If her father was a faerie king, then it was entirely likely that he was just as prone to violence as she thought; the fae were dangerous. Perhaps there had been another reason… but whatever it was, Faye didn’t care about him now.
‘I know that Finn made a bargain with Moddie, my mother. She gave him something – information, perhaps, that helped you in your war – in return for staying in Murias after death. She was Lyr’s lover; Surely, as Lyr’s child, you can make a bargain with me?’ she added.
Faye coughed as a wave hit her chest and splashed hard into her face; her nose and mouth were filled with salt water again. Beware the faeries, Grandmother’s voice echoed in her mind. They are beautiful, but consorting with them is dangerous, ma darlin’. I wouldnae see ye enchanted. It’s my job tae protect ye. She hoped that it was enough; that she had offered Glitonea enough of a temptation. That she, Faye, was a big enough bait to catch the faerie queen of Murias.
The last thing Faye saw was Glitonea, tall and black as the waves themselves, advancing through the waves towards her. She closed her eyes as strong arms pulled her up out of the water, and let the dark take her. Too late, Grandmother, she thought before she passed out from the cold. Much too late.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Glitonea, Faerie Queen of Murias, stood with her back to Faye and before a vast sphere of what looked like ice, suspended above a golden altar table. The light in the room was dim apart from where she stood, which was bathed in a diffuse goldenness, though Faye couldn’t see the source of it.
‘Where am I?’
Faye’s voice echoed against the stone walls. Her feet, which she could now feel, were dry and warm in supple sky-blue leather boots which fitted her feet perfectly and were stitched with gold thread. She wore a long silky dress in a dark turquoise which fell to the floor; the top part of the dress left her arms bare, and the slippery material was plaited to make straps for the shoulders. At the front, the material wrapped over into a deep V to the waistband, exposing the curve of her breasts; she saw that a different necklace sat on her collarbone. This time it was a silver torc, with strands of the precious metal twisted in a circle that almost met at her throat; it shone against the blue shimmers in the dress’s fabric which shifted in the light like a Mediterranean sea. Matching wrist cuffs again adorned her arms.
Faye swayed on her feet; she was exhausted.
‘Take a moment to recover, sidhe-leth. You will find that being in Murias has a swift restorative power.’ Unlike her voice as she stood in the sea which had been harsh and sharp, Glitonea spoke now in a voice that sang and flowed like a sweet river.
‘You offered an acceptable exchange. I am fulfilling my part of the bargain.’
Faye nodded and sat heavily on a nearby chest, which was draped in luxurious fabrics. She felt the tiredness leave her bones, and strength return to her as if she had drunk some kind of magical draught.
‘Thank you,’ she answered wearily. This was what she wanted, but this was a realm of high magic: there was no going back. And though Glitonea was right, and her body felt refreshed and strong again, she was frightened, and tired of being watchful. ‘I just… want to learn what you can teach me. So that I can protect myself from…’ she trailed off and looked away. Finn’s name hung between them, unsaid, a phantom.
Glitonea was fine-featured and golden like her brother, and tall and well-muscled; yet there was something more changeable about her, as if she could not be fully perceived. Faye had the sense that the edges of her were fluid like water; that she was everywhere and nowhere at once.
‘I know what you wish,’ the faerie queen replied, giving no indication of what she felt. Her loyalty would be to Finn, surely: he had told Faye again and again how he and Glitonea were the same, brother and sister, king and queen, the two halves of the kingdom. They were Murias.
Faye warmed herself by a great fire in a silver brazier to her left. Around the walls were lamps and silver censers, the censers billowing out fragranced smoke that smelled of lavender, rose and jasmine.
‘Welcome to my quarters,’ Glitonea smiled, and bowed slightly at the waist. She stood, looking closely at Faye’s eyes. ‘As I said, I can see Lyr’s features in yours. Lyr, being the King of the Faerie Realm of Earth, has taken many human lovers, as humans are most aware of his element over them all,even though you drink our waters and breathe the air and warm yourself in the fire of the sun. Without any of these things you would all die. But the mountains and the trees are the things you feel are the most real. Perhaps it is because you can cut them down and use their stones and logs to make your palaces of money.’
