The Last Faerie Queen (22 page)

30

E
l
o
r
A

The Queen was true to her word. After the decimation of Brad was complete, she waved a regal hand, and the servants of the Dark Court carried the remaining humans away. I should've been happy that she'd released them into the hands of my followers. But happiness was a far-off island that I dared not hope to reach. I felt entirely depleted, as if all my blood had seeped out onto the ground.

Of course, it hadn't. Only Brad's insides were feeding the earth at this very moment. As crows swarmed around him, diving into his warm places, I turned away, facing my congregation. My people. Only … they didn't feel like my people anymore.
My
people were the ones scurrying away, to be delivered to the eager hands of the Seelie Queen. Given. As if people could ever be given.

Why had it taken me so long to learn that lesson? Even Brad, who'd caused only destruction in his world, was not mine to remove. Funny I should realize the flaw in my justification the moment I was too late to remedy things. His blood streaked the stage, entrails hanging out like fat, juicy worms. Even though I wasn't looking anymore, I could still see it.

I would always see it.

I stepped farther away, watching the progress of the humans as they slipped into a passage that led into the earth. I tried to focus on this, their freedom. Their escape. And right before he stepped into the shadows, Taylor turned and looked my way. His eyes were alight with fear, or sadness. I shook my head. As much as I wanted to run to him, draw him into my arms and beg forgiveness, for understanding, I knew there was no point in blowing our cover now. The dark faeries had fallen for my ruse, believing Brad to be the one I wanted. Taylor was safe. Even if he never wanted to touch me again, he would live.

That was enough, for now.

Five minutes after the human sacrifice, the Dark Queen clapped her hands and the music commenced. Trolls stomped their feet to create a drumbeat, and the winged section jerked fervently. As tactless as it was to dance in circles before the blood had even dried, the servants of the Dark Court did not dare rebel against the Queen now. It had been a long time since they'd seen a show of her true power and how easily she could kill. How easily she could torture without batting those beautiful eyes. The faeries of the Dark Court may have simply been a manifestation of the earth's darker aspects, but their queen was evil.

And she needed to be taken down.

“Mother,” I called out, sounding desperate without even trying. The Dark Lady turned to me, head cocking to the side like a bird listening for the sound of worms under the earth. Again, an image of Brad flashed through my mind, and I shuddered involuntarily.

“You dare speak to me, wretch?”

“Please,” I begged, playing at obedience, though it was the last thing I felt. “You granted Naeve an audience. You believed he betrayed you, yet you granted him an audience. Won't you do the same for your own flesh? Your own blood? Please. I can explain.”

“I've no cause to believe you,” the Queen said. “You've sullied your flesh with human filth. You've stood before me and lied. You are as far from a faerie as I can possibly imagine, and I care no
t for your twisted words.” She rose from her throne and made a simple flicking motion with her wrist. “Away with this aberration. I will deal with her when I have finished celebrating Naeve's exoneration.”

In his seat on her left-hand side, Naeve grinned like I'd never seen him grin. I actually wondered if the Queen would take him to her bed tonight. As far as I could tell, she hadn't taken a lover since the day I was born, but I was as good as dead to her now.

Naeve gave me the tiniest nod of the head, as if to say,
enjoy your exile.

A shiver went down my spine. Exile would be my best-case-scenario punishment. “Lady, please, I can explain myself. It isn't what you think.”

“No,” she agreed. “You aren't.”

“You
must
give me a chance.” I was growing angry. “You gave him a chance, and he isn't … ”

“My flesh and blood, yes. You've said that. But that can be amended.”

Naeve perked up at that, like a puppy long-starved of attention. It was pathetic. Sad. And I was just as desperate. When the Queen lifted her arm, I expected her to pat him on
the head. But she did something stranger. She lifted her wrist to his lips. “Drink,” she told him. “Become ‘my blood.'” Her eyes turned to me. “By the time I'm done bleeding out the princess, you'll be the only child lef
t with royal blood.”

Oh, Darkness
.
What have I done?
 

Naeve's teeth sank into her royal flesh.

Without me to defend them, and with Naeve as the Unseelie heir, the faeries of the Dark Court would be cast into a future of bloodshed and war. They would crawl over the human world, covering it like a blight of Darkness, sucking the life out of everything. The earth would live on, but at what cost? The very ocean would be choked with blood.

I had to find a way to turn the tides.

“Please, Lady,” I said, gesturing to Brad. My stomach churned like a blood-spattered sea. “You've taken the boy. Naeve's taken my wings. Have I not been punished for my alleged transgressions? Will you at least grant me an audience,
one minute
of your time? What is one minute out of eternity?”

