ALDER

by Melody Robinette

  “Well, hello there, lovely ladies,” one of the dancing gypsy women called sweetly, ceasing her twirling. Several of the other gypsies stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Ember and Kyndel, a glint of hunger in their eyes, like a lion who just spotted a grazing antelope. An easy kill.

  “Cut the crap, gypsy,” Ember spat. “We aren’t here for sex. We’re here to remind you of why you aren’t welcome.”

  “What ever do you mean?” the gypsy asked innocently, moving slowly toward them like a jungle cat, her pride following her lead.

  At first glance, the gypsies seemed foul, dirty, unsightly, and Kyndel wondered what the big deal about them was. But then she felt a brush of skin against her arm and whirled around to see that one of the gypsy women had done a sneak attack without Ember seeing. The woman had long, dark hair and almond shaped eyes of chocolate brown. Up close she was much more beautiful than Kyndel had originally thought. The girl didn’t say a word but continued to run a hand up and down Kyndel’s arm in a methodical, rhythmic way. Kyndel’s tawny eyes were locked in a vice grip onto the gypsy’s, as if an invisible rope tethered them to her.

  A tingling sensation coursed across her skin, temporarily paralyzing her body. Incessant thoughts took over her mind. She needed this woman. Right now. And she didn’t care who saw. Forgetting everything around her, Kyndel slinked towards the gypsy, biting her lip as she placed her hands on her waist and moved up on tiptoe to press her lips to hers. She wanted to feel their softness, to taste them. More than she’d ever wanted anything in the world. And just as her lips were about to meet this beautiful creature’s, a massive fireball burst between them engulfing the gypsy woman in flames.

  * * *

  AUTUMN let out a frustrated groan as the intimidated castle worker delivering her a rather frustrating message rushed away. She stormed through her rooms until she reached Luke’s side of the royal chambers. Knocking on his door loudly, she waited with crossed arms.

  To her surprise, it was Crystal who opened the door and immediately blushed.

  “Oh, I thought you were the kitchen service. We ordered food in—I mean, Hey, Autumn!”

  “Not the kitchen service. Just the thoroughly annoyed Queen. Can I come in?”

  “Of course!” Crystal said in a slightly higher decibel than normal. “You know you don’t have to ask me.”

  “But you do have to ask me,” Luke called from the sitting room. “And if you’re coming to tell me any form of depressing, work-related, royal-related, non-food-related news, then I’d like you to kindly see yourself back out.”

  Autumn ignored her brother and came to sit in the loveseat across from him. “Well, we’ve had our first attack on the gypsies, and they haven’t even been here a day.”

  “What?” Luke said. “By who?”

  “Ember.”

  “Of course.”

  “Apparently, she and Kyndel thought it would be a good idea to tell them off because, you know, they’re both geniuses. And then one of the gypsy women started putting her moves on Kyndel, so Ember shot a massive fireball at her.”

  “At Kyndel?” Crystal asked from the doorway.

  “No, at the gypsy. Anyway, the girl is severely burned and is recovering in the Healing Tree at the moment.”

  There was a knock on the door and Crystal left to answer it.

  “Well, this may sound heartless,” Luke said. “But the girl was kind of asking for it, don’t you think?”

  “Obviously. But this is exactly what I was afraid of. You know Ember isn’t the only one that’s going to go off on them.”

  “Okay, Rose, but what else can we really do?” Luke said, dislodging his previously styled hair so he looked more like the immature brother she once knew. “We sent out messages. We put up signs. Stupid people like Ember and Kyndel are going to do what they want regardless.”

  Autumn sighed and looked up when Crystal returned with, not a kitchen worker, but Avery.

  “So, apparently I wasn’t invited to the party?” he chided, coming to sit beside Autumn.

  “Yeah, neither was Autumn,” Luke muttered.

  “Well, when did that ever stop me?” Autumn said with an overly exaggerated smile.

