By human standards, she looked no older than twenty. I wondered how old she really was. Probably ancient… Like me.
“Why don’t you sit closer to me, Bria,” I said to her. That was a ballsy move on my part, but I needed to take charge of the situation as much as I possibly could. I needed to reassert that I was a man—not just to her, but to myself as well. I needed to rebuild some kind of inner dignity and confidence… something that was admittedly hard while wearing a tutu of sopping wet flowers over my groin.
She slid closer to me on the branch, cocking her head to one side, as if wondering what I was going to do. I reached for her hand and held it in mine, twining our fingers together. Her palm was soft as a baby’s.
“I have a better idea than sitting,” Bria said. She pulled me off the tree trunk, and we both landed on the ground. Here she began to dance around me again, seeing that I wasn’t exactly capable of dancing myself. But at least she wasn’t whizzing as fast this time, making it easier for me to at least attempt to hold a conversation with her, even while the rest of the marsh dwellers continued their cheerful ruckus around us.
Although I was still tempted to ask, What are you planning to do with me? Will you ever release my feet from these resin blocks? I resisted the urge.
“How long have you been queen?” I asked her. A meaningless question, but it served to break the ice.
She laughed, rich and melodious. “You would not understand our time, beauty.”
I swallowed. “And, uh, where is your home? Is it back where we started our dance?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “That is where we live.”
I flinched as her hands trailed to my waist, her fingers dangerously close to tearing off my string of flowers. I clutched onto it, still pathetically trying to hold on to a semblance of modesty… even though my butt had been showing for at least the last hour.
I coughed my throat clear, trying to maintain composure. Be cool, Lucas. Be cool.
“And do you often get visitors to your country?” I asked her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, a flash of sadness crossing her face.
I wonder why.
“When was the last time you had a visitor?” I asked.
“Many moons ago,” she sighed.
Okay… That didn’t exactly help lead into my next question but, what the heck…
“Do you want to know why I came here?”
“Mm?” She paused her circling around me and gazed up earnestly into my eyes.
“My friends and I were searching for some children. Well, they wouldn’t be children now, but they were over a decade ago… Strange children. Part Hawk, part human, and part vampire. They would’ve come back here many, many moons ago. I’m sure you were around then. I just wondered if you were ever aware of their presence in this place?”
Her eyes glazed over, her face taking on a thoughtful expression. “Hm.” She sighed. “Yes, I do remember. They were… strange children as you say. Sweet things though.” The corners of her plump lips lifted in a smile. “They asked for some food. We gave them some. Then they asked a question…” The queen paused to lead me away from the marsh dwellers’ dance floor and back to the tree. She led me back up to the branch, which she had only just pulled me down from a few minutes ago. This queen was a fidgety thing. It seemed hard to hold her attention for very long. I had to get as many answers out of her as possible, while I still had the chance.
“They wanted to know what they were,” the queen continued, drawing herself onto my lap on the branch. I wished that she hadn’t. Aside from the severely uncomfortable close contact the motion forced us into, the scent of her hair was as intoxicating as the flowers. I found myself reeling as I got a whiff of it. Still, I couldn’t afford to push her off. I was supposed to be coaxing her into trusting me somewhat.
“Poor things,” she went on. “They were so desperate to find their parents. I told them they appeared to be half Hawk, half vampire, and that if they really wanted to find out where their parents were, they should look in either Aviary or Cruor. Wouldn’t you have done the same, dewplum?” She tilted her head back to gaze up at me questioningly.
I nodded. “Of course,” I assured her, my mind racing. So Ibrahim had been right all along that those kids had passed by here. They’d come across the marsh dwellers and asked for food. They’d been fed and then asked questions. And then… I hardly dared to ask my next question.
“What happened to them? Did you, uh, let them go?”
She frowned at me. “Of course! They were only children. We gave them a meal, told them which direction they should head in on their quest to find their parents, and then they fluttered away like butterflies… We have no use for children.”
I felt half relieved, half terrified by her choice of wording. Use.
At least those kids had escaped. But… “What exactly do you mean by use?”
As she grinned wryly, I immediately regretted the question. Before I could stop her, her arms shot up and wrapped around my neck. She pulled my head down and kissed me. Man. Even her lips tasted of these flowers.
I was sure that if I ever made it back to The Shade, the first thing I would do was get rid of every single flower within my treehouse’s proximity… Except for one flower, I thought with an ache in my chest. One pretty, French flower…
The marsh dweller released my neck, allowing me to sit upright again and gasp for breath.
She sat up too. Then she glanced down at the dancers and clapped her hands loudly. The marsh dwellers stopped celebrating and stared up at her.
“Enough singing and dancing for tonight.” Her eyes returned to me, even as she addressed them. “Now it is time for something more useful…”
Lucas
Okay. If there was ever a time when I needed to be a smooth talker, it was now.
“Wait, dewplum,” I told her, even as I winced internally at the word. “I was enjoying the dance! Stay here with me.”
I gripped her arm and pulled her toward me, even going to the sacrifice of drawing her back onto my lap. I held her face and ran my fingers through her hair.
