by Kimbra Swain
“She’s so light like all the life is gone out of her. I can’t feel her heartbeat,” he said.
“That’s because it isn’t beating. Gloriana is keeping her alive. We’ve been through this before with her,” I reminded him.
“Yes,” he muttered.
Placing my hand on the tree, I thought of the underground hallway that I once stood in with her which seemed like ages ago even though it was only a few months. The tree responded by sucking us into the Otherworld to the exact spot that I imagined.
“Don’t provoke anyone here,” I said. “They won’t be happy to see us. Especially bringing iron into the realm. The first guards we come across we will beg to take us to Oberon.”
“No need,” Oberon’s voice reverberated through the dank hallway. He walked up to her brushing her hair out of her face. “She’s almost gone.” A sadness passed over his face and into his cold dark eyes that I didn’t think was possible for the Wild King of the Fairies.
“My King,” I bowed to him. “Can you save her?”
“I cannot, but there are healers here. Bring her quickly,” he said, as he turned the whole room shifted to a corridor with stone walls and brightly lit torches. They burned with an orange light. Dylan and I were both disoriented by the shift. Oberon’s power to move about his realm allowed him to move us as well.
He turned into a large room with a giant bed in the center. Pillows covered every corner of the bed cascading into the floor. Grace told me once about her bedroom in the Otherworld. She was quite proud of the swimming pool sized bathtub. However, she assured me that she wouldn’t trade her new garden tub in the trailer for it. The giant bath meant she would be isolated to this damp, musty world. The whole place smelled like wet soil. I’d worked on a farm my whole life. Sometimes you couldn’t get the stink of wet soil out of your clothes not matter how much you washed them. There was no way I could live here.
Dylan gently laid her on the bed. Two women with exaggerated features entered the room. Their feline eyes traced my body seductively. Dylan didn’t look up from Grace’s face to notice. I was going on over a week without sex, so I noticed. Man, did I notice.
“Really? You are putting that in there?” she asked.
“Really. Shut-up,” I replied with a little magic. The look in her eye told me I’d reached my limit. I just grinned deviously. She couldn’t stop me even if she wanted to stop me. The good thing was, I knew she had no intentions of stopping me. Ever.
The women took Dylan’s shirt off, washing her body to remove the dried blood and mud from her skin. They worked around Dylan, so he did not have to move. Carefully they avoided her leg with the iron in it. As they exited, Oberon returned with another woman. My voice caught in my throat. She was the spitting image of Grace’s glamour. It hit me that this was her mother, Ellessa.
“Gloriana!” she cried out rushing to her side. She practically shoved Dylan away. He stood at the edge of the bed watching her mother stroke her face. “Oh, my dear child, what have they done to you?”
“Careful of her leg, my dear,” Oberon warned.
“I don’t care. It’s been so long. Where is the healer?” she asked.
“She has been summoned,” he replied.
At the door, a woman stood with illuminated skin. Her hair was black as night, and her eyes pastel blue. As she walked into the room, Ellessa backed away from Grace. Dylan tried to lean in, but her mother jerked him back.
“Dylan Riggs, we have allowed you to continue this relationship with her, but it seems that it’s come to a point where it’s too detrimental to continue,” she said.
“I understand that she is upset with me, but I’m sure once she is well that we can work it out,” Dylan replied.
“Do not speak to me as if I do not know who you are, Phoenix. So many names over the years. Serafino Taranis. Keme Rowtag. Kenneth Alderbrand. Dylan Riggs. A man who crossed the world fucking every being he could for a time. What makes you think we trust you now?” she spouted at him. “You are not different, despite your protests to the contrary.”
“Yes, I’ve had many names. Many conquests. As has Gloriana. Now, it’s just us. No one else,” he said.
She paced forward to him, and although he stood a foot above her, he cowered at her advance. “I dare you to lie to me,” she sang. Her voice tinkled out of her mouth in a melodic wave. My ears pricked at the power that she held through her voice. A siren. “Do I look like her to you?”