  The following week was the longest and most stressful yet. Streams of complaints about the gypsies came into the castle on a daily basis. Bonds were being broken left and right. The gypsies were throwing loud, obnoxious parties at Arbor Lake, complete with naked dancing women, bonfires, and deafening music. Some of the elves of Arbor Falls couldn’t help themselves, they were too curious not to see what the gypsies were all about. Well, they definitely found out all right.

  Funnily enough, most of the attacks on the gypsies were by women. Ironically, though, the gypsy women seemed to have more of an infatuation with female elves and a handful of them had been pulled into their trance. Autumn and Kyndel met in the little café at the base of the castle and had a long discussion about all of this. They made sure to sit in a quiet corner so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Do you think this might actually be a good thing for you?” Autumn asked as she sipped at her much-needed latte.

  “No, not at all. In fact, I think it’s the worst possible thing that could happen for me. The gypsies are making homosexuality look like a sick game, rather than what it really is. And people are going to view it as the trick it is. Those female elves aren’t actually attracted to those gypsy women. It’s all an illusion. A believable illusion, but still.”

  “What do they do exactly?”

  Kyndel shrugged. “I hadn’t even realized what had happened until Ember shot that girl with a fireball. She just sort of came out of nowhere—the gypsy, I mean. One minute, I was watching Ember get into it with a group of them and, the next I felt this overwhelming pull towards one of the girls. She had these gorgeous brown eyes that I couldn’t look away from and all I could think was that I wanted to kiss her and—”

  “All right, I get the picture.”

  “The worst part is, the men who are bound to the women who betray them with the gypsy women aren’t even upset. They think it’s hot, even. It’s such a ridiculous double standard. They’re all against same-sex elf relationships until they get to watch two girls make out. Disgusting.”

  “I agree. It’s rather pathetic. These gypsies are going to be the death of me, Kyn. I swear.”

  “I guess it’s kind of a good thing, though.”

  “What’s a good thing? My death?”

  “No.” Kyndel let herself laugh then, shaking her head at Autumn. “I mean it’s a good thing that the gypsies are our biggest problem. The Shadow attacks have been much less recently.”

  “I guess that’s true. There really is a silver lining to every dark and stormy cloud, I suppose. No matter how incredibly annoying the cloud is.”

  “You seem to be handling it well, though,” Kyndel said with a supportive smile.

  “Really? I feel like a porcelain doll that’s been dropped one too many times—cracking under the pressure. One more drop and I’ll shatter.”

  “Wow, since when did you become as dramatic as me?”

  Autumn took another sip of her latte and placed it back on the table before cradling her head in her hands. “Since I became Queen and suddenly had to grow up. I can’t let other people see how all of this is affecting me, so I have to bottle it up and pretend I’m handling it with grace and all that crap. Like Olympus would have.”

  Kyndel patted the back of Autumn’s bowed head. “You and Luke really are doing a good job, though. If that helps at all.”

  Autumn took a deep breath and let out a long sigh, looking up. “It does. Okay, enough about all this. How are you and Ember doing?”

  Kyndel’s face fell then. “We’re… I don’t know. I love her to death. I’m insanely attracted to her—bordering on obsession. But she can be so possessive and controlling sometimes.”

  “I know everyone hates when I turn into a psychiatrist but have you ever thought that it m
ight be because of something that happened in her past?”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “Have you ever asked her about it?” Autumn asked. Kyndel shook her head. “Why not?”

  Kyndel’s tawny eyes looked up gravely through her thick lashes. “I’m afraid of what she’ll say.”

  Countless same-sex gypsy encounters ensued over the next several days, though there were just as many men being pulled into the gypsy camp by the women. Autumn had to wonder how much of it was the gypsies’ Powers luring the elves in and how much was the men wanting a brief escape and an excuse for a little “adventure.” Visiting hours with Autumn and Luke in the throne room had become nothing short of torture. Long lines of people stood outside the doors waiting to tell the royal twins exactly how they felt about the gypsies.

