by Ella Fields
I asked the question as quietly as I could, hoping it was heard over the sound of the musicians in the far corner of the throne room. “What are they doing here?”
Ryle chuckled, saying between barely parted lips, “Why, they are from the Emerald Court.” At my silence, he asked, “Have I failed to inform you?”
He had, and he knew it, but I kept my mouth shut.
“While they do not deign to humor many of my invitations, every court, as well as guests of their choosing, are always in attendance during celebrations such as this.”
Gold and black vines draped from the ceiling, rolling in soft looping currents, crossing and intersecting throughout the room. Glittering bronze beetles buzzed around them, their wings shining bright enough to aid the chandeliers in lighting the crowded space.
A whiskered faerie threw his head back and laughed at something his thin-chinned companion said, catching himself and sobering as we passed.
With each step we took toward the dais, the strains of violins and harps grew in volume, as more and more chatter and merriment ceased.
I dared a look at the banquet tables to my right. Berron and Raiden were there, and I was shocked to see them unchained and drinking wine. Of course, the wine. They were laughing, Raiden smacking a hand upon the table as the horned female beside him watched in amusement.
I couldn’t see Azela and Kash, and I knew better than to think Zad could be trusted to enjoy the festivities. In the dungeon, I told myself. They had to still be in the dungeon.
Ryle stopped to murmur something to one of the guards, and then we took our respective seats.
Heads dipped low, some eyes glancing our way, and we waited until the music died.
“Good friends,” the king said, standing and taking me with him. “I thank you for joining us on such a momentous occasion, a time of righting all our ancestral wrongs.”
Some brows furrowed, but otherwise, most everyone seemed bored.
Raising my hand into the air with his, he continued, “Audra, queen of Rosinthe, our long-lost piece of land, cleaved away from us and given to half breeds and humans alike, has agreed to help us gain back what we’ve lost.”
I surveyed the slow-growing confusion, realizing it was not confusion at all. It was annoyance and distaste. As I’d thought, they did not want to be reunited with a slice of land filled with ilk they’d rather not sully themselves with.
Yet they could do nothing but sit in silence as the king went on, “We will achieve this by welcoming Audra into our home and into our hearts, as my bride,” his voice carried, “as my queen.”
Gasps cut through the air, blinking eyes and twisting heads, causing the king’s hand to clench around mine as he lowered it. Knowing he would be fighting an uphill battle by trying to sway them with more speeches, he waved to a guard by the door leading to the dungeon.
To our guests, he then boomed with a broad smile, “Drink, eat, dance, and enjoy yourselves stupid.”
A heavy pause stifled, and then a fiddle started up in fast succession, followed by a flute. Slowly, everyone returned to their conversations and dancing, many filling goblets to the brim with wine.
I expected we’d sit, but instead, we remained standing before the thrones as two warriors brought Kash through the side door. The merfolk tilted their heads, one gnawing on a bone, as he was dragged by them and trussed before the dais.
Golden vines floated down with a look at the ceiling from the king, latching and twining around Kash’s wrists, then lifting.
He made no protest and didn’t so much as flinch as his soiled feet swayed just above the ground. His eyes were shut—swollen shut—bruises blooming dark upon them and around his cheeks.
Darkness save me.
I knew what he’d request before the words even left the king’s mouth and looked at the food-and-wine-littered floor, tracing the patterns there, preparing myself.
So casually, as though he were merely asking I fetch him a drink, Ryle said, “Audra, would you be so kind as to show our people just how much they can trust and adore you?”
Releasing my hand, he retreated to his throne, lounging over it. I looked from his expectant yet relaxed expression to Kash, whose head had flopped forward, dark hair standing in dirtied tufts.
Licking my lips, I ignored the tittering and whispers from the crowd, and asked the king, “What exactly would you have me do?”
He flicked a hand, his lips curling into a smirk. “You are adept at torture, are you not? I should think you’d already know what we do with traitors.”
