The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel

by Zachary James

  I dive into the twin ocean of my brain and swim to the closed chest. It’s only been about an hour since I used it. I unlatch the dark golden lock and the bubbles rise and seem to actually form around me, within the actual water and not just in my mind. They move and spin, attaching themselves to the cord’s grooves and braiding. I use my telekinesis to wiggle space between the bindings with the bubbles and the moment my invisible hands touch the braided cords it tightens more and I whimper. My head becomes lighter and darkness grows at the edges of my vision. The burn in my chest is making me feel as if I’m on fire beneath the surface and the rope rubbing against my skin is stinging like a cat scratch.

  All the burning reminds me of my other power. If my Telekinae ability can’t untie the rope than maybe I can burn it. I know the Void starts fires and burns through anything, but it doesn’t move like flame, it isn’t flame. My mind opens up with the chest inside and purple smoke rises to the surface, my fingertips, and winks out the moment it touches the water; the water swallowing the Void. I would cry if my tears wouldn’t be swept away by the shifting undercurrent. The fire in my chest is too much. The pressure makes my vision blur and focus. Black spots smudge my eyesight in the dark water and I scream beneath the midnight blue waves. The bubbles of my last breath escape into the manmade ocean and dance around me. Some fly straight up and others flurry around, lingering for a bit. My air is gone and soon I will be. I won’t be able to save Abella or the mortals from my mother’s wrath. She’ll take every living human on the continent and make them do her bidding and she’ll kill anyone who stands in her way. Now accepting the inevitable, I watch the last of the bubbles that linger rise. One tiny pocket of oxygen clings to a crevice of my layered binding at my wrist. The golden braiding is glowing within the bubble and I feel the space within it with my telekinesis. My internal chests of power are still open within me and I am careful not to jerk or move with excitement. I will survive. Using the bubble of oxygen and my invisible fingers I delicately expand the air and watch the pocket expand to an orb swallowing my wrists whole. Purple smoke-like fire slithers from my fingertips and around the bindings in the safety of the bubble surrounding my hands. It eats away at the cord and my vision vanishes. My chest pops. I scream and water floods down my throat. Everything drowns in darkness.

  Cold air flushes into my chest filling one lung and creating another. I cough out the last of the salt water and Lhys stands over me, her ice covered fingers touch my chest forming new lungs within me and heals me from the inside out. “What happened?” I croak through a throat of dried salt and Jax and Kane jump down by my face and pour a canister of foul tasting water into my mouth.

  “Somehow Ariadae, you completed the second trial,” Kane whispers. “I don’t know what gods you worship, but you better thank them. We thought the worst.” Kane’s eyes water and I know he is trying to hide his feelings, but it’s hard when your mate almost dies. I wouldn’t know the feeling, but I would have to assume it would feel like losing a piece of me. Of who I am.

  Brennan is somewhere because I hear his angered words, hushed and hidden by the bustling audience. I only catch bits and pieces of what is being shared, but I understand enough. “Twenty hours left,” and also, “How?” and the last thing I hear clearly is “Raid.”

  I expect some kind of ache or burn, but all I feel is the ghost of Lhys’ healing touch. I feel my new lung working to fill my body with fresh air. No longer am I surrounded by the churning dark waves that have abandoned the arena. Some sort of magic has drained out the water in the arena and all of the trees, hills, and snow is back in their rightful places. I pull my focus from the pit and pay attention to my trembling legs as I lift my body from the cold stone ground. People cheer and a smile spreads across my lips. The reason for their applauding is sort of sickening, but boosting my confidence at the same time. Kane and Jax hold me up and I’m glad to be between the two of them because if I wasn’t, who knows what fight would erupt. Lhys brushes the dust from her dress and Brennan stops his conversation with the brooding Reyluke. The High Lord gives me a thin lipped smile that doesn’t meet his eyes and I don’t understand the sudden change in atmosphere. He turns to the valley and opens up his arms to the people of the Winter Kingdom. “Due to some unexpected issues we will be skipping the third trial and moving straight to the fourth!” I am thankful for the skip of the third trial, but suddenly I realize that my exploding lung was the difficulty and what the fourth trial is; spilling the blood of an innocent.

