Rogue's Paradise

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Principles were principles. If gravity applied here, so did basic laws of biology and form. If Rogue and I were similar enough physiologically that we could interbreed, then the rules I understood had to apply. The answer to all of it lay here. I just knew it.

  Including one to my newest question: Who was laying all the damn eggs?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In Which I Question My Answers

  Evolutionary change, in my understanding, occurs slowly over many generational iterations. In Faerie, however, with the profound influence of magic on the flow of time, evolution can be so accelerated, and organisms so long-lived, that evolution can occur within a single individual.

  ~Big Book of Fairyland, “Flora and Fauna”

  Not Titania.

  I was pretty sure of that. Ninety-five percent. It didn’t make logical sense. No, she wasn’t the mother, but the mad scientist. My monstrous reflection, running her brand of human trials on her own people, cross-breeding the sexually mature fae nobles with human to, what end? World domination, no doubt, but through what method?

  Also, where were the juveniles? I’d seen Rogue in his memories as a boy, but no others. Starling, too, had images of being a young girl, growing up at Castle Brightness. But then she’d been born human-style to Blackbird. Who had taken care of the young Rogue?

  The next cavern held part of the answer to that.

  Only a few eggs in this one, larger and set on the ground like stalagmites. More encrustation on these and larger forms inside. Child-sized. It gave me the chills, in that horror-movie way. I even found myself casting a nervous eye at the deeper shadows, half expecting the alien queen to emerge.

  The floor of this room, also that same warm rose color, gave me more of a clue. With more gaps between egg sacs, the surface showed itself to be not rocky, but fleshy, pulsing with the beat of fluids. The cavern wasn’t simply reminiscent of a womb—it was one. Spontaneous generation? I’d likely have to observe over time to determine that.

  Rogue took my hand and let me know we had to leave.

  I didn’t want to, but I had a great deal to contemplate as it was, so I let him pull me along. He did so slowly, at least, allowing me the opportunity to take in as much as I could as we drifted by.

  And there. Serendipitously, a grouping of pastel eggs hatched.

  Like minnows, the hatchlings poured out, swirling in a cloud and heading for the surface. I swam closer. A rush of sheer delight filled me. Few joys rivaled having a theory supported by experimental results. The hatchlings resembled tiny dragonfly girls, with bulging bellies. Following them to the surface, I saw them pop above the still surface, taking in their first breaths.

  Careful not to interfere, I observed from below. Also because Rogue stopped me from putting my own head above water with a stern warning. Probably I couldn’t breathe air and water at the same time. Alas.

  The dragonfly girl hatchlings drifted in a group toward a rocky outcropping. I imagined some sort of beach and crevasses, perhaps tidal pools for them to continue their next life cycle. From fish to amphibious to land-dweller. Though safe enough in this hatching cavern, like the enclosed nursery bays in my own oceans, they’d no doubt face danger once they emerged. Thus the large numbers of eggs and hatchlings. Without parental care, they depended on numbers for some individuals to survive to maturity.

  It explained so much about the fae culture. The careless disregard for life. That the lower forms of fae were simply another tier of the animal kingdom in Faerie. Only the noble fae fit the same top-of-the-food chain position as humans did in my world. Barely intelligent fruit, Blackbird had once carelessly dismissed the fairy girls like Athena.

  I mulled it all over as Rogue swam us out of the cavern. The fish thronging the outside, past the magical barrier, took on a sinister aspect. They were waiting to feed on the newly hatched that wandered out. Or who grew big enough to take their chances and seek the greater world. Probably the swollen bellies of the dragonfly girl hatchlings were part of the egg sac—nurturing them for a time as they grew.

  But they’d have to leave the safety of the nursery cave eventually.

  It made me sick and despondent to imagine those feeding frenzies, like the gulls swooping on the hapless sea turtle hatchlings as they made their long, desperate way down the glaringly empty beach to the water. Comfort brushed through my mind, much like the sensation of Rogue smoothing his hand over my hair, along with a sense of the baby elephant, heading into the desert.

