by Melissa Marr
Today, when she walked in, the High Queen had a pensive mien; her moonlight eyes sparkled with cold light so very different from Aislinn’s sunlit looks.
Soon I’ll see the sunlight again. He smiled at the thought of being with Aislinn, of telling her what he’d seen, of revealing that he’d found a way to have forever with her. He wanted to bring her to Faerie with him. Maybe Sorcha would agree to let Ash stay with me during that month. Or visit. He wasn’t sure he was ready to ask, not until he talked to Aislinn, but even if they couldn’t work that out, one month out of each year was a small price. He’d gained eternity with Aislinn in exchange for a few short months.
Sorcha didn’t speak. She simply walked to the window and opened it, letting in moonlight and the thick scent of jasmine. It was day, but in Faerie, the skies shifted at Sorcha’s whim: she apparently felt it should be night just then.
“Good morning,” Seth murmured. He had been up working on another painting. It wasn’t right, but something would be. It drove him, the pressure to capture something perfect, something ideal, and give it to her—a gift to one queen to pay the fee to return to another. What he felt for Sorcha was oddly like what he’d felt for Linda. He wanted her approval. He wanted her to look at him with pride.
But right then, Sorcha extended a hand, and he offered her his arm as expected.
“Manners, Seth. Women always appreciate a man who treats them with manners.” Seth’s father was at the mirror fastening the stiff white collar of his dress blues at the time. The military dress uniform seemed to turn his father into a different person, with a straighter spine and sharper moves. It also turned Linda into a different person. Seth’s mother sat beside him, stroking his hair absently and gazing adoringly at her husband.
“Manners,” Seth repeated obediently as he snuggled into her embrace. He might be in the fourth grade now, but he wasn’t going to turn down one of his mother’s rare moments of cuddling. There was no doubt that she loved him, but she wasn’t usually affectionate.
“Do little things to let her know that there’s nothing and no one in the universe that matters more than she does when you look at her,” his father said as he turned from the mirror. He held out a hand to Linda, who smiled and came to her feet. She was still in her housecoat, but her hair and makeup were already done for the night out.
As Seth watched, his father kissed her hand as if she were a queen.
His father’s lessons on life weren’t always clear at the time they were given, but they were invaluable. Seth tamped down on a surge of longing for his family.
Beside him, Sorcha was silent. She’d led him to another hall and approached one of the numerous tapestries that hung on the walls. Faded threads made the palette more muted than it must once have been, but age didn’t detract from the beauty of the scene. Sorcha herself was depicted in it, surrounded by courtiers in various positions of attentiveness. Couples danced in what looked to be a formal way. Musicians played. But it was apparent that everyone in it was gazing at Sorcha, who sat regally observing the tableau. The real Sorcha—who looked much the same as her rendered image—pushed the weighty fabric aside. Behind it was yet another door.
“It’s like a rabbit warren around here. You realize that this”—Seth pushed the aged wooden door open—“doesn’t look like it belongs in the hotel at all?”
Laughter like the peal of crystal bells escaped her lips. “The hotel is a part of Faerie now. It doesn’t quite conform to the rules of the mortal realm. It conforms to my rules. The whole of the mortal realm would too if I chose to linger there.”
Outside the door was a different walled garden. A path wound into the heart of it as if to invite them to yet another world. The garden walls looked as though they were made of stones fitted together with spatial understanding in lieu of mortar. Flowering vines crept over those crumbling walls; their blooms burst out of crevices in erratic patterns.
“It’s a bit chaotic for you, isn’t it?”
Sorcha shook her head. “Not really. This my private garden where I meditate. No one comes here but me or my brother…and now you.”
And as they walked, the stones in their path realigned themselves, the blossoms assumed a predictable pattern. It was surreal—even after all he’d seen. “Not in Kansas anymore, are we?”
“Kansas?” Her forehead furrowed. “We weren’t in Kansas to begin with. That state is—”
“Things are weird here,” he amended as he led her around an uneven flagstone.
“In truth, things make sense here.” Sorcha trailed fingers over the plain-looking blossoms of the night-blooming jasmine. “Appearances are deceiving.”
“The art is almost done.” He was anxious that she like it.
Only a few days left.
“I look forward to the unveiling.” Her tone was light, but amusement lurked under it. “Unveilings are interesting. It’s a moment of clarity….”
“Sorcha?” He caught her gaze. “What’s up?”
“I need to explain the ‘catch’ in the deal you made.”
Seth’s nerves weren’t too jangled yet, but he suspected that they were about to be. “I was hoping I’d done well.”
She squeezed his arm. “I’ve been making contracts since before your mortal records even existed. You knew the dangers and still stood firm.”
“So I was a fool?”
“No, you were what mortals often are: blinded by passion.” She let go of his arm and leaned her face closer to the jasmine. It made a shivery sound as it extended itself to her. Moonlight, from inside of her, illuminated her skin.
“What is it?” His heart thundered as he started to turn the words over in his mind. He’d warned Aislinn about making a deal with a faery king, but then he’d done much the same. Fear built in his chest as he waited—and evaporated when Sorcha turned her face to look at him.
