What did you do? (Infatuated fae #2)

11. The Past

11

THE PAST

Queen Saracen

I scrutinized the scroll, double-checking the address that had been neatly written on the mottled papyrus paper. Squeals of high-pitched laughter came from the back of the small, run-down cottage I stood before.

They were young. One looked roughly the same age as Aurelius, the other younger.

So this was what the almighty Zef had hidden.

It was brilliant. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had hidden in the human realm with his offspring until he was called to ascend. No one would ever bother to look for them here. Most of his enemies weren’t even permitted across the veil.

Zef must’ve trusted Felix to check in on them when his full Ascension to Moirai took place, his best friend making sure they were taken care of.

They would definitely be taken care of.

A smile crept onto my lips. Artemi usually didn’t come into their full abilities until their twentieth red chariot made it past Tartarus and through the Elysian Fields. I’ve heard of some getting them early if they were really powerful.

Which made them perfect for our army.

I could hardly believe the goldmine of luck that today had revealed. Felix’s lifeless body would be found while I was leaving Aurelius and bringing Thanes back the Artemi he deserved.

Leaning against the corner of the cottage, I settled back to watch my trophies play.

A rickety screen door slammed at the back of the house and a plain, weary-looking human woman with dirty-blond hair appeared. She looked tired and nervous at the same time, not even bothering to tidy herself, letting the hideous skeleton tattoo emblazoned on her chest hang out of her filthy blouse.

“Calypso! Adrianna! Girls, please don’t go any farther toward the field!” the woman shouted, looking stressed and rumpled but at least adjusting her shirt to hide the odd tattoo—a skeleton holding a ring of skeleton keys. Where had I seen that before?

“Yes, Mother,” the girls singsonged in unison.

The woman adjusted her shirt again, and I was able to get a closer look at her weathered face. Aside from the clothing and hair, her features were surprisingly striking. So much so, that had it not been for her energy being completely and utterly mortal, I would have assumed she was fae.

I could hardly believe it.

Zef had defiled himself with a human! My mouth hung open as I continued to watch the mortal wipe her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt as she closed the door behind her and returned inside.

I could hardly believe it. Zef, the last of the extinct Artemi, had hidden a partially human family in the smallest nook of the smallest human town.

This changed everything. It was highly unlikely that he would have two full-blooded Artemi after procreating with a human. Most fae could impregnate humans, but Artemi’s powers were so strong-willed, they refused to be shared or diluted by blood. The powers grew in strength with every generation, and being so strong, it was the parent with the most concentrated Artemi powers who chose which of their children would be most well suited to receive the immense gift of powers themselves, which child would have the strength and kind heart to take on such obligations of holding the feared powers of the Artemi.

It would be almost impossible to tell which one had it until their powers came.

The horrible stench of misplaced smoke caught my senses.

“You almost did it.”

I whipped around to see the Unseelie Queen Tenebris standing mere feet behind me. Her hands were coated in black all the way up to her elbows, while the rest of her porcelain skin was covered in veins of black. Her dark, butterfly-shaped wings of smoke pulsed. Though normally pristine, she was disheveled, black streaks of blood staining her lips and eyes.

“You’re alive,” I whispered.

How could she be here? Thanes was to have killed them. News of the violent bloodshed that filled the Unseelie castle had been running rampant all evening.

Her pale eyes took in the oblivious, laughing children around the corner of the house.

“Children, Saracen?” She wrinkled her pointy nose at me with a look of disgust.

How dare the empress of darkness and evil pass judgment on me?

“Yes, Tenebris.” I smiled. “Apparently your husband and I need something significantly more powerful to kill you, as it seems our creations were unsuccessful,” I bit out.

“Unfortunately, you and Thanes are quite finished running experiments on humans. You really haven’t the need for any more monsters. Even with no powers, you could pass as one,” she said with a smile that left her eyes hollow.

I held firm, but truthfully, doing so provoked every sense in my body to scream at me to flee. With no real powers, I stood next to her feeling weak at best.

“Seems as though they did quite a number on that bony face of yours. I can hardly see your sallow skin, covered in all of that blood. Thanes will never be happy with you. Never. He loves me,” I snarled, taking a step closer.

