Folks Of Fury (#1; Tales Of Elysia [COMPLETED])

fifteen.

Warning!!!!! Heavy boy on boy sex content in this chapter. So if you're not into this kinda thing...

It's been almost a week since my whipping and Mab's vengeance on the covens.
A total of twenty-five witches have died in Redwood and thrice that number around the world.
A part of me relished the sweetness of their predicament, savored the cruel and gruesome end the plague brought to them.
But the other part felt guilty. The covens of Redwood had undoubtedly had it coming but what about those oblivious to the sins of their brethren across the world.
Eloise and Toby brought back fresh news from school along with homework which I grumbled about doing.
The excuse for the human teachers was that I was recovering from an accident and would be bedridden for a few days.
That was Ezra's idea. And I made it clear that I'd kill him if he kept me on house arrest any longer than necessary.
Ezra didn't want to bother my recovery with anything concerning the Agnate and what was being done about the witch plague.
But Chris, Saints bless his loudmouth, spilled it all when he and Micah visited every day after school.
Eleazar had sent an envoy of the Agnate into the Moors to meet with Queen Mab.
To bargain for a cure to her plague because no spell or potion known to the Agnate could save the infected witches from certain and agonising death.
But that had been a foolish idea.
No one's been into the Moors for decades and I doubted the Fey would want to be bothered with the affairs of the Agnate or give up their chance of retribution.
The envoy had never found the Court; searching for hours, following the clues of old myths of how to enter Faery. It was futile.
They returned half mad with frustration and despair much to the dismay of them all.
So the Agnate now turned to their only hope of contacting Queen Mab.
Me.
When Chris had told me, I'd laughed without mirth and left the wood house to do a few exercises which Fiona had said should help the damaged nerves and muscles regenerate in function.
I didn't know Ezra's stepmother was a doctor at the Beauvais Memorial Hospital but also served as Legion medic.
I was really grateful for her help seeing as all her advice was paying off. I could move properly without feeling the pain.
Though Ezra wasn't sure I should be sparring hand to hand with Micah.
He's become such an infuriating fuss since.
No one aside from my friends knew where I was. Ezra had made Fiona swear she wouldn't tell even his father.
"It's for your protection." He said and he was right. No doubt some of the covens could seek me out to use as some sort of bargaining chip with Mab.
Though the Fey Queen would only find their presumptions entertaining.
Thankfully Johann had found us miles from the house to be oblivious of the house's exact location.
But regardless I had set a cloaking geas around the house, strong enough to fool even a witch like my mother.
Just in case she came looking for me, which I thought was unlikely. Jean was still barely alive from the plague.
Even I was surprised to hear that the St. Ours family hadn't performed a funeral for him.
Prolonging the inevitable.
But good news had come in the case of Lisette's rescue.
She'd been abducted since the night of the Fête de Benediction and had only been found by the Legion patrols last night, wandering around the forest and near insane.
It was good news but it begged to consider why the killer had taken her in the first place and simply let her go, days after.
"The covens aren't giving any much details for now, the Fury sisters are keeping her under care and observations." Ezra informed.
"That's what they say, at least." Chris added.
"When do you think you'd be good to meet the Fey Queen?" Toby asked.
Everyone of them now knew of my plans to go to the Court even though I'd be doing what the Agnate wanted.
Too many people have died and it had to end.
"Tonight. Stalling for another day only means more dead witches."
Micah scoffed with furrowed brows and folded arms.
"I still think you should leave it for another week. Right now, we could do with one hundred less witches in the world."
"And after that what then? Mab might simply just select another race to punish. The Legion are her next threat."
Ezra snorted. "She wouldn't dare. It'd be war."
A war which would be devastating on both sides.
"Regardless, I'm going tonight. I can find the path to her Court without trouble."
Eloise took my hand. "And you want to do it alone? I'm not good with that, Senoy."
I placed the other hand over hers. "They won't do anything." I reassured even when I was skeptical about that.
"And he's not going alone." Ezra glowered matter of factly at me.
We'd argued this for a while now.
"Oh good, take a camera with you Senoy. We don't want to miss out much." Chris threw and they all laughed from the joke.
