by Kendal Davis
Then, as she always did, she surprised everybody.
The three of us princes, and her dispassionate, unhelpful Guide who stood away from her as if he was unneeded, all gasped at Arabella’s feat.
She had both hands, palm upward, out to her sides. From her right hand wound her dark power, matching the Darkness, ready to speak its language of depravity. From her left hand came her pure, fae magic, her gift from us as we opened our hearts to her.
The two streams of power intertwined above her and formed a shield that shone around us all. Varic, Lustre, and I were still a step behind her. We would not move. As her princes, we would never step back from her, even if it meant we would meet death as well.
I suddenly wondered if that was what was about to happen. She’d blocked the first thrust from the Darkness, but he was preparing to strike again. If she did not take the offensive soon, her barrier might lose power.
We were ready. If Arabella was going to be struck down in this contest we’d asked of her, then we would burn with her.
“I can do it, Frost,” she spoke without looking at me. Her face was still with concentration, but I had the sense that she was smiling at me. She knew I was considering all possible outcomes.
Arabella repeated herself. “I can do it. I see the ways to weave the elements together so that I can handle this much power. I have so much to work with: human and fae, light and dark. It is almost overwhelming. But I only need to last as long as it takes to end him. It doesn’t matter beyond that.”
Lustre rasped out. “It does, though.”
She turned to each of us, her hands still wildly weaving a new barrier to hold back King Regis. “I’m ready. This is what I was always supposed to do here.” She nodded over to the dignified Martinus, who returned the gesture.
When he dipped his head to her, it was in thanks.
And Arabella sang. She lifted her head and sang out all the melodies of her heart. Since she was a tiny infant, she had possessed the songs of the fae. The magic had been held within her for so long. Now she released all her power as she raised her Voice against the Darkness.
Her Voice tore through each of us, rendering our own powers moot, bringing us to our knees. It was strong and merciless, like the Darkness. But it was also pure and selfless, like the truest of fae hearts.
All this time, we had needed her so much.
She had summoned power beyond belief, winding it around King Regis, using all of her own shielding to press him down against the forest floor. Where even a moment ago, he had been an overconfident despot, now he was crumpled against the dirt and leaves. Her blast continued to press against him, smothering him.
“I can destroy him for you,” she said forlornly to us.
Martinus stepped forward. He looked at her as an equal. Somehow, I understood that he loved her in his own way. He had watched over her all her life. “Arabella, this is why Amaris gave you Dark magic. She implanted the spark of it within you as a baby, so that you could come to this very moment. Your songs, your terrifying Voice, were given to you for this.”
Next to him appeared Amaris, the silver-haired leader of the Golden Council. She did not spare a glance for any of us princes, although she had personally selected each of us to be Arabella’s mates.
Instead, she had eyes only for the deceptively diminutive mortal woman that we all loved beyond life.
Amaris raised her own hands. As she did so, she released the most powerful glamor I’d ever seen. Dimly, my memories awoke. I’d seen her hands before, hadn’t I? When we’d awoken Arabella in the enchanted cottage, when I’d first accepted the presence of the woman I thought was a burden.
Amaris had hands of Darkness, too.
It was not the pulsing mass of magic that manifested on Arabella’s right hand. Instead, it was so faint that she could hide it under a glamor.
“A thousand years,” she smiled serenely. “It has taken us that long to banish you from the land of the fae, Regis, my husband.”
Arabella was motionless as she listened to the woman she’d thought was on her side. Her betrayer. Her lips compressed as she digested the information that Amaris was more than a politician on our Council. She was the Queen.
“Amaris,” she hissed. “You tricked me. When I swore to Martinus that I would never take a life again, you knew this would happen.”
“Indeed I did,” said the timeless fae woman. “I gave you your songs when you were an infant. The plan was mine, and mine alone. For only I could have given you the touch of Darkness that I bear. I have borne this taint since I tried to save him, since I grasped for him in the blackness and had to let go. I was not strong enough. Pure fae magic alone could never have destroyed him. That’s why we needed you. We needed the contradictions that you balance within yourself. Human and fae. Dark magic and light magic.”
Arabella straightened. “Need. I can understand that.”
Amaris inclined her head gracefully to the girl who was, oddly, her life’s protegée. We’d thought Arabella’s gifts were a tool, but the woman herself was more admirable than all of us put together.
Amaris was calm, an impossibility in the moment of reverberating, monstrous magic. “Arabella, the time has come. Kill him.”
Chapter 21: Arabella
I had King Regis pinned before me. There was little of him left now, but I could almost sense the man he’d been once. The thought lurked in a corner of my mind. He had been a real fae once. He had cared for his people.
