The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel

by Zachary James

  “I don’t mean to bother you, but I seem to have forgotten your name. Is it alright if you tell me? I will understand if you’re upset with me,” I whisper to her. She only giggles and pushes away the worry in my voice.

  “Desirae.”

  “I am terribly sorry,” I voice concerning as I grip her hands for her only to wave it off.

  “Now let’s get you all jeweled up,” She laughs pulling me to me feet. I smile in return and let her do what she thinks will look best. She places a silver necklace onto my collarbone, the heavy jewels the color of night. The twinkling looks like the stars from the sky that looms above Equadoria. She takes a belt made of soft purple silk and wraps it around my waist and hips. Adding some earrings to my pointed ears and a bracelet accented with a large amount of rings, I am finally done. I look like a regal force to be reckoned with, a menacing queen, and an immortal beauty.

  “Perfect,” Desirae squeals clapping her hands together in excitement. I push away the dark thoughts.

  “Thank you,” I say as I look into the mirror. The whole outfit looks absolutely stunning even with the sweeping neckline. “I look amazing.”

  “Of course,” She bows again deeply. She urges me to the door and I head over to the vanity. Ignoring Jax’s snores I sit and light the candles with a small flint and steel mechanism. “Should we do your hair in the wardrobe?” She is worried of waking Jax. I seem to forget that most people are frightened of him and most of the court has only seen him in his tiger form. Equadoria only knows that I have a white tiger that lies at the foot of my throne. Nobody knows who he truly is.

  “No,” I grunt glaring at he’s disheveled form through the mirror. “Don’t mind him, he is insignificant.” It’s true, he doesn’t matter right now, but later he will get an earful about the letter he conveniently forgot to share with me.

  “Oh, Milady I don’t want to disrespect you, but why would you see such a powerful male as insignificant?” She questions and my anger flares at her wording. Does she not notice that he is just as powerful as the Fae sitting in front of her? And who gave her the right to speak of my male’s power? The glare I was making shifts from Jax to Desirae and I hear the beat of her heart, the pumping blood in her veins. The heavy odor of fear that pricks at my nose; it stings the air. “I am so sorry your majesty.”

  “I think it’s best if you just do what you are ordered to and not speak,” I growl trying not to lose control. It’s been five months since I returned from Elkwood and became a Fae, but I still have trouble keeping a reign around my powers, strength, and especially my emotions. It’s bad enough being queen of an entire kingdom, but also sixteen while having extreme menstrual cramps. Because of the pain, I haven’t been able to train in fighting techniques with Jeremiah, but he is busy dealing with enough as one of my military leaders and also a lord in my council. He is a high member of my court.

  So instead I train with Jax about once a week on my abilities, but I’m starting to think it’s not enough. I barely keep a hold on having a flare, like I did in the Ravine of Wisps. I am too strong and I know it because even from all the way over here I can see the scratches raking down Jax’s back from my nails. They are healing, but since Evaflora chopped down the Tree of Light the Fae have been affected. No longer do the immortal bounce back so quickly from cuts. I think all of the races of magical beings have been affected, but I’m not sure in which way. I know that the Fae have somehow become more powerful while also losing the ability to heal quickly. We certainly don’t age like the mortals, but part of me wishes we did.

  Desirae finishes braiding and curling my hair along with adding charcoal around my eyes and caking on a thick beige powder to my skin. She darkens my lips and applies a black powder to my eyelids. I look like a fierce queen. A Fae queen.

  Chapter Two

  ~Ariadae~

  My stomach rumbles from the lack of breakfast. I was planning on eating, but the sentinels pulled the prisoners out early for trial. I’ll just have to eat afterward.

  I sit on my sleek silver throne. My family’s bow and a quiver lies behind me and a dagger hugs the inside of my boot. Jax lays at my feet in his snow tiger form and almost every sentinel I have stands poised and ready for action around the room. I feel regal, and beautiful, but menacing at the same time. I don’t need all of this protection, but I am told it is part of the precautions after my death. And ever since Elkwood, I keep my heirloom bow in the library in my bed chambers and a dagger nearby, although it’s not the dragon bone dagger. That was lost in the colosseum in which the Tree of Light was destroyed, devastated by my mother and her henchman.

