My Fair Impostor

by C. J. Anaya

  I nodded, taking in the sores and mentally comparing them to what Mira’s had looked like. From their raw and bleeding appearance, it was clear to me that her illness had progressed much faster than Mira’s. I had a feeling, based on Terise’s description of her ability to hold her mermaid form, that Land Dwellers were going to be easier prey for this magical plague. If their human form was more dominant then the little magic they did possess wouldn’t be enough to fight this thing off.

  I didn’t say that out loud, of course, but it made the results of this experiment that much more important…and urgent.

  “I’m not sure how much Lily told you, but I’m trying to understand the way this illness interacts with specific elemental magics. I want to find a cure.” I took in her desperate expression and worried I’d just given her way too much hope. Sure, I’d recently healed Mira, but that was through bonding her to her mate.

  “Do you have a special someone you’re seeing at the moment?” I asked.

  “No.” If she was curious as to why I asked that question she didn’t show it.

  “And what type of elemental magic do you hold?”

  “Winter magic, but it’s not very strong. All I can really do is help other mermaids freeze the top layer of the Lake of Beatha during mating season.”

  That response was loaded enough to make me start another line of questioning. Mating season? Why in the world would the Lake of Beatha need to freeze over for that to take place? I felt Jareth’s hand press against my back, pulling me from my curious thoughts.

  It irked me that he seemed to know my mind had drifted.

  “Okay. Well, Terise, I’m going to manipulate the magic within your core. I honestly don’t know if it will help you, but I’m hoping it will. Is that okay with you?”

  Terise nodded, but didn’t say anything. Her shifting from foot to foot made me realize she was just as nervous as I was about this.

  I reached my hand out and placed it on her core, then I reached into my own core, picturing the different swirls of magic within my system. Since the summer magic within my body came strictly from the maze spell and not my core, I could only offer her two other elemental magics and hopefully bolster her own winter magic in the process, but I had no idea if that would be enough. Jareth would need to weigh in on this.

  Seeming to know what I had in mind, he stood next to me and reached over to place his hand just above mine.

  “Ready,” he said.

  I nodded and pulled the magics within my core, shooting them from my arm, down my hand, and into Terise’s core at the same moment Jareth did with his Summer magic. I didn’t get the same response from her core as I had from Mira and the Saytr King’s and the problem was pretty obvious right away. With Mira, I had her husband’s core to anchor her to. There was a bond there that created an infinite loop between their magics, allowing them to feed it back and forth weaving in and out like the golden infinity rings tattooed to my temple. There was no fated mate blueprint her core could follow because there was no other core to be bound to. Giving her the magic improved her health, but she needed to be tied or bonded to someone in order to sustain it, to have that never ending, infinite figure eight sending and receiving elemental magics from one bonded core to the next.

  I kept sending more magic to her core, powering it as best I could, but there was a leak within that kept funneling the magic to the illness. It was like the illness itself was a powerful magnet draining all magic from its host until there was nothing left to drain. Without the bond to a significant other, the magic couldn’t continue on in an eternal loop where mates refueled and recharged each others magic. Instead, an unbonded victim’s magic was slowly siphoned out faster than I could replace it.

  I pulled my hand away and bit my bottom lip.

  “Terise, I…” How did I tell this girl to find someone to marry within the next week or so or she would be drained of all her magic and die a painful death?

  I hated this job.

  Her face fell a little as I fought to phrase this the right way.

  “You can’t cure me?” she asked.

  “I can if you get married.”

  Awesome. Very articulate. That solution was about as clear as mud.

  At her shocked look, I quickly tried to explain.

  “Let me rephrase. I can cure you, but only if we perform a marriage bond. We need to anchor your core to another’s to prevent the weakening of your magic.”

  Her expression didn’t get any better once I finished.

  “So you can’t restore elemental magics to a faerie’s core without the anchor of another person’s core?” Jareth said.

  “Yep. That’s exactly right. All we need to do is anchor Terise to someone else’s core and it will get rid of the hold griesha has on the magic within her. It won’t be able to siphon away her magic and without its main source of sustenance it will disappear completely from her system.”

  “I have to get married?” she finally sputtered.

  “Well…I mean…you don’t have to call it that exactly. You don’t even have to love the person, you just have to be…uh…tied to them for the rest of your life and…” I stopped myself, realizing that explaining the solution wasn’t making it sound any more appealing. “Do you have anyone you can think of who would be willing to bond with you?”

  She shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes.

  “No one,” she croaked. “You don’t understand. I’m a Land Dweller.”

  I looked at Lily and then Jareth waiting for an explanation.

  Jareth’s lips had thinned into a grim line.

  “We have many social hierarchies within the Fae realm. Status tends to be everything and is usually determined by the strength of a races magic. All Land Dwellers are females. Not a single male Land Dweller has ever been conceived.”

  “Okay,” I said still not understanding the real problem here. “Obviously there are no male Land Dwellers to bond with, but you don’t have to bond with someone of your own race for this to work. You could bond with a Saytr, a noble of the court, or even a Stargis. Are you close with any males at all?”

