Chapter Thirty-Two
"Her Majesty is ready to see you."
Pasiphae was shaken awake, her eyes snapping open. Cursing under her breath, she remained limp as the guards hauled her back to her feet.
She hadn't even heard the door open. In fact, she wasn't even certain when she closed her eyes. Exhaustion dragged down her every move. If she had been a bit more vigilant, maybe she could have made a run when the guards had first entered.
"Lost cause," Arthur said, resuming his iron grip on her arm. For a disoriented moment, Pasiphae thought that he had read her mind, but he had simply seen her intentions in the way she glared daggers at the door.
"We have ten guards stationed at each side," he told her. "There's no running."
How long had she slept for? Pasiphae wondered as they dragged her through the labyrinth of hallways again. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. There was a certain fuzziness, so she must have been passed out soundly for more than a few hours. "This way, please."
Pasiphae looked up with a start. The sore muscles at her neck groaned in protest. "This is the recreation room."
Arthur's lip curled. "Indeed it is. Would you prefer another room?"
"Why, you—"
Pasiphae stumbled accidentally and stomped on his foot.
"My apologies," she simpered, and in that move alone, all ten guards had pointed their weapons at her.
Pasiphae refused to wave the white flag. She stared them down, wrinkling her nose at the spark of electricity that darted close enough to skim her ear.
"Stand down," Arthur finally commanded.
Hesitantly, the guards did so.
Arthur glared down at Pasiphae and hurried her into the room, dragging her by the hair.
"How come you're in charge?" she spat, wincing at the pressure. "Only in the spotlight when Warin's not here?"
Arthur dumped her on the couch unceremoniously. He stood to attention, stamping his heel and not bothering to respond to the taunting.
She was lost for stalling tactics. Pasiphae crossed her arms, eyeing the details that she could perceive in the low lighting. The atmosphere in the room was different to what she had expected.
She was not the only one in here.
It almost appeared like a standard recreation was underway. No—it appeared exactly like a standard recreation was underway. Nothing was different to the one she had attended with Seth. Dozens of nobles and their humans socialised with drinks in their hands, and many others were seated on the nearby couches. Through the large windows, the night still roared on, brightening the room with the glow of the distant urban centre.
The forest still twinkled from the dainty bulbs, strung tree to tree.
The doors opened then, and Morgana swirled in, having changed her dress into one of the most gauzy, green colour. Conversation halted, but she smiled and waved her arms for the nobles to resume what they were doing. They pretended not to notice her as she swooped into the sitting area and took a place on the couch next to Pasiphae—as near as her giant wingspan would allow.
The very sight of her made Pasiphae want to vomit, never mind her startling close presence.
She tried to leap up immediately.
"Sit down," the Unseelie Queen hissed, though it was a redundant effort. The guards behind Pasiphae were quicker than riptides, and had already pushed down on her shoulder to prevent any movement.
"I don't want to use anymore magic on you," Morgana warned lowly. "Especially now that we've seen what it does to you."
Pasiphae stopped wriggling. She turned and settled her gaze on a spot directly above the queen's shoulder, for it simmered her blood far too much to look Morgana in the eye.
"Kill me or let me go," she said plainly. "I'm not your toy to play with."
Morgana hooted with laughter, drawing the sound out. Pasiphae couldn't help adjusting her line of sight to glare at her.
"Unfortunately," the queen finally said, "I still want something from you that I cannot get elsewhere at quick speed."
"Information?" Pasiphae guessed. She did nothing to disguise her tired tone. "What could I possibly know that you are interested in?"
Morgana sat back, resting her head lightly on her arm. The gesture was meant to show how casually the queen approached this conversation, but Pasiphae could see the tension that held up her posture.
Morgana was scared.
And Pasiphae filed this fact away.
"How is Medeis doing?" Morgana asked. "Still no A.I. system?"
"We cannot yet afford electricity in common households," Pasiphae replied icily. "Are you planning to assist our funds?"
"Maybe another day," Morgana bit back. "Rather, I inquire into your international relations. Khotadi has had contact efforts rebuffed, but we do wonder if this is simply the stigma against our Court—"
"There's no stigma present that's not true," Pasiphae interrupted, and a guard behind her pressed his rectangular weapon into her neck. She felt the burgeoning buzz zap into her neck in warning.
