I searched for something familiar, but there was nothing besides the ground beneath me. These were not Dramens, nor were they like any survivors I’d ever met. The people were dressed in an assortment of colors and not in clothes I’d seen anywhere other than fairy tale books back at Mariam’s house—long flowing gowns of cotton and silk, exposing shoulders, torsos, and long lean legs. Everyone looked gorgeous, youthful, and unmarred by the harsh times of the world.
“Rise before Queen Olyndria, human.” A short man approached me from the throne.
No, he was not a man. My limbs found their strength and my voice returned at the sight of the . . . the . . . I don’t even know what he was, if it was even a “he.”
I screamed and pushed my way backward on the floor, trying to flee from the creature before me. He was green and frumpy, with tusks growing from his large fish lips. His eyes were beady and brown. His hands grasped a short staff with a rounded river stone on the top, wrapped in the bark. He dressed himself in pants, a simple white shirt that did nothing to hide his round belly, and a leather brown vest. If I had to guess, I would think he was a mixture between a warthog and a frog. His feet looked like they may be webbed, but I wasn’t sure.
Was I dead? Oh God, what if the Dramens had killed me and Tor.
Tor was with them. I’d failed him. The little green creature huffed in frustration and took a step forward.
“The Queen awaits you. Hush your screams, child. Let’s get this over with.”
I stopped freaking out to look around for help, my sight going back and forth from the warthog-frogman to the crowd who watched me with curiosity. It hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water on a hot day. My panic ceased, and I stared at the thing speaking before me.
“Did you just say Queen Olyndria?”
Tor’s stories were about a Fae queen named Olyndria. I couldn’t accept what my ears had heard. It couldn’t be, could it? My hands shook as the thoughts of the impossible raced across the realm of my imagination into possibility.
“Yes. Now, please stand.” His eyes rolled, and despite his frustration, he obviously had to be polite to me. His thumping foot and grim mouth spoke more than his words about his feelings.
I couldn’t find the queen on the gloriously carved throne. Where was she? I scrambled to my feet, needing to know, needing to see the queen for myself.
The creature nodded, content with my rising to stand. He gestured with his staff to follow him. There were two men, dressed as guards with armor, behind me. With every step I took, they followed, ready to confine me or slice my head off with their shiny swords at their tapered waists.
A few feet next to the throne, among a small gathering of people, was the queen, a breathtakingly beautiful woman. She hadn’t noticed me yet, as she murmured with an equally gorgeous man with black hair and three savage pink scars down the right side of his face that skipped over his eye like someone had burned those lines. It looked brutal yet didn’t take away from his beauty.
The queen captivated me. I was enamored by her presence. Her pale skin shimmered like she’d brushed herself with diamond dust, her long, wavy, brown hair glistened softly underneath a crown of six-inch-long crystals. I guessed they were diamonds around her head. Her golden dress caressed the tops of her toes and appeared modest, unlike some of the other clothes worn around this place.
“My Queen, we had a human at tree door,” Frog-pigman announced to the queen. Gasps were heard around the room, and the scarred man turned to me. Only indifference and maybe a smudge of disgust crossed his features as he sneered.
The queen’s attention shifted to where I stood. She was so beautiful, so elegant, and so Fae. I couldn’t deny the reality in front of me, especially with the pointed ears. Tor hadn’t just been telling me stories . . . he had told me history.
Fae were real, and I landed right in the middle of a magical world.
Chapter Nine
Tor told me that Queen Olyndria was mad, driven crazy after using her power to keep her daughter safe in a tomb of onyx. This Fae woman did not look mad at all. She faced me; her features softened. Her smile did not reveal teeth, but at least it wasn’t like the sneer of the dark-haired man she stood beside who would not stop glaring in my direction.
Her mouth parted, and my whole body hummed. I wanted to hear her speak; I needed to hear her speak with every beat of my human heart.
“Cats and owls, tweedles and tulips. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Moon is here.”
That was . . . well . . . not what I was expecting to come from a queen of the Fae. Maybe she was mad, speaking like a crazy person. A petite figure whose face was half-covered by a hood and who was dressed in an elegant blue-and-white robe nodded, as if he knew what the queen had said.
“Take her to Celestine, Turgen.” A female voice spoke beneath the hood to the green creature before me.
Turgen nudged me with his staff to walk toward the two guards behind us. A silver shimmer coated the queen’s eyes, and tears formed against her brown lashes and porcelain skin.
My chest ached, seeing her emotion. I didn’t know if they were good or bad tears that rolled down the queen’s cheek. The scarred man beside her growled when he noticed the queen crying, then sneered at me again.
I began to speak, remembering why I had arrived here, and what I needed to do. Turgen shushed me and pushed my body toward a grand door.
“You do not speak, vermin, until we say so.” Quietly, the guards walked me away. As we traveled, an onslaught of emotions hit me. My mind was a jumble of mixed thoughts, with so many questions as to what was happening.
We exited the palace, which was made of large, exquisitely carved wood woven together like in a cathedral. Stained glass, artwork, and nature breathed into every facet of the architecture.
“Enough gawking, you worm.” He nudged me so hard with his stick that my right knee buckled and I fell into a thick bush. Embarrassment and anger heated my face. I was going to knock that little green shit into the past.
Thrashing and flailing to get out of the bushes, I saw the world around me. The sky was dark, with the light from the crescent moon shining brightly, illuminating every blade of grass. Stars decorated the darkness above, as if the whole galaxy could be seen in just this small view between the giant trees. Jagged mountains peaked with white caps of snow appeared in the distance. A small river coursed through the large city. Fae and creature alike were going about their business, although not as many as I would have expected. Since it was also only night, most were probably asleep.
Shops and huts were made out of various materials of nature—stone, wood, or the trunks of trees. Torches and little orbs of bluish light scattered across the cobblestone roads. This was a safe haven, away from the Dramens, a place to simply be and hopefully do as I wished.
It seemed humans weren’t particularly liked here so for now, I’d play along, see what they wanted, and get a good scope of my surroundings. Once we talked to this Celestine, I would figure out my course of action. Though tired, I followed the guards and my dearest green escort past the brighter lights of the city, off the main roads, and down to what looked like a cave.
Tor never mentioned anything about cave trolls in his stories, so I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping I was not being thrown to some creature to become its dinner.