Dethroned_An Inimical Prequel Novella

by Genevieve Iseult Eldredge

  “There’s no escape,” she whines pitifully. The summersteel chains binding her hiss with heat, crackling across the child’s scaled dragonskin. She winces, steam rising off her scales.

  “You’re a water drake.” I’m dumbfounded because water drakes need to stay close to the lake or ocean where they make their lair. Poor kid. The heat from the summersteel must be pure torture. Sympathy tears at my heart. “We’ll figure a way out,” I say stubbornly. “I promise.”

  It’s what Syl would say.

  “See?” Another voice, rich with a clipped accent, pipes in from the side. “Dark lady thinks we can escape.” A tiny tigerish face presses against my bars from the right. “I’m Kshirin, and I think we can escape, too.” She winks a golden eye at me, her tiger stripes glowing as her bowlike mouth splits in a smile. Catlike fangs shine, and she taps the bars with her claws.

  A rakshasi. Masters of illusion and war, the rakshasa (rakshasi for girls) are tiger shifters who serve my father as elite warriors. They rarely have children, so finding a rakshasi child in the Oubliettes is beyond odd.

  “I want to escape, too!” A boy with scraggly hair pushes in from the left cage. A bog-hag, if the boggy smell of him is any indication.

  We’re all stacked like dominoes. I guess I’m not the only traitor, but these are kids.

  Suddenly, Father’s words hit me like a troll’s banhammer. “Think of the children.”

  “No. Way.” I look at the three. The little water drake, the tiny rakshasi, the bog-hag boy. “Are you—”

  “She’s Miz.” The rakshasi hooks a claw at the water drake. “I told you already. I’m Kshirin. This is Marrow.”

  In answer, the boy squishes his nose against the bars. His hair is dark-green seaweed and scraggle, eyebrows bushy over murky eyes. His lips droop over serrated teeth, his claws cracked, his posture bent. He smells like bogs and swamp-gases. But damn if he doesn’t bravely puff out his little barrel chest. “I’m Marrow, and I’m a great warrior.”

  “Hags can’t be great warriors!” Kshirin spits, fur raised.

  “Yes they can!” Marrow fires back.

  “Can not!”

  “Can too!”

  “You can’t be a hag warrior.” Miz giggles. “You’re a boy!”

  “So? Who says?”

  Kshirin puffs out her chest. “I say!”

  All right, my father’s found the perfect punishment.

  And it’s not summersteel chains.

  I sigh, lifting a hand to massage my temples. Not even the iron’s taken the sass out of these kids. They’re too young for the lethal metal to affect them, so they keep right on bickering away. Ancestors give me strength.

  “Take that!” Miz shoots a funnel of water at the hag boy.

  The instant Marrow touches the water, it solidifies into swamp muck. “Ha-ha!” He sticks out a warty green tongue.

  “No fair!” sulks Miz, pouty-faced. “No using your curse touch!”

  “You never said I couldn’t!”

  “Cheater!” Kshirin brandishes claws dripping with venom.

  Their bickering goes on and on, their high-pitched voices like tiny scythes slicing through my skull. I forget all about the summersteel agony. I’m just about to lose my cool when a new voice breaks in.

  “You’re the princess.”

  I turn this way and that, but I don’t see anyone. I raise my voice to be heard over the kids’ squabbling. “Where are you?”

  “Look down.”

  I twist my body. Beneath me lies another cage tilted on its side so it stands like a triangle. A pair of hypnotic emerald-green eyes meets mine. Beneath a mane of red curls, an adorable freckled face looks up. “Hi-hi! I’m Einslie.” Her voice has a distinct Scottish lilt. “I’ve never met a princess before.”

  The resemblance is striking. “You’re Etana’s daughter.”

  “Yup!” She leans on the iron bars and grins despite her summersteel chains.

  Ancestors, they’re all the kids of the arch-Eld.

  And Father put them down here. To rot.

  No, not Father. His dark self. Remember that, Roue. Sorrow sweeps into me like a sudden Winter squall. I clench my hands into fists so hard my knuckles crack.

  I will save you, Father. I’ll save us all from your dark self.

