Fallen Faerie Queen

• Aakanksha Yadav, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

"Bow down to me, girl. Bow down and maybe I will spare your life."
I stayed standing, my head ringing with the blows I had been dealt.
Spitting blood at his feet, I straightened my spine and held my head high, ignoring how much it hurt.
"I've seen the kind of life you offer. A life of grovelling and begging. One of shame."
I laughed, then waved my shackled arms at the people around me.
"For them life might be a mercy, but for me death is kinder."
My voice might have been weak and thin, but my words cut like glass. They shattered whatever fantasy he held, dragging him back to the reality in front of him.
His face twitched, his mask of arrogant assurance revealing a face of rage.
"Prideful and arrogant. Then again, what could be expected of the Queen of the fae? They were never the smartest."
My own mask fell, showing a snarl. For barely a second, the illusion disappeared.
"Speak ill of me all you want, but not of my people."
He laughed, ecstatic.
"I will say whatever I like, oh great Faerie Queen. You command me not."
Then his face changed once more, from mocking joy to sternness.
He came closer to me, closer than was smart.
Hands on my shoulders, he forced me down till I was kneeling, knees screaming with pain.
He bent until his face was almost level with mine.
He never made it.
Shackles wrapped around his neck, shackles he'd used to keep me down.
He thrashed, knuckles white as he tried to pry the iron chains from my grip.
Guards charged at me, only to be stopped by an invisible shield that shoved them back.
As I released him from my hold and let him fall to the ground, heaving and gasping, the illusion fell away.
Blue eyes became black ringed with red.
Tattered rags turned into an ivory cloak.
Bruises and cuts disappeared, replaced with unmarked skin.
The shackles fell.
"I am no fallen Queen. I am war, famine and deadly plague. I am sickness."
My words rang around the chamber as if a thousand Echoes were living out their curse.
"I am death and destruction itself."
Silence. The complete and utter silence that only came with absolute terror.
"The Queen you chased was no warrior, but had the heart of one. As her people were dying around her, dying to save her, she could bear it no longer.
She searched and searched, never losing hope. One day her efforts bore fruit.
She found me.
Her death for yours.
Her soul for yours.
Her sacrifice for her people.
Those were my terms for ending this war.
And end it I will.
For she kept her end of the bargain, the Queen with the warrior heart.
And it is now my turn."
As the world erupted and fire rained from above, as the war ended at long last, the warrior Queen smiled from above.