The Queen's Choice. Cayla Kluver

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СКАЧАТЬ outfits, chanting drinking songs and tossing elemental gifts into the air. A gust of snowflakes, harmless embers, and leaves that ought to have been dead this time of year came floating around us. Queen Ubiqua, smiling unreservedly, was the first to applaud. Davic chuckled and kissed the back of my hand, then pulled a leaf out of my hair.

      A deafening crack interrupted the crowd’s exultation, and gasps traveled like a wave through the assembly. Davic pulled me closer and I instinctively looked up, thinking that a tree branch had broken, or a rare winter thunderstorm had taken over the sky. Instead, the sea of people parted from a focal point ahead of us. I glanced at the Queen and saw her face darken, her shock replaced by malice.

      In the center of the walk was a scarecrow, a vulgar mannequin dressed in a human military uniform and smeared with crude oil. As the wind snaked its way down the street toward the Queen’s party, it carried with it the acrid smell of the thick black substance, one of the resources the humans used to power their factories. A Faerie stood proudly before the effigy he had built, while others tossed hand-sized boxes in an ever-steepening pile at its base. In the leader’s hand was the cause of the sound we had heard—a flintlock pistol pointed at the sky, reeking smoke.

      Words like sacrilege and atrocity were murmured around us, and I made to storm forward to Ubiqua’s side, only to be yanked back by Davic.

      “Don’t,” he warned, turning to shield me with his body. “Your father will handle this.”

      I clenched my fists around my promised’s jerkin, knowing he was right. The Lord of the Law was already holding his right arm up to signal the Queen’s Blades, Fae who were trained to use conduit blades to concentrate their elemental magic in defense of the Realm. A dozen gathered round, wearing the colors of their elements, three each dressed in green, red, blue, or white. My father awaited the Queen’s directive, for she had yet to speak.

      “Falk,” she called, addressing the man with the pistol. “Surrender yourself at once. Spare your children this shame.”

      “The shame lies with you!” he screeched in return.

      The high and grating pitch of Falk’s voice helped me to place him. He was an outspoken member of the Anti-Unification League—commonly known as the human-haters—and had historically been more of a nuisance than a problem. The AUL was an extremist group, not able to curry favor with the average citizen, the majority of whom trusted and supported Ubiqua whether their politics stood here or there. The men stacking boxes around the effigy were Falk’s sons, allies by blood, and they scrambled to the sidelines when their work was done.

      Falk brandished the gun wildly, causing the Blades to tense and the citizens of Chrior to scream and cower.

      “You call this an atrocity? You’d best accustom yourselves to the sight of it! Accustom yourselves to savagery, barbarism, and all manner of destruction, for they are synonymous with humanity, with the scum our Queen would welcome into this city!”

      “Get rid of him,” Ubiqua snarled to my father, and he nodded at the men and women who stood ready to carry out her orders.

      The Blades advanced, and Falk, a Fire Fae, thrust out his hand, shooting a burst of flame from his palm at the effigy’s head. The straw caught, and fire spiraled in a furious rush to follow the track of crude oil down to the bottom.

      “Unification will be the end of the Fae!” Falk shouted, over and over until the Blades wrestled him to the ground. Then the onslaught began.

      A hundred more cracks rent the air, only this time something was different—this time, people at the front of our ranks were falling, and people near me were on the ground. And blood was spilling onto the snow.

      Despite the chaos that surrounded me, my brain organized what I knew about human weaponry, the details clicking into place like swords slotted into their sheaths. In the boxes were bullets, and the bullets contained gunpowder, gunpowder that had ignited, sending the bullets flying. Oddly, this realization sent a momentary burst of hope through me as though fate might reward my intellect by putting an end to the carnage. Then the hottest burn I’d ever felt ripped through the muscles of my upper arm. I cried out and clamped my hand over the offending area, staring in fascination at the blood weeping through my fingers. My hand slipped over the wound, and the true searing set in.

      A battle cry heralded a tremor in the ground, and the crashing of water overpowered the sound of exploding bullets. Torrents washed over the crowd, knocking a number of us into the rapidly forming mud, but the shots ceased. When the volume of water slowed to rivulets, I looked toward the remains of Falk’s prideful effigy and saw one of the Blades in blue kneeling with her head bowed, but it wasn’t in deference to the scarecrow. She had thrown her hands upon the ground to call upon her elemental power, and had summoned the water to save us.

      Only soft crying and the lowing of grief remained of the commotion. The boughs of nearby trees were bent across the street; Mother Nature had heard the call of an Earth Fae and hunched close in an effort to shield her children. Several of the Blades—those who had been closest to Falk—did not stir from their facedown positions on the ground. Falk himself lay still beneath the body of one of the Queen’s men. I drew in a cold, ragged breath, but my lungs refused to work properly and forced the air back out, making me gasp. Vertigo flitted around me like an insect. I pushed myself to my feet, the mud’s suction fighting to restrain me. It clung to my celebration dress, adhering the fabric to my legs and making it difficult to walk.

      I searched the ground for Davic, and found him not far off, struggling to stand. Turning my head in frantic motions, my icy wet hair whipping across my face, I sought out Ione. She was also nearby, sitting on her bunched skirt, coughing and spitting out filth. My gaze went to the Queen, who had been protected by her Blades, their remaining number having moved her away from the site of the incident. My father broke through the guards and into my line of sight, his eyes manic.

      “Anya! Anya!”

      “Here!” I shouted, voice hoarse.

      He rushed to my side, pulling me into a fierce embrace, and I yelped, my injury more serious than I’d realized. As he ripped open my sleeve to take a closer look, Davic and Ione joined us. Soon medicine mages and more Blades arrived on the scene to deal with the damage and the injured. Though it was clear the peril had passed, my body was levied with tremors. I tried to sit down, but my father picked me up with the ease of a young man, jerking his head for my friends to follow. I rested my head against his shoulder, for once content to let him care for me.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE QUEEN’S ANLACE

      Ubiqua was an emblem of righteous anger. There had been only three casualties besides Falk as a result of the previous day’s protest, a miracle considering the number of bullets that had been fired, but that was three too many. The solstice celebration was supposed to represent a new beginning, not signal the end of lives. It was supposed to be joyous, and yet even now thirteen Fae, including me, lay injured in various states of severity.

      My arm had required stitches, but not much fuss beyond that. While Ubiqua paced before her throne of roots in the Court Room of the Great Redwood, I sat at a long table with my father and the members of the Queen’s Council, a group of eight who kept their ears to the walls and floors for rumors and mutterings in the Realm. They knew the people’s thoughts, feelings and plans, and made sure my aunt stayed ahead of whatever turbulence might be brewing. Unfortunately, foreknowledge of an attack like the one we’d endured yesterday, which the people had taken to calling Falk’s Pride, was hard to come by.

      I sipped a СКАЧАТЬ