The Fallen Queen Read online

  The Fallen Queen

  House of Arkhangel’sk

  Book One

  Jane Kindred

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Jane Kindred. All rights reserved, including

  the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any

  means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 109

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

  Edited by Catherine Kean and Liz Pelletier

  Cover design by Liz Pelletier

  Print ISBN

  978-1-937044-53-4

  eBook ISBN

  978-1-937044-52-7

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition

  December 2011

  For OTMA…

  Hierarchy of the Spheres

  The First Sphere

  The Heavens (“Heaven”)

  First Heaven: The Empyrean

  Capital: Gehenna

  once populated by the the Host of the First Choir, now abandoned

  Second Heaven: Aravoth

  Capital: Aravoth City

  populated by the Order of Virtues

  Third Heaven: Shehaqim (“The Firmament”)

  Capital: Elysium

  populated by the Host of the Fourth Choir

  Fourth Heaven: Ma’on

  Capital: Asphodel

  populated by the Order of Powers and Fourth Choir military recruits Fifth Heaven: Zevul

  Capital: Araphel

  populated by the Order of Dominions and Fourth Choir scholars

  Raqia

  (formerly the Sixth Heaven, now annexed as a district of Elysium)

  Capital: None (formerly Arcadia)

  currently populated by the Fallen

  Seventh Heaven: Vilon

  Capital: Arcadia (formerly Aden)

  populated by the Host of the Fourth Choir

  The Host (angels)

  First Choir: Spirits of Air

  Orders: Tafsarim (“the Aeons”), Elim (“the Ardors”),

  Erelim (“the Splendors”)

  mysterious beings none living have seen

  Second Choir: Spirits of Fire

  Orders: Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim

  elemental beings of fire who are able to manifest wings in

  Heaven—bodyguards, brute squads, and palace guards of the

  reigning principalities

  Third Choir: Spirits of Earth

  Orders: Dominions, Virtues, Powers

  philosophers and administrators; scientists & investigators;

  military officers

  Fourth Choir: Spirits of Water

  Orders: Principalities, Archangels, Angels

  nobility, merchants, and commoners

  Supernal House of Arkhangel’sk: Heaven’s imperial family, it takes its name from an earthly city named for the monastery of the Archangel Mikhail, founding principality of the House

  Malakim: Messengers to the world of Man from the

  Order of Archangels

  Elohim: An elite sect and ruling body of princes (sars) of the Order of Virtues (Aravoth is the only princedom ruled by a governing body rather than a principality)

  Hashmallim: Elite warriors of the Supernal Army from

  the Order of Powers

  The Fallen (demons)

  Common demons: angels of mixed blood—

  the serfs, demimondes, and outlaws of Heaven

  The Second Sphere

  The World of Man

  Terrestrial Fallen: demons who permanently reside

  in the world of Man

  Grigori: Watchers from the Order of Powers sent to

  observe the world of Man; the first Fallen

  Nephilim: hybrid offspring of Grigori and Man

  The race of Man: humans

  Night Travelers: a secret society of gypsies who act as liaisons between the world of Man, the celestial militsiya ,

  and terrestrial Fallen

  The Third Sphere

  Nezrimyi Mir (The Unseen World)

  the realm of the Unseen, located in the Russian

  forest in the world of Man

  The Unseen

  Syla: bereginyi: spring syla; mavki: summer syla;

  samodivi: autumn syla; snegurochki: winter syla

  female nature spirits

  Leshi: male nature spirits

  Rusalki: female water spirits

  The Fourth Sphere

  Irkalla and the Realm of the Dead (“Hell”)

  Nehemoth: servants and gatekeepers of Irkalla

  The dead: formerly living souls of the First and Second Spheres, now permanent residents of the Realm of the Dead

  Pervoe: A Discordant Note in the Music of the Spheres

  from the memoirs of the Grand Duchess Anazakia

  Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk

  As any demon will tell you over a bottle of vodka or a game of

  preferans, Heaven is not the paradise you have been told. Depending upon the demon who holds your ear, he may also tell you Heaven’s

  last ruler was a tyrant who cared nothing for the lives of the common

  angel. Never believe it. He was the kindest soul ever born to the

  supernal House of Arkhangel’sk; Heaven would be blessed to have

  him now. But put no faith in me, for I am his daughter. I was born

  within Elysium’s pearly gates and have been cast out.

  I do not like to think my impetuosity brought down the throne of

  Heaven, but on the darkest days, it is what I believe. When Elysium

  fell to a quiet coup, I was at a wingcasting table in Raqia instead of by my family’s side.

  It is a favorite game in Raqia’s dens of iniquity. A fast-moving

  combination of cards and dice, wingcasting requires single-minded

  concentration and a certain narcissistic audacity. Challengers who

  hope to unseat the reigning prince of the game progress from one

  table to the next until they are opposite the champion.