  The three kids are still arguing, bickering back and forth, Miz shooting water funnels and Marrow turning them solid with his curse-touch while Kshirin rolls her golden eyes and leans against the bars.

  The iron bars.

  Wait a minute. These kids are young, but the iron doesn’t hurt them or steal their magic. A glimmer of hope ignites in my heart.

  I clap my hands sharply. “All right, kids, your princess is talking, so listen up!”

  I’ve got to be out of my mind. I’ve got a plan to escape, but it involves four dark Fae kids who can barely control their powers and can’t stop fighting.

  If my father doesn’t kill me, I’m fairly certain their bickering will.

  Chapter Twelve

  Syl

  Sleeper-princess blood

  Is a powerful cure

  But it can also be

  A powerful poison

  - Glamma’s Grimm

  My head feels like someone stuffed it full of old cotton candy, stale and fuzzy and half-melty, and my mouth—ugh—my mouth tastes like the entire dark Fae army scuffed over it in stocking feet.

  Worse, a weird, acidic chemical smell assaults my nose. Formaldehyde? Eyes closed, I take another experimental whiff. Yup. Formaldehyde—or at least the dark Fae equivalent. Shivers goose ripple across my skin. Years of being a math and science nerd tells me this is Not a Good Thing.

  “Roue?” I send down the soul-bond, but she’s not there. She must have been knocked unconscious like me. Either that, or… Anxiety balls up in my stomach. Or they bound her in iron.

  Even the thought makes my heart ache for her.

  All right, Syl. I gear myself up. Time to figure out a plan.

  I open my eyes for a second and wish I hadn’t.

  I’m lying on a carved black-top table in what can only be called a “mad scientist’s lab,” while odd-shaped flasks filled with bubbling red liquid dangle over me, caught in a weird web of tubing. Red-orange smoke plumes from the flasks, coating the floor with a hellish haze.

  And…lucky me, I’m chained down.

  Gee, did they think I might not want to stay?

  I wonder why.

  Could it be the creepy runes carved onto the blacktop? Or maybe the gajillion and one knives laid out on the opposite counter top? Or the dark shelves lining the walls, crammed with all manner of rusted dissection implements, old tomes, and filmy bottles of what looks pretty darn close to eye of newt and toe of bat.

  My stomach drops out. It’s like Bio 2, only I’m the frog.

  Forget the plan. Cue freak-out in three…two…

  “You’re awake.” A lilting and oddly not-unpleasant voice at my head makes me jump about a mile. Well, I would if not for the chains.

  “H-hello?” I crane my neck—the only part of me I can move—and look into the most hypnotic pair of emerald-green eyes I’ve ever seen. I lean in, dizziness gripping my skull. So pretty…so—

  Wait, what? I shake off the spell, my head all tingly…

  She nearly faestruck me with only a glance!

  I recognize her now. She’s Etana, the arch-Eld of Roue’s class of dark Fae, the Lamiae, and given those hypno-eyes, I think I know exactly what species she is.

  “You’re a liannan sidhe, aren’t you?” Glamma told me about them. Scottish vampire-fairies, the liannan sidhe enslave mortals, usually artists of some kind, by becoming their muse, and then slowly drain them to death.

  It’s creepy in the extreme. Not to mention…

  I always thought of liannan sidhe as these shy, waiflike dark Fae, so twiggy even a puff of wind could knock them over.

  But this one’s less waiflike and more like a mad scientist.

  “I am,
” she says, her Scottish lilt running all the words up and down like music. Her smile shows a glint of fangs. “A liannan sidhe, that is.”

  “Great.” I nod and keep nodding awkwardly the way you might when faced with a rabid dog wagging its tail.

  Nice doggie, good doggie…

  “So…” I scramble for something to say (one, because I’m awkward, and two, because I hate silences) and come up with, “You didn’t send the redcap that attacked me, right?”

  “True, but…” Her mouth twists in a little moue of regret. “That doesn’t really help you now, does it?”

  Fear zings through my system. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you really need to work on your bedside manner.”

  She smiles pleasantly. “How do you feel?” She slings a white apron over her pale green-and-black gown, and snaps an examination glove onto her right hand.

