“Yes, Your Majesty.” Cedric gestured to the guards. “I will show them the way myself.”
“Thank you.” The tears in her eyes and voice surprised her, and she forced them away. “Come to me after you’ve seen that the healers have tended him.”
Cedric bowed to her, and she watched them leave, bearing Malachi with them. She ached to run to him, to rouse him from his stupor and assure him that she would not let him be harmed further, to take away the despair that hung around him in a thick fog. She could not do it now, as she could not have shown him affection before she had become Queene. Never in her life would she be free to love Malachi openly.
She had gone from one prison to another.
Twenty
T hey had moved him again. He’d thought it all a dream, but when Malachi woke he was still surrounded by the sights of the night before. The bleak, bare walls, stained black from smoke and the tattered canopy above him were as they had appeared when they’d first brought him here. In the center of the room was a fire, built under a huge, square metal opening in the ceiling that lead into darkness. The smoke from the fire escaped through this chimney, but not all. It thickened the air, made it hot and dirty.
The sights of the night before were the same, but not the sensations. The pain was mostly gone. His eye was not swollen shut. If he moved too quickly or breathed too deeply there was a twinge of pain, but somehow, in the night, he had improved.
If it had been only one night. He’d drifted in and out of sleep, woken at times by a droning hum that seemed to be made of voices and color all at once, lulled back into the depths by the same sound.
At the edge of the fire, a shadow moved. Slim and slow moving, the shadow straightened, the firelight casting orange through her garments. She was at once frightening and familiar. She was the healer he had visited with Keller.
“That was the sound of the Faery healers,” she said, in that way she had of speaking as though she could read his mind as Keller had been able to. “They sing to heal. They put on quite the concert to fix you.”
She sat beside him on the bed, fussing the blankets with her withered hands. “Are you thirsty?”
He nodded, and she reached past the edge of his vision for a cup of water. He ached all over when he sat up, and she helped him with a surprising, gentle strength.
When he had finished, gasping from exertion, he asked, “Where am I?”
The old Human set the cup aside and eased him down on the pillows. “You are in the Lightworld still. In a cell, in the Queene’s private chambers.”
“The Queene?” Something pricked at his memory, but he was tired, so tired.
The woman nodded and smoothed his hair away from his brow, humming softly. “She was here, you know. In the night.”
He recalled seeing someone in the midst of his pain, someone who’d looked like Ayla, but far too fine to be her. She had been clean and shining, like a beacon from another world. She had looked like a Faery. It could not have been Ayla.
“It was her.” The woman sounded sure. “She struggled under the weight of great suffering to see you. She is as lost and afraid in this world as you are.”
“She is Queene?” He closed his eyes, trying to remember perfectly. “I thought I remembered that she was. But I am not certain of anything that happened before this.”
“This was a trial,” the woman said in sympathy. Strangely she could give him that without sounding as though she pitied him. “You will face further trials, if you choose the fate that will keep you at her side.”
“I do not believe in fate. I believe in will.” He winced and adjusted his wings beneath him. “To believe in fate is to believe that God has taken away free will.”
“Yes, to your kind the idea of fate would seem perverse.” She chuckled, as though she knew all there was to know of his kind. “But there are many fates for a single person. They are chosen through action and deed, not by the random whim of the universe. And one of your fates lies here. But you would have to be strong.”
He opened his mouth to protest. He was injured. He was in pain. He had endured nothing but strife since becoming mortal, and she would ask him to submit to more.
But her wise smile stopped him. He had survived great suffering in his time as a mortal, but he had also experienced pain of another kind, the ache of love for a creature he could not imagine being parted from, even as he had lain dying. He had felt the joy of her flesh, had felt the sting of uncertainty as she had slept in his arms, fearing that she might be taken from him, that there would someday be a place where he could not protect her.
How could this healer see other fates for him, without Ayla? They could not exist because without her, he would not exist.
The healer nodded and rose. “You are strong. Now, you must be strong for Ayla. And for your child.”
Child? The word struck him like the fall of the spectral lash that had cleaved his wings from him. “My child?”
The woman did not answer. She nodded to the fire as she passed it, then slipped out a door that revealed itself as an appearance of light in the darkness.
He lay back on the bed, uneasy in this room that seemed at once a prison and a comfort. His child? What could she possibly mean? He had been aware of mortal coupling before he’d experienced it with Ayla. He knew it as the way mortals created more mortals. But Ayla was a Faery. Was it possible that their joining could have resulted in a child?
The door opened again, and he sat up, ready to demand the healer give him answers. But as the slender figure passed the fire, he saw glints of orange wreathing her that rivaled the flames, and his breath froze in his chest.
Ayla appeared to him slowly, revealed more and more as the darkness between them evaporated. Her hair was loose, slithering around her shoulders and arms, seeming brighter against her shining skin and the filmy white of her gown. Her antennae twitched a nervous blue against her forehead, and the jewels at her head and neck and wrists echoed the changing light of the fire, capturing and dispersing it at their whim.
