“Out loud,” he said, reaching out a hand to take Leona’s bridle, stopping them on the path, so they sat side-by-side astride their horses. “I may not have been your first choice for a companion on your return to this world, but I’m what you have. I care about your well-being.”
She blinked, her eyes widening. “You barely know me.”
He offered her a half smile. “I’ve made a study of you for almost sixty years. I may not have all your stories, or all your past, or know all that you think, but I do understand you. I care.”
Her eyelids closed, and she took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, he beheld the sharpness in them. “I’m tired,” she whispered, almost too soft for her voice to carry over the breeze from across the ocean. “I miss home. I miss my bed and the few friends I had. I miss my solitude, and my peace. I’m worried that our time to succeed is too short. When I was here before, everything was fantastic, and I was not so afraid. Now? Now I’m afraid all the time. Afraid that I’ll die. That you’ll die. That I’ll be stuck here. Or that I’ll never want to leave.” She said the last in a sigh, her eyes softening and her shoulders dropping. “I’m afraid that Sebastian is beyond me. That I never understood him to begin with.” She looked at him. “I’m afraid that one of you will kill the other. I don’t know which would hurt more.”
Rodan did not process that last bit. He filed it away for examination later. Ender danced beneath him, impatient to get going, and he touched the beast’s neck, pushing a little power and calm into the creature. His eyes caught on Maeve’s. “I’m sorry that I had to bring you here. That you were my only choice. I’m sorry that you miss home and that your friend is not who you thought he was.” He paused and then added, “I will do whatever I can, whatever is in my power to do, to make sure that you achieve what you desire from this. I will try my hardest to find a peaceful compromise with Sebastian.”
“He didn’t kill you, when he took the throne,” she pointed out.
Rodan shook his head. “No. He tried, but he did not succeed, and I believe you were the reason for that.”
She looked away.
“I will always be thankful for that, Maeve. I am alive today because of you.”
“How did you—” she asked, moisture glittering in her eyes, making them look even more like jewels. “I thought—I thought only Sebastian and I knew.”
He smiled. “It took some deduction, but I puzzled it out for myself. You only confirmed it.”
Her head whipped around, and she glared at him. “Stop playing games,” she snapped. “If you want to learn something, ask me.”
“My apologies,” he said, raising a hand in a placating gesture. “Growing up in the Fae court, one doesn’t just ‘come out with it,’ as you would say. We must get to the point from another direction entirely.”
Maeve’s legs pressed down on Leona and the horse started forward again. Rodan kept pace, his hand dropping from the bridle. “What was it like?” she asked. “Growing up in the Fae court? You don’t talk about it.”
He thought for a moment before answering. Difficult to put into words, he rarely spoke of his time in the court. Yet, she asked, and genuine interest sparked in her eyes. Different from the way she acted the last few weeks. He needed this from her. Needed her to be present. “Difficult. Dangerous. Fantastic. The world of the Fae is a heady place. Full of wild magics and even wilder people. The court itself is one of the deadliest places I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing. I’d face down ten chimeras at once before going back there.”
“You haven’t been back since you left?”
He shook his head. “Only once, when summoned by Titania. She has dominion over us all.”
“All? You’re a king in your own right. And who is Titania?”
“Titania is high queen of the Fae court.” He smiled again, glancing at her. “And I’m not a king anymore. Not technically.” He went on, “I am one of Titania’s subjects, though I no longer dwell at court and do not rely on it for my power or position. I am treated a little like an emissary or an ambassador when I visit.”
“Are you royalty within the court?”
Again, he shook his head. “My house comes from a long line of Fae aristocracy, but we are a minor house. Proud, but small.” He laughed. “My mother was furious when I decided to make a home here.”
“Why?”
“She hoped I would attempt to climb the ranks to the inner circle in the court, to further her own ambitions, primarily. My mother and I do not see eye to eye.” He thought for a moment. “In fact, I have not seen her for a few hundred years now, though we exchange letters.”
Maeve’s head shook out of the corner of his eye. “I can’t even imagine what it must be like, to have a family relationship lasting that long. Where I’m from we’re lucky if we get a few good decades with our parents before we’re separated by one event or another. My own parents—” She stopped, frowning. “Well. I wish I had been able to meet them, properly.”
He looked at her sideways. “How much of what you wrote about in those books was true, Maeve?”
She fell silent for a long time, her eyes on the looming city. They walked alone on the road.
“Most of it,” she admitted. “My fans have been quick to point out the similarities between Jessica’s life and my own.” She smiled. “Some of them even think it all really happened.”
“What a shocking concept.”
She laughed, and it warmed his heart. She had laughed little since her encounter with Sebastian’s dream shade. Loathe to break that happiness with darker tidings, he felt thankful when she changed the subject. “It must be nice,” she said. “To reach out to your mother whenever you wish.”
He pondered the thought, “Perhaps. You have not met my mother.”
“I’d like to,” she said, and then shook her head. “I mean—it would be interesting to meet another Fae. What about your father? Do you see him often?”
“My father was banished from the court when I was very young. He reached too high, too fast, and was lucky to escape with his life. I learned from his example.”
