Queene of Light

by Jennifer Armintrout

  She made a noise like the sound of fire ravaging a grass field, which she translated for him as “Garret.” A rough, protective instinct balled up inside of him, ready to bring him to his feet, to charge out, to find the creature who had struck her and to rend the flesh from his bones.

  As a Death Angel, he had seen many types of violence. He wanted to subject this Garret to all of them.

  Then he remembered her face in the dim light of the small Faery dwelling. It had been smooth and white and unblemished. The Faery he had thrown against the bricks, that had been Garret. And he’d done this because of Malachi.

  He stood and helped her to her feet. She limped beside him to the workshop, and he lifted her onto the table. She hissed when her bare skin met the cold metal, and he laughed. He couldn’t help it, though she scowled at him.

  Besides her bruised face, her hands and knees were scuffed and scabbed over, and her feet were torn and bloody. Malachi looked through Keller’s boxes and cupboards until he found the Human’s store of items for patching the body. There were various metal instruments, much like the ones strewn about the shop, but also long strips of torn fabric that he could use as bandages.

  “I can…” she began, but quieted when he lifted one of her small feet in his hands and turned it in his palm. Dirty blood collected in the wells of her toenails. He wet one of the cloth strips with clean water from Keller’s dwindling supply and carefully wiped the filth away from her wounds. He did the same for her knees and her palms, taking his time to carefully clean the abrasions there before wrapping them with bandages.

  When he finished, he found her gown. It was a sodden, torn lump on the floor, unsuitable for wear. In Keller’s boxes he found a large shirt that fell easily to Ayla’s knees when she put it on, though she could not open her wings.

  “Your friend. He will not be angry?” She shrugged her shoulders and picked at the fabric.

  Malachi didn’t think Keller would be, but he mentally prepared to make some sort of apology. The Human seemed to forgive much with just a few kind words.

  The door scraped open and the Human in question entered. “Looks better on her than it ever did on me.”

  “Because she is more beautiful,” Malachi said.

  Keller reached into the leg of his strange wading pants and pulled out a wet bag. He opened the seal at the top and produced the dry contents, two smaller packets. “Ramen noodles, straight from the top! It was lucky I got these, too. Some Upworlders were protesting and pouring sacks of food down a manhole onto the Strip. Almost got knocked out by a can of Chef Boyardee. I didn’t know they still made that stuff.”

  Malachi noted that the condescending stare Ayla had fixed on the Human matched his own.

  Keller seemed oblivious. He removed his hat with the light attached and tossed it carelessly onto one of the workbenches. As he stepped out of and hung up his waterproof pants, he kept talking. “So, interesting rumor humming all up and down the Strip. They say that the Faery Queene bit the big one.”

  “The big what?” Ayla’s look of bored disinterest had turned into something more urgent at Keller’s mention of the Queene.

  “Died. Dead.” Keller made a face. “Shit, that’s right, you don’t sprechen ze Human very well, do you? Somebody—” He reached for a jagged knife that lay on the workbench, mimed stabbing it into his chest. “Killed her.”

  Ayla stepped back, shaking her head.

  “She is upset.” Malachi rounded on Keller. “You have upset her.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who upset her, chief. The guy who killed the Queene did because…” He squinted his eyes at her. She shrank back, gave him an angry look. “Oh my God.”

  “Do not!” She rushed at him, her antennae raging bright red, and then knocked him onto his back on the hard concrete. She straddled him, her fist raised above his face as he shielded himself with his hands.

  “Get her off me!” Keller shouted, but Malachi had already moved to help. He seized Ayla’s up-thrust wrist with one hand and dragged her to her feet.

  “Do not look in my mind!” she snarled, twisting in Malachi’s grasp, still trying to get at Keller.

  The Human wheezed as he climbed to his feet. “I won’t read your mind. But you need to be forthcoming with the details here.”

  She turned her face away and said nothing.

