by Alexia Purdy
Her sadness penetrated into my heart like icicles. I tried to shake it off.
“I understand,” she said. “Truly. I’m here to offer any assistance you need. The Guildrin Court is doing well at the moment, and I have not had much to do. I can stay on here for a while, help train the twins with their magic if need be. They’ll start showing within a year but need to feel comfortable around it. I’m sure they’re fine right now, but it’ll start to affect them soon.”
I nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that’ll be a great help. Thanks for thinking of them. That hadn’t crossed my mind yet.”
She nodded, a kind smile gracing her face once more. Ilarial was an important ally, and I felt awful that I had snapped at her.
“You’re welcome, Dylan. I’m here if you need to talk about anything. I’m truly looking forward to being with the twins. I feel that they possess much more than anyone will ever expect.”
Again, I tipped my head her way as she excused herself and disappeared, the crowd folding around her. I felt reassured after her encounter. She had a way of calming people if they were feeling anxious. Shade used to call her walking Xanax. I could see what she meant. Had she just used some of her potent magic on me? I felt looser and even happier for the first time in months.
I was betting she had. Maybe it was exactly what she had come for. I sighed, momentarily relieved of my burden of disappointment, sadness, and loneliness. Grinning sheepishly, as though tipsy on honey wine, I wove through the crowd, happy to chat with anyone who greeted me. I noted their names, their stories, their faces. I wanted to know everyone in the court. Life was dismal, and these people were now my only remedy against the untamed elements out in Faerie. Together we would stand against the world, and something told me that one day, I was going to need them more than anything.
Their warm hearts were what I needed now.
Chapter Four
Anna
I was getting married! Eventually, anyway. Nautilus and I had decided it together, and while we hadn’t told anyone except my family, it was as good as done.
I blew out a breath as I stared into the mirror, my eyes shining. I had put it off as long as I could, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I could tell Nautilus was getting impatient, and we were eager to start our lives together. It’d been bad enough holding off with Oran, but when he’d disappeared one day out of the blue and never returned, I knew something bad had happened to him. I just wondered if Nautilus had anything to do with it.
He swore to me he didn’t. He hadn’t touched Oran at all. I had peered into his eyes for what felt like an eternity and knew he was telling me the truth, but deep inside, I knew Oran had met a violent end. Maybe it was my connection to the Unseelie palace which had told me, but I just knew it hadn’t been natural and that I would never see the leader of the Unseelie army ever again.
This meant that I was now the leader of the army, and I had absolutely no experience with that. Luckily, Aunt Evangeline did. She and her husband Jack had taken command of it while I waited to hear anything about Oran. Six months had gone by without a word, and he was officially declared lost. Now, the hardest part of it all? Should I marry? The Unseelie Kingdom was officially under my command, and I could remain single if I wanted to, though as my aunt insisted, those challenging me would be deterred if I were married.
This alone had me digging my heels in. I could rule alone. The problem wasn’t that I was a single woman but that I was barely eighteen years old, the same age my sister Shade had been when she’d taken command of the Scren and the Southern Realm. I didn’t truly want all this, and I wondered if I could hand rule over to my aunt and just forget the whole thing. Sitting on my hands seemed to be my only course of action since Oran’s disappearance. I had been stuck, and I knew I had to move soon or risk being kicked out of the kingdom by Faerie itself.
I hoped that wouldn’t happen, but I also felt that continuing with the wedding plans would be just what I needed to move me forward and get me truly settled in Faerie. I loved Nautilus, so what was I still waiting for?
“Nautilus is here to see you, Your Grace,” one of the servants announced, peering around the doorway with fear in his eyes. My servants were petrified of me, though I’d given no reason for it. Apparently, any ruler who could speak to the Withering Palace was to be feared. It was a power my predecessors had possessed, and they had controlled the walls of this place with but a whisper. The palace was not malevolent, though it might seem to be depending on who was commanding it. Aveta’s rule had left a lasting scar across the entire kingdom. She had been less than kind.
I waved for him to be brought in. Nautilus arrived promptly, looking elated as always. He’d been sent back from the Scren after Oran had disappeared, for fear of my life. Overprotective as he was, it was always a breath of fresh air to see him.
“Nautilus, how are you?”
He stepped forward, allowing my servant to close the door behind him. He stood tall, way taller than me, but I loved it. His creamy mocha skin gleamed under the light of the torches lining the room, and his dreadlocks reflected some of it but absorbed the rest into his dark brown hair. He wore a simple tunic and linen pants, a staple outfit for Faerie men, but it complimented his well-toned physique.
I had to fight the sigh threatening to slip from my lips. He was dreamy in so many ways. Why he had put his interest in me and not another woman made me wonder if it was just because of my fire abilities. He’d been around so much, I knew it had to be more than that. I wasn’t an insecure girl. He knew I was headstrong, stubborn, and didn’t care for a jealous man. I wondered if he knew what he was getting into when he’d decided to marry me.
He had courted Shade once. Maybe he did know what he was getting into. She and I were very similar in so many ways. I was proud to be her sister. I only wished she were here, for that would mean she’d be able to attend my wedding.
