The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel

by Zachary James

  “Sure, just don’t do something stupid to make me hate you even more.” He smiles and sips from his cup. I do the same.

  He finishes his tea in a single gulp and I savor every bit of mine. For a moment, I don’t think we’ll speak again, but then his voice floods my ears. “So, you really don’t think I’m gorgeous?”

  “I said no such thing,” I try not to smile, but fail horribly. He winks and all I can do is laugh in answer. I keep catching myself getting lost in his blue eyes. His full lips that look soft to the touch and his giant hands dwarf the second cup of tea that he orders. Our conversations vary from my father, which leads me to tears, then to what happened in Elkwood this past summer. I describe to him how I ended up in the war with Evaflora and how I adventured across Elkwood to save my father and eventually I learned of the twisted truth about how the curse wasn’t created by the Tree of Light, and was instead conjured by my mother, which left Kane gasping with surprise.

  “So, when you arrived back to Equadoria, hoping your father was free from the curse and back to himself, he truthfully wasn’t and killed you?”

  “Yes,” I nod and sip from my own second cup to hold back a sob. He is on his third and I begin to hope he doesn’t get sick from all the tea and sugar, my own stomach churns with anguish.

  “What was it like…the afterworld,” he asks, his words a bit unsure if not shaky. The question floods my brain with the memories of the dark bridge between worlds; the light of Nirvana on one side and the darkness of the Underworld on the other. I still remember the faces of the soldiers I killed, my friends who died, their skin peeling away revealing rotting flesh and even bone. “Novid and Gaston, the soldiers I entered Elkwood with, who died from the Forsaken, tried to drag me into the darkness. I’m glad I’m alive, but every day, I am haunted by my demons.”

  “Does Jax not chase them away?”

  “He tries,” I whisper and think of the first few days after coming back. I didn’t sleep for a week because Novid and Gaston were always there, waiting for me to trip up or be alone. Jax would tell me to say they weren’t real, but for a while it never worked. It was traumatizing seeing them over and over again. Never was I haunted by Seri. My maid from the Summer Kingdom kept me safe there and seems to be doing so now. I smile at the thought of her face in my dreams after falling in the Akuji’s nest, normal, human-like, in a way that Faeries can look human. She told me Lunan is my brother. Lunan helped me in the Summer Kingdom as well, but I wish the birdbath of starlight in Evaflora’s garden, which told me she was my mother, told me Lunan was my brother. I would’ve had so many more questions for him. I might even have taken him with me on my traverse through Elkwood.

  “Have they haunted you since your arrival a week ago?” Shock floods me at the realization I was here for a week already, but only really woke up yesterday.

  “Now that I think of it, no, they haven’t. But has seven days really passed when I was being healed?” Kane nods. He finishes his third cup and places it on the low table between us. After the attack during the Winter Solstice ball and the healing process in the Winter Kingdom, it seems I am unconscious more than awake.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about the nest.”

  “Oh, thank you for getting me out of there. I’m sorry for not saying it earlier,” I mumble between sips of my tea and Kane’s head cocks in question.

  “What’re you talking about? I was going to ask you how you got out.” Kane’s words makes my heart start to thrum and my brain spin with confusion. I remember little from the nest, but I do have a vivid memory of Kane seeing me and calling down to me before everything went dark.

  “What’re you talking about? You found me and brought me out. Didn’t you?”

  Kane shakes his head and a chill slides like a finger down my spine.

  “You were passed out on the tree that you fell from.” My stomach flips and I double over emptying my stomach on the floor. All I remember was fainting in the nest with the Akuji. My body shakes at possibility that the Akuji lifted me up onto the tree like a gift for Kane to find. Kane rises from his seat and wraps my cloak around my shoulders. “Look away everyone, nothing to see here.” He leans down into my ear. “Are you alright? Here let me take you back to the castle.”

