“No,” Elora screamed, blocking his body with her own. “You mustn’t harm him!”
“Oh, mustn’t I?” her mother said. “It seems you have made your choice.”
“All the more reason.”
The Dark Queen shook her head. “But you didn’t speak your answer, my darling. You didn’t tell me which boy to free.”
“I—”
“The riddle was simple, Elora. But you refused to comply. Now I can kill whichever mortal I choose.”
“But—”
“If I were a crueler person, I’d use your shortcomings as an excuse to kill all the mortals.”
Elora went so pale then, I knew my suspicions were right. She wasn’t protecting Brad because she cared about him.
She was sacrificing him.
Cold liquid flooded my veins. In that moment, I thought of all the stupid times I’d been jealous of Brad. Back in the human world, Elora had flirted with him, but only to gain his trust. All that time, I’d been worried about the wrong thing. I shouldn’t have worried that she cared about him. I should’ve worried that she didn’t care about him at all.
I should’ve worried that she would sacrifice him to save us.
But she isn’t sacrificing him, I insisted as the Dark Lady neared the stage. Her mother is.
Still, I couldn’t shake the thought. Elora would steal one mortal to save all of Faerie. Elora would sacrifice one mortal to save four. Elora was the Dark Princess.
“But I am a merciful Queen,” the Dark Lady continued, snapping her fingers and calling on her guards to seize Elora. They dragged her off the stage, away from her pretend lover, kicking and screaming.
God, how she’d fooled them.
“And I will keep my end of the bargain, though you did not,” the Queen said to her daughter, who stood struggling before her. “Let this be a lesson to you of my true greatness, of my true superiority to you. I need not be spiteful, darling. If you’d ever truly been on my side, you would know that.”
“If you’d ever truly been a mother to me, I’d have wanted to be on your side.” Elora spat in her mother’s face, and I knew she was being honest in that moment. The girl couldn’t lie, but she deceived better than anyone I’d ever known. How was that possible?
“So you say,” the Dark Lady said, wiping her face with her hand, and she motioned to us, the humans who would be spared by her mercy. “Place them in front of the stage, so they can watch properly. After that, I’ll gift them to the Bright Queen as an offering. How happy she will be that the sanctions need no longer be in place.” She grinned, and I closed my eyes. Behind my lids, all I could see was blood. “And then, thanks to my lovely daughter,” she said, forcing my eyes to open again, “we will usher in a new age of sacrifice and bloodshed. Won’t that be fun?”
Elora turned to her mother as the servants dragged the four of us from the stage. Her face was impassive as a stone. “Perhaps that was my plan all along.”
“Let’s put that theory to the test.” The Dark Lady clapped her hands, and a strange, eerie light bled down onto Brad. That light was tinged red. “Make certain they can see it,” she said to the faeries holding us captive, and suddenly there were fingers poking into my eyelids, holding them open. I struggled furiously to blink. I struggled to look away from Brad. I failed.
Brad’s body was still circling, but his head was hanging limp. Could he even breathe with his arms jerked over his head like that?
“Aw, has the baby grown tired of being held upright?” the Queen said, her gaze drifting over the crowd. It settled on the Lady Claremondes. “Won’t you be a darling and wake him up?”
No, no, no. Please. I can’t watch this.
But I didn’t have a choice. Those fingers had slid under my eyelids, holding them against my brow bones. Eyelashes broke away and fell into my eyes. I couldn’t get rid of them. It was terrible. But it was about to get so much worse, because the Lady Claremondes was slithering across the ground, her long, ethereal tail sloughing off skin as she went. She didn’t have as much of a tongue as she used to, thanks to Naeve. He’d ripped off the poisonous appendage to use against me in the graveyard. Elora had stopped him then, sacrificing her body to save mine.
