Queens of Mist and Madness (Fae Isles, #4)

by Lisette Marshall

‘She controls the entire known world now. Things couldn't be less like they are supposed to be.’ ‘And so you give up?’ A challenge, that question.

‘Our army is too small,’ I whispered. He sighed. ‘I know.’

‘And we still can't use our magic properly, either.’ ‘Absolutely true,’ he admitted, with not a moment of hesitation, and somehow he sounded almost … amused about it?

Madman. There was something annoyingly alluring about that smile. ‘And …’ My voice came out more firmly now. Damn him, but I could take this challenge; how many reminders of our dire situation did I have to throw at him to wipe that impossible amusement off his face? ‘And she's holding tens of thousands of hostages that she won't be afraid to kill.’ He didn't sober up in the slightest. ‘Yes, she is.’

‘So we can't really win this war anymore. Whatever we do, she has us in a corner.’ ‘Yes.’ He shrugged, scarred eyebrow a fraction higher than the other. ‘So let me repeat the question – are you giving up?’ A question. Because I still had a choice.

But I would doom Creon in my attempts to absolve myself. I would deny my friends their last hope of victory. And I would never see that house by the sea, with its icehouse and its stained-glass windows and its library within a library. We would never get those stupid cats. The prospect of going on, of risking all those lives and knowing we’d most likely fail to save them … It was like staring down a solid brick wall, miles high and impossible to scale. Impossible enough to almost send me running. Impossible enough to make me want to break down crying and never even try. Then again … I knew what lay on the other side of that wall.

Creon tilted his head, something wicked flickering back to life in his eyes. ‘Say that again?’ ‘No,’ I croaked out again, a little louder now. ‘I … I'm not giving up.’ ‘Are you sure?’

‘You could make it sound more convincing, you know.’ ‘Oh, go to hell,’ I burst out, and suddenly I knew how to fight again, how to survive again – hell, how to want again. ‘Fine! We're not giving up! We … we're going to try and save the city, and if we can't save the city, we're going to kill her, and if we don't manage that either, at least we're going to die bravely and with our weapons in our hands. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?’ His lips curved. ‘And there’s my cactus again.’

‘You’re a horrible, horrible person, have I told you that?’ I grumbled instead. ‘You may have mentioned something once or twice,’ he dryly admitted, lifting me with him as he rose to his feet, then planting me back on my own in a single effortless movement. His hand came up, brushing a feathery line down my temple, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. ‘So far the pretty face seems to compensate for it, though.’ I punched him.

We might not be able to win this war. I might not be good enough to win this war. But if I had to lose, I could lose obstinately, as stubborn as that fist trying to push its way through a hand that would never let it. And if that was the best option I had left … I yanked back my arm, away from Creon’s hand, and drew in the deepest breath I’d taken all day. It wiped something clean within me, that breath, not unlike the way my storm of red magic had levelled the forest around us – cutting through obstacles rooted so deep I hadn’t thought it would be possible to move them at all. Damn it all. If this was my best option, then stubborn I would be – through war and devastation, until my very last breath.

‘I’m more than happy to duel the head of any alf house causing trouble,’ I generously offered. She whimpered. ‘Em …’ ‘Much as I appreciate the violent spirit,’ Tared said wryly, ‘I suggest we try some alternative solutions first. A decent strategy will likely go a long way to convince them, too.’ ‘Which we don’t have,’ Agenor muttered. ‘Oh, good gods – stop wallowing, Lord Protector.’ Rosalind’s withering glare was a masterpiece – a look that abruptly made me understand exactly how she’d managed to turn his world inside out in the span of just a few weeks, all those years ago. ‘Imagine we forced you at knifepoint to attack tomorrow. What would you do? You used to be rather good at this sort of thing, so unless the years are finally creeping up on you …’ He groaned. ‘Below the belt, Al.’ ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ she retorted,

Agenor parted his lips as if to object – then seemed to think better of it and sagged in his chair with nothing but a ragged groan, fingers rubbing over the cuff of his sleeve in restless, aimless circles. ‘So do I understand …’ His voice, deep and polished, gave way for a moment. ‘Gods and demons, is the conclusion that we are, in all seriousness, going to try and topple the empire on an unknown battlefield and with not even twenty-four hours of preparation?’ A madman’s gamble, indeed.

