Fae Queen

by Jen Pretty

  “You abandoned us!” Puck yelled as he stood and stormed off into the forest.

  All the elves shared side glances and guilty looks. Perfect. Just what I needed when I’m trying to save the future king; a bunch of angry, vengeful unicorns that like to stab people. I shook my head and got up to go chase after Puck.

  Although the area had some trees, there was enough rockiness to the ground to keep the trees from getting dense so finding Puck was easy. He was by the river that we had often refilled our water bottles from when we travelled through the portal. He was sitting on a mossy section beside a boulder, his arms resting on his knees, inspecting his hands, lost in thought.

  I cleared my throat. Not wanting to startle him and get a horn through my midsection.

  “I heard you coming from miles away; you stomp around like it’s your job to flatten the earth.”

  Jerk.

  “I was hardly miles away,” I muttered as I sat down beside him.

  We sat in silence for a while, just looking out at the water. Puck was always so loud and sure of himself; it never occurred to me that he would still be hurting from his time under the control of the witch.

  "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, leaning my head towards him.

  "No," he replied shortly.

  Tough guy.

  "How about I talk and you can just listen. I think that you maybe did some things that you wouldn’t have ordinarily done."

  He grunted like a caveman. "You don’t know anything about it."

  "That’s because you never told me," I said gently, bumping his shoulder with mine. "I would remember if you had.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I imagined all kinds of terrible things he could have done. I swear there was smoke coming out his ears, he was thinking so hard.

  Finally, he sighed heavily and whispered, "I killed a little girl."

  Oh God, it was as bad as I thought. I put my arm around him and scooted in right next to him. He set his arm across my shoulders and pulled me closer.

  "I’m sorry," I muttered into his shoulder.

  "When I came back to my human form, when the witch let go of us, I thought I had woken from a nightmare. The longer I am back to my old self, the more I realize those things happened. I can hear the screams of the little girl’s mother as I killed her. The little girl with braids in her hair. She couldn’t have been more than six."

  I tipped my head up to look at Puck, the mighty fearless warrior who had watery eyes and a look on his face of complete devastation. I wanted to cry with him. It wasn’t fair, but I knew he needed me to be strong right now. I was done being lost and weak. It was time to act like the queen I had become.

  "Of course, you would never do that. It wasn’t your fault. It was the witch’s fault. I know that doesn’t help now, but I swear to God, we will kill that witch. She will never control you again."

  He hugged me tighter for a moment and then took another deep breath and wiped his eyes on his shirt.

  "If we get through this, when we get through this, I want to come back here with you, Lex. I can't live in a place where I only remember killing. Generations of people feared me there and they will always fear my kind. I want to stay here, with you.

  "Ok, when we get through this, we can go back home. You will love living in the city."

  He smiled at that, the cocky look back on his face. "The city will love me."

  I laughed and he scooped me up and transformed into a unicorn. I grabbed his mane as he reared up, making me squeal, then took off. He ran for a long time along the shore of the river. He was nearly as fast as Roman and the rush was just as good. I laughed and clung to him, warm and safe on his battle-worn back. I had never thought of Puck as a sensitive guy, but there are some things we all need help to carry. Killing a young girl was the thing that broke his back and I would fight even harder against the oppression that caused him to betray his own morals. That kind of power over another person should not exist. Magic shouldn’t be that way.

  Eventually, Puck took us back to camp. It was dusk now with barely any light left to see by, but the bonfire was blazing and the smell of cooked meat filled my lungs. I had laid on Pucks back, my head on his rump, trusting him not to ditch me as he marched me right up to the fire, transforming back into a man and setting my feet back on the ground. I threw my arms around him, enjoying one last moment of closeness, then we sat down to eat with the rest of our army.

  The boar was delicious and the deer had an unusual texture that filled my palate with a gamey flavour I had never experienced before.

  When I had eaten my fill, I climbed into my tent and flattened out my sleeping bag. It was too hot to sleep under it tonight, but it was soft and I would sleep on it even if it was 100 degrees hotter. Roman slipped in a few minutes after I got curled up comfortably with Daisy. He slid in behind me and wrapped his arm over my stomach.

  "Is Puck ok?" he whispered in my ear. His hot breath gave me chills.

  I tipped my head back to look at him. "He's fine. He just did some things that he wouldn’t have done if he hadn’t been stuck as a unicorn all that time."

  "Shit," Roman cursed. "I hadn't thought of that. God, I can't imagine surviving that kind of horror."

  "Me either. I would rather be dead, but they were immortal and still are. We could have our hands full with angry unicorns when we cross that portal."

  I turned and rested my face on Roman’s chest. "I need the unicorns, Roman. That witch is so powerful and I still have very little control of my new magic. Everything is too up in the air. "

  "I know," he replied, kissing the top of my head. "We will get the unicorns on our side."

  "I'll help you get them, Lex," Puck said from outside the tent flap.

  I laughed. Of course, he was sleeping right in front of my door. Even with a vampire and a duck that turns into a dragon, I was never safe enough until the warrior was sleeping there.

  "Thank you, Puck, goodnight."

  Goodnight, Lex" he replied.

