The Last Faerie Queen

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “You are perfect,” Kylie said, sniffing quietly. Holding our hands.

  “No,” Alexia said. “But I am loved. That’s what matters. I’m loved, and I can kick some faerie ass. So I’ll get by.”

  “We all will,” I said, my eyes drifting toward the window. Darkness was rising there, warning us of an arrival.

  No, not warning. Just telling, I thought, but my heart felt heavy in my chest. I couldn’t explain it.

  “She’s here,” I said. “I’ll bring her up, and we can make plans. For dinner tonight,” I added when Kylie’s eyes went wide. Probably it was too soon to be making other plans. Plans meant moving on, and Kylie needed to stay in this moment for a while. That was all right. We’d stay here with her.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. Out of the room I went, down the twisting stairs, into the entryway.

  She was here. She was here. I couldn’t wait to pull her into my arms. I’d tell her I was sorry until she forgave me, kiss her until she was dizzy with love.

  I pulled open the doors. And there she was, the Lady of Darkness, inky black swirls circling her arms like jewelry. Beautiful and terrible and wild.

  But it wasn’t Elora who reached out for me with porcelain skin. Black dress flowing around her. Wings shooting out of her back.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” the Dark Lady said.

  “How is that possible?” I asked, staggering backward. “We only just met … ”

  To my surprise, she grinned. Her teeth slipped past her lips, sharp as a vampire’s and stained on the ends. “And yet you remind me of someone I knew long ago.”

  How long ago? I thought. Seventeen years? Eighteen? But I didn’t say it. I kept one bullet in the chamber of my mind. It was the only bullet I had left. Even now, I was afraid it wouldn’t wound her enough. With no witnesses, how much power did a secret hold? I could tell her, and she could bury me.

  The end.

  “It isn’t fair to punish me for what someone else did,” I said finally, taking another step toward the stairs. Like I stood a chance against her. Like I could just run.

  Already she was smiling down at me, so smug with herself. “I am not punishing you for what others have done. I am punishing you for what you have done.”

  “And what, exactly, is that?”

  For a second, her smile slipped. I knew what she was thinking, even if she wouldn’t say it. And I couldn’t convince her that she was wrong. Couldn’t convince her I hadn’t sullied the princess.

  “Fine, don’t say it,” I spat. “But if I’m going to be punished, I should at least get to stand trial. Plead my case. Call witnesses.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Her teeth cut into her lips as she said, “There will be no witnesses. Now, come.”

  She tugged on me, the way a toddler tugs on a puppy’s leash. She wasn’t even touching me—oh, she wouldn’t deign to do that. Still, she pulled, her darkness wrapping around my neck, yanking me through the doors, along the path to the Unseelie cliffs. No forest led gradually down the mountain here; instead, there was a steep drop-off, with an ocean spreading out far below.

  Even the water was black.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked as we neared the edge. Down below, that water was not smooth and inviting. Sharp rocks jutted up to impale me. To grind my bones to dust.

  “A little experiment.” The Dark Lady grinned. Her lips were ruby red, matching the strands that laced through her ebony hair. “I want to know if a mortal with faerie wings can fly.”

  “It’s glamour,” I lied.

  “Once upon a time, I would’ve believed that,” she said, forcing me closer to the edge. “I would have seen what I wanted to see. But now—”

  “Oh, sure. You’re not punishing me for past transgressions at all. Keep telling yourself that. Keep lying.”

  “Faeries do not lie.”

  “Maybe not to me. But to themselves … ”

  “One flick of the wrist, boy, and I could end your life.” She slid toward me, like ink sliding through water. Like a knife sliding into a body. “And even then, I would be granting you a mercy.” Her black eyes shifted to the cliffs. “Much more delicious would be to tear you limb from limb—”

  “Blah, blah, blah, and have a tea party with my blood. Dance on my bones. To be honest, I’m over it.”

