Chapter 7
Seven
It is a queen’s duty to carry out public executions.
I will not let this life destroy her.
- King Richard
Landing behind a Razian fairy, Raychel grabs her by her ponytail. Wrenching her back, she yanks the heavy dragon dildo out of her hand, then smacks her in the face with it. As the woman staggers in a daze, she whacks her in the stomach, dropping her to her knees.
My other guards spread out to stop the rest of the people from killing each other. With weapons banned from the market, they’ve found whatever they could to fight with – most of which are sex toys.
Having decided that the monster dildo actually makes for a pretty good baton, Raychel uses it mercilessly on her foes. Megan robs a woman of a set of chained nipple clamps that they were using to strangle someone with. Attaching them to butt plugs, she uses them like nunchucks.
Grabbing a healing crystal off the stall beside me, I throw it at a Vylian’s face. He stumbles back with a cry as his nose breaks. The man he was kicking on the ground stumbles to his feet, then tries to tackle him.
He misses –probably suffering from a concussion– then trips and falls onto his face.
With hate in his green eyes, the Vylian charges at me.
I step inside the range of his punch and kick him in his balls.
His arm forgets to swing for me as he cups his groin and groans.
As he writhes on the ground, the Razian he was kicking finds his feet again.
He takes one step before he gets hit in the face by Raychel’s dragon dick.
Dropping into a crouch, Megan slams her fists into the ground. A dark-blue, curving line shoots across the space in front of her. It circles my Royal Guard and the six Vylians we’re protecting. Rising, she nods as she looks at me. If anyone tries to cross it, they’ll be knocked unconscious.
“What are you doing?” a Razian shouts, her face flushed red, her green eyes heated. “The Vylians are the ones who bombed us!”
“He killed my child!” A man lifts a broken table leg, but three others pull him back, knowing that if he takes a step towards me with a weapon, he will be executed for treason.
Not wanting to be forced to take even more lives –I’ll have to take too damn many after today– I lie, “They were the targets.”
“No, they –”
“I was briefed on the threat this morning by FI-9.” Even the people who hate me respect the neutrality of the Fairy Intelligence.
They know they can trust the information that comes from them; FI-9 has charged royalty with crimes before, and it’s no secret that Evangeline Sinclair, the head of it, loves nothing more than taking down corrupt nobles.
FI-9’s responsibility isn’t to the crown or the Court. It’s to Raza’s people.
“And you didn’t warn us?” His voice breaks as the table leg slips from his hand.
Sagging against the people holding him, he cries.
Thick tears roll down his cheeks. “I brought my children here! Sias – I told him he had nothing to worry about! That we… That the Vylians… Peace…” He shakes his head wildly.
“I was supposed to show him peace!” He rips his arm free from the woman holding it, then slugs the person trapping his other arm.
He starts to twist free when a person tackles him from the back.
Their arms wrap around his waist and lift. His feet kick the air as he screams.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” the man holding him begs, his voice muffled by his exertion and his friend’s cries. “He is not thinking straight.”
“It is unnecessary,” I say as three others grab the grieving father and spread their wings. Taking to the air, the four of them carry him between them as he kicks and screams.
I watch them fly away from the trunk of the tree, down the branch towards the suburbs of Prisin District. Making a note to figure out who he is, to put him on a list to watch, I turn my gaze to the rest of the people standing before me in silence.
“I swear to you that I will use every resource needed to find out who was responsible for the bombs that went off here today.” My vow soothes the agitation flowing through the crowd. A fairy’s promise is magically binding. I’ll either see it completed, or I will be horribly cursed by the gods.
A woman steps forwards, her eyes darting around my guards warily. “Will you let us take our fist’s share?”
It’s one of Raza’s oldest laws, brought into existence by Queen Raza, our first queen.
The victims of a serious crime have the right to carve one fist-sized chunk out of the one who wronged them.
If that victim is no longer alive, their emotionally closest relative or friend can take a chunk in their place.
They use a clawed device called a justifier.
Holding her eye, I nod. “The closest friends and family to those killed today will be allowed to take their fist’s share on everyone who is charged for the attack.”
