The Fairy Queen Read online

  It sighed, and in that tone I heard the truth of it. The Creator had had this same conversation before. Through many worlds, twists, and incarnations of creation.

  Others who had come before me, who’d believed this time they could be exempt. This time they could make things work.

  Has it ever worked before? My voice was a mere reed of a whisper. Have your creations always fallen?

  Always, It said simply.

  I, trapped within a shield of magic and surrounded by my sisters, was the only one who knew. The only one who understood the gravity of the choices I’d been offered.

  The Creator hadn’t had to say it, because It had shown it. In the other timeline. Where I’d become The Blue.

  It would not only be my color that would change, would it?

  Again, I heard Its smile. Ah, to be so young and already so wise. I was right when I made you, my little Pink. Pink, the universal color of love of oneself and of others. That is who you are, my child. It is why I crafted you as I have. Why I gave you the pure soul I did. And why I’ve chosen you to bear the great weight of this tragedy.

  I sifted through the alternate future. Seeing the twisted, macabre heart I would one day bear. The lives I would ruin. All the curses flung at me. The deadly, violent hate I’d induce in all those around me.

  Everyone will hate me, I whimpered sadly, feeling as though my heart were being cleaved in two. I was pure. I was an innocent. I believed in the goodness of others and in myself.

  Creation hates what it does not understand. It is true, dear one, that you will bear a burden unlike any other. But I will not abandon you, though it may seem that way at times. I will always be there. Guarding your every step. Watching over you day and night.

  Clutching at my breast, I felt the steady beat of my heart and fought back the tears. My own heart will turn wicked. I will become a vile creation. One I can hardly stand to look at even now. Why? Why would you have me choose that path?

  Finally, The Creator showed me the final truth It had been withholding.

  My sisters and I had not been the only ones to be born this night.

  A vision sprouted in my mind of unmitigated malevolence. Just a seedling now. A tiny ball of great and wicked power. But pulsing within its shell beat a rhythm of great darkness. Even from a distance, I could feel the slick coat of its power, the twisted wrongness of it covering my soul like slime.

  Black ice skated down my spine as I curled my lips, trying in vain to shove the image away.

  It is the curse of life, that there too must be death. One cannot escape the other. You and your sisters are that life. And that seedling is that death. As you create, it will sink into the soil, planting its roots far and deep, infecting all it touches. That evil will fill the waters, the land, until finally it will spill over into my people’s hearts. And then, as I have many times before this, I will watch you all destroy yourselves.

  I gasped, covering my hands with my mouth, staring at my sisters, who happily hummed beneath their breaths, oblivious to the portent of their eventual demise.

  Can you not destroy it? Fix it? You are The Creator. All powerful and ever present. How is it that you cannot stop this? Why must there be suffering and hurt and hate? Why can there not be only love and goodness?

  A brushstroke passed over my flesh, causing my flesh to tingle and my soul to tremble. It had hugged me in a compression of air.

  I’d never known such a touch could be so pleasurable.

  A hug.

  What a simple and yet powerful gesture of love. One tear leaked from my eye. I did not want to do this. Did not want to change. Did not want that darkness.

  I could change it, Galeta The Pink. I could make it all go away. But then, I’ve given none of you the chance to choose for yourselves whether to be good and decent or not. Life is built upon choices. Those that cause you to blossom, and those that cause you to wither. None of you would thank me for taking your choice to live as you would choose away. Believe me, I have tried. My creation flourishes when they choose to. Not because I’ve forced them to. Do you understand?

  I did understand. Though I did not agree. Surely if they knew, if the creation understood that they could make it all go away now, that It could fix all their problems before they ever even began—

  Then I’d have nothing but anarchy. A creation enraged that they can never be aught but this. That they have no choice. No minds of their own. That they are owned in every way and nothing they do matters in the end because their will has been stripped from them. Tell me, little one, would you like to always be told what to do? Even if the knowing would make your life perfect? Wouldn’t you ever wonder if maybe there wasn’t another way?

