The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) (12 page)

Fable

S
he stepped into the camp invisible to all. The stench of troll and dwarves was a nasty scent on the back of her tongue and made her stomach heave.

How Snow could walk and live amongst them, Fable would never know.

Moving as quick as this stupid, old body could, she walked through the camp, peeking through the tent flaps and moving on when all she found was one farting or snoring dwarf or troll after another.

But finally, finally, and just at the center of the camp, did she find Snow White. And for a moment, the old love came flooding in.

She recalled the little girl’s hugs. Her songs. The paintings she’d gift to her. Paintings that even to this day Fable still held onto, kept tucked in a safe place in the castle where no one could ever find and destroy them.

The girl was still heart-achingly beautiful.

Skin pale as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony. The legends had always gotten her right. In description at least. What the stories had failed to mention time and again was Snow’s capacity to hold a grudge, or the brat’s willingness to hold fast to the memory of an evil, cruel, and violent father and lay all the blame of his death at Fable’s feet alone.

Snow was hardly the puritan the legends had made her out to be. Two months ago, Snow White had been solely responsible for the death of one Fable’s most cherished and prized possessions.

A unicorn she’d found years ago. She’d found the poor, starving little creature whimpering pitifully beside its dead mother’s carcass. Fable had been moved to tears at its plight and had spared the creature its own inevitable death.

If there’d been anything in the above she’d still shown any kind of kindness too, it had been Sterling. He’d been a good friend back to her. Unicorns were shy, ghostlike creatures. So rare that to spot one in one’s life rarely, if ever, happened.

All within the realm had known of Fable’s beloved pet. But she’d kept Sterling hidden from prying eyes. Wanting to protect him from those who’d wish to hurt her through him.

Fable had never discovered how Snow had learned of him, nor how she’d gotten into her heavily warded stables, but she had.

Sterling, used to his master’s loving touch had come trustingly up to Snow. Who’d stabbed a sword through his heart. Her poor beast had dropped to his knees, foaming white at the mouth. Not even dead, before Snow White had pulled a grotesquely large sword from a sheath at her side and in one smooth motion, severed the horn from his head.

Sterling might have recovered if Fable had found him in time, but not without his horn, the very seed of his light magic and his soul, rested within it.

Fable had only seen it happen in her mirror after the fact, and what little love she’d still harbored for Snow had turned to ash after.

Snapping her fingers, she murmured a sleeping spell, and immediately the roll of powerful magick snapped through the air.

Snow White, who Fable had made certain would not be affected by the spell, jumped to her feet, looking into the darkness and spotting Fable immediately as she’d walked out of the shadows and into a small circle of moonlight.

Long, tense seconds passed between them as they studied one another. Finally, it was Snow who spoke first.

“What have you done to my Army?” she asked low, but her words shook with steel. Even in crone form, the girl had recognized her.

If Fable hadn’t hated her, she might have been proud at the woman Snow White had become.

She shrugged. “They merely sleep, little one. As will you soon.”

Snow White scoffed. “If you’d really wanted me asleep, you’d have done it at the same time as you did them. Why are you here?”

Fable grinned, and couldn’t help but grin wider still when Snow shuddered. She knew just how hideous her grin was, it was good for a change that someone else got to enjoy it for a bit.

“To talk,” she said as she slowly moved toward the girl. “To discover why it is you planned to attack my castle tonight?”

“Your castle!” Her face curled into a mask of hate. “It was never your castle; you killed my father. I am the rightful ruler of that—”

Fable rolled her eyes. “Keep telling yourself those lies, Snow White. Keep imagining that your father was some sort of hero. He wasn’t. He was a cruel, terrible man who murdered his own mother so that that witch, Brunhilda could pose as her.”

“Shut up!” Snow screamed, clapping hands over her ears.

But Fable was done keeping quiet.

“Did you know it was also he who ordered the execution of your mother? Did you know that, little Snow?”

“Stop it!”

“And you wish to know why?” She pressed on, undeterred by Snow’s hate and violence. Fable was tired of shutting up; it was time this little bitch knew the kind of man she was so keen on defending.

