The Withering Palace wanted her to do something, she knew it did. Though its whispers had been silent with the infernal barrier around her room, she could slowly hear them chanting their malevolent banter and get louder as she approached the cell.
The man laid against the bars, weakened and in dire need of nourishment. His clothes were in rags on his body and the filth clung to him like a film. She wrinkled her nose at the stench but remembered that this man had to be freed. She stared at the lock and reached for it but gasped as it clicked open and the door slipped open by itself.
Take him home, take him to Cranston.
Aveta jumped at the voice so clear and crisp in her head. The Withering Palace was desperate for her to hurry and she did, running into the cell and pulling at the prisoner.
“Come on, we have to go.” The prisoner moaned and took some coaxing until he did look up, crisp blue eyes like a bright summer day stared back at her. She paused, transfixed on those eyes. They looked exactly like someone she knew. She had to scan her memory for the right person, but they matched exactly, to her utter surprise.
“Cranston?”
The person stared at her and smiled, but shook his head. Under the grit and film of dirt that clung to his beard and marred his face, she could see a very distinct resemblance.
“No, but we met once. Long ago.”
She scanned her memory, wondering where they could’ve met. If he was Cranston’s relation, he reminded her of…his father?
“Your Cranston’s father.” She could not recall his name but the smile blooming on this stranger’s face confirmed enough for her. “Come on, we need to go now. Can you walk?”
“Slowly, but yes. I’ve not eaten for weeks.” She slipped her arm around his waist, slipping his arm over her shoulders. She wasn’t super strong, but strong enough with the continued sword practice she would do in her room by herself. That was one thing a Faerie Royal was always taught, sword fighting and weapons knowledge. It was the one thing keeping her strong now.
The smell was atrocious, but she bit her lip and pressed on, nearly dragging him out of the cell and into the small cavern that aligned with the entrance of the Labyrinth.
“We don’t have much time.”
“I won’t survive the cavern again.” He mumbled.
She groaned, staring at the foreboding darkness ahead.
“You won’t have to, I can get through quickly, and I know all the shortcuts. You’ll have to keep your eyes closed, the entire way, no matter what you hear. Understand?”
He nodded and limped along with her until the entrance of the cavern, where he cringed and shut his eyes.
“Ready?” Aveta heard the guards yelling behind her and they jumped into the doorway behind her as she readied to step through the threshold and into the inky darkness of the Labyrinth, where the soldiers did not follow.
The trek through the Labyrinth was short, but still took a lot out of Aveta as she dragged the man along with her. She pulled and tugged, and through the screeches of the wraith’s and darklings within, they limped along. She could ignore them but many times the man screamed in horror as things grasped at him or called his name. She could’ve called up the stone statues, but her power had to be reserved for healing if she was to help this man.
“Ignore them.” How long it’d been since she had trudged through here, yet she was as confident as ever and kept strong to the short trail she’d found through the massive rock labyrinth.
The man tripped, sending them both to the floor, into a puddle of water, collected surely from the recent rainfall. Aveta scurried to lift him back to his feet but the water made him slippery and she struggled to gain a grip on him.
“Come on, you need to get on your feet.” She felt the creatures building around them, watching, waiting to be acknowledged, but she refused. “Come on, Cranston is waiting for us.”
The man struggled to his feet, keeping his eyes pressed together and took her embrace for assistance. They were both filthy now and the mud stuck to her dress like a formidable grit. She carried on, having lost a shoe in the mud.
“Almost there.”
“Thank you.” He whispered, sounding close to exhaustion as they finally made it through the labyrinth and Aveta breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped into the light of the opening to the poppy fields.
It was a sight for sore eyes and she felt the tears streaming down her dirty cheeks as they limped on, slipping down onto the poppy flowers, where the red dirt beneath them stained their clothes and fingers and the poppies powdered them in a welcoming puff.
