Rise of the Magi

by Jocelyn Adams

  I rubbed my temples even though I knew it wouldn’t do a thing to relax the tension headache settling in there for a nice, long stay.

  A flash of light signaled the activation of the Black City portal.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’re about to add to our little hissy fit party,” Neve said.

  Sure enough, dozens of fae poured out of the cavern entrance a moment later, a nonstop stream of pissed-off, glassy-eyed women all glaring lasers right at me. There had to be hundreds, and still they came, shouting and cursing until the sound rose into one giant noise that pounded against my ears.

  “What have you done with them?” shouted one. “Is it not enough you violated us with your Seelie Light?” others roared. Dark blue energy sparked above the crowd. “Give us back our men!”

  My growing fury exploded me into a ball of energy and shot me ten feet into the air where I hovered above them all. “Silence!” The shockwave of my voice rolled over them like a suffocating fog, driving them all to their knees, including my company. I hadn’t meant to go that far, but as long as everyone shut up so I could think, I wasn’t going to worry too much about it. At least I hadn’t forced my Will on them.

  “We’ve all been robbed, so take those accusing fingers of yours and stuff it. The Magi used Nix to drop a magic bomb on Iress, but that was a couple of hours ago. Have yours just been taken now? You, with the black hair, speak.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We have Nix inside right now, and he will lead us back to their camp. In one hour, I’m holding a session of Court to make plans on how this is going to go down, and I need to warn the other races, if they haven’t already been hit, but we’ve lost a lot of our gifts along with our men.”

  Some women’s gazes turned from murder to a shadow of hope. Others nodded. “Tell us what you need,” black hair said. It took me a second to place her as the stalking skank Liam had chosen to be his queen before he came to his senses. When a few protested, she said, “My willingness to cooperate does not mean I forgive her for what she’s done to us, but if she can give us our people back, then we have no choice.”

  Huh, how about that? Although I didn’t want to see it, I began to understand why Liam had chosen her. Sure, she was a right hussy, dressed in a tiny tube top and a leopard print mini skirt, but she had some leadership skills, and it seemed she had more than fluff between her ears.

  As the murmurs quieted, I said, “Can any of you transport?”

  A few from the former Unseelie side put up their hands. “Perfect. I need a few people brought here right away, even if they don’t want to come. I don’t care if they’re butt-ass naked in the bathtub. You snatch them and get back here. Neve will fill you in.”

  Neve motioned the ones with their hands up into one of the spare cavern entrances.

  “What else?” black hair asked.

  Good question, what else? “Just come with an open mind and be ready to contribute whatever you’ve got, ideas, possible problems. Yes, I’m standing here before you as your queen, but I don’t claim to have all the answers.” A glance back at Neasa and her group added another item to my list. “And you’re all welcome in Iress, to recharge, eat, clean up, whatever you need.”

  “We don’t need your charity,” Neasa snipped. “Dun Bray is our home, a natural Seelie preserve that provides all we need.”

  Judging by the look on the other women, shiny eyes and parted lips, they didn’t share her sentiment.

  With effort, I reabsorbed my energy and descended until I stood before their group. I met all of their troubled stares one by one. “I’ve said it a dozen times already, but I’ll say it again. I’m sorry for what I did to you, but I acted in what I thought were the Goddess’ wishes, for the best interest of the fae. All fae. Neasa has no authority over you, so please don’t continue to live this way just because she can’t let go of an old grudge.”

  Apparently, Neasa still had some power, because her cumhacht hit me about the same time as her screech. “How dare you!”

  Despair flooded me, sickening, cold as January frost, but it didn’t have the same impact as it once did. All of the thoughts sailing through my head, that I made a miserable queen, that I’d disappointed my mother and my people, that I wasn’t worthy of Liam, kept right on going.

  I smiled at my former aide. “Nice try, Neasa. That power of yours can’t touch me anymore.” Laerni had helped me sort through all of that guilt, accept it and store it in tidy little boxes down deep.

