The Faery shook his head. “No. That is only a fraction of it.”
The mouth of the tunnel to the Strip loomed ahead; already the sounds and smells of the busy area reached them. Instead of continuing on, the Faery stopped and faced Malachi for the first time since they’d left his glorified prison cell.
“You do not know all of Ayla’s history. If you asked her, she would not tell it to you. I know it only through what Garret told me, when he was her mentor in the Assassins’ Guild. She has led a hard life, Malachi. And she is young still. She does not understand that love is not only loss.” The Faery motioned for Malachi to sit. It was impossible, on the bare ground, though the Faery was able to fold up his wings comfortably. Malachi bent his knees, squatting down until the tips of his wings dragged in the sand on the tunnel floor.
“Ayla came to the Lightworld only five years ago. She is barely twenty full years old, practically a child by our race’s standards, an infant compared to the ages of many of us. But she is half-Human, and was not born to our Court.
“Her mother was a lower ranking member of Queene Mabb’s Court. She became infatuated with the Humans on the Strip, then with one in particular, and she stayed with him until she bore Ayla. But once the babe was delivered, she returned to the Lightworld. I am not certain anyone knows who she is now. She fell out of favor with Mabb, but so many do that it would be impossible to tell which of Mabb’s enemies was Ayla’s mother.
“So, for her childhood, Ayla lived as a mortal on the Strip. Stealing food, money. Her father was a Human, and so few of them have any desire to make their lives bearable. When she was old enough, she came to us and begged admittance to our world, to our race.”
“But she is of your race. Her mother was one of you.” Malachi pulled the pack off his shoulder and let it rest on the ground. “Why would she beg you?”
“Because we do not accept all of the spawn of Faeries who have gone beyond the boundaries of our world to couple. I am sure there are those among us perverse enough to lie down with Demons, and we would not allow such a sullied blood to mix with ours.” Cedric did not appear sorry for his blunt statement, but continued on. “Ayla would not have been accepted, but that Garret loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her, and as the Queene’s brother he was in a position to impose his opinion on the rest of the Court.”
Malachi’s jaw tensed with anger. “He did not love her. If he did, he would not wish to kill her.”
Cedric shrugged. “Garret loved her as much as he could. The blood in him is pure Fae—love is not an emotion that comes with a selfless face to that kind. And he was never taught otherwise.”
“How would you teach a creature like that to love?” The very thought disgusted Malachi, the picture of Garret in his mind like the taste of something rotten on his tongue. “How could he learn?”
“It is possible.” Was there a note of sadness in the Faery’s voice? “We can learn to love, and quite well. But it was Garret’s ambition that he gave to Ayla, and not love. It is all she knows.”
“She knows she has hurt me. And she sends me away without another thought.” Though he suspected it was not true, Malachi would not let himself admit it just yet.
“Perhaps, when this has passed,” the Faery began, then paused. “And if, by the will of the Gods, she succeeds against Garret, you could return.”
“She does not wish for me to return.” He stood and moved on, trusting that his companion would follow. No doubt he was as eager to see a stranger leave his precious home world as Ayla was.
“What someone wishes and what they need are often not the same.” The Faery followed him, almost reluctantly. “I have the authority to tell you that if you wished to return, I could make it so.”
It was such a strange thing to say that Malachi could not simply ignore it. He turned to face his companion, to protest, but the Faery continued to walk, as if not noticing that his charge had stopped.
“And who are you, to make this claim?” Malachi called to the Faery’s back. “She is Queene!”
“And I am her friend,” he responded. “Keep up, or I will not return in time to be at her side when she needs me.”
Garret’s return to the Lightworld was not received with as much enthusiasm as he had expected. It was true that in times of strife, the weaker of the species fled to safer ground, but never had he seen the Faery Quarter so barren.
“The ingratitude they show me is appalling,” Garret grumbled, wishing, for just a moment, that he still had Bran to agree with him. Served the fool right, though, for treading so incautiously with a Dragon.
From the head of his caravan, someone sounded an order to halt. The cart bearing him, empty of his belongings, for it would look presumptuous of him to bring them back as though he had already won the duel, tossed to the side as the guards pulling it settled it to the ground. Garret struggled to remain upright, then climbed down from the cart altogether. The delay stung him like an insect that must be swatted away, the urgency and irritation growing with every step he made toward the front of the line.
“What is this?” he snapped, his anger nearly overflowing at the sight of the armed guards blocking their way.
“You are not to pass,” one of the guards intoned blandly. “The Palace will not receive you. You are to go to Sanctuary and establish your camp in an out-of-the-way location in the tunnels surrounding it, to wait until the official time of the duel.”
“The Palace will not receive me?” He threw his head back and laughed, as if he truly found the idea absurd. Inwardly, he boiled. “I am the King. Never has there been a circumstance in which the King has been prevented from entering the Palace.”
“Never has there been a situation so grave as this,” the guard said, seemingly unimpressed that his monarch stood before him.
So, they were on her side, then? Garret took a deep breath that flared his nostrils. He looked imposing when he did this, he knew. Regal. Far more royal than the creature who sat on the throne now.
