Ruby Morgan Box Set: Books 6-10

by LJ Rivers

  Although I sympathised with Jen’s views, I couldn’t help but worry about her. She was too close to the front line for my taste, which I had told her frequently. As usual, she laughed it off and said something about how a wolf never ran away from danger.

  “I think I must get going,” I said. “Had hoped to get some exercise before what now has become supper. See you tomorrow, Tabitha.” I gave her a hug and leaned down to peek at Willow. She was fast asleep, so I kissed her gently on her cheek. The four-month-old Magical baby turned to her side and fell deeper into dreamland. Maybe she was back in the field, teasing her big Fae-sister. I liked to think so.

  “Take care, luv,” Tabitha said and moved her short feet a little faster.

  My own feet started running, carrying me out on one of the many paths crisscrossing the fields and forests of North Cheshire. Behind me, the soft, caring voice of a Goblin who had been graced with a second chance of motherhood faded as she sang an ancient Avalonian lullaby to the baby Phoenix.

  … and the Lady shalt watch o’er all of your dreams …

  Chapter Two

  Working at the sanctuary was a rewarding experience, but as the hours consisted of a lot more than just pushing my healing powers into injured Mags now and then, I had no intention of making this a tough running pass. My lower back was burning from all the heavy lifting, but even though I could have let Mum take care of it, most days I chose to walk or run it off. Besides, she had never healed anything for me that wasn’t serious, not even broken bones, so why start now? Half an hour of stretching on the living room floor did the trick. The discomfort—I chose not to call it pain, as I witnessed endless amounts of actual pain at the sanctuary—also reminded me how lucky I was. Not only compared to the Mags that came to Mum’s for help, but to be able to walk the face of the earth, let alone run on it. The way my life had turned out since I left Chester for London and uni, the latter was by no means a given.

  I passed the fork in the path where I would usually take a right over Mr Durham’s fields to the east, a route Dad and I had run countless times. Today, I didn’t have it in me to even consider it. Five hundred yards up the path, I stopped at King’s Crossing bridge, which provided a dry crossing over the Nordee Brook. The old stone construction had been there for centuries and was my dad’s favourite spot for catching trout.

  I leaned over the stone rail and cupped my hands next to my eyes to keep the reflections from the sunlight at a minimum. In the shade underneath, a fat rainbow trout swam quietly in the stream, its tail fin ambling from side to side. With a flick of my wrist, I could catch it in a force field, but I wouldn’t dream of it. According to Dad, the only proper way to catch a trout was by placing a tempting fly a few feet further up the stream, and present it as a succulent meal to the fish. “Make it a fair fight,” he used to say. “If you can’t convince him to bite, you bid him a good day and return another time. Using magic isn’t fair on the fish.”

  A dragonfly came darting along the bank of the Nordee. Seeing as this was the last day of May, it was most likely an emperor dragonfly, and as it moved closer, its neon green back confirmed my suspicion. Its wings moved so fast they were a blur on its back. Did the Fae really have such wings on Avalon? I had asked Mum about it when I was little, and she had told me that although it could be that some Fae had wings, it was more likely that the legends had changed over the centuries. In Willow’s vision—or story—I had dragonfly wings. In fact, if I stretched the parallels far enough, I was the daughter of an emperor.

  My musings about the similarities were quickly interrupted when the trout burst out of the water. It twisted in the air, two feet above the surface, and caught the dragonfly before splashing into the water again. It must have been at least four pounds, making it a strong contender for catch of the year, had Dad been here with his fly rod. Not a single day went by without me thinking about him, but I never missed him so much as when I went to one of our special places. There were so many of them in the woods and fields around our house. I let the Nordee have a few of my salty tears.

