Lara

by Bertrice Small

  The months passed, and then one day when she had been within the Shadow realm for almost a year, the grandmother she had never known, Maeve, queen of the Forest Faeries arrived in Kaliq’s dining hall one evening in her usual puff of lavender mist. She was barely visible, yet seeing her, the Shadow Princes came to their feet and bowed low. Kaliq came forward to lead her to a seat. He put a goblet of wine in her hand.

  She drank from it, and her image strengthened. She was a beautiful creature even in her decline. Lara could but imagine what she had been like in her prime. Maeve was tall, and gracefully slender. She had silver hair like spun sugar that billowed gently about her now-thin face. Her pale green eyes were alert and sharp, sweeping about the room and taking in all. A once-full mouth was now thin with age, but there was a sweetness to it; her nose was straight and in perfect proportion to the rest of her face. She gave the impression of great fragility, but Lara sensed it was actually great strength. Maeve was garbed in elegant garments of forest-green and gold brocade, a golden torque about her slim neck. As Lara stared at her grandmother, her features faded slightly, but when the faerie queen drank again from the goblet in her beringed hand, the image was restored. It grew even stronger when she spoke to him. “Why have you summoned me, Kaliq of the Shadow realm?”

  “I have that which you have longed for most, great Maeve,” he said. “I have your granddaughter, Lara, only child of your daughter, Ilona.”

  Maeve’s glance swept the hall at his words, and when they reached Lara a strangely sweet smile lit her aristocratic features. “Lara!” She breathed the word, and stood. Then unable to remain upon her feet she sat down heavily upon the bench, holding out her hand to the girl.

  Unable to resist the soft call, Lara arose and came to kneel by the faerie queen’s side. “I am here, grandmother,” she said. A wave of tenderness swept over her.

  Maeve reached out, and caressed Lara’s face. Her touch was like being brushed by butterfly wings, the girl thought. The delicate hand fingered Lara’s gilt hair. Then her fingers tilted the girl’s face upward, and Maeve stared into Lara’s green eyes. Lara felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She immediately felt the bond of kinship with the faerie. “Ilona’s child,” Maeve said. Then looking away from her granddaughter, she turned her gaze again on Kaliq. “How?” she demanded.

  The Shadow Prince recited Lara’s tale, and Maeve nodded again and again as he spoke. He concluded by saying, “I have sheltered her, and taught her since she came, great Maeve. I know she will not remain with me for much longer, but I know how much you have longed to know her. I am glad you have come.”

  “I must summon my daughter,” Maeve responded. “She must see her child.”

  “No!” Lara cried. “I do not want to see her! How can I ever forgive her for leaving us, grandmother? Forgive me if I hurt you, for I hold no ill will toward you, but I cannot see she who broke my father’s heart when she deserted him for another lover.”

  The faerie queen’s image flickered, and dimmed slightly. She quickly downed the contents of her cup, and was restored to their sight. “Your mother did not leave your father for another man, Lara. That is but what she told him so he should not attempt to dissuade her from her fate again. Your mother has always been my chosen. She will become queen of the Forest Faeries when I am finally faded away. My time grows short now. I needed her back in my own kingdom that she might learn her duties. She could no longer live in both your father’s world and ours. It was her duty to return, and your mother has always known how to do her duty, no matter how painful. Several times she came to see you, but neither your father, nor your father’s mother would permit her access to you. They said it was better for you. That seeing you, and then departing again would but confuse a child. Ilona finally accepted their wishes, though it pained her greatly. Were you not told this when you were grown, Lara?”

  The girl shook her head slowly. “My father rarely spoke of my mother,” she said. “It was my grandmother, Ina, who told me of my heritage.”

  “And slandered your mother in the process, I have not a doubt,” Maeve said in dark tones.

  “I’m sure she never meant to,” Lara attempted to protect her father’s dead mother, who had raised her so lovingly.

