by C. J. Abedi
“Like a ripple it brought about a destiny you now live,” their voice whispered.
“That is impossible!” I all but screamed at them. “There is no such union.”
“There is, mighty Alderon. The union between Fae and mortal has been consummated.”
I was horrified. It meant the soul of this spawn they spoke of had already been created and was waiting to be born, just as the Fates said.
“It could bring about the end of our race.”
“The human race will come to touch your Kingdom,” they decreed.
They sank lower into the Cauldron and I knew my time was almost up.
“The rise and fall of your people, their very fate lies in your hands,” they told me. “And as the Fates have spoken, so it shall be.”
D
I finally found her.
I watched in horror as my sister took the stage.
I now knew why she was unable to call to me. Why I could no longer hear her voice.
Tatiana wore a crown of white crystals around her head. The pain from wearing the Light had to be excruciating. The agony in her head, the voices she had to be hearing, would drive any Dark Fae insane.
Why had she allowed it?
More importantly, who had given it to her? How had someone tricked her into putting that on?
It weakened her, made her almost human. Such a crown would render her incapable of even lifting her arms to take the offending piece off. And what was worse, she sat atop a white crystal throne. That she wasn’t hunched over like a lifeless doll was a miracle in itself.
Rowan and Caroline, now dressed in wedding attire, walked onstage and knelt before Tatiana.
“Great Mother, we come before you and ask that you bless our union.” Rowan’s voice was solemn.
There were no lines for Tatiana. She could barely breathe, let alone speak.
“I pledge myself to thee, Virginia Dare, for all of eternity,” Rowan said as he slipped a ring on Caroline’s finger. “You are my heart and my love, and I will live and die for you until I am no more.”
Caroline gripped his hands, her eyes still carrying the faraway gaze.
“I pledge myself to thee, Royce de Dannan. My life will be linked to yours for eternity,” she said softly. “Should you die, I will die.”
I made a great effort to control my emotions, but when I looked from my sister, who was weakened beyond comprehension, to Caroline and Rowan, who were leaning forward to seal the union with a kiss, I could no longer stand by.
I moved forward.
Trying to walk onstage but, a black force prevented me from doing so. An invisible wall of darkness blocked me from entering the scene.
“You’re not up yet,” Mr. Copeland crept over from the shadows and whispered to me. “You can’t go onstage until it’s your turn. Those are the rules.”
I turned to Copeland in fury. Nothing mattered anymore. He was an extension of Puck and Alderon, a servant doing their bidding. I grabbed him by the neck and pushed him up against the wall.
“If you kill me now, they’ll be trapped forever in the center of this dramatic scene I have created,” he told me with a vicious smile. “They will replay this over and over for all of eternity. It would get a little redundant, don’t you think?”
“What magik is this?” I demanded.
“The kind that even Odin cannot infiltrate,” Copeland laughed. “The kind that has been carefully crafted for centuries, waiting to be unleashed at the most opportune time. It is a play unlike any other. It will be canonized and written about for centuries to come. Do you not see the magnificence unfolding before our eyes? This is real drama!”
I squeezed his throat harder.
“Do it,” he goaded me on. “Kill me. Destroy the one key, and with it the only small pathetic chance you’ll ever have to rescue your dear, sweet Caroline. And let’s not forget your lovely sister, who’s really disappointing as an actress, I must say. Just look at her. No emotion. No range. She’s a lifeless doll.”
In my heart I wanted nothing more than to suck the life out of him, but I could not. If what he said was true, then there was nothing I could do but wait my turn.
“You chose to walk this path of destiny, Devilyn. You and that lovely queen of yours,” he went on in glee. “Dare you see where it goes?”
I threw his body away from me.
I was trembling in anger.
Helpless.
For the first time in my life, I could not use magik.
I could only wait and see where the next act led me.
But to what end?
C
I was in a meadow of Light. Finally marrying my beloved. He was so handsome and resplendent. Glorious. Yes, that would be the word I would use.
Glorious, in every way.
I had a moment of confusion.
It was Devilyn I loved, wasn’t it?
No, it was Royce.
Royce. My love. King of the Light.
And I was Virginia. Virginia Dare.
And I was to be his queen.
I did not know Devilyn.
I looked over at the Great Mother Goddess, Dana. The shimmer from the crystals on her head was almost blinding. “Caroline,” she said in a voice that I could barely hear.
I leaned toward her. She swayed before my eyes; as she moved I could not really decipher her face.
“Help me,” she whispered.
But her lips weren’t moving. Was she even speaking?
“Do you hear her?” I asked Royce.
Everything around me seemed to sway. Even Royce.
Or was it Devilyn?
Who was Devilyn?
“Hear who?” Royce whispered back to me with concern.
“Her,” I said, tilting my head toward the Great Mother.
Royce squeezed my hands. “Caroline?”
Caroline? Who was he talking about?
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” the audience chanted.
Teddy was goading them on, laughing merrily and running around the front of the stage.
Was it a stage I was on?
