by S. M. Boyce
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Very good.” She nodded, but the dip of her head was a little too slow.
Victoria giggled and leaned in. “You’re drunk. You’re a regal drunk, but you are drunk nonetheless.”
“A queen is never drunk, Miss Victoria,” Angelique said with a mischievous twist to her lips. “She merely talks slower and takes greater care to enunciate her words.”
Laughter bubbled out of Victoria’s chest, and she nearly snorted at the sheer ridiculousness of watching a drunk witch try to explain her way out of being caught.
“Oh, oh!” Angelique gestured for Victoria and Audrey to lean in. “I almost forgot. I have a present for the both of you. Come with me.”
“A present!” Audrey giggled.
“A present. Come!” The witch ushered them up a staircase.
Despite the drunken fog from the wine, suspicion flared in the back of Victoria’s mind. She asked her new magic if this was safe—an overly simplistic question, but all her fuzzy mind could muster—and the answer came back loud and clear.
Safe.
Good enough.
Victoria and Audrey followed Angelique as she led them through a series of corridors and exits. A few times they passed a wizard guard she had posted, each of whom chuckled and nodded in greeting as the women passed.
Finally Angelique stopped at a large wooden door. Its ancient golden hinges were covered in grime, but the queen waited breathlessly for Victoria. “Are you ready?”
“What is this?” Victoria asked, sobering a bit from the long walk.
“My soldiers found this while scouting for alternate routes for the coming war. It won’t work for an attack, but it is rather lovely. See for yourselves.” She pushed open the door, which swung on silent hinges.
Pale blue moonlight glowed as Victoria stepped out onto a walkway high above Fairhaven. Below her, the city slept in deceptive peace. The massive cavern looked even larger from up here, and the crystal ceiling dominated the view. It was only a hundred feet or so above her, the stunning light reminding her of all she loved in this fair city.
Far below, the towering white castle reached toward the longest crystal, its tallest spire nearly touching the crystal’s tip.
Angelique sat on a nearby boulder, kicking her legs as she sighed happily. “Growing up, I never believed I would see another kingdom. I always dreamed of traveling to every great kemana, seeing them for myself, but I never believed it could happen—not to me.”
Victoria put her arm around the queen’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m glad Fairhaven was your first stop, though I wish it had been under different circumstances.”
“Me, too,” the queen said.
“You gave me a new life, Victoria. You gave all of my people a new life, and we are forever in your debt.”
Audrey hiccupped and leaned against a nearby wall. “Hey, I helped!”
The queen chuckled. “That you did, Audrey. I’m sorry. Thank you both.”
“She always gets the credit,” Audrey said with a wink toward Victoria.
Victoria laughed it off and looked at her beautiful city. Fairhaven twinkled back at her, a few lights in a few windows reminding her that it was not empty. It was not dead. It sought freedom, and freedom was on the horizon.
“This was a perfect present, Angelique. Thank you.”
“I have one more,” Angelique said with a devious smile.
“Oh?”
The queen whipped out a flask from her robe. “A queen always comes prepared. Shall we continue?”
Victoria laughed. “I knew I liked you.”
Chapter 21
Thanks to her healing ability, Victoria didn’t have much of a hangover the next day. Angelique and Audrey, however, were nowhere to be found.
In fact, most of the refugee camp seemed to be recovering. Only a few sober individuals were around to serve breakfast, so Victoria took what was available and offered her thanks before heading to the war room.
She might as well brainstorm.
With a piece of bread in one hand, she circled the map of Fairhaven while Styx hummed happily to himself on her shoulder and stuffed crumbs into his tiny face. Looking out over the city last night had ignited a fire in her to iron out the details of their attack as soon as possible. Every second she waited, Luak grew stronger.
Little figurines littered the map, each representing a dozen warriors. They had a fair number of wizards and witches, with quite a few ogres and not nearly enough elves to balance out the army.
The bread crunched in her mouth as she absently chewed, debating her options. If she moved them to the banking sector, perhaps the tall buildings could serve as cover and funnel Luak’s troops into the main road. Or perhaps she could send the ogre platoons down Main Street to retake the town square.
She frowned. No, no, no. Everything she did put too many lives at risk.
With a frustrated flick of her wrist, she brushed a few bread crumbs off the map and leaned against the table. If only they had the golems—they were the missing piece. Yes, her divination helped, as would the other two powers in her newest Rhazdon Artifact—if she knew what they were—but these golems would save many lives if they could take the brunt of the attack.
In her musing, her attention to keeping her newest ghost at bay slipped.
The beautiful woman appeared on the other side of the table, fanning herself in disgust. “How dare you coop me up and deny me my right to walk around! Why, if you only—”
Victoria groaned in annoyance. “Now I see how you led those other Rhazdon hosts to their deaths. You must have talked until they jumped off a bridge to make it stop.”
The woman scowled. “I’ll have you know in my day I was a woman of power and prestige. I would have had you killed simply for your dismissive tone.”
Victoria chuckled. “You remind me of someone I read about in a book once.”
The ghost leaned back slightly, a look of mild curiosity creeping into the constant scowl. “Who? Someone important?”