‘I’m ready to go,’ I said. It seemed ridiculous they were still listening to me – the very person whose opinions had landed them here in the first place. But Rosalind’s eyes flickered with satisfaction as she leaned back in her chair. Lyn and Tared exchanged a short look, then both nodded – his face grim, hers wide-eyed and anxious. Next to me, Creon just smiled – that glass-edged smile promising violence. Agenor let out a long sigh, eyes closing briefly. But all he said was, ‘Very well.’ And just like that, a plan was made. Tomorrow. Impossibly close, suddenly, after months and months of hiding; I couldn’t even begin to imagine how the others must have been feeling, realising that a century of clandestine rebellion was abruptly coming to an end.

‘I would still like to have a strategy, though.’ That broke the strange, expectant stillness. ‘The rough plan we had in mind for the Crimson Court still holds, of course,’ Agenor muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Emphasis on weapons with a greater range. Find some way to distract the bulk of their army while Em and Creon try to reach Achlys and Melinoë in their throne room, wherever it is now. It's a shame we don't have the Labyrinth here to smuggle them in belowground, but—’ ‘There are the tunnels, though,’ Rosalind unexpectedly interrupted. ‘If you need another way in, those might just come in handy.’ We all stared at her.

‘There are two of them, as far as I know. The first one ends up at a small door in the inner city wall, and this one’ – another line, now drawn to the east – ‘this one ends up next to the lake. Both of them give access to the basement of the White Hall, although the doors opening into the building are of course securely locked.’ ‘Locks that could withstand a little blast of magic?’ I said. She gave me that mischievous grin. ‘No.’

The way Agenor narrowed his eyes at the map was more meaningful than any word of agreement could have been. ‘Any buildings around?’ ‘A few farming sheds.’ Rosalind shrugged. ‘Won’t be much of a problem if they get damaged.’ Agenor nodded agonisingly slowly, thoughts spinning behind his eyes. ‘And that door – how visible is it?’ ‘I regularly walked past it for fifteen years and never wondered what it was until I was voted into office and they told me,’ Rosalind said dryly. ‘It's very inconspicuous.’

At least we wouldn't have to fight our way through her army all the way to the centre of the city. So many ifs. And yet … we had something to aim for. ‘We wouldn't have to win that way,’ Lyn whispered, chin in her hands. ‘We would only need to reach that door and then buy time so Em and Creon could sneak in unnoticed. It might even be enough to distract her by withdrawing and attacking a few times – some strategy that will kill as few people as possible yet keep her properly busy.’

‘Lyn?’ Agenor said, voice tight. ‘How many hounds did you and Tared take down during the Last Battle again?’ She gave a high-strung laugh. ‘Think we ended up with nine. Do you want us to see if we can top that?’ A rough exhale. ‘Please.’ ‘Alright.’ Her wings flared from her shoulder blades, then sizzled out again as she hesitated and turned back towards us. A strange smile lay on her face, suddenly. There was no joy in it – not a sliver of optimism. ‘And if I don’t see any of you again …’ My heart skipped a beat. ‘Don’t say that.’ ‘Dying without saying anything would be worse,’ she wryly said, small hand coming up to squeeze mine. Her fingers were so hot it hurt. ‘So … it’s been a pleasure, everyone. And for the love of the gods, please make sure the alves don’t take over my library if I die, will you?’

Tared turned as she reached him, raising his hand at us from the distance. A swift, wordless greeting – no, a goodbye. The next moment, the both of them had vanished.

Little dove … Wait. I stiffened in place. ‘Em?’ Creon muttered. Little dove. My thoughts unravelled, or rather slammed together in entirely new ways – that cursed nickname, Alyra, Zera’s doves cooing around my feet … and then I was fighting with the buckle of my sword, the new leather of the belt still stiff and unobliging. Even in the dim light of this basement, the weapon’s alf steel and mother-of-pearl gleamed white and clear as I shook it into my hands, its weight growing familiar already, its balance perfect. You’ll know, Tared had said. All of a sudden, that seemed a perfectly reasonable instruction. ‘Feather,’ I whispered, and it fit, somehow – the same satisfying sensation that came with slipping your hand into a perfectly tailored glove, or with mixing a jar of paint to just the right hue on your very first try. Soft and harmless at first glance. Brimming with godsworn magic at a second.

