Crowned A Traitor: A Hellish Fairytale

by Kate Callaghan

  The Leader was set apart by its scarred body with barely any fur on its war-torn body. The Leader growled viciously as two Hounds advanced slowly without orders. The Leader snapped its jaw but didn’t lash out, not without orders. They were communicating amongst themselves. The two Hounds stood before Klara submitting. Klara recognized the white spots on the ears of her Hounds and felt the faintest moment of ease as she stroked their bowed heads, while the rest of the search party went into a frenzy of snarls.

  “Take her back to the others,” Klara ordered letting them smell her. She hoped they would pick up Wolfgang’s scent on them. The Hounds flicked their ears, and she knew they understood.

  “They will protect you,” Klara said, and Lottie cowered beside the Hounds as they flanked her small body. Sensing the death on their fur, Lottie kept her distance.

  “Now go!” Klara’s voice echoed through the trees as the Hounds shoved Lottie in the right direction and Lottie growled in response.

  “Do you want to die?” Klara stared her down, and Lottie nudged her softly. Fear could be the greatest motivator, Klara thought of Lilith as Lottie turned and ran. Klara kept her gaze trained on the hostile Hounds as they howled for her Hounds to return, but they were hers to command, and they wouldn’t be deterred once she gave them a mission. She let out a sigh as she was no longer able to feel Lottie’s presence.

  “Come and get it,” Klara shouted, planting her feet firmly into the earth.

  A Hound leapt through the trees baring their teeth and Klara shoved her hand into the Hound’s body hurtling it into a tree. Another leapt into the air and Klara slid along the ground, planting her feet into the undercarriage of the skeletal Hound. The others snarled waiting to attack as the two wounded Hounds whimpered amongst the leaves. Klara ran for it, knowing she needed to take them out one at a time, or they would overpower her.

  Klara drew her axe from her back, feeling the weight steady in her palm. Before she could strike, Klara felt the rip of claws down her back. A groan ripped from her as Klara swung her axe, taking off the head of the offending Hound. Staring at the rolling head, a Hound clamped onto her arm, and as she planted her axe in another, its teeth seized her muscle and bone.

  With her free hand, Klara gripped its neck and let her revealing magic tear through it. The force of her magic ripped the Hound’s soul from its body. She had never exorcised one of Hell’s Creatures before. She didn’t think she would have the strength with her new heart.

  Another Hound came bounding, and she planted a boot into one of its two heads as it tried to clamp onto her leg.

  “Klara,” the voice distracted her, and a Hound lunged at her chest, knocking her back to the Forest floor. Her axe flung from her hand, and she couldn’t reach it. The Hound snapped at her face, and Klara reached for a stick and forced it into the Hound’s salivating mouth. The smell of the Hound’s putrid breath forced her to gag as she broke its jaw.

  “Klara!” Her stomach dropped as a Hound’s neck snapped to the side; its attention drawn away from her.

  Arthur stood a few feet from the fight, his silver binding cuff in hand as he started to transform into his soul state, bringing the Hounds from every corner to him. The sweet smell of such a powerful soul was too much for the Hounds. The distraction gave Klara time to reach for her axe.

  “Arthur no,” she pleaded as she got to her feet. Klara tried to run to him. The silver shone in the moonlight as Arthur threw the cuff to her. Without the cuff, the Hounds would take his soul back to Hell. A cuff was a sign of servitude without it he wasn’t protected.

  Klara took out the two Hounds closest to her, but more appeared as his bountied soul called to more.

  “Arthur, go!” She shouted as some of the Hounds turned their attention back to her. “Don’t,” she begged as Arthur stood unmoving at the centre of the advancing Hounds. A faint smile appeared on his thin lips, while his eyes remained not on the Hounds but on her.

  “This is how it was meant to be,” Arthur said as a Hound took hold of his arm and another his leg. Arthur fell and more Hounds appeared out of the soil as Hell’s portal opened.

  The bounty on a High Warlocks’ soul was too much to pass up. Tears and rage poured from Klara as she tried to cut through them, but there were too many.