  Autumn watched in horror as one woman came tearing into the throne room to yell at the royal twins, berating them about her partner of twenty years that had been pulled into the gypsies’ spell. Apparently he’d decided it would be a good idea to leave her and join the band of drifters permanently.

  “I’m so sorry,” Autumn said helplessly to the inconsolable woman.

  “Unfortunately,” Luke added for the billionth time that day. “There’s nothing we can do about the present situation as it is, in fact, a law that we allow—”

  “That you allow these disgusting perverts to taint our city with their immoral and life-ruining behaviors? What kind of rulers are you?” the woman exclaimed, shaking her fist at the twins.

  “Okay, time to go,” one of the castle guards declared, taking the woman firmly by the arm and guiding her out the doors.

  “This is a disaster,” Autumn said, resting her head in her hands.

  “On the bright side, though,” Luke said with false enthusiasm. “We get to visit a room full of squealing, pee-pants kid elves tomorrow!”

  Autumn turned her head in slow motion to look at her brother who was now flashing her the widest of fake smiles. Reaching behind her, she clutched one of the beaded pillows propped against her back and threw it at his head.

  Later that night a booming knock sounded on Autumn’s iron door, and she had to force her weary body out of her armchair to answer it. It was Avery, standing with his head hung and a tortured expression.

  “Avery? Are you—”

  “My mom hasn’t stopped screaming my sister’s name since I got home an hour ago. Can I sleep on your couch?”

  Autumn smiled demurely up at him. “You could sleep one my couch…but it’s really not that comfortable. Not nearly as comfortable as my bed.”

  The corner of Avery’s lip turned up into a crooked smile. “Well, I do hate sleeping on couches.”

  Suddenly Autumn wasn’t feeling quite so exhausted anymore. She bit her lip, and the magnetic pull within her core tugged at her until she was pressed up against Avery, whose gray eyes were bright, his pupils dilated.

  Avery leaned down to Autumn and her lips parted slightly, allowing his to form to hers. She ran her tongue across them, tasting them, and felt him tremble at the touch. His hands moved to her lower back, but the thick, protective Warrior vest she unremittingly wore kept her from feeling him. Removing her hands from his shoulders, she slowly undid the vest, tossing it aside before doing the same to his.

  They traveled as one entity into her bedroom, their lips only parting to remove another article of clothing, and then another. Falling back onto the bed, Avery ran his fingers through Autumn’s hair, trailing down her neck, clawing slightly at her back, tickling her ribs and sliding down to her hips. She arched her back, taking a sharp breath.

  Reaching around, she unhooked her bra, and Avery stopped what he was doing, unsure if he was comfortable moving a step further than they ever had before. Elves put a high value on such acts and didn’t take it lightly. But Autumn knew she wanted Avery to be her first and only. She loved him more than she’d ever loved anything, and the constant gravitational force they shared made their physical connection difficult to ignore any longer.

  “Are you sure you—?”

  “I’m sure,” she breathed. “I’ve never been more sure, actually.”

  Avery’s stormy gray eyes connected with her hazel ones and he nodded.

  That night, Autumn and Avery finally allowed their magnetic connection to take over their bodies entirely, and everything wrong in Autumn’s mind fell away, replaced with nothing but Avery Burke and electric, earthshattering bliss.

  5

  Little Faces, Open Minds

  AVERY jogged up to Luke as he left his room the next morning.

  “Hey, man, can I talk to you for a second?” Avery said, trying to keep the guilt out of his voice.

  Luke turned to look at him with a quirked eyebrow and then said, “Aw man. You two finally did it last night didn’t you?”

  “Is that some kind of weird twin connection thing?” Avery said, thoroughly embarrassed. “Because, if it is, that’s sort of disgusting,”

  Luke laughed. “Um, no, it’s a guy thing. I can just tell by your face. But I really don’t wanna hear about it.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want to tell you about it—not that I’m even admitting it to you. I just, uh, I wanted to ask your permission on something.”

