The Knights of the Faerie Queens, Part 8

A Demand For Alliance

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.

In Part 7, the Queens set up their tents, negotiations begin, and an unexpected visitor arrived.

"You know this fey?" Seren demanded, her voice unusually sharp.

"Unfortunately. Or fortunately, at least for him," Desma replied drily. "Otherwise he would have been cut to pieces by now."

Caden sketched a little bow toward Desma, his lips curving into a smirk. "I thank you for your forbearance, my lady."

"Oh, stop it." Desma waved a hand at him. She leaned back in her seat, looking far more relaxed while talking to Caden than she had at the beginning of the conversation with Seren. "Answer my question, Wildling. Why are you here? What do you want?"

"Merely to talk, my lady. And since you two have brought your Courts, I thought it only appropriate to bring my own." Caden snapped his fingers.

At his signal, several other fey appeared from the brush surrounding the falls, joining him on the flat stones in the stream. Kestrel could have sworn that the undergrowth had been too thin to conceal anyone, but perhaps Caden or one of the Wildlings had some kind of concealment magic.

There were four altogether--one shorter than Caden, the other three taller. Kestrel's eyes locked to one of the taller ones--a fey whose skin was splattered with freckles across his arms and the bridge of his noise--and started, though he managed to hide most of his reaction. A name came to the tip of his tongue and then was swallowed again before he could properly recognize it. Did he know this fey? Some part of him did, the black days of memory before he'd joined the Star Court.

Days he did not want to remember.

Caden caught Kestrel's attention as he hopped to a taller rock that sat almost directly between the two pavilions and sat down cross-legged, his ragged coat flowing dramatically around his knees as he settled himself. "You don't suppose that we Wildlings have been safe when even the two Courts have not? If anything, we've taken the brunt of the monster's killings while you remain safe and coddled within your Court boundaries." His words came more quickly in his agitation. "You've had--what, one or two killings?" He looked over at Jasper. "I suppose you'd like to say you've had none, that with your precautions the killer wouldn't be able to slip through your bounds and wreak its havoc. We have had two dozen killings in the last month alone."

Jasper's lips tightened, but otherwise he made no reply.

Behind him, Kestrel heard Seren suck in a sharp breath. He held back a wince. His own parents had been Wildlings, unwilling to bend the knee to a Court. The first years of his childhood had been in solitude, with the woodland animals and a stray small elemental or two as companions. If the Wildlings were banding together, spreading the news of what was happening in the Deepwoods...

"Two dozen?" Desma said sharply. "Are you certain?"

"Two dozen bodies that I've seen myself," Caden confirmed. "Others that are hearsay, but I know better than to bring that kind of unsubstantiated message to your attention, Your Majesty." He spread his hands, a questioning gesture. "Now, do you accept that I've come with a legitimate concern, or do you leave the Wildlings to fight this out ourselves?"

His tone left no uncertainty as to what would happen if they had to fight--you will regret making enemies of us. The Wildlings had never bothered to band against the Courts, and the Queens had been largely contented to leave them alone, uninterested in trying to force those who disdained sanctuary. Kestrel didn't want to think of what could happen if the Wildlings decided to tear down the Courts.

And he didn't appreciate the threat. He took a small step forward, glaring at Caden. Someone gasped. Kestrel's gaze flew towards the tall fey once more, who was now staring at him with something like shock in his face.

Before Kestrel could react, Seren grasped his shoulder and gently pulled him back to her side. He looked up at her. She'd risen from her seat and stood watching Caden, her blue eyes narrowed. Her gaze slid to Desma and Jasper. The Shadow Court queen glanced at her sister. Neither of them spoke nor made a gesture, but Kestrel felt the distinct spark of understanding pass between the two queens. Seren returned to her seat.

Desma turned to Caden. "We are here under an oath of peace."

Caden raised his left hand, his voice losing the sarcastic lilt that it had held so far, becoming serious. "I will do nothing to hazard that peace."

