The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5)

by Jovee Winters

  “Look at me, woman,” the king said, and Fable did, heart beating like a wild thing in her chest as she fell a little more in love with him.

  Never could she have imagined that the king of the enchanted forest would be so handsome. There was a little silver beginning to show at his temples, but his shoulders were wide and powerful looking, and his grip on his horse’s reins sure.

  She’d come with the expectation of finding an older male, well beyond his prime. King George had been ruling the enchanted forest for many decades now; his wife had been in her early fifties when she’d passed, which was very young by Kingdom standards.

  There had also been rumors surrounding her death. How could such a young woman in the prime of her vigor have died so suddenly? Death did not come easily to Kingdomers, though it happened, it rarely occurred due to natural means.

  “Are you hurt?” George asked softly, cutting through her musing.

  Just then more horses carrying riders—no doubt the royal guard since they were all dressed in white armor and carrying golden scabbards—came galloping over the grassy knoll.

  “Sire!” the lead rider cried, “you should not race so fast, it is not safe.”

  Holding up his hand for silence, the king shook his head. Immediately the lead guard snapped his mouth shut, looking stunned to see her standing there. He had a neatly trimmed, black goatee and sharply raised dark brows, which made her think him akin to the devil in looks.

  Not at all unpleasing to the eye, though King George was more her type.

  “Lady?” George said again, gently.

  Shaking off her own stunned stupor, she nodded. “Yes. Yes, thank you, King George, I am well.”

  His smile grew radiant, and she knew she was halfway to being in love with him already.

  “And what, pray tell, are you doing out here in my woods all alone? You look like a woman of stature and means.”

  Implied, but unspoken was that noblewomen should never walk about on their own. Which Fable found to be rather archaic thinking, but he was so handsome, and she was quite smitten, so she shrugged it off. He was a king after all, and they tended to be a tad old-fashioned, she should know; she’d lived with one all her life.

  Smiling gently, she nodded. “I am a woman of stature. You are correct. Though I am not of the above.”

  His eyes widened for a moment, and then his entire face broke out into a smile. “You must be she. The princess of shadow and night.”

  It was her turn to be shocked. “You...you know of me?”

  Though knights surrounded them, it felt as though the world had slowly faded away to only him and her. Fable was aware of nothing other than the sound of his voice and the beat of her heart.

  “I believe all of Kingdom has heard of you, Fable, daughter of King Sircco and granddaughter to both Hook and Hades. Though I must say, your beauty far surpasses even your legend.”

  “Good gods,” she couldn’t help but mumble, planting a hand on her burning cheek.

  He threw his head back and chuckled, causing his own Adam’s apple to roll. But unlike the revulsion she’d felt for rat face, the sight of his enchanted her. If Auntie Aphrodite had been here, she was sure there’d be little hearts floating around her and George.

  Was this true love?

  Mother said that when she’d first seen father she’d felt the powerful magic of true love beat through her soul. That was how love worked in Kingdom, immediately and powerfully when two destined souls met.

  Her smile grew bright, sure that she’d just met her perfect, other half.

  “And may I ask, if I might be so presumptuous—”

  As if a king ever needed to ask for permission, she chuckled softly to herself but said nothing except to nod for him to continue.

  “—if you had any plans for tonight?”

  She’d come to the above with one intention only, to find the king and make him fall in love with her. So far her plan was coming to fruition. Little did she know that she too would feel the pleasant sting of it.

  “No, my liege, no plans at all.”

  With a gentle roll of his hips, George caused his horse to canter slowly toward her.

  “Charles! Come and take this ladies mirror from her and carry it safely to my home,” George cried.

  The lead guardsman came up to her then, and his look was serious and intent. He really was handsome, up close she could also tell that he had unnaturally long lashes for a male, her heart fluttered a tiny bit. Though that emotion was nothing to what she currently felt for George.

  Happily she lifted the mirror to him.

  “My lady,” Charles said slowly when he got near enough to take it.

  And when he grabbed hold, his fingers gently brushed hers. Not in an obvious manner, but in a way to catch her attention. She looked up at him with a question only to note that his eyes had taken on an emotion she couldn’t quite place.

  Steady.

  Studious.

  Fearful?

  She blinked, sure it had only been an illusion of light and shadow, because as soon as he’d taken the mirror, he bowed his head and turned, his features looking as distant and implacable as before.

  But she quickly forgot her unease when the king gave her his hand.

  “Please do me the great honor of being my guest this evening,” he said, and she was more than happy to oblige.

  “Yes, I will.”

  One night soon turned to two. Then three. A week. A month. And in next to no time the banners had been raised.

  King George had found his new bride, and her name was Fable of the Seren Seas—the fairest of them all.

  Sadly, the night of the wedding was the last night of joy she’d know for a very, very long time.

  Chapter 2

  Fable

  “Let me out of here!” She screamed passionately, kicking at the door with her slippered foot in her fearful desire to leave the tower.

  “Ye heard the King!” The rickety voice of George’s mother cackled through the thick walnut doors. “Ye’ve been a bad, bad girl, Fable, and needs be punished.”

