The Fiend Queen

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “Maia, that could have turned you back into a Fiend!”

  Maia hauled out the pyramid necklace Starbride had made for her. “Not while I wore this.”

  Starbride snatched the pyramid out of Maia’s grasp. “Let’s collect whatever else might be useful.”

  Roland had a few destructive pyramids left in the office, so they grabbed those. Starbride lifted the lid off a large chest in the corner. She gasped, remembering this pyramid as if she’d seen it yesterday, the device that let a pyradisté touch Yanchasa’s essence. It focused the energy of the Umbriels’ Aspects and used it to keep Yanchasa contained.

  She let the lid drop slowly. After Roland had been defeated, they’d still need that particular pyramid for a long time to come.

  When they stepped out of the office, Redtrue moved to confront them. “Find what you were looking for?”

  Starbride gave her a bright smile. “We’d better be on our way.”

  *

  They’d cleared the small room except for Starbride, Maia, and a barely conscious Brutal lying on the floor, the arrow sticking out of his chest. It was the most unromantic setting Starbride had ever seen.

  She was tempted to ask again if Maia was determined, but the way Maia stroked Brutal’s cheek gave her all the answer she needed. In spite of that, Starbride wasn’t certain it would work, not with Brutal so injured, but she had to try. She was glad Dawnmother had elected to wait just outside the door rather than down the hall with the others. At least someone could run for help if things took a horrific turn.

  Brutal breathed wet and raspy bubbles. As Maia removed the blankets around him, his eyes fluttered open. He licked his lips and slurred, “Wha’s goin on?”

  “Brutal,” Maia said. “I can save you, but I’ll only do it if you want.”

  He frowned, pale face working. “Wha?”

  “I can give you a Fiend. If you can hold on for a little bit, you’ll have a Fiend and then you’ll heal, but you have to say yes.”

  He stared at her with glassy eyes, and Starbride waited, wondering if he could even understand. “Maia.” He reached one shaky hand and covered her fingers. “Wanna live, but can’t ask you to, not like this.”

  “You don’t have to ask. I do this to heal you, dearheart, and then we can begin from the beginning, pretend it never happened, but not without a yes.”

  “You can’t. Not for me.”

  She pressed her lips to his forehead. “Let me save you.”

  His eyes closed, and tears dribbled down his cheeks. He paused so long Starbride thought he might have passed out again.

  “Maia?” Starbride whispered.

  Maia shook her head slightly, gaze not leaving Brutal.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Starbride’s thumbs had been working around the sides of the two pyramids, but now she clutched them and focused. Maia had told her what it had felt like under their influence, giving Starbride clues about how to work them. She closed her eyes, blocked out the slight sounds of fabric rustling, and gave her mind to the pyramids.

  One didn’t function without the other, two pyramids for two people, but they were easy to get lost in, and dipping further into them was as comfortable as slipping into silk sheets.

  A warm current ran through Starbride, sensuousness flooding her limbs. The air itself seemed warmer, and Starbride felt how the pyramids’ energy was designed to be focused outward, like any mind pyramid, but she didn’t need to see her targets. She could feel them, the warmth of their bodies, the pounding of their pulses, though one was weaker than the other. As the pyramids’ energy touched them, their heartbeats sped, and Starbride could feel the same warmth going through their limbs as coursed through hers.

  She became a link in their triangle, a conduit for power that flowed from her to Maia to Brutal, three people, two pyramids—magic number five—the same as a pyramid’s sides. As the power flowed back from Brutal into Starbride and the pyramids, it sped up before beginning the journey again, picking up speed each time.

  Starbride’s breath came faster, and she felt the pyramids’ energy changing, turning darker. She’d thought that Fiend energy would be ugly, but the darkness was powerful, beautiful, and every bit as intoxicating as the sexual energy she felt. As the pulse traveled through her again, she knew that all it would take was one more round.

  Even before she’d finished the thought, the pulse was back, and the dark energy of the Fiend came out in a burst, slamming into Maia where it paused. It seemed to drag something from her and tow it over to Brutal. Another pause, but when the pulse passed through Brutal, the dark energy was gone. When the pulse returned to Starbride again, it stayed, settling back into the pyramids.

