Xana V

Chapter eight

Xana V

The French doors open slowly. The room beyond is well lit by the lights of nixies. They dwell in glass orbs hanging around the circular room. In the middle of the room is a raised dais where a single magnificent, red velvet, diamond encrusted throne sits like royally of its own. Perched upon the throne is an even more spectacular woman; Queen Titania. On top of her head is a wonderful diadem, made of gold and precious gems. She smiles beautifully at me.

“Hello there Xana Frost.”

“Titania.”

“Well I couldn't say I expected you to make it this far,” she says in her sickeningly sweet voice. She sighs irritably and gets off her throne. “Let's make this quick young one. I don't have the time to deal with you for too long; I have duties, I mean I am the Queen after all.”

“Fine by me. The quicker you die the better.”

“Now now, Xana. Is that how you treat your Queen?”

“You're not my Queen. You're my enemy,” I growl and turn my staff into a scythe.

“Oh I don't like that thing one bit,” she says as she eyes my weapon. She suddenly starts singing in gibberish and with a snap of her fingers my staff shatters into tons of pieces. I gasp and try to grab at it, but it's no use, she broke it with magic. Titania hums. “Much better.” She reaches behind her throne and unsheathes a long, sharp sword.

“I thought you were a fair Queen,” I tease.

She shrugs. “When it comes to saving my life,” she slashes the sword in the air between us, “I will play dirty.”

I gather some of the holy water on the floor and lay it on my metal forearm and let it grow out into my own little blade. “Fine Titania. Play dirty, but you have no idea how dirty I can get.”
I charge her and slash at her with my blade. She deflects it and lunges at me but I dodge out of the way and try to strike again, but she dodges just in time. I stab at her again, but she gets out of the way quick. She straightens up and kicks at me. I shield myself with my arms, but the force knocks me down to my butt. I hit the floor with an “umpf”. I look up at Titania’s face, but something catches my eyes further up. Another mosaic is on the ceiling. This one is more captivating than the one on the door and not because of it's beauty.

A flash of silver brings me back to the fight. I shift my head to the side and just barely miss Titania’s sword. Warm blood trickles down my cheek. I kick at her hand and she moves away quickly. I get up quickly and spin around. My eyes bore into her Technicolor ones. Together we move away from each other.

She seems amused. “You are good Xana Frost I'll give you that, but let’s make this a little more interesting.” She holds out her hand sings a curt spell. I try to stop her but is no use. Sudden horrific memories become crystal clear in my head. I can feel my sanity slipping away as I numbly let the visions, remembrance of the noises of ice faeries being slaughtered and the smell of blood pass over all my senses.

Her spell ends quickly and I cease to move as they continue to play in my head by itself. Titania laughs. “I don't envy you Xana. I mean of all the things that have happened to you and you still went on. It's miraculous! It's only a shame to see you just now becoming insane like all your other kin. How about I make this easy for you dear? I'll kill you now and save you the trouble of committing suicide, that way it'll seem like you actually put up a fight and went down valiantly. It's a win-win situation!” She hefts up her sword over her head and approaches me. “I'll make sure to make it really quick.” She throws down her sword, blade aimed at my head.

Clang!

The Queen gasps. I hold my mechanical arm over my head. The sword scrapes the metal and sings horribly. “Why do you hate the ice faeries so much Titania?”

She just stares at me for a while before baring her teeth and snarling. “Your kind killed my husband, King Oberon.”

“That was a hundred years ago.”

“And I've been planning this ever since and you won't ruin it!” She lifts her sword off my arm and takes a swipe at me. I grab the blade with my right hand. I'm lucky the sword didn't cut right through the plate of my palm; I guess Demetri made this just strong enough. I grip the sword and rip it out of her hands and send it skittering across the floor. Titania backs away holding her hand to her chest. She growls. “I hate that blasted arm of yours!”

I realize what's going to happen before it does but it makes no difference. “No!” I scream as she sings. I try to freeze her, but she’s too fast. The metal of my arm rattles and then blasts apart. Shards of metal soar into the air and sparks fly. I scream in pain as the wires connected to my nerves are severed. Shocked I look down at my arm. There's nothing left but a few short circuiting wires at my shoulder and most of the parts at my shoulder and the plate over my stump; no hand, no arm. How am I supposed to freeze her when I only have one hand?

While I was panicking I missed Titania running to the side of the room to retrieve her sword, and her charge at me. I step out of the way as he plows towards me with her sword in front of her. She almost trips in front of me as the sword hits the ground and not me. She swipes at me again and I duck. I sweep my leg around and catch her at her ankles making her fall to the ground and her sword clatter away again. She climbs the steps of the dais backwards as I slowly approach her. “I've had enough playing around Titania. I'm going to end you now and for all.”

She tries to laugh, but comes out distorted from fear. “And how are you going to kill me with only one arm and no weapon?”

“Izo told me I had the power of all my brethren that have fallen in your stupid war. At first is didn't believe him, but now I do. I am so much stronger than any other ice faeries and way more powerful than you Titania.”

“And how do you know that?” she spits.

“Look up.”

She looks up and stares at it for a moment trying to decipher the mosaic above our heads and stifles a scream. The mosaic has a picture of the Queen bleeding as a girl with dark blue hair and an icicle crown holds her hand out to her. Behind the girl is tons of dull, milky figures that look like her all touching the person’s in front of them shoulder and that progresses all the way up to the girl, like they're all helping her in some way.

Titania looks back at me in fright and screams. While she was looking up I made myself an icicle crown just like in the mosaic. She scrambles upright crouches away from me. “You wouldn't dare kill me,” she says shakily.

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

“But- but you can't!”

“Oh yeah I can.” I hold my arm out towards her. A great surge of power pulls at my icy core. She lets out a dry sob. “People say that ice faeries are the warriors because our hearts are as cold as ice, but you Titania, are cold hearted, not the ice faeries.” She shakes her head in terror. “Goodbye Queen Titania.” I close my eyes, focus on her veins and freeze them. She screams through gritted teeth. Then I freeze her blood. I can hear her moving despite the pain she must be in; the sound is somewhat curdling and makes my stomach churn.

“No!” she yells. “I am not... going down... without... taking you with me!” I let everything unfreeze. The Queen screams and slays her arms out as she bleeds. Something skitters across the floor from out of her hand. She falls backwards and lands on the stairs of the dais dead. Blood seeps out of her face and pools down the stairs and makes a small puddle at me feet.

It's done.

I wrap my arm around my torso and stare at the monstrosity I created. I can feel myself get dizzier but I ignore it and press my arm harder into my warm torso.

And may she rot in hell.