by Conn, Claudy
“Has she seen this with her sight?” the queen asked, one brow raised.
“She isn’t sure. She only received bits and pieces, but she felt the scene was in Dublin, and there were so many young people … students, that she surmised it would be Trinity.”
“Pestale means to send each brother to a different location, thus spreading our power off and away from his direct and first hit. We have no way of knowing which one he will hit and with how many of his monsters at his back,” the queen said as she pyramided her fingers.
“Does he have the power to open a portal that large?” Trevor asked, his face drawn.
“I think so,” said the queen. “I have tried to contact the Dark King, but he is off with his Crystal … and is unaware of time. I know that he was determined to convince her to shed the last remnants of her human essence and evolve as he has. While he is centered in that, he will be of no help in this.”
“Where do you want me to go, and when do I leave?” Trevor asked.
“Now,” said the queen. “Trevor, my young prince, I am asking you to enter the Dark Realm to contain the Dark Royals. I know that I am asking a great deal, and I also know you are up to the task.”
He put his arm across his chest and made a fist of loyalty as he bowed his head. “It is an honor to serve.”
She had taken the orb from him while they spoke and said, “This will get you to the Dark Realm and back.”
Although part of her had listened to the discussion, Jazz had also been deep in thought. How long had she been away? She knew her travel agency would have immediately enlisted a tour guide to help her poor seniors, who had been left stranded, but just how long had she been gone? She sighed; she had to set this aside, for she could do nothing about that situation. She could, however, do something else—she could help rid the world of the damned Unseelie!
She stepped up and found the courage to say, “I am going with him.”
Trevor rounded on her. “No—you are not.”
“I can help you, Trev. I am coming.”
“So am I,” Frankie said in a small voice.
“Jazmine Decker,” Trevor said, his voice was a mixture of admiration and authority, “you must remain behind with Frankie. You can help by being with her and giving me peace of mind that you are both safe.”
“I can’t do that this time. Frankie will be safe here with the queen. You know that, so I am coming with you.” She turned to Frankie. “You trust me, Frankie, don’t you?”
“Yes, but … I be wanting to stay with you … and Prince Trevor.”
Aaibhe bent to her knees and looked at the child directly. “You are the last of the Fios McCutchems on your mother’s side. And you will grow to be strong and sure. I need you to remain with me and train. Can you do that? When Trevor returns, he will be so very proud of all that you will learn while with me.” The queen rose and took Frankie’s hand.
“You see, you will need to stay here with Frankie,” Trevor said to Jazz and turned to the queen. “Remind Jazmine Decker, my Queen, that she is mortal. She will not survive the Dark Realm.”
“I cannot tell her that because she is more than mortal,” said the queen softly. She took a step to Jazz, picked up the pendant that was around her neck with her free hand, and began to chant. When she was done, she murmured, “While this won’t make you completely invulnerable, it will help keep you safe, because though you are more than what you appear, you are also mortal, and I will need you in the future.”
Frankie tugged on the queen’s hand. “I have a fireball. I can help them. Send me, please send me with them. I can help.”
The queen smiled warmly and shook her head. “No, my little one. You will stay with me and meet Nuad, our Chief Tracker, and his team, and one of them—you may pick which one—will take you to the training center and teach you how to use all your Fios skills, for you have more than the fireball. You have ways it can be used that you are still not aware of.”
“But …” Frankie said on a worried note.
Jazz hugged Frankie fiercely. “None of this is normal, but you and I, we are not normal. However, we have found our place—finally, both of us know really what we are and why.” Jazz then whispered in Frankie’s mind, another skill she had learned from her mother, ‘mind-speak’ from Fios to Fios. I am going with him, no matter what he says … so you be ready to show us everything you learn when we get back. Jazz didn’t know if the ‘mind-speaking’ would work on a Fae—though she wished she could use it with Trevor. She smiled to herself at the thought.
Frankie’s eyes filled with tears, but she staunchly nodded her head and said, “Right then.”