  She sobbed, shaking the handle impudently, knowing her meager strength could do nothing against the magick holding it fast.

  The only crime she’d committed this morning had been to remain in her robes, laid up in bed rather than greet him as the rest of the castle did at the start of each day. Fable had felt pain in her head, and had taken too much of the witch’s “healing brew” she’d felt weak and helpless and unable to rise and had known much too late that Brunhilda had put something into the potion to make her sick as she was.

  “You know he wouldn’t like this!” Fable screamed louder as she heard his mother’s footsteps retreating. “If he finds out what you’ve done to me! He’ll—”

  Immediately Brunhilda returned, moving fleet of foot—much faster than an aged crone of a millennia should. Or at least that’s how old Fable judged her to be the one time she’d caught Brunhilda transform from a woman of moderate years to something ancient, powerful, and full of the very darkest kind of magick.

  Fable had almost not believed what she’d seen, except for the fact that as the months in this wretched castle passed she’d witnessed the witch do other, even more, amazing feats.

  “He’d do what, huh?” she taunted, voice sounding as dry and dusty as brittle bones, “we both know who’s the true power here, wench, and it ain’t him and it ain’t you. I own him, always have. Always will. Besides...”

  Nails dragged down the door, the squeal sounding like the death throes of a dying swine, and Fable clapped hands over her ears, biting down on her back teeth as she trembled and shook, hating the witch with a fury that rocked her to her very core.

  “...we both know there’s nothing you can do about it. Dark Queen.” Cackling laughter trailed in her wake.

  It took several moments before Fable could even move. Only in the deep silence of knowing she was truly alone, did she finally take a tentative step back. Then another. A
nd another.

  Until finally she sat on the edge of the massively large bed covered in the skins of a giant deer and looked around the lonely tower she’d no doubt call home for the next fortnight until George’s return.

  Luxury dripped from every corner of the tower. There were fairy globes glittering with green and blue light above her. Artist’s renderings of the previous kings and queens through several dynasties past. Paintings of the Enchanted Forest directly surrounding the castle’s walls.

  Stitched together furs from hundreds of sacrificed snow foxes on the black marble floor. A massive table with a silver bowl in its center that would magically fill with whatever food and drink she so desired.

  She had a trunk full of the most lush and provocative fashions meant to make any queen appear the grandest of them all at any ball or gathering.

  Surrounded by everything, and yet she had nothing.

  Blinking back tears, she stared at the thin iron shackle on her wrist. “A gift,” Brunhilda had said, after Fable’s marriage to her son.

  She’d never suspected George’s mother of subterfuge. Not the comely woman with a crown of lovely snow-white hair that fell in graceful waves down her back. Not the woman with a face as smooth and unlined as a female in her youth. Not a woman with clear blue eyes whose smile was as open and honest as her sons.

  No, Fable had taken that gift, smiled her thanks and of her own volition had sealed her doom when she’d locked it around her wrist.

  The moment the iron had clapped down, she’d felt it—the burn and sizzle of the loss of her magic. The violence of losing it had driven her straight to her knees in horror and distress, only to hear the witch’s dulcet voice proclaim that none would ever rule this kingdom beside her son, but she.

  Fable had made the mistake of telling George. And the warm, caring, kindhearted man she’d fallen in love with back in the Glen had merely looked at her, patted her head and shambled off as though he’d not heard her. It was then that Fable finally understood why her husband never removed the thin, delicate iron chain around his neck.

  By the time it had finally dawned on Fable that the witch had full possession of George as well, it had been far too late for her to do anything about it.

  Fable was as helpless as a human and too far away from Seren to alert her parents to her newfound horrors. The witch, clever as she was, and knowing exactly who Fable was, had even made it impossible for her to call on her own grandmother and grandfather, who could have surely come to her aid had they only known.

  But the moment Fable had opened her mouth to scream out their names, her molars had clicked shut, and her tongue had swollen to twice its size, making her fear she’d suffocate on her own tongue.

  That was when she fully understand the power Brunhilda wielded; the witch had thought of everything.

  Feeling hopeless and lost, she stood and walked slowly toward the only window in the tower staring out at the beautiful blue sky, watching the fanciful flight of a sparrow sail past and wishing with all her heart and mind that she’d never left Seren.

  That she could roll time back and never come here.

  Planting her hand on the stone, Fable rested her forehead against the cold, and unyielding gray stone, pretending for a moment that she rested her head on the chest of her lover and that he held her back, reassuring her that all would be well again.

  But there was no lover. Not even George. Not after the night of the wedding. He’d never touched her again. Never kissed her again. And rarely spoke more than two words to her.

  Her solace in this whole miserable place was two. Her mirror. And George’s little girl by his first wife—Snow White.

  “Mirror,” she said softly.

