Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “A demon?” she said, suddenly the tension in her body relaxed as she looked at her mother’s sorrowful expression with wet eyes. “You speak of Antoline?”

  “I know not the demon’s name, but they’ve been waiting for you each time you go. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel you’re changing? Deep down, within, you must feel it. You know there is truth in my words.”

  “He wouldn’t…” she said, glancing around the room. “He’s weak at times, even cowardly, but he can be kind and gentle. He can’t be a… demon.”

  “Is it true?” the handmaiden asked past her tears. “Can you feel that you’re different?”

  The rage snapped back into the princess. “Of course, I feel different! Anyone would who had to live there for twenty years, alone, afraid—away from everyone I’ve ever known. Of course, I’m changed.” Her finger pointed around the room as the dagger poked into the queen’s neck, causing a cut that bled down to her dress. The queen winced.

  “Any of you would be different! Any of you would be like me if you’d have gone through what I went through. Any of you would have changed. Even you, wizard. You see… Antoline told me that you charged him with my safety. He told me about you.”

  “I gave no instruction to anyone or anything in the Fae. In that you were misled. Perhaps this Antoline was the demon I spoke of. It matters not, though. It’s too late. I cannot let you return to this world. You now belong to the Fae.”

  “No, no, no,” Fallon shook her head with her eyes closed in rage. “Lies, lies, nothing but dirty, stinking lies!”

  The ground shook as the rage swelled in her like lava about to burst through a dark volcano. She opened her eyes, and everything was brimming in a ruby red glow.

  “Princess?” Celeste gasped.

  “Let my mother go!” Fallon screamed as the wall behind the wizard cracked. She found herself suddenly looking down on the wizard in hatred.

  “Stop this madness!” Shadine yelled as a glowing orb of white light grew around him and the queen. “Calm yourself, control your emotions. I’m not here to hurt your mother. I’m here to send you back home!”

  “Princess, please stop,” Celeste said softly.

  But the fury erupted through her, and she felt a stinging sensation in her fingers as the room glowed in that same red; now wavy, like a hot haze.

  “Fallon, stop,” the queen said. “You’re killing her. You’re killing her, stop!”

  But Fallon only glared madly at the wizard. “Let her go, let her go!”

  The wall behind the wizard broke, cracking and crumbling to reveal the night sky and moon behind him.

  “Fallon,” her mother said. “Stop! You’re killing her!”

  Still full of a fiery rage, Fallon turned her head to see her handmaiden fallen on her side with sad eyes full of pain glaring up at the princess helplessly. Her arms were ablaze in red flame and she whimpered for help.

  Dread replaced fury, and Fallon dropped back to the floor as the room quickly returned to its dim light.

  She ran to Celeste, badly burned and barely able to speak. “I’m sorry,” Fallon said as she rushed to her side. “It was his fault. He made me do this. I’m so sorry, I’ll kill him for hurting you. I’ll kill him.”

  Celeste only shook her head with a weary look in her eyes. “I—” she said in a raspy, weak voice. “I—I don’t know who you are. I—”

  Her body fell limp as her blackened arms wafted up a putrid smell.

  “You’ve known me your entire life,” Fallon cried. “It’s me. I’m your little princess. I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you believe me now?” the wizard whispered to the queen.

  “Don’t you turn my own mother against me too!”

  “Fallon,” the queen cried. “What’s become of you? What happened to my sweet daughter?”

  “It’s me, Mama. I’m still me.”

  The queen’s head shook in disbelief at what she saw before her.

  Shadine released her, and the queen walked slowly away from the princess. Fallon got back to her feet and walked toward her with open arms.

  “Approach the queen no more,” he said in a powerful voice with his arms out wide and his long, green robes blowing in the winds that brushed into the castle from the gaping hole she’d created.

  “Out of my way, wizard!” she screamed with her fists clenched.

  “In this, you only have two choices,” the wizard demanded with his fingers outstretched and a powerful, yellow glow in his eyes. “Return to the land of the Fae, or I can lay you to rest before you cause any more pain in this world.”

