The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2)

by Ektaa Bali

  As his body fizzed and boiled with anger and desperation, a pain blasted from his back. He shouted out, roaring in anger. The other Bunyips jumped up in alarm and stopped what they were doing to stare at their King.

  He crumpled to the floor with a grunt. The pain faded away. In its place, he could feel something on his back. He stood up from the grass and frowned at the strange sensation. Two things twitched on his back, and he could feel them like he could feel his arms or legs. Then he noticed his people staring at him with shocked expressions.

  “What is it?” he barked at his general.

  General opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “What is on my back?” he shouted, twisting around to look at it.

  Then he saw what had just grown from his back, and he froze. A wide smile spread across his face. Next to him, General collapsed, crying out, clawing at his own back. The Bunyip King watched him as he writhed on the grass, and could barely contain his glee.

  “This is it,” he said, stepping forward and addressing his army with his arms up in the air. “We have been given the answer!”

  Around him, Bunyips collapsed to the ground, clutching their backs and roaring in pain.

  He was right. It was a miracle.

  “Victory is ours!” shouted the general, coming to his feet, flexing his new muscles.

  “Victory over the Fae!” shouted two more. The bunyips took up the chant in deep voices that shook the ground. “Victory! Victory, victory!”

  8

  Into the Forest

  Magic is the thing that exists between this and that. It is the space between here and there. Magic is the thing that makes scientists weep and makes poets burst with joy. It is the whisper that comes before dawn and the sigh that you hear in the air after dusk.

  —The Book of the Fae, Queen Mab the First, 3333 B.C.

  * * *

  Vidya woke up to a sharp tap on her face. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. She had fallen asleep in the library, on top of the book “The Bunyip: Sightings and Stories”. Willow was opposite her, curled up on a chair, and Lobey was sleeping on the floor, using a heavy book as a pillow. Once they had dropped Princess Sonakshi through the portal and escaped with their lives from the attacking Bunyip, they had returned to the palace and researched as much as they could about the creatures. They had gathered up every book they could find on the subject, but the Book Tree only gave them the names of the same two books. But it didn’t matter. Vidya had seen the power of the Bunyip herself. As well as his body, his eyes were strong because he had no trouble seeing them even though they’d drunk the ghostberry potion.

  Pancake squeaked next to her, getting her attention.

  In his paws was a messenger leaf. She quickly took it from him and read the tiny lines of black ink that was the familiar writing of Princess Sonakshi. It looked like she had tried to cram as much as she could onto the small leaf.

  * * *

  Talked to Batuman. Mankini’s brother is Bunyip King. Father says King Fern rounded up Bunyips hundreds of years ago and put to sleep in a cave as too dangerous in the human realm. Woken by a spell set by Mankini. Want revenge against Fae.

  * * *

  Vidya’s mind whirled. She knew about King Fern already from Master Sunny’s story about the Bunyips. But the last sentence of the message made her sit up. Revenge. She frowned, Mankini’s brother?

  This new information whizzed around her brain.

  “Willow,” she called. “Lobey, wake up!”

  The two kids opened sleepy eyes and yawned. Lobey stretched out on the floor, massaging her neck, frowning at the book she’d been sleeping on. The library door opened, and Toad walked in with baby Mahiya swaddled in her arms.

  “Toad,” said Vidya. “Gather the older kids, we need to have a meeting. I have new information.”

  Toad’s blue eyebrows shot up, and she spun around and went straight back through the door.

  When the triplets, Mahiya, Willow, Lotus, and Lily were all sitting in front of her around the table, she read out Sonakshi’s message.

  “This… Batuman can’t be lying, could he?” asked Willow, rubbing his face.

  Vidya shook her head. “No, Sonakshi wouldn’t tell us this if she wasn’t sure.”

  “The Bunyip King,” said Lotus slowly. “That sounds worse than we thought.”

  “It sounds scary,” said Toad, bouncing baby Mahiya on her lap. “If they have a King, how many of them are there?”