  I paused to consider Its words.

  If I were told to go left, would I not wonder what lay to the right? Would the curiosity not burn at me?

  I imagined myself at a crossroads. Looking left and right. To the left, nothing but brambles and weeds. To the right, clear and open skies. And I knew—with a sinking heart, I knew—that even if It told me to go left, I’d see those clear roads and skies and turn right. Because that was how I’d been created to be.

  To have free will. To want to be what I wanted to be.

  And that was good. Kind. A leader.

  I closed my eyes; my soul grieved so deeply that when I rubbed at the liquid escaping my eyes, I pulled my fingers away to reveal smears of blood.

  It is good you should feel this sorrow. This pain. For it tells me that you understand, my Pink. You understand the sacrifice you will make so that all others might be free.

  Swallowing hard, I studied the faces of my sisters. Wondering if I would feel for them as I did now. Or would my love turn to hate? Would my own heart be poisoned by that darkness, so that I no longer recognized myself?

  But I already knew the answer. For I had seen the vision.

  I would never be myself again. I would kill. I would hate. I would be all the things that darkness was so that creation could live free.

  There will be another. The burden will not be yours alone.

  For the first time, I felt hope. Pulling in several sharp breaths, I shook my head. When? For how long will I be forced to endure this?

  I do not know, my Pink. The truth is, I’ve searched lifetimes for one like you. And it could be that I’ll be forced to search lifetimes more for another.

  I understood what it would not tell me. That for me to be free, another must die to themselves. There would be another like me. Someone pure and perfect forced to endure the cancer of creation all alone.

  I could not allow anyone else to suffer this agony.

  No, my Creator. No, I would not ask any other to be burdened by this grief. Take me. Alone.

  The breadth of Its shock raced across my skin, causing my fine hairs to stand on edge.

  You would do that, my child? You would shoulder the entire burden alone?

  Tears ran freely now, so rampantly that a few of my sisters began to notice the obvious transformation in me. But still, they could not understand the agony of my position. They simply knew I cried.

  I did not want to do this. No part of me wanted to carry this burden, but I loved It, and after seeing the utter desolation and devastation of the alternate timeline, I knew there was no choice. Deep down, I’d always known that.

  Yes. I would.

  Strong, warm pressure against my forehead caused my sadness to evaporate for but a brief time as I felt the first touch of my Creator’s kiss.

  Then let us not tarry a moment longer.

  For a wild second, I reconsidered my brave words, wanting to tell It I’d changed my mind. But then I felt it.

  A hand shoving through my spirit, shoving that darkness so deep inside me, I felt its shockwaves reverberate through every cell in my body.

  Back bowing, spine cracking as the power rushed through me, I gasped, screaming to the heavens and causing my sisters to scatter. Breaking off the conduit between It and them. I was possessed. Taken
over.

  Sinking into the quagmire of so much pain. So much heartache and hate. Agony. Loathing. Murder. Wickedness. On and on and on, that darkness spread. I clutched at my chest, screaming in rage, begging the darkness to stop its spread, not to infect my heart. My soul. To leave just one piece of me... me.

  But like pincers they sank in, rooting in deep, spreading, spreading, spreading... making me lose myself. Then my colors started to bleed through.

  My sisters gasped.

  The heavens trembled.

  And finally I heard It say, Never alone, my child. Never alone. I will save you. Only trust in me...

  Chapter 3: Somewhere The Creator Finally Stirs

  ?

  Somewhere in time...

  The Creator never moved from Its looking glass. Not once in the millions of years It had kept an eye on her. Galeta never knew she wasn’t alone. The moment she’d taken the dark seed into her heart, she had changed. Just as she’d feared she would. Her connection to the giver of life had been severed.