‘I’m calling it Feather.’ Really, how had I ever not known that would be its name? ‘Inspiration through murder,’ Creon said, the smallest smile quirking around his lips. ‘The alves will be proud of you.’ ‘Careful.’ I glared at him as I fastened the sword back over my shoulders with jittery fingers, ready to grab it and fight. Unnervingly, the weapon seemed lighter than before. ‘I’m allowed to draw blood with it now, if you recall.’ ‘You can duel me all you want once we get out of here alive.’

Unusual as it may be, there are people more deserving of your violence in the building right now.’ I managed a chuckle. ‘First time the Mother is actually saving you, then.’ His laughter was equally strained.

‘Hello?’ I whispered again. Her head jerked up. A face from hell stared back at me. I recoiled as if I’d been slapped, a choked cry slipping past my lips. The creation before me … It still had all the elements a face should have – mouth, nose, eyes. But the little girl’s lips were a pale blue, the skin chapped and bloodless. Her nose was crooked and likely broken. And her eyes … They weren’t eyes at all. Where pupils and irises should have been, two smooth stone orbs had been lodged into her eye sockets, sapphire and obsidian, glittering with an unearthly sheen in the faded light. Sapphire and obsidian. Blue and black. I found myself unable to breathe for an endless moment, gaping at those lifeless, inhuman surfaces. Then her chin jerked up, and I couldn’t jump back fast enough – away, out of reach, feet tangling as I fled … The girl didn’t come after me. She just sat there, tiny and vulnerable, staring at me like a macabre doll come to life. Her lips parted. I grabbed reflexively for my mostly-black trousers. ‘Emelin,’ she sang, a bright, clear child’s voice, melodious but devoid of all sentiment. ‘The Mother is expecting you, Emelin.’

‘You’re making them wait, Emelin.’ She pronounced my name like some exotic delicacy, every syllable savoured by her grey lips. ‘They have a surprise for you, Emelin.’

Creon shot forward. He was so fast I could do nothing but cry out in that split second between leap and landing, between blade and target – a flicker of steel in the sunlight and the sickening squelch of a weapon digging into flesh … Her little head tumbled to the ground first.

She was waiting for us anyway. So we made our way to the other side of the hall, leaving the dead girl behind, following the route through the building Rosalind’s sketches had set out for us. Still no sound seeped in through the thick walls. If not for the rubble and dust, one could have forgotten about the battle raging outside, the desperate screams of the wounded and dying. The only thing disturbing the silence … A faint, thumping pulse in the distance, growing steadily louder as we made our way through the ruined corridors. I thought it might be the rhythmic beat of a hammer against wood at first, or a smith battering an anvil. Only as the second, softer thud added itself to the cadence did I realise what we were hearing … A heartbeat. The sound of a heartbeat was echoing through the White Hall.

Creon’s yellow magic flashed as we neared the open doorway, turning my clothes plush and pearlescent one last time. I faltered and grabbed his hand – one last touch, one last echo of that love I’d follow into hell and back … ‘How romantic,’ Halbert’s almost-corpse croaked. Creon swung a knife into his forehead without even looking, and the former consul of the White City went down without another sound. Next to him, Norris did not blink, continuing to stare at us with that utterly vacant expression. But behind those doors … A ripple of tinkling laughter, turning my blood to ice at the first giggle. Creon’s fingers squeezed mine so hard it hurt. Every muscle and tendon in my body was screaming at me to run, run, as far away from that cruel amusement as my feet could carry me … but Creon kept walking, and so I did too, towards that doorway I’d crossed three mornings ago with Delwin by my side. Into the boom of that thundering pulse, as if the heart of the city had come alive around us. Into the monster’s lair. Into a hall I barely even recognised.

