The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “I feel like it’s the night before Christmas or something,” Vivian commented, stretching her long legs down the steps.

  Tess noted in approval that Vivian wore her sword at her hip and looked prepared to jump into a fight. “I don’t know whether I’d equate this battle with Christmas.”

  “For me, maybe. I get to go into Faeortalam for the first time.”

  Tess heard the longing and excitement in Vivian’s voice. “Let’s hope your first trip through is a bit less traumatic than mine.”

  “What happened?” Vivian asked. “I mean, I know the summary from Niall. But I’d like to hear it from you.”

  “Finnead had come to the Texas Hill Country to escort Molly to Mab’s Court,” Tess said, leaning back on her hands. “I’d decided that I wasn’t going to let her go alone. Finnead took Molly on his motorcycle toward the Gate – it was a Lesser Gate in Mab’s territory near Darkhill. But a garrelnost had come through and attacked them.”

  “Are there any garrelnost left, after the battle at the Dark Keep?”

  Tess raised her eyebrows. “Niall certainly did teach you a history of recent events.” She considered. “There are probably some in the far reaches of the North or in the wilds around Darkhill and Brightvale. We’ve been hunting them down whenever we can.”

  “I’d like to go on one of those hunts.”

  Tess glanced at Vivian, trying to determine if the younger woman was serious; the redhead was nodding to herself, squinting into the distance as if visualizing a battle with a garrelnost.

  “Garrelnost are tough quarry,” said Ramel from behind them. He leaned against one of the porch pillars.

  “You’ve hunted many?” Vivian asked guilelessly.

  “And almost been gutted by a few,” said Ramel. “But we’ve improved our knowledge of the beasts and adjusted our hunting techniques accordingly.”

  Tess only half-listened as Ramel began to discuss the finer points of hunting Dark creatures with Vivian. The Paladin drew from a seemingly endless well of questions. Tess wondered if she’d ever been that enthusiastic.

  It is experience, not years, that separate you from The Paladin, said the Caedbranr sagely in her head.

  Thanks for that bit of wisdom, Tess replied.

  The Sword didn’t reply, a sign of its preoccupation as it returned to pacing within her chest, pausing every now and again to do something that Tess could only equate to scenting the air like a hound. She wove a few taebramh lights as the darkness deepened, and slapped at a few mosquitos in irritation.

  Then the Sword gave a painfully hard pull in her chest, jerking her to her feet. She swallowed her yelp of protest, because standing calmly in the center of the patch of grass in front of the house was Molly.

  The power rolling from Molly’s black-clad figure surrounded them like a bank of fog, metallic and sweet with the scent of death. Tess instinctually drew the Sword, pulling its power into herself to minimize the risk of collateral damage. Her taebramh lights blazed overhead, spreading into a circle, illuminating the scene with silvery light.

  For a long moment, she stared at Molly. The sight of the red runes on Molly’s face hit her like a physical blow, and any lingering thought of pulling her best friend back from the brink of darkness disappeared as she met the woman’s flat gaze, a dark, rusted red like the color of day-old blood. Vaguely Tess became aware of the others behind her, and she thought of the first battle against the bone sorcerer, when she had thought the solution would be so simple.

  Tess took two long strides forward. The Caedbranr’s fire surged down her war-markings and into the blade. Molly echoed her movement, but she did not draw her own blade. One of her hands held the end of a rope, and she pulled it sharply. Tess clenched her jaw as shadows slid back to reveal Gryttrond – or what remained of him. She felt nothing but a vague nausea as her eyes traveled over the gaunt, wasted figure who had once been a powerful sorcerer.

  A cold smile curled Molly’s lips. “Lady Bearer.”

  The reply emerged from Tess layered with the many voices of Bearers past, Gwyneth’s pendant heating at her throat. “Sorceress.”

  Molly lifted her chin, her gaze traveling beyond Tess. “And the whole gang is here. How heartwarming.” Her smile turned into a grin. “I didn’t know I merited such attention.”

  “We are letting you live to serve one purpose,” replied Tess, hearing all the previous Bearers join her in their disgust. One who joined the Darkness so willingly could never be retrieved.

