The Raven Queen

by Che Golden

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  HOW TO SAY THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES

  EXPLORING THE FAERIE REALM

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  55 Baker Street

  7th Floor, South Block

  London

  W1U 8EW

  Copyright © Che Golden 2014

  The moral right of Che Golden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 0 85738 534 5

  Print ISBN 978 0 85738 381 5

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  THE RAVEN QUEEN

  Che Golden has led a typical second-generation Irish life, spending most of her childhood shuttling backwards and forwards between London and Blarney, Co. Cork, trying to get people on both sides of the Irish Sea to pronounce her name properly. An ex-journalist, she has now settled permanently in Somerset with her husband and two children, blissfully making up whopping, complicated lies that sometimes turn into books.

  Praise for The Feral Child

  ‘Gripping, mystical and adventurous,

  young readers will be hooked …’

  Irish World

  ‘An exciting adventure story combining

  contemporary life and fantasy’

  Irish Examiner

  Even darkness must pass

  J.R.R. TOLKIEN

  A Note from the Author

  In this book, some of the characters have unusual names.

  To find out how to say them, turn to HOW TO SAY THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES.

  PROLOGUE

  The black wolf felt the hair on his back rise with fear. He shook his head, his thick black ruff of fur rippling on his neck. He had been summoned by the Winter Queen and that couldn’t be good, whatever mood Queen Liadan was in. Fenris found it best if no one noticed him or his pack in Tír na nÓg. He was sure that if Queen Liadan had not extended her protection over the pack, there were plenty of faeries that would enjoy a wolf hunt. Fenris had made sure the other wolves, especially Nitania and her cubs, were hidden deep in the brooding forest of Tír na nÓg before he set off for the White Tower.

  He was no coward, but it had been very hard to place one paw in front of another as he had crossed the ice bridge that Liadan had sculpted from the waters of the lake with her cold touch. The bridge arched to the foot of a crumbling road that led to the copper gates barring the way to the Winter Court’s stronghold. The gates swung open silently at his approach. All was still and quiet as he padded along the road, with only his shadow and the sound of his breathing to keep him company. In the rest of Tír na nÓg, spring was giving way to summer. Queen Sorcha of the Spring Court would be weeping and tearing at her hair as the power of the season ebbed from her court, while Queen Niamh of Summer would be gloating in triumph as she felt her strength grow. Queen Liadan brooded while waiting for the earth to turn to winter, and while she brooded, winter’s cold leaked from her.

  Outside the White Tower the air was balmy. The placid waters of the lake sparkled like diamonds in the afternoon sunshine and the ice bridge wept in the heat. But within the White Tower winter reigned and hoar frost shone on every inch of stone. Fenris’s breath curled from his mouth and formed droplets on his whiskers. The tower reached into the sky above him, twisting and turning on itself as it climbed. So high did it reach, so narrow were its uppermost turrets, that the courtyard at its base would have been shrouded in eternal darkness had Liadan not created a staircase of mirrors to catch the sunlight. The light stepped all the way down the stone frills of the balconies and windows, through the ruined fortress that only ghosts now called home, all the way down to Liadan’s hall, where she trapped it.

  The hall sat neat and simple in the chaos of the overblown tower, testament to the taste and modesty of a past Winter Queen. Rippling stone steps led to massive double wooden doors carved with flowers and beasts. Ice crackled over their surface, silvering a wood that had been blackened with age. Frost crept beneath them and inched its way down the steps with slow-moving fingers. Fenris shuddered. The Winter Queen was angry.

  The ice burned the rough pads of his paws and he flinched as he made his painful way up the steps to stand outside the doors. The golden lock, crafted by a smith who was long since dust and bones, began to click and whirr at his approach before springing open, letting the doors swing wide enough for him to slip his lean body between them.

  The court was full. Every faerie that served Liadan was present in all its finery. Golden sunlight lit up diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, sleek inhuman hair, the soft pelts of the furs the faeries wore as protection against their own queen’s cold. All eyes turned to Fenris as he padded into the hall, but no one spoke. The building pulsed to the rhythm of a crowd breathing but not a cough nor a sigh disturbed the eerie silence. Thick soft rugs lay beneath the feet of the courtiers as they watched him from behind fluted columns that lined a path to the glittering throne of crystal where Queen Liadan sat. Fenris held his head high as he walked slowly toward the Winter Queen. He did not need to turn his head to see her court. No Tuatha graced her hall, only golden, glittering elves with their beautiful cold faces and their diamond-bright eyes. Standing among them were the plainer, darker shapes of sprites, trolls, goblins, gancanagh, glaistigs and other faeries who were drawn to the cruelty and madness of Liadan’s rule for the blood and the fear and the pain they feasted on. Fenris was surrounded by enemies who would rip him apart in seconds, but he gritted his teeth and focused on the tiny figure seated in front of him.

