[2018] Reign of Queens

by Melissa Wright

  It was a gloomy day and I didn’t miss having to squint away the bright sunlight. Early as it was, I decided to take the long way to town, meandering through the fields and thinking of all that had passed in the last days, until I reached a patch of weeds that reminded me of Evelyn’s taunting. I felt a momentary spasm in the pit of my stomach at the thought of her choking. And then I remembered growing the weeds in the garden and I was suddenly in a rush to get to Junnie’s.

  I rapped our special knock, and in a heartbeat, Junnie was opening the door. “Morning, Freylina. Early start today?”

  My voice was determined. “Yes, I want to practice growing.”

  She glanced at the pendant against my chest. She was silent for a moment as she looked into my eyes, almost searching. She was probably worried I was sad or missing my mother. “Not today. It seems I have business with the Council this morning.” Her mouth turned down in a grimace.

  “Oh.” All right, it wasn’t like I didn’t have plenty to do. I’d just head to the library and try to find the missing pages to the northern clan documents. “Well, I’ll see you then.” I smiled at her and headed around back again to cut through the village.

  I took my time to allow her to make her way to the Council building. As my feet scuffed along the path, I heard angry whispers and glanced up to find their source. Virden Day was leaning toward a dark figure, wearing a harsh expression and pointing out fingers on his other hand. Counting reasons for his argument?

  The figure turned his head as if scanning for an audience. He found one—me. As his eyes hit mine, I had the feeling I was intruding, that I should look away, but something kept me staring.

  It was him again. Chevelle Vattier. I swallowed hard and forced myself to continue walking, this time determined not to trip. Following the path as it wound closer to them, I became excruciatingly aware it was going to split, heading to either the gate or to the library. I hadn’t decided how to make my escape when Chevelle turned back toward Virden and spoke something low, cutting the conversation off. Virden shot me one quick look and stormed into his tree.

  Chevelle remained standing where he was, his back to me. I had to decide. Walk within feet of him going to the library to research him or run home and hide. My stomach churned. It was ridiculous. I took a deep breath and kept walking, approaching the split.

  He turned to me, scarcely a few feet away. “Good morning.” He nodded as he spoke, his voice as smooth as velvet.

  I managed to snap my slack jaw shut at the same moment I realized I had angled my body toward him when he’d addressed me. I mentally cursed, but I could recover this; I would just keep going in the same direction as if I were on my way to town, because I was on my way to town. There was no need for him to know it was to research someone associated with the Council. Someone like him.

  I tried to respond to his greeting, but felt choked and instead only nodded back, my mouth tight as I endeavored to grin with a now clenched jaw. I groaned internally, keeping on the path, not daring to look back in case he was behind me. I was convinced he was. He wouldn’t be taking the back way to Junnie’s as I had come, and he wouldn’t be leaving the village without a pack; he was likely going to a Council meeting. Yes, he was certainly right behind me, following me into town.

  Somehow I made it to the library without tripping or looking back, though I was nearly overcome with the temptation to turn at the door to see him one more time.

  The library steps curled around the interior of the tree, shelves cut into every space above and below, tables and racks and patrons scattered about the remaining areas. I found a dark, empty corner on the third level and relaxed onto a seat, leaning against the inside wall of the old tree and taking in the scent of ancient paper and binding. After a momentary pause to blot out the latest incident of poor self-control, I decided to attempt to locate the missing pages by magic. I had, after all, succeeded in growing only days ago. I concentrated as hard as I could and, though nothing flitted out of the shelves and onto my desk, I had a strong feeling I knew where the documents were.

  It also could have been that I knew where they had fallen from the day before. Regardless, I made my way over and took a few volumes and scrolls back to my secluded table. I was able to find several documents on the northern clans and even one of the missing pages of names—L.

  I had spread them out on the table and was studiously examining them when a shadow crossed my desk. I realized someone was standing there and distractedly glanced up to see who.

