by D. D. Chance
I arched my body into his, heard his responding growl of satisfaction—
And then a strained cough broke across my senses. I froze as Aiden drew back, the rushing world of opening and shutting portals vanishing in a blink to reveal a very uncomfortable-looking Niall at the door, a wide-eyed Lena at his side.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, but we’ve gotten contact from all corners of the realm. The ancient fires are burning again.”
I didn’t know specifically what Niall was talking about, but Aiden apparently did. “Since when, for how long? And were they prepared?”
“As prepared as they could be,” Niall said dourly. “Some of the stone basins had become collection points for other detritus, and that went up in a fiery blast to clear the way for the flame. But surprisingly enough, no one was hurt. And their contact to us came through in the Hall of Glass.”
“Was someone there to receive it?” Aiden asked, and Niall chuckled.
“Alaric was manning the post. When he gave a cry, reinforcements came running. We have heard from every corner of the realm except the mountain Fae, but our viewing portals show they are in the midst of another storm. And the fires were burning there as well. We expect to make contact any moment now.”
“There’s so much for us to do.” Lena’s voice cut across Niall’s report, and she finally shouldered him aside to push into the room. Her arms were filled with heavy books, as well as what looked like a seamstress’s bolt of material, fabrics of every shade and thickness.
“I told you we don’t have time for a full royal wedding, ” Aiden began, but Lena waved him off.
“And I’m telling you that you do not want to waste this chance. You can’t do this by half measures, not when you’ve got the opportunity to make a lasting impression that will draw the clans together.” She shoved the cloth bundle toward Niall and strode forward, opening the book and turning it around toward Aiden.
Beautiful scrolled letters floated across the page in a language I didn’t recognize, and Aiden scowled down at it.
“So?” he prompted.
“So, those words didn’t exist on this page until about a half-hour ago. And they continue to form.”
She flipped forward several pages to an empty section and then riffled the pages back until she reached one that filled while we stared at it. She jabbed a finger at the beautiful script. “This language is so old that I have not been instructed in it. I suspect very few of us have been. And I further suspect it’s going to take us some time to decipher it. Time that will be granted if there’s enough of a distraction to satisfy the clans. There may be those in the farthest reaches who can read such a thing. If so, we need to bring them here, and for that we need a reason. Like oh, say, a royal wedding with all the pageantry and ritual it entails.”
“We are on the cusp of war,” Niall protested, and Lena turned on him.
“We’re on the cusp of revolution,” she corrected. “Do you really want to let that opportunity pass us by?”
“The clans are asking for you,” Niall continued, almost apologetically as Aiden turned to him. “There’s even a delegation from the far realms on our doorstep.”
Once again, this meant nothing to me, but Aiden stiffened, obviously curious. “The far realms? Their clan died out in my grandfather’s time.”
“Apparently, the Fae realm finds a way,” Niall said, lifting a hand in a baffled gesture. “There are more too, definitely Fae, but not a family I recognize. And it gets worse.”
Now Aiden sighed. “How much worse?”
“You want my opinion, there’s more stuck under the rocks of the mountain Fae than we think there is. It might be good for you to see exactly what.”
“You should go,” I said abruptly, realizing that both of my hands were now clasped tightly around one of Aiden’s. Sheepishly, I gave him a hard squeeze, then forced myself to release him. “This is uncharted territory for your family, uncharted for me as well. There will be books here, and, of course,” I added hurriedly as Lena drew herself up to speak, “Lena will be able to direct me in everything I should know, at least in the short term, in creating the illusion we’re here to prepare for a party, not a war.”
Lena closed her mouth but still looked stubborn, while my words seemed to have the appropriate effect on Aiden. He turned to me, his blue eyes flashing with heat.
“You will be my queen, and I your king, before this day is done,” he promised me. “What we do after that for my people will come in good time.”
He looked as if he wanted to say more, but another hum of concern from Niall had him turning. “We go,” he said. “Let’s see who got our message and what they wish to say.”
He sketched a portal and stepped through it, leaving me alone with his cousin.
“The far realms!” Lena’s eyes nearly goggled out of her head as she stared after Aiden. “How are they still alive? They were the first to fall to the Fomorians.”
I followed her gaze, not knowing what to say. All I knew was war was coming to the Fae—and there was no way I could stop it.
12
Aiden
We strode back through the quarters of the academy a short distance before ducking into an empty room to sketch a portal that would allow us to cross to the castle.
We both moved through, landing in the Hall of Glass, an opulently constructed solarium at the far edge of the building. Alaric was still there, his face flushed with excitement, a book gripped against his forearm as he scribbled down information coming through the different viewing portals.
He didn’t look up when we entered, and when Marta did, standing by his side, I waved her to stillness. I needed a moment with Niall before this went any further.
“Seriously? The Fae of the far realms? That’s the best you could do?”
“You don’t know, they could show up. But there was absolutely no recognition on Belle’s face when I dropped that little bomb. Wherever the Fomorian king is getting his information to invade us, it’s not from the other clans. Belle would have shown some measure of recognition.”