He would have all of the Palace guards executed and replaced with his loyal subjects once he killed Ayla. For now, though, to dispatch this one would be enough. “A sword,” he called to the guards behind him.
The traitor before him held up a hand. “We are also charged with informing you that an attack on the royal guard is an attack on the Queene herself. An act of war will negate the validity of your request for a duel, and you will be banished from the Lightworld.”
“If I do not cut down all of you first!”
A guard pressed a sword into Garret’s hand, and he tossed it aside. He turned to his party. “We will go to Sanctuary. A bit of extra time spent there will not harm me in the least. In fact, it will give me a greater advantage.” He addressed the rest of the disloyal soldiers blocking the tunnel. “Perhaps that will be your Queene’s final mistake.”
They dressed her in armor. She had never worn armor, never needed it. All of her fighting had been done without rules, without the niceties afforded to a warrior. It had been raw and cruel, and only her skill had protected her from harm.
“It is not an insult to you,” Cedric said when she had questioned it. “And it will not protect you from a death blow, should Garret land one. It is a ruse, a costume. You must look like a Queene, not an Assassin.”
“If I went before him in rags, I would not look a Queene, but I would not die in the fight, either.” She plucked the edge of the light metal covering her shoulders. “I cannot fight if I cannot move.”
“You will be able to move. It is no heavier than the gowns you have been wearing.” Cedric stepped aside as a serving maid bustled through. Two maids took it upon themselves to coil up Ayla’s hair, so tight that her skin felt stretched, into two large rolls at the base of her skull.
“I did not fight in gowns.” It was not the thought of the weight that truly disturbed her, but the thought of what Garret would have said, when he was her mentor, if she had thought to protect herself in such a way.
His
voice, which had always seemed gently mocking, though now she knew it to be true mockery, came to her through her memory. Do you doubt your skill so much, Ayla, that you would need armor to shield you from your own mistakes?
Perhaps it was because it was true, that she did feel somehow safer, that it stung all the more. She had no illusions about her skill when compared to Garret’s, and the armor did, shamefully, seem as though it might save her.
Cedric did not answer her. Perhaps he realized all of these things as well, or perhaps he simply did not wish to argue with his Queene. Instead he answered the knock at the door, and took a box from the guard waiting outside.
“What is that?” The impatience in her voice was that of a child awaiting a present, and she turned her attention to the puffs of her gossamer sleeves protruding from the open joints of the armor to appear disinterested.
Her servants bowed to her, and she realized without looking up that Cedric had motioned for them to leave. When they had gone, and the door had shut behind them, he lifted the top of the box and removed something from within, his back to her.
“I had this brought up from the treasury. I told them it was on your orders. I hope you do not mind that I pretended to have your authority.” He turned, and in his hands he held a crown. A twisted, arching thing of fragile hawthorne branches twined with silver spikes like blades of daggers. The spikes rose up from a glittering silver band, from which sparkled bloodred garnets. Garnets dripped down from the base on chains so slender they appeared to be spiderwebs.
“What is this?” Ayla had not spent much time at Court, but she had never seen Mabb wear something like this. No, she had preferred delicate ornaments, things that would not outshine her own beauty and majesty.
Cedric’s voice held a note of sadness, one that Ayla had come to recognize in his voice whenever he spoke of the dead Queene. “This is the crown Mabb wore in the first battle with the Humans. They say that as she rode into the Human city, she looked like a Goddess of war.”
“The first battle, and not the second?” Ayla pondered the wicked-looking thing in Cedric’s hands. Would Garret remember the sight of his sister, whom he had fought beside in two such battles, and whom he had killed without remorse?
A smile quirked the corner of Cedric’s mouth. “Not the second.”
She did not need an ill omen riding on her head when she faced Garret.
Cedric lifted the crown over Ayla, and she braced herself for a heavy weight that did not come when he settled it on her head. The front of the band was pointed down, dipping onto her forehead like a diadem, with one large garnet settled between her antennae. They twitched at the cold touch of the stone, and Ayla smoothed them back.
“Now, Your Majesty, I think it is time.”
They walked through the empty Palace, encountering only a few random and isolated guards who did not look at her, but stared straight ahead. As if I am already a ghost.
The corridors outside of the Palace were equally deserted. The Faeries that would normally clog the path to the Palace gates, begging for money and food and favors, had fled in anticipation of the coming unpleasantness. Unpleasantness, Ayla knew from experience, was as undesirable as hunger to the poor and wretched of the Underground.
She thought for a moment about the other Quarters of the Lightworld. There, they might not know, and probably would not care, that a Queene might die today. The title still struck her as absurd; she was no more a Queene than she was a scholar. Surely Garret assumed she fought for her crown, when all she sought to preserve in this duel was her life.
They trooped through the bends in the tunnel, just herself at the lead, Cedric but a step behind her, and a small retinue of guards that she had not noticed until they had cleared the Palace walls and their footsteps had stirred up a ringing echo in the vast, open tunnels of the Quarter at large. She wondered how Garret would look after his days in exile, how he would try to approach her. Would he play upon her sympathy, appeal to her that they were once mates, once friends? Would his days away from the Faery Quarter show on his face and clothing? Would he appear haggard?