  Maeve sniffed in disbelief, but said nothing further. Her granddaughter had been deliberately misled into believing that her faerie kin did not love her. It was intolerable! And so very human. “You look exactly like your mother,” she remarked. “And your mother must see you. I shall summon her now. You will treat her with kindness, Lara, for she has suffered, too. She loved your father. Still loves him, if the truth be known.”

  “He took another wife two years ago,” Lara said. “I have a half brother.”

  “His love of her then was not as constant as hers for him,” Maeve murmured scornfully. “But then I warned her that humans are a feckless lot.”

  “If you dislike humans so then why bother to remain here, or summon my mother? If she is used to the idea that I am gone from her life, why wound her if you love her?” Lara said angrily. She stared defiantly at the beautiful old faerie queen.

  Maeve laughed. “That temper you possess, girl, is both human and faerie. I do not dislike humans, Lara. Indeed, some of my favorite lovers were humans, and I spawned seven half faerie children in my day. Your mother, however, was born of my union with a faerie lord called Tiburon, who was my chosen mate. He has long faded away into the next life, but you should know who your grandfather was.” She turned to Kaliq. “I am not strong enough to reach out to Ilona. Will you do it for me?”

  He nodded, and then he poured more wine into her goblet. “Drink, Queen Maeve, and I will bring your daughter to you. I suspect you will need a certain amount of strength for the meeting shortly to take place between Ilona and your granddaughter. Listen, but do not involve yourself in their affairs lest you shorten what time you have remaining here.”

  Maeve reached out again to Lara, taking the girl’s face between her hands. “I have not lied to you, Lara. What I have said is the truth. Be kind to your mother. If you have any care for your faerie heritage, remember that Ilona gave you life, and while she could not be with you she gave you Ethne to watch over you. I am sorry the crystal guardian could not prevent your time with the Forest Lords, my granddaughter.”

  “I had heard you had no other grandchildren but me,” Lara responded. “Yet you have had other children. Have they not wed, and taken mates?”

  “My other children, five sons and two daughters, were killed in the war that ensued between the Forest Faeries and the Forest Lords following the murder of the unfortunate Nixa. They fired the portion of the woodland where we had our halls because they were angry at the curse I placed upon them. Your mother was born in the time after we had retreated deep into the Forest, where we could not be found by those violent men.”

  “If I had given them a child,” Lara said, “could it have reversed the curse?”

  Maeve laughed scornfully. “Not even I could reverse that curse. I was very angry. The curse was strong and irrevocable. What madness possessed them to believe that they might reverse it by getting offspring on half faerie girls I do not know. Yet you had to pass through their world, and treat with them for it is your fate.”

  “Everyone keeps saying it is my fate to do this, and to do that, but I do not understand at all,” Lara grumbled. “What is this fate you all prate about?”

  “I cannot tell you, Lara, for your fate is yours to unravel as you go through life,” Maeve said. “You may change that fate, or not, but it must proceed in an orderly manner. That is the will of the Celestial Actuary.”

  Lara shook her head. “I do not understand at all,” she replied.

  “It is not the hour for you to understand,” Maeve answered her, “but in time you will. I charted your stars the night you were born, for I was present at your birth, and even then much was hidden from me. You have a destiny, Lara, and it is for greatness. That much I know. That much I can
share with you.”

  Another clap of thunder sounded in the banqueting hall, and Ilona appeared in a mist of royal purple. Not looking at anyone else, she hurried to her mother’s side. Everyone was astounded at how much she resembled her daughter. “What is it, Mother, that you have had me summoned?” she asked.

  Maeve raised a slender hand, and pointed at Lara with a thin finger.

  Ilona turned and stared. Surprise and shock suffused her features. She could not speak at first. She was hard-pressed to even believe the evidence of her own eyes. This was her daughter! This was Lara! But how?

  “Greetings, Mother.” Lara finally broke the spell. “It has been some time since we last met.” There was an edge of irony in the girl’s voice.

  Ilona heard it, and bit her lip. What could she possibly say to the daughter she had left behind sixteen years ago? “You are beautiful.”

