Dame of Owls (13 page)

             
Ruby moved. She was frowning now, her serene mask shattered. “There is nothing you can do here.”

             
The Summer Queen nodded. “You’re as vulnerable as I am, here. Will we both die here, then? Forever?”

             
“Dame Obsidian,” said the Winter Queen, her voice horribly quiet.

             
Sid snapped to attention. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

             
“You have your sword?”

             
Chris reached for Sid’s elbow, but she shook him off.

             
“Yes, your majesty.”

             
The Winter Queen barely even looked at her, just kept on glaring at the Summer Queen. "As a queen, I cannot die for my people. In my stead, I call Dame Obsidian of the House of Owls as my champion.”

             
Sid didn’t react. Ruby said nothing.

             
“What are your terms?” asked the Summer Queen.

             
“If my champion falls, I concede the battlefield and this quest. I take one treacherous niece and one treacherous niece’s body home with me, and you are free to do what you will with this boy.”

             
For the first time, the Summer Queen turned her gaze on Chris. Her eyes were clear, deep blue, and nausea rolled through him.

             
“Your terms are sufficient,” she said. “For my champion I name Christopher, claimed in my lands under the House of Lynxes.”

             
Numbness swallowed up the nausea, and all of Chris’s limbs in turn. He couldn’t feel his hands or feet. He remained standing and found himself surprised about it. He kept on thinking and wished he weren’t. He stared at the back of Sid’s neck, where he’d kissed her so many times.

             
“Your Majesty – ”

             
“Silence, Bors. A warrior falling on the battlefield hardly counts as the death of a sacrifice, yes?”

             
The Summer Queen looked to the not-woman for affirmation, and she nodded. Ruby turned to her otherworldly allies for intervention, but they all seemed well pleased by a tidy solution. Not one of them spoke up.

             
“So be it,” said the Winter Queen, furious. “Rob us both of this if you wish. Let’s just have this done with and these nuisances off of our hands.”

             
“Quite agreed,” the Summer Queen said. “Champion, do you have a weapon?”

             
“No,” Chris said. “No, I don’t have a weapon and no, I won’t do this. I’m not your – your citizen, or your knight, or anything. You can’t just go around conscripting people.” Especially not Sid as a particular person. “I won’t do it.”

             
“You refuse?”

             
“He doesn’t refuse!” Sid had whirled, stormed back a few steps to grab Chris’s arm now and pull him close to her. “It is a queen’s right to have any blood member of her court executed for cowardice. I bet that doesn’t count as a sacrifice, either.”

             
“I won’t –”

             
“What? Fight me?” She leaned into him, trying to grin and looking sickly for it. “You think you have half a chance to beat me? This goes how I want it to go, just like our lessons. At least now you know which end is the pointy bit.”

             
Bors stepped forward to unsheathe his sword and hand it to Chris. It felt heavy and unfortunate in his hands, awkward and unwanted. Sid raised her weapon with perfect form, as graceful as he’d ever seen her. Her face was set in stone.

             
“Sid.”

             
She didn’t move or speak. Chris sucked in a nervous breath and raised his sword the way she’d taught him, though his hands were trembling. He didn’t think she’d kill him. What she wanted was probably much, much worse.

             
As compact as she was, Sid relied on speed and stamina to fight. If her heart wasn’t in it, Chris thought, maybe he could disarm her, force her sword out of her hands through sheer bloody-minded strength. She didn’t want to kill him. He was very sure she didn’t want to kill him. This was ridiculous, but he could buy them a little time.

             
Time to what? To negotiate with the hungry faces around them? To run, again?

             
Sid smacked his wrist hard with the flat of her blade, and the recrimination shuddered through his bones to jar his teeth. He met her cold, serious stare and tried to settle his sword into something like proper form. It wasn’t comfortable, and he could already feel his shoulders protesting the weight of the blade, the way he was locking up muscles and joints. But relaxing was impossible.

             
“Fight!” Sid barked, and charged.

             
Bring your blade up, parry your opponent, block that strike, your left is weak. Every instruction in Sid’s voice, everything she’d taught him. She was going too slowly, as exact and predictable as she’d been in training. The queens had to know she was throwing this. They didn’t give a fuck.

             
They were infuriating, but  - no. Not immortal. Not here.

             
Chris hoped Sid would forgive him, and maybe take this as a lesson about screwing around at half-speed during sword fights against your boyfriend. He hadn’t counted on how hard it would be to force her sword away, keeping both their weapons pinned uselessly to the side, and slam his elbow into her throat in a tried and true oops-I-don’t-want-to-be-knifed-in-this-alley move.

