There is a collective sigh from the fey. As bloodthirsty and unforgiving as these beings are reputed to be, none of them relished the idea of a male being torn asunder during the party.
I glance down at the injured river sprite, waiting to offer him a hand but afraid to touch him. “How bad is it?”
“I’m fine.” His voice quavers slightly on the word, but he stands and offers me a steady smile.
I pivot, but instead of following Aiden’s trail, I veer toward the buffet table. Everything looks and smells delicious and my stomach growls at the scent of roasted squash, stewed apples and fresh baked bread. I load a trencher with food and then pick a secluded spot at the top of a nearby hill. Inconvenient enough that none of the fey will approach, near enough to call out for help in case I need it. I sit down with my back pressed up against a big spruce tree and take a bite.
Five minutes pass before he appears, holding, of all things, my backpack. I raise a brow in surprise that he’s bothered to go back for it. He sets it down beside me and then steps away.
“Hungry?” I offer him the tray of food.
“Always.” He doesn’t make a move to take anything though. “You handle the wolf better than I do.”
“I was lucky,” I tell him honestly. “You really didn’t want to hurt him.”
“Oh, but I did,” he breathes, surprising me. “I still do. For having his hands on you.”
“It’s not like that. You know I don’t feel that way about anyone.” I lick suddenly dry lips. “Why didn’t you obey my command?”
Instead of answering, he reaches into the backpack and extracts a familiar glass vial. The one that held the potion his grandmother and her lover had made to break the bond that forces him to obey me.
My eyes go wide. “You took it?”
He nods, but doesn’t speak.
“Why?” He’s been so adamant about not taking it, his honor demanding that he uphold the oath he’d made to me when I was still in diapers.
He crouches beside me, his eyes still on the ground. “Did you know the Vikings believe oath breakers get a special sentence in Hel? Their bones fed to Nidhogg, the dragon at the base of the world tree. To be forever consumed by the great beast. I thought about that every time you asked me to break my oath. Swore I never would. And then you forced me to watch you die.”
“But I didn’t die,” I whisper “Aiden, I’m right here.”
He stares down over the hill toward the green. The music and dancing has started up again, the valley bathed in flickering firelight. But Aiden appears to see none of it. “I was livid. So angry it scared me. I’d been so afraid for you, imagined all the different ways you were injured or even that I’d find you dying. And after the relief of finding you unhurt faded, all I felt was the rage. Have you ever thought you should feel one way but instead, you feel another?”
“I am right now,” I reply honestly.
He looks at me and waits.
“I’ve been bugging you for weeks to break that obedience bond. And now that you have, it feels like....”
“Like you lost something,” he finishes for me.
We have, I realize with a pang. The bond hadn’t just been about his promise to obey me. It had also been a tangible symbol of his trust in me. Trust that I wouldn’t push him too hard, that I wouldn’t use or abuse him the way so many others had done. That I wouldn’t ask for more than he was willing to give.
The way I had done in my last life. And the way I had done when I ordered him to stay safe.
“I’m sorry,” My eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t want to break us.”
He doesn’t deny that I did. “So am I.”
I sit, staring up at him while he looks down on the festivities. He’s right there, inches away from me and yet he might as well be on the dark side of the moon.
“Have I ever brought you anything but pain?”
He scowls. “You know you have.”
I think back to the easy mornings on the farm, the way he would slip into my room, wake me with a tender caress. Laughing and holding hands at school. It’s like another person’s life, a scene from a movie viewed long ago.
“Are those few moments of peace worth all this grief?”
“I don’t see any other way—” he begins.
“You can leave. Without the oath, all that compels you to stay is the wolf. And without the oath, there is no way to stop the wolf if he decides to maim anyone who gives me a second look.”
He turns to face me, his eyes glowing in the dim light. “You want me to go? I thought we’d gotten past this.”
“This is different. I don’t want you to go because I’m scared of how you make me feel. I want you to go because I don’t want to hurt you anymore. And that’s all I ever seem to do.”
His lips part.
“You’re a god, Aiden. I’m mortal. We have history but no future.”
He swallows, “After you go through the gauntlet—”
But I shake my head. “I’m not going to enter the gauntlet.”
“What?” He frowns at me. “When did you decide this?”
He is beautiful there in the moonlight. His skin glows in the soft light, his hair blending with the night. He glows with health and vitality. And here I am, his Kryptonite.
“I never wanted to be queen. Or to be immortal. And I certainly don’t want to be a bargaining chip for Wardon or any other power hungry being that rears up.”
“What about the Hunt? The Unseelie Court?” he asks. “You’re just going to abandon them?” I see the real question in his eyes, the fear that lurks there. He doesn’t have to ask it for me to hear the words. You’re going to leave me?
I gesture to the valley below. “Brigit is dead, Wardon is M.I.A. I have yet to meet Soladin but I believe he is a good and decent ruler. According to the river sprites, he took them under his wing and protected them. For the first time in history, Unseelie fey are living with and working beside members of the Seelie Court. I’m not a unifier, not like that. You’ve seen the conditions most of them live in. Naked, half-starved without means to try for a better life. I have no idea how to give them any of that.”
