by Brindi Quinn
I didn’t know the true danger of the lavender-eyed man and his lackeys, but I knew enough to know I couldn’t lead them to Beau, especially not with most of her cavalry incapacitated.
So I followed Windley, allowing him the silence he needed to ruminate over the memories now coursing through his nerves. I could see them, behind his eyes and within his rising chest, and I traveled beside him, fighting my impulse to share in his burden.
As the sky shed its cloak of darkness and shifted to dawn, we saw first signs of Windley’s destination. Slabs of stone began to litter the mammoth trees, crawled over by moss and ivy, relics of man that had been reclaimed by the wood.
It seemed people had once inhabited this long-forgotten place, for the stone pieces, sparse at first, collected into the ruins of a city overtaken by the mess of the forest.
“You’ve been here before, Wind?”
He stood staring out over a fallen queendom speckled by forest light, looking more pensive than I had ever seen him. I reached up to tuck a piece of rose-colored hair around his ear, but he snatched my wrist to stop me.
“You called me that before too—Wind. It seems you only call me it when you’re worried.” He turned to let his eyes graze over me. “Don’t worry, lion queen. I’ll make sure they don’t find us.”
That wasn’t what I was worried about, and he knew it.
But like I said before, Windley was a bottler.
“I have been here before. It was my home for a few days.” His eyes were caught in a memory—and not a pleasant one.
But if we were going to uncork that bottle, it wouldn’t be today. It was all too fresh.
And he was wrong. I didn’t only call him that when I was worried; I called him it because it felt good on my tongue.
“Well then,” I said, reclaiming my hand and putting it instead to his collar. “Aren’t you going to invite me back to your place, Wind?”
My forwardness did as intended, wrenching him from the memory. His throat bobbed as he glanced down at my hold on his collar. “Our virgin queen will be saying things like that now?”
If it meant seeing him recover each time.
“You should know I liked to be tucked in,” I added.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Be careful, queenie. I’m still a predator at heart.” Then, he slipped his arm around my waist and drew me deeper into the ruins.
If only it really was that easy to distract him. This was all but a shallow game, for his sake.
I was lucky to have known him eight long years. I was lucky to know how best to handle him.
If I didn’t, our monster may have died.
They’re fickle things, aren’t they? The monsters we create with the ones closest to our hearts? They can wither just as quickly as they bloom. It takes such understanding to properly nurture a monster.
Ours wouldn’t be without its missteps.
I let the keeper of my monster pull me through the deserted queendom, over stone and scree, until reaching what appeared to be a courtyard besieged with stony debris. Overhead, the broken remains of an arched walkway indicated that this had once been an arcade of sorts. Now, its columns were coated with winding ivy.
Windley unbuttoned his cloak and strew it over a bunching of weeds.
“I’m afraid this will be the most rugged night you have ever spent, Queen Merrin. Will your sensibilities allow it?”
Normally, he would say so in jest, bowing low and teasing me for my station. Now, though, he wore something else.
Shame.
He was ashamed to make me sleep in a place like this. Ashamed to have been the reason I wasn’t curled up in the queens’ tent beside Beau.
He should know me better than that.
In a similar manner, I unbuttoned my cloak and laid it out beside his. “You’re forgetting the time we fell asleep on the tree fortress’s veranda. It took Beau forty minutes to pick the bugs from my hair.”
He stared at me a moment and when he blinked—
Love.
That was love in his stare, overwriting the shame.
“Yes, I forgot who I’m dealing with. Queen of the sticks and squalor, lest we forget how untidy your room was.”
“Hey! I didn’t think you’d noticed!”
“Heh.” He laid back into the makeshift bed. “Imagine my surprise when I entered her holy highness’s chamber and found it messier than a cook’s pantry.”
“I like it like that!”
“Of course you do. Now get some rest, pigsty queen. I’ll keep lookout.” With a catlike grin, he reached up to coax me onto the cloak beside him.
Good, he was back to normal.
But that hand of his was suspicious.
“You also need sleep, Windley.” Arguably more so than I. I wouldn’t allow him to subdue me with his… cuddle powers.
Caught, he pulled his rejected hand into himself. “You’re still a queen, Merrin. I’m not letting you sleep unguarded. I’ll be fine.”
Not if his baggy appearance was any indication.
Luckily, I wasn’t only a queen.
I put a finger to my lips—“One moment.”—and leaned back into the darkness, blocking out whatever Windley had been about to say.
“meRrin.”
“merrIn.”
The darkness was calmer than usual, having exerted its aggression on Ascian just hours earlier. The hands tousled me through slippery, airy shadow, bobbing me up and down and waiting for me to share my intention.
“Hi guys. I need a favor, but I’m not sure it’s possible.”
“MerriN?”
“Those without merit skulk in the brush. I need protection from them.”
“We will tear them limb from limb! We will pull the flesh from their bones!”
“No! We don’t need to go that far. Not yet. Can you just keep a lookout for those without merit and wake me if they enter this place?”