“The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. She was loud and crude too.”
The ghost stomped her foot, mouth agape in apparent offence. “How dare you! I will not be spoken to this way. I am a witch of notoriety and profound ability! No one—”
In the back of Victoria’s mind something clicked into place. She tuned out whatever nonsense the ghost queen was spouting and raised a hand to stop her. “What did you say?”
The ghost frowned. “You don’t even listen. I’m a powerful witch, you insolent fool, and you will not treat me—”
“Something profound,” Victoria said softly. A wild grin spread across her lips as the pieces clicked into place. “Only a connection to something profound can direct their rage.”
“Oh, lovely, now she’s prattling nonsense,” the ghost muttered.
“Fyrn!” Victoria shouted, ignoring the queen as she ran out of the war room. “I have an idea!”
***
It took a while to locate Fyrn, but she eventually found him buried beneath the blankets in his bed. He groaned and turned over any time she tried to get him to listen to her newest idea, waving her away each time.
She chuckled. “Fyrn, are you hungover?”
A single weathered hand appeared from beneath the blankets and pointed to the door.
“This is important!”
“Victoria, damn it,” he muttered through the blankets. His finger pointed again to the door.
“You’re a wizard. Just heal the hangover so we can get on with this.”
“I was sleeping until you barged in, young woman,” he snapped through the blankets.
“Well, just listen! The golems need to connect with something profoundly powerful, right? So we fuse them with a Rhazdon Artifact! Those are objects of intensely powerful magic. Then whoever controls the Artifact controls the golems. Problem solved!”
He sat upright in bed, the blankets covering everything but his h
ead. His long white beard poofed out around him, giving him the overall appearance of a head shoved through very old cotton candy.
Victoria bit back a chuckle.
“Well, you’re the one who barged in unannounced, so you need to deal with the unpleasant view,” he muttered. Nonetheless, he stroked his poofy beard with a thoughtful gleam in his eye. “Your plan could work.”
“I knew it!”
“But it’s risky. Whatever we fuse them with will be permanent. I don’t believe we can change it, so if the object falls in the wrong hands, they’ll not only be a Rhazdon host but also have control over a powerful army.”
“Let’s make sure it doesn’t fall in the wrong hands, then.”
He frowned. “I can’t guarantee this will work. Yes, the new Rhazdon Artifact is intensely more powerful than the others, but I can’t be certain…”
“Is there any way to be certain?”
Fyrn blew a raspberry. “Turning them on.”
“So basically this is either going to work or destroy everything?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
She sighed and leaned against the wall, running through her options. “Your golems are deep in the tunnels on the opposite side of Fairhaven. If we turn them on and this fails we could lock them in there, right? You charmed that cave?”
Fyrn groaned. “Yes, but these represent decades of research and implementation, not to mention the most powerful relic in existence.”
“So you’re afraid of losing your science project?”
Fyrn scowled, glaring at her with the full force of a grumpy old man who had just been woken up by an unwanted visitor.
“Well? Is Fairhaven worth the risk?” she prodded.
His gaze softened. “Yes, it is.”
She clapped her hands together, victorious. “Let’s get to work, then.”
Chapter 22
Truth be told, Victoria was having second thoughts. She had forgotten how damn big these golems were. Styx hid in her hair, his tiny eyes peeking through her locks as he shivered.
The thirty golems towered around her in Fyrn’s enchanted cavern, easily twenty feet tall while seated. They were arranged side by side along the walls of the massive cavern, curled into balls as they slept.
Soon they would wake up and either bow to her will or try with all their might to rip her and Fyrn apart.
She gulped.
“Victoria,” Fyrn said with a nod to the brilliant crystal sitting on the pedestal before him. It sparked and glowed with vibrant blue light.
“Here goes,” she muttered.
Fyrn consulted the book he held in one hand and grasped his staff with the other. “Whatever the object, you must place it and it alone in the crystal.”
“In? It looks pretty solid to me.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Thanks, Cryptic Wizard Stereotype.”
He frowned. “Just put the amulet on the crystal, and be careful not to let your hand go inside. That might connect you to the golems instead of the Rhazdon Artifact.”
“Which would still work, right?”
“Until you die, probably, then the golems would be without a master. So focus, girl. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said under her breath.
Victoria set her right palm on the crystal, which sparked and sputtered at her touch. The brilliant light within the crystal spun, twirling as if there were a tornado within its depths.
A powerful tug on her artifact yanked her closer to the crystal and she yelled in surprise, despising the sensation. If even one of her Rhazdon Artifacts was pulled out, she would die.
The crystal tugged again.
Around her, the cavern shook. The golems stirred to life, rocks and pebbles falling to the ground as they lifted their heads. Their eyes glowed with the same brilliant blue as the relic powering them, and one by one they turned their massive heads to her.
She gritted her teeth as the crystal tugged once again on her Artifact. “Fyrn, you can do your thing any day now.”
“The spell has been cast, Victoria. All we can do is wait.” He snapped the book shut and stowed it in his robe. With a nervous glance around at the golems, he gripped his staff a bit tighter.
