The Last Queen

by Christine McKay

  She ached for those women, for that sense of belonging. And she wept bitter tears. For once, she felt a part of them, a wisp of thread woven into the Queens’ fabric of history instead of a rogue thread drifting blind.

  Her men sat around her, stunned silent. But she felt the strength ebb and flow around them, like a gentle tide coming in. The power seeped into their weary bones, healed unseen wounds and gave them the resolve to go on.

  The Hunter must die this time. There could be no mistake.

  * * * * *

  Nikki’s first sensation was the smell of musty earth surrounding her. The blackness was so complete it possessed almost a weight of its own. The space she was in was cramped, her legs pressed together, hands at her side. She was lying flat on her back. She lifted her hands, fingers splayed, and tried to feel for her boundaries in the stifling blackness. Her fingertips immediately brushed a ceiling, directly above her chest. It felt like cardboard. She could not extend her arms, not even a fraction, without bumping against the sides of her confinement.

  Pushing against the cardboard roof, she felt it yield slightly, then the cardboard buckled as if under pressure, cramping her space even more.

  She whimpered. Where was Quince? And the memories flooded back. Hounds swarming the bar like rats escaping a flood. The sounds of breaking glass, flames, the flames were from Quince. She knew she killed or stunned one of the hounds with a cheap bottle of liquor. No sense wasting the good stuff.

  Quince appeared again, his backside to her, pressed against the bar. And then the Hunter strode into her mind’s eye, his grinning face, more skull than flesh, a silver sheen to what she could see of his facial bones beneath the hood. The Hunter’s hands reached for Quince’s neck. Hounds held down Quince’s arms, his wrists locked in their mouths. No, she didn’t want to think about this. She made herself not see the blood.

  She didn’t know how the gun got into her hand. She kept it beneath the bar for emergencies, a sissy-looking derringer meant to intimidate, nothing more. She had never used it.

  The Hunter had Quince by the throat now.

  She raised the gun, marveled at her steadiness and shot the Hunter point-blank in the face. Then the hounds swarmed over the top of the bar and she passed out.

  “Quince,” she whispered. The tangy metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. “Quince!” she screamed, putting every ounce of strength into both a physical and mental call, as he had taught her.

  The mind was a wonderful gift, he had told her. No boundaries could separate them. No distance was too great for those bound to one another. Quince’s big hands framed her face, his long fingers working magic. The last time she’d seen them they’d been covered in blood and hanging limply from the hounds’ mouths.

  No! She couldn’t, wouldn’t do this to herself. Quince lived, else she’d be dead too. He needed her.

  She was hyperventilating. Her fingers scrabbled over the top of the cardboard roof. Carefully, she clawed a hole, whittling away with her fingernails. Damn it, she’d just gotten her nails done too.

  Ow, she broke a nail. She put the finger to her mouth and tasted more blood. Just a little bit further, she promised herself. She tore at the last shred of cardboard. Something trickled through the hole, piling up on her bare midriff.

  It was dirt.

  She had been buried alive.

  All sane thought fled. She screamed until her voice gave out and then she sobbed.

  * * * * *

  Quince had to be strapped to his bed. His eyes were wide open and blank, muscles rigid. Adrianne lay over his body with Navarre, trying to press him flat. “You’ll hurt yourself,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Quince, Quince!” Navarre muttered something in Labyrinthine, trying to soothe him and touch his mind at the same time.

  Altarre, meanwhile, worked hard to strap Quince’s arms down. Quince thrashed.

  Adrianne was closest to his head. She saw a brief glimmer of awareness flicker in Quince’s eyes.

  “Quince,” she said softly. She raised a hand to his cheek.

  “Nikki,” Quince murmured and laid his cheek in her hand. The gleam died and his eyes closed.

  “He was a fool to bond to a human,” Adrianne heard Vespero complain.

  “What is done cannot be undone.” Benito caught Adrianne’s elbow and helped her ease off Quince’s now-still form.