  She was dressed in a simple white gown, her hair hanging straight and heavy, so long she could sit on it. Black as a raven’s wing, it framed the stark bones of her snow-white face. Her eyes had been boiled white by the cold that had consumed her when the Winter crown had been placed upon her head. It had killed the colour in her face so that now her blood-red lips were painted on, and the roses in her cheeks had withered to grey.

  ‘You disappoint me, Fenris,’ said Liadan. Powdered ice puffed from her painted lips with every breath. Ice crept from her feet and began to inch toward him, spreading thin fingers as it came.

  ‘I am sorry for it, Highness,’ said Fenris
.

  ‘No, I think not,’ said Liadan. ‘To say you are sorry means you regret what you did and implies you would never do it again. And yet, despite my displeasure, you have twice helped the Feral Child.’

  Fenris said nothing, merely blinked his long eyes slowly.

  Liadan tipped her head to one side. ‘Do you know why I named you Fenris, when I found your pack staggering through Tír na nÓg, terrified and bewildered? Fenris, according to my people, was a wolf who would eat the moon at the end of days and bring abut the destruction of the world. You, Fenris, seem to be determined to bring about the destruction of my world. But I know how to deal with you, wolf.’

  The wolf tensed and his ears swivelled back as he caught the sounds of soft footsteps creeping up behind him and the slither of a chain running between fingers. He whipped round, ears pinned to his head, and snarled in the faces of the three faeries who held a long silver chain between them. He crouched to spring, but as he launched himself into the air they rushed at him, lifting the chain high so that it passed between his snapping teeth, and as it caught the corners of his mouth the impact threw him to the ground. The breath whooshed from his lungs and he heard a crack as one of his ribs broke against the flagstone floor. His attackers were on him in seconds, winding the chain around his muzzle to keep them safe from his teeth and then binding his legs with the cold, slippery silver. He kicked and struggled and scraped long claw marks in the stone with his black nails, but it was no use. The giggling faeries pressed him down with knees and hands and one grabbed the chain around his muzzle and yanked hard on it, twisting his head up so he had to look directly at the red-eyed faerie who stood over him. Her bone-white skin crawled with grey tattoos and her ice-white hair was stiffened with lime so it swept up and away from her pointed face in a Mohican. Fenris’s eyes bulged as she began to draw her sword.

  ‘Your namesake was bound, just like this, and his jaws were pinned with a sword to stop him biting,’ said Liadan. ‘They say he is tied to a rock beneath the earth, waiting for the time of chaos. He is strong, Fenris, stronger than you, but how he must suffer. Your suffering will be much greater and I think it will bring your little friend running. Let’s see how long the Feral Child can ignore the cries of her friends as they pay for her arrogance, before she tries to save them.’

  Terrified, Fenris bucked and heaved to get the faeries off him as the red-eyed creature lifted the sword with the hilt clasped in both hands, but they simply laughed and pinned his head and legs to the ground. His panicked breath rasped between his teeth and a keen of pure fear vibrated in his throat. He closed his eyes as he felt the tip of the blade prick the soft flesh under his jaw. His howl of pain was strangled as the blade lunged upwards, pinning his tongue. Blood filled his mouth, and as the faeries lowered his now limp head to the floor it pooled beneath his face, warm and sticky in the ice-cold hall. As he shuddered with shock he was dimly aware of the light laughter of the court and Liadan’s voice saying, ‘Look, Fachtna, wolf tears. Collect them for me, would you? I imagine they are quite rare.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maddy squinted into the hazy summer sunshine and sighed. She hated duty visits and hated especially coming to visit Great-Aunt Kitty who lived in a care home on the outskirts of the suburbs of Cork city. For Maddy, these visits were particularly uncomfortable, as she knew she could end up here herself. The problem was that Great-Aunt Kitty had been driven mad by the Sight. A lot of the people in the home would have lived normal, happy lives if their ability to see faeries had not got them tangled up with the inhabitants of Tír na nÓg. But many of them had tried to warn people of the malevolent creatures that moved among them and they had been laughed at, mocked, and eventually locked away when their families and communities decided they were mad. Maddy could look around the garden of this place and see her future. Great-Aunt Kitty probably had gone a little bit senile with old age, but once she had been just like Maddy. It did not help to watch Una, the family banshee, wandering around the Victorian walled garden saying hello to everyone, like a guest at a school reunion. Maddy noticed the white-uniformed nurses frowning at the patients who looked as if they were talking to thin air.

  You’re not helping, Una, thought Maddy. If these people keep talking to faeries, they’ll never get out of here.

  She looked at her great-aunt, who was smiling away at nothing in particular, her papery, wrinkled hands folded in her lap.

  Maddy cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Kitty, I have to go. I’ll see you soon though.’

  The tiny woman smiled. ‘I know you do, Maddy. I can feel it.’

  Here we go, thought Maddy, as her blood ran cold. ‘Feel what?’

