Portal (Nina Decker)

by Anna, Vivi

  She looked to the cage. “Any questions?”

  Severin asked, “You found those two dead? You didn’t kill them?”

  J’Tara answered, “No. I have never taken credit for slaying those wolves. I slew several others during that battle. But they were all followers. None were alphas.”

  “Then who did kill them?” Severin asked.

  J’Tara just shrugged. “It’s not relevant to your case but no one from Nightfall has ever taken credit for the killings of Tristan Coldiron or your mate. It was probably some concerned fae who did their duty and is too humble to seek reward. That would be the most likely answer.”

  Severin said nothing more. J’Tara stepped away from the dais.

  “If that is all, then I am ready to pronounce judgment,” said Lord Wolfstriker.

  I got up. “Wait!”

  The crowd roared at me as I stood. I heard taunts of “Wolf lover!”

  I locked eyes with Severin. He shook his head but I stepped forward regardless to stare up at my grandfather. As before his face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

  J’Tara said, “Do you intend to give testimony, princess? That would be speculation on your part. You weren’t here when the events in question took place.”

  “Is there such a thing as a character witness in this court?” I asked.

  “There is,” said Lord Wolfstriker. “What do you want to say about this man?”

  “I know there is a lot of fear and hatred here,” I said. “But killing Severin Saint Morgan won’t put a stop to any of it. If there is someone out there plotting another war-“

  The court erupted when I said that. My grandfather put a hand up and silence returned.

  “If some party out there wants to break the peace, Severin is not one of them. You heard your own witness say he wasn’t in the first wave. If that attack had been his idea he would have led it. I haven’t known him that long, I admit but that much is obvious. Is there anyone here who would deny that?”

  I heard a murmur through the audience but no one objected. “This man is no threat to this kingdom. I know this. He could have harmed me many times over. He didn’t have to come here. He knew what the penalty would be. He came here to help me. He is no threat to any of you.”

  J’Tara stepped forward. “Very impassioned, princess. Though I doubt it’s relevant to the facts at hand. Might I ask you a blunt question?”

  I swallowed hard. “Ask it.”

  “Do you trust this man, Severin Saint Morgan?” she asked me.

  My insides went cold. I didn’t want Severin to be killed. But I thought about his mate and his time in Nightfall. There were so many things he’d never told me. Doubt gnawed at my heart but I couldn’t say that out loud.

  “Yes,” I said. My voice didn’t quaver. I looked J’Tara in the eye and didn’t blink. In any courthouse on Earth I would have been convincing.

  Beside me the white flame turned bright green.

  My head sank as did my heart.

  Lord Wolfstriker again shouted for peace. He then pronounced the sentence.

  It was death.

  Chapter 14

  My grandfather announced, “The terms of the treaty are clear. Severin St. Morgan’s punishment is to be silver bound and caged four days. In that time any may champion him and earn his freedom through a contest of arms. If his champion can defeat our captain of the guard then he shall be freed. If no champion comes forward by the fourth day or if his champion loses, then the prisoner shall be executed.”

  The court cheered. I sank back down in my chair unable to look at Severin. I had tried to help him and I had doomed him.

  Amid the commotion Severin spoke up. “Lord Wolfstriker, I shall be my own champion.”

  “No,” declared my grandfather.

  “It’s my right,” said Severin.

  “It’s the right of a citizen of Nightfall,” answered my grandfather. “You renounced that citizenship long ago.”

  Armed guards surrounded the cage. They lifted the entire thing on their shoulders and carried Severin out of the court. A jeering mob crowded around as they left the great hall. I struggled to keep up but the press of bodies was too thick. I followed them out of the hall and into the sunlight.

  They took Severin along the stone road and down the hill toward the town. At the bottom of the hill the crowd slowed to a near halt. Here a ditch full of thorny bushes separated the palace complex and the town. The only way across this obstacle was a stone bridge with guards at either end. I fell behind. The bridge was wide but there were so many people that it formed a bottleneck.

