by Kate Kelley
“No,” Terrin said, “The ground and air doesn’t smell quite right here. I can’t feel the change in the air at all.”
Frey shrugged. “It doesn’t get too cold here and the leaves don’t change, it’s true. But we always have plenty of food. I don’t see a need for seasons.”
Terrin gave her a look. “Of course you don’t. The balance of nature here is sustained by gods’ magic.”
“And earth isn’t?” Lyra asked, perplexed.
“It is, but only through the expression of that magic through the throne. It works differently there. Seasons are needed to keep the earth at the correct tilt on its axis.”
Lyra and Frey stared at him as if his face had suddenly sprouted purple-spotted mushrooms.
Terrin shook his head. “Nevermind,” he mumbled.
Something cold whipped across Lyra’s throat, and she turned on her mushroom stool. A tiny twinkling blue light whizzed past her face, tickling her nose. The blue twinkle flashed, the sound like the snap of fingers and a tiny person stood on her knee, about the size of a spoon. As soon as it was there, it was gone again, the twinkle replacing it. Lyra stood up, grabbing at the air as the twinkle zipped away. Frey watched calmly. Seamus took a seat next to Terrin across from them and glanced at the twinkle floating in the air about twenty feet away from Lyra.
“Was that a fairie?” Lyra asked the group. She kept her eyes on the twinkle.
“Of course I’m a Faerie! What, are you daft?” A child’s voice came from the twinkle and Lyra jumped back, hand at her throat. She looked back at the group. Seamus and Frey had moved on, busy speaking to other people.
Terrin watched the twinkle with narrowed eyes. He shrugged at Lyra when she gave him a questioning look. She hadn’t met a child Faerie yet, and she was intrigued. She walked closer and the twinkle backed away from her.
Lyra stilled and held up her hands. “I just wanted to say hi. I’m not used to the Fae yet, and I haven’t met a child.”
The twinkle giggled and spurt forward a foot. “Never met a child? Gawds, I think you might be brain damaged after all!”
Lyra put her hands on her hips. “I bet your mother didn’t teach you to talk to others like that did she?”
The twinkle stilled and snapped again, a full sized child standing in its place. His hair was light brown and badly mussed around his tipped ears. He wore what appeared to be blue striped pajamas. He had a face full of freckles and a missing tooth in the front.
“What’s your name?” Lyra asked.
The child screwed up his face. “Tungsten. But my mates call me Judd.” He scratched his head and his ears turned bright as a tomato.
“Tungsten is a great name. I love it,” Lyra said with a smile.
“You do?” Tungsten asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Mmhm,” Lyra assured him. “In fact, it’s my new favorite name. Maybe when I have a son one day, I’ll name him Tungsten.”
Tungsten’s eyes widened. “You’re a frjósöm?”
“What’s that?” When he didn’t answer, she rubbed her arm and looked around. “Where’s your mother?”
Tungsten rocked on his bare feet. “She’s asleep. Got into the rum again. I’m not supposed to be out, but don’t tattle or I’ll drop your trinket in the river.” He suddenly looked surly, dropping his sparse brows low.
Lyra lifted a brow. “My trinket?” She instinctively touched her pendant--and bare flesh met her fingertips. She rubbed around her throat, horror blooming in her chest.
Tungsten smiled a crooked smile and held up the spectrolite pendant by the chain, the gemstone swinging like a pendulum.
“Now why did you go and take my necklace?” She tried to keep her voice steady but failed. She took a step forward and the boy leapt back, giggling again.
Lyra stopped and waited. She looked back at the group for help but they were thoroughly immersed in a game. Even Terrin was playing. She hated to interrupt when he was finally enjoying himself.
“Tungsten--Judd. You don’t know what you are doing. That is a very rare gemstone and it belongs to me and my family.”
Tungsten smiled and the gap in his teeth sucked in the light like a void. His little eyes twinkled like the eyes of the cat who caught the canary.
Perhaps that had been the wrong approach.
Lyra sprinted, reaching for the pendant. She fell through the child as he snapped to a twinkle and Lyra fell on her face, skidding along the grass until her left elbow was raw. She popped up and swung her head wildly.