  A white haired man, a hunched over women, and two teenage boys sit on their knees beneath my dais. They must be a family of sorts.

  “Through the law of Equadoria the tried individuals have a right to speak on behalf of their crimes,” Zube’s resonating voice breaks the silence in the room. I look around and we seem to have an audience. Aside from the sentinels; lords and their ladies have encircled the four criminals, but someone is missing. Scanning the crowd for Jeremiah, I notice that he’s not present.

  One of the two teenage boys stands and looks to me. His brown eyes have a heavy gloom and his mud stained face matches his radiating odor of filth. I ignore the urge to recoil from the scent and give him my undivided attention. Everyone, no matter what their criminal prosecution may be, deserves to be heard.

  “Speak your name and then give your statement,” I say. The boy frowns and looks disgusted at Zube and me, along with the other Fae in the throne room.

  “Eric,” he groans, rolling his eyes. I focus on the beat of his heart. People say that the Fae can tell if someone is lying and the truth is we can. If a human or Fae is lying, our powerful hearing will pick up on a change in heartbeat. It could be a flicker or a significant change in pace, but we will know. “I murdered six children with my brother and parents.” The crowd gasps in shock and his family smiles. Their yellowed teeth are crooked and eerie.

  Well I didn’t expect this trial to be a confession, but that only makes my job easier. His words are gut churning. “What would make you want to commit such treasonous crimes?” I question.

  “They were conjurors,” He claims as if that makes his actions okay. “My family has killed more than just those six children. We have murdered close to seventeen families of conjurors.” What is wrong with him? Why would they do such a thing? At this rate these sick people may not live through this trial if I have control of this kingdom. You don’t make such an idiotic claim to a queen who is Fae.

  “Well. Eric was it?” he nods, “Are you aware that your queen is a ‘conjuror’ as you call us.”

  “I am very aware, Milady,” he voices, bowing deeply. “You and every other Fae in Equadoria and across Abella are swine. And I am also enlightened to know that my queen is a bedswerver.” I rise onto my feet and glare into the boys eyes. Who raised this boy with such a vile tongue? Or was his mind poisoned by the toxicity of the slum’s crime lords. His low beating heart rises to a heavy thrum. Oh how I am going to rip him to shreds for what he has done. He deserves every ounce of pain he caused to other people. “Your majesty, fucks men who are married and single alike. She is a whore!”

  Jax roars at Eric and he recoils several steps and backs into a sentinel’s rapier. The lords and ladies scream in fright at Jax’s fangs and I can’t help but be angry. The hate-fire inside of me grows to a raging flame. My body boils and my heart beats to the song of blood lust. Nobody else in his family has spoken, nor should they. I walk from the dais and approach the boy. My nose wiggles at the sting of fear and wretched scent of grime that soaks into his pores.

  “Your accusations will only lead you, and your family, to what you rightfully deserve,” I laugh and lick my long pointed canines for effect. “Death.”

  “NO,” Zube shouts from the dais. “The trial has not finished. The Court must decide their true fate.”

  I look to Zube, clad in a golden tunic and black pants
. His slick hair makes him look handsome and he appears nervous as I purr, “I made the Court, Zube.”

  “Milady, I apologize for my outburst,” Eric whispers to me and my cackle echoes through the throne room. He knows the wrong he has done, but is now afraid of the consequences. The sound of my laugh makes my body quiver with awful memories from the Summer Kingdom.

  “It is far too late to apologize. Now you claimed that you murdered those children because they were Fae, although in your written report that, you claimed to murder them in search for a prophet.” Eric nods nervously and his body starts to shake as my Telekinae ability strokes the soft ridges of his spine allowing his brown eyes to focus on me. “Tell me if you find him.”

  I throw my palm towards the boy and press down with my fingers. His whole body wrenches backward and he screams as his brittle spine breaks, the cracking and shattering bone echoing through the room. He continues to cry since my blow didn’t kill him. People shout and scream and I leave my body. I see what I’m doing and I can’t stop, can’t control it, no longer do I know who I am.

