by L. K. Rigel
“How does it work?
“The very act of beholding a beloved has great power. It is mysterious and deep and all the stronger because it lives in hidden recesses of our hearts. If Galen sees in Diantha that which he can love, then we matchmakers can step back and let things take their natural course.”
“Direct the energy, don’t transform it.”
“Yes, my dear. You understand.”
An image formed in the air near Galen a few feet off the ground. It didn’t translate well in the glimmer glass. To Elyse it seemed like the ghost of a woman.
“Diantha is very pretty,” Mother said. “But if Galen loves, she’ll be beautiful beyond measure in his eyes.”
The only distinct feature Elyse could make out was pale golden hair that fell past the ghost’s waist. Apparently Galen liked what he saw. Worry fell away from his countenance like shattered glass. Until now, Elyse hadn’t appreciated how seriously he had treated this matter of an engagement. When such innocent pleasure lit up his face, it was easy to smile with him—and for him.
“It is done,” Mother said. “Observe. That isn’t desire you see. That is delight, far more ennobling.” She let out her breath. “Thank sun and moon. Galen and Diantha can be happy together.”
“Not if she can help it,” Elyse said. Lourdes rode into view in the glass.
“What are you doing here?” Galen said, and the hovering glamour image dissolved.
“We have to talk.” Lourdes slid off Hector’s back and ran to the prince. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. So much for talking.
“Lourdes, no.” Galen reached behind his neck to pry off Lourdes’s grip. “This isn’t right. This isn’t…” His eyes lost focus. He shook his head and seemed to notice Lourdes for the first time.
Elyse felt sick to her stomach. Lourdes had Galen in her power.
“You can’t love that Sarumosian.” Lourdes backed him against Igdrasil’s trunk.
“I can’t love that Sarumosian?”
She pressed close to him. “You love me, Galen. I’m the one.”
“You’re the one?”
“Let me clear things up for you, darling.” Lourdes kissed him again, and again. She reached between his legs.
Galen groaned with pleasure—and some anguish. “Lourdes, no.”
“Yes, my love.” Lourdes opened his trousers and slid them over his hips, past his thighs. “Very much yes.” As she sank to her knees, the glimmer glass went blank.
“Stop her!” Elyse jumped up.
“I can’t.” Mother lifted her hand. Elyse thought she meant to bring back the image, but her hand just hung in the air, trembling. When had it become such a frail and brittle packet of bones? “My dearest child. I wish I’d had more time with you.”
“We have all the time in the world.” But the words sounded like a lie coming out of Elyse’s mouth. She kissed her mother’s palm.
“You must take the ring.”
“Great gods, Mother. No.” Now Elyse’s heart swelled like it would pound out of her chest wall. To remove the oracle’s ring meant death.
“Please, Elyse. Let us not waste the time we do have.”
“Mother…Mommy.” Elyse stared at the ring. A simple design. One fine braid of gold and another of silver, the two entwined in a circle. It had always made her think of Brother Sun and Sister Moon—and of eternity. “Lourdes,” she said. “The ring is for her. She’ll be the next oracle.”
Oh, sun and moon. Had she really said that? She might as well acknowledge that Mother was on her death bed.
“Not Lourdes. You are the next oracle.
“Impossible. I don’t even have my power.”
“I’ve wronged you so terribly, Elyse.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ve always been good to me. The best mother anyone could hope for.” No, no, no! I am not having this conversation.
“You can’t begin to know your power, Elyse. You have it now. You always have had. You were born with it.” Mother again stared at the woods until Elyse expected someone to emerge from among the trees. “You’re not like Lourdes. You know that.”
“Of course. We’re two different people.” But Mother meant something else.
“My husband was a wyrder,” she said. “Not a great one. But he was a wonderful man, tall and darkly handsome. He was a good husband, and he doted on Lourdes. He died, and Lourdes and I came to Glimmer Cottage not long after. Until then, we’d lived in the castle keep. The queen was still alive in those days. Lourdes was a favorite of hers.”
“I never knew.”
