by S L Mason
To win, I need to change the playing field from his turf to mine. I begin singing, and when I reach the refrain about a dark horse I allow our eyes to meet. Cernunnos bellows. The power of it pushes me back, causing dust to filter down from the ceiling while shaking the stones.
“You will not mention that animal in my presence. Puca cannot interfere here.” Cernunnos flashes to my side, and his meaty hand snatches at my hair.
I clumsily bat his hand away with my dagger, drawing blood. It drips on the stone and grows a large toadstool with a red top and white speckles.
Raising his staff, he prepares to attack me again. But the rumble in my chest morphs the wooden handle into a willow branch and the red stone is left hanging encased in the tangled willow leaves at one end.
Cernunnos hums it into a whip, gripping the red stone tight in the palm of his hand, then pulls the thin tip behind his back before flicking to forward to sting my face.
“I can turn you into an ugly troll or you can give me the magic.” He flicks the willow whip left and right, allowing it to crack each direction.
I call on earth, and the stone walls move, shifting like puzzle pieces floating different directions. I waver on my feet as the stone I am perched on lifts, along with half the floor.
His willow whips out, wrapping around my neck. As my stone rises it pulls tighter, choking off my air. Sawing into the branch with my dagger, I hack at it until the end comes free.
Coughing, I rub the back of my hand across my throat to ease the pain away.
My best defense is a moving playing field—it keeps me on my toes, movement is life. I jump two stones over, not far above his head, and thrust Silver down at his large back.
Cernunnos turns his head and the giant rack on his head turns with him, wrenching Silver from my grasp. I cry out as it clatters to the ground.
“You’ve lost,” his deep voice bellows, vibrating my bones. He lifts his cloven hoof and stomps down, shattering the magic holding the quicksilver in check. I watch in horror as the silver liquid slips between the cracks in the floor, melting back into the earth it had been pulled from.
My chest heaves and tears threaten to overflow. Silver had become my trusted form of defense. The hilt lay on the ground blade-less and dull, through my fingers still ache to grip it in my hand.
Cernunnos flashes to my side, plowing his fist into the side of my face while I am distracted. I fall like a feather drifting on the wind before slamming into the soft earth of the floor.
Cernunnos gazes over the side of the large stone he squats on. Feeling for the last dagger housed in my thigh sheath, I wrap my fingers tightly around the handle and flash next to the stone chair.
“No, little one, not this time.” Cernunnos appears in front of me, just as I knew he would. I slash from right to left and left to right, creating an X from his shoulders to his belly. It’s enough to weaken him.
He staggers back, and I move forward and stab at his belly. The dagger would never pierce the muscles on his chest enough to reach his heart.
A vice-like grip on the back of my head squeezes, pulling me off balance. But I spy the red stone jewel in his other hand glowing with my heartbeat.
“You’re the reason the Queens fade. You kill them,” I remark.
He releases a chuckle. “You are a clever Changeling. However, intelligence won’t save you.”
The crushing pull on my chest begins again in earnest. Wild pulls at the edges of my mind, turning my instincts against me. The only desire I can feel is the need to flee from danger. Adrenaline rushes through my veins, feeding my fear and shaking my hold on my mind further.
The jewel siphons my magic away. I hone in on the only belief I can find. A real Queen can survive for a while at least. The stones’ pull must work both ways.
Cernunnos’ aura wakes the black of betrayal. Blinking back the black spots taking over my vision, I can make out the spell working on him. It emanates from the torc hanging on his antlers.
I pant to push back the pain shooting out from my heart. My beating pulse works like a pump, forcing the magic out of me and into the ruby jewel. The nerves along my skin send pain messages to my brain, singing my death.
The tears I was holding back pool and drip over the edge of my eyes to run down the sides of my face back into my hairline. I want the pain to stop, and one last chance to see my parents and Arty. Janice’s violet eyes light my mind along with our one kiss. What would Janice say? He would tell me not to fight like a human. Squeezing my eyes shut, I can still feel the vibrating from Cernunnos’ magic sucking every drop of mine dry.
