Faerie's Champion

by M. H. Johnson

  Apple sighed. “You could have destroyed yourself. For gods' sake, Jess, there were other moves we could have made, if we had just taken the time to plan it through. Mother knows this game better than either of us. Please don't do anything like that ever again!”

  Rulia chuckled throatily even as Apple shook her head. "Perhaps you are right, Appolonia, but remember that Lady Grimsly was not simply trying to humiliate us, or put us in our place. She had conspired with the corrupt Captain Vilsetch to see us dead, even going so far as to plant poison within our sacks." Rulia shivered. "I stared down a dozen fully armed knights with lances aimed for my heart, Apple, and I can barely fathom how close I came to death, even now. That crime is unforgivable, whether or not the headmistress was directly aware of just how twisted her gambit had become. So perhaps terrifying these predators before they dare try another such maneuver was the best move we could have possibly made.”

  Apple grimaced and nodded, even as Rulia bent down to gently kiss her lover's lips. “Thank you, Jess,” Rulia said softly. “You saved my life, and I will never forget it.”

  Jess, however, suddenly felt as if the glorious wave she had ridden so well had finally collapsed, crashing her to the darkest depths below. "I am sorry, my sweet. Perhaps smashing that hole took more out of me than I realized. If you will forgive me, I'm feeling a tad bit dizzy, and could really use some rest."

  Rulia's expression immediately became one of concern. "Dear Jess, did you hurt your hand after all? That was a terrible feat of strength you demonstrated. Pure brilliant madness. I would be amazed, had you not taken some injury."

  Jess only smiled weakly at this, gently clutching her temples, her head feeling like it was spinning, her entire world suddenly off-kilter. It caught her completely off guard. She had not felt so ill since she was a very young child. Apple's frustrated stare immediately became one of grave concern. "Jess? Shall I get the healer?"

  Jess grimaced and shook her head. "No. Rulia, my wrist is fine. And Apple, you of all people should know that we dare not show weakness now. But if you could get me my tincture of black cohosh and elderberry? I would be grateful. I just need to lie down, I think. I suddenly feel a bit dizzy."

  Rulia nodded solemnly. “It has been a terrible long day. Multiple people have connived against us, some of them doing their utmost to kill us. We both played our hands to the hilt, dear one. There is a price to be paid for a berserker’s strength, when the fiery heat of battlelust leaves the veins, and the blood cools too fast. You need plenty of fluid, my Jess, and must make sure to use the pot often, so your kidneys do not sicken.”

  Jess smiled weakly. “It will be all right, Rulia. I just need to rest. The important thing is that Lady Zerona did not lie when she said she would make no move against us. When her terror wears off days or weeks from now, well, we can only hope memory of the threat we pose, the constant ache of shattered bones that will haunt her for months to come, will cool whatever vindictive malice might otherwise come to the fore. In any case, we have never been safer here than we are at this very moment.”

  "If her broken arm doesn't make her all the more eager to make us suffer," Apple sighed. "But I think you're right, Jess. The terror she radiated, like a panicked beast mewling in fear as predators slowly close in, even I could sense that much. I would be very surprised if she thought herself the master of our fates now, or had anything less than nightmares at the very thought of you." Apple attempted a motherly smile. "Stay here with Rulia, Jess. I will return with the packets of herbs you requested."

  Rulia smiled and gently held Jess, kissing her forehead softly and staying by her side until Apple had fed Jess some of her own tincture, strong and potent and good as any herbalist’s brew could be, washed down with plenty of fresh well water. Only then was Rulia comfortable leaving a now resting Jess with a final nod to Apple. “Please let me know if you need anything, Apple.”

  Jess’s sister nodded solemnly. “No fears, dear Rulia. There is no one I know with a stronger constitution than Jess. I am sure she will feel right as rain by dinnertime.”

  And those were the last words Jess heard before her soul was swept up in a terrible maelstrom of blackness and twisted nightmare.

  29

  Lightning flashed, and Jess found herself running frantically in the pouring rain, her heart racing with an animal's terror. She could feel the dark presence of a hunter, far off but approaching fast, steadily gaining on her with every stumbling step as her body quivered with exhaustion.