  ‘There’s a reckoning coming, blood and fire and ice, and the Hound will have to run,’ said Aunt Kitty. She turned her eyes on Maddy, her sweet smile still lingering on her lips. ‘But who will you run for?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘We all know what you did,’ said Aunt Kitty, shaking her head ever so slightly. ‘So we don’t know who the Hound will run for – us or the red-haired queen?’

  ‘Us,’ said Maddy. ‘Mortals, always. How could you think any different?’

  ‘Because you made a bargain, girl,’ said Aunt Kitty, the softness fleeing her face as her eyes turned cold. ‘You bent the knee and you swore an oath of fealty to a faerie. You have to keep your word, girl, always. What is a Hound without honour?’

  ‘I always do the right thing,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Do you now?’ asked Aunt Kitty, leaning in close with such a cold expression that her silvery blue eyes darkened to steel. ‘Is it right, or is it what you think is right? Because that’s a different thing altogether.’

  Maddy thought back to last year and the blood that had drenched the autumn grass. Innocent blood from a person she had unwittingly condemned to death, so sure was she that she was doing the right thing. The smell of autumn rain cut through the heavy scent of summer roses. She could hear the hiss of that long red hair as it trailed over plaid wool. You thought you were moral. You thought you were righteous. How does it feel now, hero? asked a voice in her head. She closed her eyes for a second and saw the light go out in an innocent’s eyes and his last breath cool in his mouth.

  Aunt Kitty watched her closely and then smiled, a humourless, cynical and very, very sane twist of the lips, before giving a brief nod and sitting back in her chair.

  ‘I thought so,’ she said.

  Maddy opened her mouth to defend herself but the words choked in her throat. She stared at her great-aunt, who simply turned her face up to the sun, closed her eyes and smiled again as its rays bathed her skin.

  Una chose that moment to come strolling up with the awkward, rolling gait that made her rock from side to side as she walked. She looked a horror, with lank, grey hair so thin it showed her wrinkled scalp, long bare hands and feet that were filthy and tipped with black, horny nails. Her clothes, torn and tattered grave shrouds, were wound round her emaciated body. One tooth hung on gamely in her wrinkled, sagging mouth. But her eyes were warm and kind and full of laughter. If it were not for her eyes, Maddy would have run screaming at the sight of her. The little banshee was tied to Maddy’s family. Every time one of them died she mourned with a loud keening that could be heard in both the mortal and the faerie worlds. She was a weird sort of guardian angel, but her magical ability to know where anyone in the family was at any time had come in very handy in the past. It was as though Una could track Maddy and anyone related to her with her own faerie GPS system. As long as she did not get distracted by Cheese & Onion Tayto crisps, for which she had a terrible weakness.

  As it was, she had managed to beg a few sweets off the inmates and was loudly crunching them between her gums.

  Maddy pulled a face. ‘Una, doesn’t that hurt?’

  The little banshee tapped her gums with the tip of a black fingernail. ‘Rock hard. Eating without teeth for two hundred years will do that to them.’ She leaned forward and touched A
unt Kitty lightly on the arm with her grubby fingertips. ‘How are you keeping, Kathleen?’

  Aunt Kitty opened her eyes and beamed at the little banshee. ‘Good, thanks. Yourself?’

  ‘Not so bad, hanging in there,’ said Una.

  ‘You’ll be around forever, you will,’ said Aunt Kitty. ‘How many of us have you watched over?’

  ‘Oh, too many to count,’ said Una. ‘You’re looking well yourself.’

  ‘Oh aye, I’m going dancing later on!’ said Aunt Kitty.

  The two of them laughed as Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘They have no idea how to enjoy themselves these days, do they, these young ones?’ Aunt Kitty asked Una. ‘They drag themselves around the place, dressed in black like widow-women, and listen to that awful music. You couldn’t even sing to that rubbish, sure you couldn’t.’

  Una chuckled and shook her head. ‘And they look at us old ones and think we never had fun. Sure, fun only came along when they invented it.’

  ‘Really?’ Maddy asked Una. ‘When was the last time you went clubbing?’

  Una glared at her. ‘Don’t be smart, Madeline, it doesn’t suit you.’

  Aunt Kitty gave a snort. ‘Do you remember the dances we had in town, Una? Do you remember that black net dress of mine, with the sticky-out skirt? I spent half a week’s wages on sequins that I had to go all the way into town on the bus for, and nearly made myself blind sewing them all on. Mammy was scandalized. But, oh, how it sparkled! And Mammy gave me a loan of her lipstick, and Dermot said that when I danced I looked like I was made of stars.’

  ‘I remember, Kathleen,’ said Una. ‘You used to come home so flushed and happy, your eyes were the biggest stars of all.’

  ‘Do you ever see Dermot?’

  Una frowned. ‘From time to time. He’s well, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘Who did he marry again?’

  ‘Noreen O’Hara, the one that used to live out on the road to Mallow.’