The Day the Shadow Queen was Crowned - Silver Winner 🥈

 

The Day the Shadow Queen was Crowned

A Short Story by Arianna J.P. Johnson

“She’s a little bit of darkness trapped in a world of light. Can you blame her for trying to draw out the shadows?”

“I can when it means she will kill us all someday.”

The two elves turned their piercing blue eyes to the child Ciaran, who sat on the rich yellow carpet, wisps of darkness floating from her fingertips. Her sallow skin and raven hair stuck out against the warm colors of the living room like a gravestone at a dinner party. She stacked blocks that had once been a whitish wood but were now stained with dark fingerprints.

“Do not say that.” The smaller elf, Helen Valveno, hugged herself. “She is just a child.”

“She doesn’t belong,” insisted the taller of the two elves, Lord Lucian. His beak of a nose wrinkled at the child, like she was a roach on his pristine floor. “I don’t know if she belongs anywhere.”

Helen shook her head. The crystals in her circlet of golden chains tinkled against her dark hair. She was pretty. Much prettier than Ciaran.

“Ciaran needs us,” she insisted. The girl perked her ears at the sound of her name. She looked up from the blocks to study the two elves.

“This is my last warning.” Lucian looked down his nose at Helen. He was so tall and imposing and cold that Ciaran sometimes wondered if he were made of stone. “If she summons another shadow, we will exile her.”

Well, that didn’t sound too good. Ciaran straightened a block in her tower.

“Must we?”

“It is ancient law, my love.” Lucian Valveno sighed. He took Helen’s hand and kissed it. “Shadows do not belong in this world, and neither does she.”

Ciaran brushed a strand of hair out of her jade eyes. Where did she belong?

The couple had begun to whisper to each other. Ciaran rolled her eyes. Before long, they would start kissing. Well, that was to be avoided at all costs.

Ciaran scattered her blocks across the floor as quietly as possible—she was a master of silent chaos—and hopped to her feet. While the elves were distracted with their lovey-dovey arguing, Ciaran slipped out the door. Her little feet were calloused from years of going barefoot, but the cold of the morning still turned her toes blue. She shivered. The sunlight shone down on the sparkling windows of the Valvenos’ tree-top mansion, but it did nothing to warm the little shadow girl.

She skipped down the staircase hewn into the massive oak. The leaves, thin and translucent and the color of green garnet, brushed at her bare arms as she passed by. They were dewy, like the steps. Ciaran ducked under the next spray of leaves.

As she went farther down the tree, other houses could be found nestled in the branches, connected by steps lined with gold or bridges woven from shimmering vines. Elves appeared through the green, their rich skin alight with sunshine. A few on nearby walkways narrowed their blue eyes at the girl. Their dark shoulders stiffened underneath the luxurious white silks.

Ciaran ignored them all.

“You’d think after seven years, they’d be used to me.” Ciaran hopped down a few more steps. “Maybe if I wait another seven,” she joked. Then she scowled. “I’m not staying till I’m fourteen, though.”

She hopped onto the staircase rail and slid down it, just to make the elegantly gliding people sniff and turn away. The elves had no idea what to do with a shadow girl, and Ciaran knew it.

Ciaran hadn’t asked to be raised by elves and their snobby ways. She had no idea why her baby self would ever be near the Forest of the Sun. She wasn’t an elf with beautiful dark skin and pointed ears. She didn’t belong there. But they were stuck with her.

“Ciaran, slow down,” an elf called after her as she slid by.

Ciaran cackled and waved. She whirled to the ground and landed on her feet in the thin, bright grass. It was the same color as the leaves of the trees and just as flimsy—easily torn with the correct twist of the foot. It was hard to leave skid marks with bare feet, but she managed.

She skipped through the dewy grass—her feet tingling from the cold—under the bright canopy of the elves’ oaks. The trees spread their branches outward as if to soak up all the sunlight possible. Gold-lined staircases and houses with glass roofs and massive windows wound around their trunks. Crystals dangled in bunches, refracting the sunlight that the elves craved so much. Elves walked barefoot across the branch walkways, draped in pale silks and tiny jewels, their cold blue eyes always disapproving—at least, whenever they looked at Ciaran.

Ciaran ignored them all. She ran through the grass, eyes squinted against the light, feathery hair flying behind her, tendrils of shadow twirling from under her feet and twirling from her fingertips.