I pulled a rabbit from a hat every time before, was it dumb luck?
“That’s it, little changeling, give me the magic,” Cernunnos dark voice wakes over me. His ancient magic eats mine as if I am nothing more than a bag of potato chips.
The challengers would need to keep coming until someone kills him and takes his place.
Puca’s words play through my head alongside Janice’s: don’t think like a human, don’t go for the obvious answer.
I don’t need to kill him.
Blinking to clear my vision, I search the wakes surrounding him for the spell— there had to be one. But as my magic fades, so does my Fae ability to see it.
Pulling the last of my strength to me, I flash to a stone slab floating close to the door. There, lying next to Nikki is her sword. Pulling it from her death grip, I flash again.
“We were almost done,” Cernunnos bellows.
Wiping the tears from my eyes, my hand comes away covered in blue blood. The floor where Cernunnos was pulling away my magic is covered in mushrooms.
The energy vial in my pouch is my last hope. I flash, hopscotching around the room as I rifle around for the tiny bottle. Pulling it from the bag triumphant, I pop the top and suck the golden drops of jet-fuel down my gullet to feed my body and shift into my next gear.
My eyes refocus, heightening what Fae is left in my blood. Tightening my grip on the vial, I flash again. The next stone I land on is close to the seat, and Cernunnos appears next to me. Tossing the bottle in the air, I push it next to the torc and hum to shatter it.
Cernunnos rears back and the torc slips from the tip of his antler. Humming the ‘come to me’ notes, I watch as it lands in my hand.
The wakes from the torc reach out to Cernunnos demanding its return.
“You must return my crown,” he pleads, for once weak and vulnerable.
“Give me back my magic!” I respond. Calling on fire, I blast a lava puddle in the next stone and wave the torc over the burning liquid pool.
“No, if you destroy it Fae will fall.” The lie rolls off his tongue so easily. He holds out the ruby jewel as an offering.
“Toss me the gem,” I demand, letting the torc slip over my hand and down my arm. The red stone rises in the air and I pull it into my hands.
It beats with a heart all its own. Humming, I pull the magic to me. The realm of Fae opens in my mind’s eye, revealing all. I flash to stand next to the stone seat.
“Don’t! You will regret it, all who take the stone chair do. The ruby is a way out for a tired Queen,” Cernunnos explains. The wake of lies follows his every word.
Pulling all the magic held in the stone, I devour it like a drug addict. It isn’t just mine, but the power of every girl who entered the room and the old Queen. All our magic rolled into one big hit of magical crack. Power radiates from the gem and into me.
It had worked like a straw, sucking the power away from one and giving it to another. I can also use it to weaken my enemies. For a moment, I want to keep it and use it against all who would stand against me, like Deston. The aching around my skull grows to epic proportions, as does the pressure around my spine. The thirst for that kind of power sits at the tip of my tongue, tempting me with its sweet intoxication.
My eyes search all around the room. I wave my arm and the stones fall back to their homes in the walls and floors leaving only dust motes lingering in
the air. My eyes land on Nikki’s corpse. I’d killed her for a prize— this prize. The stone is red with the blood it had stolen from all the girls lying on the flagstones. Each had reached for the seat in front of me, and all had failed.
I close my hand over the beating rock, heat wakes from the facets pulsing in time with my desire to keep my prize. A cold certainty steals over me, for it would, in the end, destroy me. I squeeze until it shatters, sending shards into the granite chair and surrounding walls. Rumbling, I pulverize the pieces into dust and blow them away to the farthest reaches of the Hallowed Hills.
“Never again will one Fae steal what belongs to another.” I take a step toward the cold seat before me, only to collide with an invisible wall.
Cernunnos slams his staff into the side of my head, knocking me off balance.
Stumbling, I flash out of range. The pounding in my head grows while blood slides down the back of my neck, causing the itching on my back to grow with my newfound magic.