  The room fell quiet. Then Lobey spoke.

  “Enough to start a war with us.”

  Vidya’s heart pounded in her chest. Were they going to war with the Bunyips?

  “Look, we have no proof yet that the Bunyips want a war,” said Willow reasonably.

  “Princess Sonakshi’s letter said they want revenge,” pointed out Lobey, narrowing her eyes at Willow.

  “The Bunyip yesterday seemed like a nasty guy,” said Willow defensively. “But he seemed like a regular creature. Are they even smart enough to start a war with us?”

  They all turned toward Lily, who sat rubbing her sprained arm. “They have a King,” she said softly. “Then they are smart.”

  “It doesn’t matter though,” said Willow, shaking his head. “The bottomless sky stands between us and the Fae forest. While we’re on this side, no one can do anything to us.”

  Vidya nodded. “That’s true, Willow. We’re safe over here. But we still have the problem of the Fae magic fading.”

  “And what King Farrion said yesterday,” reminded Lobey.

  Vidya had not forgotten her father’s words when Princess Sonakshi had woken him up for those brief few seconds.

  ‘They’re stealing the magic!’

  “We still have to figure this out,” said Vidya. She

  stood up and went to Master Sunny’s blackboard. She picked up a piece of chalk, feeling everyone’s eyes on her.

  “Alright,” she said. “What do we know?” She drew dot points on the blackboard and spoke out loud. “We know that the Bunyips have woken up from their magical sleep and want revenge.”

  “We know that they have a King,” said Lotus.

  “And we know that he is stealing the Fae magic,” said Lobey.

  Vidya froze and turned around to look at the eldest triplet.

  “Put two and two together, everyone,” chided Lobey, thumping her hand against the table. “It has to be the Bunyips stealing the magic. This is no coincidence.”

  Vidya chewed on her lip. “I mean, it would make sense…” she said slowly.

  “We have no real proof,” said Willow.

  “But how can we know for sure?” asked Lily.

  It clicked together in Vidya’s mind. There was no way around it.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “It’ll be difficult, but I think we need to do this.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Willow.

  Vidya looked at Lily and her injured arm. “Lily, I know you’re hurt, but you’re our best tracker. Do you think you could track a Bunyip back to its King?”

  Groans resounded around the table. Willow put his head in his hands, but Lotus’ eyes shone with excitement, and Lobey bounced in her seat.

  “Are you actually telling us we’re going into the Bunyip’s nest?” asked Willow into his hands. “These monsters that eat human men for breakfast? And we’re going into their nest?”

  “Yes,” said Vidya firmly. “I won’t force anyone to come with me. But we need to do this.”

  “I’m coming,” said Lotus. “I want to get a better look at the things.”

  “Me too,” grumbled Lily. “I don’t like it, but I’ll come, Vidya. I want to help. I can track them for sure.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Willow unhappily. “I’m the best archer, anyway. I just hope I don’t have to shoot any of them.”

  “Looks like the team is back then!” said Lotus, happily flexing his muscles. “When do we leave?”

  At the crack of dawn the next m
orning, Vidya rolled out of bed, pulling Pancake with her. She splashed her face with cold water, patted it dry, and then washed Pancake’s face for him too. She pulled on a green tunic and brown pants, colours that would blend in with the forest, she hoped.

  She picked up The Bunyip book from her bedside table. It wasn’t long, but it made it pretty clear that the Bunyips were dangerous, powerful creatures. She had seen that for herself in real life, after all. It made sense that her grandfather had needed to save the humans from them. And now, this very thing had come to bite them on the backside. She imagined if someone locked her up in a cave for hundreds of years, she would be furious once she woke up. The Bunyip King must be furious. But what revenge did he want? Her heart pumped unevenly in her chest. He would hate the Fae. He would want to come after them, and what? Take over the palace? Well, there was one thing keeping them safe, and as far as she saw it, there was no way the Bunyip King would be able to get past the Bottomless Sky. While they were in the palace, they were completely safe. That’s the way it had been for thousands of years. The Fae were always protected.

