Moonlit Majesty

by Crystal-Rain Love

  “Rise and shine!”

  Zaira sat up, body stiff from the hard cavern floor. Someone had covered her with a blanket as she slept. “Where did you get this?” she asked, feeling the dark blanket’s soft texture.

  “Merc and I found it while we did a little scouting,” Merta answered, her eyes sparkling as she grinned over at Mercury, who was busy dousing out one of three fires burning.

  “Scouting? Where?” She studied the thick coat Mercury wore and glanced at the fires, noticing how two pretty much blocked the entrance to the cave. “Where’s Addix?”

  “He insisted on standing guard outside the cave so we wouldn’t get snuck up on. Why, I don’t know. Merc and I met some people in this nearby little village and they seemed perfectly harmless, plus we built two more fires in the passage that an intruder couldn’t easily get past. If one had arrived, we’d have had enough time to get them before they got us.”

  “He’s been in a mood,” Mercury chimed in. “Pissed off about something. Did you guys have an argument or something?”

  “No.” Zaira thought back to the conversation they’d had before she’d fallen asleep. She could understand being upset about his sister, but angry?

  “So are you good to go now? Addix said your mana should be replenished thanks to that comatose state you were in.”

  “Comatose state?” Zaira looked at Merta in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been asleep for three days,” Mercury informed her, dousing the last fire, before coming back into the deep part of the cave with them to scoop up his backpack.

  “Three days?” Zaira exclaimed louder than she meant to and shoved the blanket off of her to stand. “Why did you allow me to sleep that long?”

  “Like we had a choice.” Merta scoffed. “You were dead to the world, no waking you up from that.”

  “Three days have passed? We need to get to Imortia.”

  “You’re feeling better?” Merta eyed her from top to bottom as if looking for some sort of visual cue that her mana had been restored.

  “I’m good,” Zaira answered. She could feel the mana in her blood along with the bitter disappointment that she’d cost them three days. “I just need to check on my wolves and we can cut through the remaining realms to get to Imortia.”

  “How are you going to check on the pack?” Mercury asked curiously.

  “I need a seeing glass,” she answered, edging past him.

  “What is that?” He looked at Merta, getting a shrug from the dragon shifter in return.

  Zaira stepped out of the cave, still warmed by the just-doused fires, and into the frigid cold air of the realm which was an eternal winter season. She didn’t need to look far before she found what she needed, a large, thick icicle hanging from the cave. Above it, she found Addix.

  He looked down at her from his perch on top of the cave entrance. “Feeling better?”

  “Yes.” She frowned up at him. “Aren’t you cold out here?”

  “Cold no matter where I go,” he answered shortly, and jumped down from his lookout to meet them on the ground. “Are you ready to move on?”

  “In a moment.” She studied him a bit longer, unsure what was causing the unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach, before returning to the icicle. “I have to check on my wolves.”

  She braced herself for the cold and rubbed a circle in the center of the icicle until a clear, round viewable space appeared. With her hand placed firmly over the circle, she closed her eyes and allowed her mana to flow from her heart to the icicle, opening her eyes as a picture started to form on the ice.

  “Awesome,” Mercury breathed as what resembled a movie appeared on the icicle.

  Zaira filtered through moving images of her wolves, making sure she checked the whole pack. “There was a minor attack yesterday morning but they did well,” she announced to the three standing behind her as relief swelled in her chest, then pure happiness as she announced, “Ming had her babies this morning, a boy and girl.”

  “Twins?” Mercury laughed. “Jason’s not going to know how to handle two babies at a time.”

  “No, but he’s the happiest I have ever seen him.” She smiled, but only for a short moment before withdrawing her hand from the ice, allowing her mana to leave the icicle as it was. Afraid the smile would give way to tears, she turned away and started walking toward the area they would find the portal in. She didn’t need to see anymore. The pack was safe for now, would be even safer after they defeated Fairuza, and she didn’t need to see the sweet faces of newborn Weres she wouldn’t get to see grow up close by.

  “Did you eat well?” she asked Mercury as they traveled the distance toward the portal. “I mean, while we’ve been stuck here all this time?”

  “Merta and I had a nice dinner in the village we found,” he answered, grinning. “The locals gave us some food as well, what’s left is in my back pack, and we did a little ice fishing.”

  Zaira fell back to walk with Addix as Merta and Mercury walked ahead, glancing at each other sideways with goofy grins on their faces.

  “What exactly happened there while I was asleep?” she asked Addix low enough for the others not to hear.

  “Judging by the googly eyes they’ve been making at each other since they came back from the village I assume they are a couple.”

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No. I just hope they stay focused on what they should be focused on when it comes down to action time.”

  “Well, I’m happy for them. I think they compliment each other very well.”

  Addix snorted.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, tell me. You stay outside in the cold when there is a warm fire in the cave and you have an attitude about those two being together. What’s going on with you? They told me you’ve been in a bad mood. If you’re angry with me about the wasted time don’t take it out on them.”

