by ERIN BEDFORD
Gab sniffed. “Well, if you’re going to be like that I don’t think I’m going to tell you what I found out.” She stuck her nose in the air, pretending to be cross.
“Yes, you will. You can’t help yourself.” I dropped her arm and continued down the path, my attention half on the flowers around us.
Having never left the palace, I’d seen them all hundreds of times over. I’d never even seen all of the Seelie Court, but I was supposed to marry a complete stranger, and live with him all for the sake of solidifying our defenses against the Shadow Realm?
The hope of leaving the palace was the only reason I even agreed to the sham of a marriage to begin with. If it gave me the chance to be free, to see new places, and to finally walk through the halls of my own home without the fear of who would lose their heads next. I didn’t need to know what my husband looked like. I’d marry him all the same.
“Oh all right, you’ve talked me into it.” Gab gave an exaggerated sigh and hurried to catch up with me. “You know all you had to do was ask.”
“But I didn’t ask.”
Gab ignored me and continued babbling. “So, I went down to the guest wing where they keep all the important people. Not that UnSeelie royalty is all that important, but anyway, I got stopped by one of his brute guards–”
As she told her story I could feel the excitement radiate off her in waves. She always got this way when she had some juicy tidbit that she wanted to share. It was nearly impossible for her to keep a secret.
“–and then I said, I have as much right to be here as anyone.” She scoffed. “Can you believe that? He actually thought I was a servant! Me! The thought of me cleaning.” She shuddered.
“Maybe he didn’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders, pretending to show interest in her distress.
“Ha! Do I look like a lower Fae? No. Look at these cheekbones.” She gestured toward her face. “Fae have killed to be as pretty as me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Gab, that was one time, and they didn’t die. They only ended up scarred.”
“She might as well have died. I would have committed suicide if I had to if I had to go the rest of my life disfigured like that.” Gab made a face at the thought.
“Not everyone cares about appearances.” I offered and then tried to change the subject. “I thought you were going to tell me what he looks like, not his guard.”
“I’m getting there.” She waved me off. “So, I got passed the nasty guard and into the prince’s sitting room, and low and behold there he was lounging on the couch like some half-breed. Really now, does he have no decorum? It is no surprise he wouldn’t think twice about letting his guard down where anyone could walk in on him.”
“He was in his private rooms, though. No one should have been able to walk in on him,” I pointed out.
“But I did, so anyone else could have as well. I’m just saying, he should be a little more mindful of where he is, even if he is a guest. He is still UnSeelie. He could have–” Gab stopped mid-sentence catching sight of something in the garden. “Oh pooh, I was just getting to the good part.”
I followed her gaze to land on a dark-haired Fae sitting on a bench with a book in his hand. With his attention focused on his book, my eyes trailed down his exquisite form. All thought of not caring about looks was smothered by a sudden undeniable need. When he glanced up from his book, my breath caught in my throat.
Eyes the color of the glittering night sky locked onto mine. The fierceness in his gaze froze me in place. There was anger there, but also a hollowed emptiness. I knew at that moment I’d go through with the engagement. Not because I craved freedom or because he made my insides melt, but to make sure those beautiful eyes never gazed at me with such loneliness again.
The image of the prince faded from my mind as I slowly drifted back into my own head. For a brief moment, I was me again. I could hear Seer arguing with someone a few feet from me, but since I still couldn’t see pass the smoke all I could do was listen.
“I can’t stop it,” Seer explained to the unseen person. “I only started it. Something happened, something not in my control.” She huffed her frustration apparent. “It’s not up to me now. It’s up to her.”
“She shouldn’t have been here in the first place.” A deep voice tingled down my spine.
I would know that voice anywhere. The sound of his voice as we made love was still fresh in my mind, causing my face to heat up. Hopefully they were too involved in their fight to notice.
“What did you think you were doing? You had no right. I should take your head for this.” He growled at Seer. His words echoed, causing a new vision to form in the smoke screen.
