by Alicia Wolfe
He had better senses than I did, I thought, because Calista still looked remarkably strong to me. But then, Walsh was far stronger than I was or could ever be. His keener senses shouldn’t surprise me. Especially since some of them had probably come from me—that is, my fire.
“You had your chance,” Calista said.
Without wasting another moment, she leveled her staff at him. A great energy crackled around her, building up inside her. The magic didn’t come from the staff, I knew, she was merely using that to channel it through, sort of like a gun firing a bullet. Only she was the bullet. Or something like that, anyway.
A bright orange column of energy flooded out from the end of the staff and poured directly into Walsh. The column struck his chest, driving him back, and he roared, this time in pain and fury. The magical blast didn’t deflect off his armor like the others had, and it kept on going, just pounding him and pounding him like some sort of magical firefighter water hose.
He opened his mouth to hurl fire at Calista—and the rest of us, since we were all gathered around her—but she simply waved a hand, taking it off the staff for a moment, and Walsh’s fire died in his throat, becoming smoke instead. Coughing on the smoke, assaulted by her continuous blasts of energy, Walsh was driven from the walls foot by foot.
“You go, girl!” I told Calista, ignoring Davril’s frown. For his part, he had drawn his sword and was holding it firm, as if prepared to leap onto Walsh’s head if the dragon-mage should come too close. “Get him!” I added to Calista.
She did. She pushed Walsh back and back, and the Fae along the wall cheered. The magic-users among them joined their weapons with hers, and in seconds two dozen blasts of energy were assaulting Walsh.
“You haven’t seen the last of me,” he bellowed.
He pumped his wings hard, turned about, and flew away. The Fae along the wall continued to cheer. I pumped my fist and started to pat Calista on the back, then thought better of it. We watched Walsh recede into the night until he was just a speck in the darkness, then not even that.
“You’ve done it, Your Majesty,” Liara told Calista. “You’ve saved us all.”
Calista was breathing hard, and a sheen of sweat had broken out on her brow. She was now leaning on the staff for support, not using it as a weapon. Just the same, she still looked regal and powerful.
She nodded once, accepting the praise. “He is a mighty foe,” she said. “Who is he?”
Attention swung to me, and a nervous flutter coursed through me. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m the one who brought him here.”
“You?”
Davril stepped in. “To save you, Your Majesty, we had to save a human witch from that monster, who happens to be an old enemy of Jade. He pursued us after we liberated the witch. Fortunately, it worked, and she was able to heal you.”
“And you were able to save us all,” Liara put in.
I was grateful for Davril’s help, but also surprised. I watched his face, but I could get no reading off him.
Fortunately, Calista wasn’t so inscrutable. She smiled widely, took one of my hands, and squeezed it, which was as close to a hug as queens probably allowed themselves. Her skin was hot and as smooth and soft as butter. I wondered what hand lotion she used, or if she used any at all. Maybe Fae were like that naturally.
“Then I owe you a debt of gratitude,” Calista said.
“Um, well, thanks,” I said. “Maybe, you know, you could like not prosecute me?”
“Prosecute you?”
“Well, Davril locked me up and everything, then went to report me to you.”
Surprise passed across Calista’s face, but then she smiled. “My dear, Lord Stormguard may have done what he felt necessary, but the reason he was with me in the Throne Room when you came upon us during Angela’s assault was not to report your misdeeds—well, not exactly; he did have to tell me why he locked you up—but that’s not what he was doing. He was defending you to me. He was arguing for your release.”
I gasped. My eyes jerked to Davril. His own eyes looked back for a moment, then, clearly uncomfortable, turned away. I felt a strange heat flutter in my chest.
Ruining the moment, Lord Greenleaf stepped forward. “My lady, Prince Jereth is even now on his way to the Palace. If you do not retake your throne before he arrives, he might well install himself as Lord of the Fae.”
Calista blinked, then straightened her spine. She held herself up on her own two feet, no longer using the staff.
“Take me to the Palace,” she said.
Ten minutes later saw us all flying in wedge formation over the city toward the Palace. I kept expecting Walsh to come barreling at us out of the darkness, but there was no sign of him. I wondered how long he could maintain his dragon form. Most likely, he was off licking his wounds somewhere. I hoped Calista had hurt him bad. But not too bad. I still wanted to be the one who ended him.
We arrived at the Palace to find it being put back together. Blood was being mopped up, bodies arrayed in lines, halls that had been half-collapsed were being made accessible again. Fae bowed to Queen Calista as she picked her way through the corridors. I was stunned and horrified by the devastation, even though I’d expected it. Angela was a powerful enemy, too, I realized. More powerful than anyone could have guessed.
Breathless, Jessela came rushing up to us just before we entered the Throne Room. “Your Majesty,” she cried, and bowed. “You’re alive!”
“I am, thank you,” said Calista. Lord Greenleaf attempted to shoo Jessela off, but Calista stopped him.
“I just wanted to say, Your Majesty, that we couldn’t have defeated the trolls without the help of Jade,” Jessela said, and flashed a smile at me. I returned it. “Her quick thinking allowed us to concoct a poison that put them down. Without her, the trolls would have completely overrun us.”