  “I’m not angry with you, Zaira. You needed the rest to replenish the mana you lost saving our lives. If anyone is to blame for the delay, it’s me. I caused you to have to go to that extreme to get us through that realm alive.” He looked away. “And I’m not taking anything out on them. I’ve just come to the conclusion that caring about someone only opens you up for pain. It’s wiser to not bother with it.”

  “Not bother with what? Caring about someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you just refuse to care anymore? About any of us?”

  “If that were a possibility we wouldn’t be here now. It’s too late for me, for us, but maybe for them … Maybe it’s best they don’t start something that can be used against them later.”

  Addix quickened his stride and took the lead, walking past Merta and Mercury without a word. They glanced back at Zaira, eyes questioning, and she could only shrug. Whatever he was going through, she prayed he would be there for them when they needed him.

  The remaining portals between them and Imortia overlapped so they quickly traveled through them all, only pausing long enough for Merta and Mercury to dispose of their coats in the unbearable heat of the first realm they’d entered.

  Now they stood outside the portal to Imortia, a portal Zaira had never used before. She had tried, long ago, but it wouldn’t open to her. It was one of three Imortian portals and the second she had tried. The third one, she never wanted to have any reason to try.

  “She knows we’re coming,” Zaira warned. “She knows we’ll be using a portal. She’ll have taken measures to protect herself.”

  “I’ll enter first,” Merta volunteered, fisting her daggers. “She’ll have guards posted, but they’ll be no match for me.”

  “No,” Mercury and Addix said in unison, then looked at each other.

  “I’ll go first,” Mercury said. “I’m an enforcer. It’s my job to defend my leader, and …” he looked at Merta, love in his eyes. “I’m just muscle here. It’s the three of you who actually have a shot at defeating this Fairuza woma
n so let me go in first and take out the guards.”

  “And if the guards use magic?” Addix asked. “I go first, you two enter after me, watching each other’s backs, and cover Zaira as she enters last.”

  “But you’re too important,” Merta protested. “If they are just waiting to ambush the first one to step through, it shouldn’t be you.”

  “It should be me, and Zaira is far more important than I have ever been. She’s the one who will defeat Fairuza. I’m not planning on dying today or getting captured, but if it should happen to one of us, it should happen to the one with the least to lose.”

  “And how do you qualify as that one?” Zaira asked, folding her arms. “You have as much to lose as we do.”

  “What do I have that I haven’t already lost?” Addix asked, almost laughing. “I fell in love with a woman only to have her banished from her home, to hold me at blame. I lost my sister to the clutches of a madwoman. Even if we save her, she will always be damaged by whatever that psycho has been doing to her. She will never be able to forgive me for all the time it has taken for me to come back to her. I never got to know my own son and will never have another because the only woman I could ever see myself having a family with now has to stay in a realm she doesn’t want to stay in and it is all because of me. Everyone I love is going to resent me so what do I have to lose? A lifetime of living with that hanging over me?”

  “Addix, that isn’t what we feel.” Zaira reached out to him but he backed away.

  “Don’t Zaira. Just don’t.” He held his hand out, gesturing for her to back off, and looked at the other two with them. “As I said, I go first. You two next. Zaira, last. No matter what happens, protect her.”

  He shifted into unicorn form and touched his horn to the air where the portal was hidden. Little streaks of power, similar to lightning, shot in all directions from the tip of his horn and formed a swirling portal.

  He looked at Zaira with a haunting sadness in his eyes, and leapt through the portal. Mercury and Merta took deep breaths, nodded at each other, and stepped through, blades at the ready.

  Zaira, shaking from her head to her toes, also took a deep breath and stepped through, fearing a trap.

  FIFTEEN

  Zaira stepped onto Imortian soil, relieved to have made it. The second it took to step through the portal had felt like an hour as she held her breath, fearing some sort of magic spell would take her life before she reached the other side.

  She quickly saw that there was no time for celebration. Addix and the others were engaged in battle. Addix, in human form once more, fought an ogre before him while Merta and Mercury clashed with armored guards at her sides. They’d purposely positioned themselves in a way that ensured her safety as she entered the realm.

  A large rock structure at her back, she was enclosed within their protection, but it just wasn’t in her to stand there and let others protect her, especially not when those others were people she held so dear.

  She took in her surroundings and saw they were high up in the cliffs overlooking the realm, on a wide ledge. Despite his strength, Addix was struggling to fight off the ogre, and Mercury and Merta were outnumbered. Even shifting shape wouldn’t help Merta as her opponents wore fire retardant armor. That left only one thing to do.

  “Merta, get ready to catch us!” she yelled at the dragon shifter as she summoned her mana, felt it coursing through her veins as she raised her fisted hands toward the sky and brought them down hard to the ground. Her power lashed out with a sonic boom, crumbling the very ground beneath them.

  They fell fast, but Merta was faster as she shifted into her dragon form. The shifter grabbed Addix and Mercury in her claws, and flew beneath Zaira, allowing her to catch a ride on her back, before soaring upward toward the sky and hanging a right, flying them to safety, or whatever could pass for safety, Zaira thought, looking down at the enemy territory they’d entered.

  Merta landed atop another cliff, carefully releasing the men first before she lowered herself to the ground.

