The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel

by Zachary James

  She looks down at me. Her blonde curls fall around our faces like an ivory curtain. Death is a beautiful, feral thing, and its name is Molaris. “I’ve heard that you haven’t been sleeping during the day, Athena.” She uses my name like a poison.

  A crimson tear floods down my cheek in a silent cascade to the marble floor. Her power loosens from my bones and the excruciating pain ebbs and I almost cry out in relief.

  “What’ve you been up to?” Her voice is like a whip cracking in a silent chamber. It echoes off the towering walls of the throne room and the stars seem to pulse with energy.

  Acacius, please help me. She is going to kill me. I call out into the empty void of my mind and Molaris snarls, making an immaculate show of revealing her elongated fangs.

  From the subtle release of her magic I stretch out my jaw. It aches tremendously as I whisper, “I don’t answer to you.” I have no lie or excuse to give her, so I won’t tell her anything. Nobody can know of me and Acacius’ faerie and Vampyre lineage.

  Molaris’ iridescent eyes seem to glow and radiate red from the rage deep within her as she is instantly growling against my neck, “Fine. I never wanted you in my court anyway.”

  My body shutters as her pointed fangs puncture skin and a knock resounds through the chamber. She pauses. I lose the breath I was holding.

  The doors creak open and the escort that brought me to Molaris pokes his head into the chamber. His eyes don’t even widen at the image of Molaris’ fangs grazing my throat. I attempt to twist out of her grip, but than her power, that softened to let me speak, tightens and my blood pulls through me at her will. She drags my body across the marble floor and out of the throne room. I don’t even feel my bones bouncing down the steps that descend to the doors that Acacius and I had left the castle from.

  When I clatter to the floor the pain vanishes and I feel utterly violated. Molaris had controlled my blood and stopped me from fighting back. My bones groan as I lift myself from the floor on shaking arms. My bones feel weak. My blood is cold.

  Acacius is at my side in an instant, helping me to my feet. His crimson eyes are worried and looking to me for answers. I think of what happened in the throne room and he sees my memories, analyzes them. His features contort to pure hatred and a glare shifts to the Vampyre queen now standing at the top of the stairs.

  “How dare you harm my prodigy,” Acacius growls. I shake from the chill that slides down my spine like a droplet of sweat. And I hope Molaris feels the same fear, but her face gives no information.

  Molaris laughs. “We were only playing,” Her eyes slide to me. “Is that right, Athena?”

  I shake my head. Molaris hisses and is gripping my throat in an instant. Acacius puts his arm between us and throws Molaris across the room. She smacks against the wall with a satisfying crack. Molaris’ guard, I assume, leaps onto Acacius and begins clawing at his face. Acacius fights back just as hard. I didn’t expect the battle between Molaris and I to happen so soon, but I’m prepared, I am ready. I will not go down without swinging.

  Guttural, animalistic screams escape the Vampyres as they roll, and wrestle throughout the room. I’m in awe and completely forget the most powerful Vampyre in the world is at my back.

  I spin. Her hand locks to my throat and Molaris’ iridescent eyes gleam with the scent of blood in the room. I don’t know who’s bleeding, but the odor filled my nostrils seconds prior.

  “You should’ve never come here.” Molaris whispers and I know she won’t let me get away this time. I want to call out to Acacius, but my ears tell me that he is still in a heavy skirmish behind me. I need to help myself. Molaris smiles, her fangs glinting in the lamplight. “I’m going to kill you.”

  Suddenly I feel the current beneath my bones. Not Molaris twisting my blood, but my lightning. My powers can melt bone and flesh. Destroy humans and Fae alike. Never have I used them on a Vampyre, but Acacius says I am the spark that ignites fires. Let’s make this island burn.

  Seconds before I make a storm reign hell on Molaris I stop at a sound. A snare drum clatters outside the door and trumpets shout in a wondrous beat. The Vampyre who is fighting Acacius came into the throne room and stopped Molaris from killing me, but it wasn’t on purpose. He didn’t have time to warn her of the marching soldiers I hear outside.