Tungsten popped back into existence and dangled the pendant in front of her face, a foot away. She lunged and the Fae child jumped to a few feet away. Lyra stopped and stared at him, debating on using her aura. She didn’t want to hurt the child but she needed the pendant back. Desparately. It was her bartering tool for the Fae army to fight Ganymede. It wasn’t something to trifle with. She glanced again at the group. They were several feet away now, their laughing faces alight in the fire’s glow while twilight descended upon her and the child.
New ire sparked in her and she sprinted for him again.
The child jumped again. He bent over, laughing until he couldn’t catch his breath.
She sprinted again while he laughed and he jumped again when her hand touched the pendant.
“Damn it!” Lyra yelled. She huffed in a breath, her nostrils flaring.
“Why can’t you jump?” Tungsten asked, tilting his head.
Lyra wiped a hand over her mouth. “Because I never learned.”
“Never learned? What a piss poor mum you had!”
Lyra’s throat constricted. Would her mom have been able to teach her?
Why didn’t she teach me? Why didn’t she tell me she was Fae and her children were half?
“I’m only half Fae and just learned that, so go easy on me,” she called to him.
The darkness was descending quickly. Only a purple sheen backlit the midnight sky, the stars were on full display and the moon was a half circle, like the cut of a watermelon.
“Well, ain’t that strange,” Tungsten muttered. He let the hand holding the pendant drop, and stood still. He seemed to be taking Lyra’s measure.
“How old are you, Judd?”
Tungsten shifted from foot to foot. “Ten,” he said resolutely. Lyra would have guessed five from his stature, but Fae aged differently.
“When did you learn to jump?” She took a careful step forward. He was seven, maybe six feet away.
Tungsten scratched his head. “I don’t rightly know. Mum said when I was four I took my first jump, but I don’t remember that. I didn’t get good ‘til six.”
Lyra took a few more careful steps forward, her eyes on Tungstens and deliberately not on the pendant. “I teach children on earth did you know that? I’m a teacher. Do you go to school?”
“School?” He said it like he’d never heard the word before.
“Yes, a place to learn reading and writing and arithmetic. History, drawing…”
“My mum teaches me that. What I need a school for?”
Lyra was two feet away now and stopped. “That’s very interesting. I bet your mother is just wonderful, isn’t she?”
“I guess so.” Tungsten’s grip on the pendant loosened and Lyra’s eyes flashed to it as the chain slipped through his fingers.
Lyra flew toward it at the same time Tungsten fell to his knees, grabbed it and jumped again. Lyra got a mouthful of grass and mud. She spit out the offending plant and screamed her frustration as she punched the ground once.
Tungsten called out from the nearby. “Visualize the target. And...know the lay of the land so that you know what’s behind you, to the left, to the right, and in front at all times. Move your... your spirit there, I s’pose, through the magick in your... heart.”
Lyra jumped to her feet and spun on her heel toward him. “That makes no sense!”
Tungsten shrugged, the action barely visible in the near black clearing. “Magick doesn’t make sense, but it works anyways. How
’d you think you can do anything with your magick at all?”
Lyra contemplated the kid’s words. “I suppose I just will it.”
“Right you are, frjósöm.”
That word again.
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
Tungsten did a backflip and landed easily, knees bent, feet stuck in the mud. He wiggled his toes in deeper into the goo as he swung the pendant in a wide circle.
Lyra eyed him.
If this little twerp can jump and do backflips, surely I can figure out how to do it too.
She looked around herself, noting the distance between herself and Tungsten, and the distance from that spot to the trees behind him. She closed her eyes, summoning her aura. It lit brightly within her and channeled into her energy centers.
“What you doing? You’re lit up like a yule tree.”
Lyra took a deep breath, staring at the place directly next to Tungsten. She closed her eyes and pictured the spot in her mind. She willed her aura to go there, similar to how she willed herself when transporting through a portal. She kept her hands tight behind her back so that she wouldn’t accidentally blast the boy. Her body lurched, flying through an open vacuum of air. Her insides shirked. When she opened her eyes, Tungsten stared wide-eyed up at her, inches from where she stood.