  My instinct to breathe deserted me.

  It was Chevelle Vattier.

  Black Roots

  Chevelle stood there, staring down at me, as I leaned halfway across the table of documents concerning the northern clans. Researching him. I tried not to betray myself by glancing down at the papers, but the only other place to look was into his eyes, and it felt like that was all I’d found myself doing since I’d first seen him.

  He didn’t look away. I had no way of knowing if he’d read the documents before I realized he was there, and I stared at him, frozen for what seemed like an eternity. But I was unable to decipher his expression, or guess how I should explain having the documents. Words abandoned me when I opened my mouth to speak.

  He finally broke the silence. “Freya.”

  He’d used one of Junnie’s pet names for me. I couldn’t believe how much I liked that.

  He reached his hand out to me. “I am Chevelle Vattier.”

  I nodded a slow, stuttering nod. He wasn’t smiling, his face unreadable.

  “I am an old friend of Junnie. I saw her at Council this morning. She was disappointed she has been too occupied by clan business of late to guide you. I offered to help her. To help you.”

  The stranger I had been obsessed with was going to help me with my studies. I melted, sliding down into my chair. He was still holding his hand out to me. My back pressed against the wall, and as he took a step forward I became wholly aware of how small and isolated the library space I had chosen was. He turned the outstretched hand palm up, indicating the stool beside me, as if that had been his intention all along.

  “May I?”

  I nodded once and he slid onto the stool, facing me, not the table spread with documents. Have I still not spoken? His eyes moved down to the pendant against my chest and then quickly back to my face, as if he had committed an indiscretion.

  We sat there for a few more moments, but my words would not return, not with this imposing stranger inches before me. When he finally spoke again, I realized his offer of help wasn’t a request. “Let’s begin with histories.” He flicked the middle finger of his left hand and a thick ivory tome flew from a shelf, opened, and steadied between us as if on a table. There was something so wrong about it, but I couldn’t say why.

  I pushed away the urge to question an associate of Council, instead asking, “Chevelle?”

  He smiled. It was only one word, but he understood. I was asking if I could address him in the common dialog, not the official titles and formalities of the Council he might have been used to. His head tilted in a nod.

  And we sat so, tucked in the narrow space behind a small library table, for hours. He pulled books between us and returned them to the shelves, never once glancing at the papers spread out beside us referencing the northern clans. Nothing we studied touched on the histories of those clans. Nothing of his histories, nothing of mine. But conversation had become easy as soon as I had spoken that first word, as soon as I had said his name and he’d smiled in return.

  I found myself leaning toward him as he spoke, actually paying attention in places; he had a pleasant voice and an unusual dialect. He wove histories as if they were stories of his childhood friends instead of useless facts, and I became enthralled. It felt as if we were alone there in the quiet corner of the third level, the occasional murmur below and whisper of flipping pages the only other sound in the dim setting. A small knothole made a window in the wall across from me and some light from the cloudy d
ay occasionally came through, putting Chevelle’s face in shade. I had been right; his eyes appeared nearly black in the shadows.

  I leaned forward, listening to him as a small gray bird landed on the lip of the knothole.

  “Cheep.”

  Not many animals feared the elves. It even seemed curious as to what we were doing.

  “Cheep, cheep.”

  I winced at the annoying chirps, working to focus on Chevelle’s story.

  “Cheep, cheep, cheep.”

  My teeth gritted, but I could not block out the irritating sound. It broke into a melody that pierced my ears and I barely restrained the growl of frustration as I cursed the devil thing.

  That was when I heard the hollow thud of its body smacking the floor.

  I jerked upright. My ears were still ringing from the harsh song, but the bird lay dead on the wood planks below the window. Chevelle started to turn to find the source of the muffled thump and, before I realized what I was doing, I flicked my right hand and the bird’s body flopped behind a shelf out of sight. When Chevelle turned back to me, I stared right into his eyes as if I had not seen or heard a thing, wondering why he wasn’t still explaining the histories of Grah. He glanced past me… or maybe at the crown of my head. Like he was avoiding my eyes. My lying eyes.

