guiled by that scheming, sharp-beaked drow, Old Jack Daw.

  He scrunched his eyes shut but couldn’t stop his self-recriminations.

  A war, he thought bitterly, which will surely be called the Seelie King’s War, and not without reason. After all, as Hostage Prince, I ran off—no matter that I had been tricked into it. So the Unseelie king had every right to invade this land. My father’s land.

  “Ahhhh!” Aspen screamed, and pushed himself away from the window. It was suddenly very quiet, and Aspen remembered he wasn’t alone.

  Just moments ago, the throne room had been filled with the soft hiss of counselors’ whispered conversations, the scritch-scratch of scribes’ quills, the swish of the servants’ and maids’ footsteps as they scurried in and out of the large room on slippered feet. But now everyone had stopped what they’d been doing and stood staring at their monarch.

  “Erm . . .” Aspen hesitated. What would a real king do in this situation? He tried to ignore the nagging thought that a real king wouldn’t find himself stuttering and blushing in front of a roomful of his subjects.

  He also probably would not have spent his first week of rule asking everyone he met the three unanswerable questions he’d been ensorcelled with:

  What is the Sticksman?

  How does one become the Sticksman?

  How does the Sticksman come not to be once more?

  Luckily, by now Aspen had interrogated everyone who worked in or around the castle, so he could hold normal conversations.

  So what would a real king do?

  And then it came to him. A real king would bark orders and make proclamations. He forced what he
hoped was a confident smirk onto his face. I can do that.

  “Fetch Snail!” he shouted at his steward, Balnar, an elf so old that he had not enough magic left to keep his hair from going steely grey. Aspen tried to make his order sound kingly and proud. By the way Balnar bowed smartly and rushed from the room, Aspen felt as if he’d accomplished at least that much.

  But then he thought about how what he said could be interpreted and pictured the steward and some of the few uninjured soldiers at the palace rousting Snail out of bed and dragging her bodily to the throne room. . . .

  “Wait!” he called after the steward, his voice cracking and sounding most unkingly. “Stop him!” he yelled at the counselors. They jumped to their feet and scurried after the steward. The scribes were halfway out of their seats as well, looking confused. Aspen realized that even he was several steps toward the door when Balnar returned.

  Straightening up and tugging down the hem of his golden tunic, Aspen took a deep breath. “Go to the Lady Snail’s chambers and ask her politely if she would join me.”

  “Your Grace,” the steward said, and this time he left the room at a more stately pace.

  Aspen glared at the rest of the room, and the counselors, scribes, and servants swiftly returned to their tasks. Then he chewed at his thumbnail some more and hoped Snail arrived before he got down to the bone.

  WHEN SNAIL FINALLY entered the room, her mismatched eyes conveyed concern and anger in equal parts. She had probably been up half the night tending to her patients, the ones who could—possibly—be saved. Aspen could tell she’d been woken. Her red hair was more flyaway than usual, and she’d obviously had no time to pull it back. She did not bother asking him what was wrong. She knew. Everyone knew: an Unseelie army was marching toward the castle, and they had no hope of stopping it.

  “Out,” she said, and Aspen almost headed for the door himself before he realized she was speaking to the rest of the room.

  They hesitated. Snail had no title, no official standing. She was not even fey but a changeling, a human child stolen from her parents shortly after birth and brought to Faerie to work as a drudge or servant in the Unseelie Court. But she was also Aspen’s only friend and best counselor. He had made it very clear from the beginning that her words were as close to law as his.

  The room cleared. Quickly. Only Balnar had the gall to frown. But it was the same frown he used for any breach in decorum, and he’d shot Aspen the same look at last night’s dinner when Aspen had used the wrong utensil to spear a rutabaga.

  As hostage in the Unseelie Court from the time he was seven, Aspen had often picked up root vegetables from a plate with his fingers. Not that too many vegetables were served in the Unseelie Court. Carnivorous lot, they were.

  Once Balnar left, Aspen turned to Snail. “Good of you to come.”

  She gave a shallow and ironic curtsey. “Did I have a choice?”

  “Always,” he said seriously.

  Snail’s face colored for the briefest of seconds before she shook it off. “Why did you call for me? Has something changed?” She didn’t sound hopeful.

  “No.” Aspen sighed. “We still face certain death in a few days.”

  She hopped up onto the giant throne that dominated the room and perched birdlike on the arm.

  Like everything else in Astaeri Palace, the throne was gilded, gaudy, and garish. Rubies sat side by side with diamonds and jade, silver filigree fighting with gold gilding. Even the throne’s cushioned seat was decorated with pearls. Though—Aspen thought miserably—all the jewels will be picked out in a couple of days by Unseelie monsters gathering treasures.

  As a child, Aspen had thought the throne magnificent. But since escaping the Unseelie Court with Snail, he seemed to see things more through her eyes than his own. Instead of a bejeweled, golden throne from which the bright and beautiful monarchs of Faerie dispensed justice, he now saw an oversized and wildly uncomfortable chair from which he was supposed to rule over a kingdom whose whole history was one of betrayal, slavery, and death.

  Snail leaned over and patted the cushion. “Have a seat.”

