15. The Duel

"I'm gonna throw up," Micah said, bending over his knees, massaging his sore scalp.

"Drink," said Ingrid, and forced his chin back up.

Micah made a face as he leaned past the goblet under his lips to where his mother and his lover circled one another, quickly becoming damp with rain.

"Drink," she ordered, lifting the goblet to his lips.

Left with no choice, he tipped it back and took a long swallow. The rush of warmth down his throat steeled him somewhat, calming his frantic heartbeat to more of a steady, angry drumming. He smeared the back of his hand across his lips and muttered a thank you to her, and she patted his back silently.

Intent on not striking first, Andrew proceeded to step around the Queen, slowly, crunching on soft woodchips. He bent his left arm behind his back, sword crossed over his chest.

The Redwood Queen moved first with a piercing cry, both hands wrapped around the hilt of her sword. Andrew arched out of the trajectory of her weapon and drove his elbow into her shoulder blade.

She staggered. She was rusty.

Ingrid said as she rubbed her chin, "That's interesting."

Their mother straightened with a flash of fury. She went in again quickly and their blades clashed with a spill of sparks. Andrew's lips pressed together. The Redwood Queen pulled back, and then dove again; Andrew parried her with a single-handed swipe. It felt like a video game tutorial before the real fighting began.

Standing at attention at the foot of the dais with hands clasped behind his back, Sivarthis flicked his bright green gaze up toward Micah. He said through one corner of his mouth, curled in a smirk, "I imagine you're enjoying this, being back in the Redwoods where pain mingles with pleasure."

Micah's cheeks exploded with heat. Sivarthis had…used him for a time, taken advantage of Micah's easy affections to win favor with the Queen, which had eventually led to being promoted to captain of the guard. He stammered, "I never—no, that's not at all—"

"Shut up, Sivarthis," said Ingrid in a commanding snarl. "Speak out of turn again and I'll cut out your tongue."

Unruffled, Sivarthis raised his thick black brows and inclined his head to her, sizing up Micah with a lingering gaze that made him squirm before returning his attention to the duel.

The Redwood Queen jumped in again for two quick slaps of the flat of her blade, one on the side of Andrew's neck and one on the back of his right knee, too fast for him to stop her.

She was toying with him.

"Damn it," Micah said. "We've got to get out of here."

"If you make him abandon a duel," warned Ingrid, "she will chase him down to the ends of the earth. He will never rest. You will never rest."

Micah groaned and curled up in his seat.

Out in the rain and glowing with faerie lights, Andrew was not taking the bait. He remained slow and methodical, pacing, blocking where necessary to save his skin, prodding at her but not following the stabs with his body. He still had his left arm behind his back. In the crowd, as if sensing his reserve, Folk jeered.

Micah kept drinking from Ingrid's goblet until he could breathe again.

The Redwood Queen spun around Andrew, forcing him to follow her and duck beneath the swipe of her blade, spraying raindrops like glinting diamond insect wings. Before he straightened, Andrew swept his blade between her calves and tripped her with his wrist. He managed to draw a thin line of blood on the back of her leg. As she collected herself, the Queen's eyes flared with blood-red light and the air darkened, the faerie lights blinking out around her.

Glancing up at the dramatic effect, Andrew snickered. He stayed down, running the pad of his finger along his blade and collecting her blood. He smeared it across his cheek with a quick smile.

The Redwood Queen lunged at him with a snarl, three quick strikes bouncing off his blade but knocking him off his feet. He rolled twice and pushed up off his elbows, clambering back to his feet and making it back around to face the Queen just as she struck again. He twisted, but her blade sliced his collarbone, cutting open his shirt and leaving a thick slash of blood in its wake. A spasm of fear crossed his features.

"Feel the terror," said the Redwood Queen in a growl, not a hair out of place in her crown. She jabbed and swung with such speed Andrew was forced to back-step, and back-step, and back-step to avoid her blade until he finally dodged and stabbed toward her. She arced out of the way, but her dress tore from hip to waist. Her arc turned into an elegant spin and she struck him in the small of his back with the hilt of her sword, sending him sprawling into the ground. His rapier spiraled out of his grip. Andrew shook his head clear and dove for it, but the Redwood Queen staked the back of his shirt and pinned him in place. She picked up his blade.

"No, no, no," Micah rose and stepped down toward the duel but stopped when Ingrid pulled back on his bicep. "Andrew, you got this! Get up! Keep your cool!"

Andrew lay on his hip with his brow set in a scowl, chest heaving, tendrils of escaped hair sticking to his neck and jaw. He tried to toss Micah a carefree smile, but it looked more like a grimace.

"I admit," said the Queen, "I thought you would be dead by now."

Andrew swept his hair back from his face and said, "Yes, that's my specialty." Then he rolled onto his shoulder, bending the blade pinning him down; it snapped out of the Redwood Queen's hand and he snatched it on its recoil. He scrambled back to his feet holding her rapier now in his dominant left hand, eyes narrowed with pain and his jaw set with determination. The Queen came at him again, hardly giving him a chance to get the ground under him, but using her red-hilted rapier he blocked, and blocked, and parried, and back-stepped out of her way to recover.