  My thing, apparently.

  And he was, right, I couldn’t save them all.

  I could however, do those things that were in my power.

  The water grew dark again, that peculiar ink-black that was simultaneously as clear as glass. We popped up into the bathing chamber, the light of the familiar torches. I took in a breath. And couldn’t.

  My lungs weighed heavy, full of water and I panicked, turning blindly to Rogue. He lifted me, carrying me to the stones. I collapsed there, still unable to draw breath, unable to cough out the water as I knew I should. My ribs and sternum ached and terror filled me with the certain knowledge that, even should I wish the water away, my lungs would collapse.

  Rogue needed to help me. I showed him and he picked me up, bending me over one strong arm by the waist and thumping my back, so the water poured out. I managed a gasping breath and coughed, more water coming out of me, more than seemed possible.

  Finally, I could draw a deep breath again, the air burning the tissues of my lungs, as I lay on my side. Rogue sat beside me, rueful.

  “Well, that was a terrible idea,” he said.

  I shook my head. “You couldn’t know. I left my own amphibious phase behind a lot longer ago, physiologically speaking, than you did.”

  He cocked his head studying me, helping me to sit when I struggled to do so. “Sometimes I think that, if I just listen harder, I’ll understand the way you see things.”

  “But you never quite do? Welcome to my world.”

  His lips curved in a smile, but he looked somber. “Did you find what you sought?”

  “Quite a bit of it. Most important, I have new questions.”

  “And...this pleases you?”

  “Yes!” I laughed at his perplexed expression and knelt up to push the wet hair back from his forehead. “You see, half the battle is knowing what question to ask. Vague questions bring vague results.”

  He narrowed his gaze, sifting through my surface thoughts like fingers running through my hair. “What now?”

  “I want to look in your mind—for something specific. May I?”

  “Of course. What’s mine is yours, my lady.”

  A bit shaken by it, I realized he meant that literally. As much as I’d worried about being in his power, I’d neglected to fret over the sheer responsibility of his being in mine.

  “Imagine that—you forgetting to fret about something.”

  “Ha-ha.” But I grimaced in acknowledgment. Altering the position of my fingers, I touched them lightly to his temples. I probably didn’t need to do it this way anymore, as closely as our minds interfaced, but he’d first taught me this way.

  I felt more than saw his smile over the shared memory. How hostile and uncertain I’d been, standing between his knees while he coaxed me to look into his mind, to discover his true intentions.

  Forever ago and yesterday.

  He stilled as I went deeper, searching for that pivotal memory I’d caught that first time and several times since. Ah, there. Himself as a boy, running on the beach, feathers raining through the air. I knew where this went.

  I wanted to see immediately before.

  Patiently I retraced, stretching the edge of the memory bubble to before that intensely emotional event that etched this moment so strongly in his memory. It wasn’t easy. The memory wanted to play forward, to rush down the tracks to the center of its gravity, to the birds dying and Titania taking his hand.

  Rogue had grown tense under my hands, so I edged onto h
is lap, wrapping my legs around his waist, kissing him with gentle affection. He thawed, hands lifting to settle on my hips to support my back. It ached, I realized, from the swimming and the wrenching coughs. He kneaded the sore muscles and I dropped into his mind again, a sensation much like falling asleep while he held me.

  The memory scrolled on, playing that same reel. I edged it back again, coaxing. Running on the beach. The sand sharp against his tender bare feet, danger breathing just behind. The world so beautiful, so new. Glorious and terrifying. Massaging it back further, I found it.

  The boy, swimming. Limbs stroking through aquamarine water. A few others around him. Screams as the sharks attacked. Terrified, the boy swam harder, faster. Seeing the beach and striking out for it.

  Dragging himself out of the water and through the rocks onto the sandy shore. Climbing onto it and looking around. Amazement. Curiosity. Safety.

  And then the ravens.

