The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) (11 page)

I clutched at my stomach. It would not do to look unsure. To be weak in the eyes of my people. But I did not like this. I did not like this at all.

“Alerid, speak up, man,” I snapped at him, trying as best I could to make him give me something. Show me something that proved without a shadow of a doubt that he was innocent of this crime.

Theft in these parts was punishable by death. My hands would be tied in the matter. I did not much care for humans and did not usually care how many heads rolled, but I did not like this feeling I now felt.

“Is this your writing?” I asked him, waving the sheaf around.

It was like the world stood still for a moment. My heart was caught in my throat as I waited to see him deny it with a shake of his head.

Instead he closed his eyes and nodded, and my heart sank like a stone to my knees.

Astira smirked, and the others visibly winced.

I shook my own head, denying what I was seeing before me. It was one thing to condemn a beast to the blade, quite another to send an innocent man to it.

But what if I was wrong? What if he was innocent? The laws of my land were strict and unyielding; steal and lose your head. My laws were absolute, always had been since the moment of my reign. Laws brought peace and stability.

I clenched my jaw, sensing the eyes of hundreds burning through me, all looking to me to make this right.

Brow furrowing, I looked back to the party. “Have any of you any last words to speak on behalf of this man?”

I’d hoped Sysapheus or the bushy-eyed woman might have said something. But they’d all turned their heads aside; all of them refused to even look at me.

The grapes that’d once been so sweet in my stomach now felt like poison burning through me. My mouth grew dry and my head pounded as I muttered the words every inch of me did not wish to speak, “Off with his... head.”

Astira clapped her hands and waved goodbye as my guards dragged the silent, crying Alerid away from the room.

“Go away,” I muttered low at first and then screamed it when no one seemed to notice. “Away!” I pounded a fist on my throne, causing thunder to shake and boom through the confines as my magic exploded out from within me.

With a scream of surprise and shock, the people scattered from the throne room.

Once the final man had cleared, and I was all alone, I shook my head. I’d done wrong. I knew I’d done wrong. I’d not been able to prove it though. Trembling from head to toe, I stared sightlessly at the stone floor, trying to convince myself that Alerid truly was guilty of the crime.

The curl of fog alerted me to Cheshire’s presence long before I finally saw him.

“The man was innocent, you know.”

I hissed, jerking in the direction of the bodiless voice. “You don’t know that!”

The cat often arrived unannounced into my castle, vexing me in every possible way. But I did not hate him.

He and I had developed a strange sort of symbiosis, shared memories of a dragon boy we’d once known. I’d never admit it aloud, but his presence normally brought me some measure of peace.

Not today however.

“My queen, you know it is so. They lied. They all lied. Now ask yourself why.”

I shook my head, desperately trying to cling to the charade.

“Eight fawnlings. Did you know?” He asked it softly.

Feeling sick to the very core of me, I could hardly breathe now. Swallowing forcefully, I forced down the heat threatening to overwhelm me. The man did not have children. The man had been a thief; I’d done right. I’d done right...right?

I would never have condemned innocent children to the type of life I’d grown up in.

But my words smacked of a lie to me, and I clutched at my stomach as it heaved.

“Why would they lie to me? I am their queen.”

The shadowy image of the cat wavered before me as he said, “Why does anybody, my queen? Why does anybody?”

The ghostly echo of his words haunted me throughout the rest of the night.

Four days later my worst fears were confirmed when Sysapheus returned alone and, with head hanging, admitted to Astira’s conspiracy. She’d threatened to reveal their sins to one and all if the group hadn’t backed up her lies.

The truth, he’d said, was that she’d forced Alerid to write the note, she’d been the one to give Sysapheus the pearl, she’d been tired of her husband, and had used me to rid herself of him once and for all. But, being the duplicitous, conniving liar that she was, she’d managed to also use me to gain not only her pearl back, but Sysapheus’ prized Holstein as well.

When I’d asked him how he could have stood there and condemned an innocent to death, he’d shaken his head and whispered, “I regret it all. My crime will haunt me for the rest of my days.”

