“What’s happening?” I whispered.
“The Dagda has warded the orchard. Anyone who walks to the palace with suspicion in their heart will be consumed by the beasts that roam his lands.”
“And you’re only telling me now?” I fixed my gaze on the tall grass, not daring to glance into his face for fear of triggering this additional ward.
“It’s been centuries since I last visited my father,” he replied, sounding sheepish. “And I thought we would access the palace through the back.”
Heavy, bestial breaths filled my ears and warmed the left side of my face. I stared straight ahead at the path, which stretched out for what appeared to be miles. Aengus told us the palace was only a few miles away from the bridge, but we had been traveling for three hours. If Enbarr had run fourteen circles around the Dagda’s land in that time, then it couldn’t be as large as it appeared.
I shoved those thoughts aside as the heavy breathing turned to grunts that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A warm breeze blew the mingled scents of rotting apples and putrid feces into our faces, making my nostrils twitch. Something warm and wet and worrisome snuffled at the back of my head.
Talons of trepidation tore down my spine. “You said there were beasts,” I whispered to Aengus. “What kind?”
“I once saw a giant boar,” he said. “Another time, it was a three-headed wolf.”
“And you survived them?”
“No.”
After several heartbeats of waiting for him to elaborate, I parted my lips to ask when I felt something part my hair and sniff into my ear. Unpleasant tingles poured down my ear canal and sent a jolt of panic through my heart. I wrapped my hand around Aengus’ broad arm and squeezed.
He stiffened. “Your Majesty.”
“Am I hurting you?”
“Rosalind would scold me if she saw us in such close quarters.”
“You like her?” I asked.
He paused. “It is rare to meet a female who doesn’t so easily fall for my charm.”
I clenched my teeth, bristling at the implication that I was one of the many who found him irresistible. Just because I had ignored Drayce’s warning to kill Aengus, that didn’t mean I thought about him as anything other than a means to defeat Queen Melusina.
Loosening my grip on his arm, I snarled, “I love my mate.”
“Of course, you do,” he said in a voice too smooth and practiced to sound convincing.
The clouds around us lowered and turned into wisps of smoke that caressed my scalp. Panting breaths surrounded us, seeming to have come from the mist, but they were nothing compared to Aengus’ unbearable arrogance. The edges of my vision turned black, blocking out all but the path ahead. Irritation thrummed through my veins and made my nerve endings tingle.
“What King Drayce and I share goes deeper than physical attraction,” I said through clenched teeth. “We’re soul mates, bonded together by love and trust and a shared destiny.”
“It’s hard to believe that when you’re clinging to me like a maiden in the throes of passion, Your Majesty.”
I shoved his arm away. “That’s because I’m trying to keep my mind off the beasts.”
“Did it work?” he asked.
“Did what—” Realization trickled through my skull like an autumn shower. “That was a distraction?”
“Even the headless Dullahan can see your devotion to King Drayce. He is very lucky to have such a dedicated mate.” Aengus stopped walking, and the air around us rippled, revealing in the distance a tall, white wall. It stretched about three-hundred-feet wide around a giant, grassy mound.
“The Palace of Bóinne,” he said.
“What?” There was something wrong with the bricks. They were too round, too unevenly spaced, and each with holes that reminded me of something sinister. I quickened my steps and stopped as soon as I realized what I was seeing.
Lining the wall were rows upon rows of human skulls.
Chapter 12
Horror froze my body to the spot. My mouth gaped open, and I couldn’t stop gasping at the endless, grinning skulls staring out at me through eyeless sockets. They were different sizes, different shapes, some four times the size of a human’s, others as small as a bird’s, some with long, pointed jaws and others so elongated they barely looked human.
The skulls stretched around the mound, disappearing only when the structure curved. There might have been hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of skulls, each so unique that they could only have come from a living person.
I reeled backward, only for Aengus to place a large hand between my shoulders, keeping me steady. “Your Majesty?” he asked. “Are you alright?”
