by Gail Gernat
“You mustn’t.”
Elisa stared at her, a puzzled frown between her brows.
“You will be my mother-in-law, so it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
There was no mistaking the joy in Elisa’s face. Despite the deprivations she had suffered, she was full of joy and hope.
“So you will marry Lark after all?”
Illera shook her head. “Raven.”
Elisa’s eyebrows rose to her hairline.
“But isn’t Lark to be king of Frain. Don’t tell me something happened to him; I thought when you returned, well…”
Illera interrupted, “No, Lark is fine and is acclaimed King of Frain, but Raven, well Raven is for me, and I am for Madean.”
The understanding flowed into Elisa’s face. She threw her arms around Illera and hugged her tight.
“Welcome daughter, may you never have to leave your home again.”
Startled, Illera hugged her back, her heart thumping at the older woman’s words. When the servants settled, Illera disappeared behind the walls to see how the hunt for Garth was coming. The knights were on the main floor now, still searching from room to room, apparently without success. The night was wearing away, and still, the sounds of turmoil rang through the castle.
Weary to the depths of her bones, she made her way to her old rooms to begin the search once more from the top. Moving confidently in the dark, she ran into an obstacle in the corridor. Rough hands grabbed her and held her tight. Her knife was taken. A flint struck, and a light flared, all but blinding her in the sudden glow. With an animal snarl of pleasure, the arm crushed her, squeezing harder.
“So, my great lady, you still prowl the walls at night. You are not the only one who can sneak behind the backs of others. And with you out of the way, I can become King of Madean and my first job will be to hunt down your boyfriends and have them killed.”
Illera struggled, kicking and clawing, until Garth struck her a blow across the face that made her head reel and her balance go. He heaved her over one shoulder and moved downward, awkward on the stairs. He paused and looked out a peephole, uttering a low chuckled and a barely breathed word, “Fools.”
Hanging head downwards, Illera spied the faint gleam of a catch. Shifting her weight just slightly she reached down and tripped the spring. With a sudden lurch, she threw Garth off balance as she palmed the panel open. He reeled out onto the musician’s gallery, Illera still clasped over his shoulder.
In a flurry of feathers and a sharp, high scream Maggie arrowed out of the shadows, aiming for Garth. Her sharp beak stabbed straight into his left eye. With a shriek of pain, he threw Illera from his shoulder. Cartwheeling through the air, she added her screams to his. Her flailing hands grasped the hard, slick edges of the gilded railing.
The knights rattled into the room, drawn by the screams.
“By all the gods, Illera hang on!” yelled Raven from many feet below her.
A wild clatter of feet galloped up the stairs. Garth succeeded in prying the furious magpie from his face and lurched for the hidden passage, locking the catch just as the first of the knights reached the top of the stairs.
Illera looked down. Raven still circled below orbited by Min, and she wondered how long she could keep her fingers locked on the shiny surface. Already she could feel slight movements despite the pressure of her grip, almost as if the rail were turning under her hands. She held still and stiff. A hand reached from above, one of the knights trying to reach her to pull her back up. His weight against the rail shifted it just enough that it cast her loose and she fell, plummetting to the hard flagstone floor below.
She closed her eyes, and the impact came. It was not the bone-crushing splat she expected but rather, a hard jarring. Breath exploded past her face. Quickly she rolled to her knees and stood wobbling with the nearness of her escape. Raven lay before her, writhing and gasping to inflate his lungs. Dropping to her knees, she checked him, but other than having the air knocked out of his lungs he was intact. Winning the struggle to breathe he sat up and grinned. Illera hurled herself into his arms again. Crying with relief, she sobbed against his hard chest until the world was right side up again. She looked up at him, eyes wide and wet, watching his smile as he bent his head and kissed her.
