Fae Queen

by Jen Pretty

  FAE QUEEN

  Alexandra Everest Series Book Three

  Jen Pretty

  Remember me with smiles and laughter,

  for that is how i will remember you all.

  If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.

  —Laura ingalls wilder

  For Jacob, my sunshine.

  For Connor, my peace.

  And for Nicole, my heart.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A DUCK NAMED DAISY

  On wings of black and gold filigree, the other dragons soared through the evening sky. Sunset was always beautiful in the mountains. The reds and pinks contrasted against the stark black mountain caps. How free they must have felt to belong to the wind, soaring so effortlessly.

  The air stirred violently, giving me half a second to recognize the approaching danger. I shifted to my smaller form, a brightly coloured duck, in submission as I always did. It didn’t matter who it was. I was not, and would never be, dominant to any dragon. I had accepted that my flaws were too great to overcome, despite what my heart told me.

  My wings had never grown. They were useless and barely larger in my dragon skin than in my lesser form.

  My hatch brother had no such problems. He towered over me in his dragon form, his smoky exhalation ruffling my feathers as he brought his head down and looked me in the eye before flapping his wings hard, making me lose my balance and roll along the ground by the sheer force of his massive wings.

  I lay there, defeated by the one thing I would never have.

  He moved forward on my prone form instead of leaving as he usually did after making his point. He had become more aggressive and less tolerant of my presence in our home with each passing day. His usual games were increasing in their cruelty. This time was different though. He reached out with his clawed foot and scooped me up, squeezing me until I felt my ribs groan.

  The rest of my family dropped to the rocky ground and watched on as the largest of my siblings tossed me across the rough landscape. I tried to gain purchase using my small webbed feet, but I didn’t stop tumbling until I bounced off a tree. The dragons all screamed and blew fire up in the air, a clear indication my time was up. I was no longer welcome in the territory. When my brother moved forward again, I flapped the small feathered wings, not daring to shift to a dragon and provoke him further and took to the sky.

  My choices had been to die or go.

  With the decision to leave, my stars shifted, and the magnetite started pulling me away from my nest, instead of towards it. I wasn’t the first to leave the nest and never return, but I had no idea my internal compass would change so quickly. I allowed the impulses to take control and followed where they led.

  My family let me go. The betrayal cut deep, and the loneliness hollowed me out. They had once romped and tumbled with me, not caring about my defect. We grew together in our family nest, curled up warm on chilly nights, but those days had long passed.

  When I was far enough away and between territories, I landed on a flat rock and shifted back to my dragon form. I scraped my claws on the rock, leaving deep slashes. I was never meant to be a dragon. Dragons were hard and violent. I wanted something more and I knew I was meant for something else. I could feel it in my bones.

  I raised my nose to the sky and felt the draw of my new home farther beyond the mountain range and the plains. I would need some food to make that flight.

  I slid low along the ground for a long time before I came across a sleeping gazelle. I blew fire through my nose and roasted it before it dashed away. I could only catch my prey at night, while they slept. It felt shameful to me, but the meal would be enough to get me where I needed to go.

  I miserably crunched down my late-night meal, huffed smoke through my scaled nose and shifted to my smaller form before curling up on the cold hard ground and tucking my beak beneath my wing.

  I fell asleep solemnly vowing to never be a dragon again.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The second day of my journey, I flew as long and hard as I could. My small feathered wings, made for migration, could not handle this torturous pace. However, I wanted to be out of the dragon land and on with my new life. I could only hope it would be a better one.

  The angry screams of dominant dragons had the muscles in my wings cramping and burning like dragon fire as I pushed to escape their territories, but none harassed me, and I made it to the edges of our world, the place where no dragons or anything else lived.

  I flew slower, scanning the plains for whatever was drawing me. Finally, I saw what I was searching for and circled in the air, before landing softly in front of the portal. It looked like the mouth of a cave but in the middle of the plains.

  I sat down and rested for a while. This was the way out, I was sure. My instincts told me to walk through. My new life lay beyond.

  Taking one last look over my shoulder, I stepped through into the new land that would hopefully be my home.

  Birds sang in the branches of every tree above me. It was a dense forest with trees as tall as the mountains I had left behind. I had never been in a place so lush and vibrant. The earthy scent filled my small nostrils and made me nearly drunk with joy. Tipping my head back to gaze at the birds, the sun filtered through the trees, blinding me with the intense green colour.

  I wasn’t going to be able to fly up through the trees, so I waddled forward. The birds paced me as I went; Flying from tree top to tree top.

  I walked a long time before I reached a stream. I waded in and splashed about in the cool water. The water in my land was always warm; I had never experienced something so refreshing. I swam out farther and dove under the water. I saw a tiny flash of colour and my instincts kicked in, forcing me to chase it down. It turned out to be the smallest fish I had ever seen. When I caught it, I swallowed it whole, then snatched up another before rising to the surface to catch a breath. I had never eaten in this form before. Hunting was easier as a dragon, even a flightless one.