Now? All there was left of him was violence, hate, and destruction. His lightning survived in the sky above us, even though it was muted by his suppression now. If I let him up, if I did not strike now, he would regain his strength.
His black magic would blanket the fae, suffocating them.
“If I don’t do it now, he will rise up again.” I directed my sad words to the three princes as they stood behind me. We were so close that they could have reached out to touch me. None of them did, though. We all knew that my power would kill them if we made contact now. I took a long breath, then expelled it with finality. “I am sorry that we won’t have more time together, my princes.”
Then I leaned forward and allowed my magic to explode. My soaring Voice wove a melody of everything I had ever known in my mortal life. The air filled with my song of loneliness, dedication, perseverance, and most of all, passion. The best of me was the bond I’d built with these fae men.
And without hesitation, they reached for me.
Their hands found my hot skin, sliding around me, pulling me against their naked forms.
“You are the woman we all live for,” Lustre said into my hair.
“We won’t let you go,” Varic” murmured.
“Even if it means defying the Golden Council,” Frost muttered, sending an angry glance at Amaris and her sworn man Martinus.
Power surged within me, setting us all on fire. We burned so brightly that nobody could see anything at all. But I could feel it.
“It’s not my Voice,” I gasped. “I’m not the one doing that.”
Frost slid his hand against my cheek and brought me to him for a kiss. “It is ours. Lustre, Varic, and I can channel all the power you summon. We are yours.”
The three men used their fae Voice as I’d never seen it done before. They held the power that came from within me, and they sang. They wove the strands of light and dark and they struck King Regis down.
It was not my doing, but theirs.
They took his life to save mine.
When we all became aware of reality again, the skies above us were clear. I rubbed my eyes as I looked up, searching for any sign of the disturbances that had hung so heavily over us before. There was no lightning, no sparks.
And when I let myself look at the forest floor where the creature had lain, there was nothing but a charred mark. Even as I watched, the forest healed the blackened edges of leaves and dissolved the ash that marked the spot where King Regis had finally met his end.
I turned
to my three men, still behind me, but now holding me tightly against them. As I slipped tighter into the embrace that included all four of us, I began to sob. “You did it. After all that. All the talk about me being the sacrifice because I’d sworn never to kill. You killed him.”
“We didn’t know we could,” Varic admitted. “We tried so hard to think of solutions. That’s all the fae have done for a thousand years, ever since we knew we had to be free of the Darkness.”
Lustre kissed my neck softly. “All we could do was stand behind you. Support you. And when we allowed ourselves to touch you, to fall in love with you and trust you, our bond did the rest.”
Frost tilted his head as he thought through what had just happened. The birds were singing their evening songs again, as if they sought to punctuate that the land was alive again. The light of the forest had a clarity I’d never seen before. Frost spoke slowly, daring Amaris to answer. “We didn’t know. None of us three ever dreamed that we could do that. That if we surrendered to our bond with you and gave you everything in our hearts, that we could save you.” His expression was odd. “I wonder if anybody could have predicted that.”
Amaris moved with her eternal grace, her rings sparkling, and the tiny bells in her skirt tinkling. “That is a mystery, isn’t it?” She was more beautiful than she’d ever been. Her hands were free of black marks and the glamor that had concealed them. She smiled, her perfect beauty so fae-like, and nothing at all like mine.
“The Golden Council knew only that I would give you the songs, and that I would bring you here for your education. Nobody could know my true plan.”
I shook my head, understanding dawning on me. “This wasn’t an accident, was it? Your true plan all along was to manipulate the princes into falling in love with me. That’s what you selected them for.”
She looked serious. “No. I could not have made that happen, no matter how powerful I might be. I chose our best. But you are the one we have to thank for the bond you all have. Only you, with your precise essence, could have come here to the land of the fae, and gathered up the three princes to your soul.”
“The three princes of the prophecy,” I said, leaning back against them. There was no way that I was going to leave contact with them, not any time soon.
“Yes, I selected the men that I believed would be yours eternally. And so they shall be. You are one of us now.” Amaris allowed me to see a small glimmer of her regard for me in her loving gaze. She cared for all of us beyond our understanding. And she had devised a plan that would save us all. Then she dropped her mask of dignity over her eyes again. She was a master tactician, this fae Queen.
“Martinus and I have worked diligently to reach the end of these events, but we did not plan beyond them. He even wrote the prophecies with his own hand.” She gave the Guide a nod of appreciation.
Varic chuckled. “The scholars of the fae will need to adjust their understanding of things, then.”
“No,” I said softly. “We don’t need to tell anybody what happened here. Nobody needs to know who it was that brought the end of the Darkness.”
“Nobody would ever understand it,” Frost said. “There has never been a magical bond like ours.” His hand slid down to my hip, lingering as if it had a mission there.