  Enormous, with clawed talons and sharp beaks. They dove on him, raking wounds down his body, seeking to carry him off. So much huger than he. He ran. Ran for his life. The land felt wrong and hard on his weak limbs but something else filled him, radiant energy running in his veins.

  All of a sudden, he wasn’t so powerless. With vindictive rage, he lashed out, sending the magic—the coils of feral blue-edged black I knew so well, but raw and undisciplined—and vaporized the birds. With a thought he killed them all. All birds. Everywhere. The bubble pop of their nonexistence reverberating through Faerie, feathers swirling through the sky.

  He ran from that, too, a sick sense of horror settling through him.

  And Titania appeared.

  So beautiful in his eyes. Strong, lovely, shimmering with pink-gold magic. Far from being upset about the birds, she laughed and took him by the hand. “Oh, my powerful sorcerer boy,” she crooned, “come with me. We shall do great things together. I will protect you and care for you. Forever.”

  Rogue regarded me with his standard grave intensity. He’d learned not to care. Not immediately, but over the years and decades. As the magic infused his body, as he grew, matured and became eventually unkillable. That destroying the birds had been simply a careless demonstration of power. A young sorcerer, newly hatched, arriving in Faerie. Survival of the fittest in the extreme.

  And one of my first acts of magic had been to bring the birds back.

  “At least temporarily,” Rogue commented, following the thought. “I quickly sent them back to your world, before Titania noticed. Still—an odd coincidence, yes.”

  “When magic is involved, mere coincidence seems improbable.” Especially with Rogue and me, with the many uncanny ways our fates intertwined. Once I would have declared the concept of fate superstitious nonsense. These days...well, not so much.

  “There is that,” he conceded.

  “You know,” I said, cupping his cheek, “you were only a child. Very young mentally. Striking back at the birds that would have killed you was a natural impulse.”

  He turned his head to press a kiss to my palm. “I know that now. My fortune was simply that I had more power than I knew how to use properly. You would understand that.”

  I did. And though Marquise and Scourge had been my teachers, my lot paled by comparison to what Titania had put him through. The glimpses I’d caught were enough to steer me away from those memories. As I’d told Walter, some things were too private to share. Still, I hated that he’d been recaptured by her for my sake. That she’d hurt him again.

  “You needn’t worry about me as you are,” he continued. “Though your concern is far more gratifying than when you are full of suspicion, I don’t...experience things in the same way you do. Those memories don’t haunt me or cause me pain. Not like yours do to you.”

  Ah yes, this song and dance. He’d tried to persuade me from the beginning that he didn’t have real feelings. That none of them did. I didn’t buy it anymore.

  They experienced emotions, all right. Every last one of them. Just with the same distortion as all of Faerie—inside out, more brilliant, asymmetrical. The world I knew, mutated.

  By magic.

  Part IV

  Peer Review

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In Which We Do Much Strategizing

  I have long suspected that the war is nothing more than a game to pass the time.

  ~Big Book of Fairyland, “Falcon’s War”

  His obligation to me satisfied, Rogue called a war council meeting.

  Normally this should have pleased General Falcon and his commanders, who had demonstrated they loved nothing better. This time, however, not only was Rogue in charge, but their erstwhile enemy also sat at the table. General Fafnir, grizzled and dour as ever, arrived with an entourage of nobles I recalled from either the welcoming ceremony or the wedding itself. They ranged down one side of the table, Falcon and his staff, including Lord Puck and Lady Healer, down the other.

  Glowering at each other.

  Rogue and I sat at the head of the table in side-by-side chairs, which pleased me. Starling, Larch and Athena—who I’d insisted on having present, despite their nonnoble status—sat behind us, which I tried not to be irritated about. Marquise, Scourge, looking amused by it all, and Walter, back in his silver collar and clearly chagrined by it, sat a ways down, on “our” side.

  Darling Hercules sat on the table next to me, still preening from his gallant defense of the castle.

  “Is this all the noble fae?” I asked Rogue, as the others bickered among themselves.

