Jax notices the shout in my voice and cringes a bit. Zube joins him. I throw my arms out in silent question.
“Where would you get an army, anyway?” Zube’s question has already run through my mind a thousand times since I learned my soldiers were obliterated.
“I didn’t want to bring the problem of Evaflora to them, but I have to,” My voice is almost a whisper. I’m finally becoming the queen I never wanted to be. “Evaflora wants to enslave the humans on Abella and Equadoria is not the only mortal kingdom. There are fourteen others and at some point Evaflora is going after them if she hasn’t already.”
“So, what are you saying?” Jax shifts his weight back and forth, signifying his discomfort. A chill shakes me from the core.
“We need to ask them for help-”
Zube cuts me off and mumbles, “You’re not saying that you-,”
“Yes, she is,” Jax cuts back into the debate. He can’t read my mind like Zube, but he knows where I’m going with this. “We have to go back into Elkwood Forest.”
<<>><<>><<>>
After Zube, Jax, and I talked yesterday morning we have been preparing for entering the forest. The thought of going back in has caused an uncontrollable shaking to curse my body, and no matter how much I tell myself it’s going to be different this time, the shaking won’t stop.
Zube is going to be staying in Equadoria to make sure all is well. He isn’t cursed like my father was, so I won’t have to worry about my people. I know it’s selfish, but I’m worried about myself. I had too many near death experiences and after the events of Elkwood and the curse my mother placed on my father I did die. What will this second trek through Elkwood entail?
I shake the gruesome memories that are replaying in my head from my mind and change out of my day gown and into a silk nightgown. The smooth pale blue fabric is chilled in the exposure of night. I head over to the hearth in the corner and poke the dimly glowing embers until they are crackling flames. The warmth wraps around me like a fur blanket and I take a seat on an ottoman before the red and orange flames. The slithering fingers of the fire claw up the chimney and waft smoke up the dark tunnel.
The bedroom door clicks open and a part of me thinks of Darwin breaking into the castle, but I know it’s not him. Before I turn around the corded muscles of Jax’s biceps coil around my chest and his face slides into the crook of my neck. I forgive his lies, but I will never forget them. His actions speak louder than any words.
“I’m sorry,” He whispers. I shush him before he can bring up the subject again. Any conversation on that topic will only make me upset again.
“I don’t want to talk about it tonight.”
“What do you want to talk about?” He quirks and a grin twists my features. The shadows of the flames making me look devilish.
I lay against his hard body as he places his thighs on either side of mine, sitting with me on the ottoman. I don’t want to think about going into Elkwood tomorrow, but I can’t get the idea of that damned forest out of my mind.
“Do you think the mortals will believe us about Evaflora wanting to enslave them?” I feel Jax go taut at my question.
He doesn’t wait very long to answer. “Why wouldn’t they? They know that the immortals are still in Elkwood, right?”
“I honestly don’t know.” The humans and Fae haven’t fought in centuries. Ever since the creation of the Book of Ash eighteen centuries ago, there hasn’t been a documented or memorable war between the mortal and immortal. “What if we don’t get an army?”
Jax spins me around so I can face him as I sit on his lap. His blue eyes glow in the firelight and I stare into them, looking for what he is going to say, what he is thinking, what he wants. I hear his heart begin to gallop.
“We will get an army, Ariadae,” His voice is a seductive whisper in the darkness in my- our bedroom. “I was thinking before we attempt to acquire aid from the mortal kingdoms, we could go to an immortal one.”
It’s my turn for my heart to gallop. “The Fae have never fought alongside the humans. What Kingdom would even help us?”
I stare into Jax’s eyes and think of the snow, the winter, a cold bitter day. He is a Fae and I was once a human, we fought side by side, and if he is from the Winter Kingdom than maybe his people think the same way as him!