  "Goodnight," Roman whispered into my hair.

  Daisy rustled a bit, curling in closer to me and I fell asleep to the sounds of soft snoring. Perhaps our last peaceful night before we make our move on the evil witch.

  The next morning, we all stumbled out of our tents. I was stiff from sleeping awkwardly around a certain duck who commandeered the center of the blankets and had no interest in spending another day walking. I had some leftover meat for breakfast and a cookie, then Armond boiled some water on the fire and made real coffee while the hunters bundled up the tents and set everything by the portal. The plan was to go across and head for Kingstown to pick up some soldiers.

  While Roman and Armond had been trying to get me to remember them, they had sent word to the Kingsland that we would be returning soon and would want whatever help they could spare.

  We hoped the unicorns would come as soon as they felt the elves arrive like Puck had when I crossed the first time, but there was no guarantee. I knew I needed them so, if we had to, we would hunt them down too.

  After breakfast, we all picked up our backpacks. Mine was suspiciously missing, but after some yelling and stomping of my foot, my pack miraculously appeared from within one of the hunter’s backpacks.

  It was the same hunter who had been trying to steal it all along. Chivalrous bastard. I tossed it on my back, tightening the straps and glaring at the old fae. I noticed it was quite a bit lighter than it should have been, but at least I had it back.

  We crossed in formation, the hunters going through first and then our team with the elves following.

  The elves all had swords and were ready to fight for Aldridge, but we weren’t sure if there would be hostile unicorns on the other side of the portal and didn’t want them all cut down without back up.

  Thankfully, the other side only revealed many of the king’s soldiers in a large sprawling camp.

  We should have maybe sent a scout ahead because these soldiers were prepared to stay in their cam
p for quite some time. They had mules with packs of food and large barrels of water. They had prepared for anything.

  "Hello!" a soldier shouted.

  "Hi," Armond shouted back.

  The soldier ran up as we crossed, he bowed before me, even though he wasn't an elf or a fae.

  "Thank you for returning, your highness."

  "Call me Lex, please."

  "Of course, Lex. Thank you for returning."

  “I made a promise to the king that I would save Aldridge. He has been gone long enough."

  "You don’t know how much that means to us. He is the only heir. We have gathered all the best fighters in the land. I promise we will fight and die for you and our future king." he bowed again and I felt embarrassingly awkward standing there in front of the soldiers who had all bowed as well. Ugh.

  "Ok, let’s not do that," I muttered.

  "We need the unicorns. I brought the elves," I gestured behind me as the last of the elves crossed into their old homeland.

  "I knew you would bring our salvation. I didn't know you would recreate the power we once had. Thank you, Lex." He bowed again, damn it. Before I could reply, there was a roar in the distance.

  At the sound, swords were unsheathed, and soldiers scattered. Crying out to get to the trees. The sound of hooves pounding the ground reached my ears and got louder and louder until the first of them came into the clearing. Most of the shifters had changed to their wolf form, abandoning their swords, but staying near the tree line. Centuries of fear lingered, as Puck had said. These shifters would need generations to allay the fear that was bone deep in them.

  Puck transformed and stood in front of me. His wide stance said he wasn’t going to move, no matter what happened, but Daisy stayed at my side like a duck, apparently trusting Puck to take care of the wild equines heading for us.

  The herd finally slammed to a stop, skidding on the hard-packed earth and kicking up so much dust we were nearly cut off from view. The elves behind me dropped their packs, but didn’t take out their weapons; they simply stood at the ready. The unicorn’s nostrils flared heavily, displaying bright red as they heaved, the only colour among the stark white of their hair and rolling eyes. The sound of their ragged breath filled the area and they closed in as a group, staring daggers at the elves behind me.

  The standoff lasted an uncomfortably long moment. The hunters had been instructed not to act unless necessary, but you could feel the tension in the air. Being unarmed in front of such a dangerous potential foe was not easy for anyone.

  The leader of this group of unicorns finally changed into a man. He was tall, lean and looked strikingly like Puck except he didn’t bear the cocky grin and mischievous expression that Puck almost always wore.

  “Why have you brought these cowards back to our land, brother?”

  Puck had never spoken of family. He preferred to keep conversation to the present. After our discussion by the river, I now knew why he had done so. The past was a ghost that haunted Puck, no matter how he pretended it didn’t.

  Puck switched back to his human form and stared at his brother for a moment.

  “Bain, I have brought the queen. She needs us all in this battle.”

  Puck pulled me out from behind him and, after a moment of silence, the unicorns bowed, bending one leg and leaning back on their haunches, dropping their heads to the ground until their horns touched the solid dirt. Bain, in human form, bowed as the hunters had done, falling to a knee and lowering his gaze to my feet.

  “You don’t need to do that,” I said, although the unicorns bowing was the most majestic thing I had ever witnessed. Their shiny coats glittered in the sun that fought its way through the trees.

  “I would like to go destroy the witch who tore this world apart and save Aldridge, hopefully,” I said cautiously to the crowd. I still wasn’t enjoying the attention.