Inside my head, a chorus of non-human whispers discussed the request like this was something new for them. They sounded inquisitive, eager, sloshing about in the unseen world. I let them mull it over, turning a deaf ear to one particular voice on the outskirts, clearer than the rest and fighting for my attention.
Exitium.
The one that had caused me to kill Bartolomew. I didn’t want that one’s advice.
But it seemed I didn’t have a choice. In the absence of a solution, the rest of the swirling darkness parted like a curtain, allowing full reach of Exitium’s influence.
“Hello, Merrin,” it said, neither male nor female, slipping into my ear like a serpent. “What you seek is possible. Release them and hold them there. They will do as you command.”
They? Not we? So Exitium considered itself something separate from the rest of the darkness.
This was my first hint to its true identity.
Maybe I should have asked it right then and there what it was, but in truth, I was afraid to know the answer.
And Exitium wouldn’t have answered had I asked anyway. It would only come to tell me when I had something desirable to offer in return. It would be some days yet before that happened.
With trepidation, I waited for the dark being to speak further, but it abstained, instead slinking away and becoming lost in the swell of darkness. After, the rest of the echoes flurried in anticipation.
“MerRIn!”
“mERriN!”
“MErrIN?”
What kind of a villain was I? I had sworn never to use them again, and already I had called on them twice.
Little did I know, there were more things at work than just my lack of will.
I opened my eyes to find Windley squinting at me. “What are you scheming in there? I told you to go to bed.”
“I think I found a way for us both to sleep protected,” I said.
He frowned in distaste. “What, with your little shadow tricks? Not necessary. I told you, I’ll be fine.”
“Sorry, Wind. This is what you get. Me being in love with you means me w
anting to take care of you as much as you want to take care of me. You should know me well enough to know this won’t be a one-sided thing.”
His frown lifted into something lighter, amusement playing at the edge of his mouth. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
He shrugged. “Who am I to deny a queen’s command. Go on, then.”
So he said, blasé, but I saw the way he watched me from the corner of his eye as I tipped my head back and pulled the echoes closer. I drew them in through my nose and held them in my lungs, and when I exhaled, I did so slowly, releasing a cloud of darkness with a shaky breath. It hovered in the air around us until I forced it down to the ground where it landed with a bounce and began to roll outward like fog, filling the perimeter of the arcade before pushing out further and coating the entire floor of the ruins.
“If anyone enters this place, I’ll know. The echoes will shout at me.”
Windley poked at the smoky haze with his toe. “How certain are you of this?”
“It’s wholly untested.”
He smiled foully. “Wonderful. A pleasant rest it will be.”
I took his shoulder and pushed him down into our makeshift bed before crawling in beside him. “I’ll be able to tell if the cover is broken. I felt it just now when you pushed it with your toe. Trust me. I won’t let harm befall us.”
Yet uncertain, he gave one last look off to our surroundings before taking hold of me and drawing me close. “I’ve said it before—you would have made one hell of a guard.”
I could say nothing in response. Even without using his power, his arms around me set my blood arush. I nuzzled into him for fear he would see the heat of my face.
This was our first sleep alone together ever, but there would be no ‘canoodling’ as Windley liked to call it. Instead, he hugged me to his chest, using me for comfort as he chewed over what had happened with Ascian and the rest of his so-called family. Though his body was warm against me, his thoughts were somewhere far away. I waited for his breathing to deepen before I finally let myself drift.
…
…
Some hours later, I awoke to find Windley sleeping just as heavily as if we were back at the fortress.
So he trusted my power after all. It was nice to see him relieved from the weight of his memories. It was enjoyable to see him surrender to my protection.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was more suited to guard than to rule.
The early morn was cool enough to turn the embrace of a wayward queen and her borrowed guard from inappropriate to necessity. His warmth was my shield, his body my comfort. And while the birds settled around the ruins thought to wake him with their morning song, Windley was stalwart in his desire to sleep off the events of the previous night.
He was turned on his side, with his lower back exposed and chilled from his untucked shirt. I meant to pull it down for him, but my curiosity had other plans. Careful not to wake him, I inched the fabric the rest of the way up—not for any promiscuous reason, but to confirm a theory.
As I brushed my fingers over the disfigured strips of flesh hidden beneath, constriction found its way into my throat. As suspected, his scars were in patterns of three—like that three-tailed whip the lavender-eyed man had cracked into the air.
Trauma was stored in those wounds. Painful memories resided in his flesh. And now I knew:
The lavender-eyed man—the one called Ascian—was Windley’s abuser.
“We will scorch the skin from his muscle!”
Yes, we would end him. Whatever else lay ahead, of this I was certain.
When I returned to sleep, I did so squeezing Windley tighter than I ever had before, ignoring the pounding of my chest in hope of bringing him unseen comfort.
…
…
…
“Argh! Why do YOU insist on spooning ME, Merrin?”
We finally roused in the middle of the afternoon as spots of sunlight kissed the fallen rubble of the ruins. Windley was substantially less baggy than before, though his cheek held the imprint of a leaf.
“Because it’s comfy?” I told him.
