Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones

The Queen jumped to her feet and leapt across the floor at Raven. Surprised by the sudden attack, she stared as the woman raised a hand to slap her. Fire ignited Raven’s stomach. Bunching her right hand into a fist, she ducked the woman’s hand and, coming up in one fluid motion, slammed her fist into the Queen’s nose and sent her sprawling.

Raven stood with a heaving chest, bracing her feet on the floor, and stared at the blob of silver and pearls on the floor. Blood poured from the woman’s nose but Raven had only a second to enjoy the sight before she was struck from behind. Pain exploded in her head seconds before the floor scraped against her knees. She just barely kept her face from smashing into the stone.

Pushing against the floor, Raven flipped over and gasped as a vicious hand grabbed her hair. Trying to pull away from his grasp, she sucked in a painful breath, powerless to stop the guard as he dragged her across the floor, ripping strands from her scalp.

He flipped her over, pushing her to her knees and then further until her face grazed the floor. A pair of delicate slippered feet appeared an inch beneath her nose but Raven couldn’t look up because the guard pushed her nose hard against the floor.

The Queen’s voice was malevolent. “Tell me what you are planning!”

“I’m not planning anything!” Raven yelled, breathless.

“I know you are, you little snit, I know exactly who you are. You think I don’t know who you are? That you have come here to usurp my throne and reign over my kingdom? Oh, I know,” she said in a strangled voice, “tell me what you’ve planned!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Raven said, growling beneath the pressure of the guard’s hand. She used her hands to press against the floor, keeping her nose in once piece. Why was this happening?

The Queen continued. “Do you mean to tell me the Moirai sisters have brought you here, you who know nothing about the fates, to lead their war and you don’t even know the war is against me!” she scoffed, laughing. “You stupid little girl! You walked right into my hands!

Don’t you wonder why they let you get taken? Why they haven’t come for you? They want you to get rid of me all on your own so they don’t have to dirty their immortal fingers with my blood.”

“You’re lying.” Raven said, desperate to believe the Queen was trying to trick her. Surely the Moirai -- if that had been their plan, surely they would have told her? Did they really expect her to kill the Queen without knowing she was supposed to?

“Then where are they?” The Queen Mother asked in a sing-song voice.

Raven paused. “I don’t know.”

“I bet I know,” she said, “they’re outside the castle waiting for you to stroll out with my head on a platter. Oh, but you already know don’t you? Well, your plan has failed, Raven. Instead of having my head, I will have yours.”

“I swear!” Raven yelled. “I swear I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know what their plans are because they haven’t told me anything, and I don’t know where your son is because I haven’t seen him.”

“Of course you have, Raven, like I said -- you were seen with him. I doubt not the Moirai sisters have taken him already for the little part in this prophecy charade he is supposed to play. He thinks I don’t know about his involvement, he thinks I don’t know he means to help you kill me. Everyone thinks I am a fool but who is laughing now, Raven?”

Sucking in a terrified breath, Raven pressed her lips together, knowing there was nothing she could say that she hadn’t already said. The Queen twisted everything she said, fabricating some pretend assassination. Or was it pretend? Raven wondered -- thinking about the secrets the Moirai kept from her, all the furtive glances, Atropos’ unwillingness to share more information.

Had they meant for her to kill the Queen? Thinking about the journey she started with the three sisters, she recalled the surprise at having left the forest and taking a well-traveled looking road. Had they intended for Raven to be caught? To be taken? To be killed?

Squeezing her eyes closed, she strove to focus but her mind whirled with what the Queen said. “I will ask you one more time -- what are your plans for me?” she continued.

Raven growled. “I have no plans for you.”

With a heavy sigh, the Queen moved away. “By the time you leave this room, little girl, you will tell me what I want to know or you will wish you had never come here.”

Too late, Raven thought.

The guard dragged her across the floor by her hair. She refused to cry out from the pain and, instead, clawed at the fingers wrapped in her hair, kicking and throwing her weight around in an attempt to dislodge herself. Though his skin piled beneath her fingernails it only served to have the fingers tighten in her hair.

Kidskin slippers tapped against the floor as the Queen Mother followed Raven’s thrashing body. A door opened ahead of them and a quiet male voice said, “Queen Mother,” in an acknowledging tone. The grip on Raven’s hair slackened as rough hands gripped her arms and wrists, dragging her across the room. He pulled her arms over her head and snapped metal manacles around her wrists.

She tilted her head back to stare at the manacles before looking at the Queen. The woman stared hard at her with black hate in her eyes. The door boomed against the door frame when the guards stepped out of the room, leaving the two of them alone. “I don’t have your son.”

