by D. D. Chance
“The ocean Fae who held them off used spectral fire, at least we know that,” Cyril put in. “That proved too great for the Fomorians to withstand. Spectral fire is part of human magic, but it’s a part the Fae could still work on their own. We have been using it since the original battle against the Fomorians.”
“But why did it still work in the time of my grandfather?” I demanded. “Why didn’t the Fomorians develop a countermeasure against the one weapon that had proven to be successful against them millennia ago? In all this time they’ve been scraping and struggling to regain a foothold in our lands, why didn’t they have an answer in mind if we hit them with the same weapon we’d used against them successfully all those years ago?”
Cyril sighed, lifting his hands in defeat. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We know only that an attempt was made in the year that Reagan Hogan was teaching magic to King Orin, and that the attempt failed after the king and the ocean Fae used spectral fire to return the Fomorians to their underworld realm. There was no subsequent battle—and the Hogan witch left our realm shortly thereafter, regardless.”
I shook my head in disgust. “We’ve accomplished nothing here. We don’t know why or how we managed to destroy our enemies, or whether spectral fire will still work. We don’t know how to reach them, to pierce the veil of their domain and fight them on their own territory. We know only that apparently, in the years since we successfully held off their attack on the Fae realm, they have gained a foothold in the monster realm, their foul magic creating the Riven District, bringing their darkness to a plane we had long ago abandoned to the lesser Fae.”
I curled my lip, thinking of the gloom-ridden outlaw territory that had sprung to fetid life in an armpit of the monster realm. How had my grandfather or my father after him missed it for so long? How had I?
“To be fair, the Riven District appears to have sprung up only in the last generation,” Cyril began. “There is no earlier record of it.”
“At least to our knowledge,” I shot back. “Yours, mine. Knowledge curated and sanitized by a foolish king. A frightened egomaniacal fool who I’m beginning to suspect was damned near mad to have left us at such a disadvantage. Mad or deeply damaged in some way.”
Only silence greeted that lament, and I sighed. Because the next truth was worse.
“And Belle still remains in the Fomorian underworld,” I said, my shoulders slumping. I had created portals for hours, opening into every corner of my realm, the monster realm, the Riven District. The pockets of the human world I could access. I could go no farther. The witches’ domain remained barred to me, though clearly they had granted access to our dire enemies. Belle had been among them, free to do whatever she wished.
Worse, what she had wished should have made me glad. She had seen me and raised her arms toward someone she’d thought had been me, never realizing she’d been duped by an illusion. I had been powerless to stop her.
Now that she was in the arms of the enemy, had she realized her mistake? Was she struggling now to escape? Or had she been swayed by whatever the Fomorian king was promising her? I had no doubt he was promising something.
“My lord.”
Niall filled the doorway, his second-in-command at his side. Both of them looked like dead Fae walking, Niall’s one working eye drooping beneath a mass of red hair that had been compressed into the form of his helmet. Beside him, Marta scowled at the disarray in the room, but wisely kept her mouth shut. Her white-blonde hair stood up in spikes around her angular face, and her expression was grim.
“Report,” I ordered.
Niall nodded. “Your army is assembled. We can launch an attack on the human witches’ headquarters where Belle was last seen at first light their time. Every calculation we have indicates we can take down the coven of the White Mountains with a single strike. Fire will sweep through their compound and hem them in, allowing us entry. We will need to kill them all, however, including those who help us, if any do. A single strike with no explanation, a devastating loss in a tragic fire, and the covens of the human realm will recover and move on, never imagining anything else was going on. If they are given to believe that their ancient enemies have returned, however…”
I nodded. “If the human witches are given to believe their ancient enemies have returned, then war will be declared and the Fae will be beset upon on two fronts, not one. Was that the Fomorians’ plan all along? Or did they have a plan at all? Was this simply a matter of opportunism, or some other strategy gone wrong?”
Silence greeted that question, because of course there was no answer. Once again, we were left with only questions.
“There is another way.”
I turned to see my cousin hovering in the corridor beyond Niall and Marta. Tall and regal, as dark haired as Marta was white, she was the perfect royal Fae in a crisis—more levelheaded than me, to be sure. My cousin Lena, the mother of one of the most magical young Fae in the royal family.
“Speak, Lena.” I gestured her in.
She slid around Niall, her golden-brown eyes filled with concern as she folded her hands regally at her waist, lacing her thin white fingers over the sweep of rich green satin. “You’re operating under the belief that Belle was sent to the Fomorian king with the blessing of the human coven, King Aiden. But what do we really know of the Hogan witch? She was driven by a singular desire to break free of the contract rightfully executed by her coven and the Fae. Perhaps the poison of her family’s pain was driven more deeply inside her than we realized. Perhaps she seeks not just to escape the Fae, but to destroy the coven who had enslaved her and her family—no matter who is harmed in the process?”
I scowled. Everything inside me rejected this, but I was not only king of my own person. I had my people to consider.
“Continue,” I said, swallowing my anger.