Alice as she was now, adult sized and prettily arranged in her seat, sat as he berated her, tears glistening in her eyes. “I was only trying to help. They said I could be one of you and I am. Look.” She tried to extend a hand out to him, but he was too blinded by his rage to give her a second glance.
I watched from between branches and peach-shaped fruit that shone like starlight. I was a spectator once more. My thoughts were thankfully my own as I watched down from the branches of the tree to those below me. The area was dim and surrounded by a stone wall, closed off to everything else except one door-shaped hole in the stone wall where two guards stood awaiting the prince’s command.
“I’m quite aware of your new found abilities, Alice.” When he said her name it sounded like a curse on his lips, causing the young girl to cringe. “Did you think for a moment that they could have lied? That they would tell you anything you wanted to hear? Just so you would do what they wanted?”
“But why would they want to keep you apart? Surely they could care less about your message?” She stuttered as she tried to rationalize her actions.
“You couldn’t be more wrong.” His laugh was bitter and heavy. “They have as much invested in my marriage as I do, except I have more to lose.”
“Why? What do they gain from breaking you two up?” Alice cocked her head like a child trying to understand grown-up things.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? And you will have plenty of time to think about the answer. Guards!” His voice rose as his anger spiked. “Everything that happens here on out is on your shoulders.”
His words caused Alice to crumble into a heap of blue on the ground. Her cries racked her body and only grew louder when the guards wrapped their hands around her arms and dragged her away. The prince was left standing there staring at the base of the tree.
“Where she lay buried beneath our roots. The boy cannot feel her, but his soul knows she is there. It will always know she is there.” A voice began to whisper in my head.
A voice I recognized. It was the same one that had kept urging me to go home. I wanted to ask it why was I here. What did it want from me, but I couldn’t get the words out as it continued whispering.
“It isn’t true. It isn’t the human child’s fault. The fault lies on those who came long before her, older than him, older than any of the Fae or the humans. In a time when there was no love. No sadness. No hate. Only want. The want to have what one cannot.” Its voice was warm and oaky as its words caressed my skull.
“That’s why we gave the human child what she wanted. They think merging the light and dark together will destroy the shadows, the nightmares even the darkness fears. But they wanted. Oh, how they want what they could not have.”
My physical body shivered at the dark warning in its voice, but I kept my ears open as it whispered words only I could hear.
“So, we let them take our fruit. We granted the human child and the daughter of light’s wish, and hope the seeds we planted will be enough to save them. To save the humans, to save the Fae, to save us all.”
The smoke cleared from my eyes, slowly at first, fading around the edges, where to one point I was seeing double. On one side, a forlorn, but the angry dark prince mourned his bride beneath a glowing tree. On the other, was the current prince, glyphs marring his otherwise beautiful face
, flickering as he scolded Seer.
I sat there for a moment, gathering my bearings, not mentioning to the arguing Fae that I was back from my vision quest. I observed the prince’s new attire. Gone was the blood-red shirt he had worn to the mourning party that caused him to stand out from the golden Fae, and in its place was a black on black button-up shirt and fitted vest. It still bugged me that the Seelie would wear such an ostentatious color for a remembrance party. It was like they were declaring to the entire realm that yes their princess was dead, but they are still wonderful beings in need of worship and adoration.
Now knowing what I did, it was no wonder. Maybe they were ashamed of their princess. She committed suicide after all. Though, why was it still a mystery? I know it had something to do with Alice and the shadows.
Oh.
And the glowing tree.
I got the part about Alice wanting to be a Fae. She made a wish that the tree granted and somehow her wish caused the princess to kill herself. That was the start of the whole ‘no-humans’ rule.
I also couldn’t forget about the shadows that helped Alice get to the tree in return for breaking the couple up. I wasn’t quite sure why the shadows cared so much about their marriage, but the White Queen and Mab, the Red Queen I’m assuming, were planning on using them to beat the shadows.