  My heart grew heavy the longer I waited to cross. I looked down at the thorn filled ditch. There was no path through the tangled bushes. But I had a feeling that if I truly wanted to, I could find one. I remembered the forest and how the trees first closed in and then parted for me. I took two steps toward the ditch. But a voice inside my head stopped me.

  I didn’t hear words exactly. It was sensations, feelings and a few images, as if the plants themselves were speaking to me. They were saying, “Wait until dark.”

  I went back to my place in line. After a while I crossed the bridge with the others. I rejoined the procession as it snaked around the town’s cobblestone streets. At any other time I would have thought the place was beautiful and enchanting. It was the fairy tale place I’d always pictured as a little girl. But this was a nightmare, not a fairy tale.

  The crowd around Severin grew as we marched through the town. The guards carried him to center of the square. There I saw a large gallery made of marble with a stone canopy supported by pillars. Before the gallery was a low marble wall. It took me a while before I realized it was a tilt barrier. This area was set up for jousting.

  Severin’s cage was placed on a raised platform before the gallery. The crowd continued to taunt and throw insults and rubbish at him. The guards formed a solid perimeter and pushed the crowd back. There he sat looking miserable and near naked. His body was slumped. He looked defeated. Seeing him like that I began to lose hope also.

  I pushed my way forward until I reached the guards. Barred from going any further I shouted for him. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. Maybe he didn’t hear me or see me as he never looked my way.

  The crowd closed in and I was shoved back. I stumbled away and found myself sprawled out on the cobblestones a short distance away from the mob. I got to my feet, shaken. Inside I was empty. In a daze I wondered back through the town, across the bridge, and back up the hill to the great hall and my chambers. There I found my bed and drifted off to dreamless sleep.

  I stayed in my room the whole of the next day. My meals were brought to my chamber but I barely touched them.

  The next day Dani barged into my room. She had a vinyl backpack that she threw next to my bed. “Get up,” she ordered.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Pool party at noon. You’re guest of honor.”

  “I’m not in the mood.” I turned my face into my pillow.

  Dani jerked it out from under me. “That’s the whole point. You need to do something fun to get you out of this funk.”

  “You think splashing around is going to change anything?”

  Dani leaned in just a few inches away from me. “You spent the entire day doing what you’re doing. Did that change anything? No. Is everything still messed up? Yes. Is there any point in continued moping? No.”

  Maybe she had valid points.

  “But why a pool party?”

  “Because we can’t go shopping around here unless it’s for a new wimple. I can’t take you out to dinner unless you have a hankering for boiled sheep’s head. And we can’t go to the movies. The only theater they have here is the puppet theater and you don’t want to see that. The real Punch and Judy are a lot more fucked up then what they told us as kids.”

  I had an uncomfortable thought. “Yeah but do they swim in the nude here?”

  “They used to.” Dani unzipped the knapsack and out tumbled a
dozen swimsuits. “That was until I introduced Lycra. I don’t know what your style was so I brought a whole bunch to choose from.”

  In another compartment of the knapsack I found two terry cloth towels.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it hon.”

  She left and I pondered my choices. Dani was right. I couldn’t just waste my time doing nothing. Frolicking poolside may not have sounded like a plan of action but I needed more info and Dani was my best source. The girl never shut up. So I rummaged through the swimsuits and picked up a black tankini with a tie side bottom. It was modest but I didn’t look like a prude. Dani arrived a few moments later. I was discouraged to see R’Agan and N’Tasha in tow. This wouldn’t be much of a party.

  R’Agan had a strapless neon colored bikini out of the 1980s that went well with her lavender hair. N’Tasha was in a floral print bikini from the ‘90s, a high cut bottom that showed off her upper thigh. Dani was in an up to the minute animal print string bikini.

  “Let’s hit the beach,” I said with a weak smile.

