Court of the Phantom Queen

by Liz Meldon

  All had been as it always was—and yet not, too. Something in her gut had told her to be cautious from the moment she opened her eyes after a restless sleep, and while Athena preferred to rely on her mind, her gut had seldom steered her wrong in the past either.

  She found the trio of thrones gone tonight, in their place a grand wooden table. It wrapped itself around the hearth, within which crackled a far less fearsome blaze than she remembered. At a circular table there was no head, yet somehow Morrigan’s position between Dagda’s sons struck Athena as the power seat. Conversations buzzed as she strode over to the vacant spot beside Lugh. The god startled at her appearance, half-rising as if to pull out the chair for her, but she waved him off.

  “Are you well?” he whispered once she tucked herself in. Servants flitted around the room, filling chalices with wine so rich it was nearly purple. It burned down her throat with but the slightest of sips, so she set it aside. “Athena?”

  “Fine,” she told him. “Eager to see that my servants have packed accordingly for our departure tomorrow.”

  Lugh leaned back in his seat, fingers drumming against the tabletop softly. “Ah. Yes.”

  His sky-blue orbs seared into her as she studied those in attendance: all the king’s immediate family. While she might have been the guest of honour once more, no one seemed to pay her any mind. In fact, as the others took their seats, the one next to her remained empty until it was begrudgingly taken by Cermait, another rosy-headed son of Dagda. The man looked across her to Lugh, who, much to Athena’s surprise, shot the prince a glare she hadn’t ever seen before. Cermait cleared his throat and downed the contents of his chalice in silence, then turned away, elbow on the table, to speak with his sister Brigid on his other side.

  “Why is the food not prepared?” Athena asked absently, noting that while the table was laden with candles in various states of use, their flames questing skyward with vigor, none of the usual platters of meats, cheeses, breads, and fruits lay ready for diners to partake from. Normally it was all waiting for them upon arrival at a feast hall, where she and her companions would sit at one of the long tables and eat to their heart’s content, chatting with the lower rungs of the royal court. Spurred by magic and the fleet-footedness of the servants, those plates never seemed to empty.

  “I arranged for the kitchens to prepare a meal for each of us. Something special for your last night,” Lugh told her, one hand finding a place on her arm. Athena scowled down at it for a moment, then schooled her features. Lugh didn’t deserve the brunt of her growing unease, but she still preferred that he retract his hand—which he did, wrapping it around his chalice instead.

  “A meal for each of us?”

  “All of our favourites,” he continued, lips twitching as if they wanted to spread into his usual impish grin. He refrained as she studied him. “Mine will be fish from the northern seas. I told them that you were partial to venison. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  “I’m certain I will,” she said absently, a pang of guilt making her stomach turn. Lugh deserved better from her, yet there were more pressing matters to contend with. When she explained it all to him later, perhaps he would forgive her.

  Athena pursed her lips, searching out Morrigan’s face in the small group. While the witch wasn’t looking directly at her, Athena felt as though she had the Phantom Queen’s undivided attention. Something in the thickness of the air. The prickle of hair on the back of her neck.

  Dagda sat directly across from Athena, slouched and hooded. His sons on either side didn’t speak to him, his stare fixed on the fire in the hearth. She tried to catch his attention—tried and failed.

  As soon as the rest of the family was seated, servants poured out of a door she hadn’t noticed in the far corner. While last night the room had sat shrouded in darkness, now the dozens of candles atop the round table and dripping down the walls kept the space well-lit and toasty.

  Just as Lugh had said, each member of the private feast was given a plate different than their neighbour. Lugh’s fish sat on a bed of crispy potatoes, with a side of creamy white cheese for him to spread on the root vegetable. Athena’s plate appeared quite intricate. They had in fact prepared venison for her, the plate rimmed round with blood and a mountain of garden vegetables piled up beside the generous cut of meat. Tasting salts and herbs garnished every element, as did the chunk of half-melted goat’s butter resting atop the meat. A hearty dish, one that would surely fill her well into the morning.

