The Immortal Queen

by Jennifer L. Hart

  Just as I think it, a light comes on in the kitchen. I see someone moving around, rooting through cupboards. Home. I take two steps, eager to see if it’s Chloe making a batch of her golden hot chocolate.

  I frown and search the scene again, feeling as though it’s a painting, instead of my real home. What’s off? As the light falls and the shadows stretch like a great lazy cat, I consider the landscape again, trying to put my finger on it. There is definitely something off.

  And then it hits me like a ten-ton anvil. No cluster of tents. No tethered horses, no baying hounds or screeching falcons. No sounds of laughter or battle, no sign of armor or weapons.

  The Wild Hunt is gone.

  “Freda?” I call out, hoping my second in charge will appear wearing her winged helmet and let me know they’ve moved the camp to a more secure location. That it’s just over the next rise. “Jazz?”

  No one answers. Not even the bark of one of Alric’s hounds or the cry of a bird. I run for the house, not for cocoa and comfort but for answers. Where is the Hunt? Is this real, have I managed to cross the Veil somehow? Or am I caught in some illusion spun by the great spider that is Underhill?

  The door swings open at my approach. I pause and, just to be sure, switch my vision to the spirit plane. I sigh in relief when I spy the white energy signature unique to my aunts.

  “Chloe? Addy?” I call out as I cross the threshold.

  But the woman inside is neither. Her back is to me and at first, I see only the spill of golden hair. It flows in a molten river of golden curls. If I hadn’t already checked her aura, I would have confused her with Freda.

  Then she turns and looks at me with dead eyes.

  “Little Nic, all grown up and deadlier than ever. Through no fault of mine.” A dry chuckle rasps out.

  I take an instinctive step away from the door. “Who...?”

  The door slams shut behind me, the sound of the bolt being slid into place by invisible hands.

  The Fate that is not one of mine moves closer, the white dress she is wearing covers her feet entirely. She makes no sound as she approaches in an odd floating motion. “Don’t recognize me, do you? We spent so much time together.”

  It’s the riot of blond curls that jolts awareness through me, what I’d once thought of as a lion’s mane. Horror twists my gut. “Lachesis?”

  “You always called me Sissy.” Her lips are cracked and bloodless, like that of a long dead corpse.

  I want to deny it. To refute the crippling memories that have been creeping back, slowing me when I need to be fast, snagging my attention when my focus ought to be elsewhere. I want to deny her the satisfaction of knowing that she had any impact on my life. “What are you doing here?”

  She ignores my question. “You should have stayed dead. Never come back, never challenge fate. What gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies? Are you a god?”

  My head is shaking back and forth, tears threatening. “You’re not real. You’re dead.”

  She reaches for me with one hand the texture of shriveled apples. “Come now, Nic. You know that even death isn’t as final as some believe. Especially in Underhill.”

  Swallowing past the tightness in my throat I ask, “Why are you here?”

  “For good or ill, I represent your past. A past you must come to terms with. Ask your question, the one that’s setting your soul on fire.”

  My throat’s gone dry. I have dozens of questions, hundreds. I understand so little. But only one has been dogging my steps, gnawing at me since I found out the truth. “Why did you leave me?”

  She lifts her chin haughtily, a queen in her own right. “Answer me this. How many beings have you killed?”

  I swallow. “Why?”

  She tilts her head, waiting.

  I count back. I can see all their faces. My victims. “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen lives that you unknowingly claimed for the Wild Hunt. Sixteen souls who will never get to move on.”

  I’ll be good.

  It’s not in your nature.

  She walks around me in a slow circle, and leans in to whisper, “I left you because I thought the world would be better if you weren’t part of it. I left you because your wolf never should have brought you back. Your very existence tampers with the natural order I swore to uphold.”

  Each word is like a splinter shoved under my fingernails. I can’t stifle the flinch.

  She laughs and it isn’t a pleasant sound. “Will you kill again to get what you want? Or would you choose to lie to me again.”