Her cherub face took on an alarmingly grumpy expression. She pushed me away and stood up.
As she gripped my arm, it was as though she had become deaf to my words. I tried to convince her to stay and talk with me longer, but she ignored me. She pulled me from the tree and we both landed on the ground once again, the blocks on my feet digging a couple of inches into the moist ground.
“Where will you go?” several of the marsh dwellers called out to their queen. “Will you return home? Are we going to return home?”
“Not yet,” she called over her shoulder, even as she continued to lead me across the clearing and into another part of the forest. “Wait there in the quiet,” she went on. “You will hear my call when it is time.”
My mind worked frantically. It was time for desperate measures. This girl was physical like me at present. Could I hurt her? Could I overpower her and somehow run fast enough to escape the others, even with these damn blocks on my feet?
I figured the logical thing to do would be to first see where exactly she was taking me. If she took me far away, somewhere isolated from the other marsh dwellers, and I managed to knock her out—or kill her—maybe it would be a long time before her people even discovered what had happened.
I started actively willing her to take me as far away as possible. We headed toward a stream and walked along its bank. I kept glancing over my shoulder, watching as the clearing behind us grew further and further away, until I could no longer see it through the trees.
As the stream on our left-hand side became the major source of noise, an idea hit me that I felt stupid for not having earlier.
Water. I was surrounded by tons of water. The moisture of the ground must’ve held a huge amount alone, not to mention the streams.
Since the marsh dwellers appeared to have been consciously keeping fire away from me, I guessed that they were
aware of the power of fae. But it was nigh impossible to avoid water in The Dewglades, as the name of the place itself suggested. Anywhere she took me here, I would have at least some at my disposal.
And now that I was alone with her… Could marsh dwellers be drowned?
Very few creatures were truly immortal—even vampires could be killed with the right method. There had to be some way to end this woman.
“What are you thinking about, Dominic?” she asked. Her mood had switched back to strawberry sweetness.
“Oh, just what a beautiful night it is,” I replied pleasantly. What a beautiful night it is to murder you.
“Every night here is beautiful,” she replied breathlessly. “And every day is, too. Everything is in The Dewglades… Even our visitors become beautified. Beauty is a thing to be cherished… preserved. Don’t you think?”
“Uh, yes,” I replied absentmindedly as I continued to scope out our surroundings. How long should I wait before attempting something? I knew that once I did attempt it, I had to succeed. My main advantage currently was that she didn’t know what was going through my head. The moment the cat was out of the bag, there would be no going back.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, wondering how much longer she was going to walk with me.
“To the baths,” she replied.
Baths. What did that mean? Do they have natural hot springs here, or something? Maybe it was best for me to wait then, if there was a chance that I was going to be taken to something like that. If we both slipped inside a spring, it would be so much easier and quicker to drown her. Her head would already be but inches above the water.
At the same time, I needed this nightmare to end soon. I feared that I would have gangrene in my feet by the time they got out of these cursed blocks.
My blood ran cold as a thought hit me. I have heavy blocks on my feet. I had better hope that the springs were not deep, otherwise how could I keep myself afloat? It would be a struggle in my exhausted, half-drugged state.
“How long will it take to get there?” I asked the queen.
“It’s just ahead,” she said, pointing vaguely in front of us.
I became tenser and tenser as we traipsed through the forest, a war raging in my mind as to what exactly I should be doing. And then I was put out of my misery. My decision was made for me as the trees thinned and we arrived at a wide clearing. Its ground was dotted with large round holes, from which emanated steam.
I assumed, naturally, that these would be hot springs. You know, water. I was not expecting to find myself gazing down at holes filled with the same liquid that I had woken up in in Ottalie’s bathtub.
This was resin. Only this was far more runny than Ottalie’s bath. And far, far hotter. As the queen approached one of the holes, pulling me along with her, the heat rose up and scalded my face.
Resin. I could not manipulate resin. Fire and water were my strengths. Maybe I was going to have to resort to trying to summon as much of the moisture surrounding me as I could. Maybe—
My thoughts were interrupted by a tug of the queen’s hand against my arm. She pulled me downward, and then her lips were on mine again. They engulfed my mouth completely, and it was as if she was trying to suck the life force out of me as she kissed me hard and deep. I expected her to let go after a few seconds—like normal people did after a kiss—but, to my alarm, she didn’t. Breathing rapidly through my nose, I felt my head begin to dim, the light fading. I gripped her shoulders and managed to pry her away. Dizziness overcame me.
What is it with these creatures?
“Shall I tell you something, Dominic?” she said softly.
I nodded vigorously, glad for any distraction to stop her from molesting me again.
“Due to the location of our realm, we receive quite a few weary travelers in search of food, or simply a roof over their head for the night… Some of them we eat.”
I gulped.
“But others,” she went on, “others whose inherent beauty is undeniable, like dirty gems waiting to be scrubbed, we treat differently.”
So apparently I wasn’t one of the ugly ones, unless this hot resin was how they cooked their meals.
I inched away from the edge of the pond in front of us.