  “YOU CU-,” Eric’s mother screams running to his body, but before she can finish I wave a hand in her direction tossing her across the room like a dirty rag. Dropping my grip on Eric’s body allowing him to slump onto the ground, I look to his mother who is a crumpled mess in the corner and whisper with every drop of venom I can muster. “I will not allow that word to be spoken in my home.” Her sobs echo through the room and my burning anger begins to cool. My mind returns and I begin to regain control as regret floods into my every pore. Jax looks from me to the woman as I walk back to the dais. “This Trial is over.”

  A tear slides down my cheek as I realize how much like my mother I had just become. I am not like her in anyway, but sometimes I need to be a tyrant. I am a new queen and I don’t want my people to think they can walk all over me, which is exactly what Eric was trying to do. I hope the audience understands that.

  With a wave of my hand, Eric is carried away unable to move and crying with the rest of his family. They are headed to the gallows.

  Zube stoops low into my ear and whispers with pure anger, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You shouldn’t have talked back to me in front of all those people, Zube,” I spit trying to change the subject before the tears fall down my cheeks.

  “I apologize, your grace.”

  “Don’t call me that! You are my friend and I command you to speak to me like one unless you have forgotten my name?” He stands up and his face looks disgusted.

  “I remember, it’s Evaflora,” he growls. A cry escapes my lips as a flush burns my cheeks. How dare he refer to me as my mother? There is no longer a stone in my chest like there was when I was a demi-fae, but now I feel something else. Guilt? Sadness? I am not sure, but it’s best that I don’t focus on it because it hurts. It pains me like the sword in my gut that my father had put there. The blade had cut through me, killed me, and now it just stings.

  I walk from the throne room and push past the gaping crowd. I will not allow them to see their queen cry. Not today anyway.

  <<>><<>><<>>

  “What were you thinking,” Zube shouts, his voice echoes off the paneled walls of my bedchambers. I already feel sick to my stomach about who he called me, what he called me. I sit on the edge of my bed, face still wet with tears, and sulk as he scowls at me.

  Jax prowls from the corner and a muscle in his jaw feathers breaking the tension in his glare.

  “She wasn’t,” He mutters and I couldn’t agree with him more. I wasn’t truly thinking correctly. Being a queen is a lot harder than I would have imagined and the letter from my mother wasn’t helping. “She was oblivious to the task before her and was clouded by judgement and selfishness.”

  Woah, when did we all decide it was pick on me day? I know I screwed up and became an evil bitch, but never did I want to start a mutiny. I stop being silent and decide to pull the attention away from me before there is an uprising. I say the first words since Zube and Jax came into my room. “If we want to talk about being selfish than lets discuss you keeping a threatening message from the High Fae of the Summer Kingdom from me,” I growl at Jax.

  Zube almost doubles over in shock and his green eyes bulge from his skull. “Evaflora threatened you?” He questions. Zube looks around the room as if someone else could hear what he said. I nod and look to Jax whose pointed ears become red. What a cub.

  “I opened the letter moments before you walked into the library,” He claims, but I don’t believe him. I don’t hear any flicker in his heartbeat, but he must be lying. Although that letter wasn’t the only one sitting in the center of the desk, there were plenty of opened letters tossed about as if he searched through the pile for it. Jax finishes, “I wasn’t being selfish.”

  “You never answered my summons.” I look to the end table and notice a crumpled piece of parchment. I assume that’s my letter to him from this morning. I may have had the same reaction if I were him.

  “You are not my queen,” Jax chuffs and binds his hair into a warrior’s bun.

  “That’s not what you said in my bed last night.”

  Zube’s face flushes a dark red and he begins to laugh. His loud cackles erupt through the room as he chokes out, “You guys have been having sex?” I roll my eyes because of course that is all he is taking from this conversation. “I knew it.”

  “Shut up, Zube,” Jax shouts.

