The Knights of the Faerie Queens

Part 1: A Nightmare, Undone

The Knights of the Faerie Queens is a dark fantasy serialized novel. Two fey, charged with keeping their queens and their Courts safe, must hunt down a savage monster—no matter what secrets, creatures, and curses stand in their way.

There was a line, a darkness, that split the forest--a line of trees where there was no light, where under the thick pine boughs there was no moon-silvered glow. The boundary between the Court of Stars and the Court of Shadows. A place that was usually silent.

The silence was now split with a single, pained scream.

Kestrel lurched awake, clutching at his chest, and knew within seconds that it had been no nightmare. The scream had been real. The magic of the boundary lines thrummed through his veins as sharp, almost painful, threads, tugging him westward. Towards the boundary between the Courts.

Towards the scream.

Kestrel threw back the blanket, dressing himself quickly even in the dark, his movements quick and sure. He pulled his tangled hair back into a tail and snatched his sword from where he'd hung it on the hook on the wall beside the bed, then pulled back the curtain.

The full moon glowed down on the clearing, bathing his skin with warming silver light. Kestrel pulled in a sigh of relief. Still night, then. He'd be able to travel more quickly.

He pushed open his door into the wide, arched hallway, lit by willowwisp lanterns. As he stepped from the thick, mossy carpet of his room onto the glossy hardwood floor, the huge arched doorway across the hall flung open, and Seren looked out, her bright eyes wide. She caught sight of him, her fingers tightening on the wooden door. Kestrel paused, waiting to see if she had any insight--as the Queen, perhaps the land was telling her something--but she just shook her head.

"Go." Her voice was sharp, tense, and it was all he needed to know for certain that she was frightened.

His queen was never frightened, and that alone made his heart race.

Kestrel turned into the shadow created on the wall by his open door, stretching his hand out to it. His fingers sank into the blackness, and he closed his eyes, visualizing the edge of the boundary--an abrupt line of trees draped in shadows, standing sentinel over a meadow washed in soft light. The darkness caught hold of him, pulling him into it, and Kestrel closed his eyes, feeling the sharp chill of the shadows across his skin, the ghosting trace of mist across his cheekbones and tugging at the stray ends of his hair.

His feet stumbled to solid ground, and he opened his eyes, taking in the tall pines around him. The acid scent of petrichor rose from under his feet, and as he cautiously stepped forward, he could feel the hollow echo of the earth under him--a ground supported by a network of roots, layered only with loam and decaying needles.

The moonlight played over the thin strip of meadow--perhaps a hundred feet wide if that--separating the pine forest of the Court of Stars from the dark oaken forest of the Shadow Court.

Kestrel stayed tucked under the pines, his feet rooted in the shadow he’d teleported into, his fingers steadying against the rough bark of the tree. Moonlight silvered the head of the grass, already turning to seed. A breeze rushed through the meadow, but nothing moved the way it shouldn’t.

Had it merely been a nightmare? Kestrel shook his head, dismissing the thought. Seren had felt it too. His sense of the Court might be off, but the queen was tied even more closely to the land than he was. He just hadn't found the trouble yet.

He stepped forward, then froze as something moved on the other side of the meadow, in the Shadow Court lands. For a moment, he thought it might be a wolf, but as the creature moved forward, he saw the face under the pointed ears and shaggy hair.

Jasper, the Knight of the Shadow Court, sniffed the air, his ears swiveling back and forth as they took in the sounds of the forests and the meadow. He straightened and looked right at Kestrel.

Kestrel sighed and slipped out from under the trees. Across from him, Jasper did the same, and they met in the middle of the open meadow, staring at each other across the true boundary—a thin creek, no thicker than Kestrel’s hand, the water sparkling as it rippled across its rocky bed.

“Kestrel,” Jasper said, his tone formal. “What brings you here?”

Kestrel raised an eyebrow. “Probably the same thing that brings you.”

Jasper looked away, scratching the back of his neck. That told Kestrel that his guess had been correct.. He turned and walked along his side of the creek. Jasper followed him, keeping on his own side, his knee-length coat brushing against the grass and sweeping it out of his way.

“How did you know?” Jasper asked.

“A dream. You?”

“My Queen told me. And I…smelled blood.”

Kestrel paused and glanced at Jasper. “How did you smell me, then? Over the scent of blood?”

Jasper grinned, his fanged teeth glimmering briefly in the moonlight. “You smell like lavender and rosemary, Kestrel. Not hard to pick that out among other strong scents. Besides, I came downwind of it.”

The hair on the back of Kestrel’s neck prickled. So Jasper thought there might still be danger. He dropped his fingers to the dagger at his side, drawing it with a soft rasp of steel, and crouched, so that he was below the line of the grass around them. The last stubborn seed heads on the grass tugged at his hair.

“So what—“

“Ssh.” Jasper suddenly held his arm out, his hand on Kestrel’s chest, pushing him back a step. Kestrel felt the ringing in his head that alerted him that one not of his own court had crossed the boundary. His fingers tightened around his dagger hilt as he brought his hand up a few inches, eyes darting between Jasper's neck and chest, readying to strike--

Kestrel blinked and shook his head, clearing away the savage, defensive fog that had misted over his thoughts. His hand ached from how tightly he clutched his dagger. Kestrel forced his fingers open as he sheathed the weapon. He glanced over at Jasper and saw that the other Knight was watching him, ears flicked forward and alert.

Part of him wanted to explain, but he knew he didn't need to. Jasper was the Knight of the Shadow Court. He would understand how the connection to the Court worked, how the need to defend almost took over body and mind. By crossing the boundary, Jasper knew what reaction he had invited.

He wouldn't have done it without it being necessary.

Jasper touched a finger to his lips, then crept forward. He pointed to a leaf, and for a moment all Kestrel could tell was that it was bent, as if something heavy had stepped on it. That could have been anything that had walked through the meadow—an animal, another fey, a nature spirit.

Then he saw the faint discoloration, a shade of gray slightly off from the gray of the leaf Jasper was pointing to. It clung to the leaf in a thick film.

As soon as he realized what it was, Kestrel could see it on his side of the barrier too. Faint smudges coated the trampled leaves on his bank of the stream, trailing off into the tall grass in thicker splatters. Kestrel crouched and touched a leaf, smearing the liquid across the rubbery surface in a familiar slick.

Blood.

As Jasper stepped further into the thick stand of grass, the autumn-dry stalks crackled under his feet.

A bird burst from the center of the grass, wind whistling through its wing feathers. Kestrel ducked back as the wings brushed the side of his head, grinning as he heard Jasper swearing. He turned to follow the bird's flight path, recognizing the greasy feathers as those belonging to a crow. A carrion bird. His stomach twisted, and he turned to look for Jasper.

The other Knight stood still in the center of the stand of grass, staring down at something on the ground, his arms crossed, his back tense.

Worry tightening his chest, Kestrel crept forward, brushing the grass aside. It came almost up to his shoulders, the seed heads scraping against his arms and plucking at his clothes and hair. The water in the stream rippled around a set of stepping stones, more blood discoloring the moss on top of the stones.

He abruptly stepped out into the center of the grass, where it had been trampled, the mud of the stream banks churned under heavy footsteps.

There, lying across the boundary line, one limp arm trailing in the creek, laid the body of a fey.

Thank you for reading this installment of The Knights of the Faerie Queens!