by Elle Cross
Servers and housekeepers were in bright uniforms with an emblazoned black falcon on their chests. The heraldic flags were spread throughout the hall, and it made me wonder what my crest could be, now that I'd committed to establishing my court.
My mother's had ravens and spider webs. I didn’t care for spiders.
I didn't want to favor one symbol over the other, since several of the men came from different houses that had different emblems on it. I wondered what would honor them all, or at least what would represent us all.
In response, a warmth spread from my back and radiated through to my front. The rush of emotion was a little overwhelming at first, but I was able to feel the love and honor they felt for me.
Of course, Havoc threw in a few dubious suggestions. An image that reminded me of the naked lady silhouette on mud flaps on semi-trucks.
I rolled my eyes at that.
I swallowed my laugh when Ranek gestured us closer to the dais.
Lord Basilius’s expression was glassy, and the whiny man beside him wringing his hands was a nuisance. I felt bad that Ranek had to deal with this at all, and didn't blame him for wanting to travel the straits as often as he could.
When the gaggle of supplicants had their chance of being heard by Lord Basilius, and his advisor would answer, I felt an even deeper feeling of both sadness and anger from Ranek. I didn't know how I would feel being this helpless at seeing my parent wither. My mother seemed untouchable by anything, including time and age.
I moved alongside Ranek. "Who is that slimy feeling man, and why does your father take advice from that man and not from you?"
A muscle worked his jaw. It was clear that this was a raw issue for him, but at the same time, I needed to know. It was too...odd, seeing two men determine the fate of a court meant for a queen. Whether his sister was young or not should not have been an issue. What mattered was that her wishes ought to be honored. And who better to honor those wishes than her brother, someone she had already designated would be her advisor.
"That is Tricco, and he has been my father's advisor since my mother's death. He had been close to my parents for a long time, and my father has learned to lean on him."
Interesting that he didn't mention that he didn't lean on him. I kept that observation to myself.
Tricco looked over at us as if in surprise. Huh, imagine that, look at someone and think about them enough, you ended up drawing their attention.
He whispered into the Lord's ear, and the older sovereign looked our way. His blank gaze swept over us, but when he met mine, I saw something behind his eyes. A spark. Like a trickle of power.
I found that interesting as well.
Since we were getting attention, Tricco called out to us as if it were he that summoned us, and not the fact that we were here demanding audience.
"Oh, Lord Ranek has arrived. How goes the straits?"
"Hidden and winding, as they like to be."
It grated me that the oily man Tricco addressed him as "Lord" knowing that a Prince had a higher power status. I about opened my mouth, when Enver spoke.
"Pardon, Counselor Tricco, but you must have misspoken. Prince Ranek has arrived, and with guests."
I felt the cutting censure in Enver's tone, and was glad not to be the recipient of it.
"Of course, Prince Ranek. The court is happy you have arrived in peace. And who are your friends?"
"Counselor Tricco, Lord Father, I present Karina, Queen of Shadows and sovereign over her Shadow Court. The men with her are her Shadow Guard. Your majesty, Queen Karina. May I present my father, Lord Basilius and his advisor, Counselor Tricco."
A hush had fallen over the crowd, and a splintering emerged within Lord Basilius. Tricco, I saw, shrank within himself. He was a loathsome creature, already dreaming of being able to run and hide.
Lord Basilius blinked away what looked like years of old age and withering. As if he were waking up, truly. I felt the pull of the moon. I had been invited to host a revel, and I was even more determined to do it.
"This is truly an honor. A queen." He rose unsteadily to his feet, his guard as his support. "What brings you here?"
"A bounty on my head." Then, I shot a look at Tricco, and my suspicions were confirmed. He was the one who was manipulating things, and I wanted to know why. "Or did you not realize that your Counselor was doing silly things like bartering for my life in your name?"
Karina
The spells that wound around Lord Basilius were subtle but there, when you knew where to look.
As someone who had spells wrapped, painted, and etched into my skin for my entire life, it was easy to find. I followed the trail like a loose thread to where its source could be hidden. Probably along his hairline moving up from the back of his neck. No one would really think to look there.
No one did for me.
My fingers itched to wrap them around Tricco’s neck. Or maybe that was Enver’s desire pressing against me.
“Well, surely you must be mistaken—”
I held up my hand. I had exactly no time or patience for him. “I don’t need to have your oily lies on my skin, so why don’t you move aside.”
As one with my guard, we approached the dais and Tricco backed away from Lord Basilius. Havoc smiled at the Counselor, who shook in his robes at whatever he saw in Havoc’s face.
I’d be more amused if I wasn’t pissed for Ranek’s father. I allowed power to drip in my hand, pooling there like captured dewdrops. It didn’t have any physical weight or heft, but it was there. I dipped my finger in it and it clung to me like captured moonlight. “Lord Basilius, may I?”
With his nod, I swiped my finger over his forehead. Immediately, I saw something curl up and away from his skin. It freaked me out a little bit, as if it were skin peeling from him, though I knew them to be the webs of spells.
