The Fairy King and his Cursed Queen ✔

11 | THE HOUR

A brush with death brought one's life in a flash. Death itself did as well. I'd danced with the infinite often.

Bits and pieces that I'd forgotten would get dragged along with the good memories as well. As there were few cherished recollections in my human days and, admittedly, just a few in my years as a fairy, the flashing of my life was brief, and the nightmare of everything I'd selectively forgotten but could not hold back repeated before my eyes.

That was how I knew I was dying now.

Beyond the black, there was chaos, screaming and confusion. I did not recall how I got into the tunnel, only that the packed dirt at my back meant that was where I was.

I did not understand the princess's screams.

However, I did recognize the elf king's voice. "He's the fairy king. He deserves no better."

"Ogres," another squeaky elf voice warned.

"You! You brought ogres upon me."

He couldn't have meant me. I'd never dealt with ogres. They were good in a fight but difficult to control. Besides, they only answered...to the fairy queen.

"I did not summon ogres," the princess said. Her voice broke up then faded and I lost all sense of time.

What was happening? Try as I might, I could recall nothing beyond the cages that held us. What had happened? The elf king ordered us cut down...and then...and then what?

Perhaps opening my eyes would bring clarity. My gut burned but what I witnessed upon fighting through the pain to look around me with something beyond my imagination.

It was the biggest ogre I'd ever seen. Ogres were massive usually, but this one fit underground so it must have shrunken down. Despite that fact, his proportions boggled the mind. "He's alive," his deep voice boomed. He looked back at someone. "What do I do with him?"

The princess hurried to reach me. "Can you heal him? He's been run through."

Little by little feeling returned to my body and I realized she was right. Leaning back against the wall, I clutched a shard of glass lodged in my stomach.

I did not remember how it got there or by whom. But I did recognize the slow hand of death bitterly crawl over me.

"It won't work. My magic's not enough," the ogre said.

"Wyrn...." The princess gasped then said, "We must save him."

Wyrn.

My blurred vision afforded me fewer skills of deduction for every last bit of my magic was keeping me on this plane rather than allowing me to travel to the great beyond. And yet—and yet I forced myself to waste some of that magic now.

Was this Wyrn? Because when I blinked, I didn't see just an ogre. I saw three forms. Beyond the ogre looking back, demanding an order, was a human. But when the brute turned to face me again, I saw something even more astonishing—inside that human inside the ogre...was a fairy. A strong one.

Wyrn. So this was Wyrn?

Time stood still. When I came back to reality again, two gentle hands dragged me.

"Out of my way." It sounded like the princess, but I didn't recognize the tone. Such aggression was nothing like her. We moved at top speed. How, I did not know. I began questioning whether this was a memory rather than real-life experience.

And then there was black.

The next time I came to, it was to find someone crying over me.

"You can't die. Aren't you supposed to be immortal?"