Witch Queen (20 page)

A spark of anger ignited in me before I
could control it.

“But how is this even possible?” I hissed
under my breath. “How did all these
old
people cross the
barrier and the pass?”

“They didn’t. They were all born here. They
are a generation of slaves.”

Fawkes went back to his chanting, and his
lips moved faster and with more urgency than before. I could smell
his magic, the sweetness of pinecones and wheat. He did not want
this shifter witch to see us.

I looked over my shoulder. The men were as
angry as I was. Nugar kept shaking his head like he was having some
sort of seizure, and Lucas’ eyes and nose dripped with tears. Only
Leo appeared to be stone faced, but the moisture in his eyes did
not hide his emotions. Will stared at me with an angry and silent
accusation in his eyes, like he thought I had known about the
slaves and hadn’t told them.

I opened my mouth to reassure him, but he
turned away. It felt like a slap in my face. My face burned, but I
kept watching the men until I was certain they weren’t about to
race over to try and free the slaves—as I so desperately wanted to.
But even if we had, how far could they go? We couldn’t bring them
with us to Lunaris. And I doubted they could make the journey
across the pass.

With a pang in my heart, I knew these
wouldn’t be the last slaves we would see in this realm. How similar
Witchdom was to Arcania. Our capital was filled with human slaves,
too.

How many generations of humans would be bred
to become slaves until the light eventually faded from their
eyes?

I urged Torak forward and willed myself to
stop shaking. The need to avenge these people was overwhelming. It
was like staring at the Pit. Instead of the priests, in this case,
it was the witches that had turned humans into slaves.

I blinked the tears from my eyes and turned
away from those wretched folks. Fawkes’ original warning started to
pound inside my head like a migraine.

I shouldn’t have let the men come with me.
They would have been safer back in the woods of Fell Forest. Maybe
they were already dead.

I prayed to the Goddess that whatever spell
Fawkes was chanting would keep the men safe and hidden from the
shifter witch. But as we left, I felt the shifter witch’s
yellow-red eyes burn into the back of my head.

CHAPTER 16

M
Y HEART WAS HEAVY with sorrow as we
continued on our journey to the capital. The road was overgrown
with tall grasses and scrubby pine, but the animals moved with ease
and grace, even the elk. A flock of small pink birds with long
feathered tails like two strips of delicate lace flew over our
heads chirping happily, free and without a care in the world.

With every passing hour, my heart pounded
faster and faster. Even in the cool air, my body felt on fire. My
shirt was soaked in sweat and clung to my back and chest. Beads of
sweat trickled down between my breasts. I was a mess, and I smelled
like a vagrant from the Pit. Hell, I probably looked like one.

I’d cry if I dared to look back at the men,
and I didn’t want to arrive in Lunaris with red eyes and a puffy
face. And so I rode on with an increasing dread in my soul.

The road widened. It was flat and hard with
signs of frequent travel. To the south, a village cozied up to the
mountains and forests. Soon, wooden and stone buildings began to
appear on either side of the road. Many of them had large, lavish
manicured lawns, and they reminded me of the villas back home. But
as we got closer I could see that the architecture was different.
The buildings were not square, but circular, and their designs
included many curved shapes with bowed windows and doors. Some of
them were nearly ten stories high. And what made them most
interesting was that they were all decorated with magical symbols.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the buildings. They were beautiful
and unique. But my admiration faded as I remembered the slaves we
had seen in the fields.

The main road wound between and around the
buildings as we made our way through the town. I kept my head low,
but I could see that the town was bustling with witches.

The women wore vibrant colored gowns. Some
draped over their shoulders and wrapped around their waists baring
their midriffs, while others were halter necked and backless. All
of them were tailored from rich, silk-like material. They were most
unlike the dull brown and tawny colors I was used to seeing back in
the Pit. The men wore tailored knee-length coats that buttoned up
to the collar and were made of the same vibrant silks.

One of the female witches had glowing hair
the color of a hot flame, while other female witches had regular
blonde tresses. Like Fawkes, all their hair sparkled in the sun
like they had washed it with liquid gemstones. A few witches
glanced up as we passed, but most of them completely ignored us. I
thanked the Goddess that Fawkes’ spell was still working.

After a few hours of riding through outlying
districts, we crested a hill and finally came upon the capital.

Lunaris was situated on a picturesque lake
and surrounded by fertile green hills of towering pine forests and
chiseled mountain peaks. The city looked to be about three times
the size of Erast. I’d never seen such a vast city before, and I
felt myself stiffen.

A black stone fortress appeared to be
floating in the sky as it looked down over the city from a distant
hill. It had pointed turrets that shot into the air like a giant
crown set with swords and was protected by a great stone wall.
Villas and small villages dotted the landscape at the foot of the
fortress. It was the perfect home for a witch king. It was clearly
magical, and yet I felt a darkness there that I couldn’t explain.
The fortress looked forbidding and dark—and Fawkes was leading us
there.

I could see that the men shared the same
fear I felt, and I turned away from them lest they see me and feel
further discouraged.

Fawkes never faltered in his spell casting,
and his lips moved constantly in silent incantations. But his face
had lost its natural glow, and he looked ill. Whatever magic he was
performing was draining him. I didn’t know if it could eventually
kill him, but I knew he couldn’t keep it up for much longer. But
Fawkes continued his chanting, and the road quickly turned from
dirt to cobblestones as we entered the city.