Martinus cleared his throat. “There were a million things that had to happen to make this pass. We never knew whether it would work. Now that it has, you three must move forward with your life together. You have given enough.” He was as straight-faced as always, but I almost, for just a moment, thought I saw him wink.
Then he and Amaris vanished.
The forest was quiet around us, but it was not desolate as it had been when the black vines slid through the leaves, radiating out from the power that I now knew had been Regis’s shade all along. Now the woods were clear and natural, the animals at peace, and the stars twinkling in the sky.
I met Frost’s eyes. “Will they let us back in?”
The corners of his gorgeous lips turned up. “I agree. I have to say that I don’t think I’ve given enough. If you know what I mean.”
Lustre ran his hands along my neck. “I have more to give to our Arabella as well.”
Varic chuckled as he touched his lips to my nipples. “As do I.” In a feint of humor, he added, “Fae Academy does not allow men and women to be together in the bedrooms, though.”
“I’d say we’ve smashed that rule pretty hard already,” I parried.
“Very hard,” said Frost, his hand moving lower and becoming more insistent.
So I raised my hands, still marked with my eternal magic, now that I was fae. I wrapped us all in my song of devotion, and I brought us back to my bedroom.
We had all the time in the world.
Chapter 22: Arabella
It seemed like days before we managed to leave my room. It was days.
But I used my new craft in the splintering of time to make it possible for us to rejoin the fae before they tried to break down my door.
Frost kept telling me that the Sisters would never dare. “You have to understand that they revere us,” he said. “The Sisters cannot defy the word of one of the Princes of the Realm.”
I shook my head at him, laughing. “I’d say the more important concern is whether they are willing to take on my ire. I’m the new hottest thing around here, remember?”
Lustre moved his lips on my throat. “Oh, we do remember.”
But at some point, we dressed and turned up for dinner.
The other students of Fae Academy stared in awe at the four of us. As we entered the dining room, I gathered Lara’s hand into mine, and brought her to the prince’s table with us.
“Lara, we should dine together every night,” I smiled at her as I took my seat. “I have a few changes in mind for this school, and I want to hear your opinion about them.”
She grinned gratefully. “I would love that. I take it that you’re the one in charge now? We saw the battle, even though the Sisters made us all come inside.”
“The Sisters,” I grimaced, trying not to turn and look at them where they sat on their dais. “They have overstepped their authority.”
“How so?” Auris appeared at my side with magical precision. “We allowed you to come here. We buckled under Amaris’s insistence that you attend Fae Academy.”
Varic murmured helpfully, “I believe that was because she wanted Arabella to get to know us better. Speaking of procurement.” A light of fun flickered in his eyes.
I snickered. “That’s enough. Nobody had to work very hard to convince any of us.”
“No, that’s right,” Varic said, touching my fingertips with his. The jolt of desire made me want to teleport back upstairs with him.
Auris narrowed her eyes. “The Sisters are yours to command, obviously. We exist only because Amaris created us. When she left her castle and the position of Queen, she installed us here. She believed that if we educated the fae and kept the magic pure, our people could still thrive.”
I felt my brows lift. These women were constructs of Amaris, made from her own self. No wonder they hated me. They had no other purpose than manipulating me.
“Well, that’s not your fault,” I prevaricated. “Why don’t you continue the Academy? It has gone on for a thousand years, right? You must be doing something right.”
Auris gave a slight bow, showing a new respect for me. “I believe we did.” She stepped away to return to the others teachers.
When I turned back to the others, I felt I should ask. “Queen Amaris will be returning to the castle, right? Now that things are safer.”
Frost gave a sharp nod. “You are right to say it that way. Things look brighter now, but we will never be completely safe. We can no longer pretend that the fae have no darkness in them.”
“Nonsense. We just need to find some balance, that’s all.” I felt my hand stray to his. “But the school will relocate?”
Varic answered, always in possession of more information than an
ybody else. “Yes. Amaris has already given the word for that.” He paused, his feelings for me shining from his eyes. “We will all stay together, right? We could finish our time at school.”
“There is much to learn,” Lustre agreed.
“I’d rather be with Arabella than anywhere else,” Frost said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
“You were willing to give up everything for me,” I murmured. “But I would never let you do that.”
Frost raised his glass, his wheat-colored wine sparkling in the light of the crystal chandeliers. “We drink to you, Arabella. You turned out to be more than we expected in every way. More than was prophesied. Your magic, your force of will, your spirit, were what saved the fae. You are the beautiful melody that guides us, the tune through which all our destinies are focused.”
And I was.
As I looked around at my lovers, my friend, and down at my hands that still shone with unspeakable, magnificent power, I knew it was so.
I was the song of Fae Academy.
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