Morgana held up a finger.
The guard removed the weapon.
"I'll overlook that comment," Morgana said. "What I am asking, Pasiphae of Eo, is about Medeis-Airesi affairs. Positive? Negative?"
Pasiphae's eyebrows furrowed more and more intensely as the Unseelie Queen went on. For what possible reasons could she have in wanting to know this?
"I thought you would know," Pasiphae replied, "seeing as you have spies across Medeis doing your dirty business."
"Such dirty business it is, ruling a country," Morgana mocked. "But I only have one in Medeis, little witch. How does it feel to know that she was within your very coven?"
Pasiphae went cold. The chill from the elements were absent within this room, but she felt it hiss up her neck nevertheless. "What?"
"I gave the witch permission to plant two strands personally and for the sylphs to take the rest. If I had known you were to be a target, I would have advised against it. After all, I already took your magic, no?"
Pasiphae forced herself to breathe. She knew what the queen was doing. She wouldn't get upset. She wouldn't say things without thinking it through first.
Her grandmother. Her grandmother had been personally targeted too. Pasiphae had been completely correct in thinking that this revolved around the fight for Divine.
"Who?" Pasiphae seethed, barely managing to form the word. The Queen had used she.
Morgana pushed her hair back. "It wouldn't be fun if I told you."
Pasiphae forced the anger that burned in her chest to burn low, to wait.
"Just one, then?" she said. "One spy within Medeis sending hundreds to their death?"
"Quite a masterfully orchestrated plan, is it not?" Morgana tilted her head, studying Pasiphae. "Even if you do not approve morally, you cannot say it is not a scheme worthy of great prowess."
Pasiphae resisted the urge to spit at her.
"Airesi does not know yet," Pasiphae said, "but they will soon. Once Seth reaches his court, they'll all know what you've done to their people, and then they will come for you."
She looked up. The queen had eyes with so little pigment it could have been the colour of snow. Burning snow.
"Is that why you are afraid?" Pasiphae went on, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "All the power in the world cannot keep the Seelie from storming your land—"
"They won't," Morgana cut in. Her voice had dropped to the same volume. "War is a resource battle, Pasiphae of Eo, and currently, one side is decimated with death and disease."
The reason why Morgana was having this conversation with her suddenly made sense.
"Not if Airesi joins with Medeis first."
Morgana tutted, but Pasiphae had been correct.
"Joining sounds rather diplomatic. They would be far more likely to invade your continent for the resources and slave labour."
Pasiphae sat up, her hands gripping the underside of the couch. Something blurred along the corner of her vision, and while she thought it had been a guard moving to cover another cautionary angle on her, the speck looked black instead of crimson red.
"That won't happen."
"Won't it?" Morgana asked. "Tell me why."
Pasiphae pinched the cushioning with her nails. The black smudge was flickering, almost demanding that she turn, but her attention wouldn't be drawn away quite yet.
"No," Pasiphae said.
"You don't know."
"I—" She didn't have an argument.
Interest was fading in Morgana's eyes.
"I don't understand," she said finally, buying time. "Why?"
As Pasiphae asked the question, she looked up at last, and suddenly, there was Lauha.
The banshee had heavy cosmetics around her eyes, but it was undoubtedly her.
Lauha winked upon having finally caught Pasiphae's attention. She twirled something that resembled a loose spring in her hands as she conversed with a noble faery across the room.
"What a stupid question," the queen was saying. Quickly, Pasiphae tore her eyes back so Morgana wouldn't notice what she was staring at.
"It's hardly stupid to think killing thousands is a worthless cause," Pasiphae replied coldly. She would have continued, but Morgana was not convinced by her stalling. She looked to Pasiphae sharply and snapped her fingers.
"That's enough."
Pasiphae couldn't move her jaw.
"Arthur," Morgana summoned. He appeared beside her at an instant, and Pasiphae found that she couldn't move the rest of her body either.
"Sort her out, would you?" she sighed, standing so she had her back to Pasiphae. Pasiphae was nearly slapped with the queen's wings. "I'm going to go with see where Warin has gotten himself to. Have you noticed he's been disappearing more frequently?"
"I have, Your Majesty," Arthur rushed to confirm. "Would you prefer the witch be—"
It happened so quickly that not a soul in the room could have diverted it.