A guard came forward and opened a shiny silver box. Upon a glossy black pillow inside lay a serrated blade, its sharp edges darkening in color.
“Iron infused steel,” exclaimed the king. “To make sure he does not heal too fast.”
My lashes lowered with a controlled, bracing exhale. There was no other way, I reminded myself. And so I steadied my hand, my mind emptying of every reason not to grab the gray hilt and do what was necessary.
Ice crept inside every vein, wrapped tight around my racing heart, slowing and soothing and numbing.
He was no longer my departed mother’s true love. He was no longer the male who’d attempted to warn me of Beldine before any other. He was no longer the surly dear friend to Zad. He was no longer someone who hadn’t wanted to yet ultimately had still attempted to help me.
He was a means to an end.
The guard stepped back, closing the box, and the merriment barely paused as I struck Kash’s bare chest and dragged the dagger down.
He groaned, his eyes slits behind mounds of bruising, staring at me as though he’d expected differently.
He shouldn’t have. For although many things had changed, I was still and would always be the daughter of a monster.
And the only way to best a monster was to become one yourself.
Clapping and shouts echoed, the king declaring, “More.”
I glanced around the room, to the guards by the walls, and then I looked at the gushing wound upon the chest before me. Blood washed his soiled skin, from beneath his pectoral to his hip. It wasn’t enough. You couldn’t see the ribs, couldn’t see his entrails.
So I struck again and again and again, the metal so slick with blood, it caked around the hilt, made it too slippery in my numb hand.
“Come here, my queen,” Ryle purred, and I could practically taste the excitement and arousal in the air, the latter growing thicker as I took a step back toward the dais.
Before I could near the king, the blade vanished from my gloved, bloodstained hand.
The king clasped it, tugging me over his lap. Eyes fever bright on mine, he brought my hand to his mouth, lips wrapping around each bloodied finger.
Despite everything, I couldn’t help but shiver at the eroticism of the act, the dark sensuality of it.
Like calls to like, and for a heartbeat, it would seem that I’d forgotten myself, fraying and slumping over him, feeling his arousal against my core as I made to move closer. “Turn around,” he said, releasing my wrist, his other hand upon my lower back.
Blinking harshly, I did.
And felt that numbness, everything inside me, collapse into decaying dust.
It wasn’t Kash who hung from the ceiling. It wasn’t Kash’s chest and torso that was so bloodied it was a wonder he was still gasping for air.
It wasn’t Kash struggling to stare at me through bruised eyes, slivers of gold suffering peeking through.
It was Zadicus.
I coughed, choking on my next breath, on my heart, which tried to climb out of my body and splatter itself at its mate’s feet. The pain of it was so complete, I half-wondered if the king had cut open my chest to pierce the dying organ beneath, ensuring it stayed exactly where it was.
His fingers clasped my chin, turning my attention back to him. “You were marvelous.”
The attendees continued with their evening, as though it were a small thing to have a would-be queen almost murder her mate.
The arm around my back tightened, pushing my core into his length over his pants. “I want you right now.”
Rage held me so still and roughened my voice to a barely audible hiss. “You tricked me.”
Ryle was too entranced to notice or perhaps did not care. “It matters not,” he said, ragged, bunching my dress higher to reveal my legs. “Kiss me.” He hadn’t compelled me, but I wouldn’t put it past him to when I could feel how much he wanted more than just a kiss.
So with my soul dying a slow death behind me, I lowered my head, my mouth to Ryle’s, and pried his lips apart with mine.
His groan was so deep, he didn’t hear it. My tongue stroked so slowly, he jerked beneath me. His breath shuddered into my mouth, my fingers toying with the pearl buttons of his bloodstained white shirt.
Hairless and smooth, as I’d come to assume most Fae male chests were, my fingers splayed over his skin. I moaned, shifting over him. Our teeth scraped, my own tugging at his bottom lip as I pulled away and laid my forehead on his, breathing heavily.
