The Queen's Choice

CHAPTER SEVEN

NEVER LOOK BACK

I rose early the next morning with determination in my heart. I would drive myself mad with thoughts like the ones I’d had last night. If I didn’t give myself a purpose, I would sink into bitter despair, and there wasn’t time for that. Fully healed or not, I needed to leave.

I dressed in the dim light of the sunrise, knowing I would have to obtain two things for my journey from Thatcher More—food and a map. With this in mind, I approached the shack behind the house where he so often disappeared. The door stood ajar, and I could hear him moving around inside. Not wanting to give him a chance to deny me entry, I took a breath and crossed the threshold, steeling myself for what I might find. But nothing looked horribly amiss, and my fluttering heartbeat settled into a normal rhythm.

Thatcher stood at a wooden table littered with animal hides and bones, cutting venison into strips with a hunting knife. The table’s surface had absorbed enough lifeblood to emanate the sour odor associated with these activities, and yet the scent was vague, suggesting the workspace was frequently cleaned. A variety of tools hung on the walls, and a smaller table held what looked like partially finished carvings and other woodworking projects.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “Are you turning some of that venison into jerky?”

Thatcher jumped and spun toward me, knife at the ready. My body automatically locked into a defensive posture, Anlace in hand even though I didn’t remember reaching for it. It hadn’t occurred to me that Thatcher might not hear my approach—I’d assumed my skill for silence had been lost with my wings.

“It’s you,” he growled, wiping newly formed beads of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

With Shea’s confessions fresh in my mind and annoyance bubbling in my chest, there were many retorts that sprang to my lips. But I bit them back and returned the Anlace to its sheath. Antagonism would get me nowhere.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to talk to you in private.”

An unremitting stare was his only response, and it felt like he was trying to push me out the door by sheer force of will. I stepped farther into the shack, doing my best to ignore his attitude.

“I’m planning on leaving soon. I wondered if I might have some meat for my travels?”

“When will you depart?”

“In a day or two, I hope.”

With a grunt that I took as a yes, he returned to work. I shifted from foot to foot, waiting for him to say something more, to ask how much food I’d need, where I would be going, anything that would ordinarily be asked, when my gaze fell on a pair of leather fetters that looked disturbingly familiar. Frowning, I picked them up from the smaller table and rubbed them between my fingers, only to have Thatcher snatch them away. When I looked down, the crusty, dark russet substance that stained the leather now stained my hand.

“Distinctive souvenir,” I said pointedly, my wrists stinging as though the straps still encircled them, immobilizing me for the halberd to strike—strike—strike. My surroundings grew fuzzy for an instant, my memory dragging forth that dark night, each deafening blow still able to create a throbbing in my temples.

“Not a souvenir,” Thatcher grumbled, clutching the cuffs in a thick fist. “You may not place much faith in me, but don’t do me a disservice. I just wanted to see what the hunters are using these days.”

“And what have you determined?” I asked, banishing the belligerence from my voice.

“They’re getting more sophisticated. And they’re well funded. See these studs?” He pointed to the manacles, and I nodded. Between bloodstains, the leather held bits of a shimmering black mineral. “That’s sky iron. Very hard to come by, and very expensive.”

I paled. From the Fae perspective, sky iron was what humans called an old wives’ tale. Said to fall from the heavens, it contained the only substance in Nature that was inherently harmful to my people. According to lore, it grounded us, taking away our ability to fly and to communicate with the elements. Its existence was laced throughout our histories, but with its earthly source unknown, the accounts were largely accepted as allegories rather than fact.

I was face-to-face with a myth, and I understood now why the water hadn’t answered my call when I’d been attacked by the hunters; but that wasn’t the most terrifying part. No, the most terrifying part was how many other myths I’d dismissed throughout my life, and how the tide slunk in over sturdy ground when I lent them credence.

“What will you do with the leathers?” I pressed.

“Sell them, if I can. Might bring a tidy sum, and I can use the money.”

Disgust washed over me. “You mean you’ll sell them to hunters?”

“This isn’t personal, Anya. I need the money, and I’m not interested in asking questions.”

“It’s personal to me.”

To my surprise, he laughed and examined the fetters more closely, as though realizing for the first time that the blood forming the stains belonged to me.

