(continues from the Exclusive Sneak Peek sent to Queen’s Fayte Magic Brigade members…)
A quick glance around revealed narrow windows slashed into glassy, nearly translucent walls that glowed with soft light and soared up to a circular colonnade and azure blue dome. Was this the Brightlands, as she’d said? Was I inside the palace I’d glimpsed from the Gray Woods?
The place lacked decoration. Only tapestries of the same style I’d seen in the Fayte Sanctums hung between the windows. But these depicted one figure alone, the one seated upon the throne.
The guards, however, weren’t like her. Stocky with bulbous noses, long beards, and limbs as thick as tree trunks. I towered over them as if they were children, but the paunches around their middles and deep lines around their eyes suggested otherwise.
I tried to ignore them and adjusted the Fayte robe over my frock and tugged on my gloves, for the reassurance of touching something familiar than anything else. Instinctively, I also touched the lump where my Faytling rested on my chest.
The Faytling! If I ever needed its help, it was now. Discreetly, I worked it from beneath my collar.
The movement was met with a jab of a spear tip in my arm. “Stand still when Queen Rhilasa’s speaking to you.”
I shrugged away from the spear and scowled at him.
He retracted the weapon, but his sneer was a warning. Don’t try it again.
My captor’s upper lip twitched, amused. “It wouldn’t do you any good. That stone can’t help you here.”
How smug she was. Still, I pulled my hand away from the pendant and addressed her with all the defiance I could muster. “I demand to know why you’ve brought me here.”
She only laughed. “Did you hear that, everyone? Jane Shackle, the human beast who killed my son and your Prince, demands answers. Tell me, human, is that fear trembling in your voice?”
My fingers curled into fists. “You had no right bringing me here. Take me back.”
She touched her chest and feigned surprise. “Take you back? Why would I do that? Are you afraid to die here, so far from your home, so far from those you love?” That saccharin smile vanished, and she stared daggers at me. “Do you think my son wanted to die so far from his home and those he loved?”
So, it was true. This was the Brightlands Queen, the mother Krol had been so eager to please.
From the row of guards behind her, I heard a cough and the clearing of a throat.
The woman leaned back and sighed. “Do you have something to say, Azender?”
Someone stepped between two stocky guards, a peculiar figure with a thick sweep of gray hair styled into a pompadour over his left eye and bushy gray sideburns that covered much of his cheeks. From the waist up, he wore an elegant white doublet with a shimmering blue cloak flung over one shoulder. From the waist down, his goat legs were clad only in thick, gray fur. “My Queen,” the faun said, “I was only wondering if I might offer a suggestion.”
She pursed her lips and bent her fingers like talons on the armrests. I expected an angry outburst, but her tension slipped away. “Fine,” she said. “You may approach.”
Azender straightened his velvet sleeves and stepped up to the throne, his cloven hooves making a quiet tap against the stone floor. When he reached her, he stepped up on a small footstool to speak into her inclined ear.
As he whispered, her mild irritation became curiosity.
When he pulled back, she turned to him. “Something new for the collection?”
He nodded.
“Yes, perhaps you’re right.” A sudden gleam sparkled in her eye.
My mind raced. What collection? Then a thought: Hadn’t Krol said he’d given Lucas’s Sliver to her? The price he’d demanded from my beloved’s father in that devil’s bargain.
She lifted a hand and snapped her fingers. “Troxell, come forward.”
Behind her, the first guard obeyed the command, waddling with a side-to-side gait to avoid tripping on a golden beard so long it brushed the tops of his polished black boots.
“Remove the human,” the Queen ordered. “Take her to the Black Room.”
Murmurs filled the air as Troxell’s fingers twisted one of the many silver bands worked into the braids in his beard. I caught a gleeful shine in his eyes as he approached.
Was she sending me to a dungeon? Something worse? I turned to run, but where?
Troxell chortled. “You’re no match for the Dwarven Guard, dearie. Come quiet like, and we can make this easy.”
“Troxell!” the Queen growled.
He turned and bowed so low his beard puddled on the floor. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I misspoke. We won’t be easy on her. I assure you that.”
“Better.” Her glance jumped from the man to something behind us.
“That won’t be necessary, Troxell.”
I whipped around, but I already knew it was Druansha in the doorway. She stood with her head held high and her wavy hair shrouding her shoulders, tamed only by the silver diadem resting on her forehead. She was an astonishing vision, as she always was. To the Order of the Fayte, she was known as the Lady of the Fayte, the guiding light for our small band of guardians pledged to protect the Queen of the British Empire.
To me, however, she was so much more. She’d been a dragonfly, my dragonfly and my only true friend until I found the guardians. That seemed so long ago now. I didn’t know exactly what she was to me anymore, but the sight of her still filled me with hope.
The burly guards blocking her pointed spears at her slender midriff, protected only by the soft folds of her gauzy gown and a silvery cord tied around her hips, but I knew they’d never stand a chance against her.
