by L. E. Bross
“I saw what happened to your mom, Mer. I’m so damned sorry. I shouldn't have left you alone. I wanted to keep you safe and instead I left you vulnerable. Your mom, Merlin, neither deserved what Katrina did to them.”
He pulled back enough to search my eyes, looking for any kind of blame. He’d find none.
“I made sure the bodies would be taken care of. Kalian said he’d have Evelina send someone. I knew you’d want that for her, I know you loved her despite everything she’s said to you.”
I tried to hold back the sobs of relief. He knew the version of me that I kept hidden and he knew that no matter what, mom was my family and she was all I had. And he made sure my mom wouldn't rot, a nameless corpse.
I pressed my lips to his. A kiss was all I had to give right this moment.
“Thank you.”
“I just wish…”
I stopped him before he could continue. It wasn't fair that he blamed himself. There was so much more going on that no one could have predicted. That I never thought possible.
“It’s not your fault. Katrina would have found me anywhere. She said…” I shuddered remembering the things she planned to do to me. The things Nephaste did to her. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against Torin’s shoulder. “God, the things she was going to do to me.”
“You don’t have to say it. I saw what was left of her and I know Nephaste. He has a way of extracting truth and is known for his special brand of punishment. In that regard, and only in that, am I grateful he found you.”
I sucked in a breath. Nephaste had to know it was Torin who helped me escape.
“If he finds you…”
Torin chuckled. “Rules, Mer. We’re both Dark Royals. He can’t touch me without the Queen’s direct approval. I’m safe but more important, so are you now. It killed me to walk away when you were so close.” He pulled back and looked into my eyes, his gaze pained and relieved at the same time. “I will never let you out of my sight again, I promise you.”
He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine. My heart exploded. We’d kissed a hundred times before, but this time felt different. For the first time in my entire life, I felt truly loved.
The sounds of a fight intruded on our perfect moment, and Torin pulled back, brushing my hair from my face. He glanced over my shoulders and then back at me. Alianna had long since disappeared. My heart leapt at the shimmer of hard protectiveness in his eyes. For once in my life, the burden to live wasn't only on my shoulders.
“We need to go. The Druids won't be able to hold them back for long. The Hounds may be stupid but they are numerous and unrelenting.”
“Where can we go?” It seemed everywhere we went, something evil found us.
“There's only one place where you will be safe. I have to take you home,” he said. “Your real home.”
My pulse jumped with relief until I realized he didn't mean New York. He meant I had to go back to the gray castle. Alcaria. Weight settled on my shoulders, but I knew I couldn’t stay here. If it was the only choice, then I had to do it.
“Okay. For now.”
I took his hand, and we sped through the trees with Torin guiding me. I had no idea what I’d do once we reached Alcaria. I still had no memory of the place where I was born, no ties that made the place feel like it was mine. But if I could be safe there, if only for a short time, then Alcaria was where I needed to go.
It only took minutes to reach the line where living stopped and the dull gray stone began.
“Are you sure we'll be safe here?”
We walked into the cold dead castle and a shiver passed over me. It was bone chilling here, like walking into a graveyard in winter. Not so much the physical cold as much as the deadness of everything. The eerie quiet that permeated everything, right down to the floors. Even our footsteps sounded dull and lifeless.
“We safe for now.” Torin led me down a long hallway to a door that had been frozen open. “There is still a lingering protection here. You’ll be cloaked for the time being. Look around if you’re curious. I'm going to check the perimeter and I’ll be right back.”
I made a noise of protest, and Torin cupped my face. “I swear you’re safe here and I will be right back.” His warm lips covered mine and I relaxed. Just as he started to move away he stopped and turned. “Not that I mind your outfit at all, but you might be more comfortable in this.”
He moved his hand and my clothing shifted right on my body. The warmth of material covered my skin. My mouth fell open and when I glanced at Torin, he was smirking. The leather pants and bustier hugged my body and black boots that buckled all the way up to my knees encased my calves.
I felt like a badass vampire hunter.
I kinda loved it.
He kissed me once more and strode away, leaving me to myself in this strange place that was supposed to be my home. The unnatural silence closed in as soon as his footsteps faded. I felt watched, but there was no one around that I could see. Steps led down to what had to be the garden where a huge fountain stood in the center. A cherub holding a vase had frozen while pouring water into the base.
The silence was deafening. Nothing stirred. There was just...stillness.
Even the air was unmoving; not even a breeze brushed my skin.
The faintest whisper of sound reached my ears and I paused, trying to figure out where it came from. As I wound my way through a tangle of dead branches, it occurred to me it might be a trap, but Torin said this place was protected and nothing could get to me here.
And he had to be within shouting distance.
Bravely, I stepped around to the other side of the fountain and there among the stone roses...
“Kalian?”
“Princess? Thank the fey you're okay.”
He cringed and shame filled his face.
“I saw Katrina take you but I couldn’t fight so many. I couldn’t protect you. Torin said he’d find you, that he’d bring you here. I’m so glad you’re safe, Princess.” He shifted and his tortured gaze met mine. Pain radiated from his eyes and he groaned. His feet, gray and hard, were cemented to the ground. His wings fluttered behind him but he could not lift off the ground.
