[2018] Reign of Queens

by Melissa Wright

  “Krea said—” Mackenzie paused, glancing the room for any sign of the other woman, but her eyes came back to his. “Nightsbane?”

  Hunter’s voice dropped, though the likelihood of anyone listening was probably low. “Nightsbane is the name the king bestowed upon me. My true name, from my true father, translates roughly to Hunter in your tongue.” In truth, it was closer to one who searches, but Hunter had chosen his translation years ago, finding something that worked within her world.

  Mackenzie’s brow drew together, and he was sure she was remembering his words. He is not my father, but he is king. And I am his possession. “Your real father…”

  Hunter shook his head. “The king doesn’t allow for lingering questions of ownership.”

  Mackenzie paled. “I think—” She waved a hand in front of her face, though the room was neither hot nor stuffy. “Is there some place to get some air?”

  There was a balcony outside Hunter’s window, but the city rested beneath, swamped with Iron Bound. What Mackenzie wanted was a breeze, the wind she’d left behind.

  She wanted her own realm.

  “I’ll take you to the forests,” Hunter promised. “As soon as the crowds have had a chance to clear out.”

  “When are they going?” Mackenzie asked. “When will the gateway open and those… men take all the people back?” She shook her head. “Take them here. Whatever. The reaping,” she said. “When will it come?”

  There was a pained look on her face, and Hunter could see the deeper, more cutting question beneath: Why?

  He took her hand. “Perhaps it would be better to show you.”

  He held his arm wide, the first time he’d been able to ask permission to carry her, and Mackenzie stepped close, pressing into his side. They were quiet as they flew out of the castle, Hunter purposefully staying low. Now that the king had called him out publicly, Hunter felt safer than he had the whole of his life. But it wouldn’t be for long, and there was no reason to bring more attention.

  He took her past the far reaches of the city, to the outlands where signs of energy and life ended. The city was light and concrete, the constant buzz of power beneath his skin. But the outlands were silent, a grave. Hunter dropped lower, their feet coming to rest where the bracken fell away. It was strange to even him, a shore of moss and leaves that met this ashen sea.

  Hunter sighed, letting Mackenzie free of him. She pushed her hair away from her face, the waves Krea had made only bringing more notice to an absent breeze. She stepped forward, her hand sliding into her back jeans pocket, palm out. She was looking for a horizon. One that did not exist.

  He reached down, plucking a leaf from a fern, and moved to stand beside Mackenzie. Her gaze fell to the frond, its blue-green hue having already faded to gray, and Hunter rolled it to his open palm. “This is what happens,” he said, “when the magic is gone.”

  It wasn’t magic; it was a different form of energy. It was life. But Hunter could not bring himself to use the word. Because in this case, the opposite of life would have only been death.

  He drew the energy from the plant, pulling what little remained inside, eyes on Mackenzie as she watched it turn to ash. She didn’t understand at first, until he turned his palm, until the powdered gray fell like dust among the other below.

  Its brethren.

  Her mouth opened, but she couldn’t speak. She could only turn once more to the endless gray beyond. To the sea that was the resting place of all being and life and existence in his realm. To the death of his world, constantly encroaching.

  “This,” Hunter said over her shoulder, “is the why of the reaping.”

  Her hand came free of her pocket, sliding against her stomach, and he knew she understood. She could see how it was dying. But he needed her to come to terms with all of it, even if they were taken by his king in the coming days—he needed her to see.

  “All the hundreds of thousands inside that arena, Mackenzie. All those and hundreds of thousands more.” His palm felt thick with ash, but it was clean. “Every single man, every woman, every beast, every last sentient vine. They will all die without the reaping. They will wither to dust and scatter to the earth and never rise again. This is it, Mackenzie. This is our kingdom. A land of ash and death.”