I nodded. “I don’t think she knows. I don’t think he shared much of anything other than this panicky idea she has that the two of us getting married will cause problems for me. I saw what she saw, and her concerns are well-founded, but our visions are different. She sees me sacrificing to save her. I see her sacrificing to save me.”
Niall blew out a long breath. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but neither one of those results is good. Obviously, we need our king, but the people need the figurehead, the idea that the magic the king wields is strong enough to take all comers. It’s not going to go well if Belle is seriously injured.”
“Agreed.” I appreciated the fact he didn’t voice the idea that Belle might die. My brain shied away from that possibility, unwilling to let it get any sort of hold on me. When you dealt in illusion and manifestation magic, disciplining one’s thoughts went beyond being a good idea.
“King Aiden!”
Niall and I both looked up as Alaric whirled away from his post and took note of us. “I hope it wasn’t a secret about your wedding, because everybody seems to know about it. They said the announcement came in the color of the fire. How cool is that?”
I lifted my brows. “They’re contacting us for wedding invitations?”
“Well, it’s certainly not because they’re afraid of impending war,” Marta said with a twist of her lips. “We’ve been able to get an assessment of their strengths and defenses, particularly some of the outlying clans who have not shown their faces in the heart of the realm for half a millennia. But the thing that’s actually moving them to action is this alliance. I don’t like it.”
“What do you mean you don’t like it?” Alaric protested. “This wedding will cause a major increase of energy into the realm, a return to codified magic not just being served at the table of the High King, but throughout the land. Or at least, that’s what everyone’s saying.”
I barely
managed to keep from staring at him. Gritting my teeth against how little I truly knew about my own realm. I shot a glance to Marta. “Are there any experts on the ancient laws who can be brought in to get to the bottom of exactly what this wedding entails? Where is Cyril?”
“Going through the rolls right now,” Marta answered. “He cannot sketch the portals, we need your hand for that, but he is narrowing down the list. We have told them all that a proper wedding wouldn’t come until the next full moon, citing it as an important event for Belle.” She offered a wan smile. “I hope she’s up on her hedge witch magic.”
I snorted. I didn’t know enough about what Belle wanted, the magic that made her smile, that fed her soul. I’d spent so much time focusing on how she could help me that…I didn’t know.
“It’s as good a plan as any,” I agreed. “Even if Belle doesn’t track her magic by the moon, she can bluff her way through that well enough. First, though, we have to get through the coming fight.”
Niall scowled. “I’ve got to say, I don’t like the idea of having to wait on the pleasure of a foreign king to come to battle. It seems like we should be able to direct the action more than wait until it’s convenient for our enemy to engage.”
I thought about that. “Why are we waiting? If we know it is the Fomorians on our borders, and we know they are coming for us, why would we give them additional time to prepare?”
“Because the rules of battle were drawn long ago,” a new voice sounded in our ears, and we turned to see Cyril striding across the room. “Right now, the Fomorians have done little more than harass us at the edges of our borders, and they’ve taken on the image of the wraiths to the extent that you and perhaps some of your closest warriors haven’t ever seen them in their Fomorian guise. The fact that they’ve damaged our people so much more than any ordinary wraith could notwithstanding, they have not trespassed onto our lands in their native forms, and specifically, the king of the Fomorians has not set foot in the Fae realm. Should you decide to go after the Fomorians in their own home, you will be trespassing, and the declaration of war will be on the head of the Fae.”
“So?” I looked from him to an equally unimpressed Niall. “So I take responsibility for laying waste to him. What’s the downside?”
That stymied Cyril for a moment, then he straightened and squared his shoulders. “The tradition of the Fae.”
“Tradition be damned,” I snapped. “Speak plainly. What’s the downside to me leading the charge against the Fomorians in their own home? There has to be one, something beyond the words of politicians and bards. Does my position weaken in some way other than in the history books? Do I lose strength in the Fomorians’ realm? Is magic not workable there?”
Even as I said this last, I knew it could not be true. Belle had fallen victim to impressive illusion magic at the very least, and she had also come away from the Fomorian king emotionally damaged. My hands drew into fists. “He has already attacked one of our own in his territory. The Hogan witch was under Fae protection.”
Cyril pressed his lips together. “Did he kidnap her? Did he pull her to him against her will? Or was she delivered to him?”
I narrowed my eyes. That was still murky territory, something I needed to get to the bottom of. “It doesn’t matter. Once she was there, he made her believe I was there. He assaulted her, and he screwed with her magic to the point that she no longer trusts her own visions. She sees too many. That was arguably one of her strongest talents, and he ripped it from her. That has to count for something.”
“The Hogan witch is contracted to the High King,” Cyril allowed, his brows drawn together in his thin, pinched face as he continued, clearly citing some ancient rules set down by the Fae, the Fomorians, or both. “There should be no interference by any emissary on Fomorian lands.”
“There you have it,” I said, not missing Niall’s sharp smile. “We’ve got free rein to go in and finish this once and for all. I will take a dozen warriors and have at them. It’ll be over by sunrise, and then we can have a proper wedding. All the bells and whistles to satisfy the most exacting Fae. I can open doors for them to all be here.”
