by Brindi Quinn
The figure noticed me immediately and disappeared into the shadows, but I heard her footsteps, even brisker, approaching along the unlit portion of street, skipping over hidden debris and around wastebins until stopping a short distance away.
In the dim of night, I couldn’t see her face, just a shadow beneath the hood of a cloak. I figured that was how I looked too, so I lowered mine, putting faith in Exitium’s guidance.
The figure let out a gasp. “Your hair! You’re… Queen Merrin of the north?”
Her voice was like honey.
And it definitely wasn’t Beau’s.
“Who are you?” I said.
Choosing not to answer, she came closer but didn’t lower her hood. “You are Merrin, right? He said you’d have wild hair.”
“Yes, I’m Merrin. Who are you?” I repeated.
“We aren’t safe here. I’ve got a stag waiting. Come with me, quickly!” The figure took my arm and pulled at me, stumbling over a piece of uneven cobble before regaining her footing and yanking me after her into the shadows and down the street. “I’m a friend,” she said, voice hushed.
I anchored my heels. “A friend?”
“Of Windalloy’s. With their network of hexes in place, he can no longer enter this city—they would detect him immediately—so he sent me to find you. I’m just glad you weren’t inside that house! I don’t know if I’d have been able to get you out. Maybe if it was just Pipsqueak, but not with those other two there. Charm is perfectly wicked!”
“What do you mean their network of hexes?” I said. “And if that’s the case, why didn’t Windley, er, Windalloy send Rafe to come find me?”
This ‘friend of Windley’s’ was leading me to the city’s gate, frantically glancing behind us into the shadows as if they might take shape and pursue.
“Rafe? Is that the magician you were traveling with? He isn’t here. Windalloy will explain once we get to my cottage. It’s just a short ride outside the city…” Her voice softened and she no longer seemed to be speaking to me as she continued: “I didn’t want to move too far away in case he ever came back.”
Even without signs of pursuit, the girl didn’t let up, and she refused to release my arm until we were outside the city walls, where a large white stag stood tied to a post bathed in the light of one final lamp.
“Good boy, Boomer.” She gave the beast a pat before mounting. “Come on up. He can carry us both, easy.”
“What kind of stag is this?”
Too large to be a wind stag, but not malevolent like a blood stag. Maybe a water stag? If so, it didn’t match Mother Poppy’s description at all.
“It’s a spring stag,” said the honey-voiced girl. “Bred in the west. Come on, hurry. Windalloy’s panicking by now.”
I did as she said but held the echoes close. If this was a trap, it wasn’t a well-thought one.
But it wasn’t a trap.
I knew that.
I knew this person was a good person. I could practically feel the goodness emanating from her. This friend of Windley’s.
And already, something was beginning to wriggle deep, deep within me. The monster Windley and I had created, for some reason it was feeling… uneasy.
“Oh shoot! I haven’t even told you my name,” said the girl with a laugh. “It’s Meraflora. I promise you can trust me. Windalloy and I go way back. You could even say we saved each other.”
Meraflora? Windley had never mentioned that name. Obviously he had known people other than his adoptive ‘family’ before fleeing to the north. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I didn’t know all of their names.
…Right?
Right, captive ones? Right?
I wish you could have been there to reassure me.
I did my best to shake the feeling settling at the pit of my stomach away—a feeling that did not yet have a name—and concentrated on the fact that Windley was close and that we were swiftly traveling to him.
“I’m glad to meet you, Meraflora. Windley’s other childhood accomplices haven’t turned out to be so kind.”
“Oh, you poor thing. I assure you, most of their kind are good. It’s really only a small pocket that are creeps. I hope you’ll meet others like Windalloy while you’re down here.”
I feel we should fast forward here, captive ones. True, Meraflora made more small talk with me on the way to her cottage, but I can’t remember it all. I was feeling anxious, wondering about this kind person with a past rooted alongside Windley’s. Wondering how they had ‘saved each other.’ Wondering why he had never mentioned such a sweet-voiced girl.
Meraflora’s cottage came out of nowhere, tucked away in a wooded area along a path sprouting from a greater traveled road.
I could tell you about the construct of it—wood; the ambiance of it—quaint; or about the garden surrounding it—rose-filled; but I didn’t care about any of that at the time. I didn’t care about the glowing beetles illuminating the path, attracted to stores of honey she left for them in feeders. I didn’t care about the clear view of the night-lit heavens directly over her cottage. Nor did I care about the colored bottles and chimes dangling from the trees over her patio.
I only cared about the person waiting on her stoop. The one who stood when he saw us, his hair turned black as doom. The one who set my heartbeat fast. The one who ran to us and pulled me from the stag into the tightest embrace.
“Merr.” Windley buried his head in me and shook. “It’s my fault. I lost control. I gave us away, and I didn’t even realize it.”
But if he wanted to say more, it would have to wait, for I was taking his mouth to let him know how forgiven he was.
The kiss, however, was one-sided.
“Wind?”
“Sorry, lion queen. Give me a minute. I don’t want it to happen again. Just let me compose before you do that.”
Ah.
Now, the kiss was very much two-sided.
