The red and white fairy fought fiercely in the sky above the battlefield. Their bright robes merged with the sunset glow. They say it is not good to see them. But King of Aluar did not believe in omens. Today he was going to win a great victory. Never mind that the fortresses of the black kingdom, which emerged as if from nowhere in the wasteland, were supposedly guarded by evil spirits.

King Conrad believed neither in evil spirits nor in an entire kingdom under the strange name of Shai. It could grow on the wasteland all by itself overnight. An ambassador who had lost an important message in the wastelands supposedly saw this black wonder with his own eyes. Towers like darkness grew straight out of the dry, barren ground, and spikes of iron stretched across them. And then there was the shrieking of a multitude of monsters. It sounded more like the fiction of a boy who had failed an errand and feared punishment.

There was no point in punishing him. The boy himself was sick with some horrible disease. He must have caught it on the badlands. His skin was green, his eyes were overgrown with a black film, and his fingers were covered with fur and claws.

And later was a declaration of war, written in red on a scroll of perfectly black parchment. Fine letters appeared in bloody ligature:

«We will attack human lands until someone defeats us!»

It was a clear threat, but the signature «Fairies’ Queen Medea Shai» might have belonged in the banter section.

No fairies’ queen in a land where everything is poisoned and scorched by dragon fire. It is dangerous to go there. The ambassador who passed through there is a case in point.

Conrad would have thought the message a practical joke, but Aluar had indeed been plagued by wildlings at twilight. They could easily be mistaken for monsters. And they attacked at dusk every time. The frightened people began to beg for protection. The commoners could be ignored, but the nobles also suffered. Several knights, who had gone to fight the outlaws alone, were mauled alive. In the royal castle, incidents began to occur that caused panic. The cauldrons in the kitchen began to ooze volcanic lava and nearly burned down the entire castle, or all the statues suddenly came to life and began to strangle the guests with their marble hands. All the ambassadors fled from Aluar, spreading rumors of the curse. Conrad himself saw none of this, so he slept soundly. And yet the ill ambassador assured that a black-winged lady had come to him and threatened to destroy the whole kingdom.

Rumors are often more dangerous than war. The situation had become so tense that Conrad had no choice but to call in the militia and march on Shai.

They were already waiting for him there. It was an army of black armor, remotely resembling dragon scales. It lined up in endless lines. The black warriors emerged as if they’d risen from the ground as the sun set. There were countless of them.

But Conrad was no coward either. Young and willful, he was more eager to fight than any of the victims who’d filled him with complaints about the Cursed Kingdom, as they called Shai.

The king was sure he would win. A couple of years ago, when his father died suddenly, he had already had to fight the invaders. The price of power was military strength. Conrad knew how to lead an army and fight in such a way as to destroy the enemy. Should he be afraid of an army of black demons?

It was a good thing he hadn’t brought the court wizard, who had been in his father’s service. He would have seen bad omens in all this. He was a foreteller of misfortune. Ever since Conrad was born, he had been foretold nothing but bad fortune, that he would not live to see his coronation day, that he would fall prey to evil spirits and foreign usurpers, that he would be cursed and forgotten. And he became king and victor, spitting on all the prophecies. The wizard seemed to have had no choice but to shut his mouth, but he cawed like a crow, continuing to foretell misfortune. And so he did! Shai’s kingdom had become a barrier to trade routes and any relations with other powers. Behind Aluar was only the sea, but ahead on the road to the wider world, Shai had risen. So we must tear it down from the face of the earth! Black fortresses that resembled dragon’s teeth on the horizon disfigured the landscape. They must be destroyed soon. And to do that, we must first defeat the enemy troops.

The red and white fairy clashed furiously, hovering over a field that was about to bleed.

«I tell you this is pure love!» The white fairy screamed, her voice lost in the roar of weapons and armor. «He will die of pure and sincere love! Love, like a white rose with thorns, will sprout in his breast and warp his whole heart. They will both perish from love!»