That brought me to the no-names rule.
Mab was afraid of the shadows. She said some of her people had been called into the shadows and never seen again. Were they killed? Turned into shadows? Eaten? As more information appeared, I seemed to have more questions than answers.
“Lady, you’re awake.” Seer noticed me staring at them first as she rushed to my side.
Damn. I had been spotted.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course she’s not all right. Look at her!” The UnSeelie Prince yelled, gesturing a hand at me.
Was there something wrong with my face? I didn’t feel any different. I still felt like I could sleep a month and still be tired. I was still craving a double quarter pounder with cheese and a large slice of chocolate cake. I was still creeped out by the mirror, which seemed even more aggressive than when I went into my vision quest.
Seer placed a hand on my face and frowned. “She does look a bit pale.”
Her other set of hands went to work taking my pulse and generally poking and prodding at me. The Fae must have been genuinely concerned because she didn’t once try to grope me or take advantage of my disoriented state.
“I’m fine, really.” I pushed my arms out in front of me, causing her to back up and give me some space.
“You are not fine.” His royal pain in my ass glowered at me.
Towering over me, his markings glowed hard enough that his eye was twitching. He must be in pain from fighting the spell. Why was he keeping it from changing his personality? What did he have to gain from being mad at me?
“Calm down. No need to pop a blood vessel.” I reached a hand up, tucking the blonde hair that had fallen across my face. I froze. My eyes widened as I stared up at a curious Seer and a smug prince, my face filling with horror.
Blonde?
I lifted the strand of hair I had just tucked out from behind my ear. No, it wasn’t my imagination. My hair was blonde. I grabbed another section of my hair and felt an ounce of relief when my usual bright orangish-red hair glared back at me, but growled when I grabbed another section, and it was blonde as well.
What the fuck?
I stared at the blonde chunk in my hands, not quite believing what I was seeing. I was used to having a random section of blonde. The hair I was holding was exactly the same color as the one at the nape of my neck.
It was a blonde so white it was near impossible for me to color my natural fiery red to it. I wouldn’t have cared so much if it had changed all of my hair, but to only change bits and pieces? I dreaded seeing it in the mirror. With my luck, I looked like some punk rock reject.
“How did this happen?” I questioned the no longer twitchy prince. His smug smile showed he had finally let the magic on his body smooth over his personality. I honestly couldn’t decide which way I liked him better. Both sides of him made me want to deck him.
“Why don’t you ask your new best friend, since you seemed perfectly all right with her watching over your mind, body, and soul?” Though his face held the usual teasing grin, his voice held the biting heat of anger. He kept his icy blue gaze on me as he addressed Seer. “Go on, tell her.”
Seer crossed her arms, all six of them over her torso. “I hate to break it to you, your highness, but I didn’t do this.”
The prince’s attention jerked to her. “Of course you did. You know the risks of feeding directly from a human.” His eyes flashed dark. “Or has it been so long you have forgotten?”
“Like I would lose control like that? I’m not some lower Fae.” She seemed offended he would even suggest it.
“Then how do you explain that?” He pointed at my whitened hair, making me grip the pieces as if to defend them.
I scowled at them. What was the big deal? Yes, my hair was a mess, but what did that have to do with Seer feeding off my dreams? I wasn’t as worried about my hair as I was the mirror – its presence felt like a two-ton truck was crushing me.
“Would someone tell me what’s going on?” My voice became a bit breathless. How did they not notice that thing?
The UnSeelie Prince grabbed my arm, jerking me to my feet and pulled me to the mirror. I dug my heels in as he tried to drag me to it. I so did not want to be any closer to it than I had to be, but his damn Fae strength far surpassed my own. Not that it was hard to do. Working out for me mainly consisted of lifting stacks of books to put back on the racks and walking to the fridge.