The thought of my sister made my heart skip a beat for a moment. I had never though my mother, Jade, nor my sister wouldn’t be at my wedding. It’d been hard enough to realize my father wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle. He was human and had died from a rare heart condition when I was younger. I doubted James even remembered him at all. I remembered, and I also recalled how devastating it felt to know he wasn’t here for all the important moments of my adult life.
“Hello, Your Grace.” Until the wedding we had to maintain the proper formalities, but it annoyed me. He grinned, also keenly aware of the absurdity of it, but something on my face caused his smile to falter. “I apologize, but is something the matter?”
“No.” I cleared my throat, waving away my morbid thoughts. “I was just thinking about Shade and my parents. I wish they were here. I never thought they wouldn’t make it to my eighteenth birthday. I thought they’d always be here, you know?”
He nodded, holding out a bouquet of violets laced with stems of cotton. They were my favorite, and I accepted them graciously.
“Yes, that is most upsetting. My mother died when I was younger too. It’s been centuries, but sometimes I think I see her walking around, watching from a distance, as though she never left.”
“I feel like that too.” I inhaled the sweet scent of the flowers before placing them into a vase already filled with water. I had quietly asked the castle to provide me with one. It had appeared out of nowhere, ready to use. At times, I loved living here, more so than I had at the Scren. At other times, the loneliness was too much to bear.
I glanced up, smiling genuinely at Nautilus. At other times, with his company, this place was paradise. He made it seem like I was in a fairytale castle ruled over by a wicked queen, and I was trapped in the tower and visited only by a handsome prince. I could almost believe I was in the story until Aunt Evangeline would snap me out of my head.
“You and your runaway imagination. The Unseelie will eat you alive.”
“I hope my heart is tasty,” I’d mutter.
“You’ll see. If you don’t toughen u
p, they’ll roast you over the spit and make a meal out of you. I guarantee it.”
“They won’t. The castle won’t allow it.”
She’d lean forward and narrow her eyes. “I guess you’ll never leave these walls, will you?”
That’s when I’d groan and roll my eyes at her. I had no patience for her dark outlook on life. She truly hadn’t lived in the human realm very long. Faerie, and this dark realm of the Unseelie, had turned her into a hardened warrior, capable of snapping like a twig anyone who dared step out of line. She was cold, but I knew she was trying to be warmer. She’d awkwardly embrace me when I met with her and try to chat with me, interested in my thoughts and my days. Try. That’s all it was. I knew she missed my mother, but I was a poor replacement for her, from what I had heard.
She and Jade had been close until life had ripped them apart, and Jade’s memory of her sister had disappeared for nearly two decades. It had been enough to drive Evangeline into the hands of the Unseelie where, unsurprisingly enough, she had thrived as one of the top lieutenants of Queen Aveta.
Now I wondered if my aunt was just as lost as I was here, as ruler. Neither of us truly ruled, and neither of us truly wanted the job.
“Faerie is truly a place to be haunted.” Nautilus’s voice cut through my thoughts, and I peered up at him before motioning for him to join me at the sitting area near the balcony. This used to be Aveta’s main bedroom and reading room. I found it highly amusing that I was now here. Shade thought it would scare me. Fortunately, I didn’t scare easily.
“I’d rather call it more like blessed.”
Nautilus looked up at me and laughed. “Benton mentioned something about this place. Rowan had told him that Shade was a blessed one of Faerie. You probably are too.”
“But I’m not a faery.” I wrinkled my nose, confused. I was a human elemental with an affinity to fire. I had no faery blood at all.
“Yes, but you know what happens to humans if they remain in Faerie too long, right?” He leaned forward, his steel grey eyes like liquid mercury, shining with the flicker of torchlight. It was hypnotizing, and I couldn’t look away.
“We become of Faerie when we stay here too long.”
“Yes.”
“But I still feel like me. I’m no different.”
“But you are.”
“How so?” I asked, intrigued. Nautilus and I always had the most intense conversations. It was as though I’d found the one person I could truly talk to about anything. I wondered if Shade had once had that with Dylan or even Soap.
My heart squeezed again. Was that a flutter? I pressed a hand to my throat.
“You have stopped aging. If you do not return to the human realm soon, you’ll never age again unless you leave Faerie forever. You’ll remain as you are, for all of time.” His pleasant features morphed into those of a concerned man. “Are you all right, Anna?”
I sucked in a breath, feeling my fluttering heart settle, but I also felt slightly lightheaded. It passed after a moment.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just… thinking about my mother brings back such awful feelings of loss. I quite dislike it.”
“Let’s speak of other things.”
“Like this immortality thing you’re talking about and the changes in me? What else has changed?”
“Your magic. It resists at first.” He reached out, took my hand, and turned it palm up. With his other hand he began tracing each line with his forefinger. “But then your magic meshes with that of Faerie. It amplifies as it becomes one with it. Just as you have become the commander of the Withering Palace so easily; the magic suits you now.”
“Shade gave me interim command of this place, so it listens to me.”
“I think you have more than just interim command of this palace now.”