‘That would have been appreciated, but we’ll gladly volunteer the information.’ She looked almost giddy, in a way that made my stomach clench; around us, the rhythmic thump-thumping intensified, echoing relentlessly through the room. ‘A lovely piece of blood magic, if we may say so ourselves. Do you hear that pulse, little dove? That’s the sound of our own heart linked to those of our little guests down here. Which means, if we need to spell it out for you, that if you were to accidentally succeed in your rather ambitious intentions …’ Linked. Oh, Zera help me. Smirking expectantly, the Mother was clearly waiting for me to finish the sentence … but for one moment I didn’t care about resisting her dramatic orchestrations. ‘You’re saying I’d end their lives, too, if you were to die?’ The cruel quirk of her lips was all the confirmation anyone could need. ‘And you wouldn’t want that, would you, Emelin?’

‘So impatient, little dove.’ But she clucked her tongue at the hunched humans at her feet, as if commanding a flock of well-trained animals. ‘Go ahead, then, loves – show your darling Miss Emelin.’ Their Emelin? And then the first of them obediently lifted their hands to their hoods, and faces began to appear before me – panicked, tear-stained faces, but still alive, still in possession of their own bewildered eyes … Faces I knew. Faces of home. My heart caught in my chest. No, no, no – but there was old Miss Ariella who’d tucked sweets into my palm, and cross-eyed little Edie who was no longer so little at all, and Aldous, the blacksmith’s apprentice, whose hand language I’d used to teach Creon … Neighbours, dozens of them. Family friends. Nephews and nieces, and— My thoughts stuttered. And— There, at the centre of the low stage, positioned right below the Mother’s feet with impeccable theatrical precision, sat the two people I’d called my parents for twenty years of my life, clinging to each other, gaping at me in mute, terrified horror.

No. Wait. I’d seen that thought before. And at once the mist cleared, at once the storm quieted – because I knew this path, had followed it into insanity once before already, and what was I doing, listening to those gods-damned phantom voices again as if I’d never grown into more than a scared, unwanted village girl? Not perfection, Creon’s voice echoed through my mind, even as he stood tense and quiet beside me, unmoving in this moment of deadlock. Just stubbornness. Yes. Yes. I could be stubborn.

Ridiculous. But she was proposing a bargain. ‘Why?’ I slowly said. ‘Because you remind us of ourselves, Emelin.’ As if it was a compliment. As if I’d pleaded for her approval like a beggar for bread. ‘You’re hungry. You’re bold. We do respect that, even if you made the mistake of using those powers against us.’ Ah, yes. Because she’d made such a habit of respecting all the other bold, hungry people who had challenged her in the past, rather than killing them outright … Oh. It dawned on me, then – she wasn’t sure if she could kill me.

so this had been her solution, a far cleaner way to render me harmless. Offer me a truce too good to reject. Nudge me to accept it, using hostages I cared about. Damn the people fighting outside, the friends and family risking their lives for me as we were standing here … Had it even occurred to her that they might mean something to me? That even a godsworn mage might see her allies as more than a means to an end?

‘Here’s the thing, Emelin,’ she continued, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper – seeing the frozen bewilderment on my face and interpreting it as everything it wasn’t: hope, temptation. ‘This world was never built for people like you, people like us. To many others out there, you will never be more than an idol. An ideal.’ That hit home. Her curving lips told me her borrowed eyes were all too well-aware of it. ‘So we must support each other when we find each other, little dove.’ Spoken with such sweet sincerity – such tempting lies. ‘We must carve out a place for ourselves. Look at what we did, our court, our safety … Don’t you want to follow our example? Learn from the two of us?’ The two of us. I gaped at her, frozen, as out of nowhere my thoughts collided. A place for ourselves. There was nothing new about the sight before me – nothing new about the memories sparking violently in my mind. That monstrous pile of bones. Two-coloured eyes, sapphire and obsidian – Achlys and Melinoë. The beat of that thumping heart, one heart … Nothing new – but at once, I understood. I understood everything. ‘I want Creon included in the bargain.’ My voice carried bright and clear, plans rolling out with it. I knew what to do, suddenly – knew it with such baffling clarity, as if my mind had condensed days of thinking into a single, blinding flash of insight. ‘You will not hurt either me or him, nor try to contain or capture us. If I live the rest of my life in peace, I will not ...

