by Melody Rose
I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what else to do to help the creature, but I could save the spirit. I lifted my scythe just enough for the creature to shriek one more time before slamming it down to sever the head from the body. I stepped back, lifting my weapon. I looked at the blade, dripping with a black liquid that looked closer to the texture of gas, sort of like dry ice. Beneath the liquid, there was a glint that hadn’t been there before. I looked closer and realized the soul was now inside my scythe. I smiled a bit, resolving to visit the Bay that evening to set it free, all the while wondering what it must be like to exist within a scythe. Meanwhile, I had other business.
I looked at the creature before me, driven wild from possession, and knelt next to it. I knew no one else would be able to see it, but for the sake of what had once existed, I felt I owed it some sort of disposal. I placed my hand over the torso and concentrated my hellfire until the body lit up, purple flames burning like a bonfire. I sat and watched it, allowing the heat to warm me from the unnatural chill. It was a few minutes later that the fire fizzled out, leaving nothing but ash in its place.
15
Syrion
I stepped away from the Seelie, letting him drop to the ground.
“I told you, I don’t know anything else,” he coughed.
“Do you believe that?” I asked Daath.
“No,” my brother growled. “It sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”
It wasn’t bullshit, unfortunately. It was the truth. Leonne had no access to the memories we needed. There was something there that Minerva had gone to an immense amount of trouble to hide from the man himself, let alone anyone who wanted to access it.
We both knew this was a fool’s errand, and that sooner or later, his body would collapse from the mental strain, but neither of us wanted to stop yet. We wanted answers. We wanted Myrcedes to come home and stay, and this was all we could think of to help.
Daath walked over to the fae, crumpled on the ground, and grabbed a fistful of his hair, lifting his head to look at me. He shouted, begging me to stop, but I ignored these cries as I pressed on. In his memory, we had managed to find Myrcedes’ full name, though we hadn’t introduced her using it. After some probing, we were able to confirm that it was the Unseelie Queen’s voice he first heard say the name Myrcedes Kardia, but that was all. We weren’t able to unlock the full memory surrounding it, so we couldn’t determine why Minerva had told him about Myrcedes. Though just like Oli, this man had a memory of being threatened by the late fae ruler, and she had handed him a dagger to kill himself if he was ever to be questioned regarding the information we now sought.
I dove into his mind once again. I pulled up the memory of Myrcedes’ name and focused on that, peering through emptiness. That was the most frustrating thing to find because no one’s memory was ever truly empty. If it was, it was because someone had stolen things from him, and at some point, it was too late to get it back.
I sensed Daath in his mind, as well.
Daath, I warned. Stop.
His presence remained. I could feel him digging as I had been, trying to tear through things that just, unfortunately, didn’t exist at the moment.
You know what this will do to him.
As Daath continued, Leonne’s screams filled the small concrete room. I sensed a hint of blood pumping too hard within the Seelie’s brain. I swore at my brother in my mind and pulled away mentally. Two people pushing and pushing in one mind was too much, especially a mind we had already torn apart. It put his brain under too much pressure, and if I hadn’t jumped out when I did, it might have killed him.
Finally, Daath gave up, dropping the man’s head and shouting in frustration. I watched him march around the small room. Since we had used it for nothing else, the room had begun to stink of a faint coppery scent of blood and stale sweat. We’d never used the basement of the House of Stars for anything before, and we certainly didn’t intend for it to be some sort of dungeon or torture chamber, but what we were doing needed infinitely more secrecy than we could get in the Moonstone Castle. There were too many eyes in the castle, and while we trusted everyone, we didn’t like the idea of anyone knowing we were kidnapping the highest-ranked people in the fae realm one at a time.
Leonne began to beg for mercy, and I sighed, slamming my fist into the stone wall. The orange-haired Seelie cowered in the corner, begging us to leave him alone. We’d been interrogating him for three days while Myrcedes was on Earth.
Leonne was the fourth council member we’d brought in for questioning. Myrcedes had been there for Oli and for the next two, but she didn’t have time to keep jumping back and forth between saving the Earth, worrying about the fae realm, and interrogating prisoners.
It had been a few days since I’d spoken to Myrcedes. Daath reached out to her at least once a day. He missed her terribly. Of course, I did too. For some reason, however, I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. I’d hardly spoken to Daath either unless we were speaking of strategy. I’d pulled away from both of them the past week or so.
“I need a break,” I said to Daath. He looked surprised but nodded before turning to the oldest Seelie alive now that Minerva was dead.
“You’re in luck. We’ll be back.”
“Think hard, Leonne,” I added. “It’s in your best interest.”
The Seelie quietly sobbed as we ascended the stairs out of the makeshift dungeon.
“There’s a chance he could die before we get what we need,” Daath admitted. I nodded. I knew he was right, as much as I didn’t want to admit it. “She must have repressed these memories so long ago they’ve all but actually been erased.”