  I approach Brennan and reach towards him to get his attention. Reyluke snaps toward me and grabs my wrist in a bone crushing fist. I cry out and he laughs as I fall to my knees in pain. Jax growls, but to my surprise Kane leaps, with a flash of light shifts into a snarling wolf, and slams Reyluke to the stone floor. I rub the pain away from my wrist and watch as Brennan grabs Kane’s collar and throws him off of Reyluke. Kane quickly shifts back to his human looking form and Reyluke brushes the dirt from his wrinkled uniform.

  “What the hell was that?” Brennan is quick to turn on his son. I look at Jax who eagerly wants to jump in, but I notice Lhys has her hand around his wrist, leashing him from the fight. I’ll thank her later.

  “He hurt her,” Lhys answers for Kane who glances between me and Reyluke. If it weren’t for Brennan, I don’t think the fight would’ve ended so quickly. Four Frost Guards descend the steps and look to their High Lord.

  “Is everything alright, Your Majesty?” Brennan glares at Kane and then Reyluke.

  “Yes, Alwen. Go back to the entrance, the others need you there,” Brennan orders and the four sentinels seem to sprint back up the hundreds of steps. I wonder why there would be a need for them at the entrance, but then again more people might be arriving, but with the amount of people already filling the seats around the mountainous colosseum, I doubt anymore could squeeze.

  “Ariadae,” Brennan draws my attention away from the crowd and to his sea-green irises. His tone becomes suddenly serious. “This is one of the hardest trials, but you need to be fast! We are running out of time. And remember it’s just a test.” He turns away from me and towards his people. The hundreds of faeries go silent and wait for their High Lord’s command. “Let Trial four begin!”

  I look towards the pit. No longer do the trees, green hills, and snow fill the valley. Now it’s just all flat dirt and at the center is a hunched figure standing, waiting for my arrival. I approach the body. I step into the arena and don’t peel my eyes away from the innocent at the center. The broad shoulders and thick chest tell me it’s a male, but the thick cloth bag over his head makes my stomach twist. How do they find a volunteer for this trial? Or does Brennan order an innocent against their will to complete it. My stomach twists into a thousand knots tighter than the cords that bound me in my second trial. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

  In what feels like hours I am finally standing before the male. His dirt covered tunic shows signs of him being a vagrant. A tear spills from my eyes when he hands me the curved dagger. He knows what is coming and he willing handed his killer the knife. My lip quivers. I feel like I’m making my first kill again. The memory of the arrow flying through the sprinting Summer Kingdom guard flashes across my sight like lightning and I hear the smack of his body on the cobble stone square. The memory, the kill, although created months ago is as fresh as if made an hour ago. How did Kane do this? How did Brennan do this? I noticed the paintings on Lhys’ skin show her completion of a past Proving, but I refuse to believe she drove a blade through an innocent’s heart for Brennan. Or did she do it for her people?

  With shaking fingers I grab the smooth hilt of the curved dagger. Its silver blade flickers off the floating lights at the top of the peaked ceiling and I see my reflection. The war paint is somehow intact even after being beneath water in my second trial and my eyes are red, filled with tears, wet stains cascade down my cheeks. The reflection is me. The reflection is a killer. I have killed people for self-defense because I had no other options
. I only kill for necessity, not desire. Every part of me says to drop the blade. I don’t need to kill him, I can find another way to get an army, but I think of the scarred faces of the slums in Equadoria. I remember the houses torn apart from the Forsaken. I remember the absence of Jeremiah. My people need me, they need an army. I need an army. My brain knows what I need to do, but my heart makes it a thousand times harder.

  “Make it quick,” the male says and my eyes snap to the fabric covering his face. I know his voice. I remember his height. I yank the dark cloth that shielded his face and stare at the man I love. Jax. I feel as if I receive a knife to the heart. Brennan wouldn’t make me kill his eldest son, but when I look back to the stands I notice the missing body. How did Jax slip by me into the pit?

  “I can’t,” my voice is shaking uncontrollably. “I can’t do it!” I cry out and cover my mouth with my free hand.

