by Eva Brandt
Yes, that was the right approach. We would take our time with our prospective relationship with Eranthe, but deal with the immediate matter of her foe.
“We don’t need your support to earn Queen Eiar’s affections. Not that we don’t appreciate the offer and trust, but her heart is her own to give. I do think that removing the threat to her well-being is a good idea, though.”
“Would she be on board with this suggestion?” Adrian asked. “If the point of this is to make Queen Eiar more confident, it’s a little counterproductive to go over her head.”
Baltasar agreed with us. “Perhaps we will discuss it with her when she returns. She undoubtedly knows more about it anyway, and it would be preferable to match our strategy with whatever she has in mind.”
I half-expected Selene to be offended by our refusal. Her reaction was entirely different. Her smile widened, becoming far more honest and making her look more like Eranthe than she already did. “Congratulations. You just passed my test. Yes, the three of you will do fine.”
Much to my surprise, she actually reached for me and patted my cheek. “You’re a good boy. Your mother raised you well. I had my doubts, considering the other side of your parentage, but perhaps it was narrow-minded of me to think that way.”
She squeezed Adrian’s shoulder, and for a few seconds, her magic swelled, sweet and warm, like the perfumed spring breeze. “Don’t worry about what your former family said about you. Follow your own path in life. That’s the best thing you can ever do. Your heart and your instincts will lead you in the right direction.”
When she reached Baltasar, she actually hugged him. “Stop being so afraid of your serpentine side. You are who you were meant to be. Accept it, embrace it, and I promise you, you’ll be much happier.”
We were all so surprised by her sudden change in demeanor that it took us an embarrassing amount of time to recover our composure. “Thank you for your advice,” Baltasar said when she released him from her embrace. “We appreciate your words.”
“Don’t mention it,” Selene answered. “As long as you support my daughter, that is all the thanks I need. Although keep in mind, you will have to be careful and patient. No more jumping into feeding until you have a proper conversation about what it entails.”
I suppressed a flinch. Oh, dear. We’d deserved that. We really should have known better than to push Eranthe the way we had earlier. The pleasure exchange that came from the feeding process had made us all a little hazy, but that was no excuse.
“We’ll remember.”
“Excellent. Now, before I go, there is one last thing I need to tell you. Snegurka is elusive. Due to her numerous skills, my daughters have been unable to find her. At present, she is more or less unable to leave The Realm of Eternal Ice, but she might surpass that obstacle in the near future.
“She is very dangerous, but I believe you will be able to find the right approach when the moment comes for you to face her. Eventually, she will come to you. In the meantime, it would probably be best for you to go after my daughter. I’m sure she will appreciate the company, considering her destination.”
Before we could ask what in the world that meant, Selene winked at us and blew us a kiss. Flower petals bloomed around her and in the blink of an eye, she disappeared.
“Well... That was interesting,” I said when she was gone. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I don’t think anyone did,” Baltasar mused. “Are we going after Eranthe then, like her mother suggested?”
Adrian frowned, his magic pulsing around him as vividly as a heartbeat. “We can’t. Even if Selene is right and Eranthe would appreciate the company, we’ve already promised her to do nothing. Going after her would break that promise and contradict everything we’re trying to do.”
“When we made that promise, we didn’t know how serious the situation was,” I reasoned. “We can’t just sit around and do... nothing.” Even if, as Adrian had said, that was exactly the course of action we had committed to.
“Never fear.” Adrian’s lips twisted into a small smirk. “Now that we understand what is going on, I think I can work with this. We don’t have to even leave the palace to locate the biggest threat to Eranthe’s reign.”
As I listened to Adrian’s plan, I marginally managed to suppress a cackle. I really did love it when Adrian came up with one of his crazy schemes. The crazier they were, the better, and the more damage they did to our foes. Adrian called it a leftover from his days as a fae. I thought it was just his brilliance.
Either way, both Baltasar and I loved the idea. “Let’s do it,” I replied with a sharp smile of my own. “This way, we’ll prove to her that we truly are on her side and she can rely on us.”
It was becoming increasingly obvious that if we had arrived here at this particular moment, it was for a reason. I didn’t know if I believed in fate, but the fact remained that Queen Eranthe had a problem with a spirit and we just happened to be able to solve it. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Something was growing between us. I couldn’t completely understand it, but perhaps my father had been right all those years ago. Perhaps sometimes, you just needed to follow your heart. Undead or not, I could do that, and with Eranthe, I might have found the special person I had been looking for even when I’d thought I’d given up.
Six
Helplessness
Eranthe
“No, Green, I’m not certain they can be trusted, but I am as certain as I can be. I’ve talked the matter through with them, and I will reach an official agreement with The Voievodat through them once I figure out what in the name of the gods you’re all doing.”
As I spoke, March and May fidgeted in discomfort, their wings glowing with agitation. Green let out a rumble and replied, “You have our apologies, My Queen. We did not mean our behavior to cause offense.”
“You never mean your behavior to cause offense, and I have allowed it. But right now, we cannot afford to be divided, or for you to do whatever you please because you decide you have a better idea than mine.”
