A Crown of Echoes

by Brindi Quinn

  We would find out very soon.

  All the while, the moon had been running its normal nightly course, sliding further over the horizon, creeping over the lake, and at the exact moment it lined up with the tip of the mountain, hanging low so that it appeared to be touching, the skeleton that was larger than all the rest began to move.

  It started with a little wiggle, but due to its size, a ‘little’ wiggle was actually quite impactful, rattling the whole of the mountain. Windley pulled me back from the shores as all three of us stood in awe of what was happening. It was an image our minds told us couldn’t be real, yet our eyes fought to make us believe. The entirety of the skeleton straightened, pushing other bones aside as leverage to stand, shoving the pile of mammoth parts as though it were nothing. It had no skull, but it rose and reached up to the sky, where the moon hung low.

  This wasn’t possible. We all knew that as we gaped, but from our angle, it appeared as though the skeleton took the moon from the sky and placed it atop its spine, as if using it for a head.

  “You guys are seeing this too, right?” I said.

  “I think so,” said Rafe.

  “Uncertain,” said Windley. “Did it pluck the moon from the sky?”

  The moment the moon touched the bones, silvery skin began to slide over them, forming curves and napes and breasts. Meanwhile, the moon’s orb morphed first into the shape of a skull and then into a head complete with a woman’s elegant face and long glittering hair made of stardust.

  We had just witnessed the rebirth of a giant. Or rather, a giantess. A beautiful one—even more stunning than Sestilia—with pale eyes and eyelashes to match her silvery skin and hair.

  “A goddess?” I mouthed.

  While this was happening, the color was draining from Rafe’s cheeks. “L-Luna?” he said.

  “You know her?” said Windley. He still had one arm around me, a hatchet crossed over my front like a gatekeeper.

  Rafe’s expression emoted more than was typical of him. With fear and shock taking hold of his body, his head shook, and his bones trembled.

  “The moon goddess,” he said, breathless. “I’ve seen paintings of her. My clan draws our power from her—we have for generations—but I didn’t know she could take human form! I didn’t know she existed in our world! I thought she was ethereal, residing in the heavens.”

  Unmistakably, the towering woman made of moonlight set her stare on us. Meanwhile, we cowered together as if our three bodies could meld into one figure more threatening than any one of us on our own.

  That was when the goddess, presumably Luna, first spoke.

  I use ‘spoke’ because there’s no better way to describe it, but the sound wasn’t words. It was like tinkling carried on the wind and placed directly into our ears. There were no words, but we knew what she said as though she were speaking into our hearts. Perhaps it was the language of heaven.

  “Conjurer of mine,” she said. “At last you come to pay on your debt.”

  “Methinks she’s talking to you, chap,” said Windley, pulling me closer.

  “What?” Rafe’s eyes were wide as the moon. “I don’t know anything about a debt!”

  But whether or not he knew it, everything leading up to this point was coming to a head. The frosted handprint. The face in the moon. Rafe’s frozen heart. Really, the rest of us were just woven into the magician and his damsel’s story.

  He backpedaled into us as an attempt to escape it all, but Luna took note. “Do you intend to evade me yet again, Rafael? Shame. I had hoped you came willingly this time.”

  Rafael?

  The towering woman shook her sparkling hair, and two shooting stars erupted from it. But they didn’t fall, instead locking onto Rafe as a target and heading straight for our group. We scattered to avoid them, Rafe diving right and Windley hurling me left.

  Where the stars landed, the grass sparked, but what came next was another phenomenon our minds had trouble managing. Up from each spark sprouted a man, colored in moonlit silver like Luna. The men had no features but were capable of kinesis, capable of sight, and capable of attack. Both ran toward Rafe, and Rafe slashed them with his sword, but though his blade made impact, it didn’t deter them because they were made of the same enchants.

  Seeing Rafe’s quandary, Windley sprang into action, twirling his hatchets at them, but the two beings were able to morph shape to avoid his hit every time. Still, Windley persisted, showing his teeth fiercely like a wolf, grunting and growing more frustrated the longer he went without catching them.

