Never Offend the Fae
“I can’t let it go.”
Silence followed Melia’s words after they echoed off the high walls of the ancient, crumbling ruin in which she stood. The roof was long gone, the top edges of the walls reaching up into the glittering obsidian expanse of the night sky.
Melia had kept her lamp shaded to preserve her night vision, so the altar was only a vague, rectangular shape among the shadows.
Wind blew, sighing over the stones. Melia shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her. Her fingers curled into the fabric, gripping it hard enough to turn her knuckles white.
“I don’t want to let it go,” she whispered.
The wind blew harder. Whether that was warning or commiseration, Melia wasn’t sure. All she knew was the rage burning in her gut. She pulled back the shade on her lamp.
Bright light bloomed, breaking and scattering the dark. She stood in what had once been a magnificent church. Tall, arched spaces in the dark grey walls marked where stained glass once filled the nave with colored light. If Melia looked hard enough, she would be able to make out the holes where the rood screen would have been anchored.
Behind the altar arose an elaborately carved stone reredos, where saints and angels stood in arched spaces decorated in ivy and roses. A dark blotch marked the empty hole in the stone tabernacle where a door would have been.
The altar, carved with a scene of Christ rebuking the Devil, had an almost wistful air about it, as if it waited for the priests of ages past to return and sweep away the dust.
In the distance, thunder rumbled.
Melia ascended the three steps up to the altar itself. She hesitated, her heart creeping toward her throat.
This was wrong. She knew it was. This place had slept for centuries. Why was she disturbing it now?
Because I must, she thought. Because I have no choice.
She set the lamp onto the altar. Then, she shrugged off her backpack, knelt, and opened it.
More thunder sounded. She didn’t remember seeing a storm in the forecast, but its sound was doing a good job reminding her she wasn’t there to sightsee. She drew from the pack a jar full of dark liquid.
The story of what this place held was a family heirloom passed down through the generations to the day when her father had told her and her brother. The last porter of this church was their ancestor, and had been an eyewitness to the Day of Sealing.
Most people inside and outside the family scoffed, but Melia and her brother had always believed their father. Dad was never wrong. This time, he couldn’t be wrong.
Headlights cut through the night, slashing through the opening that had once been the great double doors. Startled, she sat back on her heels and clutched the jar to her chest. The thunder must have masked the sound of the approaching vehicle. She stood.
A car door slammed. A second later, a figure walked out into the light. Tall. Broad-shouldered. She already knew who it was as he strode up the nave toward her.
“Go away, Jake,” she said.
“No,” he replied. “You’re about to do something stupid, and as your older brother, I am obligated to keep you from doing that.”
As he drew closer, she could make out his features. He had the same dark green eyes as her, and the same dirty blonde hair. Just like their father. A fresh surge of rage swept through her.
Jake stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Put down the jar, Melia.”
“He is sleeping beneath the altar. This--”
“I know what that will do. Don’t.”
“What other choice do I have?”
“You can walk away.”
Sudden tears burned the backs of her eyes. “I can’t let go.”
Jake put his foot on the bottom step. “Dad would want you to. He wouldn’t want to be brought back, and certainly not if it meant dealing with what is trapped under that altar. There are consequences to dealing with the fae.”
Their father had been larger than life until some junkie killed him over a wallet with no cash and a watch that wasn’t worth twenty dollars. Their father had been their protector, provider, and teacher until he turned down the wrong damn alley.
Today, the court had let his murderer walk away free due to a stupid technicality. No one thinks about the impact on the family when a cop couldn’t be assed to do his job properly.
Dad would have made a joke about it. He would have said something about courts of law and the courts of fae being obsessed with technicality.
Melia had walked out of the courtroom in a daze of red. She wasn’t sure when she had made her decision, but once made, her vision tunneled. Everything she had done that day brought her to this point. And she wasn’t going to turn back.
“If I wake up the Stone King,” she said, fighting to keep her tone level, “then I get a wish. One wish. And it’s not to bring Dad back. I can wish Hightower dead.”
“And what’s that going to solve?”
Thunder crashed again, closer. The wind picked up, raking through Melia’s hair.
“It will make sure there’s justice,” Melia spat.