The words--or, more, the promise behind that oath--surged through the clearing, making the hair on the back of Kestrel's neck and arms prickle with magic as Caden's oath locked into place, joining with the Queens' magic, becoming a part of the aura twining in and around the aspen clearing.

As Caden settled back down to his seat, and the Queens returned to their discussion, Kestrel took the opportunity to study the other Wildlings, deliberately avoiding the light-haired one's gaze.

The smallest fey sat--or, rather, Kestrel could say he perched--on the edge of a fallen log by the stream. Even standing upright, he would have been small-statured, maybe coming up to Caden's chest. A pair of wings were tightly folded to his back, the multiple hues of gray telling Kestrel that the fey's wings were brightly colored--a strange coloration, when many things in the Deepwoods were various dark, muddy shades that he had difficulty telling apart.

The other two, he noted with surprise, were werewolves. One stood about Caden's height, and stocky, with a thick beard and silver-threaded dark hair swept back from his forehead. He wore what seemed like a permanent, cagey scowl. The other was tall and lanky, scraggly short hair that stuck up from his head. He stood with hunched shoulders, as if trying to make himself as small as he could without succeeding. Both of their ears, Kestrel noticed, were still held back, though not quite pinned to the sides of their head, and they stuck close to Caden. Now and then, one of them would throw a suspicious glance at Jasper.

Jasper stood at his queen's side, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed on Seren. He didn't seem to notice or acknowledge the other werewolves.

None of them were carrying weapons. That didn't mean they were unarmed. One of them had been concealing the others, which meant one of the three fey--Caden, the light-haired fey, or the winged one--had some kind of magic.

Reluctantly, Kestrel glanced at the light-haired fey. The fey was staring back at him with wide eyes and a tentative smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He looked as if he had seen an old friend and was looking forward to catching up.

I don't know you. Kestrel looked away from the fey, refocusing on the conversation between the queens.

"...as far as we're aware, no one has ever seen whatever or whoever is committing the murders," Desma was saying. "We've set guards, we've even doubled them, but somehow it knows."

"This last killing was in neutral territory," Seren said.

"And close enough that we could still sense it." Desma's tone was frustrated. "We should have caught the killer a long time ago." She turned to Caden. "Has anyone you know seen anything?"

Caden glanced over his shoulder at the lighthaired fey. For a second, everyone was silent, then the fey jumped slightly, as if just realizing they were all looking at him.

The lighthaired fey pointed to himself. "Who, me?"

Caden nodded, then turned back to Seren and Desma. "This is Ekta. He's a luxfey from the Deepwoods."

The winged fey reached back and nudged Ekta gently forward. "Tell them," he said in a surprisingly nasal, high-pitched voice. "Tell them what you saw, Ek."

Ekta wrung his hands together, his gaze nervously darting back and forth between the two Queens. His voice was slightly too loud as he started to speak. "I--I've seen it. The thing. The...monster." He swallowed, lowered his voice a little. "It was huge. Taller than Maddox, even though it was hunched over." He glanced at the taller werewolf. "Red eyes, claws like knives, fangs that were dripping with blood. It killed a friend and I...I barely escaped."

Kestrel glanced at Jasper to see how he'd react to the description, but the knight kept his eyes on the ground, his hand tucked behind his back. "Sounds an awful lot like a shifted werewolf," he said.

Jasper froze.

From behind Caden, a low growl bubbled from the throat of the shorter werewolf.

"Isayr." The taller werewolf put his hand on his companion's shoulder. "It's just t-typical fey n-nonsense, mate. Ignore it."

"I told you, Caden. I told you." Isayr turned to Caden, his dark eyes flashing. "It's useless coming here, they're only going to ignore us. Or worse, wage war on us like they did before..." His eyes flicked to Jasper and his voice faltered.

Jasper had taken a step toward the two werewolves. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, though not before Kestrel saw them shaking. "That's not going to happen. Not on my watch."

"Say that without wearing the red coat next time and maybe I'll believe you," Isayr muttered.

The clearing went silent once again as everyone stared at the small pack of Wildlings.

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