  “Looks exquisite,” Lugh commented, plucking up a piece of potato and popping it in his mouth. Athena watched him chew thoughtfully for a moment. “Done to perfection.”

  She acknowledged him with a soft hum, the noise catching in her throat. Around the table, eyes seemed to be darting her way, flicking fleetingly before their owners returned to their various conversations. Soon enough, the clink of talons on a goblet quieted the room, and Morrigan stood, her drink raised.

  “A toast,” she crooned, once more the beautiful maiden, “to Athena, daughter of Zeus. May your upcoming departure be swift and painless, sweet child of Hellas.”

  As the others voiced their agreement, Athena brought her chalice to her mouth and tipped it back—but kept her lips firmly shut. Oh, she swallowed, of course, with the black eyes of the Phantom Queen pinned to her. No one held their breath for Athena to speak after. Dagda offered no words. Only Lugh seemed to be waiting for her to make a reciprocal toast; the others had already tucked into their meals.

  “No matter. I look forward to your words of farewell tomorrow,” Lugh insisted warmly when it was clear she was not intended to speak. “You’ve made quite an impression on the court. I think it will pain many to see you go.”

  “Perhaps they might start winning some of their games again,” Athena said, still not quite giving him the attention he deserved. Something in the room made her stomach twist, and she was sure it had to do with the fact that Morrigan was still watching her.

  Lugh chuckled as he started to break up the flaky white fish with his hands. “Yes, I think they’d rather you didn’t participate anymore. Quite the blow to their impressive masculinity.”

  “Hmm.” Why was she being watched? Athena had been stared at from the moment she arrived in the Otherworld, but this was different. This was intentional, not simply innocent curiosity, but as if waiting for something to happen. Beside her, Lugh rambled on about the pride-wounded men of the court after her blaze of victory across many of the games, with Athena only half-listening. A scowl on her face, she grabbed an awaiting knife and sliced off a piece of her venison. Tender. Bloody. It practically fell apart at the touch—just the way she liked it.

  But something stopped her from shoving it in her mouth. A smell. A hint of something both familiar and vile. Athena’s frown deepened as she held up the piece of meat in her hand for assessment, noting each known sprinkle of herb crust in the candlelight.

  There was one she couldn’t immediately identify—and it was the source of that smell. Faint. Understated. Easily missed had one not familiarized oneself with many of the known poisonous plants in all the realms, Demeter as her guide. Her jaw clenched as she picked up the flake of what might be akonitos—or wolfsbane to the common folk. She studied it on the tip of her finger, then, throwing caution to the wind, set it on her tongue.

  And immediately spat it out on the floor between her and Lugh. The golden-haired god finally stopped talking, staring at her as though she were a gorgon. That foul, bitter taste was unmistakable. A flake wasn’t enough to poison her, but had she consumed the whole portion of meat, the bitterness hidden amongst the rest of the seasonings, she surely would have succumbed to the poison within a few hours.

  Contrary to popular belief, gods could be killed. Athena lifted her accusatory eyes to the Phantom Queen, who continued to watch her with the smile of a predator. Be it by lack of followers or magical menace, deities could perish, forever lost to all the worlds. There was no afterlife. No
underworld. Just the earth, which would absorb the dust of their bones and skin and viscera like they had never existed in the first place.

  Why would they do this to her? Athena glowered down at her plate, then up at the man she had thought a friend. Dagda cocked his head to one side, expressionless, while the conversations around the table seemed to lose some of their exuberance. This was why they were watching her.

  They wanted to see her die.

  Hands on the table, Athena shoved her chair back and flew for the door in a fury. Yet the door wouldn’t open for her—not at first, not until she all but tore it off its hinges. The corridor blurred around her, and while her mind tried to process the sudden turn of events, she kept an ear out for the charging of soldiers’ feet. After all, the poisoning had failed. Even if something had been in her wine, she hadn’t drunk enough for it to kill her.