“Yes, my lady,” he said, as he cringed away from her.
She hummed lightly. I concentrated on Grace’s face as the woman who’d entered earlier began to place candles on stands around the bed. She pulled crystals that glowed out of her pockets placing different variations on each stand. The siren song permeated my skin. Forcing myself to look away, I heard Dylan whimper like a child under the strain of her power. “I assure you that I could provide you with an experience that you would never forget. My daughter may be a royal fairy, but she is no siren. My song will reverberate through your body pulsing climaxes like you’ve never felt.” Her lips almost touching his cheek as she spoke.
“No, I love Grace. Please stop,” he said, holding his resolve. I pitied him. I’d been in that position before with Grace. Thankfully, I resisted her in that moment of weakness for both of us. I wanted her badly then. Watching him resist her, I knew right then that he wasn’t lying about sleeping with Stephanie. Whatever she had said was a lie. Dylan hadn’t cheated on Grace. I should have known better. I didn’t approve of him leaving during the middle of the election, but he hadn’t lied. I knew better. My anger got the best of me. Grace had her moments of rash behavior, but sometimes mine was much worse. It was the damn hormones.
“Enough!” Oberon’s command shook the room. The candles flickered, but the healer did not stop her set up.
Ellessa backed away from Dylan who groaned and turned away from all of us. I knew what he was hiding. Like I said, I’d been there.
“You must all leave the room,” the healer demanded.
Oberon escorted Ellessa to the door. She shot one final look to Dylan. I thought it was going to be a final test, but instead, it was approval. He’d passed her test. Dylan looked undecided.
“I don’t want to leave her. If these are her last moments, I want to be with her,” he said.
“She will survive,” Oberon said confidently. However, I saw the grave look on the healer’s face. She didn’t agree with his assessment. Dylan slowly walked past me to the door. I turned to follow him.
“Bard,” the healer said. “Stay close to the door. I will need your help soon.”
“Me?”
“I see no other bards,” she smirked.
“Um, okay,” I replied.
Dylan moved to the door, but leaned on the wall opposite keeping his eye on her.
I stepped outside of the door putting my back to the wall to the right of the door. Oberon and Ellessa walked away leaving us. I watched Dylan’s eyes as the healer began to chant. It sounded a lot like some chants that Matthew Rayburn would do at services on Sundays.
“I’m sorry that I hit you,” I said.
“Don’t be. I shouldn’t have left for Montgomery. I knew Stephine was up to something, but I thought I’d deterred it,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When I left the trailer this morning, I realized I’d left one of the forms on my desk at home. It was on the way, so I stopped to get it. It was pouring, and the power was out at the house. I couldn’t get in the garage, and I knew the alarm system would be down. The house is still warded, but the technology was off. Stephanie waited on the front porch. She ran around to meet me as I tried to slip in the side door leaving her out there, but she forced her way into the house behind me.
“She said she’d left something upstairs in the bedroom, and she wanted to get it back. I informed her that all of her things were in storage. I pulled the key to the storage unit out of a kitchen drawer. Handing it to her, I op
ened the back door for her to leave. She made her move much like Ellessa did in there. Less powerful than the siren, but she still tried,” he said.
“Did she get the same reaction as Ellessa?” I asked.
His eyes shot to mine for a moment, then returned his gaze to Grace. “Surprisingly, no. You know as well as I do that it takes very little sometimes to get aroused at a beautiful woman pawing on you, especially fairies. However, no one repulses me like Stephanie does. No movement at all. I hate her with a passion,” he said.
I didn’t believe him. He may have rebuffed her, but a man’s body responds to stimulation. Even unwanted stimulation. “How did you get her to leave?”
