The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) (10 page)

She was now the dark queen in truth.

Her kingdom feared her, and there was always one coup or another to contend with. Simply to survive she had to continue to wear the mantle of the “evil queen.” Fable could have returned to Seren at any time, but it was the love of a daughter that kept her where she stayed.

Snow White’s heart had, sadly, been turned to hate for the woman who’d given up everything for her. The beautiful princess was obsessed with ruining her stepmother. In many ways the girl was good, but her venom for the queen would take a miracle to be extinguished.

And yet still Fable remained, knowing all hated her and weathering the storm as best she could.

She always tried to do right by her people, but rumors were a horrible shackle to break. And sorrowfully, Fable never could.

Her legend had become one of the most vile, and wicked villains in all the lands. Days rolled into months, then years, until finally several lifetimes later it was the love of a grandmother for a prodigal granddaughter that finally brought the beloved Fable out of the darkness she’d lived in for so long.

The seed of redemption had been born.

Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken~ Frank Herbert

Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment~ Mahatma Gandhi

Calypso

M
any lifetimes later...

“I have to do something.” Calypso wrung her hands together, pleading silently with Aphrodite, not even sure what she was pleading for, but desperate her friend hear and understand the secret yearnings of her heart.

Aphrodite, dressed in a gown of glittering starlight, walked toward Calypso, grabbed her hands and squeezed them tight.

“I hear you, Caly. I hear you. I will help you fix Fable anyway I possibly can. Only tell me what to do.”

For years, Calypso blamed herself for the tragedies that had gone down that night. Not the fact that humans had perished, she hoped they rotted in Tartarus an eternity for the pain and torment they’d put her granddaughter through, no, what hurt was the pain and torment that Fable now inflected upon herself for her actions of that night.

She blamed herself for the pain she’d put Snow through. Blamed herself for calling to The Blue in the first place and learning such dark magick, but mostly, Fable blamed herself for ever leaving Seren in the first place.

And the truth of it was, all that blame belonged squarely on Calypso’s shoulders, because had she not gone to Nimue to plead on Fable’s behalf, the sweet girl would never have left the safety of Seren in the first place.

“She’s lost, Dite. Lost and terrified, and so broken I fear I can never fix her again.”

She sniffed pitifully, feeling wretched and ill at ease.

For a time following the deaths, Calypso had protected Fable in the only way she’d known how. By drowning anyone who’d come against her granddaughter. By killing anything, that tried to harm her.

And though those deaths too had been justified, the damage to Fable’s reputation was nearly beyond repair.

Caly knew her granddaughter, she was not a wicked, evil woman and yet to the rest of Kingdom; that’s exactly who Fable had become.

An image that Fable herself embraced by dressing in dark gowns full of metal accouterments meant to make her look fierce and unapproachable.

The mask Fable had worn for so long had permanently etched itself onto her face, so that Calypso was sure her granddaughter no longer even knew how to smile or laugh with joy.

She was mired in so much pain and heartache that she drowned in it daily, and Calypso was desperate to fix this mess she’d wrought by simply telling her mother Fable needed to see the above.

“Gods, if I could go back in time. If I could slap some sense into me, I would have. I would never have done this to my poor darling if I’d only but known.”

Dite shrugged delicately, sliding a strand of Caly’s kelp green hair across her shoulder. “If I might ask, sweetheart. Why now? It has been years since the, um...
accident
,” she stressed, though they both knew what Fable had done had been a deliberate and conscious action, it was just easier to pretend it wasn’t sometimes, “Fable has learned to live with who she is.”

“Yes, but not well!” Caly shrugged out of Aphrodite’s grip, and in her anger the waters of her home began to froth and churn, the ships riding her waves started to toss and buckle, and she had to close her eyes and count to ten to get her emotions under control.

Hades had made her promise to learn how to control her mercurial temper, and she was trying, ye gods was she trying. But it was so hard, especially when the fate of a beloved grandchild rested in her hands.