  “Untighten your trunks, Jax.” He looks at me and snarls. I answer in a growl and try to change the subject, “Are we going to tell the Court about the threat?”

  “Of course not,” Zube follows my subject change without realizing. The last thing the mortals need to know is that the Fae with whom we are at war, is threatening to take my kingdom and destroy my people.

  “They deserve a right to know,” Jax says glancing at me and Zube as he paces around the room. “If we tell them then maybe they will have an idea about what to do.”

  “What can we do, Jax?” I ask, failing to stop his pacing which makes me uneasy. “It isn’t like we can just run back into Elkwood and kill her. She has an army of Forsaken bowing to her throne and what do I have?”

  “You have more strength than you know, Ariadae.”

  Zube interjects, immediately changing the mood of the room and says, “What we do need is numbers. In the court meeting I will ask about the soldiers fighting in Solaria and see how many men we can bring back to fight against your mother and protect Equadoria.”

  “The entire Equadorian army is down there, Zube. They’re all fighting because the threat of Solaria is too big right now, so I am not sure if I want to pull men away from that battle. Anybody we bring back will not be enough.” A maid knocks on the door and Jax allows her to enter. It’s not Desirae, but it is another familiar face. After bowing she looks to us and I hear the pounding of her heart. It’s beating as fast as a butterfly’s wings.

  “The court is ready for you, your grace,” her high pitched voice squeaks and she runs off as quickly as she came. I can’t help, but wonder if she was in the throne room during my outburst and if I am the source of her nerves.

  I look to Jax and Zube and say, “We will finish this conversation after the meeting.”

  They nod in agreement and we head down the hall, passing bustling servants in blue uniforms and guards alike. Trailed by Zube and Jax nobody meets my eyes nor theirs. It’s like my own people are frightened of me. I don’t want to be my mother or some tyrant ruler who abuses their disciples. Now I’m really regretting what I did in the Trial.

  We take two other corridors and enter the large meeting chambers. Flanked by guards, the senators and lords of Equadoria sit around a large wooden table. The weight of the crown on my head becomes apparent when they all rise and deeply bow. Nodding my thanks, I head to the end of the table, while Jax and Zube take their places beside me.

  “What shall we discuss firs?” I question. One of the youngest nobles in my court- S
amuel Francis I- perks to full attention and rises. Meeting the eyes of everyone around the table, I gesture to him so he may start his claim.

  “I have received a dire revelation from one of our envoys in Solaria,” He says as he pulls a piece of parchment from his satchel and begins to read off the paper. What urgent news could come from our spies in Solaria? Other than the fact that my army being stationed there, nothing from that kingdom should be spoken of or sent to Equadoria in case of trackers. I glance to Jax and Zube who look just as pale as me, before giving Sam my attention. “The Legion of Equadorian soldiers has been decimated by the Solarian warriors. Only a duodenary amount of the sentinels survived the annihilation,” He stops reading from the letter. I had sent a legion of over six hundred foot soldiers to Solaria and only twelve survived. “I’m sorry, your majesty.”

  Chapter Three

  ~Fayla~

  His breath rises in small tendrils into the thick air of the bedroom. Climbing through the kitchen window and grabbing the knife was all too easy, but sliding the blade against Wayloran wife’s throat was even easier. I don’t expect Duke Rywell, my dead captor, to mind missing his sister-in-law and brother in the afterlife. After I electrocuted Rywell and stole a dress of the finest silk I walked off into the night and up several blocks to a nice inn. I didn’t have any money, so I just stole a sack of coppers from a drunk and paid for my stay with stolen change. I’ve heard revenge is a powerful drug and all I can say is I am extremely high on it. Bloodlust fills my every pore and just the thought of murdering Wayloran is stimulating.

  Once word spread of Rywell’s death, I quickly ordered a carriage and road eastward to Alpri. I left my past in Junio behind me and now, after talking to many residents, I learned which home was Wayloran’s. The large manor was painted dark grey with white trimming and the third floor happens to be the location of Wayloran’s bedroom. I love the thrill of a new kill. It’s euphoric in a way only a damaged person will understand.