A sharp pain in my neck shocked me awake. In its wake, a wave of fire washed down my spine and into my muscles and bone, searing them black. A roar broke free from my lips as I seized, muscles unlocking with each twitch. An endless eternity passed with me convulsing on a cold floor before, slowly, my vision cleared, black lightening to golden sunshine. Sound once again flooded my ears. The flutter of small wings and pretty birdsong amidst the cold clank of chains and my own garbled groans as I shook. Finally my body stilled. I lay there, blinking in confusion at the marble floor, the soft colored roses climbing tall pillars in the distance. I watched a blue bird flutter passed and sit atop a flowering branch of The Hollow and peck at its sweet fruit, picking a worm from its pristine flesh.
"Get her up." I heard a familiar voice command.
The chains binding my hands behind my back tightened, pulling me up off the floor so that I was sitting on my knees. A male hand fisted in my hair and yanked my head up, making sure I could see exactly who it was that had betrayed me.
Demetrius sat in a gleaming throne covered in flowers. A stag's antlers grew from his head in a striking crown, their many points painted in gold dust. Within their curve blazed a sun as bright and hot as his father's before him. As was very common in Seelie culture, he wore very little clothing. Only a shier bit of cloth of a pure white draped over his lower half. The pale cloth and the bits of gold from his antlers, sandals and a band around brow complemented his dark bronze skin and black curls perfectly.
As lovely as he was, however, my eyes went immediately to the woman standing beside him. She stood tall in a light dress of deep red. Her long black hair undulated like waves around her as a storm raged within her sky-colored eyes.
"I should have known," I muttered, testing the ability of my tongue. It stung. The taste of blood was in my mouth. I was certain I'd bitten it along one side, but thankfully I was no longer slurring my words. "I should have known you'd be responsible for this. Tova is always oh so eager to do her mistress' bidding." I growled, my chest aching in protest. My body was weak and still ached horribly. "Where is she! Where is that sniveling dog!" I raged, ignoring my pain as I twisted and pulled against my chains and the guards holding me at bay. I searched the room for the elf queen, but she wasn't there. I found instead Aurora nearly hiding behind the throne. Her red head was turned away from me, her expression so pained it was as if she could feel every bit of my suffering. I'd soon make her feel three times that. I found Lysander as well. Of course, he was there, but he did not stand with his brother. He was off to the side, watching from the edge of the throne room where the palace gave way to the abyss. He wore robes of dark blue, his stern, handsome face turned towards the view. He looked as if he were admiring the sea of magic below, but his eyes were on me. I could feel them scouring my skin. How they'd bulge from his head when I ripped off his wings and pushed him off the edge into the sea.
Traitors.
Traitors all of them.
They'd die like traitors too.
"Release me!" I screamed at Titania. "You will release me now if you value your lives!"
Titania's lips tweaked in their corners, threatening to form a smug smile. "You are no longer in any position to spout orders," Titania said in a loud, triumphant voice. The speech of a returning hero who'd just slain a dragon. "You are not master of this realm. The Summer Branches is Demetrius' to rule." Titania moved towards me, her every movement filled with confidence. Stepping down from the platform on which her son's throne sat, she came to stand before me. She glared down at me, not with anger but with indifference, as if I held no value whatsoever to her. I was not loved enough to be a friend or hated enough to be a nemesis. "You know I cannot release you. We've passed the point of no return."
"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "You helped me during The Upheaval!"
"An act I swiftly grew to regret. At least Mab was never able to sic her pet on us. You're more of a threat than she ever was and now you are being treated as such."
I felt the sting of that comment. The truth in it. She wasn't going to just let me go. "Knut will make you all pay for this!" I seethed. I tugged at my restraints making the chains that held me sing. The guard fisting my hair gave me a swift yank that made tears spring up in my eyes. "He'll rip you all apart! Starting with your children!" I bore every one of my teeth. "I'll wear your little Daphne's entrails as a scarf!" Her eyes narrowed slightly as her youngest child's name left my mouth, but she showed no other signs of fear at my threat. I felt my stomach drop in dismay.
Titania smirked at me as she cupped my chin in her palm, her fingers digging into my cheeks. "Knut will do no such thing." I felt something tighten around my throat. An invisible noose. It squeezed tightly, cutting off my breath. I gasped and flailed, struggling to breathe against its grip.