The Queen's head was bent back, her eyes closed. Naeve seemed to be sucking her dry. For a moment I thought it might work to my advantage, this weakening of her strength. Then I felt sicker than ever, always relying on the dark faeries' ability to weaken and manipulate. To trick. Always looking for the way to gain the upper hand by stepping on another's head.

I really was my mother's daughter. How ironic that she'd never know.

After a minute of frenzied slurping, Naeve lifted his head. His teeth were stained red, and he was shaking a little, as if dizzy. One drink, and he was already addicted.

Junkie
.

The Queen's eyes fluttered open. I had no doubt Naeve was waiting for her final blow, but he didn't know her as well as I did. We were so alike after all, she and I. And if she could bolster my spirits, only to drop me from a much greater height, she'd do it.

It's what I would've done.

“Very well,” she said quietly, so that only those closest could hear. “If you perform one simple task, I will grant you an audience.”

“Yes, Lady?”

She looked at Brad, at what remained of him, and smiled. “Go have a tea party with your darling.”

No …

I inhaled shakily, remembering the stories of my mother's “tea parties” in the Middle Ages. Less tea and cake, and more blood dripping from little cups. Chairs made out of mortal bones. “I … don't think I can.”

“If you are my daughter, you can.” It was as if she was reading my thoughts and wanted to test me on them. To snuff out the last of my compassion and make me give in to my wickedness. If I could sit in a puddle of my beloved's blood and drink of his body, I would become like her, unfeeling as a stone. Or I would break, and be useless to my people. Either way, she'd win.

“Please, Lady.” 

“This is your choice. One cup for one minute of my time. Or I can punish you now … ”

I shook my head. The minute she bled me out, the revolution would be lost. The servants were already shaken from witnessing her true wrath and my affection for a mortal. To expect them to stand against her tomorrow, without me to stand with them, and without the Bright Queen's binding …

I did not want to imagine the slaughter that would ensue.

I did not want to imagine it, and yet my feet were moving forward, toward a slaughter of a different kind. On shaky legs, I climbed the steps of the stage. My dress for the party was black, so Brad's blood seeped into it like water. Creeping over the edges. Staining me before I'd begun.

“There's a good princess,” my mother said as I sat among the wreckage, and now I was the dog, the pup waiting to be rewarded.

Punished, then rewarded.

I struggled to keep the contents of my stomach from rising, and I hadn't even taken a sip yet. My mother procured a cup out of
nothing
. “Darlings?” she said to a pair of midnight blue pixies hovering at her back. Dark horns curled out of their heads, and their wings buzzed so quickly, I could hardly see them. Within seconds, they'd delivered the cup to my hands. The porcelain was white, a strange color for my mother to choose, but then, it would help me see the blood.

I cannot do this.

Of all the laws of Faerie that had been broken, this was the worst.

“Lady, there is iron in mortal blood. This will poison me.”

Again.

She nodded, and her lips did not twitch toward a smile. Her eyes did not soften to reveal remorse. She was as unfeeling as a stone. “Hence the
little
cup,” she said. “Wasn't that nice of me?”

I bit my lip and tasted blood. That was a mistake.

“Besides, you've felt the sting of iron before and survived,” she reminded me, and it sounded like a taunt. A challenge. “What faerie can say that?”

What was she suggesting? Already the world was spinning before my eyes as I lowered the little cup to Brad's body. His blood was pooling in places where his wounds were the worst. My vision swam with red as I tilted the cup.

Blood poured in, a little whirlpool churning and churning.

My world was churning. I fought to stay conscious as I lifted the cup to my lips. My hand shook so terribly, blood was sloshing over my fingers. In the background, my mother's voice drifted in from another galaxy. She whispered, “Only you, darling.”

Then my world turned to black.

31

T
ayl
o
R

I didn't think I was going to make it. My legs were so heavy. I kept trying to think of something that weighed more than lead, but I couldn't think straight enough to do it. I couldn't
think
at all, but all the while, images kept flashing before me.

Here, I saw the packed-in dirt of the tunnel up ahead. A dead end, I thought. No, I didn't think it. I
saw
it. My eyes transmitted messages to my brain, but before they could be analyzed, they slipped away like rain. Like blood from a lifeless corpse.

Brad.

And just like that, I saw him in front of me. I could barely process the fact that I was walking
through
the dead end—
another glamour among millions
, I thought, and then that, too, slipped away from me. I was slipping in Brad's blood, drowning in the depths of it, trying to carry the both of us to safety, and sinking in the process.

A body smacked the ground. His body?

No. Mine.

“Get up,” a faerie said, yanking me to my feet.
Another faerie among millions
. I knew the creatures that led us to safety—
Ha! Safety
?—were not the ones who'd attacked Elora on prom night. Were these faeries on our side, eager to get us to the Seelie Court so their rebellion could begin? 