  Zaira slid off Merta’s back so the dragon shifter could shift shape, and quickly accessed the men. Before she could reach them, both men shifted to their animal forms and back again.

  “All of your wounds heal from the shift?” she asked.

  They nodded.

  “Another badass move,” Mercury complimented her. “They never saw that one coming. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it scared the bejesus outta me though.”

  Zaira grinned. “Sorry. I didn’t see any other way.”

  “No prob. It got the job done.”

  Addix stepped away from the group to look out beyond the edge of the cliff. “Home sweet home,” he said in disgust before turning back toward them. “This was a good place to land, Merta. Nice work. We will enter the woods here. There’s a trail which will take us right where we need to go.”

  “Where is that?” Zaira asked. “Are we going straight to the palace?”

  “No. You have allies here. We go to them first.” He gestured with his head for them to follow and took lead, stepping into the wooded area which would camouflage them from any prying eyes.

  “What kind of allies?” Zaira fell into step alongside him, the others bringing up the rear.

  “Imortians who have never lost faith that you would one day return to free them of Fairuza’s rule. They’ve kept watch, observing her. Some work in the palace, some are advisors.”

  “We are supposed to trust Fairuza’s own advisors? Seems dangerous.”

  “They are as much her prisoners as anyone else in this realm. They don’t advise her out of loyalty and definitely not out of respect. They do it out of fear and survival.” He looked at her reassuringly. “But they’ve been waiting for you to arrive so they can turn on her. You are the queen they want to serve, not Fairuza.”

  Zaira nodded, understanding. They were scared, waiting for someone to do the hard part for them. If they turned on Fairuza and no one was there to defeat her they would have been cut down. Fairuza had no qualms about killing anyone who refused to bow to her.

  “Why didn’t Fairuza just kill me?” she thought out loud. “I know she wanted me to suffer endlessly which makes what she did logical, but if she knew all along, feared that I would be the one to end her rule why did she not just have me killed?”

  “Fairuza took the throne because she killed the prior queen, but the people of Imortia have never cared for her. She rules them with a heavy hand, one which is covered in the people’s blood. She’s done well protecting the realm from outsiders who’d like to claim the realm for themselves, but she has done nothing to make the Imortians love her. They have, however, always loved you.”

  “Why?” Zaira recalled her time in Imortia. “I didn’t do anything great during my time here. I barely was allowed out of the palace. I spent more time with you and the staff than I did with anyone outside the palace grounds.”

  “Yes, but stories of you spread beyond the walls. You were good to the staff, never rude or demanding. And the story of your birth spread like wildfire despite Fairuza’s wish to keep it secret. The fact that you healed your mother’s pain, even as an infant, gave them hope. That, and your well-known love of animals.”

  “My love of animals?” Zaira frowned.

  “Yes. They feel that if you are so loving to animals, you will be the same way with them. Fairuza detests the weak. They know that you will be more nurturing toward those who need it. They know you don’t like suffering, whereas Fairuza basks in it.”

  “And what does this have to do with why Fairuza didn’t just kill me? I would think she’d want to get rid of anyone the people held dearer than her.”

  “Yes, she would, and she did. She banished you, and the people hate her for it, but banishing you meant she didn’t kill you. The people knew you were alive. You see, if she had killed you, fear wouldn’t have been strong enough to keep the Imortians under her rule. They would have died rebelling.”

  “So they would actually reb
el, but only if I died.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why only then? Why not rebel for themselves?”

  “Because these people have lived their entire immortal lives following a leader and they believe in your ability to lead them more than they believe in their ability to lead themselves. They have held on to their faith that you would return and free them from Fairuza’s rule, and replace her on the throne. If you had actually been killed, they wouldn’t have cared if they survived or not because the thought of serving their lives under Fairuza’s rule for eternity was a far worse fate than death. But they knew you were still living and your return gave them what they needed to keep going under Fairuza’s rule, to keep accepting her reign of terror.”

  “These Imortians don’t seem very wise for people who’ve lived so long,” Mercury commented from behind them, having listened in on the conversation.

  “It’s the only way of life they have ever known,” Merta explained. “To live for one’s self in Imortia is unheard of. There is a queen and you live to serve her. Being the mortal daughter of mortal servants, untouched by magic, it was easier for me to break free of that mindset, but like the few others who agreed with me, we were severely punished. If Fairuza is good at anything, it’s making examples of those who cross her.”

  “So they’ve put up with this woman’s evil ways for hundreds of years, just hoping Zaira would return and save them all?”

  “Yes,” Addix answered softly.

  “In our pack, we appreciate the protection the White Wolf has always provided, but we still fight for ourselves. I can’t say I think much of people who don’t fight for themselves. This shouldn’t be the White Wolf’s job.”

  “I’m not the White Wolf here,” Zaira advised him sadly, reminding herself of her place. Here, she was a baby who’d killed her own mother just to be born, a child who’d come into Imortia with her fate already predetermined. Here, she was the future queen, whether she wanted the title or not. Here, she was just Zaira Azzul, a woman born to release these people from a tyrant’s rule. She was a weapon to be used by them, and nothing more.