I took a step closer to him.
“What can I do? Tell me,” I begged him. “If you cross back over will you be safe?”
He shook his head. “Once it starts there is nothing you can do. It's not bad. I've spent the last ten years in your world made of stone. I'm sort of used to it.” His pained laugh fell between us. “And you’re home now, that’s all that matters.”
I bit back the sob. Agony flashed over his face, and I watched in horror as the stone crept up his thighs, turning the warm vibrant flesh into drab gray stone. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. Kalian claimed I had the power to save Alcaria, to save him, but I had no idea how.
My life was a huge blank canvas before the age of eight.
What if I never remembered?
What if my mom’s death, Kalian turning to stone, was for nothing? I owed it to them to at least know why. I moved closer to Kalian, tried not to notice the way his golden skin had started to lose its light.
“Tell me about myself back then.”
A brilliant smile lit up his face. I laced my fingers with his and held tight.
“You were very young and beautiful. Everyone in the kingdom adored you. Laughter and love followed wherever you went. You made people smile,” he said lost in a memory.
The picture he painted made my heart ache. It was the life I dreamt about in the darkest hour of night, when the shadows writhed around me and I wanted to give up. Tears burned the back of my eyes, and I turned my face before he saw them. I didn't want him to stop talking.
“Your father was killed on his way to the UnSeelie Court. He had gone as an ambassador for peace. Our people believed in harmony. We were all so tired of the fighting. Several of the Dark Courts felt the same. Your mother disappeared soon after and we heard nothing more from her after that. We don’t k
now if the Queen is alive or dead.”
Katrina's words came back to me. She had wanted my mother to suffer for eternity, which indicated that she was alive somewhere. But Katrina was dead and we would never know the truth.
“What did they look like? My…parents?” The question came from somewhere deep inside. A desire to remember something, anything. Every memory I had was tinged with despair and darkness, of a life that was never really mine.
Kalian smiled. “They were beautiful people. Kind, fair rulers and full of life. You look so much like the Queen, Princess.”
I looked like my mother?
No one had ever said that to me before and now I knew why.
Unwinding my fingers, I stepped a few feet away, looking over the muted hills in the distance, hoping for a tinge of familiarity. Though it was lifeless I could almost picture the way it would look bathed in color. In life. I wanted to remember so badly that my body ached with it. Tears streamed down my face.
Why were the memories lost?
Kalians' gasp made me turn back towards him, and I watched as the stone crept up past his thighs, turning the vivid colors of his clothing to the same dull gray as everything around us.
He panted through each breath, his face bunched in pain.
“No, there has to be a way to stop this. There has to be something I can do.”
He shook his head and then looked into my eyes. “The only way to save me, to save all of us, is to accept who you are. Become the ruler we need, Princess Meri. When you do, all of this will be restored. Your kingdom will come back to life.”
For one moment I contemplated it. I imagined that I was the one who could bring back life to this place. That I could save Alcaria and Kalian and even myself. For one blink I let myself believe it was possible.
I looked around the garden. So much like the Wildflower Meadow, like the ground around the spot where I’d taken life from the living earth. There was a darkness inside me that I couldn’t ignore.
Alcaria needed someone good, someone filled with light. Someone who would never take from this kingdom. It was a promise I could not make. I left for a reason, and maybe that was why. Maybe I knew even then.
I can’t be what you need.
I didn’t say the words out loud. Could not bear to see the disappointment in Kalian’s eyes. Not when he was so close to the stone death of everything around him. I made no promises I knew I’d never keep.
He reached for me, and I wrapped the warm flesh of his fingers in mine. It nearly killed me to see the hope and expectation in his eyes. I held his hand until there was nothing but stone under my fingers.
And when his bright blue eyes finally faded to dull gray, I only felt a profound rush of sadness and relief. I could not let him down now.
I went back inside, leaving the statue of Kalian in the garden. My footsteps overloud on the stone as I walked the halls filled with more strange human-like statues. They were life-sized with familiar, identical expression on their faces. They were scared.
I could feel their panic as if it were my own.
Stone abraded my fingertips as I ran my fingers over each one. So cold and rough. Kalian, he had been so alive here until the curse took him. I couldn't help but compare him to the frozen faeries surrounding me. They had all been full of color and life once too.
Draw by something I could not name, I climbed two flights of wide stone steps then stepped into a light filled room. Floor to ceiling windows allowed sunlight to flood into every nook, leaving no place for monsters to hide. A child's bedroom. My heart lurched, and I staggered back a step. I fought down the wave of nostalgia and moaned at the burst of pain in my chest.
I didn't want to know this room but I did.
I stared at the toy chest sitting by the foot of the bed. It held an assortment of stuffed animals that used to come alive and dance around the room with me. I froze. How did I know that? Nostalgia flooded my body and almost brought me to my knees. I shook my head to dislodge the memory, but it stuck there. I didn’t want to see anymore. I fled the room, running down the hallway as fast as I could go.