“At the cost of what? The Stone King was sealed away for a reason, Mel! Let’s talk—”
Melia turned and slammed the glass jar down onto the altar. The glass shattered, blood spraying across the white marble surface and splattering Melia across the face. She stepped back, wiping her cheek with a shaking hand. Her whole body trembled with a terrible confidence that everything was about to be made right.
According to their father, the Stone King could only be woken on one night of the year, and it required the blood of anything. This king of the fae wasn’t picky. What really mattered was the desecration. The altar sealed away the fae king long ago. And now, desecrated, it could hold him no longer.
Jake whispered, “Shit.”
Silence, for a breath, and then the ground shook. A crack split the altar down the middle. Melia gasped and staggered off the dais. Jake caught her and pulled her away.
The split traveled down the side of the altar and up the reredos, widening until the altar itself broke apart. Melia’s lamp tumbled to the ground. A man rose up out of the fissure. He threw his shoulders back and took a deep breath before elegantly stepping onto the dais.
Melia thought, in a dazed moment, how convenient it would be for thunder to rumble. However, the sky remained silent.
In the stark white of Jake’s headlights, the extremely tall fae that stood above them looked dirty and a little tired. He wore green and yellow robes and had long hair braided with silver clasps and beads. His face was a shade too long, his mouth slightly too large, to be human. And his eyes were like a cat’s eyes: bright yellow with slit pupils.
He blinked in the light, raising a hand with long fingers to shield his eyes as they adjusted. Eventually, his gaze fell on them and he lowered his hand.
“Which of you,” he said, “freed me?” His voice was low and dark, yet filled the ruined church. It vibrated in Melia’s chest.
She shook off Jake’s hands and stepped forward. “I did.”
“The light bothers me.” The Stone King waved his hand and the headlights switched off.
Jake swore under his breath and Melia blinked hard to get her eyes to adjust. Her lamp still worked, sending up a dimmer light from the ground that let her see the Stone King perch on a bit of broken altar.
He began to pick dirt from under his fingernails. “Well, then,” he said. “What do you want? I doubt your actions stemmed from the kindness of your heart."
“I want you to kill someone.”
“Really?” The fae dropped his hands into his lap. “While I am delighted to be free of that musty jail, for I am tired of sleep broken only by the conversation of worms and roots, I must point out that I am not an assassin to be embroiled in the petty disputes of mortals. Besides, there are certain laws even I must obey. Unless…” He narrowed his eyes. “The one you wished killed, is he fae? An old enemy of mine, perhaps?”
“No.”
“A monster of some kind, then? Kraken, gorgon, or dragon?”
She shook her head.
The Stone King stared hard at her. “Then you are, by far, the most foolish girl I have ever met.”
“But.” Melia licked her lips. “I did you a favor. You owe me a boon.”
Suddenly, the fae was on his feet, white energy crackling from his limbs and eyes blazing. He shouted, “I owe you nothing!”
Melia and Jake stumbled back. The light faded. The Stone King looked tired and dirty once more. Thunder rumbled, but further away. The storm had changed course.
“I owe you nothing,” the Stone King said in a quieter voice.
“But—”
“Did you write the laws of the Unseelie Court? Were you there at the Great Council, hammering out the tenets that keep the dark and light fae from killing each other and destroying this world in the process?”
He arched a brow and it took Melia a moment to realize he actually wanted an answer.
“No,” she replied.
“You released me because you thought the Law of Favor would bind me to your will. But what you have neglected to realize is that the fae long ago vowed to not kill a human. The Seelie Court favors your kind for some unknowable reason, and for me to kill your hated enemy would be to court war. I do not know the standing of things now, and I will not risk it.” He snorted. “Never mind the utter insanity of the idea that you would desecrate an altar to free me to kill a normal mortal, who is no doubt susceptible to sharp objects, disease, and falls from a great height. You, my dear, are trying to use a ballista to kill an ant.”
If the contempt in his tone was any thicker, Melia could have used it to ice a cake.
“The last time,” the Stone King continued, “I dared to break the law and kill a human, I was sealed away. I have had a very, very, very long time to think, my dear, and I do not wish to return to prison. The answer, then, is no. Now, we must address another issue at hand.”
“Another issue?” Melia’s voice was small. Fear twisted her stomach into a hard knot. Jake took her hand, their fingers twining.
The Stone King said, “While it was ever so kind of you to release me, your request that I stoop so low as to kill a human, as if I were some lowly mercenary or assassin, that is an insult.” He narrowed his eyes. “An insult that should be punished, and it is in my power to punish it. It seems mortals have forgotten the greatest of all rules: never offend the fae.”