“What if you reached out to the head of this human coven?” Lena asked. “The high priestess who, by all accounts, hunted Belle down, trying to press her into the service she owed us? She could be an ally to you. And if the coven didn’t hand over Belle, if Belle entered the Fomorian realm on her own, then perhaps this witch will know the paths Belle took to reach our enemies. She could show them to you, too. Because Niall isn’t wrong. If we attack the coven, we will, in turn, earn the wrath of the witches. To avoid a full-scale war, isn’t it better to go in with honeyed mead than a rain of fire?”
“We cannot trust the humans—” Niall began, but I held up a hand. I hated everything about Lena’s suggestion, but it had a certain rightness to it.
“If we go in under the guise of negotiation and peace and are betrayed, there is nothing to stop us from destroying them at that point,” I allowed.
“Except you may be dead, yeah. Except for that,” Niall protested, but I shook my head. Belle had taught me enough about witches and their power. I could not be killed by the likes of a human witch, not anymore. And if I could not be killed, I could overcome anything they could throw at me.
“Who runs the coven of the White Mountains?”
“A woman named Cassandra Montebatten,” Lena said somberly. “She believes herself to be quite powerful. But it wasn’t she who found Belle after all these years, it was a mercenary witch she hired—so she’s not as powerful as all that.”
I nodded “Niall, prepare the army to storm the coven headquarters. I’ll go first to see what may be seen.”
“Let me go with you,” Lena said quickly, though she trembled with fear. “They may respond better to a female.”
“No.” I shook my head, appreciating my cousin’s bravery even if it was misplaced. “You belong here. You are the last of our line, Lena, and you have a son to protect. You and Alaric must stay safe.”
I sketched a portal and stepped into the human realm.
3
Belle
“I don’t believe you,” I accused, my mind scrambling to make sense of the king’s words. “You’ll say anything you think I want to hear.”
“T
hat’s not untrue,” Lyric agreed. With a wave of his hand, he settled me back to the floor, and I widened my stance to steady myself, swaying a bit as the blood rushed back into my feet.
The king gestured me closer. “Mount the steps,” he said in an almost bored voice that instantly put me on my guard. “Sit next to me.”
I blinked to see that the king’s throne was no longer the only chair on the dais. It had been moved slightly to the side to make room for another seat, one smaller and narrower, but every bit as high. I hesitated. Cassandra had told me that all I had to do to nullify the Fomorian contract with the coven of the White Mountains was show up on this king’s doorstep, delivered like the sacrifice I was. Well, I’d done that. What happened next was up to me. If I could escape this realm, I would be safe.
Of course, if the king could read my thoughts—which I knew he could—he surely knew that was my plan. My attempts to ward myself clearly hadn’t protected me all that well. So where did that leave me? Had I failed my mission before I began?
“Climb the stairs, Belle,” Lyric said again. “I can answer your questions better when I am not straining my eyesight to see you.”
I suspected there was nothing wrong with the guy’s vision, but I mounted the stairs anyway, hesitating slightly as he gestured to the chair next to him.
He lifted a brow. “Would you rather sit in my lap? Because I could arrange that.”
I stiffened as I felt my feet lift off the floor again, and with a small cry, I jerked away, lunging for the smaller throne. It was covered with pearls inlaid into the stone, its seat cushioned with a pillow of white velvet and its back made of heavily carved silver. Feeling awkward, I climbed up into it, then turned and seated myself. I had never done this with Aiden. There hadn’t been time and to be fair, Aiden hadn’t wanted me to be his queen, merely his wife. But within the first few minutes of meeting me, this was what the Fomorian king offered me without fanfare. A seat on the throne beside him. A place of power.
And then there had been the vision I’d had of Aiden standing next to a tall, elegant woman, half a head taller than me, whose face remained obscured. Who had he chosen to stand beside him, if not me?
I couldn’t focus on that now. King Lyric shifted toward me, holding out a heavy hand. “A physical connection is the easiest and fastest way for me to share my story,” he said when I hesitated to take it. “Take my hand, or I’ll start thinking up other ways to touch you that might be more interesting.”
I flashed a hard look at him. “You wouldn’t dare. Aiden would rip through your castle and then he’d rip out your throat, killing any of your people he could reach along the way.” Even as I delivered the rebuke, I blanched. Aiden would do that, I suspected. He would bring fire and storm to destroy everything in his path if it meant he could reclaim me.
How had I not seen that before?
The king shrugged, apparently oblivious to the dire image I painted for him. “I have foreseen many futures where Aiden does exactly that. Why do you think my path to free my people has been so slow and arduous? It has taken millennia of waiting for a Fae king who views anyone outside the realm of the high Fae as worthy of attention, as something more than a tool.”
A smile flickered over his face as he considered me. “It was the actions of your great-grandmother that put this little pageant in play, Belle Hogan. With the cessation of the flow of Fae gold to your coven, the witches of the White Mountains were at a crossroads. One they did not enjoy.”
I stiffened. “They weren’t my coven. They betrayed my family.”
He shrugged. “And in that betrayal, they got rich. Rich in a way that set them above any of the other covens, and they guarded that power jealously. When the gold stopped, it was easy to catch their interest.”
“I thought… Cassandra said they reached out to you.”