Somewhere in the castle, I heard Torin call my name.
I dragged the back of my hand across my eyes. I didn’t want to see him yet, not with the rawness of a memory coating my skin. I ducked into a room to the left and pressed against the wall, waiting to see if he would find me. Seconds passed and there was no sound except the pounding of my heart.
My gaze reluctantly moved over the room, and air stuttered from my lungs.
There on the far wall was the proof I could not deny.
I moved as if in a trance until I stood before the painting. Even in monotone gray, I could see the details, I knew the faces. Warmth flooded my body. The scent of jasmine tickled my nose, a distant memory that was so close now. The woman's smile took my breath away and the way she looked at the man was almost too intimate to see. If not for the child between them, it would be the kind of painting that should hang in the privacy of a bedroom.
I knew the moment I saw it. My parents. Tears flowed over my cheeks unchecked. All I could do was stare. The happy people within this gilded frame were my real parents. The angelic looking child was me.
My knees buckled and I sank to the floor, covering my face with my hands.
My shoulders shook from the force of emotion flooding through me. Along with the pain something else emerged. Something I had doubted up until this moment. Once opened, the deluge would not stop no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyes to stop it.
Because I could no longer deny what everyone tried to tell.
Because I remembered everything.
Chapter 13
I was eight when I went through the archway for the first time.
Everything had seemed so beautiful and exotic on the other side. The foreign noises, the strange smells. I followed a pathway that led away and found a woman sitting on a bench crying. I crossed into the human world to hide, to escape and never go back to the place that held violence and sadness.
My father was dead.
My mother was missing.
All over Alcaria people mourned, but they looked to me for leadership. All I wanted was the security of my mother’s arms, the whisper of her lilting voice in my ear telling me everything was okay. Instead I got panic and sudden rules that I was to follow and guards and restrictions. It was all too much and I ran away.
The woman looked up and wiped the tears from her face.
“Are you lost?” she asked.
I liked the sound of her voice. It made me feel safe. So I enchanted her mind and made her believe that she was my mother. I needed a new mom in this strange world. It seemed the perfect solution to my young mind.
So we went home.
Home turned out to be a dirty apartment with no electricity and barely any food. The woman was so unhappy that I wanted to help her, so I stayed. Except that over time, I lost myself, lost my ability to remember who I was and where I was from. I had been cloaked so well that it stopped being a disguise and became who I was.
When I started drinking to ward off the shadows, the memories disappeared forever.
It all slammed into my mind with the force of a hurricane. Everything from the moment I stepped out of the arch until I lost myself in the oblivion of drugs and alcohol. It wasn't my entire life, but it was the small part that held the answers to questions I didn't know needed answered.
It was the part that mattered most.
It was clear now my mom wasn't really my mom, though I couldn't make myself give up on that memory just because I remembered. The woman who raised me did the best she could, and I did what I could for her. It was no one's fault who she was. Who I was.
Except it was my fault she was dead now.
That thought weighed heavy on my mind.
The woman in the painting was a stranger to me. I remembered the feel of her touch, the sound of her songs, but the person she was eluded me. That part still lay buried somewhere I hadn't fo
und yet. I stood, my knees still shaky, and walked closer to the family. My fingers traced over the lines of the man, my father. It felt so strange to even think the word.
A noise at the door made me jump, but I knew who it was without turning.
“You were there. I remember you came through with me. You held my hand,” I whispered.
“Yes,” Torin said. “I was with you the whole time.”
“Why?”
I still had not turned to look at him, too intent on the people in front of me. I had my mother's hair and eyes. Strange to finally see someone who I resembled.
“You were eight. You needed someone to look out for you.” As if that was all the explanation needed.
“You weren't the Royal Guard. You weren't even a vassal of my family. You are a Prince, Torin—why would you do something like that?”
“You were mine to protect,” he answered and I finally turned to look at him.
“Yours? Light Royals do not belong to anyone.” Where had this regality suddenly come from? I cringed at the tone in my own voice, but he smiled.
“So like the Princess I remember. You were magnificent even at eight.”
“Who exactly are you, Torin?”
He opened his mouth to answer, something I’d never seen before shining in his eyes but before he could, another familiar voice interrupted.
“He's one of the five Princes of the Shadow Queen,” Nephaste said and stepped into the room. “As am I.”
He gave a short bow then stopped and leaned casually against the doorframe, his arms crossed. I honestly was not even surprised to see him here. He didn’t seem like the kind to take losing a prisoner well. My gaze danced between the two elves, so very much alike in stature and looks. So very different in attitude. But related?
“You're brothers?”
Nephaste laughed while Torin scowled at him.
“Hell no,” Torin growled. “My parents ruled the Twilight Court of Edaweil.”
“A Dark Court,” Nephaste threw in from the doorway.
“Yes, a Dark Court,” Torin ground out. “But with very different views of how things should be between us. Nephaste believes the realms would be better served if the Dark Courts ruled. I happen to agree with King K'Alil, that a truce, a partnership better befits our kind.”