I had him drink from my hand, and he glowed from the inside out.
The moon shone brightly in the oculum. It wasn't full yet, but it had enough hold in the sky to do what I needed it to.
I reached out toward the sky and pulled. And instead of something pooling in my hand it filled me.
Oh no, not yet, not yet, not yet...
The swelling went down a little bit thanks to the borrowed power of my Inner Circle grounding me so I wasn't at the mercy of the rising tide within me. I breathed in, and kept my control. The edges of my vision shone iridescent, like pulsating rainbows undulating and curling.
It was beautiful, and I let it fill me up, and I exhaled it over Lord Basilius.
I expected the change to be subtle and gradual. But what had come over him was amazing: it was like he burst through a wall of ice, ready to take on the world and either fuck or kill anyone who stood in his way.
Gone was the mothy sovereign of old who had cobwebs in his beard (and not in a scary or intentional way). Here was the man who could carve out an entire realm and shape it into one of his own making.
Now I know where Ranek got that arrogance from.
He blinked several times and then settled his gaze on me, blinking as if testing his eyes. When he was focused, it was like he had galaxy eyes, with swirls of color and stars in them. I could fall in them forever.
He bowed low. "Karina, Queen of Shadows, if it were not for the memory of my beloved lady wife, I would stake my bid for a place in your Inner Circle."
Ranek rolled his eyes, his squickiness echoed in our threads.
I mirrored his posture. "You are always welcome in my court, Lord Basilius, and will be welcome as an ally."
The offer left a vacuum in the air. There were servants who damn near held their breath.
I knew that it was dangerous to ally yourself to just anyone. After all, their b
attles became your battles. Families and passions became intertwined.
And who was I exactly? An upstart, a queen who only recently came into her power rather than having it honed and refined in court. In fact a queen who by all rights no longer had a court, but would be carving one out for herself in a new realm that was dead to most and was the hell of my childhood.
Instead of sneering or finding a way to get out of my offer gracefully, he stepped toward me, one lumbering footstep at a time. I felt the movement of my men, silent, but with a buzzing intensity like bees around their hive. The closer he got the more I realized how tall he was. Before, with Tricco's influence, he was diminished. But now, he was expanding, as if he wouldn't stop growing. He was easily a match for Taran in the mountain man arena.
And then he bent down and kissed my ring. There was a gasp from the audience. There was no question about it, the people were enraptured with what was happening before their eyes.
"I cannot give you the words that you seek, your majesty."
I bit my lip. I knew it was a long shot, but I was still disappointed and a little shattered. And then he looked to his son who stood just behind me. "I cannot give it to you because it is not mine to give. You see, whenever my son Prince Ranek is on Vagari soil, he is the custodian of his sister's inheritance. So, you see my queen, it is not I whom you must ask."
I smiled at his beaming face. And then I turned to Prince Ranek, who struggled with the emotions that lay beneath his usually stone cold exterior. For once, he had no snarky reply, no pent up hostility. Only solemnity as he turned his heavy gaze toward me and nodded.
"The Vagari Stronghold yields to the Queen of Shadows and her Shadow Court."
A hiss, and movement too fast to track fizzled away. Havoc and West moved, Ranek soon after. Enver and Taran stayed at my side. It was Tricco, and he was moving to an exit. He was easily overtaken and wrestled to the ground.
He spat curses and incantations, all of which I swept aside from one wave of my hand to the next. "Well, well, where do you think you're going? Off to tell your masters what's happened? You see, I don't want you to go anywhere. You're going to tell me exactly what it is I need to know, and why exactly you thought it would be a swell idea to put a bounty on my head. Which, by the way, better be dissolved."
Ranek nodded in confirmation. The spells burned off his skin, the ones from Tricco’s bounty that had compelled him to find me and bring me here. It left a blackened mark on his skin. I touched the scar lightly, and it continued to heal until it disappeared.
Before we could ask, the man bit his tongue. Hard. I was shocked. Before I knew it he literally drew out the death runes with his blood and tongue and shriveled up and died.
The latest clue along the line of where Raya would be and how to retrieve her was lost to us.
"Not lost,” Ranek said. “We knew where he wanted to trade you. The Power Broker."
“The Power Broker? You mean the new one that was installed in the Black Tower in Manhattan Island? Janus Holdings?” Just speaking it made my skin crawl.
He shook his head. “No, though he's the one that oversees all of the Remnant God Tribes living on this side of the veil.”
I sighed with relief.
“No the Power Broker for the Midwest is an indolent fool who has more power than he knows how to handle. Probably the only reason why he is tolerated. He wants nothing more than to live in his ivory tower and play at being a god of old."
"Wait, that's not literal is it? Like a literal ivory tower. Like, white? So there's a Black Tower and an Ivory Tower.” A memory of a fantasy book I’d read here popped in my head. “This seems like something that old author would write. I forget his name.”
