The tiny, purple women flinched and grumbled at Merada’s touch, but went right back to sleep, prompting another soft chuckle from the beautiful brunette next to me.
“Do you know all their names?” I asked, smiling myself. She shook her head.
“I know the names of hundreds, but there be far too many of them. I spend the start of every new decade trying to catch up, though.”
“Wow,” I said, because that was impressive. I marveled again at just how hard this woman worked for this world, and how much she had done to hold it together. I wanted her to be more recognized, to be seen more, to honored by more than just some guy who had hopped onto her planet for a bit.
But mostly, I just wanted her.
Crown her, the voice said again. Then it grew too faint for me to make out the next sentence, and did not repeat itself.
I’d have to try and talk to it later. Instead, I decided to reach over and grip Merada’s hand.
“Hey,” I said, feeling awkward, but not really knowing what to say next. I had grown in power and learned a thing or two about winning battles and leading armies, but I still felt pretty inexperienced when it came to dating, thanks to not having any real relationships on Earth before my injury.
But if Merada was disappointed in my performance so far, she didn’t show it.
“Hey, yerself,” she replied with that fearless smile of hers, squeezing back.
I still wanted to kick myself. How did we go from nearly undressing each other the last time we were alone together, to awkwardly holding each other’s hands now? A second later, I realized the answer.
“Darn,” I said to Merada. “I don’t know how to move forward from here without the rest of you getting mad at me.”
She laughed again, this time so loudly that a couple of nearby fairies shifted in their sleep.
“Ye can’t, I’m afraid. She made that clear to me before she left. Said she’d fill me head so much with all of those Earth picture-stories, I’d be forced to quote one every time anyone talked. Especially that one about a grail and a rabbit.”
She made a face at that last sentence, and I laughed myself, when I realized which movie she was talking about.
“Yeah, that’s a fate I’m not willing for you to suffer. Wouldn’t wish that on anybody. You’d lose every friend you have.” I waited for a moment, and then got serious again. “How do I stay in touch with you, though? How does that even work?”
“I wasn’t expecting it to,” Merada admitted sadly. “I knew ye were to leave eventually, and ye have to. But I suppose me heart got greedy. But it makes me happy,” she added, as her bright, fearless smile returned, “to know ye want the rest of me as well.”
“If I pursue the rest of Stell,” I asked carefully, because this felt like extremely dangerous territory, at least for my single-bodied self, “Will you feel loved? Or will you feel abandoned and ignored?”
“I feel a bit of what she feels,” Merada admitted. “She tries to keep me from feelin’ much at all, apparently because I’m the youngest, and she’s scared for me,” the beautiful huntress frowned in annoyance, then continued speaking. “But the truth be, my feelin’s for ye are the rest of me’s feelin’s as well. And ye can’t pursue any part of me without acceptin’ the rest, for this to work.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to be mature about this, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense. “So what does that mean for you? Because I love Stell,” I said in a careless rush. “And I love Stell-Merada. And I’m not willing to just leave Stell-Merada without coming back at some point. And even then, I’m going to miss you terribly, just like I miss Stell’s main body right now. Just like I hate not being able to hear what Guineve and Breena think about all this too, and it’s weird, because from what you’re saying, to be faithful to any part of you, I have to love all of you, and that just feels like cheating to me. So I kind of don’t know what to do, but I know I’m not satisfied about leaving Stell-Merada behind on this world.”
“That’s sweet,” she replied with a sad smile. “But ye have to leave. Too many lives depend on ye. And me place is here, protectin’ this world in your stead.”
“That’s just one more reason for why you should have been able to use the new super-awesome armband instead,” I grumbled. “What am I going to do if I get a message saying that the Woadlands are being invaded while I’m in the middle of another Tumult offworld?”
“I don’t know,” Merada bit her lip. “But no one else could use the thing, and we wanted to show we bound ourselves to ye.”
