The Rise of the Dark Lord Read online

  “When you wed me and created the Realm for me you promised you’d give me everything,” she returned then yanked viciously at one of his wings. “You lied.”

  “I believed it went without saying, I would never give you,” he retorted.

  “I am not yours to give.”

  “You are.”

  “I am not.”

  “You are and as such, your madness will no longer be borne.”

  “I am not mad.”

  Cystien suddenly looked sad. “You are lost to it. The poison has become a sickness I will no longer attempt to treat, an ailment I will no longer endeavor to hide.”

  Maithieliel suddenly looked (more) cray-cray. “I am not mad! I am in grief for my lost love!”

  “He died three thousand years ago!” Cystien boomed impatiently.

  Whoa!

  Three thousand years?

  Yowza.

  That must have been some human dude.

  “He is naught but dust now,” Cystien said. “As he would be no matter how often you sang the Lament. This is my penance. I spoiled you. It is my penance. I gave you everything you wished. It is my penance. As the centuries slid by, I guided you to the understanding your every whim would be assuaged. Three thousand years of penance for what I wrought in you through my love, and now I am done.”

  “You are not,” she hissed into his ear. “I am done and I am making you done.”

  He turned his head to her.

  “My love, you should fly.”

  This sounded like advice.

  And I had the strange feeling, even though he was the one strung up, she should take it.

  It was then my heart started beating really, really hard.

  “The last act of love I will share with you is to have my feet on the ground like yours will be for the rest of time while I take your wings,” she bit at him. “You encourage me to show mercy to a young Fae who takes it upon herself to give some insignificant human Our Gift? You implore me to understand how important was this act for the human race? You insult me this way? You betray me this way? Our love is dead. It has been long since when you took my beloved from me, and as ever it will be. And your severed wings will be the symbol of that. And my solitary reign will be the message to my people that it is only I who decide if they fly free or walk tethered to their shame.”

  “So be it,” Cystien whispered.

  And then Ash was out of his chair, I was out of mine because Ash had pulled me out, and Cystien was somehow free and had his hand around the back of Maithieliel’s neck.

  He smashed her with no small amount of savagery, cheek to the podium, and all around us, the amphitheater flashed in a variety of colors as it filled with flying elves who had what looked like steel arrows threaded to bows and aimed at the elves that Maithieliel had invited to the de-winging.

  Okay.

  Seriously.

  Holy Deadly Cupids, Batman!

  I got the sense those arrows could do some damage, even to immortals, because not a single Fae who’d come to bear witness to this slaughter moved a muscle.

  Ash wasn’t feeling like hanging.

  While he tried to drag me out, I watched as, without anyone touching her, Maithieliel’s body moved in a sickening way, like she was a ragdoll.

  And then she was in the same position Cystien had been in but not held with golden chains.

  Hers were shining steel.

  I turned and shoved my face in Ash’s chest and covered my ears as she shrieked her fury.

  The sound was everywhere. It felt physical.

  And it tore at my skin.

  “It is done, Mai,” I heard Cystien say. “And it shreds my soul.”

  And you had to hand it to him. It sounded like it shredded his soul.

  I looked back toward the podium and Ash started pulling at me again.

  “No!” Maithieliel screeched.

  Out of thin air, Cystien had a long wicked knife with a blade so sharp, I could see its edge gleam from where we stood thirty feet away.

  “Let’s go,” Ash urged.

  As if he heard Ash (which he probably did), Cystien turned his head our way.

  His eyes on me.

  I was rooted to the spot.

  Not by his magic.

  By his message.

  The Mathilda needed to see this.

  He had a point to make.

  He had a kingdom to rule.

  And he was going to rule it.

  Starting with this.

  “Don’t do it,” I whispered.

  A noise so hideous, it should never have been born, and took way too long to die, came from Maithieliel’s throat and scraped the very air all around us, and then with revolting thuds, her wings flopped to the ground.

  Garish bluish-red blood flooded the white all around her, and the only good part about all of that was that Cystien moved so fucking fast, it was over in less than a second.

  Her wings had been graceful. Almost entirely blue (a translucent ultramarine), they were less long than others, more compact, but spanned wider and were delineated by what looked like graceful, sweeping lashes of pure black.

  “Mount them,” Cystien grunted as Maithieliel hung limply from the chains, her head bowed, her glorious white hair hanging down, some of it spattered with blood.

  Two elves flapped down and took up a wing each.

  “You were correct about one thing, Mai,” he said, towering over her, looking down at her. “Our love is dead. And a reign has ended. Yours.”

  He could say that again.

  Ash and I were not returned to the gaol nor were we taken back to our quarters.

  We were given rooms in the palace.

  Now, our other quarters were far from shabby.

  But one thing I knew, I no longer needed to have tea with the queen.

  No way Buckingham Palace could compete with this.

  If I wasn’t so heartsick by what I’d witnessed, I’d have been in awe.