  “Look, you’re standing in my shop, wearing my clothes, my bandages. The least you could do is tell both of us the truth.” Keller flicked his gaze from Ayla to Malachi and back again, and wet his lips. “Your Majesty.”

  Beneath the confining shirt, Ayla’s wings shifted.

  Malachi did not like this talk of dishonesty. It was unpleasant, and made his stomach ache to think that Ayla might have lied to him about something.

  “She does not have anything to tell you,” Malachi said gruffly, putting an arm around Ayla’s small shoulders. “Leave her alone.”

  To his surprise and displeasure, Ayla ducked his arm and faced them both. “My…mate. Garret. He is brother to the Queene.”

  Mate? The word burned in his mind. That Faery, the one who had struck her, the one who had not valued her and protected her as he should have. The one he would someday rend limb from limb.

  “And?” The hint of the smile Keller gave her was dark, unsettling. “Now the Queene is dead. So, he’s the King?”

  “No. I am Queene.” She looked as though she were admitting to a crime, rather than divulging a royal heritage. “It passes to the female.”

  Did she not see what a wonderful turn this was? Malachi lifted her in his arms, ignoring how stiff she remained. “You can go back now! You are not without a home.”

  “She can’t go home.” Keller raised his hands to protect himself as she lunged at him again for reading her mind. “I saw it before, I swear, I saw it before!”

  Malachi’s hands closed over Keller’s shoulders before he thought to grab him. He pushed him against the door, held his face inches from his. “You will tell me what you saw!”

  “Queene.” Ayla’s voice was like a wraith sliding through the Darkworld. Malachi set Keller back on his feet and turned to face her. Her eyes were sad and downcast. “I am Queene.”

  “What does that mean?” Malachi asked aloud, though he wasn’t sure who he asked.

  “It means that she can’t stay here.” Keller lit up one of his “smokes” and puffed away at it, the acrid smell filling the air. “There were already troops on the move on the Strip. They’re looking for you. And I don’t really want them to find you here.”

  “They will not find her.” Malachi’s mind worked feverishly. When he’d had no will, no control over his fate, things had been less complicated, and much less frightening. The thought of losing Ayla, now, when he finally had her…“I will take her deep in to the Darkworld. We will return when they stop searching for her.”

  “No, you won’t return here, man.” Keller shook his head. “Listen, I’ve done a lot for you. A lot. And I really do like you, despite your many, many faults. But this, this isn’t something that will just blow over. They’re going to keep looking for her. The Queene of the Lightworld, that’s, like, a big deal.”

  “I am supposed to return her to the one who did this to her?” Malachi gripped Ayla’s chin and turned her head to display the bruise there.

  She swatted his hand away. “I will go.”

  The bottom of Malachi’s stomach dropped. “You cannot go. You cannot return to that.”

  “I will go,” she said again, folding her arms across her chest. “The Human is right. They will keep looking for me. There will be a war if they think I am being held prisoner. There is no danger for you, if I go.”

  No danger? If she left, he would follow her. To his death, if he had to.

  “Listen,” Keller said, sensing the mounting tension in that strange way he had, “this isn’t the time to argue, okay? You’re both tired, probably hungry. Let’s get some food, get some rest, and we can work this out in the morning. There�
�s no way they’re going to make it this deep into the Darkworld tonight, not at the rate they’re going. It’s like they’re afraid to get their shiny boots dirty.”

  They did not speak further on Ayla’s plans to return that night. Keller brewed the food he’d found into soup, and they ate their portions in relative silence. Keller kept up a forced chatter for a bit, but gave up when it did not lift the mood. It was just as well, to Malachi.

  They went to sleep on a few borrowed blankets on the floor of the workshop. Having Ayla nestled at his side, in the crook of his wing, seemed so sure and real to Malachi. It was impossible to believe that she might leave him alone again.

  But when he woke, not hours later, she was gone.