  Terise’s tears came on more heavily. Jareth turned me to look at him. I wasn’t prepared for the look of shame on his face.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Land Dwellers are considered the lowest on the social class order due to their inability to maintain their magic and hold their mermaid form. Most mermaids don’t interact or socialize with them due to their half-breed status, and the mermen would never consider mating with one of them. The same goes with most other races. Land Dwellers, though beautiful, are discriminated against due to their limited magical capabilities and their mixed heritage.”

  My mouth was hanging open by the time he finished his explanation.

  “You’re telling me no male in all the Fae realm would be willing to bond with a beautiful being such as Terise—to save her life—because she’s half human and…what…less magical? Are we really having this conversation here?”

  “I am aware that it is wrong and unfair, but it is the way our society has functioned for thousands of years.”

  “Our society is due for some radical changes,” I gritted out. “Don’t you think?”

  Jareth gave me an amused smile even though it was tinged with sadness.

  “If anyone can change the social order of things in a society as set in their way as ours is, you can, Crysta.”

  I nodded my thanks, still too enraged at the awful predicament Terise now found herself in. Well, I was going to save her. Plain and simple. I would save every single Land Dweller who needed a mate.

  “How many Land Dwellers have already died?” I asked.

  Terise choked on a sob before saying, “Our race seems to have received the worst of it. Hundreds have died. Three of my four sisters have already passed away. Meredith is all I have left, but she’s been ill for several weeks.”

  Good heavens above.

  After meeting Terise and fail
ing her, the fate of the inhabitants of this realm had just become that much more personal to me.

  “Terise,” I said, grabbing her hands in mine and forcing her to look at me. She sniffled a bit, but met my eyes head on. Brave girl. “I’m going to find someone to bond with you and your sister. I can’t promise an actual marriage in the happily ever after sense of the word, but certainly I can promise to find someone who will be willing to bond with you to keep you alive. You don’t have to live together or love each other, you simply need to share that bond and elemental magics within your cores to sustain you.”

  “No one will be willing to make such a sacrifice on my behalf,” she said. “You don’t understand. Even though fated mates are rare, almost unheard of, most Fae hope for it, and eventually hope for a love match in the end. I can’t see anyone giving up that opportunity to save a lowly Land Dweller.”

  “You leave that to me,” I said.

  Lily placed an arm around her and pulled her in for an embrace.

  “If Crysta says she can find someone to bond to you then she will. Crysta can do absolutely anything she sets her mind to do.”

  Lily’s vote of confidence touched my heart. I didn’t remember how I’d made that kind of impression on her or built that kind of trust, but I was grateful she had so much faith in me. As Lily led her out of the room, Jareth turned me to face him.

  “Biologically, the best choice for finding a mate for ill Land Dwellers would either be with a merman, who would be next to impossible to convince, or a species of Fae who have many things in common with human biology.”

  “And what species would that be?”

  “My species,” he said. “And yours, though your father is the last male in your bloodline. So that presents a problem.”

  “Yeah. Isn’t there any other species?”

  “There is the Drow bloodline, also known as Dark Elves within the Unseelie Court. We’re both elven, though our biology is slightly different from one another. Still, two different races of elven males to choose from is better than nothing, but again, it will be very difficult to convince elven males to mate with Land Dwellers.”

  A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach hit me hard when I realized what he was getting at.

  “Elves are the highest ranked races in the social pecking order aren’t they?” I asked.

  “Precisely. You’re expecting some of the most powerful males in our lands to mate with the weakest of our realm. The Drow are even more uppity than the nobles in my Court. Ferocious warriors who hold no qualms about killing weaker beings. Your father keeps them in check due to the lands he bequeathed to their forefathers within the Drowsen Mountains, and the good relations he has held amongst their king. You have no idea the stir this will cause. No one will agree to it.”

  I jutted out my jaw and planted my hands on my hips.

  “They will if I refuse to heal their own sick family members. Griesha isn’t just affecting weaker faeries now, Jareth. Pretty soon, not even the nobles will be able to run from the consequences of your father’s actions.”

  “Good,” he nodded. “You won’t be able to budge an inch on this, Crysta. Give them no quarter to maneuver. Give them no reason to believe you wouldn’t make good on that threat.”

  “Oh, believe me. Making good on that threat will be easy enough. I’m not interested in saving people who are so unwilling to save others. I don’t buy into this class crap, Jareth. I hope you’re okay with that.”

  “I was okay with it before you lost your memory,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “And I’m okay with it now.”

  “I assume this is yet another thing we’ll be bringing up during the delegation?” Uncle Roderick asked.

  I nodded.

  Abso-freakin-lutely!

  I sat in my room feeling more frustrated than I could ever remember—from what I could remember—and I needed to remember everything. I needed to find the memory my mother had implanted within my mind, and I needed to save everyone from King Moridan’s destructive use of the Dark Arts.

  We had two weeks to find answers before the royals of the Unseelie Court assembled together, and a week had already passed with zero results.