“So, you don’t see him?”
“Not since that long-ago day, no. From what I understand, he made it to another world, and will live the rest of his life alone there. If he wanted to contact me, he has opportunity, but he does not, so I shall not.”
Maeve frowned. “Why? I—well, if it were even possible for me to have that choice, I would jump at the chance to meet my father.”
Rodan drew silent, pursing his lips in a thin line. His own father existed in his mind as an example of what not to be. The memories faded, but he still remembered enough to see his father as a cold man. Calculated and shrewd, just not clever enough to get by another Fae’s machinations.
“Rodan?” she prompted.
He shook himself. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “My father is long gone. At this point, he may be dead.”
Maeve flinched, and he regretted his words in an instant. She did not share the details, but in her books, Jessica Lambert lost her own parents to a car accident. Having no other relatives, she moved from house to house, family to family, bouncing around in a system known as foster care. Rodan understood it to be something like the orphanages in the cities.
The stories Maeve wrote never dwelled on this fact, but Rodan struck upon how when her character, Jessica Lambert, returned from the Realms, no one missed her during her time away.
Winning her heart may be Rodan’s challenge, but he did not deny that something about Maeve Almeida kindled in him a warmth of affection he did not expect. Their companionship, however short-lived, nonetheless lent itself to her infectious personality. Drawn to her in ways he could not describe, Rodan wondered if it were her magic playing him like a harp.
They drew near to the gates, tall wooden affairs crowded with carved symbols and words. The words spelled out the founding charter of Nucifera, and its few tenants. A free city ruled by no singular species, the place r
an on the ideals of acceptance and free expression. A city of artists and sailors, merchants and dancers, Rodan considered it one of his favorite places.
Much like in Ishtem, silence greeted them. Sea birds circled and sang above their heads, their raucous cries echoing in the spaces between the buildings.
Heart sinking into his stomach, Rodan recalled how the streets had been vibrant and alive with music, the scent of smoked fish, and the cries and songs of sailors. The city seemed desolate now. Empty. He wondered if the threat here would be as massive as the chimera. Replaying that battle in his mind over and again during the long trip here, he now knew how close he came to his demise that day. One slip-up would have been the death of him.
They entered the city, and Rodan led the way to an inn he remembered well. The pathways and avenues were strewn with filth, refuse piled up on the exterior walls of the homes and businesses that they passed. The people, all on foot, stared with fixated interest at them and their horses as they moved through the narrow streets.
The inn, still there, looked deserted and somewhat the worse for wear. Rodan dismounted in the yard, waiting while Maeve did the same. The courtyard, blessedly free of the stench of rot and stale air that seemed to permeate the rest of the place, greeted them in silence.
As he took a look around, a stable hand rushed out to greet them, holding a hand out for a coin before taking the horses by the bridle and leading them into the empty stalls. “Mind that you keep an eye on those two,” Rodan called to the girl. “There’ll be more coin in it for you.”
The girl looked up from her duties, nodding and bobbing her skinny body in something which only vaguely resembled a curtsy.
He and Maeve exchanged a long look and then headed into the inn.
The inn, a one-story affair in a T-shape, contained a great room long enough to house more than a hundred souls, if necessary.
A haggard looking man stood behind a desk at the entryway and did not even glance up as they entered. “If you have no coin, turn around now,” he said, voice dripping with condescension. “We’ll not trade work for food.”
Rodan said nothing, only placing a silver coin the size of his thumb on the wooden desk and sliding it toward the man. The innkeeper looked up, gray eyes shrewd, and then widening at the sight of them both. In his late fifties, something about the man struck Rodan as familiar.
“Sire?” the innkeeper said in a strangled cry. “Is that you?”
Without waiting for an answer, the man fell to his knees in front of Rodan, prostrating himself on the swept floor. Maeve backed up a step, glancing between the two of them. The man began to sob in great, racking coughs.
A woman came out of the kitchens behind the massive stone fireplace on the other side of the great room, wiping her hands on an apron and frowning. “What’s this ruckus?” she called as she came forward.
The man cried, “The king has returned, Iona! Look!”
The woman started and stopped in her tracks, staring agape at Rodan. Then she dipped into a curtsy so low she almost fell over, her gray head bowed in subservience. “My lord,” she managed, her voice weak.
“Rise,” Rodan said. “We need no special treatment, we only wish for accommodations and a meal.”
Slow to look up, the couple’s eyes darted away each time they strayed to Rodan’s face. Maeve wrinkled her nose and stepped away from him. “For god’s sake, this is ridiculous,” she muttered, quiet enough that only Rodan heard.
He couldn’t help but agree. However, he had never found a tactful way to scold the citizenry into behaving in a more normalized manner around him. “What are your names?” he asked.
“Richard, sire,” the man croaked as he rose, shaking, to his feet. “This is my wife and the cook here, Iona.” His eyes shimmered with tears. “It is a pleasure to see you again, sire. You may not remember me, but my father helped build your ships. I saw you over the years when you came to inspect the work.”
Memory sparked, and he snapped his fingers. “Yes, I recall. Richard. Your father was Joseph, correct?”
