A Queen of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales 4)

Nyfain raised his hands. “I need to see Starvos. Our wolf alpha has thoroughly reined in the Red Lupine wolves. We need to meet the host of demons outside so that our dragons can be of more use. Time is of the essence.”

One of the faeries rattled off something to the other in their language. There was a brief pause before they nodded, turned, and started jogging in front of us. We followed. All the doors were closed, but we found more faeries along the sides of the hall, tucked into nooks or hidden behind tapestries or curtains. Finally we reached the last door.

The faerie on my right knocked in a pattern, two fast, three slow, one more. A woman with fearful eyes and her hair in a bun opened the door. One of their staff. She saw us, and relief crossed her expression before she glanced behind us like she was searching for something.

She’s looking for that damn phoenix, I’ll betcha, my dragon grumbled. He doesn’t even know how to work all the things.

What things?

He doesn’t even know what things! He doesn’t know what he’s capable of!

“Janine, who is it?” Starvos called from within.

She stepped to the side, allowing us admittance.

Starvos stood at the windows dressed in red battle regalia with a stylized metal breastplate and cuffs around his forearms and shins. His warriors waited in the other rooms, standing tall and ready. Calia and Dessia sat in the far corner. Their eyes were tight, and they breathed a sigh of relief when they saw us.

I didn’t have time to notice anyone else as Starvos glanced back. “Cocktails got out of hand, it seems,” he said by way of greeting.

“Were you waiting for us?” Nyfain asked, taking stock of Starvos’s fighters.

“Yes. I didn’t know what else to do. There were wolves blocking us in. We could’ve gotten through them, but we would’ve taken damage. And then what? Have you seen what surrounds us?” He turned back as his lip curled. “That demon knew it would come to this. He knew all along that you had—that we had—enough incriminating evidence to knock him from his throne. I didn’t expect him to accept it gracefully. I expected him to force us to take action, but this?” He gestured to the window. “There hasn’t been a battle here for…hundreds of years. This is sacred land—”

“All due respect, Starvos,” I said, “but we don’t have time for outrage. That can come later. We need your people, and we have to cut through those demons. Our wolf alpha has the Red Lupine wolves under his control—”

“What?” Starvos blinked at me as though slapped out of a daze. “How?”

“He’s more powerful than them, basically,” I replied. “The royals used to use him to bring wolves into their pack and hold them there. It’s a long story. Regardless, he’s doing it now to add to our host and shrink theirs. We need your faeries, though. We’ve come to ask you to join us. United we are stronger. I just ask that your faeries fight with the wolves and dragons, not independently of them.”

“With the…dragons?” Starvos looked at Nyfain, then back to me. “You can have warriors on your backs? You see…they’ve killed the stabled horses. The disgusting creatures brought them out there to kill them where we’d see the remains. It has crippled our army. Without horses, we’ll be overrun immediately.”

I glanced at Nyfain. Starvos was smart and usually sharp, but he was also up there in years, and while we’d expressed a lot of these concepts to him in our various meetings, they clearly hadn’t sunk in. This was new territory for him. We needed to get over the informational hump. Time was wasting.

“Starvos,” Nyfain barked, infusing power into the word. “We have wolves and dragons. Work around us. We are worth a thousand horses, because we have teeth and claws and fire. Would you let them beat you? Rise up!”

His last words were a growl, his voice like a whip crack. Starvos flinched, and then his back straightened. He braced his hands against the sides of the windows. “Yes. Okay. Wolves and dragons.” He tightened his hand into a fist. “Dragons! Yes!”

Calia furrowed her brow at him before she slid her gaze to me. She’d clearly never seen him this scattered. I wondered if he’d ever had to go to war. It didn’t seem like it, which explained why he’d put it off for so long. Fear could turn a person blind, even a king. Maybe especially a king.

Nyfain turned away from them and started meeting the eyes of the waiting faerie warriors. With a grin I couldn’t help and eyes that were probably manic, I did the same.

“I’ve always said there’s no stronger force than one that includes all the creatures fighting together,” I told one, giving him a shoulder pat that was hopefully inspiring. “Well…” I moved on to another and touched her on the arm. Still another, holding up my fist in front of him and shaking it in anticipation. “Not exactly always. But since I started fighting demons. That counts.”