  Something inside Adrianne snapped like a signal flare and blazed to life. Rage foremost, but the niggling whisper of the former Queens’ taste for vengeance tugged at the fringes of her mind. Enough hunting. Enough death. Her unborn children would not grow up in a world riddled with fear.

  She turned to Navarre. “You touched his mind. Where is Nikki?”

  Navarre hesitated.

  “Do not lie to me,” she hissed. “The Hunter tortures Nikki and through her, Quince.”

  “And what about our unborn children? Are they worth so little to you that you’d willingly risk them?” he asked.

  Benito’s grip on her arm tightened. “Children? More than one?”

  “Don’t throw that in my face. I know the risks,” she insisted, ignoring Benito. She glared at Navarre.

  “You are young, inexperienced, pregnant and just emerging into your talent.” A thin trickle of sweat slipped down the side of Navarre’s face.

  She need not taste it to know it was fear. She was just as scared as he was. Her armpits were damp and her nightgown clung to her back. “Quince will die without her.”

  “He made his choice,” Benito said quietly at her left.

  “You cannot protect me from everything,” she whispered, eyes still focused on Navarre.

  “We cannot…I cannot bear to lose you.” He touched her cheek. “For the Gods’ sake, for the Queens’ sake, for the babies, please stay here.”

  “The Queens are with us,” she murmured.

  His gaze never wavered. “The Hunter is very strong.”

  She lifted her chin a fraction. “Our babies will not grow up in fear. Where will you draw the line?”

  “You are mine to protect. The Hunter shall not lay his hand upon you ever again.”

  “Isn’t Quince mine as well?” she protested.

  “One sacrificed for the safety of the whole group,” Benito murmured. “He will not die in vain.”

  “He will not die,” she insisted. “I won’t let him.” She finally saw the realization and fear reflected Navarre’s eyes.

  Benito touched her arm. “You must think of the babies.”

  She ignored him, her gaze locked with Navarre’s. He touched her cheek, her hair. His fingertips roved over her lips.

  “Where is Nikki?” she whispered.

  “In a place of dormant new life,” Navarre said.

  “Do not tell her!” Vespero shouted.

  But Navarre had already passed the image of it to her mind. She closed her eyes and leaned against Navarre. They held each other tight.

  It was too early in the season for anyone to be digging. The frost wasn’t even out of the ground yet. Unless the Hunter had hid Nikki at a construction site. Houses were built year-round and seeds lay hidden in the soil, waiting for warm weather. Graves were dug year-round too. She shuddered.

  Neither felt right. Come on, give me something to go on, she pleaded to no one in particular but Mirium’s face came to mind. A calm settled over her. It was a place of dormant life. A nursery, of course!

  Raising her head, she faced the Dragoon. “We’re going hunting.”

  The war room of the ship was packed with an array of weaponry Adrianne had never seen before. The men grimly donned their armor, silver polished breastplates and chain mail so fine that when light struck it, it glittered like thousands of fireflies.

  “Come with me.” Navarre took her hand and led her to an inner chamber. “Here lies the Queens’ armor.” Dropping her hand, he shut the door behind them.

  Here was quite an abbreviation of armor and weaponry when compared to the men’s chamber. The fee
l of history in this room weighed heavily on her. Shreds of the Queens’ essences clung to the ancient armor, whispered of battles won and lost. She touched a bit of chain mail as fine as liquid silver and knew it to be Cerenth’s. A short set of double blades hanging on the wall beckoned to her but she didn’t know how to use them. The power that radiated from that pair of blades, though, whispered of vengeance. Yes, vengeance was to be theirs tonight. She was just a channel for the Queens.

  She wasn’t prepared for Navarre to pull her into his arms, or for the desperateness of his kiss. She clung to his shoulders.

  “Do not do this,” he pleaded. “Stay with Quince.” He framed her face with his hands.

  She had never seen him beg before. The look in his eyes made her heart both swell and break. “I must,” she whispered, brushing her fingertip across his lips. “The Queens will aid us.”

  He shook his head. “We can find Nikki alone, I swear it. Stay here where it is safe.”