Cyril eyed me with skepticism. “Since when are you concerned about carrying off a proper wedding?”
I grinned at him. “Since I plan to make Belle my queen during that proper wedding, and since the only thing standing in the way of that happy event is the Fomorian louse who’s about to choke on the torrent of misery I plan to rain down on him.”
“Seems like a reasonable explanation to me,” Niall put in, overriding Cyril’s next protest. “When do we get started?”
“Let the king think we’re playing his game, preparing for war on our own doorstep versus coming after him to kill him,” I said. “But we leave at first light.”
“Excellent.” Niall grinned. “Not that the sun ever shines in the land of the Fomorians, but in the words of the humans, they’re going to open up their eyes to a can of whoop-ass.”
13
Belle
Lena had finally departed, and I sat back in my office chair, slumping as I stared at the magnificent garment she’d left hanging in her wake like a frothy tide that refused to go back out to sea. It was the traditional dress of Fae queens, she had assured me, at least when those queens didn’t come from within the noble ranks. It carried its own heritage and whispers of otherworldly importance.
It was beautiful, and terrifying. The gown was constructed like a lot of wedding dresses at the fancier end of the scale, with a low-cut square bodice, large pouf sleeves that tapered down into narrow points, a tucked-in waistline that spoke of a corset with magical powers all its own, and a wide skirt littered with pearls and shimmery stones and various shades of white and cream. As ornamented as it was, the gown should have been as heavy as a bag of rocks, yet somehow managed to be light to the touch when she put it in my arms, assuring me I would be a beautiful bride.
I hadn’t put it on, though, much to Lena’s dismay. I’d let her hang it on the enormous rack she’d had wheeled in behind her and sent her off again for anything resembling shoes I might wear to go with it. Goddess knew I had no white satin pumps in my closet, and I rather doubted my tennis shoes would suffice, though certainly they would give my feet flight should I honor my most fervent wish and run.
Now I stared at the dress with a little different perspective. Lena’s elegant assurance gone for the moment, the dress still hung with mystery and power. But it wasn’t a power that felt quite right. I leaned forward, squinting at it with confusion when there was another rustle at the door.
“Jorgen?” I asked, and the tall, slender djinn flowed forward, something draped in his arms, a cloudburst of grays and blues and smokey greens. It was honestly the most beautiful material I’d ever seen, and my heart lifted instantly.
“What’s that? Is that a cloak? It’s beautiful.”
Before I could stop myself, I had stood and was halfway across the room as Jorgen shook the garment out, holding it by the shoulders.
“Not a cloak,” he said almost apologetically. “It is something your great-grandmother found in storage during her endless searches for the contract of the Hogan witches. This had been preserved in a box deep in the attic of the academy, a room none of us knew existed. Shouldn’t have existed, really, since your great-grandmother was the one who created this incarnation. For her not to know of a tidy little cubby spoke of a new magic, and that set her back on her heels to be sure.”
He stared down at the garment with a tragic smile on his face, and my heart tugged. How hard it must be to live on year after year as your friends die around you. What were the hidden prices of immortality that no one ever talked about?
Nevertheless, I stopped at his words, uncertain. “So it wasn’t her dress?”
“Oh no,” he said, chuckling. “In fact, she was most distressed by it, because it had been sent handsewn with the name of the seamstress embroidered into the neckline above the bodice. You see here?”
He turned the material inside out, and I saw neatly embroidered characters, far too many for one name. I step forward and murmured the words aloud: Annelise and Eric.
I jerked my gaze to Jorgen, and he nodded soberly. “It would seem the first Hogan witch had not been as duped into her duty as your great-grandmother had always believed. There’s no doubt the affections of the Hogan witches for the High Kings of the Fae changed over the years, but at least at first it was a love match. Annelise wore this dress to wed him, though only to become his consort, not his queen. It holds great power.”
I blinked in surprise as he offered it to me. “Your great-grandmother was more robust than you, Annelise as well, but I think it could fit you. When I brought the dress stand in for lady Lena, I recalled that this other one existed. I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before, but that dress she held…”
He glanced toward it, his lip curling. “That’s Fae magic through and through, for all that she says it was meant for foreign queens. Meant for them, maybe, but not made by them, you can be sure.”
He pressed the gown toward me again, and I took it, emotion bubbling up inside me at the touch of the gauzy material. “What is this made of?” I shook the garment a little, marveling at the fall of different strips of material. “It’s lighter than Lena’s dress, though it should be without all the stones.”
Jorgen snorted. “Who would wear a dress laden down with enough rocks to drown you?” he asked, and I laughed, the sound curiously free and light to my own ears. But I had to agree with him.
“Turn around,” I said impulsively. The old djinn rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he turned. I was out of my comfortable T-shirt and scuffed jeans in a flash. The dress itself didn’t seem to have any seams or buttons, so I did the best I could by pulling it over my head, poking my arms up through the bodice. With it swishing about my legs, I could barely hear Jorgen’s startled exclamation.