“Such an adorable noise. Tell me, how did you learn it, being unable to shift like the rest of the royals?” Tenebris looked at her torn black dress and arms covered in blood. “But yes, it’s true. The creatures Thanes made were quite…equipped, but you are mistaken in assuming that this is my blood.”

“Wha—”

“Mendax has killed Thanes, and I am here to finally kill you, Saracen. Something I’ve been wanting to do since you involved yourself with my king and husband.”

“No…”

Tenebris stepped into me.

My vision began to blur, and my stomach tightened into a thousand knots as her words started to sink in. “No! No! You wench. You lie, you didn’t kill him! You didn’t!” I screamed at her.

The sun filled my entire body with shimmering gold beams of light. This was about the extent of my powers—shimmering. Thankfully I had pocketed some of Aurelius’s light before I left him in the forest.

The smoke in her palms shifted into long, tentacle-like talons.

“You’re right. I didn’t. My son, Mendax, killed him,” she said with a pained look.

She was lying. There was no way Mendax would kill his father. “You lie. That child adored Thanes. He would never kill him!” I shouted.

“You are correct,” she said with a pained crease of her brows. “Mendax did adore him. But he also loves me, and between Thanes and your…whatever you call them, Fallen fae creatures, I would have been dead had it not been for my son.” Her eyes glimmered.

“No! Noooo!” I bellowed, feeling my protest rise from the soles of my feet as I hurled one of Aurelius’s orbs of fiery light at her.

This couldn’t be happening. She had ruined everything. I had just killed my sweet, kind Felix. I had left my own son in a human forest.

“I have lost everything because of you!” I screamed. “You and your son will pay for this if it’s the very last thing I ever do!”

She dodged the orb easily, pushing out a gust of smoke to repel it.

I sent every morsel of power I had collected at her, one giant ray of fiery SunTamer power after the other, but somehow, everything I sent to her was either pushed away or absorbed with her smoke.

She effortlessly held the upper hand.

I had depleted myself of both Aurelius’s stored power and the insignificant power I had. Being so far away from the Seelie sun like this was foolish, and I began to lose my size as well as my dignity, shrinking into the small, helpless fairies the humans were so used to finding and writing stories about.

It was already too dangerous for me here now—I needed to return to Seelie as soon as possible.

I took off toward the girls. They were of no use to me with Thanes dead. Let them at least serve by being shields.

I had already shrunk to the size of a toad. Any longer in this horrible realm, and my wings wouldn’t be able to get me back to the portal.

I made it to a mushroom, just in front of the older girl. Quickly, I looked back toward the front of the house. If the human or Tenebris caught me now, I was as good as dead.

A crow cawed above the mushroom I hid under.

Fuck!

Tenebris’s shadows replicated a crow, concealing her now-tiny body from the humans.

She hadn’t needed to shrink; she had done so, so she could kill me with a clear conscience.

Queen Tenebris unleashed her full powers on me. The black smoke penetrated my skin painfully, crawling down my throat when I began to scream.

This was it. I would die with nothing. No power, no love, nothing.

Suddenly the older girl, the one with the big eyes, flung her bouquet of meadow flowers and mushrooms to the ground to hurl herself over me, taking the wrath of Tenebris.

I was stunned. The girl’s chest heaved even after a few minutes.

She had taken the dark queen’s full onslaught and remained alive. This was unheard of, even for an Artemi—especially a supposedly powerless Artemi child.

A few moments later, the girl dropped to the ground, passing out while still covering me. Her sister had brought out the mother and what looked like half the neighbors, who were suddenly running in our direction.

A sharp flicker of pain shot through my wings.

Tenebris took off as the humans were approaching, flapping away just as a crow formed of smoke would. She had lost a lot of power, but nothing that should have…

It was her—this one was the Artemi child, I could feel it.

My suns, her powers had to be strong. She had begun to draw the Smoke Slayer’s powers. I could feel her strength trying to take hold of every part of my body. If she was this strong and didn’t even have her full powers yet…

I smiled, and my tearstained cheeks lifted with a wild tremor.

I doubted the Unseelie queen had even realized the child wasn’t human. Artemi were forgotten, extinct—aside from the ascended Ancients—as far as anyone else knew.

This was fate.

I would take my revenge on Mendax and Tenebris for everything they had ruined, and this Artemi child was going to help me.