“HA!” Lyra squealed, jumping into the air. “I did it!”
Tungsten jumped away from her and she spotted him, then jumped to him again. She shouted with laughter, clutching the air as he jumped again. The chase was on, their jumps getting farther and farther away from the bonfires and mingling Fae.
A wail on the air caused Tungsten to delay his jump just as Lyra reached him. She grabbed hold of the pendant and tugged until it slipped from his hand.
Yes! Someone grabbed her shirt from behind her and tugged her backward.
“What are you doing to my son?!” A shrill voice pierced her eardrum as a woman held her in a headlock.
Lyra wrenched free and faced her, hands up in surrender. She slipped her pendant on quickly before resuming her submissive pose. The dowdy woman stood with her hands on her hips, dressed in a cotton night shift and a bonnet pulled half hazardly over brown curls. The fury in the woman’s eyes told Lyra she could probably subdue her pretty quickly.
Never cross a mother bear.
“Tungsten took my necklace--” Lyra winced as she tattled on the boy like a child.
As soon as the words were out, the woman disappeared and reappeared with Tungsten in tow, her grip firm on his pointy ear. “Ow, mum, bloody hell!”
“Watch the mouth!” she shouted back. “What am I going to do with you? Sneaking out like this night after night. You know if you go beyond the glamour I can’t protect you!” She turned to Lyra. “Look at this woman here. She ain’t even full Fae. Bloody hell, lad. She’s half human and look at you, traipsing away with her like you weren’t born with a fecking brain!”
“I thought you said to watch my mouth--”
His mother tugged on his ear and he winced. “And stealing too. You’d think you didn’t have a mother!”
Tungsten’s expression closed down but he peered up in curiosity at Lyra. “Bloody good show learning to jump like that.”
Lyra smiled. “Well, thank you Tungsten for teaching me. Listen to your mother, now. She’s the only one you get in this life. Hold onto her.”
Tungsten’s mother softened her grip and grabbed her son’s arm, yanking him away, muttering.
“Bloody good show indeed.”
Lyra jumped out of her skin at the deep voice. Terrin leaned against a tree on the edge of the clearing.
Lyra huffed out a breath. “Did you watch that whole thing?” she asked him.
Terrin pushed off the tree and walked next to her toward the bonfires. “Most of it,” he said.
When they reached the bonfires, Terrin turned toward her, his expression guarded. “You’re becoming more and more like the Fae. Sure you don’t just want to stay here?”
Lyra narrowed her eyes. “What’s it to you?”
Terrin shrugged. “What did he call you back there? Frjósöm?”
Lyra glanced sharply at him. “What does it mean?”
“Fertile woman.”
Lyra turned toward the voice---Seamus sat on a glowing mushroom stool. Lyra noticed the stiffening of Frey’s back even as she moved a piece on the board game in the grass.
“Fertile woman?” Lyra asked, her nose scrunched up.
“It’s what we call child-bearing women here,” Seamus explained, “Fae children are a great gift among us since we have so few. It isn’t common for parents to have more than one or two children. Even one child is considered a great blessing. Men flock to the women who have a fertile streak in their families. It’s a chance for them to carry on their line.” His eyes flicked to Frey who dipped her head lower into the huddle of players.
“Freydis means fertility goddess. Is she a Fee-yor-sum?” Lyra asked.
Seamus smiled. “Frjósöm.Y es, she is.”
A light dawned in Lyra’s head. “Is that why her father offered her in exchange for your business?” She winced when Seamus reddened. A few players turned to look at her and Seamus, then glance at Frey.
Maybe I shouldn’t have announced that.
Frey stood up suddenly, her golden eyes glowing. “I can hear you, I’m right here.”
Chapter Twenty
“Sorry, Frey,” Lyra mumbled.