The next day I’d sent my guards out to snatch up the prevaricator, condemning her to death in the same manner I’d been forced to condemn her husband. She’d screamed at me, told me I would rot in Tartarus for the rest of eternity for what I did.

But her words didn’t bother me. No, it wasn’t her words that’d caused my eyes to gather with pools of heat when her head had rolled, but rather the eight children who were now alone in the world without the love of a father (a good man) to tend to them.

That day marked me, changed me forever. In a way I had not expected. I could not forget my part in what’d happened to him, and no matter how many people told me it was no longer a concern of mine, I felt keenly the depth of my depravity in a way I’d never felt it before.

Charles did as Charles always did, ignoring me as he lived a life of frivolity and ease, but I could not seem to move on from that day. Stuck in a cycle of guilt and shame, the worst of it was, I had no one to blame for this but myself.

Ragoth

1
year later

I snatched at the shapely body of a hamadryad—a tree nymph with skin the color of bark and hair the green of budding leaves—who attempted to race past me. “Come here, wench!” I growled, laughing when I wrapped my arms around her naked waist and hauled her tight to my body and my jutting erection. She straddled my thighs.

The nymph sighed, wiggling on me happily. “Oh, dragonborne.”

Her titters irritated me, but I was drunk on dragon wine and in need of servicing. I’d found ways to get around the “you can only mate with nobility” ban. I simply never reciprocated any affection back.

I couldn’t kiss a commoner. Or stick my prick inside them. But they could do whatever they wanted to me, and there were ways of making a woman sing without actually doing the horizontal snog.

I was virile, handsome, and a prince. There was no end of women ready to throw themselves at me. Women—like this nymph—who enjoyed string-free sex. I had no intention of ever mate bonding. As a young male, I’d been a fool. As a man in my prime, I saw the world very differently.

She was just about to drop to her knees, when the door to my room was slammed open so violently it cracked around the iron hinges. A boy, no older than four or five but already tall and muscular, as all dragonborne were, was panting and huffing heavily. His big blue eyes wide, and the whites of them bold in his pale face. Sweaty strands of silvery blond hair clung to his forehead.

“Boy!” I raged, sitting up. I’d paid the barkeep a hefty sum for the upper room in this tavern, with explicit orders not to be disturbed at any cost. I was ready to tear the hatchling in half for daring to do so, but something about his manner gave me pause.

He was grabbing onto his chest, heaving with an effort for breath, and opening and shutting his mouth as though fighting to speak.

Knocking the nymph off me so that she landed in a heap on the floor with an indignant gasp, I strutted over to the child and clamped a hand to his shoulder. “Speak, youth.”

Dragonborne had stamina for days; why was this child so out of sorts?

Trembling from head to toe, the boy uttered five words that pierced my heart like black ice.

“Wonderland. The. King. Is. Dead.”

~*~

Zelena

I
sat cold, aloof, and looked neither left nor right as my carriage rolled across the cobbled streets of the village.

The procession of carriages for the king’s funeral was gaudy, garish, and unbelievably extravagant. With elephants painted from massive head to wrinkled feet in the royal colors of my house. Professional mourners, dressed in jewels and peacock feathers, walked steadily before me in a long line at least a thousand strong, wailing, crying, and beating their chests.

Royal jesters and musicians performed for the crowds who’d gathered to watch. Not, I was sure, out of any true sense of loyalty to their king. But more so for the spectacle and the show.

Painted ladies wearing crinolines and corsets and tutting men in elegantly tailored suits tossed rose petals at Charles’ casket. I looked at none of them, keeping my head tilted high and my eyes on the sky.

Somehow I’d been stuffed into a gown of deepest red, the fabric of which was stiff and thick. The corset my dresser had placed me in had narrowed my waist down so far that it was making me feel slightly dizzy and lightheaded.

I wanted nothing more than to rip the royal crown from off my head, toss it to the ground, and scream at the people to go back home. I wanted to cut this procession short, wanted to demand the gravediggers dig a hole here and now and dump Charles into it. So that I could forget him and all of this. Bury him in the past, where he belonged. I just wanted to breathe again.

