by Kendal Davis
“But you’re ok?” I wanted to reach out and touch him to make sure, but I didn’t dare. “And why do you keep saying the word ‘mortal?’ It makes you sound like you come from somewhere else.” I was aware that my brain was working slowly, but I couldn’t do any better. A sudden sense of total exhaustion overtook me.
“You’re not what I expected. More danger, less smarts.” He was wry. “Well that’s done it. You won’t be able to stay here now, will you?”
I wasn’t sure which reaction to pick from the several that crowded my mind. I started with the most pressing. “First of all, I have plenty of smarts. I just need a little more information about what just happened. What am I supposed to do? You’re fine, right?”
Frost looked at me solemnly. For once, he seemed to actually care about something. “You thought you had killed me. But it is impossible, as I am immortal.”
I checked his face to see if it was a joke. No. He was sad, not teasing. The line of his full lips made me want to close the short distance between us and kiss away his sorrow. If I could feel his arms around me, holding me close, then we could both heal from what ailed us.
That was nothing more than a crazy fantasy that evaporated as fast as it came into my mind.
Frost’s eyes were dark as he looked me squarely in the face. “I am immortal. But when you struck at me with your wildling powers, your wish to destroy traveled through every mortal connected with me.” He stopped, seeing that I understood. “I told you that I had set a spell on your Ms. Hatcher, and that she would wake soon in her car in the parking lot. Now she will not.”
“Oh no,” I whispered. “I never meant to do anything like this. My music is a comfort to me, not a weapon. This can’t be happening. I’m not a violent person, not really.”
“Your singing is the channel for your magic,” Frost said. “And you have now used your Voice to kill.”
“What will I do now?”
“You’ll get those music classes you’ve been wanting to take.” He chuckled faintly at my disbelief. “But not here, of course. You’ll be sentenced to human prison for this. Or you may come with me to Fae Academy. One of those two things.”
“You’re insane,” I snapped. “You can hardly say this will lead to jail for me. I can’t believe you have so little disregard for a person’s life! You’re the one who kidnapped her and took her badge. And you go on about ‘spells’ and ‘fairies’ like that means anything. You’ll have to plead insanity.”
“As will you,” he agreed amiably. “You mistake a great deal here. When I speak of the fae, that does not mean that we are talking of fairies. And you are too concerned about the teacher. She was but one mortal. These things happen.”
“They do not!” I hissed. “Where are you from that you think this is all right? No, don’t answer that. I don’t believe for a minute that you are immortal, or capable of magic.”
“Very well,” he said. He looked around as if he was waiting for something.
Somehow, he made it clear to me that he was all but tapping his foot until the next thing happened. I might as well not even have been standing there, for all the notice Frost paid me.
Then the thing he’d been waiting for arrived. It came in the form of another man who stepped out of thin air into the hallway. One moment he was not there, then he was. It was as if he had opened an invisible door and walked through it.
He was a tall, thin man, with none of the personal heat of Frost. The newcomer’s eyes were a similar green, but all resemblance ended there. Where Frost’s finely sculpted physique made me stare longingly at him when I was sure he wasn’t looking, this lanky new guy was more like the introverted foster brother I’d had once during a brief reprieve from the state home. Nothing about him inspired passion of any kind.
The man held his hand out with a businesslike demeanor. “Good evening, Arabella. I’m Martinus.”
I took his hand reflexively, but I also felt my face relaxing into a smile at the social norms. It was nice to know what to expect.
Then I remembered that I had just killed a person, a woman that I knew personally, with my apparently untamed magic, and I thought I might faint.
Martinus nodded. “You are tired. I can see that.” He turned to Frost with a mixture of impatience and deference. “You have overstepped yourself, sir. I was named her Guide, not you.”
“And you did nothing,” Frost said quietly.
“Did I? Perhaps I was always meant to step in after you had made a mess of things.”
Martinus was direct. I revised my opinion of him upward. He might look young and slim, but he also looked like he knew what we should do next. I turned toward him expectantly.
He was still frowning at Frost. “If you’ll excuse us, Frost, we have an appointment with the Judge. I am not permitted to lie to the mortal, even to calm her. So we’ll just get straight to the point.”
The tall, dark-haired man whom I had almost killed shook his head. “You’ll bring me along. I command it, as your Prince.” Wait, he was magical and royal?
Martinus sighed, but he acquiesced.
As he lifted his hands from his sides, everything around us began to glow. This mild-mannered man had his own magic. Well, of course he did. After all, he had just appeared in an empty space in front of me. Was it possible that I was already getting over being shocked by these things?
He grinned at me with approval. “You’ll do fine, Arabella.” Then he sent a sour look at Frost, and wrapped all three of us up in the shimmering threads of magic that he wielded.
We were traveling. Transporting. It was impossible, and yet it was happening to me.
Just when I thought I could take no more, I felt my knees buckle. When I fainted, I thought it would be the calm Guide who caught me. He seemed to like me better. But it was Frost who gathered me against him, holding me close with his strong arms. His breathtakingly handsome features were twisted with worry.
Was it for me?