  She didn’t turn to him for the longest while. She simply stared into the empty distance, taking in the truth of this world. Hunter had seen her watch her own realm on the brink, knowing how close she was to losing it, past a point it could never come back. And now he’d seen her watch his world’s fate, understand that the magic and light and beauty of it would also be gone.

  When she finally spoke, it was an apology.

  “I get it,” she said. “Hunter, I see, I really do. But it doesn’t make me okay with what’s happening at home.”

  He nodded; he’d not truly expected it to. He’d just needed her to understand. “The reaping is closer now,” he said. “I can take you to the forests and as soon as the alignment is near, I will try to get you through. I can’t make any promises, Mackenzie, but I’ll do my best to get you to your world before the others are pulled across.”

  “What’s happening there?” she said. “How will—I mean, will they know? Will they be scared?”

  “The worst of it is over for them,” he answered. “The Iron Bound who were left are rangers and rebels. They’ve only got power to do the same small things they’ve been doing these past few weeks. Once the gateway opens, those humans who are chosen will be drawn through. All of them, from all over your world.”

  She pressed her fingers hard against her heart, at once wincing and ill. “The chosen,” she whispered. “Drawn through.”

  “It won’t be as painful as it was for you, Mackenzie,” he promised. “They will be under our control, a kind of… thrall. They won’t feel it. The gateway will bring them here, and the influence of the energy will keep them calm until their bodies and minds have had a chance to acclimatize. They won’t be scared. They won’t be anything until they are safely within the dying lands.”

  Mackenzie’s face contorted and he had the strangest sense she was about to cry. It was possibly the worst thing he thought could happen.

  “They’ll be happy here, Mackenzie. They’ll be strong. Alive.”

  She took a shuddering breath, flicked her hand loose from her chest and shook herself out. “It’s fine,” she said. “I can do this. Tell me more. If this gateway brings the humans, why do so many Iron Bound go to our world during the reaping?”

  “There are other things,” he said gently. “The vines and the trees and silks and furs. They don’t last as long on this side, but the others go as gatherers, to collect the things that cannot be called.”

  Her jaw clenched, fingers running hard over the base of her thumb. Hunter kept talking. “The lesser Iron Bound can’t come through by themselves. Most, actually, should have only been able to cross with someone there to pull them through the gateway.” He was still uncertain about that aspect himself. Azral and his men had attached themselves to Hunter, fighting him as they were all drawn through. But the others…

  “So the rangers,” she said. “They’ll be just like the ones who were already there? Azral and the others. Nothing else, nothing more dangerous?”

  Hunter schooled his features. “They are all very dangerous, no matter how things may seem. But the rangers are generally the youngest, those who were pulled from your realm during the prior reaping, a few thousand cycles earlier.” Hunter didn’t mention Azral. Azral’s choosing was done; without the raven claw he could draw no more humans to this side. If he played any part, it would only be to lead his kingsmen, manage what Iron Bound he could.

  “What about the big ones?” Mackenzie asked. “That thing that looks like a dragon.” She shook her head. “Or a giant horse with wings.”

  “The virago? No, she doesn’t pose any danger to your kind.”

  “She’s the one who got us off the pedestal,” Mackenzie said, suddenly taking a far-o
ff look. “What’s her name?”

  “The virago doesn’t have a name,” he answered. “She did once, long ago, but she’s forgotten who she was.” It happened sometimes with the older ones, as if they’d not only lost their names, but their selves. It was why the virago spoke of herself in third person, because she was not that thing she once was. She was free from thought; she was only the now and the doing. “As you might imagine, no one has risked giving her a new name.”

  “Oh,” Mackenzie said. “That’s too bad. I like her.”

  Hunter’s lip twitched.

  Mackenzie didn’t seem to notice. “What happens to the other ones?” she said, absently rubbing a hand across her breastbone. “In the arena, I didn’t see very many women.”

  His humor faded. “When they are brought over, the changes take hold in them much faster than the other creatures.” Mackenzie’s brow knitted and he explained, “There’s something in their makeup that accelerates the transformation. It isn’t long before they become wholly of this world and often… a bit feral.”