My wet fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger at my thigh, plucking it from its holster between one heartbeat and the next. The king’s eyes were hooded, nearly closed, as my nose brushed his, and I dragged my fingertips over the sharp edge.
I barely noticed the sting, but Ryle felt the energy of my awakening magic leak into the air and frowned.
Too late.
The dagger plunged with sickening ease through flesh and bone, sinking into his heart.
For a moment, just a moment that felt as though it would last all eternity, he simply stared.
Shock mingled with luminous wrath, but then he smirked, the hand behind my head slipping, struggling to keep purchase as he brought my lips to his. “Fellow heart of ice, you really should have thought twice...”
My brow crinkled, stomach quaking with dread.
Then in flurries of ash that rose slowly into black butterflies, the High King of Beldine dissolved beneath me and exploded on a plume of ear-shredding silence.
My knees fell against the still warm seat of his throne, a black mist raining clear over my skin like lava, sinking inside my every pore.
Pain, unending and electrifying, buckled each limb, threw my head back, and blinded me. It worsened when, through the fraying cracks of life and death, I realized that I couldn’t and might not ever see Zad again—his last memory of me enough to reduce all we’d been to cinders.
No.
Nails I couldn’t feel clawed at dark nothing as my defiance howled deep enough to form fissures in this never-ending void.
Screams tore up my throat, but I couldn’t hear as I vaguely registered the sensation of falling. Then my spine arched, my very bones groaned and cracked as my body writhed on the floor beneath the empty throne.
Audra
A garbled string of groans came from behind, and then voices, hushed and confused.
“Did she...?”
Someone sang, “The king is dead!”
“Only of the same heart,” someone mused. “She ought not to be trusted then, really.”
Another hollered, “Oh, shut it up and be glad the brat is dead.”
I closed my eyes, and when they reopened, I was still on that harsh, blood-marred floor, shaking. Guards surrounded me. Two removed their helmets, one I recognized from the dungeon, crouching and leaning forward.
My breathing was too loud, the pounding heartbeats around me flooding my ears, and that groaning sound arrived again. “My lady...” The shifter stopped, frowning. “I mean, my queen, can you hear me?”
I blinked, swallowing hard, nothing but ice in my veins, attempting to soothe all that had been ravaged, all that still burned.
The guard nodded, seeming at a loss for what to do, and then Kash appeared. “Take these fucking things off, Melron.”
Melron rose and fumbled with the chains, and then Kash bent before me, unscathed save for the grime on his face. “Audra,” he said, yet his voice sounded different. It was richer as though color had been added to the dark.
And his eyes... they were not black but a glittering onyx.
Onyx.
I’d killed the onyx king. “He’s dead,” I rasped.
Kash smirked, shifting strands of hair from my face. “You got my present.” Still swamped in fading agony, I failed to acknowledge the rare show of affection from him. Before I could respond, he turned back to Melron, murmuring, “Get Zad to the healer. I’ll take her upstairs.”
“What of the guests?” another guard asked.
Kash cursed. Indeed, there was a loaded silence in the overcrowded room. “Dismiss them, I care not.”
“We have a new ruler,” said Melron. “And a female at that. They’ll hardly leave until they’ve fact-checked this entire unprecedented situation.”
“Then they can do so on the morrow.” A spiced citrus scent enfolded me when his arms did, lifting me from the floor, carrying me through the throng.
“What’s happened?” I said once we were climbing the stairs. “To me.”
Kash’s arms tightened, and I flung mine around his neck, my head dizzy, the dark halls suddenly far too bright. “You had to know that if you killed him, you’d either die or ascend to the throne.”
The king’s final words became clear. He’d expected me to follow him into the darkness. And I’d thought I would.
I’d thought I’d die, and I’d been prepared to, was prepared to face the wrath of the faerie queens when I’d stolen their leader from them all, leaving them with a half-dead heir.