“You, butterfly, are one of the privileged beauties we have captured,” she continued, as if she had read my thoughts. “That said, even among beauties there are gradations. Those beauties who have been touched and those who have been left untouched… I saw a girl in your eyes when we were back in the clearing. You are not a virgin, are you?”
Oh, my God. Did she seriously just ask me that?
I was a virgin in respect to Marion, of course, but otherwise, I was as much of a virgin as Kiev was a saint.
“No,” I replied, hoping that that answer would actually work to my advantage. That maybe she would see me as dirty, and not someone she would want for herself.
Being kept as a pretty slave boy here would be better than her advances.
“Yes,” she said. “As I suspected… it is a pity. A big pity. If you were as pure as your looks, I would’ve taken you to my bed… But never mind. We respect beauty of all sorts, even that which has been tarnished.”
Gee, thanks.
“So how are you planning to respect my beauty if—?”
Before I could finish my question, she hurtled into me. I was so taken aback, it took a second for my brain to register what had just happened. She had knocked me backward and, given that I had squares for feet, I struggled to regain balance after the first step staggering back, and then the second… and then she barged into me again, making me lose balance completely. I felt myself tipping backward, the heat of the pond scorching my back. The only thing I could think to do before I fell was grab hold of the woman who had caused my doom.
I grabbed her wrist, and the second I did, I could see that I’d caught her off guard. Alarm shone in her eyes, and then the two of us hit the resin, falling deeper and deeper and deeper. My skin erupted in agony as the liquid burned me. As a fae, my body was more resistant to heat than a human’s would be, but it was by no means invincible. I could survive heat when it was fire, but this wasn’t a pure element like fire. This was not something my body was equipped to deal with.
Still holding on tight to the queen even as she writhed, I continued sinking. You’re not getting out of this, bitch. You’re going to die right here along with me.
It took everything I had to stop myself from opening my mouth to scream. My flesh felt like it was burning away from my bones. Somewhere in my pain, I realized that I had stopped sinking downward so fast, which confused me, because I had not reached the bottom yet. I was still sinking, just more slowly.
I almost opened my mouth to gasp in shock as I realized I could move my toes. The blocks. They… they must have melted off me. This pond was so hot, it had broken down the hard resin. I can move! I can swim!
Letting go of the woman’s arm, which had gone quite still by now—she could go to hell—I swam upward. I kicked as hard as I could because I still felt too weak to fly, or even thin myself right now. But I could swim like a human could. I made my way to the top and broke the surface, drawing in deep mouthfuls of air. Streams of resin spilled down my face. I thrust myself toward the edge of the pond and gripped the edge before hauling myself out. I was terrified to discover what state I might be in. I rolled around on the marshy ground to clean off the resin from my body. My skin still felt like it was there, thank God, though it felt horribly blistered and sore.
But I was alive. I was alive, and that marsh dweller… I rose shakily to my feet, and glanced down at the pond.
I grimaced. She had floated to the surface. Her still corpse. The resin had trapped her in her physical body and apparently her “beautiful” skin was less heat-resistant than mine.
I wondered how long it would take for the other marsh dwellers to find her. Whatever the case, I had to hurry.
But… this queen. Leaving her here wasn’t t
he wisest decision. I didn’t know how long it would take for me to muster the strength to fly or thin myself again. For now I was stuck traveling on foot. Which meant that I needed to delay those marsh dwellers finding me for as long as I possibly could.
My nerves wouldn’t survive another kidnapping—and this time, most likely, instant slaughter for having ended the queen.
I grabbed a fallen branch nearby and knelt over the edge of the pond, guiding the elf’s body toward me. Grasping her wrist, I pulled her out, onto the grass. Now I had to look for somewhere to hide her. I scoped out my surroundings more carefully, particularly the trees that bordered the clearing. And then I spotted something interesting. Something very interesting. Rectangular wooden tub-like things. Like the bath that I had woken up in. They were all lined up in rows together. Maybe this was some kind of dumping site for abandoned tubs nobody wanted.
Surely it would take the marsh dwellers longer to find her in one of those than it would if I left her in the center of this clearing for all to see. I supposed I could’ve found somewhere more secluded, but I didn’t have time to go searching now.
I managed to heave her body over my shoulders, so as to not leave a trail of resin leading in the direction of the trees, and then began looking around the boxes. Here I spotted one of the tubs filled with resin. So not a dumping site after all. The resin seemed lukewarm, or at least as warm as the night air that surrounded us. It wasn’t liquid, but it wasn’t hard either. Kind of like Jell-o, soft and squidgy enough for me to sink the body into it. And that was exactly what I did. I dumped the naked queen into the resin and watched her sink to the bottom, her long hair splayed eerily around her.
If she stayed in here long enough, the resin would harden and close around her just as the blocks on my feet had done.
Karma’s a bitch, Queen Bria.
Ben
All of us were beginning to have second thoughts about waiting for Lucas to return, about waiting here by the garden. We were getting more and more fearful that they would simply do something to Lucas in some other part of The Dewglades. After all, this was just one township. Who knew how many other settlements were in this area?