Keepers of the Crown

by Lydia Redwine

  “I doubt that,” Caleb said, his voice dropping to a soothing tone. “She’s looking at everyone like that. Like she thinks she’s some sort of hawk. Anyway, Cam will signal soon. We will be fine. But in the meantime, I would like to not have my hand broken,” Caleb replied.

  Fiera instantly loosened her tight grip on his hand. His face was a mask of calculating countenance that all wore in this room. The only sign of amusement was in his tone which was now cold as two men swept by them. Caleb was saying something else, but Fiera didn’t hear it. Sheheard only her own hammering heart: the sound of her own self-control taking a toll on her body. Lia had split Fiera’s hair into several loose braids streaked with silver. She also wore a mask and a dress she normally wouldn't even touch. But perhaps she would still be recognized.

  Fiera had never felt so much tingling in her body before. Had never felt like she would throw up so intensely. The music was dying down. Slicing off entirely, actually. And Silva was standing, a goblet in her hand. And there were figures entering, their hands bound together with the same chains the queen was wearing. Fiera clenched her jaw against the gasp clawing up her throat. Adria and Mista looked worse than when she had last seen them. They were clad in clothing as elaborate as the queen’s, but they were too thin. Too pale. And their eyes...the emptiness…

  Fiera didn’t realize she had jerked forward, until Caleb’s arm was around her waist, pulling her back. “Fiera,” was all he whispered. He said her name as a soft command.

  “Welcome, guests of the conquered,” Silva’s voice was a knife on the screaming silence. The rustling of cloaks and costumes faded into utter stillness. Fiera was holding her breath as her mother’s eyes scanned the room. She looked away when the queen’s gaze slipped over her. But she tried not to look at her sisters.

  And the other hostages. There were...so many more of them than Fiera had thought there would be. At least a hundred. “We have to get a hundred people out of here? Andwill Silva be willing to bargain a hundred people in exchange for some fancy headwear?”

  “Please, enjoy the feast we have prepared for those managing the cities beneath and our guests. Games will follow the feasting and the night will close when morning breaks with more dancing.” The niceties made Fiera sick. And the smile Silva was wearing was a mask in and of itself. But Fiera could not look away.

  The queen was gliding toward one of the tables in which chairs flanked rows upon rows of goblets. The table had to be as long as the room, for the guests, including the hundred newcomers, found chairs for themselves easily.

  Silva sat first, the feline bend of her body slackening over the chair positioned at the head of the table. Slowly, Fiera slipped into her own seat with Caleb beside her. Candles so numerous Fiera wouldn't even try to count, flickered at intervals along the table. The fire wasn’t blue as Fiera had expected but was just as eerie even as it burned bright and warm. She tried not to look frantically around her to find who else she knew was nearby. Or to look up at Adria who was seated right across from her.

  They couldn’t risk even a glance of recognition. Because if any of these keeneyed creatures noticed…

  Fiera drowned the thought as she pretended to drink from the goblet before her. She set the cup down before her gaze fell on the space across from her. And all those that the hostages occupied.

  They did not have goblets.

  Were not allowed to drink.

  “Because they have to stay alive,” Fiera realized. “Which means…”

  She squeezed Caleb’s hand. Hard. Hard enough that he kicked her under the table. But her stern gaze told him enough.

  These goblets were poisoned. The smell was subtle yet still present. Fiera had spent enough time in Cinis Lumen learning the scents of distinct and foreign poisons to know this one. “Fireflower...from the desert lands,” she remembered.

  It was not poison that would kill instantly, as she remembered when she realized that all those who had drunk were still chattering on. But poison nonetheless. The creatures would guess that not allowing the hostages to drink the wine was some sort of torture.

  Fiera knew that their company was smart enough not to drink. But that meant something far worse.

  “When they die…” The thought trembled in Fiera’s mind. “Then she’ll know who hasn’t drunk. We’ll be exposed.” And perhaps that was Silva’s plan. Perhaps she had already guessed them to be here. Her gaze was too keen on individuals to mean much else.