I shook my head again.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap,” I said in apology. “But I meant what I said about not wanting to leave you behind. Maybe there is a way to use this thing to help with that.” I looked down at the bronze band, pondering over the resonance I felt it had with Breaker, Breaker’s sheath, and Toirneach. “It feels like it has some hidden uses.”
Crown her, the quiet voice in my mind repeated. Once again, faint gibberish followed the command.
“Well,” Merada shrugged. “At any rate, ye’re not runnin’ off tonight,” She walked over to a log that looked like it had been placed there on purpose, and sat down. “Since we can’t do we what we really want to do without dire consequences, why don’t we rest for a bit longer, before we have to turn in.”
I sat down next to her, and we did just that. I didn’t try to think of anything witty to say, and she seemed perfectly happy to just be next to me. We simply sat there and watched the fairies slumber in the trees like a sea of multicolored fireflies.
That was it.
And it was still probably the best evening in my life.
Finally, we both grew too tired, and unlike the fairies, decided to sleep somewhere more comfortable. I reluctantly parted from the Princess of the Woadlands and began the long walk back to the place we were sleeping tonight.
I picked up Breena along the way, who had passed out on top of the dessert stand.
“Noooo,” the pink, spiky haired sprite moaned sleepily. “Must protect cookies.”
“You already did, Breena,” I said to her gently as I lifted her off the thoroughly scavenged tray. “And this is the pie tray, anyway.”
“Cheating,” she mumbled. “Was supposed to eat my way out.”
I didn’t even have a reply to that, so I cradled the tiny woman and continued walking with Merada, who chuckled at the sight of her fellow Satellite.
“So do you guys also feel it when she binges like that?”
Merada shook her head.
“We get a tiny twinge, but the rest stays with little Bree. Good thing, since our bodies can’t handle sugar the way fairies can.”
We walked the rest of the way to the new walled structure.
Conquering the Tumult had torn the Hoarfolk’s territory out of whatever magical realm it had existed in, and had bonded it to the Woadlands. I still didn’t fully understand how it worked, but apparently the Hoarfolk weren’t just turning the Woadlands into a frozen wasteland. They were actually absorbing the planet into their own realm. Before I had arrived, the Woadlands had been in danger of being absorbed entirely into the Winter Fey’s nightmare realm of darkness and frost.
But overcoming the Tumult had not only reversed the effect, it had broken off much of the Hoarfolk realm directly into the Woadlands, and had given the local Icons enough power to move the structures and terrain as they saw fit. The result was that the ruined ice palace had been reassembled and moved to the location of my coronation.
Given that my Shelter was still located within the palace, that was all kinds of convenient, since Guineve was still bound to land originating from Avalon. I had taken in those who had lost most of their tribe, and she was able to easily care for them throughout the palace., That thought reminded me to check on them again, and make sure that their needs were still being met.
We stopped walking right outside the broken, icy walls, and the swirling mist outside them caught my eye.
“Merada,” I asked, t
rying not to sound too alarmed. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I pointed to a big block of ice that had been broken yesterday. “Is this place repairing itself?”
“Aye, and ‘tis a good thing,” she said with another smile. “Look at the trees nearby.”
My eyes traveled to a massive oak nearby. I saw white veins of frosty bark swirl into its side. The veins of discolored bark traveled all the way up to some of the branches, where clear, crystalline leaves sprouted from them. They stood out in the dark, and I finally realized that they were emitting a dim, soft light of their own. I could barely make it out, but tiny, larvae-sized dots began stirring inside of them.
“Tis a sign, accordin’ to Titania and Mother Glade,” Merada whispered happily. “Summer and winter are makin’ harmony with each other. New types of sprite are bein’ born. These will be able to care for the new Woadfathers we have gained, in a way the Gaelguard never could. They will protect them from poison, disease, and frost, so that another plague cannot endanger them as one did so long ago.”
“That’s amazing,” I breathed, staring at the tiny embryonic forms. “I wonder what they’ll look like.”
