The Final Flame of the Faerie Queen

The blackened wings of Maescia, queen of the Blazing Realm in the north, stood tall above her shoulders as she surveyed the dark revelry of her subjects at the Ball of the Fiery Night. Music, deep and foreboding and yet somehow jubilant, swelled from the corner of the expansive cavern farthest from the Flaming Throne. But with their perfect hearing, she and everyone else could hear every note, every intricate turn of the song.

Her people danced, their wings moving with their bodies to create a dance floor extending at least thirty feet into the air. They writhed to the beat of their own hearts and the skin drums played from the corner.

The Faerie Queen smiled grimly. She had not taken part in the dances for the thousand years since she had been raised from the darkness of her entombment to rule the realm. Sometimes, in the womb of her dark Cell of Waiting, she had danced when the barest hints of music had reached her, but never since. She resented the joy of her people, but knew she would have ample opportunity to revel in their misery after this night—the suns would not crest the horizon for seventy-two days now that it had set for the last time of its cycle.

Her eyes caught on one couple, the highest in the room, grinding against each other, suggesting their mating was not far off. Her grin widened as she toyed with the idea of either ending one of their lives or calling them into her service and denying them the opportunity to be together. The sadness of the separation would stoke the flames of her power. Their righteous indignation would serve as an entirely different music to her long, pointed ears.

She shifted her attention back to the stone floor of the cavern. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of her people came to this ball each year, answering the summons of the throne with something like gladness, even if that summons gave them no choice. Until they reached two thousand years of age, attendance at the feet of the queen each year was obligatory, and they all came with a touch of fear edging their anticipation, knowing how close to Maescia they would be throughout that long night.

The faerie queen’s wings shifted slightly, the movement imperceptible to everyone but her. Something had happened; something in the very bowels of the underground palace that curled and descended from this very room had shifted, and her displeasure rippled through the room. Some faeries closest to her stopped dancing, dropping to their knees and letting their leathery wings drag on the ground. The others followed in a wave as they noticed the shift; none wanted to be left standing amidst the kneeling of an entire realm.

The musicians silenced their instruments, and the dark singer abruptly quieted her voice. The silence in the cavern echoed as the queen, ignoring all of them, cast out the greatness of her power to find the disturbance that had interrupted the most sacred evening of their year.

Behind her, the throne—the black iron seat that had erupted into flames millennia before and would only allow the true king or queen to sit upon it—burned brightly as ever, but she became aware of the heat at her back increasing. She was standing too close, but how could she, who could sit amidst the flames, stand too close?

With a sudden certainty that chilled even Maescia’s blood, she understood what had happened. Her power erupted from her in an invisible wave of searing heat, felling the first two rows of kneeling revelers. They died silently, the heat so great they didn’t even have time to feel the pain of it before their bodies disintegrated into ash.

Someone in the cavern cried out, but Maescia took no notice. Someone had taken the Bloodfire Ruby, the source of her power and the power of all the monarchs before her, from its place in the heart of the earth.

The faerie queen felt the heat overtake her once again, and she ensured she did not appear to be fleeing her own throne as she rushed into the crowd, shouting, “Guards!” in the ashy, gravel-ridden voice her realm feared more than any other sound.

Black-armored sentries surrounded her as she dashed out of the enormous cavern, away from the crowd, and into the bowels of the earth. She dimly noted when the music and revelry began again, but she didn’t care. Let them dance; let them revel. She had more important matters to deal with.

#

Maescia took to her wings, soaring downward through the wide corridors formed long before she existed. Her guards kept pace behind her, the flapping of their wings the only sound as they raced toward the cavern of the Bloodfire Ruby.

The room was empty when they arrived, with no sign of life whatsoever. More importantly, the centerpiece of the room was absent, surrounded by the bodies of the four Eternal Guards that always flanked it. No dark red ruby wreathed in scarlet flame stood on the dais; the stone, roughly round and eight inches across, would have been impossible to miss. The power emanating from it would be impossible to miss. Both left emptiness behind them.