  I get off of the sofa and avoid the liquid bile. I wipe my mouth on the corner of my cape. Embarrassment floods my every pore as Kane grabs napkins from the barista’s counter to clean up after me. Everyone is looking at me disgusted and my stomach spins again. A vile flavor hangs in my mouth and I inhale before running from the café. Nobody outside in the frigid air knows what happened, so none of the citizens pay me a second glance. The eyes finally off of me are comforting. From a block away, I hear Kane running to catch up to me and I don’t quicken my pace. I don’t know why, but I want him to catch up. He’s your mate. That’s why.

  “Sorry about what happened back there,” I apologize when he gets within in earshot. I keep my hand over my mouth so he won’t smell the regurgitated tea. He pants a little bit as if not expecting me to leave so quickly. “I didn’t mean to run, I was just embarrassed.”

  “Don’t apologize; anybody would be in that situation.” His not being disgusted makes me feel a lot better about myself. I see what he wants to ask begin to rise onto his lips and I jump to the answer.

  “I’m fine. I just wasn’t feeling that well earlier, that’s all. I’m perfectly okay now.” I even end the almost true statement with a smile. He doesn’t seem completely convinced, so he removes his doublet and wraps it around me beneath my cloak. His chuckle flutters through my ears and I ask, “What?” as he looks away from my face towards the city around us.

  “Nothing,” He breathes.

  “Just say it!”

  “You could use a mint.” I punch his shoulder before pulling his coat around my arms. The warm heat from his body clings to the jacket and I relish in its warmth. Kane on the other hand, is only wearing a tank top and doesn’t seem bothered at all by the cold. His vein-ridden, tan arms are swelled with bulging muscles that flicker with every movement. My mouth goes bone dry. His skin is covered in dark tattoos, some are swirls that tell stories and others fade into jagged sharp spikes that have to be some kind of language. I know the Faerie language, but this, this must be ancient.

  “Promethean,” Kane grumbles as if he read my thoughts. He twists his arm around so I can see better, tree-trunk sized biceps ripple making the jagged language wave like water. It’s strangely contradicting. “The tattoos are the language used by Prometheus himself when writing the Rift.”

  The question passes my lips before I can even think to ask it. “What is the Rift?”

  “It’s the sacred text written by Prometheus and his pantheon. It’s the religious rule that Druids and monks follow.”

  Before I ask any more questions, I notice we have arrived at our destination at the castle and what seems like hundreds of courtier’s sprint through the chamber to Kane in a screaming howl of excitement. Kane’s face flushes bright red and I am immediately pushed and shoved by the throng of silk and fur, Faerie and Faerie, skin and hide. A hand palms my back strong enough to leave a bruise and fingers grab a length of my hair and tug, unexpectedly strong. Many shrilling voices shout, “Kane!” or “I love you!” One girl somewhere in the back is ambitious enough to scream, “Fuck me!” After the chorus of whines for attention a particularly stunning Fae with a dress of periwinkle turns her bronze eyes on me. Fires from a thousand suns burn with fiery rage behind them, the anger pointed at me. She lurches toward my face with a snarl and before I can jump away, her manicured claws rake down my arm. I cry out at the sight of crimson blood instantly flooding from the four slices along my forearm, branding me. Kane doesn’t see what happens, but hears my scream. He cuts through the crowd, pushing Faerie girls half my age to the floor just to get to me. He doesn’t reach me when the same periwinkle dressed courtier leaps onto me, smacking us both to the tile. The girl growls as she bears down on me with nails a
s sharp as knives. I feel like my skin is being ripped away by a Dreag or a Wendigo, not a damned courtier. For a moment, when I close my eyes I’m thrusted into back Elkwood Forest. The shrill screams are howling Forsaken and a distant voice calls to me. Kane or Jax, I’m not sure, but I can’t stop the urge that floods through my veins with the speed of a viper.

  Like releasing a breath of air, an outward explosion of telekinesis sends my bronze eyed attacker and her fellow mistresses flying and sprawling through the air in the chamber. I rise on shaking legs as the screaming girls thud against the floor like beating drums. A song of cries and the flicker of sparkling tears fill the entrance hall. Maids, Lords, and Brennan himself run into the chamber. The father’s and servants are quick to look to the courtiers, but the burning slashes on my arms and chest feel like hundreds of cat scratches. Scarlet blood stains the white part of my gown; the bottom fading to blue only has some violet droplets spattered across it. The cuts leak profusely and my Fae hearing picks up on the echo of blood dripping off my hands onto the floor bouncing around the chamber.

