The Queen Who Remains

Unseelie Court, Veilside

The descent into the Unseelie Court was a quiet one.

Grey had expected cold, but not the velvet hush that met them beneath the roots of the hollow hill. The path shimmered faintly underfoot, like starlight frozen into stone. Alaric walked ahead, spine straight, shoulders set, every movement a study in reluctant obedience. Wickham whistled tunelessly behind them, pretending—badly—that he wasn't nervous.

The Queen's summons had come sealed in silver thread. No one ignored such a call. Not even the dead.

They passed into a cavernous chamber lit by flickering witchlight and soft reflections from crystal-veined walls. The Unseelie Court gathered like shadows sculpted into elegance: nobles in starlit silks, masks of horn and pearl, eyes like mirror-glass. They whispered as the three entered.

About Alaric, there was silence. About Wickham, confusion. About Grey, something else entirely.

The Queen rose slowly from her throne.

"Alaric," she said, voice as cool and layered as ancient snow. "I am pleased to see you remain in one piece. Mostly," she adds cryptically.

Alaric bowed low. "My Queen."

Her gaze lingered, taking in the change in his appearance—the modern clothes, the rough edges softened by time among mortals, and the way he stood now, ever so slightly angled toward Grey, as though he might shield her without thinking. His expression was unreadable, save for the briefest flash of guilt, regret, and something older. Something protective. His eyes never left the Queen.

She suppressed a sigh.

Her gaze moved to Wickham. She smiled faintly. "Harbinger."

Wickham flinched. Just barely. His face, usually all smirks and sharpness, softened—just for a second. A flicker of regret, old and quiet. Maybe fear, too, like a thread he'd hoped was cut pulling taut again.

Then her eyes fell on Grey.

The murmurs grew. The air thickened.

"So," said the Queen, descending the dais. Her gown moved like a tide of midnight silk. "This is the one who walks the Veil unbidden."

Grey swallowed. "I'm Greylene Wyrde." How do you address a Faerie Queen? Your Grace? Your Majesty? Grey opted for "...Your Highness."

The Queen tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Are you?"

Grey did not answer. The Queen seemed pleased by that.

Behind her, courtiers murmured: Thread-touched. Changeling. Weaver's Echo.

"You called us here," Alaric said tightly. "We bring proof."

Wickham shifted beside him, sharp eyes flicking toward the Queen with something like warning. He didn't want her speaking to Grey more than necessary, didn't want her gaze lingering, her attention narrowing. Not here. Not yet.

They laid it out: broken sigils, corrupted gates, false memories planted like seeds. Wickham translated the metaphors. Grey provided names.

"Caderyn is interfering," Alaric said. "He aims to collapse the balance entirely."

The Queen listened. She said nothing.

"We need your help," Grey said finally. "Your Court. Your voice. Your protection."

The Queen turned, ascending her dais once more. Grey, watching her go, felt suddenly small—mud and scars and mortal breath beside a being who wore mourning like a cloak and moved like she was carved from myth. Grey felt ugly, rough-edged. Dull. The feeling came without warning and sat in her chest like cold stone.

"You ask for open war with the Seelie."

"We ask for justice."

"You ask for another cascade of blood," the Queen said, her voice sharp now, cutting through the chamber like the crack of ice across a frozen lake.

Grey stepped forward. "We ask you not to look away."

The Queen regarded her coolly. "Then I refuse."

The chamber stirred. Voices of dissent rose from the shadows—sharp, low warnings about the last rebellion, the blood spilled, the losses that had never healed. They reminded one another, quietly and urgently, what war with the Seelie had cost them before.

Wickham inhaled to argue, but Grey was no longer listening.

Behind the throne, a tapestry drew her eye. It shimmered with soft, strange light, impossible threads woven in a pattern she couldn't name. It pulsed. Whispered. It moved.

Grey drifted forward.

Alaric, still caught in heated argument with the Queen and the more vocal courtiers, didn't notice Grey moving. Not until it was too late.

"Do not touch that," the Queen began, but Grey's fingers were already outstretched.

Her fingertips met thread.

The world folded.

A vast loom. A figure beyond time. Hands spinning stars and memory into pattern. No face. Only presence. Familiar. Kind. Terrible.

Child of the Bargain, said the voice. Threadborn. You are known.

A rush of light. Thread pulling through her soul, not piercing but illuminating.

She saw her own beginning. A cradle. A bargain. Her mother's tears.