  “To kill the mad queen.” Molly nodded. “This I well know. I sold my soul for it.”

  Tess shoved aside the sudden wrenching pain in her chest. “You will go through the Gate, and you will take your revenge on Mab.”

  Molly’s red eyes found someone behind Tess again. “I will take revenge for both of us.”

  “You do not speak for me,” said Ramel in a low, tight voice.

  “Tell yourself what you will,” Molly replied. The bone sorcerer stirred to his knees and she twitched the rope again, knocking him to the ground with savage efficiency. “I am fighting the battle that you would not. I have taken on your burden. I freed you, my love.”

  “There is no love between us since you gave yourself to his blood sorcery.” Ramel’s words became steadier and stronger.

  Molly laughed, holding up the rope. “Oh, he was only the conduit.” She turned her head, looked over Tess’s other shoulder. “Corsica was quite brilliant, you know. It’s a shame you didn’t share her grand plans.”

  “Corsica used you,” said Vivian, answering for Tyr.

  “At first,” said Molly easily. “Until I grew strong. And then I used her.” She smiled. “And now she is dead. Thank you for that, Paladin. I had put the runes on her already, and when she died her power became mine.” She tilted her head. “She loved you, but you already knew that. And you had your little pet kill her.”

  Vivian made a strangled sound.

  “Which was quite a lovely surprise, as I said.” Molly raised her chin and peered up at the sky overhead. Tess stared at the scarlet markings bisecting Molly’s white throat. In the half-dark, the red lines looked as though they were snakes wrapping around her, slithering across her skin. She clenched her jaw and steeled herself against the hypnotizing sight, taking another step forward.

  “Enough,” she said.

  “Impatient as always,” said Molly, arching an eyebrow. “But it wouldn’t do to tarry any longer.” She caught Luca’s eye, a seductive smile unfurling across her lips. “I have a present for you, but I think you already knew that too.”

  Molly jerked the rope binding Gryttrond’s hands, dragging him forward. Luca drew even with Tess with two paces and then held his position, axes in hand, his wolfish eyes fixed on the pathetic figure of Gryttrond.

  “Vengeance is my god,” said Molly quietly. “Sacrifice him on its altar.” She backed away from the bone sorcerer, one red-runed hand going to her throat to curl around the black river stone.

  Before Tess could evaluate why this felt wrong, Luca closed the distance between him and Gryttrond with savage speed. The bone sorcerer raised his bound hands in a mute plea, and in the silvery taebramh light Tess saw in horror that his face was old and wizened, his red runes folded into a thousand wrinkles. But that didn’t give Luca pause. With the wrath of an avenging spirit, he kicked the old man onto his back and his axe flashed as he raised it overhead. Gryttrond gave a thin, pathetic cry, a wail as weak as a newborn, and Molly leaned forward, her face suffused with expectant ecstasy.

  Luca brought his axe down on the bone sorcerer’s throat. The first blow didn’t kill the old man, so the ulfdrengr struck again as Gryttrond gurgled and twitched, wheezing through his ruined throat until with the third strike the axe parted his head from his shrunken body. Luca stood over the corpse for a moment, blood-spattered and panting, his axe dripping gore. From somewhere behind the house, Kianryk howled.

  The joyous expression on Molly’s face and the shocked, blank look on Lu
ca’s as he turned back to them ignited a writhing ball of nausea in Tess’s stomach.

  Depravity, growled the Caedbranr, straining toward Molly. It wanted to obliterate her darkness in its fire.

  “Not yet,” Tess managed, swallowing hard.

  “Thank you for that,” breathed Molly rapturously, staring at Gryttrond’s beheaded body. An arc of blood droplets curved across her face, glistening darkly. The river stone at her throat pulsed with a dark and alien light. Luca still stood near the pathetic corpse of the bone sorcerer. A helpless rage followed hard on the heels of Tess’s nausea.

  “If Mab doesn’t kill you,” came Ramel’s voice, hard with promise, “then I will.”