“We don’t know,” Merada answered. “Benevolent winter fey are rare, and there are no standards for their form. This be a new thing born in our midst. And with the Hoarfolk driven off, it be the act of a blessin’ overtakin’ a curse. Thank ye, Malcolm. Challenger. Hero. King.”
Before I could say anything else, she leaned forward and kissed me.
Her lips were warm and wet. I hadn’t had a kiss in years, and for a moment, the experience just startled me. Then the pleasant sensations of the kiss swept over me, and I felt the acceptance of a beautiful, amazing woman flow from her mouth to mine. I closed my eyes in enjoyment and kissed back, accepting her lips with my own, complimenting her movements with my mouth. The Woad Princess hummed in pleasure for a moment before she finally broke off the kiss.
“Wow,” I said, realizing I’djust had my first romantic kiss in years—and the best kiss ever. “I’m not complaining, but I thought Stell put a boycott on all the really awesome stuff.”
“We kept our clothes on this time,” Merada said. “And it’s unthinkable that a maiden not share a single, chaste kiss with the hero of her world, is it not?”
She’s got a point, Teeth, the draconic part of my personality spoke up. Why don’t you go back to shutting the hell up?
Language, I cautioned him, but didn’t say anything more. We were interrupted by a hum from Breena anyway.
“Mmmm,” the sleeping fairy mumbled in pleasure. “Tasty lip-sugar.”
Merada chuckled.
“That, though, all of us can feel,” she explained. “Though the farthest of us will feel it last.”
“Okay,” I said, blinking furiously. “I’d better just go to bed, before either of us get any more ideas.”
“Aye,” the tattooed maiden agreed. “I’ll see ye in the morrow, me Challenger.”
With a torturously slow roll of her hips, she turned and walked away from me.
I watched her lean, powerful form stroll out into the night, before the other beautiful, but smaller, woman in my arms shifted in my arms and wrapped her hands around one of my biceps.
“Muscle-cookies,” she muttered. “Not sharing.”
I walked inside the ruins leading to my mobile abode, grumbling tiredly to myself with every step.
“‘We’re going to take things slow, Wes,’ she says. ‘That’s what I really want,’ she says. ‘Just ignore all the teasing I do to you with my other bodies and be a perfect, sexually frustrated gentleman. What could go wrong with that?’”
I’m not proud of it. But I grumbled all the way to bed, and felt better for it.
Chapter 3: Spark on a Grain of Sand
“Crown them,” the voice said to me in the inky blackness.
“Crown who?” I asked. “And why?”
“Because you are king,” the voice answered. “So crown them. And write…” the rest of the message came too faint again.
“You’re trailing off,” I said angrily. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about. Speak clearly, for once. Instead of just randomly showing up whenever I least expect it.”
That was a lot harsher than I intended, but I wasn’t sorry. This voice and I seemed to share a lot of goals, but I wasn’t happy with the price I kept paying to achieve them, or the scant amount of help it chose to provide.
“Crown them,” it insisted. “I will show you how.”
I shook my head, until I realized that I was dreaming, and that as dreams went for me, this one was bloodlessly pleasant.
“Awaken, and crown them,” the voice demanded, and this time it was loud enough for me to hear it in its entirety. “Crown them, and write love on their arms.”
The blackness disappeared as my eyes snapped open.
A scream drifted down the halls of my manor. I rolled upright and leaped out of my bed, slowing just enough to avoid knocking my fairy familiar off of the pillow she was sleeping on. I heard her stir a second later, but I was already running down the hall, Breaker appearing in my hand from who knew where. I activated the Claimh Solais version of the blade to light the way. The scream repeated, and I ran faster, activating my Fire and Air magic to increase my speed.
Breena caught up in a twisting trail of pink light.
“Birth,” she explained. “That’s a birth cry. We’re not under attack. One of the rescued prisoners was pregnant. She must be going into labor.”
“Is she supposed to sound like that?” I asked without slowing down, as another anguished scream tore down the halls.
“No,” Breena admitted. “Even for labor cries, that’s pretty intense. Something’s wrong.”
