The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2)

by Ektaa Bali

  Bleary-eyed, she trundled through the palace and flew up the stairs straight into her bedroom.

  Lily and Daisy were in there, gasping when they saw her, but she didn’t have the energy to acknowledge them, all she could do when she reached her bed was flop right down on it, face first.

  She was asleep before she hit the mattress.

  The group of Fae kids gathered in the room's doorway behind her. Luna and Toad pushed past Lotus and Willow and walked up to Vidya, pulling off her shoes. Lobey helped them tug off her jacket and pulled the covers up and around her, making sure Pancake was settled safely next to her. They stood over her, staring at the sparkling tiara slumped against her pink curls that they all knew had clearly come from another world entirely.

  “I don’t want to touch it,” whispered Luna to her sisters.

  Lobey reached a hand out but pulled it back quickly with a shudder.

  It was Toad who gently took the tiara off Vidya’s head with both hands and laid to rest on her side table. They stared at it for a moment before Willow cleared his throat, and they all woke up out of their daydream and filed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind them.

  “What do you think happened to her,” asked Lotus, his yellow wings gave a twitch of unease. “She wasn’t hurt, was she?”

  “No,” Lobey shook her head. “But whatever it was, she’s lucky to be alive.”

  In her dream, Vidya found herself in a room made of shadows.

  Vidya, she heard a familiar wispy voice. The same voice she had heard when she picked up the golden petal under the sea.

  “Hello?” she whispered into the dark.

  Then a small section of the shadows parted, and a tiny speck of yellow light appeared. Vidya recognised it immediately. She willed herself closer to it. She needed to get closer.

  Gradually, the light grew larger, and from the glow, the form of a gigantic flower emerged. The Flower of Awakening was huge. At least five times the size of any flower Vidya had ever seen. If Vidya had opened her arms on either side of herself, the flower would have been just slightly larger still. Many golden yellow petals unfurled from the centre in layers, creating a beautiful, flowing effect. Golden and silvery veins lined each petal, giving off their own light. But this time, Vidya noticed the light looked duller, softer, sleepier. As if the flower was exhausted. And when the flower spoke to her in her mind, she spoke with a softer voice, as if she was too afraid to speak… or too weak.

  “Vidya you… found me,” she whispered.

  Vidya swore her heart grew in her chest. She wanted nothing more than to help the flower, ease its pain, give it what it needed. Vidya felt the backs of her eyes burn, and she felt like she wanted to cry.

  “I’m here,” she spoke hurriedly. She felt like time was running out. How long would the vision last for? “I’m trying to help you… to get your energy back somehow. The Old Ones said we have to make it like it was when you first woke us up. Tell me how to do it. Please!” she begged.

  “My memory is failing. I cannot remember. There was fire…. but much more, I cannot… I am weak, too weak.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll try to find out. The Wollemi Pine, King of the Trees, might be able to help. They said he was there.”

  “Was he? He was… I cannot… remember…”

  Vidya gulped, her heart racing in her chest. This was not looking good.

  “The Bunyips… took too much from me. I fear if you do not hurry, it will be the end of me.”

  “And then what happens?” whispered Vidya.

  “And that will be the end of the Fae.”

  And then everything faded into shadow again, and Vidya slept and slept and slept.

  When Vidya woke up, she yawned loudly and stretched out her aching muscles. Looking out the window, the sun was still high in the sky. Lobey dozed in the window bed, an open book lying on her chest.

  “How long did I sleep for?” Vidya asked herself.

  Lobey awoke with a startled snort. She breathed deeply and looked out the window, scratching her cheek. “You’re finally up! You arrived yesterday.”

  “That’s a long time,” frowned Vidya, looking over to see Pancake wide awake, reclining on the pillow next to her, a bowl of blueberries balanced on his round belly.

  “Then again, you did almost die,” said Lobey darkly.

  “You were thrilled to see me,” said Vidya with a smile, rolling off the bed stiffly.

