by D. D. Chance
I jolted, remembering the horror movie-perfect little girl I’d seen when I’d first arrived at the academy who’d used that same phrase—and the image of my mother that followed her, who’d been far less scary—and then Jorgen himself. “You did warn me, sort of. Well, someone tried to. But when you came in, Jorgen, you didn’t say anything about me starting a freaking war. You used that phrase, ‘the witch who should never be,’ but only as if you were referring to the next witch in line.”
“I remember.” He nodded, his eyes narrowing. “There was something there when I first walked into the room, some memory, some concern—but then it slipped away. It would seem that when your great-grandmother left, the Fae’s constraint dropped over us again. Then you reopened the academy, and we knew only our place and yours here, no more—until a mere hour ago, when King Aiden made known his desire to offer you royal marriage, and the veil once more was pierced. And now…here we are.”
I snorted. “I’d hardly characterize what Aiden just did as offering anything. He pretty much told me that’s what’s going to happen, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect it’s a trap. I have to make him see.”
“Then tell him,” Gwendolyn urged. “He will either listen to you or he won’t, but the information will help him be prepared if he chooses the more foolish path.”
I lifted a hand to rub away the headache pounding over my eyes. “I’m not thinking he’d trust anything I’d tell him right now. It’ll just piss him off.”
Jorgen frowned, glancing toward the door. “Someone is coming, bearing a troubled mind. I can’t pierce it, which makes her a Fae of the high family. We had best not be here when she arrives.”
I nodded, not needing to issue the command for them to leave before they shimmered out of existence, and not a second too soon. Lena appeared in my doorway, looking flushed, her energy chaotic.
I scowled. I didn’t have time for Lena’s politics or her Byzantine lore about the glorious reign of the Fae, but I was unprepared for her to throw her arms wide, her face wreathed in smiles as she rushed toward me. I could barely bank my own desire for self-preservation and school my reactions to nothing as I accepted her frantic hug. A hug that grew more natural, almost realistic, as she swayed.
“A royal marriage, a true wedding! Do you know how long it’s been?”
She leaned back from me, her face newly radiant, as if she’d finished putting it on while we were hugging.
I looked at her, bemused. “I assume the last wedding was yours?”
She trilled a laugh. “Oh my, no. I married when I was very young and my husband was very old. While that was a blessed union, and not without its beauty, it was no royal wedding. Aiden’s father, when he wed, treated it more as an act of war, you could almost say. There was no one invited other than the closest members of the family who needed to serve as witnesses. There was no dancing, no singing. His father wasn’t given to that. We haven’t had a true wedding in over a hundred years. Aiden’s grandfather, King Orin, married a noble Fae shortly after he came to terms with the Hogan witch’s departure. He had to do that up, well, royally, in order to placate the families who knew about the Hogan witch leaving and to maintain the illusion for the other families, who had no idea of her importance to us, and of course to awe and amaze the lesser Fae.”
She smiled with satisfaction. “The Laram still sing about that marriage in the monster realm. Many of them, their most highly placed, anyhow, came as part of the celebration. They have been welcome ever since. But they have no taste for warfare, and so they have been content to leave the struggles of the Fae realm to others.”
I thought of the Laram I’d seen outside Wellington Academy, fighting alongside both humans and monsters as the occasion required. “I’ve seen the Laram knock a few heads when the situation called for it.”
She waved this off. “Oh, of course,” she said, stepping back from me another few feet, clasping her hands over her stomach as she regarded me with a critical eye. Not critical in the sense of censoring, but literally as if she was measuring the width of my shoulders, the length of my inseam. “But sadly, they will not be called upon during the first stage of this illustrious celebration. That party will have to wait until after Aiden is satisfied the borders are secure. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a quiet celebration for you. No newlywed wants to look back on her wedding with regrets, wouldn’t you agree?”
I couldn’t help but detect the barb in Lena’s words, but I couldn’t understand exactly where they originated from. Once more, a kaleidoscope of potential outcomes fractured and twirled in front of me, making it impossible to choose the right one. I was married in white and gold, I was wed in blood and warfare, Lena stood beside Aiden, Aiden stood alone. Aiden and Niall stood huddled together over a body I couldn’t identify.
What did the future hold for me—and for the Fae? What did I want it to hold?
It was only with a great deal of focus that I was able to get to the matter at hand. “So you’ve been sent to prepare me to marry Aiden. I don’t suppose there’s anything I could say to change his mind?”
For a moment, Lena’s expression shifted. I had the sense of her intense calculation before her face smoothed over again, and she shook her head. “Why would you not want to wed the most powerful being in all the realms?” she asked, her voice faintly accusing. “The king needs you. What’s more, he seems to genuinely love you.”
My hands flew up, a desperate need to ward off her words, but it was too late. At the mention of love, a searing pain ripped through my midsection, as quick as a knife and just as devastating. I stepped back, shuddering, and Lena stepped forward, her eyes wide but once again assessing.
“What is wrong with you?” she accused, and a new fear darted through me. It was one thing for me to show my weakness to Aiden, to plead for him on bended knee not to do this thing. But a primal sense of self-preservation leapt to the fore as I felt Lena’s newly cold gaze upon me.