  She scoffed. “You’re over it? He’s over it!” she announced to the sky, to the darkness that was so much a part of her. “And why is that?”

  “Because you haven’t killed me yet, which means you want something.”

  Her body tensed. Behind her, I saw a glimpse of movement. A flash of red coming up the hill. My heart leapt. Then it crashed. I couldn’t expect Elora to risk her life for me this time.

  I would go down swinging, and Elora would survive.

  “You want to know what I know,” I told the Queen, or the fallen Queen, as Elora approached. On soft feet she ran, skirt clutched in her fists. Her mother didn’t hear her. I didn’t hear her.

  But I caught her eyes, and tried to say I’m sorry without words. I’m sorry I rejected you. I’m sorry I didn’t handle things better. I’m sorry it had to end this way, before I got to tell you the truth: That one second with you was better than seventeen years alone, and I’ve lived, really lived, through knowing you. Through loving you.

  I stepped up to the Dark Lady, and she stepped back in surprise. It was beautiful. “You want to know who told me your secret, and who I told. But you’re too late.”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t stop me from telling Elora.”

  The Queen shook her head, her eyes wide in desperation. Her hair was writhing like a nest of snakes. “No, please. It cannot be true.”

  Elora had reached the summit. Her eyes were so bright, and I knew she would do anything to save me. She’d go up against the one faerie she knew she couldn’t beat. Hadn’t she enlisted the help of the Seelie Queen to avoid this? Now, here, she would die for me.

  Unless I stopped it.

  When the Dark Lady said, “When did you tell her?” I actually smiled.

  “Now,” I said, and turned to the love of my life. “Your father was a human.”

  Elora gasped.

  The Dark Lady shrieked, lashing out, and then I was flying. In spite of the agony, I tried to flap my wings. But wings don’t simply work because you want them to, and this wasn’t a fairy tale.

  Pain shot through my back, knocking the breath from me. I reached out, but Elora was too far away.

  I fell, and no one caught me.

  46

  ElorA

  I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I dove, and together we fell. Soon, we’d be splayed across the rocks. The gulls would feast on our entrails. The rocks would feast on our blood, and that blood would slip into the sea, feeding it.

  No.

  In spite of logic, I dove. In spite of danger, I opened my wings. I knew they were much too new, much too fragile, to carry us back to the cliffs. I’d be lucky to even reach him before the end.

  But I did. Halfway down the cliffs, I wrapped my arms around his waist and tried to lift him with my newly budding wings. He was too heavy. We were too heavy, together, and if I hoped to survive, I would have to let him slip through my hands. But survival without love seemed too heavy a cost, and besides, what was the point of being a faerie if I couldn’t believe in magic?

  I believe, I thought, and felt more foolish than I’d ever felt in my life. I believe in magic. I believe in love.

  But I do not believe I have the power to carry us up to the cliffs, I admitted, and that’s when the answer came for me. I did not have to carry us up. I only had to slow us down enough to keep from crashing against the rocks.

  I flapped my wings. The pain came sharp and fast. But even screaming, even enduring this agony, I fou
ght to survive.

  I fought to save the mortal’s life.

  His arms wrapped around me, and he buried his face in my hair. He whispered, “Let go. It’s okay.”

  Or, I thought he did. But the wind was rushing fast, and I could not hear him very well. Still, I could feel him, and it was enough.

  I held fast.

  My body shrieked, and yet, I held on to him. My lungs ached, and I thought of darkness. Of peace. Still, I flapped my wings, slowing our descent. When we came upon the rocks, we crashed against them, skin tearing and blood spilling, but no bones broke. The ocean claimed us, pulling us into the depths, and together we sank.

  Together we rose.

  I broke the surface first, pulling him up as best I could, and his arm went around my waist. He started to swim. He must’ve known I was tired, near exhaustion. Maybe near death. He must’ve known the sacrifice I had made for him, and here, he was paying me back.