Chapter 4: Frost
If it had been up to me, I’d have taken the woman to Fae Academy right away. There was no point in bargaining with her. She had to come with us. It didn’t matter whether she wanted to.
But I knew that Martinus was right. He was her appointed Guide, not I. And there were protocols to follow.
We allowed her to sleep. She was exhausted, not only from the psychological effects of what she’d been through, but from the manifestation of her powers. Martinus and I stayed with her, taking it in turns to watch for intruders.
The cabin in the woods was mostly an illusion for Arabella’s benefit. I’d raised it with little effort last night when we arrived here. The cottage that she would see and experience was based on a stone ruin from a hundred years ago. It was a recognized stopping point for those on our journey from the mortal world back to our own.
When I awoke in the morning, however, I wished I had bothered to make a more comfortable place for my own rest. The ground was harder than I’d expected. Perhaps I’d allowed myself to grow soft after leaving my military post for my current duties.
I went to the bed we’d created for Arabella last night upon arriving here. She was still there, sleeping soundly. It was the sunlight that had woken me, not her voice. I would never forget that, now that I’d heard it in person. Watching her from afar had not prepared me for the pleasure of her physical company.
As I stood there, noticing the way her eyelashes swept down onto her pale cheeks, she stirred. Her unusually fair coloring was foreign to me. It was exotic and perfect, surprising and delectable. She was intoxicating. I leaned toward her, hoping I could steal a few minutes alone with her. Nobody would know.
Nobody could ever know how I felt about her.
My plans were dashed when Martinus opened the cabin’s door from outside, and ushered another man and woman of the fae inside.
I stood hurriedly, not wanting anybody to think I’d been looking at the mortal woman as she slept.
Martinus smiled, though. “She is
beautiful, is she not? I have watched over her all her life here in the mortal world, although she does not know it. She has always been very special.”
I turned stiffly toward him. “She is what I expected, at least to look at. Her powers are far stronger than I was led to believe. This plan of the Council’s is absurdly dangerous.” I could see that Martinus was unconvinced by my pretense that I had no feelings for her. He was so attuned to her that he couldn’t possibly miss it.
He made a polite gesture between me and the two fae who had just entered the little cottage with him. The man was a tall, severe-looking elder, his face just shy of being actually lined with age. Even the oldest fae did not age in that way. The woman was a slender fae with long, smooth silver hair and an air of the distraction of the intellectual.
“Prince Frost,” the Guide intoned neutrally, “I would like to introduce you to the Judge, and to Amaris of the Sisterhood.”
The slim woman allowed the moment to stretch out, just to make me uncomfortable, then she gave a low laugh. “Ah, Martinus, you need not present Prince Frost to us! We have known him since he was a dear, small lad.” She turned to the Judge. “Do you remember when the Golden Council first proposed Frost’s selection? There were some who disagreed with my choice, but I hold fast. He will make a fine Protector of the Realm now that he has come to it.”
The Judge inclined his head with respect. “Amaris, your judgment has taken us this far. I do not question it. Although choosing Frost as our Protector...my dear goodness, Frost...” For the first time, he smiled, sharing a secret joke with Amaris.
I tried not to roll my eyes at the way they talked about me. We fae were immortal, but we all had to begin our lives sometime. It chafed me to think that these two would always be my elders, always sure they could boss me around or discount me because they thought I was some sort of youth. I had always been older than my peers anyway. Some called me rigid, or even unfeeling, but I liked the way I lived. It wasn’t my fault that I’d had to leave the military to take my place at Fae Academy.
I glanced over at Arabella. She had opened her eyes, but looked as if she didn’t know what to say or where to begin. Her hands were tense against the smooth, white sheets. To my surprise, I realized that she was scared. She’d looked a lot tougher back when she was brandishing a wrench at me in the hallway of her workplace.
The Judge stepped forward, speaking to Amaris at his side. “The girl took a long time to come into her abilities. That does not bode well for any prospect of teaching her to control them.”
Amaris nodded. “At a quarter of a century, she appears to us as a flimsy ephemeral. But any fae would have come into her powers long before this. Asking anybody to teach her is to request almost the impossible. She is stronger than we expected, though. It may all come to fruition after all.”
From her bed, Arabella croaked out a few words, sounding like a frog. “I can hear you, you know. Can you tell me where we are?” She blinked, as if she thought could make better sense of things that way. I wanted to tell her that it wouldn’t help, but I held my tongue. She was sitting up now, looking at each of us as she evaluated the situation. “I didn’t come here in an ambulance, did I? This sure doesn’t look like a hospital room.”
Martinus answered her gently. “We brought you here from your school last night. Your workplace. There was an accident.”
As I watched, her memories came flooding back. Where her expression had been almost plaintive a moment ago, now it became combative.
“I remember now,” she gritted out. “But that was no accident. And I’m not the one who did it. Frost, here, he was the one who kidnapped Ms. Hatcher. He said he put a spell on her, but I don’t know what that really means. He’s the one who you should be talking to.”