“Yes, I suppose it is. I guess I can afford to be poor a little longer.”

Without another word, he opened the base of the smoker and tossed the leathers into the fire.

“You’re a good man, Thatcher More,” I said, perplexed by his shifting priorities. “At least I think you are.”

“There aren’t many these days who would agree with you. But that’s neither here nor there. You’re welcome to all the jerky you want. There are plenty of deer in these woods. Anything else you need?”

“A map of the area, if you could draw one. I’m not familiar with this part of the forest.”

“Simple enough. I’ll have it for you in the morning.”

“One last thing. What about acquiring a horse?”

“You can rent one in Strong. It’s the closest town to us and it has a government-sponsored livery stable. If you return your mount to any of the company’s locations, they’ll refund half your investment.”

“Thanks,” I said again, resisting the urge to ask him about his problems with the Governor. He was being cooperative, and I doubted that would continue if I delved into his personal affairs. I didn’t have the right to pry, no matter how curious I was.

I turned to go, but Thatcher arrested me with a warning. “You’re not to take Shea with you.”

“What?”

“Shea is unhappy here, no point in pretending otherwise. I suspect she’ll want to go with you. But the outside world poses a threat to her that she is too young to appreciate. I want your promise you’ll turn her down.”

I gave my auburn hair a thoughtful tug. This possibility had not yet occurred to me. Then I gave him the best answer I could.

“It’s not my intent to take her with me. I’ll do my best to discourage her, but that’s all I can promise. She has the right to make up her own mind.”

Thatcher’s return expression was not in the least satisfied. He took a deep breath, gripping the edge of his worktable so that the muscles all the way up his arms flexed.

“Fair enough,” he grumbled, for there was little else he could say to me.

I left him alone in the shack, wishing there was something I could do to make the Mores’ lives easier. Perhaps if I found Zabriel and he took his rightful place on the throne, I would ask him to assist the humans who had helped me when I was at my most vulnerable.

Instead of heading to the front door, I walked around to the back of the cabin. It was so cold that the snow had crusted over, and I was practically able to walk on top of it, only occasionally breaking through. When I came to Shea’s window, I scanned the ground, not really expecting to see any tracks. The immaculate snow confirmed the likelihood that the noises we’d heard had been those of an animal—nothing heavier than a fawn could have passed here without breaking the crust. While a Faerie could have hovered, I would probably have heard the hum of wings last night. Fae wings in motion made a distinct sound recognizable by those whose ears were attuned to it. I also scrutinized the surrounding space for glimmers of magic in the air that might have been left by one of my people, but found nothing. Satisfied, I returned to the house to help with the day’s chores.

* * *

After supper that night, Shea and I put her sisters to bed, an activity I had come to enjoy, for the four of us would gather in the younger girls’ bedroom and share tales. Shea was the primary storyteller, although occasionally Magdalene took on the role. I knew from legends within my own land—and from Thatcher’s identification of sky iron—that old tales often had a core of truth, and hearing human versions might give me extra insight into their world. A few of the stories existed in the Faerie Realm, as well, and these I took to have more credibility than the others. If a fable commanded the belief of two separate races of people, it was bound to have deep roots.

“So you see, the woman destroyed herself by trying to become more beautiful,” Shea explained to Magdalene and Marissa, who were sitting on their beds, listening intently. “We’re made the way we are for a reason. You can’t go against nature.”

“Or you’ll end up uglier than before,” Marissa offered, and a round of giggles followed. The girls had been outside during the day, and the clothes we’d hung to dry by the fireplace fractured the light, casting eerie shadows across the floor and walls.

In the spirit of this atmosphere, Magdalene made a request. “Tell us a scary one, Shea. We know about ending up ugly.”

“You do,” teased Marissa, prompting Maggie to playfully smother her with a pillow.

“You don’t need to hear a scary one,” Shea said with a roll of her eyes. “You should go to bed.”

“No!” Marissa implored, breaking free of Magdalene’s assault. “I want a scary one, too. Please, Shea?”

“Fine. Let’s see.... Oh, I’ve got one. Have you ever heard of a Sepulchre?”

Marissa and Maggie shook their heads, while I sat up straighter on the floor. This was yet another myth the Fae shared with the humans; Evangeline had frightened me and our other friends with stories about Sepulchres when we were younger.

