Marie looked from me to Zander then to me again. She was judging us, how trustworthy we were, and what she would elect to tell us.
“This tavern has also doubled as my home for centuries. I never wanted to outfit the downstairs of our home into a tavern and the mid-level into a boarding house for traveling fae. That was my husband’s dream. He loved meeting new fae. He loved gatherings. He loved socializing.”
Her eyes glazed over in bittersweet nostalgia.
“My husband loved a good party for the common Unseelie, complete with music, spirits, and merriment. It was the night of one of those revelries that Belial and his forces marched through this town. He stopped and asked what we thought we were doing? Hadn’t we heard of his newest decree? All gatherings larger than ten fae were outlawed and would be considered an act of conspiracy against the Crown. It was shortly after he got wind of the Order and its initiative to dethrone him. He personally left his stolen palace and marched through fae city after fae city in an attempt to root out what he saw as a cancer. Our town is a provincial one hundreds of miles away from the palace. We are largely removed from and ignorant of court politics. We attempted to beg for mercy, explaining to him as much, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. He had his men lock all of the patrons inside, including my husband and I, and set fire to our home. Everyone inside perished…I should have too.” She said the last part quieter than the rest.
The guilt in her voice struck a familiar chord. My heart squeezed in empathy for her. My parents and my brother died because of me. I was spared by Belial’s hand, but they died because of what mine could one day do.
“Lord Darrien is the one who found me after our home had been razed to the ground. I don’t know why he was so far away from the palace. Maybe fate set him in my path or maybe it was pure coincidence. My body was charred beyond recognition and the pain was so great I begged for my un-making. My magic is what kept me alive when everyone else perished. It is not like normal curative magic that allows a fae to heal another. It is limited to self-regenerative abilities. Darrien found me among the remains of my husband, our friends, our guests, our home. He stayed with me while I healed and helped me to rebuild the only home I have ever known. From that day the Order and its leaders, Darrien in particular, have had my support and Belial,” she spat his name out as if the syllables used to speak it sat sour on her tongue, “has my un-ending hatred. Before I cease to exist I will see that monster burn as he saw that my husband did.”
“I am very sorry for your loss and your pain,” Zander took Marie’s hands in his.
She looked up into his warm, comforting amber gaze and weakly smiled.
“Thank you son,” she said gratefully. Her expression turned perplexed as she continued to stare into his eyes.
“You look familiar. Like I know you or have known of you. Are you from around here or a nearby town? Perhaps a larger city?”
“No, I am not,” Zander shook his head. “I come from a land very, very far away.”
Marie looked at him for a moment longer in the way you look at someone when their face tugs at the edges of your memory but the answer to why they are familiar remains out of its reach. Eventually, she gave up letting the question go.
“Perhaps I knew someone you resemble.”
“The Order’s leaders?” I gently prodded her. “Can you tell us where to find them?”
“You are truly acting at their behest?” She wanted to have faith in us, but she was a woman who had seen one too many duplicitous and ugly things in the world to have any traces of naivety left.
“I am,” I assured her. Then I decided to help her put her mind at ease. Marie had cause to hate Belial and want him dead as much as the rest of us. I took the first step toward building a bond of mutual trust between us. It was the only way she would give up the information we needed.
“Zander,” I inclined my head in his direction, “is the thing I was sent to retrieve. His magic seems like it is only beginning to manifest because it is. He is mortal, or was mortal. Faerie is changing him into one of us as it recognizes his blood as being a part of the Asteroth line and the magic it carries is coming alive within it. Belial hunted down and killed all the remaining fae with Asteroth blood inside of Faerie, but he only recently learned there was a boy outside of it whose blood Faerie would recognize as Asteroth. When I was born, I became the first fae in millennia with the magic to open a portal between Faerie and the mortal realm. It is why Belial murdered my parents and locked me away in the palace as his ward. I was supposed to retrieve Zander and take him to Belial so he could eliminate the threat he posed to his reign. Instead, I am working in league with the Order’s leaders. I am taking Zander to them so they can help us lie low while Zander changes and his magic fully manifests. Once it does, we, with the Order at our side, will challenge and make Belial pay for every atrocity he has committed since he took the throne from Regias.”
“You are to be our savior?” Marie asked Zander in hushed reverence.
For the first time since I have known he, his solid air of confidence was not present. In a very me like gesture, he averted his eyes unable to meet the hope exuding from Marie’s.
“Skyler tells me I am.”
“Then act like it,” her voice came out sharp and commanding.
Zander’s eyes snapped back to meet hers.