“We are only concerned, Your Majesty. We simply do not want anyone to take advantage—”
“Oh, for gods’ sake,” I snapped. The vines of my throne sprouted thorns in response to my irritation. “I don’t have time for this. I have to go see April and make sure Luntian doesn’t accidentally overdose anyone on his tobacco. I didn’t ask you about your reasons. I already know them, and I do appreciate your concern. It’s just not necessary, not right now.”
I tried to control my temper and soften my voice toward the end of the sentence, and I encountered some success. The thorns, at least, vanished, although the throne didn’t look nearly as cheerful as it usually did. My remaining two lieutenants and my advisor exchanged a concerned look.
I felt so tired.
“Green, March, May,” I said, “I am relying on you to support my choices and actions. If I cannot trust you to do that, you are useless to me. You understand that, don’t you?”
It was a little harsh of me to say that, but this conversation was long overdue and the most recent episode with the undead only a mild symptom of the issue. “It is unseemly for me to go to a garrison to pick up my lieutenant because I don’t know what crazy thing might have happened to her. I am a queen. I can’t afford to babysit my subordinates. Your inability to follow simple orders is becoming detrimental to our realm.
“When I tell you that I want to reach a truce with a nation, I expect you to have enough sense to not attack one of the members of the royal family of that nation with potentially lethal magic. I understand your desire to keep the captive from escaping, but there were other, far less violent methods you could have used. What if I hadn’t arrived in time and Cezar of the House of Aeternalis had been injured, or worse? Where would we be now? Would a war with another realm satisfy you? Or perhaps you have another better option. Perhaps you will decide to dethrone me because the burden of my crown is too much for me.”
The words sl
ipped out before I could stop them. I didn’t think that any of my subordinates were secretly spending their time slithering around in corners and cackling as they made plans to dethrone me. But after February’s betrayal, nothing was unlikely or impossible.
“It is a shame,” I said, “but today, I cannot say that you trust me any more than Ded Moroz or February trusted my sister.”
March recoiled like she had been struck. May gaped, her eyes filling with tears. Some of the leaves covering The Green Man’s branches withered and died.
I hated being so harsh with them when I knew for a fact that they did care about me. But what else was I supposed to do?
What was the right line between being a kind queen and a good one? I had yet to find it, even centuries after taking the throne of Tis Ánoixis, and I was running out of time.
Shaking myself, I got off my throne and took a deep breath. Hopelessness was stupid and would not help me. Life was a constantly fluctuating surge of challenges and surprises. That was what I liked about it most, and even if I was having trouble now, that had not changed.
“Don’t look so stricken. I’m sure we can work our way out of this, together. We just have to be a little more open-minded to each other’s abilities and quirks. For what it’s worth, I do not believe that something like what happened in Tou Cheimóna would ever happen here. But we have our own faults and it is a good idea to acknowledge them and fix them.
“That being said, I’m leaving to find April. Don’t do anything crazy in my absence.”
“Of course not, Your Majesty,” March replied, still sounding subdued. “We will be careful.”
I certainly hoped that was true. I didn’t have more time at my disposal. Upakaruda had not returned, and I could not wait for them, not when I had an increasingly bad feeling about April’s absence. It was the same dark agitation that had urged me to go to the Forest of Purity in the first place. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t the visit of the vampires.
Not for the first time, I wished I’d confided in Cassia or Pandora when I’d gone to Tou Cheimóna. Maybe they would’ve been able to give me real advice. Cassia had been struggling with similar issues too, although she had been more efficient at corralling her rampaging yetis than I was at making sure Veggie didn’t tumble into the wrong fields. She hadn’t really trusted her advisor or lieutenants either. She had carried the weight of her throne alone, even if the whole reason why Tarasia, Pandora and I had gotten ourselves into this mess was to help her.
Was I making a similar mistake by not sharing my troubles with my sisters? If I did tell them, would I lose what little respect I’d managed to gain from them?
Still musing over my dilemma, I left my throne room, exiting my palace through the walls that were, unlike my subordinates, as obedient as ever. The winds responded to my command just as easily, the breeze enveloping me in its perfumed embrace. Before long, I had left The Gardens of Edenia and was headed toward The Bridge of Sunlit Meadows.
Luntian had been the guardian of the bridge for as long as I could remember. Even before I’d been the queen, he’d always guarded the path between The Realm of Eternal Youth and The Realm of Eternal Sunlight. Three-quarters of the time, we got along stupendously and I’d actually asked him for advice on my crazier planting experiments. On occasion, though... Well, suffice to say, there was a reason why nymphs didn’t always get along with tree demons. I still remembered the notorious time when he’d lost a bet with Lachlan and he’d almost started a fire at the bridge in frustration. If the structure hadn’t been resilient to any sort of extreme temperatures, disaster could have struck.
Fortunately, today, Luntian had not caused any horrific accidents, beyond the incident with Veggie, at least. When I reached his tree house, I found it quiet and peaceful. Smoke rings rose above the massive acacia where he made his home, the only sign that the dwelling was inhabited at all.