  So I’d saved him from dying on the rocks. He saved me from drowning in the sea. Together, we crawled from the foam onto the sand. And we lay there, breath heaving, in each other’s arms, too tired to assess the damage, as my mother approached.

  “No more,” Taylor murmured, and I laughed, kissing him while I still could.

  “I have always, will always love you,” I said.

  He nodded, his eyes fluttering open. “I know.”

  And then she was upon us, darkness slithering toward us like a whip. When Taylor lifted his head, I thought he would bargain, but instead, he laughed. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said.

  I held him close, protecting him from her. I held him close because it was what I wanted. This faerie loved a human, and I was not ashamed of it. But as for my mother …

  “Is it true?” I asked, pushing myself to my elbows and then falling back. My left arm was turning black, bruises darkening with every breath. “Was my father a human?”

  “Yes, it’s true.” She knelt before us. She did not look angry anymore. There were tears in her eyes. “But I did not know it at the time. Lyndiria tricked me. She—”

  “Oh! She glamoured him to look like a faerie,” I finished, realizing the truth.

  “Yes.” She glared at Taylor. “So you did tell her before now.”

  “No,” I broke in. “The Bright Lady did. That is, she told me the truth disguised as a fable.”

  “Clever trick,” Taylor said, taking my hand. If I didn’t get him out of here soon, he’d bleed out in the ocean. We both would.

  “She told you a fable?” the Dark Lady asked. My mother asked. “And you understood it?”

  “No.” I shook my head, laughing a little. “It didn’t even occur to me that she was speaking of you. But I suppose we see what we want … ”

  She looked off, to the horizon. Light was gathering there. “Yes, we do,” she confessed. “I saw what I wanted to see in him.”

  “And you … loved him?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.

  But she said, “Yes.” Without even hesitating, she said yes. My mother. The Dark Queen.

  It should have made me happy, to hear she was capable of love. But it didn’t. It broke me. “You loved him,” I said, swallowing back tears. “You loved him, and not me.”

  Taylor squeezed my hand. He was pushing himself to his knees, though it must’ve been agony. Slashes adorned his limbs. Bruises were blossoming.

  “You are him,” my mother said. “You speak like him. You think like him. To be around you was … ”

  “Too painful, of course. What a simple, easy explanation.” I turned away, but not before she shook her head.

  “It was not simple. It was anything but simple. Look at me, Elora.”

  I did, and a tear dropped from her eye. But it could’ve been glamour, and either way, I would not be swayed by it.

  It was far, far too late.

  “When you were born, and I saw that you … embodied him, it was everything I wanted, in a way. But I would not love again only to lose, so I pushed you away.”

  “Well, that’s pretty stupid,” Taylor said, and I loved him more than ever in that moment. Even now, he was fighting for me. “You didn’t want to lose her, so you made sure you did. Well played, Queen of Darkness.”

  Shadows flickered across my mother’s face, but she did not lash out. She looked exhausted. “I was born with the dawn of the earth. I have seen civilizations rise and fall. There are thousands of ways to break a person, to betray, to wound, and I have witnessed them all. After a time, I closed myself off to love. Eventually, I could not even feel its heat … ” She trailed off, looking to the light again. “Until him.”

  “And when I was born—”

  “I did not want to feel it, if it meant being destroyed again. And so I kept away from you, until … ”

  “Until I decided to overthrow your court, and then, suddenly, my existence mattered to you.”

  She smiled. My mother, that old, wretched creature, smiled out of joy rather than wickedness. “Oh no, my darling. That was the moment I realized you were like me. That was the moment I realized you were mine. And that was the moment she tried to take you away from me. Oh, it wasn’t enough to take him—”

  “But she didn’t take him,” Taylor said. “You killed him, accidentally.”

  “But didn’t she know there was a risk? And did she try to stop it?” My mother’s eyes were wide, and her hair was dancing around her face like fire. Like black tendrils that could wrap around your neck and pull.