             
She nearly dropped her sword in shock as much as pain, one hand flying to her throat. It hurt to make her that vulnerable, to see in her eyes that she didn’t know what was going to happen next. He pressed close to her, leaned into her and whispered, “Pin the Summer Queen.”

             
Truth be told, it was nearly impossible to turn away from her and sprint to the Winter Queen, to press the point of his blade against the queen’s stomach and feel the kiss of a battle axe on the back of his neck.

             
He pressed forward, the queen’s dress tore. Juniper could kill him, but she’d hesitated too long. In the time it took her to backswing, he’d have her queen gutted before she could take his head off.

             
“We aren’t playing your fucked up game,” he said, surprised at the low, even tone of his own voice.

             
He wasn’t in a position to turn around and look, but he could hear her. He could hear the Summer Queen choke out, “I yield!”

             
“You cannot bring war to this place,” said the not-woman.

             
“Not war, just an execution, right? No sacrifice, just a duel. Two dead queens, Juniper’s got me handled, we’re all off your back.”

             
“Deceitful trash,” spat the Winter Queen. “What do you want?”

             
“I want to go home,” Chris told her. “I want to go home, and take Sid with me. And for you to fuck right off, both of you.”

             
“You don’t even have the right to
speak
to me – ”

             
“I don’t need the right to kill you.”

             
“If you leave here now I will hunt you to the ends of your forsaken earth, I will see your veins flayed open!”

             
“No,” said Ruby. “No, you will not. The duel is a draw. There has been no blood shed, so the terms are forsworn. He can kill you, or you can give him amnesty. If you do not, I declare a feud within our house.”

             
“You can’t declare feud over him!” The queen shouted. “He isn’t kin!”
              Sid had to cough and clear her throat before she could say, “Yes, he is. I have lain three times with this man. His mortal measure is more than mine, his house of lower standing. I claim him.”

             
Which was not how Chris had ever expected to get married. “I accept,” he said, just in case.

             
“Juniper,” Sid said. “Juney, this isn’t going to help. This can’t go right anymore, please.”

             
And Juniper, still horribly silent, lowered her axe.

             
“Amnesty,” the queen snarled. “If I ever see you in my court again, you’ll both lose more than your skins. You are both in exile! And as for you, Lady Ruby!”

             
Ruby spread her hands. “I have done this for the good of our people, and the Spring Court stands behind me. Shall we bring the issue before the other houses?”

             
The queen could have spat nails. “So be it! Dame Juniper, Lady Ruby, attend me!”

             
Ruby gave a little well-what-can-you-do shrug, but it was Juniper who strode up to them and dropped her battle axe into the dirt. Sid extended a hand and Juniper grasped it, then pulled her into a hug. Chris never asked Sid what Juniper whispered to her in that moment. He hoped it was an apology. Juniper left her battle axe there on the scorched ground as she let go of Sid and turned to follow Ruby and their queen back out of the Dead Lands, the Spring and Autumn Courts fading to nothing around them.

             
By the time Chris and Sid turned, tears gathering in the corners of Sid’s eyes, Bors and the Summer Queen had already taken their leave. They were alone.

             
Chris held out his hand, and Sid took it.

             
“What should we do?” Sid asked.

             
“Well, if you’ll help me think up a story and make a couple dozen apologies…”

---

              Sid looked around the bookstore and tried to let the sheer mortality of it all sink into her bones. The normalcy. The impermanency. All of the things she’d agreed to when she’d taken Chris into her house.

             
To her own surprise, she found she liked it. It was quiet and predictable, and in time she’d conquer the pervasive dustiness. After decades – centuries – on the battlefield, the little bookstore was restful and calm. It all seemed very safe, and she thought, given time, she might come to think of safety as normal. They’d deal with the fae when they made themselves something to be dealt with.

             
Of course, that wasn’t even factoring in the greatest benefit. Christ leaning against the counter and smiling at her, his posture easy and relaxed. He was safe as well, and she’d work in a million mortal shops to see him whole. If the world, any world, was smart, they’d all leave him be. She'd burn down this bookstore in an instant if she needed to, just for him.

             
But for now, arson seemed completely off the menu. Chris reached out and took her by the wrist, reeling her in for kisses simple and sweet until the bell over the door chimed. They had a customer.