  Her brows rose, eyes going wide. “Feral,” she repeated.

  He shrugged. There wasn’t a much better description he could think of. “They are not much for convention. A few will come through with us at the reaping, but mostly they stay away. They don’t have a great deal of interest in the king’s tasks.” They thought the king a fool, to be honest. They’d no desire to dress in silks and parade among the castle walls.

  Hunter didn’t tell her of the others, the few among the Iron Bound who might sneak through and tie themselves to the undying realm until the gateway was closed. The ones her fairytales had warned her about, witches and child thieves and the old world’s succubae. There was no reason to disclose that now. The majority of them were sane, worthy.

  The kingsmen on the other hand…

  Mackenzie pressed her lips. “So your men play at politics while the women are…”

  “Above it,” Hunter finished. “The Iron Bound do not need mothering and the reaping was always performed by a son. So the women were content to leave us to it. They had better things to do.”

  “But you were born here,” Mackenzie said, apparently realizing for the first time how different his life was than she’d imagined.

  Hunter smiled. “Krea looked after me. Once my father—”

  Hunter’s words cut short as Mackenzie’s hair flipped, caught in a gust of wind.

  Wind.

  Chapter 21

  Azral slammed into Hunter with the force of a hundred Iron Bound, knocking them both to the ashen field beyond. Hunter spun, shoving free of the larger man before Azral had the chance to pin him down. A cloud of dust surrounded them, Azral’s wings blocking the sky. Hunter could not find Mackenzie past the other seven guards. “We go now,” Azral growled. “We go and we take what is ours.”

  His fist crashed into Hunter’s jaw and Hunter swung out in reflex, connecting with the base of Azral’s arm. It was not his intended target; he could only think of Mackenzie’s empty spot on the bracken. One of them had her.

  Azral rushed forward, wrapping a hand at the base of Hunter’s neck, pushing him backward and demanding his full attention. “You will never be king,” he hissed. “The undying lands are ours.”

  It was the same argument. The world was changing, inundated with technology and iron, threat of global war and a constant state of transformation. They didn’t trust the humans to keep their side alive. There was no guarantee the Iron Bound could reap again, no way to know what the next cycle held.

  Two thousand cycles was too long.

  “No,” Hunter said, unchanged from the hundred times before. If they took more than they needed, it would make them no better than the humans they feared. If they could not stay within their bounds, they would destroy both worlds.

  Azral stepped closer, tightening his grip. “We take what is ours.”

  Hunter felt something cold and sharp pressing into his gut, some shard of glass or stone. He let his own power roll through him, his voice hard. “That is for a king to decide.”

  He tore Azral’s grasp away with one hand, drawing him close to strike with the other.

  Hunter had been weak before, giving his power to open the gate, and then being poisoned by Azral’s men. This time, Azral would feel it. Hunter set the monster within him free, letting the blow rip through his attacker with full force. Azral was thrown backward, landing in the ash ten paces away against a broken wing, limbs sprawled loose and unnatural beneath him.

  Hunter didn’t wait to see if he would get up.

  He turned, searching the sky for the other men. Two of them had waited, watching the fight play out. The other five were airborne, fading into the aether with Mackenzie in tow.

  They had her.

  Hunter shoved from the ground, ash and bracken dusting his skin and hair. Azral would pay for this. If he wasn’t already dead, he was going to pay.

  The other kingsmen weren’t headed for the city, and Hunter had a sickening feeling it was all part of the plan. The gateway was closed until the reaping, yet their hazy forms were bearing that direction. They were trying to trap him, trying to force him to open the gateway again.

  And they were using Mackenzie to do it.