The Judge considered Arabella. “He did place a spell on the mortal woman. I can read the traces of it. Frost, or I suppose I should say, ‘Prince Frost,’ if we are now in formal proceedings, merely froze her in time. It was temporary.” His mouth set itself into a firm line. “What you did to her was not.”
Arabella flinched slightly.
Amaris was no longer smiling. “Judge, I thought we were here as a formality. Not truly to decide this, so late in the game. It has been understood that she would manifest her magic and then come to us. She must be allowed to enter the land of the fae. I command it.”
The Judge shook his head. “She is in my jurisdiction now. That is the law of the fae, no matter what the Golden Council has plotted behind closed doors.” He placed an impersonal hand on Arabella’s forehead. “She is no longer feverish. Let us see if she can tell us what she remembers. Amaris, please give us light.”
Amaris was not as relaxed as she had been a moment ago, but she complied with the request. She lifted a hand, palm up, and conjured a gentle light.
The ball of golden fire did not flicker at all, giving testament to the power that Amaris commanded. It was difficult to work even the simplest spell in this land. And yet her power was nowhere near what we needed. We had come to bring back the mortal woman, our world’s last hope.
For just a moment, as I looked at the fire Amaris had created for us, I let my gaze linger on the older woman’s hand. The black streaks were still there. It looked as if she had put her hands into fire and come out smudged with the darkest ashes, then tried fruitlessly to wash herself clean. That was, in fact, an apt description of what had happened in her battle with the Darkness. She had come out better than King Regis, though.
The thought opened up a dull dread in my heart, and I covered it by turning away from Amaris. She knew what I was thinking, no doubt. She would not have let me see the marks on her hands unless it was part of her plan.
Amaris’s light illuminated the room more than the sunlight that filtered in through the single window. The cottage was a humble place, with rugs that appeared to be handmade from colorful rags. The stone walls were rough, meeting the low ceilings squarely. It appeared as though I had drawn from my studies of mortal fairy tales when I’d created this place with magic last night.
While I was lost in thought, I missed the moment that Arabella’s mood shifted. She’d woken up disoriented, but now she was lashing out in anger. Again.
“I can’t explain you people,” she muttered. “Obviously, it doesn’t make sense. But there’s some trick behind all this. You keep calling me a ‘mortal,’ and you say you have magic...” Her momentum evaporated as she looked at the golden light. She was perhaps remembering her recent adventures with teleportation.
Martinus was supremely calm. “We have the magic of the fae, as do you. I brought you here, of course. I am your Guide.”
“No, you’re not,” she snapped. “I’ve never seen you before. Or him either.” She jerked her chin at me. “You two just showed up at my work and grabbed me. Now, tell me who is in charge here.”
We all looked at Amaris, even though the Judge had just said he was in control. He might have jurisdiction over the legal matter of a mortal entering our land, but Amaris was the one who had hatched this plan. She still believed that she could vanquish the Darkness if she had the right tools.
When she spoke, her words were like chimes. “Arabella. We have waited for you for many years. The Council has heard your songs all your short life. And now you are here.” She gestured with one hand, making her rings sparkle.
“Where?” Arabella was insistent.
“This place is merely a temporary location. We have enchanted an old ruin in the forest to receive you. You are between the worlds right now. The question, however, is which way will you go?”
“I want to go home. Even if what I think happened was real. I don’t know who any of you are. Some kind of cult, maybe?”
Martinus was serious. “We understand that it is hard to take in what has happened. That is why I came here with you. I must testify to what I saw. That is my duty to the fae.”
“Testify? Like in a court of law? Oh, no. No, no. If I’m really in trouble, then I need t
o call a lawyer. I need to see a police officer. Why aren’t any of those people here?”
The Judge was impersonal and precise. “This is a court, of sorts,” he said. “I am here to determine your fate.”
Arabella’s hands closed into fists. She was not as confident as she wanted us to think she was. “You mean, whether I’m responsible for...what happened?”
“We already know the answer to that,” the Judge intoned. “What is in question is whether the land of the fae will accept you, now that you have taken a life.”
Chapter 5: Arabella
I was ready to bolt from the cabin to try to get away from these loonies. I couldn’t decide whether they were trying to con me, or if they were insane. Neither one of those sounded great to me.
But I’d seen them work magic.
Deep within myself, I was wrestling with admitting that I, myself, had worked magic. How could I explain that?
The Judge watched me as if he could read my thoughts. “We must conduct the business of justice. You are a dangerous person, Arabella. You used your fae powers to kill. There are only two choices open to you at this juncture.”
Amaris murmured, “I wish we had been able to work with you before this.” She turned to the rest of us, revisiting an argument a thousand years old. “We could have trained her, helped her. After so many years waiting for this, why did we leave her without aid?”
Martinus, answered politely. “She did have aid. I was there all the time, as you well know. But this was the only way to make sure she would be what we need.”
The hottie, Frost, stood to the side of the others, as if he was reluctant to get involved with them. They each had so much to say about what they wanted from me, but he didn’t speak at all. With a pang, I understood that it was his voice I was waiting for. He was the only person in this tiny cottage that I wanted to have anything to do with.