The Last Autumn Royal
Fantasy
335 words
Gilt-skinned fae were scattered across the beach, the sickly-pale sand turned gold
with blood and untidy with the dead. Some lay face down, others on their backs
with amber eyes unseeing. Not a patch of sand was bare for miles.
It was over.
Most of the deceased weren’t his, and he was disgustingly
relieved that no brown blood had been spilled. He didn’t know how the court
would have fared if anymore of Autumn’s children had been slaughtered. The war
had been a long one, and though he had instigated it he was glad it was won. His
fae had suffered much but they would
suffer no more.
Seven hundred years ago his mother had fought a great battle
and was bested by the Summer Royals. They had lost a month of Autumn’s season as
a consequence—but today the seasons were restored with golden blood.
The message of war had been clear: September belonged to the
Autumn fae. His kin would no longer
be confined to two months, starving for nourishment and yearning for the liberating
month when the leaves on the trees became golden-brown with Autumn’s reign.
There would be new Summer Royals, of course, but they would
not dare to challenge The Autumn Court. They would be foolish to step a foot outside
their sunlit palace when the mortal world was in the full throes of the death
of Summer.
He crossed the sand with his head high and his hands
uncurled at his sides, stepping on the dead and not caring one bit. Peace writhed
in every inch of his brown skin, and the turquoise sky overhead began to turn,
reflecting his mood as if they’d been acquainted for millennia. Clouds churned
and transformed the gentle sea into something rough and aggressive, and the
moss along the cliff face began to wither with every footstep that took him
away from the beach.
It did not matter that he was dead, and that his every
touch, his very presence, brought about the death of all things that thrived.
As he reached the fringe of the beach, the last Autumn Royal felt alive.
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