  “Dude, I know I’m the king and all, but you don’t need to ask my permission to do things unless they’re, like, completely ridiculous, in which case I’d recommend talking to Autumn instead—”

  Avery held up his hands, quickly cutting Luke off. “On the subject of giving a diamond rose to your sister, I believe I do need your permission.”

  Luke stopped talking, his mouth dropping open. The stunned silence lasted only a few seconds before the redhead let out a loud whoop as he pulled Avery into a hug, slapping him on the back. “Really, man? That’s awesome! Look at us, all grown up. You two are gonna get married, I’m only tied down to one girl. It’s incredible.”

  “I mean, Autumn and I being bound to each other isn’t as serious as you dating only one girl,” Avery said with a chuckle, “but it’s close.”

  “Definitely close.”

  The humor faded for a moment as Luke seemed to take in the seriousness of this decision. He smiled slightly, reaching out a hand for Avery to shake.

  “Well…I’ve gotta go, er—” Avery began, still clasping Luke’s hand.

  “Yeah. Totally. See ya, man.”

  “Later.”

  They turned away from each other before Luke called over his shoulder, “You better be good to her, Avery,” in a voice that was only half kidding.

  “You know I will.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  VICTOR stood high upon the precipice that had thrice been spilled with elven blood—twice by his own hands, and once by his sister’s. His Shadows paced restlessly behind him as he peered down at the sleepy town he knew so well. The silent waterfall boundary stood behind Victor with foreboding omniscience, as if it knew what he was about to do.

  “Ready, Sire?” Thorn asked with a hint of impatience.

  “Nearly,” Victor answered. “There’s just one more spell I must cast.”

  He closed his eyes and focused all of his energy on her, building an invisible shield around her entire being—a shield that would keep out all outside dangers. He’d perfected casting spells from a great distance, but he checked it and re-checked it to make absolutely sure she was protected from the plague of Shadows that was soon to crash down upon Arbor Falls like a malevolent tsunami.

  * * *

  AUTUMN and Luke sat at the front of the young elf class on uncomfortable, too-small, wooden chairs wearing big smiles.

  “Okay, class!” the brave elf teacher called out to the sea of little faces. “Let’s be so very quiet—Ivory, sit down, please—and stay on our bottoms as we—Evan, we don’t pull hair, that’s not nice—as we welcome the King and Queen of Arbor Falls to our school.”

  “Good morning, everyone!” Autumn began cheerfully, looking sideways a
t Luke, who was clearly uncomfortable being this outnumbered by tiny elf people. He was usually pretty good with kids one on one, but when they were in large groups like this, they became less cute and more terrifying.

  “Good morning!” the kids parroted back at Autumn, some yelling the words as loudly as they possibly could. Autumn saw Luke flinch, and she let out a chuckle.

  “Today we’re going to talk to you guys about the castle and what my brother and I do as King and Queen of Arbor Falls. We’ll also answer some of your questions. Does that sound like fun?”

  “YES!” the kids screamed.

  “Holy petalsies,” Luke muttered under his breath.

  Autumn did most of the talking. This was where she excelled as a leader, connecting with people—even if they were little and restless people. Luke told a couple of jokes that brought down the house even though they were not nearly as funny as the kids seemed to think they were.

  “Okay, time for questions!” their teacher sang out, already looking exhausted from trying to make sure all the small children remained seated and quiet—an almost impossible feat for young kids of any race, magical or otherwise. “Remember to stay on your bottoms and raise your hands if you have a question. Wait until you’ve been called on before you start talking, okay?”

  Autumn pointed to a kid who seemed particularly restless, hopping up and down and wiggling with his hand in the air.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” he stated after she called on him.

  Luke laughed.

  “Okay, Honey. Ms. Dee will take you,” the teacher said, waving over her teaching assistant. “Any questions for the king and queen about the castle?” the teacher continued, trying to steer the conversation.