Eternity in a moment she thought when they parted, and as she left him to instruct the knights where to search for Garth, she carried the feeling and taste of his lips with her. The night revolved to dawn in its slow way and the report filtered back to them from a shepherd youth taking the sheep to graze, of a man in fancy clothes with one eye streaming blood suddenly appearing from beneath a bridge. The strange figure ran off into the forest.
With a sigh, Illera tramped down all the hidden passages of the castle, placing locks on them so that Garth could not reenter the castle through the back doors. Only the feeling of Raven’s mouth on hers sustained her during the weary hours of tramping and climbing through the dark and dusty corridors. With the castle secured, she summoned the priests who had released Garth and exiled them from Madean. The day was wearing away when she finished and giving in to her exhaustion she fell into her bed and a deep dreamless sleep.
The castle, indeed the country, was in turmoil of joy and anticipation when she awoke. A flurry of preparations; sewing, cooking, arranging the wedding bower and coronation platform was in full swing. Artisans from all over Madean arrived at Seven Spires, hawking their wears and offering their services. Orille was in his glory arranging for the double ceremony, and Illera was content to sit back and allow him to take charge. She was measured and poked, asked questions, then ignored, chivvied about and told to rest. Raven and Lark were separated from her, involved in their own whirlwind of preparation, only having contact with her at mealtimes. Ashera spoke to her briefly, a few minutes a day before she hustled off to other tasks. Two weeks flew by without a single pause for breath. Frak arrived with an entourage of Shul and was welcomed into the castle, although Illera noticed a certain unease on both sides, human, and ogre. King Uggarick, Queen Dora and the rest of their sons arrived to join in the festivities. Rejoicing and Laughter, and all of the Darkliete and ship’s crew moved through the chaos with brilliant smiles and suggestions.
Frak sang them a magnificent day of sun and warm, gentle breezes. The trees dressed in their finest colors, brushed with yellow, gold, crimson and scarlet. The fields lay reaped, fawn and fallow, while copses of night dark green punctuated the garish splendor of the land. Illera was up early and whisked off to the pavilion erected especially for her beside the Royal River. A wide path of white stone ran straight and true to the soaring white arches of the wedding bower. Peeking from one drape of the pavilion on that side, she could see the path on the other side of the bower, as white and unbending as her own leading straight to where Raven would be being prepared for their nuptials.
The servant girls fussed around her, doing her hair and organizing her garments. Ashera and Laughter in one corner were likewise fussed over, they being the women who would stand with her on the outer ring of the bower. Queen Dora had offered to conduct her to the bower, a job that should have been her mother’s. Thinking on her mother, Illera stared out at the river, wishing she had had a chance to know the woman that gave her birth and missing what all the others seem to take for granted.
A small mist rose from the water, for the air was cool in the early morning. As Illera watched, the mist began to thicken. A servant girl tugged at her sleeve, but Illera brushed her off and stepped from the tent towards the water. The mist continued to thicken and began to swirl. It revolved to the near bank and parted. Two beautiful women stepped from the fog, alike as two peas in a pod.
Illera recognized the porcelain face with the wide-set violet eyes and delicately pointed chin. Their hair was the color of moonlight on snow, long and flowing and accenting the beauty of the long-lashed eyes. One of the women had delicate upswept ears and the other plain, round human ones. Both wore silken capes of a pale azure color. Heart thumping
, Illera stepped to meet them.
“Illera, my beloved,” called the woman with the pointed, elven ears.
“Mother?”
The woman rushed forward and enfolded Illera in a tight embrace. Hot tears ran down her face and stained Illera’s red dressing gown a darker hue. Illera pushed her away and stared into her face.
“You are my mother?”
“Of course my dear, I am your mother. I could return to you but three times in your life and I chose your wedding day as the first.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why did you leave me? Why did you stay away? Why didn’t you give me some help when I needed you? Why? Just why?” Illera cried.
Lera sat down on a folding chair, beside a table littered with cosmetics.
“Dear, dear child, you know the power of the werwinstans. I stayed as long as I could. I dearly loved your father, you know. Now you have experienced love; I was hoping you would understand.”
