by Amy Sumida
“There is still another treasure to be found!” Arach stood to announce.
Every head swiveled to stare at him eagerly.
“Someone here is carrying a ruby the size of an egg,” he went on.
“A Pilger's egg or a Joster's egg?” the High King asked, and everyone laughed.
A Pilger is a small, faerie bird, and a Joster is a large one. It was akin to asking if the ruby was the size of a robin's egg or an ostrich's.
“A pilger, you greedy king,” Arach said good-naturedly. “But that's not all. Our pixies will create a setting for the ruby to the specifications of the winner. Whether you wish a pendant or a dagger, they will make it for you.”
The crowd cheered. It was a huge prize indeed. The Pixies crafted amazing pieces of jewelry, accouterments, and weaponry from precious metals and jewels. Pieces that Arach sold for a high price. My dragon happened to be a fine businessman.
“How do we find this ruby egg?” King Fionn of Air asked, his monarch butterfly wings shivering with excitement.
“You must deduce who its bearer is,” Arach said simply. “I have enlisted the help of several people from each court to play roles in this game. Each one will hold a piece of the puzzle; lines of a riddle. After you collect all the lines, you'll be able to figure out who is holding the ruby. Now, you cannot just go about to every person here and ask if they have a line of the riddle. You must hunt for them as well. They will each have something on their person that identifies them as a riddle bearer; something relating to the prize. You must locate these items and secretly notify the individual of your guess. If you have guessed correctly, they will provide you with their portion of the riddle.”
“Devious!” Lugh declared. “I love it!”
“Be as thorough in your search as you like, but stay away from my wife; she's not a bearer and I will not put up with any searching of her person,” Arach advised them with a wicked grin.
The faeries laughed, some groaning in feigned disappointment.
“The game begins; good luck to you all!” Arach declared.
The game lasted long into the night, overlapping other activities. The Twins' were lavished with presents, had their birthday feast, and blew out the candles on their cake all before the ruby was found. It wasn't until late that evening, after the children had exhausted themselves by playing with the Twin's new toys and were tucked into their beds, and the adults were dancing beneath dim faerie lights in our ballroom beside the lava flow, that a shout of triumph pierced the soft music.
Everyone stopped their slow dancing and languid conversations to look over at Teharon. He hadn't been the one to shout; that had been Finn, who was pounding Teharon's back in congratulations. Teharon took the accolades with quiet delight as he held a crimson jewel aloft triumphantly. He turned and grandly presented it to his girlfriend, Karni Mata. The Hindu Goddess beamed at her lover, took the jewel, and then kissed him soundly for his generous gift. Everyone cheered for both the triumph and the kiss. It was spectacular theater, and the Fey loved drama.
“Well done, Dragon,” I said to my husband as I pressed closer to him.
American music played through the speakers Arach had installed in the ceiling; Hozier singing about worshiping his lover. The sound seemed surreal and anachronistic when danced to with the Dragon King in a faerie castle with a lava flow view. But I'd gotten used to such things a long time ago. Now, it just felt like home. Or maybe that was simply my dragon.
“Thank you,” Arach murmured. “I'm glad this day has gone so well.”
“And even more glad that it's night?” I leered at him.
Arach chuckled. “Does that mean it's time for us to take our leave?”
I looked around the room. Odin had managed to steal Isleen away from Lugh for a dance and was whisking her around the floor, but my other men socialized in groups around the edges of the ballroom; talking to faeries and drinking the strong, sweet fey wine. They looked content and comfortable enough for me to leave them to their own devices.
“After this song,” I said. “I love this song.”
“It's very poetic,” he agreed. “But a little sad. I'd prefer to worship you with abandon; no sadness involved.”
“I love you so damn much,” I whispered.
“I would do anything for you, A Thaisce,” Arach said as he nuzzled his cheek against mine. “And I can do anything. Remember that next time you need help in the God Realm.”
I let him have that last jab because I figured I deserved it. And Arach was right; I did need to remember that. I'd been thinking that I was protecting him when all along, he could have saved me.
“Maybe you should drill it into me again,” I purred in his ear. “Nice and hard.”
Arach groaned and swept me up in his arms. I guess I wouldn't hear the end of “Take Me to Church.” But that may have been my fault too.
I was totally at peace with that.
Chapter Forty-Nine
I nibbled Arach's neck and nuzzled his face all the way up to our bedroom. Nothing too scandalous, but he acted as if I'd been rubbing his erection the entire time. The cords in his neck stood out tightly, his breathing came in rough pants, and his dragon eyes glowed with passion. As soon as Arach kicked our door shut behind us, he was on me.
In a flurry of fabric, we rapidly divested each other of our clothing. Then Arach swept me up and settled me on our bed. I only had time for the briefest glance to the side to make sure that Dexter and his daughter, Deidre, weren't in the room. Dex was fine with us getting wild beside his bed, but Deidre could spook easily, and I had a feeling that things were about to get hot in there.