«I insist that it is passion,» the red fairy shouted scandalously, fluttering her flaming wings that made the air burn. «Passion is like a red rose with poisonous thorns. It sprouts not in hearts but in two bodies, devouring them completely. These two will be mine!»

What are they two! Conrad looked around perplexedly. What is love? What is passion? There are only armies of stern warriors unaccustomed to tenderness here. And all of them can neither look nor hear the two fairies. They can tear their own throats out. Let them scream. There is something tragic in their screams. They were dancing in the air, locked in a fistfight.

Darkness fell, and they were gone. It was probably just a game of sunset rays. Some hunchbacked creature, like a rhinoceros in a herald’s dress, blew a black horn and retreated behind the flank of the enemy armies. It’s time to fight!

There will be no negotiations for peace! Shai is to be destroyed. Conrad rushed forward, but in time to notice how the hooves of his horse pressed two roses: a red and a white. Why would there be roses on barren ground, parched by dragon fire? Witchcraft was involved. Not for nothing did the threatening letters come supposedly from the queen of the fairies. It was a veiled hint that powerful sorcerers had taken up residence in Shai. Though what could they do against a sword? Conrad had heard that evil spirits were afraid of steel.

He slashed left and right. The battle was the fiercest he had ever fought. The blood made even the skies above his head seem red. The limbs he chopped off from his enemies fell to the ground, and indeed turned out to be the paws of monsters. They moved even after they were severed. The enemy troops trumpeted a black horn as their warriors fell dead. Every time! From the resounding sound of the many horns, there was a rumble in his ears. And something suspicious was happening on the field among the dead bodies. The king wasn’t the only one who noticed it.

«They’re coming back to life!» Conrad’s marshal pointed somewhere forward. «The corpses are getting up and going back into battle.»

«You imagined it!» Conrad did look closely. It seems to be true! Maybe they just weren’t finished? Though how could a badly wounded warrior stand up as if nothing had happened? The monstrous bodies that had been churned through the meat grinder would stand up as good as new and fight again.

«We’ll never beat them that way!» Conrad bit his lips in annoyance.

Magic is a nuisance! No matter how much you work with your blade, it’s all blown away in one fell swoop once they blow the horn. So we must take the horns from them. But how is it? There are many of them. They blow here and there. Each warrior has a black horn. We have to kill them all to take their horns. And you can’t kill them because they come back to life. You can’t kill them all at once.

A new, powerful rumble of horns sounded from on high. Conrad looked up and saw, instead of the beast blowing the horn, a huge black dragon with its mouth open and a growling sound. Now that’s someone who could take down an entire army in one fell swoop. But unfortunately the dragon didn’t belong to him. What a pity! What can be done to tame such an animal?

«Fight me!» The beautiful voice came from the commander of the enemy armies, whom Conrad had never seen until now. But now the rows of monster warriors parted. On horseback rode someone wrapped in purple silks. His helmet, elaborately carved in the shape of a black dragon’s head, covered his neck and face. The leader of the alien armies seemed to have a dragon’s head growing out of his shoulders instead of his normal head. Nothing surprising when you look at his ugly troops! The leader of the monsters can be nothing but a monster himself. But here, hands in scaly gloves rose gracefully to remove his helmet. These are not the hands of a knight. They were too fragile. And why remove the helmet before battle? Why leave your head unprotected?

Such a foolish commander would be easy to deal with. Conrad gripped the bloody sword tighter. And the enemy warlord had just freed his head from his helmet and turned out to be a beautiful black-haired girl with eyes so lingering that it was impossible not to submit to her gaze. Conrad felt himself drowning in those eyes.

«The gaze of the fairies’ queen is more powerful than any weapon,» someone whispered to him.

Above the battlefield hovered an unusual black bird with a red stone in its forehead. Not long ago a dragon had flown there.