  I back away from her toward that locked door. “I only hunt those who hunt me.”

  “You make it sound so noble. As though you get nothing from the exchange, no pride, no satisfaction in murder. Tell me, you’ve seen those souls you recruit for the Hunt. Do you honestly believe they deserve such a fate?”

  I stare at her, chin raised, hands clenched into fists. “Yes.”

  “A destiny of service. Is that to be your fate as well? Service to Underhill and the fey? To kill for them instead of for yourself? You ran from this life before, hid from it. What’s different this time?”

  “I’m different. I’m not Nicneven, wasn’t born a fairy queen. And I have people who will help me.”

  “Truth. A boon then,” Lachesis holds something up, something small, and coated with dirt.

  My diary. The one I’d buried outside my bedroom window before Aiden and I had crossed the Veil the first time. Before I’d regained my memories.

  “Your trophies.” She extends the book to me.

  The familiar cover sends a pang of longing through me. Not for the contents, but for what the book had once represented. My identity, whole and complete. I step back and raise my hand. “I don’t want them.”

  “You may regret that choice.” Her eerie eyes don’t move but I can feel her searching my face. “Then what do you want?”

  “Answers.”

  She waits.

  “Did you ever regret it?” I will the words to come out sounding strong and sure, a queen’s command. Instead they are pitiful things, a child’s broken-hearted plea. “Did you feel remorse for leaving me?”

  She tilts her head to the side. “My only regret is that I couldn’t bring myself to kill you outright. That I’d grown weak, as my sisters have grown weak. You are a monster, Nicneven.”

  I swallow. Exhale. Then look at her. “Maybe I am. But I’m the monster the Unseelie Court needs.”

  “Perhaps.” Lachesis tosses the book onto the fire. The pink polyester fabric ignites and I watch the pages curl and blacken to ash.

  “Why are you here Sissy?”

  “You know that immortals cannot lie, not even to themselves.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “So, you want to be imprisoned by your crown, your subjects? It was a life you detested before. Your time, your choices not your own. Is that really what you desire?”

  It isn’t, she’s right. I’d been miserable for weeks, doing things I believed a queen should do. Practicing my weapons training, searching for the missing members of the Wild Hunt, going to school, trying to fix my mistakes.

  “What do you want, Nic?” she repeats.

  “To make it right.” I say. “All the things that I’ve screwed up.”

  She moves closer. “What things? Be more specific.”

  “The tear in the Veil.”

  “The Unseelie queen of the Shadow Throne can repair the Veil. But why should that queen be you?”

  I hunt through the landscape of my mind searching for the right answer. What should I say? What can I say?

  “The immortals speak only the truth,” I mutter. And if I want to become one of them, I have to do the same.

  But telling her, this reanimated corpse of the Fate who’d abandoned me and left me to be raped and murdered, left me vulnerable. I never exposed a weakness to an enemy. To do so was foolish.

  But she wasn’t about to let me by without telling her.

  I s
wallow and put it out there. “Aiden. I want to undo what happened with Aiden.”

  “And is the need to fix what’s been destroyed worth the sacrifice of your own life?”

  I swallow and choose my words carefully. “If I knew that he could live an untroubled life? Could get over his past and forgive himself for the things he’d done? Yes, I would make the trade.”

  Lachesis turns back to the fire. “Truth.”

  The fire leaps into existence, burning not just the logs in the hearth, but the mantle itself. Where the flames touch, blackness emerges, the deep void of starless space.

  Lachesis, the measurer of life, points. “Go, before it’s too late.”

  I take a step then turn to her feeling the need to say something. For all that she’d done, all that I’ve feared my past and the part she played in it, she was still one of my adoptive family. She’d known me as a child, is sister to my aunts.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  Her dead eyes hold no emotion, not regret or remorse. “I tampered with Fate. Don’t make the same mistake if you wish to survive.”

  “Do you want me to pass on a message to them? To your sisters?” Her executioners.

