by J. A. Curtis
“Fine,” I said, making my voice sound resigned. “I will answer your questions.”
Nuada smiled darkly. “This time we will do things a little different.”
A creature emerged from the forest, slinking forward across the long grass. My heart sank into my stomach.
“Do you know what my faerie guardian is called?” Nuada asked.
I pretended not to be impressed. “Fluffy?”
“Anything but,” Nuada said. “The manticore is a legendary beast. With three rows of sharp teeth, it can swallow its prey whole. But of most interest to us tonight is the tail of the manticore.”
So Nuada hadn’t lost her connection to her faerie guardian when my faerie guardian had taken her arm. How had she hidden it all this time? My eyes fell to her good hand. No emerald green ring lay on her finger.
The manticore raised its tail, long and scorpion-like, with a tuft of spikes on the end. It prowled forward, crouching low like an angry predator ready to pounce on its prey. I wanted to shriek and run away, but there was no way I’d outrun this agile beast.
“The tail of the manticore holds poison-tipped spikes. It does little in a battle with actual faerie guardians since the creatures draw their life force from the faeries themselves. However, to any living creature, like a faerie for instance, getting pricked with even one of these poison spikes is instantly lethal.”
The manticore stopped right in front of me, its humanoid face dropping to my eye level. It bore its massive teeth at me. In its mouth, I saw three rows of horribly sharp long teeth. The face was set back in a huge red mane that stood out like quills around its face. Then it turned and rubbed its gigantic body up against me, its skin rough and scaly. The massive tail slid under my chin, and the image of the poison spikes touching my skin caused me to stagger back so quickly that I fell backward onto the ground.
Nuada sheathed her sword. She didn’t need it anymore with me cowering on the ground and her precious manticore standing over me.
“You should understand, Mina, I don’t like doing things this way. I’d prefer you just give me the information I want without having to put you and your friends through all this.”
“Then put your cat away, and l will tell you what you want to know,” I said, angry she assumed her words made anything better.
“That is not how things will go tonight,” Nuada said. “You have proven that you are quite capable of revealing and holding information to your favor. So, we have invited a couple of your friends here to help persuade you to be more open.”
The manticore strolled away from me, headed toward Arius and Dramian.
“So here is how it is going to work,” Nuada said. “Two questions, two lives. You give me satisfactory answers to both questions, both Dramian and Arius live. You don’t, then my manticore will cause your friends to die.”
“What?” Iris spoke up. “That’s not what you told me. You said I’d get to rule over my brothers, that-that I would get to be a leader. You said nothing about killing them.”
“Don’t worry. You will get your chance to rule your brothers,” Nuada said, “because I am sure Mina will give me what I want. She wouldn’t dare risk the lives of her precious Dramian and Arius.”
I rose to my knees and looked over at Dramian and Arius, lying bound and unconscious on the ground. They had no clue I now held the power of life and death over them. If I said the wrong thing, they wouldn’t wake up. The words of the domovye now hung over me like a dark omen. Tonight, you are the harbinger of death.
“Nuada,” I said, trying to make my voice sound calm. “You don’t have to do this. Release them, let’s go back to the manor, we will have a reasonable conversation—”
“First question,” Nuada said.
I held up a hand in desperation. “Wait! Please wait a minute before we start. What if I don’t know the answer to your questions? What if I haven’t seen what you want me to know yet?”
“Let’s hope that you have,” Nuada said without emotion. “First question.”
“How about you make them fall if I don’t know the answer? Then I can try to find the answer to your questions, and if I don’t find the answers in a satisfactory amount of time, or I’m trying to deceive you, then you can kill them,” I tried to negotiate.
“I wouldn’t believe for a second that the great General Jazrael would betray her queen over a couple of fallen faeries. No, we have waited long enough. Delaying would only give you time to devise some means of escape or rescue. And with your ability to see the past... well, let’s just say you are smarter than you look.”
“Enough of your attempts to talk your way out. Keep talking, and I will end one of them right now. Tonight, we will have answers,” Margus said from behind.
I glanced at Iris. He seemed uncertain and pale. I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t the one who had gotten me into this. The evening was cool, but sweat rolled down my back. I knelt there, shivering uncontrollably.
“First question,” Nuada said. “Where is the scepter of Queen Morrigan?”
The what? “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Be exact, Mina, or I’m going to think you are trying to trick me.”
My mind whirled as my anxiety rose. Someone should call the police right about now. The thought of losing Arius was unbearable. Dramian didn’t deserve this either. Even though Nuada claimed indifference, she knew exactly who to threaten to make the situation painfully personal.
“I don’t know what the scepter of Queen Morrigan is.”
“I asked where.”
“Fine. I don’t know what the scepter of Queen Morrigan is, and I don’t know where the stupid scepter is located.”
“The stupid scepter?”
“The scepter of Queen Morrigan—the scepter of Queen Morrigan—I don’t know where the scepter of Queen Morrigan is at, okay? I’ve never seen the scepter of Queen Morrigan, I’ve never had a vision about the scepter of Queen Morrigan. Satisfied?”