  Jess was overwhelmed with gut roiling terror at the thought of the monster's teeth plunging savagely into her vulnerable flesh, and desperately struggled on, utterly disoriented, not sure if she was running away or toward her foe in the dark, disorienting thunderstorm.

  She began to whimper despite herself, only to hear grim mocking laughter, a pair of silvery hot orbs that passed for hunter’s eyes suddenly blinding her. With a nightmare's terrible logic, her nemesis was somehow before her.

  Jess screamed and stumbled back, screaming all the louder once she recognized the hideous face of the monster about to tear her throat out.

  It was her own.

  Blackness. She opened her eyes, suddenly free of all remnants of the gut-roiling terror that had overwhelmed her but an instant before. Hours before. A lifetime before.

  Cool and collected, she smiled with icy amusement. How silly it was to allow a mere dream to cause her any discomfort at all. Hardly fitting of she who held sway over all the lives of all the tributary nations that kneeled in supplication before her own, to be troubled now by terrors she had schooled herself free of, years ago. She had ruthlessly purged herself of all emotions save the sweetest, the most indulgent, she thought as she gently stretched, lifting herself free of silken sheets lining her living bed, sensually donning her bloodstained leathers before leaning back in her great armchair made of quivering, struggling human servants. Brilliant gymnasts, muscles straining under both her weight and sheer mortal terror, knowing that to lose their shape, to be unable to hold her weight, would result in an exquisitely agonizing death, much to the queen's delight.

  Gently, her hands caressed the great nobs for armrests that were actually two of her servant's bald heads, a truly brilliant feat of acrobatics to hold this pose for hours at a time. She spent some minutes gazing at the display of utter opulence before her. Stacks of gold bullion neatly laid in pyramids by her great living bed, floor gold veined marble, magnificent glass windows overlooking the capital of Tamaria she had taken over with her own dread magics and mighty legions of loyal slaves the year before.

  She sighed in contentment, only the slightest bit bored. With a sensual caress that caused her chair to shudder, her long lacquered fingers gently stroked her servants' perfectly shaven heads until they felt the frantically blinking orbs of their eyes. With a grim little smile, she viciously dug her sharpened nails into her right armrest's eye, having recognized the source of the quiet whimpering the night before. The chair immediately collapsed into exhausted, heaving servants as her victim screamed and writhed upon the ground, blood spurting out of his ruptured socket.

  Immediately her bedroom was flooded with fierce looking guards, who as one bowed to her with fanatic zeal. "Mistress! What would you have of us?"

  The woman clothed in sleek red leathers gave a mock shake of her head. "This pathetic excuse for a slave appears to think that serving his mistress is too good for him. He actually had the gall to twist under my touch and scream in protest. I do think such a base creature must be taught the exquisite pleasure to be found in serving his queen."

  The writhing servant immediately began to wail, begging for mercy with a voice now broken and ravaged by torture and exhaustion, a voice that had resonated so strongly the year before in the vast Lords Hall that had once been the heart of Tamara, a powerful orator that had once condemned his fellows for even thinking of surrendering to the Red Queen whose legions had massed outside their gates, a voice that had whipped his people into a frenz
y, exhorting them to resist her forces to the last man. Willing to throw away the lives of countless citizenry, for simple fear of capitulation to his inevitable fate.

  “Oh yes,” she purred. “With every gentle caress of my whips, dear Lord Vigilant, who had once sworn to bring me down, to lead his consortium of allies against my dread legions, speaking so passionately of displaying me chained and gagged for the world to condemn, shall instead use his wonderful voice to howl with delight as I flay the flesh from his bones!”

  Her dark laughter resonated through the chambers, even as the curious acoustics transformed her terrible laughter into the wails of a dying child. The broken slave at her feet, a pathetic shadow of his former self, bloody eye socket leaking tears of red to mirror the panicked stream of salty sorrow from his still intact eye begged and pleaded for mercy until she gently touched his trembling lips with one red gloved finger.

