Queen of Sea and Stars

by Anna McKerrow

  She stood on a bridge of rock between two mountains that stretched high into the clouds. Lyr stood next to her and caught the wonder in her eyes as she surveyed her new surroundings.

  ‘Welcome to the entrance to Falias. Is it not the most wondrous of the realms?’ he boomed, and pointed with their clasped hands to a golden gateway at one end of the bridge, which led into the mountain. Faye leaned forward just a little; the chasm under the bridge loomed up to greet her. She couldn’t see the bottom; it was wreathed in mist. She swallowed nervously and leaned back.

  ‘It is beautiful,’ she agreed; clearly, in Falias, danger was woven with beauty just like Murias. The bridge itself was carved from rock, and intricate patterns twisted below her feet and at the edges of it where a waist-high barrier sat between them and the vertiginous drop. Looking down, she could see the swirling mists through the twists and loops of the pattern; Faye wondered how many years it had taken to carve. She thought suddenly of Glitonea and froze. This wasn’t Murias, so Glitonea should have no power over her here. But the way that she’d been able to reach through into the ordinary world and manipulate Faye into keeping quiet about the curse made her wary.

  ‘Am I safe here?’ she called out to Lyr; he turned and held out his hand for hers, frowning.

  ‘Of course. No being will harm you here,’ he replied, but Faye kept her hands at her sides.

  ‘Not even… other faerie queens? Kings?’ she wanted to be sure; perhaps her being in the faerie realms at all would alert or anger Glitonea or Finn Beatha.

  ‘This is my realm. Not theirs. You are free from them here,’ he repeated, and she nodded and followed him.

  ‘You called me father before. Was that just for the summoning, or did you mean it?’ he asked, suddenly, as he walked in front of her, his cloak flowing out behind him. He didn’t look at her, and his question hung in the air between them, words made in mist that she didn’t know how to answer.

  Faye concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other over the thin stone bridge, but unease enveloped her, and she was very aware of the drop that fell away under her feet.

  ‘No.’ Faye took a deep breath and focused on her feet as much as she could. ‘You abandoned us. You hurt Moddie. I’m here because I need you, yes. But don’t think we can start playing happy families just yet.’ She was sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. What did he think was going to happen?

  Lyr stopped dead, ahead of her.

  ‘Your rudeness will not help you,’ Lyr snapped, turning to her. The bridge was very narrow; Faye tried not to look down. She wanted to get to the other side, to get away from the precipice, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘You wanted me. You called to me. Do not refuse me now.’

  He shook her, not hard, but it was enough to make her grab at him in panic.

  ‘Don’t shake me. Not on this bridge,’ she panted.

  He released her shoulders and gave her an analytical stare.

  ‘Threatening my life won’t help me trust you,’ she repeated his words back to him in the same tone, and was relieved to see regret in his eyes.

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ He turned away and walked on.

  Faye knew so little about him that it was hard to tell if he was sincere, but for now she just wanted to get off the bridge. Lyr was fae, so he was changeable and untrustworthy, but she’d genuinely detected a regretful sadness in his eyes.

  Be sad, then, she thought. A little sadness won’t do you any harm: you’ve inflicted enough sadness on other people.

  ‘This way.’ Lyr led her towards the golden gate. Looking over her shoulder, Faye saw a similar gate at the other end of the bridge, though that one was black where this one was golden, and the gate was closed, with tall black doors bolted shut.

  ‘What’s that way?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ He dismissed it with a flick of his hand.

  ‘Tell me what that is. The black gates at the other side of the bridge,’ Faye repeated, pointing behind her. ‘If you want us to have a relationship, you can at least talk to me. Answer my questions.’

  Lyr turned to look behind them and frowned, shaking his head.

  ‘That way leads to my sister’s quarters, the Queendom of Moronoe, as she insists on calling it. We are not on speaking terms,’ he said, huffily, and led Faye into the dark recess of the mountain beyond the golden gate. ‘But this is my realm; the Kingdom of Falias.’ His tone inferred that his realm was the correct one, though Faye could detect an irritation in his voice, and wondered why Falias was divided in this way. She remembered, the night of the Mabon ritual, that she had heard laughing faerie voices beckoning her to Moronoe.

