The Twelve Courts of Midnight
A story for the winter solstice. It is the longest night, the time of the Telling, when the Dark Lord calls his courts to his castle to honour the Dark Lady of Winter. The twelve finest storytellers of the land gather to tell tales until the sun is safely reborn. It is a competition of sorts, but there is no winner, only losers and they lose their lives.
1. Summoned
The pig’s heart hasn’t done it. Nor the scattering of blood on the bones of our dead. The prayers carved from pine haven’t been heard, and those tied to the thousand-year thorn have struggled free to no avail. My father still lies tongue-dead – his eyes rolled back, his body shaking and his spirit all but lost to us. This I know, just as I know my mother’s fretting and the medicine-man dredging his bag of cures will change nothing. The summons will arrive and someone other than the Lord of this Court will go to the Telling to battle darkness for the promise of light.
Laff thinks it should be me. He has just told me so. And though he has hurried back to the hothouse, I still feel his squat form before me, telling me I must go. His bright eyes searching my depths for something they can’t quite find. The necessary talent, maybe.
It is not so easy to step into my father’s shoes – I am too young, the wrong sex and the least trained Teller at the House of Honeysuckle. Every word counts on the night of the Telling, and I am the first to realise my strength is my imagination, not my sense of economy.