The closer I got to the mirror, the harder it was for me to breathe. I focused on my breathing and keeping my eyes on anything but the mirror, which ended up being the Fae prince himself. I couldn’t help but compare this version of him to the one in my visions.
His face was hard with anger and determination, and if I had to guess a bit afraid? What was he afraid of? The glyphs on his face didn’t take away from the beauty of him, especially since I knew what he looked like without them. His eyes were flirting between the dark and icy blue.
The icy blue made me think of the White Queen, since she placed the spell on him it was no wonder she had given him her trademark blue eyes as part of his punishment. I was more partial to the dark blue of his eyes. They contrasted so much better with his pale skin and dark hair.
“Look,” he demanded, his eyes locking with mine. While I was caught up in watching him, he had done something to the mirror. Waved his hand in front of it, sprinkled it with faerie dust, whatever. I’d been fighting not to pay attention to the mirror, but as he watched me watching him, I chanced a glance at the mirror.
It wasn’t black anymore. The frame was still charred, but the mirror was clear and reflected back what I had pretty much guessed I’d looked like, a punk rock wannabe. My face was paler than usual as if I was suffering from a cold. My hair had more of the white blonde than red to it now, as if I had streaked it red and not the other way around. But the part that mystified me, the part that caused me to lean in closer to the mirror to get a better look, were my eyes.
My eyes, which were usually the color of a newly cut Christmas tree, weren’t completely my eyes anymore. Bleeding into the green was an icy blue, causing a weird ring around the middle. In any normal setting, I would think it was pretty awesome. People have completely fucked up their eyesight by wearing color-changing contacts, and I now had my very own set of freaky eyes, but how they got that way was disquieting.
“How did this happen?” I asked, still staring at my new eyes as my foot took an involuntary step closer to the mirror. The pressure from the mirror had eased up for some reason. Not that I was complaining, it made it easier to breathe.
“It’s a side effect of the feeding, which I never got around to because someone…” The
blue-haired Fae glared at the prince. “Jumped in just as it was getting good. Only a lower Fae would be careless enough to lose control when feeding directly from dreams. It’s unheard of in us higher Fae. We have more control than that.” She smirked at the scowling prince. “Well, most of us anyway.”
“Who else if not you?” Accusation rung in his voice. “There isn’t any other Fae, or do you think my abilities are not up to par?”
“I would never insinuate that, your highness.” Though, her voice implied that was just what she had done.
If they didn’t do it then who did? I placed a hand on the mirror as I leaned in even closer to gaze into my eyes. The instant my hand touched the mirror the whispers were back tenfold, and the heavy weight of the mirror crushed me to my knees.
I tried to pull my hand away, but it was stuck in place. The blue in my eyes grew larger the longer my hand was there, as was the color of my hair. The red had all but become inch-wide streaks along my scalp.
My eyes darted around to the others, frantic that I couldn’t let go. Seer and the UnSeelie Prince finally stopped fighting enough to notice what was going on. The fear that had crept up their faces, even as they fought to keep calm, set me on edge.
“Lady,” Seer coaxed as if the slightest movement would cause me to go into hysterics. “Let go of the mirror.”
I gave a tired chuckle. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”
“You don’t understand,” the UnSeelie Prince stated in a calm and reassuring manner. “Opening yourself up to be fed on this close to the Shadow Realm has allowed them to hijack your life force. That’s why you’re changing so quickly. They’re trying to drain you. Someone should have known better.” He glared at Seer who had the decency to look ashamed.
He knelt next to me, placing his hand on mine. I could feel his breath on my face. I would have been embarrassed to have him touch me, especially after my little fantasy he had starred in, but I couldn’t think pass the whispers in my mind.
His hand was warm and engulfing on top of mine. He gave a firm tug on my hand as he commanded the mirror’s occupants. “You know the rules. Let her go.” The prince’s own magic pulsated down my hand and into the mirror.