My thread. My echo. My child.

Then the vision vanished.

Grey staggered back, but did not fall.

Silence held the court. Dozens of Fae stared. Even the Queen had gone still.

Then everything exploded in a chorus of voices. Some courtiers cried out and immediately dropped to one knee, swearing fealty. Others broke into open weeping, their faces radiant with joy or terror. A few argued bitterly in disbelief, their voices rising like clashing blades. One large Unseelie guard, scar slashing across his face like a wound that had never healed, dropped to his knees beside Grey. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he stared at her, as if seeing salvation—or ruin—made flesh.

Threads still glowed faintly across Grey's skin. She was still trying to process what had happened—what she had seen, what had seen her—and suddenly everything felt overwhelming. The light on her skin felt too bright, the court too loud, the threads of her own thoughts slipping through her grasp like fraying silk.

Alaric was at her side in a heartbeat. He dropped to the ground beside her, cradling her protectively with an arm around her shoulders, his other hand steadying her as though she might fall apart entirely. His voice was quiet, urgent—words she couldn't quite hear over the roaring in her head. Then he helped her rise slowly, with a care that suggested the world itself had grown fragile.

"Well," said Wickham faintly. "That's one way to make an entrance, darling."

The Queen descended slowly.

"She has been marked," one of the courtiers whispered. "Claimed by the old thread," murmured another. "The tapestry recognized her. It moved for her." "The Threadmother's child, here. In our time." "Do you see how the threads still cling to her? They never left." "It is beginning again," said one, voice trembling. "Just like before. Only worse."

"Claimed," another breathed.

The Queen's gaze met Grey's. For the first time, there was something like awe. Her eyes shone—calculating, reverent. Grey felt the weight of that gaze like cold fire, as though every layer of her had been peeled back and examined. A part of her wanted to flinch, to disappear, but she stood still, trembling just slightly under the scrutiny. She was no longer just an inconvenient mortal who had stolen the Queen's loyal Huntsman. She was something far older. Far more dangerous.

And perhaps, now, necessary.

"So the Threadmother speaks," the Queen murmured.

Then, with sudden clarity:

"Caderyn shall not go unanswered."

Alaric exhaled. Wickham grinned.

Grey just stood there, glowing faintly, still trying to remember how to breathe.

Somewhere on the Irish Sea

The sea was flat as obsidian, dark enough to mistake for sky.

Above it, a ship carved from stormwood creaked gently as it drifted with no sails, no oars, no crew save one. The prow was shaped like a woman's open mouth—silent and singing nothing. The lanterns did not burn. They wept. Pale oil leaked down the hull in thin lines like tears that glowed faintly gold before vanishing into the sea.

Caderyn stood barefoot on the forward deck.

He had discarded his mantle, letting the wind claim it hours ago. Now he wore only the robes of a supplicant—white shot through with threads of midnight blue. One hand was outstretched over the waves, the other held something wrapped in black velvet. His breath came slow, steady, as if matching the tides. The sea, it seemed, was listening.

He unwrapped the object.

Beneath the velvet: a vessel of pale glass, long as a forearm, etched with spirals and sigils that no landborn tongue could pronounce. The shape of it was impossible—seemingly grown rather than made, tapering into a coiled spiral at one end. It sang softly, though no one had yet told it to.

Cadeyrn cradled it with reverence and revulsion both, as one might a saint's fingerbone. 

"Daughters of Iskar," he said, voice low, "You've always been so careful with your grief. So measured. So afraid."

He stepped to the very edge of the deck. "Let me show you what happens when we stop measuring."

And with a whisper that was not in any known language—only rhythm and memory—he lowered the vessel into the sea.

It did not sink.

It hung there beneath the surface, untouched by current or tide, glowing faintly from within like something alive. The water around it shivered. Not rippled—shivered, as if in fear or recognition.

The sea began to hum. Cadeyrn's eyes half-closed. He raised his hand and drew a shape in the air: a circle, a fracture, a note. And from the depths, something answered.

The hum became a harmony. Low, mournful, irresistible. A chorus with no mouths. A song from beneath remembering. It wound itself around the ship like fog and found its way out into the dark—out across the sea, toward the shores, toward the waiting dead.

Cadeyrn smiled. A priest's smile. A betrayer's smile. 

"Sing for me," he whispered. "And make them need to believe."

The lanterns blinked out.

The sea remembered the shape of longing.