"Mother!" I heard Lysander bark. He had turned away from the view of the sea and stood suddenly at his mother's side. His hand gripped her arm hard. "That's enough!" He spat at her. "Remember her condition! You swore you would not harm her!"
The noose released and so did the guard tugging my hair from my scalp. I fell forward, collapsing on the cold marble floor. I sucked in air hungrily, shaking, trying not to cry.
Above me, Titania spouted on. "I have you on a leash, Goblin Empress." Titania cooed sickeningly. She pressed a dark hand to the space between her breasts. "Your heart is tethered to mine. To ours. Should anything happen to us, should either mine or any of my son's hearts stop beating, so will yours."
I struggled to lift my head up, to meet her cold glare, her grinning mouth full of bright white shining teeth. "Knut will come for me." My voice trembled, betraying my fear. Had my bladder not already emptied, it would have at the feeling of that noose around my throat and the memories it conjured. The image of three bodies swinging overhead against a blood red sky.
"No." Titania mocked me with a sad shake of her head, returning my face to her vice-like grip. "He won't. He won't risk your life. You're his precious wife and you are carrying another of his heirs. If there is anything I know with absolute certainty it is that Knut loves you and your sons. For you, he would let the empire you risked your life to build fall without a second thought."
I tasted blood...and ashes again. "Is that what this is about," I chuckled bitterly. "You want my empire?" She wouldn't get it. Not like this. She'd have to pry it from my dead, cold hands first.
"Not at all. You may keep your dank caves and icy tundra." Titania's grin melted into a deep scowl. "What I want, what we all want, is for us and our children to be safe." Her fingers trembled with barely bridled rage against my cheeks, pressing the flesh inward until my teeth cut painfully into it. Her eyes flashed like lightning. "From you and your human ambition."
"What are you going on about?" I muttered, trying not to scream as a burning sensation rose up again, settling at the base of my spine. "We have no quarrel with you. There's been nothing but peace between us these past six years. All I've done is look after my children. I've given you no cause to do this. I have always welcomed you into our home, Demetrius." I looked past her to the boy sitting on his father's throne, who's crown grew from his head yet did not seem to belong to him. It didn't suit him. None of it did. "You've played hide and seek with Frit and Floki. I let you hold my baby at last year's feast!" My voice cracked. I let him touch my babies. Nausea rose up in me anew at that thought.
He couldn't even look me in the eye as his mother explained why he had stabbed me so forcefully in the back. He shaded his eyes with one hand as he peered down towards the floor, at the flower petals that danced across it at his feet.
"How long would that peace have lasted, Matilda?" Titania said, turning my face forcefully so that I had to look at her again. "How long before your children grew enough that they no longer needed your constant protection? How long before you grew bored with mothering? How long before that inborn human want would begin to growl with hunger once again?" She released me with a harsh shove of my face that made me jerk to the side.
I glared at her eldest living son, slouching in that throne he did not deserve. "Are you not king here, Demetrius!" I raged, twisting in my chains. The guards stomped their feet and yanked them taut. "Are you too much of a coward to explain to me why you've stolen an innocent mother from her children with your own treacherous mouth!"
That won the soldier in him's attention. Demetrius raised his head and glared back at me. His eyes never raised their gaze higher than my nose. "I see no innocent woman here." He stated flatly. "I see a ravenous beast we must guard ourselves against." He was speaking, but it was still Titania's words coming out of his mouth. He rose from his seat and stood to his full height. His wings, so pure a white they seemed to glow in the brilliant sunlight that poured from him, spread their feathers out around him. He was already a large, imposing figure, but his antlers made him look twice as tall, his wings three times as wide. "That day you took the title of Empress, we saw how much you enjoyed watching people beg you for mercy. I've never seen a more genuine smile than the one you wore while your goblins ripped those faeries that still dared to stand against you apart. From that moment onward, we knew that it was only a matter of time before you would want to expand your empire just like every human ruler to have ever lived. One day you would come with your goblin horde to take the Summer Branches and with literal death on your side, what could we possibly do to stop you?" He made no further move. He remained at his throne, watching me, but never meeting my eyes. A weakling pretending to be strong.
"So we began to look for a way to stop our own slaughter before it began," Titania said. She glowered down at me, her full lips curled in disgust at the stench of piss wafting off of me. "We soon realized that the only way to prevent Knut from unleashing Bran upon us, was if we had a hostage. Someone he could not easily replace. At first, we were set on taking one of your children, perhaps Odd or Fritjof, but when you became with child once again, you gave us the perfect opportunity. Who would make a better hostage than Knut's pregnant wife?" She smiled at me, at whatever face I was making, taking delight in the pain she was inflicting. "That way we'd have both his wife and his son to use as leverage. Two birds. One stone."