Illera sank down on the tent floor at her mother’s feet. “Then why have me at all? I know you can control such things, so why have me if you were just going to leave?”
Lera closed her eyes and leaned her head back as if watching some inner scene that would give her the words. A sigh escaped her shapely lips.
“I’m so sorry for any pain I might have caused you, but please understand I would do anything to please your father. And Ian, oh my Ian, he wanted a child more than anything else in the universe, even more than me. I told him I couldn’t stay, and I asked him what gift he would have before I left. He asked for you. How could I deny him that when he was the beating of my heart?” Lera placed a hand on each side of Illera’s face. “So, you were born out of my great love for Ian and his love for me and hope for you.”
A single tear squeezed from Illera’s eye and tracked down her face, making a runnel in the careful makeup of the servant girls.
“I miss him so much,” Illera whispered.
“As I have missed him every moment of every day since I left to return to Faerie. But I, too, took a gift from him when I left. This is your sister Cantrell. She was raised in faerie and has never been to human worlds before.”
Lera indicated the other woman who had accompanied her and looked like a twin. Illera rose and approached her sister. The young woman swallowed nervously. Illera held out her arms.
“Welcome. I always wanted a sister or a brother, and I’m sorry we didn’t get to grow up together, but you are most welcome now.”
Lera sprang from her chair. She embraced the two of them.
“I’m so glad that you feel that way Illera. You see, Cantrell would like to stay with you, in Madean.”
Illera turned to face her mother, who walked away and began to pace nervously, wringing her hands together.
“You see, my dear, we can’t control what our children inherit from their parents. It’s true; the elven can control the conception but not the quality of that conception. So here you are, half-elf with more of the gifts and the same werwinstans as a full-blooded elf, yet raised human in a human world.” She gave a small laugh. “If you had come to faerie with me you would have been accepted without question, because of your gifts which are in you in stronger measure than most elves, myself included. But Cantrell, I’m afraid that as much as I loved your father, I did her no service in bringing her to faerie. She has no gifts, no werwinstans, no elven traits at all. She is as human as her father.”
“But, Lera, Mother, she doesn’t know anything about Madean.” Illera eyes widened, her face pale.
“But she can’t stay in faerie. She is a reminder of the world we left behind and all its evils. The ruling counsel asked her to leave. That is why I brought her to you; I knew you would make room for her in Madean. She is, after all, your full-blooded sister.”
The servant girl ventured a timid tug on Illera’s dressing gown.
“Your Majesty, we must be about the dressing, or you will miss the appointed hour.”
Illera turned away, allowing the maids to repair her makeup and hair and dress her. Her wedding gown was white, inset with sky blue panels on the sides, with delicate blue butterflies embroidered around the hem and up the outsides of the long sleeves. The neckline swooped in a graceful curve from shoulder to shoulder. A sapphire butterfly necklace clasped her throat, and a circlet of sapphire butterflies and blossoms graced her brow. Lost in thought, Illera did not notice the ministrations of the maids. This new wrinkle in her life occupied her until Queen Dora bustled into the tent to escort her down the path. Ashera and Laughter left to take their places on the outer ring of the marriage bower. Illera heard the tuning of the musical instruments as the players readied themselves. Birds twittered in the trees round about the bower and small rustlings in the grass and bushes indicated that her nonhuman animal friends had arrived.
Illera decided and turned to Cantrell with a smile.
“You are welcome sister, to make a home with me for as long as you need to.”
With that statement, she forgave her mother of any duplicity in attending her wedding.
“Queen Dora, I thank you for volunteering to escort me to the wedding bower, but would you be insulted if I asked my Mother and Sister to do so instead?”
Dora smiled and bowed to those ladies. “Surely, it is the privilege of the mother and sister to do so. I only offered when it seemed you had no one.”
“And I thank you for that.” She seized the older woman’s hands and lifted them to her lips. “You have been a faithful and true friend, and I will be eternally grateful.”