  Immediately she felt the prickle of the mirror’s power roll to life as it washed against her back. Brunhilda had been thorough in her torture of Fable; the witch had allowed Fable to keep her mirror. Which should have been a great act of kindness, but was, in fact, the very worst sort of torture there was. When she grew really heartsick and desperate, she’d ask Mirror to show her Seren, her family. It was a blade to the heart to see them all so happy, smiling and laughing and having the time of their lives, no doubt resting securely in the knowledge that Fable was too. To see them, but not to hear them, not to talk with them, or beg them to come and snatch her away from this misery, it was a form of torment far worse than almost anything else the witch could have devised.

  “Yes, my queen,” he said in that deeply pitched voice that somehow always reminded Fable of the deep waters of home.

  Twirling on her heel, she stared at her final gift from her grandfather.

  No doubt as a joke, grandfather had crafted the image within to resemble that of Uriah. Fable hadn’t been too fond of that aspect at first, but now she found that even a false connection to her brother had become a lifeline to her sanity.

  Bottomless blue eyes stared at her quizzically. “My queen?” he asked again.

  And her heart clenched all over again at the image of her brother. So strong and virile and handsome with his electrifying blue hair framing his face and his masculine jaw, in coloration he looked nothing like her parents, but in features he took after father completely.

  It was her Uriah in many ways; only Mirror lacked the rascally twinkle in his eyes that showed her brother was perpetually up to no good.

  “It seems we are trapped in the tower again,” she said softly.

  He looked around. At times, it still amazed her how sentient the mirror was. How aware and thoughtful.

  “True,” he finally said, “though considering I am always trapped, I do not find my new surroundings to be much different.”

  His grin was commiserating.

  She sighed, then chuckled softly and hugged the robe tight around her. The tower was always damp and far too cold for her. Seren’s waters were deep and warm. Ironic, she’d never given much thought to the beauty of her world until she’d come to the place she’d always known would make her “happy.”

  Fable was not happy now. And she feared she might never be happy again.

  “No, I guess it wouldn’t. What am I to do? Each time we are locked away, the days grow longer and more taxing. I cannot sit up here for hours upon a day eating nothing but bonbons and watching birds fly by; I would go mad. I know I would.”

  Mirror cocked his head, staring at her a long moment before asking, “What would you like to do?”

  She blinked, not exactly sure herself. Fable had come here with very little thought in mind other than making the king fall deliriously in love with her and living happily ever after.

  Wasn’t that how the stories went?

  The lovers met. The lovers loved. The lovers stayed gloriously, forever, and eternally happy? What a stupid fool she’d been to think any man could ever become the sole source of her happiness.

  Mother had often warned Fable not to keep her head in the clouds, but she’d just known that someday too her own prince would come. That they’d rule their kingdom justly and with a sound and fair hand. That they’d be beloved by their people and children.

  In the eight months since her marriage Fable had been alone with George only once, and even then things had been rushed and hurried, after that, she’d been nothing more than a title to him. Dolled up and paraded out before the masses to be gawked and stared at by all other noblemen and women.

  The only time Fable was truly happy were the rare and stolen moments she got to share with Snow. But even the little princess was kept under tight supervision by the witch.

  It was like the entire castle was under Brunhilda’s spell, but none of them knew it. And then in one of those rare flashbacks, where her mind suddenly recalled a memory it hadn’t in ages, the image of the guardsman who’d taken her mirror came sharply to mind.

  “Where is Charles!” she asked, voice rising with the thought of salvation.

  Uriah Mirror, far more unflappable than Uriah her brother, said without missing a beat, “King George’s guardsm
an was unable to follow his liege this morning, he recently broke his arm and—”

  She held up her hand. “I do not care what’s happened to him, only that he is here on the premises.”

  “Yes, my queen, he is.”

  Wetting her lips, an idea suddenly came to her. She’d never tried this before, but her grandfather’s magick was powerful. Powerful enough that when Brunhilda tried to strip the man from the mirror she could not.

  For so long having Mirror in her room was a constant reminder of all that she’d lost. But through the weeks and months that had followed she’d begun to learn that Mirror was so much more than merely a two-way device that allowed her to talk with her family. Mirror was smart, and above all, loyal. All she knew was that she was grateful now more than ever for him.

  “Mirror,” she said softly, “I wonder, can you travel between looking glasses?”

  He blinked, as though startled. Then looked at her with wide, rounded eyes. “Why yes, it seems that I can, my queen.”

  She grinned, feeling more positive and excited about this than she had about anything since arriving in the above.

  “Go to him then and deliver a message—”

  “My queen, if I may.”

  She lifted a brow.

  “There is a secret tunnel into here.”

  “What! Where?” She turned; ready to run far from here. She could leave the castle grounds, find a lake and call for her father. She could be hom—

  Mirror shook his head, a look of distress pinching his features. “I am sorry, my queen, to have caused you such excitement only to have to be the bearer of bad news now.”

  Immediately her heart plummeted to her knees and a scream wedged tight in her throat, to have been given a glimpse of freedom only to have it dashed, it was all she could do to remain standing and not crumble to the floor.

  Squaring her shoulders, remembering the words of her mother, she shook off the disappointment as best she could.

  “What is it, Mirror?”

  “You cannot leave, my queen. The witch has spelled the tunnel, should you pass through it, you would surely die.”