  Something switched in me—an indefinable—strong something. Instinct took over, giving me an urge to touch Neasa I couldn’t deny. She uttered a tiny squeal as I jumped at her and took her face between my hands.

  A flare of Light blinded me from the contact. Heat seared my arms as if fire had jumped into my blood stream and raced toward my heart. Hot, so hot I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the flames eating up my organs. I couldn’t let go. Not yet. Why not? No answer came to me.

  Screams shattered the hush. Was that Neasa? Me? Confused, I tried to release her, calling up every ounce of Will I had to force my fingers to release their captive. Once I was able to break contact, I stepped back, waiting for the brightness to die down. Staggering, she held herself, staring at me, her eyes wide.

  I looked her over before raising my hands to inspect them. Not burned, not like I expected them to be. They were just regular hands. “What just happened?”

  “Stay if you want, but mark me—she will destroy us all in the end,” Neasa snapped before speeding into the cavern that would take her back to Dun Bray.

  A flash of my nightmares came back to haunt me. I am the storm. No, they were just dreams.

  “Has the Goddess given you a new gift?” Laerni took my palms in hers, turning them over and back.

  I shook my head to dispel the foreign power swirling within. A few strands came loose from my braid and tickled my face and neck. “I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any more room in me for another gift, and I sure as hell have my fair share as it is.”

  “Maybe because she’s so weak, your Light overwhelmed her,” one of the former Seelie women said. She had green hair that made me imagine she’d been born in a vat of radioactive slime.

  Could that be it? “She drew on my power, is that what you mean? She was empty and filled up too quickly? Short circuited, sort of?”

  Brígh shrugged. “Weirder shit has happened.”

  She had that right. Weirder shit had most definitely happened, and then some.

  “We want to come to Iress,” Green hair said, drawing her lower lip between her teeth. “If we’re still welcome, that is. We believed in Neasa once. She said she knew what the Goddess wanted, for her to keep to the Seelie ways.” A laugh full of old hurt and anger spilled from the young fae’s lips. “We see now that she’s delusional. She had us worshiping her like the Goddess herself, washing her feet, fetching her things, while we had no shelter, not enough food, nowhere to bathe unless we returned to the human realm. You are our queen, powerful, kind in your own unique way, like your mother. Now that I understand what passion feels like, anger, love, I can’t imagine how we lived for so long without it. I feel whole for the first time in my long life. You were right to change us this way, even if we couldn’t see it before. Please, forgive us.”

  When a fresh batch of tears let loose from her eyes, I sighed and opened my arms to her. The rest came to me, and I sent a flare of energy over them, recharging, healing small wounds that had gone untended, soaking in their utter grief over not just the loss of their loved ones, but the absence of a queen’s love and protection.

  I hadn’t realized just how much they depended on me even if they didn’t say it. How could I care for so many, anticipate their needs and keep them all happy? It added yet another layer to the burden I carried, but somehow not an unwelcome one.
If my mother could do it, then I had to find a way. “I never blamed any of you.” I stepped back from them all, rubbing a little wetness from my lashes, feigning that I had something in my eye. “Go on inside and find your houses. I’m sure they’ll be here somewhere. Court’s in an hour.”

  “What will happen to Neasa?” a small redhead asked. Her continued glances toward Dun Bray betrayed her divided loyalties.

  I stared toward where the stubborn fae had gone. “I don’t know. Whatever happens, the path she’s chosen will have led her there.” The more I thought about Laerni’s talk about choices, the more guilt flooded me. I’d used my Will too liberally, too quickly, and I wouldn’t do it again.

  A few mumbled agreements, and the group disappeared into the cavern toward Iress.

  “What about you?” I asked black hair. “You’re welcome to stay, too.”

  She gave a small, formal bow before standing straighter. “With all due respect, queen, we’ll go back home and return in an hour for your Court. Is there anything else you need in the meantime?”

