by Frewin Jones
“No,” she said steadily. “I can’t do that. If you’re not prepared to treat him fairly, then I’ll go to Oberon.” She was trembling so much that she could hardly stay on her feet.
“The King is far from here, Tania,” Gabriel replied smoothly. “I am Regent in his stead, and my word is law.”
Tania couldn’t bear to hear him say another word. He had punished Edric more brutally than anyone deserved, too brutally for someone with nothing to hide.
What if Edric was speaking the truth?
She started to push past him to the door.
He caught her arm in a fierce grip. “Where are you going, my Tania?”
“Let go of me!” she spat, but his fingers dug deeper into her arm, and a cold glint came into his gray eyes.
“’Tis a pity indeed,” he said softly. “Were it my choice, I would have wooed you by slow degrees until I held once more your beating heart in the palm of my hand. But I see now that the tattling of Master Chanticleer has turned your head.” He smiled and his fingers bore into her arm until she gasped with the pain. “We will be wed, Tania, whether you wish it or not.”
“Never!” she said calmly. “You can’t force me to marry you, and as soon as I get out of here, I’m going to let my sisters know exactly what you are! Among us, I think we’ll find a way to deal with a two-faced rat like you!”
Gabriel gave a breath of cold laughter. “Your sisters?” he said. “Your loving sisters?”
Tania stared at him, confused by the jeering note in his voice. He turned his head toward the door. “Come hither, my lady,” he called. “Show yourself.”
Rathina stepped into the open doorway. Her head was held high, but she avoided looking into Tania’s eyes.
“Rathina?” Tania breathed. “What’s going on?”
“You and Gabriel must be married,” Rathina said, her voice clipped and abrupt. “It is for the best.”
Tania stared at her, too shocked to speak. Why was Rathina siding with Gabriel like this?
“Watch over your sister,” Gabriel told Rathina. “Make sure she understands the wise course.” He turned to Tania. “If you defy me, Edric will die. If you agree to marry me, I will set him free. His fate is in your hands. Choose wisely, but choose quickly!”
He released Tania’s aching arm and swept out of the room.
Two more of Gabriel’s wardens escorted Tania and Rathina to Tania’s bedchamber. Night had fallen and the room was lit by yellow candles. Tania stood just inside the door. She heard the sharp click of a key being turned in the lock. She was shaking with anger.
Rathina opened a window. “It is stuffy in here,” she said. “Some fresh air will clear our heads.”
“Why did you tell Gabriel where to find us?” Tania demanded, her voice knotted with fury.
Rathina stayed at the window, not looking at her. “I did not tell him. Gabriel needs no spies to guide him to you, Tania.” She turned and pointed at the pendant. “You carry the keys to your prison about your neck. While you wear the Amber Stone, you can never escape him.”
Tania tore the pendant from around her throat. She threw it to the floor and stamped on it. There was a crack as it was crushed under her foot. Pale smoke drifted for a moment across the boards and Tania thought she heard the sound of a soft voice weeping. She lifted her foot. There was nothing left of the pendant but a scattering of yellowish brown powder.
“You should have done that long before now,” Rathina said dryly. She walked over to a chair and sat down. “But it comes too late, I fear. Gabriel’s wardens stand guard outside. You cannot get away now. Were I in your place, I would accept my fate with as good a grace as I deemed possible.”
“You really think I should agree to marry him?”
“It would be wise.”
“I don’t believe this!” Tania hissed. “Why are you helping him?”
“Because it is the only way for you to save Edric’s life.” Rathina tilted her head. “Is that not your wish? Edric told me of his love for you. He believes that you love him, also. He begged me to arrange a tryst between you.” She narrowed her eyes at Tania. “Do you have feelings for this servant man, or do you not?”
“Yes,” Tania said in a whisper. “I do.”
She had never stopped loving Evan. It was Edric she loathed for his apparent betrayal of her. But in the stable room, she had seen Evan again, heard his voice telling her he would never have betrayed her—and she had believed him.
She closed her eyes, her hands up to her face, feeling tears welling through her fingers. She heard Rathina walk toward her and felt comforting arms around her.
“Hush now, little sister,” Rathina murmured, her mouth close to Tania’s ear. “Do not lose heart. I am sorry for my part in this. I would not have aided Gabriel had I known how harsh would be his treatment of Edric.”
Tania put her arms around Rathina’s neck, too miserable to speak.
“Listen to me, Tania,” Rathina went on. “There is a way in which you can escape from Gabriel and all the other heavy burdens of this place.”
“How?” Tania choked.
“By stepping into the Mortal World.”
Tania caught her breath. She looked up, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “What?”
Rathina nodded earnestly. “You did it once before,” she said, “in this very room, five hundred years ago.”
Tania stared at her sister. “Do you mean you know how I did it?”
Rathina shook her head. “I know not what powers you summoned up, but I saw you disappear. We just need to repeat the actions of that night. Do that, and you can leave Faerie forever.”
“No,” said Tania. “I won’t do that. I have to save Edric. How can I save him if I go into the Mortal World and never come back?”
