by J. A. Curtis
Arius ran a hand over his face. He studied me, looking me up and down. His jaw set, and he moved toward the back of the manor.
“Follow me,” he said. “We may yet salvage some of your reputation.”
“What if I don’t care?”
He paused but didn’t turn around. “Go back to your room then.”
With a low growl in my throat, I followed.
We passed a few small rooms before we stopped in front of a plain, heavyset door. He pulled out a chain of keys he wore around his neck. After unlocking the door, he flipped the light switch on the sidewall, revealing a long flight of narrow stairs. Arius gestured for me to enter, and he pulled and locked the door behind him.
A musty smell filled the stairway as we descended. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
“What about everyone outside?” I asked.
“They are well trained,” he said. “They will wait.”
We entered a large room. In the right-hand corner sat a hazardous stack of crates, piled almost to the ceiling. Tools hung off the back wall while swords and armor filled the left side of the room. On the floor to my left sat two large oaken chests.
Arius stopped next to them. “These chests hold the weapons of our queen and our general. I commissioned Luchta to build them.”
I knelt next to the first chest and ran my hand over the wood. They were exquisite.
My hand stopped over the carving of a shield flanked on each side by a centaur with a bow in its arms. The shield held a sword, a heart, a hammer, and a shining star. At the top read Strength is Glory. The bottom said The High Ones. A banner circled the shield with the words Bravery, Sacrifice, Skill, Persistence.
“The coat of arms of our top general,” Arius said. “Her name was Jazrael of the High Ones, Faerie Knight and Queen’s Protector, General to her Majesty the Queen.”
“That’s quite a title,” I said.
“Title and rank. Every faerie has one.”
The crest on the second chest depicted a flaming bird rising from a crown and rested on top of a shield. Two bird-lion hybrids guarded the shield which held a sun and a crescent moon. At the top read Honor and Virtue, and at the bottom of the carving read The Royal Ones. Around this shield were the virtues Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, Duty.
“The Queen’s chest,” Arius said. “Her Royal Majesty Queen Morrigan of Tir Taimgire, Sacred Royal Magistrate of the Otherworld and all Faeriekind.”
I lifted the lid. On top lay a sheathed sword. The hilt, rising out of the casing, looked like a bird, the wings spanning out. The neck of the bird stretched long to form the handle. A large angry eye, set with a jewel, glared up at me.
I looked up at Arius who watched me with those intense eyes. They fizzled with anticipation. A connection he expected me to make.
“Why do people keep asking me who I am?” I asked.
“The night you fell, Dramian, leader of the dark faeries, and Iris, his traitor brother, stole you and one other baby and placed both of you among the humans. Most likely, they planned to return for you when the time was right, to turn you both dark. But Dramian and his brother fell themselves, and we lost all knowledge about where either faerie child had been placed.”
My eyes rested on the two trunks sitting before me. “And the two faeries that were taken—”
“Our queen and her protector, our top general.”
The lid to the trunk slipped out of my hands and banged shut.
“You think I’m your queen?”
“Queen or general, we don’t know which.”
I gave him a flat stare. “Well, who do I look like?” If this was true, how could he not know?
“While your essence remains the same, your looks do not flow from one birth to the other,” he said.
How convenient. I gritted my teeth to hold back a nasty comment about what he could do with his essence. Me, Mina, queen of the faeries. Or at least I could be. Wasn’t that every little girl’s dream? To be a princess, a queen, a faerie? But this new claim, on top of everything, made me want to stomp from the room. Why couldn’t anything that came out of his mouth sound normal?
“You're making this even harder to believe,” I said.
“You just had a troll the size of a semi roar in your face.” Now Arius’s voice was flat.
Good point.
He moved past me, deeper into the room where piles of leather armor lay, knelt down, and began sorting through the different sets.
“The—troll came out of nowhere,” I said.
“A faerie guardian,” Arius said without looking up, “used to protect and do the bidding of the faerie who wields it. Jorgeral released it to stop you from entering the forest. He was in control. You were in no danger.”
I stood in an armory of swords and armor. No danger. Right.
“Our armor. This is a cuirass.” He held up a thick, leather, muscle shirt. “Gauntlets for your hands and arms. Greaves for your shins and tassets for your thighs and midsection.” He showed me two shin guards and what looked to be a belt with flaps of leather attached. “Put these on underneath the tassets, they allow for flexible movement.” He handed me a pair of black spandex shorts.
I waited for Arius to disappear behind the crates before I started to change.
“What is your rank and title?” I asked.
“Arius of the Ettenmarch, Warrior of Thunder, Captain of the King’s Guard, Lieutenant General to her Majesty the Queen.” I could hear the pride in his voice.
“You are a leader.” I sounded so clueless.
“I am second in command to General Jazrael,” he said, “and the queen herself holds the highest authority.”
And that could be you. No problem, because I knew how to act like an all-powerful faerie queen...
“What’s Nuada’s rank and title?” I asked.
“Nuada of the Lonely Wildwoods, Warrior of fire, Warrior of the King’s Guard, Soldier to her Majesty the Queen.”
