“I think we should have a Dance of the Flower Maidens in the castle someday,” Dayen said thoughtfully. “At Keene, I mean. Maybe when I finally take the crown. And when you’re queen obviously. It could be part of the coronation. Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”
“Look at you,” Cara said, smiling brightly. “You’ve been putting off your destiny all the this time, now you sound downright excited to plan the party.”
She watched Dayen smile sheepishly at that. A queen. It was hard to get her head around that notion. She wondered if anyone had ever felt normal thinking of themselves as a queen?
“Oh my…” Cara whispered when she saw the ruins of the castle at Mare Beach, so named for the wild horses that ran free on its shores. The castle had been mostly destroyed by Gallios’s enchanted fire, but there was enough left now to see what it had once been; a marvel of fae architecture, a swooping tower of stone and glass looking like a blooming flower, its many flying buttresses shaped like petals, most of them now destroyed or half-melted. Little of the glass was left. But she could tell how formidable it had been. She had only ever seen drawings of it before, as a child in her village. The regular folk in villages were always a little obsessed with the royalty...except for Cara, who had resisted it.
“Have you ever thought of rebuilding it?” Cara asked, as she dismounted. The castle stood apart from a bluff that overlooked the ocean, but it was still just close enough to the cities that one wouldn’t feel too remote.
“No, but…” Dayen frowned. He dismounted his horse, and Cara followed him across the lowered drawbridge and through a half-demolished archway that had once had massive stained glass doors depicting the fae realm’s first king. “It doesn’t hurt to be here quite as much as I thought it might.” Cara took his hand and followed him inside. There was nothing left there. It was a ruin now, routinely visited by the curious, although many felt that was disrespectful.
Dayen took her on a tour of the place, up the still remaining staircases, across walkways and to the best balconies that looked out on the sprawling turquoise ocean.
“Maybe someday...” he finally said. They were standing on the highest balcony that looked out on what had once been a massive square where the people could gather and see their king come out to greet them. “Do you like this place?”
Cara shrugged, feeling shy. “I like the ocean. I always have. But there are still gardens and you can see all the villages dotted along the hills from here and down into the valley… Keene is closer to the richer folk. But this is closer to the sort of people I grew up with, the villagers.”
“I’d rebuild it,” Dayen said quietly, facing her on the balcony, cradling her face between his long-fingered hands. “If you wanted. You could be queen here. Would you like that?”
“If this place is painful for you-”
“Would you like it?”
“I would,” Cara whispered. He kissed her softly.
“I’d like it too,” he said.
“It’s time,” Cara said. She stood on her tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck, nudging his mouth open so she could kiss him deeply; just one more good kiss before they risked everything. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he muttered, and sucked on her top lip a little and then moved to kiss her neck. Before they could second-guess themselves, he took her hand and led her back downstairs to the mostly destroyed cathedral of a throne room where they would use Dayen as bait for Gallios.
They stood side by side in the empty room. The throne had survived the fire and been moved to Keene. Cara smiled to herself as she thought of the possibility of them moving it back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning that phantom power within her that she usually ignored. She could feel the countless threads of the fabric between dimensions, and she could sense all the worlds out there just on the other side of that pliable stuff. All she had to do was manipulate it the right away. It took focus and strength. She breathed deep and moved her hand a certain way, as if plucking on that fabric from mid-air. A blue circle of light appeared in front of them and she wound her hand around and around, enlarging it, seeking as many other worlds as possible. The hope was that Gallios would sense that portal and Dayen right next to it. Dayen suspected he would be unable to resist taking a shot at him in the same place where he’d killed the queen and king.
Cara gasped and her eyes shot open. They were glowing, she could tell. She could feel her powers within her, the infinite realms so close to her all at once. It was overwhelming.
She could sense him.
“I feel him!” She said. She was looking straight ahead, yet she didn’t see the throne room around her. She saw Gallios, who looked more demonic than fae now. He seemed much too big to be one of the lithe fae folk, his huge ears erect. He sat in a room that looked parallel to the throne room as if deliberately built to emulate it. He was sitting on a stone throne, jagged and rocky, and all manner of strange and gross creatures were sitting around him like little minions.
She could see the wood totem, simply sitting on a table by his side.
The important thing was, she knew where to find the totem. She knew that dimension now. She could find it again.
“I can see him,” she whispered. She was just about to wonder out loud if he could see them. She couldn’t tell if she had opened a portal in his world the same way he had opened one in theirs.
But just then he looked up, right at her, and then right past her at Dayen.
“He sees you!” she said. Dayen said nothing, merely standing his ground and letting her take the lead. They would wait, she thought. He would come here. He would be too tempted to get to Dayen. He would come through and she would strike him. Not being naturally gifted as she was, it would kill him.
She was pretty sure.
She was feeling fairly confident about that when Dayen gave a shout and she saw him abruptly yanked through the portal by some invisible force.
Gallios was leering at her, his large, gnarled and clawed hand outstretched.
“No!” Cara screamed, and without thinking twice, she dove through the portal and into his realm.
