Of Fairytales and Magic by Emma Hamm
Chapter 3
The darkness in front of her eyes started to take on familiar shapes. A barren and dry landscape revealed itself, with dust that rolled in a cool wind. Freya tilted her face back. A slick layer of sweat covered her brow, and the breeze felt good on her overheated skin.
Where was she?
Her mind churned, tumbled, and rolled until she remembered that she’d taken the magic from the Autumn Thief. Stolen it. Ripped it away from the one person whom it really belonged to. Maybe this was her punishment for trying to take something that wasn’t hers.
Swallowing hard, she let her eyes drift across the barren wasteland. She wasn’t really here. Freya recognized the strange tingle on her skin, the way her body reacted when she was in a place between places. A land that was neither real nor fake. This place had been created by magic and then consumed by it.
Whispers floated on the wind, tickling her ears with words she couldn’t quite make out. She cocked her head to the side and listened intently, trying to catch a few fragments of the conversation.
“Is this the one?”
“New.”
“No, this cannot be.”
“Stolen.“
The last word rang with so much rage that Freya feared she was about to be tossed from this landscape and the magic would then devour her soul. She didn’t know how she even knew it could. A memory that wasn’t her own played behind her eyes. The vision of herself being ripped apart by fire that burned from the inside out. Boiled alive.
No, she couldn’t let that happen. Too much had already occurred in her life, and stealing the magic had been a momentary lapse in judgement.
“My name is Freya,” she called out. The wind grabbed her words and flung them into the barren nothingness beyond. “I took the magic because the Autumn Thief herself thought I was worthy of it.”
A voice whispered in her ear, “You aren’t.”
Freya flinched as an icy finger trailed down her spine. The sharp tip pressed against her skin, and it felt almost as though she split open in the place it had traced. Maybe this form of herself could cut much easier than the mortal flesh she’d left behind.
“I am.” She put an impressive amount of conviction into the word when she didn’t actually believe it herself. “I will not allow you to wriggle your way into my mind and convince me that I am nothing. I am more than you could ever imagine, and my deeds speak for themselves.”
“A mortal woman walks upon our sacred fields, and you expect us to believe you are worthy of this gift? That you could rule as the Thief must rule?”
She licked her lips and dove right to the point. “I don’t have to be mortal anymore. You have the ability to change me into something more than that. Don’t you?”
Otherwise, the Autumn Thief would never have sent her here. The power that was now within Freya had more abilities than she could ever imagine, and that meant it could take a mortal sleeve and turn it into something else. Something more powerful and everlasting.
The voices whispered to each other once more, but Freya couldn’t make out the sound. She did, however, get the chance to figure out where they were coming from.
These creatures had forgotten that she controlled the power. Yes, she was within the magic of the Autumn Court, but it was also within her. Freya could manipulate the enchantment, use it to her own desire, until they decided she was worthy of it.
She walked through the desolate landscape, turning left and right until the voices were at their loudest and directly in front of her. And once she finally reached them as close as she could, Freya lifted a hand and waved her fingers through the air.
The glamour that hid the creatures disappeared. It rolled away from their bodies, down from their heads to their feet, like she’d pulled a blanket from them.
They were made entirely of darkness. Dark, stretched creatures that were the embodiment of a long shadow. Their limbs were too long, their heads too narrow, their forms lean and impossible. Their fingertips touched their knees, and great horns stretched from the top of their skulls. They leaned together, away from her, ignoring that she’d revealed their terrifying forms.
One looked over its shoulder and she stared into glowing white eyes. Or perhaps not eyes, but pin pricks through the shadow body that light could break through.
She gulped. “I know where you are now.”
“And we’ve always known where you were, Freya of Woolwich.” It broke away from the others, looming over her and staring with that unblinking gaze. “We are the Midnight Monsters. You are in our realm now.”
Yet something in her stomach claimed that she wasn’t. These monsters were here to serve her, whether they wanted to or not. She had the magic, and these creatures didn’t seem like the kind that could terrify the Autumn Thief. Lark was too strong and brave to think these creatures might end her life.
Which could only mean they were the gatekeepers. The ones who stood between her and those she actually needed to talk with.
“Lark claimed there were old gods. Those who used to judge the court leaders before they were given their power.” Though she didn’t want to say these creatures clearly weren’t the old gods, she also didn’t want to let them believe she was frightened of them.
Even though she was.
Freya had the distinct memory of long, clawed fingers reaching out from under her bed when she was little. The monster under her bed had grabbed the blankets and tugged them from her body. Leaving her shivering in fright for the rest of the evening. The hands had belonged to a monster like this.
A Midnight Monster. A creature who stood between the dark and the light. For they could not exist without light to give them form, but the darkness lived deep in their souls.