“Whose bones are these?” I swept my gaze along the wall.
“Our dead,” he replied. “Each member of the Dagda’s court who dies becomes one with the palace wall before their souls depart to the Otherworld.”
I stared into his face. His turquoise eyes shone with sincerity, even though what he described turned my blood to sludge.
“Were they killed?” I asked.
He tilted his head to the side and raised his golden brows. “My father occupied these lands in the times of the gods, before the existence of the Courts, when humans were bestial creatures incapable of speech. People die, Your Majesty. This is our way of honoring those we hold dear.”
I dropped my chin to my chest, unable to meet his gaze. Despite having unlocked my innate faerie magic, despite knowing I could never return to Calafort or receive a warm welcome from Father Donal or Eirnin the blacksmith, I was still thinking like the old Neara.
“We honor our dead differently in the human realm,” I murmured.
His gaze flicked to my pointed ears. “Rosalind implied you lived there in exile until your maturity.”
I nodded. There was so much more to the story, but now wasn’t the time to share our pasts. “Excuse my judgement,” I murmured. “It’s going to take some time to become accustomed to this new world.”
A few of the skulls receded into the mound, creating a narrow doorway that led to a hall lined with slabs of stone. The strains of fiddles drifted out from its depths, giving me the impression that whoever lived here loved to dance.
Aengus grinned, revealing a mouthful of perfect, white teeth. “Shall we go inside?”
Laughter and chatter and the clinking of goblets echoed through the stone hallway, the volume so loud that my heart quickened. Light streaming in through the gaps in the bone provided illumination, and I glanced at Aengus, who rubbed his hands together and grinned.
He bowed low and swept his arm toward an arch at the end of the hallway. “This way, Your Majesty.”
Despite feeling like I’d stepped into a tomb, my heart warmed at the joy in his features. After a thousand years of torture in the mist, Aengus was finally home.
He offered me his arm, and we continued into a vast dining hall of two long tables arranged alongside a roasting spit. Curly, blond-haired men and women feasted on roasted meats and drank from horned goblets, served by daoine maithe, human-looking faeries with curled antennae protruding from their hairlines.
“Are these your siblings?” I asked Aengus.
He pointed at the blonds sitting at the long tables. “Those are my kin.” His arm swept across the room, and he raised his head, indicating that he was gesturing toward the far end of the room that I couldn’t see through the crowd of people dancing to the music of the fiddlers. “Those men and women at the back are my father’s lovers.”
As Aengus guided me through the vast space, through the clomp and stomp and chatter of the revelers, I took in my surroundings. The walls were made not of bones, but of stone bricks supported by wooden columns that stretched into a ceiling of thick, wooden beams connected by thinner joists. Round, metal chandeliers hung down from the wood, each holding torches that flickered with orange and yellow flames.
Wide archways ran along the length of the dining hall, through which servants dressed in homespun s
mocks carried platters and jugs containing foamy liquid. The heat of the burning spit in the room warmed my skin, and the scent of roasted boar made my mouth water.
“Is this a celebration?” I asked Aengus.
He raised a massive shoulder. “The Dagda feasts during the day and takes lovers at night.”
As we moved through the throng of dancing musicians and merrymaking guests, I caught glimpses of a back wall covered in a rich tapestry depicting a harvest of fruit and vegetables. Blonde-haired females dressed in silks and linens and lace ate demurely around a table positioned at the width of the wall, but there was still no sign of the Dagda.
“You said your grandfather was a Fomorian,” I said, realizing that now was probably too late to ask. “Is the Dagda—”
“The Dagda is older and more powerful than those worthless beasts,” boomed a deep voice from behind.
A jolt of shock had me spinning around and meeting the grinning face of a seven-foot-tall male. There was no need to look any further for Aengus’ father. This could only be the Dagda.