My heart ached at the thought. Ached with love, and with sorrow. She wouldn’t just sacrifice Brad to save me. She’d sacrifice herself, her life, and her wings. It was sick, but I really knew she loved me in that moment. Really accepted it. And, as horrified as I was with what was about to happen, I wished she was the tiniest bit closer to me, so that I could grasp her hand. I could slide my thumb over her palm in the way that I knew soothed her nerves. I could tell her that, no matter what happened, I really did love her. My heart belonged to her.
Forever.
When Kylie’s hand slid over mine, tears sprang to my eyes. This was it, even if the Queen was telling the truth. Even if we survived. This was the final moment before our humanity got swallowed by the darkness. No matter the outcome, the dark faeries would win. We would be destroyed.
“Here,” I said, so quietly that only Keegan could hear. He felt my hand reaching, and took it. Alexia followed suit. Luckily, our shackles were loose enough that we could find each other. Together we stood, the four of us, mere mortals in a Court of Dark Faeries, and watched a human lose his life.
It started with a snap. The Lady Claremondes was all set to unleash her venom on Brad’s neck, when she stopped and reached out to break a single finger instead. Snap. So easy, just like that.
Brad shook, but didn’t lift his head.
“Just checking,” she hissed. The faeries laughed.
My whole body felt cold. I squeezed Kylie’s hand, but it didn’t help.
“Now then,” the Lady Claremondes said, and trailed her stump of a tongue over Brad’s neck. I could hear the poison sliding over him. I waited for the silence that lulled you into a false sense of security. The silence and then the scream. It’s so much louder that way. So much worse. Brad’s scream began in his gut and ripped its way through the length of him, almost shattering our eardrums. I actually forgot my hands were bound and scrabbled to cover my ears.
Then pain, so much pain, shooting through my wrists. So much fear, pouring off of Brad’s skin. He was shaking, the poison spreading through his bloodstream. Now the Lady Claremondes wrapped one long, sugar-white dreadlock around his neck. Her built-in noose.
She turned to the Unseelie Queen. “Shall I give him a rest?” she asked.
Elora’s mother grinned. Whatever magic she’d used to keep Brad in the air slipped away, and he careened to the ground. Just before he hit the stage, the Lady Claremondes caught him with her noose.
Elora screamed. Brad scrambled wildly, clawing at his throat, but he couldn’t free himself.
“Stop,” Elora sobbed, sinking to her knees. That golden crown went tumbling from her head.
The Lady Claremondes rose higher in the air, using Brad’s agony as leverage against the girl who appeared to love him. Elora covered her face with her hands. I honestly didn’t know if she was devastated by the torture of Brad, or if she was acting. The thought chilled me to my core. Even my spirit shook with the force of it.
“Stop?” the Lady Claremondes asked Olorian, her partner in crime, who’d reached the base of the stage and was watching hungrily. In just three steps, he joined her up above, his footfalls shaking the earth.
“Should we?” she asked.
Olorian chuckled, his inky black body crackling with excitement. “Let us leave it up to him.”
The Lady Claremondes nodded silently, wrapping her arms around a struggling Brad. For a minute, it looked like she was cradling him. She smoothed his hair away from his face, whispering sweetly into his ear.
Then Olorian wrenched his arm from its socket.
Kylie wailed and tried to break free. She didn’t, but in the commotion, her capto
r lost hold of her eyes. When the three of us saw her eyes close, we followed suit, jerking away from those hands. Even one second away from this horror would be better than none.
The Queen said, “Wake him up,” and I realized Brad must’ve passed out. Kylie moaned, leaning into me. “One little lick makes baby sick,” I whispered, remembering the rhyme the Lady Claremondes had chanted in the graveyard. “Two on the neck is baby’s death. Remember? It could be over soon.”
Kylie was quiet a minute, watching the faeries transform Brad into a pile of mortal ruins. One finger snapped after another, but the Lady Claremondes didn’t run that tongue over him again. “I don’t remember much from that night,” Kylie said.
