Midnight in Everwood

by M. A. Kuzniar

  ‘I know your greatest fear,’ she whispered. His grasp on the dagger loosened. Marietta raised her voice. ‘Challenge him, Legat.’

  Legat met her eyes. The air between them ran thick with a thousand things unsaid. She repeated, ‘Challenge him.’

  Captain Legat drew his head up high and addressed everyone in the small snowy clearing, his voice filled with his command. ‘King Gelum, I challenge you to a duel.’

  King Gelum flung Marietta away from him. She gasped, her throat searing as a faceless guard caught her, holding her arms behind her back. The corner of the king’s mouth lifted in a facsimile of a smile. ‘Has sugar-rot laid siege to your brain? You cannot challenge me to a duel, I am your king.’

  Legat surveyed him coolly. ‘It had not occurred to me that you might fear accepting. I had believed a king such as yourself would be a most powerful leader. Not hiding behind death threats and executions. Such is the path of a lesser king. A coward at heart.’

  King Gelum glared at him. ‘I have been trained by the finest, most proficient warriors that this world, among many others, has to offer. If I so choose to debase myself by engaging in a duel, I assure you that I would not lose.’

  Fin’s chin was high, the twitch in his fingers concealed behind his back, where only Marietta could see. ‘Easy words to claim when we have no way of verifying them.’

  Away from the palace, King Gelum’s power was weakened. This was the tipping point that might restore Everwood to its former glory. The king’s last stand; the rebellion had overthrown his rule and the ice beneath him was faltering. Marietta wanted it to crack.

  ‘You’re a coward,’ Dellara drawled. ‘You know it and we know it. A coward lazing about his throne, hosting balls and indulging himself and stealing women in order to avoid rejection. You may pretend otherwise, hiding behind your dwindling gold and throne and crown, but we see it. We all see it.’

  The atmosphere stultified, thickening into a potent cauldron of bated breaths and brewing tension.

  The king threw his cloak down on the snow. ‘If you so desire a duel then you shall have one. And after I have decimated you, I will take the lives of everyone you’ve ever cared about, ever loved.’ His gaze slid onto Marietta and, his onyx eyes locked on hers, he approached the captain, whispered something into Legat’s ear that made the captain’s spine stiffen, his pupils dilate, his glance at Marietta thick with fears that stalked the darkest, starless hours of the night.

  The faceless guards surrounded King Gelum and his captain.

  Legat’s sword was returned. The king wielded his own, the Mus family crest of mice engraved in the jewel-studded hilt. Yet Starhunter, Legat’s father’s sword, shone brighter. Marietta watched from behind the guards, Dellara and Pirlipata at her sides, the three of them still restrained. Claren and Fin bore the same situation further along. Marietta bit the inside of her cheek to steady her nerves and present an assuring face each time Legat glanced at her, drawing strength from her support. After all, this had been her idea.

  Slow chanting emanated from behind the smooth masks of the faceless guards, their hidden voices deep and eerie. In a sudden, bone-jarring clash, King Gelum and Legat met. Two Titans at war, their battle echoing across worlds.

  King Gelum’s footwork was elaborate, embroidering his steps onto the frozen forest floor. Legat’s was simple, enabling him to be faster and more direct, stepping through the king’s defences time and again. Yet he failed to land a single blow. His sword a metallic blur, everywhere Legat ventured, the king parried. Marietta’s encouraging smile froze. It appeared the king hadn’t been exaggerating about his skills. On it flew, the pair locked in an endless loop of parrying and striking, fighting to attain the most advantageous position. Slicing and cutting through the sugared air. Several blows came whisper-close to bloodletting. The thin scrape along Legat’s forearm, the scratch that had flayed open the king’s silk shirt.

  The sole noise the continued chanting and crash of blades, the duel skulked on. Pirlipata managed to reach out and grasp Marietta’s hand, the guards’ restraints relaxing as the duel sucked their attention away from the women.

  ‘Never fear, he shall survive. They call that sword Starhunter for it dispatches those it battles with ease, the stars hunting his opponents to join the farthest, dimmest constellations,’ she told Marietta, who squeezed her fingers back, not daring herself to speak.