What mischief would she wreak that morning? Steal Dame Leora’s prize ring and hide it in a squirrel’s nest? Pluck fruit from the crystal orchard and throw it at passing elves? Disrupt important meetings? Ah, so many ideas and so few hours in a day.

She twisted among the tree trunks, headed for the orchard. After all, the ruby apples and emerald pears would be nice and ripe.

“Ciaran,” an elf said as the girl passed. “What are you up to this time?”

“Nothing.” Ciaran smiled innocently and skipped past him before he could stop her. She pranced to the orchard, clambered over the wall the elves had built to keep her out, and hopped onto the ground.

The diamond branches tinkled, heavy with jewel fruits—sparkling ruby apples, amethyst plums, garnet pomegranates.

Ciaran jumped up, grabbed a branch, and pulled herself into the canopy of an emerald pear tree. The leaves tinkled like glass with the movement. She reached up and twisted a pear until it dropped free of its twig and into her palm. The skin, cool and smooth against her fingers, appeared to be true crystal, but when she bit in, shards shattered in her mouth, crisp and light as moonbeams. Delicious.

The back of Ciaran’s neck prickled. She paused and lowered her pear. It was the same feeling she had gotten when she found little black beetles and shadow mice under her bed.

Ciaran dropped her half-eaten pear onto the ground and grabbed a branch with her sticky hands to pull herself upright. Her eyes narrowed as she searched the transparent leaves.

The crystals flickered with something darker. Something tiny and skittery.

Ciaran climbed up a few branches. Something scrabbled around inside the tree, but no creatures could tunnel through the crystal. That meant a knothole. She climbed up further to a warp in the bark. It confirmed her suspicions when something dark flickered behind the warp.

It was indeed a knothole, and a big one. She peered inside to find a tiny ball of fluff and fangs.

“Aren’t you adorable,” Ciaran whispered. She stuck two fingers into the knothole and stroked the creature’s spiny back.

Three crimson eyes blinked open and stared at Ciaran. Then the creature began to vibrate.

Ciaran yanked her hand back. Was it going to explode?

When the creature didn’t blow up, Ciaran edged her hand back into the hole and touched the creature again.

The critter hopped onto her palm, so Ciaran extracted her hand from the knothole to study the little shadow beast.

“You’re a cute little thing, aren’t you?” Ciaran fingered the creature’s feathery tail, the delicate spikes along its spine, the silky soft fur. “Want to come play with me?”

The creature vibrated again. It rubbed its cheek against her palm.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Ciaran tucked the critter into her pocket, climbed down from the tree, and skipped out of the orchard to find more mischief.

The rest of the afternoon was spent stealing possessions and hiding them, tearing up gardens, spooking small children, and disrupting private conversations. Altogether, the day was quite productive.

That is, until she decided to bother the animals in the menagerie.

“It’s lots of fun,” Ciaran told the critter—still curled up, docile as a lamb, in her pocket. “Just don’t you be frightened when the beasties growl and holler and all that, got it?”

The critter made a cute little chirpy sound—not a bird chirp, but not quite a squeak—that Ciaran took as a yes.

Getting into the menagerie was easy—the gatekeeper drank tea with some lady draped in rubies and silk, laughing and completely ignoring the wide-open gates. Ciaran skipped right past the couple. She even snatched a little round pastry from their table.

Inside the menagerie, thick bars of gold twined in intricate designs around the habitats of sleepy light beasts. The trees formed a natural curved wall around the menagerie, and any gaps were filled with those same gold bars.

Ciaran thumped on the wall of a habitat. The sun-leopards inside flinched and hissed at her. She sneered back and skipped away.

A handy stick twice the size of her forearm lay on the grass. She picked it up and banged it on the bars as she passed. The creatures—made up of light and life and just a little bit of magic—crowed and growled and roared back, ears pinned, but their eyes were wide and their tails tucked. The wispy shadow girl was unnatural in this world of light. Terrifying.

“Stop this madness.” Lucian stepped in front of Ciaran, who slid to a halt and glared up at him. He looked down, his nose—so sharp that it deserved its own sheath—pointing to her.

“Was just visiting the animals . . .” Ciaran mumbled. She kicked at the grass.

“Put down the stick.”

Ciaran dropped the stick and shoved her hands in her pockets. She couldn’t help a smile when the critter vibrated and snuggled into her hand.

“What’s that in your pocket?” Lucian glared down at the rustling fabric of Ciaran’s plain green dress.