“I lost three months of wares,” she spits. “I should –”
“Death victims only.”
Her jaw clenches, but she doesn’t say another word.
“If you’ve suffered any material losses from this attack,” I say, addressing the entire crowd again, “report them to the Royal Treasury, and they’ll pay you double what you would have made.” Turning before anyone can voice any other complaints, I look at the Vylians.
The one I kicked in the balls is now sitting up, though pain still lingers in his eyes.
The others are battered and bruised but only one looks to be in critical health.
Blood is pouring out of his skull, and his eyes are closed.
“Go find a healer,” I tell Megan. She’s a battle witch and cannot do it herself.
Turning to Raychel, I say, “Find Saragese.”
She nods. As soon as Megan ends her magic circle of protection, Raychel spreads her wings and launches into the air.
As she takes off away from us, I pray Saragese can be healed, but death comes all too quickly and suddenly in our world.
She was on her knees when I last saw her, holding her intestines inside while she looked up at her assailant.
A knife slashed across her throat just as I rose into the air with my queen.
Arienna will be devastated.
Although she’s only known Saragese for a few days and brownies do not mourn the dead, I know her heart is too big not to grieve. She might have hidden it under laughter and smiles back in Brownston, but I’ve seen her mask start to splinter and crack.
Her choked laughter ringing in my ears, I sweep my gaze across the wreckage in front of me. Across the hateful stares of my people. This world will break her piece by piece. How long will it be until I see her in that crowd? Looking back at me, accusing me as much as they are?
I took her from the safety of her world. Brownston might be a cult, and she might not have ever truly belonged there, but she was safe. She did not know the horrors of war, of revenge. Not until she met me.
My chest tight, I turn towards the trunk of the tree. My eyes lift to Aurelia’s Library, carved into it above the castle. Her sanctuary has been the only salve on my wounds for the past twenty-one years. But now it feels like a curse. A prophecy of the past coming back to haunt the present.
Aurelia, a fairy born into this fucked-up world, wasn’t able to cope with the monstrosities of our people. She took her own life through my hands. How long will it be before Arienna does the same?
After today? After being told about Saragese’s death?
After tomorrow, when she hears the cries of those who lost their loved ones? When she realises death is not the happy, orgy-fuelled celebration she was raised to believe?
Or after nineteen days, when she’s crowned queen and is forced to deal with the darkest parts of our world? The wars, the executions…
My world will break her.
The urge to claw at my own skin, to rip away my crimes causes my fingers to flex subconsciously. I flatten my palms against my thighs and force my eyes away from the library.
Looking at the Vylian I kicked in the balls, I say, “You will be taken to the castle and healed. Then you’ll be given an escort back to Vyla. Any wares you’ve lost, you will be paid double for.”
“What about Gnomonmylongdiclykahungreehipoh and N?” he asks, his golden eyes burning with the same need for vengeance as my people. Razian, Vylian – they are the same despite all their differences. “They’re dead! Will we get a fist’s share too?”
I nod. “If you wish to.” That might be one plus side to this. Nothing brings fighting sides together better than a common enemy.
Seeing the healer arrive with another group of guards, I spread my wings and take to the air.
We break up every fight we find. Sometimes we make it before there are any deaths; other times we’re too late.
I find King Dravr choking out one of my guards.
Blood pours down the side of his face. Echo stands beside him, giving him her silent approval.
The mob around them is angry as hel, but no one dares to stand against the head of my Royal Guard.
As soon as the woman sags in King Dravr’s arms, he tosses her out of the tree.
She’ll regain consciousness almost immediately.
If she’s able to orientate herself fast enough, she’ll survive.
If not, she’ll splatter across the ground.
After a glance at me, a silent way to say she’ll find me later, Echo dives off the branch after her charge.
If the woman survives, she’ll quickly wish she hadn’t.
Echo follows the old ways of the fairies.
You do not break the Laws of Hospitality.
If you do, you will pay with the breakage of all your bones three times over, and Echo has a tendency to forget how to count.
“Is Queen Loreli safe?” I ask as I land.
“Where is safe in the heart of one’s enemy?”
“We are not enemies.”