I managed a brilliant smile. “I can’t imagine it,” I said, infusing my voice with as much dreaminess as I could muster. “Just hearing you say it was like a blow to the senses. Aiden loves me? You really think so?”
Instantly, Lena’s face returned to its pleasant but shrewd expression. “Oh my, yes. And you must look the part of his doting queen, to reinforce his strength at this time. Cyril will know where the clothing of past queens has been kept. He’ll tell me, and then we can begin.”
“The clothing?” I asked, as if my most important concern was looking good for this event. “I assume they’re in the chambers of the past queens?”
“Well, yes, but understand those chambers were occupied by a consort most recently, not a queen. Aiden’s father never gave his wife the grace of that order, and he stood by happily enough as she withered away once she’d given him his strapping son. He wanted no other heirs by birth. It allowed him to be as cruel to Aiden as he chose. He was a brutal Fae.”
“Well, where do we begin, then?” I asked breathlessly, dying to get Lena out of here, to find some way of stopping all this.
Lena clasped her hands to her heart, switching once more into earnest wedding-planning mode. “Leave it all to me, would you? Would you mind terribly? I can assemble everything, and you could make final choices. It will take me several hours, but—”
“Of course,” I blurted, finding it hard to imagine anything more perfect. My relief was genuine. “Totally. Go do your thing. I’ll see if there are any books in this academy that can help guide my way too. I don’t suppose there are any in the castle on rules and etiquette?”
Lena issued a light, trilling laugh. “I can do you one better in that regard,” she assured me. “Aiden’s father destroyed all such frippery, but I remember.” She tapped her head and gave me a winning smile. “I will tell you everything you need to know, and you’ll be the most beautiful royal bride who ever pledged her life to the Fae.”
“That sounds perfect,” I enthused, and made no protest as she
turned and hurried away. I watched her with a bemused grimace.
It sounded horrifying.
10
Aiden
I’d expected the reports from the borders and from our research into the Riven District to occupy me only for a short while, but it was hours later before I was finally free of the throne room. I’d sat in the damn throne itself, directing everyone else to take their chairs as well, listening intently as my officers made their reports.
The Fomorians agitated beyond the veil, close enough to see. They threw my people into shuddering waves of panic, but they weren’t attacking anymore. In the Riven District, crime had ticked up, hysteria cycling through the shadows. But once again, there was no overt sign of violence my spies could share. It was as if the enemy was holding his breath, waiting.
Rolling that over in my mind did little to improve my mood as I finally set out to find Belle. Her panic had been real, her worry frank. But how could my royal marriage to her do anything but strengthen me, my family, the Fae? What little remained of the ancient books had always been clear on that point—that when a witch joined with a king, it would strengthen him in direct proportion to the strength of their alliance. It made sense, but was that part of the problem? Was the very obviousness of the value of such a connection an indicator that the king of the Fomorians would use a marriage between me and Belle for his own benefit?
Or was that part of the trap? Was he trying to get me to doubt myself, my actions, my own heart? The king couldn’t do anything in this realm unless I invited him, Cyril had assured me. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do that. Bad enough to fight his warriors at our borders, flicking them off like lint.
Not exactly lint, I supposed. My people had died at the hands of those warriors.
I had fought them my whole life as wraiths, not realizing their true nature. I narrowed my eyes as I reviewed the timing. The discovery that the wraiths had truly been Fomorians had been made right after Belle revealed herself to me. Was that some sort of coincidence? It wasn’t possible that the two entities had made the same critical misstep at the same time. It had to be linked.
I scowled as I remembered Belle’s frantic face, her panicked assertion that binding myself to her as my queen would somehow cause more harm than good. I’d rejected her fears out of hand, but it was no longer with the brash assumption that I would be stronger than anything the Fomorians or any other of my enemies could throw at me. No, this was a careful, more measured response. Belle would be safe, she would be mine, and my people would defeat the Fomorians’ incursion. These three truths were inviolate. It was simply up to me to make them happen.
I found Belle in her office, surrounded by stacks of hoary-looking tomes.
“What are these?” I asked, and she jolted in her chair, spinning around toward me.
“Aiden.” She stood, and whether it was a trick of the light or some wild magic that attended her, I could see pulsing energy radiating from her body, crackling and dancing in a furious whirl. I crossed the room in three quick steps and caught her hands, which were coming up as if to ward me off. The moment our palms touched, power flooded through me.
My eyes shot wide as I saw what she saw. A pinpoint, a moment, an event, Belle and me standing together, a sword between us wrapped in silk. The ceremonial sword of the Fae, with its golden stones refracting the sunlight. Her face was determined, her eyes resolute as her mouth tilted in the smile that seemed pulled from her despite her fear—while I looked like a lovestruck fool.
From that moment forward, nothing was certain. In one timeline, the throne room burst into a battle scene, showing me inexplicably fighting my own people. In another, Fomorians shot out of the very walls, laying waste to the few assembled guests. In a third, Belle and I left through a portal sketched into the wall, finding ourselves in a realm riddled with darkness and screaming. In yet another one, we were no longer standing in the middle of the throne room, but in the midst of the burning fire of her tavern, as if that moment was being replayed again or we had somehow been cast back.