  “I’m allergic to latex? And needles, definitely needles!” Panic shoots through me as she comes up with a mechanized black syringe. “I’m super-allergic to needles. Like, anaphylactic-level allergic.” Sweat pours down my face.

  It’s now I realize I’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m weak, and if it wasn’t for my superhuman fair Fae physiology, I’d probably be dead.

  She’s just staring at me with those hypno-eyes as she grabs some gear from a nearby hook. It looks like about fifty sets of goggles got with an octopus and had a love child. Loupes and magnifiers all welded and fused together by bolts and whirring cogs.

  She clears her throat. “Just stay still, please.”

  Okay, whatever I was expecting of Miss Dark Fae Mad Scientist, politeness was definitely not it. Please? Dark Fae don’t say please, and— why am I worried about her manners when she has a HUGE FREAKING NEEDLE?

  Okay, Syl, breathe…calm down. I take a few deep breaths as she bends over me, goggles whirring and chirping. I feel the stingy-hot push of the needle, but she doesn’t put it in a vein.

  She injects it into the vorpal wound in my side.

  Instantly, the tiny icicles within the wound open up like ragged teeth, stretching the wound wider, wider…. Agony shoots through me as a small geyser of blood erupts, gushing out onto the table.

  The runes beneath me light up in ghoulish red.

  I’m about to become a casualty in a mad scientist B movie.

  Well, to hell with that. Breathing out, I call upon the Summer in my blood, but my white flame doesn’t come.

  Not even a spark.

  “Don’t bother,” Miss Mad Scientist says mildly as she slides a thicker needle in to tap the wound. “You won’t be able to summon your white flame. I’ve used a neuroblocker to restrict your access to your greater powers.”

  Wonderful. I watch helplessly as my blood pours into the test tube. I’ve gotta do something, or all this bloodletting will kill me for sure. I close my eyes, reaching out. Slowly, so slowly, Summer comes at my call, spilling little bursts of healing heat through me.

  The upside is: I won’t die outright.

  The downside: now they can drain even more of my blood.

  Go, me?

  “How do you feel?” She corks up that vial then touches my forehead, leaning down to look into my eyes with her Frankenstein goggles.

  My teeth start chattering as the stabbing pain in my side cranks up and up and up. “Umm…t-t-terrible?”

  Why, Syl? my inner killjoy grumps. Why do you feel compelled to tell her? It’s not like you’re at the dentist!

  “Interesting.” She straightens and taps the mad tangle of bottles and flasks hanging above me. Tink, tink, tink. As if in answer, all the flasks bubble, the syrupy red liquid instantly reaching boiling point. The tang of burnt copper tingles my nose. She reaches out and adjusts the tubing, and the whole contraption above me sways dangerously.

  “This looks just about ready.” She turns a switch on her goggles while studying the bubbling red liquid.

  My head swims, and I feel woozy. Flashes of crimson burst from the runes beneath me. I feel their heat against my skin. The stabbing pain comes again, worse this time.

  “Roue…Roue!” I scream down the bond, and now I know Roue’s not unconscious. I just can’t reach her. “What’s…happening?”

  “You’re being slowly exsanguinated.”

  In a typical story, the hero would ask what the heck that means. Sad to say, I already know. She’s draining me of my blood. All of it.

  My laugh is totally fake and limp. “Sorry, exsanguination wasn’t on my to-do list today. Could we reschedule? Like, maybe in a zillion years?”

  For the first time, Etana’s smile is gentle. “Rouen told me you were funny.”

  Wait, what? “Roue talked about me…to you?”

  Etana nods. “We used to talk more, back when her mother was alive, but we still chat on occasion. Less since her father…” She trails off, adjusting the syringe in my side.

  I want to ask her more about Roue’s dad, but the pain tears through me, leaving me gasping. Even though she’s torturing me, Etana has a serenity about her, a gentleness. She doesn’t treat me roughly. She’s just doing what she’s gotta do.

  Behind those goggles, I see that she’s uncomfortable.

  I fumble with my chains and touch her hand. “If you’re a friend of Roue’s, then why are you doing this?”

  “King’s orders.”

  Suddenly, I get it. Reinghûl’s threats, his posturing, his little think of the children speech. I search Etana’s eyes. “He has your child, doesn’t he?”

