The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “We are going to wait for Molly to approach the Gate,” said Tess. “We will allow her to pass, but not the bone sorcerer.”

  “That seems…arbitrary,” said Vivian.

  “Queen Mab has lost her grip on sanity,” Ramel said with quiet authority. “Molly has chosen the path she thought would give her the best chance at revenge upon Mab.”

  Vivian thought she caught a flash of pain in Ramel’s hazel eyes as he spoke Molly’s name, but then it was gone. “So…you’re going to let her have that revenge.”

  “Before I came through the Gate, there was already discussion between Vell and Titania about the problem of Mab,” said Tess. Sometimes it was difficult for Vivian to remember that the Bearer was only a year or two older than her. The experience written across Tess’s face and carried in her eyes made her seem of an age with the Sidhe standing beside her.

  “Fighting fire with fire.” Vivian nodded in recognition. “Sometimes that hasn’t worked very well.”

  “A point we have also discussed,” said Niall, rising from the table. “And this is why we have sent messages to the other Queens.”

  “This seems kind of like a bad idea,” she said, hastily adding, “I mean, I know I’m a really new Paladin, I get it. But people thought it was a good idea like twenty years ago to give guns to bad guys so they could fight the worse guys and then we turn around and we’re actually fighting the bad guys because once they were in power they became the worse guys…um.” She cleared her throat. “Never mind.”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” Tess said.

  “You do?” Vivian’s voice went high with surprise.

  “It’s a valid point.” Tess nodded. She hooked a finger through the pendant at her throat. Vivian wondered if the pendant had special magical properties or something, because it was a habit of the Bearer to touch it when she was thinking.

  “But the difference is that Molly won’t have the chance to hold any power after she is done with Mab,” said Ramel in a hard voice.

  Vivian swallowed. “So, it’s a fight to the death. For them both .”

  Their stony silence was her answer.

  “We’ll deal with the bone sorcerer here,” said Tess. “And then minimize collateral damage as best we can when we follow Molly through the Gate.”

  “Aim the weapon,” murmured Vivian.

  “Yes.”

  Vivian took a breath. “Well. When is this supposed to happen?”

  “We believe tonight or tomorrow night,” said Niall.

  “Okay.” She nodded, absorbing all of it. “I’m packed and ready to go.”

  “Packed?” Tess repeated questioningly.

  “Well, I mean that as half a metaphor, because I know we have to travel light, heading right into collateral-damage-containment,” qualified Vivian. “Just the basics.” She didn’t want them to think that she was going to be extravagant or expect special treatment because she was the Paladin. A Paladin.

  “She is a Paladin,” Niall said, as though to remind Tess. “Her place is alongside us.”

  Vivian felt a bit off balance. Had Tess really been questioning her right to travel into the Fae world? Righteous indignation bubbled up her throat, but then the Bearer nodded.

  “Of course. You’re right, Niall.” Tess smiled apologetically at Vivian. “I just have to get used to the idea of having other mortals around.”

  “What am I, chopped liver?” demanded Duke indignantly from the table.

  “Other mortals with powers,” amended Tess seamlessly.

  “Your brother is a Seer,” said Niall. “And now he has part of the First within him as well.”

  “All right, all right.” Tess pressed her lips together. “I have to get used to the idea of Paladins. A Paladin. The Paladin.”

  “I’m going to go change into my traveling clothes,” Vivian said in a definitive tone that she hoped would settle the discussion. As she turned, she saw Ross start forward, following her into the hallway.

  “Hey,” Ross said.

  Vivian obediently turned. “Are you going to lecture me about why it’s not a good idea for me to go into the Fae world?”

  Ross crossed her arms over her chest but finally answered, “No. I don’t like it, just like I don’t like it when I hear that a buddy of mine from my time in service is getting deployed again. I don’t like it when my friends go into harm’s way.” Her lips turned up slightly at the corners. “But you kinda saved my ass in that warehouse. Quite literally.” Her eyes glimmered from their pockets of bruised flesh, her broken nose having finally made itself painfully apparent.