“I put their beds in the boys' room,” Arach said to my look as he joined me.
Dexter had brought his daughter to live with us when she'd gone through her first Winter shift and had needed some sanctuary. I'm not sure what had happened to her—if the other nurials had ostracized her or if she had just gotten scared—but I was happy to have Dexter's family with us. He had shared his bed with her, but they were both large nurials, and they didn't fit so well. I thought we'd get them a bigger bed, but Arach had given them each one of their own instead.
I was glad I didn't have to worry about them at the moment. My dragon husband looked as if he were ready to start an inferno. The first time I'd been with him, I was still learning to use my dragon magic, and I'd burned our bed to ashes. Arach had said that after I learned to control it, we wouldn't have to worry about burning the bed ever again. But he hadn't counted on how very passionately we would love each other. Control often went out the window when I was in his arms.
Arach crawled up my body, the muscles in his arms bunching and bulging in ways that drew my stare. But then the breadth of his shoulders and the sleek expanse of his chest beckoned my gaze down the horizontal line of his body to the hard shaft that strained for me. Arach's thighs shifted mine apart as he settled over me, and then he held my face within his hands.
“Open your mouth,” Arach growled in a low, sexy voice.
I shivered and did as he asked. He sealed his lips to mine and blew fire into my mouth. I inhaled his flames and shivered through the rush of magic and power they poured into me. When I had taken all I could, I pushed them back into Arach. He sucked them in greedily, his body responding with a forward thrust of his hips that slid his cock into my core. I moaned through the return of his fire, and he started to move inside me.
“A Thaisce,” he murmured against my lips, “I was wrong; you don't rock my world, you set it ablaze.”
I clutched his straining, bulging body to me as I angled my hips up to meet his. My fingers threaded through his hair, and I pulled him roughly down to my kiss. Our lips slammed together as our bodies did; tongues fighting before deciding to make peace and just stroke each other gently. I rolled Arach over and straddled him as I set my hands behind me on his thighs and leaned my head back. Arach's strong hands massaged their way up to my breasts and began to knead them as I ground myself onto him.<
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I lifted my head and looked down at his beautifully beastly face with its dragon eyes, deadly angles, and dramatic scales creeping down to his chest. The slick, glassy surface of those scales caressed my inner thighs as my own golden scales rose to the surface, drawn by my dragon king's desire and his fire. I stroked one path of crimson scales from his cheek to hipbone, and Arach shivered violently. My sex clenched around him in response, and he trembled even harder.
“How you undo me,” Arach murmured.
“And you put me back together,” I whispered as I leaned over him and demanded another kiss.
As we kissed, flames burst into life across my back and traveled down my arms. Arach's fire rose to twine with mine, and we were soon writhing in a burning bed. Amid the smoke and flames, we found the most savagely satisfying love together, and we clung to it and each other until our limbs were too tired to cling anymore.
Chapter Fifty
Arach and I had slept in a guest room instead of making our castle staff bring us a new mattress. Our faeries were busy dealing with guests and the festivities, and we didn't want to add to their trouble late at night. Despite the change in sleeping arrangements, Brevyn found us, and I woke to my son crawling into bed beside me.
“Hey, little man,” I murmured and then yawned. “Did you have a good birthday? Did you get everything you wanted?”
“I did. Thank you for inviting Thrud; I was happy to see her. And I love the remote-controlled car you gave me.” Brevyn hugged me.
“Good, I hoped you would.” I kissed his forehead. “I think you made Thrud happy too, and I don't think that happens too often.”
“No; it doesn't,” Brevyn said as if he knew her better than I. Which, he probably did. “But I need to show you something, Mother.”
Adrenaline shot through my body, and I came fully awake as I stared into my son's solemn face. Arach had perked up as well and sat up behind me.
“Okay,” I whispered and shimmied myself into a sitting position.
Brevyn crawled up beside me and leaned back against the pillow before he held his little hand out to me. I looked at it and once again wished this power had never found him. It had helped us numerous times, but I would have given all that up in exchange for Brevyn having a childhood free of horrifying visions. I had given Ull a fresh start only to curse him with prophecy; the one gift I hated. How ironic.
“Vervain.” Arach's hand grabbed mine and stopped me from taking Brevyn's.
Brevyn and I both looked over at him in surprise.
“I want to see the vision too,” Arach said to Brevyn. “Can you share it with me, Son?”
Brevyn nodded and climbed over my legs to sit between Arach and me. He held his hands out again; one to each of us. I looked at Arach over our son's head, and he nodded. He wanted to know everything and this was a chance for him to see it firsthand. So be it.
I wanted to prepare Arach for the shock of Brevyn's visions; how real they were. How, lately, they'd even followed me back into reality briefly. Brevyn's power had been growing. But Arach already knew all that; he'd seen me come out of visions often enough. We took Brevyn's hands together.