  “How dare you,” the princess said with anger seeping through every word. “How dare you!”

  “Think about it,” the queen said in a desperate, yet sweet voice through her tears. “You can go back and live a life there. You don’t have to die. I’ll put your name to rest here. I won’t tell anyone of what happened this night.”

  “What?” Fallon said, glancing at her mother in shock. “You’d kill your own daughter?”

  “No,” her mother cried. “You can live. You can go back. But you can’t stay here, sweetie. I’m sorry.” She sobbed heavy tears that dripped off her chin.

  “I’m not going back. That isn’t my world. I’m staying right here with my family.” The desperation to stay in her missed home was outweighing her anger if for just a fleeting moment.

  I’m not going anywhere. This is my home I’ve fought to come home to. Please don’t make me go, mother. I don’t want to go anywhere except where I can be happy with you.

  “You’ve killed her!” the queen spat at her daughter. “Look around you. Look at what you’ve done, and you’ve only been here minutes…”

  Shadine turned to the queen. “I’ll ask you then. Which fate do you wish of your former daughter? You will be the one to choose. Death, or exile?”

  Fallon cowered at the thought of both. “Neither! Neither I choose!”

  The queen lowered her head, unsure of what to do. “If she goes back, will she ever be able to return?”

  “Not by any means known to me. She will live a full life in the Fae. She will become one of them completely. But in their worlds, demons cannot hurt anyone in our world.”

  “You can’t do this to me. I’ve done nothing to deserve this treatment. This is my home. I’ve waited far too long to go back now. I won’t. I won’t!”

  Red fire flared up from her eyes then, and the wizard spoke the words, “Grandmorden Obsolere!”

  Fallon’s arms still ablaze felt an overwhelming weight then, causing them to be pulled to the ground. Her hands were stuck, flat on the ground with her fingers outstretched, and she was unable to fight Shadine’s strength.

  “I’ll kill you!” she snarled, trying to send her fires out at him, but they remained, only slight flames rolling up to her elbows.

  “What choose you?” Shadine was looking at the queen.

  “I don’t want to choose. But if I must, and if Fallon will not choose, then I say…”

  “Don’t do it, Mother. Don’t do this to me. Fight it, fight him.”

  She gave one last glance at her daughter. “…I can’t watch her die. She will be returned to the Fae, and I’ll bury her pleasant, kind, past life in this world.”

  “No, no!” the princess screamed in a frantic cry as she thrashed around, but unable to free her hands from the spell upon her. “This isn’t happening. I can’t go back. I just can’t!”

  “Now, I return you back to the land of enchantment,” the wizard said, his voice strong like an unwavering, ancient mountain. Fallon continued to fight and scream, wailing out in the halls of the kingdom. “Revernoct briten everness.”

  And with that, everything again went black for the princess.

  Chapter Two

  Fallon hurdled end over end through the sky, tearing into sharp treetops and landing in a stream of dark water as the last gasps of sunlight sparkled through the leaves. Fallon sat up; waist-deep in the water and standing up h
er dress was completely soaked, and her hands were covered in dirt. Wanting to lash out, wanting to destroy, wanting to kill Shadine—she instead crawled to the bank of the stream and wept.

  “He was wrong about me,” she whispered to herself. “He got in my mother’s head. It was his fault. It was his fault for everything. I miss her so much already.”

  Past her tears she saw the floating blue wings of Pip weaving through the trees to get to her, but then a memory flashed into her mind. She again saw the red glow of the queen’s chambers, and a woman who’d taken care of her, her whole life lay dead on the ground.

  It was his fault. He did that to her! I’ve got to get back. I’ve got to find a way…

  “You’ve been gone so long…” Pip said as she fluttered her wings in front of her. Fallon could tell she wanted to go on about something, but then saw the princess wiping tears away from her still-crying eyes. “What’s the matter? Do you miss your family again?”

  Fallon nodded with a whimper.