The rider who led the monster troops also had a red stone on her forehead.

«And is it so?» She smiled as she unsheathed her sword, strapped to her saddle. Behind her two dark wings fluttered open. A fairy indeed! Conrad was taken aback.

«If you want my kingdom and my dragon, you will have to fight me!»

Her sword hissed like a living thing. The metal begged for blood. Its whispers reached his ears. Conrad had heard of such swords. They start cutting indiscriminately as soon as you take them out of their sheaths. But somehow the mistress of the sword knew how to control it. The grip was in the shape of a salamander wrapped around her palm.

«I am Medea Shai», queen of the black fairies,» she said.

More like queen of the black beasts. There were no fairies behind her, but the monsters multiplied like locusts.

«I am King Conrad of Aluar,» he introduced himself, knowing he would not be able to fight her.

She shouldn’t have to remove her helmet if she wanted to keep fighting him. No one would fight a woman so beautiful.

But the blackbird thought otherwise. It was still hovering over the battlefield, screaming with malice, and the red stone in its forehead was like a living flame.

Castle of the Queen of the Black Fairies

And just like that, the war was over! Who would have thought? In most cases, after the leaders have agreed to negotiate, there is no smell of truce, but in the case of a male leader and a female leader. And such a seductive one, too!

Conrad swallowed hard. No one said it was the end of the war. Medea Shai had merely invited him to spend the night in her castle. Her army of black monsters parted, letting the king’s small detachment through. Perhaps she wished to show him some hidden weaponry, which, upon seeing it, he would immediately decide to pay off rather than fight.

Conrad felt himself already surrendered. To follow the beautiful queen into her fortress was the same as surrendering at the mercy of the victor.

The fairies’ queen’s face was as pretty as an adorable child, but her body, with its high breasts and slim waist, looked inexpressibly seductive. She’d dropped her robe for nothing, leaving her in a deep-cut purple gown. Conrad felt the heat in his loins. He had to avert his eyes from her, lest he attack her in the presence of his own knights. He had never been a rapist. His good looks allowed him to get women for nothing.

The sand around the fortress was as black as ash. Probably a dragon had scorched all the land around it. But then why hadn’t the fortress itself been burned?

The ghastly gargoyles and harpies that propped up the vaults of the gate were alive. They grinned angrily at their guest and winked at him. Their snide laughter echoed in his ears even after Conrad had entered the castle.

Why were they so triumphant? Do they think they are winners already? The same creatures were nesting inside the castle. Some of them propped up the vault, some crawled up the columns and played the role of caryatids. They could hang or stand motionless for quite a long time, pretending to be statues, and then they came to life and laughed so hard that it made your blood run cold.

Once in Medea Shai’s castle, you’d better not believe that any objects here can be motionless and soulless. Any pillar or arch can come to life at any moment and attack you with a real monster. There’s no way to feel safe here.

Monsters dangled from the terra-cotta ceilings like giant bats. The doors were shaped like the mouths and heads of monsters. They looked as if they were about to come to life and speak to you.

And these were all the servants of the Fairies’ Queen! How can you call even the most beautiful woman in the world, to whom only monsters obey, the queen of fairies?

There was also luxury in the castle. Purple curtains fluttered over niches. Large floor amphorae of red and black roses exuded a wondrous fragrance. In the middle of one room was a tiered fountain, in which clumps of dark red roses also grew instead of water. Their color was so reminiscent of blood.

It seemed to Conrad that the petals of each rose were opening, repeating the shape of hungry mouths.

«Make yourself at home,» Medea Shai walked forward, rustling the gorgeous silks. Her layered skirts also resembled a rose. A train stretched across the carpet in a blood-red wave. Some keys in the shape of sickles, months, and hearts hung from her belt tinkled melodiously.

There were fairies in the castle besides the monsters. They were all black-winged, black-haired, black-robed, and with gray ashy skin as if they had just climbed out of their graves. Conrad had heard legends of grave fairies, but always thought they were fiction.