  “You blame her,” he said softly. “That’s why you hate her. Before it was just a rivalry, but after that—”

  “I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to make her suffer, the way she’d made me. But then she came for my only child, and she poisoned her against me. Sent her to the one place where history would repeat.”

  “But it didn’t,” I said, as the light grew brighter. Something was approaching from the east. But was it the sun, or something closer?

  Something wilder?

  “When Taylor fell, he didn’t die. That’s what happened to my father, isn’t it? He fell?”

  “The Bright Queen said they were swimming,” Taylor said.

  “But it was a fable, and she was speaking of Naiad.” I turned to my mother. “But you wouldn’t have been swimming. You would have been soaring through the sky. All of this, the location, the fall … ” I looked to the cliff. “You were recreating what happened. You wanted to break me as you’d been broken. And then we really would be the same.”

  I thought of my words, then, from earlier that night: You could’ve been dead. And then, Taylor my love, you would not want to have seen your wicked princess. You would not want to have seen the darkness I would’ve unleashed on them.

  Perhaps I really was my mother’s daughter.

  No, my father’s daughter.

  No, both.

  “I want to know what he was like,” I said. “My father. I want to know before you kill me.”

  “I am not going to kill you.” My mother reached for my hand, yanking me to my feet. Pain shot through me, but what did it matter? I was alive. I would survive.

  We all would.

  “But why?” I asked, leaning against her for support. I did not want to, but it was difficult to stand on my own.

  “Because you dove after him.” She gestured to Taylor. “You did what I would not do.”

  “You let him fall?” I closed my eyes. “My … ”

  “I let him crash upon the rocks.” For a moment, she was silent. “It was not my intention,” she explained, shaking her head. Now that she had calmed, her hair fell around her like a cape, no longer reaching for us like ravenous flames. “We’d been playing in the trees, there.” She pointed up, past the cliffs, to the forest beyond. “I thought, it’d be so easy to slip into the air. To be together in the place where sea meets earth meet
s sky. But he was hesitant, and I did not understand it.” Her lips curled, the tiniest bit. “Faeries aren’t exactly known for our propriety. But as I pulled him from the safety of the trees, he struggled so badly, I had no choice but to let him go. To free him from whatever was terrifying him.”

  Her gaze dropped, the way he must’ve dropped, from the cliffs to the sea. “For a moment, his hands were scrabbling in the air, as if reaching for something. He was not even trying to flap his wings. And as I realized why, a cold clarity settled over me. I hesitated, just an instant, and it was enough. He fell against the jagged mouth of the sea. There.” She pointed to a rock off to the left. I half expected his blood to have stained it.

  But it hadn’t.

  “I hesitated for an instant, in fury, and he died because of me. Because of himself. Because of her.” Her eyes trailed to the light approaching.

  That is not the sun, I thought, and steeled myself for a confrontation between the two queens.

  But my mother surprised me a second time. She stepped back, as if retreating. “You risked your life for him. You did not hesitate. You are not like me.”

  “I am,” I said, stepping forward. “I have your fierceness. Your wicked humor. I have your protective streak.”

  “I never protected you,” she said.

  “No, you were concerned with bigger things. You were trying to protect the earth.”

  “Trying, and failing.”

  “It is not over yet.” I met her gaze. She met mine. Together, we held each other in the only way we knew how. For once.

  “So you will not murder me, or him? Do I have your word on that?”

  She nodded. “I did not believe you would dive after him, not without your wings. I … ” She paused, glancing at my back. She could not make sense of it.

  I did not know how to explain it to her. So I simply said, “Love healed me.”

  His love. My love for him. But really, hadn’t it been the connection between us? The mutual trust, and understanding? Our spirits dancing?

  “Someday, I hope you know how that feels,” I said.

  “I won’t,” she replied. “There is only one person left who understands me, and if we were to touch … ”