  Aspen shook his head. “I do not want to. And I do not deserve to. I am no king and this is no kingdom.” He frowned. “Or rather, even if it was once, it will not be in a few days.”

  “No!” Snail barked at him. “We’ve come too far to give up now. We just need a little help.”

  Aspen could not stop himself; he smiled at her.

  “Don’t smile at me,” she said. “I most mistrust you when you smile.”

  Aspen sat down on the windowsill, still avoiding the throne. The smile, so quickly come, was now gone. “There is no help. There is only you and me.” He looked out the window again, focusing on the pane that showed the grass in the palace garden. He wondered idly how long it would remain green. “You and me.”

  Suddenly Aspen’s head snapped up, and he turned back to Snail. “You!”

  “Me?”

  “Yes!” Aspen hopped off the sill and went back to the dais that held the throne. “You. You are human.”

  Snail’s mouth turned down. “What’s your point, fey?” she growled.

  How quickly her temper turns, he thought. For some reason this made him smile again. If she thinks she’s angry now, wait till she hears what I want her to do. What I need her to do.

  “That is where we get our help,” he said.

  “I don’t under—” She stopped cold, and he saw the understanding hit her, widening her mismatched eyes. “No.”

  “Yes!” Aspen said, and grabbed her hand. “You have to.”

  Snatching her hand away, Snail almost looked frightened, though he was not sure she ever felt that particular emotion. Snail always seemed to channel fear into anger and energy.

  “I . . . I can’t. I don’t know where to find him, anyway. And even if I did find him, he wouldn’t come.” Snail’s words tumbled out as if they were stones over a waterfall. “Why would he want to help you? What does it matter to him which oppressor king wins?”

  “Because I can offer him something that Old Jack Daw won’t.”

  “What’s that?” Snail asked.

  “Freedom,” he said.

  “For everyone?”

  “Every. Last. One. Plus a piece of land, so they feel vested in it. And for those who choose not to stay after the war, a parting gift of gold to help them on their way to wherever they wish to go.”

  “Even if it means returning to the world of humans. Where your people stole them from in the first place?”

  “Even then,” he said, though he knew as well as she did what dangers lay there. He hoped that wasn’t the route she decided to take.

  Snail pushed herself slowly off the throne. Took a step toward the edge of the dais, then stepped back.

  Aspen didn’t dare speak. He barely breathed. This is the only way. I am sure of it.

  She glared at him in that sharp, bossy way she had before asking, “Why should he trust you?”

  He was ready for that. “Because you do.”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  He wasn’t ready for that. How can she ask me that? After all we’ve been through? How many times have I saved her life? How many times has she saved mine? He almost blurted all this out, but then he saw the look on her face and realized that she did trust him. But she needed something solid to bring to the old man. In one smooth movement, Aspen swept his sword from the scabbard at his side and knelt before her. He held it with his palms upward, offering it to her. It glowed with a golden light.

  “Snail, this is the sword of my father and his father and all our fathers back to before the worlds were separated, before the courts split, when mortal and fey lived as one under an endless sun. It carries a piece of that sun within it and only glows for the trueborn ruler of Faerie.” He looked up at her and hoped she could sense the pow
er in his words and realize he spoke not just truth but geas, the truth become magic, become prophecy. The words his mother had taught him when she handed him the sword. “If my words prove false, let this sword break in twain and no Astaeri rule for a hundred thousand years.”

  Snail’s eyes were bright as she nodded. “All right.”

  Aspen stood, smiling, and sheathed the sword. “Balnar!” he shouted, and the old elf entered the throne room instantly, bowing low, a perfect and proper six paces away from his liege. Aspen was certain Balnar had overheard every word he and Snail had just said to each other. He was also certain Balnar would never speak of it to another soul.

  “Your Grace?”

  “Fetch General Limnith and tell her to ready her seven best soldiers to travel.” He turned to Snail. “Sorry it is so few, but—”

  “But it’s near a fifth of what’s left of your standing army,” she said.

  She was joking, but it was close enough to the truth that Aspen could not bring himself to laugh.

  “Shall I tell her why, Your Grace?” Balnar asked.

  “You may, but only speak of it to the general. They are to guard Snail as she goes to raise an army.”

  Snail leapt off the dais, landing before Balnar. She lifted her chin to look way up at him. Aspen could see the old steward trying desperately not to look down his nose at her.

  “A human army,” she said, daring Balnar to comment, but all he said was “Your Grace” to Aspen, and “My lady” to Snail, then he bowed low and left the room. Snail watched him go, and then turned to Aspen.

  “Tell the professor I said hello,” Aspen said.

  “I don’t think I will.”

  “Stay safe.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  Aspen nodded. “Bring me an army, Snail.”

  Snail set her mouth firmly and gave a short nod. “I’ll try.” Then she walked stiffly out of the room.

  Aspen wondered if he would ever see her again. He turned and looked out the window, this time through the pane filled with waving grains of wheat. He pictured the fields filling with Unseelie soldiers—trolls and boggarts, Red Caps, dire werewolves, jostling drows trampling the gold. But this time he was trying to figure out how to hold the castle walls for even an extra hour.