  ‘My aunt, then?’ Faye stared back at the forbidding gates and wondered what lay beyond them.

  ‘She is your blood kin, yes. But I doubt you would see much of yourself in her,’ his tone was flat.

  ‘Why aren’t you speaking to each other?’ Faye asked.

  ‘It is not something I wish to discuss,’ he shot back, and swept forward. Spare me, she thought. He’s treating me like a teenager.

  She followed Lyr through a long, dark stone passage; unexpectedly, the rock was dry and, as she reached out for it, somehow warm. In the distance, she could hear music, but of a different kind to Murias’s faerie reel, played by fiddlers and drummers. This was a song of women’s voices, laying notes in harmony over each other in ever more radiant harmonies. Forgetting her confusing feelings for Lyr for a moment, Faye felt a deep accord in her belly, in her soul, for the music. She’d never heard it before, but it was familiar nonetheless.

  They emerged into a mellow, gold-green light, and Faye blinked her eyes after the darkness of the tunnel. She supposed that they must still be inside the mountain somewhere, because the land she looked on sat inside tall walls of stone, as if it had been hollowed out of the mountain; however, she could see stars above her; even more strangely, sunlight dappled the glade before them.

  ‘Come.’ Lyr led her down a long staircase cut into the rock; Faye was reminded of the great ballroom Finn had led her into in Murias, his hand in hers, her gauzy skirts billowing deliciously against her skin.

  Below them was a kind of village or settlement, a little like the diagrams produced of Stone Age or Viking villages by archaeologists. Perhaps twenty little reed-thatched houses were scattered through an open glen, bordered by deep woodland; smoke curled through chimneys and fae children raced around, playing games and calling happily to each other. To the left, fields of golden wheat, yellow seed and purple lavender swayed happily in the strange green-gold light.

  ‘Oh!’ Faye breathed, taken aback. She’d expected – what? She couldn’t say, but perhaps something more similar to Murias’s golden castle and luxurious rooms draped with silk. This was altogether more bucolic and… she searched for the word. Honest. It was earthy, honest, rural.

  ‘Many human women have been entranced by the realm of earth,’ Lyr rumbled, his voice companionable.

  ‘I’m not fully human,’ she replied archly, noticing how different she felt here in Falias. Murias – and Finn, whether in his realm or out of it – was spellbinding, like drowning in pleasure. In Murias, she’d been plunged into a delicious lassitude it was almost impossible to resist. But here, she felt aware and grounded. She could keep her head; she could stay focused.

  Lyr raised his eyebrows, but he was pleased with her reaction, she could tell. Yes, it was beautiful here, but Faye couldn’t forget that. She wouldn’t ever forget it. Let Lyr think what he liked, that she’d be his daughter, that she could love him. She couldn’t love him; in fact, she refused to. She was only here to find some way to rescue Aisha from dying in Murias.

  They reached the end of the stairs and Lyr guided her through the village. The fae came out of their houses to bow as he walked past, and smiled and bowed at Faye, too. Compared to the variety of fae at the ball and in the market at Murias, the faeries here were far more similar to each other, and all of them had the look of the earthy realm:
their skin was brown in varying hues, like Lyr’s, and their clothes were simple, homespun materials in greens and yellow tones, embroidered with leaves, twig and flower designs. Faye noticed that many of them had a central tattoo or mark on their forehead: a square containing the seven-pointed faerie star.

  Lyr led her towards a grand dwelling in the centre of the village; it was larger than the rest, though made of the same thatched reed material. Its wide doors were made of burnished copper, and as they approached, Lyr raised his hand for them to open.

  They swung apart, and Faye followed Lyr inside.

  ‘Sit, daughter,’ he motioned to a couch piled with soft grey, white and black furs. Four tall bronze lamps shone a warm light around the hut, which was more like a grand hall or lodge; numerous finely carved wooden cabinets stood against the walls; one displayed items made of bone and antler made into shapes Faye didn’t recognise. She sat, feeling him calling her daughter like a barb. I’m here for Aisha, she reminded herself. This isn’t my home. Looking at the luxury of Lyr’s dwelling, though, she felt a pang of sadness. She could have had this. The comfortable opulence, the status of being the King’s daughter. She and Moddie could have lived here. They could have been happy; Faye could have had a father.

