by Sumida, Amy
Welcome home daughter of the gods, man, and fey.
“Thank you,” I said softly to her.
“For what?” Arach looked down at me in surprise.
“Oh, no,” I waved away his question, “I'm talking to Faerie.”
“By all means,” he grimaced, pulling the sheet around us and snuggling in closer with me. “Maybe she'll give you a straight answer.”
The Dragon King is of bad humor today
“Not so bad,” I chuckled a bit.
His bad humor is a result of your sadness. You come home with a heavy heart, child.
“I hoped to find an answer to a problem I have but have only found a greater problem here.”
Yes, the children aren't being born.
“Why won't you tell them how to bring back the children?”
This is of their own doing and the answer lies with them as well. I've done all I can for them by bringing you here. You are the catalyst. If they want things to change, then they must first change themselves.
“Ah, there's the riddle,” I smiled but it faded when I realized what she said. “Brought me here? You brought me here? I thought it was an accident. I asked the Aether to take me home and it took me here instead.”
How do you think you got past the High King's magic? She was laughing at me, I couldn't hear it but I could feel it. Of course I brought you. I've been waiting years for you to enter the Aether alone and without chant to direct you. When you finally did, I pulled you here immediately.
“What is she saying?” Arach was staring intensely at my slack expression.
“She says she brought me here, that she opened the tear in King Cian's wards to allow me through.”
“I suspected such,” he nodded and leaned down to kiss me again. I ran my hands over the hard angles of his chest, then slid them under the sheet.
Is he a good lover? I hope he doesn't disappoint you after all I've done to bring you together.
“Oh, you're still here,” I jerked back from Arach and he gave a long suffering sigh before leaning back so I could finish my conversation with Faerie.
I am ever here.
“But if you're still speaking to me it must be for a reason,” I cast a glance at my waiting dragon and wasn't surprised to see smoke drifting out of one nostril.
I feel strange of late. There are fey I can't find.
“King Cian has opened the way to the Human Realm now,” I reassured her. “They're probably there.”
Yes, perhaps. And then she was blessedly gone.
“I always feel like I've missed something and I won't figure it out until later, whenever I talk to her,” I shook my head.
“Hmph,” he nodded, “riddles. She loves riddles.”
“Not exactly a riddle,” I thought over her words. “She's told me a few times that she wants me here to bring change to the fey. Now she just told me that it's the reason she brought me here in the first place, and she implied that the change will bring back fertility to the fey.”
“She did? So what's this change you're supposed to bring about?”
“That's just it, I haven't the foggiest.”
“Well great,” he huffed, “I'm glad that's all settled.
About the Author
Amy Sumida lives on an island in the Pacific Ocean where gods go to play. She sleeps in a fairy bed, high in the air, with two gravity-defying felines and upon waking, enjoys stabbing people with little needles, over and over, under the guise of making pretty pictures on their skin. She, like Vervain, has no filter but has been fortunate enough to find friends who appreciate this... or at least tell her they do. She bellydances and paints pictures on her walls but is happiest with her nose stuck in a book, her mind in a different world than this one, filled with fantastical men who unfortunately don't exist in our mundane reality. Thank the gods for fantasy.
On a serious note, she's the author of several books, including the Godhunter series, Feeding the Lwas, The Magic of Fabric, and Enchantress. She's been writing since she was a little girl but first decided to pursue writing as a career when she gave her high school English teacher one of her books to look over and without her knowledge, that teacher passed her book around to all her friends. A month later she was accosted in the halls by a teacher she didn't know, begging her to write a sequel. She's been writing novels ever since.