  She had to escape this place. Gather her companions and flee with no parting ceremonies or forced pleasantries. Perhaps Morrigan and Dagda had seen her offer of friendship and counsel as something more sinister.

  “Athena!”

  She continued racing through the halls, not stopping until Lugh was practically on top of her. He darted in front of her, his body barring her path, then tried to grab her arms to hold her in place. Athena brushed him off with a fierce gleam in her eye.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What… What has upset you so?”

  “Did you know?” Her hands trembled as they tightened to fists. Lugh’s brow crinkled at the question, so she repeated herself. “Did you know of any of this?”

  “Know of what?” He shook his head, then swept a hand through his mussed curls. “Athena, if something has offended you, I’m sure it was unintentional.”

  No. The intentions of the Phantom Queen and her cowed consort had been clear from the day she arrived in these lands—but Athena had been too consumed by her mission, and the god before her, to notice. What a fool she was. She’d been distracted, missing the most telling signs of all.

  “Come back to the feast,” Lugh urged, voice softer now. “It is a great honour to dine with the royal family. I can assure you that—”

  “Stop.” She raised a hand to silence him, eyes wide with epiphany. Sia had been right about everything. Lugh, either knowingly or not, had been placed in her path time and time again, and here he was, trying to guide her back to the den of serpents who sought to poison her.

  And watch, perhaps, as she foamed at the mouth and writhed in agony.

  Lugh’s hand wrapped around her fist suddenly, the warmth startling her out of her thoughts. He ducked his handsome face down to meet her gaze, concern swimming across his features. “Athena?”

  “Get out of my way,” she hissed, wrenching her hand back, “and pray you were not involved in this madness.”

  He didn’t try to stop her this time, not when she pushed by, their shoulders colliding hard, and raced through the halls. There was no telling what the alternative to poisoning was, but she had no intention of finding out. Outmanned and unprepared, Athena was but a target now—a powerful one, yes, but a target all the same. She crept through shadows, propelling herself forward with godly speed and stealth until she was back to her room, where she intended to collect Nocta and find the others.

  Perhaps the servants had already packed enough that they wouldn’t be short on supplies…

  Athena stopped abruptly in the doorway of her room, heart thumping hard. Nocta wasn’t on the window ledge anymore—and the air stunk of blood.

  She moved inward slowly, cautiously, headed for the window to see if she could find her faithful companion circling the palace overhead. He wouldn’t have gone to the forest. He would have listened when she told him to—

  A strangled cry ripped from her throat at the sight of her little owl, her forever companion, broken on the floor. A puddle of his own dark blood pooling around him, Nocta’s head was all but torn from his body, connected by a strand of flesh. Athena fell to her knees beside him, trembling hands hovering over the small body—one that suddenly appeared so fragile. His murderer had plucked him too, his beautiful long feathers ripped out—let it have been after they broke his neck, please—leaving him exposed and humiliated in death.

  Nocta took such care of his feathers. He preened and groomed and fluttered them about, in both contentment and dismay. Athena brought her fingertips to his bare, pinkish-grey skin. Still warm. Not long dead. Not long disfigured.

  But beyond her reach. She lacked the ability to breathe life into one so far gone.

  The goddess crumpled forward, hot tears slicing down her cheeks as she stroked the velvety feathers that remained across his face.

  “I’m sorry, sweetling,” she whispered, her throat tight, constricting every word. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  That she hadn’t been here to eviscerate the villain who did this to him.

  That she hadn’t brought him with her to dine, his perch on her shoulder always open to him.

  A fool… What a fool she was. For all her gifts, she had not foreseen such a devastating blow. Such a cruel blow.

  Her ears twitched slightly at the soft intake of breath behind her. Barely audible over her sorrow, but just enough to alert Athena to strike. Like a coiled viper, she whirled around and removed one of the blades strapped to her ankle. Sure enough, a palace soldier encroached on her. Not human. Not godly. Something between the two. Too slow even for a broken goddess.