  “I hope you found someone to cover your shift,” Vivian said. “Otherwise you’re going to have to say you’re an underground martial arts fighter or something.”

  Ross arched an eyebrow. “Your concern is touching.”

  “I mean, you’d be great as an underground martial arts fighter,” replied Vivian with a smile. She glanced at the closed door of the study, wondering whether Ramel was in there brooding by himself. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to the copper-haired Unseelie much, but he’d seemed very different since the warehouse.

  “You were pretty great as a Paladin last night,” said Ross seriously. She swallowed. For the first time in a long time, Vivian noticed their height difference. Ross had such force of character and strength of body that Vivian mostly forgot her nearly six-inch height advantage.

  “Thanks,” Vivian heard herself say, a bit of wonder in her voice.

  “Look, what I’m trying to say is…I’m proud of you. Really. You…this is what you’re meant to do.” Ross nodded, even though she glanced away. “I just hope I’ll get to see you again before too long, okay?” She blinked furiously.

  “Oh, god, are you crying, Ross?” Vivian exclaimed in shock. “Please don’t do that. Seriously. It’s not like…I mean, I’m just going into the Fae world! And from what Tess said, this Gate is one of the more permanent kind, so I’ll be coming back!”

  I’ll be coming back unless the worst happens, she added silently, and she knew Ross was thinking it too.

  “I might be a skeptic,” said Ross in a choked voice, “but I’m not dumb. It’s not lost on me that Tess’s best friend is the one they’re using in this sacrifice play.” She clenched her jaw. “Don’t do that, okay?”

  “Don’t…become the bone sorcerer’s apprentice and thus defect to the side of evil?” Vivian asked, wrinkling her nose.

  Ross huffed out a breath. “Yeah, don’t do that. Also, don’t do anything too heroic. Because being too heroic gets you killed, okay?”

  A shock rippled through Vivian. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or excitement as she realized in a visceral way that she could die on this journey into Faeortalam. It was the same frisson of emotion that she’d felt when she’d faced Corsica in the warehouse, the Exiled woman advancing on her with lazy grace, twirling her silver knives in gloved hands. “I can’t promise I won’t be heroic, but I can promise that I’ll do my best not to get killed.” She shrugged. “I guess you should promise the same.”

  “I’m not going to battle Queen Mab,” Ross pointed out.

  “Well, first of all, Molly’s going to be doing the actual battling. We’re just there as the stopgap. Second of all, you’re a firefighter. You run into burning buildings. It’s totally legitimate for me to ask you to promise me exactly the same thing.”

  Ross smiled and looked away. She carefully wiped away tears – any quick or rough motion would have jarred her broken nose and bruised face. “I promise.”

  Vivian nodded. “Okay. So, we’ve both promised to do our best to not die. I feel so much better.” She grinned as Ross rolled her eyes. “I mean, I know you’re not really a hugger, but I’ll totally give you a hug right now if requested.”

  Ross sighed and held out her arms. Vivian gave her friend a hug, careful not to jar her face.

  “Kick ass and take names, kid,” Ross told her as they parted. “And don’t let Tyr mess with your head
too much.”

  “What?” Vivian felt the blush rush to her cheeks.

  Ross looked amused. “I served with Marines, V. I know when there’s some hanky-panky going on.”

  “There was neither hanky nor panky,” Vivian retorted. “Just…sort of a kiss.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure the bedroom door was still closed, and simultaneously checked the seal on the closed connection in her head.

  “Was it a good kiss at least?”

  “You’re not going to lecture me?” Vivian narrowed her eyes.

  “Jeez, V, you make it sound like that’s all I do,” Ross said.

  “You do have pretty strong mother hen tendencies.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ross chuckled and then winced as her expression jarred her bruises. “Mother hen tendencies aside, it’s been made very clear over the past few weeks that you’re capable and have a good head on your shoulders. Not that it wasn’t clear before that,” she said as Vivian started to protest, “but I’m just saying, it was hard for me to see sometimes.”

  “Go on,” Vivian said grudgingly.