  I let the queen comment slide as I considered what I could ask of her. “If you could make a list of what cumhachts you still have in your arsenal it might be helpful, at least of those who are brave enough to fight.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. There are a good three hundred of us who are more than willing.”

  Only three hundred? Add in another three or four hundred men, give or take, and that still left them short a lot of fae. How many had gone to the Magi?

  “Then, where the hell were you when we were being ripped apart by the Shadowborn, huh?” Brígh asked.

  I palmed my forehead, creating renewed pounding against my brain. “Not a good time, Brígh.” Turning back to black hair, and tired of calling her that, I asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Raven.”

  Appropriate, since she had the glossy bird’s wing blue-black that Parthalan had. “Okay, Raven, please call me Lila unless you want to give me a twitch. And watch for anything green in the Black City that moves and isn’t supposed to. If trees start crashing your party, you get out. Don’t try to fight them, just run like death’s chasing you and nobody will think you a coward for it.”

  Another bow and she backed toward the portal as if afraid to put me at her back. Geez, what does she think I’ll do, clobber her? I could do that just fine with her looking right at me, but whatever made her feel better.

  Thinking of Parthalan, I trotted over to where Neve was doling out snatch and grab assignments to the three transporters she spoke with. “Do you have someone getting Parthalan? I need to talk to him.”

  “No, but good call.” She turned to a stick of a woman. “Lisa, can you grab him after you get the Mountie here?”

  Although a shudder rattled her from head to toe, Lisa agreed, and the group snapped out of existence.

  “What now?” I said more to myself than anyone else.

  “Your place should be in the Court to receive our guests,” Laerni said from right behind me, scaring the living creepers out of me.

  “A little warning?” I pounded a fist over my stumbling heart. “What I don’t need right this minute is to go into labor four months early.”

  “Four months?” Neve traced me up and down, snickering. “What are you talking about? We’ve both got a month left, maybe two at most.”

  I could have sworn the ground dropped three feet and took my heart with it. “Say, what? Babies come after nine months, that’s the way it is. What are you smoking?” At their silent fidgeting, I said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  Laerni’s hand on my shoulder made me jump another foot. “Fae gestation, like that of the elves, is approximately six months, give or take a few weeks.”

  “One month!” Hands at my throat, I launched into the open space, finding nowhere to run from the information. “You’re telling me I have one month to figure out the Magi problem, get my mate back and somehow figure out how to take care of this kid? One freakin’ month?” Head shaking, I raced back and forth in front of Seven Gates with three sets of eyes tracking me. “No, no, it’s too much. This is all too much, too fast. How am I supposed to do this?”

  Laerni stood in my way, and given that she was seven feet tall with about a four-foot reach of her arms, I didn’t make it by her before she grabbed me in her arms. “You will do this because you must. It gives me hope that you are more afraid of not being a good mother than of the threat we all now face.”

  I let her hold me while my muscles untied themselves. She had a way of cutting through the clutter in my twister of a mind. I would do it, because I had to, as she’d said. It was just simple enough to put my mental ducks back in their disorderly row.

  Pushing away from her, I said, “Okay, I’m fine. Just … please don’t drop any more revelations on me that I don’t need right this minute, okay?”

  Brígh and Neve tried and failed to smile. Their losses cast shadows over them, draining their complexions of their usual exuberance.

  “We will do this,” I told them, catching each of their gazes one by one. “All of us. Because we have to. For the guys, and for the kids. You with me?” My need to reclaim our men was a fierce predator within me. Baring its teeth. Unsheathing its claws. Roaring promises of pain to those who would try to take from the fae. I let my darkness surface enough to push me to the edge, but not over it. Sweet, potent power flowed over and through me until my skin shone indigo. My life had never been easy, and for once I was glad of it. The world and its shitty realities had honed me for my purpose. My will, if nothing else, was stronger than anyone’s. I would get my Liam back. I would get them all back.