Ciaran’s face twisted. She rubbed the warm little body of the creature in her left pocket. Then she rifled in her right pocket. She smirked at Lucian.

“It’s a rock.”

She chucked the rock at Lucian and ran.

“Ciaran,” Lucian shouted. “Get back here!”

Ciaran ran towards the gates, but before she could pass them, the gatekeeper stepped out and blocked the way. Ciaran nearly slammed into him but managed to pull up in time. She stumbled to a halt and glowered at the elf.

“Are you going somewhere?” The gatekeeper raised a bushy brow.

“Well, I was,” Ciaran grumbled.

Lucian seized Ciaran by the collar of her dress and spun her around. “Child, I ought to lock you in our darkest dungeon.”

“Please do.” Ciaran crossed her arms.

Lucian growled. He yanked Ciaran with him and glided past the gatekeeper, Ciaran tripping beside him. He half carried her back to his and Helen’s warm yellow house.

“Helen, this . . .  this creature has long been wild and out of hand,” Lucian snapped when the small woman opened the door. “She ruins the plant life, terrorizes our animals, steals our trinkets, terrifies our children—she’s a menace!”

Helen sighed.

“Come inside, Ciaran.” Helen beckoned with one frail hand. Ciaran twisted out of Lucian’s grip and skipped towards the door.

“No.” Lucian grabbed Ciaran’s wrist. “She’s hiding something.”

“Ciaran, give back whatever you’ve stolen,” Helen murmured, rubbing her face.

“I haven’t stolen anything.” Ciaran glared at them both.

Helen crossed her arms.

“I haven’t!” Ciaran stomped her foot.

“Then empty your pockets.”

The creature in her pocket shifted. Ciaran looked imploringly at Helen, who returned the look.

“If you haven’t stolen anything, then you have nothing to hide.” Lucian and Helen, for once in seven years, were arguing together.

“I haven’t stolen anything!”

“Ciaran.” Helen raised an eyebrow.

“Prove it,” Lucian hissed.

Ciaran ground her teeth together. She stroked the creature with one finger. Lucian’s eyes locked on Ciaran’s hand.

He shoved his hand into her pocket. A squeak, a yelp, and Lucian yanked out the critter.

“A moorkin!” Helen clapped her hand over her mouth.

“You’re hurting him,” Ciaran shouted. She shoved Lucian. The moorkin disappeared in a wisp of shadow and reappeared on Ciaran’s shoulder. Its three eyes fixed on Lucian, its tiny mouth open in a hiss to reveal needle-sharp teeth.

“We had a deal.” Lucian’s eyes fixed on the shadowy creature. “I said you could stay, given you didn’t summon those wretched shadow beasts.”

“I didn’t summon him, I didn’t! He just wanted to play with me!”

Lucian stomped down the stairs that wound around the tree, dragging Ciaran with him.

“I tried to be peaceable, I tried to be friendly,” he growled. “I let Helen raise you in our house, tolerated your strange games, so long as you left the shadow creatures in the shadow realm. But no!”

Ciaran tripped and he yanked her upright. She picked up her pace but couldn’t match his long stride.

“You just couldn’t help yourself. I thought maybe, just maybe you could fit into our society, that you could conform to our rules, but now I see that I was wrong. You’re a monster, just like the rest of your kind.”

“I don’t even know what my kind is!” Ciaran tried to grab onto the rail and stop their descent, but Lucian easily overpowered her. The moorkin flicked its long tail and skittered back into her pocket.

“You’re a monster, just like all the other shadow beasts that stalk our nightmares.”

“I am not!” Cirian blinked fast. Her eyes were strangely watery.

Lucian didn’t answer. Neither did Helen, who followed behind with two steps for every one her husband took.

“You are a blight in this beautiful community,” Lucian hissed. “We should never have let you stay.”

“Lucian, she’s only a child.” Helen’s voice was like a leaf trying to divert the current that was Lucian’s fury.

“A shadow child.” Lucian dragged Ciaran all the way to Sunfire Hall, a building that took up an entire tree with crystal and marble and glass. A grand staircase made completely out of diamond twined up to a dining hall, a courtroom, offices, a temporary cell, and a council room.

Lucian dragged Ciaran up the stairs and past the temporary cell, straight to the council room. Ciaran could see four of the councilors inside, chatting over tea.

Lucian flung open the doors to the council room, shoved Ciaran inside, and marched in after her. Helen scurried in too, closing the door behind her.