I barely heard her, stepping onto the now-empty stage. My pulse was pounding the seconds away, counting down the minutes. No magic or blades at her … But we hadn’t said anything about thrones, had we? Red magic bloomed bright as blood from my fingertips. A glorious crackle of magic, lighting up the galleries and the marble walls and the unblinking gemstone eyes around us … smashing into the towering pile of bones, punching a man-sized hole in its front and sending ribs and femurs and jawbones flying.

She could no longer harm me anyway. And my magic was already reaching out again, softness for movement, draining the velvety plushness from my shirt. Spooling into the hollow inside of that throne. Dragging out, with a single burst of godsworn power, what I’d known I would find inside that tomb she never let out of sight … The two of us. The Mother, who discarded even her lovers and children like used rags … What would she ever guard so fiercely but herself? It looked like it was sleeping, the body my magic yanked out from beneath her seat.

But I had my hands around her neck. And below my fingers, her pulse was unmistakable. ‘My body!’ one of the Mother’s voices cried out above me, voice ragged with hysteria. ‘My body!’ I rolled over, just in time to see the flash of white as she dove at me – colliding midway with the silvery streak of a throwing knife. Creon. A shrill laugh escaped me as I forced myself upright, hauling Melinoë’s body with me – Creon, who may still be bound, but who had made no bargain to keep his blades away from her. Not useless. Definitely not useless.

Another of Creon’s knives came whizzing her way. She only just managed to slap it from the air in a burst of red magic, even her limbs jerking indecisively back and forth as she spat, ‘Leave – our – body – alone!’ I reached for Feather in response. ‘No!’ She had to jump back to avoid yet another dagger. ‘No, you can’t! You can’t! You made a bargain – you—’ ‘To not do bodily harm,’ I readily agreed, grinning at her – at that sapphire eye that could pop from her face any moment. Blue eyes is Achlys, Agenor had told me months ago at the Golden Court. Black eyes is Melinoë. They’re inhabiting what was originally Achlys’s body. ‘No harm to that body, more specifically. Didn’t you realise I was talking to you, Achlys?’ ‘You insolent little—’ she started, sputtering, and then Melinoë’s voice broke through again – ‘Get away from my body you—’ Feather slid from its sheath so easily.

‘No!’ she howled, staggering back, yanking the weapon from her chest and dropping it as if the hilt was burning hot. ‘Do something, you fools! If we die, all of you will die with us! If you wish to live …’ For one moment, I thought she’d lost her mind. Then the gem-eyed puppets around the wall jerked into movement.

‘Please.’ A wheezing little laugh escaped her trembling lips. ‘I’m your mother. You can’t let her do this to me – you—’ ‘I don’t think you’ll get far with that line of argument,’ I said brusquely, angling Feather to fit the blade more snugly against her vulnerable artery. My hand in her hair was shaking, and yet my sword hand held perfectly still. ‘There’s quite a lot that mothers shouldn’t be doing to their sons either.’

‘Oh, go to hell,’ she hissed, voice sharpening in an instant, hands wrapping around my elbow as if to pull me away. I didn’t budge even as her nails dug into my skin. ‘You can’t kill me, you little pests. Not if you ever want that voice back. Not if you don’t want the rest of the magical world to die out within— Why are you laughing?’ Because an unexpected smile was curving around Creon’s mouth, wild and as sharp as unsheathed claws.

‘Sorry, Mother.’ His golden voice was low and deadly – like the sweetest, purest honey, dripping with venom. ‘I’m afraid you’ve rather … served your purpose.’ Her eyes widened. One frozen instant in which I saw the understanding hit, his voice, his words – one moment of explosive, horrified insight … Then I slit her throat.

She died with nothing but a last, undignified gurgle. The second half of the Mother, High Lady of faekind, killer of gods and destroyer of continents … lying dead in my lap, curled up like a child to be comforted. Her fingers still clawed into my forearm. Her once-beautiful face remained fixed in grotesque contortions. Around us, dull thuds broke the silence – her puppets dropping to the floor as the magic sustaining them died with her.