“But I’m much taller than you! It doesn’t make ergonomic sense! You’re like a little turtle strapped to my back.”
“You’d be so lucky as to have a turtle queen strapped to your back! Men have died for that honor.”
No men had died for that honor.
“You know, of all the times I pictured us sleeping together, I was never the little spoon! Ugh, queens.” He rolled over me, darkness falling over his devilish brow as I pressed myself further into the pile of weeds and held my breath in my chest. “You think you’re so cute—” But he stopped himself: “You are cute”—and kissed the tip of my nose.
Everything else aside, I was the same self-indulgent queen as always, and with him leaning over me, pushing my hand into the bed of ivy and chewing his lip as he stared at my mouth with eyes reading sinful intent, I wanted nothing more than to forget about the pain stored within his wounds and the darkness wrapped up in my soul, and fall with him into ecstasy.
But it wouldn’t be so.
Just then, the echoes came flooding back, alerting me that one without merit had just entered our refuge.
Chapter 3
Two Birds
Windley’s hatchets were at the ready, thirsty for the contact they hadn’t yet made.
“Can you tell which way, Merrin?”
“Over there!” I pointed to the far side of the ruins.
“Over there?” He lowered one hatchet. “Why would they be coming from that direction?”
“I don’t know, but this time I’ll be ready.”
Yet Windley stopped me as I began to tip my head. “No, lion queen. I’ll take care of it. You don’t need any more blood on your hands.” He offered me a crafty smile. “Back me up?”
I suspected it wasn’t only about sparing me the guilt of taking another life, though—he wanted to keep me as far away from that dark, forgotten past of his as possible.
With the echoes ramming against my temples, I let him pull me behind a wall of rubble that had once been the courtyard’s entrance and watched as he strained his pointed ears for signs of what we were up against.
“What the hell?” he muttered to himself before I could hear so much as a rustle in the distance. “That sounds like… and he’s… Hnh.” He looked at me sidelong. “Chap’s got a mouth on him, who knew?”
“Chap? You mean it’s…?”
Windley stood from our hiding place: “Oy, chap! Queen Beau allows you to kiss her with that mouth?”
“You!” came a tight answer. “Finally.”
I popped up to find Rafe standing across the grounds, looking ruffled and cranky in an emerald cloak. And he wasn’t alone; he was holding a string—the other end of which was connected to a black bird with a humorously long tail.
“Rafe! You leashed a widowbird? But they don’t do well in captivity,” I said.
“You think?” Rafe lashed—before dropping to his knee in repentance. “A-apologies, Your Majesty. It has been a frustrating morning of stumbling around in the trees after this thing. Beau told me to use it as a guide, but it’s been spending more time trying to peck itself loose than leading me to you.”
Probably because he had tied a string around its leg like a kite.
Windley held his mouth to stifle a laugh. “Aw, man. That’s rough. Queens can be so demanding, can’t they?”
Rafe wasn’t in the mood. He swatted at the bird, who swooped at him in an attempt to get free, before turning to us. “What exactly is this?” he said, pointing from Windley to me. “An elopement? I would expect something like that from him, Your Majesty, but not you. What about your court?”
“It wasn’t intentional, Rafe. We merely went for a night walk, when we encountered trouble in the wood.”
It was up to Windley how much he wanted to share from there.
Windley hesitated by scanning the trees at our backs. “Some
thing unfavorable is after me,” he said, slow and calculated, “and now it’s had a sniff of our rantipole Queen.”
Rafe folded his arms. “Something unfavorable?”
I folded my arms. “Rantipole?”
Windley ignored me.
“You said Merrin’s magic is stronger than the elders of your clan, yes? Mine too, as it turns out, but what if there was a being able to steal said magic, and what if that being had seen said magic?”
That was why he didn’t want Ascian to see my power?!
Rafe’s face was desert dry. “Nothing is ever easy with you two, is it.”
“Yet it was your affair that sent us out here in the first place,” Windley crooned.
“Yet it was YOU who stole Her Majesty away in the middle of the night. Again,” Rafe countered.
“Enough.” I moved to free the bird, who settled on my shoulder in thanks. “You sound like bickering fogies. It doesn’t matter whose fault any of it is. Rafe, you will return to camp and tell Beau and Albie not to wait for us. We’ll make sure our trail is clear before we head home.”
“Respectfully, Your Majesty, you’d be safer if you returned with me. The cavalry can help fight this threat, whatever it is.”
Absolutely not.
But Windley interceded before I could protest. “Chap does have a point, Merr. If you go back with him, I can lead Ascian away by turning on my power. If the goal is to get him away from you, it’s not a bad plan.”
“But why would we do that when it is my power that can end him?” I said.
“Merrin.” Windley put his hands on my shoulders. “Are you so eager to kill…”
Again?
I could tell he stopped himself from saying ‘again.’ A Bartolomew-shaped lump caught itself in my throat.
But the marks under Windley’s shirt were fodder enough for the darkness growing within me.
Oh, have I not mentioned it was growing?
Because I had given it a target. Not that I knew it yet.