  She laid her finger across his lips to silence him further. “I cannot sit still and watch Quince die.” A few tears slipped down her cheeks. “Dragons don’t cry, but I still do. Why is that?”

  “Sh’niedra.” He dropped his head to her shoulder.

  They held each other for a long time.

  * * * * *

  A group of eleven dragons drifted quietly through the night, their wings slicing the moonlight. Adrianne wondered if the others could feel the crackling of energy like she did. Sometimes she thought she glimpsed the shadows of otherworldly wings, that instead of just eleven dragons, squadrons filled the sky, their bodies casting moonlit shadows on the ground below them.

  She prayed Quince would live through the night. She prayed for Benito, grief-stricken by the glimpse of his dead Queen. And Adonthe as well, left to tend both dragon men incapacitated by wounds neither she nor Altarre could heal. But most fervently of all, she prayed for Nikki.

  A drift of white canvases streamed beneath her, row after row of white-hooped greenhouses. This was their third nursery. It looked ominous enough in the moonlit darkness but so did the others. This one, however, possessed mounds of fresh dirt and mulch, a good sign.

  It pained her to think she didn’t have the kind of mental ties to Nikki that Quince shared with her. She tried to contact Nikki repeatedly, but failed. The failure leeched into her little well of courage, unsettling her more than she’d like. But there was no turning back.

  Adrianne landed first, considerably more graceful than her first-ever attempt. Navarre was close to her side. He waited in dragon form while she changed into the armor she’d carried in her forepaws, then shifted himself and followed suit. His armor sparkled like starfire in the moonlight. He wore a helm which hid all but his eyes and lips from her. Every joint, even his neck, was protected by the same shiny metal covering her as well. It rippled as she moved, conforming to her body. He grasped her hand once, gave it a brief squeeze, then separated. She had thought about bringing a gun, but she didn’t own one. Somehow she didn’t think a mere bullet could stop something as evil as the Hunter. He’d touched her and she lived, no small feat. But that touch alone let her know how vile a creature he truly was.

  The plastic greenhouse fabric crackled in the evening breeze. The last of the Dragoon hadn’t even landed yet when the Hunter and his hounds struck.

  Vespero fell from the sky, in a hail of white lights that sounded like harmless firecrackers but obviously weren’t. Adrianne dropped to a crouch and rolled. Hounds burst from all sides, climbing over mulch piles and emerging from between the rows of the greenhouses. Had they multiplied since they last met?

  She spotted the source of the white “firecrackers”. Take that. She sent a trail of fire skittering from her hand over the pile of mulch, setting the wood chips smoldering. Behind the pile, she heard firecrackers erupt, an ammo cache lit ablaze.

  A hound’s flaming body sailed over her crouched form.

  “Careful, my Erifydal.” Navarre reached for her hand and tugged her away from the melee.

  “Where is he?”

  “This way.”

  They ran, half crouched, down the length of a greenhouse, emerging closer to the ring of mulch piles.

  Her armor burned into her skin. She looked down. It glowed a milky white, casting a luminance she hadn’t noticed before.

  The Hunter was waiting for them.

  A chipper-shredder hummed quietly beside him, its maw empty for the moment. In front of it lay a coffin-shaped box.

  Adrianne’s heart stopped. Nikki!

  “We meet again, Dragoness,” the Hunter said. Whether he spoke out loud or in her head, she didn’t know, but his trace oozed over her like some viscous oil. “A reckless mistake to bring them all to me,” he continued. “But so kind of you.” He extended one hand.

  Beside her, Navarre dropped to his knees, his fingers slipping through her grasp. He put one hand on the ground to support himself. Jade fire spread from where he touched the ground, crackling around them. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he kept his lips pressed tightly closed. She tried to touch his mind. It was like sticking one’s hand into a blazing inferno.

  “He tries so valiantly.” The Hunter shook his head and turned to her.

  “Get up,” she pleaded, dropping to her knees beside Navarre. She tugged at his elbow.

  “Time to choose, Dragoness. Come to me and I will release your friend, but your mate dies. Help him and she dies.” The Hunter kicked the box closer to the chipper-shredder.

