“Best friends forever,” Sonya said, and managed to not sound too sarcastic. “We should get a pic of this for my Instagram.”
Except the queen seemed to enjoy Sonya’s presence. I didn’t know how all the various realms worked, but they were probably distant cousins. “So many children of fate being drawn together is a sign of great portent. Come. I wish to examine this weapon.”
The queen didn’t stand up and walk over to see. That would’ve been too undignified. Instead she willed us closer, and the grass beneath our feet picked us up and carried us over like riding an escalator. We stopped right in front of the throne. Now that we were close, I realized that despite her seemingly perfect proportions, the queen was even taller than her Fey knights.
Sonya flinched when the queen reached out to touch the stone with one perfect hand. “Do not be afraid, child. Removing it will not hurt.” And then the queen plucked the stone right out.
Sonya stared in disbelief at her unmarred skin. It was like it had never even been there.
“A curious thing.” The queen looked at the Ward for a long time, as if pondering its very existence. “Such great and terrible possibilities. Anathema to the Old Ones. Poison to the deconstructive nature of Disorder. Were I to try and use this, it would split the very world in two.”
“They really should put a warning sticker on it,” I said.
“Humans are such odd creatures. Simultaneously feeble yet mighty. With this device, you can drive the usurpers from my kingdom so that I may return.”
Stricken had left out the part where she was a queen in exile.
With that revelation, I looked around the throne room again with fresh eyes. This wasn’t her regular court in all its glory. These were the refugees. These were the survivors who’d escaped.
“That’s the plan,” Stricken said.
“Very well.” The queen held the Ward out. Stricken reached for it, but she extended her hand toward me instead. “This one shall bear the weapon from here on.”
“Why me?”
“It is not my decision. That choice was made for both of us long before you were born. You have already been bound to do this deed by others. The weight of destiny is heavy upon you, God Slayer. The question is, will you be strong enough to earn that title a second time?”
It had been prophesied that I would die saving the world. Was this next mission going to be it?
Even if it was, that didn’t change what needed to be done.
I took the Ward from her. “I guess we’ll see.”
She leaned back on the throne. “Humans are normally beneath our notice, but those of sufficient calling or bloodline will be honored as our equals for now. Our enemy has done this as well, gathering to them humans living and dead to aid their cause. It pleases me to do the same.”
That had to explain how Lord Machado had come back . . . but why? Those things laughed at the boundaries between life and death, so it was in their power to do so, but at the end he had discovered that they had used and betrayed him, so why would they bring him back to serve them now? Except I didn’t dare interrupt and ask because the queen seemed ready to announce her decision.
“There are great and terrible events afoot in my kingdom, the repercussions of which can be felt in your world. Thus I shall allow this quest.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” Stricken bowed. Franks just grunted in acknowledgement. Sonya was still too relieved at getting a magical time bomb pulled out of her that I don’t think the idea that we were about to embark on an insane mission into an interdimensional warzone had sunk in for her yet.
“I decree that any who bears the mantle of a factions’ Chosen,” the queen nodded toward me and Franks, “or who is of a sufficiently notable bloodline,” she gestured at Sonya, “will be allowed free passage through my lands. The deal is struck.”
“We shall abide by these terms,” Stricken announced loud enough for the entire court to hear. Then he suddenly turned his back on the queen and started walking away. “Let’s get to it then. I’ve got an expedition to put together.”
The queen laughed at his hubris. The monsters of the court decided that if she was laughing it must be funny, so they all laughed too.
“You get ahead of yourself, Stricken. I granted permission to these because they are without guile. You are but a pathetic man, cursed for drawing the ire of mighty beings. No faction has chosen the likes of you to represent them. Did you really think that I would allow the likes of you into the sainted Hall of the Sun, to rifle through my treasures and secrets unobserved?”
Except rather than be insulted by the laughter of the Fey, Stricken turned back and gave her a malicious, knowing grin. “You’re right. I’m not chosen by anybody. I forge my own destiny. Yet by your own decree—which once given can’t easily be taken back—I’ll just have to get by off my notable bloodline.”
The Fey were notoriously tricky, but the queen stopped laughing, knowing that she had been outmaneuvered somehow. “What notable bloodline is that?”
“I already declared it and you agreed it was sufficient . . . The greatest monster hunting family to ever live.”
That title clearly belonged to the Shacklefords, and for just a second I was tempted to scoff at him like the Fey were, but this was Stricken we were talking about. Stricken, who never gave his real name, because in these circles, real names held power. I thought of the many family paintings hanging on the wall of the Shackleford estate, and how not even Julie knew them all, especially the branches who’d wandered away from the family business.
Oh, hell. Was I related to this asshole by marriage?
“I was born Alexander Shackleford, son of Leroy, a direct