“The Winter Kingdom,” I say before he can tell me and he only nods. I place a kiss onto his lips and he doesn’t hesitate to reciprocate. Our tongues begin to spar one another and our breaths come in hot, heavy pants. My pounding heart makes my blood pump wildly as I claw at Jax who just moans against my mouth. His thick lips taste like peppermint and his scruff scrapes against my cheek. He begins to rise and lifts me in the process. We don’t break the kiss as he lays me down on the bed and slides my nightgown up, up, up until it’s at my waist, exposing everything he wants to see. I realize how much he missed me these past two weeks by the strength in his kisses that now glide along my collarbone and the firm tent of his pants.
Words that I haven’t thought about in a month slam in my skull like a hammer pounding a nail. He isn’t your mate. I break the kiss and he looks down on me with a furrowed brow. His beautiful is set face in an intense confusion. He isn’t your mate.
“I can’t,” My voice is barely a whisper. At some point, he lost his shirt, so he makes quick work of putting it back on.
“I understand.” There is no anger or hatred behind his words. My heart still gallops and my mouth remembers the taste of his lips, but my heart is saying yes and my mind is saying no. He gives me a curt nod before he strides for the door.
“Wait!” I call after him and crawl to the end of the bed to grab his wrist. He looks back to me, eyes swelling with tears. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” A single bloated tear escapes his eye lid and cascades down his cheek and onto my hand. He lifts it to his mouth and places a kiss on the salty droplet.
“All right,” He smiles as he crawls onto the bed. I shift under the covers and he slides in behind me and locks his arms firmly around me. I stare at the crackling flames as he drifts into an unyielding sleep and I fall into an intransigent wakefulness.
I watch the fire descend to charcoal ashes and the darkness of my room slowly fades to a warm pink and orange. The sun came too soon and my eyes still have yet to droop at the call of sleep. I waited for hours and my brain doesn’t desire unconsciousness, but instead wants to get to the Winter Kingdom before I’m carved up by a Dreag.
The Winter Kingdom is located at the peak of Archaic Mountain, which is the tallest mountain in the Archaic Mountain Range that divides Elkwood from the rest of the continent. Jax and I would be crossing over the mountain to get to the rest of the kingdoms, so why not pay a visit to his father, the High Lord of the Winter Kingdom.
Jax never moved throughout the night, but his steady breaths and slow beating heart tell me he is in the depths of sleep, so doing my best not to stir him, I unlock the cage of his arms from around me and silently leave the bed chambers.
The corridors and wings of the castle are silent as I tip-toe down hallway after hallway until I find my way to the Training Hall. The twin of the ballroom is quiet, but instead of the floor-to-ceiling windows being destroyed as they are in the ballroom, they are perfectly intact. I walk to a sword rack and pull a rapier from its scabbard. I open the patio doors. The shocking cold pulls the air from my lungs and I gasp. I take the air in greedy gulps that burn my throat and chest. My nightgown feels as if nothing is stopping the cold from nipping at my bones.
I swing the blade and listen to the sound of the steel slicing through the crisp air. I feel the ghost of Jeremiah correcting my technique. ‘The angle of your wrist is off’ or maybe ‘you’re not holding the hilt correctly.’ I won’t let Evaflora kill him. If she hasn’t already.
A rasping intake of breath has me spinning on my heels, sword angled, at nothing. The patio doors idle wide open and from the looks of it nobody is around. My beating heart begins to calm.
; A hand grabs a fistful of my hair, exposing my neck. I swing the sword over my shoulder, but a mangled, broken hand with exposed bone and missing flesh grips the blade happily. The wheezing fills my powerful hearing until it’s all I hear. My first thought is a Forsaken has come from Elkwood and into my castle grounds again, but then I remember Darwin’s burnt corpse. The hand isn’t covered in healing burns though.
“Forgotten me, have you?” Novid, one of the sentinels who helped me in Elkwood, rasps and I’m sad to admit I have.
“My mind has been a bit busy lately,” my quivering voice shakes wildly like the frightened girl I am. Last time Novid visited me was in my bedroom before my birthday. Gaston never appeared since before that. They have never touched me before, and yet he is dead. This is too real to just be a ghost from my mind.
“Your friend is alive.” Until when I want to ask, but also wonder how he knows. “For now,” Novid adds. I try to press down on the sword, but his grip is adamant. Why is a memory hurting me? Stopping me physically? I remind myself of what’s going on. He isn’t real. He’s not there. He is nothing. The words Jax has me recite don’t work. My heart skips in an unsteady beat.