Lunaris was alive with the sounds of wagons
and witches going about their business. Our trotting hooves and
jangling harnesses echoed loudly on the cobblestones and made for a
not-so-secret entrance. I flinched when some of the witches looked
up as we passed, and I held my breath. But their gazes wandered
off, as if we were not really there. We kept moving towards the
black fortress and most of the witches took no notice of us at all.
Fawkes’ lips moved rapidly. His spell was still working.

The smells of exotic spices and roasting
meat filled the air, and my mouth watered. The cramp in my stomach
was increasing in intensity, and I worried I’d pass out from
hunger.

We made our way up a stone path that led to
the fortress. I cursed softly as I realized that I hadn’t prepared
anything to say to the king once we had arrived.

How would I even approach the subject?
Why would he even want to see me?
Goddess help me. Give me
strength.

The closer we got to the fortress, the
smaller and more insignificant I felt. My stomach knotted as I
tried to control my nerves. I could smell the putrid fumes from the
moat that surrounded the fortress as we crossed the drawbridge. We
passed through a gatehouse and under a giant metal portcullis that
looked like the mouth of a creature. Finally, we arrived inside the
courtyard where we followed Fawkes’ lead and dismounted next to the
stables. A young male witch with a
golden tree embellished on the front of his coat
and
wearing the same
colors as
Fawkes greeted us. The two witches
looked at each other, and
I could see a silent understanding flash on their faces. Luckily
the young witch barely noticed us, as his full attention was on the
animals.

Torak was dear to me and it pained me to
leave him in this strange place.

“Is it safe to leave the horses out
here?”

Fawkes stopped his chanting for a
moment.

“Witches consider horses and all other
animals to be treasures. They’ll be better looked after here than
in any place in either of our worlds. You have my word.”

My heart still ached at leaving my beloved
horse behind. I would just have to trust him.

Then Fawkes was moving again, and I urged
the men to follow me.

We crossed the courtyard, and Fawkes made
for the fortress’ entrance. He never stopped chanting his
protective spell, and I practically had to run to keep up. I only
caught a glimpse of the bleak, mist-slicked stone walls of the
fortress before we disappeared inside through the iron and
oak-planked doors. The magic hum that emanated from the fortress
pulsed like a great heart. I found it unsettling that there were no
witch guards at the entrance.

My mouth was dry, and I felt ashamed that I
was going to meet the witch king, a
real
king, in my
stinking and unkempt state. I couldn’t remember the last time I had
pulled a brush through my hair or even washed it. But there was
nothing I could do about it now.

We followed Fawkes through an arched
entryway that led into a long hallway. I tried to get my bearings
and remember the hallways and corridors of the fortress in case I
needed to make a quick exit. But I hardly had time to think as
Fawkes strode down yet another hallway. Left, right, left, another
left—after a few minutes I was completely lost. The halls all
looked exactly the same.

Leering faces did watch us go by, though
none of them looked remotely concerned or disturbed that we were
practically running through the hallways. There were witches
everywhere.

The next thing I saw nearly sent me crashing
to my knees. I skidded to a stop.

Hanging on the walls, like great paintings
or luxurious tapestries were rows of human skins stretched out like
animal hides on wooden frames. Some were just the chest, while
others were the skins of entire human bodies including the heads
and hair. Inscriptions in Witchtongue were engraved on iron plaques
at the bottom of each human hide.

My head swirled, and I gagged.

Fawkes was next to me instantly, and his
face was green and sweaty.

“Elena,” he gasped, “we need to keep moving.
I can’t keep up the spell for much longer.”

I blinked the tears from my eyes. The men
all gathered around me and shared in my disgust and terror. A few
witches stopped and stared suspiciously.

I could tell that Fawkes’ cloaking spell was
starting to fail.

“I should have never let you come here,” I
whispered to my men.

A tall dark witch started to make her way
towards us. This was a death trap for them, maybe for all of
us.

Leo reached out and squeezed my arm. “It’s
too late for that now.”

He reached inside his cloak and grabbed the
pommel of his sword. “If we die here, we die fighting.”

His bravery and loyalty moved me to tears,
but I held them back. My panic turned to hate. Good old hate, my
trusted companion. I clung to my hate, and it helped to mask the
terror I felt. I hated this witch king. Perhaps I hated him as much
as I hated the priests, perhaps even more.

We ran, and I heard witches yell in alarm,
but we didn’t stop. We ran on fear, on hatred, and on desperation.
It took a great effort not to look at the hundreds of human hides
that lined the hall. Fawkes stumbled, but he quickly steadied
himself and kept moving.

Just when my lungs were about to burst, we
arrived in a chamber that was packed with witches. They were all
gathered and waiting outside a pair of double iron doors.

They wore the same styles of clothing I’d
seen in the towns, but now I could see clearly how different they
all were. Some witches were dressed in the same emerald green and
adorned with the golden tree that Fawkes wore, while others were
clad in white with a gold pentacle on the front, just like Ada’s.
Some were clad in silver with the symbol of an eye within a pyramid
embellished on the front, and still others wore purple coats
emblazoned with ravens. Some of the witches even wore jeweled
pendants.

An official-looking male witch stood next to
the doors. He wore a black knee-length coat with a red hand on the
front, and his dark hair was pulled back neatly into a long
ponytail.

I was filled with too much nervous energy to
keep still, and I shifted on my feet. This was it. Beyond that door
was my fate. I rubbed my sweaty palms on my cloak and gripped the
pommel of my sword. I might have been going to my death, but I
wouldn’t arrive unarmed and vulnerable.