“Act like it,” she repeated just as sharply. “Belial is a cunning, ruthless bastard who will not hesitate to rip your head off to ensure it will never wear the crown he claimed as his. If you are going after his head then you had damn well better get some gusto about yourself or you will lose yours, the Order’s leaders will lose theirs, and she, whom I presume you love from the look in your eyes every time they fall on her, will lose hers.”
“How?” Zander asked in a rare moment of unsurety.
“It is something you will have to figure out for yourself but you had better do it before you confront him. The magic coming to life inside of you is strong. The power will be there. It will hold up against his. But it will mean nothing if your will and your heart and your belief in the cause and yourself is not just as steadfast.”
Zander nodded in understanding.
Marie stood and walked to the fireplace behind her. She tipped the head of a statue that sat on its mantle downward and a small rectangular hole in the wall above it appeared. She stuck her hand in it and it came out holding a folded slip of paper. She put the statue’s head back in place and the wall looked as uninterrupted as it did before.
She handed the slip of paper over to Zander, not me. I wasn’t offended. It was her none too subtle way of reiterating what she had just told him. I knew she was right. I had gotten us this far, but for our coup to be successful and for us to survive Belial with our heads intact, Zander would have to own the position we were thrusting him into.
Zander unfolded the paper, read the information it contained then handed it to me.
I read the words scrawled on it in Darrien’s handwriting:
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. To the east lies Cartwright at the end of the road
“Thank you,” I said to Marie.
She nodded her at Zander.
“Take care of him, guide him, help him become the leader we all need him to be. Bertha can sift. It is unwise to ask her to sift you to the exact location you need to go. Pick somewhere close, but far enough away that it cannot be traced to the Order’s leaders should we ever be forcibly questioned. ”
Chapter 23
Bertha sifted us to the city of Ellewey south of Darth. From there we headed north and then west in the direction of the setting sun. I was confident we should not be traveling east to Cartwright. If Darrien wrote the message then he meant for us to do the exact opposite of what one reading it would infer. It is time for the sun to set on the reign of a tyrant are the first words he ever spoke to me. They were barely above a whisper, uttered softly as he brushed past me in the palace courtyard. They were meant for me to either h
ear or choose not to hear. I chose to hear.
At the westernmost edge of Faerie sat a town long neglected by the fae. Much of the land around Darth was infertile and no matter how much Earth magic they poured into it, its inhabitants could not get life to spring forth from its soil. Eventually, its people relocated southward to the more fertile grounds of Ellewey.
The Order’s leaders choice of Darth was brilliant. No one lived there, no one would see them, and no one would think to look as far as it.
We stuck to the shadows of the forests that spanned between Ellewey and Darth. When the sky opened up, raining crystal-colored droplets of water that glittered under the moonlight, I cursed the fact that we could not seek shelter in Ellewey for the night. Staying in one place for too long was dangerous. For all we knew, Belial’s seer or trackers had already detected my return and hunted us.
“Skyler, we need to stop and make camp for the night,” Zander shouted over the claps of thunder that bounced of the surrounding trees.
“We can’t,” I shouted back. “We have to get to the safety of the Order’s leaders. They can place the same cloaking spell on us that they have on themselves. Until we reach them, we’re vulnerable to Belial finding us.”
Zander grabbed my hand, forcing me to stop walking. He spun me so I faced him directly.
“Are we going to make it to Darth tonight if we keep going?”
“No,” I admitted knowing where he was headed with the question. “If we are lucky and keep moving non-stop we will make it there by nightfall tomorrow.”
“Then we stop. What’s the point of remaining cold and drenched? If we are moving through the forest or hunkering down in a tent, we still will not be in Darth and under the safety of the cloaking spell. We may as well take cover.”
Not wanting to argue, I conceded to his logic.
We huddled together, using our bodies for warmth in the makeshift tent Zander and I constructed from the supplies Marie sent us away with. Even with Zander’s arms wrapped tightly around me and his body pressed up against mine, I still shivered violently.
“How…how...is…it….you’re….you’re…not…freeeeezing…too,” I said through the chattering of my teeth.
I felt like a block of ice while Zander appeared completely warmed and unfazed.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I should be in as bad a shape as you.” He pulled me closer, rubbing his hands up and down the length of my bare arms.
As his palms touched the exposed skin, a warming sensation thrummed behind every spot that he touched. Under the soothing comfort of his embrace, my eyelids grew heavier. They eventually felt like lead. I fought to keep them open. I needed to be alert should anyone happen upon us.
“It’s okay, Skyler.” Zander brushed a stray curl behind my ear. “Sleep. Get some rest. I’ll stand watch. I promise nothing will happen while you sleep.”
