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Chapter XVII: We meet the Queen again, a small box is returned, and two questions are posed.

Andrew woke up to find he was laying on a soft and comfortable couch surround by pillows. There was a peaceful breeze blowing across him and he felt its calming effect settle into him. His mind stayed clear for several moments before things began to stir inside his head. His first thought was of Sonja. His second thought was of his wife. He then lost the calm when thoughts three and four hit him: Colleen was fifteen years older than she was just a few weeks ago at their wedding and she had two children.

“You gonna be okay, buddy?” he heard Raven’s voice ask him.

Andrew shook his head without looking up. “I don’t know, Raven. I really don’t know.”

“Well, you better figure it out. That Queen lady, she’s saying you need to be brought to her the moment you’re able to stand.”

Andrew sat up and glanced around the wide balcony he was sitting out on. The couch was the only furnishing but there were many plants, green and growing everywhere. He stood up and looked over the railing at the edge. They were very high up but now that he was able to change to bird form at will, the heights didn’t bother him at all.

“The Queen?” he asked.

Raven hopped to the railing and walked over to him. “Not a bad looking lady. Your lady’s better though.”

“How she doing?”

“Your lady? She hasn’t tried choking me lately, but she ain’t happy about having to see the queen.”

“I’m not happy about it at all,” her voice came from behind him. Andrew spun and there she stood looking every bit as splendid as she always had. “And I am sorry about your wife. I didn’t realize that you had spent a whole day before crossing over or I would have warned you.”

“What?” he said.

“Confused as always,” she smiled. He wanted to just scoop her up right there and fly away. Forget the rest of everything.

“Time doesn’t work the same as it does where you are from.” She explained. “It can move faster. It can move slower. It can stop entirely or just skip large bits. It really all depends on the Queen’s mood. She was just bored and sped things up and skipped over a few years while you were chatting with my father. Fifteen years went by for Coleen before you arrived here to meet me. The Queen, it seems, gave her to Prince Asal and she’s quite happy with him. Or so Gaghar says.”

“Huh.” Andrew said and sat down on the couch.

“Huh?” she asked him sitting down next to him.

“I don’t feel all that upset about it. I think I should be, but I’m not.”

Sonja leaned in close to him. “That is the test, is it not? You knew they would test your love for her and fifteen years has put a voice to it.”

He breathed in deep. Just catching that faint scent of her made him feel better; that natural wonderful aroma that had been with him during the days of traveling.

“The fifteen years isn't the test. You are. I think it always has been you.”

He leaned in to kiss her and was promptly interrupted by Gaghar.

“If you are well enough to be thinking about that kind of nonsense you are well enough to get yourself before the queen,” the goat proclaimed.

He led the pair off the balcony, down a winding staircase and then across the length of a grand hallway lines with sculptures of every beast imaginable and even some that were not. Finally they came before two great oaken doors with delicate symbols carved into their faces. Two large men who were dressed similarly to the great bear at the front gate stood guard.

“On the Queen’s instructions.” Gaghar said and the two men swung open the doors.

Sonja leaned over and whispered in Andrew’s ear. “Welcome the Seelie Court.”

The room was impossibly huge. In fact, as Andrew looked up to find the ceiling, he was almost certain that they had passed to an outside courtyard.

“It is said,” Sonja continued. “That there is no place with more beauty than Queen Erie’s court.”

Andrew agreed. The large trees that lined the walls were a color green so lovely that he felt like weeping. There were ponds with water fountains that pulled his heartstrings in ways he didn’t know existed. All manner of wondrous creatures mulled about the place and not one of them had a feature that didn’t scream of perfection. The faeries themselves, wings unfurled in splendor or keep under wraps, smiled and laughed and demonstrated the joyousness of standing in the midst of such wonder.

“I never imagined…” he replied.

Sonja laughed softly and then said in a whisper, “It is not all it is thought to be. The flaws are deep beneath the surface.”

Andrew was about to say something back when he saw the King and Queen at their thrones and he stopped walking. He felt Sonja’s hand on the small of his back. “Just follow my lead. You will be fine. Just do not say anything till you are asked.”

She approached the throne and dropped down to one knee with Andrew copying her with just a touch of a hesitant stumble.

The King eyed both of them as he stood aside his great chair. He rolled his eyes and then turned to lose himself in more important thoughts, tapping one of his horns with a finger, muttering to himself.

The Queen however, she seemed quite happy. Her smile lit up everything as she came walking down the steps towards them.

“It is a rare day when I receive a single distraction to entertain my dreary days. Yet, today, I am being offered two wondrous gifts. Bid them stand Blaine.”

The tall dark figure stepped out from behind her throne. “Stand before Erie, Great Queen of the Seelie Court and mother to us all.”

Sonja stood pulling Andrew up as she did.

The Queen approached Sonja. She reached out and took her chin into her hand. “When we offered you time to think about your position we did not expect you to be gone so long.”

“I beg forgiveness, Mistress,” Sonja replied, her eyes cast to the floor. “But it was not a an issue to be decided lightly or with speed.”

The Queen stepped back and then considered Andrew. “How many brides have we had amongst us without a mush coming before us to stake his claim?” she asked for all around to hear.

Blaine answered, “Not since the Baker’s son, Mistress.”

“Oh, he was a fun one,” the Queen replied. “We had such sport with him. Let us have this new one's bride out here and see what our guest makes of this.” She glanced at Sonja and smiled. “And give this one what I have been holding for her.”

Andrew watched as a page darted away to fetch Colleen and Blaine stepped foreword and produced a small round wooden box that he handed to Sonja. Its lid was carefully carved and when it was in her hands she cradled it like it was a baby.

The Queen looked at her. “I did promise your father it was to be returned whether you reclaimed your office or whether you did not.”

Sonja nodded.

Andrew leaned over to her. “What’s in the box?” he asked.

“My voice,” she replied.

Andrew was about to question her strange answer but Sonja raised her finger to her lips. “It is quiet time, mush,” she whispered.

It was only a short wait before Colleen was standing beside the Queen, holding her youngest in her arms. Unlike the Queen, Colleen did not look happy. She held a tight look of worry in her eyes.

Erie turned to Blaine. “Are they coming?”

Blaine nodded. “They are here, Mistress.”

As if on Blaine’s cue, the wind whipped up from all directions and winged women swooped down from nowhere. They were all dressed in white and silent as death, like brides in mourning. Not a rustle or a single voice announced them. They landed behind Andrew and Sonja in formation, like an army, a beautiful, powerful army.

The Queen looked giddy, her smile so big it seemed painful and light dancing from her eyes. “Today,” she announced in a voice practiced and polished, “we shall see to two choices made.” She licked her lips and added “Perhaps even three.”

Erie stepped down and pointed to Andrew. “This one lost his wife dancing. He has come far to find her, but has his love stood the test given to him? Or has his love found something,” the queen motioned to Sonja, “more suited to him.”

Andrew found he could not look at his wife or even form a solid thought in his head. Things were moving too fast around him.

“And our favorite,” Queen Erie continued. “She who has forever watched our borders, mourned our dead, and fought those who would hurt us and our like. She who laid down her burden and her voice to search for things not found outside the heart.”

The Queen turned back and took her throne beaming. She so loved distraction.

“Shall she stay Sonja the daughter of a rouge or will she return as first of our Screaming Ones? Will she return to lead our White Maidens, our fierce mourners, our banshees or will she not?”

Sonja stepped forward, turned to face the assembled women in white and then, as if ripping off the covering of an old wound, she knocked the lid of her wooden box aside and released her voice.