“Soldier doesn’t sound very high ranking.”
“She leads us because she knows what it means to be a faerie. She did not fall like the rest of us. She teaches us.” The tightness in his voice gave me the impression I treaded dangerously.
“What’s with the metal arm?”
“She slew a dragon.”
I paused in buckling the tassets around my waist. “A real one?”
Arius grunted. “Protecting a faerie town but at great cost. She lost both her arm and access to her faerie guardian that day.”
Now he mentioned it, I realized he was right. When she had visited me, Nuada’s good arm had been bare.
I pulled the gauntlets on my arms. “Done.”
Arius appeared from behind the crates. He began tugging on the leather armor in different places, nearly pulling me off my feet.
Without warning, he grasped my hands and lifted them. His hands strong and warm, I looked into Arius’s face. He met my gaze with those dark eyes.
“Your gauntlets are too large.” He dropped my hands and moved toward the stacked armor.
I yanked off the gauntlets and flung them aside. Everything I’d experienced so far was like balancing on this line between reality and fantasy. Except I was quickly losing track of the line. Fantasy and reality were colliding, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
He brought back a new pair.
“You’ll be more comfortable if you take that off.” He reached toward the bracelet on my wrist.
“Don’t touch it,” I snarled. I had been trying to ignore the bitterness of my failed escape, but the reminder of Corbin brought it spiraling to the surface.
His hand retracted as if I lit the woven string on fire. With a scowl, he handed me the new gauntlets. I took a slow breath. Whether I liked it or not, I was back to biding my time.
Play along, Mina.
I tried them on over my bracelet, he gave each one a pull and said nothing. He went to another area of the armory and chose a belt with a sheathed sword attached.
�
�Your sword. For now,” he said.
This sword’s handle was plain compared to the one I had seen inside the queen’s trunk. Made of simple gray metal, the handle came to a round end with no symbol or emblem. I strapped the sword on and pulled it as tight as I could before buckling it in place.
Arius stood back and looked me up and down. He wasn’t happy.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You look like a teenage girl.”
Despite my bitterness, I laughed. “That’s what I am.”
“You’re too pretty.”
I held back a smile. But from the frown on his face, he didn’t think I should be proud. “Isn’t a queen supposed to be beautiful?”
“You are supposed to be a leader. Beauty isn’t as important as inspiring the respect of an army. If you want others’ respect, you must appear impressive. You must command their attention by your very presence. Not look like a girl who is about to go to the mall with her friends.”
I didn’t know what mall he had ever been to, but I’d be surprised to see any teenage girl dressed how I was at the moment.
He stepped up to me and gave my shoulders a small shove. “Shoulders back and chin up. Match every soldier’s gaze and never be the first to break eye contact unless you are moving on to the next soldier in line. We bow to acknowledge authority. As leader, always expect others to bow, but you bow only when you wish to show honor to those ranked under you. Do not bow to anyone tonight. Whatever you say, make sure you say it with confidence. Don’t show fear and don’t be intimidated.”
“Yeah, I’ll do all that.” I couldn’t remember it all.
He led me back up the long steps. Despite the tight sword belt on my waist, the sword casing still banged against my side as I climbed the stairs. Arius used his keys to unlock the door at the top.
“We always keep the door to the armory locked,” Arius said. “If you ever need anything, ask Thaya or me.”
We walked to the front of the manor. Arius’s hand paused on the door latch. “It would be best, after what has happened tonight, if you spoke as little as possible. Ask for rank and title, that is all. We’ll keep this short.”
“Okay, but if I’m queen or whatever, shouldn’t I want to get to know them? Or something?”
Real convincing. I’d have to do better if I wanted to make him think I was taking this seriously.
His dark eyes bored into mine, and I knew I wasn’t fooling him. “I believe they have gotten to know you enough for one evening.”
I scowled at him as he opened the doors, and we stepped out into the night.
4
Thaya Goes Mental
“True friends stand with you even when things get hard.”
“GIVE ME YOUR HAND. We must make sure your intentions are pure.”
I sat in one of the small study rooms at the rear of the manor. A domovoi, named Kudava, stood next to me with her arm extended and palm up. Gosh, those nails were huge! However, she looked almost human, except for her large eyes, a pair of small horns protruding from her temple, and a long, skinny pointed tail that whipped back and forth behind her.
“How do I know you won’t work some voodoo magic on me?” I asked.
“They have not ordered me to work magic on you,” she said.
Oh, so she could work strange magic on me. That was comforting.
I didn’t move, and Kudava waited. With a sigh, I placed my hand in hers. The nailed fingers drew shut. Her skin felt waxy—nothing like human skin.
“How was Balor of the Evil Eye defeated at the final battle against the Fomori, and who defeated him?” Kudava asked.
I blinked. “I don’t know.”
“For what purpose did we leave the Otherworld?”
The what world? “I don’t know.”
“How did King Dagda and Queen Morrigan split the mythical realm from the mortal realm?”
I shook my head. I had seen monsters come to life, and now I was sitting in front of a creature that was clearly not human. And now she was asking me about history. The faeries’ history. Faeries had their own history, their own culture, and I knew nothing.