  “Rafe!” I called while Windley distracted the creatures. “Is your full name Rafael?”

  Rafe shook his head, hands to his knees and panting. “No! But it’s a name I know. That was the name of the progenitor of my clan, but he’s been dead for a century!”

  Then perhaps this was nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.

  As a queen, I had experience dealing with other powerful women. It’s possible I felt overconfident because I had won over even the insane Sestilia, but in that moment, seeing Windley fight for his life and seeing Rafe cower in fear and confusion, I made a decision to be diplomatic.

  “Goddess Luna!” I shouted as loud as I could into the night.

  “What are you doing!?” Windley scolded. “Knock it off, Merrin!”

  No, that being had Beau, and my number one priority was getting Beau back.

  “Goddess Luna! I think there’s been a mistake!” I waved my arms over my head.

  But at that instant, Windley gave up on the creatures pursuing Rafe and instead set his focus on me, tackling me to the ground at the edge of the wood. “Don’t draw attention to yourself, Merrin! If she finds out you’re the nemophilist, she may see you as a threat and exterminate you!”

  I struggled beneath him. “I have to try, Windley! She has Beau. That’s the reason we’re both out here, isn’t it? To save your queen!”

  “Argh!” Windley let out a snarl and pulled me to my feet. “Stop saying that! YOU are my queen, Merrin. You’ve always been my queen. How can you not see that?”

  My stomach dropped. “No, Windley, your queen is Beau.”

  There was something else coming to head, and this one was my fault.

  Irritation showed in Windley’s eyes, glossy, though I had never seen them gloss before. There was great emotion pent up inside of him and he threw it at me all at once.

  “She is my queen only due to circumstance! I should have been brought to your court eight years ago! I have asked countless times to be transferred there!” He clenched my shoulders. “Do you want to know the reason I came running to you the night she went missing? The reason I was so upset? It was because I knew how it would affect you, Merrin. I know you love her most, and I couldn’t bear the thought of you losing her! I left my post and rode to you because I needed to tell you myself! I didn’t want it to be anyone else!”

  I choked down the truth of it, lumpy though it may be—that this whole time his concern over Beau’s disappearance had been for my sake.

  I stepped back from him until I was butted against the scratchy bark of a mammoth tree. My eyes were moist, my body quivering. “Windley, don’t say that. Beau’s your queen. I can’t stand it when you act like I’m more important to you than she is.”

  “Why, Merrin?” He placed his fist on the bark over my head and leaned over me. “Why does it bother you?”

  Because then I would have to acknowledge that what Albie said was true. I would have to deal with the fact that—

  “I’m in love with you, Merrin,” he said as if releasing great frustration. “You have to know that, right? I’ve always been.”

  There was a battle forming on the other side of the tree line as cavalry members rode to join Rafe fighting the moon creatures, but all of that was muted—the sound of galloping hooves and slashing steel—as if everything else was happening in slowed time. As if we were the only ones in existence.

  “W-what?” I breathed.

 
“I am in love with you. Maddeningly so. I’ve been waiting for you to fall in love with me back. Waiting and waiting. It irks me to no avail that you don’t see it.” His expression softened as he looked at me with foreign tenderness. “I ache, day in and day out, knowing I will never have you. Please… let me have you.” He drew nearer. “Even if it’s just once.”

  Thumb beneath my jaw, fingers coiled around the base of my neck, Windley tipped my head back and kissed me—slowly, thoughtfully, intentionally, as if he was savoring the taste of me. Fire lit on my breath and craving befell my soul.

  When he pulled away, his expression was serious, his eyes earnest, as he waited for my reaction. But it was hard to speak with desire and elation intermingling inside my veins—with that familiar flutter hitting my spine.

  “Is that your power, making me feel like that?”

  I already knew the answer, for my lips weren’t numb. That writhing, fulfilling, soaring feeling was simply my own body admitting what I couldn’t say out loud.

  He pulled me tight to his chest and kissed the top of my head, speaking into my mane: “That’s just me. And if you feel it, it’s up to you to decide what to do with it.” His demeanor shifted. “Now, for fuck’s sake, don’t taunt the goddess, Merrin.”

  In his embrace, I felt valuable. There were many who cherished me, but not like this. This was desire. I took in the smell of his shirt and felt a singular tear roll off the tip of my chin because the thought of him loving me was a painful one.

  “I have to. For Beau.”

  He sighed. “I know. I just needed you to know. In case I don’t get another chance to tell you.” Hand to the small of my back, he pressed me against his body and kissed me on the cheek this time, saying into my ear, “I want you, and I would give up everything to have you, so… think about that and let me know, lion queen.”

  With that, he sprang out of the forest and back into the battle, leaving me against the tree feeling my own lips and biting the lingering taste of him.

  Yes, okay? It was my first kiss. People are aren’t generally so bold as to make advances on queens.

  But goddess. I wish you could have felt it.

  I had known it all along, Windley was in love with me, and he had been for some time, and I had been forcing it away, ignoring it, pretending not to notice because it would make me confront my own feelings and make decisions that would impact my reign.

  Now wasn’t the time for that, though. Not yet.

  Beyond the forest, the battle raged, the night lit by Luna’s glow. The remaining cavalry members had joined the fight, and Albie was among them, sporting his sword Faylebane. The number of silver enemies bred from Luna’s shimmering hair had multiplied until there was nearly one per guard.

  I burst from the woods, backed by a myriad of echoes stolen from Beau and bequeathed to me, determined to win the moon goddess’s attention. “The person you seek is not with us!” I shouted with all my might, willing the echoes to amplify my words.

  “My Queen!”

  I knew that grizzled voice, and it hit me with extreme guilt. Albie abandoned the others, riding toward me on his tired stag and offering a wrinkled hand. He was in battle mode, a fury of sweat on his brow and fire in his eyes. I let his knobbed fingers encompass my own, though I had no intention of letting him pull me onto his stag.

  “I’m sorry, Albie. I did it for Beau.”

  “None of that matters now, My Queen. Get on. I’ll take you to safety.”

  “No Albie.” I planted my feet. “I intend to stay and fight.”

  “Absolutely NOT, Merrin!” Never did he call me by my name alone. Proof of how much my actions hurt him. That expression he wore… I hated myself for putting it there. Fear, anger, disappointment, sorrow, worry. It filled the lines in his face, as though aging him.

  “I’m more powerful than you know. I’ve been keeping things from you, and for that I’m sorry.” I placed my free hand over his. “But please, trust that you’ve raised me to have clear judgement.”

  Albie brought out his tone reserved for when I was in the most trouble. “I know you love Queen Beau, but your actions are not befitting of a queen. You’re being selfish. Think of your people!”

  “I am thinking of them. And Beau’s people too. Let me go, Albie. I’m not afraid.”

  But I knew that he never would, so I squeezed his hand— “I love you, my knight.” And then I tore away from him, racing to the shores of the lake lit by the moon goddess’s light. With Albie riding after me, I crouched low and placed my hands into the water, calling forth the strength of the echoes.

  “Goddess Luna! I am Queen Merrin of the Crag, friend to Queen Beau of the Clearing, whom you have captured, companion of Rafe, whom you have summoned. I respectfully request an audience to negotiate the terms of Queen Beau’s release!”

  At last, I caught the giant’s attention. She turned, sending waves out over the lake and making several large bones tumble off the mount. “Another royal? What are you doing way out here, little one?” The goddess bent forward to inspect me, making the very ground quake beneath me and causing more bones to go splashing into the water, creating giant waves. I fell into the shores.

  And then I was scooped up by a giant sliver hand with soft, cold skin.

  “Ah, so you are the one who claimed the Nemophile’s Crown.”

  Chapter 24

  The Nemophile’s Crown

  The goddess lifted me high into the air, up over the battlefield, lake and mountain of bones. Even if she meant to do so slowly, our differing scale made it so that my stomach jostled from the sudden ascension.

  Below, the others shouted after me until I rose to heights their voices could no longer reach. The goddess held me before her face, mouth as big as a cave. Up close, her skin wasn’t only silver—it shimmered with bits of moondust. Or maybe frost.

  I felt like a treefrog or some other small woodland creature beside her oversized fingers. If she curled them, I would be crushed.

  “Yes,” she remarked. “The Crown fits you well. Maybe you will be the one to finally fulfill its purpose.”

  I understood that by Nemophile’s Crown, she meant the echoes. It seemed Windley’s bedtime story was true—that a crown had been cast from the heavens granting the one who wore it the ability to hear the wood. But what purpose did Luna mean?

  I intended to explore that further, but not before securing Beau’s release.

  I knelt in her chilly palm—my first time kneeling to another—mimicking so many who had knelt at my throne. “Goddess Luna, thank you for receiving me. I fear there has been a mistake, for the magician down there is not the one you seek.”

  “That is not true. I felt his feet within my soil. Rafael is there.”

  “No,” I asserted. “His name is Rafe. He’s one of my royal guards. As his queen, please allow me to appeal on his behalf.”

  Luna tipped her head as if studying me. “It matters not what his name is now, little royal. In another life, he pledged his loyalty to me, and I granted him great power, which he has passed on to every iteration of himself. But he has broken our promise. He now owes me a debt, and I mean to collect.”

  So it wasn’t Rafe who had warranted a hex being placed on his heart. It was one of his past selves who had made a deal with a goddess.

  That was shit luck if I had ever heard.

  “What did Rafael promise to give you in exchange for using your power?” I said.

  “The only thing a conjurer may give: his heart. Alas, I cannot claim it, for another now holds it, and I cannot take it until she releases it.”

  “You mean Beau—the girl below the lake?” I said.

  Luna nodded, sending fragments of light out of her hair. “Rafael breached the terms of our agreement; he was meant to reproduce but never to give his heart.”

  So Rafe was in trouble… because he had fallen in love?

  Below, he fought, unaware of what he had done. As he slashed at the moon-born fiends, he had no idea he was do
ing so to claim his own heart.

  “But humans don’t have knowledge of past lives,” I pled. “Is it fair to expect this iteration to uphold the terms of its ancestor? How can a person uphold a promise they don’t remember?”

  “His heart should have remembered even if his mind did not,” said Luna. “I warned him what would happen if he ever gave it to another, but he assured me that his heart was cold. I froze it for him, whenever he used my power, but it seems he found one that could melt it.”

  So Rafe’s ailment was a reminder of his pact, a reminder not to fall in love.

  But I was quickly finding that the tragic thing about love was that it didn’t adhere to rules.

  “That’s why you took Beau? To lure him here? Why not just take Rafe himself?”

  Through my interrogation, Luna watched the battle below, following Rafe with her massive pale eyes.

  “I did not mean to take the human girl. Alas, I can only materialize where my body fell. I sent my moonbeams to collect him, but his scent was in her, her heart stained with his, and they brought her to me instead. I kept her knowing he would come to retrieve her.”

  So all this time, Beau was merely a casualty in an ancient pact gone awry. But there was one thing that didn’t make sense about that.

  “If you didn’t mean to take Beau, then why did you take her echoes?” I said. “Er, her Nemophile’s Crown.”

  “That was not my doing.” Luna shook her hair again. “The human girl cast aside the Crown herself.”

  But Beau had been distraught over losing her abilities. I knew her tears, and those were real. “Beau wouldn’t have done that on purpose.”

  “I do not believe it was intentional,” said Luna. “Her body cast it aside once she gained the power of a conjurer, for a conjurer may not wear the Nemophile’s Crown.”

  I wasn’t following. “You mean a conjurer like Rafe? But Beau isn’t a magician.”

  And then the goddess, formed from a giant’s skeleton and brought to life by the moon, said something more surprising than anything else I had heard and seen so far: