The Fallen Queen

by Kate O'Hearn

  Astraea accepted his hand and climbed up onto his skateboard. When they arrived on the opposite roof, Astraea put her arms around him and held him tight. “I am so sorry, Jake.”

  He was shaking as the sobs started again. “Angie—she—I mean, I, I really liked her. She—she was like a sister to me.”

  “Ssshe wasss very ssspecial,” Nesso hissed softly.

  “She was…” Jake wept.

  Astraea reached up and stroked the small snake. “At least you are safe,” she said softly as her own tears started. “But Angitia and Render… it’s just awful.”

  “It’s my fault,” Zephyr moaned as her head hung low. “I killed them because I said to bring Lergo here.…”

  “No you didn’t,” Astraea said. “None of us could have known that would happen.”

  “We should have,” Zephyr said. “We knew how dangerous it was. Look what happened to us a few days ago. How could I have thought this would work? That snake is just as wild and deadly to us as the Mimics. Now… now it’s killed Render and Angitia.”

  Astraea limped over to Zephyr and put her arms around her neck. They held on to each other, saying nothing as they were overwhelmed with grief.

  Jake returned to the rubble to collect Vulturnus. After a bit of searching, Tryn found his own board and joined them on the opposite roof.

  Standing all together on the edge of the roof, they looked at the destroyed building. No one spoke; there was no need. They all knew the worst had happened. Two of their team were dead.

  25

  TIME PASSED, BUT STILL NO one moved.

  Their mission had seemed so simple. Get in and stop the Mimic queen. But as Astraea looked at the remains of the building and the others around her covered in cuts and bruises, she realized they were fooling themselves. They were just kids. Not heroes. How could they imagine that they could stop the queen of a race of beings that were destroying worlds? What did they think they could possibly do that millions of others before them couldn’t?

  She looked at everyone. “I’m so sorry; we shouldn’t be here. I really thought we could do this, but we can’t. The camps, Lergo, the queen, it’s just too much. Now we’ve lost Render and Angie. I can’t bear to lose any more of you. We have to go back to Xanadu.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cylus said. “You want to give up?”

  Astraea walked over to the centaur. “What choice do we have? We can’t do this anymore. You and Darek have lost your bows and arrows. I’ve lost my slingshot. All I’ve got left is my dagger. We can’t win, not against the Mimics. Even if we manage to find the queen…” She looked at Melissa. “If that’s what we’re up against, there’s no way we could beat her, let alone all the Mimics that are going to be around her.”

  Anger crossed Cylus’s face, but then it softened. “We can’t give up, Astraea, not now. If we do, Render and Angitia will have died for nothing. We all knew that this would be dangerous and that some of us might not make it back. But we came anyway and stayed when we could have gone back with Pegasus. We have to stop the queen from destroying our people and the people of other worlds.”

  Tryn stepped up to Astraea. “He’s right. If we go back now, all is lost. The queen will spawn again and there will be more new queens to go out and take other worlds. Right here and right now is where it must stop.”

  Astraea looked at Tryn. He was limping and both his shins were badly injured, as silver blood trailed down his legs. He’d hurt himself saving her but was still prepared to fight on. “You want to go after the queen?”

  “We must,” Tryn said. “And yes, I realize that any one of us could be killed. Maybe all of us. But what’s the alternative? Titus and Xanadu are already defeated. Jupiter is trying to fight back, but it won’t mean much if more queens rise to take Titus and Xanadu.”

  “Astraea,” her brother said. “I have been one of their slaves. I would rather die right now than go back into one of those camps. Being trapped in there is a kind of living death. There is no hope, only despair and pain. Right now, while we’re here on this roof debating what to do, others are out there suffering with no hope, believing everyone has forgotten about them. But we haven’t forgotten about them. We must be their hope.”

  “Earth will be next,” Jake added softly. “My family is there. They have no idea what’s coming or what the Mimics are. I can’t go back to Xanadu; it will only prolong the inevitable. The Mimics will take it and we will all be slaves. But that doesn’t have to happen if we can stop the queen. We’re not alone, Astraea. Out there somewhere, Chiron, Diana, Steve Jacobs, and so many others are marching on the queen. They are expecting us. We can’t let them down.”