She looked nothing like the way he remembered her.
“You are…better?” She shaped the words carefully, halting as she approached his bedside.
He nodded, unable to find his voice for anything other than, “You have a child?”
Her eyes flared wide, and she spoke something in her own language. Then, carefully again, she said, “I do.”
She reached for his hand, and he drew it away. He did not know why, and when he moved it back she gripped it tightly and pulled it to her stomach.
There was nothing there, no proof for him but the action. It was proof enough.
Slowly he withdrew his hand, the feel of her skin still hot on his palm.
“You are better?” she repeated earnestly, her eyes shining wet in the firelight.
As stunned as he felt, he would not prolong her worry further. “I am. They sent healers.”
She nodded. “I saw them. I was…” She gestured toward the fire. “All night. You did not wake.”
“The healer told me about the child.” He looked down, where her hands still touched her stomach.
Ayla shook her head. “That is not possible. No one knows.”
“She knew,” Malachi insisted. “The Human healer.”
“There were no Humans here in the Lightworld.” She laughed at him then. “They are not allowed here.”
The troubling feeling that there was an important misunderstanding between them vanished in his sudden anger at her. “Is that why I am in this cell?”
“This room is in my private apartments.” She appeared stung by his tone. “I do not want you in the dungeon.”
“Did you know I was here?” He grabbed her by the arms and jerked her forward. “Did you know what they were doing to me?”
She shook her head frantically, eyes wide in…fear? She had never feared him before. It was at once gratifying and horrible. He did not wish for her to fear him.
“I was a prisoner, as you we
re.” She tore away from him, her chest heaving, tears streaming down her face. “I would not let them…”
“Prisoner? You are Queene.” How could she not have known? “You did not care.”
“I did!” She fell to her knees beside the bed, hands clutching the mattress. “I wanted to find you. I asked…”
Her words dissolved into her own language, and in her grief they became the sound of mournful wind.
He reached for her. She didn’t resist him when he lifted her to sit beside him on the bed. His injured mortal body screamed in protest, but he needed to have her near, hoping she could feel his remorse so that he would not have to speak it.
“You are tired. You stayed by my side all night.” Her hair was soft against his face, and smelled of something clean and pleasant. “Do not cry.”
It took her some time, but she calmed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I did not want to leave you.”
“I am glad you did not.” He held her close to him, tried to be used to the feeling of so much separating them.
She turned in his arms to face him. “I am Queene. But my position is not secure. There is still much danger from Garret.”
It did not make sense to him, but he did not care. She was with him, finally, even if she was different, somehow broken, in the time that had passed since he’d held her last.
She stayed with him for a long time, long after the fire had died and they lay in the cold of the room, not sleeping, but not speaking, either. She seemed content enough to stay there, so he did not move her, even when his neck was stiff from keeping still and his arms ached under her weight.
Better that they ached from holding her than from not.
When the healers arrived the next morning, Ayla reluctantly left Malachi’s side. “You will be safe,” she had reassured him. “I will return to you.”
In truth, she had to leave him before she told him all that had happened and all that must be done. The less he knew, the safer he would be, she had decided.
Cedric awaited her in her private meeting room with her council. Garret was not present, she noted with some relief. Had he already told them of Malachi and what she had done to keep him?
Although Cedric had stayed awake with her much of the night that Malachi was with the healers, he appeared to have gotten enough rest since then. He smiled at her when she entered, and bowed in deference, but something about his manner seemed strange.
“There is some news, then, if you are all here.” She tried to sound unconcerned. “Some rumbling from Garret?”
The despicable Faery who had shown preference for Garret during their first meeting made a noise of disgust. She glared at him and continued. “Best to be out with it. What has he done?”
Cedric stepped forward and held out a bit of paper rolled as though it were parchment. “This came from the Royal Consort today.”
She did not take the paper. “I will not touch anything from his hand. What does it say?”
Two of the council members exchanged knowing glances, and Ayla drew herself up taller.
“He has left the Palace, seeking sanctuary with the Trolls. He has taken a number of guards with him, and several valuables belonging to the treasury.” Cedric paused for a moment, tapping the parchment against his palm.
“Let him take what he wishes, as long as I’m free of him,” Ayla said with a laugh, and at once wished she had not. It sounded foolish, as though she did understand the tenuousness of her position. “There is more?”
Cedric nodded. “He has issued a challenge, stating that you killed his sister, the Queene, and expressing his wish to settle the matter outside of a legal proceeding.”
“A duel?” This time, Ayla was not ashamed of her laugh. “Garret has not wielded a weapon in years. Not in actual combat.”
“He managed well enough against your Darkling pet,” the unpleasant Faery muttered, his face turning red.
It was enough that no one at Court would believe her innocence without jewels and pretty words. She did not need to hear doubts and aspersions against her from the people who had been entrusted with guiding her reign.
She did not shrink from the Faery’s cold stare. “You may leave.”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” another of the council members spoke. “But perhaps it is not wise, considering your current position, to dismiss your council.”