“Why would you? Poor Lourdes. I haven’t the heart to tell her, but the queen nurtured a fancy that she and Galen would one day marry.”
“Oh.”
“Quite. I couldn’t stay in the castle. I was the king’s oracle and suddenly unmarried. The suitors were so thick I thought I would suffocate. I tried moving to the topmost rooms, far away from the bustle and with a view of Igdrasil, but that proved no barrier to the truly resourceful. So the queen gave me Glimmer Cottage. I put up a boundary. The men couldn’t get through, and I could grieve in peace.”
Her face softened. The furrow between her brows disappeared, and the corners of her mouth turned up.
“I met your father in the woods. Aubrey. He had yellow hair and eyes the color of lilacs. I didn’t know what he was, but he was different from any man—from any person—I’d ever met. He didn’t care about politics or fortunes or fighting enemies or courting me to get to the king. He wove flowers into garlands for my hair. When he kissed me I forgot the rest of the world. I can still smell the hollow where we met. A mix of early hawthorn and rosemary and clean damp dirt.”
A chill passed through Elyse. She knew the place, a dip hidden by a fallen tree.
“I asked him what he wanted of me—everyone always wants something from a wyrding woman. He said ‘more than anyone will ever want from you, Frona. I want to sing to you, and I want you to hear me. I want to dance with you, and I will lead. I want to strip you naked and lick every part of your skin, and I want to plunge inside you and feel your heat pull me deeper into you than you think possible.’ ”
Oh, please! Mother!
“He was from fae. A fairy. I had one moment to decide. Yes, and I would be happier than imaginable—but in his power. No, and I would never see him again. I said no.”
“Then what’s the point of—”
“But he had lied. I did see him again. He came back the next day and asked the same question. And the next. And every day until a day came when I was tired of being the king’s oracle, tired of leading the dance. Tired of the burdens of freedom and responsibility. On that day, I said yes.”
“Great gods.”
Mother looked sideways at Elyse. “In fae, the high gods can’t help you.”
Fairies. Maybe it hadn’t been animals watching Elyse in the woods all these years.
“It was wonderful. You can’t imagine the depth of satisfaction Aubrey gave me. Physical satisfaction, anyway. I doubt he had the capacity to consider anything beyond pleasure for more than three minutes altogether. Elyse, you know how time works in the land of the fae.”
“I know nothing of the fae.” But if Aubrey was her father, then Elyse was half fae.
“Well, it works differently. It seemed I had been with Aubrey but a few hours when I saw that my belly was swollen with a nine-months’ child. I panicked. All I could think of was getting back to Glimmer Cottage and reality.”
Mother grasped Elyse’s hand so tight it hurt.
“I couldn’t let you be born in there, or you’d never be mine.”
“How did you get away? Did he let you go?”
“He’d given me the breaking charm at some point—I suppose he thought it would make me trust him all the better. He didn’t believe I would use it. But I spoke the words: I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you.
What an odd charm. But then it was fae, and who knew their logic?
“With the la
st word, Aubrey’s world dissolved around me. I was no longer in the woods but standing at the threshold to Glimmer Cottage. It felt slightly off, as if I’d been gone but five minutes. But it had been summer’s end five minutes earlier, and now it was spring.”
It was terrifying to think any creature, human or fae or Aeolios himself, had the power to bedazzle Mother.
“You were born that night. I haven’t seen Aubrey from that day.”
“Should I be relieved?”
“You should ask quite a different question, dear.”
Elyse wracked her brain, but she couldn’t think what to ask.
“Don’t you wonder what happened to your sister all the time I was gone from Glimmer Cottage?”
Great gods!
“I found her in the barn. Meduyl was milking the cow, and Lourdes was playing with a litter of kittens, clean and well fed, if not exactly happy. Aubrey must have charmed the cottage and the entire surroundings. Meduyl behaved as if all was in order, but I’ve always believed Lourdes was aware of my absence and that she never forgave me.”
Poor Lourdes.
“King Jowan never asked where you came from. No one did. It was too awkward to suggest I’d had a secret lover, I suppose, and easier to say nothing. But I had you, my little fairy princess. Proof that I succumbed to desire, yes. But I swear to you I loved your father. Love him still.”
