by Jen Pretty
I looked at Roman, and his face betrayed my same thoughts. We were too late. We continued on towards the King’s throne room. He would most likely have been there.
There were several dead guards in the entryway. Blood sprayed the walls and the stairs leading up to the rooms we had stayed in just a week ago. There was one dead troll laying in the kitchen, butcher knives and steak knives still stuck in his chest. The Kitchen ladies are not to be trifled with, but they had fled already. I sent thanks to whatever power had spared them because I could not take much more.
The hall leading to the King’s throne room was painted red with blood. I had to remind myself this wasn't a nightmare. These walls betrayed the battle that had ensued between the guards and the trolls. Deep gashes and jagged scores in the wall plaster and the stone floor proved the men who lay dead or dying in the tight space had fought with everything they had to stop the movement of the toll invaders towards their king. These men had sworn their lives to the crown and proved it on this day. Finally, we turned through the broken doors of the King’s throne room.
As we entered, it wasn't immediately clear what was happening. The King’s guards were standing with swords out and frozen mid-step as they ran towards the throne. They blocked most of the view, and it wasn't until I passed through several rows of them that I saw what I had been dreading.
The King stood frozen by my magic, but his head had already fallen to the ground. The King was dead.
I pushed through until I stood behind the King’s attacker. A monster who stood nearly as tall as the ceiling in the room. His thick ropy hair was drenched in sweat and blood. He wore loose clothes, made of a dense material I had never seen before. His rough beard and coarse features were unmistakable. He was most certainly a Troll, but not from earth, it would seem. I pulled my sword and got my vengeance for the king, for Collin, the sweet old ladies and the innocent people of this land. I took more from that one monster than necessary to ensure his death, but my anger was more than one dead body could satisfy.
When I was finished with the troll, Roman and I went through the whole castle, killing any who didn't' belong. Any who came to mete out death and destruction received no mercy. They all had to die.
Once the castle was clear, we went through the town, taking down any aggressors we passed to ensure no more civilians of the city died. My magic was waning, and my eyes were dropping. My steps turned into stumbles, and Roman scooped me up. He killed a few more invaders and returned me to where we had left Puck, Marick and Daisy. I had long since reached my limit, and the tears flowed freely now. Marick sat quietly beside me until I dropped my magic and suddenly puck was a raging unicorn. He flew through town searching for the danger he had seen before I had frozen time. When he returned to me, unbloodied, I knew that we had found all the monsters. Puck would not have let a man go who should have been dead.
Daisy curled up in my lap and rested his delicate beak on my arm. I pet him once, but I was too broken to find joy in stroking him. I had no right to my pain.
This was all my fault.
I had stayed away too long, and now the King was dead. So many people were killed. Little Collin was gone. Mac was probably gone as well. He always stayed with his people so I could be sure he was among the fallen in the village.
The people of the village stood in shock for a moment, and then the cries began. People came from their homes and mourned the loss of their family and friends. Word of the King’s death reached the whole town in minutes it seemed, but I had no strength left to give. I sat in the dirt and wept with a numb feeling of self-hatred. I had failed these people.
"This wasn't your fault, Lex," Roman tried to comfort me, but I didn't deserve comfort anymore. I had taken a hot shower instead of coming to their aid. I had slept in Romans arms instead of protecting the innocent.
I wasn't done yet, though. I still had to find the strength to check on the other leaders of this land, what if they were under attack right now. I still had to go find Aldridge and rid the worlds of the pestilence of this evil witch.
I decided that should be my focus. That evil witch. She took, and she took, but I was going to be the one to say ‘no more’. I could feel more magic in my blood. I could feel my strength brought forward by the pain and anger and regret.
I turned to the fox shifter beside me. "Did Helena know?" I asked harshly. She had spoken to me twice. The first time I could have stopped this. If she had told me to leave at that time, I could have saved these people.
Marick became a small girl again and flinched back. I instantly regretted the acid in my voice when I had spoken to her. She was innocent too.
"She did not know," Marick said "only that the war would come and that you would end it,"
What good is it knowing anything if you can't stop the bad things from happening? I set daisy down and stood. I had to move. I had to walk. Instead, I ran. I ran towards the village I had once known as beautiful and quaint. Many parts of it were in ruins though some still stood. I stopped on the street corner and tried to catch my breath.
"Come in for a moment, Lex," said a familiar voice. I turned, and there was Grant, he had survived, at least.
I walked towards him mumbled an apology and sat in a chair. He set a bottle on the table and 2 glasses. He poured both glasses full, and we sat in silence. No one else was here, they were all out counting the dead.
"Thank you, "I muttered under my breath.
His face was shadowed by the darkness in the bar. The candles were out, and the only light streamed in through the open door.
"Thank you for saving us, Lex," he said as he filled my glass. "Those monsters were too strong."