“I am not dismissing my council. I am dismissing the members of Mabb’s council who prefer to remain allied with my mate.” Her gaze flicked briefly to Cedric, but he showed neither pride nor displeasure. She continued. “If you believe that I am a murderer, then go now. If you believe that Garret is more fit to lead the Lightworld, then you may also go. If you believe that I am incapable of making decisions on my own without your wisdom and guidance, go. I am not merely the King’s contrary mate, nor do I plan to rule under that distinction. I am Queene. If you disagree, I can do very well without you.”
There was a shared, withheld breath in the room. Though the desire to say something else, it did not matter what so long as it broke the silence, was overwhelming, Ayla held her tongue and her stony pose before them.
Finally, as she had expected, chairs began to scrape back. The Faery who’d most vocally supported Garret turned red from antennae to throat. “In all of my years on the royal council, no Queene has ever been so disrespectful.”
There was no response she could make to him that would not sound petty, so she said nothing at all. She watched in silence, feeling Cedric’s stare on her as all but one member of the council filed from the room.
When the door closed behind the last of them, Ayla turned to the one who stayed. It was the small Faery, the one with the shrewd, piercing blue eyes. She looked back, unblinking. “I do not agree with them.”
“We can see that.” Cedric walked around the table to stand beside Ayla. Low, for only her to hear, he said, “They will join up with Garret. Before, he would have collapsed under his own lack of intelligence. Now, he will have greater minds working for him.”
Ayla nodded. “And I would worry, truly, if I knew Garret less and thought he might listen to them.”
With a smile, Cedric said, “You are wiser than I imagined.”
“Not wise.” A hitch of sadness caught in her voice. “If I had been wise, I would never have gotten to this place.”
She wiped her eyes. If she crumbled in front of her last remaining council member, she would be truly on her own.
Not quite on your own, she reminded herself. Cedric had been so helpful. He had defied Garret, risked his life. If she failed and Garret became the ruler of the Faery Court, Cedric would lose his life for treason, just as she would lose hers.
As if sensing her change in mood, Cedric addressed the remaining council member. “The Queene is still tired from her unfortunate imprisonment. I will meet with you later, to discuss how we will handle the formation of a new royal council and an official announcement of the original council’s disbanding.”
The Faery nodded her head, her yellow hair gleaming under the Human electricity. “Yes, Guild Master.”
Ayla put her hand up to stop Cedric from ushering her from the room. “You are from the Assassins’ Guild?”
The Faery nodded, but let Cedric speak for her. “Flidais kept the records for the Faery wars on the Astral, before the rift opened between our former world and this one.”
“Many council positions for worthy Faeries opened then,” Flidais interjected. “And I was one of those Faeries.”
“I am glad you were.” The deceptively small creature disturbed Ayla. She seemed so young, even for an eternally youthful race, and yet she was old, perhaps as old as Cedric.
Flidais rose from her seat and bowed to Ayla before Cedric led her from the room. “She is trustworthy,” he assured her. “And far more intelligent than the rest of the council was.”
“You think I am foolish for dismissing them.” Ayla nodded to a passing servant. It was something Cedric had taught her, to always
acknowledge even the lowest ranking Faeries in the Palace. It showed a respect for them that Mabb had not had, he’d told her.
“I would never go so far as to call Her Majesty foolish,” he said, a note of reproach in his voice. “I do worry that news of this will upset the Court.”
“Then I will have to pile on more jewels to blind them with my wealth,” she snickered.
Cedric stopped and put a hand on her shoulder to turn her. It was a moment between teacher and student, not a subject and his Queene. “You must not believe that you are safely installed as Queene. The coronation has not taken place, and cannot until Garret no longer opposes you. And the courtiers are fickle. Once you lose their support, you will not be able to get it back.”
“I know that. I do,” Ayla reassured him. “Why are helping me? The risks are just as great for you as they are for me, if not greater.”
He patted her arm, and they resumed their walking. “That is a story for another time. For now, it should be enough that I do not wish to see Garret as King.”
“For now, it is.” Ayla meant it.
With a twinge of regret, Garret watched his guards load the last of his royal belongings into the cart. After all the time he’d spent, all the plans he’d made and revised and acted on, to leave the Palace seemed an abandonment of his goal. And when it was so close.
“Your Majesty?” a voice said, and Garret turned. Bran, formerly of the royal council—no, not quite formerly—stood waiting beside the cart. “We should go now, before we are noticed further.”
“Yes. Thank you.” He climbed up to sit on the back of the cart, and motioned the guards at the front who would pull it away from the Palace.
“It is only for a little while.” Bran was shrewd. He’d seen the reason for Garret’s strain without needing more than few moments of observation. “Soon, the false Queene will be deposed, and you will be restored to your throne.”
“Of course I will be,” Garret responded, a bit more sharply than he’d intended. To keep from appearing too tense, too unsure, he added, “I have great faith in all that my loyal subjects have done, and will do, to help me in this matter.”
Queene of Light Page 19