“But how can this be, Mother? I have no power, fae or wyrding.”
“I was afraid for you. I held your power back, hid it from you as well as the rest of the world. No one can know what you are, Elyse. If the fae king found out about you, I don’t know what he’d do. And you know what our people think of fairies.”
Wyrders didn’t think kindly of them. That much was sure.
“I wanted you to have time. Time to be a girl before you had to take on the burden that will be your womanhood.”
It was too much to take in all at once. Fairy princess. What did that even mean? She would be the next oracle. Lourdes would not take that well. When Elyse looked up, Mother had almost worked the ring off her finger.
“Stop. You’ll die.”
“I am dying, Elyse.” In a weak whisper, she began to chant.
“Silver and gold find you.
Silver and gold bind you.”
She held the ring between her thumb and finger. “Give me your hand.”
This wasn’t happening.
“Give me your hand!”
She placed the band on Elyse’s right ring finger and finished the chant.
“Serve not desire, but enhance delight.
All will be well, all will be right.”
She slumped in the chaise.
“Mother!”
Her eyes fluttered open, but there was little light in them. “Awake to your power, Elyse. Only you can help Lourdes now.”
Power? Elyse felt a slight shift in the universe. No fireworks. Colors were brighter, smells more intense—the jasmine was intoxicating. She inhaled deeply. It was as if she’d never taken a full breath in her life.
But Mother! To remove the oracle’s ring meant death to the oracle. Not that she’d drop dead that instant—though she might. Legend was that some oracles died within the hour of the ring’s removal, and some had lasted months. None had lived half a year. Mother was fading, her breath coming in shallow pants. They should have had years and years more together. It wasn’t fair!
“I have to find your medicine.” Lourdes had wyrded the botanicals out of the kitchen, but they had to be somewhere. With the ring on her hand, Elyse felt a surge of confidence. “Hold on, Mother. I can find the hawthorn.” At the door she looked back. “Please hold on.”
“Be kind to your sister!”
As Elyse crossed under the archway to the kitchen, a blast of energy knocked her to the floor. Her mother’s power. Or her own, perhaps, the power Mother had talked about keeping from her. Or the full power of the ring. If any of those were true, it only meant one thing.
Her mother was gone.
Elyse had to get her back. Lourdes would know what to do. She’d know of a restoration spell. Elyse struggled to her feet and ran out into the courtyard. Andromache waited near the cottage door, as if in response to Elyse’s unspoken will.
Was this how it worked? She remembered Lourdes calling for Hector’s rig.
“Harness!” Who, what was she calling to?
The bit and bridle appeared in her hand, and she fitted it over the filly’s head. She had to bring the horse to the fence and step up on the rail to mount her bareback. Elyse hated to ride away from the cottage and leave Mother alone on the roof, but Lourdes was her only hope. She dug her heels into Andromache’s sides.
It hadn’t been all that long since the glimmer glass went dark. As Elyse approached Igdrasil, Galen was on the ground with Lourdes on top of him, grinding her hips.
“Lourdes!” Disgusting. For this, Lourdes had hidden Mother’s herbs.
“Get away!” Lourdes set another boundary, not very strong. Maybe she thought Elyse wasn’t much to worry about. Maybe she needed to conserve her power to keep Galen in thrall.
Elyse flicked her wrist as Mother might. The boundary dissolved in a pastel shimmer of light.
“We’ll have a child.” Lourdes whispered in Galen’s ear, but Elyse heard it all. “Our son will be the most powerful king in the world. Sarumos will be nothing before Dumnos.”
No!
The universe shifted again. The air was sharp and cool and exhilarating, and Elyse tingled liked she used to close to Mother during a big wyrd. She didn’t know how, but she’d stopped Lourdes from having Galen’s child—or anyone’s—now and forever.
7
Strawberry Jam
21st Century Dumnos
It was colder today. The mist had burned off, and the top was down in Bausiney’s carriage. The French girls were in their glory, seated like bookends on either side of the tour guide.