  “They claim I am your image, and I will admit that seeing you is like peering into a looking glass,” Lara replied. “It has been both a blessing and a curse to bear this beauty, and yet be half human, Mother. It would have been easier had you been there.”

  “I could not be!” Ilona cried. Then, reaching out for Lara’s hand, she transported them into a private place away from the hall. “I will not speak with you of these things amid a crowd of strangers, Lara. I did not leave you willingly.”

  “Grandmother says it was because you could not live in both worlds any longer,” Lara replied. “Then why did you not take me with you?”

  “Your father begged me to leave you with him, Lara. I could not refuse him. I loved John. I always have loved him,” Ilona said. “And I came back several times to see how you grew, but Ina would not allow it. She said you must be raised to live in the world in which they inhabited and not dwell upon things faerie. Finally she asked me not to return at all, and your father agreed. I was defeated.”

  “He has a wife and son now,” Lara said cruelly.

  “Does he?” Ilona murmured.

  “And he is a Crusader Knight,” she continued.

  “Then his wife brought him the riches he needed to gain that goal. Oh, I am glad!” Ilona cried. “I offered him faerie gold, but he would not take it. Your father is a very proud man, but you know that.”

  “My father sold me into slavery to gain his goal, but do not be angered. I agreed to it, Mother. There was nothing else for me, as we were always poor. No man would have me without a dowry portion despite my beauty. In fact, my faerie beauty frightened many. The Master of the Merchants purchased me, and meant to resell me into one of the City’s Pleasure Houses, but my beauty caused dissension among the Pleasure Mistresses. So I was consigned to a Taubyl Trader, and the Head Forester and his brother paid a small fortune for me because they believed the child of a half faerie girl would free them from Maeve’s curse, poor fools. Knowing naught of my faerie heritage, I did not realize that because I hated them, their seed would not flourish in my womb.”

  “How did you learn of it?” Ilona asked quietly. Her daughter’s recitation was so bitter, and she could see Lara was angry.

  “Og, the Forest giant, told me. It was he who aided me to escape. He now takes care of the prince’s horses,” Lara said.

  “I had thought the Forest giants were extinct,” Ilona said softly. “We did not learn of their massacre until after it had happened.”

  “He was in his mother’s womb. She fled only to be caught several years later when they slew her,” Lara replied. “The Foresters do not know that giant memory is passed on in the womb. They did not want the shame of Maeve’s curse made public.”

  “No, they would not,” Ilona said. “The Foresters know nothing outside of their own world, nor do they want to know. I am sorry for what has happened.”

  “According to my grandmother it is my fate, my destiny,” Lara responded sharply. “She blames my father, but I do not.”

  “Nay, you shouldn’t. I know that your father loves you, and did what he believed was best for you. He might, however, have called upon me, and I would have aided him. He might have asked for my help. I would have given it, and surely he knew that. But your father was ever stubborn, yet had he really considered you at all, he could have called upon me. After all, you are my child, too. I am the one who carried you beneath my heart until your birth, and it was he who drove me away. If he had but asked, it could have been easier.” Then catching herself she said, “But John was always an over-proud man. Tell me of his wife?”

  “Susanna is a good woman. She was kind to me, and we were friends. But I think she was jealous that you had first captured my father’s heart,” Lara said. “And I was a reminder of you. At least my grandmother was not there to remind her constantly of how I resemble you.”

  “Ina is dead then?” Ilona did not sound grief-stricken.

  “Several years now, yes.”

  “Your father’s sword skills, of course, helped him win his matches at tournament time,” Ilona said. “So now he lives well with a new wife and a son. His daughter, his old life in the Quarter, is behind him. And you have begun your journey, Lara. It will not be an easy one, I fear.” She reached out, and touched the girl’s face. “Do not be angry with me, my daughter. I have never stopped loving you, and I left Ethne to protect you as best she might. Her powers are very limited, however, as you have learned.”

  “What of my powers?” Lara wanted to know. “Do I have any?”

