Queen of the Dead
ASH
A pulse of magic so great that it knocks me off the back of my horse signals someone has crossed. Someone powerful.
But… the sensation is different than the rest. It is like the one I felt this morning, when I was awakened by it. When I thought it but a dream.
“Fuck,” I cough and roll up from my back to my knees as my companions turn their horses to trot in my direction.
“Need you lessons, prince?” Bregda taunts me and I glare at him from my position on the packed gray earth. “Your dismount needs practice.”
Laksha giggles like a fiend, unable to keep his mirth under control as I spit past the dust of my landing and stand on two legs.
“Tell me this, Bregda,” I growl out. “Did you not sense a crossing just now? Did you not feel any pulse at all? For these are your lands, are they not?”
He canters his head. “All that I felt was the tremble of the ground as you hit it.”
“Bishi-va! Etna!” Laksha mumbles in Goblin tongue as his large nose begins to sniff the air. He leaps off his mount to stand at my side and says, “I can smell her, smell, her near. Look us more closely, for the lost one was here!”
“Oh for Goddess sake,” I groan, turning in a circle and spying nothing but leeched soil. ”Nothing is here Laksha. Not a track, nor a footstep that we didn’t make ourselves.”
Bregda inhales deeply, then his eyes sparkle red. “He is right. I can scent her as well. She passed through here.” He inhales again. “With a Selkie and two shadow fae.”
My body tenses. Fucking scavengers. I keep forgetting that they eat the flesh of their own and their sense of smell defies logic.
“Well then, bloodhound,” I gripe. “In which direction did they go? North or… north?”
He rolls his monstrous eyes and drops from his horse. “What is this… bloodhound? Sounds tasty.”
“A dog of the Mortal Realm. A slave to the king for the sole sport of the hunt. Next time I’m over there, I’ll grab you one.”
Bregda chuckles, watching as Laksha puts his nose to the wall and whispers, “Behind the wall, is where they go. Beyond the dirt, still waters flow.”
“Please continue to make absolutely no sense,” I tell him, grabbing the reins of my mount and swinging myself upward and onto his back. “Shall we head north, then?”
“He means they traveled the Emerald Passage to the Lost Gate,” Bregda hisses. “Only a witch or the queen herself can find the entrance to that, so we shall be traveling the long way.” He eyes me as he climbs back upon his beast. “That pulse you felt… it might have been her passing through the gate. You are connected to her somehow. Aren’t you?”
“She carries my child,” I say evenly.
The pair of them gasps and Laksha hits his knees. “Then you be my king, my king ye be. Please forgive my attack on thee.”
With a loud sigh of exhaustion, I kick toward his head. “Get up, damn you. We have much ground to cover.”
And… we aren’t married yet. Though, if I have any say in it, that will be the very first thing I remedy once she is in my arms again.
A strange flapping from above grabs my attention and when I see what bears down on us, I ready myself to blast it out of the sky.
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask no one and everyone at the same time.
“It is,” Bregda snarls, barring his fanged teeth. “An ivory raven. A dead messenger bird.”
My body stiffens as something in the back of my mind nags to be remembered, but try as I might, I can’t figure out what it could be.
We watch, arms at the ready as the bone built raven lands along the cliff’s edge, on the Rekyr side of the trench, and regards us with hollow black eyes.
“It’s holding something,” Bregda says. “A sheathe… or a blade.”
The raven screeches and then rips toward the sky once again, dropping its burden directly above me before it flies south.
I catch it without even looking up and the cool press of Harbinger Steel greets my gloved hands. Steel so cold as to create ice storms. Steel that can only be made in the Valley of Great Rest.
“Tis a dead blade,” I say in awe. Holding it before me in wonder and marveling at the clean white sheathe. “It’s small and… dainty.”
“A woman’s weapon,” Bregda says knowingly.
I nod, pulling the blade free of its sheathe to find an inscription along the flat side. I read it aloud, “She who wields this sword carries the strike of the Dead Queen.”
“There is a scroll wrapped about the handle,” Begda says softly, “look!”
Unwrapping the scroll, I resheathe the sword and tie it to my waist while gazing up at the sky. “A message from the Dead Queen? Since when do they have a queen?” When I read it, I am nearly tumbled from my horse yet again, but I manage to control my reaction and pocket the message, wary of the coolness of the Harbinger blade at my waist.
“What did it say?” Bregda whispers, glancing around almost as if afraid the dead bird may yet return.
I ignore his question to retake the reins of my horse. “Get on your mount, Laksha. According to this missive, the False King now marches toward the north and if ever there were a time to travel the gate… that time is now.”
“Wait a minute!” Bregda snarls. “If you’ll not reveal the message, just tell us whom the bearer was at least. I sense turmoil in you. Who sent the blade?”
With a sigh and a single glance south, I say, “Isabel Myrh. Newly crowned Queen of the Dead. Your lost one’s dead sister.”
“We ride!” Bregda growls out. “To the forest of the Golden Oak!”