“And what is the meaning of this, Lord Valveno?” one of the councilors, a woman with cornrows pulled into a ponytail, set down her tea and eyed him.

“I propose we once again discuss the matter of the shadow child.” Lucian pointed his nose at the woman like a dagger, daring her to contradict him.

“Really?” An extremely tall man with eyes the color of the midday sky raised his brow. “You do?”

Lucian glared. The man raised his hands innocently.

“You’re head councilor,” the woman with the cornrows assured him. “You may convene a meeting over whatever topic you wish.”

“I know that,” Lucian snapped. He took his seat at the head of the table. The other councilors set down their tea and joined him. Five pairs of narrow blue eyes fell on Ciaran, who crossed her arms and stuck up her chin.

“Oh, Lucian,” Helen began, tears crowding her crystal eyes.

“Only councilors may speak unless otherwise directed,” the second councilwoman said, her brow pinched and smile all sympathy.

“We have joined together this day,” Lucian said sharply, “to reconsider the shadow child who lives among us.”

Ciaran took a deep breath. They had had lots of meetings about her before. This was nothing new. And yet, Helen had never been so pale and shivery. Lucian had never been so blazingly furious. Usually, his anger was like ice. Now it burned like fire.

“She steals things of value—”

“I always give them back,” Ciaran protested.

“She steals,” Lucian repeated with a look that would freeze a phoenix, “and pulls pranks. She harasses adults, terrorizes our children, and teases our animals. She vandalizes our plant life and refuses to obey her elders.”

“Yes, yes. We have gone over all this before,” said the fifth councilor, a short man with a ridiculously long mustache. He twisted one tendril of his impressive facial hair. “Whatever has changed?”

“What has changed is that the shadow—”

“I have a name.” Ciaran crossed her arms.

“The shadow girl has broken her pact with the council. She has summoned a shadow beast. A moorkin.”

The councilors gasped. Their indifferent eyes flashed with fear.

Ciaran’s shoulders stiffened at the sight. Wherever she went, fear followed. But why? What had she ever done to deserve this fear? Her fingers stroked the moorkin’s fluffy back. His six—or maybe seven—legs were all curled under his body, and the spikes along his back lay flat. He trusted her to protect him.

“Who votes we exile her as our pact stated?”

“No,” Helen whispered. She clutched Ciaran’s hand.

Lucian’s long fingers and firm palm were the first up.

Then a graceful, small hand, with seven rings, three inlaid with pearls. An immense one, lined with scars. One scar ran across the palm as if the elf had grabbed a sword by the blade. Perhaps he had. One with long fingernails. How did she keep those fingernails clean? How did they not break?

The man with the mustache looked up from his tea. Ciaran’s heart thudded down as his hand went up. A unanimous vote.

Ciaran tore her hand out of Helen’s.

Lucian’s eyes fixed on Ciaran. If he said anything, she did not hear it. If he stood or waved his hand, if he moved, she did not see it.

“Ciaran.”

All she saw were those five rich brown hands, wreathed in sunlight, telling her to leave forever.

“Ciaran.”

Telling her she had never belonged. Telling her she never would.

“Ciaran!”

Ciaran blinked. The crystal walls, polished wood floor, and half-moon table sharpened into reality again. Six faces, twelve blue eyes stared at her. All paler than she had ever seen an elf before. Pale with fear.

Ciaran looked at herself. Shadows twined and wisped and wound around her, ethereal half-memories come alive. Her hair floated around her shoulders. Her fingers were coated in darkness.

Ciaran’s jaw clenched. Her eyes narrowed.

Shadows exploded out around her, consuming the light. Helen and the councilors fell back, lost in a wave of darkness. Ciaran turned in a slow circle, watching the tendrils of shadow as though through the eyes of another.

She pointed. The doors flung open and out she strode, the shadows twisting to follow her.

Down the stairs the shadow girl strode, her chin high, shadows dancing around her. Elves ran away, children screamed. She walked past them all, past the menagerie, to the very edge of the forest city.

She looked back and met the eyes of a small child. Blue eyes, wide with fear.

The child spun and ran into the sunlight.

The shadows swept Ciaran’s tears away. Her eyes hardened as they did. Her black-tipped fingers clenched into fists.

Well, then. Let them fear her.

She would give them very good reason to.

She turned away from the city of light and walked into the woods, taking her shadows with her.