  He cast an eye over the group of maybe fifty. “Excepting Titania, her loyal following, Incandescence, Blackbird and a few who keep out of society altogether, yes.”

  Very small pool, even if I figured on an equal number hanging with—or cocooned by—Titania. Not nearly enough to form a heterogeneous population for breeding. Of course, that followed the evolution of immortality, right? That piece must come later, however, since clearly many didn’t survive their hatching and emergence onto land. Only those with magic and strength—or luck—survived that transition.

  Once past that and without death, the population had to maintain itself in other ways, which meant zero to no reproduction.

  Except for Titania’s mad gambit.

  “I wish to register my continued complaint against our noble host,” Falcon cut through the initial chatter. “None of us can afford to be in contention with our noble and lovely goddess. This is Rogue’s problem. I say we leave him to deal with it.”

  “Agreed.” Fafnir flicked a glance at us and away. “Ever have we been on our own. Victory is not possible. Thus we should return to our individual pursuits.”

  Falcon slammed a hand on the table. “Exactly my point. And you two—” he pointed thick yellow nails at Rogue and me, “—still owe me assistance in my battles.”

  “And I wish to reclaim my sorcerer, as is right and just,” Fafnir proclaimed, sweeping a hand at Walter, who looked ill at the notion but manfully ignored his erstwhile general. “Now that Lady Gwynn has trained him for me, he’ll be even more valuable in the contest.”

  “He cannot beat the combined forces of my two,” Falcon sneered.

  “Ah, but my wizard calls the dragons his and, once the scepter is returned to him, then—”

  “The scepter shall not be returned,” Rogue declared without force but with implacable will.

  “And the dragons are mine,” I added.

  Falcon preened at Fafnir’s crushed expression.

  “Also, as you should well recall, Falcon—” Rogue steepled his fingers, “—we agreed that I would perform all magics, not the Lady Sorceress Gwynn. Now that we have combined our magic, such a separation is no longer possible. Thus the terms are moot and the bargain void.”

  Falcon’s turn to gnash his teeth in frustration while I turned an admiring smile on Rogue. He played a deep game indeed, if he’d planned for this that long ago. His face revealed nothing, but I knew on a profound level, he was pleased to have surprised me.<
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  “Then our war comes to nothing,” Fafnir said, looking bleak.

  “What exactly were the two factions fighting over?” I asked. “It’s never been clear to me.”

  “Victory,” Fafnir grated out.

  “To triumph!” Falcon pounded his fist on the table.

  They glared at one another.

  “It’s what we do, Lady Gwynn,” Puck said with a giggling lilt, nodding at me so the jingle bells in his ears chimed sweetly, “in lieu of other battles.”

  That showed a surprising amount of rational thinking—especially coming from Puck. His playful mien no longer distracted me. Of all of them, he’d always given me the wisest advice. Much like his mythical counterpart, the bringer of mischief, the wise fool who capered through and saw the most clearly. I smiled at him, grateful that he’d given me that wedding eve talking-to.

  “Which is why we are here.” Rogue picked up the conversational ball. Gone was the disinterested mien that he normally affected. “Blame me if you will, but you are cornered. Fight Titania you will. We all will. None of us has a choice any longer.”

  “Because of your game,” Lady Healer pointed out.

  Rogue simply regarded her with a cool stare and she looked away.

  “I did not make the game and well you know it. I’ve simply changed the rules. We must assume that Lady Incandescence has thrown in with Titania. If any of you wish to leave and do likewise, you may go. I’ll release you.”

  They all seemed shocked by that. Frankly, I was also. Rogue’s confidence could be daunting.

  “Good Titania, man!” One of Fafnir’s cabal exclaimed. I recognized his face, though we’d never met before. Titania had been wearing it as a mask for her masquerade ball, blood continuing to drip from the ragged edges. The last I’d seen, it had been gasping on the floor where she’d tossed it aside to attack me. Apparently he’d managed to retrieve it. An image I didn’t care to contemplate for long. “You know what she’d do to us!”