The Queen's Host Episode Four

By Odette C. Bell

There will be no help in the end.
And the end is here for Lillian and Anders. The Queen has found her, and Bethany won’t let go. She’ll rip the kingdom apart to claim her host.
As the streets run riot with the infected and Lillian struggles to survive, Anders must finally decide what he stands for, and critically, who he stands beside.
...
The Queen’s Host follows a dour wizard and his indentured witch battling to bring down a tyrannical queen to save their kingdom. If you love your historical fantasy with magic, heart, wit, and a smattering of romance, grab The Queen’s Host Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005457983

Book preview

Chapter 1

Anders

This was it. There was no backing down.

I was already on my knee in front of the Queen. Where else could I go?

Lillian clutched my hand, or at least tried to. My fingers were too stiff and unyielding.

I felt the second her own hand twitched, her palm slipping off mine as she let out a harsh, whip-crack of a sigh. It sounded as if somebody had just punched her in the lungs. Why not a little to the left? Perhaps they had punched her in the heart? And perhaps the culprit was me.

But I was not done.

I crunched further forward on my knee, knowing the exact position the Queen wanted me to take up. It meant I had to bend my body double, meant I had to push against every single instinct telling me to jump to my feet and do something.

But I would not and could not. Because I had learned my lessons. Every single one of them.

Anders… don’t do this. Please, Lillian said, voice this disappointed whisper.

It sounded like the last time she would speak to me. I would not let it be.

Anders? Good boy, the Queen said. She took a lurching step over to me. I shouldn’t have to tell you she looked like a marionette. But one who had broken her own strings. She was now in complete control of her body, or at least that was the theory. The black magic she had given in to was in control. And the more she gave in to it, the more ground she lost. And by ground, I meant everything you could imagine, from her mind, to her skin. There now wasn’t a single centimeter of flesh on her face that hadn’t been consumed by the dark cloud of the equally dark spell.

It looked as if it would soon rip her skin all the way off, leaving her as nothing more than raw flesh. But not for long. I watched her fingers, crooked and stiff with greed, twist toward Lillian.

Lillian had grabbed my shoulder one last time, but when I didn’t leap to my feet to defend her or the kingdom, her fingers slipped off.

She still had a droplet of her own blood suspended above her hand.

The Queen’s greedy gaze locked on it. She looked as if she wanted a new object for her collection.

And she did. And whatever Bethany wanted, she got.

Pressing two fingers up toward the ceiling, she sliced them hard to the side. Then she ushered the blood over with one twitch of her hand.

Lillian tried to keep hold of it, and she did so not just with physical force, but with magical power. Wrapping both white-knuckled hands around the droplet, she skidded forward as Bethany’s greater magic pulled the blood in. But Bethany was some great celestial body, the equivalent of something that had such a command over gravity, Lillian was but a simple stone instead.

Sweat ran down her brow in rivulets, sticking her fringe to her face.

Her hair was one thing. Her clothes were another. That lace dress she wore fluttered wildly around her legs, and more importantly, the disguise jacket – the same one that still hid her true identity – started to rip at the seams. It would function up until the moment it was completely destroyed.

And up until that moment… I would have a chance.

Cut her down, Anders. Deliver her once and for all. This will be your final test, Bethany spat. She did not just spit saliva. Every single movement was now accompanied by the spluttering force of her dark spell. These graying, flesh-like droplets splattered out of her mouth. The second they hit the air, they turned into these darting sparks. They floated up in a cloud, chaotic like a vortex. It spun around Bethany then shot out, accompanying her spell as she tried to pull Lillian’s droplet of blood from her hands one last time.

But Lillian was holding on. The more she did, the more Bethany’s magic dragged her forward. There were still a few meters separating them.

Nobody spoke in the room. Nobody had the gumption to. Once that poor man had been ripped apart by Bethany’s spell, the penny, as they say, had finally dropped. I imagined every single rich, accomplished person here had always known that Bethany was a monster. They had chosen to turn a blind eye, assuming that she would ply her monstrous trades on the populace and not them. But now, they had wandered into a trap, and in a way, they deserved it. In another way? My heart went out to the pure animalistic fear in the room. It was as if every single person’s hindbrain had been connected, and together, we were one shivering frail entity in the corner, incapable of doing anything against the horror that beset us.

Incapable….

An interesting word. When we are truly incapable, we don’t know what we are meant to do. We can’t even conceive of a way forward. But when we are simply afraid… the path is there, but it is lined with death and sorrow for every single step.

You might think that humans, from the day they are born, are built to withstand sorrow. They will die. Their parents will die. Their siblings, if they are lucky enough to have them – their partners too. Because life is a set of automatic movements that take you from birth to death.

And the only mainstay between will be loss.

But that can only be true if you fail to learn one thing.

There is a force that can connect you beyond sorrow, something that can rise far above the promise that one day you will no longer be here. And that force? Do I really need to spell it out for you? It starts with L and ends with the feelings I had for the woman behind me.

The same woman who suddenly lost control and started to careen toward the Queen.