  But now, that was all going to change, because she was going to go and find the Bunyips. It would be dangerous and it risky, but if the adults falling asleep had told her anything, it was that she had to act to act fast. Somehow, the Bunyips were stealing Fae energy, and she needed to figure out how to get it back.

  A heavy thought weighed at the back of her mind. If the Fae magic kept decreasing, the Fae children would end up falling asleep too. And then… it would be over. Everything would be over.

  She went into her parents' room where Toad was sleeping on a mattress on the floor next to baby Mahiya’s cot. They had lifted her father back onto the bed, and Vidya watched them all snoring softly in the dim not-yet morning light. Give us some of your strength, mother, she said in her mind. She had once witnessed her mother single-handedly take down a rogue crocodile that had gotten loose in the city. She smiled fondly at the memory of the all the Fae watching, open-mouthed, as their queen jumped on top of him and using rose bush vines, tied him up tight, transporting him back to the Fae pond he had come out of so the mermaids could take him back to the river where he lived.

  Vidya tip-toed around the room, kissing them all on the forehead, including Toad, before shouldering her backpack and heading out the door.

  She met the other three Fae kids in the entrance hall, eating bananas for energy. Lotus looked bright eyed and ready to go, yellow wings fluttering enthusiastically. Willow looked glum, but otherwise awake, gripping his bow tightly. Lily had a new bandage around her wrist but smiled at Vidya reassuringly. Vidya couldn’t but help smile at the group. No matter how scary this mission was, these kids were still willing to do their part, and even be excited about it.

  They walked out of the palace and rose into the air quickly in the same V formation from the Princess Sonakshi mission. They crossed the Bottomless Sky, and before they knew it; the team was in the trees of the Fae forest once again, the dawn sun colouring the sky pink.

  Vidya’s plan was simple. They would fly through the Fae forest and search for a Bunyip. Vidya had collected her father’s strongest ghost berry juice. With it’s help, they would follow the Bunyip back to their nest where they would hide in the trees and silently watch them, ready to gain any information about their new enemy.

  They landed at the edge of the forest, Vidya handed out the ghostberry juice, and they all took a bottle each, draining it completely. They needed to be as ghostly as possible for as long as possible. Once Vidya collected the empty bottles back and they all looked like ghostly forms of themselves, they entered the forest on foot. Lily took the lead and fluttered up to a low branch on a gum tree. From there, she fluttered to the branch of the next tree. Lotus followed her pattern through the branches, with Vidya and Willow close behind. The Fae called this ‘branch-hopping’, and it was the easiest way to pass through a forest without being seen by a human, or in this case, Bunyip.

  They fluttered from branch to branch deep into the forest where the trees grew closer to together and blocked out the sky completely. Vidya noticed, with unease, that the forest was quiet this morning. No birds chirped random words at them, nothing scurried beneath them. There was only silence.

  Ahead, Vidya noticed Lily’s ghostly body pause at one branch, Lotus stopping on the branch above her. Vidya paused on her own branch and felt Willow pause in the tree behind her. She strained her ears for any sign of danger. Lily fluttered down from her branch, and Vidya watched as she crouched to inspect the soil.

  Above her, Lotus had his head cocked to one side, and his mouth was moving as if he were whispering. Willow fluttered next to Vidya and silently pointed to the branch above Lotus, where two red rosella birds were perched, looking down at Lotus and Lily. Within a minute, the rosellas flew away, and Lotus turned, beckoning them to fly to him. Vidya and Willow fluttered onto the branch next to him.

  “Those birds were talking gibberish,” he whispered. “The fading Fae magic is stopping them from talking normally, but I could tell they were warning me to get out. They kept saying ‘danger’.”

  Vidya nodded sadly. Most the animals in the Kingdom were either sleeping or silent just like the adults.

  Lily fluttered back up to them. “I can see the tracks down below,” she whispered.

  Vidya nodded, “Alright, let’s go after it.”