  Starbride kept her eyes closed as her heartbeat returned to normal.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Maia said, and they were both covered. Maia pressed two fingers to Brutal’s neck. “He’s alive, but barely. We have to finish it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Katya

  Only a short time before, Katya had lamented her lack of feeling. It had felt as if Averie’s death had brushed part of her soul away. As she waited for news of Brutal, she wished for a little of that distance. Relief over Starbride’s safety, amazement at Pennynail’s unmasking, and shock about Brutal and Maia fought for the chance to turn her innards to ashes.

  With Starbride at her side, it had been easier to cope. It had been months since Roland had forced them apart when he’d taken the city, and Katya still felt guilty that she’d had to escort her family to safety rather than scour the city for Starbride. Now each small touch centered her, and it had been all she could do not to throw her arms around Starbride, the world be damned. Starbride waited down the hall, but it was too far away. Katya couldn’t keep her eyes off the door.

  She drew her knees up to her chest. Not long ago, the idea of Brutal with a Fiend would have consumed her, made her think of him as more royal than her, but they were drowning in Fiends lately. Corpse Fiends, wild Fiends, the late Hilda and Darren. If just having a Fiend made someone royalty, they’d have a surplus. She pitied anyone having to share a distinction with a cadre of villains and the dead. And if Katya had still had a Fiend, it might have burst forth during one of their many fights that day. Castelle would have had four people to drag around the palace.

  They’d been gone so long that Brutal had to have agreed to take a Fiend. He wanted to live. More, he knew that his friends needed him, a powerful incentive indeed.

  Around the room, the others talked in muted voices while they ate the meager fare that Baroness Jacintha’s courtiers had found. After a round of good wishes, Jacintha and her followers had withdrawn to their hiding place, citing a need to stay out of the way but promising to pass on any news. Katya wondered if it would be as hard for them waiting to hear from her as it was for her waiting to hear of Brutal. Probably. She hated waiting however it came.

  “Maybe we should go find that last pyramid,” she muttered to her mother.

  Ma kept her voice low. “They’ll need your help tackling the Fiend.”

  Redtrue snorted from across the room. “More whispers. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing down there, but I can feel the evil.”

  “How can saving someone’s life be evil?” Hugo asked.

  Redtrue sneered. “How exactly do you think they’re healing him? That is the horseshit story you concocted, yes? How stupid do you imagine me to be?”

  Hugo stared her down. “Clearly, the healing story is a cover for the fact that they’re saying good-bye. I’ll also want to tell Brother Brutal how much I enjoyed his company, and well, that I hope he learned all about the universe, and that in death he will finally reach enlightenment.”

  “Wouldn’t it be a little late by then?” Castelle asked.

  “Horsestrong save us from the young and naive,” Redtrue said.

  Freddie scowled at her. “What crawled in your trousers and made a nest?”

  “Yes,” Hugo echoed, “I don’t
think you should question Miss Starbride’s—”

  “Enough.” Katya stood. “We may not all have been fighting together for the past few months, but we’re on the same side.”

  “So which is it?” Scarra asked. “Are they saying good-bye or trying to fix him? Because I could—”

  “That’s not necessary,” Ma said.

  “They are using perverted Farradain magic,” Redtrue said. “Unless you neglected to tell me of any miraculous healing magic you possess?”

  But there was no healing magic, Farradain or otherwise, and she knew that.

  “Miss Starbride is undoubtedly using a pyramid to hypnotize Brother Brutal,” Hugo said, “and make his transition easier on him.”

  Hugo to the rescue. Redtrue gave him a flat look.

  Katya smirked. Time for the distraction part of their plan. “Since you seem so eager to be moving again, Redtrue, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind cleansing that last pyramid we missed.”

  Redtrue narrowed her eyes.

  “Now.” Katya stepped aside, leaving the path to the door clear. “Castelle, will you go with her? And anyone else?”

  “I’m in,” Scarra said. “Better than sitting on my…” She glanced at Katya. “I don’t know a polite way to say it in front of royalty.”

  Katya had to grin. “I get the idea. Anyone else?”