The black fairies silently brought various dishes of viands, furnishing the round quartz table with them. Even kings did not have dishes made entirely of gold, but Medea Shai did.

In her abode, Conrad felt not like a guest, but like a temple, where some ancient and bloodthirsty deity was about to crawl from the altar.

«Do you like me?» Medea Shai placed her sword on the table between the trays of figs and grapes. It was good that Conrad did not immediately engage her in a duel. Her sword snapped open, unleashing several even longer, sharper steel-tongue-like blades from a single blade. What if she had pulled such a trick in combat? He would have been dead or maimed by now, in spite of his sturdy armor.

Conrad took a closer look. Is there a hidden spring in the hilt to release the blades? More like a cunning mechanism than magic. But the manticore handle, which instantly came to life and mangled its face, dissuaded Conrad in an instant. The blades could indeed be mistaken for her tongues.

«I like you,» the queen of the fairies said first, before he could answer. «That’s why you’re still alive. But for how long is it?»

«We’re not going to fight at the feast table, are we?» Conrad thought belatedly that the treats might be poisoned. However, he was in for an even worse surprise. Among the vases and trays of fruit and sweets, one dish drenched in blood stood out too sharply. It is not customary to serve fresh meat to guests unless the guests are monsters. The ghastly warriors of Medea Shae certainly don’t eat meat when it’s roasted. And he just didn’t eat fresh. For it is against human nature. A man should not become entangled with fairies, and he became entangled, enchanted by the beauty of a magical woman.

Blood dripped from the platter onto the table. There was a head of a man on the plate. Conrad could scarcely recognize it as the head of one of his generals.

«Ah, pardon!» The hostess made a quick sign to her maids, and they hurriedly removed the dish with the mutilated head. One of the black fairies deliberately or accidentally whipped the king in the face with her wing.

«This dish got here by mistake,» Medea Shai apologized with a charming smile.

«And for whom was this dish intended?» Conrad almost asked. That would have been an unnecessary question, for he had seen for himself the monstrous army of the fairy queen.

«Sit down, help yourself!» Medea Shai poured him some wine. There were no chairs near the table except for her throne, but here some glittering creature crawled up behind him and touched Conrad on the shoulder with a claw. He turned around and saw a pedestal that resembled a coiled snake.

He could not sit on it. He didn’t feel like eating either.

«Why such monsters serve you?» – He went straight to what he was worried about.

«Do you think I have to fight this war alone?»

«That’s not what I mean! Aren’t your subjects supposed to be exclusively elves and fairies?»

«Oh, no,» she even laughed. «Fairies’ Queen is just a title. It means that all magical creatures are subject to me. Fairies are the strongest among us, they form the highest caste, and to rule them is to subjugate them all at once.»

«And I thought monsters were the strongest. They are such giants!»

«People are naive. But I can teach you to see deeper than any man can.»

Corundum sprouted in Medea Shai’s forehead. The skin around it gave the impression of porcelain about to crack under the weight of the stone. But the stone itself resembled a third eye. Is it true that the third eye is all-seeing?

«Do you enjoy my company?»

Conrad nodded.

«Do you want to fight me further?»

«It was you who declared war on me!» He reasonably reminded me.

«I had to lure you to Shai.»

«Where did your kingdom come from? From nothing!»

«Shai exists wherever I wish it to be,» Medea Shai raked her sharp fingernails across the table. The corundum in her forehead seemed to glow with fire.

«You may summon your advisor and the knights to join in the feast. It is not proper to leave them in the vestibule.»

Conrad first made sure that there were no more severed heads on the table among the courses and only then called his retinue.

The two roses, scarlet and white, had been crushed by the hooves of the horses on the battlefield, but in her hands they came to life. One of the monsters picked them up from the bloody field and brought them to her with a bow. Even if you put the flowers in a vase of water, they do not refresh as quickly as from the touch of her hands.