  “Silence, my pet. It is not time yet to scream. I will tell you when it is time to scream, my vigilant one. And then I shall let you heave and beg until your very lungs rupture with the rapture of your cries!”

  Her laughter tinkled discordantly with the poor man’s hopeless wails as he was dragged off, even as she indulgently reached her hand out to caress her beloved companion. The only one who understood her, the only one who truly cared.

  “You know I don’t like it when you stroke me with those gloves on.” Twilight’s gaze was cool, his tone disapproving. The Red Queen gave a small moue of protest, but with a sigh took her gloves of living flesh off before she began to stroke her beloved kitty once more. Eventually, he relaxed and began to purr. She loved to make her only true friend happy, even if he was strangely a bit of a prude when it came to savoring life’s more sybaritic pleasures.

  “Really, my love. You should indulge yourself more! For I know your true nature, my ancient pet. I don’t see why you refuse to sink your claws into something a bit more satisfying to tear into than just, well, fish.”

  Twilight favored her with an enigmatic grin. “But I like fish, my queen. Fish make me happy.”

  His mistress gave a bemused sigh. “Then fish it will be, my dear Twilight. You know I will do anything for you.”

  Twilight butted his head against her side, encouraging her to scratch him just under the chin. He purred in contentment. “That’s not entirely true, my beloved mistress.”

  The Red Queen huffed slightly, rolling her eyes. “No, my dear familiar. I have no interest in meeting your friend. I’m sure he’s quite the nice boy, but whenever he locks his beautiful brown eyes with mine in my dreams, I don’t feel lust, I just feel… I don’t quite know the word for it.”

  “Sad?”

  The elegant woman grimaced, gently lifting her cat off her chest and placing him carefully upon the ground. “Yes, Twilight. Sad. You know I burned away such foul emotions, long ago. Please don’t remind me of them.”

  “Of course,” Twilight concurred softly. “He is simply concerned for you. But whether or not you choose to engage him in conversation, gossip, or even a friendly game of chess, it’s your decision.”

  “Enough!” Her eyes blazed in sudden fury before she abruptly shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “I am sorry, Twilight. I have no interest in meeting David. Now please, leave me be. My head is starting to hurt again. It is time for me to go to my dark room.”

  At that Twilight only sighed, gazing sadly at his master. “Turning your heart to ice and grinding your nation’s one time invaders to dust won’t bring Elsbet and Johnathan back, my queen,” Twilight said softly. “For though it is true that all of Dawn knows you and fears you, the two souls you miss the most are being pulled ever farther from you, the deeper you revel within the darkness slowly consuming your soul.”

  And when the terrible queen locked gazes with her familiar, lost herself within the depths of his sapphire eyes, it was as if a dam had burst, overflowing with a sea of agony and loss, drowning her in sorrows she tried furiously to escape, all to no avail.

  “I know that, cat! Don’t you think I know that?” Her voice cracked with barely suppressed fury, chest heaving with the tight hot grip of bitter tears, enough to flood an ocean. A dam long suppressed, crashing against her beating heart. She fell to her knees and keened once, curling up, wishing as she often did when not caught up in the rapture of fury and vengeance that she could sink deep into darkness, and forget the nightmare her life had become when her husband and child were butchered before her eyes, so many years ago.

  Yet it was too late for that. Decades of memories, recollections of love lost and horrors endured, flooded upon her in an instant. A maelstrom of grief, horror, and regret. Images of a beautiful baby girl cooing softly, wrapped in the gentle arms of her adoring father, replaced an instant later with a scene straight from the bowels of Hell.

  Steel plated men laughing grimly as they disemboweled her struggling husband, her dying beau madly screaming at Jez even then to run, yet she was unable to move, locked in paralyzed stupefaction, unable to tear her eyes from the sight of their butchered child, utterly still and devoid of life, she who had been happily playing with her dolls just moments before.

  Then she had been raped.

  An endless nightmare of agony and grief. Jezaria still remembered the terrible burning pain, the agonizing thrust, the hot stench of foul breath from the vile creature grunting upon her like the basest of beasts. Yet her child's dying scream had wounded her far more horribly than anything those monsters could have possibly done to her body.