"I know the one you speak of. He had been an apprentice to an Elder god, so he took inspiration from some of his life experiences."
I had to ponder that for a moment and take that in. "So, all we'd need to do is get an audience with the Power Broker so that I could be traded in for the key that would get you into the River STX."
"And we have to do it before the end of the Full Moon."
"So, three days. Great." So, not only were we supposed to find and dupe the Power Broker for his key, we had to find the ever-shifting doorway into the River STX, and then find the people who held Raya, even though we didn't really know why anyone felt the need to kidnap Oracles or those who would be Oracles.
I was about to lose my mind. Whatever progress made, more complications arose.
"What are we going to do now?" I said, not bothering to conceal the worry and doubt from my voice.
"Now?" Enver stepped forward and kissed me deeply. "Now, we revel and feast as you were meant to so you can get strong."
Memories of revels past haunted me where I felt like I didn't have control. Where I felt empty and numb.
“It won't be like that, I promise. It was never supposed to be like that. It was only supposed to be love and magic and bonding.”
With him, with my men, I knew that was the truth. My dulled sensibilities and fear were too sharp for me though, I felt it all too strongly. The ugly memories.
"Let us show you how it is supposed to be."
His eyes bled to pure black as his powers rose. Mine rose up within me, a mirror to his. He liked that. He liked that a lot. Darklight danced over his body, rolls of cold fire that wavered blue over the black of his auric shields. He cast the power outward so that it touched me, and licked over my skin.
Heat and liquid answered within my core, and I swooned. He captured me, raising me to his body so he could kiss me desperately.
This is what I wanted. This. I wanted to wrap my legs around his body. Wanted to taste every inch of his flesh. Wanted to feed on him.
But I was highly aware of the audience in the perimeter of my thought.
Hands and touch joined us, and I felt my powers pulse and surge. They were feeding me, letting me drink in pieces of themselves.
I had never received this because I never bonded to them quite like this. I had been too afraid that I would weaken them.
A male chuckle in my head told me that that worry was silly and slightly insulting to them.
I was traded around: different hands, different lips, different bodies. But they were all mine, and they were there for me.
The power surged and it was like I couldn't contain it. I felt it so strongly. Felt it everywhere. Around me, through me, in me.
I took big gulping breaths before Enver punched his power into me, breaking through my shields.
It was like he fucked me hard with his cock. I opened my mouth wide and screamed toward the sky. The waxing moon answered and coiled its light down into me like another shot. I would have buckled down to my knees, but I was supported. Held. Loved. I writhed in ecstasy as the moon song called to me and rained inside of me. It filled me to bursting, shooting pleasure and pain over me.
I drowned in it, and it was expanding and filling me, trying to fill every last bit of me. I felt stretched and exposed all at the same time. And they needed to feel it. Needed to know how I felt.
Because this was so good, it about broke my mind. When I couldn't take anymore, I finally let go, screaming my orgasm into the sky.
The rest of the court fell away, and I was in a haze. This was how it always was with me. I was comforted by the fact that I was surrounded by my Inner Circle, who was now bonded to me.
And then, through the haze, I felt a tug. And then it was as if my eyes opened and I was looking into Enver's eyes again.
"There you are." And then he was on me. From one to the other I was lifted, petted, pleasured and fucked. And with each,
my power rose ever higher, until like the rising sun, I burst.
Karina
WE WERE IN THE royal suite, courtesy of Lord Basilius and of course, Prince Ranek. After the show and revel that we had bestowed upon the court, the rest of the stronghold buzzed with the spillover of power.
It was like even the walls of the stronghold glowed. It was beyond being clean, it was like a bunch of sucking leeches and awfulness were power washed away revealing what the keep must have looked like in its heyday.
When they had a queen in residence.
I cleaned up and in the quiet of the bathroom, I sighed at the mirror.
It shimmered, and I hesitated. It shimmered again, and what I felt on the other side was nothing less than annoyance.
"Mother?"
The rumbling underneath the glassy surface was hilarious. She probably wasn't used to being cut out of anything.
I did the only thing I knew to do—I pricked my finger and allowed a drop of blood to fall on the glass. My blood dissipated in the shimmer of the mirror and my mother's form became front and center.
"Ah, there you are! I felt a tremor in the world, and the Oracles informed me that another court has emerged." She had a look of expectation on her and I was super excited to just let her be giddy and hopeful.
"Well, if you're saying that I finally allowed a revel to happen and bonded myself to my men more deeply, then yes that happened."
She squeed so loudly. She reminded me of a teenager.
A knock on the door; the blue light that limned the threshold told me that it was Enver. I realized that I had shielded as soon as my mother called. Force of habit.
I opened the thread, the part of my mind that I reserved for him.
"Yes?"
I refrained from rolling my eyes; he would probably feel it in our thread. Inhaling a few times to clear my head, I made myself calm for him. No need to send shards of some long forgotten emotion through our shared threads or anything.