Queen of Midnight: A Dark Fae Fantasy Romance (Court of Lies Book 3)

by Olivia Hart

  I looked up at my wife. The only person I’d ever loved. She sat on the Dark Throne in a dress that looked like it was made from the star-filled sky. Black and sparkling, it pulled the eye in the dimness of the Throne Room. She was gorgeous, and the male in me wanted nothing more than to whisk her away from all of this trouble, to pull her away from the Dark Court entirely. I knew that the people needed her here, but I needed her in ways that she seemed to have forgotten.

  “Why did you eat his sheep?” Rose asked a harpy. She wore leather clothing that barely covered her body, but it was well-oiled. She wore a necklace made of polished and uncut blue and green gemstones. Her black hair matched the black-feathered wings that were pulled tight against her lithe body.

  “Because I was hungry,” she said.

  Rose sighed and turned to the slouching shepherd who was the opposite of the graceful harpy. While she was terrifying and beautiful, he seemed to have just woken up, his thinning hair standing up in places. His clothes were ragged, with many holes left unpatched. “Were you near your sheep? Was there any way that Pelasha could have known that they were your sheep?”

  “No, Lady. I was napping. When I woke up, she’d eaten half the sheep.”

  “What is the sheep worth?” she asked as she tapped her fingers on the Throne. She was frustrated. Annoyed by the simple lack of communication.

  “I bet this kind of thing happens a lot,” Amra whispered. The dragon puffed a bit of smoke in the shape of a deer, and I wondered what he was trying to say.

  “Yes,” I said. “The court usually just pays for the sheep, and everyone goes on about their business.”

  “Two gold coins, Lady,” Reldor the shepherd said in response to Rose’s question.

  “Pelasha, you will pay the shepherd two gold coins for the sheep you ate. Next.”

  “Lady, the harpies do not use gold. We have no need for it.” Pelasha’s voice was soft, but her eyes were intense.

  Rose gritted her teeth, and I wished that I could whisper in her ear to just pay the shepherd for the sheep, that this was how it was done. But that was what everyone told her, and it had become her most hated phrase. “Then what can you give the shepherd in return for his sheep?” she asked.

  “I do not understand. This is the way that we have always lived. The strong take from the weak. This is the way of the Dark Realm. I do not understand why I should give anything to the shepherd.”

  I could feel the frustration in Rose beginning to overflow. She hadn’t lived in the Dark Realm her whole life. She didn’t understand that this was truly the way of the world. This was not the Realm of Light. This was not the Mortal Realm. We lived knowing that only we could take care of ourselves and the things and ones we cared for.

  And this was her fourth time dealing with this same kind of complaint today.

  She stood up and said, “Pelasha and Reldor, find seats. I need to think about this. I’ll come back within the hour with a decision.”

  “Sebastian, meet me on the training grounds.”

  Chapter 7

  Rose

  I nearly tore my dress as I yanked it off. I was tired of being the prissy Queen that wore fancy dresses and heels. I needed some me time. Even for just an hour. Just an hour where I didn’t have to worry about what people thought or about someone else’s problems.

  As soon as I was naked, I found the drawer that held my traveling clothes. One drawer of things that I enjoyed versus an entire room full of clothes that I hated. I pulled the linen trousers out and felt the soft fabric caress me as I stepped into them. The tunic fit me perfectly. These were mine. Not the Queen’s. Not the Court’s.

  My old friends. The same clothes I’d worn in the village. The same ones that I’d worn to see the dragons. They’d been torn over and over again by sword and dagger strikes, and the patches that adorned them only made them stronger. Of all the things in this room, these were the only ones that I’d save in a fire.

  I smiled as I stepped into my sneakers. The only pair of sneakers in the entire Immortal Realm to my knowledge. I felt right again for the first time in too long.

  When I stepped out into the hall, it was empty. Sebastian would be at the training grounds already, and he’d have brought Amra and the dragon. It was so quiet. Calmness seemed to flow over me in the dim silence.