  Ten minutes later, I arrived at the glade where Brendan and I had practised fencing. I stopped and picked a small branch from the ground, assuming the attacking position he had taught me. I sent a force field out in front of me, with a tiny flame inside. With my makeshift foil, I practised some attacking moves on the floating sphere. This was apparently the time for missing people, and my heart had plenty of room for yearning for my boyfriend. I picked up my phone and snapped a photo of the tip of the branch as it poked the force field. I put ‘Miss u like crazy’ across it and sent it to Brendan through my Snapchat.

  He wouldn’t see it until later that night, as he spent all day working hard to make the cut. He assured me that even the fencing community thought it was a lame pun, but it had become the term of choice. It meant he would be picked for the Olympic fencing team, a dream he had had since he picked up his first foil at eight. The prospect of joining him for two weeks in Tokyo in August made it easier to accept being apart. But only just.

  I almost dropped my phone when it dinged.

  Allez! Wish I was there, or you here. Love and miss you even crazier.

  In the accompanying photo, Brendan grinned with his fencing mask tilted up. His smile was partially hidden behind the text, but it spread all over his face, drawing tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. The same eyes that had made my knees buckle when they met mine on my first day at White Willow campus. He loved to tease me about it, saying my knees buckled because I crashed into him. That was also true, but it didn’t diminish the fact that I loved his intense topaz eyes. It didn’t hurt that he had snapped a photo of himself mid-training, as he was mind-numbingly hot with all that sweat running down his slightly tanned skin. Tomorrow afternoon, he and the rest of his team would go to a training camp in southern France, and I couldn’t wait to see what the climate would do to his complexion. I also couldn’t wait to crash into him again tomorrow night. I had already packed my bag. Brendan had training all day, but I was set to take the three o’clock train to London for a final date before he would fly to France. He had assured me they would have little time to enjoy the sun and beaches of the Mediterranean, which I think he said just to avoid rubbing it in my face.

  Well, on this particular day, at least, Chester gave Montpellier a run for its money. I played with a few more force fields and fireballs for a while, at one point controlling twenty of each even with my eyes closed. My powers were growing stronger every day. Mum had bound them to a ruby ring Dad had bought me when I was little. She did it to protect me, as she feared they might be too much for a little girl to handle. When my birth father, Prince Auberon, destroyed the ring in the Realm of Shadows, the powers burst free and joined my already quite powerful Fae magic inside my core.

  As my blood was half Fae and half Sorceress, I was supposed to be exactly that—half of each. But my blood also showed that I was Pure Fae and Pure Sorceress. An impossible combination, but one Auberon had illustrated as “fifty per cent plus fifty per cent becomes more than a hundred in your case.” An impossible combination.

  An abomination.

  The words of the Knights of Avalon echoed in my head every day. I tried to shake the images of the fight in the Realm of Shadows, but they wouldn’t leave me. Maybe it was for the best. I might need to be reminded of how the darkness had taken control of me. How I had wanted to hurt them, justified as revenge because they wanted to hurt my father.

  I opened my eyes and retracted all the force fields and fireballs. They obeyed like trained sheep dogs, and when they vanished into my palms one by one, it was like welcoming a loved relative home. I was the master of my magic.

  The smell of chili permeated the air in our small house. It might not be the best fit for a semi-tropical summer night, but both Mum and I loved the spicy stew, and it was exactly the right level of cooking I could muster tonight. Open a bag, add water, stir and let simmer. Perfect.

  I lowered the heat and ran up
stairs. William’s book lay hidden under my pillow, the old bookmark protruding from where I had left it last night. On the cover, the embossed letters gave me the same warning as ever: Thou Shalt Not Reveal. William had trusted me to keep his words away from prying eyes. He had written the book with his own tears, the tears of a Phoenix, making all the stories and tales invisible to all.

  Except to me.

  I went downstairs, grabbed my water bottle and strolled outside. The air was still hot from the afternoon sun, which wouldn’t set for another couple of hours. I sat on one of the rocks by the small pond at the bottom of our garden and opened the book.