  We were given time to have baths, don clothes, sip wine and nibble at a platter of beautifully presented hors d’oeuvres and I took that opportunity to have more than a few cases of the shivers and Ash took it to get more and more broody before we were summoned to an audience with the king.

  And when we were brought to him, we found that someone had no problem moving forward, considering, as we walked into the gleaming throne room, we saw Cystien sitting his massive throne, and he did this with stunning female Fae lounging at his feet and flitting in the air about his throne.

  And Grosser than Gross Alert:

  Maithieliel’s wings were already mounted on the wall behind him, the dripping blood not even fully dried yet.

  Those beautiful wings, stark against the white marble?

  Yeah.

  Gross.

  And also…

  Heart-wrenching.

  Ash and I stopped before him.

  Ash had my hand tight in his.

  I had my free hand tight around the wand that had been returned to me.

  “You wished me to show her mercy,” Cystien noted, apropos of a greeting, sounding all kinds of intrigued.

  “Can we go home now?” I asked, apropos of answer.

  “She was negotiating trading your lives for Bellabeccabec’s, Sarionion’s and Traeneanean’s wings. If she had her way, your Protector,” Cystien tipped his head to Ash, “would have been sent lifeless to them on the morrow as indication of her intent. If they continued to refuse, you, The Mathilda, would have followed, equally lifeless.”

  Obviously, I would not have wanted that to happen.

  Still.

  “You could have imprisoned her,” I pointed out.

  He inclined his head. “I could have. But she weakened my reign. A statement needed to be made.”

  “Well, you made it,” Ash clipped.

  Cystien tipped his head as if he was amused by Ash’s words, and then he lifted a hand and swept it before him. “Come, come, sit. We have much to talk about.”


  Comfy wing-backed chairs had appeared behind us.

  “I’d really like to go home,” I repeated.

  “This has been trying,” Cystien said sympathetically.

  “Uh, yeah,” I agreed, my voice dripping with how much of an understatement that was.

  He pinned me with a look.

  “We have things to discuss.”

  Well.

  Heck.

  See, I was supposed to be all about listening and learning about the different peoples and there I was, with the King of the Fae, and he was inviting me to sit down and hear him talk.

  I looked to Ash.

  His mouth was tight.

  Yeah.

  Heck.

  We sat.

  “In days past,” Cystien started, “more often than not, a clipped Fae would leave the Realm and go to the surface, pass as human, never to return to their home.”

  Great.

  Just what humankind needed.

  Loony-tunes, and now angry(er), still loony-tunes and last, holding magic Maithieliel, de-winged, wandering the earth.

  “I will keep her sequestered here,” Cystien said.

  Finally, good news.

  I nodded.

  “I also extend my apologies. This was in hand, that being my hands, from the beginning.”

  I blinked.

  Was he saying…?

  “I felt I’d been patient enough. It was time. It was time to test our bond. Test our love. Test our future. I am not unaware of the Mathilda Prophesies. Thus, it is I who assigned Bellabeccabec to you. It is I who gave her permission to sing the Lament when the time we knew would come, came.”

  Say…

  What?

  “You played her?” I asked, rather than asking You played us? because I’d already figured that part out.

  The king shrugged.

  “Did BecBec know that? Did she know that the queen would lose her ever-lovin’ mind and shit would go south for her?”

  I knew the answer to that considering BecBec’s condition.

  She had no clue.

  “She is a young elf. Only a few hundred years old. Trained to attach herself to a magical being, if she so wished, but untried. She did not have the skills to play her part as I needed her to do so if I shared it all.”

  “So she thinks her king betrayed her. Threw her to the wolves,” I noted.

  No wonder she was so out of it!

  “I would request that you ask her to return to her home so I can shower upon her the reward she has earned for her part in this matter,” Cystien said.

  That better be one serious reward.

  “Is this why she wasn’t allowed to speak in her own defense at the trial?” I asked.

  Cystien nodded. “At my, erm…former queen’s request, Mai was in charge of her trial. I have never sat an elfin trial where the elf accused was disallowed a defense, either offering it him or herself, or through an intermediary. That, too, was part of the test. As you know, Mai failed on…well,” another shrug, “a number of levels.”

  Yeah.

  I knew that.

  “Elves loyal to me infiltrated the males loyal to Mai,” he shared. “I knew all of her intents, and so it was designed from the beginning to make it as easy on you both as it could be at the same time keep Mai unaware. Therefore, to be certain you could play your parts in this matter, it was necessary also to keep you both unaware. However, it’s my understanding you were treated well during your stay with us. Though, Mai knew nothing about that.”

  I wasn’t going to thank him for letting me have my own clean underwear.

  Or, uh…give myself a couple gaol-cell facials.

  “And the strictures will be lifted,” he continued. “Fae can do as they wish on the surface, and although permission to sing the Lament will continue to be required from me, it is no longer Forbidden.”

  I didn’t know what to make of this.

  The only thing I knew was that I thought I’d done pretty well with listening, but now I just wanted Ash and I out of there.

  “This makes you happy, no? This is what you wish, no?” Cystien asked.