  “There’s something else going on here...not just a torturing game with hostages. Not just to trap us.”

  Caleb was lifting the goblet to his lips. Pretending. At least, Fiera hoped he was pretending. She silently took the food that was passed to her without looking at what was actually on the platter. Probably flesh and bone and not of the animals Fiera was used to hunting and eating herself.

  Her eyes roved the guests on down the line. Silva, though several seats away, still seemed too close. Her gaze was too sharp on everything that was happening. On all the hands moving and the mouths opening.

  Fiera nearly jumped out of her skin when the creature to her left spoke.

  Spoke to her.

  A hissing tongue between thin lips dropped strings of words Fiera did not know. Her muscles tightened. She passed a platter. The creature seemed satisfied.

  And then...everything froze.

  At least, Fiera froze. She felt her very blood freeze. The creature across from her, diagonally to her left was staring. Or, at least, she thought it to be staring. She could not see its eyes or face or anything beneath the dark hood.

  Its hands, poised with fork and knife before it, were so still Fiera would have thought the creature to be a statue. She tore her gaze away. “Do notletyour fear show. Conceal it...don’t show anything.”

  Fiera tried to move. Busy herself with anything. She shoved food into her mouth. The same food her fellow comrades and hostages were eating.

  “Tell us,” Silva started, her voice so loud and clear those at the far end of the table were diverting their attention to her. “Tell us, those who have come to us from the west, your experiences thus far here in Mingroth. You have seen my home, but those who govern the cities would be more than obliging to allow you into their dwelling places. Quite interesting are their homes.”

  Silva’s eyes were sparkling too much.

  Fiera couldn’t resist looking at Adria. Her sister’s mouth was sealed shut, her eyes cast downward. Her body was hunched over. Adria, who was so normally elegant, looked as though she were drifting asleep. A sleep one is too afraid to drift into. Especially at a party where half the guests are being poisoned and don’t even know it.

  “Well, it's been...an experience,” came a voice. A voice that was too cheerful. Fiera turned as did all other eyes. Mista’s eyes were also sparkling too much. She popped a piece of fruit into her mouth.

  Silva’s eyes narrowed. Fiera tried not to lurch towards her sister, to bash her on the head and tell her to shut up. Antagonizing the Queen of Poison wasn’t a good idea. Just yet.

  As Fiera tried to stare down her sister enough to at least gather her attention, she noticed other sounds. Sounds that were not hissing. Heavy, labored breathing. Not everyone was breathing that way.

  Only the ones that had drunk the wine.

  Fiera stole a glance at the creature beside her. A sheen of sweat draped its brow, and it wasn’t sweat garnered from the dancing. Even the creature whose face Fiera could not see seemed to be coiling a bit.

  “It's affecting them. Not long now,” she thought as she gripped Caleb’s hand. And by the tightening in Caleb’s back, she knew he knew it too.

  Another voice drifted down the table. A voice Fiera had not at all expected. All sounds from mouths thus far had either been human or the hissing of the Shadow Bearers. But this voice…

  A boy was speaking. “I wouldn’t call this place a home, exactly.”

  Fiera did not recognize him. But he could have come from Mirabelle.

 
Silva’s brows rose, her eyes widening, and her hand stilled as she was brought her goblet to her lips. She was…surprised. “Really, now? And where, boy, is your home? Oh, that’s right…” shebegan, her voiceabladeofice. “Idestroyed it, didn’t I?” Her eyes held mockery that her voice only begun to reveal.

  But the boy did not sink inward. He remained still with those wide, wavering eyes pinned on the queen. “My home was never in Mirabelle. My home is elsewhere. It will always be elsewhere. I am but a light and a shadow in this world.”

  “A light and a shadow?” Fiera repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?” And as she gazed at the boy longer, she could not deny that he was the bravest one here. The only one who didn’t hold a glint of fear in his eyes or expression.

  Even theShadowBearers couldcoil at thequeen’s words. But the boy...he wasn’t afraid in the least.