Squeezing her temple, she took several long, deep breaths before gently saying, “I am sorry, Dite. You do not deserve my rage. And I am not mad at you, truly, you are my dearest friend, it is why I come to you and no one else. The reason why I need to do this now is because I just have to. Fable is strong, but she is also weak. She is dying inside. I see it each time I visit her. The fake smiles, the witty banal banter that she uses to keep anyone who loves her at a distance. She is hurting, and I simply cannot stand it anymore.”

Dite nodded, and Calypso was ready to plead her case further when suddenly a tiny ghost of a smile crossed her pretty, ruby red lips.

Freezing, because Calypso recognized that look instantly, she pounced. “What! Tell me now, what is it?”

Clear blue eyes snared Caly’s, and then Aphrodite’s grin grew brighter than the sun. “Remember you telling me about Fiera? Her demand that you find her a mate?”

Caly frowned sharply. “Yes, what of it?”

Shrugging one pale, lovely shoulder, Aphrodite began to walk slowly around Calypso.

“Well, only that I’ve been thinking about how one could go about finding a mate for a primordial goddess of fire, which could be said to be impossible for anyone but me, and now to hear of Fable, it all seems so simple. Doesn’t it?”

She was at Calypso’s back when she said that last part, but everything inside of Caly froze because she knew instantly what Dite meant.

“A love match? For Fable?”

Coming to stand in front of her friend again, Aphrodite’s grin hadn’t wavered an inch. “Well, don’t you see, Caly? For all the gods strengths in this world and the next, there is one strength that defies most of us—true love. True love, and I speak only of the truest and most purest form of it, can mend even the hardest of souls.”

Calypso might be goddess of the waters, but even she couldn’t deny that simple truth because the moment she’d locked eyes on Hades she’d known she’d move heaven and hell to make him hers forever.

She’d been born to be a virgin goddess but had willingly given it all up for the love of her bubble butt.

Grabbing hold of her chest, to try and stem the now rapid beating of her excited heart she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do believe you are right, Dites. Love can fix my baby. But who, who would be good enough for her? She’s been ruined by men. By love, it would take someone—”

Aphrodite’s eyes turned soft and her smile with it. “—it would take the undying love and devotion of one just as broken as she. Caly, I know who your Fable belongs with. A god who’s been waiting his whole life for her, he simply didn’t know it yet.”

Frowning, and cocking her head, because Calypso couldn’t think of a single Greek deity worthy of her beautiful granddaughter’s heart, she asked, “Who?”

“Owiot. But I’ve always just called him, Sadness.”

Sadness? For Fable? Caly wasn’t sure.

She shook her head, but Dite grabbed her hands in a shockingly strong grip and said heatedly, “Trust me, Caly. If you’ve never done it before. Do it now. And believe me.”

Calypso would do anything to see her granddaughter smile again, but pairing her with a male that Dite called Sadness seemed beyond cruel. Still, this was Aphrodite—
The
Goddess of Love. If anyone knew anything about love and hearts or even broken ones, it would be her.

Sighing deeply, she squeezed her fingers back and said, “If you were anyone else, I think I’d murder you for the suggestion. But I know you love my Fable as much as I do. So yes, Dite, I’ll trust you.”

“Good, then I think we can kill many birds with one stone, don’t you?”

“A love tournament?” Calypso said, knowing exactly where her friend’s thoughts had led.

Aphrodite nodded. “Yes. Now let’s get the pieces in place, shall we?”

~*~

Fable

P
resent Day

“There’s an uprising taking place in the Southern reaches of the Enchanted Forest,” Mirror said, breaking through Fable’s concentration as she tried to master the spell of silence.

And not just any kind of silence either. But deep, and bottomless, and terrible silence. The type of silence that echoed through the soul and made one feel hollow, feel alone, feel completely and totally forlorn.

It was black magick, but most of what she did now was black magick to one extent or another.

Fable had been a fool when she’d first arrived in the above. A silly, naïve, stupid little princess with visions of knights, and goodly kings, and happily ever afters imprinted on her heart.

The truth was, this world was an ugly, foul, wicked place and though she’d once felt like she didn’t belong to it, in the years since George’s
sad
—she snorted—demise, she’d become very good at one thing. Embracing her inner darkness.

Maybe she’d started out on the side of good and righteousness and justice and blah, blah, blah...but she’d been an idiot to believe in any of that. If there was one thing this world had taught her was that nothing good ever came to you unless you
made it
happen. Period.

She exhaled. “There’s always an uprising against me, Mirror. Or haven’t you learned that by now?”

Many years had passed since Fable had been tossed into the tower, and though she was now Queen of the Enchanted Forest in truth, she found that she’d grown to prefer her cell over any other room in the castle. It was a good reminder to her of where she’d been and just how far she’d come.

“Now, hush so that I can finalize this last bit of—”

“Yes, but Snow leads the charge,” he said softly.

Spine stiffening, Fable pushed her grimorie back a tad with the tip of her long, pointed black and red painted nail. “So she’s been spotted, has she?”

Trying to ignore the terrible ache in her chest at the thought of the girl, Fable notched her chin high. There was only one thing in this entire stupid realm that she sometimes still felt a twinge of remorse over, and that was Snow White.

But the twinges hardly lasted anymore, and when they came, they were easy enough to ignore. Clenching her jaw, she pursed her lips and very quietly asked, “Are you sure, Mirror?”

She turned swiftly. The long, velvet robe of shadow and starlight she wore twirled around her ankles like a dark wave. Grabbing hold of the thick braid dangling over her shoulder, she played with the tip as she commanded her pulse to quiet.

In the decades since the King’s death, Snow had turned Fable’s name to mud. Turned her into a woman of utter darkness and evil. All in the Enchanted Forest feared their queen now, and it had grown far too taxing to make them believe she wasn’t what they thought her to be.

Sometimes it was just easier to be exactly who others thought you were anyway. So yes, Fable killed when necessary. When the uprisings became too thick and wild and order could only be gained with a steel fist.

Curling her fingers into claws, she scraped it down the wood face of her worktable, causing a high-pitched squeal and curls of wood to flake off in her wake.

“I am, my queen,” he said gravely. “The sentries you posted in the forest whispered it through the castle grounds not even half an hour ago. The girl plans a violent attack on the castle; she’s got not only dwarves on her side but the rock trolls that live beneath hangman’s bridge.”

Flesh-eating dwarves were bad enough but very little could survive the brute strength and sheer violence of rock trolls on the hunt.

Snow White had always had the capacity to make herself loved by creatures incapable of loving anyone or anything else; it was one of her strengths. But had also become one of Fable’s pet peeves.

Hanging her head, she stared at her book with unseeing eyes. For years, she’d strengthened her magick to the point that should the day ever come where Snow tried to make the ultimate power grab she’d be strong enough to defend herself and her stronghold, but Fable had never wanted things to get to this point.

Not with the girl.

Though a part of her now hated the child she’d once called her own, there would always be that side of her that couldn’t help but love her too. Fable would no longer blame herself for everything that had happened that fateful night in this very tower, she’d only been defending her right to live, but in a small, still place in her heart, that was still capable of feeling pain...she knew that had she not thrown that killing curse, Snow’s path might have turned out very differently.

“How much longer do I have?”

“The Ravens say she will strike at the witching hour once the castle is asleep and all is calm.”

Knowing exactly what she would do, because Fable had been preparing for just such an inevitability ever since the day Snow had run away, she clenched her jaw and steeled her heart.

It was either her or the girl.

Fable hadn’t come this far only to lose now.

“Then so be it.”

Feeling as though the weight of the world had just come crashing down on her shoulders, she turned and looked at her only friend left in the world.

“You know what to do, Mirror.” She lifted her chin, giving him the silent command to begin the enchantment over the castle. “Put them all down.”

“My queen,” he intoned, then faded in a fog of ethereal blue.

Walking over to the mirror Uriah had briefly abandoned, Fable studied her image. She was beauty personified that had never been in question.