  Faeries don’t make good fathers, her instinct whispered. It’s just a fantasy. You had a family. You were happy.

  But Faye felt the old, clutched-at longings of the fatherless child resurfacing. The hunger for a father, to be like the rest of the children. To have family holidays and in-jokes and memories, afternoons playing board games and catch at the beach. Not to feel that loss, that sadness, that sense that Moddie and Grandmother were doing their best to replace a shadow, a father that wasn’t there, but was noticeable by his absence. Being all the more jolly to compensate for the father-shaped hole in her life; to pretend it wasn’t there.

  Perhaps Moddie wouldn’t have died, if we had been here. If he hadn’t left us. The thought rose up, unexpected and hurtful, from that same bruised, child-memory, but she pushed it away. There was no way she could know that, and it wasn’t true, anyway. Moddie had had a stroke; sudden, unusual at her young age, but not unheard of. Like being struck by lightning. Yet that same voice nagged at Faye. She died of a broken heart. How many more years could she have had if it had never been broken in the first place?

  She felt tears threatening, and pinched herself again, hard. In her childhood stories, characters had often pinched themselves to see if the wondrous places they visited in their adventures were real; Faye dug her nails into her own skin for the pain that would eat her sadness. She remembered doing it as a child, with other habits that she now recognised as self-harming: pulling and biting the skin around her fingers until it was sore and bled; scratching her legs until she created sores; biting the insides of her mouth. There was a satisfaction in all these things. Wounds were distractions.

  To the back of the lodge she could see an ornate glass-walled room, like an orangery or a summerhouse; in it, plants and herbs were garlanded from the roof, and a low circle of hedge was arranged in the centre, with what looked like an altar at the centre. On it Faye could see three large pillars of smoky quartz, each easily a foot high, surrounded by smaller tiger’s eye, clear quartz and what could have been black obsidian crystals. She’d seen crystal grids like this before, though never with crystals that big; she could feel the power coming from them like a huge battery, even from the next room. In her shop, she sold books that told people how to set up crystal grids – laying small, pocket-sized crystals in patterns and energising them with a particular aim in mind. She wondered if this was the same thing but on a much grander scale.

  A hammered bronze table with a large copper bowl filled with unfamiliar fruits on top of it was placed in the middle of the room, within Faye’s reach. Lyr clapped his hands and a small, bearded faerie man wearing a brown apron knotted around his waist appeared.

  ‘Wine for my guest,’ Lyr ordered, and the faerie – was he a gnome, Faye wondered? – chose a tall black glass decanter, from which he poured a rich red liquid into an elegant copper goblet and offered it to her. Faye hesitated – she wanted to keep a clear head here. But she needed to manage Lyr; to hide her feelings from him to get what she wanted from him: a favour, an intercession in another faerie realm, perhaps. If being in Falias was bringing back some powerful and confusing childhood emotions, they were nothing compared to the pain Aisha was suffering now. So, she took it with good grace and raised the cup to her lips.

  ‘To you,’ Lyr raised his goblet and drank deeply; Faye followed suit. The wine was rich and sweet, like berries bursting in her mouth. It was powerful, but drinking it made her feel more focused: the opposite to the faerie food and drink in Murias. She was grateful for it and drank again. Her anxiety receded a little.

  ‘Thank you. Why is it that the wine here – and the place itself – why doesn’t it make me giddy and confused, as in Murias? I was enchanted there.’ She took another sip, more daringly now.

  ‘This is your home. Earth is your natural element, both as my daughter and as a human woman. If you were not half-fae, this place would still enchant you, like it does our other human visitors. But this place represents everything you are. Murias is the realm of water, and its power is strong; for humans, it is impossible to withstand the current and the weight of water. The depths that crush a human body are no place to swim, even though you may splash safely enough in the shallows. You survived, as I would. But it is not my realm, and it is not yours.’

  ‘So, of all the faerie kingdoms, Falias is the… the least dangerous for humans?’ Faye asked, setting her goblet down on the table. A perfumed smoke wafted the smell of orange and something else – was it geranium? – through the lodge.