I believed him. I felt completely secure wrapped in his arms. I sighed contentedly and allowed my lids to flutter shut. Sleep claimed me, but with it so did another vision.
It started off the same as any time before with the pair of lovers that looked like us but were not. Then they morphed into Zander and I and our fate ended the same as theirs-- in tragic un-making.
Chapter 24
Idid not wake up in the middle of the night crying. The visions had become so commonplace that I had grown used to them. Still, I couldn’t quite shake the somber mood I woke up in.
“Another vision?” Zander asked as we packed up camp and headed toward Darth again.
“Unfortunately.” I tried to sound casual about it. Like they were not taking their toll on me. Like they meant nothing, but I miserably failed.
Zander took my hand in his. “Me too,” he offered in support.
“How do you remain so unaffected?”
“Because all they are and all they ever will be are visions. I will not allow them to come to pass. We choose our own destiny not the other way around.”
What if it is a destiny chosen long ago that is coming back to claim us.
I refused to acknowledge that particular fear. Doing so would make it real. It was a reality I wanted no parts of. I would bury my head in the sand about it for as long as I could.
---
The sky remained clear and free of rain. We kept moving through the night not needing to stop for shelter. We made it to Darth shortly after sunrise the next morning. We did not have to look far for the Order’s leaders. One-half of them waited for us at the border of the city.
Of course Ysabeau foresaw when we would arrive and where. I would be surprised if Darrien happening upon Marie and leaving the handwritten message with her had not been Ysabeau’s doing as well. Her powers of precognition were super powerful and super scary. I would ask her about the visions but I suspected she already knew and, as she said before I left for the mortal realm, she would not say more other than I needed to walk the path for myself.
“Skyler!” Darrien’s voice came out sounding relieved. As if he’d spent a great amount of time worrying over something. He moved to sweep me up in an embrace but his eyes caught mine and Zander’s fingers entwined. His body jerked up short. He inclined his head awkwardly toward me.
Selene did hug me. When she pulled back her eyes shone with respect.
“You did it.”
“He doesn’t look like much of a King?” Ignacio said critically beside her, giving Zander an appraising look.
“Shut up.” She elbowed him in his ribs.
He grunted from the force of it then fell silent.
Darrien clasped Zander’s forearm in a warrior’s embrace. “Excuse him. He’s an ass. I am called Darrien and you are?”
“Zander,” he said mimicking the gesture Darrien had just done.
“I am not sure how much Skyler has told you, but there is much that needs to be discussed. Not here though,” Darrien glanced into the forest behind us. “Let us go to the hidden safety of our fae elder’s home.”
Chapter 25
The fae elder’s home looked nothing like the modest lodgings I expected. The well-kept solid structure of bricks and stone stood grand and elegantly polished amongst the ruins of a town forgotten centuries ago.
We found Ysabeau, Khamaad and Lor with the fae elder in the receiving room of her abode. She sat with her upper body hunched over into a hollow C-shape that resulted from the age-induced curvature of her spine. The elder was the first fae I had come across that looked significantly aged with her grayed hair, wrinkled skin and the fragile set of her bones. If fae who had been alive for thousands of years looked to be no more than middle aged by mortal standards, I wondered just how long the woman I looked upon had been alive. She’d probably seen a few millennia come and go, many kings and queens of Faerie rise and fall, and more sunrises and sunsets than my brain could fathom.
She poured coffee from a silver pot into a delicate crystal cup as we entered the room. Her hands infinitesimally shook as she used a polished spoon to scoop two lumps of sugar out of a bowl and into the cup.
“Priscus,” Darrien spoke the fae elder’s name then fell silent, waiting for her to afford us her attention. When she did, he dipped his head respectfully in her direction.
Selene and Ignacio did the same. Zander and I mimicked their actions.
A medley of emotions consisting largely of recognition, shock and bitter resentment contorted her features when she looked upon Zander and me. She pointed a fragile hand towards us.
“Everyone excuse yourselves, except the two of you,” she ordered the rest of the fae in the room.
Her voice came out sure and steady, sounding much stronger than she appeared.
The Lords and Princesses of Faerie obeyed her directive without question or hesitation.
Her gaze never strayed from us and I felt myself wanting to buckle under the weight of it. My impulse reaction was to look away, but there was fierceness in her eyes that both dared and forbade me from doing so.
She waited until
the Order’s leaders cleared the room before speaking. When she did she kept her voice low and inaudible even to the sensitive hearing of fae ears. Nobody outside the room would hear what she had to say.
“You look just like them.”
“Like who?” We both asked in unison.