  “We didn’t know if we’d see you again,” she said—this caused a spark in Fallon. “But I’m beaming that you are here! There are so many…”

  “We—” Fallon growled. The fairy pulled back in hesitation. “Where is he?” Her words were slow and full of white-hot rage.

  “He’s different,” she squeaked. “He felt terrible for how things were left after you went away again.” She smiled a wide smile. “Things are going to be different this time. I know it! We’re going to have the most wondrous time!”

  “Where is he?” the princess said, standing up from the wet grass as the sunlight at last slipped away.

  “He’s at his favorite place.”

  “Then take me there.”

  They walked through the wondrous forest of every shade of green a mind can imagine, the glades of endless types of birds and scaled animals that took her breath away, and took a small boat across a glassy lake the likes of which the gods themselves would take glory in— to get there.

  It was a warm sunrise, and he stood with his strong shoulders and chest out. His long hair that reached his waist danced in the breeze, and his mighty horns now almost met three feet above his head. “Princess,” he said with a single, turquoise rose in his hand, held out for her. Behind him, far below, the waves crashed into the rocks.

  She looked at him with a distant disbelief. He doesn’t know I know…?

  “It’s your fault,” she yelled.

  His face grew pale. “What?”

  In a fierce rage that caused the mountain to quiver she leaped up from the ground, and in a violent explosion landed upon him. She had one of her knees lodged into his neck as his eyes went wide in terror.

  “Fallon,” he groaned. “I’m your friend. I’m your—”

  “One more lie, and I’ll lop your head off, throwing it down into the cold sea!” She lowered her head, so it was inches from his. “One more lie from you… just one more!”

  Pip flew nervously above Fallon. “No, leave him alone. He’s sorry for the way he acted. He was going to apologize–”

  “You creatures that were born here have no idea what my world is like. You have no idea what I left behind. You don’t know what you’ve taken from me…” she snapped.

  “I—” Antoline struggled to say. “I—I do. I actually do.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Fallon sneered.

  “I—I wasn’t born in the Fae. I’m like you.”

  Fallon shuddered. “What?”

  “We’re from the same world.”

  She looked up at Pip. “Is he telling the truth?” Pip nodded. The princess pulled back her face and knee, looking at the giant, horned man in a different light at that moment.

  “It was so long ago.” He rubbed his neck. “It’s like a dream that seems half-real. But I do still remember my own mother’s face. But my father’s…”

  “What are you saying?” Fallon asked, getting up off of him and stepping back. “You’re like me?”

  “We have similar pasts,” he said, standing back up and casting his shadow upon her. “I know what it’s like to want to go home.”

  “But…” the princess whispered with her head down, shaking her head, trying to free the cobwebs away. “But the wizard… Shadine said you were—are—a demon.”

  Antoline burst out in thunderous laughter. “I’m no demon! Why, what have I ever done that made me seem anything like one? Sure, I get lonely, but who doesn’t? Loneliness is a dark spell of its own. But I assure you princess, I’m as far from a demon as is the sun from the moon.”

  “But the wizard said he never met you,” Fallon said. “He said he didn’t even know who you are.”

  Antoline’s eyes glassed over.

  Fallon peered heavily at him.

  “What? Out with it!”

  “That is my one biggest regret that I carry,” he said softly. “It’s the only lie I’ve ever told to you. I swear now upon my own soul I’m telling the truth… that was the only…”

  “You lied about him?” she said in a resounding voice. “You lied to me so that I would trust you?” She felt her anger seeping out again in her fingers.

  “I didn’t want to. I didn’t!”

  “Then why? Why’d you do it? What reason do I have to trust you now? Why should I not fling you off this cliff so that I may at least be rid of your traitorous lies?”

  A pure, hot rage lined with treachery filled her veins. She felt it pounding and pumping through them. Her chest heaved and her bloodshot eyes pierced into him.

  “He didn’t want to—” the sweet fairy’s voice said, zipping past her ear.

  “Then why’d he do it? Just to manipulate me? Out of some sort of obsession or lust?”