The opening chords of the wedding music penetrated the flaps of the tent. Heart thumping, Illera held out her hands, shoulder high. Lera grasped one and Cantrell the other. As the servant girls held the flap open, they stepped from the tent. The path stretched wide and white ahead of them. Illera looked down the trail to the white wicker bower rising gracefully against the bright background of trees. All the vegetation was loaded with birds, singing fit to burst. Small animals, deer, and elk peered from the underbrush. On the open side of the bower, row on row of people stood, watching, all eyes fixed on her. Whispers ran through the crowds at the sight of Lera and Cantrell.
They moved a step forward. Looking ahead, Illera saw Ashera and Laughter waiting for her just inside the circle of the bower. Lark and Min stood opposite them on the other side, and past them Raven, hands stretched out like hers, escorted by Elisa and Rejoicing. She noticed the wide and silly grin he seemed unable to take off his face for this solemn occasion. Her own face answered that grin, and everything else ceased to exist for her. She moved on dream clouds towards him, single step after single step. At the edge of the bower, her hands floated down, and she stepped between Laughter and Ashera, seeing them only as the gateway to the white circle in the center of the space. Without will, her hands rose and grasped Raven’s outstretched ones
“When had he suddenly become so handsome?” She wondered in silence.
The music sighed away, and the bird chorus shrilled once and fell still. Illera stared into Raven’s eyes, lost in their darkly blue magic.
The young priest stepped from the audience, dressed in brilliant yellow with the book of ceremonies in his hand. He stood behind them and faced the crowd. The words he spoke were inaudible to Illera as she gazed at Raven, nothing else existed for her in this moment but him. Orille whispered her name from behind a post, and she laughed, still looking at her beloved.
“Raven, son of Rejoicing and Korul, deceased King of Frain, son of adoption by Elisa of the horse herds, I give myself to you in body, mind, and soul. I choose you to be my companion through life, the father of my children, the support during my trials and the compass of my thoughts. I choose you to rule my country of Madean beside me as equal. I pledge my love to you and only you, from now until death separates us. Will you accept?”
“I accept with gladness. Illera, daughter of Lera of the elven and Ian, deceased King of Madean, I give myself to y
ou in body, mind, and soul. I choose you to be my companion through life, the mother of my children, the support during my trials and the compass of my thoughts. I pledge my love to you, my protection, and my willing heart from now until death separates us. Will you accept?”
“I accept.”
Raven’s head bent, and his lips captured hers as the trees and rivers rang with the cheers of the crowd. When they reluctantly parted, a path opened for them between the hordes of visitors. They moved regally between the columns to the end of the audience. Waiting there were Abbadon and Commitment gloriously caparisoned in gold, white and sky blue. Min and Ashera carried banners of blue with the white griffin rampant on them, leading the way to the stage of coronation. Overhead birds wheeled and dipped in joy.
Because the crowds were so large, Orille erected a grand platform outside the walls of Seven Spires. Benches framed the space before the platform in a semicircle, with ornate chairs in the front row for the royal guests. Illera and Raven rode to the platform where he dismounted onto it and lifted her from her horse to stand beside him.
Two new priests, looking young and nervous waited. Illera could see their golden robes trembling as the knees shook beneath them. She gave them a flashing smile which seemed to make them more nervous than before. Strongmen heaved two gilded thrones to the platform. The crowd cascaded into the benches behind them. As the priest began their singsong rituals, Illera reached out and clasped Raven’s strong hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze. Birds wheeled overhead in flocks and Maggie smugly detached herself and perched on the back of the nearest throne. The forest creatures slipped back into their homes, and even the birds gave up as the ceremony went on and on. Illera concentrated on the warmth of the hand in hers and the feel of their flesh together. With an abruptness that startled everyone, judging by the numbers of the audience that jerked upright, one of the priests left the stage, returning with two heavy circles of jewel-encrusted gold.