Fae Magic trilogy : (Alexandra Everest series)

by Jen Pretty

  "Hello!" a soldier shouted.

  "Hi," Armond shouted back.

  The soldier ran up as we crossed, he bowed before me, even though he wasn't an elf or a fae.

  "Thank you for returning, your highness."

  "Call me Lex, please."

  "Of course, Lex. Thank you for returning."

  “I made a promise to the king that I would save Aldridge. He has been gone long enough."

  "You don’t know how much that means to us. He is the only heir. We have gathered all the best fighters in the land. I promise we will fight and die for you and our future king." he bowed again and I felt embarrassingly awkward standing there in front of the soldiers who had all bowed as well. Ugh.

  "Ok, let’s not do that," I muttered.

  "We need the unicorns. I brought the elves," I gestured behind me as the last of the elves crossed into their old homeland.

  "I knew you would bring our salvation. I didn't know you would recreate the power we once had. Thank you, Lex." He bowed again, damn it. Before I could reply, there was a roar in the distance.

  At the sound, swords were unsheathed, and soldiers scattered. Crying out to get to the trees. The sound of hooves pounding the ground reached my ears and got louder and louder until the first of them came into the clearing. Most of the shifters had changed to their wolf form, abandoning their swords, but staying near the tree line. Centuries of fear lingered, as Puck had said. These shifters would need generations to allay the fear that was bone deep in them.

  Puck transformed and stood in front of me. His wide stance said he wasn’t going to move, no matter what happened, but Daisy stayed at my side like a duck, apparently trusting Puck to take care of the wild equines heading for us.

  The herd finally slammed to a stop, skidding on the hard-packed earth and kicking up so much dust we were nearly cut off from view. The elves behind me dropped their packs, but didn’t take out their weapons; they simply stood at the ready. The unicorn’s nostrils flared heavily, displaying bright red as they heaved, the only colour among the stark white of their hair and rolling eyes. The sound of their ragged breath filled the area and they closed in as a group, staring daggers at the elves behind me.

  The standoff lasted an uncomfortably long moment. The hunters had been instructed not to act unless necessary, but you could feel the tension in the air. Being unarmed in front of such a dangerous potential foe was not easy for anyone.

  The leader of this group of unicorns finally changed into a man. He was tall, lean and looked strikingly like Puck except he didn’t bear the cocky grin and mischievous expression that Puck almost always wore.

  “Why have you brought these cowards back to our land, brother?”

  Puck had never spoken of family. He preferred to keep conversation to the present. After our discussion by the river, I now knew why he had done so. The past was a ghost that haunted Puck, no matter how he pretended it didn’t.

  Puck switched back to his human form and stared at his brother for a moment.

  “Bain, I have brought the queen. She needs us all in this battle.”

  Puck pulled me out from behind him and, after a moment of silence, the unicorns bowed, bending one leg and leaning back on their haunches, dropping their heads to the ground until their horns touched the solid dirt. Bain, in human form, bowed as the hunters had done, falling to a knee and lowering his gaze to my feet.

  “You don’t need to do that,” I said, although the unicorns bowing was the most majestic thing I had ever witnessed. Their shiny coats glittered in the sun that fought its way through the trees.

  “I would like to go destroy the witch who tore this world apart and save Aldridge, hopefully,” I said cautiously to the crowd. I still wasn’t enjoying the attention.

  “Your Highness, we have been here for a very long time, trapped, as you must know. The elves have not suffered as we have and they are no longer warriors fit to battle in this war you propose,” Bain said, scowling at the Elves where they stood behind me.

  I glanced back at Clive and Snazzy. They were good people. I didn’t know the rest of them, but when I asked, they dropped everything and returned with me.

  Clive stepped forward. “We may not have been here with you, but we still suffered. We suffered the loss of our home, our friends. Each of us suffered from losing our partner in battle. I suffered from losing you, Bain, every day.”