More visions assaulted me. Belle taking a sword to her solar plexus, Belle raging with fire at black and oily creatures, her cry one of terror and pain. Belle, leaping into the path of a blade intended for me. I shoved that last idea away in growing anger, but the images scattered again, then reformed. One showed me a desolate throne room blackened to char. And then in another, I turned to see the throne for my new bride. The traditional throne of the Fae queen had been replaced by a large, rough-cut chair of obsidian. And the sword Belle and I had used to strike our bond lay tossed onto my own throne, the silk sash soaked with blood.
I jerked my hands away, and the visions cleared.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded, gasping, as Belle reeled back.
“I tried to tell you,” she choked out. “There are too many futures, but none of them are good, and all of them start with our wedding.”
I mustered up a determined smile. “But we can change the future, Belle. A wise witch once told me that.”
She shook her head at me despairingly. “There are so many futures, but in every one, you died.”
That caught me up short. I died? Careful, so as not to betray my surprise, I reached for her again, gathering up her fingers.
“We can change the future,” I murmured, more certain this time. I was no witch, but I was a warrior, and I understood the power of expectation. Belle had seen the images that caused her the most horror, but then again, so had I. She saw me dying, while I’d seen her death. Whatever spell the Fomorian king had laid upon her, it had spread to me as I grasped her hand. It was meant primarily to strike fear into our hearts, I was certain. It had done that to admirable effect, but this was more than mere illusion. I had no doubt that the true course of my future with Belle might well have shot before our eyes, but we could not see it for all the fire and blood. We would have to make our way with our own eyes and our own hearts to guide us.
“Belle,” I murmured, and she lifted haunted eyes to me. “Please. I will protect you with my last dying breath and protect my people, too. But I cannot live another day without you as my queen. Please marry me.”
“Your people.” She glanced away with a shiver, her body practically vibrating with nerves. “I know you’ll do anything for them.”
I smiled, having expected the redirect. “I would, but don’t think I’m not selfish in this. There are many ways I could choose to save my people, but only one that will save me too.”
11
Belle
I glanced back and locked eyes with Aiden, his gaze direct, piercing, intent. There was only one answer I could give to this magnificent Fae, and only one I wanted to give.
“Yes, I will become your queen,” I said finally. “As long as you let me protect you too.”
“Oh, Belle,” he sighed, his voice sounding like it’d been pulled from his toes, emotion practically shimmering from his skin. Relief, resolve. Love, I had to admit. This Fae loved me.
He stood rooted in place as he stared at me, so I lifted my hands to his face, framing it with my palms. When I tugged gently, he sank down toward me with visible control, as if afraid he was going to collapse forward and crush me. His lips touched mine, softly at first, then more firmly, each renewed pressure sending whirls of sensation through my body, zipping out in all directions. Not the thrill of emotion and physical pleasure, but the crackling heat of power. The Fae king had proposed royal marriage, the human witch had accepted it. The cycle had been completed.
Aiden’s grunt was my indication I’d allowed my eyelids to droop, my body to sway, a wash of mild dizziness making me cling to him while his arms had come around me to anchor me tight against his body. But he was swaying too, and I fluttered my eyes open again, pulling back as he released heavy sigh.
“Doorways, portals,” he murmured, and I blinked, finally registering that my cozy cubby office had become a whirlwind of movement. As it had in the chamber of the dwarf lord and several tim
es since, I was surrounded by opening and shutting portals, each of them offering a tantalizing glimpse of what lay beyond. Stormy nights, sundrenched glades, busy city streets that had to be back in the human realm, winding mountain paths with horseback riders stretching out ahead. And, inevitably, fighting. The rush and tumble of indistinct bodies engaged in every kind of fight imaginable, from mortal combat to a barroom brawl. Aiden stared intently at the chaos, while I winced.
“Welcome to my world of a million doorways, each suckier than the last,” I drawled, and he glanced back at me with startled concern and dawning awareness.
His hands dropped to my waist, holding me fast. “How is it I could know so little about you when Hogan witches have been such a powerful part of my family for centuries?” he murmured. “I look at you, and all I see is the woman who caught my soul before I met her. But you are so much more than that, aren’t you?”
I didn’t try to answer. For once, all my usual protestations fell away, and surrounded by all the shifting portals, I let myself see me as he did—strong, beautiful, fierce, skilled. I’d need to hold on to that image when I faced his family, his people, and his enemies alike.
But right now, none of that mattered.
I lifted myself onto my toes and pressed my face closer to him. “Aiden,” I murmured against his lips, feeling the heavy drag of his breath all the way to my toes. “I don’t suppose we have time…”
“We can make time,” he said, and his hands slid beneath the hem of my shirt, the touch of his warm skin against my back making my heart jolt. Heat blossomed inside me, spreading out from my core in waves of need, hope, and simple, base desire. Not for the mighty king of the Fae, but for the being who had been made expressly for me to join with, to fill me up and make me believe it was all going to be okay.