  Jax’s ice blue eyes grow sorrowful and his brows furrow. He lifts a large hand to my cheek and wipes away a descending tear. “You have to do what I couldn’t. Remember, it’s only a test, Ariadae.” It’s only a test. Suddenly I put the puzzle pieces together. The foul tasting water isn’t just from the Winter Kingdom wells, it’s an elixir. I lift the blade and stop my flowing tears.

  I drive the knife into Jax’s chest and he cries out. Blood spills from the wound and waterfalls down the front of his shirt. I second guess myself for only a second until I look to Brennan, smiling at the railing beside Lhys. Kane stands next to his mother and Reyluke is opposite of Lhys beside Brennan. My heart begins pounding and I sprint towards the royal family. Did I make a mistake? Did I drive the knife into the real Jax?

  “Jax!” I shout up to the High Lord and his family. Suddenly boots shift and familiar, cropped, black hair rises from behind the railing and a lopsided grin greets me.

  “I’m glad you caught on,” Brennan winks to me and I fall to my knees in a mess of tears and cries and sounds I didn’t even know I could make. “Don’t drop out on me yet. You still have one more trial.”

  “I know,” I choke out through sobs. I don’t even know why I’m still crying, but I just laugh at the happiness that I was right. I’m glad I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life. I’m so emotionally drained I just pray that I get the chance to breathe first. I need a moment to calm my heart, to lesson my raging fear.

  “Trial five, the last altered trial shall commence!”

  “What?” Lhys questions to Brennan who only smiles at Reyluke. “She is exhausted and drained, Brennan! You can’t expect her to immediately compete in the last and hardest trial?”

  “Sure I do,” Brennan grimaces and anger erupts through me like a raging forest fire in a dry summer. The High Lord looks to his personal sentinel who saunters with a killers gait past his master and down the steps into the pit. I rise from the ground and back away from the prowling monster, stalking towards me, his chosen prey. I back far enough away that Reyluke stops approaching and stays about a hundred yards away from me. His tall muscular body matches my stance and, although I am lean, I am no longer frail and weak. I was able to bring Reyluke to his knees before with just one of my powers, I am not afraid to use both this time around.

  Brennan’s laugh bounces off the walls, magically amplified. “The fifth trial is known to be a performance of power, but this Proving’s alteration is making it a battle of power. Reyluke Samos, my most talented and trained warrior will battle the Queen of Titanium Antlers. Let’s see who’ll rise above. Just so everyone is clearly understanding, the loser dies.” I thought this Proving couldn’t get any worse than it already has. It appears I am wrong, as usual.

  Reyluke decides to show his powers first. He throws out his hands like preaching the sky, but suddenly his skin vanishes to shadow and he’s gone from sight. My pounding heart patters and suddenly a force slams against my spine throwing me into a tumble across the hard floor. I grunt and stop my barrel roll before I travel too far. I already feel the forming bruises. I look around the arena and nothing is in the vast empty space just dirt and shadows, everywhere. The dark rippling forces seem to surround me in the center of the arena. A night-dark shadow stands out amongst the others and it flies at me with surprising speed. I scramble out of its path and dodge Reyluke’s blow. I rise onto moving feet and run towards the wall. If I can keep my back protected I can focus on the shadows.

  What feels like a brick colliding with my moving legs is Reyluke sweeping me. My face slams against the dirt and I spit the dust from my mouth. I ignore the speckled crimson scattered in my spit and try to stand. A pointed boot cracks against my ribs and the tear-jerking pain makes a scream erupt from my lips. Adrenaline pumps through my veins like venom and soaks into my pores. I project a spinning fan of telekinesis around me, protecting me, feeling for him.

  Reyluke’s jacket grazes an invisible fingertip and I grip the fabric with my power and throw the sprinting shadow to the ground. Reyluke appears at my feet and he kicks my feet out from under me before pinning me to the ground. His fists pound like my heart beat, boom, boom, boom, boom, against my face. A crack tells me that my nose is broken and my eyes water. I throw my hands up in an attempt to stop the blows, but he unsheathes his claws and rips them through my skin. “Why won’t you die,” He spits and the words slither into my skull and unlock a primal rage that I didn’t know I had. I have been in the afterlife and never again will I be attacked by the people I loved and the ones who want to bring me to an alluring darkness that steals everything I am. I will never again be clutching at the arms of life.