  Athena lunged and thrust her dagger into the soft underside of his jaw before the cretin had a chance to react. He groaned and dropped his sword, blood gurgling between his lips, and Athena walked him out of the room. The tip of her dagger had pierced his brain, but she still slit his throat for good measure. She contemplated taking his clothes and slicing through his neck within a breath of decapitating him, but there was no time.

  Had Morrigan and Dagda’s intentions been even slightly murky at dinner, they were plain as day now. Athena was to die, along with her company. What the two planned to do after—whether they intended to march on what they incorrectly assumed was a weak Roman pantheon or not—was something she would think on once she was free of the realm, all her companions in tow.

  Yet her mind refused to be silent as she hurried back into the room and grabbed a sack. Had this always been the plan—murder Zeus’s daughter, whether they heard her out or not? Was it all a grand scheme to attack her father? Had she unwittingly sprung a trap upon herself?

  Shaking her head, Athena added a single dress to her bag, but only to cushion Nocta’s journey. The battered little owl found a place inside, wrapped in her softest material. Athena intended to speak with her uncle Hades and his young wife Persephone. Perhaps something—or someone—in the Underworld could bring Nocta back to her. If not, he deserved a home in the Elysian Fields. Artemis too might prove useful, with her affinity for creatures great and small.

  Wiping the trail of tears from her cheeks, she cleaned her dagger and added it and its twin to the sack, nestled on either side of Nocta. Moments later, she took the form of a great black owl, and the bag she carried clutched within her monstrous talons. Her wings had to fold in tight as she crossed through the open window—the same one through which she wished Nocta had fled from his attacker, all the while knowing he would have stayed to fight, loyal to a fault. She breached the cool night air with a sorrowful cry, one that made the forests shudder and the mountains tremble. A cry, she hoped, that would taint the realm with a stain so black it would wilt the gardens and sour the lake.

  For this was no realm of beauty, of youthful innocence and pleasure. Not anymore.

  Chapter 9

  Athena initially planned to sweep into the stables and hopefully stumble upon Pan. She would order him, without jests or smiles, to ready the servants and horses, then take them down to the lake. Pan had expressed a dislike for the royal evening feasts and preferred to dine in the stables, in the company of fae and other woodland sprites.
>
  It seemed unlikely the satyr would be anywhere else.

  But tonight she hoped that were the case. Because the stables were on fire, with figures running and shouting and scurrying about, little shapes like ants to her all-seeing owl eyes. She would have pressed forth to find him, or turned inward to locate the others—but there was a body swinging from a thick branch of an aged oak tree just outside the gates of the palace courtyard. Even with its innards trailing down to the ground, it looked very much like her sweet sister Hebe.

  Athena dropped her belongings in shock, then shot down with the speed and grace of a hawk. By the time her feet touched the cold ground, the sack was in her possession again, her feathers swapped for swaths of deep orange fabric. Her hands, steady for only a moment, rooted into her bag to retrieve her knives. The heat of the stable fire licked her face, even beyond the walls, as she padded across the grasses, and a tear rolled down her cheek at the sight of Hebe hanging there, a rope around her neck. Her intestines brushed a gnarled, exposed root as she rocked gently in the breeze.

  Athena’s arms fell to her sides, knives cradled with limp fingers. Hebe had never hurt a soul. She had spent her life serving and learning and loving. Her husband might have been a brute, but she was his opposite in every sense. Beautiful, nurturing—innocent.

  Athena shouldn’t have brought her here. She should have left her at Hera and Aphrodite’s feet, where she could go home to her husband and children each night and rise with a sense of blissful purpose each morning. Taking her from that had been the ultimate cruelty, and as Athena cut her little sister down and carefully laid her at the tree’s base, she knew she would carry the guilt of her decision for centuries to come.

  With quivering hands, the grey-eyed goddess fed Hebe’s insides back into her body, hiding the tangled mess of pink and red until she looked as though she had fallen asleep beneath the shade of the oak hours before.