  It was relentless, the king every bit as skilled as Legat. Marietta tracked their movements, maintaining an effort to keep her darkest, heart-shattering thoughts at bay. A few minutes later, she saw it. The King’s arm shook. It was beginning to tire under the weight of his sword. King Gelum might have possessed the necessary gold with which to hire the finest tutors in swordsmanship but his hours of fighting were limited to those private lessons. His life of luxury had not equipped him for battle. Marietta turned her attention back to Legat whose arm remained steady, his aim true and his defence strong.

  Legat delivered a heavy blow but King Gelum jerked his head just in time and it skimmed the air beside him.

  All Legat’s focus was trained on the king, his senses honed on anticipating the following move. Which was why he failed to see the boot swiping out at his ankles. It sent him crashing to the ground. Stunned, he failed to roll out of the path of the king’s arcing blade. It tore a bright, crimson line down his torso. Marietta clasped a hand to her mouth as Legat gasped and gritted his teeth. It took an effort for him to rise, picking up his sword and ducking out from under the king’s attack.

  Marietta saw flames. It was clear to all witnessing that Legat would now not emerge victorious. ‘We must act,’ she said quietly.

  Dellara looked across at her. ‘You have my agreement.’

  Struggling to form a coherent thought, let alone one that might swell and solidify into an idea, Marietta suppressed a cry when Legat was felled for a second time. King Gelum took the opportunity to execute another gouging blow. It elicited a cry of pain from Legat. His sword skidded across the snow into a patch of chanting faceless guards who kicked it back at him. The pommel struck his lacerated chest. His eyes closed for a beat too long. Her brain sticky with panic, her rage coating the forest in a bitter crimson wash, Marietta watched her love being broken before her eyes.

  Taking advantage of the guards’ distraction, she reached down and untied one of her pointe shoes.

  Legat crawled towards his sword, his blood turning the snow a pale pink. He attempted to stand but his exhaustion felled him. Marietta’s fingers tightened around her ballet shoe.

  King Gelum’s arrogant smile was already edged with triumph as he strolled towards Legat and kicked him in the stomach, flipping him over onto his back. Legat groaned, holding his bleeding side with one hand and searching for his sword with the other. King Gelum’s laugh was high, his gaze lingering upon the wounds he’d inflicted. He reached out with his sword and stroked Legat’s torn chest with the tip.

  Marietta drew her arm back. She threw the ballet shoe with more force than she had ever exerted in her lifetime. Sent it flying, desiring nothing more than to knock the sadistic delight from the king’s face, consequences be damned. To allow Legat a brief moment in which to pierce the king’s heart and end this infernal duel. Her muscles screaming with effort, the shoe soared through the ring and knocked the king off his pedestal of conceit and onto the floor.

  Where he lay, still.

  The world hung, a heavy pendulum teetering at the edge.

  Dellara launched herself at the faceless guard who had taken possession of her wand and seized it back.

  Marietta stared at the king’s immobile body, her thoughts a discordant harmony. ‘Have I—’

  ‘Fear not, you haven’t stained your starname with murder just yet.’ Dellara appeared at the king’s side. A deliciously wicked smile curved her lips. ‘But he’s mine now.’ She pointed her wand at the king before any of the guards could think to move. His body vanished.

  The pendulum swung down. Chaos spil
t in its wake.

  Pirlipata snatched back her sword. She arced it through the air, dispatching guard after guard to darkness, severing their heads from their bodies and piercing that place where their hearts ought to have resided. Their mechanisms sparked and whirred as they crashed to the floor. Claren and Fin followed suit, as did Dellara, wielding her wand with a vengeance.

  Marietta ran to Legat’s side.

  The sight of his torn and slashed skin filled her with murderous wrath and deep, abiding fear. She ripped her velvet cloak off, pressed it to the worst of his wounds. But his lifeblood trickled through her fingers like sugar.

  ‘Do not worry,’ Legat told her, his smile reassuring even as his fate had taken a cruel twist, Atropos reaching out with her shears to clip his thread of life. If it hadn’t been for her, he would never have drawn the goddess’s eye. ‘I would willingly die for the freedom of Everwood. To atone for my past mistakes. For you to find your way home.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Hold on.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, his voice withering to a husk. ‘We won.’

