Chapter 89

“Mother, is that really you?” Lucilla asked as the guards chained everyone up.

The fairy queen turned to her, and her features soften slightly for a moment. “It is me. I am your mother, the woman who birthed and raised you.”

“Then… I don’t understand… why are you doing this?” She asked as her chains were clicked on.

“I have mothered the entire faery race.” She snorted. “Did you honestly think that you and your sisters were special because you were human?”

“Oh…”

A flash of hurt appeared on Lucilla’s face, while Olivia could only stare in stunned silence, her mouth partially open.

“I’m not completely without mercy. You are my daughters, so I will not have you killed. However, you must understand that I see the world on a much grander scale than you can imagine. I have lived for a million years, and I will live a million more. You will be but a blip in my life, barely worth mentioning.”

“That…”

The queen walked up and touched Lucilla’s cheek, but she jerked it away, causing the queen to shake her head. “It isn’t just the faery who are my children. Think about it for a moment. The demihumans were born from faery-human couplings, and every faery came from me. In a way, I am the mother to all demihumans. The elves, the beastkin, and the dwarves are all my children.”

“As are the devils,” I responded with a grin.

The queen gave a hiss, shooting me an ugly look, and Duheart raised his boot to kick me, but the queen held up a hand, stopping him.

“It is true, you also came from me, a devil.” She sniffed. “It is a mistake I intend to fix… with the assistance of the glorious celestials, no less!”

“How can you be the same woman who cut her soul in half, I wonder?”

She snorted. “The influence of your devil’s blood temporarily caused me a bout of insanity. It caused me to make a terrible mistake all of those years ago, a mistake that almost cost the entire world. Thankfully, I was able to fix the mistake in time, before it was too late.”

“My blood relieved you of insanity? Don’t you mean the celestial’s brainwashing?”

The more I spoke to this woman, the more I realized that the control they had on her wasn’t just some kind of shackle. Her behavior wasn’t an act to throw these people off. I was confident that she was believing what she said. Of course, I wasn’t like my sisters, feeling hurt and injured by this revelation. Rather, all of it was starting to make more sense to me.

Devil’s blood seems to mess with the glamour and control spells that the faeries and celestials use. When she had me, she was exposed to my blood. This had temporarily freed her from the mental conditioning and allowed her to think for herself. Why wasn’t it permanent? That likely had to do with how she was made and where she came from. She was created by the celestials to mother the faery race. The conditioning programmed into her mind would have been many times more server.

Mother must have known that the conditioning was starting to wear off. In a way, the story about her hating me had been true. As the blood weakened, her love was slowly turning to hate, and the only way she could subvert them was to cut her soul in half, making sure to create a pure and unhampered version of herself to take care of me. The leftovers were sent back to the faery, where she spent these years in a state halfway between despising me and loving me. Only once her soul was recombined did her conditioning also end up being restored.

Based on the arrival of Duheart as soon as the spell finished, the queen must have known that this would happen. She deliberately set these events in the course. Meanwhile, my mother had only fallen victim to trusting a part of herself she never understood. Like that, my mother was gone, and I ended up with my own greatest enemy.

“The only brainwashing is the perversions of love your hideous blood forces women to feel. Maybe, with time, these daughters of mine can be purged of your taint. Guards, take them away.” She turned away. “Duheart, I will require some time to recover. I am weak after the unity. Once I have recovered, you may come to my chambers, and we will begin the mating ceremony.”

Excitement and delight flashed across Duheart’s eyes and he thumped his chest with his fist. “As my queen commands!”

He turned and grabbed me while his other guards grabbed my sisters. I shook my head, letting out a little laugh.

“It really is a shame.”

“Silence!” Duheart raised his blade, but once again, right before he struck me, the queen held up her hand.

She was still facing away from me, but she spoke in a cold voice. “It was always going to turn out this way, David. Some things are unavoidable.”

“Mm… such as the failure of this plan.” I chuckled. “You were so close too, almost perfect.”

“Quit spouting nonsense!” Duheart shouted.

“Let him speak.” She remained in her position unmoving, but she had her head tilted slightly back. “What are you saying?”

“You made a mistake.” I shrugged. “One mistake, but that’s all it takes for a meticulous plan to unravel.”

I could see a slight frown on her face. “I suppose you won’t tell me what it is?”

“You’ll find out when it’s too late.” I broke into laughter again.

She made a hissing noise, and Duheart finished forcing us out the door. We were led down several hallways, this time distinctly heading away from the abode of the faery queen. I felt a bit of worry for my daughter, but I had already told her everything she needed to know. She’d be on her own for a while.