  They were at the edge of the forest when he caught them. Hunter was angry enough that he knocked the first two out of the sky without a second thought. They crashed into the ground, a bounce at full speed. The third was not so lucky, catching a jagged limb on his way down. Their screams ripped through the forest and by the time Hunter reached Carac, the determined grip he’d held on Mackenzie was no more than a feeble, clutching grab.

  “Give her to me,” Hunter warned. He might have rushed the man, might have seized that fallow mop of hair and torn his fool-headed pate off. Except Carac gave every indication he would drop her.

  Carac held Mackenzie forward, a shield, and Hunter could see nothing but the fear in her eyes. Blood streaked her face, but by its color, it was not her own. She must have gotten a good strike in somewhere before Carac had taken her. Because she wasn’t fighting now.

  She was looking down.

  “There, child,” a voice echoed through the trees. “Not long now.”

  Krea had come for him. To warn him.

  That was exceedingly bad news.

  He moved forward. “Carac, if you drop her, they will find a piece of your carcass in every realm.”

  Carac paled, wrenching Mackenzie closer. Her head jerked up, wide brown eyes finding Hunter. She really didn’t want to fall.

  Hunter eased toward them, all too aware of the other guard. Then Krea edged between the trees behind him and the other guard was done for.

  Hunter smiled, closing the distance as the heavy thump of the second guard’s body hit the ground, so far below them. Krea’s movements were quick, and she waited beneath as Hunter rushed Carac. He howled, dropping the girl, and Hunter struck him with power and fist to careen across the forest and collide with an outstretched limb.

  Hunter glanced down, finding Krea and Mackenzie, the old woman holding her tightly despite the evidence that Mackenzie might at any moment retch. Hunter moved to them, taking Mackenzie in his arms over her protests of, “I don’t think I like to fly.”

  “They come,” Krea said. “Many and many.”

  She was speaking the human tongue, so he could only assume she’d been followed. He responded in kind. “I can’t take her through. The alignment isn’t close enough.” She would be crushed.

  “No,” Krea said, placing a hand over Hunter’s on the girl’s back. “Is too late now. She can pass as any. You must go now.”

  He hesitated, unsure. But the sound of wind, of feather and wing and gilded claw was nearing. They were coming for him, the king and his men. Krea gave him one last look of assurance, and then pushed, shooing him on.

  Mackenzie had made it before. Surely, so many hours closer to the reaping, surely she’d be fine.

  A shriek tore through the ai
r and Hunter was moving, drawing every bit of energy he could from the land. He pressed into the sky, opening a gateway as old as time.

  Hunter squeezed Mackenzie, glancing over his shoulder one last time. The horizon was a mass of bodies, Iron Bound warriors with an order to kill. As the chosen, Hunter was stronger than any one Iron Bound. But he could not take them all. Not with Mackenzie. He closed his eyes, using the last of the power to draw the gateway closed behind them, he and the girl falling like humans to the broken earth below.

  Part III

  Coming Home

  Chapter 22

  Riley sat packed in beside twenty other soldiers in the back of an olive-green canvas-covered truck. It was hot and cramped, and he was pretty sure it had been deployed to the county fair for its last mission. It smelled like stale sweat and caramel corn. But at least he was doing something. Finally.

  Half a dozen trucks had lined up in the caravan, and when they came to a full stop, one of the soldiers, a young black boy with close-cut hair, glanced out the back to count them again.

  Riley took heart when the boy’s face didn’t change. It felt strange to think of armed soldiers like that, but in truth they were merely boys, all of them. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. The army didn’t care. Not when monsters came for war. All Riley had had to do was wrap duct tape around his forearm to hide the Mark. He could run and hold a gun. Nothing else mattered to them now.

  Riley leaned back into his seat, glancing at Hannah beside him. She was straight-backed, feet flat, chipped pink polish flaking off her fingernails where they wrapped tightly around a black M4.

  “They all made it,” he whispered.

  She nodded, the rim of her helmet falling lower across her brow. She tilted her head, using the bar behind it to push the helmet back into place.