“I grabbed her arm and shoved her out the door. She screamed and hollered like a banshee. It was ridiculous. Ignoring her, I went upstairs and changed into dry clothes. I was soaked from getting out of the car and wrestling her out the door. Grabbing the papers I needed from the office, I went back downstairs. I took a drink from the fridge and an umbrella from the garage. Waiting for a moment before I went out the door, I listened to see if I could hear Stephanie. As I opened the door, I noticed how much the rain had stopped. Without the umbrella out, I walked to the car looking all around me. I didn’t see her anywhere. I went to Montgomery and didn’t think anything else about it.”
“You should have told her that you found her there. You are an idiot,” I said.
“Yes, I am. I’ve tried splitting my focus on finishing this paperwork and the election. Grace needed me to focus just on her. I could re-file the paperwork. We didn’t expect to be in this fight, anyway. It’s been devastating. I shouldn’t have left. I told myself it would be okay, since Grace insisted that I go,” he said taking his eyes off her. Staring at the stone floor, he crouched down putting his face in his hands. “I’ve got to do more than swear to make this up to her, but I will. Whatever it takes.”
“It might take time. You may have to step back and let her breathe,” I said.
“Whatever it takes, Levi. I see the way you look at her. Trust me, I know that look. You would do the same,” he said.
He was right. I’d do anything for her.
“Anything?” she asked.
“How many times are you going to interrupt me?” I asked.
“As many times as I want, Levi Rearden,” she laughed.
We waited for hours as the healer chanted and paced the room. When I looked in, she circled the bed tracing shapes in the air with her fingers. As she traced, a fine white line would leave an impression in the air. They were runes. Grace told me I needed to start learning them. She knew them all, but of course, she didn’t need to know them. Her power didn’t need any enhancements. She thought mine did. I’d begun studying them recently, but I didn’t know enough to understand what the healer was doing.
Oberon returned to our watch carrying a stringed instrument that looked much like a guitar. However, it had twelve strings with a rounded hollow back. The carving around the circle in the center depicted a large stag inland in the wood in mother-of-pearl. He handed it to me. “You need a proper instrument,” he proclaimed.
Before taking it, I said, “My King, your gift honors me. However, I cannot accept such a gift for the price would be too high.”
“My daughter has taught you well not to accept a gift from our people, however, because you have been a good companion to her, I give this with no recompense or payment required. I swear it.”
I bowed taking the instrument from him. Feeling stupid, I was pretty sure the instrument was a lute, but I’d never actually seen one. “I’m not sure how to play it.”
“You must figure it out. The healer will need to rest soon. Your music will sustain Gloriana until the healer can resume her work,” Oberon explained.
Immediately, I sat down on the floor. Beginning at the top of the neck, I pressed the strings down strumming the instrument lightly. I picked around with it for a few minutes realizing the nuances of the lute. Before long, I could make a tune with it.
Dylan watched me, then Oberon, then Grace. “Forgive Ellessa. She worries about her. I’m sorry she tried to provoke you,” Oberon said.
Dylan faced forward. “Your Majesty, while I have not been the perfect fiancé to Grace, I have not cheated on her. Nor will I ever. I can resist any woman. You know this to be true.”
“Yes, you are the seducer in most cases,” Oberon said.
I continued to play the strings lightly as they talked, but I listened.
“Yes, usually, but you must know that gets old after a while. When I met your daughter, she was something new and fresh. I was mesmerized. This is a stark reminder that even our lives can be stripped from us. Sometimes playing the long game doesn’t pan out. The immediate, fleeting moments are just as important as a grand scheme,” Dylan said.
“Indeed. You need not worry. She will forgive you in time. Besides, I approve of your relationship with her, if that matters at all,” Oberon said.
Dylan stood and faced him. “It does matter. Thank you, your Majesty,” he said bowing deeply to the King.
“I’ll do what I can to help,” Oberon said, looking into the room. “Okay, Mr. Rearden. Please step in the room and play a pleasant song. Peaceful and healing.”