“Long ago, before the Faerie War, there were these creatures, these beautiful creatures. No one was sure if they were men or women or even what color they were, they shone so uniquely,” Shea began, separating the girls and moving to sit on Marissa’s bed. “The Fae were friends with them, and used to share their magic so the creatures could stay beautiful. But then the war erupted, and the curse of the Bloody Road stopped anyone who wasn’t Fae from crossing into the magical Realm. So the creatures, in order to survive, had to feast on the next best thing—children, the younger the better, because they were so pure.”

This was met with the expected gasps and shivers, and Marissa pulled her quilt up to her chin.

“It’s said that these creatures, called Sepulchres, slip through windows and cracks in doors and steal children away to their dungeons somewhere beneath the ground. No one knows what happens then, except that the children are never seen again.”

There was silence for a moment, then Marissa whimpered, “That’s not true, is it?”

“Don’t worry. Even if it is, Sepulchres never go after big girls like you and Maggie.” Shea tweaked her younger sister’s nose, drawing a weak smile.

“Shea,” I admonished. “Your sisters are scared.”

“I know that.”

“Then tell them the truth.”

“I did!”

I sighed, feeling presumptuous for challenging Shea in front of her sisters, but hating the fear in Marissa’s enormous dark eyes.

“Not completely.”

“Then by all means, straighten me out! What is the truth?”

I turned to the little girl, ignoring Shea’s tightly crossed arms, and told the story as it was repeated in Chrior.

“A long time ago, when humans and Fae shared the lands now occupied by your race, there were these creatures called Sepulchres. They were nourished by Fae magic, but they never attacked children. And when the Faeries left the human world, all the Sepulchres died. So, you see, it’s actually a sad story, not a scary one. There’s nothing to worry your pretty head about.”

Marissa grinned and curled up on her side. After kisses and good-nights, Shea and I returned to the bedroom we jointly occupied, my mind mulling over her version of the tale.

In Chrior, Sepulchres were just another story told to demonize the humans, who had viewed us as heathens, reprobates, and usurpers, and driven us out of their lands. The Sepulchres had been trapped on the human side of the Road and condemned to death without access to our magic. Humans apparently believed the creatures still existed, while the Fae believed them to be extinct, their species one massive casualty of the war.

“So you really don’t believe in Sepulchres?” Shea demanded as soon as our bedroom door had closed, hands on her hips. “Because I’ve heard of children going missing, back when we lived in Tairmor.”

“Tairmor is a big city, and I have no doubt children go missing. But I don’t think Sepulchres are to blame.”

“How can you be sure?”

I flipped my hair over my shoulders, exasperated. “I’m not sure. But I do know that as long as monsters and demons are taking the blame for kidnappings, they’re providing excellent scapegoats for real criminals. And I’m Fae, remember? I think I know more about magic and magical creatures than you do. Besides, Marissa and Maggie would have been lying awake all night waiting for some horror to slip through the window if I hadn’t told them what they needed to hear. Isn’t that what’s important?”

Shea scowled but said no more, though she prepared for bed with a vengeance. I could tell she was still irked, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of acknowledging it. I was plenty irked myself. Children didn’t deserve to be scared. Illumina wasn’t much older than Shea’s sisters, and she’d lived most of her life in fear. It had led to her bizarre habits, her unpredictability, a desperation, perhaps, to be more frightening than the things that frightened her. It had taken more than a scary story to subvert Illumina’s mind in this way, but the thought of Marissa or Magdalene slinking into the woods to injure their own bodies the way Illumina did was enough to caution me against beginning the pattern.

* * *

Other than collecting the promised map and jerky from Thatcher, I went about my usual business the next day, occasionally ruminating on the best way to find Zabriel. My cousin, according to Queen Ubiqua, had his father’s spirit. I’d seen it in him, though I hadn’t known the human Prince of the Fae whom some had viewed as an interloper, others as a blessing. Zabriel had always been focused on the next thing, the lands he wanted to travel, the people he would meet or, in the interim, the worlds he invented in his mind. There was always that elusive adventure up ahead. Now I wondered if it had been a way for him to escape his painful present. In any case, the current day had never mattered as much to him as someday.

