The branches assailed her as she broke through them, ripping at her already wounded back and poking through her hair. It slowed her fall, but she was beyond caring about anything but the agony that slowly crept around to steal the breath from her chest.
Then, as if in mutual agreement with each other, the trees let her suddenly go, and she plunged to the rock pool. Once her body broke through the surface, she saw no more.
When Ayla opened her eyes, it seemed hours had passed. She wondered where the time had gone, and then wondered why she’d woken at all. The soft, crashing sound of water came through then, and the feel of it brushing her side. She pulled herself up, expecting to ache from the wound in her back, but there was no pain. The sand below her was stained pink from the mixed blood and surf, but she felt nothing. Across the endless expanse of beach was a figure, staring out at the waves, and she pulled herself up to walk to it.
Was this what the other plane was, then? she wondered as she walked. The sand moved beneath her feet, the wind slapped her hair into her face, but if she had not remembered how mortally wounded she was, she would not have been able tell.
“This place should not exist,” she said aloud.
Though the figure was far away, it answered her as clearly as if it stood beside her. “And why should it not? Because you believe it should not be here? Because others have told you it is not?”
And then the figure was before her, squatting down beside a shallow pan of seawater boiling over a fire built on the sand.
“You…” Ayla’s voice deserted her momentarily in the face of recognition. “You are the healer.”
The old Human woman nodded, and the realization that she was not Human, not at all, broke over Ayla. “You know me in other faces, as well.” The woman’s appearance changed to the young woman on the beach, belly swollen with child. “And your mother knew me, and your father. All of you know me, whether you have heard my name or seen my face.”
Ayla opened her mouth to question her, and was overcome by images that passed before her eyes. Moss, creeping across a forest floor, taking longer than a lifetime but rushing like water in her vision. Fire, raging from a mountaintop to scourge the earth around it, heading to the sea to form new land. Forest animals birthing young, the young maturing, the mature animals being eaten, nourishing other creatures. The whole of nature, the whole of creation and destruction, unfolding before her eyes in the time it took to blink.
When the visions cleared, the old woman was back, stirring the water in the pan. “When the Humans began to search for me, when they called on me and sought a return to me, I welcomed them. But it became something else. They stopped looking for a piece of me inside of them for answers, began demanding them. Stopped appreciating what was around them, on their plane, and wanted more. Power. Magic they could see. Creatures that dazzled them.
“They did not see that I was all around them, and they sought me here. That is what caused the rift. That is why I hide away.”
“But what about us?” Ayla asked, and realized that in her anger, she had slighted a Goddess. She was half-Human. She should not have sought her here, either.
“You did not seek me. You were summoned.” The Goddess stopped her stirring and looked up at Ayla.
And then she remembered where the wound had come from, and what had happened. “I died.”
“No.” The Goddess amended quickly, “Not yet.”
Her eyes filled with sadness as she looked out across the waves. “They did not want what I had given them. I gave them more. I gave them the other world they sought, and they rejected it.”
“Then take it back! Let us come back here!” To her ears, Ayla sounded like a child demanding her will. “We do not wish for this separation. Every day, we become more like them!”
“You do,” the Goddess agreed. “You are more power hungry than ever you were on this plane. You wish to have the comforts of Humanity, and still maintain the honor of your race.”
“There were courts and Queenes in the Astral long before the veil tore!” Ayla wished she could remember all of the history that she’d been taught when she’d come into the Lightworld. And then she realized it would not matter. All of that history…that was the reason. “You gave the Humans what they wanted. And you gave our races…”
“Faeries modeled themselves after the Humans. Dragons coveted the Human wealth. Trolls and Elves sought to make war, as the Humans do. They all wished for Humanity. I gave Humanity what they wanted, and I gave your race, and the others like it, what they wanted.” She did not seem sad. She did not seem disturbed that things had not worked out for either side. She simply stated things as they were.
“How do we fix it?” Ayla asked, though she was not sure she would ever be able to tell anyone. Her back still bled, and the tree of life within her flickered and lost its autumn leaves. “How do we make things the way they were?”
“You cannot.” The Goddess continued her stirring. “But she can.”
“She?”
The Goddess reached one hand out and touched Ayla’s stomach, and the fingertips disappeared through the armor, delved through her skin, touched the child in her very womb. “She can.”
“She cannot. I am dead.” Ayla wondered if the child within her still lived, and found that the answer must be yes, for she felt no pain or sorrow in answer. “She cannot live if I am dead.”