“Cranston!” She yelled, her voice echoed in the desolate field and she hoped he could hear her now. “Please,” Aveta pulled herself up to stand and spun, searching the field for him. The cherry blossoms swayed, silent and unknowing of their plight. “Cranston! Help us!”
Chapter Ten
Cranston washed his hands, full of grit, old blood and other unmentionables. Aveta sat on the meager kitchen table, dressed in one of his sister’s dresses. Her hair was neatly brushed but still soaked from the recent scrubbing she’d given herself. Cranston’s cottage was small but quaint, and it felt oddly more like home than any place she’d ever been.
She stared at the bottom of her mug, watching the remains of her tea swish around, wondering how things had gotten so bad. She was happy she had made back into the safety of the poppy fields and Cranston’s arms. He was relieved to find her, but the fear that he was hallucinating immediately turned to fear for his father, Ceric. His father had disappeared ten years before, after Aveta had arrived to the poppy fields. No one knew what had happened to him or where he’d gone off to. All they knew that he was here one moment and gone the next.
No one asked Ceric what had happened that long ago day, or how he’d entered the Unseelie world only to end up in the dungeon. No, there would be time for that later, when things were more settled and Aveta had taken care of Queen Elisandra. It’d be the only way any of them could live in peace.
“Thank you,” Cranston sat across from her and slipped his hands into hers. He’d changed some since she last saw him, he was huskier, thicker and his face had lost any baby fat he’d had from his growing years. They’d both reached their maturity and now appeared as they would for all eternity, for as long as they remained alive. Faeries were immortal, though many did not make it past three to five hundred years. The years caught up to many of them and they chose to wither instead, a chosen death where the faery would start to waste away until one day, they turned to ash and returned to the earth.
“The Withering Palace, the voices it speaks to me with…they took me to your father, to help him. Had I known he was there sooner, I would’ve helped, you must know that…” Her voice shook and she stared hard down at her mug, afraid to look up.
“It’s all right. You didn’t know he was there. I’m thankful beyond words that you even found him and brought him back alive. I know what an impossible task it is to make it through the labyrinth, especially with someone as weak as my father. The labyrinth is malicious, but it also keeps our world safe from the Unseelie.”
“Do you think they’ll come through?”
Cranston shook his head, softly running circles across her skin with his fingertips. It sent shivers up her spine and deep into her chest. “No. They have never come here, ever. I don’t think they will now.”
Aveta nodded, turning her cold mug around in her palms. It wasn’t very reassuring but she knew it was true. All good things must be equaled with evil, hence the existence of the Unseelie in the first place. She sighed, closing her eyes and wishing it wasn’t her life, that it wasn’t her position to assume command of such a daunting task.
But it was her duty. It was her life to lead and nothing would ever change that. Not even her love for Cranston.
She stood up, taking her mug to the sink and dumping it there before turning toward Cranston. The somber look on his face told her everything she wanted to know, and it hurt to have to le
ave him again so soon.
“Must you leave already?” He reached out and slipped his hands over her hips to pull her closer. She let him, unable to resist being near him.
“I’m sorry. I have to go, there’s something I have to finish.”
Cranston gave her a tiny nod, leaning forward and touched forehead to forehead with her. She sighed, letting his woodsy, poppy flower scent fill her nose. It was calming, like a sedative wanting to seduce her in and never let her go. She had to let go, even if she didn’t want to. If there was ever a moment she didn’t want to end, this was it.
“Don’t forget me.”
“Never.”
He pulled back, planting a kiss on her head. Gazing straight into each other’s eyes for minutes, Aveta relished his strong arms encircling her and his handsome face.
“I’ve waited a long time for you, my love. I’ll wait forever more.”
Aveta smiled, tears glistening on her dark eyes. “And I for you.”
With that, he bent down and kissed her lips, softly at first, then a deep, wanting kiss that sped both their hearts up and left them breathless. Aveta pulled away before she could change her mind, touched her lips, feeling the warmth of his still dancing across them.