Maescia stepped over the bodies of the Eternal Guards and stood on the dais. She turned in a slow circle, sniffing the air, her pointed ears alert to any sound of movement or flame, and her being attuned to the power she recognized as well as she recognized the features of her own magnificent body.

There. She stopped her slow rotation and pointed at the pathway leading up toward the surface of the cave. The absence of the stone’s power was a palpable thing, but she dared not show her weakness as she raised a long arm to point toward the scent still in the air. The scent was not of the rival Sun Realm, which she had expected to be behind the theft, but of her own court.

“The Faction of the White Flame,” she spat at the guards. “That way.”

Without waiting for them to acknowledge her unspoken order, she again took to the air, flapping her wings toward that scent, toward her only chance of regaining her power and staying upon her throne. She didn’t think of those things, though…as she flew, all she felt was the simmering fury that those of her own realm would dare try to usurp her. As soon as she got close enough to the Bloodfire Ruby, undoubtedly in their possession, she would obliterate them all.

Her speed, driven by rage, was considerable as she reached the mouth of a much smaller cave, this one giving way to the moonlit darkness of her realm outside the cave complex. A lone figure stood in the doorway, and she was unsurprised to see who it was.

“Elluint,” she hissed, her voice low with menace. “Where have you taken the Bloodfire Ruby? Return it now, and I may spare your lives.” She would do no such thing, and Elluint understood that, but when her people were afraid, she usually got what she wanted.

The smile that formed on Elluint’s slender face, the ebony of his skin glinting slightly in the moon's light, was anything but afraid. “You can feel it waning already, can you not, Your Flaming Majesty?” While he spoke her title, his inflection showed anything but deference. “You will never again hold the Bloodfire Ruby. You will never again hold the people of this land under your cruel thumb.”

Meascia smiled, letting every bit of cruelty she would inflict upon him and his underlings show. “The Bloodfire Ruby is still close,” she said. “Its power resides within me, and you cannot resist it. You cannot resist my power.”

Elluint didn’t answer in words but instead sent a wave of water hurtling toward her, seemingly out of nowhere, though she knew he pulled it from the moisture in the air of the caves. Water gifts were rare in her realm, and those who wielded them wielded the greatest power besides her own…because water’s primary power was to douse flame.

Her smile widened as she again sent out a wave of blistering heat, immediately turning his water to scalding steam. She was glad when he jumped at the pain of it suddenly surrounding him, but she kept her focus on him as she drew the flaming sword she always kept strapped down her back between her wings.

“You have a chance to end this now, Elluint,” she crooned, her voice sweet in a way her subjects knew meant she was at her most dangerous. “You have a chance to walk away, to return to your mate and your offspring, and to live peacefully for the rest of your life. All you must do is return my artifact. I will find it either way. You know that to be true.”

In response, Elluint drew his own sword as he concentrated more of the moisture in the air to put out the flames of her own. She again turned the moisture to steam, but the small concentration of the magic put her at a disadvantage. Within half a heartbeat, Elluint was upon her, a bubble of water—a shield, she realized—surrounding him. He was more powerful than she had known, though she had made it her business to know everything about the rebel leader.

The flames on her sword flickered as they touched the shield, and Maescia knew the Bloodfire Ruby was getting farther away from her. If they made it to the border between the Blazing Realm and the Sun Realm…

She struck again and again, both with her sword and with her magic, even as her power faded. He met every blow; his sword wreathed in water as it blocked hers, the bubble of his shield dissolving into steam and instantly reforming when she struck him with her invisible flames.

He was not looking to defeat her, she realized. He knew that would be impossible, especially before the Bloodfire Ruby passed out of their realm. He was delaying her while his underlings took the artifact farther and farther away.

“Sesaintia,” she hissed, a code word to the guards who stood behind her, waiting for their orders to join the fray.

Elluint obviously didn’t know what the word meant, for he kept his concentration on her as the guards swept around him. When his shield once again dissolved to steam, they seized him flawlessly, keeping hold through the bubble of water as it reformed. The strength of her guards was not in magic, though they each had some talent with flame, but in incredible physical strength and resilience.