  Last night, I had read about an old ritual—an offering to the Lady of the Lake—but it wasn’t clear from William’s scribbles where it had taken place. He hadn’t been William at the time, of course, but a seven-year-old boy named Flynn. The ritual consisted of gathering barley, wheat, and apples, and placing it all in a big heap atop a hill.

  The High Master burneth the offering

  and all the men and women singeth the song for Nimue

  Underneath, the young Phoenix had drawn his best rendition of the scene. Stick figures were dancing around the burning grains and fruit, while a group of much smaller figures watched from a distance. It appeared they allowed the children to watch, but not partake.

  A line of symbols completed the page, some of which I recognised from the cave Auberon and I had ended up in after the Realm of Shadows imploded. The more I read, the more I felt connected to the Avalonians. It stung my heart that I couldn’t go there, to see with my own eyes the beauty William had told me about. And, to be fair, my father, Prince Auberon, had also spoken about the beauty of the magical realm. I wondered if there might be a map of the realm in the book. According to Auberon, Avalon was an island—with many smaller islands surrounding it—in the southern part of Gwyn Fanon. To the north, the mountains of Mynydd Dewin dominated the landscape. This was where he had lived, in his father’s castle. I tried to picture it in my—

  I knew that symbol!

  It was drawn on the page opposite Flynn’s account of the sacrificial ritual. His childish hands hadn’t managed to trace the circles and lines perfectly, but there was no doubt what it depicted. It was the same trinity symbol Auberon and I had seen in the cave on the island off the coast of Perllanafal. But more importantly, it was also depicted on the side of the chalice, which right now lay hidden in a chest of drawers next to my bed.

  Next to the drawing were four lines of text, forming a verse, maybe from a poem or a song.

  for all to gather, all to see

  the power of the trinity

  the holder of sacred blood and key

  shalt open the door of infinity

  The door of infinity? Was it a reference to the passageway from Avalon to Earth? It couldn’t be? William had never even mentioned the portal. Besides, whoever taught him the verse in the first place might have been talking about something completely different.

  Whenever I opened the book, it was as if William’s voice read the words in my head. This time, however, as my finger traced the ornamented letters, the voice was that of a woman. And it was familiar to me.

  Something was wrong. I closed the book and hid it behind the rock. The temperature had dropped ever so slightly, but enough for me to notice. The sky was still a dark shade of blue, though hints of orange and red had begun to show to the west.

  I knew what was happening. Turning to the shadow under the old oak, where my old swing used to hang, I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “You can stop lurking and come out. I know you’re there.”

  Chapter Three

  Prince Auberon—my father—stepped out of the shadows and into the light. He looked more regal than ever, if that was even possible. His silver hair lapped gently around his face, brushing against his shoulders, and his outfit was the same as the first day I’d seen him on campus. The long, black coat, purple shirt, and black buckled shoes I now believed really did originate in the 18th century. He caught my gaze, and I involuntarily sunk into his piercing eyes.

  I tore my eyes away from his and crossed my arms. “Why are you here?” I was expecting to be angry at the sight of him. Instead, all I felt was a sense of dejection.

  “My apologies. I didn’t mean to ambush you, but I had to come see my daughter. It’s been too long, and I’m not content with how we left things.”

  How we left things? I had called his bluff, that was how. He had admitted that he was the reason Dad was dead. And though it hadn’t been by his hand, nor his intention—if I were to believe him—it was certainly his fault.

  Auberon leaned on his cane. It no longer carried any signs of the encounter with the Avalonian swords a few weeks back. I wondered what it was truly made from, because no earthly wood could have withstood the swords of King Arthur’s knights.

  “I thought you said you got your cane in Kenya.” My voice came out sharp with the veiled accusation. Another lie.