  To accomplish the impossible, because this seriously felt like the most insurmountable situation in existence, I needed to get rid of this maze spell, and to accomplish that, I had three options to consider.

  1.) Marry Kheelan and have him break the maze spell he had so expertly woven.

  Yeah. Not happening.

  2.) Marry Jareth so we could complete our fated mate bond, giving him the ability to live through any attack the maze spell threw at him.

  Also not happening. I don’t care how hot the guy is.

  3.) Continue to get attacked and left on the verge of dying every time I tried to break the maze spell myself.

  Sure thing.

  I was all about option number three, but Jareth’s ability to handle that option had been put to the test throughout the week. Oh, he’d finally seen reason and allowed me to continue my plans to attack my own maze spell, but after several days of this, his emotions were frayed beyond what I considered healthy. Every time I attempted to leave his side, he wouldn’t allow it. He slept in my room on the floor, claiming his fears of me attempting to attack the spell without him present didn’t allow for much down time.

  He wasn’t wrong, either. I might have done it just so he wouldn’t have to witness yet another attack by my magic. I was only in this room by myself because he and Roderick had been called to a quick meeting with the Saytr King in Roderick’s drawing room.

  Something about the plague hitting several more royals and the panic this had caused. I feared the assembly would be bumped up now that things seemed even more dire than before.

  So I sat here worrying about the future, while simultaneously hiding from my fated mate. The alone time gave me a brief reprieve from his constant surveillance. I’d even encouraged Chuck to go hang with Graul and Lily so I could simply breathe without someone monitoring my every move.

  And Jareth?

  Well, I think my attacks on the maze spell were numbered. I honestly didn’t think he would allow me to continue any longer.

  It was just too hard on him, and after watching him nearly die, I completely understood.

  What to do? What to do?

  Maybe by appealing to Kheelan’s sense of duty I could somehow convince him to get rid of this maze spell. I mean, he supposedly started this whole thing because of his burning desire to save the inhabitants of this realm. He loved his people and the world he lived in, and stopping his father was foremost on the agenda.

  I was grasping at straws here and I knew it. His love for me or what he thought was love for me had put a serious wrench in his priorities.

  But I was beyond desperate here. If I wanted to remain unmarried until I remembered every detail of my life then I needed Kheelan to cooperate. If I wanted to save people from this magical plague slowly killing off weaker faeries and eventually stronger ones then I needed Kheelan to cooperate.

  If I wanted to take King Moridan out, I damn well needed Kheelan to pull his head out of his arse and get with the program.

  Yep.

  Time to visit the idiot and see if I could get anywhere. Lucky for me, Kheelan was transferred from the Saytr King’s dungeons to this palace’s very own dank prison system. Both Roderick and Jareth wanted to take a crack at interrogating the solution for the maze spell out of him.

  This move of theirs reeked of desperation, especially since Jareth didn’t want Kheelan anywhere near me, and here Kheelan was, housed within the depths of this edifice.

  I peeked at the wall clock and decided I had enough time to sneak down to the holding cells within the castle and see if I could make some headway before Jareth came to escort me to dinner.

  That’s right. The goofball thought it would be a great idea if we had what humans fondly refer to as a date night, complete with dinner, dancing, and possibly a show.


  Some real alone time.

  Please, like we hadn’t spent tons of hours alone this week, but he wanted alone time that involved wooing me, possibly convincing me to marry him in the process. I saw right through his plans, and I was both excited and terrified at the prospect. My anxiety over the upcoming date and all the problems we were facing had turned my insides into what felt like a burning river of indigestion.

  So obviously, it was time to go interrogate a prisoner.

  Jareth wouldn’t like it one bit.

  Why did that fill me with sick satisfaction?

  Feeling fortified that my next course of action was the wisest action to take and not a move made out of pathetic desperation—or to get under Jareth’s skin—I swiftly walked to the door and wrenched it open.

  I was definitely not expecting a menacing looking faerie complete with eye-patch and a weird tattoo on his forehead to be waiting for me on the other side. He didn’t seem to be expecting me either. His eyes widened in surprise as he stuffed something back in his pocket.

  “Uh, can I help you?” Was that something the future queen of the Unseelie Court said to some random stranger hanging outside her bedroom door? Maybe he was a guard?

  “More than you realize,” he said. His lips pulled back into an ugly leer revealing several teeth that had gold caps on them.

  Eh?

  The guy looked like a faerie pirate. I was so taken off guard by his dazzling gold teeth I failed to notice the syringe in his hand until it was too late. A sharp sting to my neck left me gasping in surprise and within seconds my limbs lost mobility. I fell forward into the arms of a dude who looked like he’d be more at home on the movie set of Peter Pan than here in an opulent castle.

  He effortlessly scooped me up in his arms and chuckled to himself.

  “That was much easier than I thought it would be. You didn’t even put up a fight.”

  He was right. I’d stood there like a dummy, asking him if he needed assistance like some teenage hostess at a Denny’s restaurant.

  Idiot.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but my head lolled to the side and darkness began to sweep its way through my brain.