  Astraea looked around the roof. Tryn and Triana were nodding, and so were the centaurs. She looked at her best friend. “What do you say, Zeph. What do you want to do?”

  “What I want isn’t the real question,” Zephyr said somberly. “I want to go back to the Titus I knew. The Titus before the Mimics, when all you and I complained about was having to go to school, or getting mad because someone compared me to Pegasus. The same Titus where we played and had pillow fights, never knowing that Mimics existed. That’s what I want. But that life doesn’t exist anymore. That Titus is gone. So I say we stay here on this roof for a while longer, gather our strength, and do what we came to do and stop that queen.”

  “I agree!” Melissa said. “I don’t want them to hurt anyone else. The First Queen is my mother, and if I have to fight her to protect you all, you can bet I will.”

  “Thank you, Melissa,” Jake said. He patted her leg. “That really means a lot.”

  “See, Astraea,” Cylus said finally. “Going back to Xanadu isn’t a choice for any of us. Yes, we’re just kids and we may never be heroes and we might all die. But if we don’t try to stop the queen now, everything we’ve ever loved will be lost.”

  Astraea looked around again. “So we fight?”

  When everyone nodded, Zephyr whinnied. “Yes, we fight.”

  * * *

  Sunrise was still a long time away, but they remained on the roof, trying to rest. It had been a terrible night and they needed time to recover.

  Astraea was sitting beside Zephyr and leaning against her best friend. She opened the secret compartment on her arm bracelet and checked on Frick and Frack. The two snakes were banged up, but alive.

  “We still do have these two,” she said, holding them up.

  “And me,” Nesso said.

  “And that means venom,” Tryn said. He stood up. “I’m going down into this building to see if I can find a container to store it in.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Jake offered. “Maybe we can find something to make new weapons out of.”

  “Wait for me,” Vulturnus said as he climbed to his feet. “There must be things we can use down there.”

  While they were gone, Astraea, Zephyr, and the others waited on the roof, watching Melissa doing a strange kind of crouch and flexing her one working foreleg.

  “Melissa?” Astraea asked. “What happened to your other upper leg?”

  The mantis stopped and looked at her mangled foreleg. “My sister did this to me when I was still a grub. She bit my arm and damaged it so badly, when I changed, it didn’t grow back.”

  “It must have been terrible,” Triana said.

  “It was,” Melissa agreed. “But I survived. Then the Mimics put me in a cage so I would suffer and die. When Jake and Angie found me, they saved my life. Jake gave me my name and wouldn’t give up on me. He spoke for me and convinced Angie and the others that I was safe. I owe him everything.”

  “Jake did that?” Cylus asked.

  “You betcha,” Melissa said. “He was really brave.” She went back to crouching over and slicing the air with her one good foreleg. “I wonder if the First Queen will be much bigger than me.”

  “She’s a lot older,” Triana said. “I would think so.”

  “Oh,” Melissa said softly. “Rats.”

  Astraea c
ouldn’t get over how much Melissa sounded like Jake. If she closed her eyes and listened, she heard a female version of him. Not the huge insect standing before her. “Don’t worry, we’ll all be facing her together. You won’t be in there alone.”

  “Promise?” Melissa said.

  “Yes, we promise,” Triana answered.

  That seemed to settle her some. She got up, walked to the roof edge, and peered down the street. Each of Melissa’s footsteps caused heavy vibrations to run through the roof’s surface. Considering the age of the building and what had happened with Lergo, Astraea wondered just how strong this old roof was.

  When Tryn and the others returned, their arms were full. Old bedsheets had been carried up so that wounds could be cleaned and bandaged, and they’d found a jar to store fresh venom in. There was nothing they could use to make slingshots or bows, as there was no string that wasn’t rotten. Their only choice was to use rocks they gathered along the way and covered in venom.