Who was Teddy?
“I don’t remember,” I said out loud.
Strong hands grabbed hold of my face as sensual lips descended upon mine.
And as our lips melded together, something flashed before my eyes and I immediately came out of my fog.
This was Rowan kissing me.
I was Caroline.
And we were surrounded by black magik, manipulating us into becoming the characters we played.
My mother. And father.
This didn’t feel right.
The kiss was pleasant enough. But nothing moved inside me. I pulled away from him and looked over to Tatiana. Excruciating pain was written all over her face.
I had to fight.
I couldn’t sit idly by.
I rose, ignoring the lines on the monitor.
“And now I shall take your crown, Great Mother,” I said. “Since I will be Queen.”
The playing field had completely changed, so I would change the script.
There were whispers in the audience.
Teddy looked surprised. I knew he was under the influence of Puck’s magik, so he couldn’t understand what I was doing. Or why.
I lifted the crown off Tatiana’s head and placed the white crystals on my own.
It was what I needed. I felt a wondrous surge move through my body, giving me strength.
Tatiana cried out in relief as she hunched over and drew her hands up to her head in agony.
“Ladies and gentleman, and so we see the end of Act Four!” Teddy’s voice boomed.
The curtains closed. Rowan pulled Tatiana off the throne. She fell into his arms as they both slid to the floor. I leaned over to stare at her in concern.
“Who put that on your head?” I asked her.
“Teddy,” she whispered.
“That was not in the script!” Mr. Copeland rushed out onstage. “The rules are that you read the prompte
r!”
“Whose rules?” I challenged. “I’m done playing this your way—”
He laughed. “Oh, are you?”
He snapped his fingers and the curtains began to open again. The color of my gown changed to purple. Tatiana was now back on the throne of crystals, and Rowan was tied to a tree that looked eerily similar to the one I’d seen when I had my vision in the Light Kingdom.
“Act Five!” Teddy’s voice shouted out to the riveted audience. He bowed low, then dramatically swooped his arm across stage. “Ladies and Gentlemen, you see before you the half-mortal Virginia Dare, and her Fae love, Royce de Dannan. They have come a long way since that fateful wedding in the forest and have sired a sweet child. A beautiful little girl. But Alderon has found them and has tricked Royce into believing the two kingdoms would finally have a truce.”
The audience booed.
“So prepare yourself for the tears that will inevitably fall. For this is a tragedy, my friends, a great, epic tale that can only have one outcome for our heroes.”
Teddy had had his back to me the entire duration of this speech. He finally turned to give me a smile.
But it wasn’t my friend.
It was Puck.
“Death,” he said with a victorious laugh. “Oh how I love a story that ends in death.”
D
I rushed out onstage just as Puck raised his hand and the sound of thunder echoed through the theater.
A thin black haze moved up like fog, shielding us from the audience.
There was a dark flash.
And then I watched in amazement as two parallel worlds began to take place at the same time.
The audience saw the stage we had been performing on, with a mirage of beings that looked exactly like us moving about. When I closed my eyes I could still see the stage, but when I opened them I was somewhere else. Caroline and Rowan’s images fluttered around onstage as they had before, Tatiana’s even. Like holograms.
But we were not there.
We had all been transported to the outer banks in Roanoke. No one was there but us.
Caroline.
Rowan.
Tatiana.
And me.
As Teddy continued to act out the play in front of the sheer black mist.
For a moment I remained riveted as I watched the audience’s reactions to the play unfolding before them. This magik Puck and Alderon had used was brilliant, really. Stretching time in a way, while planting two different moments to occur simultaneously.
Holograms now played the roles.
While we suffered a different fate.
The wind began to howl.
Lightning flashed in the sky as dark clouds began to take shape above us.
Before I could free Rowan, Odin appeared with a bolt of lightning, dressed in his warrior’s gear, and in one fluid motion he used his sword to untie Rowan.
“Father!” I called out to him.
Odin bowed to me.
“What are you doing here?”
Odin smiled at me.
“I could not let my children come to the final battle on their own. Fates be damned, I had to be here by your side.”
I smiled at him in relief. He ran over and pulled Tatiana off the throne, and within a moment she was back to herself.
“Devilyn?” Caroline called out to me.
She was still kneeling on the ground, staring at the giant tree that Rowan had just been tied to.
“What is it?”
“I’ve seen this moment—” she told me.
“Tell me.” I leaned down next to her and lifted her chin so that she could look at me.
She wouldn’t speak. Her fingers grazed my cheek.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“What?”
“Kiss me, Devilyn.”
For the last time.
I understood and I didn’t hesitate. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her with every ounce of love that I had for her. I apologized to her in the kiss. I told her what she meant to me, how dear and precious she was. That she was everything I ever wanted. I melded my soul with hers.
I was hers forever.
No matter the outcome of this night.
She answered me with the same passion and fervor.
“I love you,” she whispered against my lips.
“I love you,” I whispered back.
Our foreheads touched as we breathed each other in.