I looked up, tugging my hand away. He seemed stunned for a second but not perturbed that I had pulled away. He seemed elated, as though touching my hand had calmed him. At least one of us was calm.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, with Shade now an Ancient of Faerie, she can no longer have command here. This palace is an ancient entity itself. They cannot command each other.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say. “I hadn’t thought about that. What does it mean?”
“It means you are the queen here, regardless if you’re a faery or not. Full queen. Did Evangeline not mention this to you when Shade left?”
I shook my head. My heart jumped again. Was it fluttering? I wasn’t sure. I knew I felt lightheaded and made the mistake of jumping to my feet and turning away. This couldn’t be happening. How had I not realized that Shade becoming an Ancient had given me complete magical command of this place? I was not interim anything anymore. Evangeline was my first lieutenant, and I was definitely, oh most definitely, queen.
“That’s impossible.”
My chest burned. My heart hesitated. Why would it hesitate like that?
“Anna?” Nautilus called out to me, but it sounded muffled, far away.
“This can’t be,” I whispered, barely able to breathe out the words. I felt like the room was collapsing, my own lungs being cut off from my windpipe. “I—I can’t breathe….”
“Anna?”
I heard Nautilus call to me one more time before I closed my eyes, and the world darkened to nothing.
My heart… it didn’t want to work anymore.
Chapter Five
Benton
The cold had me turning up my inner fire heat again, and I pulled Isolde closer to me. Her fingers were frigid and probably stiff. I made sure to wrap some of my energy around her, nice and toasty. She turned and smiled, giving me a grateful wink. To see her happy heated me inside more than anything else. I wanted to get more of those winks every single day.
Life was good, but I knew better than to hold my breath.
“Benton.”
“Shade!” I jumped backward, almost tripping. “Geez! What are you doing?”
This new habit of Shade’s, showing up out of nowhere, was more than disturbing.
“Something’s happened to Anna.” She reached out, and as her fingers grazed my arm, I made sure I had my hand wrapped around Isolde’s wrist. What was it with Ancients doing as they pleased without asking? I knew what she was going to do, and I didn’t like that she had glanced at Isolde with a blank stare as though she didn’t even exist to her. She would have thought nothing of blinking me away without taking her too. No way.
We found ourselves at the foot of the Withering Palace, the last place I really ever wanted to visit again. Isolde looked as shocked as I was, her eyes wide as she held on to my arm with a death grip. I threw her a sympathetic look before turning back toward my sister.
“What the hell, Shade? What’s going on?”
“It’s Anna.”
My eyes widened as she mentioned our sister again. “What’s going on with Anna?”
“She’s sick.”
“What?” I studied her face, confused. “But how? Humans rarely get sick in Faerie.”
“I know. It’s unprecedented.”
“Let me see her.” I marched forward. Isolde, who’d let me go, hurried behind me. Following Shade’s ethereal figure, I frowned. She was more ghostlike now than ever. I hoped it didn’t mean the sister I had known my whole life was truly and forever gone.
She had dropped us just outside the Withering Palace gates. I guess one disadvantage of being an Ancient of Faerie was that she was no longer welcomed by the palace as its ruler. It didn’t recognize her as such anymore. It probably meant that my sister Anna was now ruler, whether she liked it or not.
“Move aside,” Shade commanded the pathetic Unseelie guards cowering before her. They did as she told them, stepping away as though her presence burned. It was pretty bad that I could sympathize with them on this. Shade’s new powers made it difficult to be around her. She felt different. Her aura had completely changed. It was as though she were someone else trapped in the body of my sis
ter. I hoped, deep down, that she was still the same girl, still my big sister in every way. I prayed transforming into this creature had not burned away the remnants of my sibling.
“Come on.” I held out my hand, and Isolde took it, weaving her fingers through mine and giving it a squeeze as we hurried up the stairs and through the main entrance. This place was morbid, but Anna had mentioned that she loved it here, even if it meant she was trapped. With Oran out of the picture, what would she do now? She didn’t have to marry the dreadful Unseelie king anymore. He’d been gone too long to be assumed still alive. Something awful must have happened to him, and as I followed Shade, it occurred to me that she might have been involved in that.
The old Shade wouldn’t have dared mess with Anna’s fate, but what of this new person leading us through the Withering Palace? She hadn’t offed Oran, had she?
I swallowed the apprehension down and straightened, sucking in a breath. Even if she had done something, I couldn’t fault her for it. I’d be glad if she had. She’d saved Anna when her previous self was left helpless with hands tied. If my speculation was true, she’d freed our little sister with her almost infinite powers. It would have been one of the first things she’d done as an Ancient.
I smiled to myself. Maybe she hadn’t changed that much at all; she was just flexing her powerful magical muscles. Who could blame her?
We rushed into Anna’s room, the old bedchamber of Aveta, the former Unseelie queen. I found it morbid that she would choose the same room to sleep in, but in a way, I could see why. She idolized the woman. In the end, Aveta had been on our side when things had gotten too far out of hand with Arthas. She’d helped Shade win against him but had paid with her life. Anna probably saw more in the old queen than anyone else had, maybe because she felt she would never be as powerful as Aveta.
