Red Hood's Revenge

wouldn’t support her weight anyway.
    Naghesh gestured, and Talia followed her into the library. “Remove her weapons.”
    Without a sound, Talia bent over Roudette and began stripping her of her hammer and knives. Roudette held her breath, waiting for Talia to reach for the dagger on Roudette’s left hip. As Talia’s fingers closed around the handle, Roudette grabbed Talia’s hand. She twisted the knife toward Talia’s chest.
    Talia snapped a light kick against the arrow in Roudette’s ribs. Roudette howled and fell, clutching her side.
    “She retains the reflexes I gave her,” Naghesh said as Talia finished disarming Roudette. “The only difference is that now those reflexes serve me.”
    “You?” The voice came from the doorway.
    “Us,” Naghesh said quickly. “She serves us. Serves you, I mean.”
    “Zestan-e-Jheg?” Roudette guessed.
    “Welcome, Roudette.” Shadows clung to Zestan’s body, obscuring all detail.
    Roudette had spent her life hunting fairies and learning their ways. She might not have memorized every detail the way Snow White had, but she knew fairykind better than most. The deev were supposed to be horned monsters, twisted creatures of such ugliness and evil that mortals fled in despair. Creatures who tortured their victims or crushed them with their bare hands.
    Zestan moved with such grace as to make Talia appear clumsy, and her voice was song. “What are you?” Roudette demanded.
    The shadows snapped outward, then fell away.
    Zestan was taller than any human, with pearl skin. Elongated ears poked through ebony hair. A green jewel hung from a silver chain around her neck, similar to the one Naghesh wore. She was dressed in a violet tunic that clung to her form, a body that seemed neither male nor female. From Zestan’s back stretched brown-feathered wings, so broad they would have struck the walls if fully extended.
    She—he?—was beautiful. Too beautiful. Her face was too perfect, her body without a single flaw. She seemed less a living, breathing thing than an artist’s masterpiece come to life.
    Zestan’s smile held genuine warmth. “I’ve plans for you as well, Roudette. The Wild Hunt—”
    Roudette grabbed the arrow in her side. “I’ll kill myself before I let you turn me into one of them.”
    “Go ahead.” Zestan’s smile never changed. “Dead or alive makes no difference to the Hunt, but that’s not what I meant. The Wild Hunt was created by lesser fairies, and they are flawed. Limited to the darkness, burdened by the remnants of their humanity. Soon they will no longer be of use to me. I would make you the first of a new hunt. A band formed by peri magic. Angels , perfect and without limits.”
    “So the stories were wrong,” said Roudette. “It wasn’t the deev who meant to conquer and destroy this world. It was you.”
    “Oh, no. The deev are evil, brutish things. Strong and cruel. Like yourself, in many ways.”
    Roudette caught herself relaxing, lured by the gentleness of Zestan’s voice. She twisted the arrow, using the pain to help her focus.
    “We protected this land,” Zestan said. “We saved the people from the deev. We fought and we died, all in the hopes that the people would grow and redeem themselves, and in doing so earn redemption for us as well.”
    “You sound like a preacher.” The words were the same ones her father had spoken, but never had his voice carried such sorrow and pain.
    “We were cast out of Heaven for our cowardice.” Zestan’s wings shivered. “Banished to this world for failing to fight in the uprising, and sentenced to watch over and protect your race until we earned forgiveness. Only then would we be welcomed back home.”
    Roudette had heard variations of this lie from the fairy church ever since she was a child. “You actually believe this?”
    “Not anymore.” Zestan was no longer smiling, and her words chilled Roudette. “ We saved this world . Do you know how many of our kind died against the deev? How many of us were tortured and maimed, imprisoned in cages and left to wither into nothingness? We gave you freedom.”
    “I thought it was humans who fought the deev,” Roudette said.
    “Girded with our power.” Zestan’s wings snapped out, then slowly settled behind her like a feathered cape. “All these years we’ve tried to guide you, until one by one we fell into despair and retreated to our mountains to sleep. I’ve tried to rouse them, but the loss of hope casts a curse as potent