For a blinking second, Windley and I were the only two in the world, and I had never been happier to be held by him. It was easy to forget, lost like that, that there were much more pressing matters at hand.
Meraflora, kind and practical as she was, stepped in to remind us.
“Windalloy, we should go inside,” she said delicately. “You need to catch her up, and I’m sure she’d like to get clean.”
Windley didn’t set me down until we were inside Meraflora’s quaint log cottage, a place clean and warm and with white curtains that likely fluttered on windy afternoons—the sort of place an angel might reside. A kind, warm, life-saving angel.
I apologize, captive ones, if I’m coming across as bitchy.
No? Aggressive in the passive sort of way, maybe?
I just…
You’ll see.
“I owe you, Flora. Yet again. I don’t know that I’ll live long enough to repay you, though,” said Windley, showing off his jester’s grin that I loved so much.
Only, he wasn’t showing it off to me. He was showing it to the other girl in our midst—Meraflora. Or as he had just called her, Flora.
Now that name. That was a name I had heard before. Or rather, I had almost heard it.
Twice, to be exact.
Windley ushered me into a carved wooden chair in Flora’s quaint kitchen, which smelled of biscuits and apricot jam, which was crawling with houseplants and decorated in dried bouquets, which was both tidy and cozy. “Merr.” Windley placed his hands on my shoulders. “Flora is the girl I told you about before—the one that helped me escape. My keeper’s daughter, remember?”
Ah yes. And now I remembered where I had heard the name.
‘No wonder Windalloy likes you. You look a lot like Flor—’
‘Did you notice? Doesn’t she look just like Flo—'
And as the kind, good, honey-voiced Flora with the homey cottage and charming garden finally lowered her hood, I was knocked speechless in the worst of ways.
The thing about Flora was that she looked a bit like me.
&
nbsp; An understatement, captive ones.
The thing about Flora is that she looked a lot like me. She was an older version of me. If my hair were straight and silky. If my waist were smaller and my bosom ampler. If my teeth were whiter and my skin softer.
That foreign feeling blooming at the base of my stomach? The one causing our monster friction?
Its name was jealousy.
And let me tell you, jealousy is a dangerous thing to feel when darkness resides in your soul.
Chapter 14
Windley’s Secret
“Merrin?! You’re leaking again!”
Yes, shadow was rising around us, streaming out from my wrists, and I couldn’t stop it.
For a moment, I didn’t want to.
“Oh my goddess! You were right! She IS the Nemophilist!”
Oh, so he had told her about that already? You know, only my greatest secret?
Windley placed his hand on my forehead like he was checking a child for fever. “Merrin, what’s wrong? Your spirit feels…”
I haven’t sugar-coated much of this story, captive ones, so I hope you’ll believe me when I say that I am, nearly always, able to turn on my diplomatic side. It’s the way I was raised. When expected to lead thousands, it’s imperative to keep calm in the face of chaos. So you’ll understand my mood in that moment when I tell you, it took everything in me not to slap Windley in front of Flora.
The only person I had ever heard Windley speak of with such admiration happened to look suspiciously similar to me? Not to mention, our names started out the same? Meraflora. Merrin. Meraflora. Merrin. Had he called her Merr too?
Even without sharing a face with her, I would have been jealous of Flora—the ride over was proof—but the fact that she did look me, and that Windley had omitted that when telling me about her? Well, that just made everything so much worse. Because it meant he had been hiding her, and that meant he felt he had something to hide.
Maybe I was to blame. I had given him permission to lie to me, to skew the truth, to tell me the easiest version—but I hadn’t meant hiding the fact that I was a father-freaking surrogate!
In that moment, I was certain that Windley’s true desire was Flora all along and that he had merely projected those feelings onto the next best thing in her absence. I was furious, entertaining wild, unproven theories about Windley’s true intentions, questioning everything he had ever said to me.
In the absence of understanding, we create stories.
To cope with fear.
It was a dark, messy moment. With the darkness spilling out of me at a quickening rate, I put my hand to my mother’s necklace and tried to borrow from her strength as I forced a fakey voice usually saved for the most tiresome of political obligations:
“Meraflora? I am so sorry to do this after you’ve shown us such kindness, but I need to speak with Windley alone.”
“Oh my! Of course! I actually need to set the bedroom up for you two anyway. Go ahead and discuss whatever you need to. Once you’re finished, I’ll fix you a meal, sound good?” She made herself scarce, calling: “I’ll be just at the end of the hall if you need anything!”
So understanding. So soft and warm and kind.
The darkness around me swelled.
“Ah! Merrin? Are you okay? Why did you just use that weird voice you always use during budget meetings? Are you okay? Did they do something to you?”
“Windley…” I set my hands flush against the table to collect myself, as if the ancient wisdom of the wood’s rings could lend me the strength not to murder my lover with my bare darkness-encompassed hands.
“Lion queen?”
“She looks like me.”
“Who?” He wrinkled his brow. “Flora?”
Hold my ale, captive ones.
“Of course, Flora. She could be my sister!”
“Really? Hold on, let me visualize it.” Windley closed his eyes and concentrated his forehead. “Huh, you’re right. You do kind of look alike. I never noticed.”