  Marietta looked back as the last of the faceless guards was brought to an end.

  Dellara appeared at her side. ‘I cannot heal him,’ she said gravely as they surveyed Legat’s injuries. ‘I do not possess that kind of power. It is easy to take a life. Fetching one back from the brink of the night sky requires a greater magic. The stars are hungry once they’ve tasted a fresh soul. But I can grant him justice.’ She stood, holding her wand and surveying the dismembered guards, spread over the snow. Her smile cut wider and King Gelum materialised before them all.

  Apoplectic, his face red, his hair wind-worn, the king stormed towards Dellara. Pirlipata, Claren and Fin’s swords flew up. Dellara bared her sharpened teeth as she tutted at the king, shaking her wand at him as if he were a misbehaving child. Catching sight of it, he paled and cast an eye about himself.

  Shock flitted across his face at the fate his guards had met. Ousted by raw terror as he turned back to Dellara. ‘Spare me, I beg of you,’ he whispered, slipping on a guard’s lost cog and falling to his knees with a whimper.

  Dellara slowly rolled her sleeves up, revealing the torture he had inflicted on her moontide after moontide. The king backed away, sliding across his fallen army’s broken mechanisms. ‘No no no no, have mercy. Please.’

  Dellara tilted her head to one side, considering his plea. She caressed her wand. ‘I shall grant you mercy,’ she said at last. King Gelum relaxed. ‘The mercy of a swift death,’ she added.

  Registering her words, his head jerked up, panic setting in as he opened his mouth to either protest or scream. Which, couldn’t be determined. Before he uttered either, Dellara’s wand came tearing down and King Gelum was cleaved in two.

  The forest rang with silence.

  Claren and Pirlipata rushed to Marietta’s side to help staunch Legat’s wounds. His blood stained the snow. It rattled Marietta’s heart.

  Fin cleared his throat. ‘I know this is not the time but I feel I must remind you that King Gelum altered the laws to allow for his murder of King Elter and Queen Altina.’

  Pirlipata looked up. ‘Altered them in which way?’

  ‘As it happens, the individual who deposes the ruler is free to seize their crown, throne and kingdom,’ Fin said.

  One by one, their eyes fell on Dellara.

  Her pointed teeth glittered. ‘I do believe you mean queendom.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  A soft flicker of blue ran over Marietta’s face. Pale as the frozen blue heart of a glacier. It flitted away to be replaced with shards of emerald green. She looked up. Lights were dancing across the sky, turning the forest into a cave of glimmering starlight. It tasted like magic, wild and strange and heady.

  ‘The Star Lights,’ Dellara said, her victory falling away to wonderment as she looked up. ‘Queen Altina is shining brighter than ever tonight. It must have been her that sent them our way.’

  ‘She knows we won her land back,’ Pirlipata said, laying a hand on Dellara’s arm.

  Both turned to Marietta. ‘Legend has it the Star Lights are sent in times of war by the kings and queens that watch down on us. It is said that the last time the Star Lights swept over the skies, they healed an entire army in gratitude,’ Dellara said.

  Legat groaned in Marietta’s arms and she looked down, her hope fragile and glitter-bright. She peeled back her cloak to check his wound. Fresh skin had blossomed over his lacerations, the skin knitting back together once more.

  He opened his eyes. ‘You were hurt,’ he said, reaching a hand out to her sliced throat. His voice was husky, his eyes sliding in and out of focus.

  She smiled, her heart a staccato beat at seeing him, hearing him, tangible and solid and alive. ‘You’re one to talk.’

  Claren exhaled. ‘You gave us a fright there, captain.’ At his side, Fin exchanged a smile with Marietta.

  Legat’s eyes lost their glassy finish and focused on Marietta. The magic that swept wild and wondrously through the forest was healing him. Above, the playful lights danced in all their rich soul-singing colours. Marietta watched them with Legat, having never thought she might attain the chance to glimpse the Northern Lights for herself since they only deigned to appear in the coldest, farthest reaches of her world. Her world. She must be close to her door now. To the end of her story in Everwood.

  ‘Come back to me,’ Legat said softly, his fingers encircling her hand, his steady warmth anchoring her. ‘The future belongs to us once more.’