  I only reached this coveted spot on one occasion.

  Raqia’s reigning prince that night was a dark-haired demon with

  eyes as sharp as the waxed points of his hair. He played his hand as

  cool as you please and barely seemed to notice me, but he put nearly

  every card I discarded into play with his own and soon had me

  2 JANE KINDRED

  hemorrhaging both cards and crystal.

  Smoke burned my eyes while the demon nursed his cigar in a

  deliberate distraction. When he took it between his fingers, I could

  not help following with my eyes. Beneath the tattered lace of his

  cuffs, black crosses and diamonds, interlaced with characters of an

  unfamiliar alphabet, braced his fingers between the knuckles like rings made of ink.

  He followed my gaze. “Prison,” he said around his cigar, the first

  word he’d spoken not directly related to the game.

  He was trying to unnerve me; there were no prisons in Heaven.

  There was no need for any among the Host.

  Raqia, for the most part policed itself, preferring to game the

  crystal from wayward angelic youth rather than take it by force and

  risk the flaming hand of
seraphic justice. If he had really been in

  prison, he was one of the true Fallen who had spent time in the world

  of Man—though all demons were Fallen, by the Host’s reckoning.

  Their indiscriminate breeding muddied the cardinal elements by

  mixing the pure water dominant in the blood of the Fourth Choir with

  the earth of the Third, the fire of the Second, and the air of the First.

  Such blending resulted in their sullied complexions and varied hue of

  hair and eye.

  A glance around the poorly lit den revealed half a dozen natural

  shades of brown and a dozen more who colored their hair and eyes

  with deliberately wild hues in defiance of celestial purity.

  Most who fell to the world of Man bore signs of aging not present

  in the Host; something in the air of the terrestrial plane made Men’s

  lives short. A fine layer of stubble that could only have been carefully cultivated and trimmed hid any weathering of my opponent’s skin, but

  studying his face, I saw the telltale signs: little lines around his deep-set ebony eyes that said he’d fallen more than once.

  I tightened the drawstring on the purse of crystal at my wrist,

  careful to keep the luminous celestine of my supernal ring turned

  toward my palm and cupped between my fingers while I played my

  hand.

  The demon raised a dark eyebrow, pierced with a thin bar of

  metal that accentuated his coarse nature. I had put down a card in

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 3

  my distraction without waiting for him to call the die. I blushed and

  snatched it up again, furious with myself for making such a stupid

  blunder. His immodest grin said he thought his ploy had worked, but

  it took more than a small-time terrestrial thief to unnerve me. No

  novice to the dens or to demon magic, I never came to Raqia without

  a protective charm tucked into my bodice.

  In truth, I had been distracted since climbing down the trellis to

  sneak out in the middle of a tedious banquet. My younger brother

  Azel was sick in bed, and my cousin Kae was acting strangely toward

  his wife, my sister Omeliea—and both circumstances were in some

  measure my fault.

  §

  Though I did not know it yet, the die had been cast against the

  House of Arkhangel’sk by my unbridled impulse on the day I turned

  seventeen. On a hunting holiday in the mountains of Aravoth, my

  father had presented me with a blue roan mare. I was eager to take

  her out, but the first snowfall had ushered in the season and my sisters were keen to head inside the lodge and curl up by the fire.

  I sulked while the groom took my horse to the stable. Not even a

  gift of a gorgeous red velvet riding cap lined with silver fox could coax me out of my bad humor.

  When my sister Omeliea admonished me for being moody, I

  tossed the cap back at her and announced I was taking my horse out

  by myself. Mama would never have tolerated such willful behavior,

  but she had stayed behind with Azel, and Papa was so softhearted, it

  pained him to discipline his daughters.

  When I led the mare out of the stable, Cousin Kae was waiting

  for me.

  “Tell her to stop being such a child!” my sister called, wrapped in

  a fleece on the steps of the lodge. “It’s freezing out here!”

  Kae caught the reins and drew the mare to him. “Stop being such

  a child.” He winked, stroking the horse’s muzzle. “You can’t go alone.”

  I pulled the tether from his hands and swung into the saddle.

  “Then I suppose someone will have to mount up.”

  I trotted the blue roan out to the road and into the wooded

  heights, on a path muted with preternatural quiet. It seemed nothing

  4 JANE KINDRED

  but my horse and I existed. Here in the North, we were without the

  oppressive, constant presence of the Seraphim Guard, which Papa

  could not abide outside the city. In Heaven’s hinterlands, he said, there was no need for their protection.

  After a minute or two, I heard the light clip of Kae’s horse behind

  me.

  “Is Ola angry with me?”

  Kae drew up beside me. “Not as angry as she is with me for letting

  you go.” He shrugged beneath his cloak. “It will pass. Sometimes I

  think it’s her job as a wife to be angry. She’s very efficient at it.”