His hair was an orange so deep it appeared amber, with pumpkin-colored highlights that curled around a handsome face of golden eyes, thick brows, and high cheekbones. Threads of gold twined within a beard split into two thick braids that hung down from his bare, muscled chest to his tight abdomen.
I sucked in a deep breath, taking in his crown of deep green leaves, which were decorated with the red and golden apples from his orchard.
The Dagda was even more handsome than his son, with defined arms decorated with bands of gold etched in ancient runes. My gaze dropped to the wooden staff he carried in his right hand, and I glanced at his left for signs of a harp but found it empty.
Aengus stepped forward. “Father.”
Ignoring Aengus, the Dagda leaned down and fixed me with a penetrating gaze. Up close, his eyes weren’t gold but a bright hazel with starbursts that reflected the firelight.
“Daughter of Dana.” His large fingers caressed my carrot-orange hair, and his face broke out into a smile of dazzling, white teeth. “What brings you to my realm?”
My throat dried, and I swallowed hard. “I need—”
He placed a finger over my lips. “I will not hear your request until you dine with me.”
I glanced at Aengus, who glowered at his father. My insides roiled with anger at his lack of regard for someone he hadn’t seen in a millennium. The Dagda seemed little better than Queen Melusina, who used the children she didn’t eat as sacrifices and as bodies for her generals. Stepping back, I asked, “Can I bring Aengus?”
“My worthless son can tend to his own needs,” he drawled.
Aengus flicked his head toward the Dagda, indicating that I should go with his father.
“Alright,” I said. “But—”
The Dagda scooped me into his arms and cradled me to his chest, engulfing me in the scent of ripe apples and sweat. “It has been decades since a high faerie visited my realm.”
“They’re all under a curse,” I muttered.
“How fortunate it is for me that there are no worthy males to hold the attention of such a beauty.” He swung me around and carried me through the crowd of dancers and around the back of the head table.
The Dagda’s throne was twice the size of mine and made of the same kind of ancient, carved wood as the columns. At both sides of him sat an assortment of males and females of different faerie races, some high fae with pointed ears, others winged Nimfeach aer like Rosalind, tall sprites and beauties whose species I couldn’t guess on sight. Each stared up at me with bored eyes and continued dining.
He positioned me onto his lap and murmured into my ear, “You favor my mother.”
I squirmed onto the arm of his throne. “You remind me of my father.”
The Dagda threw his head back and laughed with a deep resonant sound that came deep from his belly.
“He must have been a great man.”
“A druid,” I murmured.
His thick brows rose. “Then we are brothers of a sort. My mother is Dana.”
My gaze flicked to his twinkling, gold eyes. Aengus should have told me his father was a demi-god. The Dagda waved for the females on his left to scoot down and make me some space. I scrambled off his throne and sat at his side, my muscles unfurling with relief.
“How do I address you?” I asked.
“My Lord seems a little lofty for a female of your rank.” He beckoned to one of the servants, who rushed toward a huge cauldron and extracted an entire meal served on a round leaf. “I’ll call you by your given name, and you will call me Dag.”
“Thank you.” I nodded my thanks at the servant, who presented me with a roasted leg of pheasant served with mushrooms the size of my palm. “I’m Neara.”
He nodded, as though he already knew. “What do you think of my home?”
I swept my gaze across the room, surveying the seemingly endless sons and daughters of the Dagda, the servers milling in and out through the arches, and the chefs cutting strips of pork from a pig that never seemed to run out of meat.
On my right and far left, the females at his table of lovers and the assorted males at the end leaned forward, pausing their conversation to hear my answer.
“It’s beautiful, richer and more lively than any other I’ve seen,” I said.
He sat back and grinned. “Eat, drink, stay as long as you wish. There is no darkness or hunger or pain in my realm. My cauldron is never empty and provides delights to satisfy even a queen.”
“How can you protect yourself from the curse over the Summer Court?” I picked up the leg of pheasant and took a delicate bite.
“My wards are older and stronger than anything Fomorian or fae,” he replied with a grin.
