Chapter 45
Forty-Five
Until you lose the very essence of who you have been, you will never become the queen you were meant to be.
With Thomas’s death, I thought the essence of who I had been was gone.
No longer was I the overlooked peasant girl who longed only to heal like her mortal mother had.
I held the knife that ended my lover’s life.
I killed Thomas. I took innocent blood, what once had been the last thing I would ever dream of.
And out of whatever necessity I had done it, I could not forgive myself.
Forgiveness is a wholly human trait. I left my need for that behind in the mortal realm, when I bade my love goodbye.
I closed my eyes, steeped in the enormity of what I had done. But my physical form mocked my guilt. I felt sated, rich, and reborn.
I am Faery, and Faery is me.
Let me fully embrace what that means.
My eyes flew open.
Magic bloomed all around me. Radiance erupted, though no sun shone overhead.
My garments blew about me as I opened my arms wide; my hair tossed on the wind like blood spurting from a wound.
I breathed in green growth, the fragrance of a thousand flowers, and the essence of life itself, sweet and ephemeral and all too easily lost.
Like Thomas. But I pushed the awareness of that pain too far down inside, where no one would ever reach.
“The Teind is paid,” I cried out to the land. “Be restored.”
And it was.
The grass shot up, dense and verdant around my ankles. The air tasted sweet as honey and fragrant as spring. Trees revived and encircled me in an arboreal embrace, bending low to let me taste their fruit. Harp song upswelled in the distance; gorse and cowslips clustered around my feet.
Only the roses were missing. I had left them behind in Carterhaugh to bloom on their own. At last, I had swept the humanity from me and would do for Faery what She willed.
Amid it all, the greening and the blooming, the birdsong and the serene radiance of the twilight sky, he appeared.
Radiant as a god, lush and verdant as the spring, with his hair like forest shadows and his chiseled features sharp enough to make one bleed.
Amadan had crowned himself with ivy, donned velvet and rich brocade, short enough it barely covered his necessaries, though the sleeves drooped long and hung like wings of leaves.
Just shy of royalty, he appeared, the perfect companion for Faery’s queen, handsome enough to drive the memories of every other man from my mind.
Including the one I had just slain.
“My liege,” Lileas protested, lifting her hand to me. “Fia.”
But I looked away, not her Fia any longer, in need of softness and comfort. I deserved them not, after what I had just done.
The queen would give herself over to darker pleasures now.
My breath caught at Amadan’s beauty, though my instincts told me, He is a dangerous bird. I took hold of his face, turning it to reveal the faint traces of a rountree branch across his skin. I ran a long nail down his cheek and smiled at his bemused expression.
I would fear the dangerous no longer, for there was none more dangerous than myself.
Help me to forget, Dark Fool. Play Master of my Folly once again.
Amadan smiled, eyes twinkling. “Your Majesty.” He offered me no consolation on the loss of my shepherd king; nor, surprisingly, did he gloat. Exactly what I needed now.
I took his arm and let my nails dig into the lush velvet of his sleeves. I raised my chin and the stench of mortality fell away. “Samhain is over, the seven-year passed. The Teind has been paid.”
He smiled, and I could not judge how he truly felt. “Then our work here can begin.”
We coupled under a starless sky, Amadan’s cloak spread out like a carpet beneath us.
The Dark Fool moved carefully at first, sliding my gown off my shoulders like fragile wings he did not wish to tear.
He kissed me, nipped softly at the spot where my throat met my shoulder, where once a rose-shaped birthmark had bloomed.
I pushed him away, and he traveled down further, exploring my nipples with his lips, his tongue.
His hands wrapped around me so delicately, I could barely stand it.
Every touch was light, gentle, and respectful, might retreat at any moment.
This I did not want. Not from him. Not now.
I seized him. Wrapped my legs around him and pulled him towards me. Tore his tunic, thick velvet though it was, so I could get at the warm skin it concealed. I would allow nothing to stand in my way.
“Treat me not as your queen,” I huffed, and clawed my fingers through his hair. “We are more than that and less.”
One man had treated me like a goddess, but his worship ceased, and he betrayed me in the end. I did not want that, ever again. I was more than a queen, more even than a goddess, primal, a force of nature, not to be worshipped but to devour and be devoured.
Amadan pulled back and removed his tunic, which spilled into a pile of leaves upon the ground.
His lean, sinuous form rose above me, a dark silhouette against the deep twilight sky.
Then he embraced me, savagely, kisses bruising, but I grew fangs.
My nails became as talons yet again, clawing down his back, and the moans he gave in return were as sweet to my ears as any siren’s song.
His fingers, those overlong fingers I would ever hate for the ill they had done to Mairi Grieve, explored every crevice of my body.
I thought I finally understood their usefulness.
I arched beneath him, and vines curved up the trees around us; all the bushes burst into bloom.
The air filled with the scent of musk and forest loam, gardenias and peonies and woodsy rose.
My blood seemed to roar within me, drowning out the last notes of the musicians; I cried out Amadan’s name, but it gave me no release.
He stroked me, tasted me, brought me to the heights of passion, as none had before, not even my shepherd king.
And though our union lacked the sweetness Thomas and I had shared, in no other respect did it fall short.
At last, we were both spent. I lay back, breast heaving, dizzy with pleasure. The Dark Fool curled beside me, features softened by sleep, vulnerable as a little child. Across his cheek, I saw the fading outline of a rountree branch, and stroked it softly with a long, pointed nail.
“This is who I am now,” I whispered, as he sighed in his sleep. “The fierce queen, violent warrior. I am no longer the girl who loved a shepherd king.” I said it aloud, so it must have been true.
In the sunless, moonless twilight, I yielded at last to slumber’s call.