‘I’m one person. You can hardly blame me for generations of industrialisation,’ Faye argued back.
Glitonea remained impassive. ‘I didn’t bring you here to discuss such things.’ She regarded Faye critically. ‘This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? To come to my private chambers to learn our magic?’
‘Yes.’ The blinding pain in her head and her lungs as the water had taken her over was gone, as was the feeling of heaviness in the water, of the shadowy sense of despair. She was alive. The summoning had worked, but only just. But she was determined not to appear afraid.
‘So, do you remember our bargain?’ Glitonea circled Faye slowly, her blue eyes looked almost black in the dimly lit room. ‘You offered yourself as a weapon against Lyr. That is very serious, Faye. Before we begin, I must know that you are certain. Otherwise, our little arrangement will end.’
‘I am.’ Faye watched the faerie queen pace around her. ‘He is no part of my life. I hate him. He broke my mother’s heart.’
‘But you don’t know what that means. To be a weapon against him.’ Glitonea delivered it as a statement, not a question. ‘You would willingly make a bargain with me and not know the terms. That is rash, to say the least.’
‘When you say a weapon, do you mean that it would hurt me in some way? Physically?’ Faye cared nothing at all for a father she had never known, but it would be stupid of her to agree to anything that would bring harm to herself.
‘No. You are half-fae and half-human. That gives you certain qualities we do not have; qualities we can use to build power in Murias. Also, Lyr is famously fond of his children. When he knows of you, he will want you with him. We will use that.’
‘I don’t want him. I don’t want to know him at all,’ Faye muttered.
‘You will return to Murias. My brother has chosen you as his own,’ Glitonea said, as if Faye’s will was secondary to both kings, and as if Finn’s appetites were unquestionable. I will not, Faye thought, but she said nothing. Learning faerie magic is what will protect me from him.
‘I want power. I need power to be able to come here as an equal to your brother. I will not be his concubine,’ she replied, thinking and none of that is a lie. Only not in the way that you think.
‘Be careful what you wish for, Faye Morgan. Though you are named like a fae, and claim to be half like us, the ways of the fae are dangerous for humans.’ Glitonea stared at her until Faye dropped her gaze.
‘I am half fae; it’s fair that I should learn its magic. That you should teach me,’ Faye stilled the nerves in her stomach and steadied her voice, meeting Glitonea’s gaze again. She couldn’t show fear; she sensed that the faerie queen would use any weakness against her.
‘I should do nothing other than send you back where you came from and let him use you as he wants,’ Glitonea snapped. ‘But your offer is interesting; the war with Falias goes badly for us, and we need whatever help we can get. However, the teaching of magic to mortals is forbidden, so no-one can know of our bargain. I will teach you here in my quarters; call me at the tideline and I will come for you. Is that agreed?’
‘I agree,’ Faye said, steeling herself. She had come too far now to go back, whatever the cost..
‘I seal our agreement with my kiss,’ she said. ‘Now you kiss me and say the same thing.’
Faye repeated the promise.
‘Finn mus
t not know,’ Glitonea said as Faye’s lips touched her right cheek. ‘He would not like me to be giving you our secret power. You are his lover, and faerie kings dislike their lovers to have much power at all,’ she said in a low voice, as if someone might be listening. ‘While you are with me, you must not leave this room unless I show you where to go or I am with you. He will not know you are here; my quarters are protected with my magic. But go anywhere else in the kingdom, and he will know. And, outside these rooms, you will feel the effects of his enchantment upon you. You know how that feels by now.’ Glitonea’s blue-black gaze was penetrating. ‘Do you understand? Not even for a chance to win the war will my brother change his mind about you. I, fortunately, am clearer-headed,’ she said, quietly. ‘And, when you come back to be his lover,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at Faye when she opened her mouth to disagree. ‘When that happens, you must not lose your head and tell him the magic I have taught you.’
