3-The Empress

Image from The Dark Fairytale Deck by Luis Royo.

The Empress

The sky roiled and turned as she watched. How dare they? She gave them a gift and they wasted it. A jagged bolt of pure white lightning tore through the clouds, striking a tree. What did she care. The weather was hers to do with as she wished, as were those wretched mortals.

Seventeen years ago she brought the mortal queen the child. IT was such a small and fragile thing, she had no need of it yet, and humans always seemed to like their own kind. The child, a girl only hours old was accepted without question. No one asked where she had come from, or why the Queen of the Fae was giving her away so easily. No one asked what strings were attached to this gift. They should have asked.

It had been generations for the short lived mortals since the last war with her kind, and they had forgotten what she was really capable of. The clouds continued their endless turning and the thunder growled. It was time to remind them.

“Come, pet.” She held out her arm and a squawking black bird rose from her skin, leaving a gap in the countless lines that decorated her body.. “It is time for you to carry a message,” she cooed at the bird stroking it’s shiny black feathers. “We cannot trust Diana to tell her sister what she needs to know.” She leaned in and whispered to the bird as she pet it.

“Return as soon as you have delivered the message,” she said firmly. “I do not need a reply.”

“I’m a good boy,” the bird hissed in its eerie voice. “Good boy.”

“Go.” She lifted her hand, launching the raven out into the storm. There was still much to do, already the wolves were coming from the hills, called to their mistress by the storm.

She watched smoke rise from the lightning struck tree, in an hour the forest itself would blaze. It was healthy to clear out the dead wood once in a while, forest fires cleared the way for healthy new growth, just as she was about to do to the mortals.

~Heather