  Ross smiled. “What about that kiss?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

  “It was actually pretty…chaste,” admitted Vivian. “Except we can kind of feel how the other is feeling, through our bond, and I felt…how much he wanted me. I’m not sure if that was completely separate from everything else he was feeling, because he was mad about Corsica and sad about Corsica and wished that he’d been the one to kill her.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m going to put it on the back burner. See how everything turns out in this epic showdown first.”

  “Probably a good idea,” said Ross. “Just remember that combat is a heck of an aphrodisiac.”

  “I don’t even want to know how you know that,” said Vivian.

  “You know how I know that,” replied Ross with a wink.

  Vivian smiled. “I really do have to go change. Just in case.”

  Ross nodded. “I’m going to go make sure Mayhem isn’t reverting to her wolf state with Kianryk.” She sighed. “Apparently he killed a wild pig and is sharing it with her in the yard.”

  “Wild bacon,” Vivian said brightly.

  “I doubt there will be any bacon left when those two are done with it.”

  Vivian chuckled and finally turned to face her bedroom door. She slowly opened the connection between her and Tyr as she reached for the doorknob.

  Are you hungry? she asked as she walked into the room. I’ve eaten, so I should be…fine.

  Tyr had drawn back the curtains and pulled up the blinds of her bedroom window. The late afternoon sun bathed him in golden light, and to Vivian’s eye he could have been a statue carved from marble in a museum, his beautiful profile strikingly silhouetted, his shaggy silver hair somehow seeming perfectly tousled, and even his scars providing an interesting pattern to his skin. Vivian thought dazedly that he would have seemed less without his scars.

  I remember watching my last sunset in Faeortalam, he said musingly. They had bound us in iron and marched us, chained to another, to the Gate. He stroked the deeper bands of scars at his wrists absent-mindedly. I remember thinking that I had never seen colors so beautiful. Beauty is best underscored by great pain.

  Vivian closed the door behind her. She waited, but he didn’t say anything else, so she tried again. Are you hungry?

  No. He didn’t move from his place at the window.

  Let me say it another way. You wanted me to eat so that I would have strength if Molly decided to make her move tonight. Doesn’t the same apply to you?

  Little of the same applies to me, he replied enigmatically.

  She sighed and shook her head. “Suit yourself.” She walked over to her dresser and pulled open the top drawer, grabbing the outfit that she’d picked out to travel into the Fae world: black hiking pants with a zippered pocket that was big enough for her rune-stick, paired with a loose silvery-green long-sleeved top. She didn’t know whether it was spring or summer or winter in the Fae world, but she figured that was a good baseline.

  Tyr had always made it a point to courteously avert his eyes when she changed clothes, if she decided to do it in the room. Vivian thought for a moment about taking her clothes to the bathroom, as she’d done for the first week or so that he’d shared her room. Then she set her teeth and defiantly pulled her shirt over her head. She was still wearing underwear. It wasn’t any worse than being seen in a bathing suit.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed Tyr move, glancing at her almost unwillingly and then turning back to the window, repeating the movement a heartbeat later. It would have been funny if all the air in the room hadn’t been electric and her heart wasn’t beating double time in her ears as she pulled on her hiking pants, trying twice to button them. She wondered if any of the Sidhe women had freckles, or if they all had perfect marble skin.

  Then again, Tyr had been in the mortal world for centuries. He’d certainly had the opportunity to have his fill of mortal women. She pulled her shirt over her head and tugged her ponytail back into place.

  A few, he said in her mind, but not many.

  They both knew what he was talking about. She swallowed and didn’t answer, busying herself with checking her slim backpack. After buckling her sword belt around her waist, she opened the drawer of her nightstand and powered down her phone without looking at any of the message alerts. Alex, Evie and Mike would be fine. She’d set up cheery emails with vague details about traveling, to be sent in three and four day intervals. If they got too worried, they’d call Ross, and she knew she could depend on her to deflect their questions.

  After she finished checking her pack, Vivian turned and pulled up one sleeve, peeling away the omnipresent bandage on her forearm. “Come on.”

  Tyr turned toward her, a spark of eagerness flashing through his eyes but a reluctant restraint in his movements. She slid up onto the bed and he stood in front of her as she opened the cut again with a wince.