  I was too worried about being caught to feel guilty about the bird, to think about its soft gray feathers, that wing that was bent not-quite-right beneath it. I didn’t know about where Chevelle was from, but around here you didn’t just kill birds. Especially not for singing.

  After a moment, my tutor continued the lesson, but his demeanor had changed. He watched the book and, occasionally, when his gaze was on my face, it wandered back up and out of focus, just above me. But he did not look directly into my eyes as before. It bothered me, and I didn’t think it was because of my conscience.

  When he reached the end of the book, it returned to its home on the shelf and he stood, placing a hand briefly on the top of my head. It was only a momentary touch, but electricity surged though me. A flash of confusion or frustration passed over his features, too fast to identify. He looked into my eyes one last time as I sat, stunned and speechless, my skin still tingling from the contact.

  “Enough for today,” he said, nodding as he turned, his long strides taking him too quick from my view.

  I sat motionless as I watched him go, and remained so for some time after. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I’d been.

  When I finally rose to leave, I stashed a few more of the northern clan documents from the table under my shirt. My head was swirling with all that had happened, not simply my new tutor but the magic. On my way out I walked past the shelf that hid the body of the now-dead bird. I’d never been able to move objects, but it seemed I had done it without thinking. And it wasn’t just that, but the thistle. I needed to see Junnie.

  The door was partially open when I reached Junnie’s house, so I peeked my head in and called for her. When she didn’t answer, I slipped in to check the back room.

  As I walked through the sparsely decorated living area, I passed a carved mirror on the wall and noticed something off in my reflection. I knew I was flushed, I could feel the frustration and worry, but I stopped to get a closer look. There was something not right with my complexion, but what was really off was just above my face. I squinted, leaning toward the mirror as my hands reached up of their own accord.

  The first quarter inch of my hair was blackened. I parted my hair in a different area and then again, but the base of my hair was dark over my entire scalp. My fingers began to tremble against my skin; I could come up with no plausible explanation for the change. “Junnie,” I called out again.

  She didn’t answer. The study was empty. I let out a shaky breath and glanced around. Nothing was out of place except for a thistle on the table. It was thriving, but unplanted. I examined it closer. It was rather large, and though the blooms looked healthy, the exposed roots were black, seemingly rotted. I didn’t understand how a plant could survive without soil and with those decayed roots. I scanned the table, but it was the only plant aside from Junnie’s potted ivies and flowers, hanging as they always had.

  At my touch, the thistle leaves crumbled. There were some seeds and bulbs lying where the ashes fell, and I recognized the scene. It was the thistle I had grown.

  The garden.

  I rushed out, leaving the door open as I had found it. I hurried from the village, trying to remember where the abandoned garden was located, almost running under the clouding skies. It wasn’t hard to find because of its new size, but if I hadn’t been half expecting, half fearing the excessive growth, I might not have recognized it. Each of the strains I had grown the day Evelyn choked was flourishing. Noxious weeds were taking over the meadow.

  As I stood there, frozen before this changed garden, I was overwhelmed by the scene, overtaken by emotion, and had to press my eyes closed. Light rain began to fall and I raised my head to the sky, drawing in a deep breath. The cool water trickled down my face, calming the heat of my pulse. But it didn’t clear my head. I still couldn’t understand.

  A painful fear shot through me, and I tilted my head forward to run through the growth. Vines, thorns and leaves turned to muddy ash as they touched my outstretched arms, wet with rain. When I reached the edge of the onetime garden, I stopped to kneel, digging my fingers deep into the soil to form a trench. When I saw the bared roots, black and rotted, I was suddenly exhausted. It was too much.