“You haven’t even tried,” he argues. “You don’t know what you’re capable of until you try.”
But I shake my head. “I know how to stalk and hunt, to punish evil and rip it out at the roots. It’s past time that I got back to that destiny.”
“You don’t want to rule. I get that. That doesn’t mean you should send me away.”
“I should, because we don’t have any sort of a future together, Aiden. You’re immortal and I only have a couple of decades left. And I’m...toxic to you.”
“You’re not—”
“I am. I make you feel badly about yourself, put you in danger, give you nothing.” I stop, overcome with emotions. “I don’t want to gamble decades of my life for a chance at immortality. Judging from most of the immortals I’ve met, the price is too high.”
“You’re just going to go back to the farm and pretend none of this exists?” He shakes his head. “I don’t buy it. What about the Hunt?”
“I’ll negotiate on their behalf. Brigit is gone and come tomorrow I will turn command of the Hunt over to Soladin, on the promise that he never sets them on your trail again.”
“You have it all figured out, don’t you? One problem, you haven’t even met Soladin and you’re just going to turn over control of the most powerful force in the world to him?”
“I can’t lead them without being queen. I don’t have what it takes to be a competent ruler and I refuse to be a bad one. Not again.”
“So that’s it? You’re just going to go home, drop out of school and spend the rest of your limited existence alone hunting rapists and murderers?”
“It’s what I was born to do.” I stare out over the distance, and can feel his eyes on me.
“Nic—,”
“I’m sorry.” I can’t hold his gaze, instead reaching for my backpack and hefting it
up over one shoulder. “I don’t have a choice.”
“You say that, but it isn’t true.” He makes one more plea, his voice thick with desperation. “Please, don’t send me away.”
Tears shimmer in my eyes. Real tears because I know this is the end. He reaches for me.
I flinch.
I see it there on his face, the shock and disappointment. He thinks I fear him now. It’s what I intended, to see that light of hope flicker and die in his eyes. So why do I feel so wretched?
“Goodbye, Aiden.”
Blinded by tears, I stumble down the hill until I’m inside my compartment in the women’s house. Where is the relief I’m supposed to feel for doing the right thing? Aiden is officially free of me now, free to go out and live his immortal life in peace. No more sacrifices for a foolish mortal, no more trading his own wellbeing for mine. No more teasing or being used. Sure, he will have to wrestle with his wolf, but at least he’ll be alive, thanks to my lie.
The gauntlet will kill me. It’s a reality that is part of me, that is imprinted on my marrow. I don’t want immortality badly enough to survive Underhill’s test. And Aiden being Aiden, will do everything in his power to see me through the ordeal.
I won’t make him watch me die. Or let him die for me.
The only choice he left me with was to reject him, to convince him I want my old life more than I want him. That I’m afraid of him.
To make him believe that I don’t love him.
HOURS PASS BUT SLEEP eludes me. I toss on the narrow cot, the music from the fey revelry drifting in through the open door. Is there anything worse than hearing the sounds of a party when you’re miserable?
“Nicneven?”
“I go by Nic, actually.” I turn and see her there, an unfamiliar woman.
“Who are you?” I ask.
Her smile is soft and a little sad. “I’m your mother.”
The Gauntlet
I sit up, my head reeling, unsure which of the million questions that are jockeying for position in my mind I should ask first. I don’t know anything, how to feel, what to do, if I should speak or pinch myself or scream.
My mother? “You’re my mother? As in, the woman who gave me life?”
“Yes.” She nods, once. “At least I was in your immortal life.”
Aiden had told me my mortal mother had died and I’d shut him down before he could tell me any more about my first mother.
The woman who this stranger claims to be.
I scrutinize her features, looking for something familiar. She doesn’t look old enough, though as one of the forever young, looks aren’t a true indicator. But she doesn’t look like any sort of fey that I’ve seen. Her figure is voluptuous where I am small, her skin has an olive tint, her eyes dark as pitch. Long and unbound midnight hair, even darker than my dye job, falls to her rounded hips. Her curves are accentuated by the purple robe that falls to the arches of her sandal covered feet, the hem stitched with golden thread. The garment is fitted to her form, belted at the waist by a length of golden cord. A far cry from my dirty, disheveled self. Of course, looks don’t mean much in a world full of beings decked out in glamour.
“Are you fey?” My heart pounds in rapid succession.
She shakes her head, a small smile playing on full lips. “I’m as human as you, Nicneven.”
“How did you find me?” Where have you been all my life?
She shakes her head, long raven locks tangling in the breeze from the open door. “We don’t have time. I’m here to fetch you. You need to enter the gauntlet.”
“What?” I blink at her as though she’s crazy. For all I know she might be. “I can’t go now. Soladin will be here tomorrow, I need to meet with him.”
She takes a step forward, reaching for my hand. “The Seelie king won’t come to this place for a long time yet. Come, Underhill awaits.”
Panic seizes me. The moment of decision is here. Do I want to be immortal, to reclaim the Shadow Throne badly enough to survive the trial ahead? The doubts that had been plaguing me for days break free. “I can’t, I’m not ready.”
