The Exiled Queen

Chapter 10

(Art by @loweana.art used with permission)

At the palace with Madoc's help, we have staged an attack to create the distraction we need to extract Grimsen. We arranged to have a few of Madoc's liveried knights "captured" in the false attack that would appear to be mostly intercepted by the Court of Shadows before too many unnecessary casualties should occur. In the haze of the revelers drunken stupor, the Bomb's loud and fiery talents will add to the illusion of a real attempt on a weak point at the Palace of Elfhame.

We hear a lieutenant reiterate the scene we created to the prison guards. Our mouths are gleaming grins in the dark: it worked. Only that we neglected to foresee the final hours of the night would now be on high alert and heavily guarded with scouts. As well, the lieutenant informs the guard that one of the generals will be personally escorting the "traitors" as he called them to the Tower of Forgetting, to await their audience with the High King.

I feel a twinge of guilt. Madoc's knights were only following orders. They will have to take the fall. But what the general said is true, these are some of Elfhame's military that did not return, and chose to stay with Madoc when he essentially stole them from Cardan. They are now unsworn traitors to the crown. As queen, perhaps I will not judge them too harshly simply for their duty in helping me achieve my crown tonight..

Finally our opportunity arises: the prison guard and the lieutenant disappear around the corner of the tower and we dash out of the gates toward the stone pathway between the islands. The knight who stayed behind--Merek--joins us silently. We stay low and don't look back. And I can't help but grin when I glance over at the Roach, our plan is working. I am so close to getting my crown, my revenge and my sons.

But my victory is short lived. When we drop down onto the rocky shore from the cliff's edge one by one, we nearly come face to face with a dripping metallic-scale covered Selkie knight. His hair is long and resembles rivulets of slippery dark green sea kelp. My eyes go wide and I feel my stomach knot with realization. The Selkie turns slowly toward the shallow lapping of the inlet of sea between Insmire and Insweal and strikes the water with a long opalescent pole with a piercingly sharp tip; a Narwhal's tusk, that he holds like a staff. He then swings back to face us, inky black eyes daring us to move.

The water behind the Selkie knight bubbles ominously and swells with a large dark shadow just below the surface at the northernmost point of Insweal. A menacing wave grows from the waters as the Queen of the Undersea emerges, bursting forth from the ocean on an orca as before in a spray of water. The wave crashes against the rocky shore where we stand, rushing through our legs up to our knees and pulling back so fiercely our footing is lost and we are dragged over sharp, jagged edges of rock and shells on our backs. And pooled into pathetic wet heaps at Queen Orlagh's inhuman feet.

The skin of my back feels raw and the sting of the seawater makes me hiss a breath. I am unable to mask the pain as I quickly scramble to standing along with the Roach, Merek and Grimsen. All of whom, drop down to a knee just as soon as they came to stand. The Roach's eyes go wide and he ever so slightly jerks his head toward the ground, indicating me to bow. I drop to my knee and duck my head in subservience. Queen Orlagh does not tell us to rise. My knee is digging into the rough crushed shells between the larger rocks. My clothes are soaked through and when the wind kicks up between gusts it blows right through my thin shirt, I bite my lip at the sting again and again. There is a tickle down my back and I know it is not only droplets of water.

Queen Orlagh crunches gracefully along the pebbled and craggy shore, despite her fish-scale covered feet. She is resplendent in an armored bodice of iridescent shells, a skirt of nearly transparent gossamer that clings to her wet thighs, and a crown of coral upon her regal head. She stops before me and I can't hide my trembling. I think of my time in the Undersea. The horrors of it. The hunger, the cold. The never knowing if I'd ever get out. I can't go back there. "Rise." She says calmly.