  “Well, not quite. I told you that the handle is ivory, and it was an addition I got when visiting Kenya some decades ago. So that part was true. The cane itself is, as I said, ebony, which is partly true as its core was extracted from the same stone that the chalice you took from me was made of. Enchantium is the strongest material anywhere in Gwyn Fanon. It’s four times harder than a diamond. Only a select few Goblins know how to mine it.” He chuckled. “I couldn’t very well tell you that when you asked last.”

  So, it wasn’t a flat-out lie, but that didn’t help calm my nerves much. It only meant he was good at deflecting, and I wasn’t about to fall for his half-truths again. “I appreciate the history lesson, but I don’t want you here.” I’d envisioned what it would be like to see my father again, and most of the time it involved burning him to a crisp. Seeing him now, however, I couldn’t muster the energy to lash out. Though my nerves put me on edge, I still wasn’t angry. Not like the last time we had spoken, when I set his bookshelves on fire.

  He inhaled sharply. “Would you please give your father a minute? It’s all I ask.”

  My heart beat in shallow thuds, and my magic stirred in my blood as if recognising its kin. However much I hated the things my father had done, and however much he had shattered my heart, there were still shards of him left. It was hard to shut the door in his face when he had already taken a home in me. Even if I had tried my best to cast him out.

  “Go on then.” I sat on the rock, not oblivious to the fact that Auberon was too close to the item I had hidden. “But there’s nothing you can say to make up for the fact that you killed my dad.”

  He stomped his cane into the ground. “I didn’t kill Dennis.”

  “You might as well have.”

  Auberon sighed heavily. “I regret the truth in your words. If I could go back and change it, I would. But I did not kill him, nor did I intend for him to die. Mr Wellesham did that all on his own.”

  Mr Wellesham—the Blacksmith. A man I had stood opposite more than once, a man who wanted me to be his champion in his dreadful cage fights. Had I known then what I knew now, things might have played out differently.

  “He was clearly a loose cannon,” Auberon continued, “but I had no idea back then of what he was or who he would become. Please, my princess, you have to know that.”

  I pursed my lips. “I abdicated, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” He chuckled, and it pulled regretfully at my heartstrings.

  We both smiled, and I quickly clamped my mouth shut again.

  “Abdication aside,” Auberon said. “You’ll always be my daughter, and I will love you until the end of my days.”

  “And I will hate you forever.” I wanted that to be true, because I did hate him. Didn’t I? “And what about your involvement in MagX? I still don’t understand how you, a Pure Magical, could have condoned, much less funded something so atrocious.”

  “Again, another mistake of mine. My ambitions sometimes get the better of me, I’m afraid. I had
no idea that the research would one day be used to create MagX.”

  “But you kept funding Colburn. That’s why he made that deal with you about leaving me alone, wasn’t it?”

  “Jarl became somewhat of a prodigy of mine, but my goal was never to fund a hostile Magical industry.”

  “Then what?”

  “Does it even matter in the grand scale of things? Your mind is clearly made up, and I’m not sure anything I might say will convince you that my agenda was and has always been for Magicals to thrive. I want our people to shine, not to be hunted down like animals.”

  “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

  A colony of ants marched between us, carrying tiny eggs and pine needles to wherever their ant hill was. I wiped my brow. The sinking sun was hot on my face, and the creek nearby bubbled with renewed strength. My head, however, felt heavy. As did my heart.

  “You’ve had your minute and then some. Please. You being here—it’s hurting me.”

  He carefully rolled away a rock in the grass, clearing the way for the ants to pass unhindered. “I don’t want to be a burden. I never wanted that. All I wish is that you’ll allow me to be a part of your life, however small. If not right now, then at least at some point. You are all I have in this world.”

  A cascade of dancing flames shimmered a hair’s breadth above my skin. It wasn’t a threatening gesture, rather an inviting one. One I couldn’t control.

  “I can hardly look at you. All I see is the destruction you’ve wrought. If it wasn’t for you, Dad would still be alive, and I would have never done all those awful things I dream about. I would have never killed a knight. You made me believe I could trust you and—”