  She squeezes my hand gently, her emerald-green eyes sad. “My daughter,” she says, and then jerks her hand away. “But even if he didn’t have Einslie, I’d still be your enemy.”

  “Why? Because we were born different?”

  “Exactly.”

  I ride out another wave of pain, more blood gushing from my wound to light up the runes. This woman’s been brainwashed to hate, just like Roue was when I first met her. “It’s silly to hate someone just for being different. Maybe you’re just scared of what you don’t know.”

  A small chuckle escapes her. “Rouen said you were a dreamer.”

  “I believe in hope.” Even now, even being drained to my death.

  Etana’s face darkens. “How can there be hope when the king drains the hearthstone?”

  I grit my teeth, trying to ignore the sucking pain in my side. “Roue said he’s only doing that because he’s under the control of his dark self. If we can save him—”

  “There is no saving him. He’s too far gone.” She busies herself adjusting flasks and tubing all the while avoiding my eyes. “Roue’s a fool for believing otherwise.”

  “What if she’s not? What if the real him is still in there somewhere? What if we could reach him, bring him back to his true self?”

  Etana levels me with a serious gaze. “That’s a lot of what-ifs, fair Fae.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “What have we here?” The clomp of heavy boots heralds the arrival of the king. He sweeps in, all darkness and shadows swirling around his severe form. His blue eyes pin me like a bug on a card.

  Etana shuts up fast. “Your Majesty.” She bows low, the long sleeves of her lab coat touching the floor, her red hair falling over her face. She stays there an awfully long time.

  “How is our patient?”

  “She’s ready for you, Your Majesty.”

  Rouen’s father, King Reinghûl, stands at my head, all broody malice and sharp angles. My Fae-sight hasn’t let up for a second, and I still see him as the ravaged, hollowed-out husk of a man he once was. Rot and decay cling to him and belch over me.

  I cough. “Could you maybe learn to breathe out of your nose?”

  His eyes glitter hatefully. “I will so enjoy watching you suffer.” To Etana, he says, “Good work.” Drawing the vorpal blade, he holds it up. “I need her blood to heal.”

  Fear strikes through me.

  By “her blood,” I’m pretty sure he means all of it.

  Chapter Thirteen<
br />
  Rouen

  I’m all bark and no bite

  All words and no fight

  When it comes to you

  When it comes to you

  “Untitled Notes,” Euphoria

  “Try again!” I grit my teeth where I’m shoved up against the bars, straining against the summersteel chains, one hand through the cage as I hold Miz aloft. Sweat pours down my face, my body aching from iron bars and summersteel chains.

  She weighs almost nothing, poor kid, nothing but skin and bones beneath those shimmery teal scales. The others aren’t much better. I don’t dare ask when was the last time they saw their parents or had a bath. I don’t dare ask when was the last time they ate.

  I swear, I’m taking them all to Chuck E Cheese after this is over.

  “Ready?” Miz calls back to Marrow, raising her hand.

  Above, the doors are a million miles away, a tiny rusted speck barely visible through the darkness.

  Marrow scrunches up his pug nose. “Ready.”

  “Don’t miss, frog-breath.” Miz gives Marrow a withering glare.

  In return, Marrow sticks his tongue out. “Make sure you shoot straight, lizard-brains.”

  “Frog-breath!”

  “Lizard-brains!”

  As the two kids dissolve into squabbles, I remember. The water drakes and the bog-hags have been at bitter odds for sometime now over Loch Morag, a sacred swamp in the Marsheries. The feud between them’s gone on for years and years now.

  Clearly, the kids have picked up their parents’ prejudices.

  “Tadpole boy!”

  “Snake-face!”

  “Enough!” My shout quiets the kids. Marrow hunches down in the crook of my arm, and Miz makes herself small, tail coiling around my shoulder. “Please, can we just work together? Without arguing?”

  “Okay,” they both sulk in unison.

  “Miz, you’re up.” I steady my arm even though my shoulder’s screaming with fatigue. “Marrow, get ready.”

  Slooosh! Miz lets loose with a water funnel. It jets upward through the darkness, a cresting wave. Marrow stretches to touch its base, to use his curse touch.