My throat swelled, and my eyes grew suspiciously warm. I’d not cried in thirteen years; I wouldn’t start now.

I did not care that Charles had suddenly keeled over in the dining hall. That the King of Hearts had died of a heart attack, the circumstances of which were quite suspicious.

I did not care that the people whispered amongst themselves that I’d done it. Nor did I care to offer them any pointless platitudes, give them driveling speeches about how wonderland would grow stronger from this tragedy, blah, blah, blah.

It was all nonsense, just words that meant nothing; they’d know it and I knew it. So I sat in my carriage, and I looked at none of them. I shed not one tear.

I was cold. I was aloof. I was the Passionless Queen—as I knew they called me.

“You know, it would go a long way with the skin suits if you would just smile every so often, toss them even a measure of kindness.” Cheshire’s deep drawl snagged my attention.

Lifting a brow, I didn’t turn toward the now materialized cat sitting beside me. The beast loved to catch me up on the gossip of wonderland. I rather think he thought of me as his pet.

I almost smiled at that. But I’d not smiled in over a decade; after so long, it was like my body no longer knew how to do it.

“Cat,” I snapped. “Go away.”

“You know they hate you, my lady.”

“I don’t care.” I sniffed, curling my fingers tightly together on my lap.

He chuckled, the sound of it deep and resonating through me. “Oh, but I rather think you do. You see, I’ve studied you, my queen. You’re not as heartless as the tittle-tattle has made you out to be. I see the acts of kindness you commit when you think none are looking, especially this past year. Would it hurt you to let them see you grieve?”

At that, I hissed and twirled on him. “I grieve nothing. There is
nothing
to grieve. I rejoice at the loss of the king, and if I could, I would kill him all over again.”

His whiskers twitched. “So you confess to killing him. How very interesting. And here I thought his was the one death you’d had no hand in.”

I winced involuntarily at those words. I was not without my flaws, to be sure. It was awful developing a conscience. Annoyed that he should make me do so, I turned my nose up at him.

Turning back to the front, I kept my eyes firmly locked on the sky. “How you could possibly believe such nonsense after the countless heads that have rolled is beyond me.”

Even I heard the telltale quiver of my words. For the past year, this abominable conscience had been waking me up from my slumber, haunting me with visions of the blood now staining my hands.

And all because of that damned farmer and his wife. I could feel the cold anger stirring, but now, instead of going outward, it spread within me. Like a poison, it was slowly consuming me. My throat grew tight.

The flicker of fur softly scraped across my knuckles as the ghostly voice of Cheshire said, “Smoke and mirrors, my queen. Smoke and mirrors.”

“Stupid cat,” I mumbled and then huffed a breath of air at my eyes, drying the tears before they could fall and betray me.

Using a bit of my magic, I called a silk handkerchief to me and delicately dabbed at my eyes; I did not wish to ruin my face paint. I’d look like a fool if I let my emotions betray me yet again.

It’d been weeks since I’d left my chamber last. I did not enjoy the company of others. I never really had. But I’d had my uses for them. Now though, it was all different. All so very different.

It was a terrible thing to come to terms with the ugliness of one’s own soul.

Off with his head, I’d screeched, even as I’d sensed in my heart I did not know the full story. Only once I’d learned it, I could no longer take it back, and none suffered more than the children.

Growling, I broke away from those torturous thoughts. “Damn you, Charles, I hope you rot for all eternity in Tartarus, you foul bastard.”

I mumbled the words quietly to myself and tried desperately hard to tune out the pretentious wailing and melancholy of the professional mourners.

The crown on my head had never felt heavier.

Because I stared up and not at the circus spread out before me, I saw a spec in the distance that grew from just a small shape into something massive that breathed fire and was quickly bearing down on me.

Heart stuttering, I jumped to my feet, knowing deep in my soul who this was. Shocked and astonished, I couldn’t move.

“That can’t be.”

Hordes of people screamed around me as they too suddenly grew aware of the majestic dragon’s presence.

Pearl white with threads of aquamarine veins running through the webbing of his massive wings, the dragon certainly knew how to make an entrance.