As the Dagda entertained me with tales of the magical artifacts he amassed over the years, I glanced around the tables, looking for signs of Aengus among a sea of blondes. The fiddlers played a merry tune on their instruments and blond-haired males and females danced with an assortment of high and low faeries.
The Dagda also boasted about having banished his wife, the Morrígan, to the Otherworld, allowing him the freedom to consort with as many females as he desired.
He placed his massive hand over mine. “Will you stay the night, dear girl? I will allow you to bed any number of my sons or lovers or myself if that is what you desire.”
I gulped and forced myself not to pull away my hand. “No, thank you. I have a mate waiting for me in the orchard. He’s been cursed—”
“It is bad manners to lie about having a mate,” he said, his face clouding. “And I find your transparent rejection of my hospitality unforgivable.”
The music and chatter died across the room, replaced by an eerie silence filled by the pounding of my heart and the crackling of the pig on the spit. I glanced around, looking at everything but the furious demigod seething at my side. What was so terrible about telling him the truth?
Aengus pushed his way through the crowd of dancers, his hands raised. “Father, Queen Neara does have a mate. I met King Drayce—”
“Silence,” the Dagda roared.
My heart leaped into the back of my throat, and I resisted the urge to clutch at my chest. The Dagda stared down at me, his eyes blazing hotter than the flaming torches.
“Explain yourself,” he snarled with barely restrained fury.
I told him everything, from how Father had inadvertently freed Queen Melusina from the mist with his blood, the nature of my birth and his escape to the human realm, and how he had conspired with a young Drayce to train me to defeat Queen Melusina when I came of age.
The Dagda stroked his thumb down his beard as he listened to my story, and his breaths quickened when I told him how I broke Drayce’s curse and our later confrontation with Queen Melusina and the Court of Shadows.
When I told him about Drayce falling to a curse the Fear Dorcha meant for me, his eyes softened. “King Drayce is not your mate,” he murmured. “Your father may have
promised you to him, but I see no such bond in your soul.”
My throat thickened, and the beginnings of tears stung my eyes. Not because of the Dagda’s words. It made no difference to me if Drayce and I were mated or not. The love we shared was strong enough to overcome the lack of a magical bond.
What broke my heart was Nessa’s words. She’d told me that only Drayce’s mate could break his curse. If he already had a mate somewhere, if his mate was Queen Melusina, I couldn’t stand to see him return to her clutches.
I thought back to Drayce’s request that I stab him with iron. If I wasn’t his mate, my dagger in his heart might mean his death or banishment into the Otherworld.
“Then I would like to make a request,” I whispered.
“For such a moving tale, you may ask me for anything.”
“The use of your harp,” I said.
He blinked. “My…”
I leaned toward him, clutching the arm of his throne. “You have a magical harp that can rouse anyone from sleep. I brought Prince Drayce here as well as a harpist to awaken him. Please—”
The Dagda raised his hand. “I cannot fulfill your request.” He reached into his beard, pulled out a silver ring engraved with runes and dropped it into my hand. “This is the ring your mother used to force a mating bond with King Donn of the Otherworld. The magic is extremely volatile and will transfer your power to King Drayce if he does not truly love you.”
I stared down at the ring, which glinted gold in the firelight. What was the point of creating a mating bond with a male who couldn’t wake? My gaze rose to meet the Dagda’s. “I don’t care about being mated to him. The curse he’s suffering might consume his soul.”
His brows lowered into a frown. “I cannot lend you my harp. Nor can I play it for your king.”
“Why not?” My voice broke.
“Because,” he snarled with his teeth bared. “The blasted harp got sucked into the Fomorian mist.”
One of the females on the other side of his throne giggled.
Fury broke out across the Dagda’s features, and a roar tore from his lips. He twisted around and lashed out with his staff, striking nine of his lovers dead.
Mate of the Fae King (Dark Faerie Court Book 2) Page 11