  “That is bullshit. You sat in luxury while we tried to kill everything that moved because of that witch.” He turned back to me, the anger still clear on his face. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, I will fight with you, but I will not fight with them. We can’t trust them to have our backs.”

  I just nodded. The path back to the witch’s doorstep would be long and I had planned to make a doorway, but maybe we needed this time to get the elves and the unicorns together. “We will start towards the caves in the north as soon as the soldiers are packed up,” I called, then I nodded to Clive and he gave me a sad smile in return. I only hoped we could convince the unicorns that the elves were trustworthy before we made it there.

  By nightfall, we were all exhausted. It had been a long hike through the forest. We passed the town where Aldridge had lived as second in command to Mac. The same village that little Collin had lived before the trolls destroyed them all. I remembered the small wooden knife the boy had made and given to me. Roman was the only one to notice when a tear escaped at the memory. He held my hand and passed his calm energy to me. It helped, but not as much as I would have liked. The anger tried to rise, but I pushed it back. I wanted to save it for when I faced the enemy who awaited. Not only was the witch going down, but I planned to rid the world of every troll I came across too. They had been the witch’s sword when they came through here. I had to remember that. The trolls were no less at fault, and I would make sure they paid the price.

  “You ready for bed?” Roman asked as we sat around the campfire. I realized I had zoned out. The hunters were trading battle stories with the unicorns who sat opposite the elves. A line had been drawn down the middle of the camp with unicorns on one side and elves on the other. Though Clive tried to speak to Bain a few more times since we left the portal, Bain was resistant. They all were. Puck had joined his brother on the march, a few times I had heard them laughing. An honest to god laugh out of Puck was rare. He usually smirked or chuckled, but his laughter lit the worlds up. I couldn’t help smiling every time I heard it.

  Roman nudged my shoulder. When I looked up at him, he smiled patiently, his eyes crinkling at the edges. My mind had wandered off again in a sleepy haze.

  “Yeah, I’m exhausted,” I muttered, finally answering his question.

  He scooped me into his lap abruptly, making me giggle. I nestled my face into his chest as he stood up and walked us back to our tent. Before I made it there, I was already asleep.

  ✽✽✽

  The forest was beautiful. The sun warmed my skin where I lay beside Luke. His hand intertwined with mine.

  “Thank you, Luke.”

  “We weren’t done talking,” he laughed.

  “That’s true.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “I’m afraid, Luke.”

  “I know. I’m scared for you too. I know you will be fine, Margot said you would be, but she didn’t see you gaining your power and becoming queen. How can I trust you to come home to me?”

  I rolled on to my side and looked him in the eye. His soft face looked so worried that it broke my heart a little bit.

  “I promise. I will always come back. Before you know it, we will be sitting by the pool in the condo, talking about boys and drinking fruity drinks.”

  He smiled at that like I hoped he would. Luke and I had so much to do still. We barely had time to get to know each other before I ran off and got abducted by Joshua, then it was one thing after another that kept us apart. I didn’t want this life for myself. I wanted to run my father’s corporation and spend my time negotiating deals like my father would have wanted. If this had been th
e life he had hoped for me, he would have told me all about this life of monsters and magic.

  We lay there on our backs in the grass, lost in our thoughts for a long time, but when he heaved a sigh, I knew our time was just about up. I flung my arm around him and squeezed him so tight he squeaked but hugged me back just as hard.

  ✽✽✽

  The sound of yelling startled me awake. The words being flung about made no sense until I recognized the voices. It was Puck and Bain. It seemed their truce had ended, and they were ‘discussing’ the drama between the elves and the unicorns loud enough to wake the dead.

  I shuffled Daisy off my chest and crawled out of my tent. Roman was standing beside the door, watching the shouting match.