“Forever,” we both said at the same time as we linked hands.
When I heard the laughter and the gleeful clapping, I knew our moment was up. I stood and pushed Caroline behind me as I searched for the source of the noise. In a moment, Rowan, Odin, and Tatiana were flanking my side.
“Touching,” Alderon’s voice laughed.
“I think I might be brought to tears,” I heard Puck’s voice echo through the night.
“It seems I have waited my entire life for this moment,” Alderon said as he began to take shape by the tree. He was dressed in a long, dark cape, the hood drawn to hide his face from the world.
“Let her go,” I pleaded with him. “Just let her go.”
“I have lost everything because of that half-mortal spawn. Do you really think I will allow you to find happiness in her arms?” Alderon said. He lifted his hood back to reveal his ever-changing face. “I will haunt her every step. She will never be safe.”
“Then let us waste no more time with pleasantries,” Odin said as he stepped forward with his sword in hand.
“Let us finish this,” I said, stepping forward to stand beside Odin.
Alderon threw his head back and laughed. “Do you know how much joy this gives me?”
Puck stepped out from the shadows and leaned up next to the tree. If it were possible, I hated him even more than Alderon.
“I will make her beg, Devilyn,” Puck said to me. “You know that, don’t you? I will give her so much pain that she will beg me to end her—”
I didn’t allow him to finish his sentence. My rage blinded me.
“Devilyn!” Odin tried to hold me back. “Wait—”
But it was too late.
I threw a small dagger at Puck. He expected my retaliation and moved fast, disappearing into thin air.
And my blade punctured the tree trunk behind him with astounding precision.
The ground trembled.
A load moan echoed in the air, one that did not sound like anything from this earth. Odin raised his sword and stepped forward.
The tree began to crack, opening slowly, as shards of black and red light broke out.
A giant red hoof emerged from the tree, followed by another, then enormous hands with claws like black swords on each finger.
The monster stood up on its hind legs, well over twenty feet tall. It had no eyes, no nose or ears, only razor-sharp teeth that hung out of its mouth. The red scales that covered its body glistened against the night. It let out a roar that shook the ground.
I looked over at Odin and Rowan, then turned to see Caroline. Her eyes were wide with fear as she stared at the monster.
“Stay behind us!” I ordered. “Do not move, do you hear me?”
She could barely nod.
And then the tree bent to the side as an identical creature made its way out.
“His mate,” Odin whispered.
Odin looked over at me and then Tatiana, then pushed Rowan back.
“Guard Caroline.”
I shook my head.
“You will not interfere!” he commanded in a roar.
He moved forward with lightning speed, sword in hand, and attacked the creatures.
“Valkyries!” he shouted up into the sky.
I had never seen Odin in battle. I had always heard tales of his strength and prowess, but never had I seen his equal. He moved too quickly for Wrath to attack him. Odin’s advantage was his size; he could dance around the monster and swipe with his weapon before Wrath could even turn.
He raised his sword in the air and
came down hard on Wrath, his weapon slicing off one of its horns.
Wrath let out a cry of pain as he stumbled about. I watched his mate make her way out of the tree and scream in fury as she attacked Odin.
“Brother!” Tatiana called out to me. “Behind us!”
The three of us formed a circle around Caroline, who I knew was still overwhelmed by what she was witnessing.
“Alderon!” Rowan shouted.
Alderon and Puck rushed forward, their rage spurring them on. In Alderon’s hand was the great sword of Nuada, which I had thought was safely hidden. And in Puck’s hands, the Spear of Lug.
These were two of the four great treasures of the Tuatha de Danann.
When struck by one with the intention to kill, there was no hope. I had already struck Alderon with the sword of Nuada once, but my intention had not been death. The assault had turned him into the creature that was before me now.
“Get Caroline out of here!” I shouted at Tatiana.
And then all hell broke loose.
Black rain came down on us from the heavens above. I could hear Odin’s battle behind me. Rowan and I looked at each other, a united front against the evil coming for us.
“No!” Caroline shouted.
“Go!” I screamed at Tatiana.
Tatiana seemed unsure; I knew she believed I faced certain death.
“I won’t leave you!” Caroline said to me.
She squeezed my hand.
“We do this together.”
My eyes lit up and I watched hers do the same. Rowan and Tatiana followed.
The sky crackled again and I looked up to see five of Odin’s Valkyries descend from the sky atop their mighty winged horses. They carried swords and shields from the heavens. They reached us just in time, throwing the weapons for us to catch.
I looked up at and saw Kristianna, the one I had trained with many times.
“Help Odin!” I said to her.
“He is on his own,” she told me. She raised her sword and began to charge Alderon and Puck. The four other Valkyries followed behind her.
Rowan and I moved fast and ran behind them. Tatiana joined as well. I didn’t have time to think about whether Caroline was behind us—I could only focus on our enemies. Kristianna’s sword crashed against Alderon’s and she held her own. I ran to help her. The only way to destroy him would be to somehow disarm him and steal the sword.