  “No,” Pip said, with her blue wings flapping in the warm wind. “He did it because I asked him to do it.”

  Fallon’s gaze slowly flowed over to her.

  “You did what?”

  Pip? You asked him to lie to me? Why would you do such a thing? Why?

  “I asked him to tell you that the wizard told him what he did.”

  Fallon’s arms fell loosely at her side and she found herself suddenly looking up at a much bigger version of Pip. Her smooth, bare skin had grown slightly wrinkled and her beaming eyes turned a misty red color.

  The princess found herself laying on her back then in a cool, dreary forest with those misty eyes glaring into hers.

  “I don’t understand,” Fallon cried. “I just want to go back to my home. Why’d you say that about Shadine? Why didn’t you let me just be on my own?”

  “Because I wanted to have you,” Pip said. Her hair was a long, silver-gray and her wings were a sinewy, gross, black. The fairy wasn’t a fairy then, she was a full-sized aged woman with a raspy voice and long, scratchy nails.

  “Not you,” Fallon cried, laying on her side, and falling onto her back by her friend the fairy that now towered over her. But she felt that same inner rage making her eyeballs feel full and her nails were ready to dig into flesh.

  Antoline’s voice carried out from the glade. “She told me she’d found someone like me that could keep my company; could keep me from being alone. I didn’t know she was going to do to you, what she did to me. I’m sorry…”

  “What—what did you do to me?” she asked the now-old woman. “I trusted you! I trusted you!”

  “I’ve made you strong,” Pip said with a long hiss.

  “You’ve turned me into a monster,” said Fallon.

  “No!” Pip yelled with arms outstretched and long nails flashing. “You are beautiful. You’re a wondrous creature of the Fae. You’re a hunter. You’ve become more than I’d ever dreamed. We’re going to go on a path legends will speak of.”

  “No,” Fallon said, standing up with her own nails and horns brandished. “No. I’m leaving. If I’m cursed to spend my life here—it’s not going to be with you. I’m leaving now. Don’t follow.”

  Pip smiled a cunning smile that startled her.

  “Fallon
,” Antoline said. “That’s the thing… Pip, she’s not really Pip. She’s a Drange.”

  “A Drange?” Fallon’s stomached churned into knots as she said that.

  “She’s a collector,” Antoline said. “She’s collected us.”

  “What do you mean?” Fallon asked.

  “Child,” the Drange said. “You can no more walk away from me than you can return to your world. Think of us as your family now. And stop with this nonsense. There’s so much more to see!” The Drange’s eyes were a gleaming red like rubies that the princess found impossible to look away from. Once she caught a glimpse of those eyes that sucked her in like a riptide, she tried to fight it, but was drawn further in the harder she tried to look away. It was like a thick, muscled snake wrapping tighter and tighter around you, the harder you fought.

  “Yes…” Fallon said in a murky haze. “Yes… a family we are…”

  For what seemed like an instant, Fallon followed Pip the fairy through a grand adventure, finally seeing the illustrious and ancient Epiphony Tree. She saw the flocks of the Larks of Büewn, with their symphonic chirps that made her heart swell, and the life she’d led before became a faded memory; a gentle dream, and a tragic nightmare.

  Chapter Three

  In the vast, ancient and bewildering land of the Fae, Fallon lived a life of wonder. Day in and day out life was a swell of overwhelming joy and a deep, dark sadness. Yet, every once in a while, Pip would flutter her beautiful blue wings like soft silk into view, and Princess Fallon’s heart warmed. Everything was good when Pip was around. Over the years, Antoline had grown old and was seen less and less by the princess. Yet, every time she did see him, his aged frown grew alive at the sight of her. She believed he was in love with her, if anything can truly be in love in that mystical world.

  One day, Fallon was bathing bare in under a crisp, mossy waterfall where tiny pixies washed their wings next to colorful butterflies. The princess washed her blond hair and long horns under the refreshing water that pounded on her head, falling down her shoulders and breasts.