I cringed as my children's names left her tongue. Each syllable left a sting on my flesh like the blow of a whip. To think I had come so close to suffering what Knut's own mother had endured. If that had happened, if they had stolen one of my sons, I was certain I would have asked Knut to end me right there and then. "I should have let Bran take all of your souls at The Upheaval. I should have let him eat his fill until nothing but goblin kind remained." My voice, softened by the pain throbbing in my lower spine, was little more than a whimper, but it struck Titania like a kick to her stomach.
She flinched and took several shaky steps back from me, her face paler than ever I'd seen it. "You see? You see how dangerous she is? She'd kill us all if given half the chance!" She shouted to her children as if she were still trying to convince them of how right she was.
"I would and I will if my sons' names ever leave your pox-ridden mouth again." I snarled, my motherly instincts and love roaring through me. My boys. What were they doing now? Had they realized yet that I'd been taken? Were they looking for me? Crying for me? Who would help Knut care for them now? Who would rock Odd to sleep?
Lysander stood only a few steps away with his shoulders hunched, his arms tucked under his cloak. He gave me a pitying, apologetic look that made me want to strangle him, but he was the only one besides his mother with the guts to look me directly in the eye.
"You thought I'd be an easy target, yet you still had to get my friend to poison me?" I growled, glaring at Lysander and swallowing bile. He had helped me save my husband once. He'd fought alongside me...even tried to steal a kiss in the process, but here we were six years later with me in chains, my innocent son churning about in my belly and him standing silent and stupid, watching this all play out. How long had he known without ever trying to warn me? Traitor. Traitor! TRAITOR! The word must have flashed in my eyes at him, for at last, even he looked away from what he had allowed to happen.
"To ensure you wouldn't scream and draw attention? Yes." Titania answered me with a growl of her own. "Tova was never your friend. Who could befriend a hateful thing like you?" Despite myself, I flinched at that blow. "She was just as frightened of you, of what you were capable of, as any of us. She understands why this must be done, why you are too dangerous to be allowed to remain free. All of this is being done to protect what is ours, our kingdom, our homes, our families."
A mad sort of laugh bubbled up in my throat. I raised my head however little I could and tilted it at them, a wide toothy grin on my sweaty, pale face. "Look at you. All the power in the world at your fingertips and still you shiver in fear before a human girl. I have no magic at all. Only a goblin for a husband, a bit of iron and the will to shove it into your guts. Faeries think themselves so superior, but you are all no different from any human noble. You like the way things are, with you at the top and everyone else trampled beneath your feet. You can't stand it when that age-old order is shaken up. Helping some human street urchin name herself Empress of a land you've fought your entire existence over must have turned your self-righteous stomach, didn't it, Titania?" Titania stared at my mouth, at my bloody grin. I may not have been born with knife-like teeth like my sons, but mine were plenty sharp enough to tear flesh and draw blood. "Justify yourself however you wish, but this is not and never has been about keeping your family safe. If it were, you would have left well-enough alone." I had, not once, thought of taking The Summer Branches or harming the Seelie in any way in the years since they aided me in saving Knut, but I certainly was now.
"I think Knut has spoiled you too much for too long." Titania's lips curled even more as she glared at me. I felt the invisible noose tighten ever so slightly, stiffening my neck. "You've actually begun to believe all of his pretty lies. You are nothing but human waste. That has never changed, no matter what you call yourself."
"And you are no longer queen here." I spat back. "Unless the Seelie are into incest." I cackled at the rage that twisted Titania's beautiful features into a vision of pure ugliness.
"I think it is time that you were reminded of a human's place in the world." Her eyes flicked to the guard who'd been holding me by my hair. "Cut off her hair. As close to the skin as you can. I hear it's one of Knut's favorite features." She ordered and at once, the guard's fingers were back in my hair, wrenching my head back as he unsheathed a dagger from a leather strap at his belt.
Lysander stilled the guard's knife with a raised hand. It rested against my brow icy cold despite the sweltering heat. "Mother, stop. This wasn't part of the plan. Humiliating her serves no purpose but sating your own anger."
"She needs to be put in her place." Titania snapped back. "Don't defend her, boy. She doesn't deserve your sympathy."