  At this hour, the Strip should have been crowded, alive. Ayla knew this because it was where she had spent the first part of her life. Sleeping in doorways, tagging after a Human father who had no idea how to care for his child. Who preferred to spend his nights gambling and his days hiding from debt collectors. Who encouraged his child to steal, subjecting her to the lowest, most degrading life on the Strip so they could simply eat and sleep in safety.

  She would never live that way again. Malachi had only been mortal a matter of days. He did not understand the pain of an empty stomach night after night, the humiliation of a life spent trying to survive.

  Tonight, the Strip was dark. News of the troubles in the Lightworld had no doubt frightened the residents into their homes. Those who didn’t have homes had found places to go where they would not be seen.

  Mabb was dead. Who would have wanted to kill her? Certainly not her babbling admirers at Court. They had nothing to gain. In fact, no one had anything to gain from her death. Mabb had led the Faeries, and the Lightworld, in the final battle against the Humans, and though it had been unsuccessful, she had kept their race from total extermination. She’d been their leader then, though something had broken in her since. Surely those who had been there could not have forgotten that.

  It must have been some creature from another of the quarters who’d done the evil deed. No Faery would have.

  One might have. And you know which. She pushed the evil suspicion aside. It didn’t matter who’d wielded the weapon. Someone had killed Mabb, and now Ayla was Queene.

  And Garret her Royal Consort. What a sham that life would be. She would return to the Lightworld, throw herself on his mercy—what little that he had—and become a prisoner of her rank and commitment to him. But she would find a way to bring Malachi to her, or, failing that, to sneak away to him when she wished to. She would be Queene and none, not even Garret, would be able to oppose her.

  He would be angry. He would survive it.

  Ahead, a Faery regiment patrolled the Strip. They were dressed too fine for their surroundings, too imposing and militaristic. She squared her shoulders and approached.

  “There she is!” one in the front shouted, and the whole group of them ran after her. Her instinct was to run, as well, but she walked calmly toward them. They would not harm her, not once they knew who she was.

  But when they reached her, they did not ask her any questions. They forced her arms behind her back and secured them roughly with a length of rope. Her bound hands and her wings, impeded by the shirt she wore, disrupted her balance and she fell. None of them moved to catch her. She crashed into the cement face-first. Blood dribbled from her nose and mouth as she drew a choked breath.

  “You have mistaken me…” She squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of nausea came over her. “You have made a mistake. I am Ayla, mate to Garret, sister of the Queene.”

  One of them kicked her in the chest as she struggled to get on her feet.

  Never before had Ayla truly feared for her life. Perhaps there was no reason to fear the loss of something that had held so little value. But as another boot connected with her hip, knocking her again to her face on the ground, she thought of Malachi, of never seeing him and, more importantly, of never being able to tell him why she’d left, and she feared death more than she’d ever feared any enemy in battle.

  One of the soldiers hauled her to her feet by her hair. She cried out, then was ashamed to have displayed her pain for them. She would memorize their faces, she resolved, glaring at each of them through eyes swelling shut, and they would be punished. But they pulled a stifling hood over her head and tied it tight around her neck, choking her, and all plans for revenge gave way to the need to concentrate on every breath.

  She did not need to see to know where they took her. They marched her across the threshold of the Lightworld, and Ayla entered that place that she had resolved never to return to as a prisoner.

  Seventeen

  S he had been there. And now she was gone.

  Malachi stared at the door as though he could conjure some sort of image of her there. Had she looked back on his sleeping form in pity? Regret? Or had she plunged into the darkness without a thought for him, her only desire to return to her Faery world, a realm he could never enter?

  Having tired of him, she had abandoned him. Having sated her curiosity, she had gone back to the life she would rather have had.

  No, he could not force himself to believe that. She had come to him for the same reason he had gone to her. Because they could not be separate, could not survive as two. They would be together or perish.