The dimension, wherever it was, felt demonic. That was not anathema to the fae, who were descended from demons. Still, Cara had little experience dealing with the purely demonic.
The place felt ice cold, where the fae realm ran warm. It smelled acrid and metallic and was so dark, in juxtaposition to the ruins at the Mare Beach castle where the bright sun had shone on them. Cara squinted, still buzzing with power. Gallios had pulled Dayen through and now he’d tumbled to the stone floor where slimy little creatures assaulted him with tentacles and claws. He was carrying a dagger and fought them. Cara instantly deduced that he would have to fight those small pests on his own. She needed to focus on Gallios, now relaxing on his throne as he leered at her, his hand outstretched.
He looked slightly confused.
This is it, she thought.
Gallios spoke and his voice sounded as if he had boulders lodged in his throat. It made Cara wince to listen to, but it was giving her time to gather her strength for a killing strike.
“This line is weak,” he said, vaguely nodding to Dayen. “It has always been weak. That is why I was so easily able to crush it in my fist…” He made a fist with his hand.
He was giving a little speech, Cara thought. She met Dayen’s eyes even as he stabbed some giant slug with his dagger on the floor. Day was smirking, confident in her strength. He was right to be. Gallios obviously thought he had his reasons but neither of them had any interest in his motives. He was a simple murderer who had gotten his hands on something powerful.
“Now,” Gallios said, “I will take power and-”
BOOSH.
Cara’s eyes flashed, the blue light of the portal flowing through her body and out of her fingers before it shot across Gallios’s throne room and struck him, blowing a giant hole in his chest. They had calculated that much correctly. He was only borrowing this power. T
hat meant he had no immunity to it. He had a gaping hole in his chest now and blue flame engorged him until there was nothing left but a small pile of ash. The creatures all screamed and slithered away and Dayen grimaced, getting to his feet, dusting himself off and dodging a small, mutated dragon that brushed by him.
“Oh, we did it,” Cara said, before passing out.
“Hey, hey!” Somebody was slapping her face. Cara grunted and shook her head, stirring awake.
She had dreamed she was the queen of the realm. Except that she also often went on adventures, saving the realm from some great evil or venturing back to the terran world to save the poor, fragile humans from themselves, or just to have a latte and walk in the park. She hadn’t wanted to wake up and only as her eyes fluttered open did she realize, it could really be that way; her and Dayen together forever…
“We’re still in this stupid dimension, sweetheart,” Dayen grumbled. “And you just scared the shit out of me. I didn’t appreciate that…”
Dayen was sitting on the floor and Cara was in his arms. All of Gallios’s minions had skittered away. There was only this eerily cold cathedral-like room and its stone throne and pile of ashes and…
“The totem!” Cara said, gasping as she sat up. She stumbled a little as she got to her feet. She’d used every ounce of power she’d had in her to kill Gallios. It had felt like throwing away her life force and for a moment as she’d fainted, she thought she had just killed herself. Now, she only felt a little woozy and took a breath, Dayen supporting her from behind as she got her bearings. “Should have brought an energy bar or something.”
“I’ve got food in our packs,” Dayen said, “but you have to get us back to the fae realm first.”
“Well, that doesn’t help me,” Cara said, only meaning to tease him.
It felt very odd to stroll right over to the stone table and pick up the fabled wood totem; the entire purpose of the whole enterprise. It was heavier than she expected and when she held it, she could feel its power just as Benjamin had said she would. Not all of it felt good. The thing was made of an old wood so dark and dense it appeared nearly black and its grain was almost as smooth as stone. The face of a frowning demon was carved into it as well as a nearly endless series of runes etched into the totem in such small type that Cara couldn’t even attempt to read them without a magnifying glass. She could sense the magic inside it. It stung a little bit to hold, it was so forceful.
Like a radioactive bit of material, she thought.
It was neither a good nor a bad object. It simply possessed a terrible amount of force and it needed to be put back in its place among the other elemental totems to bring things back into balance.
Still, she felt more awake and strong again, just holding the thing. “Let’s go home,” she said, realizing that she had referred to the fae realm as home. She hadn’t thought of it that way since she’d left for Brunswick and maybe not even then. But she found she no longer felt like the out-of-place little fighting fae among more delicate girls as she once had.
She was Cara, the warrior, and Dayen’s future queen. That was just fine with her.
14
Dayen
“This is going to be embarrassing,” Cara muttered. She walked close to Dayen, his arm around her waist. They had picked up lattes and now they walked through Central Park, joggers and dog walkers rushing around them. Dayen was fascinated by everything today. He commented on half the people he saw (the park being typically crowded).
They had spent the night at his Manhattan penthouse where Nina had apparently been very worried about his time in the realm. Apparently, she had a low-level psychic potential and had “sensed” the danger he had been up against. He appreciated that, even if her gift hadn’t done much good except to stress her out enough that a kitchen full of rich baked goods had been waiting for he and Cara when they came back to the penthouse after some frolicking in nightclubs. Nina was a big stresser baker, she’d confessed. So Dayen and Cara stayed up late, eating mousse cupcakes and watching trashy television, the wooden totem on the bed next to them because they refused to let it out of their sight. Now it was stuffed into Cara’s backpack. He kept glancing over to make sure the telltale lump was still there and hadn’t vanished somehow. They were going to teleport to Brunswick in a bit and turn it in.
