by H. D. Gordon
Hell, they needed to be scared. When she spoke, her voice came out that of a queen, the question of her strength more than answered in the deeds her people had just witnessed.
“I promised you my protection,” she told all those present, speaking loudly enough to be heard by all, and giving the Demon’s horn a sharp yank when it tried to screech in frustration.
She placed her blade to its throat, and in one swift motion, drew it deep into the creature’s scaly skin, a fountain of steaming black blood spraying out into the air. She released the horn she was gripping and the Demon’s head hit the barrier with a cringe-worthy thwack!
Wiping her blade off on her thigh and replacing it in its holster, Surah strode calmly over to Bassil and placed a hand on the Warlock’s large shoulder, letting him know he could release the spells. Sweat rolled down his ebony brow, and his dark eyes were bloodshot when he opened them.
With a splat! that made even some of the stronger stomachs in the crowd twist, the gore of the deceased Demons fell free of the diminishing barrier and covered some of those below, who stumbled and coughed and took long, wide-eyed breaths as they regained control over their bodies.
As they did so, Surah climbed to the top of the royal dock from which she’d just barely said goodbye to her father. It was elevated higher than the others, and though it was nighttime, the blazes of the lost ones atop the lake were still burning strong.
The moon was full and round. The crowd was massive and silent, and their eyes were only for her. She stood before them now, covered in the blood and body parts of those who would dare threaten them, and she did not bother to wipe it away, not even from her lips.
“I promised you my protection,” she repeated, her voice loud and larger than one would think possible from such a petite woman. “Is there anyone among you who thinks I’m incapable of this? If so, step forward now.”
She paused, her heart racing faster than it had even during the killing. “If not, bow before me now as your queen, and follow me as I defend our Territory against those who have wronged us.”
Time slowed in the handful of seconds that followed, the world freezing before her as if this were all some dream.
Then, slowly, like a wave rolling out to sea, the Sorcerer people began to take to their knees, bowing before their new queen, chins tucked and eyes cast down in respect.
Bassil smiled despite his obvious exhaustion. He came forward and replaced the queen’s piece of White Stone around her neck, where it glowed brightly enough for all to see.
Chapter 13
Charlie
When his eyes peeled open sometime later, night had fallen in the Fae Forest.
For the split second before swimming back to full consciousness, Charlie awoke to find he didn’t know where he was.
He’d dreamed he was back home at his cabin in the countryside, a warm fire blazing in the fireplace, and his guitar resting in the corner.
Surah had been there. She’d been curled up on the couch beside him, her long, soft legs stretched across his lap, reading a book about some imagined world full of imagined people with imagined problems all their own.
And then he’d been pulled back to consciousness, blinking and heart sinking as the slow realization of reality came over him. The scents filling his nose, the sounds in his ears, and even the air of the place confirmed its identity.
He was on the floor of the Fae Forest, amidst the odd pink fog, his body wrapped in thick, thorny green vines from shoulder to feet. He could not feel the right side of his body at all, and thus came to the conclusion that the plant life restraining him must be of the poisonous sort. His head was pounding and his vision blurry, and his heart felt like it weighed a hundred pounds in his chest.
He could not remember ever feeling so lost and hopeless.
Charlie rolled over onto his back with a grunt, the thorns there making fresh digs into his skin, which he hardly felt for all the paralysis the plant’s poison was holding over his body.
Above, the fluffy, pastel-colored canopies of the trees danced lightly in the sweet-scented wind, and beyond that, three moons and millions of stars lit the night sky.
If not for the absolute awfulness of the whole situation, Charlie would have to admit this small, strange Territory owned by the Fae was quite lovely in its otherness.
Rustling in the trees around him, the Fae children had returned, their high-pitched voices a mixture between the chirps of morning birds and the songs of nighttime bugs. Their eyes, wide and slanted, glowed in the darkness, a stunning color of earthy-green that was a wonder to look at, despite the effort it took Charlie to even turn his head and do so.
Their glowing gazes stared back at him in the dozens, and the foliage of the forest floor rustled and shook as they darted around the way children of all species are apt to do. Charlie began to fade in and out of consciousness, listening to the strange children and catching glimpses of the moons between the trees.
He was not sure how much time had passed, how deep it was into the night when the girl approached him. At this point, he had no concept of time. In fact, it took a couple slaps to his face before he actually awoke and took notice of her. Her face was so lovely that he thought he must have been dreaming of an angel.
“Wake up,” the girl whispered, slightly slanted green eyes as bright as emeralds staring down at him. Soft fingers touched his chin, holding his head in place, the girl sighed. Her breath smelled of flowers and sunshine. “Wake up, Sorcerer,” she repeated.
It took enormous effort on his part for Charlie to clear his mind enough to keep his eyes open. The girl with the angelic face and stunning eyes was running her fingers lightly over the vines around him, whispering in a way that seemed oddly motherly, and after a few moments, Charlie realized that the pain of all the thorns stabbing into the various parts of his body was subsiding. The vine itself was pulling out the hooks, and instead of the poison they’d been administering, a cool, burning sensation filled the wounds, the way a disinfectant might.