“Oh, I believe you.” The Queen said in a relaxed voice. Raven raised an eyebrow. “Ah, the manacles? Well, I am afraid it’s against the law to strike anyone in the royal family.”

“You were going to hit me. I’m tired of being hit.”

“Aren’t we all?” she said, distracted, as she began unzipping the side of her dress. “Aren’t we all?”

“Knocking me around isn’t going to help you.” Raven said, tired. Cold metal bit into her wrists.

“Help me what?” the Queen asked.

“Whatever the hell you think beating me around is going to get you.” Raven answered, looking up at the manacles around her wrists -- they looked solid. No chance of escaping this, she thought, resigned.

“Satisfaction?” she asked.

With a sigh, Raven met the Queen’s direct gaze. The bottomless pits stared back at her, still managing to look confused despite their lack of animation. “Why did you think I had your son? Or did you?”

The Queen was silent as she pulled the dress over her arms and stepped out of the material. She threw the dress in the corner beside the door entrance and stood before Raven in only a pale pink shift. “Yes, I know you had my son at one point. When I said I believe you don’t have him, I meant right now. I know he’s not in the castle. I suppose I should say this can all end as soon as you tell me where my son is and what your plans are for me, then I can retrieve him, let you go and forget about this unpleasantness.”

Raven’s laugh was harsh. “Please, you think I don’t know for a moment how this works? I don’t tell you what you want to hear and you kill me. I give you the information you want and you still kill me. Either way I’m dead so what’s the point?”

“Truly? If you know so much, Raven, then you know it will be much more terrible for you if you do not tell me what I want to know.”

“You think beating me will change anything? I don’t have any answers to give you and no matter how many hours we spend in here, nothing will be changed by a beating.”

“Oh, and more Raven -- so much more.”

“Who told you I was with your son?” she asked, biding time. It didn’t matter -- any of the questions, any of her answers. She simply had not, at any time, been near the Queen’s son and never heard the Moirai’s plan.

“One of the guards,” the Queen said dismissively, as though it mattered little.

“When was I with him?”

“Recently. You were seen in the forest with him. Oh, don’t try to deny it dear, my soldiers are familiar with Nicolaus and they know what he looks like.”

“Nicolaus. I am telling you, I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes,” the Queen nodded at her. “I can see you want to discuss this further. Let’s get started shall we?”

“Wh-?” Raven’s question cut off as the back of the Queen’s hand connected with her cheek. The sound of skin on skin reverberated off the walls. Raven focused on the sound as her body swung in a circle under the impact’s force. She gritted her teeth as pain shot through her arms.

“I keep telling them to find a better way to secure these manacles -- it’s so bothersome having to wait for you to stop moving so I can continue.” The Queen complained. “Oh, and before we really get going with this diatribe, I owe you something.” Raven raised her head to meet the woman’s dark eyes just as the woman’s fist rammed into her nose. Raven barely heard the loud crack echo against the stone walls as a painful explosion ignited in her face and her head flew back.

Hot blood dripped onto her lips. Raven pulled her head forward and, ignoring the throbbing in her nose, glared.

The Queen smiled. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Tell me exactly what she told you.”

“I already told you what she said.” Darkness and Ares’ voice were his only companions for hours. When the man grew silent, Bael felt like he was drifting in an endless black space.

“Tell me again and don’t leave anything out.”

“I did not leave anything out last time, Ares.” Bael grumbled. They already went over the witch’s conversation but Ares was pestering him like a gnat, hovering and returning again and again for more. There was not much to tell. “She said that what was coming, I could not stop, that she has more power in the palm of one hand than I have in my entire body -- not that I have any powers, Ares.”

“I know, I know, what else?” he asked, sounding impatient.

He wanted to leave out the part about Mailia -- that part, more than the rest, bothered him. How could she know his wife? And what village? If Mailia was on the move, then that meant the Elvin brigand was branching out -- bringing their atrocities to more innocents.

“She said she healed my wound as a favor to my wife and I was to come to you and tell you to contact Isis, because otherwise we are dead.”

“That’s the part that bothers me,” Ares murmured, “the part about Isis. How does this witch even know who Isis is?”

She had not mentioned how she knew Isis but the name fell out of her mouth in a familiar way, as though she said it regularly. “Why don’t you tell me who Isis is and maybe I can figure it out.” Bael suggested.