  I let my wings carry me down the hall to the winding staircase that would lead down to the bottom of the tower. I didn’t take the stairs though. Instead, I landed on the bronze railing that kept people from falling down the center of the spiral staircase.

  My wings held me steady as I looked down the hundreds of feet of stairs. A draft of wind wound through my hair, and I took a deep breath.

  Then, I leaned forward. The world seemed to stop as I felt myself falling. I kept tipping forward as I fell into an abyss of darkness lit only by torches. The wind whipped around me. My clothes pressed tightly against me.

  And my wings held steady as I prepared myself. I was finally close enough to see the bottom, and my wings turned ever so slightly, slowing my fall. My muscles ached as I tightened all of them, turning my body in midair.

  I felt myself slowing, but the floor still rushed towards me at a frightening speed. Only a few months ago, I’d have been in a panic, but this was life now. As Catarina once said, “Everyone dies. The important thing is that they live.”

  And this brought life to me. This was what a fairy should do. Not sit in fancy chairs and eat fancy food. We should be flying, the wind in our faces. We should be doing things, not talking. Not deciding how two people could settle stupid disputes.

  Finally, when the floor was only ten feet below me, my wings turned just a little more, and my direction changed. Instead of falling down, I was zooming forward towards the giant doors of the Dark Tower. They were made of bronze and dark wood. Large enough that groups of ogres could walk through them comfortably.

  And large enough to fly ten feet off the ground without any fear of hitting something.

  My wings didn’t have to move. The momentum from the fall was more than enough to keep me aloft, and it only took a few seconds to arrive at the training grounds. The entire Court was standing around one, and I smiled as I landed in the center of it. We would have an audience then. Everyone would see me for the person I had been not that long ago. Not the Queen. The woman. The fairy.

  The warrior.

  Sebastian stood in his assassin’s cloak. Garb that the Court knew well. He was the last one alive. Something that would have to be remedied soon.

  “Magic or no?” he asked.

  “No. I need to train, not win. Wipe your blades, though.”

  He nodded and wiped the obsidian daggers he carried on his black leather pants. I did the same, and we stared at each other in silence. The people didn’t speak as they watched their Queen fight the greatest duelist in the Dark Realm.

  Sebastian didn’t hesitate though. He was faster than me. More skilled than me. He’d had damn near a thousand years to perfect his movements. He didn’t have wings, though.

  As he ran towards me, he threw a dagger at me, his traditional opening move. I turned ever so slightly, and let it pass by me. I heard it turn to shadow after only an instant, a gentle whooshing sound.

  I ran towards him and built my momentum. His dagger was already back in his hand, and I dove past him as he swung in a wide arc. His second dagger came up to try to swipe at me as I flew past him, but I was already spinning, and he struck only empty air.

  As soon as my hands hit the sand, I rolled, dodging yet another thrown blade. My body moved on its own. Sebastian and I had trained so many times since we’d met that I reacted without thinking.

  Jumping into the air, I spun, throwing my own dagger at Sebastian. My wings carried me towards him, following the blade. He dodged the throw, but I was on him before he could swing.

  Still, the crowd was silent. He leaped backward to dodge my dagger, and as he did so, his foot slammed against my chest in a brutal kick. It knocked
me back, and as my wings tried to right me in the air, memories flooded me.

  In that moment of nothingness and silence as I flew backward, I saw a vision of the past, a vision of the way things had been thousands of years ago when the Immortal Realm was new.

  Risna, the Dark One, sat on the Dark Throne. Wearing leather armor that bore many patches, she still looked like a Queen. Wings of black rose over her shoulders and slowly moved as if in a non-existent breeze. Her dark eyes blazed with power, and yet she smiled at her petitioner without even the slightest hint of anger or frustration.

  A young female fairy with gray wings that had the slightest bit of blue swirling in them stood before the Throne, blood still smeared across her chest. Brown hair ran down to the middle of her back, tangled with twigs and bits of grass sticking out. She sobbed as she told a story of how her parents were killed by a vampire. Their lifeless bodies had sated his hunger and he had not killed the orphan girl.