She picked up her coffee cup, took a sip out of it then placed it back in its spot on the table between us. “You know whom.”
Zander and I nodded.
It was no use pretending otherwise. In joining the Order’s leaders at the ancient fae’s hidden dwelling, we’d also stumbled upon the answers we sought. I was both scared and relieved to hear what she would say next. Relieved because we could finally solve the puzzle of our linked visions before tackling the bigger issue of Zander facing Belial. I was also scared out of my wits because deep down I knew the gist of the words she would utter. I believed Zander knew too. We’d both been running from it. Burying our heads in the sand in willful ignorance hoping that if we didn’t talk about, if we didn’t acknowledge it, then it would not be true.
That is not the way reality works. Turning a blind eye to what you don’t want to face does not make the truth before you any less real. Even when you squeeze your eyes as tight as you can close them shut, the truth remains standing in front of you, staring at you, stalking you, waiting on the inevitable moment when your eyes are pried open so it can slap you in the face for daring to pretend like it does not exist. You can change what is true no more than you can change what has passed. The truth is both omnipresent and all-knowing.
“Let me tell you a story,” the fae elder began. With her words she pried Zander’s and my eyes un-closed.
Once our lids were opened we would never be able to un-see again.
“After Chaos created Faerie and sealed the realm off from Order and the mortal world, he found that he missed the companionship of his twin brother more than he ever thought he would. Without Order around to war with or be at peace with, the passing of the centuries finally brought ennui to Chaos. True immortality can transform into a terrible curse when you have no one to share it with. To relieve the ennui Chaos un-made himself as an immortal and re-made himself into one of the creatures his actions had helped to create. Chaos embedded himself into the Faefolk’s society, taking a fae girl for a wife and installing himself as their King. Chaos came to love the girl as much as, if not more than, he loved Order. She bore him children whom he also loved just as much. He ruled Faerie with her at his side as its benevolent, never-fading King. Though the magic we possess allows us fae to live for thousands of years, we are not true immortals. We do not succumb to disease as mortals do and our magic heals us at rates that make most wounds we suffer inconsequential, but with enough damage to our vital organs in a short expanse of time we can be killed. Those of us who manage to evade dying in this manner still do not live forever. Eventually, as Chaos’ wife did, we fade and expire. When he lost the fae girl just as he’d lost his twin brother, ennui sat in with Chaos once more and this time he could stand to remain in existence no longer. He used his magic to un-make himself, leaving the rule of Faerie to his offspring, the Asteroth bloodline. Aldric Asteroth was the third direct descendant of Chaos to rule Faerie. He was dubbed its Eternal King. He ruled for millennia and forever wore the youthful appearance of a fae just a few years past the age of manifestation. He had already been ruling Faerie alone for three thousand years when he met Caelia. She was a fae girl of the Seelie caste, and her beauty was unparalleled. Though it was rumored that it was her wild and fiery spirit that he fell in love with and not her outward appearance. Caelia came to love Aldric as quickly and as deeply as he came to love her. Their courtship was short and their betrothal was even shorter. They married and Caelia ruled beside Aldric as Faerie’s Queen. The pair were adored by the faefolk and their subjects loved them as much as they loved one another. Then one night after one of the many revelries they hosted at the palace, the beloved pair were found in their bedchamber, forever lost to the people of Faerie. The cup of un-making found with them left no doubt as to their fates. With the King and Queen died the perfectly harmonious Faerie that Chaos originally created. The realm of Faerie has been unstable since that fateful night. Caelia and Aldric had no children and thus they left Faerie with no direct heir. The realm descended into chaos as the Asteroths that remained warred over who would rule. The Asteroth that ascended the throne was a savage monster that rivaled Belial in his brutality. He terrorized the faefolk for five thousand years until another Asteroth overthrew him to become King. That Asteroth was better than the last and brought a measure of peace to the realm. He ascended the throne through treachery and deceit, but in truth was too weak to hold on to the Crown. Eventually he was overthrown and the man who overthrew him was eventually overthrown as well. When Regias took the throne, it was the first time Faerie had known true peace in tens of thousands of years. He was as benevolent of a ruler as both Chaos and Aldric had been. He was less selfish too. He put the needs of the people of Faerie and his duty to them before his own, as a King should. Faerie thrived under Regias’ reign. Then Belial launched the scheme that began with the massacre of any remaining Asteroth and ended in Regias’ death. When he installed himself on the throne, he did so knowing there was none left to dethrone him. Belial is the merciless tyrant that he is because he can be. He is the only Asteroth left and Chaos used his magic to make it so only an Asteroth can kill an Asteroth.”
Chaos Page 13