‘If either of us has any more parents to deal with,’ Creon said, his voice raw and hollow despite the spark of humour below the surface, ‘I suggest we ask them to wait until tomorrow, don’t you think?’

It was mere minutes later, just as I was gathering courage to make my way back into the battle raging outside, that my parents swept into the hall – covered in blood but very much alive, the expressions on their faces as good as any victorious blare of battle horns. Rosalind gave a triumphant ‘Ha!’ at the sight of the Mother’s corpses, hugging me close before venturing deeper into the hall. Agenor, more surprisingly, merely blinked at Melinoë and the gash in her throat, then whipped around to Creon and me with a strange urgency in his expression. ‘Who?’ Creon nodded at me before I could figure out what he was even asking. ‘Em.’ ‘Ah.’ My father’s broad shoulders sagged half an inch as he sent me a smile that was somehow watery and proud at once. ‘Good. Good. Excellent.’

Lyn came soaring into the hall the next moment, letting out a fierce cry of triumph as she landed. One of her shoulders was soaked with blood, and claw marks on her other arm suggested hounds and narrow escapes. But she hugged me as if pain did not exist, and the happy tears in her eyes made me believe it for a moment – damn the dead, damn the injured … We had won. The full realisation still wouldn’t land. Tared strode in moments after Lyn, sword in his hand, the widest grin I’d ever seen on his face; Naxi bounced through the gates a minute later, sticking out her tongue at corpses at every turn.

I ran into Edored and Nenya a few corners away from the city centre. He was carrying her through the rubble-filled streets, rambling about his plans to chase down a few fae to make up for missing the battle; in his arms, Nenya was no longer waxen in colour, rather looking like she ought to be quite capable of walking again.

‘Afternoon, Em.’ His skewed grin hid a spark of concern that barely touched his voice. ‘Coming to take a look at the bakery?’ Lyn tossed a handful of fire at him from the other side of the street. He ducked to avoid it without even having looked at her. ‘They trust you with their dead even though you’re treating their revival like grilling dinner?’ I said, glancing at the other phoenixes. None of them even seemed to be keeping an eye on the one alf in their midst – unusual, after the way I’d seen them keep their distance from everyone else in our army camp. Tared shrugged as he snatched a torch from the ground. ‘They know Lyn survived her last twelve deaths.’ When he’d been the one cremating her and picking her small body from the ashes when the fire died down … My heart clenched violently and without warning.

‘You’re alright?’ he added in a lower voice, watching me closely. Was I alright? I should have been. I should have been bursting with joy. The world had been saved, hadn’t it? The empire had been defeated? This was what I’d worked towards since the day I woke up in my burning village, this was what I’d braved curses and gods and bargains for – and yet … Yet the contentment wouldn’t come. Now that the Mother was gone, now that the archipelago was free, everyone would return to their homes and families … and I? I knew what I wanted. I just didn’t have the faintest idea where it was.

‘I know,’ Tared said softly, and suddenly the light flickering around him seemed duller, his smile wry. ‘Things will settle. Helps to stay busy in the meantime.’ I swallowed. ‘Right.’ He reached out to ruffle my hair, then pointed a thumb at the baby in Lyn’s arms, amusement sparking back to life in his eyes. ‘You could go say hello to Khailan, for a start. He’s never more pleasant than at this stage in life, if you ask me.’ Khailan? I threw a slightly more attentive glance at the child Lyn was just handing over to another phoenix female. Plump and pink … but something in the lines of that round, chubby face bore the faintest resemblance to the haughty, sharp-jawed phoenix male I’d bargained with. ‘I thi...

My heart stuttered as I glanced down at my own forearm and found it equally, flawlessly unmarred, no trace left of the three gems that had adorned my skin when I’d last spent a thought on them. My bargain with the Mother had ended with her death. So had Khailan’s, presumably. But even that small ruby mark I’d shared with Creon, the bargain I’d carried with me since the very first night at the Crimson Court … It was gone as if it had never been there at all, my promise to help him end the Mother finally fulfilled. Why did even that observation feel like a raw, visceral loss?