Chapter Seven #3
My queen. Not Lady Ana.
“Will you end the conflict and unite our people?”
“No!”
I blinked and Alisdair was in front of me. Towering over me. Growling at me. Beseeching me. Begging me.
Imperceptibly, he shook his head. “Princess,” he whispered. “Don’t.”
War raged in my head. Something was going on here that I didn’t know or understand.
Why was it a bad thing to end the conflict between them, and bring all the faeriken together?
It was only the day before that Alisdair ripped the throats of two crocodile faeriken for committing the very sin of not working together. It wasn’t a bad thing, except—
Alisdair’s eyes said in every way that it was. At least with this fae-wolf and this conflict, the answer had to be no.
“Yes,” I said, confident and clear. “I end the conflict, dissolve the borders, and unite our people.” I smiled into his darkening eyes. “Meallan, your favor is granted.”
Meallan said something. Foalan said something. Everyone in the room sounded, yelling and shouting on top of each other. All of it faded around us.
Alisdair closed the distance, bumping my chin against his chest. He spoke one word.
“Why?”
I balled my fists. Rising on tiptoe, I brought the venom etched in my face as close to him as it would go without seeping into his body. “I wanted you to free that boy and save him. Seems that neither one of us is granting each other favor today, husband.
“Huzzah, huzzah, my people, shout huzzah,” I rang out, my voice echoing through the cavernous room. “For Princess Emiana has achieved the purpose for which she was solely born. To be the bargaining token for the end of war.”
Alisdair’s anger was a palpable, oppressive atmosphere—more oppressive than the marking pheromones that choked half the guards. Slowly, he turned his back on me and reclaimed his throne.
“My queen has spoken,” he announced in the throne room, surprising me. “The wolf territory is dissolved and reclaimed for the wealth and prosper of Lumenfell. We are one people once more.”
If I expected cheers and huzzahs, I did not get it.
No one moved. No one spoke. After a beat, Meallan dipped his head in a semblance of a bow. Turning away, he left without another word.
Alisdair was similarly silent watching him go. When the door slammed shut, he flicked to Foalan.
“You know what to do.”
Foalan deferred him a proper bow, and strode out of the throne room.
I glanced at Alisdair but he didn’t glance back. I sensed I had gone too far.
The boy’s cries rang in my ear. So did he.
“A tip, my husband,” I said lightly. “You can easily be rid of me and these innocent mistakes, if you run slower.”
He didn’t reply. I wasn’t sure he heard me.
A mousy woman approached the dais. Yes, mouse. Twitching nose and whiskers drew my eyes, though I tried not to stare.
“Ethna, my lord.” She bowed low, then didn’t make it all the way up—hanging her head. “We have but one request.”
“We?” I asked. No one else stood at her side, or looked in her direction.
“We ask that you allow us to kill the stunted queen.”
I froze, eyes blinking rapidly. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I did.
“What did you say?” Alisdair hissed, obviously suffering from the same roaring that sounded in my ears.
“When we heard that she broke the treaty and destroyed our chance for peace, we knew she was dangerous to you and Lumenfell, my lord. Now after what we’ve just witnessed?
Her dissolving the borders so that the wolves can descend and devour us all.
..” She shook her head. “It’s clear her only goal is to ruin us.
The stunted have taken so much from us”—she raised her head, revealing an expression that wasn’t nervousness, but hate—“they will not take anymore.”
“Guards,” Bradach roared, but it was already too late.
The entire line of villagers burst into action. Half split in every direction, running to meet the guards. The remaining, including Mousy, ran straight at me.
Scales, fangs, claws, feathers, fur, and cursed hybrids I couldn’t begin to name rushed me in a horrifying parade. Clapping their hands together, they ripped them apart. Stone broke off from the wall dozens of places, shaking the throne room on its foundation.
The stone collided together, then flew at me.
“Aahhh!”
“Ana!”
A flash of feathers, then a hard force smacked into me and threw me out of the chair. I screamed as I was lifted into the air. This was the end. After everything I’d done. One day away from escape and freedom, I would die.
I kept going up, and up, and up. Why aren’t I falling?
Prying my eyes open, I came face-to-red-face with Bradach. He held me tight, forehead dripping sweat, and soared away from the madness below. “H-hold on—"
“Are you okay? Why are you—? Ahh!”
Claws sunk into his back, hooking into muscle, bone, and sinew. The cat faeriken grinned at me with sharpened teeth. “Release your prize, little bird.”
I shuddered. I didn’t think anyone else could make that awful pet name sound worse.