“You’re not real.”
“Are you sure about that?”
No. “Yes,” I mumble more to myself than Novid. A chill shakes my bones as a breeze passes along my skin. Fog doesn’t coil from Novid’s rasping breathes like it does mine.
“Meet the girl who sparkles like lightning and the male who blazes like a thousand suns.”
“What?” I question. His ragged breathing vanishes and the fist that was tangled in my hair is gone. I spin around and he’s gone with the passing wind as if he wasn’t there at all.
“Are you all right?” A soft voice quakes from the patio doors and my scream shatters the silence of the morning. Desirae immediately regrets her question and runs to me. Her eyes are worried and her brow is furrowed. “What have you done?” She coos and gestures to my hands.
I suddenly feel the burn and realize my fist is locked around the blade of my rapier with an iron grip. Blood drips down the silver sword and it coats my hand. The small layer of snow that accumulated on the ground is covered in crimson droplets that surround my bare feet, almost blue from the cold. I shudder and Desirae guides me into the warm castle. The nearest guard blankets me with his cloak and I violently shake as Desirae holds a torn strip of fabric from her apron over my leaking palm.
I try to think over everything that just happened and realize I am crazy as she urges me onward. We quickly reach the infirmary because it isn’t far from the Training Hall, for obvious reasons. I sit at the old wooden table and Desirae clatters around the room, obviously anxious because of the situation. She walked outside and witnessed her queen cutting open her hand in a nightgown. What has gotten into me?
“I’m sorry,” I whisper breathlessly. “I don’t know what was going on out there.”
“Don’t apologize, Your Majesty,” her voice is humble and sweet like honey. I smile at the childish and nonthreatening sound of it. “Even the gods can’t stop themselves from being a little crazy sometimes.”
“Yes,” I think of all the times Prometheus and his pantheon of gods saved me. I remember all of their faces, burned in my memory like an oil painting that will last forever. They are the reason I’m alive and they are the reason there is magic in this world. “We all are a little crazy.”
She giggles to herself and finds some gauze and cloth in the many cabinets in the clean, white marble room. She takes a seat in front of me and quickly cleans and wraps my sliced palm. I look at her face, childish and unthreatening, welcoming even. She looks just like her mother.
The image of her mother sitting in the dungeon with her innards in my lap brands my mind. I shake away the memory and whisper, “I know what it’s like to lose someone.” My chest caves at the thought of my father. I barely stop the sob from heaving out of my throat.
“You don’t need to offer me your condolences,” Desirae mumbles. Tears swell in her eyes and my own vision starts to blur. I understand her pain. “You’ve suffered much more than I.”
“No one gets to decide how much you’ve suffered. And I may look strong because I try to be,” Desirae nods, unable to speak without crying. “I do it for my people, but to be honest,” the sob I was holding back erupts from me and my cheeks become instantly wet. Desirae begins crying and grips my hands. I take a deep breath. “I am terrified. I am scared to go back into Elkwood today and I am nothing, but a lie. I lie because I have to, not because I want to.” She hands me a small cloth and I wipe my face, as she wipes hers.
We sit there in silence for a while. I don’t mind it, but at the same time I don’t want time to think about what’s going to happen today.
Desirae smiles, our eyes both red from crying, “Would you like some tea?”
“I would enjoy that very much!”
<<>><<>><<>>
Noon came too soon and after a quick meal with Jax and Zube I’m standing with the two of them at the front doors of my castle. Zube’s face is so pale I become actually worried for the man; I would never admit it though.
Jax just stares at the two of us, his fur clothing matches mine and is mixed with leather undertones. We want to be safe from the Forsaken and the weather. My own outfit is made from different hides, leather and my fur lined gloves and cloak top off the whole look of a huntress. I am no longer the queen I am known to be. Zube drapes a fox cowl over my shoulders and Jax’s.
“You don’t have to go,” Zube mumbles. “I sent letters to the mortal kingdoms.”