  She turns away so I can see only her ghastly profile. “Tell them...” Her tone is halting, unsure. Then she looks over her shoulder as though compelled. “Tell them, that I understand.”

  I blink. They’d killed her, their own sister. How could she possibly understand that?

  “Go,” Lachesis points. “Before it closes.”

  Shaking off the stunned sensation I look to where she’s pointing. The burnt void is shrinking, collapsing in on itself. Is this how people get trapped? By ignoring the openings that will propel them through Underhill?

  With a yell I fling myself into the void...

  And land with a bone rattling thump on a floor of solid rock. The breath explodes from my lungs. Struggling upright, I study my surroundings. I’m in a cavern of sorts. Beneath me unyielding icy stone. Water drips from rocks and the scents are musty. A far distant yellow glow is my only illumination, like torches flickering against the rock.

  Then I hear the roar. It’s a terrible, gut churning sound.

  Aiden.

  I push myself up to my feet and follow the echoing cry of agony. It can’t really be Aiden, can it? He hadn’t entered the door with me, had been nowhere near me. Perhaps Underhill lured him inside to play some part in my trial.

  There’s no way to respond to that heart-wrenching cry.

  I hear laughter then, male laughter and another of those roars of anguish. The shadows dance on the walls. I creep forward and with each step the light grows brighter. The low murmur of voices and a hoarse shout. There is so much emotion in that sound and I feel it all with him. The agony, the shame and rage and fear.

  I have a horrible feeling I know what I’m going to see when I find him. Find them.

  Dread prods me on and I reach for a sword that isn’t there. I don’t even have my backpack, having left it at the women’s house. I still have my Goodnight Kiss and whatever magic reserves are in my tank. It will have to be enough.

  Skidding around the last corner and the vision before me is worse than any I’ve anticipated.

  Aiden is bound by the wrists and hanging from a large metal hook suspended over an open pit.

  He is naked, covered in dirt, bleeding from several gashes on his arms and legs. A few toes are missing. He’s battered, bruised and at their mercy.

  My heart stumbles in my chest like an old man tripping over a rock and crashing to the ground. He still has both eyes. Did Wardon escape Angrboda and recapture him? Or, even more unsettling, had Underhill somehow transport me back in time? I can smell the sea air, hear the crashing waves. This cavern is where he was kept by Wardon.

  Where the trolls had mutilated him.

  Correction: Were going to disfigure him.

  Is this what my wish has wrought? The chance to protect him, to undo the horror that’s been done to him?

  That wasn’t what I’d asked for. I’d wanted to fix what I had done to Aiden, in my last life. Give him closure. So why had the portal brought me here?

  “Should we bring her down here? Would you like your girl to see you like this?” One of the trolls uncoils a long bullwhip from his shoulder, letting the thin end dangle free on the ground. It is coated in inch long barbs, the tips already glistening wetly in the torchlight.

  Aiden doesn’t answer. The whip crack makes me jump but he barely flinches as it shreds the skin on his left shoulder, laying it open to the bone. A hoarse sound escapes his throat, raw and desperate. He’s immortal, the son of a god. He’ll regenerate. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.

  Why isn’t he fighting back?

  Then it hits me. He thinks he’s protecting me. Their threats, that they will drag me down here and hurt me the way they are hurting him. He believes that by enduring the punishment he is keeping me safe. But Aiden has the wolf on his side. If he wants, he could have brought the cave down around their ears and crawled through the rubble.

  If he wants.

  He thinks he deserves this.

  I don’t know whose voice I hear, it isn’t mine, or Aiden’s or even Underhill’s. But it’s sad, so sad it breaks my heart. And it’s right.

  Nari. Everything Aiden does, everything he’s ever done has been to punish himself. The wolf the Norse gods had brought forth in him had killed his little brother. Nari’s blood is on his hands. He may have feelings for me, but he doesn’t believe he deserves any sort of happiness. That’s why he stays, no matter how badly I make him feel. Not because I control him, but because he’s using my indecision about our relationship as another form of punishment.

