by Amy Sumida
I stood up and went to the railing, staring into the darkness expectantly. A few sparks and the whoosh of wings were the only things betraying the presence of a flock of raven mockers. I strode down the porch stairs and my Guard rushed to follow me but I held up my hand and all but Cat fell back.
“I am Princess Seren Firethorn of the Twilight Court,” I called out in a commanding voice. “I demand to speak with your leader!”
A hush followed, only broken by Cat's anxious shuffle beside me. She was staring up into the sky, following movement that I couldn't see.
“Show yourselves now or be labeled traitors to your court!” I shouted and several of my knights gasped.
A form dropped suddenly before me and Tiernan rushed forward but again, I waved him back and he stopped just one foot shy of me. The mocker was merely standing there, offering me no harm, and I didn't want Tiernan's behavior mistaken for an attack. So I stepped forward, away from Tiernan and Cat, and drew close enough to the mocker to clearly see him.
He wasn't at all what I was expecting. First off, he looked young and I'd read that most raven mockers had a withered appearance. As much as it sounds impossible for a whole species to be withered and old, it sometimes happens with fairies. It was simply the form their bodies took and had nothing to do with age. Just as someone of Tiernan's unknown but certainly lengthy lifespan could appear to be no older than thirty.
This man didn't even look that old. I would have guessed maybe twenty-five if he'd been human. But he wasn't, he so was not human. He could have passed for it though, if not for the pair of enormous, ebony, feathered wings flowing from his back. Without them, he looked Native American, in a very old school way. As in; buckskin pants and long, pin-straight, midnight hair adorned with a single raven feather tied on with a leather strip. He was shirtless and his magnificent chest was a deep, tawny fawn; like sunlight on a rocky mountainside. He belonged in a historic painting and I realized that my dream self, dressed in leather and beads, would have looked perfect standing beside him.
The angel-like wings folded serenely behind his back as he stepped forward just barely an inch, bringing him close enough to smell. I breathed in the scent of sage smoke, leather, and cinnamon; odd but appealing. The hollows beneath his high cheekbones fluttered as his jaw clenched and he looked me over.
“You are the new princess?” He asked in a skeptical tone.
“Do you need proof?” I lifted my hand and an eyebrow.
His response was to lift his hand very slowly to my temple and stroke back the hair there. I held still as he pulled forward a swath of my hair and brought it into the moonlight. It was the ombré stripe of purple that faded to lavender at the ends; the coloring I'd inherited from my father. He dropped the hair and leaned his face into mine, staring me straight in the eyes. No doubt, he was searching for the stars that were the true proof of my heritage.
“You are just as he said,” the mocker nodded and stood back.
“He?” I asked as Cat edged forward.
“My father,” the mocker cocked his head at Cat, looked her over just as intensely as he had me, and then gave her a slight nod. “Her as well.”
“I've met your father?” I blinked in surprise. “I thought most raven mockers kept to the woods or the Human Realm and I'm sure I would have remembered meeting one.”
“My father is not a mocker,” he said simply.
“You're one of the first then?” I asked.
“The first,” he bowed. “I am Rayetayah; son to Ayita, raven fey of the Seelie, and Raza, dragon-djinn of the Unseelie.”
“Raza?” I whispered as Tiernan shifted forward. “You're Lord Raza's son?”
“I am,” Rayetayah lifted his chin.
“Well damn,” I huffed. “I'm surprised your wings aren't more leathery.”
“Did you not hear me say that my mother was a raven fairy?” He smirked.
“Raven fairy,” I frowned. “Oh right, the Native American animals spirits are actually types of fey.”
“Yes, Princess,” he chuckled.
“Hey,” I wagged my finger in his face. “I'm new to this, cut me some slack.”
“I know this too,” he nodded. “My father told me you were still learning our ways but that your ignorance was a blessing because it made you completely unprejudiced. He spoke very highly of you and that's rare for my father.”
“Oh really?” I blinked as Tiernan muttered something along the lines of; I bet he did.
“He believes that you will be good for Fairy,” Rayetayah went on. “But why are you here, standing against me, when you should be beside me?”
“I'm also an extinguisher,” I said and a sudden fluttering of wings gave away the location of several mockers circling above us. “I am half fairy and half human. Did your father not tell you that part?”