"You promised me." Lysander's lips pressed into a tight line, his eyes stormy with his own anger. An electricity filled the room, making the hair on the back of my arms raise on end as the two, mother and son, glared into each other's eyes. Sky and sea warred with one another.
"Promises were made for breaking. That is a lesson I have learned well." Titania told him, a bit of old sadness and regret seeping into her voice and scowl.
"As have I." Lysander shook his head at her in disappointment.
Titania was the first to turn away. She nodded to the guardsman. "Go ahead."
The guard began cutting away my hair. It was a repeat of what had been done to me while I was in prison awaiting execution. Only this time, I didn't even glance at the long locks fluttering to the floor around me. My eyes never left Titania's. Nor did I ever stop smiling at her. I laughed in her face even while she sought to tear me down.
Titania's face puckered liked she was sucking on a lemon at not getting the reaction she had wanted. She decided to take things a step further. "Her clothes too. Cut that dress off of her. We'll find something more suitable." She snapped her fingers at a slave girl I hadn't even realized was standing behind Demetrius' throne. The slave darted from her hiding place and bowed her head as she waited for her orders. Her hair was a tumble of chestnut brown curls. Her skin, kissed dark by the sun, was barely hidden beneath her dove gray dress, the uniform of the freedom-less, the stolen. "Fetch her a dress more befitting her true station. We should have something that will fit her." Titania ordered.
"Yes, Queen Mother." The slave said softly. I'd met her once before, I recalled, at that notorious Midsummer. The girl with the French accent who'd escorted me to my room. I couldn't remember her name, but I heard the echo of her voice from all those years ago as she told me how her tongue remembered what her mind did not. That homeland that was no more than a dream to her now revealed its existence in her voice. She glanced at me only once before speeding away to do Titania's bidding. Her gaze wasn't fearful or sympathetic. Her hazel eyes were full of awe.
Another guard in a brilliant golden breastplate and helm appeared beside me. Brandishing his own dagger, he tucked it beneath my collar and started slashing my dress down the back, cutting my underthings off along with it until I was left sitting there in nothing but chains and the ruins of my ballgown.
"Enjoying the show?" I asked through a fog of pain, giggling to myself, at Lysander and Demetrius' paling faces, despite the burning in my spine. They felt the shame I did not. Demetrius looked away. Lysander did not.
Lysander's feathers ruffled. "This is wrong." He growled under his breath at his mother's back. "You are wrong."
"Sometimes we must commit evil acts to fight evil, my son." She said. "Matilda herself taught me that." Her voice was as calm and level as a stagnant pond. She truly believed what she was doing was right. Kidnapping me, taking me from my children, torturing me, was a necessary evil. I think she and her more gullible children were the only ones that actually believed that. Judging by the disgusted look that twisted Lysander's features, he was not nearly as convinced. Lysander had always seemed to revere his mother, but I sensed a seething tension between them now.
A moment later, the slave returned with a gray dress the same as the one she wore. The guards wrenched me to my feet. I staggered in place, my legs shaking beneath the pressure of my weight and the sting of the fire in my spine. She dressed me patiently allowing me to lean on her for support. With the sudden jostle, the pain worsened severely. It had become more of a sharp throbbing that began in my spine and shot through my lower muscles, coming and going like a pulse. With that, it unveiled itself, detached itself from the lingering effects of the poison. It was a pain I knew well. I bit down on my bottom lip to keep the screams inside. I was in labor.
"Something is wrong." I gasped at the slave's ear. I grit my teeth as another wave of agony washed over me. My legs shook and nearly buckled.
The young woman's calloused hands fell away from where she'd been pinning the barely-there fabric together at my shoulder. "What?" She asked, searching my face and noting the pained tensing of my features. "Do you still feel the poison?" She peered up at the guards. "How much did Tova give her? Are you certain you gave her enough antidote?"
The guard grumbled something I didn't have the ability to translate as I felt a contraction that brought me to my knees and forced a loud shriek from my lips.
The slave clung to me, holding me by the arms as she tried to keep me up. I only dragged her down with me. "Help me. Please." I moaned between pained gasps.
The slave girl held me up off the floor and pet my back as she pleaded with my captors. "She seems to be in a lot of pain, Queen Mother." She said in her sweet, pretty accent. "Please, let me take her to a healer."
"Get her back on her feet." Titania snapped watching on with cold eyes. "She's obviously faking."
Beside her, Lysander's entire body seemed to stiffen as our eyes met.