Lauha extended her arm and the object she held in her hand suddenly lengthened: twice then ten then a hundred times its original size, curling around the queen's neck from across the room in a snap as a quick as a lighting strike.
The queen was pulled down an inch, just a small stumble, but just enough of an opening for another figure blurred in gold on the opposite side of the room to throw down the cup of tea she was holding, and materialise a bow and arrow from smoke.
Naeyrs cocked the arrow, and it flew within the same milli-second that Lauha had launched her whip.
Only when the arrow sunk deep into the queen's neck, piercing from back to front, did the chaos in the room begin.
"Now, Pasiphae!" Naeyrs roared. "Through the wings!"
Pasiphae could move. The rest of the room was in slow motion.
Arthur: screaming for the guards to maintain order.
A noble: tripping over himself in panic.
His consort: heavy-lidded and examining the scene in a cold calm.
The queen: so shocked at the arrow in her throat that she did nothing except stand there, clutching at it, staring down Naeyrs, who was backed up against a wall with her form beginning to blur.
And Pasiphae still had the dagger tucked in her clothing, the cool kiss of metal that no guard had thought to remove.
No guard had needed to remove it.
She extracted it now.
Only one step—it was the longest she had ever had to take in her life. There were guards only a hairsbreadth from her elbow and only a leap away from knocking her into nothing.
But then she was in reach, and the queen had her back to her, and Pasiphae raised the dagger up, up, up.
And she slashed a perfect slit down the middle of Morgana's wings.
Time corrected itself again.
As Pasiphae's dagger left skin, an explosion of silver came from the Unseelie Queen's back, oozing from the wound like a mockery of blood.
Morgana was screaming but it was nothing compared to the shock of power that reverberated outwards, tangible waves of magic escaping from the slit, running down the cages that had kept them in for so long.
Pasiphae was tossed backwards, off her feet.
It appeared every soul in the room felt it, for even the guards had to stumble and pause, faces paling as the magic whispered in their ears.
For a startling second, Pasiphae felt the bitter twist of magic, and thought that maybe hers would return. She thought maybe this was how she could redeem herself. The dagger in her hand dripped with silver, with vengeance. She had trained so hard her heart was in ribbons, she had pushed herself over the edge again and again and now she would inhale and take back all she had once lost.
But it didn't work that way.
The magic rushed past Pasiphae like it rushed past everybody else in the room, a lingering caress of fury and redemption, and then towards the sky.
Silence.
Pasiphae hiccuped, her hands shaking, her knees trembling, her head screaming to move, move, move, as the room began murmuring and then the murmuring soared to a crescendo.
It was then that Lauha screamed.
The large glass windows shattered cleanly, becoming nothing but fine dust. Tables slid around hazardously as if they had become living creatures, colliding into the mess of bodies.
Morgana turned around with the fury of rage incarnate, and shouted something that no one could hear. She pointed a finger at Pasiphae, her face a sheet of white.
Her back still poured with silver, and she, too, seemed to collapse with it.
Pasiphae glanced behind her, make a rough estimate of her injuries, and before she could become the unfortunate victim that Lauha's scream of death heralded, she leaped from the missing windows.
***
Pasiphae could feel the chase beginning.
She glanced over her shoulder with every second step, her breath a hot gasp in front of her. She could not see anyone yet.
Yet.
She raced through the fae lingering on the streets, the dagger still in her hand and her cloak lopsided. Under the neon glow of the store signs, she didn't bother looking normal anymore. She didn't pretend to be human as she pushed her way through, narrowing her eyes at anyone that tried to slow her down.
Did they know that Pasiphae of Eo was in the country?
They should. They should be scared. Let her become the creature of nightmares, too gaunt and too sharp and too strange.
But Pasiphae still had to look over her shoulder with every jostle, feeling the press of sourness building at her throat. The façade of being otherworldly was easy to maintain, but it was harder to fool herself.
Her collar had come off, but the weight remained.
Run, run, run.
One bright street into the other, Pasiphae was on borrowed time. Her legs felt like water.
How long until Airesi knew of where the Somnus came from? How long until they came to the same conclusion that Morgana had: of land and of resource, and of taking Medeis whether the witches wanted it or not.
Would Seth stop it?