I heard Bethany hiss with utter satisfaction, and she opened her strained hand hard. I watched the knuckles practically burst out of their skin sheaths. Her body was now so damaged, I doubted the original occupant would ever have the chance to say goodbye to it.

When Bethany left, she would be nothing more than a husk. And when Bethany took all of her greedy force into Lillian’s mind….

No time.

Now was the only point. For this single second was the only chance I would ever have to act.

Lillian looked at me once as she scooted past, hair flying around her shoulders, jacket almost falling from her body but holding on with one single string. She lifted her hand to me. She did not beg. She did not have to. She simply looked right into my eyes, and I saw it one last time. I’d assumed that I had lost her trust. I hadn’t. It beat there, not just in the center of her pupils, but in the center of her chest – in her center, full stop.

I had never had someone who had truly trusted me. Even my parents had always kept me at arm’s length, suspicious of my power. Yet Lillian, even now, in a moment that looked as if it was of utter betrayal, still managed to conjure just a spark of hope.

And what can one do with hope?

Clutch it, protect it, and fight for it, no matter what.

Bethany had reached the height of her powers. But had I reached the height of mine?

The kingdom would have to find out.

Do something, Estelle roared, but she no longer faced me. I wondered if the desperate, spitting words were for herself. Her hands were clenched, and she was down on her knees, practicing the spells that I had taught her, but if she intended to drag up the last power from her soul, good luck. Every time she tried, she inadvertently fed her mother, because her mother, somewhere along the line, must’ve left a parasitic spell within Estelle’s body.

I said somewhere along the line. I remembered saving Estelle only days ago from that poisoning attempt. I’d assumed the resistance had tried to kill her. What if no one had tried to kill her? What if her mother had simply poisoned her with a parasitic spell, knowing full well I would save her?

It was too late to think of things. There was only one thing I could do. Just before Lillian fell into Bethany’s grip, I thrust forward. I pushed in front of Lillian and opened my arms wide. It was one act that would define my future – maybe everyone’s future.

And it was one act that would finally see me face Bethany not as a coward, but on equal footing.

Bethany closed her hand. She wasn’t quite capable of reaching my throat, so her fingers simply brushed down my neck. I felt the horror of the dark magic within her. It groped at my blood, even though it could not get to it.

I thought I could hear it hissing in her ears again.

But that was irrelevant. The only relevant factor was the way she stared at me.

Anders, you disappoint me. You had one chance. You should’ve taken it.

It’s over, Bethany.

Indeed, it is. She twisted her finger toward the ceiling, but I was ready for her, and just before her magic could clasp me up and throw me toward the roof and out of the very top of the palace, I locked my feet down.

I managed to do it. For a few seconds. Then something started to crack, and it happened to be the bones in my feet. I had not even begun to fight. But I was already starting to lose.

Anders, Lillian said.

She couldn’t reach toward me anymore. The dark magic was controlling her too much. But she could still use her eyes, and they widened and moistened as they stared at me.

She did not get the chance to say anything, did not get the chance to reach out with her soul to try to clutch mine. For this moment of defiance, one I had been waiting for since I’d met Bethany, turned into a moment of utter defeat instead.

You must be retaught, Anders. I have wasted far too many resources on you to lose you now. Now, watch from the sidelines. Watch what I can do.

With a single twist of her fingers, Bethany sent me careening toward the wall, and regardless of the fact I called on a cloud of magic, there was nothing I could do to stop myself from impacting it. I smashed into the plaster. At some point, the appearance spell that controlled the view of the palace had been removed, and I imagined Lillian had done it. I did not crash into expensive wood paneling, and no gilded frames fell on me from above. Instead, it was moldy old plaster that had seen its heyday several hundred years ago. It made it slightly softer, but I still impacted with bone-breaking force. My feet, that had been ready to crack earlier, really did. I felt several bones fracture. The force was unimaginable, but it did not stop yet. Because the Queen kept me pinned there. I couldn’t even turn one last time to see Lillian.

All I could do was hear her breathing as she jerked back. Anders, she cried.

I moved my lips as much as I could, but my larynx was being crushed against a section of jutting out plaster and wood. Old, rusted nails even scratched across my throat and lips as I attempted to move them. But I could not.

I heard Lillian give a strangled hiss.

And I felt… I felt the dark magic in the room change.

Estelle, Lillian cried.

I heard Estelle being picked up off her feet. I swore I could hear her engagement dress fluttering, was certain that her beautiful black hair closed around her face like curtains closing for the last time.

She did not say anything. She certainly did not beg her mother to be let free.

Oh, my stupid children. They need to be taught and re-taught how to behave. They do not understand the entire point of a monarch. But I do. And do not worry. I have this kingdom exactly where it needs to be.

You’re a monster, I tried, but again, the words would not come out. My throat was simply too crushed.

No matter what happens, Lillian spoke for us, people will rise up to stop you. They will recognize that the palace is nothing more than a joke.

They will recognize nothing. They will see what they need to see. And they will do what they need to do, Bethany proclaimed. "Now, my host, come to me. You should watch, Anders. Watch from the sidelines. It is