  Dani said, “Oh I wish.”

  We looped arms and led the way out of the wing. R’Agan and N’Tasha fell in behind. Dani took me out of the great hall and into a beautiful garden area.

  “There are a lot of pools around here,” I noted.

  “Most of these are for Dashrael,” Dani said.

  “The Chancellor? Is he big into water sports?”

  “You could say that. He’s a merman.”

  “A merman?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. His skin did look scaly, and his teeth weren’t normal. I suddenly had a vision of Dashrael swimming through the ocean. I thought of his long, lean body cutting through the water.

  Dani continued with her explanation, “Many of these pools double as portals to other parts of Nightfall. So it’s not a good idea to use them unless you want to end up in the middle of the ocean. There used to be just one, the one inside the great hall.”

  I remembered the pool in the middle of the antechamber. It had been so deep and dark that I had been unable to see the bottom.

  Dani said, “But after he became chancellor he had a bunch more put in all around the palace and a few in the town. A few years ago I complained a lot and finally they agreed to build me this area just to shut me up. I was hoping for something like the pool at Caesar’s Palace but I got to admit it it’s more like the pool at my old apartment in Toluca Lake. Still it’s always the right temperature, always clean, and it doesn’t have any chlorine or chemicals in it. And how many pools in Vegas can make that claim?”

  We passed beneath a trellis covered with hanging vines and I finally set eyes on Dani’s pool. It was surrounded by topiaries and statues and granite stone lined the edge. Waiting for us were four young male elves who Dani had apparently supplied with board shorts. R’Agan and N’Tasha immediately forgot about us and strutted over to the boys. Except for R’Agan’s lavender hair and the fact that we all sported gossamer wings, we could have been any group of young people out for a good time. I’m sure that was Dani’s idea.

  “It’s nice,” I said.

  “It’s the least they could do. And I mean the least. Magic is every bit as powerful as electricity or steam power. They could have built a full on waterpark. Or even created a white sand, tropical island beach. But they didn’t want to wreck the ambience of the palace. Everything has to be medieval-ish. I don’t get it.”

  Although the place was pleasant, I still didn’t feel like partying. It was a little better to be out in the warm sun and out of my gloomy chambers though. But everything was still messed up. Severin had only days before he was to be executed. I was stuck here in Nightfall surrounded by people who hated me. As I watched R’Agan and N’Tasha flirt and laugh with the boys I wished I could beat my wings and fly away.

  “What are you doing?” Dani asked.

  I realized my wings had been beating furiously as I stared at the empty sky.

  “Why can’t I fly?” I asked.

  Dani laughed, “That takes some serious magic. Look at your wings compared to your body. You think those things could displace enough air to lift you?”

  “I thought the rules were different in Nightfall.”

  “Different like gravity?” Dani asked. She had a devilish grin on her face.

  R’Agan and N’Tasha were chatting away with their beaus while standing at the lip of the pool. Dani sauntered over and gave R’Agan a shove. The lavender haired girl landed with a splash. When she came up she looked like she wanted to murder Dani. I laughed in spite of my troubles.

  “How fast did she fall in?” Dani asked.

  “Looked normal,” I said.

  “Let’s make sure.”

  Dani sprung on N’Tasha and pushed her in as well. She surfaced and looked shocked and mortified. I laughed some more.

  “Maybe we need one more test,” said Dani as she stalked me.

  I grabbed her wrists and she grabbed mine. We swung around together and both landed in the water. It was warm like a bath and free of the sting of chlorine. It was like a fresh mountain lake that wasn’t freezing cold. I came up and found Dani bobbing next to me.

  “How’s that feel?” she asked.

  I laughed then ducked her head under.

  Suddenly I was thirteen again and I was with my friends. The elf boys were keen to jump in and joined the fun. We laughed, splashed, raced and wrestled. R’Agan and N’Tasha didn’t know what a chicken fight was. Dani and I had fun cleaning their clocks.

