“The Withering Palace, the voices it speaks to me with…they took me to your father, to help him. Had I known he was there sooner, I would’ve helped, you must know that…” Her voice shook and she stared hard down at her mug, afraid to look up.
“It’s all right. You didn’t know he was there. I’m thankful beyond words that you even found him and brought him back alive. I know what an impossible task it is to make it through the labyrinth, especially with someone as weak as my father. The labyrinth is malicious, but it also keeps our world safe from the Unseelie.”
“Do you think they’ll come through?”
Cranston shook his head, softly running circles across her skin with his fingertips. It sent shivers up her spine and deep into her chest. “No. They have never come here, ever. I don’t think they will now.”
Aveta nodded, turning her cold mug around in her palms. It wasn’t very reassuring, but she knew it was true. All good things must be equaled with evil, hence the existence of the Unseelie in the first place. She sighed, closing her eyes and wishing it wasn’t her life, that it wasn’t her position to assume command of such a daunting task.
But it was her duty. It was her life to lead and nothing would ever change that. Not even her love for Cranston.
She stood up, taking her mug to the sink and dumping it there before turning toward Cranston. The somber look on his face told her everything she wanted to know, and it hurt to have to leave him again so soon.
“Must you leave already?” He reached out and slipped his hands over her hips to pull her closer. She let him, unable to resist being near him.
“I’m sorry. I have to go, there’s something I have to finish.”
Cranston gave her a tiny nod, leaning forward and touched forehead to forehead with her. She sighed, letting his woodsy, poppy flower scent fill her nose. It was calming, like a sedative wanting to seduce her in and never let her go. She had to let go, even if she didn’t want to. If there was ever a moment she didn’t want to end, this was it.
“Don’t forget me.”
“Never.”
He pulled back, planting a kiss on her head. Gazing straight into each other’s eyes for minutes, Aveta relished his strong arms encircling her and his handsome face.
“I’ve waited a long time for you, my love. I’ll wait forever more.”
Aveta smiled, tears glistening on her dark eyes. “And I for you.”
With that, he bent down and kissed her lips, softly at first, then a deep, wanting kiss that sped both their hearts up and left them breathless. Aveta pulled away before she could change her mind, touched her lips, feeling the warmth of his still dancing across them.
“I love you. I’ll be back.”
“I love you, too,” he nodded, and followed her to the door where he watched her cross the road and tread into the poppy fields to the oppressive mountain ahead, where the cavern to the Labyrinth was. Something told him he might never see her again, so he continued to watch her until her figure disappeared into the horizon and could no longer be seen.
Even then, he remained studying the spot she had last been. The poppies swayed with the slight breeze, dark pink under the burnt orange sky. How many days, weeks or months would he stare over this part of the fields until she returned? How much time would go by this time before he was graced with her beautiful face once more? He wasn’t sure, but something told him, it would be an eternity.
Chapter Eleven
Elisandra rushed forward, shoving her soldiers to the side as she passed through the dungeon and to the end to where the cavern to the Labyrinth began. She studied the dark hole in the wall, ominous and never disturbed by the dungeon guards or any Unseelie, for they knew what laid beyond. Nothing but death awaited them in the blackness.
“Where is she?” The Queen’s rage flushed her face scarlet and her disgust at being down here in the pits of the Withering Palace made her even more maddened. “Where did that little wench of a daughter of mine go? How did she escape?”
The first soldier, her Second Lieutenant, stood straight to answer her as her soldiers cowered behind him. He was a tall man, thin, but also a muscular faery. He’d kept the ranks well trained and ready at a moment’s notice to invade any place she so wished to conquer. He was not expendable as she would’ve liked, but that didn’t mean the men behind him, shaking in their britches, weren’t.
“We are uncertain to how she escaped, possibly a secret tunnel, but we know it led her here, where she helped in the escape of a known fugitive and took him into the Labyrinth, Your Majesty.”