  “I’m sorry,” Klara said blinded by the flash of Arthur’s soul being torn from the Neutral Lands.

  The force of his soul tearing flung her against a tree. She cried out as her new heart split in two. The disappointed, hungry Hounds turned to her as her eyes flashed white with rage.

  “Back to Hell,” Klara roared. The ground began to shake beneath her as her outstretched hands forced the Hounds to be pushed back through Hell’s swirling portal. Those able to resist ran with their tails between their legs. Klara sank to her knees, if the Fae Guard didn’t know where I was, they sure as Hell do now.

  “We need to go,” Wolfgang said, placing a hand on her shoulder and she fisted the leaves, her nails sinking into the mud. The silver cuff glistened amongst the filth and tears stung her cheeks.

  “If the Hounds are here, the others won’t be far behind. I felt that blast, and so will the Fae.”

  Klara wanted them to reappear to feed her rage. She wanted to tear the High Queen and her cowardly disciples’ limb from limb as the Hounds had done to Arthur.

  “Leave me. Get to the field,” Klara ordered, and Wolfgang crouched beside her and she shrugged his hand from her shoulder.

  I did this, the Beanstalk, Father, Lilith. Klara tormented herself as she saw Lottie had returned to Human form. Least Lottie is safe. The Hounds, she searched, but they weren’t there.

  “The Hounds I sent with you?” Klara asked. Lottie opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Their own blood hunted them down, Klara couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

  “I’ll meet you at the field,” she said, snatching her arm away as Lottie tried to hold her hand. Klara felt Lottie’s hurt but she couldn’t think, couldn’t apologize. She rather Lottie hate her then die because of her.

  “Keep your sister alive. I will keep the others away.”

  My plan will work.

  “Abadan will kill you, I’m stronger than you think,” Wolfgang said, and Klara heard voices in the distance. “If I have to choose between killing her and saving you two, I will kill Abadan.”

  Klara sensed her words cut through him, and Wolfgang rose from her side.

  “You’re in my way,” Klara gripped her axe in one hand and Arthur’s cuff in the other. Wolfgang moved aside as she walked the path to her approaching enemies.

  “Take your sister and leave, they won’t hesitate to kill you both if you stand anywhere near me,” her words were cold and harsh.

  Wolfgang took his sister’s hand, “The High Queen will kill you,” Wolfgang whispered.

  “I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Klara gripped the axe tighter, “and I’m not that easy to kill.”

  Better to be feared than loved, Klara thought and took off in the direction of the retreating Hounds. If they insisted on hunting the Heiress of Hell, then she would show them exactly what she was capable of.

  Klara leapt through the trees, the full moon lighting her path as she grew closer to her enemies. Their hunger for her only made her move faster as she allowed her long-suppressed magic to run through her body. Klara’s mind filled with Abadan’s smug smirk, Are you coming for me, child? The words poured through her mind as Abadan’s laugh pierced her ears like a blade.

  The closer Klara got to the marshes, the harder she pushed herself. Klara just about tasted the putrid air when her body was flung off course. She slammed into a thick tree root with such force that it cracked.

  “Shit that hurt.”

  Klara punched the earth as she twisted her back to ease the pain of being struck. Klara jumped back to her feet, scanning her surroundings. The crunch of a branch underfoot alerted her, and she spun on her heels, axe high above her head, ready to end her attacker.

/>   “I’m not here to fight,” a deep voice resonated around her as a figure stepped forward into the moonlight. Klara flung her axe.

  The axe cut through Frendall and embedded itself in the tree behind him. Frendall stared at her as he placed a hand on his chest where the axe spun through.

  “That’s one way to say Hello,” he said, and Klara walked through his projection and pulled her axe from the tree.

  Klara saw his sword strapped to his back though it would be harmless in his current form.

  “Not like I can harm you,” she said, and he rolled his shoulders. She might not be able to hurt him, but Klara remained ready, he had warned her that he would come. End her with mercy if he had to. The image of Arthur being torn apart rippled in her mind’s eye, she wouldn’t stop now. She wouldn’t be ready for Kharon until Abadan’s head was severed from her body.