“You’ve dismissed your court, done your best for them, correct?”
I nod.
“Then follow me.” She turns and exits the compartment.
After the span of three heartbeats, I follow.
Every step is like a death knell. Who is this woman and why is she only appearing now? Why not come to my side a week ago, a month, or better yet, when I was six years old, on my own in the Black Forest?
I want to say something to her, something to fill the awkward silence. What the hell can I say, I’m not even sure I believe her. The fey can’t lie, or shouldn’t be able to. Yet Brigit had. And this woman—I hesitate to call her mother—had said she was mortal, as I am.
So how does a mortal give birth to a fairy queen?
And it’s not just her. My last exchange with Aiden haunts me. Regret fills me to the brim. I wish I could take it all back, all the things I’d said to hurt him, all the times I shut him down when he’d offered intimacy and acceptance. He’d suffered for me and I’d thanked him with lies.
She stops and turns her face up to the moon, the pale oval glows unearthly in the reflected light. “All will be well.”
“And you know this...how?” What if I haven’t learned enough? What if I’m missing some critical skill? I won’t come out again. It hurts to swallow.
There is a rustle of skirts and then a soft hand on my shoulder. “Underhill has shown you mercy in the past, has she not? You are in her good graces.”
“You speak of Underhill like she’s a person.” I gulp past whatever is lodged in my esophagus. “Is she?”
Her eyes are dark and mysterious. “She was...once.”
“Will I meet her?”
“If you want it badly enough. Trust yourself.”
I shrug her off, agitation zipping down my spine. The one I don’t trust is her. Or Underhill for that matter. The fairy realm is both fickle and duplicitous and as for the stranger who claims to share my blood....
She brought a killer into the world. How trustworthy can she be?
“Are you ready, Nicneven?”
I tip my head to the side to take her in, curious in spite of my ire. “What do I call you?”
Her ruby red lips turn up. “I suppose mother is out of the question?”
“You suppose right.” My tone is flat.
She nods, her smile a little sad. “You may call me Pharaildis.”
“Pharaildis? All right then. Let’s go.”
The sound of the wind picks up. Her hair blows across her face. In the space of a heartbeat I’m standing in front of a door. It’s painted with a white X.
Pharaildis removes her hand from my shoulder. “Feel better?”
Oddly, I do. Less fatigued, stronger. But I don’t say anything to my companion.
Blackness surrounds us, no stars or lights, not even torches on the wall. There is no light source to speak of, but the door seems to pulse with a sort of living energy.
“Where are we?”
She nods to the door. “The entrance to the heart of Underhill. What lies inside is what we call the gauntlet. Once that door closes behind you, you will remain within until you find your own exit. Some never do.”
“Why not?” I swallow hard. “What happens to them?”
“That’s something that only Underhill knows. She will play with you as a cat plays with a mouse, she will tempt you and trick you into forgetting your purpose. You must be unbendable at the same time you are flexible.”
“I have to want it badly enough.” I blow out a breath and consider the door. “No one will tell me what’s in there.”
“Underhill’s heart is full of secrets. She shares what she will with those she chooses. It’s a trust not to be taken lightly.”
I hear the warning she doesn’t speak. “Why are you here?”
Pharaildis smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You needed an escort to
reach this place. I volunteered.”
“But why now? Why not approach me when I came to Underhill the last time? Or even a few days ago.”
“I’m a servant of Underhill.” Pharaildis lifts up her skirts, revealing the silver ankle shackles that tether her legs together. “I am not free to move about on my own.”
“You’re a prisoner?” I whisper and stare in horror at the chains. “For how long?”
“Since before you were born. You had a great destiny, to be Queen of the Shadow Throne. To rule The Unseelie Court for half the year. The ones who bound me took great care in hiding your origins from everyone. I never even got a chance to hold you.” Regret is etched on her face.
I swallow thickly. “Who is my father?”
Her lips turn up in a sad smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“What’s one more unbelievable fact on the heap of them?”
Her chin lifts. “If you make it out the other side of the gauntlet and can find me again, I’ll answer any questions you have.”
I study her a moment. “Is that supposed to be added incentive?”
“Do you need some?” she counters. “I thought you were a survivor.”
“I am.” I take a deep breath and reach for the wrought iron handle. “See you on the other side then.”
Not waiting for a reply, I push open the door, cross the threshold and enter the gauntlet.
I’M NOT SURE WHAT I’D been expecting. Hellfire maybe, or giant slavering beasts barreling toward me like I am next on the menu. A horde of demons armed to their pointed teeth.
What I see instead is my farmhouse, bathed in the deepening shadows of a purple twilight.
“What?” I say, spinning in a circle. “How?”
But it really is the farm that surrounds me. All the leaves have fallen from the trees and the branches revel naked in the embrace of the north wind. They click and rattle like dried finger bones, happy skeletons welcoming me home.
The air smells of snow, and I feel the charge, the excitement of the seasons changing. And something else. Smoke. A wood fire. Someone’s in the house.
The Immortal Queen Page 25