“No?” The crowd shouts and surges in anger even as my guards move in front of them.
“No. The attack today is very different to the atrocities that occurred on our front lines.”
His lips tighten. “Perhaps. But good Vylians died today. Innocents, not soldiers.”
“As did Razians. But let us end this here. Come back to the castle with me. Let us show them that the unity between our kingdoms has not been shaken.”
He wipes a hand over his eye, smearing the blood into his silver hair.
He stares at me for a moment, and I see all his doubt and paranoia.
If he goes for a knife, I will have to kill him.
He must know that it would be suicide with all my guards surrounding him.
His are also here, but they are vastly outnumbered.
“Vyla’s queen is already there,” he finally says.
I nod, relieved that I am not starting our peace talks over from zero. But then, where else could she have gone? If they had flown fast back to Vyla, anyone who had seen them would’ve assumed they were fleeing some great crime and attacked them.
“Let us pray she is still alive,” he says.
“She will be.”
Echo would have left trusted people watching her. Even if someone in the Court is behind the attack, they wouldn’t have made it past her guards.
Unless Evangeline’s in on it too.
Telling myself the head of the Fairy Intelligence is still in Gretadal on assignment, I spread my wings. But just as I’m about to lift off, Echo lands back on the branch. The roar of the crowd instantly quiets.
She slings the guard’s body onto the ground. The woman is screaming and begging for mercy, but she doesn’t fight back as Echo breaks each bone in her legs one by one. Then she starts in on her arms. “She stays here tonight,” she says once she’s finished.
No one argues.
Looking at us, she says, “Turn.”
“E–” I cut myself off and look at King Dravr. “She needs you to turn.”
He looks at me warily but does as she says. Then I spread my wings, and he follows me back to the castle.
“What was that about?” he asks.
“Echo follows the old Laws of Hospitality, and you’re my honoured guest. Any wound you suffered, she’ll give herself the same tonight.” I shake my head as a memory haunts me. “You should be thankful she didn’t ask you to strip in the middle of all your soldiers.”
He looks at me, but he doesn’t ask me why I didn’t just refuse her. Some of her missions carried her to Vyla, and he was alive during the time she was most active. He would’ve seen the destruction her squadron left behind.
“I swore to kill her one day,” he says. “And today, she saved my life.” He shakes his head as we land on the floor dedicated to royal guests. “I do hope we can make this work. I would rather have her as an ally than an enemy.”
“As I would with you,” I say as we enter the hall to find his wife.
“Why?” Dravr asks, turning his head to me. “You could have crushed us after you stormed our capital. You could’ve saved yourself today’s trouble.”
“You would’ve fought to your last breath. I have saved more of my people by waving the white.”
“We were weary. We would have given up long before then.”
“But not long enough. I am tired of losing my women to mindless war. You do not even want the throne our fighting started over, and we do not want your lands.”
“My people still want revenge.”
“As do mine, and that is the only reason we still fought. But an eye for an eye leads to nothing but a world full of the blind.”
We reach his rooms. Dozens of guards – both Razians and Vylians stand together outside of it. “Once you see her, pack up your things and my guards will escort you up to my floor. You will stay there until we can find out who did this or until you decide to return home.”
He nods his head. “Your hospitality is generous.”
The guards part, allowing him into his rooms. I stay just long enough to make sure he hasn’t found a dead body, then I head up to my own floor. Instead of going straight to my queen’s chambers, I stop at my own.
I could’ve lost her today. She could’ve been hit by the blast. Even if she wasn’t the target, she was too close to me. I could be holding her dead in my arms right now.
My hands shaking, I open my door, leaving my guards outside. I’m burning with too much restless energy. I need to tie her up tonight. I need to know she still wants to be here. With me.
A gentleman would let her go before this world breaks her.
But I am too much of a monster.
Turning on the light, I head into my trashed room – my “talk” with Jace the other night having yet to be sorted.
The door closes behind me on its own with a solid click.
I spin around, a knife in my hand.
My eyes widen as a short woman smiles at me – manic and full of rage. She raises a hand and knocks on the wood of my door. “Knock, knock,” she coos. “Now be a good boy and ask, ‘Who’s there?’”