When destiny comes calling, it takes courage to stand against it - or a terrible deviousness. The Dark Queen knows how to divide so that she may conquer, turning friend against friend.
Please note that this story contains content which some may find disturbing. See here for details.
We rolled down the hill together, hands clasped tight. The sky flashed past in bursts, now blue, now white, blue, blue, white until the ground ate it in hungry gulps and everything was green. We smelled like grass and crumpled flowers. Mouths stained with berry juice, knees with grass, we laughed through the summer and rolled down the hill.
There was an aching familiarity to the scene now, stains on cheeks and those same brown eyes set in a familiar face. But he had never kneeled before. There was never a sword. Never a sword in those bright grassy summers, and now it was mud and blood staining cheeks.
I had thought he was dead. We all had.
There had been so much blood, sticky beneath the smoke. The house destroyed, beams and supports jutting like broken bones through the tremulous skin of the flames, the warmth like something alive and breathing. But there had been nothing but blood and soot, and something in my heart that smelled like grass and sunlight had blackened and burned along with the last of the thatch.
Why?
I had screamed that word to the sky, hoping that the wind would carry an answer to me. The senselessness of his death - of his whole family - had carved out a vast empty cavern in the centre of my chest. The wind hadn’t answered.
“Why?” I whispered the word now, hope and hatred coiling in my gut. My voice was barely louder than the breeze I had once asked that same question. Because I had to know. I had to at least ask.
We had played at soldiers in those summer days. Trees were great fortress we defended, or towers we stormed. Chattering squirrel spies were chased through the woods and we feasted on mud pies and marigolds in the warm glow of our victories against myriad powerful foes, shadows of our own minds. The woods echoed with our shouts and laughter. Nothing could separate us. Nothing could beat us. We had destiny on our side.
Then the assassination.
The war.
The attack.
The funeral.
That was the worst part. The fighting was distant, then, nothing more than stories and words. Sometimes we saw the dim glow of fires far over the horizon, but that was all. Never even close enough to smell the smoke. But the funeral was in our little chapel, and he was buried in the little graveyard out beside it. Not under the big old apple tree - tiny tart fruits that we loved to steal and give to my dad to turn into jam - but in a quiet little corner, tucked away between all the gravestones of those buried without bodies. It was close.
The lonely ache of it settled closer still, huddled in my chest right next go my heart.
“Why?”
He was silent. What would it take to get him to answer, this man whom I had known so long ago? I couldn’t see any trace of the boy I had played at soldiers with, who had splashed in the river beside me. Who had smiled.
I couldn’t imagine this hard-jawed face smiling, or what his laugh might sound like. His eyes were like glassy stones. They reflected the image of my sword, held steady, pointed at his throat.
“I had to.”
His voice hurt me. It carried, even still, something of the cadence of my old friend and the sound caught and tugged at old wounds. They had scabbed over the years, grown crusty and hard. What had once been a sharp pain lancing through my heart - loss, then hope, then bitter betrayal - had faded into the dull, lingering ache of reality. I had accepted that he was the lieutenant of the Dark Queen, flying in the face of his destiny, of all the prophecies.
But I wanted to know.
“*Had* to?” I hated that my voice cracked, but my blade remained steady. I could be proud of that. “You were supposed to be good!”
He flinched as if my words had hurt, as if I’d swung my sword closer to his face. Those glassy eyes stared fixedly at the ground, his shoulders tight. How awful that he thought I might kill him. How awful that I would.
“I can’t believe I thought we were friends.” It was a thought that had echoed through my mind for years, bouncing futilely around my skull. Sometimes louder, sometimes quieter, sometimes slipping out in a moment of rage and self-loathing as I railed against the helpless fight against the Queen. The prophecy had been so clear, and it had shaped all our childhood games. Him, the hero, and me, a knight fighting valiantly at his side against the forces of darkness.
And now, here we were.
Me, the knight fighting against overwhelming odds, rallying allies against the Queen. Him, the lieutenant of the Queen, bearing her standard and drenched in innocent blood.
“We were.” His voice was as unsteady as mine, and as I stared down at him, I thought I saw the unexpected glint of tears wetting those cold eyes. “She has my family, Dandy.”
“Your family’s...” Dead. Dead, killed in that terrible, terrible fire. Dead, just like you. The childhood nickname brought back flashes - smiles and smoke and grass and blood.
“She can do terrible things, Dandy. Worse than death. Death is... death would be a gift.” He lifted his chin, and for the first time met my eyes. There was nothing of the child I’d known left in them, only coldness and fear slinking just below the surface. But his voice was steady. “So please, kill me. Free me from this. If I die, my family... at least they won’t hurt anymore.”
My hand tightened on the hilt. I’d heard what the Queen could do, although ‘heard’ wasn’t quite the right word. No-one could describe it, mere words couldn’t capture the horror. There was only a pervasive cloud of knowing that hung over everything like a miasma. An unspoken understanding. A terror that only a hero could face. And we were no heroes.
I took a deep breath.
“Come on.” They were the hardest words I’d ever had to say, and also the easiest. I’d wanted to say them for what felt like forever.
He stared at my outstretched hand as if it was some new creature he’d never seen before, as if it might bite. His hands hung loosely between his knees, his jaw likewise momentarily slack.
“Why?”
The word sounded like it had so long ago when I’d screamed it to the wind - a childlike incomprehension, a desperate grab for answers. In return, I offered him another token of a long-forgotten youth. The smile felt strange, a little forced, but I meant it.
“Well, you’re going to have to make a daring escape if you’re to help us break into the citadel and rescue your family.”
Covered in mud and blood, his hand reached out and grasped mine. As I pulled him to his feet, steadying his swaying body, beneath the stench of death and fear I caught the faintest whiff of green summer grass and sunlight.