The leaves rustled as I approached, but it was not Luntian who emerged from the foliage. Instead, it was my errant lieutenant. “Your Majesty!” she exclaimed. “I did not expect to see you here.”
“What did you expect then?” I asked, eyeing her curiously. She looked a little flushed, her dress askew and her lips swollen. Surely not.
“I-I merely wanted to make sure everything was in order at the garrison,” she stammered.
Luntian’s massive body emerged from the tree. “Give it a rest, April. I believe there’s no point in hiding what we were doing.”
I wanted to cry. Why hadn’t I known about April’s relationship with Luntian? It would have explained so much, including her sketchier behavior and more eclectic readings.
I had no idea how their relationship even worked considering the significant size difference between their bodies. Maybe Luntian had learned to shrink himself, and I just hadn’t been aware. In any case, that was none of my business. April abandoning her duties for his sake was an entirely different matter.
She had left in the middle of the day to visit her partner/lover while well aware that her presence might have been needed in The Gardens of Edenia. I could not allow this to stand. “April... You know you don’t owe me any explanations about your private life, but under these circumstances, we have to work together to protect the realm. Surely, you realize that Luntian can fend for himself.”
“I keep telling her that,” Luntian said, blowing a smoke circle as big as my head from his pipe, “but she’s stubborn. I feel like she’s gotten so used to being protective of the people she cares about that she doesn’t know when to stop.”
April flew up to his head and smacked him with her wing. “If you’re not careful, Mister, I might just stop being protective of you.”
Despite the seriousness of the circumstances, their easy exchange drew a smile out of me. It was nice to see them in love, to see a genuine, honest smile on April’s face. Much too often, her smiles toward me were fake, possibly because of her constant concern about my well-being. I was glad that she had found support and happiness elsewhere, even if I could not provide it.
“I really doubt that,” I said. “It’s not in your character.”
I would have liked to say more, to congratulate them on their relationship, but there was still so much work to do. I mentally added a ‘throw a party for April’ note on my to-do list and said, “Leaving aside your reasons for your departure... Perhaps we could focus on some practicalities. Luntian, I take it you haven’t noticed any issues of concern?”
The kapre turned his full attention onto me. “Nothing for a while now, Your Majesty. Some encantados tried to cross the river a few days ago, but that’s just business as usual.”
I nodded. Tarasia’s dolphin-shifters had a thing for my nymphs, and I would’ve been more concerned if they had stopped trying to sneak past Luntian than if they didn’t.
“Do you really think we are in danger from The Voievodat, Your Majesty?” he asked.
“Not really, no,” I frowned, debating my next words carefully. “The intruders Upakaruda mentioned do not have baleful intentions, and I’ve already reached an agreement with them. However, a situation that is so volatile can change overnight. So many strange things have been happening lately, Luntian. I can’t shake the feeling that something is off, beyond the visit of our undead guests. You need to be more cautious than usual. Send out your magic deeper, but try to not spread out your tobacco fields further. We had a problem with Veggie earlier today, and we can’t afford that.”
A dark scowl settled on April’s beautiful face. “Did he follow me from Floria? I told him to wait for me there. I didn’t plan on being here long.”
A feeling of unease settled in my gut at her comment. “You didn’t take him to the fields yourself?”
April shook her head. “I knew it was dangerous. Did he get back to the palace himself? How?”
That was a very good question. Despite his varied and somewhat peculiar skills, Veggie did not have the ability to travel from place to place too quickly. My conversation with th
e leprechauns suggested that they might have been the ones to bring him to the palace, but there was just one hole in that theory. They wouldn’t have had a reason to go looking for him in Luntian’s fields, and they knew it was necessary to handle Veggie with care when he stumbled into questionable herb gardens. If April had not summoned the leprechauns to come to Veggie’s aid, something else had happened that had led him to end up from Luntian’s fields to The Gardens of Edenia.
“April, we are going back to the palace,” I said. “There is something we have to see to at once. We will discuss your unauthorized departure later.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Luntian, remember my instructions and send word through Upakaruda if something happens.”
Luntian nodded silently. Nothing more needed to be said. Despite his quirks, Luntian could certainly be relied on when it came to protecting the realm. April pressed a brief kiss to his temple and flew up to me. Together, we launched ourselves into the air, heading back toward The Palace of Eternal Blooms.
“Your Majesty, I would like to apologize for my lapse,” April said as we flew. “I should not have allowed my personal interest to get in the way of my duties. I will take any punishment you deem suitable.”
“I’m sure that is true,” I replied. “But you see, April, there are only so many punishments I can give you. If you were another one of my subordinates, I would demote you. But I can’t exactly do that, since you are the incarnation of a month of the year and such a thing would bring even further problems. Physical punishments are not my style, and I have no desire to hurt you. And at such a delicate time in our history, I can’t afford to lose a lieutenant.” I threw a look at her over my shoulder. “I think in your heart, you know that, and it is why you were comfortable with leaving. In the end, I can’t cut you loose or incapacitate you in any way, because you are indispensable. It saddens me deeply that you would take advantage of it.”