“I love you. I’ll be back.”
“I love you, too,” he nodded, and followed her to the door where he watched her cross the road and tread into the poppy fields to the oppressive mountain ahead, where the cavern to the Labyrinth was. Something told him he might never see her again, so he continued to watch her until her figure disappeared into the horizon and could no longer be seen.
Even then, he remained studying the spot she had last been. The poppies swayed with the slight breeze, dark pink under the burnt orange sky. How many days, weeks or months would he stare over this part of the fields until she returned? How much time would go by this time before he was graced with her beautiful face once more? He wasn’t sure, but something told him, it would be an eternity.
Chapter Eleven
Elisandra rushed forward, shoving her soldiers to the side as she passed through the dungeon and to the end to where the cavern to the Labyrinth began. She studied the dark hole in the wall, ominous and never disturbed by the dungeon guards or any Unseelie, for they knew what laid beyond. Nothing but death awaited them in the blackness.
“Where is she?” The Queen’s rage flushed her face scarlet and her disgust at being down here in the pits of the Withering Palace made her even more maddened. “Where did that little wench of a daughter of mine go? How did she escape?”
The first soldier, her Second Lieutenant, stood straight to answer her as her soldiers cowered behind him. He was a tall man, a thin but a muscular faery. He’d kept the ranks well trained and ready at a moment’s notice to invade any place she so wished to conquer. He was not expendable as she would’ve liked, but that didn’t mean the men behind him, shaking in their britches, weren’t.
“We are uncertain to how she escaped, possibly a secret tunnel, but we know it led her here, where she helped in the escape of a known fugitive and took him into the Labyrinth, Your Majesty.”
“So why has she not been pursued?” She drilled her stare into her Second Lieutenant, waiting for him to crack. But the top soldiers were conditioned to not break and he merely looked down, a show of inferiority to the Queen. Not a lick of fear graced his face, and this angered her even more.
A crack sounded as she sent out her magic to the soldier beside her lieutenant, zapping the poor soul until he crumbled to their feet, nothing but soot and smoldering ashes.
“Find her.” She hissed before she turned back toward the cavern entrance as the girl, Aveta, passed into the room from the darkness.
“I’m here now, mother.” Aveta stood in peasant rags, looking even younger than her eighteen years.
Elisandra stormed forward about to grab the girl when the same loud crack sounded and she was sent crumbling to her knees. Aveta had used her elemental power to shake the ground under Elisandra’s feet and made her lose her balance. How dare she?
“What have you done? You dare challenge your own mother?”
Aveta stared hard at the woman as she regained her footing and glared back with only hatred exuding from every pore of her body.
“No, I see no mother here. I see the Unseelie Queen, unfit to rule. I challenge you for the throne as due to me, rightfully by blood and as chosen of the Withering Palace.”
Aveta stepped forward but the queen did not move.
“You fool. You don’t know what you’re doing. There is no going back from this.”
Aveta tilted her head, her face an ocean of calm and determination. “I know.”
Elisandra narrowed her eyes as her soldiers backed away to the required distance for the two to dual. Aveta didn’t even have a sword so she motioned her lieutenants to hand her one and grabbed her own from a servant holding it out to her.
“This shouldn’t take too long, princess. You’ve grown soft in your years of confinement.”
How sure the queen seemed. How naïve she’d become in the years since she’d seen her daughter. Aveta was now taller than her, thin and lean but strong. Her feet were bare but that did not hinder her stance as she prepared to fight to the end.
“No softer than your heart will ever be, mother.” With that Elisandra lurched forward and swung her sword, only to meet Aveta’s in a stand still, she pushed away and swung again, then again and again. Each time Aveta matched her, and they remained stalled. With that, she shoved at her daughter and stood back, breathing harder but with nothing but evil marring her beauty.