Rathina leaned forward, taking Tania’s burning face between her cool palms. “Once you are gone again, Gabriel will have no reason to keep Edric imprisoned. I vow to you that I will do everything in my power to see that he is freed.” Her voice became more urgent. “But that can only happen if you are gone from here, gone where no one can ever follow.” Her eyes were huge as she stared into Tania’s face. “Listen to me. You do not belong in this world. In your heart you know this to be true. You belong in the Mortal World, the world into which you were born, the world that you know so much better than you will ever know Faerie.” Her voice dropped to little more than a whisper. “You know I speak the truth…Anita.”
Tania blinked. It was the first time anyone had used her mortal name since she had come to the palace.
“All this is but a dream to you, Anita,” Rathina said. “Go back, go home.”
“I have to help Edric,” Tania said.
Rathina gave a sympathetic smile. “And how would you do that?” she said. “Would you enter the dungeons and destroy the Amber Prison by the force of your will?” She shook her head. “Understand this, Anita. The Amber Prisons can only be undone by those who have mastered the Mystic Arts. Believe me when I tell you that there is no power in all of Faerie that you could use to break the bonds of the Amber Prison. The only way you can help Edric is to go back home.”
Tania stared at her sister for a long time. All her instincts told her that she couldn’t abandon Edric, but what Rathina said made sense. And what could she do? If she stayed, Gabriel would force her to marry him. But if she left, she would lose Edric forever.
And then a possible solution struck her.
“You just said that there’s nothing in Faerie that I could use to break the Amber Prison, right?”
“Indeed,” Rathina said. “It is useless to attempt it.”
“Nothing in Faerie!” Tania repeated. “But what about in the Mortal World? If I could remember how to cross between the worlds, I know something that I could bring back to set Edric free.” It was obvious from Rathina’s expression that she didn’t understand. “Isenmort!” Tania cried. “Sancha told me that Isenmort is really dangerous here. If I bring back something made of metal, it
might be powerful enough to break one of your Amber Prisons!”
Rathina shuddered. “But Isenmort is the death of all things,” she said. “You cannot think to bring such a plague into this Realm. It would be our doom!”
“I’ll be as careful as I can,” Tania said. “But it has to be worth a try. And you’re right,” she continued. “I should use my power to leave Faerie, but only in order to come back.”
She took a long, deep breath, trying to calm her mind.
“I can do this,” she told herself. “I know I can.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on home, on her mother and father, on their house. On her real—no, her other—bedroom. Picturing all those things as vividly as possible in her mind, she reached out her arms and stepped forward.
There was no rush of wind, no sensation of the floor melting under her feet.
She opened her eyes. She was still in Faerie.
Her sister was looking closely at her.
“Help me, Rathina,” Tania pleaded. “Tell me what we did that night. How did I get into the Mortal World?”
“It is long ago,” Rathina murmured. “Give me a moment to recall.” She moved away and sat on a chair with her head resting in her hands.
Time dragged by.
“Rathina, please?”
Rathina lifted her head. “Believe me, I do want to help you.” She took a slow breath. “The chimes of midnight hung in the air,” she said, staring ahead with faraway eyes. “I was seated on your bed. You stood with your back to yonder wall.” She pointed to where the wardrobe stood. “You walked toward me. The air moved like water and there was a sound like a distant wind, and then you were gone.”
“I just walked toward you?” Tania checked. “It was as simple as that?”
“That is what I remember,”
“Okay, let’s try it.” Tania stood with her back to the wardrobe. Again, she filled her mind with thoughts of home. Mum and Dad. Jade and the gang. School. Romeo and Juliet.
With slow deliberation, she strode across the floor. Her knees bumped against the side of the bed. Nothing had happened.
She looked at Rathina.
“Are you sure that’s all I did?”
“I remember nothing more,” Rathina said. She frowned. “You must try again.”
Tania nodded.
She stood with her back to the wardrobe again, farther across the room this time so that she wouldn’t hit the bed. She could feel Rathina watching her closely as she filled her mind with images of her past life and then strode out across the room.
She came to the far wall and she was still in Faerie.
“Again!” Rathina said. “Do not give up!”
Clenching her fists with frustration, Tania turned and walked back—concentrating even harder this time, picturing her father’s face. Her head began to throb with the effort. Her father. His eyes, nose, mouth, hair. The sound of his voice. Tania screwed her eyes shut, summoning up every last ounce of willpower, desperate to make the leap.
Her foot hit against something, a low stool that stood at the foot of her bed. She stumbled sideways and fell onto her hands and knees.
“This is hopeless, Rathina!” she shouted angrily. “It’s never going to work!”
There was no reply.
She opened her eyes.
She was still in the same room, yet everything was different, and Rathina was gone.
There had been no roaring wind, no wrench of nausea, no feeling that the world was dissolving around her.
But she was back in the Mortal World.
XVII
Tania looked around the unlit room, trying to work out where she was. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.
Then she recognized the place. She was in the Queen’s State Bedchamber in Hampton Court Palace.
She got shakily to her feet.
It was that easy? Just a simple sideways step, and here she was in the Mortal World again.