  Molly smiled at him and said, “See you on the other side then, lover.” She raised her fingertips to her lips, and when she blew her kiss to Ramel a silent explosion rocked them, snuffing out the taebramh lights and throwing them all to the ground.

  Tess rolled to her side and pushed herself onto her knees, ears ringing. “Should’ve expected that,” she muttered. She felt vaguely irritated that the Sword hadn’t bothered to shield them as she hefted the blade and then slid it into its sheath.

  It was for show, not for actual impact, the Caedbranr replied with unperturbed logic.

  “Right,” Tess grumbled, standing unsteadily. As she wove a taebramh light, another, smaller globe of light floated into the air from behind her, tessellated with shifting runes. Vivian had a second light nearly finished by the time Tess tossed her constellation back overhead. “Worth your salt,” Tess said over her shoulder in approval to the redhead. Vivian put the finishing touch onto the activation rune for her second light and it floated up from her palm. Only then did she acknowledge Tess’s words with a nod.

  Tess adjusted the sheath of the Sword on her back, blinking away spots from the edges of her vision. She hadn’t really known what to expect out of this confrontation, but such an enthusiastic endorsement of the bone sorcerer’s death hadn’t been one of the possibilities on her mind. Kianryk stood by Luca, one lip raised in a silent snarl at the wretched, wizened corpse of Gryttrond. A breeze stirred the humid, warm night as she stepped close to Luca.

  “He was already defeated,” Luca said quietly, gazing down at the man that he’d killed with three strokes of his axe. “And it was not by my hand.”

  “I would have done it, if you hadn’t,” said Tess. “I swore an oath before the Queens.”

  “I swore an oath before the bones of my people,” he replied bitterly. “And I imagined the fulfillment of that oath a thousand times.” He shook his head. “It never felt like this.”

  Tess forced herself to look at the body, taking in the gleam of bone and the blood seeping into the dirt, the rictus of agony on the aged face beneath its veneer of red runes, now rendered powerless forever. “He will never hurt anyone again.”

  “She took his power,” said Luca. “She is his heir.”

  Nausea rose again with a dull ache in her stomach. “Yes. Molly is the bone sorceress now.”

  Luca spat to the side and then knelt to clean his axe in the grass.

  “I hope Vell and Titania are prepared,” Tess said, almost to herself, as she turned back toward the house.

  “We cannot help that now,” Luca replied. “We can only fulfill our portion of the plan.”

  Tess nodded. “You’re right, so let’s get ready to do that.”

  She surveyed the group, now all on their feet and finished brushing the dirt from themselves after Molly’s dramatic exit. Niall stood with his hand resting on his sword hilt, his pale eyes watchful. Ramel shoved his thumbs into his belt, still wearing the hard expression that Tess imagined had crossed his face when he’d promised Molly that he would kill her if Mab didn’t. He wore only a long dagger at his belt. They’d have to procure him a sword after they stepped through the Gate.

  Beside Niall, Vivian engaged in her peculiar brand of conversation with silver-haired Tyr, tilting her head slightly as though to better hear his silent words. She still held her rune-stick loosely in one hand, ready to draw a rune at short notice. Duke and Ross stood slightly behind the group, Duke having positioned himself in front of Ross during the tense confrontation.

  A collective shudder rippled through the two Sidhe Knights and Tess as they felt Molly pass through the Gate, a cold flash passing over them like a sudden icy blast of wind in the dense hot night.

  “Time for us to follow,” said Niall with a decisive nod. He turned to Ross and Duke, inclining his head gracefully. “Thank you for your hospitality and understanding. I know this can’t have been easy for you.”

  Duke grinned and caught the Seelie man’s hand in a firm handshake. “Anytime, brother.”

  Niall observed the handshake with a speculative, evaluating air, but he seemed to come to a silent conclusion about the odd mortal custom, turning to Ross and offering his hand. Ross shook it less emphatically than Duke, but a smile crossed her lips.

  “Stay safe, Niall,” she said.

  The Seelie turned and made his way toward the back of the house. One of Tess’s taebramh lights detached to follow him, illuminating his path.