They came now to the mouth of Sanctuary, the high, round arch of crumbling bricks framing a beacon of white-green light. A bird chirped from somewhere, perhaps the Upworld, and Ayla’s heart thrilled as it always did at the prospect of fresh air and clean nature. Her heart was half-Human and half Faery, and both creatures in her longed for the world above.
At the top of the stairs she paused. Of course, Garret would not try to win her affection again, nor would he let his time in exile show on his person at so critical a time. He stood within a crescent of guards, traitors pulled from the Palace ranks, his ax in hand. He did not wear the robes of a mentor or courtier, but the clothing he had worn as an Assassin. Leather trousers and vest, as all Assassins equipped themselves with, but black instead of the brown Ayla had worn. Black laces wound around his arms, binding two daggers there, in case he was unarmed. Like Ayla, he’d left his wings free. He bowed to her in mocking, and laughed, and an uneasy response went up from the guards behind him. “Your Majesty,” he said, the laughter still present on his face. “I did not realize that I was so fearsome a foe as to warrant all of this.” He indicated her armor and crown, and laughed again.
“I did not wish for your blood to stain any of my garments,” Ayla called in response, hoping the quaver in her voice would not be perceptible from so far away. She moved down the steps, opening her wings to light from one broken piece to another.
“Ah, the Queene of the Faeries has come to grace us with her beauty,” Garret said to his soldiers, loud enough for all to hear.
Ayla had heard enough insults over her Human appearance, though, and his words did not have the desired effect.
Finally they faced each other, a sword’s length between them. “Are you finished playacting for them now?” Ayla asked, drawing her sword. “Shall we fight?”
Garret lifted his ax and nodded.
And then, without ceremony, they took to the sky.
Twenty-Five
F or a long moment, it seemed Garret would never strike, and Ayla would not allow him the satisfaction of doing it herself. So, they circled each other, twisting to stay aloft and still keep the other’s movements in focus.
“Could you really stand to kill me?” Garret taunted, darting toward her, but never raising his weapon. “Without me, you have no one. Everyone at Court thinks of you exactly as you are—a disgusting Human. You would still be eating rotting food from the floor of the Strip if it weren’t for me.”
Ayla nodded. She would not argue. His words were his only defense, and they betrayed his nervousness at the fight. She flew closer, as though she would make an attack. He lifted his ax and swung, but she had already retreated, and he spun wildly with the force of his movements.
Furious, he righted himself and charged at her, swooping down at the last minute to attempt a strike from below. She dove past him, toward the blinding green of the ground, and knocked his blade cleanly aside. While he recovered and attempted another swing, she struck out with her sword and pierced his torso, just below the ribs. He hissed and darted back, the wound leaving thick, saplike blood on Ayla’s blade.
It was not a killing blow. Ayla cursed herself for that. Like a wounded animal, Garret would fight harder now, more dangerous than he was before.
With a roar of disbelief, he lunged at her, wild and careless. She easily avoided him, and dared to strike out on her own, leaving her body open as she did. It would not matter; he would not have time to swing at her.
He did manage to clash blades with her, and threw off her sword. It took more strength than she expected to keep the weapon under her control. By the time she pulled it back, tightly into her defensive space, he was ready to strike again.
She let him take the swings he wished, fending him off with both hands gripping the hilt of her sword. Her weapon would not falter, and his frenzy would do nothing but tire him.
As if he’d real
ized this in conjunction with her thought, he used his next swing to push himself away, somersaulting backward through the air, far out of her reach. For a long while, he simply watched her. This was something Ayla had seen him do many times when sparring against an opponent in the training circle. He would wait until the other fighter seemed to relax, then he would make his move.
She let her shoulders slip, an almost imperceptible movement. But he’d spent so many long hours training her. Days, weeks, months of experience working together in the Guild Hall. This would be his downfall.
He flew forward, and she pretended to fumble, as though she would not pull her sword up in time. She braced herself for the moment when he would swing, a calculated blow aimed for her neck. Closer, closer. She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, preparing for the counter swing that would sever his hands from his arms.
At the critical moment, she saw her error unfold before it happened. He would not try for her neck. He brought his ax up, over his head. If she’d kept her sword down, she might have had a chance to strike. Now, the closeness, the angle of her arms and the position of his body, prevented her from doing anything but ducking and turning to dodge him. And she could not turn fast enough.
The blade of the ax struck her at the juncture of a wing and her back, and stuck fast. She pulled forward as he wrenched the weapon free, sending an arc of crimson through the blinding white of the sun through the grates. In her pain, she saw the droplets fall past her and mistook them for the garnets of her crown.
Though it was agony, she forced herself to move, trying to distance herself from Garret’s next swing. With one injured wing, she could not stay aloft. The pain shot like arrows through her, and her vision flickered between red-black nothingness and the harsh green of the trees rushing at her as she fell. She twisted and turned her back to them. Above her, Garret watched her fall, and she did not have to see his face to know that he would look pleased.
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