“So why has she not been pursued?” She drilled her stare into her Second Lieutenant, waiting for him to crack. But the top soldiers were conditioned to not break and he merely looked down, a show of inferiority to the Queen. Not a lick of fear graced his face, and this angered her even more.
A crack sounded as she sent out her magic to the soldier beside her lieutenant, zapping the poor soul until he crumbled to their feet, nothing but soot and smoldering ashes.
“Find her.” She hissed before she turned back toward the cavern entrance as the girl, Aveta, passed into the room from the darkness.
“I’m here now, mother.” Aveta stood in peasant rags, looking even younger than her eighteen years.
Elisandra stormed forward about to grab the girl when the same loud crack sounded and she was sent crumbling to her knees. Aveta had used her elemental power to shake the ground under Elisandra’s feet and made her lose her balance. How dare she?
“What have you done? You dare challenge your own mother?”
Aveta stared hard at the woman as she regained her footing and glared back with only hatred exuding from every pore of her body.
“No, I see no mother here. I see the Unseelie Queen, unfit to rule. I challenge you for the throne as due to me, rightfully by blood and as chosen of the Withering Palace.”
Aveta stepped forward, but the queen did not move.
“You fool. You don’t know what you’re doing. There is no going back from this.”
Aveta tilted her head, her face an ocean of calm and determination. “I know.”
Elisandra narrowed her eyes as her soldiers backed away to the required distance for the two to dual. Aveta didn’t even have a sword so she motioned her lieutenants to hand her one and grabbed her own from a servant holding it out to her.
“This shouldn’t take too long, princess. You’ve grown soft in your years of confinement.”
How sure the queen seemed. How naïve she’d become in the years since she’d seen her daughter. Aveta was now taller than her, thin and lean, but strong. Her feet were bare, but that did not hinder her stance as she prepared to fight to the end.
“No softer than your heart will ever be, mother.” With that Elisandra lurched forward and swung her sword, only to meet Aveta’s in a stand still, she pushed away and swung again, then again and again. Each time Aveta matched her, and they remained stalled. With that, she shoved at her daughter and stood back, breathing harder with nothing but evil marring her beauty.
“Seems you’ve kept up your fighting studies. Very well, disarm her. It will be a battle of magic and wits then. Give in now, before this meets you with your death.” She threw her sword down and Aveta did the same, servants reached in and pulled the metal away and backed into the thick of the crowd once more. A challenge was taken seriously in Faerie, especially for the throne. There would be no treachery, for the land of Faerie would not allow it. It was fight to the death or until one gave in. Usually, it was death, for faeries were honorable things who held such a disgust for failure.
Elisandra launched first, a swirling, black funnel meant to blow Aveta backward into the rock wall, but Aveta matched it with a counter wind that caused it to die into stillness. Immediately, the Queen expelled out spikes of rock flying toward the girl with a deathly velocity. Aveta dodged one, but one managed to slice across her thigh. She let out a scream as she rolled onto the ground, scraping her knees and elbows. She di
dn’t stay down long. She jumped to her feet before Elisandra sent a storm of fire balls smacking into the ground around her.
Aveta tossed a storm of rocks toward the fireballs, blocking most of them with a rain of sparks. With that she backed up in to the entrance to the cavern, already feeling some exhaustion from dodging all the magical objects sent her way.
“Coward! How dare you run?”
“I do not run, mother. I challenge you to catch me if you can, in the Labyrinth.” With that she was swallowed by the inky blackness of the cavern, her soft laugh echoed behind her as she waited for her mother to follow into the abyss of madness.
Elisandra stood at the entrance, appalled that she had to follow into the Labyrinth. It was a challenge and in no way could she not continue. She cursed under her breath and peered behind her.
“If she comes out, kill her.”
No one nodded, not even her lieutenants, who knew full well that if the princess emerged and the Queen did not, they would not be killing her.