  “Do you want them?” Ilona said.

  “Yes! I want them because I never again want to be at any man’s mercy, Mother! I am not afraid of this journey, this destiny you all prattle about, but I must be as well-equipped as any soldier if I am to survive and triumph.”

  Ilona waved her hand, and two goblets appeared, floating in the air before the women. The faerie reached out and, taking a goblet, offered it to Lara. “Let us sit and talk more,” Ilona said, and there was a bench in the mist where they had stood speaking. She drew her daughter down to sit beside her. “Tell me which of the Shadow Princes is your host?”

  “Prince Kaliq,” Lara said.

  “What has he taught you so far?”

  “To enjoy passion. To control it so I remain the dominant,” Lara said. “I lost my virginity to Enda, brother of the Head Forester. While easier than Durga, he was still a beast. I despised them both. But with Kaliq it is different. I think I may even love him a little,” she admitted.

  “Do not love him more than a little,” Ilona warned, but she smiled at her daughter.

  Unable to help herself, Lara smiled back, feeling a sudden rush of warmth for this beautiful faerie who had given her life. “And Kaliq has brought me Master Bashkar, from whom I have learned the history of Hetar as well as its great literature and poetry.”

  “Excellent,” Ilona said. “Now there remains but one thing for you to learn.”

  “What is that, Mother?” Lara was curious.

  “You must be taught how to fight, to protect yourself. When you have learned to defend yourself you will be ready to move on, and you must,” Ilona said. “You have a…”

  “A destiny. A fate. I know! I know! But what is it?” Lara asked.

  Ilona sighed. “What little I know I cannot tell you, my daughter. You may change your fate slightly now and again as you move along life’s path. If I speak on it I could spoil it. Have I not already done you enough harm?”

  It was then Lara began to weep softly. “I missed you,” she sobbed. “I needed you! Why did you go?”

  “I was torn between two worlds, Lara. As my mother’s only surviving child, I was chosen to follow after her as queen. Your father could not understand that a woman’s duty is every bit as important as a man’s. It was the only time he and I ever fought with one another. I offered to take him with me into my mother’s kingdom, but he would not go. As proud as he was, as duty-bound, he had his own fate to follow, too, and he would not change it to permit me to follow mine. There was no choice but to separate, and so we did. I wanted you with me. He begged
I leave you. In the end I realized it was better for both you and John that you stay. Perhaps I should not have listened to his pleas. Perhaps I should have taken you with me. But I did not. Even faeries make mistakes, Lara. Will you forgive me?” Her lovely green eyes scanned her daughter’s face.

  “Yes,” Lara said simply. Her whole life she had wanted her mother. What a fool she would be to turn her away now. She embraced Ilona, and kissed her cheek. Then she sighed. “We will begin anew, Mother. Now you have cleverly avoided telling me of any powers I might have. But you must, I beg you.”

  Ilona laughed. “Very well,” she agreed. “I can teach you how to draw people and objects to you. I can teach you to shift your shape as does your prince. I can show you potions and lotions of interest to the human world. I know now how to be queen. I shall remain with you for a short time. It cannot make up for the years we were separated, but it will give us an opportunity to know one another better. Will that suit you, daughter?”

  “Yes!” Lara responded enthusiastically. “Yes, it will!” And she laughed happily.

  Ilona laughed, too, and then she said, “We must return to Prince Kaliq’s banqueting hall. His heart would be quite broken if he thought I had taken you off forever. Besides, I must return my mother to her own home shortly. She is so weak, and soon she will be faded away entirely. She can barely transport herself any longer, and coming here tonight took a great deal out of her.”

  “I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet her,” Lara said. “Will I see her again, Mother?”

  “If you wish. I know it would please her greatly,” Ilona said. She waved a graceful hand, and they were returned to the prince’s banqueting hall where Maeve eagerly awaited them, smiling happily to see her daughter and her granddaughter reconciled and reunited at long last. Now she could fade away in peace.