The Queen

The paladin arrived on a Tuesday, sword drawn and faith blazing.

I knew he was coming, of course. The dead whisper to those who listen, and a man in golden armor crossing the Deadlands makes quite a lot of noise. Spiritually speaking.

I should have risen from my throne. Should have summoned my skeletal guards, raised the bone walls, done something appropriately theatrical for the hero who'd traveled so far to end me.

Instead I sat on my throne of fused vertebrae and watched him kick open the doors to my throne room.

He looked like every paladin I'd ever imagined and none of them at once. Gold armor that caught my blue flames and threw them back in shattered light. A sword that hummed with holy purpose. Brown hair. Eyes the color of storm clouds. I was too tired to catalogue more than that.

"Necromancer," he said. His voice rang through my throne room, echoing off bone. "Your reign of darkness ends today."

Twenty years I'd been waiting for someone to say those words to me. Twenty years of tribute and fear and kingdoms who paid me to stay in my corner and be their monster. And now, finally, a paladin who actually had the nerve to cross the Deadlands.

I should have been afraid.

"Oh good," I said instead. My voice came out cracked, barely audible. When had I last spoken aloud? Days, probably. Maybe weeks. "Kill me or help me. Either works."

He faltered.

That wasn't in whatever script the Paladin Order had given him. I watched confusion crack that young, strong face, certain of everything except this moment.

"This is a trick," he decided.

"It's really not." I tried to lift my hand to wave him forward, but my arm weighed approximately the same as a mountain. I let it fall back to the armrest. "The sword is right there on your hip. I'm hardly going to stop you."

"You have an army of the dead."

"I have seventeen skeletal servants who dust things and cook meals I barely remember to eat." I attempted a smile. It probably looked more like a grimace. "You're welcome to fight them if you'd like. Fair warning: Margaret gets testy when people track mud on the floors."

He didn't sheathe his sword. Smart man.

"What game are you playing?"

"The game where I've been awake for nine days holding back something that wants to eat the world, and I'm tired, Paladin. So very tired." I looked at him directly. Gray. Definitely gray. "If you're going to kill me, do it quick. If you're not, then for the love of whatever god sent you, make yourself useful."

He stared at me.

I stared back.

The blue flames in my throne room flickered. In the distance, Margaret's bones clattered against stone as she swept the hallway outside. Someone had tracked mud. Probably me, three weeks ago, the last time I'd bothered to walk outside.

"You're supposed to be a monster," he said finally.

"I am a monster." I didn't have the energy to argue the point. "Just not the one they told you about."

"What does that mean?"

"It means there's something worse beneath this fortress, and I'm the only thing keeping it down there. It means I haven't slept in nine days because if I sleep, it wakes. It means..."

The world tilted.

I grabbed the armrests of my throne, but my arms had nothing left. Twenty years of this. Twenty years of holding a door closed against something that shouldn't exist, and now my body had finally decided enough was enough.

"It means I'm about to pass out, so if you want to kill me, now's your chance."

The last thing I saw was his face, slack with shock, as my vision went dark.

I woke on my throne.

That was new. Usually when I collapsed, I woke on the floor, cold and aching and surrounded by worried dead things who couldn't actually help me.

Warmth pressed against my shoulder.

I opened my eyes. The paladin, the one who'd come to kill me, had his hand on my shoulder, gold light spilling from his palm into my flesh.

Healing magic. The bastard was healing me.

"Stop," I managed.

"You're dying."

"I'm always dying. That's the job." I tried to pull away, but my body wasn't cooperating. "Your light is going to burn me."

"It hasn't yet."

I blinked.

Holy light and necromancy did not mix. Every text, every scholar, every dead guardian who'd come before me agreed on that point. His magic should have been scouring my flesh from bone.

Instead it felt warm. Soft. Wrong in all the ways that made my treasonous body want to lean into it.

"That cannot be," I said.

"And yet." He didn't move his hand. "Nine days without sleep. When's the last time you ate?"

"How long was I unconscious?"

"Only minutes. It's still Tuesday."

"Then... twelve days? Thirteen?" I tried to think. Time had gotten fuzzy around day six. "Margaret brings me food. I forget to eat it."

"You're running on nothing."

"I'm running on spite and the desperate hope that if I die, whoever comes next will figure out how to keep the thing below from eating the world." I looked up at him. Gray, flecked with gold from his own magic, and looking at me like I was a cipher he lacked the key for. "I wasn't lying, Paladin. Kill me or help me. Those are the only options that don't end with everyone dead."

"My name is Marcus."

"I don't care what your name is."

"Sir Marcus of the Paladin Order. I've served the Order for fifteen years."

"Congratulations. You've found the unholy. Now..."

"And in twenty years," he continued, "I've never seen anything like you."

I laughed.

It came out cracked and broken and sounded more like a sob than anything else, but it was still the closest thing to laughter I'd managed in years.

"No one has," I said. "That's rather the point."

He was still touching me. Still healing me. I was too tired to make him stop.

"Tell me about the thing below," he said.

"Why? So you can report back to your Order?"

"Because if you're telling the truth, I need to understand. And if you're lying..." He paused. His grip on his sword tightened. "If you're lying, I'll kill you anyway."

Fair enough.

I closed my eyes. Let his warmth seep into my bones. Let myself remember what it felt like to not be alone, even if the company was someone who'd come to end me.

"It doesn't have a name," I said. "It's older than names. Older than gods. It slept beneath the earth for eons, and then, twenty years ago, it started to wake."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone disturbed it. Maybe its time simply came. All I know is that I felt it stirring the day my magic first manifested." I opened my eyes. "I was eighteen. I'd just discovered I could speak to the dead. And then something in the ground spoke back."

"The kingdoms call you the Bone Queen."

"The kingdoms call me whatever they want. They pay me tribute to stay in my corner and be their monster so they don't have to think about the real one. They know what I do. They just don't want anyone else to know."

His hand stilled on my shoulder.

"They know?"

"Who do you think sent you?"

Understanding moved across his face. Slow. Terrible. The kind that cracks foundations and leaves nothing standing.

"They didn't send me to destroy a necromancer," he said.

"No." I smiled without humor. "They sent you to kill the only thing standing between them and annihilation. Because I'm getting weaker. Because the thing below is getting stronger. Because when I finally fail, and I will fail, Paladin, Marcus, whoever you are, they don't want anyone left who knows what really happened."

He lifted his hand from my shoulder.

The warmth vanished. I felt its absence like a wound reopening.

"You could be lying."

"I could be." I straightened on my throne. My bones protested. Everything protested. "Stay for a day. Look around. Read my journals if you want, Margaret knows where they are. See what twenty years of holding back the end of the world looks like."

"And if I decide you're telling the truth?"

"Then I have a proposition for you." I met his eyes. Held them. "Help me. Fight beside me. And if we fail, when we fail, at least we won't fail alone."

He didn't answer.

He didn't have to.

The fact that he hadn't killed me yet was answer enough.

"Margaret," I called out. "We have a guest. Please prepare a room."

Somewhere in the fortress, bones clattered in acknowledgment.

The paladin, Marcus, stood in my throne room, sword still drawn, face torn between duty and doubt. His faith told him I was the enemy. His eyes told him something far more dangerous.

I watched him struggle. I didn't help. I was too tired to help.

But I hoped. At last, I hoped.

Maybe this one would stay.

Maybe this one would understand.

Or maybe he'd kill me in my sleep and doom the world, but at least I'd get some rest first.

Either way, it was out of my hands now.

"Welcome to the Deadlands," I said. "Try not to track mud on the floors. Margaret really does get testy."

He didn't sheathe his sword.

But he didn't leave either.