  Reyluke flies up into the air from my powerful shove. The crowd gasps and I push my telekinesis against the dirt and ground of the arena to fly faster, higher, farther than he. I meet him high above the arena floor. Reyluke twirls through the air and the spinning world slows down. Everything moves in slow motion as the searing pain of my Void trickles through my veins like lightning dancing on water. A long burning javelin of purple smoke sharpens to glinting points. With all the force left in my immortal body I throw the beam and it strikes down like thunder, cutting through Reyluke’s chest and straight into the floor. A relief I never felt before floods through me and the crowd, witnessing the murder of the best Winter Kingdom warrior, stares in silent awe.

  I land like a cat, graceful and silent on my feet. I look at Reyluke, slumped against the javelin that is rising from the floor. His body sags and crimson blood soaks the purple Void that has seemed to harden to a crystalized material. Blood dribbles from his lips. I look down at the male that took joy in whipping Jax, and wanted to see me dead. “It’s ironic isn’t it?”

  He chokes out more blood and makes gurgling sounds, his only way of answering my question.

  “You wanted the Proving to kill me, but all it did was kill you.”

  I hear Reyluke’s last breath leave his body and by the time I look away from his corpse and stop smiling the High Lord is staring at me with a grin plastered on his face. “Ariadae Vox, Queen of Titanium Antlers has completed the Proving!” The crowd roars with excitement and Jax runs to me wrapping his arms around me. “She has allowed herself access to the Frozen Army and…” I look to Kane who stares at me with eyes full of tears. He mouths “I’m sorry for this” and then I feel the whip crack between us. Like a crashing wave inside me I feel Kane’s sadness and I fall to my knees at the shock of it. My senses are on fire and my Fae instincts roar over the screaming crowd.

  “What’s going on?” Jax questions and looks around for answers.

  “Ariadae Vox has proved her power to rule for the Winter Kingdom and accepted the mating bond of Kane Archaeminza.”

  I don’t have time to scream as Jax shows enough anger for the both of us. A single tear cascades down my face and I barely have time to look to Kane before an arrow flies down from above and rips a hole through Brennan’s throat, spraying his blood all over everyone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ~Ariadae~

  Lhys’ scream of terror rips apart the roaring moun
tain. I look up at the many entrances throughout the colosseum where faeries try to flood out, and Forsaken flood in. Dreags crawl across the ceiling and drop down on unsuspecting women. Males fight hard against the Arbors and Troglodytes, so do the Frost Guard. Wendigoes join the party and so do Wood Nymphs who claw and target the faelings. Mothers of their children become fearsome beasts and attack the abominations with claws and teeth. Nobody comes between a mother and her baby. Lhys is no acceptation. She forces Kane and us into a small bubble of swirling wind around Brennan’s corpse. Jax must get his powers from her, but I’ve never seen Jax heal. Kane flinches at every arrow that breaks against the barrier.

  I stare down at Brennan, blood pooling beneath him as he chokes and gargles on the scarlet leaking from his neck. I want to wonder how we didn’t see it coming, but we did, he did. After my second trial I awoke to Lhys healing my exploded lung, but I overheard Brennan talking to Reyluke. One of the words shared was “raid” so they had to have known. That would also explain why my Fae instincts were freaking out while he was announcing my triumphant feat. Was I supposed to win? If I had died and Reyluke didn’t, then he could’ve saved his High Lord. Now, Kane, my mate- I feel his fast beating heart and the grief blooming in his stomach, or maybe it’s my own- he is now the High Lord of the Winter Kingdom.

  Lhys cries and shakes from the heavy sobs. “Don’t leave me, Brennan,” she screams down at his pale white face. His blue eyes no longer glow; instead they grow shadowed and fill with gloom. So many times I’ve seen those darkening eyes of death. “Don’t leave me to do this alone!” She cries and Jax doesn’t look at his dying father. Kane grabs his mother’s shoulders, pulling her away from the corpse, void of a soul.

  “You aren’t alone, mother!” Kane pulls her face close to his as he whispers to Lhys. She cries and I even see a few tears slip past the warrior’s glare. “I’m standing right here and,” he looks to his brother who paces along the barrier, itching to fight for the people who exiled him or maybe the wolf inside the bubble. “Jax is right there.”