  Klara scanned the trees and saw no others, but that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking in the shadows.

  “I’m alone,” Frendall said, raising his arms in submission and Klara lowered her axe slowly. The metal and wood handle heavy in her palm.

  “Where are the others?” Klara asked, knowing he wouldn’t go far without his Demons. “I left them at the swamp, figured I could find you and try to convince you to return.”

  “Return?” Klara laughed at the thought as he winced. “Abadan wants me dead, and the last time I saw my sweet half-sister, her arrow missed my heart by a fraction.” She clenched her axe tighter until she feared the oak handle would shatter into splinters, “There is no returning. Not after what the Hounds did to Arthur.”

  Frendall pulled at his collar, “yes, that scene with the Hounds wasn’t pleasant, but you might as well have put up a beacon to your location.” His Commanders uniform seemed to suffocate him as Klara sensed his unease.

  “You kept your word and came after me.”

  Frendall drifted closer, and she raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to put a stop to the carnage.”

  Abadan’s son. The truth of whom he was had been etched into her bones as she stared at her childhood friend.

  “I wasn’t the one who started the fires,” Klara argued, and Frendall clenched his fists at his side.

  “No, but you set this in motion. You forgot how to play the game, and now the Lycaons and many other Creatures are suffering.”

  She wasn’t going to be tricked. He was trying to play on her compassion.

  “We can return together and negotiate,” Frendall said, and she shook her head.

  “They want you to rule with Mila, but I doubt that will happen. Once Abadan has my head, Eve’s daughter is the only one in Abadan’s way. Abadan won’t be satisfied until she rules Hell and Malum.”

  Klara circled him.

  “And we both know when she is done with them, she will go against the Fae Queen,” Frendall finished her rant.

  “Hand me over now, and she might just give you Malum or go against her and take Hell. Give Malum to another Commander and leave me in peace to kill Abadan,” Klara said.

  “I know my place, and it’s not on any throne. What my mother does in her time is not my concern,” Frendall barked at her, and she closed her eyes, willing him to disappear.

  “You are the King’s Commander, the Demons respect you, obey you. The Hounds submit to you. The Demons don’t know me. I haven’t fought beside them, haven’t earned their trust. The Hounds remember my kindness, but they need a leader.”

  “I don’t want it, you are the Heir to Malum, to Hell. Klara, the whole damn Forest exists for you.”

  Klara turned her back on his naivety. Exists for me, she thought.

  The Forest of Malum has survived for thousands of years before her and would endure long after her. He wasn’t making sense, “I just want to be left in peace. As you said, I don’t know how to play the game and I sure as Hell don’t want to.”

  “Well, you don’t get peace,” his hands landed on her waist, and she flipped him onto the ground, not that it would hurt him. She crouched down beside him as he stared up at her.

  “Don’t trust Abadan or any of them. They will stab you in the back.”

  “The throne is vacant,” Frendall said, rolling to his side.

  “Why is the throne vacant?”

  She frowned thinking of the last time she saw her Father. They might have had him surrounded but he would have been able to portal to anywhere with a click of his fingers.

  “Lucifer is gone, they went to confront him about your disappearance. Force his hand to choose a successor, and he vanished. Abadan found him but...”

  “They went to cage him,” Klara corrected, wondering how he could believe the lies Abadan had spun.

  “Where were you?” she asked, knowing he hadn’t been at her Father’s side when he forced her soul to Hell.

  “I was with the Queen,” Frendall’s veins bulged in his neck as he tried to force out the words. A spell was preventing him from talking. Abadan must have cursed him, so he wouldn’t be able to reveal her plans.

  Before she could ask, Klara heard the screeching shouts of the Demon scouts approaching. She went to run, but Frendall took her arm and spun her to face him, and she didn’t pull away.

  “Going after them will be suicide. They have scouts, Hounds, Higher Demons, you can’t take them all alone,” Frendall said, moving closer.

  “Fight with me, leave Hell and Malum to be run by the real evil,” Klara said, and he shook his head. “We didn’t choose this life, so I’m choosing a new one myself,” she argued, waiting for him to join her.