  It had only been then, after her heart had been shattered by unbearable agony, in the midst of being raped and strangled by her tormentors, that the dark cauldron of hot fury that was her birthright, that had always been her birthright, finally manifested, baptizing her in a fount of terrible, unholy power.

  With the blackest of hearts roaring for vengeance, she had grabbed ahold of that furious torrent of might, washing away her enemies in a maelstrom of shrieking souls and boiling blood. And with that horrific act, the Red Queen was born. The various tribes of raiders that had so long preyed upon her homeland soon learned there was a terrible price to pay for their deeds, and Jezaria would see it paid in full.

  Over the course of a few short years she had leveled the raider’s coastal towns to ash and rubble, butchering and enslaving whole tribes of northern peoples, showing them no more mercy than they had shown her baby girl.

  Within a handful of seasons, the warring bands of petty fiefdoms that had been so vulnerable to incursion were at last united under one savage rule, all the former lordlings who had once opposed her made to serve as object lessons for the legions of supplicants who would one day kneel before her living throne.

  And though her endless campaign against coastal raiders had satisfied her lust for vengeance against the whole pack of them, it did nothing to heal the aching void her heart had become. Not even her ever-expanding conquest of the continent entire had soothed that terrible ache. Not even bringing low arrogant nobles who had once gazed with jaded contempt at a young ravished woman who had lost her family, sobbing for vengeance, before ordering the guards to kick her out, like the worthless gutter trash they said she was.

  And how she had made those damn fools pay.

  But it had done nothing to soothe the endless agony of regret and loss that her heart had become since the day her child had lost her life. Nothing ever had, and in that moment she realized nothing ever would.

  “I want it to all be over, my love,” Jezaria whispered softly, so softly only her beloved familiar could hear, his gentle purr all that soothed her as she shivered in her own terrible torment. Loathing her life and what she had become, when not drunk on the dark fury of despair fueled vengeance.

  "Your fifty-eighth year approaches, my queen. And for all that you look as beautiful as the day Jonathan had first met you, the seasons know their turn. It will soon be time, my queen. Time for you to find peace. To be reunited with Jonathan and little Elsbet once more."

 
"Do you think I will truly see them again? After all that's happened, after all that I've done?" She gently stroked his fur, now covered with her crystalline tears.

  Her familiar purred affirmatively. "Yes, my dear Jezaria. I have no doubt that you will find them waiting for you when you walk the sacred path, and find yourself within the garden of life and rebirth once more."

  His mistress sighed quietly. “I would like that very much, my cat.”

  Twilight gently licked the tears from her cheek. “When you are ready, dear Jezaria, David will show you the way.”

  “He’s probably mad at me,” she said softly. “When I look at him in my dreams, it's like I feel my soul wilting in shame under the weight of his beautiful brown eyes. It pains me, you know.”

  “Does it pain you as much as the weight of the grief this life has burdened you with?”

  The Red Queen stroked her familiar’s rich shimmering fur thoughtfully. “In truth, no. It doesn’t.”

  Twilight gazed tenderly at his grieving master. "It is time to free yourself. It is time, my beloved Jezabelle, to let your spirit rest, heal, and begin anew."

  Jezaria smiled sadly through her tears. Perhaps you are right, beloved one, but who is Jezabelle?"

  Twilight smiled, gently kneading his mistress. “It is you. Come, dear one. Let us greet David. It is time.”

  With the soft expression of a grieving child, innocent in a way it hadn't been for many years, Jezaria nodded her head thoughtfully, gently placing her cat on her shoulder as she made her way to the exquisitely wrought patio door, which had begun to glow with a warm brightness like that of the sun, yet strangely gentle to the eyes. With a gentle ring of a small gold bell, the bed and reformed chair both collapsed into piles of exhausted men panting in relief and unspoken gratitude even as their mistress stepped through the patio door into a pool of silvery light, the great and terrible Red Queen fading into realms of myth and legend, never to be heard from again.