Ares sighed. “Isis, she is a messenger. She works for my mother first, but makes herself available for all the gods. She is a goddess whose powers allow her to travel at the speed of light, and so she is used as a messenger since it allows the messages to be conveyed at once. In rare cases she acts as sort of a, ah, referee during arguments. But I can’t see how any of that would pertain to the witch.”

“Then she must be a god, as well.”

“The witch?” Ares asked; the doubt obvious in his voice. “Couldn’t be.”

It seemed probable to him but Ares sounded certain. Had there been light in the cell he would have been able to read the man’s expression. “Why not?”

“Several reasons -- if she was a goddess, I would know of her by the description you gave me and also because she would not be working for the Queen Mother. We do not abide by the pure evil snaking through that woman’s soul.”

“Well, what about the voice change?” Bael asked with a frown, hearing, again, the strangeness in her voice.

“You mean how she went from sounding old to sounding young?”

“Yes. If her voice changed, could that not mean she let her disguise slip a little? Perhaps she was not an old woman after-all.” In fact, after the change, Bael was hard pressed to focus on her words because he could not stop wondering what lurked beneath the façade.

Ares’ silence spoke volumes. It was possible. Even had the man objected to his line of thought Bael still would have clung to the possibility. The woman’s voice transformed from one moment to the next. There was no doubt in his mind that whoever, or whatever, she truly was -- it was not the craggy woman she presented.

“She also said she was a prisoner.” Bael said, remembering the strangeness in her expression. Not knowing who she was, or what she had been through, he believed that statement at face value. He had seen that sadness before.

“Repeat that part of the conversation.” Ares said.

“I asked her who she was, and she asked who I was. I told her I was a prisoner and she said I am a prisoner. I believed her.” Bael stood, trying to exercise the chill out of his legs. The stone was frigid. Knowing it was at the height of the summer heat outside made it ridiculous to be so cold in the cell. Austin fell asleep hours ago. The boy would wake, snack on the slices of bread, and go back to sleep.

The last time Bael checked on him, skirting through the darkness until he bumped into the boy leaning against the wall as he was not supposed to be, Austin’s skin almost burned his hand. Fever. He told Ares and the man checked the boy himself as though he did not trust Bael’s word, but then he expelled a heavy breath and stomped away, bellowing Isis’ name.

But the messenger had not shown her face.

“I have no idea, Bael. It has to mean something.” Ares said.

“I think it means we are going to war.” Bael whispered. He knew this was where they were headed but the witch’s words brought the reality of it into focus. “She said we cannot stop it, she could not even stop it.”

“No, I believe that much,” Ares said, “we can’t stop it either. Like Austin here, the war is part of the prophecy. The Queen Mother is directly involved, the gods are involved, even you my friend. We all must just move forward with it.”

“What about Raven?” Bael asked.

Ares paused. “I do not know anything about her.”

Bael considered the likeliness of the statement. Again, he wondered how Ares could not have known about her. “Why?”

“My father told me to come for Austin, so I came. He did not mention Raven to me -- perhaps because he was sending the Moirai.”

“They made both Austin and Raven believe Austin was not important in this war -- he would have no involvement and must come with me to Allegora in order to be safe.”

“Makes sense,” Ares said. “I doubt they have told Raven much either.”

Startled, Bael glanced in the direction of Ares’ voice. “Why is that?”

“Because the prophecy says the mortals cannot know the depth of our involvement because they must fight and win on their own. Raven -- well, she has a specific task she must learn to overcome. Her fate is, perhaps, the most difficult of them all for she has spent her entire life in the dark. She knows nothing of her heritage.”

Atropos mentioned Raven’s heritage -- a brief conversation in which the Moirai sister alluded to the strong family tie the human woman shared with the immortals. When he saw her outside the plane -- he believed it. She looked too much like one of the golden ones to be thought of in any other way.

“I thought you said you did not know anything about her.” He said.

Ares sighed. “I -- have heard rumors.”

“Was her life supposed to have been spent in a different way? Out of what you call ‘the dark’, I mean?” Bael asked, interested in learning more about the human woman he found so compelling.

“If Raven is who I think she is, her parents were murdered when she was young and, therefore, she did not receive the legacy she would otherwise have had. It is hard to explain what compels the descendants towards learning about us -- they become obsessive about finding the truth about the gods -- the compulsion follows them through life, without their ever understanding why. Raven would have been able to accept us if her parents weren’t murdered before she was too young to learn, and now she will fight us as much as she will fight the enemy.”

Bael stared into the darkness, imagined he looked directly into Ares’ eyes. “Who murdered them?”

“The Destroyer.”