I saved the rest of my breath and followed the sound of the woman’s cries.
We arrived in one of the larger, more open rooms of the manor, where a number of rescued prisoners were sleeping. This room had been mostly cleared out, except for a handful of women clustered around the struggling, panting form of a Woadfolk mother clearly going into labor, lying on her back with pillows propped all around her, gritting her teeth as her whole body went taut. I couldn’t remember who she was until I recognized the loneliness in her cries. She was a woman we had freed from the Hoarfolk’s prison, isolated from the other living prisoners. She had almost refused rescue, and tried to stay behind, sobbing and clutching the cold, dead body of a young man her age. When we asked who the man was, no one knew, because no one else from her entire clan was there. As far as we could tell, no one else from her tribe was even alive anymore, meaning she was one of the original Hoarfolk captives, and had probably grown up in slavery there. She had cried the whole time she had been here, too much for anyone to even feed her or learn her name. As best as I could tell, the dead man had been her lover, meaning she had managed to find a new life, and new love, in captivity, only for it to be violently ripped away from her just before she was rescued. And, somehow, she had become pregnant, but with no family to help her through the pregnancy. She was being aided by strangers now, abandoned by everyone else through death, in a difficult birth with no husband or family by her side, and from her forlorn cries, she knew all of this well. But I couldn’t dwell on any of that, so I looked for the person serving as main midwife. Guineve’s tall, regal form stuck out from the small crowd, and the woman raised her raven-haired head as I rushed into the room.
“Hello, dear Wes,” the beautiful woman said with the same cool calm she had displayed during her battles with dark gods. “Is there something you need?”
“That’s my line,” I said, walking forward. “How can I help?”
A couple of the other sweating women shot me looks. Guineve was a bit more patient with me.
“I am not sure you can help, dear Wes,” she replied, as the pregnant woman screamed again. Guineve muttered an incantation under her breath, then frowned as if she was unsatisfied with the result. “Have you ever helped with a birth be
fore?”
That was a good question. I wasn’t sure Guineve had seen a lot of births herself, but I knew Stell’s oldest Satellite had at least a thousand years on me, and had been helping the two or three pregnant women I had rescued earlier back on Avalon.
“I haven’t,” I replied firmly. “But I can do magic. So I thought I’d come down anyway. I also brought Breena,” I added as the tiny fairy came flying in from behind me.
“Hey guys I’m here and I’m sorry that Wes is awake because I know it’s my job to take care of him when he sleeps but the screaming must have woken him up and so he jumped out of bed to come help any way he can because you know how he is and besides he really does know magic and so do I so maybe it’s a good idea he came down so just tell us how we can help!”
The tiny woman finally took a breath, and a second look around. “Oh no,” she added softly, and immediately flew over the pregnant woman, who I finally realized was crying in between screams.
“Yes, little Bree,” Guineve replied, her voice tense. “Do you see the problem?”
“Yes, and even you can’t handle magic of this level on your own! You should have called us, Guineve!”
The pink-haired woman began to glow, and sparkling dust with all the colors of a sunrise drifted over the pregnant woman’s stomach. But she began to frown as well.
“This is all the concentration I can spare, little Bree,” Guineve said with gritted teeth, her eyes closed as she summoned more healing mist. “And the women with me can spare even less. If I so much as raise my voice, Fuar’s magic will overpower my own, and the baby will die.”
We really needed to get Guineve a mindlink, I reflected as I sent a message to my adopted sister, blasting it straight into her brain.
VAL! CAN YOU HEAR ME?
Yes, Wes! And ow! Why are you shouting at me?
BABY IN DANGER. MY LOCATION. GET BALL-EE.
At least one of the little heal-jellies always seemed to sleep in the same room as my adopted sister.
I… I don’t think it will be enough, Wes, Breena sent me through her own link. This is worse than even Horde Pit damage. This is the rage of a Dark Icon, one that hates infants most of all. And the baby’s premature.
Lighting Distant Shores (Challenger's Call Book 4) Page 2