Faye nodded. ‘I understand,’
She would not tell Glitonea the truth, that she would never go back to Finn. The faerie queen was being disloyal to her brother by teaching Faye magic. Perhaps she was so intent on masking her own betrayal from her brother that she did not detect Faye’s duplicity.
‘Then we will begin,’ said the faerie queen, and the flames in the lamps around the walls glowed bright, filing the chamber with blinding incandescence.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Glitonea took Faye’s hand and led her to the golden table and the ice sphere. As well as the sphere which hung above the table, not tethered in any way that Faye could see, the table held a large golden chalice, the bowl of the cup easily a foot wide, and engraved with the familiar spirals that were everywhere in the castle. Yet on the chalice Faye recognised the alchemical symbol for water, the triangle with its point facing downwards. The cup was half-full of water which glinted silver in the odd light, and Faye saw a seven-pointed star engraved on its front. Alongside the large chalice, seaweed and shells were strewn on the table.
‘This is the castle of Murias; the cup is its magical symbol and greatest treasure,’ Glitonea said, watching Faye’s face as she admired its beauty. ‘This is where you will learn our magic,’ she gestured to the altar table. We have made our bargain. I will teach you the magic. Whether or not you can wield the power is another thing.’
‘I’m a quick learner,’ Faye said, gazing into the golden chalice, where images formed and bled into each other as the candlelight flickered on the water. ‘You’ll only have to tell me something once.’
‘Fine,’ said Glitonea, and waved a censer of sweet-smelling incense over the top of the chalice. ‘Then pay attention.’
As Faye gazed obediently into the chalice, and as Glitonea chanted strange words in an odd, ancient-sounding language, something shifted. The perspective in the castle room changed, and she found herself either tiny, inside the chalice itself, or the chalice itself was suddenly impossibly large. It made Faye think of Alice in Wonderland for a moment.
Yet, as she looked around, the room was at normal proportions; it was the chalice that had grown, and she found herself inside it as if she was in a deep golden pool. The water was cold, but not freezing; with her feet on the bottom of the… cup? pool? she didn’t know – the water covered her naked shoulders. Her dress and boots had disappeared.
Glitonea stood outside of the chalice and stretched into it, pulling a crystal wand over the surface of the water.
‘So is the test of water also the healing of it; so is the magic of water,’ she intoned, and drew a seven-pointed star on the top of the water. As she did so, the star lit up blue and Fay felt the temperature of the water change, warming to something more pleasant than the initial cold.
‘See your power on the surface of the water,’ Glitonea instructed, as images and sequences, symbols and faces came up as if from the bottom of the chalice, breaking onto the skin of the water like drowning faces fighting for air. Faye stepped back, horrified at the effect, but Glitonea held her shoulders and forced her to stay where she was.
‘No,’ she said, firm but not unkind. ‘You must do this. To have the power of Murias you must accept your shadow and heal it. Our power is different to that you have been taught, but you must welcome it in. You must integrate your fae and human self to have the power you desire.’
Faye recoiled from the faces that were pushing through the water, but she took a deep breath and gave herself over to it.
On the surface now, the faces were becoming familiar. They were women’s faces, and, Faye realised, they bore a common resemblance to hers. She watched as the features morphed from one woman to another: sometimes a longer nose, sometimes the hair a different colour or style, but all of them somehow similar.
It wasn’t until Grandmother’s face blended into Moddie’s and then hers that she realised she was seeing her ancestors; an unbroken line of Morgan women, stretching through the years like a ribbon unrolled. Her voice caught in her throat.
‘Oh… I…’ She didn’t know what to say, and felt tears come.
‘Don’t fight it. This is your magic. Take it.’ Glitonea’s hands on her shoulders felt more like support rather than restriction now, and Faye was grateful for them.