“Seems you’ve kept up your fighting studies. Very well, disarm her. It will be a battle of magic and wits then. Give in now, before this meets you with your death.” She threw her sword down and Aveta did the same, servants reached in and pulled the metal away and backed into the thick of the crowd once more. A challenge was taken seriously in Faerie, especially for the throne. There would be no treachery, for the land of Faerie would not allow it. It was fight to the death or until one gave in. Usually, it was death, for faeries were honorable things who held such a disgust for failure.
Elisandra launched first, a swirling, black funnel meant to blow Aveta backward into the rock wall, but Aveta matched it with a counter wind that caused it to die into stillness. Immediately, the Queen expelled out spikes of rock flying toward the girl with a deathly velocity. Aveta dodged one, but one managed to slice across her thigh. She let out a scream as she rolled onto the ground, scraping her knees and elbows. She didn’t stay down long. She jumped to her feet before Elisandra sent a storm of fire balls smacking into the ground around her.
Aveta tossed a storm of rocks toward the fireballs, blocking most of them with a rain of sparks. With that she backed up in to the entrance to the cavern, already feeling some exhaustion from dodging all the magical objects sent her way.
“Coward! How dare you run?”
“I do not run, mother. I challenge you to catch me if you can, in the Labyrinth.” With that she was swallowed by the inky blackness of the cavern, her soft laugh echoed behind her as she waited for her mother to follow into the abyss of madness.
Elisandra stood at the entrance, appalled that she had to follow into the Labyrinth. It was a challenge and in no way could she not continue. She cursed under her breath and peered behind her.
“If she comes out, kill her.”
No one nodded, not even her lieutenants, who knew full well that if the princess emerged and the Queen did not, they would not be killing her.
“You fools,” Elisandra hissed and ignited a torch she formed in her hand as she entered the black oblivion of the Labyrinth.
Inside, it was the darkest night that she had ever seen and the corridors made her feel claustrophobic. Her steps echoed as they crunched over pebbles and sand across the stone floor. Still, there was nothing, no sign of Aveta, no creatures that were supposed to leach her life force away. Nothing approached and she relaxed a
s the minutes ticked on by and she headed further and further into the darkness.
“Where are you, sweet daughter…” Her madness seeped into her buoyant words and her tiny cackles echoed across the chambers. “You’ll never survive this. You’ll die before you get out of this empty place.”
A rush of wind and Aveta slammed into her, sending the torch flying to the ground. With that, Aveta ran off again into the obsidian darkness.
“How dare you!” Elisandra gritted as she pulled her twisted ankle out from under her, whispering healing charm over it as it swelled and purpled in color. “Stupid heathen. I’ll kill her.” Her ankle began to mend itself but it had left her shaken. How dare her daughter do this to her? How dare she not just give up and die like she should’ve the day she was born.
She regretted having the girl. She’d only had her at the insistence of her husband Seritus, her first lieutenant. She loved him once, enough to give him such a gift, but no longer. Eventually, she’d casted him aside like an unwanted lover. He remained though, always faithful to her, always trustworthy. He’d never been involved in raising the girl after that, which had fractured his soul like fallen ice. It was his punishment for wanting her to bear him a child. Now, that mistake was making Elisandra pay in another way. If only she’d drowned the infant when she should’ve. Instead, she had tossed the girl into the care of Eladril, who had cared for and loved the girl so well, she’d become a full-fledged force to deal with.
Oh, how full of regret Elisandra was filled with now. So many errors in such a powerful life. It had left her colder and void of any love, a fractured soul within herself, withering without her knowledge.
She hopped onto her feet, her ankle still tender but healing. Dusting off her long swathes of fabric that made up her dress, she stepped forward, wincing from the continued ache in her leg, but it lessened as time went on. With that, she fashioned a dagger from the stones around her and waited for another surprise attack. This time she’d be ready. This time, Aveta would not leave unscathed.
Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles: Multi-Author Bundle of Novels & Novellas Page 28