  “I’ll stay,” Ma said quietly. That was good. If a rampaging Fiendish Brutal got away from them, Ma’s Fiend would be a match for him.

  “I’d like to stay near Miss Starbride if that’s all right, Highness,” Hugo said.

  “Fair enough,” Katya said. After all, he’d been guarding her for a long time. That only left one more.

  It was hard to look at Pennynail without imagining the mask. Freddie, Freddie, Freddie. She tried to cement his name in her mind, but it was difficult, especially when it kept swinging back and forth from Pennynail to the Butcher.

  He met her gaze, but she could read the worry in his shoulders, the slight lines around his eyes, as if he feared she would withdraw the slim approval she’d given. And she didn’t know if she would or wouldn’t. It all depended on his actions now that his identity had been revealed. He’d have to prove himself all over again, never mind if that was fair or not.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Four’s a nice round number.”

  “Good to have you,” Castelle said, her forced cheerfulness springing out once more. Katya passed over the anti-hypnosis pyramid Starbride had given them, just in case.

  They trooped out, and Redtrue gave Katya a look that said there would be words between them again and soon. Katya stretched her neck and tried to soothe overtaxed muscles.

  Moments later, a soft knock on the door had them all on their feet. Dawnmother stood in the hall, sweating slightly as if she’d been running. “It’s time.”

  Katya, her mother, and Hugo followed her down the hall. “Were you in the room?” Katya asked.

  “Just outside, in case Star needed me, but I felt something.”

  Brutal seemed even paler, if that was possible. Katya didn’t know what she expected. A glow of health, maybe? But that couldn’t be until he transformed.

  “Did it work?” Katya asked.

  Maia nodded, but the blush was gone from her cheeks just as it had retired from Hugo’s. They’d all been through too much to be easily embarrassed anymore. Katya knelt at Brutal’s side and pressed her fingers to his neck. His pulse beat weak but steady. “Brutal?”

  He didn’t stir. “We’ll have to do this quickly,” Katya said. She bound him hand to foot with tapestry cord. Katya wished they’d been able to find some chains, but Fah and Fay didn’t smile upon them. All they could hope for was that he didn’t break through the rope in an instant.

  Hugo helped them, though no one had told him the plan.

  “So, now you know that no one is saying good-bye,” Katya said.

  “I knew all along. No matter what Redtrue says, I’m not naive. And not stupid, either, though it helps us to let her think so.”

  Katya blinked away her surprise, wondering who had replaced Hugo the boy with the young man beside her.

  They’d ripped Brutal’s shirt open, and Katya pushed the fabric wide so they’d be able to see the wound as he transformed.

  Starbride held up a tiny pyramid, stained around the edges. “I’ll use this to make his Aspect present, then we have to pluck the arrow out, give him a few seconds to heal, and I’ll subdue the Fiend.”

  “But in that time,” Ma said, “he’ll be trying to tear us apart.”

  “Perhaps we should have kept the others,” Hugo said.

  Katya shook her head. “We had to get rid of Redtrue. She might try to stop us rather than help.”

  Starbride gave her a sharp look. “I think I can manage, thank you.”

  Katya kissed her knuckles. “No offense intended, dearheart. I would take your power over an army of adsnazi.”

  Starbride smiled wryly. “Thank you.”

  “Perhaps if we put the bed over him?” Hugo said. “And then laid on it?”

  It would give them a little more weight. They’d have to be careful how they timed it and not put their weight on Brutal until after his Aspect had begun to emerge. They dragged the bed over his legs sideways, ready to shove it forward and jump on top of it. Ma had taken her necklace out, ready to transform. Hugo did the same.

  “Get ready.” Starbride pressed the tiny pyramid to Brutal’s forehead. When she closed her eyes, Katya grabbed the bed frame.

  Seconds passed, a minute. Katya didn’t take her eyes off Starbride. She could feel the tension thrumming from her mother, Hugo, and Dawnmother. They leaned forward as if ready to sprint.

  Brutal continued to lie still, chest fluttering, color waxy and sallow. Perhaps the pyramid was broken, or the Fiend transfer hadn’t worked.