“That means the prophecy happened long ago,” I pointed out. That seemed significant, but knowing that didn’t help us at all. We knew there was something missing because his memories seemed to stop at a very sudden point. After a lot of digging on behalf of us both, we had been able to pull some more memories out regarding Minerva, likely from the day she blocked what we were failing to find. Before discovering that, we’d found clear memories of conversations with her about Myrcedes in the past two years and where she was living at the time, plans to enlist the help of Daath’s own reapers, and even sending spies into the Moonstone Castle. That was the easy stuff to get to. If there was something that was hard to find, that meant it was even more important.
“Perhaps there’s another member of the council who will remember it better,” Daath began. “Darce is next, but she might be too young…”
At some point, I stopped listening to him. I wasn’t trying to ignore my brother, but it didn’t take much to set my mind wandering these days. Ever since I’d watched Myrcedes come out of the Floor of Dreams, something in me was unsettled. She had still seemed confused when she came out, but sure in a way. She knew something about herself she didn’t know before, understood her purpose in a way she otherwise would not have. I wanted that.
“… Syrion? Syrion!”
I blinked and looked up at my brother. I saw confusion in his face, and I understood it. There had been times in the past when Daath had tried to hide things from me, things he thought I wouldn’t or couldn’t understand, even just in an attempt to protect me. It had always hurt. I longed to open up to him, to pour out all that was on my mind. Yet I didn’t know how.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Daath, I’m just absentminded this evening.”
I heard his voice reply, but he chose to do so in my mind rather than out loud. Syrion, will you tell me what’s wrong?
I hesitated before answering. No.
I watched him shift. I knew this caused him pain. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I would even say. I couldn’t explain what had been going on with me. Something for several weeks had begun to feel out of place. It began right after we returned from being trapped by Minerva. I didn’t understand why I felt confused, even scared, and most of all, I didn’t want to admit that I did, not to myself and certainly not to Daath. I could pretend nothing was wrong as lo
ng as I didn’t talk about it. Once I opened up, there was no turning back.
I worried Daath would push, forcing me to hurt him further, but my brother knew better than that. I imagined he knew that I would open up when I was ready, as I had known so many times before. He simply nodded.
“I’m going to go to bed,” I said, taking his hand and pressing my forehead to his, sharing a breath. I felt him relax, reminded that our connection was real and unfading. “Goodnight, Daath.”
“Goodnight,” he nodded. He headed for the study. I assumed he was going to reword his invitation to Darce to reschedule our meeting with her. We were going to wait for Myrcedes before we spoke to anyone else, but I knew Daath was antsy for answers. I waited until he was out of sight before I headed out the door. I closed my eyes into darkness and opened them in front of the Moonstone Castle. I pulled my hood up over my head, not that it did any good hiding me. I was massive compared to the majority of residents in the castle.
I walked into the castle and slyly made my way to the entrance of the staircase. I looked up and let down my hood as I began climbing the staircase to the Floor of Dreams.
16
Kalian
I knocked on the door to Myrcedes’ apartment, feeling annoyed that I had to be there. She’d sent Siena to tell me that she wanted me to come to visit her in Seattle to help her with something. I felt like a fucking errand boy, at the beck and call of the oh so gracious newly crowned Queen who’d gone out of her way to save my poor pitiful life. Everyone believed I was indebted to her because she saved my life. There was absolutely no one who believed the Kings were indebted to me for saving them from Minerva, however.
Unbeknownst to everyone so graciously hosting me at the Moonstone Castle, I’d snuck back into the fae realm the day before. I found myself still focused on what I’d experienced there.
I just wanted to know what was going on in my home. I didn’t know where to get answers without making it too obvious that I was back, so I went to the bar. Not many people outside the army knew what I looked like, save those who had been to my trial. I was banking pretty heavily on the hope that none of them would be at that tavern that night. The only outfits I had were the Earth clothes Myrcedes had left me, which were atrocious. Every aspect of the fabric known as denim horrified me. I had sweet-talked the horned sex demon into finding me some more toned down clothing, though I hadn’t told her what I wanted it for specifically.
I walked down to the end of the bar, ordered a beer, and sat. My plan, not that I had much of one, was to listen to the pub talk and gossip. There were two young brownies next to me at the bar that were being quite chatty when I walked up, and I thought I’d hit the jackpot. However, after listening to forty minutes of them discussing the merits of the brownie their master had hired to replace them, I was ready to give up. I stood and pulled out some gold, handing it to the bartender, a short goblin with dark green skin and wide features.
“Thanks, General.”
I paused and turned back to the creature. “Excuse me?”
A shit-eating grin spread across the goblin’s face. “You didn’t think I’d forget your face, did you?”
Realization dawned on me, and I was just barely able to keep from jumping over the counter and tackling the three-foot beast.
“Pukk! You damned monster, why didn’t you say something sooner?” I laughed, sitting back down in my seat and reaching over the counter to shake her hand. I hadn’t seen her since I’d been promoted to General and had come here to celebrate.