“Then it looks like I owe you another debt,” Queen Calista told me.
Pride flushed through me, but I just gave a nod.
All together, we entered the Throne Room. Bodies were being carried away, but the marks on the great crystal stairs where the trolls had smashed at them weren’t so easily removed. Maybe magic could fix it. But I knew magic could never fix some things. The memory of the battle here would haunt me for a long time.
With amazing dignity, Calista mounted the scarred stairs, paused to survey her gorgeous crystal throne, which was still intact, then turned and gracefully sat down in it. Her crown had rolled aside during the battle, but Davril picked it up and handed it to her, and she put it on her head.
Davril knelt. So did the other Fae, until I was the only one standing. Embarrassed, I knelt, too.
“All hail the Queen!” Davril said, and the others took up the cry—more even than I’d expected. Turning, I could see that all the Fae had entered the Throne Room, or at least what looked like all of them—thousands knelt among the splintered foliage and shattered trees of the main floor, and their voices were thunderous.
“All hail the Queen!” they said, and at their words, something stirred inside me. “All hail the Queen!”
I turned back to the throne to see Calista looking most queenly indeed, even smiling slightly, and at the sight of her sitting there with such pride and power and decency, something moved inside me, and when the next cry came I joined in.
“All hail the Queen!” the Fae roared, and I said it along with them.
“All hail the Queen!”
Epilogue
“Look! Isn’t that gorgeous?” Ruby said, her eyes lighting up. She reached forward and held aloft a gnarled broomstick etched with ancient runes and banded in gold and copper loops.
“It’s nice,” I said, “but look at that price tag.”
Ruby frowned, looked at the tag, and winced. “Ouch.”
“It’s worth every penny,” the vendor said. We were in one of the magical markets of Gypsy Land close to where we lived, and the vendor looked like a lot of the others here—dressed in layers of
black, wearing a lot of necklaces, fetishes, and way too much black makeup around the eyes, even though he was a guy. Gypsies, go figure.
“I’m sure it is, but I don’t have it,” Ruby said as she put the broomstick back on its rack.
We continued on, pressing deeper into the magical maze. Wonderful displays were all around us, and cool magical items for sale. I saw one woman demonstrating magic wands on a series of unfortunate dummies in one corner, another offering love potions to lonely people in another, and more. One vendor hawked magical beer that—supposedly—I knew better—gave no hangover, while a fellow sporting bristling mustaches with oiled rings in them tried to sign people up for a ride on his pegasus-drawn carriage. The pegasi themselves snorted and stamped if anyone drew too close, but I had to admit their wings were gorgeous.
Ruby paused before one shop, and I felt my cheeks warm to see all the erotic merchandise on display—magical erotic merchandise.
“Maybe we should just—” Ruby started, but I dragged her away.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Prude!”
“Ha! I just don’t think I want to shop there with my sister.”
“Oh, so you’ll come back as soon as you drop me off at home, huh?”
I grinned. “Well, you are only twenty.”
“Twenty-one!”
“In two weeks.”
Her expression fell, and we paused a moment. I knew she must be thinking about Jason—the last time we’d been discussing her upcoming birthday had been around him. It had been a huge blow to Ruby to learn of his death, but in the last few days she’d been slowly coming out of it. We were just lucky to be alive ourselves, and she knew it.
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and we forged on.
“You know, it is good to have you back,” I said softly.
She leaned her head against me. “Yeah. It is. I’m awesome.”
I blew air past my lips, making a raspberry noise.
“Well, I am,” she pressed.
“I guess. When you’re not acting like a brat. Which is most of the time.”
“I did save the Queen of the Fae.”
“Yeah, but who saved you?”
A throat cleared behind us, and we spun.
Davril was standing there, his arms folded across his chest, looking most handsome. He wore his street clothes, a tight shirt stretched across his abs and deep chest with a brown leather jacket on top and jeans encasing his muscular legs below. He also wore a small smile.
“You did have a little help,” he said.
Suddenly, I couldn’t speak. “Er,” I tried.
Ruby looked from Davril to me, then back. She beamed wickedly. “Hey, Davril,” she said in her most sultry voice.
I resisted the urge to strangle her.
Davril had eyes only for me, though. “The Queen would like a word with you.”
Was that disappointment I felt? Jeez, girl, get a grip. “The Queen, huh?” I said.
He unfolded his arms and gestured behind him. I saw Lady Kay parked along the curb, white wings folded at her side.
“May I take you to her?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Ruby and I were just shopping.”
“You go on ahead,” Ruby said. “I’ll just go back to the sex shop.”
“Sex shop?” Davril said.
“Don’t you dare,” I told Ruby. “You go straight home.”
“Do I have to?” she pouted.
“Yes!”
“Allll right.”
We hugged again and she sauntered off through the crowd, oohing and ahhing over every little thing. She better not go back to the sex shop, I thought, but I had to admit to the possibility that she would. Slut.
I turned back to Davril, and we regarded each other in silence for a moment. Well, not silence. There was plenty of noise all around us, firecrackers going off, salesmen and -women hawking their wares, the sound of meat frying. My mouth watered at the smell. The sight of Davril didn’t hurt, either.