  When the snakes had given all they could, everyone stood up. Without speaking, they knew it was time to move. There was still a lot of night left, and they couldn’t waste it.

  Tryn and Jake used their skateboards to get Triana, Cylus, and Darek off the roof and down to the street. Zephyr carried Astraea and her brother, and Melissa flew on her own.

  When the mantis flew, Astraea was surprised by the fine graceful wings she’d kept hidden under the shell on her back. They were just like the insects’ wings at home that were see-through and delicate.

  They landed among the group of stationary Shadow Titans, but there were no signs of the Mimics that commanded them.

  “How did they get here?” Astraea asked.

  “I brought them down from the rubble,” Melissa said. “I thought you might want them.”

  “We do, thank you,” Jake said. “But what about the Mimics?”

  “Those we don’t need, so I sent them away,” Melissa said. “The control things are over there.”

  The controllers for the Shadow Titans were gathered together, and the Shadows were ordered to follow behind the group as they started to walk.

  Tryn and Jake rode their skateboards at street level, telling the boards to lead them to the First Queen. Without hesitation, the two boards moved them in the same direction.

  Astraea and her brother stayed on Zephyr, while Darek carried Triana. As they followed the skateboards down the dark, empty streets, they remained silent. Lergo was still in the area, and they couldn’t risk another encounter.

  After several blocks, they entered another neighborhood. This area showed signs of damage from the monstrous snake, and they had to climb over the rubble. But unlike the area they’d hidden in, a lot of the undamaged buildings had lights shining brightly out the windows.

  Mimics lived here.

  Melissa walked beside Jake, looking at all the buildings. “They are here all around us. I can feel them,” she said. She turned to Jake. “They know I’m here too.”

  “Don’t be frightened,” Jake said. “They won’t hurt you.”

  “I’m not frightened. I just don’t like them.”

  Zephyr turned to look back up at Astraea. “How can she hate her own kind?”

  Astraea leaned forward. “Wouldn’t you? They make you fight to the death, but when you don’t die, they lock you in a cage until you starve. That’s pretty cruel.”

  “That’s Mimics,” Vulturnus said.

  The farther they traveled, the more buildings they saw with lights on. Astraea looked back in the direction where the sun rose and saw the first traces of light rising on the horizon.

  “The sun is coming up,” Astraea said. “We’re going to need to find somewhere to hide.”

  “Not here,” Cylus said softly. “How far does this city go?”

  “Far,” Tryn said. “By foot, I think it’s going to take us several nights’ walking to get to the queen.”

  “And these are really long nights,” Triana said.

  “Exactly,” Tryn agreed.

  “Let’s go faster,” Cylus said. “I don’t want to be here when the sun rises.”

  They told the Shadow Titans to move faster as everyone entered a trot. Zephyr was limping a bit, but when Astraea asked, she insisted it was nothing. The way she snapped, Astraea knew Zephyr was in pain but wouldn’t stop.

  Keeping up the pace, they were able to cover more ground. But each moment saw more lights coming on in the buildings as the Mimics rose and prepared for their day.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” Darek said. “They’re getting up.”

  Melissa stopped and looked behind them.

  Jake looked back at her. “What is it? Are Mimics coming?”

  “No, it’s not them. But I feel something,” she said.

  Cylus stopped and tilted his head to the side. “I feel it too. It’s a kind of vibration, but not like footsteps.”

  “So do I,” Darek agreed.

  Everyone turned and looked back in the direction they’d come. Astraea listened closely but couldn’t hear or feel anything. She was just about to comment when the worst thing imaginable happened.

  Lergo slithered around the corner they’d just passed and was bearing down on them at speed.

  “Fly!” Jake screamed. He ordered his skateboard off the ground and swooped closer to Cylus. “Grab hold!”

  Tryn did the same to Darek and then looked at his sister. “Triana, hold on tight to Darek!”

  Zephyr trotted and then entered a gallop. She was just about to launch into the air when her injured front leg gave out and she tumbled forward. Zephyr screamed as she started to fall.