  My stare glides from the door back to Molaris and she releases my throat and adjusts her skirts. I wipe the wrinkles from my tunic and Acacius stops his brawl to stand beside me. We all stare at the large wooden doors and when the instruments stop no knock fills the castle. The doors just burst wide open.

  Blue eyes, similar to mine greet us and instantly the Vampyre looks to me. Her dress is black and across the trim is a golden dragon that spirals up her skirt. I am suddenly aware that the Vampyre is the queen of the west, Scout is grinning at me.

  “I thought it would be mannerly if ladies came first,” Scout giggles and no humor is behind her cunning, foxlike features. Her brunette curls are in a knot atop her head behind a diadem of sparkling black wishbones of varying sizes.

  Flanking her is a male with straight, dirty blonde hair and soft amber eyes. His smile, unlike Scout’s, is genuine. I’m glad Acacius taught me everything about each of the Vampyre kingdoms because I know this male is Aaron, the Vampyre king of the southern island.

  And as the expression goes, save the best for last, the Vampyre king of the north, Tyrion saunters into the castle. He has an entire legion at his side and I see the musicians amongst the warriors. Tyrion is freakishly tall, muscled, and to my surprise, handsome. He has short dark hair, mysterious brown eyes, and thickly veined skin showing off his intense exercise and training.

  Molaris shifts uncomfortably and I remember that Tyrion was one of her lovers once. I can use that to my advantage if needed.

  “Hello,” Tyrion purrs and I realize his gaze is sliding over my curves. I try not to allow my skin to crawl, but I fail. “Who are you?”

  Acacius steps in front of me snarling. Molaris looks to Acacius and pushes him aside. “Do not snarl at our guests! And the girl? She’s nothing.” Molaris doesn’t let Tyrion see me. “She is Acacius’ prodigy.” I peek over Molaris’ shoulder and Tyrion grins.

  “I’m thankful for this humble welcome, Molaris. I hope you don’t mind I brought a guest of my own.” Tyrion gestures behind him and out of the crowd of sentinels slips a man from the legion and his bright yellow tunic makes me think of the sun during day and I become very aware of his sculpted muscles bulging from the fabric. “Lunan Berdu Walsh, High Lord of the Day Kingdom.” Lunan’s Fae scent fills the chamber and Molaris becomes even paler than her dead body typically is. Her own lust fights Lunan’s Fae odor and I think that Lunan might have been a lover of Molaris’ as well.

  “Why is he here?” She whispers and Scout looks between them suddenly putting together some puzzle that I can’t see. She runs to Molaris and drags her up the stairs. I look to Acacius who just shrugs and the two Vampyre kings confide in warm conversation. Now that I am no longer looking over Molaris’ shoulder I get a good look at Lunan and notice a thick scar from his hairline down through his eye brow, his eye somehow undamaged, and down his cheek to finally stop at his jawbone. His high cheekbones are reflecting the lamplight and I look at his eyes. They’re as gold as the yellow of his tunic. He looks at me and my gut twists. My ears fill with a dull ringing and something cracks loudly in my chest. It’s sound similar to a whip. All the air leaves the room and my knees become weak. Lunan’s eyes widen and I realize he feels the same thing as me. My cold, dead, unyielding heart beats for the first time. I shudder at the fast beat now thrumming in my chest.

  A voice in the back of my head, not Acacius’, whispers.

  He’s your mate.

  Chapter Nine

  ~Ariadae~

  After the dress fitting, Rasgard sent me back to the castle with a new robe and I was happy to walk back into my room with the library finished and cleaned. I will send gifts to every servant who fixed up the damag
e later. I was disappointed to find Jax missing again, but I assume he decided to talk to the guards or maybe even Darwin. I have things to ask the intruder anyway, so I change out of the simple dress and into one of Jax’s loose white shirts and a pair of tight pants and leather boots.

  I head into the hall and ask the sentinels stationed outside my door to escort me to the dungeon. Although reluctantly, they oblige and lead me past the throne room and into a servant’s passage. The dusty air is hard to swallow and the tight space makes me panic slightly. After being chased through the tunnels of Evaflora’s secret labyrinth these small corridors make me uncomfortable. I know I’m safe, but I can’t shake the feeling of getting trapped.