Breslyn, who had been standing back from this scene, folded his strong arms across his chest and said to his queen, “You do know what is going on here?”
She eyed him with one brow up. “Do you question me, Breslyn?”
“Well, not exactly, but …”
“Then let me answer you, my Prince,” said the queen. “Fate is taking its natural course.” She turned to Trevor and said, “It is time for you to leave, and, Trevor, after you ask the orb to take you to the Dark Realm, spell it so that it will remain suspended with your Death Sword, both yours and both out of reach.”
Trevor inclined his head. “As you wish, my Queen.” He then looked at the Relic in his hand. “Orb of Time,” he said, “I need to travel in the present to the Dark Realm. Can you do that?”
“I can, but I do not wish to. I have only just arrived home … and would prefer to remain with my queen.”
“Orb, it is your duty,” said the queen.
“Yes, my Queen,” said the Orb, and Jazz’s eyes opened wide when she heard it sigh.
“Not only does it talk, but it sighs? Do Fae Relics have feelings?” Her mind went on to innumerate the things she had learned: Fae had feelings. Fae Relics, which she’d supposed were inanimate objects, could speak. Relics even evolved and ‘grew’ feelings. Everything she had been taught as a Fios was so out of whack.
“Our Hallows are capable of much,” said the queen with a soft smile.
Jazz nodded and made up her mind. She knew Trevor would not willingly take her with him, but she also knew she had to go with him, and her reasons didn’t matter at that moment. Her gut told her to go with Trevor at all cost. She would use her Fios senses and wait for the right moment. Doing this, she knew the very moment the orb’s spell opened the portal.
Just as Trevor stepped into the swirling dark hole, she ran, grabbed hold of him with everything she had, and planted herself against his back. Her arms wrapped around his hard abs, and her eyes closed as her head rested at his broad back just as the portal sucked them deep inside.
A moment’s dazzling of light and sound, and then black, all black.
The next thing she knew she was looking at stone flooring at her feet and feeling a sense of bleakness as she managed a quick scan of the dark corridor they were in. Trevor broke free from her hold and spun around to begin his rant.
She didn’t hear his first words because she was mesmerized by his golden eyes. His beautiful alien eyes simply held her captive. She shook herself free from the moment and put up her hand. “I know you are upset, but I promise, I won’t get in your way … and I will watch your back.”
“You are already in my way,” he seethed. “Don’t you realize that you being here is a liability for me? You are mortal … and I couldn’t bear it if they manage to capture you and hurt you … I …” He shook his head. “Pendant or no, I’m taking you back—I can’t have you in danger like this.”
“Waste of time,” she said and looked around more thoroughly. “They must know we’ve entered their realm. If you leave and come back, they will be prepared for you, and your mission will be in ruins,” she said and watched him as he thought this through.
All at once, Jazz shivered; the air was frigid. She looked down at the gown Trevor had ‘blinked’ her into for their meeting with the queen and said, “This is way not enough clothi
ng for this place. Got any ski clothes handy?”
A moment later, she was warmer in a dark knit hat and a warm, downy, well-fitted ski jacket. Her jeans were back on her legs and her boots on her feet. She smiled and said, “Better—you are quite handy to have around.” She glanced over him; he was still naked to the waist. “What about you? Aren’t you cold?”
He grimaced at her, didn’t answer this, and said, “You shouldn’t be here, but since you are, you just stay close.” He put a finger to her face. “I won’t tolerate your disobedience in this realm. Even at risk to my mission, I will return you to Faery if you disobey me.”
She nodded and said, “Sure, sure, whatever.” She took a good look around and decided this had to be a castle. The long corridor was somewhere in the Dark Royal’s castle. Whew, she breathed as that sank in.
The walls, the floor, everything about where they were had a medieval ‘feel’, except for the wall sconces, which appeared to be powered by electricity—or whatever energy they had in their Dark Realm. That surprised her. She had expected to find candles and torches, not this modern convenience, and she said out loud, “Huh.”