  “Little one,” Risna said with sadness in her voice, “what would you have me do?”

  “I request justice for my mother and father,” she replied, and though the tears still streamed down her face, her eyes were hard.

  Risna’s fingers tapped the armrest of the Throne. “You live in the Dark Realm. We are all hunters. I have killed more people than you have known. Should I keep the hunters from hunting? Who should the vampires feed on if not fairies? Would you have me keep you from eating a steak?”

  She clasped her hands together “I don’t know, Queen Risna. My parents are dead, and I can’t do anything about it. What if he comes back to kill me as well?”

  Risna stood up and began to pace as she thought. She hadn’t been born to rule. She’d been born to hunt, to go to war, to fight, and to kill. But just like me, she was bound to a Throne in a world where nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

  “If I hunt this vampire down and execute him for doing the thing he was made to do, then I will have to execute half the Dark Realm. I can’t do this. It would not be right. The hunters are meant to hunt, and the prey must be strong enough to survive. The strong will survive, and the weak will perish. That is the way that things have always been.”

  She approached the girl as the Court waited in silence as she thought. Her hand brushed the girl’s shoulder, and I felt the pain and anger as Risna’s voice reverberated in her mind.

  “But that does not mean that something cannot be done about it. Just because your father and mother were weak does not mean that you will be. In the future, you may be the huntress. You may find this vampire and bring justice to your family. And then it may be he that seeks justice for what you do. All actions have consequences.”

  “Girl, I cannot execute the vampire, but I can give you the tools to become the huntress. Today, I will gather the strongest warriors and hunters together. We will create an army. Not to go to war, for there is no one to war with. Instead, it will be to give all those who are willing to sacrifice themselves to the Courts a chance to learn how to protect themselves and those that they love.”

  Risna looked down at the girl and smiled. “I cannot bring your parents back. Everyone dies. Even the Fae are not meant to live forever. Their bodies will go back to the land, and their souls will find peace from the struggle of life in the void. Their magic will give birth to the souls of those who are willing to struggle in this world once again.”

  “Until your struggle is over, I will give you the chance to become a huntress rather than prey. As with all gifts, this will require a sacrifice from you. Two hundred years of service to the Court. Then you may take the skills you have learned and do as you wish.”

  The girl bowed her head, and Risna used a power that no one else in the history of the world had ever had. The silver string that she’d built between the two of them with that touch began to glow, and the girl’s emotions were inflamed. All of her emotions exploded anew as though she’d just found her parents moments ago.

  While Aurora was the Queen of planning, Risna was the Queen of action. In order to push people to act quickly, she had been gifted the ability to push and pull on their emotions to soothe their worries or add fire to the flame of anger in them.

  It pushed the girl to make the decision now rather than later. She looked up at Risna with eyes full of anger and fury. “Teach me to kill, and I will serve for as long as you wish, Lady.”

  The vision ended abruptly as my wings righted me. It was the memory that I needed. Risna, the Dark One, the first Queen of the Dark Realm had given me the answer to so many of my questions.

  “Stop,” I said, and Sebastian pulled back right before he loosed his dagger at me.

  “We will go back to Court now. I have decided how to answer the shepherd.”

  Sebastian nodded and slid his daggers into their sheaths, and I did the same. The crowd that had gathered began to whisper. They couldn’t understand the way that my mind worked. No one understood the way that the Thrones worked.

  No one except me.

  * * *

  The shepherd hadn’t left the Throne room, but the harpy had followed us to the training field. She’d watched as Sebastian and I had fought. The shepherd had not followed us because he had not been interested in fighting. He had not been interested in the most unifying idea of the Dark Realm.

  “Reldor,” I said to the shepherd, “you did not protect your flock. Pelasha’s life depends on the food that she finds. You should have protected your flock against those who would take them from you.”