The stones pummeled my throne, burying it under a brutal grave that was meant for me. One by one they fell off the pile, took to the air, and narrowed on me.
“Bradach, look out!” I screamed, but as the cry left my lips, I knew it was too late.
He was slowing down—wings beating furiously to carry me, and our hanger-on.
Stones converged on us from all sides, flying together to crush us into nothing. Fur flew at my face, making me shoot back screaming as she sunk her teeth into Bradach’s neck.
Bellowing, his wings crumpled.
We fell.
Bradach released me. Hand slicing through the air, a wave of magic blasted my body—plunging me cold. My descent slowed. The rocks slowed.
Bradach didn’t.
“Ferramenta!”
The dais rushed to meet him. Out of nowhere, a large mass erupted beneath Bradach and the platform, catching, then bouncing him groaning to the floor.
A sofa? Where did that—?
His hold on his magic broke, and I plummeted. A rain of stone fell to meet me.
“Ana!”
Arms caught and held me to a hard chest. We collapsed on the dais, and the rocks fell—pummeling his body too hard and brutally, I felt every strike resound through his body into me.
Alisdair pulled me in tighter, shielding me so completely with his arms and body, he had no protection for himself.
The last stone struck... and silence fell.
My chest heaved—eyes rolling in my head. I almost died. They tried to kill me! If it wasn’t for Bradach. If it wasn’t for... Alisdair.
He saved my life. Protected me. When only minutes before, he glared at me like he hated me, and wanted nothing more than to go back and plunge the sword through me at the altar.
“A... na?”
My breath caught. I didn’t dare to move. To think.
Alisdair lifted his head as far as he could, resting his forehead on mine. A true grimace of pain ravaged his features. “Are you... okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
I tried to stop myself. With every ounce of will and hatred in my soul, I rebelled against my body, but I couldn’t stop the hand cupping his cheek. I couldn’t stop the words leaving my lips.
“Thank you.”
Yes, he was a terrible, brutal monster who killed innocents and chopped off children’s hands, but I couldn’t get back to my family if I was dead. He saved me. He saved them from believing for the rest of their lives that I ran away and abandoned them. How could I not say—
“Thank you, Alisdair.”
He tensed.
“Alisdair?”
Head snapping up, he inhaled deeply—growls leaking through his growing fangs.
“Shit!” Bradach shouted.
Alisdair leaped off me. I flipped over as he launched at Bradach, claws lengthening to tear him limb from limb. Bradach took to the air and flew out the village entrance—Alisdair hot on his tail.
I pushed up on shaky knees. A guard—a female guard—came quickly to help me on my feet.
Leaning on her, my eyes took in the sight before me. “Furniture,” I blurted. Nothing smarter came to my lips, but it didn’t have to. Furniture summed it up.
All of a sudden, the throne room was filled with chairs, tables, chaises, and lounges.
I blinked to see those were the large pieces.
A broom and mop leaned against the wall where there previously were none.
Two new rugs fell across the dais. Resting on the remains of my throne was, of all things, a teapot.
Sprinkled around the pot were the smashed remains of a few teacups.
The strange new additions scattered about the throne room, and everywhere they were, a purple bud grew out of fiber or stone, flowering in the most impossible place.
“Is this—?” I croaked. “Are these the...?”
“Villagers,” the guard said, leading me out of the room. “Yes.”
“But...” My throat was dry. “Magic to transform one living being into an inanimate object would take so much out of you, it’d kill you. To do all of these people at once... I don’t...” I trailed off, words failing me.
“Your husband, our lord, is a great and powerful man,” she said, pride leaking out of her. “Nothing can stop him. No one can stand in his way.”
“Yes,” I rasped as the doors closed behind him. “I’m beginning to see that now.”
“ARE YOU SURE HE’S OKAY?”
Aeris scoffed. “That fool is fine. Do not trouble yourself over Bradach, my lady.”
Sitting me down at the vanity, Aeris began the process of unloosing my braids, and combing my hair until it shone.
“But it’s my fault he’s now banned from the castle until the marking scent fades,” I argued. “I should’ve chosen a personal guard who could touch me without getting killed by my husband.”
“You have such a guard.” She nodded to Eadaoin in the mirror, who waved back. “That idiot knew he wasn’t your guard. He was hanging around you for no reason, just seeking out trouble where he can find it.”
I bit my lip, guilt burning my gut. Bradach was hanging around me, because he wanted to be closer to you. “Aeris, the only trouble he got into today was risking his life to save mine.”