“You’re trying too hard.”
“It’s the truth!” I gasped. “You think I’d risk their lives over a stupid scepter?”
“If you understood its true capacity, then yes, you would say whatever you could to deceive me,” Nuada said. The manticore raised its tail over its head like a scorpion ready to strike. Its spikes quivered, pointed toward Dramian and Arius.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked. “I told you the truth! You are going to kill them even when I tell the truth? Then what is the point of me answering your questions? Nuada, don’t do this!”
I rose to my feet, my hands grasping at the ends of my hair.
The manticore lowered its tail. A small manic laugh bubbled up from deep within me.
“Alright, Mina, I will humor you for one more minute. See a vision. Tell me what I want to know.”
I stared at her, my eyes blank. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“These are the memories of the general herself. They must be the easiest to access. Stop playing dumb and try.”
“I can’t force my visions, Nuada. I’ve tried.”
“Lives are on the line, Mina. Try harder.”
Harder. Yes, right. I tried to think, but my brain kept picturing tiny poisonous quills shooting into Dramian and Arius, ending their lives for good. I closed my eyes. Have a vision. Have a vision, please.
Nothing.
A thousand responses passed through my mind, but I couldn’t focus enough to lay hold on even one. I kept worrying about saying the wrong thing. But time was passing, and Nuada was waiting. I had to say something. Say something, Mina.
“I—I can’t.”
Nuada pressed her lips, regarding me. The manticore’s tail rose.
“I think we will start with Dramian,” she said.
“No!” I shouted. “No, Nuada! Please!”
Without a conscious effort, my faerie guardian came to life. The large griffin dropped from th
e sky and landed on top of the manticore, only seconds after it released its poison-tipped spikes toward Dramian.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Iris threw himself in front of Dramian. The manticore quills embedded into his arm with a sickly thud, thud, thud. His body spasmed. He looked to me, mouth slack, like he was about to say something—then toppled sideways onto the ground. The yellowish glow of the lanterns reflected in lifeless eyes.
Nuada had dropped to her knees in response to my attack. The manticore twisted and tried to strike my griffin with its massive paws from beneath. The two beasts struggled, blocking my view of Dramian and Iris. A coldness gripped me, and a weight pressed in my stomach. I ran around the beasts, caring little about their raging battle.
“Iris.” I dropped next to his still form. With trembling fingers, I reached out and pulled his eyelids shut.
A roar came from behind, indicating that Margus’s wyvern had entered the fight. A deep pain sliced down my back. All strength left me, and I fell to the earth next to Iris’s body. The wyvern clamped its huge jaws onto my griffin’s back and tore it off the manticore. The hold was deep and painful. I looked up into the fading light of the evening. I expected to fall at any moment. If I fell, Dramian and Arius would be safe. No one else would die tonight because of me. I allowed my body to relax. If this would save them, then so be it.
Nuada stood over me. She paused as she took in the scene with Iris and the manticore quills. Then she reached down, latched onto the back of my leather armor and dragged me several feet away before releasing me.
“You will not fall tonight, Mina,” she said. “You are much too valuable to us. Call back your faerie guardian.”
The wyvern released my griffin. I considered attacking again. If I kept attacking, then they would have to fight, and I’d force them to make me fall. Then again, there were two of them, and I could only attack one monster at a time. I couldn’t stop them from killing Dramian or Arius if they punished me for not doing what they wanted me to do.
I held out my left arm, and the griffin melted onto it.
“Thanks to Iris, we can try this again,” Nuada said.
Iris was dead. Not just fallen but gone for good. I lay on the ground, spent. Tears seeped down the sides of my face and into my hair. I don’t know, I don’t know, lady! Leave me alone, I screamed in my head. But the fact I had no clue what she was talking about didn’t even matter. So, the torture would start again. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t even come up with a convincing deception, not under this pressure. It didn’t matter what I said. Perhaps I should accept the inevitable. All three brothers of Ettemarch would die tonight, and no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to stop it.
My fingers dug into the dirt. No, I had to try. If I gave up, then they would die for sure. Think again, Mina. Try to be specific.
“I’m not wasteful. Losing faerie lives is tragic. No use wasting more faerie lives on the answer to something you do not yet know.”
I wished I felt relieved. It didn’t even matter if I could answer or not. Unless I gave her exactly what she wanted, she’d kill them. Perhaps she had always planned on killing one brother so she could prove she was serious and to make me vulnerable.
“Shall we move on? Question number two. Where is the faerie Queen Morrigan?”
I knew the question was coming. What’s more, I knew the answer to this one. What if I tried to trick Nuada, and she saw through it, and I ended up getting someone else killed?
The manticore stepped over Arius, its large clawed paws on either side of his body. It glared at me, almost smiling with that humanesque face. Then slowly it bent down and sent a long slender pronged tongue across Arius’s face. A trembling of fear and rage ran through my body.
“New love,” Nuada said. The manticore stepped over to Dramian and did the same to him. “Old love. Both unique, both beautiful. You wouldn’t risk losing that, losing them permanently, all for some queen you have never met, would you, Mina?”