“Well, shall we?” He nodded his head at the car.
Suck it up, Jade. “Let’s go.”
He opened the passenger door for me and I slid in, loving the feel of the smooth leather under my fingers.
“Glad to be up front this time,” I said as he dropped behind the wheel.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He mashed buttons, flipped a switch, and we rose into the air, Lady Kay’s wings unfolding beside us. People turned to stare as we went up. Several pointed and snapped selfies.
“Wait, did you just apologize to me?” I said.
“Well, I was wrong. Kind of.”
He twisted the wheel and guided us through the air between towers of steel and glass and stone. It was nighttime, and the city was laid out like a collection of glittering jewels all around us.
“You were going to betray us,” he added. Before I could protest, he said, “But I understand. Walsh had your sister. You were only doing what you had to do. Or at least that’s how you saw it.”
“How I saw it? Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?”
Wryly, Davril said, “If it had been my brother?”
“Okay, bad example.”
We drove on. I fidgeted.
“What’s this about, anyway?” I said. “What does the Queen want from me?”
“I’ll let her tell you that.” He paused, seeming to debate something, then said, “What do you intend to do now?”
“Do now? I don’t get you.”
“Well…after all this…you’re not going back to your old life, are you?”
And Ruby called me the prude. “I’ll have you know, Ruby and I were just about to plot our next burglary, actually. Against a very bad guy who deserves to get taken down a peg. Why, is that beneath you, all high and mighty up in your castle?”
“Yes, and it should be beneath you, too.”
A flash of anger rose in me. “Why, you sanctimonious sack of—”
“Whoa, whoa.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or Lady Kay. Then I realized he must mean me. I crossed my arms across my chest and waited.
“Yes?” I prodded.
“I just meant…” He frowned. “I would want better for you. I would want better of you.”
“Well, too bad, Mr. Fae Knight. I steal stuff from bad guys. One day, I’ll get good enough to steal my fire back from Walsh, if I can find him. That’s it. The end. I don’t have any greater calling or purpose, other than to be a good sister and to try to make this world a little better by what I do. If that’s not good enough for you, then screw you. Also, what am I doing here?”
“You’re here because the Queen requests your presence, not me.”
I started to say something, then clamped my mouth shut. I didn’t want to say something I’d regret, and I was already afraid I might have. Besides, my emotions were so stirred up I didn’t even know what I wanted to say, or what I really did think. I felt so many different things, and so many of them conflicted with each other. Why couldn’t things go back to being simple again? Before all of this had started, things had been a lot more clear.
But also, and I had to admit this, kind of crappier. Before being exposed to the world of the Fae…before Davril…I’d been, well, lonely and depressed, really. Trapped in a sad cycle of crime and revenge that might never come, and if it did come it might consume me. But now…now I knew a different world existed. A world of righteousness, of good against evil. Of nobility and purity and magic. And a dashing, tortured Fae Knight who obviously felt something for me, though just what that was I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either. Sometimes, the fantasy was better than the reality.
Ahead of us, the skyscrapers opened out, and there in their midst was the greatest one of all, the glorious spires of the Palace rising from its tip like the most beautiful flower in the world. The moonlight stroked its white towers with loving, ghostly fingers.
Davril set Lady Kay down
in one of the hangars. Lord Greenleaf, the Grand Vizier, met us along with a contingent of knights. For a moment, I feared they’d come to arrest me and tensed, but Greenleaf only smiled and said, “Welcome back to the Palace, Mistress McClaren.”
“Mistress?”
“It is that or Lady, and, well…” Lord Greenleaf swallowed. “At any rate, may I take you both to the Queen?”
“Please,” Davril said quickly, as if to forestall any more awkwardness. I was grateful.
“I could be a lady,” I snarked to him as we walked through the halls.
“I’m sure,” was all he said.
I’d show him how a lady can be, I thought.
“By the way, whatever happened to the people at that penthouse?” I asked. “The ones the vamps had put in their thrall?”
“I returned to Hartson Tower to find the vampires gone and the residents confused and weak, drained of blood,” Davril said. “We restored them and helped them put their home back in order. They’re fine now, or at least as good as they can be.”
That was something, at least.
On the way to the Throne Room, I noted how much work the Fae had done restoring the place. Walls that had been collapsed and columns that had been smashed were back to normal, and there was no sign of any bodies or bloodstains, thank goodness. I could see many of the Fae dressed in gray, however, their color of mourning, and knew that the dead rested heavily on their hearts. Davril and Greenleaf looked somber now, too, as if passing through these corridors reminded them of the Fae lost here during the attack.
Soon, we came to the grand doors the trolls had guarded that terrible day and we passed into the Throne Room. Many of the trees and other foliage that had grown here were gone, simply removed, but I saw a whole bunch of new plants shooting up, some still the bright green of young plants everywhere. It smelled heavenly as we cut through the forest to approach the stairs leading up to the throne, and I noticed a whole riot of red and purple flowers, each one as big as my face and framed by curls of bright green leaves. As if in a dream, I almost floated up the stairs, and in moments I—and Davril, too; Lord Greenleaf was hanging back—stood before the throne.