“Shush,” he ordered.
Repentant, she went silent as she scanned the walls, which appeared to be made of thick stone. The flooring was made of some flat stone similar to the flagstone that could be found at home. The ceiling also appeared to be made of some kind of stone. Everything though felt bleak and barren, and although she saw no ice or snow, it felt as though she had stepped onto the North Pole.
In spite of the knit hat and dark navy ski jacket she was wearing, she shivered again.
Trevor pulled on her gloved fingers and brought her close to his body as he moved towards a long, lead-paned and arched window in the middle of the narrow corridor.
That window displayed a bleak world. They looked out on a horrible, dead landscape, dimly lit by an unusual moon. The scene was misty and barren, with nothing but dead and strangely warped trees and shrubbery making up the landscape of cracked, gray earth.
“Wow,” Jazz said. “Everything has died here …”
“No, not died, been killed. The Fae abominations have sucked the life out of everything. And it is perpetual dusk here—no sun.”
“Horrible.” Jazz shivered again. “Where are we exactly? What is this place?”
“Queen Morrigu’s Castle. The Dark King left it to her when he took his human as a consort. He left her here with the Dark Princes he had created. I am told she is quite mad.”
“Well, yeah, poor thing—left here like that,” Jazz said, looking around. “I don’t think I like this Dark King. He seems a selfish brute without compassion.”
“She chose to follow him. He did not ask her to, but Morrigu followed the Dark King here when he first banished himself. He was wretched that his war had resulted in Queen Bridget’s death. He never wanted that. Morrigu thought if she became his mistress, they could rule here … but then his experiments all went wrong. She turned to Dark Magic, and it took over her thought process, and although he wanted to return her to Tir, he couldn’t because of what the Dark Magic had done to her.” Trevor shrugged. “I am told the Dark King thinks on another plane,” he said. “Never mind all that now. We have to—”
“Have you ever been here before?”
“No,” he answered and pulled her further along the corridor.
“How will you know where to go?”
He touched his head with his pointer finger and grinned. “You do not give us enough credit, Fios. I have all that I need already implanted by the queen, right in here.”
“Like a set of blueprints?” Jazz asked, impressed, and then she stopped and clutched him. “Do you feel that?”
“What?”
“Dark Fae—everywhere … Dark Fae. You know I can sense them. It must be built into our DNA from ancient times when we had to alert the villagers before the Fae arrived.” She eyed him with a smirk. “Seems I can sense Fae approaching even before you can.” Her eyes teased him. “And I feel Unseelie all around.”
“Well, we are in the Dark Realm,” he reasoned with a grin.
Jazz was all too aware that she loved his grin. A boyish innocence played in that beaming smile, so at variance with some of the stodginess with which he conducted himself, and so at odds with the fact that he had lived thousands of years.
He began moving stealthy and said, “Quiet now.”
All at once, Jazz felt a strange sensation at her back, and her skin got prickly. She yanked at his hand as she spun around and discovered why her Fios senses had been screaming in her head and all over her body.
A Dark and Royal Fae stood, his arms folded across his muscular and tattooed chest, his expression contemptuous—a Royal, yes, but not Hordly!
He was tall, incredibly handsome, with shoulder-length black hair that fell loosely around his face. His eyes were black and glittering and held a look she couldn’t quite read. Was it amusement? Purpose? Bitterness?
He wore a silver torque, much like Hordly’s torque, etched to denote both his Royal status and his station as firstborn to the Dark King. His chest was bare except for a set of intricate tattoos. Covering his muscular thighs were black leather pants, and on his bare feet were sandals.
“Did you think you could enter my castle without my knowing, Seelie?” he said in a similar accent to his brother’s. The Dark Princes evidently spoke another dialect of Danu. Their accents were similar to Trevor’s but not quite the same.
Trevor’s words were super-charged with hatred, and Jazz felt it fill the air as he breathed just one word out loud: “Pestale!”