Even as Maescia realized she should have given the order sooner, should have let them take the leader of the Faction of the White Flame immediately rather than battle him herself, she did not regret her actions. She needed to show her power to her subjects, let it be spoken of, and let it be feared. Her guards had known this, which was why they had waited.

“Take him below,” she ordered before she flew into the night after those who held the precious, flaming ruby. She briefly wondered how they even touched it, but she dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter how, only that they had taken it from her.

#

Maescia flew with all her might, unconcerned about pursuing them alone. When she got closer to the Bloodfire Ruby, the power it would grant her would allow her to take all of them at once. But somehow, she never felt herself get any closer, though she followed their scents unerringly.

They must be moving like the wind.

She again wondered who was in that contingent. If they considered Elluint, their leader, expendable…if they had stolen the Bloodfire Ruby…she wondered who accompanied them. Maybe there was Sun Realm interference after all. As she flew, she vowed to march upon their realm and claim it for her own.

The dawn never rose, but Maescia knew she had been flying for most of the night when the power within her vanished. They had taken the Bloodfire Ruby over the borders of the Sun Realm, and it was lost to her.

She dropped to the ground, despair immobilizing her for a moment before her resolve took over once again. She would go back to the underground palace, all the way to the dungeons. And she would make Elluint scream and beg and weep until he was ready to tell her who had been among the thieves and where they had gone with her ruby.

Maescia took to the air once again, flying toward home, but with each beat of her wings, she grew more fatigued, more certain that what had been done could not be undone. Once her people knew she no longer held the power of the Bloodfire Ruby, they would depose her immediately, and she wouldn’t be able to stop it. Even her own sentries, most of whom only obeyed her for fear of her power, would abandon her. Perhaps the word was spreading even now; perhaps she would return to a palace no longer her own.

When Maescia reached the cave system, she flew in via the huge cavern that had held the revelers in the Ball of the Fiery Night. It was empty, and she didn’t know if it was so because the ball had ended or because they had all left once they realized she held little of her previous power, that even the smallest water gift could probably defeat her now.

She landed and walked slowly toward the Flaming Throne, but by the time she got within ten feet of it, a blazing wall of heat prevented her from getting closer: the magic of the throne no longer recognized her as its rightful occupant.

Maescia flew down to the dungeons, to the cell holding Elluint, though no guards were anywhere in sight. With a small zap of the magic common to all fae, she unlocked the barred door. “Go,” she said, and her voice was one of resignation. She knew he had won, and somehow, after a thousand years, knowing the moment had come no longer summoned the rage she had felt earlier. The Blazing Realm was no longer hers; let someone else do what she had done for so long. For the first time, she felt ancient and exhausted.

Elluint approached the door with caution, and she noted that his face and body were not marked. Her guards had already known, then, and had acted accordingly. She tried to summon the fury that had driven her only hours before, but the absence of the Bloodfire Ruby had robbed her even of that emotion. “Go,” she repeated.

Elluint said nothing as he obeyed, trudging out of the dungeon cell and through the upward-tilting passage that would lead him to the empty palace above. He did not smile, and his walk did not indicate any sort of pride, but she scented a muted terror within him. She found she didn’t care enough to find its source.

Maescia flew herself to her rooms, seeing not one servant, subject, or sentry on the long flight upward. When she was there, she gazed around the cavernous space, the black furnishings and upholstery, the forbidding majesty of it all. Without her power, it seemed meaningless. She crossed to the fireplace, where a trivet held the golden kettle always reserved for her favored tea and already filled in anticipation of the end of the ball. Again, using the small, common magic of her former subjects, she lit the logs under it and waited for the water to boil.

The flame she had cast to start the fire was the final magic she would perform, and she found she didn’t mind. Instead, she sat on the chair next to the fire and sipped the strong, aromatic tea, noting the end of what she once was and wondering what she would become.