  Ramel nodded to the both of them next. “I don’t think I can say it better than Niall. Thank you. And…I’m sorry if I tried to kill either of you, when I was wearing the armor.”

  “Not that I remember,” said Duke in his earnest drawl.

  Ramel smiled and turned toward the Gate.

  Vivian cleared her throat. “We’ve already said what we needed to say.” She spun on her heel abruptly and followed Ramel, one of her rune-lights bobbing in her wake. Tyr faded silently into the shadows.

  “He’s going too?” Ross asked skeptically, looking at the space that the Exiled Unseelie had occupied before disappearing.

  “He has his reasons to want vengeance against Mab too,” said Tess.

  “On a scale of one to murderous insanity, I’m wonderin’ how surprised she’s gonna be to see him alive,” mused Duke.

  “I’d keep up the runes on the door,” Tess said to Ross. “I’ll send one of the twins back through the Gate when it’s all said and done to check on you.”

  “You just took the new bone sorceress with you,” said Ross with a shrug. “I think that’s the biggest threat right now.”

  “Don’t say that,” cautioned Duke, half-serious. “Some new monster is gonna jump outta the shadows just because you said that.”

  “As long as a bullet can take care of it, we’re good,” she replied, raising her eyebrows.

  “Right, because we haven’t encountered monsters lately where bullets are ‘bout as efficient as spittin’ into the wind,” retorted Duke.

  “I’ll leave you guys to hash this out,” said Tess.

  “Let us know how the dice roll,” said Duke. “An’ tell Luck that he better be makin’ the most of his time in that world with beautiful women flyin’ around on horseback and stuff.”

  Ross slapped his bicep lightly. He threw his arm around her in a loose hug.

  “Nothin’ on you, darlin’, of course.”

  “We should go,” said Luca. He nodded to Ross and Duke but didn’t have any other words for them. Tess pressed her lips together. The lack of triumph in finally killing the bone sorcerer who had been a part of the destruction of the ulfdrengr was genuinely casting a pall over Luca. Kianryk loped ahead of him, tail held high like a banner.

  “Hey,” said Ross, almost as an afterthought. Tess paused and waited for the other woman to go on. “Look out for Vivian, okay? I know she’s a Paladin now, but she’s my friend. I wouldn’t want to see her hurt.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Tess said, even as she remembered all the friends she’d lost in the fight against this never-ending darkness, personified first by Malravenar and now by Mab and Molly. Her heart clenched. She knew better now than to promise anyone that someone they loved would be safe.

  And with such comforting thoughts of the grim realities of battle, Tess turned toward the Gate, her heart lea
ping despite her misgivings. Adrenaline coursed through her in a heady rush as she strode through the long grass. Before she had known the name Malravenar, she had felt the cruelty of Mab, and now the Unseelie Queen would feel the wrath sown by her centuries of malice.

  The Gate shimmered, visible one moment and then invisible the next, liquid whorls of color spreading like oil sheen across its surface, blown by a wind they could not feel. Tess felt its pull in her bones, calling her to the world that was now hers. She surveyed her motley band one last time: one Seelie, one Unseelie, one ulfdrengr and wolf, one Exiled and one Paladin for good measure.

  “Remember what we talked about,” she said to them. “We’ll be coming through in Seelie territory, since that’s where Titania placed her Gate. I’ll go through first, then Niall and Ramel. Vivian, you and Tyr next, and then Luca will bring up the rear.”

  She felt like they were about to pass through the Gate into the Dark Keep again. This was not that day, she told herself firmly. They were not about to dive into a maelstrom of shadows and blood…but they had just allowed Molly to pass through this Gate, so it was still within the realm of possibility.

  With an effort, Tess cleared her mind. She made eye contact with each of them, found no questions in their eyes, and turned to the Gate. With one hand on the hilt of the Sword behind her shoulder and the other on the hilt of the blade inscribed with the names of all their war dead, Tess stepped through the Gate into Faeortalam.

  Chapter 51

  After the front door shut behind them, Ross walked quickly toward Vivian’s bedroom. She pushed back the curtains and raised the blinds at the window that provided the best vantage point into the back yard.