“What about the earlier part?” I asked, as the faeries struggled to hold our eyes open. But now that we’d proven we could shake them off, they were less enthusiastic. Or maybe they actually felt bad and were giving us a break from the horror. “Remember getting ready, and the actual dance?” I said. “Remember when Alexia announced that she loved you in front of the entire school?”
Kylie inhaled, a baby sound. Twisting to the side, I could see the tiniest flash of a smile.
Keegan’s voice surprised me. “I about pissed my pants at that.”
“Me too,” I admitted. Now that all of Brad’s fingers were broken, he was coming awake again.
Close your eyes, stupid, I told myself.
“Remember when stuff like that seemed important? School shit?” Keegan asked.
“It was important. That was our life, then,” I said. Even if we couldn’t block out what was happening, maybe we could put something else in front of it. Something brighter. Less horrifying.
“Then you disappeared from the dance,” Keegan said, picking up on my game. For a brief second, I wasn’t in the Unseelie Court. I was on the grounds outside the prom ballroom. Alone with Elora.
“I actually thought I might get some that night,” I said.
Alexia snorted, nearly drowning out Brad’s strangled cries. The Lady Claremondes was tightening her noose. It was almost time.
“Really?” Kylie asked, her voice rising in pitch. We were all so desperate to escape this.
“No,” I admitted, and we laughed. We couldn’t help it. It was either laugh or start screaming. “No, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I never thought it was going to happen.”
And that was it. That brought us back to the present moment. Because it still hadn’t happened. Elora and I had never had our moment. Not the way I’d wanted it. Not just the two of us, tucked away in some normal place, in the mortal world, making love for the first time. Sure, I’d said “get some” to my friends, but it had always been about more than that. Being with Elora made me feel alive, loved, exhilarated.
“Please … let him go,” Elora whispered from her place on the ground. She looked weak, like she couldn’t even stand up. And I knew, in that moment, she wasn’t faking this agony.
“You said the magic words, princess.” The Lady Claremondes grinned. She had no teeth. Had she ever had teeth?
Why am I focusing on this?
She looked down at Brad. “Should we let you go?”
He stared at her with anguished child’s eyes. He tried to speak.
The Lady’s smile deepened. “Release you from this cruel creation and the filth of your wicked kind?”
Brad nodded in little jerks, choking on eagerness and bile.
“No,” I breathed. Kylie was shaking her head. Elora still knelt, frozen.
The Lady Claremondes tilted her head. “Let your body give way to sweet release?”
“Yes,” Brad croaked, crying into her chest. “Please.”
“As you wish.” She twisted his neck until it cracked.
30
ElorA
The Queen was true to her word. After the decimation of Brad was complete, she waved a regal hand, and the servants of the Dark Court carried the remaining humans away. I should’ve been happy that she’d released them into the hands of my followers. But happiness was a far-off island that I dared not hope to reach. I felt entirely depleted, as if all my blood had seeped out onto the ground.
Of course, it hadn’t. Only Brad’s insides were feeding the earth at this very moment. As crows swarmed around him, diving into his warm places, I turned away, facing my congregation. My people. Only … they didn’t feel like my people anymore. My people were the ones scurrying away, to be delivered to the eager hands of the Seelie Queen. Given. As if people could ever be given.
Why had it taken me so long to learn that lesson? Even Brad, who’d caused only destruction in his world, was not mine to remove. Funny I should realize the flaw in my justification the moment I was too late to remedy things. His blood streaked the stage, entrails hanging out like fat, juicy worms. Even though I wasn’t looking anymore, I could still see it.
I would always see it.
I stepped farther away, watching the progress of the humans as they slipped into a passage that led into the earth. I tried to focus on this, their freedom. Their escape. And right before he stepped into the shadows, Taylor turned and looked my way. His eyes were alight with fear, or sadness. I shook my head. As much as I wanted to run to him, draw him into my arms and beg forgiveness, for understanding, I knew there was no point in blowing our cover now. The dark faeries had fallen for my ruse, believing Brad to be the one I wanted. Taylor was safe. Even if he never wanted to touch me again, he would live.