After ten minutes of whatever the girl was doing, Charlie felt almost completely better, though he was still restrained by the plant. He found he could breathe again, and his eyes looked up at the strange girl in wonder.
“Thank you,” he said, with the genuine gratitude of someone who has just been liberated from considerable suffering.
The girl sat back on her haunches, her long and wavy reddish-brown hair falling over her shoulders. Her emerald eyes—a deeper, somehow shinier shade of green than Charlie’s, with a slight slant that gave away her Fae descent—narrowed as she looked down at him.
“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice strong but somehow musical.
A moment of silence passed between them, and then, with one last look all around, the girl sat cross-legged beside him, her eyes never leaving his face.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The girl smirked, and Charlie wondered if she knew that each of her expressions was more beautiful than the last.
“Don’t you mean, what am I?” she replied.
Charlie raised an eyebrow. “That, too.”
She smiled now, and sure enough, this made her even lovelier.
“My name is Aria,” she said. “I’m a Halfling.” When Charlie only blinked at her, she added, “I’m half Fae and half human. I act as a liaison between the worlds.”
He let this sink in. “Well, my name’s Charlie, Aria, and I’m the guy trapped in your forest.”
Another smile, only half of one, but somehow twice as lovely. She pushed a lock of thick, red-brown hair behind her ear, which was not pointed like a Fae’s, but rounded like a human’s.
Actually, the closer Charlie looked at the girl, the more he saw that she could pass for completely human. As a liaison in the human world, she no doubt did.
“The forest isn’t mine, Charlie,” Aria answered. “The forest doesn’t belong to anyone.” She was keeping her sweet voice low, her eyes glancing all around before settling back on h
im.
Charlie craned his neck and saw that she was dressed in human clothes, with black leggings and black combat boots, a gray t-shirt and black leather jacket. Tucked behind her back, Charlie caught a glimpse of a wooden staff. He nodded at it as best as he could with his limited mobility.
“What’s that for?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
Aria’s hand reached behind her jacket, stroking the weapon before falling away. Half-smile still pulling up her lips, she reached up and brushed a piece of Charlie’s dark hair off of his forehead.
“All the realms are dangerous places, not the least of which the human world,” she said. “A girl’s gotta be careful.”
Charlie gave a small nod, looking down at his restraints. “Seems a guy’s got to, too.”
Her face grew serious, eyes darting around the dark forest once more before settling back on him.
“You’re the brother of the dark Sorcerer, right?” she asked, her words taking on a haste that had not been present a moment ago.
Charlie sighed. “Yes,” he said. “But it seems he’s chosen your queen over his blood.”
Her head tilted back, her face taking on a knowing look. “The same way you chose the Sorceress queen over him?”
Charlie’s brows furrowed. “How do you know that?”
“It’s my job to know things,” she said, dismissing this question with a wave of her hand.
By the red nail polish on her fingernails, Charlie gleamed that this girl spent most of her life in the human world, and though she was not nearly as out of place in the Fae Forest as he was, she was not right at home, either.
A cool, sweet-scented breeze went through the trees, ruffling the fluffy leaves and lifting Aria’s red-brown hair from her shoulders. Once again, urgency filled her eyes as she looked down at Charlie.
The Fae children were growing antsy, disappearing to wherever they went when not staring or laughing at Charlie, slipping away, the voids they left filling with a silence that made Charlie’s heart pick up in pace.
He knew what it meant. The Fae Queen was approaching.
Aria spoke quickly. “War is coming, Charlie,” she told him, green eyes locked on his. “Not just between the Fae and the Sorcerers—a big war.”
Something in the way the girl said this made goose bumps break out over his skin, the hair on the back of his neck standing at stiff attention.
Aria leaned in closer, her young face filling with a wisdom beyond her years, her expression as grave as the dead. Her voice was lower now, somehow older than it had been just before.
“I’ve known my share of loss, Sorcerer,” she told him, and swallowed before continuing, her eyes darting to the south, where the forest itself was beckoning the Fae Queen’s arrival.
Aria placed her small, cool hand on his cheek, the floral scent of her surrounding him. “Answer me a question, Charlie,” she said. “In the battles that lie ahead, which side will you be fighting on? That of the darkness, or that of the light?”
Charlie did not consider lying. He didn’t see the point. Also, he felt that somehow his next words to the strange Halfling girl were going to determine something important, that they may mean the difference between life and death.
“I’m gonna be fighting on whatever side Surah Stormsong’s fighting on,” he said.
Aria gave a crooked smile, and something mischievous flashed behind her earth-green eyes.
Then a hole opened up in the forest floor beneath him, and Charlie was sucked into it like liquid in a straw, falling through the abyss with a neck-jerking quickness, his beaten heart lodging itself somewhere in his throat.
Chapter 14
Surah
Surah watched as the blood of the Demons she’d slain circled the drain near her feet.