Have you ever ground your teeth so tightly that it hurts your jaw?
“Are you seriously trying to gaslight me right now?”
“I-I’m not! I really didn’t notice! Wait…” He studied the creases of my face as if searching for hidden meaning. “You’re…” The corner of his mouth upticked. “Are you jealous?”
“Windley! Why are you playing dumb!? Obviously, I am jealous! Anyone would be in this situation!”
“…But you’re a queen.”
“So?”
“Flora’s just a normal woman.”
“So am I, Windley!”
Windley looked at me as though he were trying to solve a tough mathematical problem. I could practically see him carrying the one in his head. “Think like a human,” he muttered to himself, eyes squinted.
“No need. I’ll spell it out for you. The fact that I look like her… it is a terribly cruel thing.”
Windley appeared as though I had just struck him with an arrow through the middle. It took him some time to gather his words.
“Cruel?” His voice was subdued. “I’m not sure what to say. I think I understand why you’re upset, but this whole thing is different for me than it is for you. I told you, I connect with spirits before bodies, so when I look at you or Flora, the first thing I notice is your spirit. Obviously, I see you—I’m not blind—but, your physical body is secondary. It’s hard to explain.”
That excuse wasn’t going to work.
“Pip noticed. He mentioned that I look like her. Twice.”
“Yeah? Well you can’t really compare me to Pip. Pip’s incredibly powerful, so powerful that he manifested like five years earlier than the rest of us, and he’s always been in tune to people’s bodies in a weird way, like he can see heartbeats and stuff. He’s not normal. He’s gifted.”
This time I was the one searching the creases of his face for hidden meaning.
“Merrin.” Windley took my hand and knelt so that he was at eye level. “When I met you, I couldn’t even recollect Flora’s face, but even if I could, it wouldn’t matter. I’ve never loved Flora. She was a friend and comfort for me in a time filled with unkindness, but I never desired for her the way I do you. I liked you from the moment I saw you, and as much as I enjoy your… shell… that isn’t what I first fell in love with. I told you, human-Spirite pairings are rare. The way I feel for you… I could never feel it for someone else. There isn’t enough life in me.”
He was telling the truth.
I knew him well enough to know that.
But although I knew it, that deep-seeded darkness wanted to draw it out, to punish him for the misunderstanding, to treat him like we were of the same race and culture and that there would be no allowances for differing life experiences.
The bloodlust brought on by the Nemophile’s Crown was strong.
But the throbbing of my heart was stronger.
With a quaking exhale, I released the anger and felt my shoulders fall. And in the empty space left behind, another emotion came flooding in.
She was his only comfort in a time filled with unkindness? The one who had read to him while he was locked in a cage? What kind of monster was I?
“Oh no. I-I lost my head. I’m so sorry, Windley. The way it looked… I know our races are different. I guess I didn’t realize how different. I should be glad you had a comfort in your past instead of feeling such horrid things. I haven’t been feeling like myself lately because of…”
Exitium.
Bloodlust.
Destruction.
“Stress,” I finished.
“Merr, I’ve been around humans long enough to know how you function. I should have given thought to how my relationship with her might look. I wasn’t being considerate.” He rubbed his thumb across my knuckles. “But I meant what I said—love for us is different than it is for you. There will never be anyone else but you. My heart isn’t the sort that can love more than once.” He gave one solemn chuckle: “That’s why I wa
s living in torment when I thought I would never get to have you.”
Oh my heart.
A million chords plucked in my chest.
“You can’t say things like that to a human; we’ll explode,” I said, guiltier by the moment.
“Seems to have worked. You stopped leaking.” Content, he slid into the chair opposite me and put his hands behind his head. “I have to say, I’m a mite flattered—you being jealous over me, and all. You do know you’re a teensy bit out of my league, right?”
Because of me, the pain of his past had come creeping in, and now he was trying to deflect it with play.
I owed it to him to oblige.
“D-didn’t you know? Lions can be quite ferocious when guarding our prey.”
“Oh?” He gave me one of his darker looks. “So you’ll be nibbling on me, then?”
Of course, the thought of it was especially appealing after being apart from him—I should like to experience the feel of his body through his shirt—but it was difficult to recover from the ugliness I had just displayed.
How could I keep it from resurfacing?
If we create stories in the absence of understanding, then maybe the key was understanding.
“Windley, you do enjoy when I touch you, don’t you?”
I had seen the way he looked at me, felt the way his body reacted to mine. He had called me beautiful, caressed my skin with lust on his hands, yet…
“That much is obvious, isn’t it?”
“But if bodies don’t matter to you? I just want to understand better. I feel I know you so well, and yet I know so little about how you see the world.”
“Bodies do matter.” Windley thought a moment. “It’s like getting a piece of cake with frosting. The cake is the main attraction, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to lick the frosting.”
Leave it to him to come up with an analogy like that.
“The cake is the spirit and the frosting is the body?” I said.
“You got it. Now, for me, your frosting is especially desirable because I know there’s cake underneath—the best cake, in my opinion. Some people don’t even have cake under their frosting—just a slice of shit. If I know there’s shit inside, I’m not going to bother with the frosting.”
