Gabriel sent the nightfire dancing left and right, revealing smashed furniture and more splatters of dark red.
“Where are the bodies? What happened to everyone?” Beezle asked. He was still tucked inside my coat, his clawed hands gripping the lapel.
“A fair question, gargoyle,” rasped a harsh voice. “What has become of the court of Amarantha the Fair, she who has ruled over this place for hundreds of years?”
We all spun in the direction of the voice, and Gabriel sent the nightfire higher, made it brighter so that it illuminated the room. The ceilings were so high that even Gabriel’s light could not reach them, so we remained under an oppressive cloud of shadow.
A figure sat upon Amarantha’s throne, face covered by the hood of a dark cloak. Behind the throne, a shadow shifted, as if hiding from the light. There was a whiff of sulfur in the air.
“How dare you show your face here so boldly, spawn of Lucifer?” asked the figure.
“Why do I have to keep telling everyone I’m not the spawn of Lucifer? It’s becoming a bad running joke,” I muttered. Then, to the figure on the throne: “Who are you? Do you know what’s happened here?”
“Lucifer’s justice,” the person spat.
I looked around the room in horror. Had Lucifer punished Amarantha by slaughtering the whole court?
“He descended on this court like the god that he wishes to be, promising benevolence to those who would willingly give up the Queen.”
I glanced at Gabriel and knew that we were thinking the same thing. There had probably been a stampede for the doors when Lucifer had shown up offering mercy.
“Did…a lot of people stay?” I asked tentatively.
“They fled like rats,” the person said angrily. The voice was so strange, so harsh and low, it was difficult to tell if it was a man or a woman.
“Did anyone support the Queen?” J.B. asked.
“Prince Jonquil,” the person said. “Why were you not in court to defend the integrity of your house, to demand that Lucifer respect the sanctity of Amarantha’s kingdom?”
“The Queen sent me from her sight and bade me not return,” J.B. said tightly.
“And if she had not, would you have stood before Lucifer and defied him? You, who have allied yourself with Lucifer’s most beloved child? You, who have displayed contempt for your house and your family name?”
“What happened?” J.B. demanded.
The figure was still for a moment, and in the darkness and the quiet, I heard something shift. Something large.
“Gabriel,” I whispered, sidling closer to him. “There’s something…”
The figure stood abruptly, and again I smelled sulfur. “What happened? All those who swore loyalty to the Queen were marked for their fealty to Amarantha. They did only as they should have by staying loyal to their Queen. They should not have been punished for this. Lucifer has no dominion over these lands, whatever he may believe. He violated long-standing accords by treating another head of state as a subject of his will. The world is not his to carve up as he pleases.”
“But there were no accords between the house of Lucifer and the house of Amarantha,” I said. “The agreements between them had been broken. Amarantha invited his retribution by plotting treason against him with Focalor, and by trying to use his grandchild as a stud. And she tried to have me killed by proxy.”
“And for that, Lucifer has claimed this court of faerie, has made it an outpost of his kingdom and rendered its inhabitants…”
The person under the cloak stopped speaking. The shadow behind the throne moved a little closer to the light, and I thought I saw a glint of green and scaly skin.
“What did he do?” I asked.
There was a sudden movement, a flurry of cloth, and the figure was revealed to us.
The creature was unspeakably ugly. It was humanoid, but it was impossible to tell if it was male or female. Its skin was green and armored like an alligator’s. One large black horn protruded from the left side of its head. The right side of its face was covered in gigantic pustules that oozed slimy-looking fluid. A long, heavy, lizardlike tail dragged behind it.
And shining from that hideous face were the blazing blue eyes of Queen Amarantha the Fair.
“This is what Lucifer did to me, to those who swore loyalty to me. He stole our beauty and our magic, and made us hideous to look upon, so that anyone who dared contemplate defying Lord Lucifer would see my court as a cautionary tale, and reconsider.”
“Mother?” J.B. said. He seemed to be in a trance, approaching the thing that no longer looked like Amarantha.
“Mother,” she said, and there was a wealth of contempt in her voice. “You have never been a child of mine. You belonged to your father, always. Always duty, always Death.”
“I could not abandon the souls that needed me because you would have preferred that I played the role of a courtier,” J.B. said angrily.
“Souls!” Amarantha said with a sweep of her hand. The beautifully manicured nails had been replaced by long and ragged claws. “What are humans to faeries? Lesser beings, beings to be used when needed and then discarded.”
“Like my father,” J.B. said.
“Yes,” Amarantha replied.
“You know,” I said thoughtfully. “I think this new look suits you. It reflects what’s on the inside a whole lot better.”
“And you, Madeline Black,” Amarantha said. “Do not think that I have forgotten that this occurred because of you, Lucifer’s best beloved.”