I blinked at the body beside her, watching it as it slowly leaned to the side and dropped to join its head on the floor. The dull thud that sounded was accompanied by another wail of despair that had me flinching.
My eyes dislodged from the sight that had placed me in a state of shock and shifted to look at the Queen. My mouth dried at what I found. While the fae sounded the pain of her loss, the Queen watched her with a growing frown. Her eyes were narrowed in disgust and contempt.
"Nache!"
The fae's hoarse cry of her fallen companion's name had the Queen closing her eyes and drawing a slow and deep breath.
Words of warning tried to claw their way up my throat and out my mouth, but my lips pressed flat to stop them from escaping until they twisted and turned in my chest, trying to find a way out. I swallowed, finding the action difficult but managing to push the sensation down into my stomach along with the warning that would only draw the Queen's piqued attention to me. I recognized the look in her eyes, I just wasn't used to the consequences they promised being so severe. I couldn't risk shifting her focus to me, not when I knew what was about to come. I had to live to save Ash-
Silence sounded abruptly as the fae cries were cut short. The serene moment only lasted a moment before a horrifying gargle sounded. It was followed by the splatter of blood painting the white floor. More spurted from the clean and gapping wound nearly severing her head from her body. The spray nearly reached the Queen where she lay showing no hints of remorse for ending two lives. She watched as the fae teetered forward to land face-first in the growing puddle of her own blood.
"I always warn them and they never listen," she sighed heavily. "Then they get loud. I can't stand when they scream and cry. It gives me a headache."
At least her head was still attached to her body and capable of aching.
Shaking her head as she looked at the bodies on the ground before her, she reached over for the cart beside her. Curling her fingers over the handle of a teacup, she brought it up to her lips to take a sip as the scent of blood spread and grew thicker in the room as more seeped out of the dead fae.
As she took her next sip, she raised two fingers to make a gesture that had two fae males emerging. Dressed in the same outfit as the man who had let us in, they peeled off the walls where curtains mostly hid them from view and approached knowing exactly what was needed of them. They moved with lowered heads to gently and quietly take care of the bodies while the Queen returned her gaze back to me.
"Tell me, human," the Queen started, drawing my attention from the lifeless bodies they had drifted to. I was startled when I found her eyes pinned to me. "What do they call you?"
I wasn't in the right state of mind to answer her questions, even ones as simple as those asking for my name. Not after what I had just witnessed. Shock had my stomach churning and a numbness that would eventually fade growing. The shock was keeping me from growing hysterical and was the only thing that could explain how I could return and maintain her gaze without flinching.
A light touch grazed my back, prompting me to answer. "May," I lied, using the same name as the one I had provided the fae I had met through the narrower corridors found within the walls.
"May..." the Queen repeated, testing the name on her tongue as she took another sip while the two fae that were dealing with the bodies lifted the headless one to remove him from the room. "Come," she gestured for me to draw closer while my eyes stayed on the dead fae as he was carried away.
What were they going to do with them? Bury them? Incinerate them? Who knew, maybe she had her own incinerator just to manage the bodies she managed to drop with as much ease as one would use to kill an annoying fly.
