by Brindi Quinn
The Edge of Nowhere.
This place might be heaven.
But if it was heaven, why did a certain wavy-haired, amber-eyed magician sitting on a rock a short distance away look as though he had been put through hell?
Chapter 18
Soleil’s Wish
“Rafe!”
“You two have some nerve to show up here after all this time!”
I stopped at the sight of his countenance, which was more fury filled than I had ever seen it. “Er, Rafe?”
He jumped up from his rock to lunge at me. “What the hell took you so long?!”
“Hey!” Windley pushed him in the chest. “That’s your queen, nitwit!”
Rafe pushed him back. “I expect this is your fault. You were off flirting and gallivanting with the Queen, leaving me here to ROT. I’ve been stuck here for over a year! Beau probably thinks I’m dead!”
“Stop it!” I pushed them apart. “You haven’t, Rafe! It’s only been a few days! We came as quickly as we could!”
“A few days?” He looked between us for signs of deceit. Finding none, he next opened his arms to the ocean, shouting: “IS THAT TRUE, SOLEIL?! More mind games from you, you treacherous goddess!”
“Rafe!” I hurried to pull his arm down. “Stop! We need to make nice with her! Have you forgotten why we’re here?”
“ARGH!” Rafe took his hair between his fingers and slumped to the ground. “I just want to get the hell out of here!”
“Chap, calm your shit and tell us what’s going on.”
Rafe let out a sick-sounding grumble, like he had just come through a lengthy lecture. Similarly, his eyes appeared bagged and his skin tired. “It’s really only been a few days?”
“Swear it, mate.”
“She did something to me to make it seem like I’ve been here forever. It isn’t the first trick she’s pulled.”
“Why? Does she not want to pact with you?” I said.
“Oh no. She wants to pact with me. She just wants something in exchange.”
“Your heart again?” I said.
He shook his head.
“What?”
“I’d rather not, Your Majesty.”
Windley studied him a moment, searching for meaning I couldn’t decipher, until gaining some semblance of understanding. “Ah. Between men, then?” He threw an arm around Rafe’s shoulder. “Excuse us, queenie.”
They huddled a short distance away until—
“Ha! Is that all? Why, that should be easy for a bounder like you,” Windley pawed.
“You’re confusing me with you,” spat Rafe.
“Just tell me so we can get on with it!” I demanded. “I do not believe there are things men can handle that women cannot!”
“It’s droll, really,” Windley called. “He’s having a conniption because the goddess wants his seed.”
“His seed?”
A devilish smile curled over Windley’s face. “His man-seed. To birth a half-god.”
Oh.
OH.
“She wants you to have relations with her?” I said. “With the sun? But how would that even work?”
“She has a body,” said Rafe. “A giant. Fucking. Body.”
“I believe it is you who has the giant-fucking body, isn’t it?” mused Windley.
“Shut up,” said Rafe. “You aren’t helping anything. Not only does she want me to father her child, she wants me to raise it in the mortal world. Can you imagine if I showed up with another woman’s baby? Beau would banish me!”
Would she? I thought on it.
“Well, the circumstances are extraordinary. While not ideal, I’m sure she would understand… if you explained it properly. And Windley and I could vouch for you.” I worked through the details of it. “Beau could even raise it with her own, pretending them twins, so long as it looks human.”
“With her own?” said Rafe. “What do you…?”
Oops. Yeeeeah. Didn’t mean to let that slip.
And my face was too abashed to recover.
“Your Majesty?”
“Lion queen?”
They were both looking at me while I fumbled for a cover: “H-hypothetically, if she were to have a child, I mean.”
It was too late.
Understanding reached Windley first, but it didn’t take long to also hit Rafe.
“You don’t say,” said Windley. “Congratulations are in order then, chap. Assuming it’s yours. Queen Beau doesn’t seem the type to harbor multiple lovers, but then she doesn’t seem the type to sneak around with grumpy sorcerers, either.”
“You’re messing with me,” said Rafe. It wasn’t a question; more of a certainty. “Beau isn’t… she would have told me.”
“She doesn’t yet know herself,” I said, delicate as possible. “Luna told me. It is why Beau lost the Nemophile’s Crown. Something about how she can’t wear it with magician’s blood in her.”
“How…?
“How? Want me to explain it to you, chap? First you put your—”
“I was going to say how long?” said Rafe, shooting Windley a venomous lour.
“The last time we were at the treetop fort,” I said.
“Is that where you disappeared off to? How naughty,” said Windley.
“I’m sorry, Rafe. I didn’t intend to tell you. I wanted it to be Beau. I wasn’t thinking.”
A myriad of emotions passed over his usually disinterested face: disbelief, dread, panic, and then—
“Beau’s pregnant?”
Wonder showed in his tawny eyes.
I nodded, unable to keep from returning his smile. “Yes, Rafe. Congratulations.”
His smile fell quickly into dread. “But what happens when the court finds out it’s illegitimate?”