“Oh, yes!” She pulled her hair back off her face. “That’s more like it.”
She went to the window. Formal gardens lay under a starry sky, similar to the gardens of the Faerie Palace, but on a smaller scale and not as enchanting. Just as the stars above were similar, but not so huge and bright as the Faerie stars. There was a curious pale glow on the hem of the sky just above the horizon, a glow that she had never seen in Faerie. After a moment, Tania smiled, realizing that she was seeing the distant glimmer of thousands upon thousands of electric lights.
“London!” she breathed, her heart yearning for home.
No, not home. Faerie is home. This is the Mortal World.
She wasn’t sure if she really believed that, but telling it to herself helped her focus on what she had to do.
“I will see my parents soon, but not just yet,” she said aloud. “Things to do first.”
She turned from the window and made her way to the open door. It led into a long, empty room with massive framed tapestries on the walls. She didn’t recognize this as being part of the Faerie Palace. There should be a corridor outside her door.
She walked the length of the room, her footsteps echoing in the silence. Another doorway led to a much smaller room with no way out. Frowning, Tania retraced her steps, coming back into the bedchamber and leaving it via a door in the opposite wall, a door that did not exist in the Faerie Palace. She walked through three more rooms, all of them set up for twenty-first-century visitors: Glass panels covered the parts of the tapestries that were within reach, and there were small cards telling people not to sit in the chairs or touch the exhibits. Some areas were sectioned off with loops of red rope.
She came into a large room that was filled with oil paintings hanging on the walls. There were pictures of pale, blank-eyed people in formal Georgian clothes—definitely not Faerie paintings. It was weird the way Faerie things were mixed with mortal objects from other centuries. It was like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces fit together okay, but where some of the pieces belonged to a completely different picture puzzle.
Then Tania saw what she had been looking for.
In a far corner of the room, deep in shadows, stood a suit of armor. The arms were bent so that the gauntleted hands rested on the pommel of a long sword.
“Excellent!” she whispered as she ran across the room and stood in front of the armored figure. She reached for the sword.
At once, flashing tendrils of blue light exploded from the hilt. A blast of raw energy sent Tania skidding on her back across the polished floor.
Her arm tingled and her eyes were still dazzled as she sat up, shaking her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears. “That was the worst yet,” she said, annoyed at herself for not remembering what would happen when she touched metal. She rubbed her arm. “It must be because I’ve been in Faerie for a while.”
She eyed the sword thoughtfully. Obviously, she couldn’t touch it with her bare hands, but she could use something to form a barrier between her skin and the metal. She gathered up the hem of her long skirts and pulled hard at the lining. A strip of silk came away. She tore out more of the lining, until she had a long ribbon of it in her hands.
She ripped the ragged silk band into two halves and then carefully wound the pieces around her hands until not even the tips of her fingers were showing.
“This had better work,” she muttered. “Otherwise I’m in big trouble.” She stared up at the closed helmet. “Behave yourself!” she said sternly.
She reached out again for the hilt of the sword, wincing as her silk-wrapped fingers touched the bare metal. This time she felt only a slight buzz in her fingers.
“Better!” she said. She carefully lifted the gauntlets and pulled the sword out of the plastic clips that held it in place.
“Yes!” she breathed, taking the weight of the sword. It was heavier than she expected, and she nearly dropped it. She balanced on her heels, lifting the sword in both hands. The fluted blade glimmered in the darkness. “You’ll do nicely,” she murmured.
Was that all it had taken to send her between the worlds? A simple side step?
“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.
But then she paused. Hampton Court and the Royal Faerie Palace were not identical. By stepping back into Faerie from this unknown room on the second floor, she might find herself outside the palace buildings, hovering in midair!
She had to reenter Faerie in a place she knew existed in both worlds. Holding the heavy sword in front of her, she made her way back through the galleries.
It didn’t make much sense to reappear in her bedchamber. She’d still be locked in, and even if she could use the sword to hack her way through the door, the noise would give Gabriel’s wardens plenty of time to prevent her escape.
She walked through the Queen’s State Bedchamber and into the gallery full of tapestries. In Faerie this was the corridor outside her room. Gripping the sword in both hands, she took a deep breath.
She walked forward three paces then took a step to the left. The walls rippled around her and her ears popped.
She was in the candlelit corridor outside her chamber. She gave a breathless laugh. It had worked!
The wardens on either side of her chamber door stared at her in utter amazement for a moment, then one of them gave a shout and lunged forward, drawing his crystal sword.
Tania backed off, throwing up her hands to protect herself.
Throwing up her empty hands.
The sword had not come with her into Faerie.
Now what? Keep calm. Think!
She spun away from the guard and made a quick side step to the left. The candlelight quivered and went out. She thought she heard a faint crash as the warden fell headlong into the empty space where she had just been. She was back in the Mortal World. The sword lay on the floor in front of her.
She picked it up. She mustn’t let that happen again. This time she would keep a really tight grip on it.
She took several steps along the room, making sure that she wasn’t going to appear in Faerie too close to the wardens. She turned, tightening the fingers of both hands around the hilt of the sword.