“You are not dead. And you will not die.” The Goddess lifted the stick she stirred with. Seawater clung to it, dripped from the jagged end in fat, twinkling drops. The Goddess took one droplet onto her finger and held it up before Ayla. “You must protect her from all who would do her harm. There will be many. She has a great destiny, and there are those who will sense it without knowing it and wish to destroy her because of it, without ever seeing that her power could benefit them.”
“If I am not dead now, I will be. Garret will kill me. I am broken, I will not be able to defend myself.” If she could stay here, just a while, and rest…But the rest would do her no good, for now she could feel the pain, and knew her end was not far.
The Goddess did not speak. She grasped Ayla’s chin, and forced her mouth open, then smeared the drop on her tongue.
Like lightning striking a tree in the forest—or so Ayla had heard, for she’d never seen such a thing with her own eyes—something in her ignited. She fell back, onto the sand, still burning, and the ground closed over her. She fell down, through the sand, into water and into darkness.
She opened her eyes, saw Sanctuary’s green above the silver mirror of the water’s skin, wavering and flashing. She swam toward it, the seawater still burning her, her wings pulling against the currents in a bloody cloud.
When her head broke the surface, she took what should have been her final breath. Above her the trees still rustled from her fall through them; it was as if she had never left this place.
She moved to the edge of the pool. Though the fire still burned in her, strengthening her, she felt that fire weaken. If she would kill Garret, as the Goddess had said, then she must do it soon.
The branches above rustled again. Something else fell through them, a more controlled fall. Garret emerged, headfirst, wings folded tight against his back to protect them. He righted himself in the air once he’d cleared the trees and opened his wings to slow his fall. He landed as Ayla clawed her way up from the water, to stand dripping on the bank.
“I thought you would have hit the ground and dashed your brains out,” he said with sniff. “Not much good they would do you.”
She limped toward him, dragging her nearly severed wing behind her.
“It is a shame it had to end this way. When I killed my sister, I truly meant for you to become Queene. To sit at my side, as my second.” He shook his head and tossed his ax from hand to hand. “But your damned honor. You take yourself far too seriously.”
She dropped to her knees on the moss-covered ground, lowered her head in defeat.
Now, he sounded truly regretful
. “I meant for you to be so much more.”
The blade of the ax disturbed the air, parted it like water as it neared her head. She lifted her hands, as if to feebly shield herself from the blow. Instead she gripped the bejeweled pin that held her coiled hair in place, and pulled it free.
The blade still fell, but it fell onto empty earth. Ayla sprang up, gripping Mabb’s poisoned ornament in her fist, and plunged it through Garret’s throat.
He clawed at the dagger through his neck, never touching it in his death struggles as his hands shriveled to bare branches. He staggered backward on legs that twisted into gnarled, barren roots, and when he fell to the ground, his eyes staring in shock and horror at the canopy of green above him, his mouth opened wide and a wind of winter chill blew dry, dead leaves from his throat.
Ayla stumbled and fell. Her task was finished, and the spell of the Goddess had deserted her. She lay her head against the cool, mossy floor and turned her face away from the sight of Garret’s twisted corpse. His eyes were still open, and she could not bear to see into them.
Above her, a raven sounded a warning call, then flew deeper into Sanctuary. She watched its black wings spreading and wondered if it had come for her or for Garret. The foliage rustled; someone approached.
If it were Garret’s men, she would be dead for sure. She did not have the strength to fight them. If it were her people…she might still die.
Cedric broke into the clearing first, his face ashen, as though he’d taken a death blow. His frantic gaze moved from Garret’s body to Ayla. There was relief, then pain, as he gazed at her. “Guards!” he shouted, even as he ran to kneel at her side. “We must get you to the healer. Hold on to me if you can,” he told her, and lifted her in his arms.
As he ran from the clearing, bearing her like a bag of stolen jewels, one of the raven’s black feathers drifted down to Garret’s unseeing eyes.
Then, Ayla knew no more.
Twenty-Six
T he morning of the coronation dawned, and still Ayla did not feel like the Queene.
Her maids helped her dress. Not because she was a Queene with servants to attend her, but because, though the healers had visited often, every day in the weeks between the duel and the coronation, she still moved stiffly, and held herself too straight.
“It is only a ceremony,” Cedric had told her the night before. “You are not being put on display to be judged. You are already the Queene.”
It did not help her now, with only her maids surrounding her. Cedric had gone off to attend to the business of the coronation, and she had no other advisors to comfort her. No matter what Cedric had assured her, she would still feel like a condemned prisoner marching to her trial when the throne room doors opened.
They dressed her in robes that were not inherited from Mabb, but sewn for her from materials stolen from the Upworld. Golden silk, floating around her from neck to toes and well past her fingertips. She supposed she was meant to appear as a Goddess, but she felt a fraud.