“We’ll cover it up. We’ll convince them it belongs to a royal and put on a hasty marriage. The timing of birth can be unpredictable, after all. It will be okay, Rafe. Albie will know what to do, and I’ll help.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“We’ll get you transferred to the Clearing, too. I’ll decree it as soon as we return so that you can stay close to her. She’s going to need you.”
Rafe was terrified, and at the same time, he was excited—and missing his true queen more than ever. I watched him as he awed over the new life he had created with Beau.
But while I was watching Rafe, someone else was watching me, and when I caught him, I knew he wasn’t feeling the same contentment I was. The lack of gleam in Windley’s eye suggested he was battling gloom and contrition, and I suspected it had to do with the fact that he could never give to me what Rafe had given Beau.
It was too early in our relationship to fret over something like that.
I kissed him, saying soft enough for only him to hear: “Be happy for them.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Windley. “You need to do whatever it takes to gain the sun goddess’s favor. With a kid on the way, you can’t leave yourself defenseless. The worst thing would be returning home with a gaggle of wraiths on your tail. And you need to put into your agreement that both babes be born with Soleil’s protection so that they aren’t vulnerable to attack.”
“Good thinking.” I patted Windley, proud of him for pulling it together. “Rafe, you said you were promised to Luna from birth. You should form a similar contract with Soleil so that your descendants will be protected. I can help negotiate the terms if you’d like.”
No, it wasn’t my business, but I was a practiced diplomat and Rafe looked far from eager.
Rafe looked at us as though we were mad. “You two would have me commit adultery against Beau?”
His reluctance was endearing.
“You know better than we; do you think the goddess can be reasoned with?” I said.
Rafe sighed. “No. I’ve tried everything for what feels like months. This is the only thing she wants.”
“And I don’t suppose you know of any other goddesses we could try our luck with?” s
aid Windley.
Rafe shook his head. “There are only three powerful enough to call by name: Luna, Soleil, and Vita—the moon, the sun, and the giver of life. There are others, but they’ve lost their names over time, and Vita hasn’t been heard from in ages, so I wouldn’t know where to find her.”
“You sorcerers don’t have a fourth in your lore?” said Windley. “What about the goddess to end things?”
“I only know the three,” said Rafe. “There might be more, but your guess is as good as mine.”
Then Soleil was the most realistic to obtain.
“I’m sorry, Rafe. I don’t foresee a better way.”
“I could make it easier on you,” offered Windley, “by amplifying your lust and taking away your control of the situation.”
“I’ve seen him use it on members of the cavalry,” I agreed. “It would help you… er, relax.”
Possibly the most awkward thing I’d ever had to discuss with Rafe.
“Great, so I get to be seduced by him and cheat on Beau?”
“For all you know, it might not even resemble intercourse as we know it,” said Windley. “Who knows how celestials reproduce.”
Whether or not it was like intercourse as we knew it, we would never know. Rafe never said a word about it after and we never asked.
Okay, I never asked. You know Windley did.
“Do you mind if I speak with her?” I said. “To get a feel for her motives? You know, between women.”
Rafe nodded glumly.
Luna had been kinder than expected. I hoped Soleil would prove the same. With Rafe’s permission, I stood with my bare feet in the water, looking directly into the expanse of blushing pinks and matcha greens. The lambent beauty of the Edge of Nowhere was enough to elicit fernweh—which, if you haven’t heard it, is a sense of farsickness for a place that never was.
Later, I would reflect on how outlandish it was to be acting as an ambassador between realms. To be making deals with goddesses. To be speaking of them as though they were people.
Later, but not then.
“Goddess Soleil! I am Queen Merrin of the Crag and current wearer of the Nemophile’s Crown! The conjurer Rafe is a guard under my sovereignty. I wish to speak with you face-to-face!”
The next series of events felt like something from a dream.
I waited no more than a minute before the water began to shake, and a giant body, naked and as large as the largest skeleton of the Necropolis, began to rise from the sea, pushing the sun up with it off of the horizon. She was blinding. And then she was dazzling, as beautiful a creature as Luna, only instead of silver skin, Soleil’s was gold. A massive golden goddess, made of sunlight and warmth with the face of the sun and with skin basked in daylight’s glow.
She came toward us in the water, sending the waves furiously toward the coast with every step, pushing the clouds out of her way as she came. Her eyes were deepest gold and her hair fell around her body like strips of flame.
“Greetings, little royal.”
Her voice felt like the heat of day, and when she offered me her hand, it was warm, like the afternoon sun baking into the back of one’s neck. I bade Rafe a nod before climbing into her massive fingers and holding on as she lifted me out of the sea and into the air.
Far above the water, her face was almost too bright to look at. “Hello, Goddess Soleil. Thank you for conferring with me.”
She studied me like one studies an interesting shell plucked from the shore.
“Aha! It is as you say. The Crown of the Wood really does sit upon your head. The Crown has never ventured to see me. Tell me, are you the royal who has taken this conjurer’s heart?”
“No, but she is a dear friend, and I come on her behalf. You see, the royal who holds the conjurer’s heart also carries his offspring in her womb.”