Frey crossed her arms when she realized they had a rapt audience. “Since everyone wants to discuss my womb, I guess I’ll get this out of the way now. My family is quite fertile. We have three pairs of twins in our line and I have three siblings, all older brothers. That’s exceedingly rare. Unheard of, almost.The only other set of twins in all the Fae population is Zuri and Vale.” Her audience didn’t look surprised but watched her all the same as if fascinated by her admission. Lyra spotted Finn sitting to Frey’s left, one eyebrow quirked as he sharpened a long, pointy sword.
“You could marry anyone you wish, catch a rich Lord, do quite well for yourself,” Seamus said to her, shrugging. Terrin glared at him, silently reminding him of their business deal.
Frey swallowed, her eyes glinting in the fire’s light. “My body isn’t for sale.”
One Fae man, thin with dirty blonde hair, stood up. He crossed his arms. “I’ll say what we’re all thinking here. It’s disgustingly selfish of you to not bear children. Our numbers are dwindling and we need more Fae children to secure our future.”
Frey’s breathing became heavier and the glint in her eye turned into an inferno. “Fuck you, Willard.”
Willard took a sip from his tankard and sat back down, shrugging.
Another man, stocky with a round frame, stood up, scratching his belly. “In fact,” he drawled, “you better watch your back before someone doesn’t wait for your permission and puts his seed in you. Would serve you right, you selfish bitch--”
The man had it coming when his face was kicked in, blood splattering as a bone-tingling crunch resounded, muffling his squealed curse. Frey stepped onto his thick belly, her heeled boots digging into the fat, and jumped off of it. The man wheezed as the air was compressed out of him and he rolled to his side, sputtering and cursing on limited breath.
Seamus glared down at the man before lifting him easily by his collar. A button popped off of his shirt. “You’re fucking lucky she didn’t gut you, and if you don’t get out of here now, I’m liable to do what she did not.” Seamus let him go and he fell in a bouncing heap before leaping and jumping out of sight.
Frey eyed the rest of the crowd that had formed around them. “Anyone else have anything to say?”
Silence filled the clearing. Frey sat back down in front of her game board. “Now, who fucking skipped my turn?”
Finn clutched his stomach as mirth overtook him, his shoulders shaking and his eyes squeezed shut. “Gods, I love this fecking lass,” he finally said when he caught his breath.
; Lyra barked out a laugh and soon the whole huddle of nearby Fae clutched their bellies and wiped tears of levity from their eyes. Frey glanced around her with a soft smile, her shoulders relaxing a smidge. When the game ended, Frey stood victorious, a sack of coins in her purse at her belt. She went in search of food and Finn walked over to Lyra. “Hello, beautiful,” he said softly, his eyes drinking her in.
“Hi, Finn,” Lyra replied inclining her head.
Finn procured a rolled up leather game board from his cloak and laid it out flat on a wooden board on the ground. The leather board was seven by seven and covered in squares. The corner and middle squares were red while the rest were unpainted. Fin reached into his pocket and began arranging stones that were flat on the bottoms and pointy on the tops. He placed the biggest stone, a red one in the center, and placed four white ones around it. Then he put the remaining six black stones in a cross shape around the white stones, two in a row on each side.
“This,” he said with bravado in his voice “is Brandubh. Been in my family for centuries.”
“Bran-duh, what kind of name is that?” Lyra asked, peering at the pieces on the board.
“It roughly translates to Black Raven, if you’d prefer to call it that.”
Lyra glanced sharply at him. Edwin’s giant raven sprang to mind, its iron-like beak glinting in the moonlight, its blue-black wings spread like a creature from the underworld. She blinked the image away.
“The object of the Queen,” Finn said, touching the middle red piece, “Is to find safe haven in one of the corners without being harmed.”
Lyra squatted next to the board as Finn continued explaining the premise of the game. “Her defenders--” He touched the four white stones that surrounded the Queen. “Protect her. These lads and lasses, are the Attackers.” He picked up a black stone. “If they make their way to the Queen and trap her, the game is over.”
“What if the Queen gets safely to a corner?” Lyra asked.
“Then the game is over and she wins. Do you want to be the attackers or the defenders and Queen?”
“I’ll be the Queen,” she decided, and sat down on the plush grass underneath her.
“If your opponent traps you on both sides, you are captured and removed. That goes for my guys too.”