  “Star,” Katya whispered. Brutal twitched, but in reaction to her voice or what Starbride was doing? Starbride didn’t answer. “Brutal?”

  His eyes slipped open, sure and even. Katya watched, rapt, as the iris expanded, bleeding into all parts of his eye until they were two pools of blue.

  “Now!” Katya yelled.

  They shoved the bed forward, stopping just short of the arrow shaft. They tumbled on top, pressing Brutal into the floor. He didn’t flinch, and Katya watched his first transformation from only a foot away. A spike like Katya’s father’s jutted from the middle of his chin, joined by two others just under his cheeks. The horns that sprouted from his brow and continued over his crown were just like Katya’s had been, or so she’d heard.

  “Wait,” Katya said as Hugo inched forward.

  Brutal’s lips pulled back in a snarl, showing off fangs. Katya’s glance flicked to the arrow. The skin around the shaft inched together. “Hugo, now!”

  Hugo grabbed for the arrow shaft as the bed jerked upward. Katya kept hold of the mattress, but her mother went flying. Hugo clutched the bed frame and Dawnmother. Starbride fell backward against the wall.

  Katya grabbed for the arrow, but Brutal bucked again. He might have been tied, but that didn’t stop him from thrashing. Katya slid toward his face, and his eyes fixed on her, teeth snapping at nothing. Katya pushed off his chest and back onto the bed.

  Ma threw herself across all of them, sending the bed smashing down again. Katya made another grab for the arrow, but Ma’s knee dug into her wound, making her cry out.

  Dawnmother scuttled forward, under Ma, and grabbed the arrow. As the bed bucked again, the fletching slid through her fingers, but by the spurt of blood, she’d pulled it out a little.

  Starbride pushed off the wall, shaking her head. She darted forward and gave the arrow another yank, but Brutal nipped at her, and she jerked away.

  Katya heard one snap and then another. Brutal had broken his bonds. As his large hands grabbed the sides of the bed, Katya lunged forward and grabbed the arrow shaft.

  Brutal heaved, and the bed seemed to fly upward, but Katya kept her grip. The ar
row ripped from Brutal’s chest with a sickening pop, and then Katya was weightless, sailing through the air in a tangle of limbs and furniture.

  The bed thunked into the floor, and Katya slid off, banging her knees. She landed on top of everyone, the bloody arrow still in her grasp as the mattress fell on top of them.

  Katya struggled to get up, but the bed flew to the side as if under its own power. Brutal stood over them, flexing his long claws. Katya fell back and kicked him, but her ankle threatened to buckle against his hardened skin. Brutal bent down for her. She shoved her feet against his chest. The arrow hole inched closed, the bleeding only a trickle of frozen droplets. The pile of people squirmed and cried out underneath Katya, and Brutal ignored her force as if she wasn’t even there.

  He jerked upright, eyes wide.

  “Hold him!” Starbride cried.

  Katya barked a laugh. She’d sooner push the palace five feet to the north. Still, she threw the arrow away and lunged, wrapped her arms and legs around Brutal, and held on. The others piled on him, looking for all the world like children climbing a tree. When Brutal turned in Starbride’s direction, Katya lost her grip, certain she’d hindered him much as a fly did a bull moose.

  But a fly could still bite. Katya yanked on his legs. Starbride had stabbed him with a pyramid as she’d once stabbed Katya, the blood contact making it easier for the magic to take effect. Katya punched Brutal in the knee, his frozen bone making her knuckles ache.

  Brutal kicked, and Katya skidded across the floor. Ma climbed across Brutal’s shoulders while Hugo and Dawnmother tried to pin his arms behind his back. He reached up, letting them dangle, but before he could reach Ma, Katya barreled into him.

  He staggered a step under Katya’s onslaught, so she backed up and rammed him again.

  “Almost there!” Starbride cried.

  Katya felt wetness trickle down her back and knew she’d bled through her bandages. Still, she slammed Brutal again. They’d come so close to losing him; she couldn’t stop now. “Come on, Brutal!”

  His head turned as she began another run, his eyes fading to normal and falling closed. She hit him hard, and he toppled, taking everyone with him.