  Keller stepped out of his alcove and lit one of his cigarettes. For a long time, he said nothing, and Malachi was content to have it that way. What could the Human possibly say that would soothe the sting of his wounded pride?

  “Are you going after her?” he asked after his cigarette was half-burned.

  Malachi did not answer him.

  That proved no barrier for the Human, who, Malachi was convinced, would talk to an inanimate object if he found a subject fascinating enough to expound upon. “Did I ever tell you how I lost my arm?”

  Turning his head only slightly, Malachi gave the man a sideways glare.

  Keller ignored him. “See, I’d been down here for probably a year before I really got the swing of things. In that time, I’d been living off scraps on the Strip, hiding from all these really scary and unusual creatures that I had only ever heard stories about. I mean, I knew they were down here, but when was I going to come down here, right? And here I was, living with them.

  “It was really about a year before I noticed there were other Humans. Everyone looks so different, so dirty and they dress weird compared to where I’m from, so I didn’t get that some of them were just like me. That’s when I met this girl. Winter Rose. Oh, she was gorgeous. She was one of the Gypsies. She was tiny, came up to my shoulder. And she had this long hair—it was bloodred, almost black unless you saw it in the right light, just a riot of curls down her back. I saw her at one of the stalls on the Strip, stealing food. She was so quick, I didn’t realize what she was doing at first.

  “I was starving, so I followed her. If for no other reason than to learn how she’d done it, right? She went into the Darkworld, but I didn’t care. I just tagged after her, thinking I was being a real sneak. She knew I was there the entire time. She led me all the way back to their camp, and I stayed with them until…God, I think it was six months, something like that.

  “Then one morning, I wake up, and they’re gone. The entire camp is deserted. They packed up in the night and left. And she took my arm as a souvenir. She drugged me. I didn’t even know she’d cut it off.”

  Malachi scoffed. “What would she want with your arm?”

  “She was a flesh collector. The whole pack of them were. I never realized it because they never let me in on it. The Gypsies down here, they’re not like the ones topside. The ones up there will take your money, down here they’ll take your parts, if not all of you. I was lucky, she really had affection for me, kept them from harvesting more.” He shrugged. “I guess they made trades with necromancers who needed to feed their risen dead.”

  Keller sighed and stubbed out his cigarette. It was good, Malachi hated the smoke. “
Yup,” the Human said with another heavy sigh. “Stolen arm or no, I should have followed her. I loved her.”

  “You are trying to make me follow Ayla. But she has not stolen my arm. She has not asked for me to find her. She left, though she knew I would want her to stay.” Malachi turned back to the door. “If she did not wish to stay with me, why should I chase her?”

  Keller went to his workbench and began opening drawers, moving tools, making a show of being busy without doing anything. It seemed a talent of Humans. “I think she left because she was worried about what would happen to you if they found you here.”

  Malachi made a noise of disagreement.

  “Suit yourself. All I’m saying is that in sixty years, when you’re still regretting this, it’s going to be too late. Not for her, of course, but you, you won’t be much to look at. Don’t hold your grudges until you can’t find her again, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Keller reached for his wading pants and stepped into them, saying no more.

  Good. The foolish Human oversimplified things. Did he not understand that twice now, Malachi had let down his guard and had his fragile mortal emotions crushed in pursuit of Ayla? That he could spend his entire existence in hope, knowing that any change in the winds might destroy that hope forever?

  “That’s life, Mac,” Keller said quietly, reaching for his hat. “At least for us lowly mortals. And you can either keep getting that hope dashed, keep getting shit kicked in your face, or you can just cut yourself off from life.”

  “That is what you did,” Malachi said, annoyed that the Human had once again breached his mind. “You survive.”

  “I survive,” Keller agreed, placing his hat upon his head and clicking on the light. “But I wouldn’t call it living.”

  The Human pushed open the door with his metal hand and motioned to Malachi with his whole one. “I’m heading out. I can go with you as far as the Strip.”

  “They have found her, Your Highness.”