Ingrid said in awe, "He is much better than he has any right to be."

Micah took her hand and squeezed tightly. Ingrid didn't stop him.

Andrew leaned and stabbed, missed, and pulled back, and did it again. The Queen was moving faster now, discarding the pretense that Andrew could keep up with her unsettling speed. Still, he leaned and stabbed, paused to gather himself then parried and blocked with his forearm. The blood on his clavicle had congealed. She cut into his forearm in another strike. Then again, she sliced above his waist, and he stifled a cry. She was closing in on his vital organs with care and precision. She was making a ritual of his butchering.

Micah couldn't even stay in his seat anymore; he was crouching, trembling, his mind's eye torn between images of Andrew bleeding to death and of Andrew cradled safely in Micah's arms outside of the Redwoods. He was ready at any moment to spring from the dais; Ingrid knew, holding onto his shoulders even though her palms were damp with sweat.

As stains bloomed dark on his shirt, Andrew's complexion paled. He started to back-step after every encounter with her blade, panting briefly before inhaling deeply and wiping his wrist across his forehead.

"I can end you now," the Redwood Queen offered.

In answer, Andrew crooked his arm behind his back again and turned a quick prod of his blade into a wide arc. It forced her to sidestep and when she was transferring her weight between feet, he managed to strike her leg. She hissed as blood rose to her alabaster skin and mingled with the rain slick on her thigh.

"Same goes for you," Andrew said brightly, but his voice was hoarse.

Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike.She threw him off balance in a flurry of silver. She followed him as he stumbled. Micah stood up, heart hammering in his ears. He shook Ingrid off.

The Redwood Queen got Andrew to the ground again.

His elbows sank into the mud. He scrambled away from her. Andrew raised his rapier to guard himself, but she hooked the tip of her blade through the pommel, ripping it savagely from his grasp and sending it spinning through the air. She raised her rapier over her head as she laughed. The sound was wild, gleeful.

Victorious.

Blood throbbing from his wounds and coating his arm and his shirt, Andrew's clarity slipped away from him. He only regretted he was going to die and hoped, with a glance in their direction, that Micah and Ingrid would find their way back out of the Redwoods. They'd done it once, after all. All their trip back here had done was turn back the clock twenty years. For immortals, maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Hopefully Micah would heal soon and forget him. After all, he'd barely known him for two months. Never mind that every day with him was brighter, bolder, happier, than all other moments of the rest of Andrew's life combined. Micah would be fine. He'd be fine. He met Micah's gaze and smiled. Then he looked away and closed his eyes.

Almost as soon as he saw the orange inside of his eyelids, he heard, "Abso-fucking-lutely not!"

The ground under his legs erupted. Tossed backward, Andrew rolled through a somersault that shook stars into his eyes. He was back on his hands and knees in an instant, blinking, trying to comprehend what the hell had just happened.

The faerie lights shook violently in the air. Right where he'd been waiting for the Queen's final blow, an enormous root bucked up through the cobblestones, crawling with beetles and fat yellow slugs. Feet spread apart, rapier hanging limply from her hand, the Redwood Queen stared at the wild wooded barrier before her, her expression one of bewildered delight.

At the foot of the throne, Micah stood between slack-jawed Sivarthis, and Ingrid, who cursed wildly. His eyes were molten amethysts burning in the dark. Tears streaking his cheeks, he screamed, "Fuck you, Redwood Queen."

His fingers crooked into claws. From the mud under his shoes erupted thick squirming roots cracking like whips. "Fuck your hate."

He strode across wildflowers sprouting from the thick underbrush and growled, "Fuck your sadism." The twining roots rippled, whistling like arrows, racing toward the Redwood Queen. "And fuck…your…power over me!" Evergreen ringed his jeweled irises in a flash bright and brief as a firework.

The Redwood Queen sprang back, but her speed didn't matter. Her feet left the ground but did not return. The roots twisted and tangled and webbed around the Redwood Queen's body, tightening enough so that her white flesh dimpled underneath.

The Redwood Queen gasped as she fell to her knees, bound and immobilized.

Sivarthis roared and drew his weapon. But Ingrid leapt at him and tackled him. They tumbled down the stairs from the throne and when they stopped, she landed with her knees braced on his chest. A bright copper dagger appeared in her fist, and she slit Sivarthis' throat so fast her pale hand was a blur. A gasp of surprise burst from Andrew as he heard blood rattle in Sivarthis' throat before the male faerie stilled, eyes open and staring heavenward.

Micah ripped the purple-hilted rapier from the Queen's bound hand at a savage angle. She gave a cry of pain; her fingers bent like brambles.

Sweet as sap, the Redwood Queen said to him, "My darling, your lover agreed to duel to the death."

He pressed the rapier to her long ivory throat and said through clenched teeth, "Do you think I give a flying fuck about your archaic terms, Mother? The only thing I want now is to slice your head off your shoulders."