  “What the fuck?” I asked, watching the escalating argument until suddenly there were no longer two men yelling, two unicorns were impaling each other. In the scuffle, I lost track of who was who, but my new magic flared and both unicorns found themselves suspended by their hind legs in the middle of camp. They thrashed for a moment before ceasing.

  “Are you done?” I asked snidely.

  They both returned to their human forms.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Bain said at the same time as Puck said, “Yes, let me down.” His attitude was a bit uncalled for and I narrowed my eyes at him. This was ridiculous. I needed to do something.

  “I think we need to talk,” I said, letting both down. “Puck, let's go for a run. Bain, you come too.”

  As soon as Puck touched down, he scooped me up and took off at breakneck speed as a unicorn. I gripped tightly to his mane, hoping he didn’t go under any low hanging branches.

  When he finally stopped in a small clearing, he shifted and set me down. Adrenaline from the high-speed race had been dumped into my system, making me a bit giddy, but the seriousness of the moment returned when Bain stepped into the clearing and returned to human form as well.

  “Want to explain how you two went from laughing together last night to skewering each other this morning?”

  Puck sighed and looked away so I turned to Bain. He held my eye contact for a moment then looked at the ground.

  I stood in the silence, tapping my foot. Damn, these unicorns were a pain in the ass.

  “It’s nothing, Lex,” Puck said. “We just have a long history.”

  “Well, let’s work out some things because I need you two on board for this. I have already wasted too much time; I need the elves and the unicorns to work together and I’m betting that would go smoother if you two weren’t trying to kill each other.”

  Bain scowled at Puck. “The unicorns are just a little annoyed with how easily Puck returned to the elves. He should not feel he can speak for us.”

  “And what is it the unicorns want to say? If you don’t want Puck to speak for you, then you speak for yourself. Tell me,” I replied.

  He stared at me for a moment, biting his lip like he didn’t want the words to come out before he had arranged them perfectly. I raised a brow at him, waiting for his reply.

  ‘We want assurances, Your Highness, that the elves won’t abandon us in this new world. We can’t go back to being what we were.”

  “Assurances?” I snorted unkindly. “And what do you think will happen if we leave the witch alone and she comes back here? Do you think she will leave you alone? You can run and hide and play the blame game or you can get over it and help me defeat her once and for all. Then you can have your discussions and assurances. I will not stand by and watch her destroy this world again and then move on to destroy Earth. If you will not stand by me…”

  I didn’t need to finish. Both unicorn shifters were on their knees; their heads bowed to the ground.

  They didn’t move for so long, I thought maybe I had stopped time. I tried to let go of my magic, but it wasn’t magic holding them to the ground. When Puck finally raised his head slightly, without raising his eyes, he said “I’m sorry, Lex. I didn’t mean to fail you.”

  “You idiot, you didn’t fail me. You will never fail me. You really like stabbing people and I have failed to give you a proper target for that desire. That ends now, buddy. Let's go stab that witch bitch.”

  Puck stood up, looking much happier, then glanced back at his brother, who was still on his knees, head cradled in his arms. His body shook as sobs wracked his body.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked quietly.

  He didn’t look up, but he managed to clear his throat and said “We have not had a true Elf leader in so long. I’m sorry. I will help mend this rift between the elves and unicorn.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  Stupid unicorns. Being queen was starting to agree with me, though.

  Back at the camp, the tents had been packed up. Two uneasy groups stood apart from each other.

  Puck scooped me up and shifted back into his unicorn form, then pranced back through camp, stopping in the middle between the group of angry unicorns and the group of disgraced elves.

  Bain stood beside us and addressed his fellow unicorns.

  “Our time for anger needs to end. We will not be successful if we go into war divided like this.”

  He spun to look at Clive. Picking him out of the crowd, he marched over, his hand extended in a display of peace. As they shook, Bain pulled Clive forward and swung him up on his back as he transformed into a unicorn. Seeing Clive, my quiet doorman transformed into a battle-ready elf. His whole demeanour changed. The sword at his side was unsheathed and he held it up in the air. The silent display was all it took, the rest of the unicorns and elves quickly followed suit until before me stood a mighty army of white steeds ridden by sword-wielding elves. The elves grinned and cheered, and the unicorns stomped their hooves and screamed their battle cry.