Cammy handed Lilith her cell phone. “Take a picky of us with his lordship, will you?”
“I thought these didn’t work in Dumnos.” Lilith turned the thing over, looking for the camera button. She had to admit she was disappointed. When Bausiney said he’d be at the Tragic Fall at ten o’clock this morning, she’d thought he meant for her alone. Bella and Cammy had had different thoughts.
“The mobile won’t, but the camera should,” Marion said. She wasn’t joining them on the tour, but Bausiney had offered to take her up into the hills to Bausiney’s End to make sure Lord Dumnos had his breakfast.
“How’s this, then?” Bausiney put his arms around the sisters. They were dressed in bad imitations of Stevie Nicks with fringed shawls and floppy velvet hats and rings on every finger. Their necklaces and earrings boasted moons and stars and spiders on silver cobwebs. Bausiney winked at Lilith as she clicked a few shots. Her heartbeat quickened, and she avoided looking at him as she returned the phone to Cammy.
The carriage rolled to a dead stop at the village square. The square was like the hub of a wheel with seven oddly spaced narrow lanes as the spokes. Tourists streamed in via those spokes and clogged the entire works.
Bella leaned over the side and looked ahead. “There seems to be some general confusion about right of way.”
“One moment, ladies.” Bausiney bounded out into the square, gesturing at the few vehicles to stay put—two first-generation beetle bugs, as Lilith’s mother used to call Volkswagens, an old Ford van, and several bicycles. Like a professional traffic cop, he soon had a nice flow going.
“Make way!” He pointed a warning finger at a beetle bug that inched forward. “Make way for these lovely ladies, one quite possibly the next wyrding woman of Glimmer Cottage!” He bowed and smiled. “We can say we knew her when!”
The tourists were mostly women in their thirties and forties. They giggled like girls at Bausiney’s jokes and moved on to the next antique shop, the next tea shop, or the next purveyor of fine wool sweaters.
Handover Schmandover.
Tintagos Village was on the receiving end of a tourist binge, lapping up the benefits of Bausiney’s brilliant marketing scheme. He glanced up through his scruffy hair. Lord Tintagos. The tourists squealed as if he were a rock star.
“I think his lordship is wonderful,” Cammy said.
“So does he,” Bella said.
“Well, he is,” Marion said. “I’ll say it, even if he is my nephew.”
When he saw that Lilith was watching, the corners of his mouth twitched and he wiggled his eyebrows up and down. His lordship was no Prince Charming. Certainly nothing like blond and brown-eyed, perfect-skinned Galen on the stairs of Tintagos Castle. But then, that was just a dream. A dream far less real now that she’d had a night of uninterrupted, blissful, restful, glorious sleep thanks to Marion’s tea.
Also unlike Galen, Bausiney was real. And unlike Greg, he was good. Greg’s intellect and ambition had been so dazzling that Lilith had never thought about his self-absorption and unkindness. Bausiney was a future earl, a guy with every advantage. He could be anywhere. Having fun. He was here, doing what he could to make life better for the people of a little village in an obscure corner of the world.
On second thought, he looked like he was having fun.
“It’s a pity Lord Dumnos won’t leave the End,” Marion said. “He’d be proud of Cade today.” She was dressed in full Handover splendor in a calf-length wool skirt and way-too-large sweatshirt with a picture of the castle ruins on the front with Tintagos Castle written above it in glitter. She wore a huge pink plastic pin that said: You may be the one! In her lap she held a vacuum jar she was taking to Bausiney’s End.
“Lord Dumnos’s morning gruel.” She said. “He’ll eat nothing else when he’s in a mood.”
Hopefully by gruel she meant oatmeal.
“The Handover has made him more hateful than usual.” Bausiney opened the door. He kissed Marion on the cheek before settling in again between the French girls. “You’re very good to him, Moo.”
“Turnabout is fair play.” Marion’s bubbly personality went flat. “He was very good to me once. Gave me the Tragic Fall, you know.” She and Bausiney shared a sentimental smile. Lilith and the sisters waited for details, but none were forthcoming.