  Silva was reacting. “A light I will squelch at my own whim,” she said, her voice so icy Fiera felt it in her bones. She leaned back, her body slackening into something more relaxed. The queen draped an arm over her own chair while still holding the goblet.

  “Besides,” she said, still gazing at the boy. “Death is but an art I have learned. An art I could wield at any given...second.”

  The queen drank.

  And the first arrow struck the creature next to Fiera.

  A scream curdled the air.

  And then the sounds of chaos erupted.

  Erupted like the blood spouting from the skull now thudding to the table beside her. She couldn’t contain a shriek. Could not restrain her body from jumping and then trembling. And it wasn’t just her. It was everyone but Silva. And the boy. The boy who seemed to know it would happen.

  Another arrow. And then another. Striking intended targets. Striking those whose breathing had become so heavy. So the poison had been a mechanism of determining who would receive execution.

  Fiera saw a blade flash. And then another. The hissing screams of the Shadow Bearers were cut off, dropping to the floor like shattered glass.

  They were twisting themselves out of thin air, the ones with arrows and blades.

  “Shadow Bearers killing theirown kind…” Fiera realized with great alarm. Fiera heard only the numb sounds of the assassins slicing open flesh, jerking their blades into eye sockets and ripping apart limbs.

  She only heard death even as those around her who had not drank scrambled away, their cries of terror echoing through the enormous chamber. Chairs and people were crashing, the sound tremendous.

  Fiera stumbled back, her body reacting quickly. She snatched her hand to her back only to remember she had no bow and arrows on her. She fell just as warm liquid splattered her face. The metallic taste of blood spraying her face.

  Another body went flying across the table, crashing into goblets and platters, sending dishes to the floor and walls. Screams ricocheted. And Fiera felt one in her own throat.

  This ball...it had nothing to do with the hostages. Nothing to even do with them. This was a massacre…

  “Of her own people.” The thought clanged in Fiera’s skull as she pulled herself up to the table.

  Fiera could barely feel herself breathing, could just barely feel her own hands in the blood pooling the table. Sweat was trickling down her back.

  And the assassins had stilled.

  The Shadow Bearers of Air and Fire who had come from seemingly nowhere stood still upon the table, dripping in the blood of their own kind.

  Silva was rising, her hand bringing the goblet down to the table with the sound of finality. Her drink had been the signal. Her eyes were flaring with fury as she screamed, “Does nothing scare you, boy?”

  Fiera’s headwas jerkedtotheonly seat inwhich someone was still sitting. The boy’s eyes were pooling with tears, but yet he still seemed not afraid. He was trembling, but he held the queen’s stare.

  His voice was a hoarse whisper but one which echoed all the way to Fiera’s ears. “I. Have. Seen. Worse.”

  Fiera’s bones trembled,andshefelther own tears welling up in her eyes. Her nerves were lava, tingling with a wildfire waking inside her.

  Silva was laughing, the sound so sharp and cynical, it had the assassins twisting themselves into the air and vanishing. She leaned forward, both hands braced like claws on the table. She scraped them down, her long fingernails carving marks into the wood. “You have seen nothing, boy.”

  And Fiera swore she saw fire in her mother’s eyes.

  Silva was still laughing, her breathing erratic. “And who are all of you? Not all of you were taken from Mirabelle.” Her smile widened into something wicked. “There are more than I invited here.”

  Everything inside of Fiera simultaneously died and awoke in fear. A raging beast beneath her skin, one which coiled and coward. Silva leaned forward, her tongue lashing out. “Where. Are. Youuuu?” The hissing jolted Fiera.

  And then, at last, Cam’s voice drifted from the very end of the table. She had risen, walking through the parted crowd of quaking persons whose eyes were still fastened to the bodies littering the table and floor and all the blood. So much blood.

  Cam’s mask had fallen off, her face exposed.

  And Fiera realized that hers had too.

  “Right here,” Cam said, her voice without any trace of fear. voice Fiera was convinced she could not speak with herself. And the others...Caleb included were removing their masks. One by one with purposeful slowness.

