AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You would destroy everything,” Caill says.
“You can’t know that.”
I’m arguing with them, but I don’t even know why. I can prove them wrong, then they’ll see how right I am. I’ve tasted real power and if nothing else was clear, I know this for sure. I can be more powerful than they are and with that power I can save Duncan.
Dugald and I glare at one another. I try to reach for the power I only just had but I can’t. There’s a barrier between it and me. Scowling, I try again but something is blocking me. Dugald’s forehead crinkles in concentration and then I realize it’s him. He’s keeping me from saving Duncan.
“Stop it,” I demand.
Dugald shakes his head. “You’re not ready. You’re like a child with a loaded gun.”
“I’m not a child,” I say. I open my mouth to say more but before I speak, a cat meows.
Something about the incongruousness of a cat interrupting shuts me up. I look down and the biggest cat I’ve ever seen is looking back at me. It’s at least the size of a full-grown German Shepherd with pitch black fur except for a single white patch on its breast. The cat has emerald eyes that reflect the soft light of the tree. It stalks closer until it rubs against my legs purring.
“The Queen will see you now,” someone says.
When I look up, there’s a brown man there. He’s brown everywhere. Brown skin the color of an oak tree's bark with hints of ash gray tones. His haphazard clothes are mismatched browns. Even his long hair that reaches to the middle of his back is brown and ratty.
“Radagast?” I ask, wondering if Tolkien got his inspiration for the character from this fae.
He frowns, wrinkling the rough bark of his face, and shakes his head.
“Come.”
I exchange looks with Caill and Dugald both of whom have their heads bowed. Neither of them speak up. The deference in their posture is clear. These two are powerful beings. If they’re this quiet, then what am I about to face?
“The Queen, huh? Well, let’s do this.”
Fear trails ice through my veins as I follow the Brown Man, potentially to my death.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My palms sweat and I breathe raggedly as I follow the Brown Man through the village. My blood pressure creates a dull thudding in my ears as we walk. All the people have resumed their activities as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Who knows, maybe all of what I did is normal for them.
We walk in silence, leaving me too much time to think. I don’t want to die. I don’t know why I think I might, but it feels like it though. I can’t die now, not without understanding who I am or what’s happening here. Nothing makes sense and the worst part is, I don’t recognize myself.
In some way, I feel like I’m more me. As if all the life I lived before coming to the MacGregors was a lie. A waking dream, some kind of half-life. Even here, in these Fae realms, I’m not as weirded out as I rightfully should be. I’m not surprised. On some level I belong here.
But the rational part of me is lost. The rational is at war with the irrational. None of this is possible, but I’m here. I’m experiencing these things. It’s happening, like it or not, so where does that leave me?
The Brown Man stops at the base of the tree and waits for me to catch up. I can’t not see the mars in the tree bark now that I’ve glimpsed past the glamours. They look like gashes, each one a knife wound oozing black sap. Revulsion at the wrongness of it clenches my stomach and bile rises in my throat.
“Ready?” the Brown Man asks.
“For?” I ask.
He smiles and even his teeth are a shade of brown. They look like they’re carved out of wood, like the rest of him. He holds out his hand. I’m tentative but having come this far, I take it. He jerks me towards him. I stumble forward, yelping, but we’re somewhere else. I stumble past him, but he keeps his grip on my arm which stops me from falling.
We’re in a room made of stars. It’s like we’re standing on the night sky itself. The tree is still here, but in reverse. Here it glows darkly, casting a warm blue light instead of silvery. Stars swirl around us, forming and breaking constellations as fast as I look. Milky clouds of dust drift along what must be walls but they don’t look like walls. It looks like it goes on forever.
“Welcome, Quinn,” a female voice says. The voice is rich and warm; it's a thousand layered voices speaking as one.
I look at the source, but I can only meet her gaze for a moment before looking down and away. She’s too… beautiful? Too much? Too there?
To say the Fae Queen is beautiful is far too inadequate. She is beauty. Austere, yet warm, her skin the color of pure white milk and her hair the frosty, pure, untouched snow of a mountain top. Her eyes remind me of Duncan’s, ice blue and piercing. The one moment I met those eyes, she knew me through and through.
I make an awkward attempt at a curtsy.