Glamour to soothe me.
He knew it even as calm returned to him like a cool breeze on too-hot skin. Sorcha smiled and turned her face back to the jasmine.
And he waited, watching her—my perfect queen—enjoy the simplicity of her gardens. “Don’t do that. Don’t influence my feelings.”
The calm breeze fled.
She straightened and stepped back on the path. “A month in Faerie with me is what you bargained.”
“It is.” He offered her his arm again.
She put her hand back in the crook of his arm and resumed walking. “Time moves differently here than in the mortal realm.”
“How much differently?”
The rhythm of her steps was unchanged as she said, “A day here is six days there.”
“So I’ve been gone more than five months?” He said the words slowly, trying to make sense of what Sorcha was revealing: he’d been away from Aislinn for almost half a year while Keenan was at her side. They’d been alone together—while she was already half enthralled by Keenan—for longer than he and Aislinn had officially dated.
“You have.”
“I see.”
“Do you really?” Sorcha paused, bringing their walk to a stop again. “She’ll feel your absence much longer than you’ll feel like you’re away.”
“I get that.” Seth tugged his lip ring, pondering for a moment. Another surge of fear rose up inside him. Would she think he’d left her for good? Would she worry? Would she be angry? Have I lost her? He wasn’t going to give up now, not when he had come so close to having everything.
Sorcha darted a doubtful glance his way. “You could stay here. I can keep you safe. You’re happy here….”
“I could stay on the chance that things there are wrong?” He smiled at her. “I didn’t get this far with her or with you by giving up on what I want. Fortune favors the bold, right?”
“Keenan knows you are here. Niall told you that.”
Seth wasn’t as calm as he’d like; there was a dark pleasure in the fact that Keenan’s deceit would be revealed. It didn’t entirely assuage the pain at the idea that Aislinn could’
ve fallen in love with Keenan. “He’ll need to answer for that when Ash finds out. Won’t he?”
The idea of her with Keenan sickened him. But we have forever. He had his one and only chance.
“If she is gone from you, you could come home. You will always have a home with me.” Sorcha didn’t press the subject, but he knew her well enough to understand that what she was offering wasn’t a minor thing for her. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought he’d have, and right then, it was a great comfort. The only other person he’d thought he could count on was probably drifting further away. Risking Aislinn’s love was not a price he’d have willingly chosen, but he hadn’t thought he’d gain so much either. Faerie was nothing if not unexpected.
“I’ll miss you,” he said. He wasn’t particularly inclined to hide his emotions, not from her. “Even if I don’t come running back to you, I’ll miss you.”
With the same casual gestures she used in most of her movements, Sorcha let go of his arm and pretended to examine a blossom-laden vine. “That’s to be expected.”
“And, you, my Queen, will miss me.”
The blossoms held her attention, and she lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “I may need to see how you adjust to that world as a faery.”
“It would probably be wise.” He wanted to bring her gifts, find perfect words, something to let her know that he valued her affection, that his missing her was no small thing. He moved closer. “Sorcha? My Queen? I would stay with you if not for loving her…but I wouldn’t be here except for loving her.”
“I know.” She brushed his hair from his face.
Sorcha felt it when Devlin entered the garden. Her brother wasn’t near, but she could feel his steps on her soil. This wasn’t just any garden in Faerie: it was her private home, warded well. Few faeries could enter it at all; only one could do so at will.
“I should go back,” she murmured.
“Fine.” He stepped away from her, seeming hurt for reasons she didn’t understand.
“Are you angry with me?” Strange that it mattered, this mortal child’s opinion. It did, though.
“No.” He gave her a curious look then, as calm as one of her own faeries. “Can I ask you a question?”
“For exchange?”
He grinned. “No. I just want an answer that only you can give me.”
“Ask.” She glanced up the path to assure that her brother was not approaching. She suddenly didn’t want him to hear this conversation with Seth.
“This kindness you show me…What is it?”
She paused. It was a fair question. The answer was one he could ponder while he was away in the mortal realm. Perhaps it would even convince him to come back sooner. “Are you sure that’s the question you want answered? There are other things you—”
“I’m sure,” he murmured.
“I am the High Queen. I am without consort”—she held up a hand as he opened his mouth to say something, and then she continued—“or child.”
“Child?”
“Children are a rare gift in Faerie. We live too long to have many young. To have one—” Sorcha shook her head. “Beira was a fool. She had a son, but she let her fear that he’d be like his father rule her. She kept her own affection bound away from him but for strange bursts of kindness he didn’t see. Had she done otherwise, Keenan wouldn’t have been a Summer King but…”
“Her heir.”
Sorcha nodded. “He was born of sun and of ice. Beira’s fears made him not hers.”
“And you?”
“I have no heir, no consort, no parent. If I had a child, though, I’d visit him if he wanted my…meddling.” She hadn’t spoken this to anyone. It was irrational, this desire to have a real family. She had Devlin. She had her court.
And one very disturbed sister.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted a family. Eternity with no true connections made sense; it helped her keep her focus. The Unchanging Queen had no business wanting change—but she did. “I want a son.”