She’d been in the shower for five minutes, and still the water falling over her had not run clear.
The icky substance was in her hair, under her nails. It had streaked her face and soaked her clothes. She could smell its rank, sewage-like aroma when she breathed in deeply, could taste the rottenness of it in her mouth.
She shut off the shower and stepped out onto the cold floor, wrapping a towel around her body and another around her head. Samson was out on the balcony, letting the cool rain that had begun to drizzle clean his fur of the gore that covered him.
Surah stood watching him through the glass doors of her balcony for a moment, her heart breaking anew at the thought of him leaving her.
His enormous, black-and-blue striped body stood overlooking the city below, his ears flattened against his head and his amber eyes squinted against the rain. He stood as still and stoic as a statue, while Surah stood inside the warmth of her bedroom and fought hard against the urge to crumble.
As if he could sense her there, the large cat hopped gracefully down from the balcony’s ledge and pushed his way inside the room, kicking the glass door shut with his rear paw in a way that was oddly human.
“If I were human,” the cat told her in that silent way of his, his deep voice a welcome presence in her mind, “then things between us would be interesting.”
He brushed the side of his body against her bare leg, making her shiver. Surah wanted so badly to tell him he had to stay, that he just could not leave her. She wanted to cry, and have Sam lick the tears from her face with his rough tongue, the way he’d done since they were both but cubs. But she would do no such thing.
She rubbed at his ears and spoke aloud, happy when her voice came out steady. “If you were human, Sam, we’d run away together, we’d leave all this behind and go where no one could find us.”
She sat back on her bed, and he came forward and rested his huge head in her lap, sitting back on his haunches. She found it was harder to hold his amber stare than it should’ve been. Her eyes were beginning to burn, but she blinked it away.
“You will return, won’t you, Sam?” she asked.
“Nothing could keep me from it,” he answered. “And I don’t need to be human for us to run away together. You say the word, say the word and I’ll take you away from this place. We’ll go live among the beasts. You will be mine, and I will be yours.”
Surah knew he meant this, knew that every word was spoken from the heart. She responded silently now, preferring the intimacy of their shared minds.
“I’m already yours, Sam, and you are forever mine.”
“But your heart calls for him, doesn’t it?” he asked, and she did not miss the jealousy and heartache that rode the cat’s words. It was rare for Samson’s tone to take on any inflection at all, and it twisted at her soul to hear it, because they both knew he was right.
“We both know you love him, that you belong together.”
It was hard for Sam to say this, and it was even harder for Surah to hear it, but the love between the Sorceress and the feline was too great to allow for pretense.
The cat would stand by her forever, and would sooner die than speak false words to her, even if the words were too true for her to even admit to herself.
To have this pointed out by her most trusted friend, her soul mate in cat form, brought on a sense of clarity that was nearly paralyzing in its enormity. Surah realized with this epiphany that she had to get to Charlie, had to save him from whatever trouble he was in.
Let’s be serious, a little voice in her head—one that did not belong to her cat, but her conscience—pointed out. You’ve got to save him from whatever situation you left him in.
This thought came like a slap to the face, and urgency surged through her. Her lovely face fell, and Samson only stared up at it, knowing that she was at last coming to terms with what he already knew.
“I’ve got to get to him, Sam,” she said, the words an unintended whisper. “I’ve got to make sure Charlie’s okay.”
Samson said nothing to this, only licked her hands with his warm, rough tongue.
“I’ve got to save my kingdom, kill the Fae Queen, and get to Charlie,” she said. “I don’t know if I can
, Sam. I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes.”
The cat lifted his large head and took to his feet. With her sitting on the bed before him, they were eye level, and Sam moved in close so that their noses were nearly touching, his amber eyes closing to slits as he breathed her scent in deeply. She dug her fingers into the fur around his neck and pulled him even closer.
“You will do all these things, Surah,” he told her. “You will protect your people, and when the time comes, you will watch as the life leaves the eyes of that crazed fairy… and you will find your Charlie.”
Sam was silent a moment, turning his head so that he could meet her eyes. “I’m beginning to think there are no forces upon this earth that could keep the two of you apart… There’s not much else you need to be sure of beyond that.”
“Oh, Sam,” she said holding him close. “What have I done? What if it’s too late? What if Black Heart decided to just kill him?”
Sam blinked at her, his beautiful, feline face as expressionless as always, though she knew he was as reluctant to leave her as she was to leave him.
“There’s only one way to answer those questions, dear one. You need to go find your fate.”
“Is that where you’re going, Sam?” she whispered. “To find your fate?”
The cat was silent a moment, the time to part drawing near. They both could feel it, so there was no need to speak the words.
“I guess we all are, aren’t we?” he said, and licked her face. Stepping back from her, he lifted his large head, his eyes taking on the gleam of a predator’s. “Will you open a portal for me?” he asked.
Surah stood from the bed and went to the closet, disappearing inside for a moment. When she returned, she was fully dressed, royal cloak over her squared shoulders, royal stone around her neck, and the determination of a queen upon her lovely face.