Fae Queen

Design

Design

 

Dantor stared at me when I started to get dressed the next morning, watching carefully as I tried styling my now freakishly short hair and applying make-up to accentuate my eyes and draw attention to the dress.

I splashed a bit of red polish on my nails before carefully slipping into the dress, hooking the finger slips over my middle finger and strapping on the high heels that came with the dress.

I stood up and I felt a bit silly – my hair was curled in a cute but sophisticated manner, and my dark eye shadow made my eyes look tempting and dangerous as well as inviting.

When I was finished dancing I stood in front of Dantor and smiled before fluttering my eyes at him. I knew it worked by the sound of his mouth hitting the floor.

I sauntered over to him and placed a feather light hand on his chest right where his heart was beating furiously.

“Would you do me the pleasure of letting me in?” I asked making my voice an octave lower than usual and purring the words as I had seen some female gate crashers do once upon a time.

Dantor gulped suddenly aware of how close we were and his eyes widened and his heart beat increased to a speed where I thought he might collapse on me.

I stepped away from him in a quick bound refusing to let the pain of movement show on my face.

“Will it work?” I asked anxiously, fiddling with bits and pieces of my dress making sure everything was exactly where it needed to be.

Dantor took a few minutes to respond, and I could see him still staring at me as I was some foreign being.

I snapped my fingers and he unfroze, placing a lazy smile on his face and guarding his eyes and heart.

“Yes, you look perfect.” I smiled and bowed my head, but the lack of emotion in his voice hurt me more than I had expected it to.

Dantor left well ahead of me, being sure not to be seen by whatever spies lurked in the forest and as soon as I knew that he had gone far enough I dug around in his backpack until I found what I had been searching for.

As a warrior Dantor almost always carried a weapon on him, as well as having a spare wherever he was. And in that moment I found the four centre metre non-descript black-handled knife that I stuffed into the secret pocket of my dress.

I sighed and looked to the clouds as if they would give me guidance – but instead they simply moved across the sky content to judge me from their position high above.

When I looked down to the ground again, a fairy woman had appeared just outside of my cave, and instead of being terribly frightened I was almost happy – it was Keltaine the solitary fairy I had met with Aarorn.

Keltaine looked at me approvingly before coming to stand just a few steps away.

“So, you decided to go see him?” She asked, crossed her arms over her chest and I furrowed my eyebrows confused at her meaning.

“Beterm’s letter. You’re going to him tonight.”

Oh right. I suddenly had the briefest memory of the letter Beterm had sent me – asking for me to go and see him on the night of the Festival of Humanity

I decided then that I would mislead her with my words. After all, I was going to see Beterm tonight, just not in the way she assumed.

“Yes, I’m going to see Beterm.” I made sure the words where laced with truth and that no sign of deception lie in my face.

Keltaine growled and I frowned smoothing down the skirt of my dress and also finding the handle of my knife.

Keltaine lunged snarling. “He’s mine” she hissed and I pulled out the knife, slashing her in the upper arm and turning out of the way.

Blood spilled down her bare arm making her look wild and savage.

Keltaine had like Giselle gone back to Beterm I realized, the only difference is Keltaine still held Beterm in high regard, she didn’t care that he had murdered or tortured her loved ones – all that mattered to this solitary fairy was that Beterm remain her lover and her lover only.

And she was willing to kill to make sure no-one got in her way.

I wondered then, suddenly, if that was how Aarorn had been caught leaving the cave. Has she told Beterm as they lay in bed together about how the old Queen and her new consort had come to visit her and their plans to take back the throne?

Had it always been her intention to betray us?

In that moment, when I realized that Keltaine had been the cause of harm to Aarorn my vision narrowed and all I could see was her. I exposed the knife from its hiding place and lunged to her side before swiftly gripping her from behind, raking the knife across her throat.

Her strangled cry was soon cut off and she went limp in my hands and I dropped her to the floor unceremoniously before moving to clean the blade and place it back in its sheath in my pocket.

I stared at the dead fairy and shook my head.

My temper had got the better of me, and this time it wasn’t the bed sheets that payed for it. Keltaine was just a girl – she was just a girl in love willing to do anything to get his approval. She had been willing to let him do anything to her and the ones she loved and how did it end for her?

She would never see another sunrise, or another fairy party – she would never be able to apologize or repent for what she did. Instead she had to face her maker because I had quickened her journey into deaths embrace.

I shook my head and turned up to face the lowering sun again closing my eyes and wishing that this hadn’t happened, that I could go back and just control myself.

But that wasn’t the way the universe worked, and maybe I was a bad person for doing what I did, but that didn’t make what I still had to do any less important. For now, it was behind me, but I knew one day I would get my own for what I had done here.