When her gaze met mine, I saw the stone-cold determination in her eyes. She lifted her hand and made a throwing gesture. At that instant, every spear aimed at her flew into the air and crashed against the far wall. The guards beside me cowered and tightened their grips on their own spears as she marched toward us.
When she passed me, her gaze communicated a silent question: Are you hurt?
I straightened and lifted my chin to show her I was fine.
She nodded and continued toward the throne. “What have you done, Mother?”
The Queen leaned back again and smirked. “I do not answer to you, child.”
Druansha stood firm. “I am not a child.”
The Queen shrugged. “You are still my child, whether you wish it or not.”
“You’re making a mistake, Mother. Krolaidh deserved what happened to him.”
“What happened to him? You believe your brother deserved his death?”
“Jane only defended herself.”
Queen Rhilasa rose and reached out, aiming her talon-like fingers at Druansha’s throat.
The younger fae stiffened and rose inches from the floor before lurching forward from the neck. She struggled to speak, but only a gurgle escaped. For what seemed an eternity, she dangled mid-air. Everyone in the room froze and held their breath, including me. After an agonizingly long moment, the Queen relaxed her hand, and Druansha dropped to the ground. She touched her throat but made no other acknowledgment of the attack.
“You should be more careful with your words, daughter. I am still your Queen, as much as that displeases you.”
“Mother.”
That simple word could have meant, “Mother, no, that doesn’t displease me at all,” but it clearly meant the opposite.
“He would have killed her,” Druansha said. “It was his intent. You know that as well as I.”
Krolaidh was my father, and he wanted to kill me. He would have, too, if I hadn’t killed him first. It was still a difficult truth to accept.
“That hardly matters to me,” the Queen said. “She’s nothing. She isn’t our kind. Look at her. She’s human.”
Contempt seeped from the word.
“She is half human, yes. The rest is just like you and me.”
And what was that, exactly? I still didn’t know. We called their kind by so many names: fairy, fae, sometimes elves or others. But I still hardly understood what it meant.
“Half makes no difference.” Her disdain was still evident, but the venom had waned. She seemed to be growing weary of the argument.
“Perhaps not to you,” Druansha continued. “Do you suppose the Seilie Court would agree?”
The low murmur among the guards stopped. Only my own pulse thundered in my ears as the Queen stared at her daughter. “I’m sure the Court would have no interest in it at all.”
Druansha touched her lips thoughtfully. “I didn’t think that would be the case, so I visited the Magister to inquire.”
The Queen’s spidery fingers wrapped around the armrest and squeezed. “You’ve spoken to the Seilie Magister? You sought Court counsel without informing me?”
“It wasn’t counsel,” Druansha said. “I didn’t even know your plans until this moment. I was merely wondering if the Law of Reckoning, in a general sense, would apply to Jane, considering her situation.”
“You mean, considering she is not of our blood,” the Queen snapped. “I’m sure the Law doesn’t apply at all.”
“Considering she is half our blood,” Druansha corrected, “I believe it does. And the Magister agrees with me.”
“Does he now?” the Queen mused. “How wonderful for that little tadpole.”
“On Jane’s behalf,” Druansha said, “I’d like to invoke the Law of Reckoning so this matter may be determined by the Seilie Court.”
“I do not accept your petition,” the Queen growled. “If the human beast wishes to invoke that right, she must do so herself.”
With a look, Druansha urged me on.
The Queen leaned forward and fixed me with her glare. “Before you say anything, human, let me be clear: The punishment you receive here will pale in comparison to the suffering you will endure if you insist on trying the Seilie Court’s patience with a frivolous and unnecessary trial. I assure you, I will take personal delight in plucking you apart bit by bit, so your end is as miserable as it can possibly be. Do you understand?”
I should have been afraid, but a sudden and surprising calm came over me. She was worried. She was defensive. That meant for the first time since I’d entered this chamber, I had the upper hand, if only for a moment.
I didn’t want to die, of course. But in that moment it wasn’t my life that flashed before me. It was Lucas. My poor, sweet Lucas, so betrayed by his own father, and broken too. The loss of his Sliver had dulled him. Never happy, never sad. Hadn’t Krol said he’d given that Sliver to his mother?
Only moments before being yanked into this world, I’d sworn to help Lucas recover what was stolen from him, and here I was.
It was an opportunity I could never have predicted or even imagined, yet here I was.
The lump in my throat wouldn’t budge, and the fear churning within me only made it worse. But maybe there was some good I could do.
Then again, maybe I was deluding myself.
Still, that tiny voice within me, the one telling me to be brave and to try, was the only thing that made sense in this nonsensical place. I pulled back my shoulders and met the Queen’s sneer. “Your Majesty, I will invoke the Law of Reckoning, and there’s something else I want as well.”