Hands stained with Sivarthis's blood, Ingrid climbed back to her feet and dashed from the throne. She reached Micah as he loomed over the Redwood Queen on her knees, tangled in roots that answered not to her but to her youngest child, her halfling, the Nightshade Boy.

Through half-lidded eyes with a lascivious smile on her lips, she crooned, "Look at my precious children, so savage and bloodstained."

Leaning on the root, Andrew struggled to his feet, huffing, and grimacing. Adrenaline had abandoned him and everything throbbed. But he ignored it. Ignored it for the sake of his lover, whose hair was leaf-green, stirring with a wind that touched only him. His lover, who had transformed from a gentle, attentive man trying to be human into a fearsome otherworldly faerie, glowing, powerful, and bent on saving Andrew Vidasche's life.

Micah's gaze flicked briefly toward Andrew as he stood up against the root, taking in his colorless, awestruck face. They exchanged a quick and private smile before Micah looked back at the Queen.

He still had the rapier against her throat, and the roots hadn't loosened from holding her secure on her knees.

He'd never looked down on her in forty years. She was always above, staring, laughing, lusting for violence. He asked suddenly, "Why did you want me?"

The Redwood Queen blinked.

"You had Ingrid. She's…" He glanced sidelong at his taller sister, who stared down at the Redwood Queen with impassive ruby eyes. "Deadly, and serious, and loyal, and…just spectacular."

Ingrid twitched her head toward him and quirked her lip in a sidelong smile. Then she socked his arm.

Micah grinned at her and shrugged, looking back towards his mother. His expression sobered. "Why me?" Raindrops beaded on his luminous green bangs and dropped into his lashes.

After a moment the Redwood Queen tilted up her chin. She said with affection, "To see how strong my weakest can be." In her mismatched eyes, true pride flashed. "How glad I am that my death will be at his hands."

Micah froze. His heart sank to the soles of his shoes.

Leaning on the root protruding from the plaza, Andrew tried to catch his breath but saw through his pain Micah's uncertainty as the Queen spoke. His humanity collided with his Fae instincts, tenderness at odds with the wild. He slowly looked away from the Queen and to Andrew.

In response, Andrew limped around the root, stumbling on the loose cobblestones and clods of mud. He stepped on a slug which squelched under his boot and made him cringe. Then he came to stand beside him, clasping Micah's shoulder, pressing his lips to his temple under the circlet. Though he wished he could, he couldn't speak; he was too weary.

But Micah realized Andrew didn't need to say anything. Stymied, he slid his glare back to the Redwood Queen wrapped in his vines.

Micah curled his lip. "I refuse to give you the satisfaction." He kicked off his soggy chucks so his feet were bare. Then he dug his toes into the earth.

"Uh—" began Ingrid, but he held up his free hand.

Eyes closed, Micah sent his thoughts down to the velvety moss under the tender skin of his feet. Down beneath the moss to the earthworms and the ants and the beetles tirelessly fertilizing the soil. Down to the rich soil mingling with the roots pumping water and nutrients to the trees stretching for miles around them. He took a deep breath, in through his nose, out through his lips.

"I ask for an ending," he whispered. Then he dropped the rapier at his feet.

The roots confining the Redwood Queen began to stir. They called to greater parts and drew from the earth more, and more, and more of themselves. Around the Queen they coiled and swirled and multiplied, ropes turning to rods, rods turning to flesh. They shot up toward the heavens, spring-colored spores making an aura around them as they grew buds and then sprouts and then branches. Flesh bound together and grew bright red bark, small scales at first and then fingers and then as long as arms.

The Queen screamed, "What—what are you—stop! Micah, my child…"

Her legs and waist vanished into the trunk. Her arms followed.

Ingrid took Micah's hand and brought him and Andrew with her as she stepped back, careful not to stumble on the chunks of loose cobblestones. The soil under the Redwood Queen was still splitting, still coiling out in a cyclone of rich brown earth. Fissures in the ground ate up the rapier.

Micah saw behind the growing tree that the Queen's subjects had fallen into a half-crescent formation, all shapes and sizes of faces turned heavenward toward the disappearing heights of the Redwood Queen's trunk.

All that protruded from the newborn Redwood was the Queen's white face. Even her crown was consumed by the tree. She took labored gasps. Her hair clung to her cheeks, at long last unkempt. "You will just let me die in here?"

Micah shook his head. "Only your violence dies today." He lifted his eyes to the towering Redwoods. "You'll live on, with your trees. They're all you've ever really loved."

Looking toward the Folk of the Redwoods, he shrugged and then declared, "I don't care what happens here. I'm sure before long there will be a new Redwood Queen. Maybe you'll be better than her and maybe you'll be worse. But you will do well to remember not to mess with me, or my sister, or anyone in Lilydale, until the end of time. You will remember that the Redwood Queen's son did not kill today. I allowed nature to do its work."

When the last sound left his lips, the Redwood bark closed over the Queen's face. Her eyes, one violet and one ruby, went still and glassy, and a single tear fell from her lashes.

He looked to Ingrid, and then to Andrew. "Let's go home."