Chapter 18 In Which I Am Royally Screwed #4
His voice came from the center of the vines. “It is as Gaheris explained.”
She snorted, which made me like her slightly more. “Sahir,” she said gently, “I would like to hear from you.”
Behind the Queen, her Elvis-impersonator guards stood in exactly the same place, their spears once again raised, and their eyes blank. I kept sneaking glances at the matching slicked-back hair framing their matching stony faces.
Sahir sighed. “May I speak with you alone, my Queen?”
I felt my stomach clench—did he not want to tell her the truth in front of me? Her eyes went to me as well, like she knew why he hesitated.
“No.”
A rush of relief, followed by a much bigger rush of guilt, went through me. “I don’t mind,” I said. “I can step out, if it’s easier.”
“Your mind is of no matter to me,” the Queen said dismissively, flapping a hand at me to emphasize her point. This made me like her less again. My good opinion was as mutable as Play-Doh fresh from the container.
Sahir’s vines stiffened, but he only said, “If I am to speak of Miriam, I would prefer to do so in the form she recognizes.”
This seemed like a stupid thing to request from the Queen. I waited for one of her knights to kill him, wielding a comically large spear.
To my surprise, she nodded. He coalesced quickly into a humanoid shape, his face smooth and comfortingly familiar, and his visible hands still corded with thin twining branches. Maybe this was a compromise for her.
“My gratitude, Queen,” he said.
She gestured again, a clear demand for his explanation.
“As Gaheris said, Miriam was kind to me in the human realm. And as you so wisely noted, kindness is not prized here, nor there. Perhaps it should not be. Perhaps it is a weakness. But Miriam was a light in my long, lonely days, and a softness when the mortal realm was tough.”
My eyes were inexplicably damp, probably from the cold. I stared at the side of his face, but he didn’t look at me. He’d clenched his fists.
“The day that the Princeling brought Miriam into Faerie, I saw her at work in the mortal realm. It was time for the midday meal, and she and I stood together in an enclosed space. A third man could have joined us, but when he saw me, he turned away. I seethed with anger and disdain. Who were these weak mortals, to shun me? But she noticed my turmoil. She turned to comfort me. Miriam made me smile, when my heart could have hardened against humans.”
Again, the Queen glanced at me, her golden eyes flickering to my face and away before I could interpret her expression.
“Miriam is sharp, and bold, and unafraid, and brilliant, but even if she were not any of these things, it would not matter. She lives and breathes, feels and thinks, and should not have been trapped anywhere. I swore fealty to her to right a wrong I saw, as I have watched her right wrongs that she sees. I beg your eye, Queen, in seeing someone worthy and honorable, though her honor is different than ours.”
The Queen was quiet for a long time.
I shifted from foot to foot, suspended in terror and anticipation. I’d thought imminent death would make me more aware of my heart, of my lungs, of the flex and pull of my muscles. But I was mostly feeling fatigue in my arches.
The Queen took a step toward me, and I thought she would ask me to defend myself. But she only looked at me.
I inhaled.
Was I about to die?
Exhaled.
Would it hurt?
Inhaled.
Her somber eyes. Her golden diadem.
Exhaled.
She might have been reading my mind. If she was, she didn’t find my thoughts very interesting.
“Roman said I’m part faerie,” I blurted.
She blinked.
The moment stretched on.
I had an itch behind my knee. I needed to scratch it.
Inhaled.
I kept my shoulders straight. Matched her steady stare.
And it ended.
“Be that as it may,” the Queen said. “I deem it irrelevant to the issue at hand.”
She turned away from me to look at Sahir. “You may take her through my portal,” the Queen said. “I wish you short and easy mourning, if the Builder was wrong and her guts explode upon your faces.”
She waved her hand, like a woman brushing crumbs off a table. Sahir grabbed my wrist and pulled me backward. The four of us backed away in silence, heads bowed.
Even through my seething rage, I knew that was the smart thing to do.
When we’d slid backward into the tunnel, I tried to sag against a wall, but Sahir continued dragging me away. I scratched at his hand around my wrist, but it was still wooden, and he didn’t notice. I, on the other hand, got splinters under a few fingernails, which hurt.
The shadows in the gray striations on the walls followed us, and the glowing strings of light only made the darkness more evident.
We squeezed back through the rock crevice in single file, Sahir pushing me ahead of him.
I wondered if he planned to defend our backs, but no one came after us.
When I looked up toward Lene, I saw that she had her claws out; they glinted in the dimness.
Was she worried about Kamare lying in wait for us?
Only once we’d stopped beneath the small circular hole in the ceiling did Sahir seem to relax slightly.
Lene leapt up without a problem, catching the rim of the entrance and pulling herself skyward. Sahir held out his cradled hands for Gaheris to step into and levered the fire faerie upward with a grunt. Lene leaned down, one hand outstretched, and caught Gaheris’s hand, pulling him out, too.
Sahir maneuvered me upward by grabbing my thighs and lifting me, and Gaheris pulled me up by the arms. Sahir followed last, and Gaheris hoisted him out. He was covered in a smattering of dirt and looked irritable as usual.
And absolutely nothing happened.