The Dark Prince inclined his head, and Jazz was immediately aware that this one was very different than his brother. This one had a great deal of cunning, a sense of self-worth, and purpose.
He said, “Ah, no doubt you were expecting a change in me? Tell me, Seelie, did you think the Dark King would really be bothered to re-educate me after I drank from the Cauldron?” He shook his head. “Hordly knew better and saved me from its waters and the years of wandering aimlessly without direction.”
“I see one change,” Trevor said, his gaze traveling over the tatts on Pestale’s abdomen.
Jazz could almost see him thinking. He would call for his Death Sword and shift to the Dark Prince. She tensed as she waited.
Pestale smirked as he opened his folded arms and raised one well-shaped brow. “Ah, these?” he said, looking at the tatts. “They were needed for the very Dark Magic I have been working with in this last week.” He looked at Jazz and sucked in air as he allowed his gaze to travel over her. She felt as though he had stripped her of all her warm clothing, and she moved in closer to Trevor as he spoke again, softly, so softly. “Lovely creature. I can’t imagine why you have brought her to my castle, but I thank you. I shall be sure to enjoy her quite thoroughly before she dies.”
Jazz felt her Fios kick in again—more Dark Fae on the move and headed towards them. Two … two male Fae almost upon them.
She felt their presence at her back as they shifted in. She looked over her shoulder and discovered with a sinking heart that one was Hordly and the other, from the torque around his neck, had to be his brother. They were surrounded. This was so not what she had in mind. She had thought she and Trev would arrive and take the Dark Princes by surprise and by storm. It appeared, however, that the Unseelie Royals had the upper hand.
She had to do something—all her Fios senses were on the alert and ready to defend—but she waited, looking at Trevor, hoping he had a plan.
Trevor had to know, of course, they were surrounded, but he did not seem overly concerned to her. Was he bluffing? He should be concerned, she thought worriedly. Lots of reasons to be concerned here.
All at once Trev was in motion, his Death Sword in his right hand. He swung it from side to side, slashing at air.
With his other hand, he held her. They shifted, coming up behind Pestale so that all three Dark Princes were before him and she was at his
back. She got ready.
Jazz knew this was it. Here was death staring at them.
The Unseelie Royals came at Trevor, and although Jazz flattened herself against the wall, she knew she had to do something. Then she remembered just what she could do.
The first one, Pestale, wasn’t aware she was a Fios, let alone a slammer, and Hordly was too busy concentrating on taking Trevor down to bother himself with her just yet.
This was the moment, as the last Unseelie prince seemed to be just along for the ride and hung about not doing much of anything.
She centered her magic first on all Pestale and Hordly, but as the middle brother inched closer to Hordly, she included him in the set.
Pestale had managed to get his hands on a Death Sword and was holding it between Trevor and himself, sneering all the while.
She took his magic, and the magic of his brothers, but it was an enormous burden, heavy with evil, and her mind nearly toppled with its weight. She had an overwhelming urge to puke.
She had to do this, she had to, she told herself. No puking—only slamming.
She got control as she doubled over and then threw everything she had at all three. The Dark power she had momentarily stolen and hurled at them hit them with a force of a small bomb.
A resounding and thunderous rocket of black power knocked Pestale into both his brothers in midair as all three went flying. They landed hard at the far end of the corridor and were momentarily bereft of energy!
Trevor shifted in close to them, his Death Sword poised and ready to slash Pestale’s handsome, wicked head off his shoulders, but Hordly was the first to recover and diverted Trevor’s purpose by shifting away. With a look of dread, Trev turned, apparently aware of what he would find.
With a sinking sensation, Jazz felt Hordly’s arms go around her as he pressed her back against his hard body.
“Back off my brothers, Seelie, or she dies now,” Hordly growled angrily.
Pestale was on his feet, as was his younger brother, and they stared first at the human girl, clearly wondering just what kind of magic she owned, before turning to Trevor.