The goddess looked past me to the ground where Rafe was sulking. “So that is his reason for denying my advances.”
I nodded—though, arguably, the thought of intermingling with a giant woman may be intimidating for any man. “What you have asked for—is there nothing else that will suffice?”
“I am afraid not. I have had my fill of the hearts of men. There is only one thing this conjurer can give me that I cannot take for myself. My power is a power that could set the mortal world ablaze; therefore, it is not a power I offer freely.”
“I understand. May I ask—why do you want a child? What are your intentions with it?”
“Naturally, to watch it grow,” radiated Soleil. “To see what it becomes.”
“I imagine the offspring of mortals and immortals are quite rare, though.”
“They are unheard of,” said Soleil.
“So it’s something of an experiment?”
“In the same way a mortal might seek to reproduce without knowing the outcome,” she said.
I supposed she had a point.
“If Rafe makes this deal with you, will you promise to imbue his future generations with your power? When the moon goddess broke it off with him, he was susceptible to attack from all manner of spirits creeping between realms. I fear what will happen to his children without your protection.”
“If he forms this oath, my force will live in his blood. His lineage will begin anew and will reap the benefit of my light,” said Soleil.
“Including the child inside Beau?”
“Yes.”
“And how will it work? The birthing part, I mean.”
Soleil released a laugh that shook the heavens. “It will be born the same way all children are born. Once it is formed, I will place it inside a surrogate.”
“Could you use Beau—the royal already carrying his child?”
“If that is the conjurer’s wish.”
“And you won’t interfere in the child’s life? You mean only to observe?”
“That is my promise.”
So they really could be raised as twins. That might be easiest if we hoped to conceal their fatherhood. Beau would give birth to two babes—one half-royal, one half-goddess—each Rafe’s, each raised under the guise of royal paternity.
It was a weighty decision to make, and the person who really should be making it wasn’t here to offer any say; but knowing Beau, she would want her own child protected, whatever the cost, and without a goddess’s blessing, her baby would come into this world as fodder for a wraith.
‘A pactless conjurer is as ripe as the fertile grounds of spring.’
“Very well,” I said. “I’ll let Rafe know of the terms, but first I wish to ask you a question for my own sake. Will you allow it?”
“I will.”
“It’s about the Nemophile’s Crown. The goddess Luna mentioned the Crown has some greater purpose. Do you know it?”
“I’m afraid I cannot help you there. I was not privy to the Crown’s creation. That undertaking fell to my sisters while I was tasked with painting the skies.”
Meaning I was on my own unless I intended to mend ties with Luna.
“I see.”
“Is there something else that plagues you, little one? The beat of your heart is frantic.”
Again, it was an answer I feared knowing, and I had been mustering the courage to ask it. “Actually, there is something else.” I took a breath. “Have you heard of a being called Exitium?”
Here, Soleil took a great pause. “Where do you know that name?”
Based on her tone, I thought it best not to give specifics.
“I-I have heard it in the darkness, on the edge of realms,” I half-truthed.
“Does the conjurer also hear it?” Soleil probed, giving the impression that a ‘yes’ might make her call off the deal about to be made.
“He doesn’t. I am the only one.”
“Stay away from that name, and do not speak it in my presence again. It is a gravestone best left unturned.”
Her reaction confirmed all my dark suspicions. Exitium was something best left alone. A serpent. A snake. A viper. In the end, I was wa
lking away with nothing gained but alarm, and the Crown on my head was feeling heavier than ever.
“I do not mean to frighten you,” Soleil continued. “Simply, that is a name which should not be brought into the mortal realm.”
“I-I understand. I will not speak it again.”
But I would come to speak it at least once more.
“Now, if we are clear on the conditions of the conjurer’s arrangement, I will return you to the ground, little royal. This must be quite high for you.”
Yes, it was quite, quite too high for comfort.
With that, the sunlit goddess started the long journey of setting me down while I clung to her thumb so as not to fall into the rocking waves below, turned white from her shimmering light.
After I stepped from her palm, she left it open for Rafe, staring down expectantly with enormous eyes and soft lashes.
The magician was pale in his normally bronze cheeks.
You could hardly blame him, this loner whose happiest moments were spent reading alone in the castle courtyard.
“It’s all set, Rafe. Your descendants will be blessed with Soleil’s power, and she promised not to interfere in your life or the child’s. She just wants to watch it grow. If you will it, Beau can even give birth to Soleil’s child alongside her own. I do think this is best if we hope to conceal the parenthood of both children, though I will leave the decision to you, in Beau’s absence.”
“She’s going to kill me.”
“She won’t,” I said. “Beau is understanding and fair.”
“And terrifying.”
Windley grinned. “The good queen must show our boy another side.”
“You have no idea,” said Rafe.
“If Beau does not wish to raise the babe, I will take it into my court to be cared for. It need never know you’re the father. I will leave that decision up to you, but at least we have a means for it to be delivered discreetly.”
