Queen of the Fae

by Linsey Hall

  I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care about anything except getting back to Tarron.

  Finally, I reached him, grabbing his limp hand. Not dead. Not yet.

  So close though.

  Instinct drove me.

  I used my new reflective magic, having no idea what I was doing but not caring. I tried to absorb as much of his power as I could—tried to suck it out of the air itself.

  The flames were out, and his magic still hovered in the air. He needed that magic—needed it to survive.

  He lay limp on the ground as I draped myself over him, sobbing and trying to shove his magic back into him.

  The cold crept over me even more as I tried to absorb the power like I had back at the goddesses’ temple. I’d stepped into the crystal’s electric current and absorbed it, then sent it at the queen.

  I could do this.

  I sliced my finger with my thumbnail, letting the blood well as I called on my Dragon Blood power. I used it to enhance my Unseelie magic, to help me absorb all the magic in the air so I could force it back into Tarron.

  But the cold…

  It seeped through me, icing in my veins and turning my movements slow and groggy.

  Tarron’s eyes were closed, his breathing so shallow that he had to be nearly dead.

  I used every magic I had, working on instinct alone, but it wasn’t enough. The cold crept ever closer, wrapping me in its terrible embrace.

  There was no pain as I opened my eyes. Blinking, I stared up at the cloudy sky.

  No, not a cloudy sky.

  The entire place was full of clouds.

  Was I having a premonition again?

  Now?

  Wait, when was now?

  Confusion tore through me, memories blasting into my mind.

  Fire. The queen. Tarron.

  Gasping, I sat upright. My body felt weightless. There was no pain, no tiredness. Tarron lay next to me.

  I fell on him, trying to shake his shoulders to wake him up.

  My hands passed right through.

  Oh shit.

  Tarron opened his eyes, confusion in the depths. Only then did I realize that he was slightly transparent.

  I blinked, shocked. “Holy fates. We’re both dead.”

  “What did you do?” He sat upright, fast and sure, his tone demanding. He gripped my arms, but was unable to make contact. His hands disappeared right through. “Mari. What did you do? You shouldn’t have died! My magic should have only knocked you unconscious.”

  “I don’t know!” Panic flared in my chest. “I did a lot of things. New magic, old magic. Whatever I could to keep you from dying.”

  Despair flashed across his face. “And it killed you, too.”

  I reached for him, though my hands couldn’t make contact. I was confused and shocked and terrified and almost a bit happy. Every emotion in the universe flashed through me, and I’d never been so baffled in my life.

  I didn’t want to be dead, but apparently I didn’t want to be separated from him either.

  I was just grateful to be looking at him. Talking to him. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  He stood and I rose to join him. We looked around, silent.

  White clouds. White trees, white grass. It was all ephemeral and pale.

  “I’m not really religious, so I have no idea what the afterlife looks like,” I said.

  “Not this,” Tarron said. “This is something else…”

  “Are we not dead?”

  “I don’t—”

  “You are not dead.” A voice sounded from the right. “Not quite, at least.”

  I spun, spotting the red-haired Celtic goddess. “Brigid.”

  She approached, a serene smile on her face. “This is very strange indeed.”

  “What’s going on?” Tarron demanded. “Are my people safe? Is the Unseelie Queen dead?”

  Brigid looked at me. “Do you feel dead?”

  “What?” Confusion flickered.

  “The Unseelie Queen,” Tarron said. “Not Mari.”

  “Mari is the true ruler of the Unseelie.”

  Holy shit. That was the same language the historian had used. The true ruler.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, chills racing over me.

  “Your mother does not rightfully hold the throne that should be yours.”

  Horror threatened to devour me. “She’s still alive, isn’t she?”

  Tarron’s magic hadn’t killed her, because it had killed me.

  I was the other Fae royalty. Therefore, I had bitten the dust when he had.

  Brigid nodded. “That Fae is still alive, yes. Injured, but she will survive.”

  Oh fates. This was so bad. “But the Seelie realm isn’t on fire, right?” I asked. “I saw the blaze go out.”

  I wouldn’t have tried to shove Tarron’s magic back into him if it hadn’t done its most important work. He never would have forgiven me.

  “It is out, yes. And we Guardians will find a way to extinguish it at Mount Chimaera once and for all, so that this cannot happen again.” Her eyes turned dark. “Our hubris got the better of us, thinking that we could protect it. We cannot. Not from one such as she.”