We were brought down into a dungeon, and other than being a bit more brick and a bit less earth, it resembled the dungeon we had been tossed while in the elvish kingdom pretty nicely. It wasn’t until I passed their cells that I realized Saria and Bala had already been captured.

“Wife…”

“The suddenly just burst into our room. They didn’t even let us change.” Saria spoke scornfully.

I could see that both she and Bala were wearing white sleeping garments rather than their typical dresses. If they were anywhere but, in a dungeon, the sight would have been somewhat alluring. I was thrown into a cell by myself. Baba was restrained to a wall in the cell across from me. It was clear that they were giving her some kind of magical restraints. At least Lucilla and Olivia were thrown into a room together. Once the guard locked up, Duheart silently gave me one last sneer.

“Back in a cell again.” I sighed as I found a place that looked dry and clean enough to sit in such a place could be found in one of these dungeons.

“You end up in these often?” Lucilla asked.

“It does seem to happen, yeah.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Duheart chuckled. “After I finish with your mom, the celestials will come, and you will be destroyed by them.”

“You sure act cocky for a dead man.” Baba snorted.

Duheart froze for a second, shooting her an ugly look.

“A dead man?” I asked.

“Did I not mention it earlier? To create the next generation, a male host must be used, but that male is consumed entirely.”

“What?”

“The faery queen eats her mate… sucks him dry of miasma,” Baba explained. “His first time with her will be his only time.”

“I have no regrets dying in the embrace of my queen.” He growled. “I’d be honored to give my life to father in the next generation of children. A being like you would never understand.”

He stiffly turned away, and then kept on walking, ignoring any more of her provocation. So, it was like that, huh? It wasn’t easy being a faery. You were indoctrinated since birth to function almost exclusively as a drone for an uncaring queen, and even the most excellent faery who won her favor only got to dye like a praying mantis.

After Duheart’s footsteps faded away, there was silence for a bit, but Lucilla broke it.

“Okay, brother, what’s the plan?”

I blinked. “Plan?”

“You told the queen that she made one mistake and that her plans were all going to unravel! What was the mistake that she made, and how are we going to unravel them?

“Oh, I was lying about that,” I admitted sheepishly. “I was trying trying to put her off guard. We’re definitely in some bad straights right now.”

“You…” Olivia cut in.

Lucilla’s mouth fell open for a second as she didn’t know what to say. Before she could say anything though, there was the sound of a door opening and closing in the distance. Light footsteps could be heard walking our way. I leaned back.

“Then again, sometimes, when you put someone off, you gain the opportunity to find an opening,” I mumbled to myself.

A minute later, the shape walking down the distance formed into the image of transcendent beauty. This was known other than the faery queen. For her to forgo her rest and instead come down here, something must have been troubling her mind, or someone. I small half-smile formed on my face.

“Although the celestials want you alive, I’m not above torturing to get the information I seek.”

“I wonder if you’d be able to do it.” I mused.

“Do you think I wouldn’t torture you?” She demanded, her eyes flashing.

I leaned forward. “I believe that soul came from two women. One woman might have been an insane and distressed queen under celestial rule, but the other was my mother. You didn’t get rid of her or overwrite her. You combined with her.  You are as much her as she is you. That’s why, somewhere deep down inside you, I knew there is that same woman who loves me desperately. She wants to come out, but she’s being held back.”

A cruel smile formed on her lips. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that woman no longer exists. Without me, she was nothing, and now that she is no longer needed, she returned to nothing.”

“Is that so,” I responded, not letting her see my thoughts on it one way or the other.

“Was that my so-called mistake? You thought that such a weak-willed woman would be able to take over, or that my choices are somehow compromised?” She sneered

As she spoke, Olivia behind her stiffened slightly. She was always a girl who wore her emotions on her face, and after admitting to them that I was just trying to trick her, Olivia looked like she might blow it. As Aurica started to turn away, I leaned forward even more.

“You came, didn’t you?”

She froze for a second, her eyes flashing uncertainly. However, after a moment, she burst into laughter.

“Are you honestly trying to play mind games with me? Perhaps you might have succeeded in my fractured state, but your fate is sealed once the celestials arrive.”

“What is my fate, anyway?” I asked casually. “As the son you betrayed, you can at least tell me that much. I had thought that you planned to put me on the throne and use that as justification for conquering the human realm and uniting the lands under the celestial’s banner to finally rid the world of the devils to the south. Yet, I don’t see how capturing me or handing me over to the celestials will accomplish that.”