I nodded then walked into the room. As I sat in a chair across from Grace, I noticed that the color had returned to her skin leaving it a pale pink color. The tendrils of black were receding, but not completely gone.
As I began to play, the healer settled down in another chair in the room closing her eyes. Focusing on Grace, my fingers fell over the strings in ways that I didn’t know was possible. I’d let go of my trained hand allowing the power of music to take over. It felt like I’d played lute all of my life. The sounds filled the room. Looking back to Dylan, I saw a sadness creep over his face. My fingers responded to my emotions watching him. He made me sad, too. Tearing my attention away from him, I focused on Grace.
When the healer stood again, I finished the song. I wasn’t clear as to how long I’d actually played the instrument, but my fingers were raw. Grace looked peaceful, and I stepped out of the room.
“Well done, Levi,” Dylan said.
“What was with the sad face?” I asked.
“If I hadn’t gone after her in the woods with Lysander, perhaps if I hadn’t returned after dying at the courthouse, she would be with you instead of me. Stephanie wouldn’t be challenging her. No one would have hurt her like this,” he said, staring into the room at her.
“Dylan, I don’t think she would have been with me. She came after me once when she thought you were dead, but it was just like her mother did to you earlier. I resisted her because something inside of me told me it was wrong. I had to sing to her to get her to back down. She turned on full winter queen, but when I sang to her, she relented. The whole thing was awkward. Don’t get me wrong, she’s amazing, but she doesn’t belong to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of that night and was thankful I resisted her. She loved you,” I said.
He closed his eyes turning his head slowly away from me. “Why did she come after you like that?”
I laughed, “Because she was crying over your death. I felt her losing grip on the darkness inside of her. When I tried to remind her who I thought she was, she felt the need to prove to me that she was something else.”
He chuckled, “Sounds like Grace.”
“She failed,” I smirked.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Dylan, I’m not the man to give advice about relationships, but Dude, you gotta man up. If she really is everything to you, then prove it. Nothing else matters. Sometimes she needs someone to tell her no. You gotta be that person. She still thinks I’m a kid,” I said.
“No, she knows what you are,” he said. “She wouldn’t have tried to seduce a child.”
His word rang true. Grace didn’t have a bone in her body that would allow her to hurt a child, contrary to all the beliefs about fairies stealing children and seducing
anything. She saw me as a man, even then. “Maybe she saw me as an adult, but she definitely saw me as a threat.”
“I wish I could order her around like you do. It’s fucking hilarious,” he laughed. He paused to look at her in the room. A distant look of memory crossed his face. It had to be something pleasant between the two of them because a smile flirted with the edges of his eyes. “She looks so much better now.” He leaned hard on the entrance to the room. I saw the battle within himself to keep from going in to her knowing that the healer didn’t need to be interrupted.
I looked around the corner, and he was right. She looked closer to normal than just hours ago when she looked like death warmed over. “You don’t need my power to tell her what to do. She will do whatever you ask her to do. It’s a mutual thing for the two of you. It will never be like that for us.” Grace and I had a trusting friendship, but it wasn’t the deep burning emotion that erupted between the bird of fire and the queen of ice.
That conversation with Dylan started a friendship that was more like brothers than anything I’d ever had. Our bond was Grace. He loved her more than anything in this world, and from that moment on, he set out to prove it to her. I was content to watch it all happen as long as he didn’t hurt her anymore.
Oberon appeared out of nowhere startling both of us. “The healing is complete.”
The healer exited the room. She looked at us. “She still needs rest, but she will live.”
“The iron?” Oberon asked.
“The bard must remove it and return it to the human realm,” she said.
“The nails are still in her?” Dylan asked.
“Yes, but their poison is blocked by magic. They must be removed immediately. A maid will come and aid with the blood. I must rest,” she said walking away from us.
I turned green as my stomach churned. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Man up, Levi,” Dylan smiled.
“Why don’t you do it?” I asked.