“I was waiting on you to recognize me,” she chuckled. Her voice was deeper than most Seelie when they first joined the army as recruits but damned if she didn’t have twice as much charm as that sex demon that had been chasing me around the castle for weeks. “Clearly, your mind was in other places, my boy.”
“I’m so sorry I failed you, madam,” I bowed my head, smiling more than I had in what felt like months. “How’ve you been?”
“Healthy as a spring cockatrice! Finally reached that age where it’s hard to keep a companion around for very long.” She laughed and shook her head, refilling my beer. “I’ve buried three since I saw you last.”
My eyes must have been the size of dinner plates, and I only just stopped my jaw from dropping.
“You must be some lover for men to keep following you to their demise,” I teased. Male goblins had lifespans that were only half that of their female counterparts, so older goblin women usually decided to forego male company altogether to avoid the headache. Pukk, however, was never one to pass up a good conversation, so she was always happier with a companion around.
“I guess so,” she smirked. “I’m not too sick of funerals just yet. You haven’t found a wife yet, have you, General?”
“No,” I shook my head. For some reason, an image of Myrcedes popped into my head, contorting my expression to a frown. Why the hell was I thinking of her? I’d been spending too much time at her damn castle.
“All right, no need for nasty faces,” the goblin laughed. “Sorry to ask. So what are you doing nowadays, after the… um, you know?”
Of course, she knew about my trial. It didn’t surprise me. I simply shrugged. “I wish I had an answer for you.”
I supposed she was hoping for a more hopeful answer as if I’d found some peace in exile or a new purpose. I didn’t feel that way. I felt as though I was a stray taken in by creatures that couldn’t wait to kick me out, and I was anxious to be gone from them myself. But where else would I go?
She seemed to sense my somber shift and decided to change the subject. “Well, that doesn’t matter. What in the world are you doing here, though? You came in to nurse one beer for an hour and then leave without saying two words?”
I smiled and shook my head. I could be honest with the barkeep, of that I was sure. “I just wanted to hear about what’s been going on.”
A sullen look appeared on her usually cheerful face, and my heart sank to my stomach. That couldn’t be good.
“Well…” She began to wipe sections of the bar with a rag. It was obvious as she went over the clean wood that she just didn’t want to look me in the eye. “Your friends are in here often, those other army brats. They talk a lot. They tend to rile people up. After your trial, nobody would talk about anything else, and they all seemed to think you’d done the right thing, General. But that Bahz started coming around…”
As soon as she said his name, I felt sick. “What’s he been getting up to?”
“He’s, uh… telling tales. Calls you a traitor… you know how he could always persuade people to see his way, especially when they’ve been drinking. So now a lot of folks see things his way. One night that reaper came in here, the elf, and you know I don’t let anyone bother elves in here as long as they’ve got the money to pay for their drinks. But Bahz followed her in here, and before I could finish pouring the girl a beer, the whole bar had screamed at her to get out.”
I listened intently to all she told me, taking things in. It seemed to me that Bahz was going out of his way to stir things up, but I couldn’t fathom why. It was all over. Minerva was dead, and there was no bringing her back. I knew he wasn’t a fan of elves, but the situation with Serriah was only temporary. Besides, he wasn’t fond of goblins either, but he still came to Pukk’s bar and treated her with respect when he did.
The next day, I was going over these events and all I’d learned in my head as I waited outside of Myrcedes’ apartment on Earth. When Myrcedes finally opened the door, I began cursing in my head as I did most of the time when I saw her. She was wearing that damn leather vest and those stupid black pants. Seeing them always pissed me off. I hated how much effort I had to put in not to stare at her figure like that.
“Kalian,” she smiled sweetly. She was so sweet to me. I’d been nothing but nasty toward her since moving into that castle. It made no sense for her to be so damn sweet. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“What did you need my help with?” I asked coo
lly. This had been a wonderful experience in learning to suppress emotions. I’d had enough training in that as an army General, but this was different. I’d tried to think about it, but I was unable to pinpoint exactly why being around her was so frustrating.
“I’ve been working out some stuff in Seattle and Portland,” she began. “But there’s something in Portland that I can’t track down. I can tell the magic is there, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I was hoping you could help me with that.”
I nodded. “Of course. Anything you need.” I sounded like a General again. Moments like that were easy to fall into, repeating habits and phrases I’d used a lot during my time in the army, but they always hurt. They reminded me that life was over every time I started to miss it.
“Thank you,” she smiled again. She reached into her apartment and grabbed her scythe from the other side of the wall. I took a bit of a step back. I’d never been so close to a reaper’s scythe before.
“What do you need that for?”
She tilted her head. “It’s come in handy quite a few times. Some of the activity is malicious. I don’t use it if I don’t have to but,” she playfully tossed it back and forth between her hands as if it were some kind of toy, all the while smiling like nothing about this was strange, “sometimes it’s necessary.”
I stared at my reflection in the blade. That was as close to a reaper’s scythe as I wanted to get for at least a few thousand more years. She sensed my distaste and sheathed it on her back.
“Don’t worry,” the small woman assured me. “I don’t plan to use it on you.”