  My heart hurts as I look at my poor wolf with new eyes. I want Aiden to live an untroubled life, a content one with someone who will treat him how he deserves. But he thinks he deserves...me.

  Bile rises in my throat.

  I’d been willing to die for that chance to fix the wrong I’d done him, the trickery. But seeing him like this, I know the truth of him. It isn’t my fault, at least not all of it. Aiden will never live in peace, not until he forgives himself for the unforgivable.

  Another crack of a lash and Aiden slumps into unconsciousness. My hands clench into fists. Anger courses through me, anger at the trolls, the gods and yes, at Aiden for not having a greater sense of self-preservation.

  I’ve killed people. Ended their lives in the blink of an eye and tethered their immortal souls to the Wild Hunt. I’ve taken their free choice, their bodies, their spirits. At the time, I believed they deserved it, deserved me, because they hurt others. Many people will say that was wrong, that I am wrong to do it, to be judge, jury and executioner. But how many have I saved because I’d acted, used my gift to hunt and kill?

  I’d had to learn to live with myself. Aiden needs to do the same.

  The troll drops the whip—no fun flaying an unconscious man. He grips Aiden and the heavy chains clink as they drag him over the floor. “I know what’ll wake him up.” He removes a blade from his belt.

  “You’re sick, you know that, Dav?” The other laughs as though it’s a great game.

  Help him. The voice begs. If you care for him, then stop this.

  The urge to retch increases. I want to, gods I want to kill them both. To lay their corpses at his blood-soaked feet. I don’t think I’ve ever craved a kill the way I do in this moment.

  But then what? Sure, the trolls will be dead, and Aiden will leave this cave with both eyes intact. Yet if I really did travel back in time, my actions will affect the future. The bargain with Wardon, our escape from his lands. If I help him now without making Wardon’s trade I might never get Nahini back. Even if I do, what would become of the tortured wolf? It’s not like he’d go on his merry way or live happily ever after.

  With a sinking feeling I acknowledge the truth. Aiden will engineer a way to end up in this same
situation time and time again. He will come back to me, for another hit of our toxic relationship because he doesn’t believe he deserves better.

  With tears blurring my vision, I turn away as the troll bends over by my poor wolf, prepared to blind him. And spy the portal in the door behind me.

  I have to go, to leave him behind to be disfigured. If I don’t, I’ll be stuck here in this cursed place forever. But I can’t just go without trying to help him.

  Fight back. I mentally beg him. I have no way of knowing if he can hear me. If Underhill has transported me back in time to before Aiden broke the bond he should be able to hear me. Then again, I can’t hear him. I have to try though, to let him know I want him to fight, to end this. He got out of here before, and he can do it again. Aiden, fight them. Kill them. You don’t deserve this. Let your wolf out and fight back.

  There’s a sound, like the shattering of glass as I run for the exit as the first hoarse bellow fills the small space.

  It isn’t until I’m through the portal that I realize what the sound was.

  My heart, breaking into a million pieces.

  The Hardest Part

  The landing is just as rocky with this passage, knocking the breath from my lungs. Keeping my eyes closed, I roll onto my left side and pull my knees up to my chest. I’m not even curious where Underhill regurgitates me this time or what horror I’ll have to face. I want to bury my face in my hands and sob. I left him there. Left him to be mutilated. What sort of heartless monster am I?

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, tightening my arms around my drawn-up knees. “I’m so so sorry, Aiden.”

  “Why did you do it?” A soft voice asks. A familiar voice. “Why did you leave him?”

  Looking up, I spy the pale oval of a woman’s face. She’s slender and swathed from neck to feet in blue robes. Her face is lovely in an earthy, girl next door kind of way, with honey blonde hair and apple cheeks with a smattering of light freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her straight nose. But her deep blue eyes hold a well of fathomless sadness.

  Pushing myself up, I wipe away the tracks of moisture with the back of my hand. “Who are you?”