“And you believed her.” His mockery sent a sliver of shame through me, and I remained silent as he continued. “Once we established a connection with the human coven, I needed only to present a solution that would begin increasing their wealth again, though, of course, with stipulations. A contract was drawn up, one they did not regret right away. One I was happy to keep secret as I watched the realm of the high Fae diminish in magic and power. Meanwhile, I made my own small inroads into the lesser realms to gain a foothold for my people. Then you showed up, the Hogan witch refound and recommitted to her purpose, and put the coven into yet another awkward position. Because my gold did not stop as Fae gold began, and so much magical wealth flowing into the human realm at one time was bound to be noticed.”
I frowned. Cassandra hadn’t mentioned any of this, of course. She’d said the coven of the White Mountains had contracted with the Fomorians, but not that they’d been double dipping in enchanted gold from two different sources. “You’re continuing to pay her even though I’ve returned to the High King’s family? Why would you do that?”
“Because my contract with the coven stated that Cassandra would keep the balance of power tilted in my favor. You being here allows exactly that. And nothing could be more damning to the White Mountains coven than if such an arrangement were discovered by the other powerful covens who have long cast a jealous eye their way.”
He chuckled at my scowl. “I am well aware that Cassandra sent you here specifically to break her contract with me, that she believed delivering you to me was all that was necessary to save her skin. There is much she doesn’t know about the Fomorians, much she believes she knows by modeling her understanding of us on her relationship with the Fae. But we are not just dark copies of the lightbringers, Witch Hogan. We are gods in our own right, moving through darkness and shadow. We sow our seeds of fear into humanity, certainly, but we also sow the allure of the night and all that it can bring. Who’s to say the other realms don’t need more darkness than they have, and who’s to say there aren’t witches who could wield that darkness to create a stygian beauty, not something to be feared?”
By now, I was openly staring at him. “Yo, I don’t know if maybe you’ve started sniffing the rock dust after so many years down here, but you’re totally not going to be given the freedom to blow up Earth again. You’re also not going to be able to waltz in and take over the monster realm, I don’t care what kind of AirBnB you’ve set up in the Riven District. You’re the sworn enemy of the Fae, the sworn enemy of humans too. No one’s gonna believe you’re coming in peace.”
“Well, you’ve got me there,” Lyric said, smiling as he tightened his hand around mine and edged closer. “But I think you misunderstand me. I have every intention of coexisting with other species, not ruling them. In the monster realm, we would still be the enemies of the Fae, and in some futures, we rise up and defeat them. Those would be glorious times. But in all cases, we live. That’s not something that is assured if we remain where we are. In fact, the greater probability is that we will die if we stay within the prison allotted to us. So you see how we have nothing to lose by striking out? If you would broker an arrangement for us with the Fae king that would allow us a foothold, one acknowledging that we may prove to be a danger, it would be to your benefit.”
I’d allowed my jaw to drop open during his little speech. I snapped it shut. “Are you insane? Why would I help you put yourself into a position that could harm King Aiden?”
He shrugged. “Because there are only two options left for us. We refuse to stay imprisoned any longer. Either we enter the monster realm through the path we have forged in the Riven District, or we flood across the human borders once again, taking the path of our gold. The latter is by far the easier path, and one we have cultivated for the last eighty years. Are you saying you’d rather us do that?”
I gaped at him, the first hint of true horror slipping through me. “What are you talking about?”
“Easing our way into human society has taken more skill than it did when we first discovered the entry points into your verdant world. It was a beautiful place back then, virgin and wild. We conquered those
tribes who were conquerors themselves, twisting their dark wishes to our ends. Today, with so much darkness roiling through the human realm, our work would be far easier. In many ways, we were born for your world a little too early. And now, with the help of your erstwhile coven, we can walk in at any place the Fomorian gold rests. You can be sure that Cassandra and her people wasted no time melting down the gold I gave her and passing it off through the black market solely for its magical properties. It’s everywhere now. And in those dark pockets, so may we be as well.”
“Uh-huh.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then why haven’t you already gone?”
His smile twisted into a grimace of self-deprecation. “Because I follow the ancient rules. It’s a dangerous habit of mine, but not one I’m going to change. According to Fomorian law, to make a move as bold as entering the human realm—or taking the battle to the hated Fae—I need proper incentive, suitable justification. I need to be attacked, you see. Provoked or called to the battle beyond all doubt. And what would drive the glorious, iron-willed, upstanding king of the Fae to break the ancient laws governing both our races to attack his most reviled enemy?”
Lyric was so close to me now, crowding me back in my silver and pearl-inlaid throne, that I didn’t see the clamps spring from the sides of my chair until after they secured my arms and legs. He wasted no time in leaning closer still.
“The Fae were always so jealous,” Lyric murmured. Then his lips came down on mine.
4
Aiden
The fourth portal I constructed proved to be the most successful. The New England countryside was blanketed in early dawn, one of the favorite times of the Fae to walk among mortals, and for good reason. We were creatures of the light. Whether that light came from the sun or from its reflection against the moon, it allowed us the vision we needed to see through the murk of human society. With one quick glance, we could attack, cajole, tempt, or coerce, depending on our needs.