That was enough, for now.
Five minutes after the human sacrifice, the Dark Queen clapped her hands and the music commenced. Trolls stomped their feet to create a drumbeat, and the winged section jerked fervently. As tactless as it was to dance in circles before the blood had even dried, the servants of the Dark Court did not dare rebel against the Queen now. It had been a long time since they’d seen a show of her true power and how easily she could kill. How easily she could torture without batting those beautiful eyes. The faeries of the Dark Court may have simply been a manifestation of the earth’s darker aspects, but their queen was evil.
And she needed to be taken down.
“Mother,” I called out, sounding desperate without even trying. The Dark Lady turned to me, head cocking to the side like a bird listening for the sound of worms under the earth. Again, an image of Brad flashed through my mind, and I shuddered involuntarily.
“You dare speak to me, wretch?”
“Please,” I begged, playing at obedience, though it was the last thing I felt. “You granted Naeve an audience. You believed he betrayed you, yet you granted him an audience. Won’t you do the same for your own flesh? Your own blood? Please. I can explain.”
“I’ve no cause to believe you,” the Queen said. “You’ve sullied your flesh with human filth. You’ve stood before me and lied. You are as far from a faerie as I can possibly imagine, and I care not for your twisted words.” She rose from her throne and made a simple flicking motion with her wrist. “Away with this aberration. I will deal with her when I have finished celebrating Naeve’s exoneration.”
In his seat on her left-hand side, Naeve grinned like I’d never seen him grin. I actually wondered if the Queen would take him to her bed tonight. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t taken a lover since the day I was born, but I was as good as dead to her now.
Naeve gave me the tiniest nod of the head, as if to say, enjoy your exile.
A shiver went down my spine. Exile would be my best-case-scenario punishment. “Lady, please, I can explain myself. It isn’t what you think.”
“No,” she agreed. “You aren’t.”
“You must give me a chance.” I was growing angry. “You gave him a chance, and he isn’t … ”
“My flesh and blood, yes. You’ve said that. But that can be amended.”
Naeve perked up at that, like a puppy long-starved of attention. It was pathetic. Sad. And
I was just as desperate. When the Queen lifted her arm, I expected her to pat him on the head. But she did something stranger. She lifted her wrist to his lips. “Drink,” she told him. “Become ‘my blood.’” Her eyes turned to me. “By the time I’m done bleeding out the princess, you’ll be the only child left with royal blood.”
Oh, Darkness. What have I done?
Naeve’s teeth sank into her royal flesh.
Without me to defend them, and with Naeve as the Unseelie heir, the faeries of the Dark Court would be cast into a future of bloodshed and war. They would crawl over the human world, covering it like a blight of Darkness, sucking the life out of everything. The earth would live on, but at what cost? The very ocean would be choked with blood.
I had to find a way to turn the tides.
“Please, Lady,” I said, gesturing to Brad. My stomach churned like a blood-spattered sea. “You’ve taken the boy. Naeve’s taken my wings. Have I not been punished for my alleged transgressions? Will you at least grant me an audience, one minute of your time? What is one minute out of eternity?”
The Queen’s head was bent back, her eyes closed. Naeve seemed to be sucking her dry. For a moment I thought it might work to my advantage, this weakening of her strength. Then I felt sicker than ever, always relying on the dark faeries’ ability to weaken and manipulate. To trick. Always looking for the way to gain the upper hand by stepping on another’s head.
I really was my mother’s daughter. How ironic that she’d never know.
After a minute of frenzied slurping, Naeve lifted his head. His teeth were stained red, and he was shaking a little, as if dizzy. One drink, and he was already addicted.
Junkie.
The Queen’s eyes fluttered open. I had no doubt Naeve was waiting for her final blow, but he didn’t know her as well as I did. We were so alike after all, she and I. And if she could bolster my spirits, only to drop me from a much greater height, she’d do it.
The Last Faerie Queen Page 22