With a final tug, the crystal pulled on her Rhazdon Artifact so sharply that her hand slipped inside. Her arm simply disappeared at the wrist and she did her best to pull it out, but the pull was too strong, the relic’s magic too powerful.
Fyrn cursed loudly. “Victoria, what did I just say about your hand?”
“Working on it, thanks for your concern!”
The golems stood, their deafening roars shaking rocks from the cave’s ceiling. Fyrn blasted several of them to pebbles before they could hit Victoria, but the monsters began to close in.
“Victoria, pull your hand out now!”
She tugged with all her might, her enhanced grip on the pedestal crushing the rock to dust. “I can’t!”
“Victoria, you have to get your hand out of there!”
“I-I…” She gritted her teeth as the golems closed in, several of the nearest ones reaching for her.
“Victoria!”
“STOP!” she screamed, her voice booming with an ethereal quality she didn’t recognize.
The golems obeyed, freezing in place. The tension on her hand lessened as the crystal released her, and she yanked her arm free with one final desperate tug.
Heart thudding in her chest, she glanced at the golems. Their eyes had faded from the blue of the crystal to a familiar green, and she glanced down at her hand to see her amulet glowing with all the fire of the relic it had been submerged in. Thankfully her skin didn’t glow at all.
“I think it worked,” she said.
Fyrn didn’t answer, just shot her a barely-veiled look of panic mixed with relief.
Yeah, that had definitely been too close for comfort, but they’d gotten what they had come for.
Now…on to Victory!
Chapter 23
Audrey bit into an apple as she lounged against the wall in the war room. Several of the politicians grimaced in disgust, but she wouldn’t stop eating her favorite fruit just because the people of Fairhaven thought it was nothing more than feed for cattle.
Besides, she loved the way it irked them.
The curtain lifted as Victoria entered, followed by Fyrn, the final two to join the discussions about the battle that would make or break Fairhaven.
No pressure.
“Ah, there you are,” Eldrin said as the host entered. He brushed off his hands and leaned against the table holding their map.
“We don’t have much time,” Lady Spry said from beside the fire, her arms folded across her chest. She stood as still as a statue, and Audrey could almost see her tremble with anticipation.
Victoria nodded to the senator. “Lady Spry, an update please.”
“He’s horrible,” the elegant woman muttered, her gaze falling to the ground.
Everyone waited in silence, and even Audrey stopped munching on her apple. Lady Spry wasn’t one for outbursts or saying anything that deviated from the task at hand, but she lifted a thin hand to her face to wipe away a tear. In the firelight her fingers shook.
Diesel put an arm around the witch, and that seemed to snap her out of it. She nodded once in gratitude and stepped out of his reach. “Since his fight with Victoria, Luak has begun to murder the people of the castle in their beds, demanding their magical artifacts and charms. He has forced the witches and wizards left in the city to cast charms and spells day and night to shield the castle and to protect him. We’re including failsafes where we can, but he has already killed so many of us.”
Every head hung in remorse as her words settled on the room, and for a moment, no one spoke.
Victoria finally broke the spell by tapping on the map. “We will win.”
Lady Spry nodded. “You’d damn well better.”
“We have new allies,” Victoria added, with a glance over
her shoulder at Fyrn.
Eldrin perked up, the points of his elvish ears twitching with excitement. “New allies? Who?”
Victoria smirked. “More like what.”
Fyrn leaned on his staff. “We are in possession of a powerful artifact and relic combination which will take the brunt of Luak’s assault.”
Angelique laughed humorlessly. “What artifact could possibly be powerful enough to take the brunt of a massive army’s attack?”
Victoria chuckled. “Haven’t you learned yet that I’m full of surprises?”
Angelique tilted her head in annoyance, and even Audrey understood that gesture. Just tell me.
Audrey had to agree. Victoria was certainly milking this. From the satisfied smile on her face, though, it was clear she had gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to get this mysterious artifact.
In that moment, something in the back of Audrey’s mind clicked into place.
“The golems,” she said under her breath.
Most of the heads in the room turned toward her, and Fyrn let out an aggravated huff. After all, she wasn’t supposed to so much as mention his pet project.
But Victoria nodded. “We have golems on our side. Golems who obey me.”
The room erupted into chatter as politicians and generals argued. Audrey wasn’t sure why they were bothering to argue, and couldn’t even catch what most of them were saying.
“Shut up!” she shouted.
Several mouths clicked shut, and a few straggling conversations died shortly thereafter.
One of the politicians along the wall—an elf who rarely spoke and whose name Audrey hadn’t bothered to learn—rubbed his neck in frustration. “Golems? Are you insane? You’ve already gotten a third Rhazdon Artifact, Victoria. All this power, and—”
“All this power and what?” Diesel snapped, glaring at the elf like a man about to tear someone apart.
The elf hesitated for only a moment. “Golems are legendary for their brutality, and they obey no one. Wizards have chased them for years to remove the relics that power them, not bring them to life!”
Audrey lifted one surprised brow and tilted her head toward Fyrn, and the old wizard met her eye and shrugged unapologetically. Ah, so that was where he had gotten them.