  “Of course I was,” said Lobey, swinging her legs down from the bed and crossing her arms. “I left you and fled, saving myself. What type of Fae does that make me?”

  Vidya smiled sadly at Lobey. “A smart one.”

  Lobey scratched the back of her head and sighed. “I thought you were gone, Vidya.”

  “I thought you’d be happy being Queen,” teased Vidya.

  Lobey threw her hands up in the air and scoffed. “I show you one ounce of niceness, and off you go with it.”

  Vidya laughed. “Call a meeting,” she said. “I’m going to take a bath, then we all need to talk.”

  “Pancake wouldn’t tell us anything,” complained Lobey. “No matter how much I poked him.”

  Vidya smiled at her best friend. “We’ve been through a lot together, him and I, of course, his loyalty is only to me.”

  “Alright, well hurry up then.”

  A squeaky clean Vidya and Pancake met the group: the triplets, Daisy, Lotus, Willow, and Lily, in the palace library. She was immediately swamped with cries of “Vidya!” and “Pancake!” and many pairs of arms were thrown vigorously around her. Her face smooshed in a yellow wing that could only be Lily’s, she laughed.

  “Let her go,” called Lobey, “She’s just come back from the dead you know.”

  They all hastily released her and took back their seats, Daisy pushing a bowl of broccoli stew into her hands. Vidya put it down hastily and picked up a lumpy looking purple muffin instead. But Luna lingered by her side. “Where is your tiara?” she said softly.

  Vidya had left it in its place on her side table.

  “Well, I can’t be wearing that around all the time, can I? It’s not practical.”

  Luna giggled and went to sit back down.

  “Spill the beans,” said Lobey, “You’ve kept us waiting long enough.”

  Vidya nodded and recounted the story from when Lobey had flown away and Jimmy had taken Pancake and Vidya and pelted deep into the forest, eventually flinging them away and how they found themselves in the Old Country. She revealed what they had told her. Pancake filled in with sound effects, like hissing when the great Python hissed or miming how the great Kangaroo placed the crown on Vidya’s head.

  “So we have to go back into the Fae forest!” groaned Willow.

  Lotus whooped with joy, shaking his fist in the air. “Let’s do it!” he cried.

  “Yes,” said Vidya. “Unfortunately, the King of Trees is deep in the forest, and he is the only one who knows how to fix the Flower of Awakening.”

  “And we need to do all this before the Bunyips figure out how to fly over the gap to the palace,” said Lobey. “The one that came after me tumbled right back into the trees. He almost got me, but not quite.”

  “There are maps in here,” said Lotus. “Master Sunny showed us at the start of the year.”

  “Well, we mustn’t be up to that in our class,” said Lobey irritably, walking over to the Book Tree.

  They all watched as Lobey stomped up to the little Bonsai on his table of cards.

  “Book Tree, I need a good map of the Fae forest. Where the Wollemi King lives.”

  The Bonsai shook his leaves vigorously, then went still.

  Lobey turned to gape at them. “Is he saying no to me?” she asked, affronted.

  “Book Tree, we are in mortal danger! Tell me where the maps to the Wollemi Pine are!”

  The Book Tree shook his leaves angrily again.

  “He won’t give them to us,” said Lotus. “Kids aren’t allowed to go into the forest, re
member?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” grumbled Lobey, stomping back to her seat.

  Lotus shrugged and smirked. “I just wanted to see you try.”

  “Very funny.”

  “But Vidya is Queen now,” came Luna’s soft voice. “And the Queen’s word is law.”

  Silence seeped into the room like heavy smoke, and it weighed on Vidya’s shoulders. But she took a deep breath and remembered the great Kangaroo putting the tiara on her head. She strode over to the Book Tree.

  “Book Tree, I have a quest that needs to get me to the King of Trees. The Wollemi Pine. Give me a map to him, please.”

  The Book Tree bent a little as if bowing and plucked out a single card from his box. Vidya held it up triumphantly, and Lotus whooped with joy, running up to her and plucking the card out of her hand and sprinting into the stacks where the maps were kept.