Dayen tousled Cara’s hair, smiling fondly at her. “What’s going to be embarrassing, my love?”
“I railed against being given a mate on this mission,” Cara said, blushing slightly. “I really thought I’d just ditch whoever it was. Sounded ridiculous.”
“Oh no,” Dayen said, grinning. He moved his arm from around her waist and threw his hands up as if in defense. “Is that what’s happening right now? You’re going to ditch me right here in the middle of the park? Leave me crying and alone-”
“No!” Cara’s eyes bugged out and she stopped short, turning so quickly that it jostled her backpack and they bumped up against a jogging couple. She was still holding her coffee and she reached up with her other hand to stroke his cheek. “I would never, Day!”
“I know that,” he said, chuckling. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose, touched by how seriously she was taking his stupid little joke. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just teasing.”
He kissed away her frown and she smiled against his lips. An hour later, they teleported to the front gates of Brunswick. Dayen had visited Brunswick once in his life as a teenager for some business or other (he couldn’t remember why) but it loomed much larger to him now. It seemed like an incredibly important place, not because it was so revered but because Cara had studied there and lived there and it was a part of her. He wanted to know all the parts of her. He looked around as if it were some holy place. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see her village where she’d grown up. He could hardly wait to meet her parents and tell them their daughter would be a queen on top of being an incredibly skilled warrior and that the two of them never need work again. He wanted to pamper anyone who had brought Cara into the world.
“Can I see your dorm?” he asked playfully, reaching over to twirl her ponytail around his finger. Most of her things were still at Brunswick. She would be moving them to his penthouse for now. She had asked if she could live there for a while (after he had offered her up any option she could possibly wish, be it penthouse, castle, or cabin in the woods). She had asked to spend the rest of the summer in New York. Eventually, once all the girls completed their missions, they would all come back and graduate. Cara was tentatively thinking about living in the city until then. She still felt tied to her fellow graduates, as if she couldn’t quite continue on with her own life until all their missions were completed. Then, she had told him, they could marry.
They were strolling up the cobblestone path across the lawns to the sprawling brick estate of Brunswick, when Dayen ever so casually said, “I’m going to take the throne after we marry, if that’s alright with you. And only if.”
Cara stopped short and gazed up at him. The summer was much more humid and a little dizzying in New York, even upstate. He reached over and pushed a lock of Cara’s hair behind her ear, thinking that the warm air only made her look attractively dewy. Her delicately pointed ears were tinged pink and he absently stroked one as she gaped up at him in surprise.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “You know Cade will take care of things for as long as-”
“It’s time,” he said, nodding. “I knew right after we defeated Gallios. It felt like I was finally putting an end to something that had been going on far too long. You did that for me.” He kissed her once more. “Yet another reason you’re my queen.”
“You’ll be wonderful,” she said softly. “You’ll be the best king the realm has ever seen.”
“Because I’ll have you,” he said quickly.
She rolled her eyes, walking on, taking his hand and leading him to the front doors. They had only contacted Ms. Friar to let them know they were coming and had not said why, cho
osing to remain mysterious. Ms. Friar never missed a trick though. Cara assumed she would know immediately that the mission was complete. But she was still excited and felt a great sense of victory as she led her mate up to the huge double front doors that always remained closed until one knocked and spoke to the doorman.
Cara knocked softly on the door. It was more a manner of ceremony. The doorman had sight and would have sensed her coming immediately. But only now did the doors slowly open inwardly, bringing sunshine into the massive and dimly-lit front hall where two twisting staircases led up to the classrooms and offices and eventually the wings where the dorms housed the students.
“Lovely to see you again, Cara,” the doorman said. He somehow recognized Dayen as the prince of the fae realm, even being human himself, and bowed low. “Your Highness.” Dayen nodded respectfully and Cara yanked on his hand, leading him up the right staircase.
“Let’s get rid of this thing,” Cara said. “I can’t wait until I’m not responsible for it anymore.”
Dayen chuckled at that and as they made their way to Ms. Friar’s office, he drew plenty of attention, especially from other fae students who knew exactly who he was and gasped, curtseying as he passed by. Most of them he merely winked at and muttered greetings in their direction. He didn’t miss that Cara, who had so disdained him on their first meeting, was now proudly holding her head up, her lips pursed and her eyes all but twinkling as she dragged her mate, her boyfriend, the prince and future king of the fae realm down the long and bustling corridors to Ms. Friar’s office. It was the middle of the school day. They would probably need to wait for her to take a break That was fine.
She was showing him off, he realized happily. He had felt like he was showing her off when they had gone out on the town, drinking and dancing the evening before. She led him around a corner even though she’d mentioned the offices were straight ahead. All the students seemed to be just getting out of glasses for a short break.
Royal Fae Bodyguard (Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls Book 1) Page 12