  After going down the spiral stairs and passing four doors, we reached the bottom where a door was slightly ajar. A beam of light shattered the darkness of the stairwell and the sentinels escorted me into a large stone chamber. The room was a dome and circular. The chamber has many doors and behind one on the far wall I hear loud, agonizing groans. My stomach turns at the thought of him behind the wood. When I shot him with the mountain ash arrow back in the Summer Kingdom I knew I missed his heart, but I had hoped he had died. I didn’t expect him to come waltzing into my kingdom.

  “Through there, Milady.” A sentinel points to the door with the moans, confirming my assumption.

  I make quick work of braiding my hair walk toward the large wooden door. My shaking hand grabs the cold iron handle and the other sentinel asks, “Would you like us to come with you?”

  Yes. “No thank you,” I need to do this alone. The guard nods and unlocks the door and opens it for me. I thank him as I notice Darwin’s rumpled form slouched in a chair in the center of the dark stone chamber. His legs and ankles are bent and twisted at sickening angles. I hold back a gag that rises in my throat from the scent of feces and rotting vomit inside the dungeon.

  I step in and a guard closes the door locking, me in with the man who once teased Jax and me in an herbal shop. He tried to kill us then, and he tried to kill us last night. He has a track record of murdering people that albeit is beyond the two times he tried to kill Jax and I.

  “If you need help just shout.” A muffled voice says from behind the door. I look down to Darwin. His wrists are shackled and his dark hair is ruffled and his shirtless back is covered in scars, cuts, and bruises.

  “Hello Ariadae.” The sound of his voice sends me back into the horrors of Elkwood. Darwin is one of them. I can still vividly see the day inside of the herbal shop in the Summer Kingdom when he taunted me with the threat of death. He heard of hitch of my panicked breathing and he was supposed to die with that arrow to the chest, but instead he came back. He followed me from Elkwood into my own home and he can’t terrify me here, not anymore.

  “Hello Darwin,” I say trying to keep my shaking voice from sounding weak. I can’t stop looking at his mangled lower half. “How are your legs?”

  “What do you want?” He spits and flicks his face to me. His hard features are strange and I don’t know why. The last time I saw him, besides last night, he was a bear with horns, now. Darwin is a man with the pointed ears revealing his Fae blood. If he wasn’t a brutal killer he could be considered handsome.

  “I just wanted to talk.”

  “About what?” Darwin seethes. “Your mother?” I jump back at his assumption. I’m not scared for being in a cell with my mother’s personal guard, but I flood with fear at the idea that he knows more than I want him to. He even knew I wanted to talk about my mother.

  “Yes.” My voice is shockingly strong, adamant like stone. “I want to know why she wants to enslave my people and all the mortals of Abella. I want to know why she so badly wants to destroy my kingdom and why she is so angry.” I’m panting from my boiling blood. “Can you answer that?” I add with distaste.

  Darwin just chuckles to himself as he silently shakes his head, looking at his lap.

  “What?” I growl through grinding teeth. He continues to laugh and it just makes me even angrier. My already boiling blood burns at a fiery hot and I begin to sweat from my every pore.

  “I remember in June when you asked me to deliver Evaflora a message. You asked me to tell her that you mortals weren’t weak and you will kill her and her kind.” My heart begins to beat fast in my chest and bile rises into my throat. I was broken and angry and scared. I remember that day like yesterday. It was the day that I discovered my mother murdered Seri, my only friend in the Summer Kingdom.

  “What I don’t think you understand is that you are her kind,” he adds. “You, Ariadae Vox, Queen of a human throne are just as much a Fae as Evaflora is, or Jax is, or even I am for that matter. I told her your message and it was childish on your part because now, Evaflora is challenging you. She is pushing to see how far you will go to abide by the promise you made. This all started because of you.”

  My whole body is shaking with rage. I can’t say he is wrong because he isn’t, but I can’t admit that he is completely right either. My mother turned me into this, made me do this. I am the victim, not the enemy. “I am not like you.” I hiss.