  “You are definitely not the inspiration for those vampire shows,” she muttered as he began to drink her blood, gritting her teeth. The sharp, bright pain of his feeding, his mouth bruising-hard against her forearm, negated any pleasure she might have felt from his lips on her skin. She swallowed against the familiar roll of nausea and reminded herself that Molly would be coming tonight. They’d be traveling into Faeortalam, and they’d need all the strength they could muster in the battle against the mad queen.

  Chapter 50

  Tess reached over her shoulder and shifted the sheath of the Caedbranr. Luca looked at her in silent inquiry. They sat on the front steps of Vivian’s little house, peering out over the yard and the road, the hum of insects beginning to build as the day slanted toward dusk.

  “It’s like trying to scratch an itch I can’t reach when the Sword gets restless,” she explained, rolling her shoulders. The prickling sensation traveled up and down her spine. The Caedbranr-as-primal-wolf prowled in her chest, its pace increasing as the hours stretched closer to sunset. Her ribs ached.

  “Is it better or worse here in the mortal world?” asked Luca.

  She lifted her shoulders. “Hard to say. Here I have taebramh coming from the outside and from the inside, so I feel caught between them. Not in a bad way. It’s just different than in Faeortalam.”

  Luca didn’t reply. Every half hour or so, he’d walk around the perimeter of the property, axe in hand. Kianryk appeared out of the shadows now and again, disappearing back into the tall grasses and wild undergrowth that bordered the yard and the riverbank.

  “It’s going to be tonight,” Tess said quietly. They were all tense. Even if Ross and Duke couldn’t taste the current in the air, the precursor to a great crashing battle of power, they sensed the mood of the others.

  Luca nodded, resting his elbows on his knees, tossing one of his axes idly between his hands. His was a coiled restlessness, a preparation for battle that dictated economy of movement and calm collection before the rush and
chaos.

  Tess took a breath. They hadn’t had much time since they’d come through the Gate, and now it seemed as if they would be traveling back through shortly. “You know, this whole situation taught me that I can’t expect anything to go as planned.”

  He chuckled. “Our journey across Faeortalam didn’t already teach you that?”

  “Okay, reinforcing that lesson,” amended Tess with a smile. She sobered as her mind turned again to the task ahead. “What if Molly wants to fight?”

  “Then we fight,” said Luca simply.

  Tess closed her teeth on the protest that she didn’t want to fight Molly. She’d thought that Ramel wouldn’t want to fight her either, but even the memory of his hard resolve from their conversation sent a chill across her skin.

  “I wish to kill Gryttrond,” he continued.

  Tess admired the way the deepening gold of the sun played on his braids and touched the white scars scattered across his skin. The Sword nudged her and she brought her attention back to the conversation. “I know.”

  “And you do not object?” Luca said, his voice deepening to a rumble.

  “No. As long as my oath is fulfilled, one way or another. I’m here, and I’m helping to contain this mess. I know you’ve waited a long time to have any kind of closure.”

  “There will never be closure,” said Luca, shaking his head. “Vell, Chael and I all know this. There is only the end of the last chapter, and the beginning of the next.”

  Tess brushed her fingers against the silvery marks on her throat where the White Wolf had left the imprint of its teeth on her skin. Vell, Luca and Chael all bore similar tokens of the Northern deity’s favor. She wondered, not for the first time, why the Wolf had chosen to mark her, too. She was the Bearer, not an ulfdrengr.

  Luca stood and went to patrol. Kianryk silently materialized beside him, appearing soundlessly out of the undergrowth. Tess watched the man and wolf until they disappeared around the side of the house.

  The sun touched the tops of the trees on the western horizon, balanced on their reaching branches, and then sank in a fiery wash of orange and red. As twilight draped its cloak over the house, Niall and Ramel came out onto the porch at different times, pacing and peering into the shadows and then disappearing again. While Luca was out prowling the yard, Vivian emerged from the house and took the seat on the step next to Tess, leaving a polite margin between them. Tess glanced at the Paladin: she looked a little pale, the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose standing out more than usual.