Of all my responsibilities, protector was the most important. This was the faerie queen. What were the faeries without their ultimate leader? I had taken it upon myself to hide her and myself for a reason, which meant she must have been in dire danger before. Whatever reason they wanted to find the queen, it wasn’t so they could restore her to her original position of power. At best, they wanted to convince her to join them in whatever their ultimate scheme was. At worst, they wanted her dead.
Arius would tell me to sacrifice their lives to protect the queen. I knew that for sure. As for Dramian, I didn’t know what he would want, but he also had been trying to find her as hard as Arius and the rest of the faeries. Still, knowing they would both probably be willing to lay down their lives for the queen didn’t make my decision any easier. I wasn’t sure that I was willing to make that sacrifice.
“We are waiting,” Margus growled.
“I know where she is,” I said. “I switched her with a human baby at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane.”
“That’s close to where you grew up,” Nuada said, sounding suspicious.
I nodded, calm for the first time. “Before I fell, I directed Dramian to place me at a hospital in a nearby town, so we wouldn’t be far from each other. I didn’t want the same hospital because I feared that would be too easily traceable. But I hoped that somehow we would find each other.”
“Keep going,” Nuada said, considering my story. Everything I said had been completely honest.
“Her name is Chelsea, and she lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. At least that is where she lived the last time I saw her.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
I hesitated, not wanting to be too helpful.
“The truth,” Nuada warned.
I looked at Dramian and Arius. Iris’s skin looked unnaturally pale, otherwise he might have just been lying there, unconscious like his brothers. But he had given the ultimate sacrifice. I closed my eyes.
“I have seen Queen Morrigan, in a house, in a bedroom,” I confessed. “I don’t know the exact address, but it is near a park where I used to play soccer.”
“In a bedroom? It wasn’t the Queen’s bedroom? Inside the Queen’s house?”
“It’s not like I could ask her,” I snapped. “I saw her, in a house, in a bedroom. I assume ninety-nine percent of the time when you see someone in a bedroom, it’s their room. I’m trying to be accurate here for their sake.” I motioned toward Arius and Dramian.
“Fair enough. You will take us there,” Nuada said. “Now. Leave your sword.” She turned to Margus. “Bring Arius but leave Dramian. We don’t want them outnumbering us should they awaken.”
She looked to me. “Congratulations, Mina. You have saved both brothers’ lives for now. We will bring Arius along as insurance. But be aware, if we find out you are trying to trick us, both brothers’ lives will be forfeit—Arius in the moment the treachery is discovered and Dramian upon our return.”
Margus picked up Arius and slung him over the wyvern’s back and then climbed up behind him, while Nuada climbed onto her manticore, its bat-like wings flapping in anticipation.
“Lead the way, General,” Margus said.
I lifted my left arm, and my faerie guardian appeared. Regal and majestic, it had done everything it could to protect the faerie queen as if it knew deep down who I was before I even knew myself. The griffin lowered its head and crouched down. I would find out if I was the great General or merely an inept betrayer. I took a deep breath and climbed onto the griffin’s back.
“Let’s go,” I said.
My griffin stretched its wings and then took a running start before soaring into the sky. Margus and Nuada kept pace, Margus and his wyvern flying on my left and Nuada with her manticore on my right. I glanced down once at the glen and saw the small forms of Dramian and Iris lying next to each other in the dirt. What would Dramian think when he woke up and found his brother dead? What would he do? I tore my eyes from the scene and glanced over at Arius r
iding on the wyvern’s back, and my chest tightened. Right now, I had more important things to worry about.
26
The Queen and the General
“Let people underestimate you, but don’t underestimate yourself.”
I GLANCED OVER AT ARIUS slung over the wyvern, hands and feet bound. I wished he’d awaken. I envied Earlana’s ability. If I could communicate to people’s minds instead of being able to see the past, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Don’t worry, Arius, I thought. I will get you out of this. I won’t let them hurt you.
“You have the rowan leaves?” Nuada asked.
Margus nodded and patted a small drawstring bag tied to his waist. “I’m not lighting these things in the air. We’ll have to land.”
We landed in a small grove of trees. Margus dismounted and pulled out a small wooden cup, a couple of leaves, a packet of matches, and a cloth. He shoved the leaves in the cup and lit the match.
“The smell of burning rowan leaves will knock a faerie out for several hours,” Nuada said to me. “Hold your breath.”
I plugged my nose. As if on cue, Arius’s eyes began to open, but he didn’t have even a moment to focus on anything before Margus was shoving the burning leaves under his nose. Margus held a cloth over his own face. Arius was back out in an instant, and Margus dumped the burning leaves into the grass, grinding them out with his heel.
Margus climbed back on his wyvern and we rose back into the air.
“When we get there, I want to be the one who goes with Jazrael to find the queen,” Margus said.
Nuada shook her head. “It is only a scouting trip, Margus, and I am better at telling when Mina is being deceptive.”
“But I have been waiting for this for fifteen years,” Margus said.
“Exactly. I don’t have a score to settle,” Nuada said.