  My mother. Not the queen at all, in fact.

  “What are we?” I asked. “If we’re not quite dead.”

  And how do we get Undead?

  “I’m not really sure,” Brigid said. “You did something with your magic that has never been seen before. In trying to save Tarron’s life, you somehow saved your own as well. Almost.”

  Tarron gripped my hand.

  “Is it because we’re fated mates?” I asked.

  “That could have something to do with it.”

  “How can we come back to life?” I demanded. “We have to go back and stop her.”

  Brigid nodded. “I suppose it is possible, since you aren’t really dead. Just a little bit dead—your souls trapped at this halfway point.”

  “What should we do?” Tarron asked.

  She shrugged. “You will have to figure that out for yourselves.” She gestured around at the white mist. “Find your way through this half realm. Use your wits to reach the other side. Only then can you stop the false queen and save your people.”

  And with that, she disappeared.

  Tarron and I turned to look at each other. Dead. But not quite.

  I reached for him. Our hands drifted right through each other, but I felt a surge of comfort.

  We’d get out of this.

  We had to.

  ~~~

  Thank you for reading Queen of the Fae! The next book will be here in early October 2019. Click here to keep the adventure going with Aeri’s story!

  THANK YOU FOR READING!

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Reviews are so helpful to authors. I really appreciate all reviews, both positive and negative. If you want to leave one, you can do so on Amazon or GoodReads.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Queen of the Fae! If you’ve read any of my other books, you might know that I like to include historical places and mythological elements. I always discuss them in the author’s note.

  I drew quite a lot of inspiration from myth in Queen of the Fae. One of the main elements is Eternal Flame. There are many places in the world where eternal flames have burned for hundreds or thousands of years. Some of these are natural phenomena and others are tended by humans, usually as part of a culturally significant ritual. I had quite a few options to choose from for the book and decided to go with the eternal flame at Mount Chimera in Turkey. It has been burning for over 2,500 years and is the largest known venting of methane gas on earth. The fires burn along the mountaintop and were once used as a navigation beacons.

  Mount Chimera was often written about by ancient philosophers and scholars. The Chimera monster is indeed related to the mountain. Most ancient sources, including Homer, record the monster as being the one that we are most familiar
with in modern day—the odd creature with a lion’s head, a snake’s tail, and a goat head protruding from the back. However, other historians described Mount Chimera as being populated by goats, lions, and snakes in different areas. It was his interpretation that I used for the story.

  The four goddesses who guard the flame are all ancient goddesses of fire in some sense. The Vestal Virgins once tended the sacred flame of the goddess Vesta, but I thought they were due for a little liberation.

  The cave hideout where Tarron and Mari spent the night to avoid the storm is based upon the Lycian rock cut tombs of the Dalyan that were built in the 14th-15th century BC in Turkey. They are an incredible archaeological site that I had no idea existed until I found it on Google, and it just impressed upon me how many amazing sites there are that most of us don’t know about. Even though I studied archaeology for years, there are so many amazing wonders that I stumble upon.

  The Asiatic lions that almost attack Tarron, Mari, and Aeri while they are approaching Mount Chimera are based upon the real Asiatic lions that went extinct in the 19th century due to human hunting and interference.

  Finally, the dagger that Tarron anoints in the Eternal Flame was inspired by a sacred kris dagger from the 15th century Denmark Sultanate in Indonesia. The dagger was said to have been forged in the Mrapen flame, another ever-burning fire that is sacred in Javanese culture.

  I think that’s it for the history and mythology in Queen of the Fae. I hope you enjoyed it and will come back for more Mordaca and Aerdeca.

  For Amanda.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Ben, for everything. There would be no books without you.

  Thank you to Jena O’Connor and Lindsey Loucks for your excellent editing. The book is immensely better because of you! Thank you to Aisha Panjwaneey for your helpful comments about typos.

  Thank you to Orina Kafe for the beautiful cover art.

  About Linsey

  Before becoming a writer, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits fantasy and historical romances with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her Dragon’s Gift series draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include.

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All reference to events, persons, and locale are used fictitiously, except where documented in historical record. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 by Linsey Hall

  Published by Bonnie Doon Press LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form, except in instances of quotation used in critical articles or book review. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.

  ISBN - 978-1-942085-89-8

  Linsey@LinseyHall.com

  www.LinseyHall.com

  https://www.facebook.com/LinseyHallAuthor