  Lotus nodded and branch hopped to the next tree, the others following.

  After a minute of hopping through the trees, they heard it. Heavy, dragging footsteps. Lotus stopped in his tracks again, and his body went rigid. He raised his hand up in the air. That was the signal that told them he was seeing a Bunyip. They all froze on their spots, listening and peering into the dark.

  Lotus lowered his hand and turned, placing a finger to his lips. He waited a moment before carefully hopping onto the next branch. Vidya fluttered forward as silently as she could.

  The Bunyip was walking just beyond their tree, its huge shiny black body moving slowly on powerful black legs. It’s dog-like head was pointed at the ground, and it sort of swayed as if it were sleepy. It made its way through the forest, and silently, the four Fae children followed, fluttering through the branches. They were still in the Safe Zone of the forest, but none of them had ever been in this corner of it before.

  It only took a few minutes before Lotus raised his hand again for them to all stop. Vidya could see a clearing up ahead, so there were no more branches for them to hop to. Lotus fluttered down to the ground, crouching behind a row of bushes, and signalled to the others to do the same.

  All four of them crouched behind the bush, trying to peer through the leaves. Lotus pressed his finger to his lips again, his eyes wide. He pushed his hand through the bush and leaned back so Vidya could peer into the clearing.

  Vidya had to cover her mouth to stop herself from gasping.

  In that clearing, over one hundred Bunyips lay asleep. Hulking dark shapes made small black hills throughout the grass in front of a gigantic cavern. A huge boulder that must’ve sealed the entrance shut for all those years had been pushed to the side, leaving it wide open. The reality of the situation hit Vidya hard in the chest. This was the cave her grandfather had locked the Bunyips in two hundred years ago.

  The strangest thing of all was the yellow glow coming out of the cave. It shone so warm and bright it was the complete opposite of everything that represented the Bunyips. Vidya felt as if the gold light was drawing her toward it, and she had the strongest urge to run into the cave and see where it was coming from. She did not realise she had leaned right forward until Willow gripped her arm strongly. Vidya shook herself when she realised she had been about to barge right through the bush into the clearing! She needed to see where that light was coming from, no doubt about it.

  The four Fae children surveyed the Bunyips. This might be the only time they got to look at the creatures properly, without flying away in fear of being eaten. The beasts were huge to be
sure; they had long powerful limbs and their faces were terrifying even during sleep, with drool dripping out of mouths full of sharp teeth. A few of them snored, rumbling softly throughout the clearing. But it was the sheer number of them that was overwhelming. Vidya noticed a chair in the centre of the clearing. It looked like it had been roughly put together, with a rock base and branches twined around to make the backrest. It looked like a throne. Then she saw a Bunyip, bigger than any other in the clearing, lay in front of it. His huge shape could have been mistaken for an enormous rock. A throne, Vidya thought. A throne for a King.

  She shivered but was immediately drawn back to the cavern filled with that golden light. It was hard to ignore. Mesmerizing and intense, she was desperate to know more about it.

  “What is that?” breathed Willow, nodding toward the cave with the golden light.

  Vidya shook her head. “We need to find out.” Something in her gut told her that this was it. This was important. But maybe a hundred Bunyips slept between them and the cave. How on earth would they get to see what was inside without waking a single one of them up?

  Pancake squirmed in Vidya’s pocket, and it was then Vidya had a spark of inspiration. She lifted Pancake out of her pocket. He looked at her with wide shining eyes.

  “I need you to be brave for me, Pancake,” she whispered. “Can you do that? For the Fae?”

  Pancake gulped, but he nodded seriously.

  “Okay, see that light over there? I need you to sneak in there and find out what it is.”

  Pancake’s mouth fell open, but Vidya ignored him, instead pulling out the spare bottle of ghostberry juice she had in her bag.

  “Because you’re so small, if you take this, you’ll basically be invisible,” she reassured him. “Just get in there and get out without waking anyone.”

  Pancake looked solemnly up at the four Fae who were staring at him and nodded.