In the water, the Morgan women clustered around Faye, wanting to be acknowledged. Wanting to give her something of themselves. Each one held out a gift, and she knew that she had to take them all, even the things she didn’t want to receive.
Some of the women held out bones and skulls. Some held spheres of light or swirling darkness. Some gave her plants and flowers; some handed her crude figures that appeared to be crafted from mud and old pieces of cloth, or swatches from their dresses. Everything she took was made of water and disappeared as soon as she held it, but she had the sense that she retained all the gifts somehow; each was like a memory, firmly committed into her ancestry. She took it all, going around and around in the chalice until she had taken everything that the women had to give. And, at last, she stood at the centre with them around her, and they stepped forward, into her.
It was disorienting, terrifying and beautiful at the same time; Faye heard Glitonea’s voice in the distance telling her to accept, just accept this. So she did, opening herself to her ancestors’ spirits which didn’t possess her as much as reconnect themselves with the traces of them that already existed in Faye. We were always with you, they said, the mothers and grandmothers that had helped shape every single part of who Faye was. Whose breath was in her lungs, whose blood ran in her veins, whose weaknesses and strengths were hers. They surrounded her in circles, four or five deep and radiating out, outside of the chalice and into the walls of the castle. Faye had the sense that the mothers went on forever, and that from now on they would always be watching over her, loving her, supporting her so she would never feel lonely or unsupported ever again.
She felt their embraces and closed her eyes, secure in the love of her grandmothers. It had always been there, waiting: Glitonea had merely shown her the way. And she was only dimly aware of Glitonea snapping her fingers, making the chalice shrink back to its ordinary size back on the altar, returning Faye back to normal, standing beside her in the faerie castle.
Chapter Thirty
‘We are in Murias, Realm of Water. In the middle of the four faerie kingdoms, over the four crystal bridges stands the Crystal Castle of the Moon. That is where She who is the Highest Power resides,’ Glitonea intoned, a week after her first lesson. There was no asking how Faye was; the faerie queen was patient with Faye, but there was a remoteness about her that had no conception of human niceties like small talk. As before, Faye had summoned her at the tideline, this time at the half moon, and Glitonea had transported her to Murias in a moment of swirling hyper-reality. It was nothing for her, a faerie queen, to transport Faye to her quarters. She was all-powerful, and Faye shuddered at the thought that Glitonea could summon any human to her whenever she wished, and keep them there for as long as she desired. She did not seem to n
eed the help of any enchanted jewels or magical tools.
Not having had to fight so hard against Glitonea this time, as they had already made their bargain, the process was far less exhausting for Faye, but the summoning, with its spiralling, all-encompassing power, was as difficult as before.
The week in between had been tough. Faye was increasingly wary of Finn’s threat to her and to Rav, who she was still avoiding, as well as yearning to learn more from Glitonea. But the faerie queen had forbidden her from doing so until at least a week had passed. The integration of her ancestors would take a long time to settle into her energy field, she said, and Faye had felt it. Every night she had vivid dreams that were sometimes nightmares; more than one night she dreamed of Grainne Morgan at the stake, making her escape into the sea. She was grateful for the mundanities of the shop; deliveries, customers, pricing and arranging the window display. It had made her feel almost normal.
‘I thought there were four faerie realms. The four elemental kingdoms?’ Faye said.
‘There are four kingdoms. The Crystal Castle is not a kingdom. It is the centre of our realms. Morgana Le Fae herself; Mistress of Magic, my sister, the Faerie Queen of the Silver Moon, lives there,’ Glitonea answered. Today her golden hair was loose and completely straight; she wore a silver circlet that dipped down in a point onto her forehead, and her gown was diaphanous and black, tethered only at the shoulders with clasps in the shape of crescent moons, jewelled with diamonds.
‘She’s… like an empress, then?’ Faye was confused.
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