I mouthed the words again, "Help me."
In his eyes, I saw the world's oceans freeze over then begin to boil. "Be quiet, Mother," Lysander growled. As he passed her, his shoulder knocked her aside, making her stagger out of his way. His family all gawked at him like he was a raving lunatic as he came to my side.
"What's gotten into you?" Titania screeched. "Stay away from her, she's liable to bite your throat out as soon as you get close!" A wise warning.
Lysander ignored her. Crouching beside me, he laid his hot palm on my forehead. "What's the matter?" He whispered to me, actually having the nerve to sound concerned for my wellbeing.
I wanted to scream at him and hit him as hard as I could. I wanted to bite his throat out like his mother feared I would, but I didn't have that in me. All I could think about was how my youngest son would not be born in the same bed as his brothers', caught by Edda's welcoming hands. "The baby!" I cried out. The pain was coming quicker now. The labor was progressing faster than it ever had in the past. "Please no. Not yet." I pleaded with my son. It was too early. Much. Much too early. Another horrible thought bit away at the back of my mind. My younger brother was early too.
Lysander and the slave exchanged a panicked glance, their eyes as wide as they'd go without them popping out. "C-can you check her?" Lysander stuttered.
"I don't know anything about birthing babies, but I can...try I suppose." She replied in a quivering voice. "Forgive me." Hesitantly, she slipped her fingers beneath the thin fabric of my dress and between my legs. She yanked them back with a gasp as I felt my water break.
Lysander spat a curse, a growl rumbled in his chest as he ripped my chains from the guards' hands and snapped them from around my wrists. "A healer! Send for a healer! She's in labor!" He roared at his mother and brother. They stood there, gawking in shock. Useless. He didn't waste any more time on convincing them I was not pretending. He scooped me up, cradling me like a small child in his arms. His wings snapped outwards, the sun pouring through their white feathers, outlining them in gold. With one strong beat, he rushed up into the air and flew from the throne room, diving off the side into the relentless light of summer.
He flew as fast as he could to another part of the palace built on a separate floating island than the rest of it. Three female faeries in red robes and white veils met us at its edge. Beyond the flowery pillars that lined the open side, was a large sitting room that branched off into several small bedchambers that encircled it.
"This way." The palest of them escorted him to the room directly at the other end of the circular room. The room was basic. It held only a small bed, a wardrobe and an uncomfortable looking chair carved from the same white marble as the pillars. Lysander laid me down on the bed and had trouble disengaging my arms from his throat. I was a screaming, writhing, mess by that point.
"Please, please make it stop!" I grabbed one of the women by her robe. I dragged her closer. "It's too early!" I begged her. "Make him stay inside!"
The woman shook her head. A strand of bronze hair escaped her veil. "We cannot. A child comes when it wishes to... or when your body is no longer able to hold them." She said with a sincerely sad tone. "We will do our best to help it and you through."
"You'd better." Lysander hissed threateningly. "If she dies," He cleared his throat and corrected himself. "If they both die, we lose our leverage on the goblin king and there'll be nothing to stop him from unleashing that monster on us all."
The women looked at him and bowed their heads sheepishly like scolded dogs. "We will do all we can for her, but I must warn you that the baby may be beyond saving." The woman that seemed to be eldest of them said softly, her hands clenching tight at her belly.
Lysander blinked at them then slowly sank into the chair beside the bed. He ran his hand through his hair. It had grown a little longer and curled more on his brow. He looked very tired to me..and sad...and fearful. "If it comes down to it." He began. "If you have to choose one or the other..." His eyes, with that intense power swirling inside, snapped towards me, watching me struggle. "Save her."
I would have stabbed him with the nearest pointy thing I could find had I been able to.
Lysander stayed until the healers made him leave the room. My labor was progressing rapidly and they needed to prepare me for delivery.
I choked on a sob. This couldn't be happening, I thought as Lysander reluctantly left the room and the women crowded around me. My screams were deafening. I screamed not because of the pain, but because of the fear. I was more afraid than I could remember being in my entire life. My hanging and The Upheaval all paled in comparison. The only moment that came close was when Knut died. It was my worst nightmare made into a reality. Even as the healers told me that he would soon arrive, I held my belly and begged my son silently to stay within me. A goblin prince was not meant to be born in the light of the Summer Branches. His Father wasn't even here to hear his name on his first cries.
I needn't have worried.
My fourth son never cried at all.