I scoffed, it wasn't a pretty sound. “I didn't save you, I left you to this fate. I should have been here."
"You can't take this on yourself. It was not you who sent the giants to kill us. Nobody saw this coming."
I scoffed again. "An ancient Fae woman saw the war. She said I would end it. I should have come back as soon as she said there would be trouble."
"Even so, you brought us freedom, you brought us magic. You have not brought this destruction."
He poured us each another drink, but I sipped this one because I knew I wasn't done. I had a lot left to do and no time to sit and wallow.
"Can you get the heir?" Grant asked. "If you bring us back Aldridge, we will not be lost. He is a good man and will be a strong leader."
I knew before he had spoken those words that I had to pull it together and soldier on. I maybe wasn't born to be a hunter like Armond, but the elves were apparently fierce warriors so I was born with warrior blood and it was time for me to prove it. Time for me to go.
I found Roman helping move debris off the lane so a man with a cart could get through. I locked eyes with him, and he said farewell and followed in my wake. Daisy had been mulling about waiting for me, so he slipped in beside me quacking softly to himself. Puck was discussing strategy with the remaining King’s guard, but when I caught his eye, he quickly abandoned them and followed as I led them out of town. Marick caught up, and we were on our way. The march to the caves had taken days, I didn't have days to spare, but I did need one night to sleep. I was utterly exhausted and of no use to anyone. So about an hour out of town, I insisted we stop and set up camp. We found a quiet place off the path near a river.
I let everyone else go ahead of me to wash up in the river, knowing I would need some time to think and sitting by the water would help me focus those thoughts.
I stood there, knee deep in the water in just my underwear. No one was around, and I just needed a moment. It felt like my lungs were burning and the earth was shaking. I could hardly take a breath with how heavy my chest felt.
"You must accept the gift," blurted Marick's soft voice behind me.
I turned to look at her. "What gift?" I asked, trying to maintain a softness to my voice, so I didn't scare her again. I should never have spoken harshly to her.
"Pain is not always a punishment.
You can use that pain to build a fire. You have the fire, will you accept it?" as soon as she finished speaking, she turned back into a fox and bolted away.
What a horrible way to increase my magic. So many deaths, I shouldn't benefit from failure. No one should have to die.
It was too late for that though, wasn't it? Regret would not help me save these people and their new king. Aldridge was still missing and presumed alive. As long as he lived, so did this world. It was time for a choice, as Marick said. But it wasn't really a choice at all, I needed to save him, and to do that, I needed the power that was right in front of me. This pain was mine to hold and mine to use.
I accepted the power. It flowed into me like a landslide. It knocked me off my feet and into the river. It forced me beneath the surface and filled my lungs with water.
I was burning up; on fire. That fire had a purpose though. It was clearing out the old Lex. The one who didn't know how to use magic properly. She was gone, and the new Lex was a force stronger than nature, stronger than magic and time and space. I knew now what I had been missing all along. This was it. The magic I was born to control. The magic of a Fae Queen.
THE END
Book Title Copyright © 2018 by Jen Pretty. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jen Pretty
First Printing: July 2018
ISBN: 9781717935151
FAE QUEEN
Alexandra Everest Series Book Three
Jen Pretty
Remember me with smiles and laughter,
for that is how i will remember you all.
If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.
—Laura ingalls wilder
For Jacob, my sunshine.
For Connor, my peace.
And for Nicole, my heart.
CHAPTER ONE
A DUCK NAMED DAISY
On wings of black and gold filigree, the other dragons soared through the evening sky. Sunset was always beautiful in the mountains. The reds and pinks contrasted against the stark black mountain caps. How free they must have felt to belong to the wind, soaring so effortlessly.
The air stirred violently, giving me half a second to recognize the approaching danger. I shifted to my smaller form, a brightly coloured duck, in submission as I always did. It didn’t matter who it was. I was not, and would never be, dominant to any dragon. I had accepted that my flaws were too great to overcome, despite what my heart told me.
My wings had never grown. They were useless and barely larger in my dragon skin than in my lesser form.
My hatch brother had no such problems. He towered over me in his dragon form, his smoky exhalation ruffling my feathers as he brought his head down and looked me in the eye before flapping his wings hard, making me lose my balance and roll along the ground by the sheer force of his massive wings.
I lay there, defeated by the one thing I would never have.
He moved forward on my prone form instead of leaving as he usually did after making his point. He had become more aggressive and less tolerant of my presence in our home with each passing day. His usual games were increasing in their cruelty. This time was different though. He reached out with his clawed foot and scooped me up, squeezing me until I felt my ribs groan.
The rest of my family dropped to the rocky ground and watched on as the largest of my siblings tossed me across the rough landscape. I tried to gain purchase using my small webbed feet, but I didn’t stop tumbling until I bounced off a tree. The dragons all screamed and blew fire up in the air, a clear indication my time was up. I was no longer welcome in the territory. When my brother moved forward again, I flapped the small feathered wings, not daring to shift to a dragon and provoke him further and took to the sky.