  Shadows lifted from Brígh and Neve’s faces, revealing determined stares, conveying fierceness that might have made me take a step back had I not been so damned tired.

  “Good. How long will it be before the teleporters get back with the goods?”

  “They’ve never been any of the places I’m sending them, so once they get in the vicinity, then find their way to the locations—if their targets are even there—I’d say we have a good half hour before you see the first one arrive,” Neve said.

  Pointing at Brígh, I said, “Please take two of the guards to watch out for the Overseers and check on the Dun Bray ladies. Neve, you and I need to get the full dirty on the Magi from Nix, if we’re going to be prepared for Court.” My guests would probably be pretty pissy at being snatched out of the air, but I hoped once they heard why I’d done it, they’d forgive me.

  As I entered the portal, I opened my end of the bond and shoved my warrior’s promise through it. “I’m coming, Liam. You hear me? We’re coming.” I only hoped that, despite my inability to hear him, he could still hear me.

  20

  I stood in front of the shifter that held Nix while my stomach complained about its emptiness.

  “What will you do if he won’t lead us there?” Neve asked as she stepped in beside me. “I know you think he’ll cooperate because he’s behaving like a saint, but … I just don’t know what to think. I grew up with him, loved him like a brother, and last year he seemed like someone else entirely. Someone I hated. Now, he sort of seems like the old Nix, except dragged down by shame, but … I’m so angry I just want to punch him in the face. I’m having a hard time sorting through how I feel.” A pause, then, “I wish Andrew was here. He’d know what to do.”

  That was the longest ramble I’d ever heard out of Neve. I had to agree with her, that Nix almost seemed like the fae from before he’d learned of his father’s murder. Maybe I needed to cut the guy a bit of slack. Once he’d taken us to the Magi. “He already agreed. Sort of. So, his not cooperating is not an option. He’ll do it because everything will hinge on our being able to find them, and I don’t intend to take no for an answer.” If they wanted me so badly, why make it so hard for me?
Could their magic conduits not get to me for some reason?

  Anxious to get on with it, I strode past the two guards at the door and went inside. The ward buzzed along my body as I passed through it. Shifters were made of awesome, no doubt about it.

  I found Nix, still wet from the shower, sitting on a black leather sofa with his head in his hands. His white hair, darkened from the water, spilled over his face.

  A twinge hit me in the chest at the lost soul before me. Even though a small amount of anger remained from the sting of his rejection, all I could manage was to feel sorry for him. Maybe I should have demanded answers about his beef with the Unseelie when I’d first noticed it, instead of giving him time to tell me. Maybe I could have made him understand them, himself, and his darkness. That we weren’t whole when separated from it the way we’d been before.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, dying to know what was going on in that head of his.

  In slow motion, he sat up and faced me with unreadable eyes. “I don’t know how to answer that. And I don’t think it really matters, does it?” His blank expression tightened into something I took for regret. “Do you know what you’re going to do about them yet?”

  “Why would you care, anyway?” Neve asked, ice entering her tone. “You abandoned us.”

  I put my hand on her arm. A zap of her power charged into my hand before it fizzled. “It’s okay; I’ve got this.”

  She put her hand over mine and gave a little chuckle. “You know, it’s really scary when you become the cool head in the room, Lila.” Leaning to my ear, she added, “Looks good on you,” before taking up her guard stance beside a puffy chair I assumed she wanted me to sit in.

  She didn’t have to twist my ear to get her way on that one—my feet ached. “Neve does have a point. Why do you care?”

  Nix stared at me as if I was some wonder conjured out of the air, brow raised in question, lips parted. Pushing impatiently at his hair, he got to his feet and went to the far wall, propping his arm against it. “Even after everything, I don’t … Gallagher was a father to me when I lost mine, and nobody deserves to die like Talawen did. Not even my enemies.”