  “Pelasha, did you kill unnecessarily?” I asked without giving Reldor a chance to speak.

  “No, Lady. I ate the sheep.” Her voice was just as soft as it had been.

  “Pelasha, you may go. The Dark Realm is built upon strength of character and of body. You did nothing wrong. Do not take lives without purpose but continue to be a harpy. There is no crime in that.”

  Turning to Reldor the shepherd, I saw anger in his face. “Will you go hungry because Pelasha ate your sheep?”

  “No Lady, but that sheep was my property. I would have sold the sheep to her if she were that hungry. It’s not right that she stole it from me.”

  I stood up and said, “This is the Dark Realm, Reldor. Succubi feed upon the Fae. Vampires feed upon the Fae. Sirens feed upon the Fae. You’re lucky that you dealt only with a harpy who fed upon your sheep. What would have happened if you’d stumbled upon one of the many other races who cared nothing for your sheep and had instead decided to feast upon you?”

  His eyes opened wider, but he had nothing to say to that comment. “I’ll tell you what would have happened while you napped lazily. They would have eaten you. In the Dark Realm, every Fae is responsible for protecting both themselves and those things and people that they care for. I sense that you do not have the skills or knowledge of how to do this. As my gift to you, I will make you an offer.”

  “Give your sheep away. Join my army and learn to protect yourself. You’ll be paid. You’ll eat. I will allow you to join for one hundred years of your immortal life, and though I cannot promise that you will survive the war to come, I can promise that you will be able to protect yourself if you do.”

  “Lady, that isn’t a gift. War is coming, and I’ll likely die in it if I join your army.”

  “Everyone dies, Reldor. Even I will die eventually. Until then, you have the chance to be better, to be stronger. I am not forcing this on you, but it is a gift. If I had not become stronger, I would not be a Queen. What could you be if you were willing to sacrifice in order to grow?”

  I sat back down on the Dark Throne and smiled as I said, “That is my judgment. Next petitioner.”

  Chapter 8

  Sebastian

  The day had passed slowly after we’d gone to the training grounds. Rose had done her best to be patient with each of the petitioners, but now that the day was over, she looked exhausted.

  The dragon was already asleep in the hearth, flames covering his gray scales. Amra had taken him to the room earlier. It
seemed like everyone was trying to understand what the laws of the Dark Realm were now that we had a Queen again.

  “I had no idea that this was what my life was going to be when I claimed the Throne, Sebastian.” Rose looked exhausted, and I worried about her. She’d been a human girl less than nine months ago.

  She plopped down in her sitting chair, still in her traveling clothes. I poured the wine that I knew she wanted. “This is only part of it, Rose. And it’s a part of it that will get better over time.”

  “No, it won’t. There will always be people that can’t get along. There will always be harpies who eat sheep and shepherds who want them exterminated. This is why the incubi are hunted. It’s why sirens are hunted. The people in charge are afraid of them.”

  “You’re not afraid of any of the beings in the Dark Realm, are you?” I set the glass of wine down in front of Rose, and she shrugged.

  “I was glamoured by males in Seraphina’s Court. It could happen again. A siren’s song could overwhelm me long enough that someone could kill me with an obsidian dagger. A full-blooded incubus could make me vulnerable. I’m stronger than most people, but that doesn’t mean I’m invulnerable.”

  I hated this for her. I was one of the predators. I’d never known the fear of a siren’s song or a succubi’s words. Rose may have been the most powerful fairy in the world, but she was still a fairy, still vulnerable.

  “We all die eventually, though. I’m not afraid of dying, Sebastian. I’m afraid of ruining the Dark Realm. I’m afraid that by letting the past teach me, that I’m going to send a message of fear through it. I’m supposed to be helping to build a better world, but by listening to the examples of the past, I don’t know if that’s what I’m doing.”

  “The past was better than the present. No one would have whipped that ogre in the past. They would have treated him with respect because he was capable of killing them.”