Hackii's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Hackii pinned the queen's letter to his study wall, though she had never written him one. He had copied her words from a border proclamation instead. "None may enter the shadowed court uninvited." He read it every morning. He wanted the fae queen of Waspwood to love him, and she did not know his name. His home was a stone manor wrapped in ivy, the vines so thick they had cracked the walls and clawed across the tall windows. He had inherited it and little else. For a month he had studied the court's laws, its customs, its border. Every path led to the same wall. Without an invitation, the fae would turn him away. So he made a plan. Invitations passed through the border only in the hands of the queen's messengers. If he could not earn one, he would carry one. He would offer himself as a courier and slip inside behind the seal. Hackii waited three nights at the edge of the wood, where the road thinned to a deer track. On the third night a lantern floated toward him. The messenger wore a coat sewn from moth wings and carried a folded letter marked with a black wax rose. "I serve the court," Hackii said. "Let me carry that for you." The messenger stopped. Its eyes caught the lantern light and threw it back green, brighter than his own. "You are not of the court," it said. Its voice buzzed, low and dry. "The seal knows who touches it. Take this letter, and it will burn the hand that has no leave to hold it." Hackii held out his hand anyway. "Then let it burn." The messenger studied him a long moment. Then it laughed, a sound like wind through dead reeds. "Bold. The queen has no patience for bold men. But she is curious about foolish ones." It reached into its coat and drew out a second thing, small and folded, a scrap of pale bark. "This is not an invitation," it said. "It is a summons. The queen has heard a mortal watches her border. She wishes to see the face of the fool. Come at the next dark moon. Come alone." Hackii took the bark. It did not burn. On it, someone had drawn a single mark, a rose with its petals folded shut. The messenger lifted its lantern and walked back into the trees. "You wanted through the border," it called over its shoulder. "Now you are through. Pray you still want it when you stand before her." Hackii stood alone on the deer track. He had a way in. But he had not been invited as a suitor. He had been called as a curiosity, to amuse a queen who ate bold men and laughed at fools. The dark moon was six nights away. He turned toward the manor and began to plan what he would say when she finally looked at him.