  Silva’s expression had remained steely. Only a hint of surprise flickered in her expression. She amusement in her expression fading. But returned all too soon. “Why, if it isn’t a little sneak in…”

  Cam interrupted, her voice as sharp as the dagger in her hand. “What a remarkable party you have held here this night. What a shame I wasn’t properly invited.” Cam smirked. The guests all around them were flicking their attention between Silva and Cam, clearly wondering what was happening.

  “Ido not deal well with thosewho arriveuninvited,” Silva returned coolly as she casually looked down at her fingernails. “I’ll bring the assassins back and perhaps they can finish you off too.” She tilted her head at Cam. “Smart. That you didn’t drink the poison.”

  Cam smirked again and leaned forward to brace her hands against the table. “I know better than to deal with your poison. As for the assassins, you do not want to kill me or any of my people including those you took from their homeland.”

  “No,” Silva said, her voice light. “I believe I took their homeland from them.”

  Cam spoke quickly. “I know the whereabouts of the Crown of Caelae.”

  “You lie,” Silva seethed, and yet the air twisted back into seen forms of those she had signaled. The Shadow Bearer’s landed with bared teeth and low, rumbling snarls.

  Cam simply shook her head. “I did not follow you onthat path.” She spit the words, her smile vanishing. “If you kill me straightened, the a snarling sneer now, the location of the Crown of Caelae will never come of knowledge to you.”

  Silva’s poison colored eyes flashed. “I will hand you over to them to gain such knowledge if you do indeed possess it.” She motioned towards the Shadow Bearers around her.

  “I will die before I ever tell you where the Crown is!” Cam’s voice rose slightly. “And so will my followers. You can torture them before my eyes, but we have made an oath to one another that the whereabouts of the Crown stay secret among us.” She held Silva’s faltering gaze. “You believe me,” she said in a higher tone. “I mean every word.” Cam’s fake smile returned.

  “What do you want?” Silva inquired icily.

  “You will release the hostages and allow us to exit from your territory with all safety ensued.”

  Silva released a terrible, mocking laugh. “Really now? You expect me to just give you what you want!” She thrust her hands out, laughing further. “I could have you killed right now, and my people will continue looking for the Crown.”

  “Even if you find the Crown you cannot access it!”
Cam shouted, interrupting Silva’s words. Silva fell silent and confusion seemed to sweep her expression uncontrolled.

  “I have already slain your people! Mirabelle sits in ruins! Your survivors are far too few! I will kill you.” A slight tremble of rage rattled through Silva’s tone.

  “You will pay for your poison.” This time, the words did not comefrom Cam’s mouth. Sheglancedto her left to seeMista, standing tall and gripped with courage and boldness. “You had no right to treat your daughters as you have done as well as the hundreds of innocent lives you cost. You will burn, Silva, for eternity.”

  The room was suddenly hushed. Mista seemed as if she wished to say much more, but she refrained and set her mouth in a thin line.

  Silva only laughed, but Cam had seen the hurt flicker for a mere second in her eyes. “Perhaps I will burn. But you, child, will burn first.”

  The queen scoffed and straightened to fold her arms over her chest. “And what makes me actually believe that what you speak is true?”

  “Because, Silva, someone here told us your real last name. Andel, I believe. Though, I liked Briar better,” Cam said with a coolness that spread throughout the room.

  “Finally…” Fiera breathed.

  “You see...when we found Ilea, as was the Seeker’s goal, we knew we had an edge. You see, it wasn’t about the stolen magic of Mirabelle. It was about the Crown of Caelae and everything Ilea knew about it.” Cam braced her own hands on thetable, her mouth twistinginto a triumphant grin. “Youwould remember Ilea having the Crown during her stay here.”

  Ilea appeared beside her, her shoulders hunched. Cam removed the mask from the darker woman's face. Ilea’s eyes were downcast, her body shaking. She was playing the role well. Too well, perhaps.

  Surprise swept over Silva’s expression. But not one of recognition. A look that showed she did not know what to do or say next.