  Astraea and Vulturnus were thrown over her neck and crashed to the street several feet away. By the time Astraea stopped tumbling and was able to look up, Lergo was right in front of her and rearing up.

  Astraea screamed as the gigantic snake opened its mouth, revealing its two immense fangs.

  26

  “JAKE, MELISSA!” A SMALL VOICE called.

  Lergo was looming above Astraea, Zephyr, and Vulturnus, but it wasn’t attacking. It just hovered above them.

  “Angie!” Melissa called. The Fallen Queen was perched on a roof directly above the massive snake. “Jake, look, it’s Angie. She’s alive!”

  “Angie?” Jake cried. “Where is she?”

  “I’m here,” Angie cried.

  “I see her!” Melissa called. “She’s on the snake!”

  Astraea was frozen on the spot, unable to comprehend what was happening. Melissa said Angie was alive, but Astraea couldn’t see her. All she could see was the open mouth and sharp fangs of Lergo.

  “Cylus, Darek!” Render galloped alongside the snake and then looked up, waving. “It’s all right. Everyone, come down!”

  Jake and Tryn ordered their skateboards cautiously down to the ground while keeping their wary eyes on Lergo.

  Render ran up to the other centaurs, and they all noisily embraced.

  “We thought you were dead!” Darek cried.

  “I thought we were dead too when Lergo grabbed us. But it was going after Angie. I was just in the way and it took me too.”

  Jake used his skateboard to fly up just past the snake’s head. He disappeared for a while. When he reappeared, Angie was on the skateboard with him and he had his arms around her tightly. “Look, everyone, she’s alive!”

  The reunion was noisy, and tear-filled as they all greeted each other again.

  “How?” Zephyr cried. She was limping when she walked over. “How did you do it? How did you survive the attack on the roof?”

  “It wasn’t an attack. Lergo could feel me and wanted to get to me, but he was too heavy, and the roof collapsed.”

  “He?” Astraea asked.

  “Yes,” Angie said. “Lergo is a boy.”

  “I told you!” Cylus said.

  Angie trotted over to the massive snake. Lergo lowered his head to the ground with only the tip of his forked tongue sticking out. Standing before him, Angie looke
d minuscule. She didn’t even reach up to his nostrils. But still, Lergo stayed perfectly still as she petted his head. “He looks big and scary, but he’s really very sweet.”

  “Oh no,” Zephyr said. “That’s the snake that nearly killed me on Zomos and tried to eat Astraea and me a couple of days ago. It is anything but sweet!”

  “Not ‘it.’ ‘He,’ ” Angie corrected. “And I’m sure he’s sorry. But he’s very old and hungry because he can’t catch much food anymore.”

  “He’s hungry?” Cylus said. “Meaning we’d be a good meal for him.”

  “No,” Angie said. “He won’t hurt you now that he knows you’re with me.”

  “She’s right,” Render said. “He could have eaten me, but he didn’t. All he wants is Angie.”

  Jake put his arms around her again. “Leave it to you to charm the biggest, deadliest snake in the universe!”

  “I’m sorry we took so long to find you, but Lergo wanted to take us to safety. He knew we were in danger from the Mimics.”

  “How?” Vulturnus said.

  Nesso hissed, “Lergo may be very big and very dangerousss, and would even eat usss sssnakesss if he caught usss, but Lergo isss sssmart. He knew what wasss happening on Zzzomosss and hasss been here long enough to sssee. He jussst didn’t care until he sssensssed Angie.”

  When Jake translated, Cylus gasped, “So she can control him?”

  “Not control,” Angie said. “We’re friends, that’s all.”

  Jake looked up at the immense snake. “That is some friend.”

  “Are we going to stop the queen now?” Angie asked.

  Astraea nodded. “Jake’s and Tryn’s skateboards are leading us there.”

  “Lergo wants to come too,” Angie said. “He can help.”

  Everyone stood staring up at the snake. Lergo was black as the night as he sensed all the Mimics. But he just lay with his massive head on the ground before Angie, making no attempt to move.