  “Ariadae!”

  I look to the voice in front of me, the male on the stairs, still where I left him as if he never moved, the Fae I know so well. Jax runs down the last flight and crosses the chamber in seconds. Faeries scurry out of his storming path and he immediately grabs my shaking arms. “What happened?” he whispers only to me. And for a second it feels like we are the only people in the room. But suddenly I notice the male that was the start of the whole attack. My eyes look over Jax’s shoulder to Kane. Jax follows my glare.

  “What did you do to her?” Jax’s question is more of a growl than actual words.

  “What did I do? I think you should ask what she did!” Kane points at me and I’m taken aback. He is blaming me for all of this even though the courtiers were screaming over him. What happened to the male putting his jacket over my shoulders? At the thought, I drop his doublet, torn to pieces by the attack. Kane notices. So, does Jax.

  Brennan marches over from his place next to the stairs where he was talking to, I assume, one of the courtier’s fathers. His cloak of midnight blue billows behind him like a gale of rage and fury. He shouts at Kane, Jax, and me. “The three of you, get in the throne room now!”

  None of us look at one another and I begin to panic. I hope he doesn’t stop the alliance and creation of the treaty because of this. It was just a stupid mistake and an assault on me. Brennan slams the throne room doors behind Kane, as he is the last to enter, and the High Lord doesn’t even take a seat on his throne.

  He turns to Kane first, his sea-green eyes promising a punishment greater than I can imagine. “What happened out there?” I don’t know Brennan’s relationship with Kane, but I’m not sure I want to know of their dynamic.

  “Well I was at the tea café where I saw Ariadae. We delighted in conversation and she didn’t feel well, so I, being the gentlemen you raised me to be…,” Kane is really trying to pull the best from his father or he is being a smartass on purpose. I can’t tell which it is. “…Guided her back to the castle. When we arrived, the Winter Kingdom Ladies must’ve heard of my initial departure and waited upon my return.”

  “What happened when you arrived to the threshold?” A threat waits in his words, a promise of punishment. The High Lord is waiting for the part where his Noble’s daughters were found on the floor in tears. I shake uncontrollably.

  “They swarmed us like hungry hounds to fresh meat.”

  “So how did they end up injured and on the damned floor?”

  I completely forgot Jax was in the chamber until he jumps in and gestures to my still bleeding arms and chest. “You think they are injured? Look what those feral things did!”

  Brennan finally looks me over. He isn’t fazed by the blood, but I find it impossible to avoid scratching the already puffing and blushing skin around the slashes. I jump to the words recalling my memory, expecting his oncoming questions, “I was stuck in the middle of the hoard and a particular courtier sought me out. She leapt on me, pinning me to the floor and cut me open like a birthday present.” It’s almost impossible to not raise my voice as the whole scenario is idiotic, but I am a guest in the Winter Kingdom than I need to be respectful. And if I want his army than I want to keep my sanity so I don’t tell of the triggered memories that arose from the assault. “I couldn’t take the abuse much longer, so I simply got them off of me the best way I could.”

  “Your damned Telekinae abilities sent them flying across the fucking chamber!” Spit flies from Brennan’s roaring mouth and I shield my face from his rage. Silence hovers over the four of us for what feels like hours until he finally mutters to Kane, “Get Lhys. We need someone to heal our guest.” Just as the chamber door shuts I drop my bleeding arms in exhaustion and look to Jax.

  I flick my gaze back to the High Lord of the Winter Kingdom, who is now somewhat composed and again regal looking. “I’m so sorry for my outburst. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  I should be thankful, for the High Lord taking pity on me. His voice is a threat as it cuts like a knife through the air in the room, “If something happens again, expect an altercation to the treaty, Your Majesty.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  ~Ariadae~

  With Brennan’s threat hanging over my head like the clouds above Archaic Mountain, I didn’t leave my chambers until after High Lady Lhys healed me. Her ability to heal is truly astonishing and she tried to explain to me how she can manipulate the ice, born of her fingers, to replicate the skin cells quickly by freezing parts of the small miniscule skin, duplicating the cells. It basically copies the skin around the cut and pulls the pieces together by replicating the healthy cells. It seems impossible to do with ice powers, but centuries have taught her the very rare gift of a healer’s touch.