  “The sad part is that you very much are. Not matter how long you deny it, your mortals will hate you on their throne. The Fae will hate you because you should be a mortal and now you don’t even have anymore control over yourself than you do your own kingdom.”

  I shake my head. I try to push away the memories of the boy’s back breaking and his mother flying across the room during the trial. No matter how much I fight it the images don’t vanish. And now, I realize that today, when I went to get my dress fitted that I didn’t easily slip past people in the kingdom because they didn’t notice me. It was because they were avoiding me, like a plague.

  “Stop,” My voice is barely a whisper.

  “Your mother wants to take every human from beneath your feet and make them do what they should be doing, serving our kind.” Darwin’s voice is growing into a crescendo and I start to not only feel the pain of his words settling in my gut, but I feel the pain of my new power curling within my veins. “Humans are beneath us on the totem pole, Ariadae. Compared to you, Evaflora, me, they are nothing. Your mother wants to use them for something.”

  “I said stop.” I growl in warning. My power starts to become restless and writhe angrily in my palms. He’s right I don’t have control of myself or my kingdom.

  “Let us take them, break them, and let the weak become what they truly are. Nothing.”

  “STOP!” I scream and the room explodes in bright purple smoke and flames. Dancing and twirling my power spirals from my clenched fists, my palms bleeding from my fingernails, and Darwin screams as his pants, the chair, his shackles, his hair, and even his skin burn away. When I realize what is happening it all vanishes on a phantom wind and Darwin is a steaming body on the ground. His flesh is burnt, but he’s breathing and coughing up blood. What have I done? I lost my grip, the only control I had if I had any at all.

  The sentinels slam through the door and stop in utter shock. I look between Darwin, the sentinels, and my bleeding palms. What’ve I done? I wanted to stop this war between me and my mother. I didn’t want to make it worse. If Darwin dies than she’ll kill everyone, destroy Equadoria and move onto the other mortal kingdoms beneath the Elkwood borders. I need to get away.

  I turn on my heel and the sentinels run to Darwin. I stumble to a random door and throw it open. A corridor is before me, I don’t care where I’m going I just need to escape that smell of fire, smoke, burned flesh, and magic. The mixture of those things creates a vomit inducing odor that makes my head spin.

  The long hallway is illuminated by a bright glowing light coming out of a doorway at the end. My stomach twists into an even tighter knot at the recognition of the illumination. The coloration distracts me from what I just did. It has a white glow that almost seems to pulse and I beg to the gods. It can’t be. I spent my entire time in Elkwood trying to find it and when I did, my mother destroyed it. I saw that same white illumina
tion in the afterlife. Its bright white waters lifted me from death back to life.

  When I step into the large dome chamber the glowing leaves of the Tree of Light reflect off my tear stained face. The thick twisted roots break the cobblestone floor and burrow deep into the ground. My pounding heart starts to skip beats and I turn my attention to the grunting form lifting heavy buckets of water from a small pool across from me. His long dark curls bounce as the cords of his muscled back lift the pales. Jax’s eyes meet mine and his buckets splash onto the ground, water spilling everywhere. He becomes just as shocked as me.

  “Dae,” he whispers, reaching to me. And even though he is very far away, I recoil. He lied to me. This explains where he goes for several hours a day. Why I haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with him for us to focus on our relationship. All he does at night is crawl into bed next to me and want sex.

  “Why?” I want to puke even more than I did before. The sickening thought of him lying makes me question everything. Wonder how much he is keeping from me. I knew we weren’t meant for each other.

  “I wanted to tell you-”

  “But you didn’t,” I choke through unyielding tears. “After everything that’s been happening going on you kept this from me? You lied to me! You told me you were working on laws and military planning for my kingdom! But this is all you did! How could you?”

  He runs to me and I dodge his open hands. The fingers that touched me at night and the hands that belong to the man who told me he loved me, the hands of a liar, a god-damned fucking liar. I don’t even have time to be happy that the Tree of Light has been remade, or curious if its magic works like before, instead my mind races back to those fingers.

  His voice croaks, “I was going to tell you soon, but after last night and the trial and the court meeting I couldn’t find time.”