I had worn black fitted jeans and sleeved sweater before buckling the leather belt which held the scabbard for Angurvadal and a few daggers.
Ezra, Chris, Micah and Toby had managed to hijack my entire closet out of the Manor a few days ago. Though how that was possible I didn't want to know besides it gave me easy access to my other valuables.
Weapons are valuables too.
Ezra followed closely as I found the paths leading into the Moors but taking care not to lose him before he too fell prey to any Fey hiding at the borders.
Once we were submerged by aged and barren trees, I called for my ravens who came as a form of secondary moral support.
It would do to have them- Fey creatures- to dilute the expected anger of bringing Ezra with me.
The trees might look decrepit to anyone else but with my Fey eyes, they were towering and vibrant with energy.
Both were elm trees bearing full canopies of pale pink flowers whose petals occasionally fell about us as if in welcome into Faery.
"I didn't see this last time I came to the Court." Ezra gestured at the trees.
I shook my head. "You weren't exactly at the Court just a revel. Revels take place in whatever location the Fey Queen decides on. That night she brought it as close to our world as possible." I explained, birds chirped musically as flowers bloomed like flaming jewels at our feet.
"You should know better than to confide our secrets to an outsider, Senoy."
We came to stop as Aristyl stepped forward, the dusky early morning making him even paler and unsettling to look at.
I would've asked what he was doing here but seeing as this was his home, I didn't.
But I didn't think I would have to meet a gentry Fey this close to the border.
Ezra shifted uneasily at my side. No doubt affected by the Fey knight's presence though he composed himself quickly.
The knight's amethyst eyes trailed up and down my body, fixing pointedly at the obsidian black sword on my hip.
"What brings you to Faery? You know you are not permitted entry without invitation." Aristyl uttered harshly.
"I am not without one. The Queen permitted it." I replied to which he was momentarily surprised.
But like quicksilver, the Fey were mercurial in their emotions. As taciturn as they were lovely to look at.
His jeweled eyes flitted past me and scowled in displeasure at Ezra.
"And you brought a dog of the Agnate with you. Have you not learned your lesson, witchborn that they would ravage you till you're all but blood and memory?"
"No one's going to harm him ever again. Much less me." Ezra retorted with affirmation.
Aristyl glanced back to me, completely ignoring Ezra which sent a spike of irritation through me.
"If Queen Mab has summoned you, then be on your guard. She's in a good mood this morn." And he turned to lead us.
Doesn't he mean I'm lucky she's in a good mood?
I snorted at myself, when has meeting the Fey Queen been considered as lucky.
We walked through the forest, passing a nest of will-o-wisps and a den of wild phoukas which Aristyl had veered us away from.
A bridge of gold stretched over a pitch black lake and as I walked, I could see visible heads of nixies and glittering scales of sidhe Fey swimming up and smiling invitingly at us.
"Don't look too long at them." I warned Ezra who snapped his gaze from the waters much to Aristyl's amusement.
In the distance I could see mountains and groves around ruined castles and stone fortresses with lit windows and far reaching noise of hammering metal.
We stopped after what felt like an hour of walking, because Aristyl had, in a breathtaking garden where all that grew was the Queen's rose.
There was trellises of dusky violet roses, creeping thorns and vines which were in dire need of pruning.
Which was what Queen Mab was doing.
My jaw dropped in the shock of it. The formidable sovereign of the Fey Court whom all of the Agnate were in awe and fear of, was gardening.
A drove of bright peacocks waddled past noisily avoiding a bright cyan feathered cushion.
Mab pushed a strand of her feathered hair behind her ear as she dropped the shears in her hands and looked up serenely.
Aristyl dropped low in a bow, wearing a smug smile. "My Queen, it seems you forgot you had guests scheduled today."
I was motionless. I didn't bow this time because I wasn't part of her subjects and I'd come to prefer it that way.
Maybe because I have Ezra now.
"No, I hadn't."
A chilling roar came from her cyan colored and feathered tiger which I realized wasn't a cushion, curled around a basket of roses.
"Don't worry, Wylla. He's only here to thank us for the troubles he's caused us."