  Darkness consumed her. A petty need for vengeance and a thirst for mayhem. I watched as my Creator watched her. Studying the vastness of Its shoulders. The steadiness of Its gaze upon her.

  Never blinking.

  Never eating.

  Never speaking.

  The Creator had spoken a promise to Its child, one I knew It would keep. At some destined hour. Some appointed time.

  For many lifetimes, I’d kept watch over It, knowing that someday my time in this great scheme would come. That I would finally witness movement. A flicker of life and awareness back in Its gaze when The Creator finally deigned to look at me.

  Always, I lived in the background.

  Waiting.

  And then, after many lifetimes of wondering and doubting, I saw the first twitch of movement.

  Heart stuttering powerfully in my chest, I grabbed hold of my royal-purple tunic and sat as still as a statue as The Creator lifted Its head. The movements precise and slow, ponderous, as though a great weight had settled itself permanently upon Its shoulders.

  Then It turned, and I gasped. Witnessing the face of my maker for the very first time.

  I trembled, body quaking with great and terrible fear at the power that rolled off Its form. He. She. It... The beginning of all things and the end of them too. Swathed in a cloak of night and stardust. Its eyes were the burning red of fire. And Its face was obscured by the blazing light of the sun.

  Tears spilled from my eyes. Hastily swiping at them, I turned my face aside, no longer able to bear the weight of Its gaze peering through my soul.

  I have found one, It said simply.

  Staring down at my sandaled feet, feeling as though I might faint at any moment, I fought through the doubt and fears to find my voice. I’d seen images of that night between The Creator and Galeta. She’d spoken to him with awed reverence but as an equal too. Understanding, perhaps intrinsically, how very much The Creator loved her.

  I did not feel that same depth of devotion from It. I was merely built for one purpose. To be Its go-between betwixt worlds.

  My wings fluttered nervously behind my back as I bit down on my bottom lip. Once, long ago, I’d made the mistake of whispering instruction into The Blue’s ears while she’d slept. Telling her of a child born to bear the seed of darkness. In her dreams, I’d shown her how to build the wee one. How to envenom her. I’d shown her all I could. Confident in the knowledge that I’d done a good work.

  I’d been so sure... so sure I’d found the next vessel, and all I’d wanted to do was please my Creator. But the child—I’d simply known as The Heartsong—had eventually gone mad from it. The Ten, knowing the Heartsong would be unable to bear the burden of such great evil, had been forced to separate her from the fold. They’d taken her outside of the place of magic, to one without it, where she could not give in to her darkness. The Gray had been tasked with the care and keeping of the little one. A charge that’d resulted in her eventual demise.

  I’d ruined so many lives with my meddling. The Creator had fixed things as best It could. But there could be no undoing the damage I’d wrought. The lives I’d very nearly destroyed by my interference.

  The Heartsong thrived now, through no part of mine.

  My stomach sank to my knees.

  A gentle caress of wind lifted the golden hair off my shoulders, like the sweetest of touches, and I trembled.

  You must forget that now. You were young and inexperienced then. You did not know. Let it go, harpy.

  I swallowed hard, my limbs full to bursting with the song of Its voice. Like the strings of a harp being plucked by the hands of a goddess. I shuddered, hanging my head.

  “Tell me how to fix this madness, and I will, my Creator. Show me what to do. Only show me what to do, and I will move mountains for you.”

  I could feel Its smile by the sudden brightening of the stars around us.

  I know you will, little one. This, then, is how we shall play it. In a pantheon far away are two females. Goddesses, they call themselves...

  The Creator’s laughter shook the heavens, causing the worlds to tremble and new planets to be birthed. I’d never known my Creator could laugh.

  My lips twitched in response.

  They are bored with their long lives. I would have you go to the one known as Aphrodite and whisper my commands into her ear. Of a game. A trial, as it were. A contest of love. I care not. However they wish to play it is of no consequence to me. But as you whisper this idea into her ear, you must also make sure they include The Blue.