Jax rolls his eyes for me. “And you think those will really arrive?”
“No, but it’s worth a try. I’d rather letters got lost to Elkwood than either of you.”
I grab Zube’s arm and glare at him. He is scared to be here by himself or maybe he really does fear for me and Jax traveling alone through Elkwood and across Abella. Whatever his problem is, it needs to be gone before Jax and I leave.
I try to make speak my mind as simply as possible. “I am fucking terrified of going back into Elkwood forest, but if this wasn’t important than I wouldn’t be doing it. I appreciate you sending the letters, but I’m trying to gather an army, not some new shoes. I need to go,” my eyes fall on Jax. “We need to go.”
Zube nods and looks to the floor like an ashamed child. “I just remember what happened to us when we first went in. What happens if you don’t come out this time? We could lose this war and your mother will destroy everything.”
“It’s different this time,” Jax cuts in and smirks. I hope so. “We will come back.”
“We’ll be fine,” I add. “I promise. Just make sure everything runs smoothly here and don’t let worry cloud your judgement. ”
He nods, so Jax and I give him our departing hugs before Jax shifts into the white tiger I used to know him to be. Zube quickly helps me lay some supplies onto Jax’s hips and shoulder blades. I mount him and I depart from Zube with a brush of our hands as he hands me six quivers and a bow. I pray to Prometheus this isn’t the last time I see Zube.
Jax sprints into the cold before I can change my mind about leaving Zube behind. During the Winter Solstice ball when the Forsaken attacked the castle some stragglers ran through Equadoria. I notice the damage they caused throughout the kingdom as we ride down its cobblestone streets. Doors are torn from their hinges and sides of houses are covered in claw marks and dried blood. My stomach does cartwheels as I see more and more of the devastation. We dart past a particularly small girl with thick, fresh slices down her face. It mars her beautiful features, but in my eyes, she is still gorgeous. Our scars tell stories that make us who we are. I’m glad all of mine haven’t vanished.
The closer we get to the edge of Equadoria the worse the damages gets. Some houses are nothing but rubble, and the slums look like a war zone. Arrows from Troglodytes stick out of rotting bodies and the wooden walls and doors of the small houses. With the lack of guards, I d
idn’t have enough men to protect the borders. And this amount of devastation could not appear from just the night of the Winter Solstice ball. This has to be months of attacks. What have I been doing? I should’ve focused on this place first! The slums are right on the border of Elkwood Forest, so how could I have been so naïve to believe that there wasn’t attacks? I’ve been so wrapped up in everything with Jeremiah, and the lies in my court, that I haven’t thought about the people who need me most. The citizens who can’t protect themselves look to me for help and I didn’t look back. I turned my head in disbelief of what was happening. Once I get an army and the threat of my mother is gone this will all be over.
The citizens wandering aimlessly about are shaking in the cold. They glare at me and Jax as we ride past. I know they aren’t staring at Jax as much as they are angry at me. I want to say sorry, but my father always said actions speak louder than words, so I will show them I haven’t forgotten. I will fix everything in the end, but this, going into Elkwood, is the first step of many to build a better, safer world.
I pull up my hood in an attempt to avoid their glares, but even the wind making my eyes blur doesn’t stop me from noticing the heavy stares. I’ve failed as a queen.
Before I can leap from Jax and forget my mission, Jax heeds onward until he slows to a stalking gait towards Equadoria’s gate. The towering stone walls haven’t stopped the Forsaken from entering, but they will be a defense against my mother and her army from destroying everything immediately.
“Open the gates!” I call to the watchmen in the towers high above. I’m surprised my voice carried through the howling wind, but the groan of the gate opening tells me they know what I asked whether they heard or not. “Thank you!” I shout as Jax slowly leaves the protection of the kingdom behind. His walk may be normal, but for me, every step closer to Elkwood forest is in slow motion. My beating heart gallops like a sprinting horse as he ascends the hill. The towering Elkwood trees, bare of any leaves, loom above our head, blocking out the grey sky.
The Reign of Queens: A Kingdom of Diamond Antlers Novel Page 10