  “Got it!” he said, running back and waving a large square of green leaf paper in the air. He spread it out on the table in the middle, and they all craned their heads to look at it.

  “So where does the King of all Trees live?” asked Toad.

  “There,” pointed Willow with his sharp eyes.

  “Oh no,” said Lobey darkly.

  12

  The King of Trees

  Of all the sacred trees in the Fae forest, the Wollemi Pine reigns as King. He was there at the turn of the world, watching us as we emerged from the earth. Watching as beings came and left the earth. The quiet observer, the quiet knower of things. If there is one who has seen, it is He.

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

  * * *

  The King of Trees, the Wollemi Pine, had put himself in the most protected of locations. Right in the middle of a Cassowary commune. Cassowaries were usually solitary birds, but they had made an exception in the case of the King of Trees. Known as the most dangerous birds alive, they were ferocious and protective, capable of reaching fast speeds and causing real damage in a fight.

  Whoever had drawn the map had written, “DO NOT CROSS” in capital letters and red ink. The cassowaries were clearly bad news. It was too bad they’d have to go there and find that out for themselves.

  “Oh, for Earth’s sake!” exclaimed Willow, throwing his hands up in the air. “It just had to be in the middle of the most dangerous thing in the world, didn’t it?”

  “Well, it looks like the cassowaries have been serving the Wollemi King for millions of years,” said Lobey, running a finger across the page of a thick black book she had found. “The birds are living dinosaurs, they were around before most of the creatures of the Forbidden Zone.”

  “Great. Just great,” grumbled Willow.

  “You’ll be fine,” stressed Lobey. “Vidya is Fae Queen now, they’ll have to listen to her.”

  * * *

  The next morning, they set off across the bottomless sky, back into the forest. This time, Vidya, Lotus, and Lily also had bows and arrows, just like Willow, and Lotus had given Pancake a sharp rock to keep ‘just in case’. The Bunyips were too strong and clever to risk anymore incidents. If they were to be attacked again, they would get away, even if it meant shooting the things. They branched-hopped with Willow in the lead, as his eyes were the sharpest, and Lotus at the back, as he would be best in a fight if anyone came at them from behind.

  They followed the map deep into the forest, and the four children watched their surroundings as it gradually changed. Within the hour, they came to the boundary. Thousands of years ago, an old Fae Queen had, with the permission of each tree, carved out an ‘X’ in their trunks and painted it red. It was a silent, serious reminder of the danger that awaited them. Willow, having reached the boundary first, paused to stare, his wings standing to attention. Vidya fluttered to join him on his branch.

  “This is the furthest any of us have ever been into the forest,” he whispered. “Except you, of course.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” joked Vidya, swatting him on his arm. She couldn’t even remember crossing the boundary with Jimmy the other night. He had been going much too fast.

  Lily fluttered next to Vidya.

  “What’s the holdup?” she asked. “Look,” she pointed to the forest floor beneath them.

  Squinting, Vidya heard Willow take a sharp breath. “Bunyip tracks.”

  “They’re everywhere,” admitted Lily. “All over the place.”

  Ice trickled down Vidya’s spine. “How fresh are they?”

  Lily’s shoulders moved up and down as she took a deep breath. “Recent, within the last hour.”

  “Let’s keep moving then,” Vidya replied.

  “We’re just walking further in to danger,” Willow muttered under his breath. He made to move onto the next tree, but Vidya placed a hand on his chest.

  “Willow,” she hissed. “I had a dream about the Flower of Awakening the other night.”

  He met her eyes with startled ones. “And do you know what she told me?”

  “What?” he whispered.

  “If we don’t restore her magic, the Fae are dead. Forever,” she poked him in the chest. “Stop complaining, and let’s do what we need to do, okay?”

  She watched Willow as his navy wings drooped with guilt. He swallowed. “I know Vidya, I’m sorry. I want to help as much as anyone else.”