“Your Majesty,” one of the maids said somberly, setting a mirror before her. “Do you approve?”
She looked over her reflection, at her hair, unbound against the silk, and the high collar of the robes obscuring her Guild mark. She folded the collar down and pushed her hair over her shoulders. “This mark is not a shame to me,” she said, trying to sound queenly, trying to make it as important to the servants around her as it was to her. “In the future, I will not wear garments that cover it.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the servants dutifully replied. And that gave her a bit more confidence.
She walked at the head of a two-abreast line of ladies-in-waiting, all turned out in their best robes for the occasion. Two guards marched ahead of her, and guards flanked the procession on both sides. The halls of the Palace were once again deserted, but not for the same reason. All of the courtiers would be crowded into the throne room, along with all the highest ranking Guild members.
Finally she stood before the throne room doors. They opened from within, painfully slowly, revealing curious faces as the opening grew wider. All assembled craned to see their new Queene, and she could not back down now. She walked through the doors and kept her eyes straight ahead on the throne.
A murmur ran through the crowd, following her as she passed, like a wake in a pool of water. Her wings were covered, so they would not see the scars of her injury. There had been enough speculation about her duel with Garret to last a lifetime, and she would feed no more.
From the dais, as she settled onto the throne, she surveyed the crowd. The nameless courtiers, the Healer Guild, the Bardic Guild, and finally, the Assassin Guild. At the head of the latter sat Cedric, looking pleased, but serious. Perhaps he’d been wrong when he’d said she would not be judged this day, for he looked as though he awaited a grim decision.
Now, seeing her Court in front of her, she was much at ease. Let them judge her. They would find her wanting. They would find anyone who came to the throne unfit for the job, for the job itself was unfit for their race.
She was a pretender, and would always be, now that she knew that power she wielded was the power sought by those who had succeeded only in banishing their race from their true home. She would keep the traditions, do as she was expected, to protect their future. But she would not encourage them in their lust for Humanity. She would protect her child, their future, while protecting them from themselves.
A priestess sang a chant, encouraging the assembly to follow along. Ayla looked out at them, chanting in unison, clinging to their Human-like traditions.
And at the back of the throne room, beside the door, where she should have seen him, but had somehow overlooked him, stood Malachi. Malachi, in the throne room of the Faery Court. In the Lightworld.
He had come back. Though she’d threatened him, though she’d begged him not to, he had come back. And she had never been so happy at someone’s complete disregard for her wishes.
She smiled at him, over the crowd. And she knew he was meant to be there.
THE LIGHTWORLD/DARKWORLD SERIES CONTINUES
CHILD OF DARKNESS…November 2009
VEIL OF SHADOWS…December 2009
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To me, this book symbolizes a beautiful flower that grew out of the rotting rib cage of a murder victim abandoned in a shallow grave. Thank you to everyone who made that weekend such a horrible experience and forced me to retreat into a fantasy world where a sewer full of monsters offered more hospitable company than yours.
Nice people and objects that made this book possible were the Friday Night Mudslingers, my supportive family, Diet Coke and Emmy Rossum’s “Inside Out” album.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4055-5
QUEENE OF LIGHT
Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Armintrout.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
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Table of Contents
One I n the Darkworld, the filth made it difficult…
Two M alachi never understood why they fell. Morta…
Three T he training room of the Assassins’ Guild w…
Four M alachi opened his eyes to a strange, mechan…
Five T he Queene di
d not leave her chambers until …
Six T hough Ayla did not get much sleep, what she …
Seven T he true foulness of the Darkworld had neve…
Eight A t the appointed hour, Ayla left Sanctuary …
Nine T he Strip. An assault on the senses. A feast…
Ten A yla waited in her hiding place for as long a…
Eleven T hey took the Darkling to the Human’s work…
Twelve W hen Ayla returned to her bunk in the Assa…
Thirteen H uman rituals of hygiene were nothing sh…
Fourteen T he signs were not as easy to follow as …
Fifteen G arret stormed through the halls of the P…
Sixteen I n her sleep, the harsh lines of anger th…
Seventeen S he had been there. And now she was gon…
Eighteen T he door to her cell opened, but the hal…
Nineteen T he days and nights blended into a strea…
Twenty T hey had moved him again. He’d thought it …
Twenty-One T he healers’ art was masterful. Within…
Twenty-Two D ragons.Bran checked his reflection on…
Twenty-Three T he fire had nearly gone out when sh…
Twenty-Four A Faery came in the early hours to rou…
Twenty-Five F or a long moment, it seemed Garret w…
Twenty-Six T he morning of the coronation dawned, …
Queene of Light Page 24