Cernunnos flashes to my side. “Give me the torc and I’ll allow you to leave this room alive,” he demands. Lies, every word—he reeks with rage over what I’ve done. The stone is a drug, and he is an addict with no way to get a fix. He raises the wooden staff once again, minus the red jewel, to attack. I draw one of the chairs from the floor and slam it into his side.
Thrusting my hand out in front of me, I open a portal revealing the kitchen in my old house. Reaching through, I grab the first thing my hand lands on—the fire extinguisher—and pull it through.
With one swift motion, I hammer it into Cernunnos’ sternum and pull the safety pin, angling the hose at his hunched-over form and squeeze the release valve. The nitrous pushes the white, powdery foam from the canister, filling Cernunnos’ face and mouth.
He chokes, sweeping his staff left and right while searching for his target. But I jump to a new stone and open a new portal to the mushroom forest, then step through, groping, the loamy ground for a weapon other than Nikki’s sword. My fingers trail over a buckler and a short sword. I clutched both, then the leap back into the throne room.
Cernunnos vibrates for rain, but I block his call, morphing it into hail, then I watch as it beats down on him. He swings the staff wildly at any noise I make as I flash next to him and slash with the short sword. His staff connects with the buckler, knocking it loose. I flash to a new position before the buckler clatters against the stone below.
Finally, his vision clears and he flashes to square off with me. “You may produce a portal, but it will not save you.” He words ring hollow. He angles his staff on a collision course with my short sword. The hard wood of his staff cracks the metal of my blade, leaving me holding a jagged-tipped hilt.
Tossing it away, I flash to a new flagstone floating by the windows and open a portal to the bathroom in the cottage in Athens. Without taking my eyes from my opponent, I pick up the Khan 380 my father had given me hum a spell over it.
The pounding in my head reaches an epic proportion, causing my vision to blur. I flash to the stone seat and swallow back the butterflies in my chest.
Cernunnos stands between me and the only way to end this. Raising the gun, I take aim as he appears in front of me and I squeeze. The bullet penetrates his chest, throwing him back into the seat. I watch the deep blue blood of his life pump out on to the floor around my feet. His form slides down the granite seat, antlers raking over the hard stone until he finally slumps at my feet.
Coughing, he remarks, “Alice, I was such a fool. I didn’t mean to kill the stag, Deston tricked me.” His admission sounds so human.
Dropping the gun, I crouch down to add pressure to the wound and slow the blood flow. The torc on my arm burns when it touches Cernunnos skin.
The taste of evil wakes from the so-called crown. The wake lines are sharp and digging into Cernunnos, reminds me of Puca’s horse belts. Plucking one strand, then another, I pull the spell’s hold apart, one note at a time. My voice rises with a song I’ve never heard before, ripping the torc’s hold over the Fae before me.
As each string falls away, so does his enchantment. The antlers snap and wilt away, and his legs turn into the long, straight thighs of a man with feet and toes, leaving behind only a cloth to cover his manhood.
I pant—the effort of destroying this spell is taking more than I knew I could give. The last of the spell slips away, leaving only the shining torc in my hand pulsing with power.
Cernunnos’ eyes clear to a deep moss green, and his face softens into a normal Fae. “Puca stole my Alice away from me.” I freeze in place.
Alice, Puca, was he talking about my mother?
“Allison?” I whisper, holding my breath.
“Alice, my sweet love. Puca took her away from me. You look like her,” He muses and coughs blood.
Placing my hands on either side of his face, I sing with all my might and watch as the sucking hole in his chest closes and his breathing strengthens. His eyes droop with the energy I pull.
The ripping pain in my back crests with the music. My head screams.
When I finally let the music drift away and the magic dies, the Fae lying before me is sleeping with deep and easy sighs.
Waving my hand, I disintegrate the toadstools surrounding us and hum Cernunnos up into a bed that forms at my will, placing him gently on the petal-soft covers and a pussy-willow pillow.
Turning my attention away from the sleeping Fae before me and back to the slab that beckons, the invisible wall blocking my claim gone. Turning around, I face the room and with shaking limbs sit.