  She heard part of the box strike the shredder’s teeth. A grinding noise erupted and splinters flew out the back of the machine. Beside her, Navarre gasped, his skin turning a ghastly shade of gray.

  She chose.

  White fire licked from her hands and armor to Navarre, bathing his face in light. The crackled jade power emanating from his hand solidified.

  The Hunter chuckled. She heard the tear of the shredder as it ground up the board, then the wet slick noise it made as it hit flesh.

  Nikki, forgive me.

  The power in her blazed up. The fire leaped from her breastplate and hand, striking the Hunter in the chest. Part of her mentally reached for the shredder’s controls and tried frantically to turn them off.

  The Hunter laughed. His laughter shattered her fragile confidence, sending her focused ray of power skittering out in all directions. The box was sucked the rest of the way through the shredder. Bits of blood, wood and flesh spattered everything.

  Navarre suddenly gripped both her hands. Jade mingled with pearl and the column of power between them doubled in size, still aimed at the Hunter. The Hunter took one step backward. Only one.

  The quiet rage in her built.

  A hound leaped at them from the greenhouse roof. She merely looked at it and it burst into flames. And still the rage grew. It wasn’t hers alone. She knew that with the part of her mind that recoiled at the sheer effluence of the emotion. The Queens wanted vengeance.

  Beneath her feet grass burst forth from the ground and cut a swath across the frozen earth to the Hunter, sprouting between the Hunter’s boots. Where it touched him, though, it immediately died.

  “Cute parlor trick, Dragoness, but ineffective.” The Hunter regained his footing and raised his hand to ward off their combined attack.

  She was no longer just herself, but the Queen of the Dragoon, a shell of herself and a storehouse for all the other Queens who went before her. She called out and more grass sprang to life as well as other forms of life, creeping vines and flowers that had never been seen before in man’s lifetime. A wraith stepped forth from the pearl burst of white on her breastplate, her hair crimson fire, her face but a flickery shadow in the moonlight.

  Adrianne collapsed into Navarre’s arms, but the calling continued, draining her. She felt as if her very soul was being spun out, threadlike, extending life to these Queens of the past she now birthed. Another wraith appeared at her left.

  “Mirium.” Her lips formed the word but she didn’t ha
ve the strength to speak.

  Navarre echoed her.

  And then there was too many Queens to count, all dressed in white flowing robes so bright her eyes wept. Their faces were shadowed, but their intent was clear.

  “What have you wrought?” the Hunter hissed. He took another step backward.

  Then the wraiths mobbed him and he was hidden from her view. With a roar from the Hunter and a fierce screech from the chipper-shredder, the Hunter was shoved into the machine.

  Other members of the Dragoon appeared, sinking to their knees before Navarre and Adrianne.

  The shredder ground to a halt.

  Silence.

  The wraiths pooled into silvery puddles and poured back into Adrianne, spiraling into the breastplate of her armor like water down a drain. The sprouted grass and tangle of ancient vines browned and died. Adrianne lay still in Navarre’s arms, his body cupped protectively over hers.

  Altarre tentatively touched her. “Dragoness?”

  All they heard were her racking sobs.

  Chapter Twenty

  Nikki took short shallow breaths and kept her eyes squeezed shut. Somehow the blackness didn’t seem nearly as stifling if her eyes were closed. If she didn’t move, she prayed the cardboard box wouldn’t buckle more than it already had and whatever had plugged the hole she dug through her “roof” would remain plugged.

  A thin film of condensation lined the roof. Occasionally, a drip would spatter on her face. She was hungry, thirsty, stiff and terrified, although the terror was rapidly morphing into despair.

  If Quince was dead or dying, she might as well be too. She never thought she’d feel that way about a man, but it was true. Except she didn’t think she wanted to die starved to death and buried alive somewhere. Who else would notice her missing before it was too late? Her employees? Yes, but they’d have no idea where to look for her.

  A long time later or maybe it was only a brief excruciating blink of time, she had no concept of time anymore, she heard someone call her name.

  “Go away. I’m trying to die so I can go find Quince,” she muttered.