  “Your Highness, we have been here for a very long time, trapped, as you must know. The elves have not suffered as we have and they are no longer warriors fit to battle in this war you propose,” Bain said, scowling at the Elves where they stood behind me.

  I glanced back at Clive and Snazzy. They were good people. I didn’t know the rest of them, but when I asked, they dropped everything and returned with me.

  Clive stepped forward. “We may not have been here with you, but we still suffered. We suffered the loss of our home, our friends. Each of us suffered from losing our partner in battle. I suffered from losing you, Bain, every day.”

  “That is bullshit. You sat in luxury while we tried to kill everything that moved because of that witch.” He turned back to me, the anger still clear on his face. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I will fight with you, but I will not fight with them. We can’t trust them to have our backs.”

  I just nodded. The path back to the witch’s doorstep would be long and I had planned to make a doorway, but maybe we needed this time to get the elves and the unicorns together. “We will start towards the caves in the north as soon as the soldiers are packed up,” I called, then I nodded to Clive and he gave me a sad smile in return. I only hoped we could convince the unicorns that the elves were trustworthy before we made it there.

  By nightfall, we were all exhausted. It had been a long hike through the forest. We passed the town where Aldridge had lived as second in command to Mac. The same village that little Collin had lived before the trolls destroyed them all. I remembered the small wooden knife the boy had made and given to me. Roman was the only one to notice when a tear escaped at the memory. He held my hand and passed his calm energy to me. It helped, but not as much as I would have liked. The anger tried to rise, but I pushed it back. I wanted to save it for when I faced the enemy who awaited. Not only was the witch going down, but I planned to rid the world of every troll I came across too. They had been the witch’s sword when they came through here. I had to remember that. The trolls were no less at fault, and I would make sure they paid the price.

  “You ready for bed?” Roman asked as we sat around the campfire. I realized I had zoned out. The hunters were trading battle stories with the unicorns who sat opposite the elves. A line had been drawn down the middle of the camp with unicorns on one side and elves on the other. Though Clive tried to speak to Bain a few more times since we left the portal, Bain was resistant. They all were. Puck had joined his brother on the march, a few times I had heard them laughing. An honest to god laugh out of Puck was rare. He usually smirked or chuckled, but his laughter lit the worlds up. I couldn’t help smiling every time I heard it.

  Roman nudged my shoulder. When I looked up at him, he smiled patiently, his eyes crinkling at the edges. My mind had wandered off again in a sleepy haze.

  “Yeah, I’m exhausted,” I muttered, finally answering his question.

  He scooped me into his lap abruptly, making me giggle. I nestled my face into his chest as he stood up and walked us back to our tent. Before I made it there, I was already asleep.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The forest was beautiful. The sun warmed my skin where I lay beside Luke. His hand intertwined with mine.

  “Thank you, Luke.”

  “We weren’t done talking,” he laughed.

  “That’s true.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “I’m afraid, Luke.”

  “I know. I’m scared for you too. I know you will be fine, Margot said you would be, but she didn’t see you gaining your power and becoming queen. How can I trust you to come home to me?”

  I rolled on to my side and looked him in the eye. His soft face looked so worried that it broke my heart a little bit.

  “I promise. I will always come back. Before you know it, we will be sitting by the pool in the condo, talking about boys and drinking fruity drinks.”

  He smiled at that like I hoped he would. Luke and I had so much to do still. We barely had time to get to know each other before I ran off and got abducted by Joshua, then it was one thing after another that kept us apart. I didn’t want this life for myself. I wanted to r
un my father’s corporation and spend my time negotiating deals like my father would have wanted. If this had been the life he had hoped for me, he would have told me all about this life of monsters and magic.

  We lay there on our backs in the grass, lost in our thoughts for a long time, but when he heaved a sigh, I knew our time was just about up. I flung my arm around him and squeezed him so tight he squeaked but hugged me back just as hard.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The sound of yelling startled me awake. The words being flung about made no sense until I recognized the voices. It was Puck and Bain. It seemed their truce had ended, and they were ‘discussing’ the drama between the elves and the unicorns loud enough to wake the dead.

  I shuffled Daisy off my chest and crawled out of my tent. Roman was standing beside the door, watching the shouting match.

  “What the fuck?” I asked, watching the escalating argument until suddenly there were no longer two men yelling, two unicorns were impaling each other. In the scuffle, I lost track of who was who, but my new magic flared and both unicorns found themselves suspended by their hind legs in the middle of camp. They thrashed for a moment before ceasing.

  “Are you done?” I asked snidely.

  They both returned to their human forms.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Bain said at the same time as Puck said, “Yes, let me down.” His attitude was a bit uncalled for and I narrowed my eyes at him. This was ridiculous. I needed to do something.

  “I think we need to talk,” I said, letting both down. “Puck, let's go for a run. Bain, you come too.”

  As soon as Puck touched down, he scooped me up and took off at breakneck speed as a unicorn. I gripped tightly to his mane, hoping he didn’t go under any low hanging branches.

  When he finally stopped in a small clearing, he shifted and set me down. Adrenaline from the high-speed race had been dumped into my system, making me a bit giddy, but the seriousness of the moment returned when Bain stepped into the clearing and returned to human form as well.