All at once a massive wake waves out from my point, and a ripping pain in my back tears open the humps residing there; a wet wind moves over my shoulders. Screaming in agony, I grip the armrest and my head rears back. I’m forced to lock my jaw down on the convulsing affliction taking over my being.
A crushing pressure warps my mind and my vision. Grabbing the sides of my skull, I encounter thorns-shaped horns protruding all around the back and side. The sharp tips curved in to face the center of my pate, dividing my hair into sections hanging between what had become a thorny crown.
The wake of torment arches away from me, clearing my eyes as it goes.
In the center of the room in the stone well blooms the flower I’d made with Janice. It finished blooming into an ebony black poppy and the sharp thorns angle out around the velvety petals, defending its delicate beauty.
A groan drifts from behind reaching me, and I turn to catch a glimpse of Cernunnos, but instead watch in amazement as wings flutter at my back. I whistle up a mirror just the way Lavender taught me, holding the last note longer than usual to increase size.
The scrolled wooden frame reveals my black hair sectioned off by glossy white, razor-sharp horns in a horseshoe shape around my head, and a set of misty green gossamer wings at my back, leaving wide golden eyes. Rearing up and pivoting on a dime, I stare at the mural behind me.
There, on the wall, is a Queen with golden hair and golden horns, the outline of wings at her back and her hand held by a black hair man with golden eyes. He carries a set of horns, too, and the legs of a satyr. It was the smile dancing over his lips that gives him away: Puca. He had been King, but he lives?
CHAPTER 27
“Yes, it’s me. You chose well, Granddaughter. I knew you would. Only one choice left to make.” Puca’s sudden appearance shakes the room and me.
“How?” I whisper in awe.
“Love, she made me and named me Oberon, King, but she was betrayed. The new Queen took the throne, freeing me. Being King changes you. I am not ruled like the rest of Fae. I am free.” Puca smirks and saunters up to my chair snatching my hand, he lays a gentle kiss on it and steps back.
“Why does Cernunnos hate you, and who is Alice?” I inquire with bated breath.
Puca cocks an eyebrow and crosses his arms. “He hates me? Humm, I didn’t know that. I’m surprised.” He flashes both rows of white teeth and uncrosses his arms. “That rarely happens for me but is the
norm when dealing with you or your mother. I helped Alice escape, your mother, Allison, Alice. We changed her name several times to protect her. Being the daughter of the once king of Fae is a dangerous thing.” In true Puca style, he prances around the room, searching the faces of the fallen.
He stops and lingers over Nikki, pushing the hair back from her fiercely beautiful face. His hand trails down to her chest to the mortal wound. His aura never changes, but the sorrow oozes from him. He coughs before returning to stand near my chair. “I liked this chair so much better when it sat in a meadow before Jillian lost us the surface and built this awful monstrosity.” He sighs with longing.
Taking a deep breath, I ask the question Puca is skirting in his oh so irritating fashion. “Who is Cernunnos to my mom?” I hold the air in my chest.
“Well, your father, of course. Who did you think? You really should spend a little more time paying attention to detail instead of fighting against it. Or you could go ask your mother, but that might be a bit awkward with your ‘dad’ around, humm?” He turns on one foot to leave.
“Where are you going?” I demand in confusion.
Throwing a glance over his shoulder, he says “You don't rule me, child. I go where I may. All of Fae will come to congratulate you and kiss up to you. Remember, however, that I was first, and don't make the obvious choice. I’ll see you around, your Majesty.” Puca winks and makes to step through the portal he’d called.
“Who betrayed your queen?” I demand.
His head lowers a fraction of an inch, but he never turns. “You already know, you’ve been told the story and met the fiend. Jacques, Jack.” He sighs.
“But Jacques failed, and broke his crown,” I remark.
Puca turns, leveling both golden eyes on me. “No, Jacques broke the Fae crown. Jillian fell much later when her king betrayed her. She tumbled after. What do they teach you these days? Fairytales are our history.” He throws his hands up in exasperation and steps back into his cottage, allowing Lavender and Janice to pass through the portal back to me.