  It took me to that familiar, mindless place, and I turned to walk toward home, void of any sensation save the slow rain on my skin.

  When I entered the house, Fannie was there, but I only trudged past her on the way to my room. I barely took notice of her expression, her tight grin and suspicious eyes as she took in my mud-streaked clothes, dripping hair. I didn’t speak; I was spent and I just couldn’t make myself care. In the dark of my room, I collapsed onto the bed, dropping asleep to the thrum of falling rain.

  I woke gasping from another dream of my mother and destruction. The rain had stopped, and the sun was rising, so I wiped the sweat from my brow and went to the hall pitcher to splash my face. The dark roots of my hair were stark in the mirror’s reflection, and I recalled the dream. The memories of my mother were fuzzy, but I’d always thought she’d had light hair, beautiful and golden like Junnie’s. In the dreams, it was black… as black as the roots of my hair were now.

  I stood there for a long moment, staring at the darkness, and then spun as I made another stupid, rash decision. Slinking past Fannie’s room, I headed for her makeshift vault. She kept all the things I wasn’t allowed to touch in that room; it was supposed to be off limits. Not that I’d bothered trying much, because there was a large flat stone—covering where it hid in the floor—that I’d never been able to move. But that was before.

  I wasn’t sure how the magic had worked with the bird, but I knew it had, so I dropped to my knees, held my hands above the stone, and closed my eyes, concentrating with everything I had. Nothing happened right away, and my mind wandered a bit with thoughts of what might be inside, how I wanted to see and needed to touch my family heirlooms. The things that belonged to my mother.

  The stone lid scraped across the floor as it shifted.

  It didn’t go far, but I hadn’t needed much. I reached down and drew out a small leather pouch, its bronzed decorations weathered and worn. I laid it aside, reaching back in. My fingers closed around a tube, probably a scroll case. I had started to take it out when I heard the wheezing growl behind me. I froze.

  The stream of profanities that followed was long and harsh; part sounded like it was in another tongue. I released the tube and turned slowly toward Fannie. She was livid, red-faced and shaking. She stepped toward me, and I slid the pouch that lay against my leg behind my sash. She didn’t seem to notice.

  The blow was quick, and I hadn’t seen it coming. My head turned with the contact, whipping back toward her before I had a chance to rein
in the shock and anger. Fannie’s eyes lit with anticipation. Like she wanted me to fight back.

  I had never even talked back to Fannie. I didn’t have the size to fight her, let alone the magic. And she was conniving. When I’d first come to live with her she had sent me to Council repeatedly, complaining of my behavior. I had undergone hours of “evaluations” under the scrutiny of Council members. Exams and trials and endless questions. Black blots on parchment that made abstract shapes. “What do you see, Elfreda?” I knew what they wanted to hear—butterfly and flower species. But I was so resentful toward Fannie for putting me there, I usually saw a black blob of death consuming her. “A Monarch,” I’d say.

  She looked beyond me at the few inches of open floor, and I took the opportunity to bolt past her down the hall, straight out the door at full speed. I ran from the house, ignoring the paths; other elves would be no help to me. I kept running until I was certain she wasn’t coming, and then I collapsed at the edge of a meadow, breathless. I dropped my face into my hands, and might have wept if I’d not been so fueled by fear and adrenaline.

  “Freya?” a soft voice asked.

  I looked up, startled. Chevelle stood just in front of me. He dropped to his knees and reached out to touch the mark across my cheek. Shame flooded me, and I turned my head to hide the evidence, but his hand cradled the side of my face.

  Flame

  “Freya,” he repeated in a softer voice as he lifted my chin. He appeared to have real concern as he glanced from what I was sure was now a welt to my eyes, and I struggled to keep the tears that were welling up from falling. I’d not had a caring touch from anyone for so long I didn’t know how to react. And I was ashamed. Fannie had authority over me, but I wasn’t a child. It was only that I had nowhere else to go. That I couldn’t leave.