«But these same hands cause rashes, leprosy, pustules, and various infections. Don’t touch her,» whispered the counselor, who had reluctantly joined the feast. He squinted warily at the lady of the castle. «Do not sleep with her! Do not sleep with her, or you will not awake alive! Or worse, you’ll be a cripple. Why do we need a crippled king?»

But Conrad wouldn’t listen. Who could listen to it? Near him was such a beautiful woman. She was not a match for his ailing and stunted bride. The princess of Luan Araminta has gray skin and a gaunt body, but Medea Shai has tall, feminine breasts, a face like a porcelain doll and beautiful wings. It does not matter that they are black. They go very well with the slender waist.

There is a purple blush on her cheeks, like the crust of an apple showing through under a layer of porcelain.

Could she break? It feels like she’s all made of porcelain.

«So touch it, check it out?»

Someone’s voice rang in his brain. Or was it coming from the walls, where bas-reliefs of inhuman faces were carved? Or was it the roses whispering with their hundreds of scarlet mouths? The roses here are so reminiscent of a maiden’s mouth, and sometimes the lips of vampires.

In the presence of the insolent counselor, the feast turned to hell.

«Don’t drink the wine!» He whispered to the king. «She will poison you! She will bewitch you! Enchant you!»

But Conrad ignored the advice and drank. And he didn’t die! The counselor bit his tongue.

However, besides poison, there might be other reasons to feel fear.

The fruit on the plates turned out to be alive. One peach slipped from his hands and rolled on the floor, laughing. A ruddy apple rolled over in his fingers, smiled at him with a woman’s face as if painted on the rind and winked. The same faces appeared on the unfamiliar tropical fruit. The mouths on the peels opened and sang in unfamiliar languages.

«And these creatures we ate!» The counselor jumped up from the table. The knights felt sick, but not from fear. It seemed that the fruit was already stirring and singing in their bellies.

«They will vomit, but they will survive,» Medea Shai accompanied them with a glance as they fled.

«Now we are alone!» Conrad was glad he hadn’t eaten anything, or he would be sick now, too.

The living fruit at the feast, the statues that came to life, the flowers with talking mouths – it was enough to drive even a strong wrestler mad. But he proved to be a tough nut to crack, and he got the prize. The mistress of the castle ushered him into her bedroom.

A black salamander flew in front of them, posing as a candelabra lighting the way. There was lighter from its scales than from real candles.

Medea Shai’s bed appeared to be made of black flowers. Only the canopy and silk bedspread stood out in bright purple. But a dragon, coiled in rings around the bed, would have alarmed anyone. He glared so fiercely at his guest that the king instinctively drew his sword.

«He’s not jealous,» Medea Shai gently stroked the dragon’s scaly spine.

«Should he be jealous?»

She only smiled enigmatically.

«People are so innocent!»

I’ve had many women before, Conrad wanted to say, but realized that by innocence she meant something else. Was it naivety? Was it people’s ignorance of enchantments and magic? Was it a mystery that united only her and the dragon? And it was a secret Conrad shouldn’t have poked his nose into. He felt as if he were standing under a keyhole watching Medea Shai make love to a dragon. And in fact it would be the dragon who would be watching their coitus. Even an experienced womanizer would be uncomfortable here. Conrad already was. The dragon’s eyes were staring right at him as Medea Shai unbuttoned his sash.

The white and red fairies were already fighting under the window in the dizzying height above the wasteland. The red fairy was winning.

Passion is strongest! The black moths that had fluttered out of the gloom were lacing Medea Shai’s corset, trying not to catch her wings. Conrad looked at the half-naked fairies’ queen and realized he didn’t care. Let the dragon watch as much as he wanted. It was as long as he didn’t interrupt them.

12 3 Next

One Century to Marriage. Prisoners of the Magic Kingdom

Medea Shai

Castle of the Queen of the Black Fairies

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