  ‘In a sense.’ Lyr smiled. ‘They find a welcome here. Some choose to stay, but as in all of the faerie kingdoms, there is a price. The sacrifice is different in Murias than it is here, but there is always a price.’

  ‘What is it, then? Here?’ Faye asked. Lyr set his goblet down and stretched.

  ‘The question is, Faye Morgan, what you would offer in return for the help you ask of me?’ He stared at her keenly. ‘You ask something very dangerous from me. We are at war with Murias. Even if we were not, I cannot defy the judgement of another faerie king or queen in their own realm. If Finn Beatha has banished you from Murias, I cannot go against his wishes… without very good motivation.’

  ‘When you say you’re at war, you mean…?’ Faye narrowed her eyes at Lyr.

  ‘I mean, a war. There is fighting. Fae warrior against fae warrior. All four faerie kingdoms are involved, and there are two sides. Falias stands with the Fire kingdom, Finias, against Murias and the Air kingdom, Gorias. There have always been conflicts, but this is the war to end all wars.’ He put down his cup and leaned back in his chair, his gaze never leaving hers.

  ‘Why are you fighting each other?’ Faye asked.

  ‘The four elemental kingdoms are as old as time itself. At the creation of the world, we were given our own kingdoms, our territories, our creatures to govern. As the long ages passed, ice covered the world, then water, then earth rose; this world began as fire, as liquid metal and rock in a furnace as hot as the sun. Over time, the elemental realms settled into a harmonious agreement. We needed each other to flourish: the forests need rivers and sunlight and oxygen to grow, after all. For many ages, the natural world was at peace.’

  Lyr rose and went to one of the cabinets against the walls. He picked something up and weighed it thoughtfully in his hands before returning to sit opposite Faye.

  ‘At the centre of the four faerie kingdoms sits the Crystal Castle of the Moon.’ He held out the piece of opaque pink-white crystal he was holding to her. ‘Take it. This is from there. You will feel the magic of the place by holding it.’ Faye took it, and took in a deep breath as its strange and familiar power flowed through her palms and into her heart.

  ‘The Crystal Castle sits apart from the elementa
l kingdoms, but is their heart. It is the home of Morgana Le Fay, Mistress of Magick. She cannot exist without us, but we cannot exist without her. She is the centre of all our power, but she is also the beacon that shines between the worlds. She connects the human world and our world together.’

  ‘Yes.’ Faye nodded and turned the crystal over in her hands.

  ‘In the human world, Morgana is the Moon. Her power is night power. Human imagination and magic is governed by her. She is the mistress of your realm of dreams, and humans can journey to us, to her castle, even, and learn magic because of this connection.

  But as the years pass, humans are less and less connected to our realms. They have poisoned and polluted the natural world and hurt us. They have stopped honouring us and strengthening us by melding their bodies and souls with ours. Thus the faerie kingdoms have lost power, and our harmony has been disrupted. We fight for the power that remains.’

  ‘But why turn against each other?’ Faye frowned. Lyr held his hand out for the crystal; she was reluctant to give it back.

  ‘You don’t need to understand the deep meanings, Faye.’ Lyr was dismissive again, like the father he had no right to be, and it put her on edge. ‘I’m just trying to explain to you why it will be very difficult for me to… intercede on your behalf with Finn Beatha.’

  ‘But you can do it?’ Faye demanded. ‘My friend is dying there. I need to help her.’

  ‘First, you must tell me the promises you have made to them and I will tell you what I require,’ he said, picking up a yellow fruit that could have been a pear from the bowl on the table, and taking a bite. The juice rolled down his chin into his beard, and he wiped it away.

  ‘The Faerie Queen Glitonea is who I owe favours to,’ Faye said. ‘She helped me escape Murias and bring my human lover back with me. Finn had kidnapped him in jealousy. I promised her…’ she stopped, expecting the horrible drowning sensation; dread filled her. ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘What did you promise, daughter?’ Lyr finished the fruit, stalk and seeds included. ‘I can assure you that a promise made to Glitonea is a very serious matter indeed.’