  “I know, Will,” she said kindly. “Let’s just keep moving, hey?”

  He nodded and took off for the next tree, waving the others to follow. They branch-hopped through the forest for the next hour without anything serious happening, but Vidya could not shake a creepy feeling itching at her, like insects crawling in her belly, that danger was all around them.

  The trees grew closer and closer together, which meant that the canopy overhead let in less and less light. Eventually, the trees clustered so close to one another that the branches and leaves overlapped above them, closing the canopy completely. The kids had to squint through the darkness, and it gave the air a sort of heavy, sinister feeling. Nothing moved in the forest around them, no birds flit through the trees, and no small animals pushed through the leaf litter in the moist earth below. The kids found it hard to breathe the heavy moist air that had the mild smell of rotting fruit.

  They stopped almost a dozen times to check the map. They were all nervous, jumping at random sounds, like when the wind rustled a branch or made a whistling noise between the trees. And they found it difficult to keep track of the landmarks they were supposed to be following. They turned left at the banana shaped tree but realised too late that they had missed the patch of monstrous pumpkins, mistaking them for large rocks. They had to double back to stay on the right track, but this type of thing went on and on for hours. Her father’s words rang clear in her ears the entire time. ‘Always be alert in the Fae forest, Vidya, there’s no telling what could happen.’

  They had been travelling along in silence for a few minutes when Willow raised his hand up in the air so abruptly, he almost fell off the branch he was on. His arms wheeled frantically through the air before he steadied himself.

  Vidya froze, one hand on the trunk of her own tree, when she saw them. Two enormous shapes shifted on the ground below. Bunyips. The four children froze on their branches, wondering what to do. Had they walked into a trap? But the Bunyips showed no sign of noticing them. Just as Vidya was turning to signal to Lotus to move away from there, they heard two gravelly voices like rocks grating together, having a conversation.

  “Do you smell that?” said one.

  Snuffling sounds came from one of the Bunyips below.

  “Nah, smell nothing,” the other replied.

  Vidya noticed they spoke slowly, speaking the words as if they were new and unusual to their mouths. She imagined that talking through a mouthful of very large teeth would be difficult.

  “It smells like Fae,” grumbled the first. “Sweet and sticky and yummy smelling.”

  “Nar, all I smell is you,” replied the other.

  “
When do you think we’ll make a move?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When did the King say we’re launching our attack? I can fly really well now, I think.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never listen! I think it was supposed to be in three nights’ time. When the moon is sleeping in the sky.”

  “When is the moon sleeping in the sky?”

  “When it’s a new moon, you dolt. That means there’s no moon in the sky. Geez, the Flower of Awakening skipped you a little bit, hey.”

  “Leave me alone,” complained the other. “I’m hungry.”

  “No problems there. In three nights, you’ll get to eat all the Fae you can fit into your huge tummy.”

  They began laughing, an awful, grating, throaty noise that made the kids listening above, cringe. Vidya cast a look behind her to where Lily was frozen on her branch, her eyes huge. Lotus was next to her, his bow knocked with an arrow ready to shoot. Vidya waved her arms at him frantically. No! She mouthed at him. No! She finally caught his eye without falling out of the tree herself, and he guiltily lowered his bow, but didn’t return the arrow. He shrugged and mouthed just in case. Vidya rolled her eyes and shook her head. The Bunyips were now loping off in the opposite direction to the way the Fae were travelling. With a sigh of relief, Willow led them out of danger to the next tree and away from the huge black monsters.

  They continued along, passing many unusual sights. There was a creek full of glowing rocks, trees that grew upside down and on top of each other, and weirder still, at one stage, they saw rocks that were fighting each other, hurling themselves at one another aggressively, until one of them burst into a shower of crumbs. They stopped to watch this last event for a few minutes before shaking their heads at one another, checking the map, and moving on, realising they were quite close to the home of the Wollemi King. Willow reminded them they should be more wary if there were ferocious cassowaries lurking nearby.