The anger Melia felt earlier was fully dissolved away in an icy rush of fear. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“It seems humans have not changed much. Most of you are bereft of an ability to think. You act and react, with little regard to the consequences of your actions.” His lips twisted into a wry smirk. “A little ironic, that. A case could be made that I did not think much of my actions, long ago.” He waved his hand. “Ah, well. I am not in the mood for retrospection. Who is that with you?” He sniffed the air. “Family? Brother?”
Jake jerked Melia behind him. “I’m her brother. And if you’re going to punish anyone, punish me.”
“Jake,” Melia hissed. “What are you doing?”
The Stone King smiled, sharpened teeth glinting in the lamplight. “Oh, my boy. That was already my plan.”
The fae king threw his hands out, his power crackling along his arms as before, filling the ruined church with cold, blue and purple light. The power intensified, until his whole body glowed with it. His cat eyes became globes of fire.
“At this time every year,” the Stone King boomed, “for a night and a day, you are cursed to wear the visage of a wolf. The rage of your sister is now your rage. For that night and day, you will be a curse on this countryside. Only the sword of a pure heart will release you from your fate.” The Stone King turned his baleful gaze onto Melia. “Punishment must be rendered but as repayment for releasing me, I do not render it unto you directly. That is your boon. Pray we do not meet again.”
The light went out. Melia rubbed her eyes, blinking hard. When things came into focus, they were all alone. The Stone King was gone.
“Mel?”
Melia looked at her brother, whose face had gone white. Their eyes met.
“Jake?” she said.
“Run,” he whispered.
With a scream, he bent double. A large crack resounded as his body twisted. Fur rolled up his arms. His fingernails lengthened. He scrabbled at his clothes, tearing them away. He looked up at her, his face already contorting into a wolf’s muzzle.
“Run!” he roared.
Backpack and lamp forgotten, Melia ran out of the church. Jake’s Jeep sat silent just outside beside her truck. She flung herself into her truck, slamming the door beside her, and dug into her pockets for her keys.
Her keys were in her backpack.
She stared out of the windshield, her heart hammering against her chest. She gasped for breath. Silence reigned. Perhaps Jake had jumped out of a window and gone into the nearby forest?
She reached for the door handle.
The glass in the passenger side window shattered. Melia screamed. She jerked the handle, the door popped open, and she fell back first into the dirt. She scrambled backward, stumbling to her feet.
A massive wolf jumped down from the cab, rocking the truck. It shook off glass from its back. The dome light illuminated the night, and, at another time, Melia would have appreciated the gold highlights in the animal’s soot black fur.
At that moment, though, all she could think was, That’s my brother. That’s Jake. I caused this. Oh, God, Jake.
The wolf’s eyes burned red. Its lips pulled back in a snarl. It lowered its head and stepped forward.
“Jake,” she whispered.
The wolf jerked its head up. The red rage flickered like fire in its eyes.
“Jake, it’s me,” Melia said. “You can fight the anger. I know you can.” She blinked. “You were always better at keeping your temper than me.”
The wolf’s nose flared. The rage in his eyes burned bright and he snarled. Then the rage began to fade, as if in response to some inner turmoil.
She said, “Jake, I love you. I’m so sorry. Please, fight.”
The wolf stepped forward, muscles bunching for a spring. A whimper escaped Melia.
The fire went out. Normal wolf eyes studied Melia. Tension rolled off his shoulders.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Then, the wolf turned and ran, disappearing into the darkness.
Melia stared after him. When their father told them fae stories, one thing he always said was to take care when dealing with the fae, to avoid them whenever possible, and to, above all, never offend the fae. And she’d forgotten that, in her anger, and now her brother had to pay the price. She felt sick.
In the east, the sky grew lighter. Dawn approached.
Melia would find the person with a sword and a pure heart, whatever that meant, and undo this mess. Until then…
A cold wind blew, and Melia shivered.
Author’s Note: This story was written in response to prompts given to me by
and because I couldn’t choose, I used all three:Write a story about an ancient structure
shaking with terrible confidence
“I can’t let it go”
'If the contempt in his tone was any thicker, Melia could have used it to ice a cake.'-- can I just say that I love this?
WHOOOOO what a ride!!!