And the world changed.
Arach, Brevyn, and I stood on the shore of a lake. To our left, the land rolled out bleak and barren over low hills until it hit a gloomy mountain range capped in sooty clouds. One charred plateau held the ruins of a building, structural pillars poking up like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast. The blackened spears of a burned forest surrounded it, not a single spot of green to be seen. To our right, a cliff rose and an ancient castle crumbled atop it. Stones speckled the beach far below, the scars of their passage pocking the sheer cliff.
Cold air, filled with the scent of smoke, hit me but it was an old odor; the ghost of a massive fire. Oily ashes and charred debris sullied the surface of the lake but something beneath their dismal remains caught my eye. Bodies littered the lake bed; decaying corpses in shiny armor. I looked away quickly and glanced behind me at a desolate valley. Nothing lived there; not a bird, beast, or even a blade of grass. Everything was black and gray and dead. Even the earth looked scorched.
“This place looks familiar,” I whispered.
“It's Asgard,” Brevyn's voice fell hollowly from his lips.
“What?” I gasped as my stare raced across the lake to where an outlet led to the sea.
My gaze panned up to the top of the cliffs that guarded the passage and found them bare; the Guardian Stones of Asgard were missing. My head swung back to the right, and I realized that the crumbled castle atop the cliff was Bilskinir Hall. At least, it had been once. Now, it was just rubble. And that meant...
I turned to the left to take in the ruins of Valhalla. The Golden Hall was decimated, not a single shield left to gleam through the soot. The battlefield where the dead Vikings fought lay just beyond the ruins but had become indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape. I looked beyond it, to the mountains that stood between Asgard and Vanaheim. Had all the Nine Viking Worlds fallen?
“No,” was all I could manage to say.
“How did this happen, Son?” Arach asked calmly.
“War,” Brevyn said. “Among the Gods.”
“The Gods are already at war,” Arach protested.
“Not like this.” Brevyn shook his head. “Now, they fight over the humans but soon, they'll fight over magic.”
“Thor was right,” I whispered. “The Gods are evolving.”
“What does that mean?” Arach turned his attention to me.
“When we were dealing with Katila, Thor mentioned that magic changes; it evolves,” I explained. “He thought that it might be evolving into something that would allow the Gods to kill each other and claim magic from the dead like the spoils of war.”
“It's not that.” Brevyn frowned. “Not exactly. First, their magic separates.”
“Separates?” I ask.
“Right now, they are connected,” Brevyn struggled to explain. “They can kill each other but it's hard for them.”
“The magic strengthens individually, in each god,” Arach concluded. “There is your evolution, Vervain. The Gods will finally be able to kill each other without issue.”
Brevyn nodded. “And that's when they find a way to steal magic. She shows them how.”
“She?” I crouched down beside Brevyn. “Who?”
“I don't know.” Brevyn scowled deeper. “But I can feel what she does. She's so angry, Mommy. At you.”
I hugged him tightly as the vision faded away. When Brevyn called me Mommy, he was really upset, and I couldn't have that. We'd seen all we needed to see anyway, and I was glad Arach had gone with us. His presence had kept me from panicking. Now, Arach leaned over Brevyn and me; surrounding us with his the safety of his arms.
“Mommy,” Brevyn whispered, “I don't want Asgard to burn. I remember it. It was my home, wasn't it?”
“Once.” I glanced up at Arach, and his jaw clenched. “When you were another person. But this is your home now.”
“I know,” Brevyn said as he snuggled between Arach and me. “But I remember that home. I felt happy there. You have to save it, Mommy. Only you can do it.”
“Okay, honey,” I cooed at him and stroked his dirty-blond hair. It had been getting steadily darker, and I knew that one day, it would be the same color as mine. “Don't you worry; I'm not letting anyone burn Uncle Odin's kingdom.”
“Okay.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about the woman?” I asked gently.
“She rides with War,” Brevyn whispered and then shivered. “She carries Life inside her, but brings only Death.”
I nearly groaned. Why did prophecies have to be so cryptic and nebulous? My son didn't speak like that; like a prophet. It made wonder if he actually heard the words spoken to him and was simply repeating them. Brevyn would tell me everything he could so it had to be something like that. It made me frustrated and scared. Brevyn's gift of prophecy was supposed
to be an aspect of his borrowing magic; a way for him to know which magic would best suit him at any given time. But his Vision seemed to be taking on a life of its own. Perhaps it was changing like all the other god magics were.
Suddenly, I remembered Disani, Goddess of Fertility and Death. And if Qaus didn't rejoin her, Disani's only companion would be Gish, the Afghani God of War. A woman who rode with War and had Life inside her but brought only Death. Maybe Brevyn's prophecy wasn't so vague after all.
“You know who it is,” Arach whispered.
“I think I do,” I said. “It sounds like Disani.”