“You fools,” Elisandra hissed and ignited a torch she formed in her hand as she entered the black oblivion of the Labyrinth.
Inside, it was the darkest night that she had ever seen and the corridors made her feel claustrophobic. Her steps echoed as they crunched over pebbles and sand across the stone floor. Still, there was nothing, no sign of Aveta, no creatures that were supposed to leach her life force away. Nothing approached and she relaxed as the minutes ticked on by and she headed further and further into the darkness.
“Where are you, sweet daughter…” Her madness seeped into her buoyant words and her tiny cackles echoed across the chambers. “You’ll never survive this. You’ll die before you get out of this empty place.”
A rush of wind and Aveta slammed into her, sending the torch flying to the ground. With that, Aveta ran off again into the obsidian darkness.
“How dare you!” Elisandra gritted as she pulled her twisted ankle out from under her, whispering healing charm over it as it swelled and purpled in color. “Stupid heathen. I’ll kill her.” Her ankle began to mend itself, but it had left her shaken. How dare her daughter do this to her? How dare she not just give up and die like she should’ve the day she was born.
She regretted having the girl. She’d only had her at the insistence of her husband Seritus, her first lieutenant. She loved him once, enough to give him such a gift, but no longer. Eventually, she’d casted him aside like an unwanted lover. He remained though, always faithful to her, always trustworthy. He’d never been involved in raising the girl after that, which had fractured his soul like fallen ice. It was his punishment for wanting her to bear him a child. Now, that mistake was making Elisandra pay in another way. If only she’d drowned the infant when she should’ve. Instead, she had tossed the girl into the care of Eladril, who had cared for and loved the girl so well, she’d become a full-fledged force to deal with.
Oh, how full of regret Elisandra was filled with now. So many errors in such a powerful life. It had left her colder and void of any love, a fractured soul within herself, withering without her knowledge.
She hopped onto her feet, her ankle still tender, but healing. Dusting off her long swathes of fabric that made up her dress, she stepped forward, wincing from the continued ache in her leg, but it lessened as time went on. With that, she fashioned a dagger from the stones around her and waited for another surprise attack. This time she’d be ready. This time, Aveta would not leave unscathed.
“Elisandra?” The Queen stopped in her tracks, paling at the sight of her own mother, looking young and vibrant as she had the day she had struck her down.
“Mother?”
“My sweet daughter. How long it’s been.”
Elisandra couldn’t move, frozen in her spot as she stared at the figure of her mother, Analise, stepping forward and slowly reaching her arms out.
“My Elsi. Why have you left me here to wither? How could you turn your back on me?”
Elisandra shook her head, stepping back, no longer feeling the searing pain in her ankle but a paralyzing fear enveloping her chest, making hard to breathe. “No, I never left you here. You’re dead. I—I killed you! I took the throne. It’s MINE!” She stepped back again, but her mother did not stop or fade. In fact each moment Elisandra believed her to be there, the stronger her figure became, no longer translucent, but solid and fleshed out.
“Elsi, you have to help me. You must get me out of here, for I am trapped, damned for all eternity…”
Elisandra lowered her dagger, her mouth dropping open at her mother’s words. “What do you mean? You’re dead. How can you be here? I never damned you. I sent you to the Summerlands, where it’s warm and quiet, away from here.”
Her mother smiled, pity blossoming in her face before she shook her head. “No, my dear child. I am lost, lost here forever because you damned me to this. Now, help me.”
Elisandra didn’t know what to do as the figure approached. So like her mother, so much so that she believed the wraith to be her. She looked so real, so much like the mother who had loved her and held her when the nightmares came, deep into the night. The same mother who’d soothe her when her magic would not cooperate and she had to do her lessons over and over again. The same loving mother who had tucked her into bed at night until… until…
Her mother had decided Elisandra, her daughter, was a threat. She had assassins sent to kill her one night as she slept. Her mother had lost her mind and had begun seeing things. She had penned Elisandra as another conspirator who had replaced her daughter and wanted her offed. Just like that, without confirming that it was really Elisandra whom she had ordered to end.