“I’m…honored.” Seth didn’t look aghast at her words. He paused, and he lowered his voice to say, “I have one mother who gave birth to me as a mortal, so she’s been stuck with me because of that, and since you gave me a second birth, I guess that kind of means you’re stuck with me too.”
She felt warmth in her eyes, maudlin tenderness that made her leak tears. “To be remade means someone giving you of themselves. To be remade strong enough to withstand the dangers of that world and of my affection meant having a strong faery make that gift. I wanted you to be strong.”
Admitting what she’d done wasn’t her intention either—at least that was what she’d told herself when she’d made the choice.
He was following her implications, though. “Did a faery lose immortality for this?”
“No.”
“What was the cost? The exchange?”
“A bit of mortal emotion and a little vulnerability.” Sorcha kept her voice low too. Devlin might be trustworthy, but that didn’t mean he respected her privacy fully. Her brother was as protective as Bananach was destructive.
“You did this?” he whispered.
She nodded slightly.
He had something like awe in his eyes as he looked at her. “Will you visit me?”
“I would come to check on you.”
“Right.” He embraced her, hastily, but still an embrace—a sudden, impulsive hug.
It was a kind of heaven she hadn’t ever felt before.
Then Seth added, “Tell me who I’m allowed to speak to of this or bind me.”
“Niall. Irial. They may know if you choose it. Niall already knows, I suspect.”
“Aislinn?”
She’d known that question would come if Seth learned the truth, but she’d not known that it would come so soon. Careful of the words, Sorcha told him, “If you believe that not telling her will endanger your relationship irreparably or if you are ever so injured that you need me. Beyond that…”
“But Irial and Niall?”
Sorcha was pretty sure that she wasn’t doing this maternal thing entirely right. Already. However, she was starting it with a child who was far from a true infant. She trusted her instincts, not logic, not well-pondered thoughts. “Irial has been in love with Niall for centuries. Niall cares for you and will keep you safer in that world, so I won’t keep this from him. If he knows, I’ll allow Irial to know as well. They’ve had enough troubles between them that I won’t add a new one. I want them to be at peace with each other. That’s why the mortal girl they love is not here with the other Sighted ones.”
“You’re far kinder than you admit.”
“The mortal taint—” she began but stopped herself from that attempt at a lie. “I really should see what Devlin has come to tell me.”
Her son leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You just became ‘tainted,’ and Leslie’s been free for months.”
“That was a gift to…someone who was once my—” Sorcha stopped. Her cheeks were actually burning. She was blushing on her own, fully in control of herself, with no Dark Court faeries near. She liked it.
“Mothers don’t often tell their sons such things,” Seth quipped, “so I would rather not hear.”
It was positively endearing.
“Niall will help keep you safe in that other place you will live,” she added hurriedly. “I could—”
“You should still come check on me. I will miss you.” Seth held out his arm to accompany her back to the end of the path where Devlin now stood.
“I will come then.” She put her hand in the fold of his arm, and together they walked forward.
Chapter 30
As the next month passed, Aislinn didn’t speak of what had happened in the Dark Court. Each time Keenan had tried to discuss it, Aislinn had fled. Hearing that Seth had chosen to leave her was like having the hurt made new again. She didn’t want to touch that feeling, so she doted on her court. She acted lighthearted. She danced in the street with Tracey
. She coaxed plants to strength all over the city. The earth and her faeries flourished under her attention. After a couple weeks of her being the epitome of an attentive queen, even the most cautious of her faeries believed she was fine.
Except Keenan.
But tonight was the monthly revelry, and after tonight, he would know that she was going to be fine too. It was Autumn Equinox, and she’d mourned Seth’s loss longer than they’d been a couple. She couldn’t spend eternity like this. He’d made his choice; he’d left her world, chosen not to be a mortal trying to love a faery. He’d turned his back on what she was, on what they had.
Choose to be happy. She’d spent almost six months mourning. Let him go.
Aislinn walked across the street to their park. Somewhere inside her she remembered that it was odd to own a park, but nestled next to that thought was the awareness that faeries had been staking territories for longer than mortals had walked the earth. Tonight, the oddity of what she was faded under the one truth that she could hold to: I am the Summer Queen.
Keenan stood waiting. He was her king, her partner in this strange world. Without mortal eyes watching, he was utterly himself—sunlight made solid, promises made tangible.
He knelt before her; his head was bowed as if he were her subject. And tonight, she wasn’t objecting. Tonight, she wanted to feel powerful and free—not like her heart was being laid bare and sorrow was eating her alive. She was the Summer Queen, and this was her court. This was her king.
“My Queen.”
“I am,” she said. “Your only queen.”
He still knelt, but he looked up at her. “If you choose that…”
Around them, faeries waited as they had last autumn when she was a mortal. This time, though, she understood the stakes far better. She stood, a faery queen, in her park at the end of summer, and her king knelt before her. She knew what she’d be choosing—a chance at being fully his.
Keenan held out a hand, an invitation he’d given her at every faire. At every turn he put the choice forward for her. And, at each faire, she’d taken his hand, but she’d kept herself back from him.