  I swam back to shore and shook the excess water free of my feathers before waddling back to the grass and plopping down to dry off and nap in the sunshine. The birds still sang from the trees and their music soothed my tortured soul. They were more my kin than the dragons I had left behind.

  I raised my beak and let out a resounding quack. The sound wouldn't strike fear in the hearts of dragons, but it did make the birds sing louder. I called out again when they settled a bit, and their small voices rose to meet me. I listened until some of it started making sense. Some birds sang about the food they had found, while others chirped about the beautiful river. A few sang for my presence in their world. One very loud bird danced through the trees singing of a different new presence that was important to the future of the many worlds; a human who would change all our lives.

  Finally, I tuned out their chatter and tucked my beak under my wing; I slept while the warm sun and soft breeze dried my feathers.

  The silence of the birds and approaching thunder of hooves alerted me to the imminent danger. I spread my wings and took to the sky, but something snatched me out of the air by my legs. I squawked and flapped, but it held me upside down in front of its face bearing its teeth. The strange looking animal walked on its hind legs. I had seen these creatures before in my old home once or twice. They had no feathers or fur or scales. It yelled, and some beasts came thundering into the clearing. I watched them, upside down.

  Their coats glistened in the fading sunlight; they each had a single horn on their heads and long wild hair down their necks. They looked somewhat like large gazelles, but I had never seen beasts quite like these before. They didn’t look like prey, rather like predators with the way their eyes confidently scanned the area and they moved about boldly like the dominant dragons from my home.


  The white creatures transformed into more skinned, two-legged animals, and they came closer to me. The one holding me lashed my feet together with a long vine and carried me over his shoulder. I bumped ungracefully against his back with every step, but I maintained my silence, continuing to believe they would let me go when they finished toying with me.

  The creatures communicated vocally. I listened and tried to figure out what they were saying. Dragons had a natural ability to understand the communication of other species, and I had heard these creatures when they passed through my old home.

  “Puck,” one of them spoke.

  The rumble I felt through the back of the beast carrying me led me to believe that he was Puck. Though dragons recognized each other by smell, I knew some creatures chose a vocal sound to identify each other; creatures who had an inferior sense of smell.

  “Let’s get the fire started, people,” he called back.

  The creature dropped me to the ground before the others, and I watched as they started a fire with some sticks and grass. It was small, but they kept adding more wood until it was blazing. Not as hot as my dragon fire, but nothing was.

  The lashings on my feet pinched, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I lay still. Whatever game they were playing, I wasn’t injured, just uncomfortable.

  The birds began to sing in the trees. They sang that I needed to move, or I would be dinner, but that was ridiculous. Who would want to eat me? I was a meagre meal for even one of these creatures.

  If I stayed in my lower form and stayed quiet, I wouldn't be hurt. Despite what the birds said, I couldn’t act dominantly, or I would undoubtedly be killed. These beings were hard and violent like dragons; I could smell the dominance on them.

  The birds sang louder that the beings were human shifters and they would eat me, but none seemed particularly interested in me at all.

  The humans put a large pot above the fire. It was filled with water from the river which soon began to steam and then the sounds of it boiling lit on my ears.

  The dominant human shifter, Puck, came over and scooped me up, my feet still bound. I lay limp in his forearms, sure the game was almost over. He carried me over to the pot and held me above it. The water rolled and bubbled below me as he slowly lowered me towards it.

  When my beak touched the water, I jerked back and flapped my wings to try and fly away. He couldn't possibly intend to put me in boiling water. What cruel game was he playing? As a dragon, the heat didn’t affect me, but as a duck, I would burn.

  The human laughed, grabbed my wings, and pressed me back towards the hot liquid.

  The birds screeched, demanding I shift and escape. I had never faced a creature as evil as this. When I killed my prey, I did it fast enough that they never saw me coming; this was brutality on a new level and my dragon pressed to be released.

  The birds were swooping through the sky and I struggled against my captor, but it was no use. With my feet lashed and my body trapped in this human’s grabby forepaws, I couldn’t get free.

  Finally, I took a deep breath and flashed into my dragon form, praying it wasn’t the last thing I did.

  My feathers gave way to scales. My tail stretched and swished along the ground behind me, the pointed scales along my spine cracked and creaked as they spread out like the thorns of a bush, and I grew until I towered over the small humans.

  I roared, hoping a strong display would be enough to scare off the predators. The humans screamed, transformed back into the white furry horned beasts, and scattered to the wind.

  I huffed out smoke and looked around the area with my improved dragon vision. The birds continued to swoop and dive around me, my companions even in my disfigured form. A few landed on my head and hopped up and down my long neck.

  I moved down to the river, and my friends fluttered along beside me. They hopped along my back and used my small awkward wings as perches, twittering and tweeting merrily. At the river edge, I shifted into my lesser form and dove beneath the water. When I came back up, a small bird hopped up and down on the shore, calling me back.