“The land has opened itself to you,” Kash whispered. “It runs through you as it does Zad.”
Such emptiness inside life-changing words.
We reached my rooms, and Kash set me upon the bed. “Zad,” I said, scrambling to climb off even while every muscle protested. Everything was ringed with fog, but I had to see him. “I need to—”
“He’s being tended to,” Kash said. “Stay here, and I’ll have someone send word of his well-being.”
“No,” I snapped, irritated. “I almost killed him...”
“Indeed.” Reaching for the pitcher and goblet Temika hurried in with, he poured water inside it. “Tell me, who was it you saw? For I know it was not him.”
He passed me the water, and it trembled within my unsteady hand. I sipped, refusing his offer to help. “You.”
Kash whistled, sharp with a bark of laughter. “You didn’t hesitate.”
“You know I could not.” I met his eyes, knowing he’d understand.
He stared for a breathless beat, those glittering eyes studying, and took the goblet from me. “Rest,” he said, then gave my shoulder a gentle shove so I fell back over the feathered mattress.
I was about to tell him he was crazy for thinking I could do such a thing when Zad was darkness knows where, and the Onyx Court was likely in shambles.
But before I could open my mouth, my eyelids fluttered, and everything turned dark.
Raiden, Azela, and Berron were in my bedchamber when I emerged from the bathing room some hours later.
Waking to find myself covered in blood, in both Zad’s and the dead king’s, stole my breath. I’d hurtled from the bed so fast that I’d teetered and fell into the wall.
The room had been empty, but I’d known there would be someone outside. It hadn’t mattered. I had to be rid of it—of the shame and the fear and the sickening memories clinging to my skin.
I squeezed water from my hair with a small cloth, a cherry red robe adorning my damp body that I’d found hung behind the bathing room door.
“Many may question it, but I think you’re suited just fine for the role of faerie queen,” Raiden said, no mirth to be found. “You played the king’s game better than he ever could have. The victor.” He crossed one leg over the other in the twig ensconced armchair by the bed,
his smile insincere. “Beldine’s new High Queen.”
I dropped the cloth to the bureau. “I hadn’t thought that last part would actually happen.”
His raised brow said he thought differently.
So be it. I looked at Azela as she approached. Without her usual garb of leather and training pants and dressed in a soft cream wrap dress with peacock feathers, it took me a moment to drink her in.
Her blond hair was tied at her nape, as per usual, but a few pieces had escaped to curl around her cheeks, softening her hard gray eyes, making the pert curve of her nose and lips more prominent. “My queen,” she said, quiet as she curtsied.
My eyes felt too dry, stinging, and then her arms came around me in a hug so tight, I thought I might unravel at the seams. Slowly, I wrapped mine around her back, my eyes closing.
Pulling back, she gripped my biceps. “You’ve been sorely missed.”
I snorted, directing my eyes to the ground. “I’m sure.”
“You have,” Berron chimed in from the bed, laying over the end on his side.
I smiled his way, and he returned it. “Mintale?”
“He might need to retire when you return,” he said with a slight wince.
I was inclined to agree, imagining the frantic demeanor of the old royal as he tried to keep Allureldin from falling to its knees.
“Ainx and Landen are helping him,” Azela said, snatching a grape from the tray of fresh fruit that’d been delivered. Either with them or when I was in the bathing room.
“I’ll bet Ainx was none too pleased to have been told to stay behind,” I murmured, and plucked some grapes from the gleaming tray upon the small dressing table.
Azela laughed, then said diplomatically, “He’s honored to serve you in any way he can, but Zad made him see to the fleet’s safe return.”
I looked over the people in the room, friends, I supposed, though the jury was out on Raiden.
Indeed, he gazed at me with a mixture of what could only be described as both contempt and affection. The combination did not allude to good things. “I’m sorry,” I said, and watched him stiffen.