Ubiqua had been afraid to let Zabriel cross the Bloody Road in the aftermath of her husband’s death. Her son had no elemental connection, a deficiency that had been obvious from a young age. Most Fae manifested their element within days of birth and learned to communicate with Nature at the same rate they learned to talk, but young Zabriel had feared water, abhorred the dubious flickering of flames, and been helpless against the cold wind. There had been hope for an Earth connection, since he’d loved the feel of dirt under his nails and the sun on his skin, but an incident with poison berries dashed that hope. Even as toddlers, Earth Fae instinctively knew the difference between kind plants and cruel ones, and Zabriel was oblivious. It was normal in light of the evidence that Ubiqua should fear for her son’s life against the curse of the Road. In her zeal to protect him, she’d forbidden him to go near it, and had kept Zabriel’s birth a secret from his human relatives. She wanted no incentive for him to leave the Faerie Realm, no eager arms awaiting him on the other side of the boundary. As a result, he’d believed they didn’t want him, maybe even that they blamed him for his father’s death.

Had Ubiqua suspected Zabriel harbored these fears, she surely would have told him the truth sooner, but she hadn’t done so until he was fifteen, at which point chaos had ensued, and her son’s reckless abandon had steered him to brave a Crossing of his own accord. When he’d gone missing, the entire Realm had been searched; it was ultimately assumed he’d gone into human lands when not a trace of him was found, even on or near the Bloody Road. No news of him had since reached the Queen or my father’s ambassadors in the Warckum Territory.

Would Zabriel have tried to find his father’s family? It would have been an easy task considering their prominence, another fact I had not shared with Shea. She didn’t need to know of my cousin’s connection to the man she viewed as responsible for her family’s strife. I ultimately rejected the idea that Zabriel would have sought out the Governor—when he’d abandoned his claim to the throne, he’d been tired of expectations and being defined by the blood in his veins. He had no memories of his father, a fact he never hesitated to share with anyone who happened to ripple the surface of his deep-rooted bitterness toward the human for siring him. I couldn’t picture Zabriel pursuing a history and a legacy he did not want.

Where, then, would he have gone? A place where he would blend in, where he would be difficult to track. A large city. The capital? Tairmor was busy, but it was also the seat of the Governor’s power, and offered little excitement once one adapted to its curiosities and pace. Sheness, however, brimmed with foreigners, trade, new technologies, and adventure, or so I’d heard, and the port city was as far from the Balsam Forest as the continent allowed. It was more likely Zabriel would have traveled there. After all, he saw himself as an abomination, neither human nor Fae, and one was likely to find many abominations in Sheness.

A shudder passed through me at this thought. Was I now an abomination, too? Shaking off the notion, I forced myself to concentrate only on Zabriel, settling on Sheness for my destination. Two years had passed since his disappearance, and I had to start somewhere.

I waited until evening to tell Shea of my decision to depart, when we were together in her room. A significant part of me wanted to just steal away, avoid goodbyes and potential trouble with Thatcher, but Shea and I had become friends, and I owed her an explanation. She would be lonely without me, and the resulting guilt I felt was more intense than I had anticipated. I was prepared, however, to deal with her disappointment. To my consternation, when I finally forced the confession past my lips, I encountered resolve rather than disappointment, and I realized how well Thatcher understood his daughter.

“I’m going with you,” she proclaimed, a stubborn set to her chin.

I shook my head, but Shea wasn’t put off.

“What are you going to do, Anya? You have to find a way to live among the humans now. Do you think that’s going to be easy? Maybe in your Realm people respect teenage girls, but they don’t here. We’re bothersome and in the way, too young to be taken seriously and too old to be innocent. The world doesn’t want us, and if we don’t have each other, we have nothing. I need to leave this place, and you’re going to want a friend out there in the Territory. You might even need one.”

I rubbed my temple, my feelings aligning with hers—I didn’t want to be alone. But how could I say yes when I’d promised Thatcher that I’d turn her down?

“What about your family?”

“They’ll be fine without me. I haven’t been here in my heart in a long time.”

“Your father doesn’t want you to leave.”

Shea slowly blinked her chocolate-brown eyes, pondering the meaning of my statement.

“Did my father talk to you?” She read the answer in my expression, and her eyes narrowed. “He has no right to forbid you from taking me with you. This isn’t his decision, it’s mine.”

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