  I paddled back, and the petite brown bird told me that I had to go. She said that my new home was nearby, and I should hurry. I didn’t understand how it knew where my home was, but once she brought my attention to the matter, I felt it for myself. The magnetite pulled me away from the river edge.

  I shook water droplets out of my feathers and took flight, flapping madly in the direction the earth and stars were sending me.

  Not far ahead, I saw a clearing and a grouping of small shelters and in the center was a group of humans.

  I fluttered to the ground and surveyed the area. There were many more humans. The pull was certain; I could feel it in my bones. My home was here, but where?

  The birds chittered again in the trees and hopped towards the center of the clearing. The small brown bird from the river landed on my back and whispered that I needed to go out there. She said these humans were different and wouldn’t hurt me. How could I be sure? I decided to watch and wait and was just about to settle down in the grass when a particular human walked into the clearing.

  This human was warm, and I could see a light around her that I had never seen around any being before. The brown bird hopped up and down and tweeted loudly. It wasn’t even a message anymore; the small bird was merely making noise.

  I started forward, still unsure of the human beasts, but the draw to be with this human was too strong.

  “Lex,” another human said, and my human turned towards the voice.

  My human’s name was Lex. I marched forward, my feet carrying me towards the new center of my world.

  My Lex sat at the wooden slab eating and drinking a strange looking liquid. I moved closer until she noticed me.

  “They look friendly. Are they tame?” she asked.

  I jumped onto the slab and walked carefully closer to her. Her laugh was the most beautiful sound of all, the purest song I could imagine. When I got close enough, she reached out and touched my head reverently. Her gentle fingers tickled the ends of my feathers and I moved closer. She murmured words to me, speaking of my beauty. I had always felt that I was not good enough, until that very moment. When she ran her hand through my feathers with such gentleness, emotion crashed over me. My years of loneliness were a distant memory at the touch of her hand as if she’d filled me with a promise of future happiness and that was enough.

  I ate some of her food. She laughed and fed me more. It wasn’t as good as the fish from the river, but it wasn’t bad.

  I spent the rest of the evening with my Lex. She danced with me around the clearing, and finally, I followed her and another human with strange red eyes towards a small stick shelter. Inside there was a flat platform that was soft and cozy like a nest, so I curled up on the top of it.

  “Hey, that’s my spot, Daisy. Shouldn’t you sleep in a tree or a river or something?” I was too tired to respond.

  She climbed in next to me and curled around me. It felt like I was back in my hatchling nest with my siblings, warm and safe.

  “Goodnight, Daisy,” she muttered.

  “You know the brightly coloured ducks are male, right?” the red-eyed human said.

  “Nobody asked you, bossy pants,” she replied.

  They spoke quietly for a few moments, and then Lex snuggled into my side more firmly, and I tucked my beak under my wing.

  A few minutes later, a very sleepy Lex said, “Don’t eat Daisy while I’m sleeping, Vampire.”

  He laughed again and said, “Ok, your duck is safe.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  LEX

  My eyes opened to a dark, murky world. My limbs felt light but dragged through the thickness. In the distance, I could see a bright light above and a silhouette rocking softly. The shape lurched towards me. As it came into view, a beak bopped me in the nose. My brain was still on hiatus, but I was sure it was a duck. I couldn’t fit that piece of information together with what I saw and felt
around me. I didn’t move as it shrunk away again.

  A much larger shape came towards me and wrapped around me like steel bars. I squirmed to try and break free so that I could return to my soft peace, but it dragged me through the thickness, and I was reborn into a cold world of harsh light.

  “Get some towels and blankets!” someone yelled.

  I was being torn away from my home, my teeth were chattering, and I wanted to fight this foe. Every instinct said to keep kicking and struggling. I wanted to return to the depths where there was no pain or suffering, but I quickly grew tired. I needed to sleep. The world turned black.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When I opened my eyes again, there was a roaring fire in front of me, and I was wrapped up in a blanket like a sausage, held tightly by the same steel bands. I struggled with the blanket until it became loose and shoved against what contained me. I realized it was someone’s arms and fought harder, but they just held tighter, so I flung my head back, heard a satisfying crunch, and a curse before I was released. I threw the blanket off as I stumbled to my feet and raced into the woods. I stumbled through the thick brush, small trees whipped me in the face and the thorns snagged my clothes. My feet were burning, but I felt I had run like this before. I had raced through the undergrowth and found safety.

  Where that safety was, I couldn’t remember, but I knew I had to run.

  I heard steps pounding behind me and yelling, the voices were loud and echoed through the forest. My lungs burned as I ran faster and faster, trying to lose my pursuers. I tripped on a root and landed on my knees but gained my footing quickly and turned to the right like a deer evading a leopard. I thought my heart would explode if I ran much longer, but eventually, they fell back until I was alone in the peaceful forest.

  I slowed to a walk in a small meadow dotted with wildflowers. Birds sang and danced through the treetops, and some small creatures I didn’t recognize scurried out of my way to hide in the bushes.