The man looked as though he might die where he stood. “Yes, sire. He’s been dead some twenty years now, but he was always so proud to have been of service to you, sire. Anything you wish for during your stay we’ll be sure to accommodate, sire, as much as we’re able in our humble inn.”
“I’m sure it will be to my satisfaction,” Rodan assured him. “Shall we?”
The man, stumbling and stuttering the whole way, showed them to two rooms in the eastern wing, both large and well-appointed with a connecting door between them. When Maeve remarked on it, the man flushed red as a cherry fruit. “The rooms are for the newlyweds, sire. It is tradition in our city for the rooms to remain separate until after midnight on the wedding night, when the door is opened to let them...join.”
He glanced between the two of them, eyes wide and questioning, but Rodan interjected before Richard asked. “These will do just fine. Thank you.” He handed him a gold piece, and the man stumbled backward out of the room, bowing and thanking them as he went.
Maeve look incredulous and stared up at him as soon as the man left. “Do you like that sort of thing?”
“Of course not,” Rodan said. “But that’s one of the drawbacks of being a monarch. The people have a myriad of strong reactions, devotion being one of them.”
“He’s a sycophant,” she complained. She looked around the room, appointed in drapes of crimson and gold. “I call this room. The other was done up in your colors.”
The other room, decorated in the imperial colors of black and gold, showed that Richard’s devotion was more than mere words. Rodan nodded and turned to leave through the connecting door, but hesitated with his hand on the door knob. “Will you dine with me tonight?”
She looked at him, expression questioning. “Why?”
“I enjoy your company, Maeve.” Crave your company, more like, he thought. But one doesn’t need to be entirely forthright.
She flushed, her cheeks turning a pretty pink that offset her caramel coloring in quite the flattering light. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight, then. For dinner.”
He smiled. “I can’t wait.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maeve
THEY DINED TOGETHER AS THEY HAD every night since her return to the Five Realms. Fish, wild rice, grilled kelp and preserved pears covered the table, set before them with apologies for the “simple fare.” Maeve found it all delightful, quite unlike what they’d been eating from Rodan’s conjured meals.
They ate in Rodan’s rooms, on a circular table near the fire sharing a crisp hoppy beer that made Maeve’s mouth pucker. Soon enough they laughed over one little anecdote or another, and real warmth stole through her for the first time since the dream walking.
“What do you think we’ll have to do here?” she asked him as she bit into another pear. “The city seems a mess, but do you think we will find something larger going on, like the chimera?”
He shook his head. “There is no way to tell unless we start talking to others. The innkeeper and his wife may not be the best source of information. I have the sense that they wish to please, and unpleasant news is not desired.”
“There are the other guests at the inn,” Maeve suggested. “We could also go out tomorrow and see what we can tell from the word on the streets.”
He nodded. “That seems like a good plan. I am curious to see why the city is in such disarray.”
“Have you seen,” Maeve asked, “that Nucifera is not flying the imperial colors? Banners were along the walls, but they were the water lily of Nucifera, not the yellow rose.”
“I did, yes.” He tapped his gloved finger on the table, leaning back in his chair. “Sebastian must not have a tight grip on the kingdoms. First Ishtem. Now here.”
“Yet he’s terrorizing the countryside,” Maeve said, thinking back to the burned out villages they passed on the way. “Not just the purges that he committed immediately after gaining th
e throne, but now there are all those rumors that he’s kidnapping people? It’s no wonder they do not fly his colors.”
“I’ll have to ask the innkeeper if Nucifera is governing itself, or if it still pays homage to Realmsgate.”
Maeve picked at the food on her plate. “Do you think he’ll go after Ishtem, for crowning us?”
Rodan shook his head, black hair sliding down over his chest like a living thing. “It is against the rules of the challenge. The cities are sacrosanct, so long as the challenger remains on the field. All Sebastian can do now is wait for us to come to him.”
Maeve pictured it: Sebastian alone in the castle atop the hill in the city of Realmsgate, brooding over their progress as she and Rodan inched toward him and the waiting duel. No wonder he wanted to lash out at her.
Her abdomen tightened, and she looked away from Rodan’s piercing gaze, her food sitting like a lead weight in her gut. She wished she could speak to Sebastian, to assure him that she still cared. Then the memory of his face swam behind her eyes, of how it twisted into such a mask of hatred before he lunged at her with the dagger, effectively gutting her.
What would she do, if she faced him again? Would she try to talk to him, like in the dream walking, or would she be forced to defend herself? To attack?
The thought chilled her.
She stood and the chair scraped against the flagstone floor. “I should get to bed. We’ve got a lot to do in the morning.”
Rodan stood as well, his movements fluid and far more graceful than she would ever manage. “Maeve,” he said, his voice soft. Her throat tightened at the sound. “Are you well?”
She couldn’t look at him. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. All she wanted to do was cross the little distance between herself and the door. If she barricaded it behind her, she would allow herself to lose it. Not before. Her mind already echoed with the voices of those foster parents from over the years. Crybaby, the ghost of their memories mocked. Are you sad over your dead parents? Poor baby. Wah-wah-wah.
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