“No, don’t touch me! Don’t touch…” But her breath was cut off and she gasped as a blade jutted out from her chest, brilliant and bloody all at the same time.
“Don’t you know, mother? Don’t you know to never give a wraith the power to own you? It’s not hard, really.” Aveta shoved the knife further in and let her go, Elisandra crumbled to the floor, writhing and gasping for air.
Aveta watched her, knowing the wraith who had entranced her mother was near. She paid it no mind and without Elisandra to feed it, it faded and disappeared once more. Aveta did not smile or relish in the death of her mother. Though Elisandra still gasped and was unable to heal herself with the knife embedded in her heart, Aveta felt nothing. In fact, she felt so empty inside, and she knew it would be awhile before she felt anything again.
“Aveta…” Elisandra gasped as she reached toward her daughter, but the young woman stepped away.
“You stole me from my love. You chained me to my chambers without company, without a visit or a second thought of me. You threw me away and I did nothing but love you.” Aveta spoke, but the words seem to come from someone else as she stared at her mother, who still struggled to breathe. The Queen shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
“Traitorous child…”
“Am I?” Aveta bent down to look at her mother eye to eye. “But who is the queen now?”
Elisandra’s face morphed to cold fury as she watched her daughter straighten and turn to leave the labyrinth.
“I have one thing left to take.” Elisandra hissed.
Aveta paid no mind as she continued her walk down the cavernous hall.
“You said I took your love from you? No. I did no such thing. But…I will make that accusation real. This one last moment, I grant you this one last thing.”
Aveta’s eyes widened and she turned to find the Queen holding her hands up in the air and whispering a curse as she closed her eyes and shot the last of her magic up toward the roof of the cavern.
What was she doing?
Aveta felt the ground rumble and swayed, reaching out to catch herself on the cavern wall. As she braced herself, she watched as the wall before her cracked from the ceiling to the ground. All around her, boulders and chunks of the cavern fell, and covered the floor with debris. As moments passed, it got worse as the structure began to col
lapse and the labyrinth walls began to fall, one by one, bringing much of the ceiling down with them.
Aveta turned to run, down the long corridors, twists and turns she’d memorized so many years ago. She dodged walls tilting down on her and shards of stalactites falling from nowhere and stabbing the ground with their massive spikes. She ran until the end of the cavern appeared, the one to the dungeon. As she turned back, she saw the last of the cavern disintegrate into rubble, impenetrable and full of boulders and rocks taller than any man.
She barely jumped into the dungeon when the cavern entrance sealed itself off from the rest of the castle with one huge slam of boulders that stopped pouring into the dungeon, as if cut off by some mystical boundary. The dust and dirt puffed into the room and the soldiers coughed and covered their noses as the cloud settled.
Aveta found herself on the ground, dirty, scraped in a trillion spots and her hair in wild tangles. She pushed off the floor to hop onto her feet and stare in horror at the collapsed tunnel which had held entrance to the labyrinth and to her love, Cranston.
“No!” She jumped onto the pile and ordered the stones to move, but only the small boulders dared to move, the larger ones ignored her commands and stayed put. There was no moving them, as if they were meant to seal off the labyrinth forever if they ever collapsed.
“No, please, no!” She slammed her fists against the rock, shaking some loose that rolled onto the ground before her.
“Your Majesty, we should leave, before the rest of the room collapses.” Her father, the first lieutenant held his hand out to her as he kneeled before her and touched her back gently.
His voice echoed in her head, but she barely registered it. She allowed him to lead her out of the dungeon and up into the rest of the Withering Palace. The soldiers and sluagh alike all kneeled as she walked past, a Queen in rags, dirty and bloodied from war. She had won everything and lost everything at the same time. A bitter sweet taste to relish.