  Yet even as the words departed his lips, Marietta tasted the impossibility they contained. ‘One in which we shall not be together.’

  Legat’s smile was born of sadness. She stifled his next words with her lips meeting his. Sweet and soft with a thousand regrets, she longed to lock the moment away in a snow globe where she might relive it again and again. ‘For a while there I feared you might never kiss me again,’ she said after.

  He looked deep into her eyes. ‘Wherever I go, wherever this life may take me, I shall find you again, you may be certain of that. It is in the stars that we shall meet again.’

  Pirlipata was the first to leave.

  Claren and Fin were dispatched to fetch sleighs. While they waited, Legat handed over a purloined correspondence of King Gelum’s – which detailed intelligence of Crackatuck collecting its troops, its anger at their abducted princess and King Gelum’s looming invasion sword-sharp and on the precipice of marching up the Thieves Road towards Everwood. It was imperative she rode fast to smooth the situation down.

  ‘They must have received my note,’ Pirlipata had said, her smile bright as her armour. ‘They had missed me after all.’ When Claren and Fin returned with two sleighs, she took one. Then turned to Dellara. ‘Are you certain you do not require my assistance?’ she asked, taking up the reins.

  ‘There is much to do but I have spoken with Legat and I shall appoint Robess as my counsel and advisor. I shall be fine,’ she said firmly.

  Pirlipata’s answering smile shredded Marietta’s poise. ‘I never considered otherwise,’ Pirlipata told the new queen. ‘After I have addressed the situation in Crackatuck, I shall return. Then we might work together to set up a new order between our lands.’ She turned to Marietta, who was attempting to compose herself. Pirlipata’s eyes rimmed with tears of her own. ‘Meeting you brought fresh happiness into my life. These past moontides I have come to treasure you as one of my closest friends. I shall never forget you, Marietta.’

  Marietta leant over the sleigh to embrace her. ‘Neither will I, Pirlipata. You are so very dear to me and have been the sunlight in a long winter.’

  They watched her leave, pulling out into the eternal night, returning home at last.

  Dellara was the next to leave, escorted by Claren and Fin. Marietta stood beside her sleigh. Dellara’s smile was that of a proud parent. ‘Who might have known that when King Gelum claimed a dancer for his newest pet, she’d bring his entire palace cra
shing down.’

  Marietta smiled. ‘And I can think of no finer queen.’

  ‘And I shall never need an heir, being immortal, which solves that little conundrum,’ Dellara said, her delight plain on her face. ‘Though once all is done and told, I should be most interested in adopting a Mistpointian way of ruling.’

  ‘They elect their rulers, do they not?’ Marietta asked. ‘I should not have thought you would care to relinquish your crown.’

  Dellara’s delight deepened. ‘I never claimed I would. If I recall rightly, you once explained to me at length the system you possess in your kingdom. Perhaps I shall emulate that.’

  Marietta laughed. Then Dellara looked at her, serious once more, and her throat tightened, knowing that this was it, their farewell, the last words they would ever exchange. She clasped Marietta’s hands. ‘Be safe and strong. Never dull your sparkle for anyone else, flame fiercely into your own glittering future. We are not so unlike, you and I. We’re angry girls with hearts made of glass.’

  Marietta smiled over the shine of threatening tears. ‘It is not like you to so freely admit a weakness.’

  Dellara’s grin reappeared, bloodier than before. ‘Who said anything about it being a weakness? Nothing can cut like glass.’

  Marietta choked out a laugh.

  The shadows in Dellara’s grey eyes drifted like smoke. ‘Now you had better leave. It’s time to go and flay your demons.’

  Fin took the reins, smiled at Marietta. Claren saluted her. When Dellara – Queen Dellara – rested a hand on Marietta’s shoulder, a brief, tender touch, Marietta pulled her towards her and embraced her. Then, with a snap of the reins, Fin sent the moose charging back towards the palace with their new queen, where her own glittering future awaited her.

  Leaving Marietta and Legat alone in the forest.

  Once, Marietta had considered the Endless Forest filled with horrors, twisting shadows and dark whispers. Now, gazing at Legat, the Star Lights gently rippling away, revealing a midnight sky rich with stars, it felt a magical winter wonderland.