I either needed to admit I was the one who had completely lost my mind or just roll with it.
“What are the names of the queen and her protector? What do we know about their disappearance?”
One I could answer. I opted to roll with it.
“Queen Morrigan and General Jazrael—I don’t need to know their whole title, do I?” My head still spun from all the names and ranks of the faeries I had met the night before. “That’s all I remember. They disappeared when Dramian and Iris—the dark faeries?—stole us and placed us among the humans.”
Kudava released my hand and vanished before my eyes without another word. Well, that was unnecessary. I must have failed so badly she couldn’t stand to ask more questions.
“What’s next?” I asked Arius, who came to collect me.
Like my test with the domovoi, introductions had been brief last night—just like Arius wanted. The faeries had stood at attention, and each one had listed off their name and rank. I had stood in silence as expected, biting back my anger at the sham show.
“We will visit Palon at the crossbow pit,” Arius said.
I looked at Arius out of the corner of my eye. He’s the one. Earn his trust, and I might find a way to escape, I thought.
Palon was tall and dark-skinned with a head full of curly red hair. On his right arm was depicted a half-man, half-horse creature with a bow and arrow. A centaur, I remembered. Palon flexed a muscular bicep and offered to show me the creature in real life, but Arius cut in, telling him another time as he walked over to a crossbow laying on a bundle of hay.
“She going to beat your record, Arius?” Palon said.
“Probably not,” Arius replied.
Palon laughed. “This guy can hit a bullseye at four hundred yards.”
“Is that good?” I asked.
He looked startled. “Haven’t you ever shot a crossbow before?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh,” Palon said, “Well the average distance for an accurate direct target hit with a crossbow is fifty yards. Arius can hit a bullseye consistently at three hundred. Impressive, no?”
“I would assume someone like Arius is full of impressive abilities,” I said.
Palon appeared uncertain. Arius didn’t respond. I looked down at a crossbow resting on a bale of hay. Without meaning to, I shook my head. I had gone along with the armor, even the sword, but this was too much.
“Why do I need to learn how to shoot a crossbow?”
“For your defense, my lady,” Palon said.
“And who exactly will I need to shoot in order to defend myself?”
Palon glanced at Arius. It seemed my sharp tone made him uneasy.
“This isn’t just about shooting people,” Arius said. “You need these skills to prove you can lead.”
I shouldn’t have to prove anything. But if learning how to shoot a dumb arrow was somehow important to Arius... I forced a smile. “Thank you so much for clearing that up.”
Arius and Palon exchanged a glance. A young girl around ten years old approached and waited at attention about twenty yards from us.
“I will be right back,” Arius said. “Palon, you teach Mina the basics and get her started.”
“Yes, sir,” Palon said with all seriousness.
Arius turned to me. “If you will excuse me.”
I nodded. As if I could do anything else. Arius set down the crossbow and walked over to the young faerie.
I picked up the nearest crossbow. A large target sat atop bales of hay stacked three high a little distance from where I stood. Some targets were farther back. The one nearest me had the shortest distance between crossbow and target.
“This doesn’t look so hard,” I said.
“You’re holding it wrong,” Palon said.
He helped me tuck the crossbow up against my shoulder to steady it and sh
owed me where to place my hands. “You must keep your fingers underneath the flight deck, out of the way of the bowstring firing, otherwise you might take off a finger.”
Palon explained that there were six arrows held in a small compartment attached to the bow that would automatically reload after each shot. I fired. The arrow sailed through the air, short of the target and into the grass.
“Place your face against the stock and cheek piece on the end and sight down the scope,” Palon said. “Your arrow will lose altitude the farther it flies. Aim a little higher than your target. Points inside the scope will help you adjust.”
I worked to follow his instructions. As I raised the crossbow, I sought to line the first dot in the scope with the target. I squeezed the trigger, and the crossbow kicked into my shoulder. My arrow sailed over the target.
“Don’t look up. Your aim will improve,” Palon said.
I shot two more arrows, hitting nothing. Palon picked up a crossbow and took aim at the target next to mine. He pulled the trigger and hit the bullseye on his first try. I tried shooting two more, still missing the target.
I glanced over at Palon. If I got him talking, maybe I could learn a bit more about Arius and figure out how to gain his respect.
“Did Arius place you over the crossbows because you’re the best shot?” I asked. “Other than him, I mean.”
“No, Arius placed me here because of my ability.” He let another arrow fly, and it hit the bullseye only a half-inch from the first.
“Your what?”
He looked up from his crossbow. “You’re kidding, right?” But then he caught himself. “I’m sorry, my lady, I thought you knew. Every faerie has an ability. It defines them and helps us identify who they are. That is why Arius can shoot a bullseye at four hundred yards. His ability is sight.”
“You mean he can see far away?”
“Crazy far—in the dark, and sometimes through things.”
I nearly dropped my crossbow. “Through things?”
He nodded. “Caelm’s ability is to heal. Thaya’s is to control people when they are in an emotionally vulnerable state. Mine is strength.”