  “I want all peoples to be happy. To be themselves. My wishes don’t factor. If that is the wish of the Fae, then humans will have to get used to it,” I answered.

  He leered. “Many years ago, humans liked Fae very much.”

  Eek!

  It was then it hit me.

  The Faerie Mounds.

  Three thousand years.

  “When he died, she massacred the humans in the forts,” I said. “They didn’t do something to anger the elves. Her love was one of those who worshiped the Fae. She slaughtered all of them when he was lost.”

  Cystien drew in a very heavy breath through his nose and let it out his mouth while saying, “Her grief…knew no bounds.”

  “Your Majesty, it’s not up to me to tell you how to rule and what your people do, but it’d be good if you made it in future so none of you wiped out entire communities because you’re in a snit.”

  His lips twitched and he replied, “I will see this doesn’t happen.” He touched his chest. “I, personally, like humans. But in seeing to Mai, I have not been to the surface for some time. I’ll enjoy reacquainting myself with it and those who inhabit it.”

  Terrific.

  At this point, Ash shared he was done listening too.

  “With respect, if we’re finished here, we wish to depart the Realm without further delay,” he gritted out.

  Cystien nodded but said, “Please know, you are welcome back any time.”

  Sex on the snowy coverlet had been its usual awesome, but one could say Ash and I were not going to take our next mini-break anywhere near there.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  We got up and started to leave, but Cystien called my name.

  We didn’t turn back, but we stopped and looked back.

  “You showed me mercy,” he said.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “And you showed her mercy,” he said.

  “Well, yeah,” I repeated.

  He looked at me a long time.

  So long, I got squirmy and Ash got palpably edgy.

  Finally, Cystien spoke.

  “The last act of love I will give to my Mai will be to offer my allegiance to the woman who, even with all Maithieliel’s offenses, would still see her fly. You have my armies, Mathilda, at your call, should that be your need.”

  Okay, well, all that had sucked.

  But elfin warriors were some serious shit.

  So at least it ended in good news.

  Before we left the Realm, Ash was called away.

  I did not like this.

  Ash didn’t like this.

  He wasn’t gone long and he was even more broody when he returned.

  I asked what was up.

  He muttered, “Later, Matty,” in a way that, very unusually, I let it go.

  But first, he’d called me Matty, which he did when he was being sweet.

  Second, he’d said “later,” and as I’d mentioned, I trusted my man.

  So if he said “later,” I knew he’d tell me later.

  Just to say, all the elves who took Cystien prisoner who were not his undercover agents and the ones who were there to witness his mutilation who weren’t there at Cystien’s behest had been mutilated themselves.

  Yeah.

  De-winged.

  Hundreds of them.

  And word was, those wings had their own hall to grace.

  No one would forget you didn’t fuck with Cystien, I’d wager.

  Gag!

  In short order, after we made the surface, we learned that, as Cystien had never really been prisoner, my posse had been informed not to attempt a rescue.

  He assured them he had it in hand.

  And you could not argue that.

  He absolutely had it in hand.

  So, now we were in Ash’s Indiana-Jones-at-Home-Esque flat in London.

  His dad was
coming over to take us to dinner and get a debrief.

  So I’d just been sprung from Elf Gaol and witnessed a quick but brutal torture…

  But what seemed worse than that was that I was about to sit down to dinner with my boyfriend’s dad.

  Ack!

  Later:

  Well, apparently, luck has run out with me finally finding boyfriend who hangs up his own wet towels and never fails at providing orgasms.

  I’d spent time with Marcus, and he’d shown he was on my side (as it were).

  But I’d never done it in a family-type way with me being a new member of their family.

  I’d also never done well with my boyfriends’ parents and it appeared like my batting average on this front was going to remain in the toilet.

  I mean, Marcus didn’t actively hate me (they never did).

  He just clearly didn’t know what to make of me (they always did that).

  Though, I kinda had an idea of why this was and it wasn’t just because I had a strong personality and I was the kind of chick who figured you could take me as I came because you (nor I) had a choice in that matter.

  No, I figured it was something else.

  And when Ash excused himself from the table to take a call, I thought about getting into it, but I didn’t think it was the right time or place.

  Then again, what I’d have to get into never would have a right place or time.

  Marcus disagreed.

  “Sebastian told me he shared about what happened to Bella.”

  Oh, wow.

  He called his wife Bella (her name was Isabella).

  How sweet.

  “Well, uh…yeah,” I muttered.

  “You were born to be who you are, Mathilda,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You had no choice in the matter. Sebastian was born to be who he is, he had no choice either. Bella and I both knew that from the very beginning.”

  This was all true.

  “What those would do to prevent the Prophesies is not your responsibility. It would be good you remember that. Always,” he advised.

  It was nice he was letting me off the hook for existing, and as such, indirectly being responsible for the untimely murder of his wife.

  It was still sucky.

  (Whopper understatement.)

  5 April

  Curled up in Ash’s club chair in Ash’s bedroom after Ash nipped out to go find us some breakfast.