  That which was ours.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The march across the shifter’s land to the caves was long, but made lighter by the war stories. Everyone was carefully tiptoeing around the topic of the elves leaving the unicorns behind, keeping the peace through avoidance. They would hopefully repair burned bridges with the battle ahead.

  I hadn’t had time yet to consider the battle itself. The witch was immune to my time magic, but she had to die before she made a portal and escaped again. Hopefully my new powers would help, but walking into this without a clear idea of how I was going to beat her increased my stress level by a thousand. Every step took me closer to the unknown and I had a big army of people to protect when the time came.

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Roman asked as we made our way on to the rocky outcroppings that led to the caves.

  “I’m just worried about what we’ll find.”

  He slipped his hand into mine and squeezed it. Roman was a strange man: confident and self-assured, but quietly supportive. He had my back and I could count on that.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. He smiled, leaned in and kissed me, pulling me to a stop. The troops of elves, unicorns, hunters and wolf shifters all separated and flowed around us like a stream around a rock as we took one last moment together.

  He broke our kiss and rested his forehead against mine. His red eyes flashed before he closed them and took a deep breath. “When this is over, we’re going to hide away for a week and relax. I want you all to myself, Alexandra Everest.”

  “I want that too. I want it more than anything,” I replied, kissing his nose and pushing away from him, but keeping hold of his hand.

  Up ahead, the troops were getting to the mouth of the cave. I kept hold of his hand, but turned and started moving us along with the flow of the army we had collected. Roman and I had been through a lot, but this was probably going to be our biggest challenge yet.

  Armond caught up to us, squished himself between Roman and me and flung his arms around our shoulders. I elbowed him in the ribs, but he just grinned.

  “You ready, princess?” he asked, looking way too happy to be charging blindly into a strange new land with unknown danger.

  “Yeah, I guess. Yo
u just stay alive and don’t get caught by that witch again,” I said, elbowing him in the ribs one more time. The hunters were planning to take out any trolls with the help of my magic. Trolls would probably be the easiest of our possible foes, but at least they were something we could plan for.

  “Don’t worry about me. I haven’t had a good battle in a while and I’m itching to get some blood on my blades.” The other hunters looked equally keen. They all had a bit of a spring in their steps and small giddy grins.

  In the cave, the teams carried torches and followed the well-worn stone path to the deepest cave where the witch had disappeared last time we were here. The portal still waited for us like the creepy entrance to a haunted house. I was fully expecting horrors to be waiting on the other side. As the army ahead of me filed through and I finally got my turn, Puck gave me a cocky grin and slid past me at the last moment, waving as he disappeared through the portal. I wasn’t sure who was keener for a good fight, the hunters or the unicorns. I firmed my grip on Romans hand and tucked Daisy under my arm.

  ✽✽✽

  The open field beyond the portal was barren. There were no trees or vegetation and a foul pool of black slime sat beside the portal, edges crisp and curling where it met the dry ground. The army clustered around, but moved slightly further into the hollow world to allow more space for the rest of the unicorns and elves to come through behind us. The sky was a dirty brown that clouded out the sun, leaving just enough light to see by, but the smog was thick so we couldn’t see far.

  “What the hell?” I whispered to myself.

  Armond answered, “This is what the old stories told of. They said the witch was from a harsh land of death and destruction where war was the way of life."

  As he finished and before the last of our army was through the portal, a massive hoard of trolls descended upon us from just beyond the fog. Their greasy dreadlocked hair swung around them as they unsheathed their swords and stomped forward, the sound of their feet echoing off the packed ground. Daisy flew out of my arms and circled above, leaving the fighting to us.