My choices had been to die or go.
With the decision to leave, my stars shifted, and the magnetite started pulling me away from my nest, instead of towards it. I wasn’t the first to leave the nest and never return, but I had no idea my internal compass would change so quickly. I allowed the impulses to take control and followed where they led.
My family let me go. The betrayal cut deep, and the loneliness hollowed me out. They had once romped and tumbled with me, not caring about my defect. We grew together in our family nest, curled up warm on chilly nights, but those days had long passed.
When I was far enough away and between territories, I landed on a flat rock and shifted back to my dragon form. I scraped my claws on the rock, leaving deep slashes. I was never meant to be a dragon. Dragons were hard and violent. I wanted something more and I knew I was meant for something else. I could feel it in my bones.
I raised my nose to the sky and felt the draw of my new home farther beyond the mountain range and the plains. I would need some food to make that flight.
I slid low along the ground for a long time before I came across a sleeping gazelle. I blew fire through my nose and roasted it before it dashed away. I could only catch my prey at night, while they slept. It felt shameful to me, but the meal would be enough to get me where I needed to go.
I miserably crunched down my late-night meal, huffed smoke through my scaled nose and shifted to my smaller form before curling up on the cold hard ground and tucking my beak beneath my wing.
I fell asleep solemnly vowing to never be a dragon again.
✽✽✽
The second day of my journey, I flew as long and hard as I could. My small feathered wings, made for migration, could not handle this torturous pace. However, I wanted to be out of the dragon land and on with my new life. I could only hope it would be a better one.
The angry screams of dominant dragons had the muscles in my wings cramping and burning like dragon fire as I pushed to escape their territories, but none harassed me, and I made it to the edges of our world, the place where no dragons or anything else lived.
I flew slower, scanning the plains for whatever was drawing me. Finally, I saw what I was searching for and circled in the air, before landing softly in front of the portal. It looked like the mouth of a cave but in the middle of the plains.
I sat down and rested for a while. This was the way out, I was sure. My instincts told me to walk through. My new life lay beyond.
Taking one last look over my shoulder, I stepped through into the new land that would hopefully be my home.
Birds sang in the branches of every tree above me. It was a dense forest with trees as tall as the mountains I had left behind. I had never been in a place so lush and vibrant. The earthy scent filled my small nostrils and made me nearly drunk with joy. Tipping my head back to gaze at the birds, the sun filtered through the trees, blinding me with the intense green colour.
I wasn’t going to be able to fly up through the trees, so I waddled forward. The birds paced me as I went; Flying from tree top to tree top.
I walked a long time before I reached a stream. I waded in and splashed about in the cool water. The water in my land was always warm; I had never experienced something so refreshing. I swam out farther and dove under the water. I saw a tiny flash of colour and my instincts kicked in, forcing me to chase it down. It turned out to be the smallest fish I had ever seen. When I caught it, I swallowed it whole, then snatched up another before rising to the surface to catch a breath. I had never eaten in this form before. Hunting was easier as a dragon, even a flightless one.
I swam back to shore and shook the excess water free of my feathers before waddling back to the grass and plopping down to dry off and nap in the sun
shine. The birds still sang from the trees and their music soothed my tortured soul. They were more my kin than the dragons I had left behind.
I raised my beak and let out a resounding quack. The sound wouldn't strike fear in the hearts of dragons, but it did make the birds sing louder. I called out again when they settled a bit, and their small voices rose to meet me. I listened until some of it started making sense. Some birds sang about the food they had found, while others chirped about the beautiful river. A few sang for my presence in their world. One very loud bird danced through the trees singing of a different new presence that was important to the future of the many worlds; a human who would change all our lives.
Finally, I tuned out their chatter and tucked my beak under my wing; I slept while the warm sun and soft breeze dried my feathers.
The silence of the birds and approaching thunder of hooves alerted me to the imminent danger. I spread my wings and took to the sky, but something snatched me out of the air by my legs. I squawked and flapped, but it held me upside down in front of its face bearing its teeth. The strange looking animal walked on its hind legs. I had seen these creatures before in my old home once or twice. They had no feathers or fur or scales. It yelled, and some beasts came thundering into the clearing. I watched them, upside down.
Their coats glistened in the fading sunlight; they each had a single horn on their heads and long wild hair down their necks. They looked somewhat like large gazelles, but I had never seen beasts quite like these before. They didn’t look like prey, rather like predators with the way their eyes confidently scanned the area and they moved about boldly like the dominant dragons from my home.
The white creatures transformed into more skinned, two-legged animals, and they came closer to me. The one holding me lashed my feet together with a long vine and carried me over his shoulder. I bumped ungracefully against his back with every step, but I maintained my silence, continuing to believe they would let me go when they finished toying with me.