“Because she didn’t give him an heir. A male. A boy, Snow White. You were never going to be queen. Ever! Why do you think he locked you away in your own keep? Why do you think he raped me each and every night? So that I would produce his male. He didn’t want me. And he didn’t want you!”

With a deafening roar, Snow came at her.

Fable had expected it. Fighter she wasn’t, what Fable was, however, was crafty and smart. To get Snow to eat the apple she had to be close and to be close meant forcing the stupid girl to come at her first.

Snow White jumped her, taking her down to the ground and getting atop of her. Her face was a contorted mask of rage and spittle flew from her lips when she said, “I’ll kill you and take back what rightfully belongs to me!”

Fable reached into her pocket just as Snow White reached into her own. She’d had it all planned out. She’d known she’d take a beating tonight, probably gain a few bumps and bruises, and it was just fine by her.

What she’d not expected, however, was for Snow White to be reaching into her pocket to pull out Sterling’s severed horn.

Eyes wide, fear beating a terrible rhythm in her skull, it all suddenly clicked into place as she finally realized why it was that Snow had killed her friend.

Unicorn’s were comprised of nothing but white light. White light was a natural enemy to black.

“Snow White, don’t!” she screamed.

But it was too late; Snow’s arm came down with the type of force that could only be built up through years of hate. Fable had barely enough time to roll to her side, just far enough to escape the killing chest blow. Instead, the horn pierced her side, and immediately she felt the roll of its magic wash through her.

The pain was exquisite and terrible. Her entire body lit up like flame, making her feel as though she was being burned alive. Snow White reared back once more, and in her eyes, Fable knew that this time, the girl would not miss.

Gathering whatever shreds of power she still had left to her, she swallowed the scream of pain trapped in her throat and yanked the apple free.

Snow opened her mouth to say something else, but there’d be no more words from her.

Shoving the apple so far into her mouth, that the girl had no choice but to bite down in order to spit it out, Fable didn’t have to wait long for the magick to take effect.

With a gasp of surprise, the girl then dropped like a sack of stone on top of her.

“
Oomph
.” Fable’s breath came out sharply, and her entire body ached, only adrenaline kept her going.

Forcing her withered arms to work though they didn’t want to, she finally managed to roll Snow’s dead weight off of her. Snow White flopped over like a fish, long strands of hair mostly covered her face. The clothing of stitched deerskins she wore was stained by blood.

But it wasn’t her own. It was Fable’s. She touched her side and winced, then grimaced as her hand came away tacky and sticky with blood. That was when Fable noticed Sterling’s horn lying on the ground.

Snow’s hand had unfurled its death grip on it.

Stooping, Fable retrieved it, then closed her eyes as she cried for her precious pet who’d lost his life so that Snow could finally exact her revenge.

And it all came to a head.

The past, the present, even the future, it all collided into one giant ball of rage and Fable opened tear stained eyes, looking at Snow White with the same kind of malevolent and twisted hate the girl now felt for her.

The curse laced upon the apple was nothing but a sleeping curse. It wasn’t true death. Fable could still wake her.

But she wouldn’t.

Delicately strumming her fingers along the tip of Sterling’s horn, she decided that the only way to end this war between them, to truly end it was to end her. Kneeling, she steeled her heart against what she was about to do and lifted her arm.

“
STOP
!”

The voice, so full of power, blasted against Fable’s body, tossing her onto her arse violently. Nature was suddenly in chaos. Rain poured in great big bucketfuls from the sky which had boasted no storm clouds just seconds ago. Trees groaned—massively large trees with trunks as thick as a house—as they fought to remain standing in the suddenly hurricane force winds.

Groaning, body still on fire from where she’d been stabbed earlier, a sense of dread and fear filled Fable’s body, because though she’d not heard the voice in years, she knew instinctually whose it was.

Only one woman had the power to control water as she now did.

Fighting to a sit up position, Fable stared at her grandmother. A towering vision of crystal clear water that raged like an out of control tide. Her beautiful face was twisted into a mask of pain and hurt and also anger.

Deep-seated anger.

“This is not the way, Fable! This is not how we taught you to be. Who we taught you to be.”

And she felt such shame. Such horrible, horrible shame that she could no longer stare at Calypso. Could no longer see the wounded look in her eyes. When Fable had finally broken free of her captors, she’d told her family to leave her be.

She’d felt too full of evil and darkness and so rotten to the core she’d not wanted their censure, their judgment, but most especially to ever have to see their disappointment in her.

She’d known all along that if they’d seen Fable for who she’d really turned out to be, they’d hate her. Hate her like her grandmother did now.

“I do not hate you, my little flower. It is impossible.”

Grandmother, who’d been standing a fair distance away from her, was now kneeling beside her, and wrapping her arms around Fable’s waist and crying.

Crying.

Calypso—elemental goddess of all water and so ancient as to be nearly immortal—had never wept in all the years Fable had known her.

But she did so now. And she shook violently with it.

“Oh, my baby. My precious, precious baby. I should never have stayed away, even after you demanded I do it. I knew you weren’t okay. I knew it, I just knew. My fault. This is all my fault, oh my beauty. My precious and beautiful, dark beauty.”

And Fable wanted to remain aloof, wanted to throw her grandmother’s arms off her and leave, wanted to vanish and hide and shake and be miserable and hope that she died of the heartache after a while.

But she’d not been held with such love in so long that she was helpless against her grandmother. She wielded her love like a blade and had skewered Fable straight through the heart.

So she stayed, and she squeezed her eyes shut—still wishing she could die and not have to witness the hurt, pain, and remorse in Calypso’s eyes—but she held fast and sank into the cool depths of her grandmother’s form.

When they finally pulled apart several minutes later, they were both tear stained, and heaving for breath, but the sky no longer shook.

“Grandmother, what are you doing here?” she finally asked, shocked by the little girl voice that had naturally come out of her.

She was a woman who’d done bad things. A lot of bad things, but she still felt small and inconsequential compared to her grandmother.

Calypso’s face, which was now in elemental form, nothing but a cool sheet of water in the form of a stunning woman’s face, looked at her with a mixture of love and terrible sadness.

“I’m here for you, my darling. To save you.”

Fable’s gaze flicked to the still sleeping Snow White, and she twisted her worm lips into a tight frown. “Save me from what? From killing her? She would have done it happily to me. She tried.”

Caly’s hand slid down Fable’s waist, and wrapped around the wound in her side and instantly Fable felt the cool wash of her grandmother’s powerful magick undulate all throughout her body, stitching her flesh back together. Not even a unicorn’s horn was enough to stop the magick of a god.

“I know she did. But if you had done it, if you’d stuck that horn through her chest, then you would have been locked in this form in truth all the days of your life. And I did not want that for you, my precious.”

Fable’s lashes fluttered as Calypso then caressed the side of her face, and another powerful wave of magick rolled through her. And she saw that she was back to who she’d been. Her skin was taut and smooth and dark as the blackest night.

A fat tear splashed onto the tip of her nose as her heart ached, knowing she’d almost taken the dark path in truth.

“Look at me, dark flower.” Calypso tipped her chin up, forcing Fable to meet the electric blue glow of her grandmother’s eyes.

And seeing that love shining as bright as a beacon, even still, even having witnessed the depths of Fable’s depravity firsthand, it was almost too much to bear. She tried to turn away again, but Calypso wouldn’t let her.

“No, my dear. The prodigal has run long enough. It is time to heal you, Fable. It is time to rid you of this disease now infecting you. You are coming with me.”

“Where?” her voice sounded broken and scratchy to her own ears.

“To a place far away, where you can heal, if you’ll let yourself. Where no one expects you to be anything than what you truly are. Where you can relearn what it means to be you again. Will you come with me, my love?” Calypso gently, but determinedly took the horn from out of Fable’s death grip, setting it down on the ground gently.

Snow’s curled fingers were mere inches from it now. Sterling’s horn, which had once been a symbol of great love for Fable, now turned into a weapon of ultimate destruction. It sickened her to see it.