The creature’s head split open where a mouth should have been, but it was the absence of a mouth that shaped the gap. The grin warped its face, and the creature chuckled. “The old gods only see those who deserve the magic. You will burn. Just like all the others who tried to take what wasn’t theirs.”
Fire bloomed in the distance. Figures standing on the horizon, each one aflame. Freya somehow knew they were all those who had previously tried to steal the position she now held. They were the ones who had failed.
She would not become one of them.
“I am meant to be here,” she gritted through her teeth. “You cannot convince me that this wasn’t some grand scheme of the entire realm moving me to this one moment. I was no one before I stepped into the faerie realms. A farmer’s daughter who should have lived her life on the edge of the forest, afraid of every magical thing that might step out of it.”
And since she’d come here, she was an entirely different person. Freya wasn’t afraid anymore. Fear had no place in her heart when she could grow and learn from the things that lived in the dark. Just because the shadows might be unknown, that didn’t make them dangerous.
Darkness was not evil.
It did not breed those who wanted to kill and maim. Most of the people who lived on the outskirts of the world were the kindest people she’d ever met. They wanted to be left alone, because they were afraid.
These Midnight Monsters would not convince her otherwise.
She drew herself up and stared the creature in the eyes. She didn’t react when its mouth split open even wider, as if it found her defiance amusing.
The Midnight Monster hissed. “Yes, that is exactly how I would describe you as well. A molding little leech who has attached itself to the magic of this realm and now thinks to suck it dry.”
“No,” she stuttered. “That’s not what I want at all.”
“Then you wish to poison us with your fear and your mortality. You wish to spread that which is mortal into the very bloodlines of the fae. Allowing you to become the Autumn Thief would destroy everything we have worked so hard to build.”
That wasn’t right, either. This creature twisted her words into something dark and ugly. She didn’t want any of that.
Still stammering, Freya tried her best to explain. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to preserve what I fell in love with. This world. These people. The goblins. All of it. I love it so much that sometimes it hurts my very soul to look at them.”
The creature laughed, although the blinding light of its mouth never moved. “So you wish to hold something that was never yours. Like a treasure you found in the fabric of the earth. Is that how it is?”
“No!” She shouted the word, hoping that maybe the Midnight Monster would understand that she hated the words it put in her mouth. “I only wanted to be here forever. With you and the others. I don’t want to harm your way of life. Magic could give me immortality. It could give me enough time to learn about this place and the people who live here. To rule in a way that does you all justice.”
The Midnight Monster was apparently finished with her. It turned toward its brethren, and as one, they all strode away from her. And though Freya sprinted after them, her legs were not nearly so long.
Long, loping steps drew them away from her faster than she could run. If she didn’t do something, anything, then they would get away from her. She’d lose this chance and then she really would boil up as they had threatened she would.
“Wait!” Her voice sounded like a croak even to her own ears. As though the strength of her very being weakened as they drew away from her. “Please, wait!”
They didn’t stop. Their long legs drew them farther and farther away until she was certain she had lost sight of them. Any moment now she would be thrust back into her body. She could feel the heat already wrapping around her throat, threatening as a band of iron clasped at her pulse.
“No,” she whispered. “Not like this.”
Freya ran faster, harder, pumping her arms and legs. They would not get away from her. The Midnight Monsters had no right to deem her unworthy simply because they didn’t want a mortal to have this power. They were the ones with the power to make her something else.
Words pressed against her lips. Words that weren’t her own, but felt important. Words that demanded to take flight.
“I wish to see the old gods!” she screamed, falling onto her knees. She sank back on her haunches, arms limp at her sides and eyes staring wide into the vast darkness above. “Whatever they need me to do. Whatever proof they require to know that I will be the best Autumn Thief I can be, then I will provide it. But do not send me away from this place to die.”
Shadows coalesced above her. They gathered like ink spilled on dark fabric. Pulling together, then ripping apart as someone tilted the very foundation of the world.
The same Midnight Monster leaned over her, his eyes now glowing bright blue. “If you wish to go through the trials of the Autumn Thief, then we will allow it. But know this, Freya of Woolwich. You will not survive them.”
She looked it dead in the eye and laughed. “I will survive them. Because I am no longer Freya of Woolwich. I am the Queen Killer, Defeater of the Goblin King, Spring Maiden, and Summer Lord. I have made a name for myself in this realm and no new god or old will take that away from me.”
A low chuckle erupted from the shadow creature’s mouth. It nodded, then stepped away from her. “We shall see, Freya. I look forward to finding out how truthful your claim is. Now, you will return to the court you have claimed. The trials start soon, and you are nowhere near where they begin.”
An icy hand pressed against her chest, and Freya’s heart seized. She gasped, holding onto the black wrist and staring into burning eyes.
“Go,” the Midnight Monster said. “You have very little time left, Mortal.”
It drew its hand out of her grasp, then punched her so hard in the chest she felt it in her very heart.