  After a while Dani and I floated on our backs at the deep end.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “Why are you always helping me?”

  “I figured you were due.”

  “Due for what?”

  “Something good,” She answered. “You’ve been a fairy princess your whole life and never got a single moment joy out of it. Sweetie, believe me when I tell you that’s the saddest thing I ever heard.”

  I appreciated the sentiment but it just showed how different our experiences had been.

  “Your father was from Earth. Was he fae struck?” I asked.

  “Nah. He’s from Earth but he isn’t a pure mortal. He’s an alchemist. Like a wizard he gets a pass on the fae struck thing.”

  “It must be great having him fully there,” I said.

  “Well he’s not really in my life that much. My parents disowned me.”

  “What? Why?” I asked. I was unable to hide me shock.

  “I didn’t want to go into the family business. So I went my own way and they stopped having anything to do with me. That was about ten years ago. I was seventeen when it happened.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I made it to Los Angeles. I did the acting thing for a while. I got four commercials and even got a line. Then I did the personal assistant thing for six months. Now I do my own thing.”

  “What is your thing?”

  “Basically my contact list is long. I know people in dozens of companies, agencies, and studios.”

  “But what’s your job?”

  She shrugged and said, “That is my job.”

  Dani had told me a lot of things but this was the first time she had completely lost me. But at that moment I didn’t want to know about the ins and outs of the entertainment industry. R’Agan, N’Tasha and the boys were at the other end of the pool. It didn’t look like they would overhear us.

  “How would I free Severin?” I asked.

  Dani and I held onto the granite edge of the pool.

  “First you need to find a fae warrior who isn’t afraid to joust with J’Tara.”

  “Is she that good?”

  “She’s hell on a black horse. Then you have to hope your warrior is good enough to draw with J’Tara because there’s no chance of beating her. But if the champion makes it through the required number of passes then the joust is a draw and the prisoner would go free.”

  I knew a lot about medieval jousts. Sometimes the opponents would charg
e at each other a certain number of times with different weapons. So they would announce three passes with the lance and then three more with a mace or a sword.

  “Is this a contest to the death?” I asked.

  “Not any more. Well it still is for Severin. But if the champion fails then his freedom is forfeit.”

  “Forfeit how?”

  “He or she becomes a slave and is auctioned off to the crowd,” Dani explained.

  “That’s horrible.”

  “It does have some benefits. J’Tara gets the auction money so she tends to spare her opponents. I understand she used to be murder, literally murder. Now she’s more interested in collecting the gold. Still there was this one time. Her opponent must have pissed her off somehow. During the first pass with the lance she splattered his guts all over the place.”

  A shadow fell over us. I stared up at the muscled form of Dashrael who stood over us.

  I heard splashes at the other end. R’Agan, N’Tasha and the boys clambered out of the pool. They didn’t stop there and continued to retreat through the garden.

  Dashrael gazed down at me. He was built like an Olympic swimmer. His white hair was flowing. He wore a pair of shorts that looked like they’d been fashioned in Nightfall. As in barely there.

  “Ladies, I hope you don’t mind if I join you.”

  Dani didn’t say anything but she looked nervously at the Chancellor.

  Dashrael dove into the water. He made hardly any splash. Beside me Dani looked from side to side.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Never swim with a merman,” she muttered.

  She let out a shriek and was suddenly yanked beneath the surface. She didn’t come up for a good ten seconds and I thought I heard a man’s voice, very muffled coming from underwater. Then her hand shot back up and grasped the pool’s edge. When she surfaced, she spat out a mouthful of water.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  She pulled herself out of the pool and coughed some more.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Dashrael, with a small smile, which only made him look even more sinister.

  He floated right next to me and I hadn’t heard or felt anything.

  Dani backed away from the pool’s edge. She looked at me guiltily as she grabbed her towel and headed into the garden.