She listened to my words and then snorted. “You underestimate the power of the celestials. If they want to install you as a puppet, why would they risk having you in the picture? Besides, you’ve already left all of the evidence needed to justify their war.”

I thought about it for a second, and then my eyes widened. “Olivia’s baby.”

If my guess was right, then they were right. They didn’t need me to be on the throne. All they needed to do was prove that the throne was compromised. When the queen had unlocked the birthing cycle of my children, I had thought she was doing it as part of some familial affection. However, it was more likely that she was doing it as evidence. Every human who had fought in the devil wars knew about the devil’s ability to enslave women. It was the most terrifying aspect about the devil which made them so hated.

A devil could steal your wife, impregnant and enslave her, and then send her home as an undercover agent. She would spy on her husband and even help the devil spread misinformation. They say that behind every great man is an even better woman, so making a woman a turncoat was the greatest fear. It wasn’t just humiliating, but tragic too.

The woman would never regret throwing her relationship away and would leave her man no matter how happily married. She’d even turn on her husband and stab him in the back with a smile on her face if a devil ordered it. During the heat of the war, such subterfuge occurred all the time, and it got to the point where men no longer could trust their wives. Not all of the hatred for devils was completely irrational.

That said, I had used that very enslavement to conquer several of my sisters. Now, I knew and my sisters also knew that I would never use that connection to control them or force them to do anything. However, how would an outsider believe that for a second? My devil children were all the proof the celestials needed that I was a devil attempting to usurp the throne and acquire it through nefarious means. The only protection I had was that no one believed I’d sleep with my sisters, but once a devil child was shown as proof, there would be no denying it.

Even though my uncle was in charge, the celestials could just claim that the entire castle was compromised and slaughtered everyone. I had lived there for years, and my ability to produce children even at a young age was provable with Isabella. I could have been sewing agents throughout the aristocracy for years. Every man’s wife could be under my spell. It would be that kind of narrative.

“Goodbye, my love, I won’t be coming to see you again.”

“Wait!” I cut in, licking my lips. “Don’t you want to know the mistake you made?”

She froze for a moment. I wasn’t completely truthful to Lucilla and Olivia. Mother had made a mistake, but that mistake was coming down here. I may not know the queen, but I knew my mother too well, and my mother was someone who was a bit of a perfectionist. If you gave her a strange look, and then said it was nothing, she could spend an hour looking in the mirror, trying to find what imperfection had caused her to be looked at that way.

In my world, there was a fable about fairies. Their greatest weakness was that they had a compulsive nature. If someone poured salt or sugar in them, they would have to stop to count every grain one by one until they were done, and would not be able to do anything else. There was no saying the lores of my world had any connection to this fantasy world that I had spawned in, but perhaps there was some truth in it. I had merely spilled some salt and waited for my mother to come counting.

That was also why I was certain my mother was still in there. This was a trait that belonged solely to her, and for Aurica to express it, it meant that they were fundamentally the same person. It was time for me to throw the dice one last time.

“Well, get on with it. Tell me then.” Aurica responded stiffly while trying to pretend that she didn’t care very much.

I leaned closer, and without realizing it, she leaned closer too. I had gradually been closer to the bars of the cell since we started talking, and had been doing it in a way she didn’t notice. Now, we were so close I could almost feel her breath on the other side. With that, I bit my tongue, and then spit. Blood struck my mother’s face. She reeled back immediately and then snarled as she realized what I had done. With the wave of a hand, a powerful force threw me to the back of the cell. I slammed into the wall, but even then, I was being held there by an incredible force.

She started to wipe her face while shooting me hateful glares. “Disrespectful, devil child!”

I gave her a blood smile, even as the pressure continued to grow.

“Brother!”

“No, mom!”

My sisters were crying out. Where I was, I couldn’t see Saria and Bala’s cell, although they could hear what was happening. As my vision started to blacken, I wondered if they were holding their cell bars, anxiously worrying over the sight they couldn’t see.

“Are… you… going… to kill me?” I croaked out with the last of my strength.

The pressure disappeared with a wave, and I collapsed to my knees. I spit out some blood as I tried to recover, but I was letting out a wheezing laugh. With another gesture, the blood on her face was gone. I looked up at her, with just a slight amount of hope in my eyes. However, her sneer returned.

“Did you think that would work? You tried to use your blood to once again blind me to the ways of the celestials. If it was that easy, do you think I would have risked coming here?” She snorted. “You’re feeble attempts to change your fate are useless. Just accept it.”

With one more angry noise, she spun her skirt, and then walked off into the dark, realizing she was only wasting time down there with me. I watched her as I left, a subtle smile on my face.

“I guess that’s the start.”