Pasiphae wanted to believe so. She also knew that being close to power wasn't the same as being in power.
What was she to do if Queen Evara of Airesi invaded the shores of Medeis?
Pasiphae pressed on harder into the night, her teeth clenched together.
"Isolde!" she yelled, kicking down the door to the gambling den.
Her dramatic entrance had barely caused a stir. The noise in the room was already thunderous, with most of the fae at their usual levels of intoxication.
"Hello," the waitress in question said from the bar, an eyebrow raising. "What can I do for you?"
Pasiphae rushed over, slapping her hands down and immediately regretting it when she pressed into something sticky. "I need to get out the country. There's another exit out from this building, isn't there?"
Isolde was agonisingly calm as she wiped down a glass and peered at Pasiphae.
"There's an exit," she said, "one that perhaps you could fit into if you were an infant."
"What does that mean?" Pasiphae exclaimed. She leaned into the counter as Isolde knelt down to retrieve a rag. "So there is?"
"There is, which you've already worked out," Isolde confirmed. "Except it is one the sylphs used, as you've also worked out. It is made for beings of air, not full-bodied organic people."
Pasiphae gave a frustrated scream, kicking a nearby chair.
"What is the matter?" Isolde asked, frowning. "I, too, feel something is wrong with the atmosphere right now, but it will sort itself out."
"It's not going to sort itself out." Pasiphae resisted the urge to pace. "Listen, you're my last hope. Do you have any, any way of getting out of here?"
Isolde stared up at her in silence, then pulled an amused face. "You could have just opened with that question." She reached over, made a contemplative noise, then selected a small metal key out of a box of dozens and tossed it at her. "Some customers I don't particularly like leave these here for safe-keeping while they gamble. If you find the matching serial number at the docks, take it and run."
Pasiphae stared down at the key in her hand, engraved with a collection of letters and numbers. She didn't stick around for this miracle to revert itself.
"Thank you!" she yelled, already rushing out the door. "Isolde, you are a goddess among mortal creatures!"
Isolde gave her a salute as Pasiphae disappeared back onto the street.
She charged for the docks, a wildfire on the loose.
Pasiphae was going home.
***
Circe hurried home as the stars above her started blurring out of view.
It wasn't quite daybreak yet, but it was close, the indigo fading into its lighter shades. She moved in darkness but she knew where she was going, each step certain.
So it was a surprise when a sudden flare of light appeared above her shoulder.
Circe stumbled in shock, whirling around.
"Get off!" she hissed, thinking it could be an attack. She pushed out with magic, but there was nothing to hit.
The light simply followed her.
Calming down, she realised that the amorphous blob looked familiar. She felt its buzzing and understood what it was, understood its ceaseless hovering at her shoulder. She was being summoned. Why was she being summoned already? She wanted to see her parents now. She wanted time to think.
Bzz. Bzz.
Just the very sound made Circe want to put her fist through a brick wall.
She tried to continue her trek home, but it was bouncing up and down at her shoulder like an annoying sentient pet.
Circe was getting irritated quickly.
"Enough," she hissed at it. She lashed out with her hand, meaning to push it away, but instead her fingers sunk inside the light. The bundle of embers exploded. They all stuck to her fingers.
"What on—"
She held her hand up to her face. It was rapidly disappearing, being eaten up by little flecks of red and gold.
"What's happening?" she cried into the night. No one was around to hear her. No one was around to see her disappear in a burst of blinding light as the ember flecks swallowed her whole.
She opened her eyes into the rising sun, stumbling as she landed.
"And so begins the final trial!"
Circe spun around, her breaths coming fast. Once she had adjusted to the sudden change in scenery, she realised that she was at the same clearing the witches of Eo had been initiated on only weeks ago. The same trees, the same paths, the same charred mark on the ground where Pasiphae's magic had gone awry.
This time, she stood along the hilltop, on the southern end of the bowl-shaped plain.
Circe lifted her eyes.
At the other end of where the hill curved high, Arche prowled restlessly, her entire body hidden under her cloak. Another witch—the third contender who Circe recognised but couldn't name—finished the triangular configuration.
The sun rose an inch more, and with it, bright rays flared across the horizon, cutting a bright band over Circe's hands.
On the field itself, a single wooden stake had been planted into the ground.
"You may begin."