  I laughed at his feigned look of persecution. “Such trials you must

  endure for the crown.”

  “Yes,” said Kae with a mock sigh. “I shall endure anything to

  attain the crown. Even bed that shrew of a grand duchess of mine.”

  I nearly slipped from my saddle for laughing. Kae adored Omeliea

  and she, him. They were newly wed, and though betrothed at the cradle, he had courted her since childhood as though it were not prearranged.

  I could not imagine two people more perfectly matched.

  Kae stopped his mount in its tracks. “Did you see that?” His grey

  eyes fixed on a distant point where the trees met over the road. A

  peculiar fragrance hung on the air, like the freshly peeled bark of an Aravothan cedar, but I saw nothing. I shook my head, and Kae started

  forward once more.

  The bright snow began to dull, shadowed beneath the silver canopy

  of gathering clouds. Perhaps my sisters had been right. The cold was

  already making my hands ache within my gloves. I considered turning

  back, but the thought of Ola’s smugness made me stay my course. I

  knew my way blindfolded along the snow-covered path; I’d ridden it a

  hundred times. Of course, my horse had not.

  As a dusting of new snow began to fall, Kae leaned over his

  mount and pointed. “There! Do you not see it?” He spurred his horse

  forward without waiting for an answer.

  I followed, urging my mare to keep pace with him, but we were

  falling behind on the softening road. Heavy flakes melted in my hair,

  and my cheeks burned with cold. I began to regret throwing the cap

  at Ola.

  THE FALLEN QUEEN 5

  The road went higher here, and the clouds were lowering, and

  soon I had to slow my horse to a walk, surrounded on all sides by grey, hanging damp. I called out for Kae, but I might have been shouting

  into a wet blanket for all my voice seemed to carry.

  After a few more yards, the trees grew close, and I was no longer

  certain we were on the path. Everything looked different coated in

  new snow, like some fairy world I’d stumbled into. Maybe I’d veered

  off in the mist? I bit my lip and glanced over my shoulder, but the fog was so thick I couldn’t be sure of the distance.

  I opened my mouth to call again, when the sound of approaching

  hooves broke through the veil of clouds. A moment later, Kae’s

  horse appeared without its rider. I leapt from my mare and ran in the

  direction the horse had come, heedless of the precipices that might be hidden from view.

  “Cousin!” I stumbled over a protruding root and fell headlong in

  the snow. For a moment, the world was silent except for the dripping

  branches over my head. Then the clouds thinned and Kae stood

  before me in an open glade, stiller than the mountain around us. His

  eyes were unfocused.

  “The most beautiful steed,” he whispered. “I nearly caught her.”

  “A runaway?” I got to m
y feet with no help from him, brushing

  snow and pine needles from my riding skirt. “All the way up here?”

  His eyes cleared. “Not a runaway. She’s wild.” He seemed angry

  with me, as though I’d intruded. Brushing past me to rein in his

  mount, he swung himself up into the saddle with a swift and brutal

  motion. The horse, too, was intruding it seemed, unworthy next to the

  imaginary steed.

  Kae rode off toward our hunting house without another word.

  §

  I sighed and tossed the die against the wingcasting table. It

  seemed a trivial thing, that moment in the heights, that trick of the

  light that must have made my cousin imagine the wild steed, but his

  temperament began to change when we returned from the north.

  My distracted state cost me another round, and the demon

  grinned and scooped up his winnings. “Had enough?” He knocked

  the smoldering ash from his cigar against the side of the table and

  6 JANE KINDRED

  pocketed my crystal.

  “Not by half.”

  At the table beside us, the violet glow of eyes dyed with amethyst

  oil glinted through the smoke from the player next in line to play the winner. I glared back through the ruby red with which I’d dyed my

  own. I had a right to play so long as I had crystal to bet, and if I had to play all night to beat this demon at a single round, I would.

  If only I had known what it would cost me.

  When I think back to that night and the single-mindedness with

  which I persisted at a game I could not possibly win, I want to shout at my former self, Forget this foolishness! Go home! Go home before it is too late! The irony is that it was guilt that kept me there, while I have been burdened with so much more by staying.

  §

  Ola suspected Kae of unfaithfulness. Upon our return to the

  city of Elysium, they moved into the Camaeline Palace, built for her

  wedding present, and we did not see Ola again until she came to us a

  few weeks later with her suspicions.

  “He is not himself.” She stood staring at the fire in the drawing

  room. “I have hardly seen him since the holiday.” Ola gave me a

  strange look. “He hasn’t been himself since the two of you came back

  from that ride.” She seemed ashamed of what she was thinking and

  burst into tears.

  “Ola, dearest.” I went to her where she sank onto the divan before

  the fire. Tatia came to her side while Maia hurried to the other, and