  I sit on my bed and wait for Jax to roar at me, hate me, destroy me at the seams for being with Kane in a café, alone, and he does just that.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Jax shouts loud enough to shake the castle. Our bedroom doesn’t seem like a private enough location to have this conversation, but with Jax’s voice I doubt anywhere will be safe from listening ears.

  “I had stopped inside for some tea and to sit by the fire to get warm,” I try to excuse myself and lesson his anger, but it doesn’t seem to be working. “Kane showed up minutes after I settled and trust me, I wasn’t too welcoming of his unplanned arrival.” And although I was upset at first, I’m glad that he kept me company.

  Jax’s eyes roll to the back of his head as he taps his skull in confusion. “But why did you speak to him, why did you go alone in the first place? You left so fast after our bath that I felt as if you wanted to get away from me.”

  “I just wanted some space, that’s it,” I continue speaking the truth and I hope he hears it.

  “What is happening to us?”

  “Nothing,” I lie. “I just don’t want every moment I spend with you to be fucking!”

  “Am I not good enough?” He asks and tears seem to prick the corners of his eyes. I almost roar at his obliviousness to what I am saying. “Are you still mad about me lying because I kept that secret from you because I knew it would hurt you?”

  I find myself not even being able to look at him anymore. The white-hot anger just floods through me and I have long forgiven him for his lies, but I will not forget them, not ever. “Please Jax,” I huff as I rub the ache from behind my eyes.

  “There’s nothing more I can do than say sorry!”

  “Jax.”

  “And why can’t you just forgive me, and let things be how they used to!”

  “STOP,” My throat burns as I scream making feet shuffle in the hallway beyond the door. We have an audience and I was expecting that, so he, spitting the distrust within my kingdom, won’t sound good in Brennan’s ears. “Jax that’s enough, I’ve forgiven you long ago, but we will never be how we used to. You lied and that’s the end of it, you ruined it. So stop trying to fix what
is too broken for restoration.”

  Jax doesn’t say another word before running to the chamber door and swinging it wide. I know he wants to run away, be alone like I wanted, but Kane’s smiling face stands in the hallway, his fist lifted as if he was about to knock. “Is this a bad time?”

  Jax snarls and I walk up to the doorway as I place a hand on Jax’s shoulder in a piss-poor job of calming him. “What do you want?” I ask trying to keep the attitude from my voice and Kane lets his hand fall into his slacks.

  “Your presence is requested in the dining room where we will speak about the treaty,” He explains and my heart skips for a moment. How so soon? But instead of questioning, I stay optimistic and walk with Kane and Jax through the winding corridors where we say nothing.

  <<>><<>><<>>

  Lhys shows none of the friendly self she was when healing me and sits, stone-faced next to Brennan, with Kane on the opposite side of his father. They sit on one side of the table while Jax and I sit on the other. The finished treaty lies on the table between us. I don’t make to move towards the feather pen wading in the inkwell until I read the terms because a High Lord like Brennan doesn’t simply hand over an army of the Winter Kingdom.

  The High Lord waves his hand at the parchment, solemn on the oak table. “Take a look, Ariadae Vox.” The rest of Brennan’s court stands behind him witnessing the monumental event of a Faerie Kingdom aligning with a Mortal Kingdom. Although Equadoria is ruled by a Fae, the origins of the kingdom don’t change. Magic was banished from Equadoria until my rebirth as an immortal and it’s time for a new age. It’s time for the bridge between immortal and mortal to be built. The treaty is only a blueprint in the grand scheme of things.

  Jax pulls the paper towards us and I read the first article. It is full of information that I thought of myself, connecting the ties between human and faerie. There is other simplistic things that are obviously game changing, but beside the point of what’s at hand. I let Jax do the bulk of the reading and I notice his breath hitch. I flick down to the fourth paragraph where his finger is frozen. It reads: