by Eva Brandt
In any case, now was not the time to think about such things. I’d mend my relationship with Tarasia eventually, when we didn’t have to worry about our people suffering or even dying due to our negligence. In the meantime, I would just have to hope Tarasia would prioritize her citizens over her irrational concern for me.
Once I decided on an approach, the words flowed easily from my quill.
“Dearest Tarasia,
I would like to start this letter by assuring you once again that Cassia is fine and already making progress in fixing the damage done to Tou Cheimóna. I know you wanted to visit her as well, but for the moment, rest at ease and know that she is unharmed and in good hands. Her new dragons are truly wonderful individuals and care about her very much.
I have spotted no sign of Snegurka in Tis Ánoixis. However, it seems her escape has drawn some unexpected attention. Earlier today, I ran into three vampires in The Forest of Purity. They originally claimed to have been stranded here while making their way to Tír na nÓg, but upon a more thorough investigation, I learned their leader sensed a surge of necromantic energy in Tou Cheimóna and sent them to look into it.
At this time, they do not seem to pose a threat, and they claim they do not have any foul intentions toward Chronikos. They’ve also said they are the only group handling this task. They couldn’t have lied to me, of course, but I believe it would still be a good idea to tighten our borders a little and make sure other intruders do not approach.
I will be speaking with the vampires later, once they recover a little from the side-effects of my questioning. I will keep you posted if I learn any other information regarding this issue.
May your soul be eternally young.
With much affection,
Eranthe.”
Satisfied with the missive, I set it aside without sealing it in an envelope. I wrote similar letters to Pandora and Cassia, leaving some room at the end for possible additions. I wanted to wait until Upakaruda returned with their report so that I could add whatever information they brought from the garrisons to the letters.
I had just finished the final missive when a leprechaun popped up by my side in a flurry of gold dust and four-leaved clovers. I took one look at her messy green coat and torn top hat and knew something was very wrong. “What is it, Maeven?”
The leprechaun wrung her hands in clear agitation. “It is... It is one of your guests, Your Majesty. He is awake, and we’re having some trouble dealing with him.”
What? One of the vampires had woken up already? I’d expected the undead nature of my visitors to lower the effectiveness of the sleep nectar, but this was a little ridiculous. It had been less than half an hour since I’d used my powers on them. Clearly, I had underestimated them a bit.
Oh, well. Perhaps this was for the best. Like I had told May, I did want to have a real, honest conversation with the vampires, and the sooner I could clear things up, the better.
“Do not fret, Maeven,” I told my distraught leprechaun as I stood from my chair. “All will be well.”
As I left my quarters and headed toward the guest wing, a small flutter of anxiousness pooled in my belly. I wondered if, throughout this second meeting, I’d get the chance to ask them the questions I had held back during my interrogation.
Why had they looked at me the way they had? Why had they trusted me, despite being aware that I could be their enemy?
Why had it been both so easy and so difficult for me to reach out and touch them like I had?
Perhaps I should have asked one of my sisters that in the letters I’d just written. No, it was better not to. I couldn’t always rely on their advice, no matter how useful it might be. This was one issue I needed to understand on my own, and whatever it meant, I’d make sense of it.
* * *
Cezar
Few people realized it, but true undead didn’t actually sleep. Our equivalent to a living being’s slumber was a form of hibernation in which ninety-nine percent of the functions of the body shut down. The other option we had, and which most vampires used on a regular basis, was more like meditation than sleep.
It was actually a little frustrating, since more than once, I had found myself wishing that I could get some shut-eye without having to lie in bed for three hours, counting skeletons. However, it did occasionally come in handy, since it meant sleep-inducing enchantments didn’t have much of an effect on us.
When I woke up, there was no in-between moment of confusion, no mild haze or adjustment period. As soon as I opened my eyes, I remembered everything that had happened, became fully aware of my position and started working on a solution to my problem.
Surprisingly, I was lying on a soft bed, immobilized with invisible restraints, but still comfortable. Odder still, I hadn’t been placed in a cell or anything like that. Instead, I appeared to be in an actual guest room, complete with wide, open windows, beautifully engraved furniture and fluffy carpets. This wasn’t something I’d expected, but I didn’t let the apparent kindness distract me. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Queen Eiar was dangerous and clearly no friend of The Voievodat, and I could not underestimate her again. Besides, I might not be in a cell, but I was still bound.
Adrian and Baltasar were nowhere to be seen. What had she done with them? Were they still alive? Grand Lich help me, I hoped so. We might always bitch and moan about how boring our eternal existences were, but we didn’t actually want to die. I could not imagine spending the rest of my life without them by my side.
I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. If Queen Eiar had wanted us dead, she wouldn’t have left me alive either. Besides, she was presumably a ruler who embodied spring, rebirth, and life. She might have fooled us and drugged us, but it seemed unlikely that she’d go for lethal punishments so quickly.
The natural conclusion was that I could still find my friends and get out of here in one piece. But to do that, I first needed to free myself.
I took advantage of the fact that the queen seemed to have left me unguarded to focus on one of my less common skills. I was not a huge fan of shape-shifting into a bat. Shrinking into the much smaller form was uncomfortable and confusing, and it did not help that I’d yet to master echolocation. Still, it was my best bet, since the change in body mass and the nature of the magic used in the process threw off even the tightest trapping enchantment.
I closed my eyes and focused on trying to remember the lessons my father had so painstakingly hammered into my head. It would have been easier had something sharp not poked me in the stomach.
“Please don’t try to escape,” an unidentified male voice told me. “If you do, we will be forced to take steps.”
I opened my eyes, only to find that while I had been attempting to transform into a bat, two guards had approached the bed. So tall their heads almost reached the ceiling, they must’ve already been in the room when I’d woken up. I just hadn’t noticed them due to the fact that their unique look made them blend in with the furniture. Apparently, Queen Eiar had more tree demons in her service than the one we’d originally met, and they were just as inconspicuous as her advisor. Great.
Well, let it not be said that I would give up so quickly, just because yet another obstacle had appeared in my path. “Take steps?” I repeated, still working on pushing my body through the shift. “Is that supposed to be a threat? I’m not so easy to intimidate, you know.”
“We did not expect you to be,” one of the trees replied, his voice level and calm. “And it is not a threat. It is simply a description of your situation and our orders.”
It was a threat, but I had no intention of debating semantics with a tree demon. My irritation with them provided me with enough incentive to force my humanoid form into the far smaller, bat shape. Just like I had expected, the spell that had kept me trapped could not adjust to the massive difference in size. Before the tree demons could figure out what was going on, I had broken free from my bindings.
&nbs
p; My hulking guards made a grab for me, but while they might have been large and powerful, they were also very slow and couldn’t hope to catch me while I was in this form. I knew better than to underestimate them, though. They likely had other powers beyond brute strength, and once they recovered from their shock, they might attempt to use said skills on me.
I didn’t give them the chance. I flew out of their reach, toward the door. I couldn’t open it in my current state, of course, but I didn’t need to. The bat form had served its purpose and I intended to shift back and continue my escape plan/rescue mission in my regular, humanoid shape.
Before I could go through with my idea, the door opened from the other side, and a woman I did not recognize entered the room. She was dressed in a loose green gown that reminded me a little of Queen Eiar. The glowing wings on her back were new and made her look similar to the sprites and fairies I’d had so much trouble with in Tír na nÓg. The resemblance instantly put me on guard, and it didn’t take long for my fears to be proven right.
Her gaze went to the now empty bed and the tree demons still standing next to us. “What in the world is...” She trailed off when she caught sight of my small, black form. “You!” she spat. “Get back here!”
Yeah, that was not going to happen. The vicious glow in her eyes made it clear that she would be even less friendly to me than the queen, and I didn’t have time to fight her. I needed to find Adrian and Baltasar before my guards fully regrouped and tried to use my friends against me.
I flew past her, into the spacious corridor beyond. Unfortunately, she was much faster than the tree demons and caught up with me. Her magic jerked me down with such force I tumbled from the air and landed right on top of her.
I ended up getting tangled in her long, green hair, flailing and clawing at her face in a desperate attempt to escape. It would have perhaps been more practical to shift into my humanoid form, but I didn’t have the proper concentration to do it during such a battle. If I got distracted, even by something so important, the damn bitch would permanently immobilize me.
An explosion of almost overwhelming magic erupted over me, shoving me back, away from the woman. It didn’t hurt me too seriously, but since I had been so wrapped up in her hair, it tore off a good chunk of her locks. I shook off the mild daze induced by the blow just in time to see her snarling, clutching her now-bleeding scalp. “Why you little... I’ll make you regret this.”
I’d regretted plenty of things in my undead life, but I had a feeling this would not be one of them. Besides, the loss of her hair wasn’t my fault. She’d been the one who’d initiated the attack and had first tried to capture me, and then pushed me away. She was only reaping what she had sown.
I didn’t get the chance to enjoy her misfortune for too long. As expected, the noise we had been making alerted the rest of the palace staff. The tree demon guards finally dragged their wooden asses out of the bedchamber that had served as my cell, and several others emerged from the nearby rooms. A group of tiny creatures dressed in green coats joined them, glowering at me just as fiercely as the sprite-like woman. I identified them as leprechauns and knew that, despite their unremarkable appearance, they could still pose a threat.
“The captive is escaping,” one of them shouted. “Get him!”
What followed could have only been described as madness and chaos. Vines erupted from the bodies of the tree demons, thicker than the entirety of my bat form. The sprite’s eyes started to glow once again, the furious beating of her wings summoning a harsh, biting wind that threatened to sweep me away. The leprechauns were not idle either, coming together like a military unit to target me with their magic.
I would have probably not had a chance to fight them, not while still using the bat form, at least, but as it so happened, the corridor didn’t have enough room for everyone who had decided to catch me. It might have been spacious, but its size couldn’t accommodate several tree demons, one angry sprite—or whatever she was—and at least a dozen infuriated leprechauns.
Their powers clashed, the vines of each individual tree demon tangling so badly three of them fell over. Meanwhile, the wind the sprite had created made the leprechauns float and dance in the air like demented revenants. The little creatures would have been better off holding back, but instead, they lashed out, causing an avalanche of gold dust, shoes, and four-leaved clovers to explode all around us.
It was unclear who they were actually targeting, but if their intention was still to capture me, they almost succeeded. I came very close to being knocked out by one of their shoes. How undignified.
I didn’t know what would have happened had the entire scene not been interrupted by a familiar, soft voice. “What is going on here? What are you all doing?”
It was as if the speaker had cast a sudden spell on everyone in the corridor. The tree demons went so still I could no longer distinguish the fact that they were alive. The sprite’s wings stopped beating and she landed on her ass in a heap. The leprechauns froze mid-enchantment, causing the various objects they had been creating to fall on top of their heads.
As for me, I took shameless advantage of my smallish, unremarkable form to observe the new arrival once again. Despite knowing how badly I’d underestimated Queen Eiar during our first meeting, I couldn’t help but find her just as beautiful and alluring now as I had when she’d been bathing nude in the lake.
When none of those present answered her first inquiry, Queen Eiar tried again. “Well? Is no one capable of providing an explanation?”
The mild reprimand in the latter question finally snapped the sprite out of her trance. “Your Majesty, I most humbly apologize for this incident. We were trying to capture the fugitive and things got a little out of hand.”
“I believe that would be the understatement of the millennium, March,” Queen Eiar said, glancing around with a displeased frown. She let out a low sigh and shook her head. “I specifically told you that I did not believe our undead guests are our foes. What could have possessed you to go to such lengths?”
Well, that was news to me. Queen Eiar didn’t think we were her enemies. Then why had I woken up bound? This was so confusing.
“I did my best to accommodate your request,” the sprite now identified as March answered, “but we could not allow the captive to escape.”
If that comment was supposed to be helpful, it did not work. Queen Eiar’s frown deepened. “It was not a request, March,” she said. “In any case, I can understand your point of view. Why don’t you all clean up here and fix the damage done to the furniture? We will discuss the issue again later.”
Without waiting for a reply from March, Queen Eiar turned toward me. “Lord Cezar, come with me. I assume you want to see your friends.”
I didn’t know what I found more surprising, the fact that she’d taken all this in stride, her desire to defend me, or her ability to recognize me in this form. Even assuming that she had realized the tiny bat hovering nearby was one of her captives, nothing about my shape suggested my true identity.
As strange as I found the whole thing, I had no choice but to follow her invitation. I did want to see Adrian and Baltasar, and it was clear now that I would not manage to do it through forceful measures.
Therefore, when the queen pushed past her subordinates and entered one of the other rooms, I flew after her. Who knew? Maybe it was not too late to salvage something out of this mess.
Four
Awakenings
Baltasar
When I awoke, the first thing I took note of was the fact that I felt very cold. I groaned and instinctively tried to reach for my arms, to rub some heat into them. My limbs were uncooperative, and it was only then that my head completely cleared and I realized what had happened.
Right, we’d been taken captive by the mysterious queen who wielded the powers of spring. She’d used some kind of spell to force the truth out of us and later put us to sleep.
How unfortunate. Oh, well. At least I could get some well-d
eserved rest while I was here. I’d never been all that interested in fulfilling my so-called mission anyway.
I closed my eyes again, fully intending to let myself drift back into slumber. It would have been easier if not for the ruckus that erupted right outside my door. It reminded me of the time six fledglings from my coven had accidentally fed on tainted blood and ended up having some pretty bad hallucinations because of it. The ensuing battle was still a memorable tale, despite all the years that had passed since then.
It was also not an episode I wanted to repeat, especially not today. If I could have, I would have covered my head with a pillow, but the bindings that kept me trapped prevented me from using such a simple solution. What a disaster.
I was debating the merits of knocking myself out through more violent methods when the noise outside suddenly stopped. I’d have felt grateful for it had I not had a sudden feeling that something important was about to happen.
My skin started tingling with anticipation, and something buried deep inside me stirred, sluggishly trying to awaken from its slumber. I grimaced in discomfort, trying to shake off the annoying sensation. I told myself that I really had no desire to leave this bed or even move a muscle, but I was no longer so sure I believed that.
Before I could make a decision on how to approach my predicament, the door opened, and two familiar figures entered the room. The first was the same woman whose beauty and deceptive smiles had landed me in this mess, to begin with. The second was not humanoid at all, but rather, a bat. I instantly recognized him as Cezar.
“Wonderful,” the queen said without preamble. “You’re awake. I hope you haven’t been too uncomfortable.”