Or were they only acting on the order of their precious Queen? A woman I could go my entire life without seeing again. God, it was a wonder Elora hadn't turned out completely wicked, with a mother like that. It was a wonder she could love anything, let alone a forbidden human. Now I could see her face in front of me, as we turned to the left and headed down. As we moved through another tunnel that looked like a
dead end.

She beckoned me forward, eyes glistening with tears of love. But her dress was torn and muddy, and blood stained her hands. Blood stained her lips. Had she been drinking it? Would she drink mine?

My guts twisted, and I shook my head. I couldn't stop shaking. And Elora kept beckoning to me, a vision with blood-covered hands, and I kept walking to her, no matter what it meant. No matter the danger.

Was I so desperate to feel her one more time that I'd let those crimson hands run through my hair, staining me? Would I taste the blood on her lips, and smile? 

Was there anything I wouldn't do for her?

Is there anything she hasn't done for you?
a voice whispered, and I swear
,
it came from outside of me.

“Just a little longer,” the vision of Elora promised. And I listened. God help me, I followed her. She led me from the darkness into the light.

It started with a flash, like the first spark of a raging fire. It happened so quickly, I worried I'd imagined it. Then I realized there were branches up ahead, shifting and twirling and
revealing the world in little patches. I thought,
Here we'll come upon the entrance to the Seelie Court, and hands will reach out to guide us over the border. Hands that are brown and strong like the earth, like nature, not like evil and darkness and death.
Hands that stroke rather than choke, in a court that was created to protect us.

Then an image of Brad tied up in the Seelie Court flashed through my mind, and I realized I'd never be safe again. Realized safety didn't exist.

I stopped in my tracks. Two faeries ran into my back, and Kylie mumbled, “What are you doing?”

I turned and found her clutched in Alexia's arms. “I have to go back.”

“We are going back,” she said, pointing to the light. That's when I realized what I should've noticed from the start: we weren't moving toward the light.
It
was moving toward us, bobbing and weaving between the trees. A single orb of light, illuminating the dark forest.

Shit.

“I don't want to see her,” I said, backing into the darkness. The faeries were staring at me like I'd lost my mind, and maybe I had. But I couldn't go back to the Seelie Court just to get trapped there. Not with the Seelie Queen, who knew my full name. Not with Maya de Lyre, who was no longer a prisoner now that Brad had died.

“Please, I can't go back there,” I said, but the faeries weren't looking at me anymore. Now the light was spilling through the forest, and they shrieked, covering their eyes.

A faerie with shimmering cobalt skin stepped forward, braving the light. “You are not welcome here,” he snarled as the orb of light broke free from the shadows. It spilled over the darkness, obliterating it.

The dark faeries screamed and raced away from us, seeking sanctuary in the forest behind us.

Both Kylie and Alexia slumped to the ground, unable to move any farther. Keegan fell against a tree, and I followed suit. “I have to go back,” I told them.

“I understand,” Keegan said. “I'll try to hold her off.”

I almost laughed because the idea was so ridiculous. But still, it was ridiculously nice of him to offer, to put my safety before his. I squeezed his hand. “I'll come back for you,” I said, and it was a promise.

“She has no claim to us,” he replied.

I nodded, backing away into the darkness. “Don't let them trick you,” I said. “Don't split up.”

“Promise.”

I nodded again, throat tight at the thought of leaving them. But I had to help Elora, and I had to trust them to take care of themselves.

That was the problem with loving somebody, I guess. You wanted to do everything in your power to protect them, but if you did that, you might keep them trapped in a clearing somewhere, safe from harm. Safe, and caged.

I let my friends go. They let me go, and I raced into the darkness. I leapt over logs, like I had that first day in the Seelie Court. But now, with the Bright Queen's light
behind
me, I couldn't see very well, and I tripped over a root.

I tripped and went flying.

My head scraped a rock as I went down.

No, no, no,
I begged as light danced behind my eyes. Behind them. In front of them. God, I couldn't get away from that damn light.

But slowly, painfully, I opened my eyes. The fall hadn't knocked me out. I could do this. I tried to push myself to my knees.

But I couldn't. My body had used up the last of its energy bolting away from the Queen. The Dark Queen. The Bright Queen. Here, now, it was rebelling. My arms shook and refused to hold me. My legs stopped working entirely. As light spilled over me, I thought of Elora's face. I promised her that this wasn't the end, that I'd come back for her, somehow.

Then I didn't promise anything anymore, because darkness came for me. It was beautiful, and it came from within. I saw wings, and an endless obsidian sky. I saw the universe, galaxy upon galaxy. Eternity unfolded.

And then I saw nothing.