  “There needs to be a balance. If Abadan claims the throne as the High Queen of Malum and Hell, she will allow the Demons to roam the planes, and her greed will consume everyone. Evil or not, the Demons need you as their Leader they are bound to yours and your Father’s blood, in service for their sins. If there is no one to serve there will be anarchy,” he said, and she hated that she had made the same argument to her Father. Where the Hell are you dad?

  “All I want is Abadan’s head, and anyone who serves her will die by her side,” Klara barked, and the owls that rested in the branches leapt from the trees.

  “Killing her is damn near impossible, and those Demons are following orders because there is no one on Hell’s throne. You don’t know because you haven’t…” Frendall stopped mid-sentence, and she felt like she had been slapped.

  “I wasn’t there,” Klara said, thinking how she wasn’t there to protect Arthur. “I wasn’t there to train with them, fight with them, earn their loyalty, or at the very least understand them,” She marched on towards the enemy, but Frendall leapt in front of her.

  “Another choice that was stripped from me, while you became a Commander, I was taught which fork to use, to sit up straight and how to slaughter a village with a single drop of potion.”

  Frendall’s eyes went wide as she barked at him.

  “If I had stayed in Hell maybe I would see what you see, but all I know is that for the last seventeen years I have had a target on my back and I’m done,” Klara said.

  “You can come with me or kill me,” Klara barked looking towards the noise of those approaching. Her blood lust distracted her. Hell was his home, but it wasn’t hers. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded using her distracted state to take her arms and pull her against his chest. He wasn’t there, but she could still feel him.

  Klara’s body hardened until his familiar scent edged its way through her senses, and she clutched his Commander’s jacket. There was only one thing she could do to secure his rule and keep Hell out of Abadan’s talons.

  Klara grabbed his face. Her revealing magic flowed from her, and his shadowed form was now real and firm. Klara’s power wouldn’t hold long without her touch, so she pressed the axe to her palm.

  “What are you doing? This shouldn’t be possible.” He watched her breathing hard as she sliced open her palm, the blood pooling in the centre. She prayed that the soul bond would work.<
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  Logic and the six hundred-year-old grimoire she had stolen from Lilith said it would since it was his soul that stood before her.

  Frendall’s eyes searched her, worry creasing his forehead.

  “Trust me,” Klara said, as she pulled him down to her. She brought the tip of the axe to his cheek and he tried to pull away.

  “If I fail and you don’t want to see Abadan rule then we have to do this,” she said, and he remained still as she dragged the blade through all three of his scars just below his eye. Klara rose her bloodied hand to his cheek but not close enough to touch. Tiny glowing droplets rose from her palm and sunk into his wound. His eyes flashed black then white as her blood mixed with his own.

  “Ut animam tuam,” Klara recited the ancient words, my soul to yours. The same words her Father had spoken during her creation. “Find Lucifer, show him your eyes and he will know what I have done.”

  Klara watched as Frendall’s wound sealed itself. “I feel different,” Frendall said, unsteady on his legs. “What have you done?” Frendall said frantically. “You hold a fraction of my soul. With that, I grant you the right to rule in my stead.”

  “No, I won’t be your excuse.”

  “Why do you obey everyone but me?” Klara preached. “You can raise an army in my name and destroy Abadan’s allies. It’s a win-win.

  “Are you still going after her?”

  Klara dropped her head in her hands. He wasn’t going to give up the idea of her on the throne.

  She could feel Abadan’s presence in her bones, but she suppressed her rage.

  “You said the reason you wanted to leave was so you wouldn’t have to kill, then don’t. See how peaceful living suits you.”

  “You want me to let go of everything she has done.”

  “If you want to be free and want me to rule, yes.”

  “Are you trying to save your mother now?”

  “No, I guarantee you’ll be back before the war is over and there will be plenty of time to kill her then.”

  “Careful your ego is showing.”

  “When you return the throne will be waiting for you,” Frendall said, pressing his forehead to hers. She hoped her Father would honour her decision, should Frendall find him.