  I shook my head, frowning prettily. “But won’t they question the insertion of a fairy all of Kingdom loathes?”

  The air grew suddenly redolent with the lush perfume of roses in bloom. The Creator was pleased, though I could not figure out why. I would not question it. For millions of years, I’d never seen so much life out of It.

  That is the very point of these games, my beautiful harpy. Finding happily ever afters for those deemed unloveable. Blue’s inclusion in the games would not be questioned. Every queen inserted into the games will be invaluable to the reconciling of Kingdom after the Blue’s salvation.

  I frowned. “What? Reconciling of Kingdom? What does that mean?”

  Its smile was patient. In due time, you’ll know all. But for now, make sure that each name I gave you is placed into the games. The games are but a ruse for something far greater.

  Hm. I cocked my head, working my fingers through the tips of my thick, golden hair. Love. Between the sexes. Not that I’d never seen such, of course. I was The Creator’s messenger; it was my duty to spy on the lives of creation as well.

  And while I’d noted the pleasure the joining of bodies seemed to bring them, I’d never actively cared much. I’d been built for a greater purpose.

  This one.

  But I could admit, even if only in the quiet of my own mind, that something about these games made me truly curious for the first time ever. What made these queens in particular so important?

  The Creator shook Its head, and I knew It would not answer me. It knew a future It would not tell me. Which meant, somehow, I played an active role in it myself. Obviously as Its messenger. If I knew the outcome, I could change the entire trajectory of the future by choosing a different path. I had to choose as I would have chosen had I never known this at all.

  I nodded. “I will whisper to them of The Blue.”

  Yes, but not only The Blue. Her mate as well.

  My brows lifted at that. High onto my forehead. Fairies did not mate. They’d been built to abhor the very notion of it. Of course, there had been that one... Dani something or other, but she’d been an anomaly. An irregularity not to be repeated.

  The Creator, noticing my heavy frown, said, You seem confused, little one.

  Feeling a very little bit braver, I straightened my spine and flicked my eyes up at the shining light of Its face. But, quickly, tears gathered at the corners, forcing me to look back down at the silvery pi
npricks of starlight beneath my feet.

  “I am. A little. I do not understand why a male belongs. Eros love seems to me to be a messy, tawdry affair.”

  It chuckled. And a beam of pure-white light raced across the heavens, crashing into a solitary, frozen chunk of a planet. Obliterating it into an explosive shower of dust and debris.

  The power of life and death rested on Its tongue. I shivered. How foolish the creation was to not understand just how fragile their lives truly were. They lived simply because The Creator allowed it. Even the so-called gods and goddesses of the many pantheons owed their lives to It. But so few knew. Or even remembered that anymore. The Creator had been forgotten by Its creation.

  And yet It had never forgotten them.

  I rubbed at the fine, raised hairs on my arms.

  Someday you will.

  My mouth parted just slightly. What did that mean? Surely I would never. I would never leave It. My place was here. Beside It. For always.

  But now is not yet your time. Now is Galeta’s. A promise I made to her many eons ago will finally be fulfilled. The male child is grown. But he is jaded. Dark. And complex.

  I was no Creator. But it seemed to me that perhaps if the male was to help fix Galeta, he should certainly not be any of those three things. He should be gentle. Loving. Tender.

  The heavens pulsed with flashing streams of burning stars as It gently cupped my chin in Its massive grip.

  Like calls to like in many ways, my golden harpy. Galeta’s true soul will come for no other.

  Well, I’d have to trust It on that. I certainly wouldn’t know. But The Creator had been playing this game a long time. At this point, It surely knew what It was about.

  “How am I to do this? What am I to tell Aphrodite?”

  No sooner had I asked it than I knew. It’d shown me Its will. My lips tingled with the words I must soon speak, my tongue thick with the knowledge of what to do. My head filled with the images of what came next for The Blue, her chosen mate, and the mirror.