Queen Mab rose to her feet and brushed down at the immaculate dress she had one.
Who dresses for a ball to garden?
I raised a brow. "Trouble I caused?"
"Of course, that distasteful show of your flogging, by the witches. Don't think it wasn't difficult for me to send Aristyl and his brothers out there."
"But it was worth it, Your Majesty."
She smirked, "Indeed it still is. How many so far have fallen to Ithamar's plague?"
"In total, three scores and five."
"And you think I'm going to thank you for killing sixty-five witches? That's overly presumptuous of you."
Aristyl sucked in a sharp breath and Queen Mab arched a brow at my audacity.
Her feline green eyes trailed my body like the knight beside her had and she smugly replied.
"You seem emboldened, witchborn. Maybe you should've been scourged sooner."
She waved her hand the thorns stretched and knotted till a high backed chair was formed, on which the Queen leisurely sat in.
"I got your message from your birds. What is this about, I have many things to attend to." Buds of purple roses started to grow from the armrest, steeping the air with its scent.
Of course gardening would be more important to a Fey than the deaths of witches.
"The plague. I want you to end it."
Queen Mab laughed. "So no gratitude, only impetuous requests. If I hadn't sent my Knights into Abellard , you'd be dead."
"Wrong, if you hadn't cunningly struck that deal with his mother you wouldn't even have reached past your lands."
Mab cut a hard look at Ezra. "Ah so the Hound isn't mute. I'd feared you'd taken his tongue as well as his heart."
"Whatever retribution you think you are owed, you've gotten enough. Continue this and the Agnate would have cause to wage war on you."
"And you think I am without armies to defend as well as attack? When Henrietta St. Ours cast her magic to cut off my influence outside my realm and drive my subjects from Agnate lands, I was not bothered. My people endured decades of insults and dishonor and my name cursed as a she-devil. But I did nothing till your mother came to leave a child of Fey blood to die all because of the spite of her family."
Fey children were extremely rare and held sacred beyond anything else by the Fair Folk.
"That I could not tolerate. So I told her a secret of your future to which she had asked me of in exchange for raising you. I swore on the Columnar, should your blood ever be spilled by her hand, the Fair Folk would have vengeance tenfold."
I stepped forward, cautious of Aristyl who already had a hand on his pitch glassine sword.
"She wasn't the one who whipped him." Ezra voiced my words before they left me.
Mab then wore a knowing smirk filled with dark humour.
"Her son did as her husband ordered, yes. But to us, you are held accountable to whatever sin your spouse has done."
Clever. "Is there a way to stop the plague? A cure?" I asked.
"If there was, you shouldn't be asking. You suffered at their hands, we Fey are an unforgiving race." Aristyl remarked with a wraithlike growl.
"I haven't forgiven them. But mass murder is too much a retribution much more complete genocide."
"I didn't intend to wipe out the witchkind. Only leave a very few survivors to remember what it means to look down on the Fair Folk." Mab said with a bored look.
"Senoy this is hopeless, we should go." Ezra whispered.
I shook my head. There was still something I could do.
"You love to play games, don't you?"
Ezra took my head and frowned at me. "What are you doing?"
"Plan B." I shrugged him off and turned to the Queen who looked interested again.
"Let's play a game. You tell me if there is a cure to the witch plague, only the affirmation that there is and then I'll duel anyone you chose for it."
"Are you insane? You're barely recovered." Ezra hissed.
Queen Mab grinned and tapped her fingers against the thorny armrest before nodding.
"You will duel anyone of my choice, to first blood. And then you'll have your information."
"No tricks, say you'll give me the cure to the witch plague you released."
Aristyl chuckled, "I think he's much deceptive than we realized, my Lady."
Mab tapped her chin with a gleaming white nail.
"We'll see. Yes I swear by the Columnar, there is a cure for the witch plague which I'll give you if you win the duel. Lose and you give up all hope of becoming a Knight in my Court."
I nodded, satisfied after mentally checking through every inch of her words for the slightest sign of deceit.
"You will duel Aristyl. Let's see if you are of the right mettle to be my knight."