“He told me of your blood but not that you were a human murderer of fey,” he ground out.
“You, of all people, should know better than to call me a murderer,” I chided him. “I expect that you've lived here a long time and you should know that we are peace keepers, not murderers. We only kill when we have warrants to do so. Warrants given when fairies break the truce.”
“Perhaps,” he conceded.
“No perhaps about it,” I growled. “Your kind have been getting away with murder for a long time, Rayetayah,” I accused. “But now the humans have found a way to prove your guilt. They caught a raven mocker trying to kill an old man on tape.”
“Tape?” He frowned.
“Camera,” I explained. “You know what I'm talking about. You live here, so I'm sure you know the technology that's available. Some human investigators used infrared cameras to catch a raven mocker's heat signal on film. We have proof that you've been doing just what the myths accuse you of.”
“You have proof that someone committed this deed,” he narrowed his eyes on me. “You don't have proof that it was an actual mocker.”
I frowned and glanced back at Tiernan in consternation. I hadn't expected him to take this route. He seemed like the type to go for a blatant approach. Something more like; yeah, we did it. So what? But this round about, maybe we did, maybe we didn't thing seemed silly. A waste of time at the very least. Unless...
“You seriously want me to believe that someone else could have done this?” I lifted a brow at him.
His jaw clenched and with a swift movement, he reached out and swept me against him. In seconds, we were in the air, flying away from the Council House with dizzying speed. I heard shouting and knew that Tiernan would try to follow us. I also knew how fast Tiernan could fly with his air manipulation magic and it wasn't nearly fast enough to catch up with this guy.
“Take me back!” I shouted over the rush of wind.
“Not yet,” Rayetayah stared straight ahead and held me tight.
I could have probably made him drop me but I wasn't proficient enough with my air magic yet to be able to stop my fall and we were high enough that the fall might actually kill me. So instead of fighting him, I held on, pressing myself against his bare chest. His skin was warm, almost hot, and the heat felt good up in the cool air. I might have even enjoyed the ride under different circumstances. As it was, I was supremely irritated by the time we landed in an open field several miles away from the Council House. I jerked away from Rayetayah as soon as my feet touched ground.
“Not cool,” I snapped at him as other raven mockers landed around us. I stared around me at stoic-faced men with wingspans to match Rayetayah's. This had the potential to go very bad for me.
“You weren't listening,” he accused me. “And I had concerns for my people. I saw the amount of fairy knights you had with you.”
“I was listening,” I sighed. “I am listening. I just don't understand what you're saying.”
“We did not try to kill anyone,” he ground out. “Years ago, we discovered that we had the capability to take the last drops of life from the dying or the old but it entailed consuming the heart of
our victim. Still, the energy was delicious and we gave into the lure of it for many years. But then my mother's people came to us and begged us to stop. The ravens, the beavers, the coyotes, the badgers, even the waukheon and nanabozho; the thunderbirds and trickster rabbits, came. We took very little from the humans, just the last, painful moments of their life, but still the animal spirits believed it was cruelty against the people who had taken us into their tribe. So we stopped.”
“You stopped?” I frowned.
“We stopped. We never again took life from the humans,” Rayetayah confirmed. “But something else did. Don't ask me what or who because I don't know. All I know is that something watched us, learned from us, and took over where we left off.
I considered his words as the other mockers drew in close. The faces on those fairies were somber, their eyes begging me to believe in them. As their princess, I found that I couldn't deny them. If anyone should believe in them, it should be me. So I did.
“I believe you,” I whispered and they inhaled sharply, as one.
“You do?” Rayetayah asked dubiously.
“Why would you lie to me?” I asked him. “You're my people and I will look after you as long as you obey the truce. If you say you're innocent in this, I'll believe and back you until it is proved otherwise. However,” I held up a hand. “If it is proved to me that one of you is responsible for this, I will do my duty as an extinguisher and hunt you down. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Rayetayah inclined his head in acceptance. When he lifted his face, he was smiling. “Thank you. Perhaps my father was right about you.”
“Don't thank me yet,” I warned. “I'll need your help in proving your innocence. I need to find out who really is guilty and to do that, I'll need you to stay in Fairy for awhile.”
“What?” Rayetayah cocked his head at me. “You want us to leave the Human Realm?”
“For now,” I nodded. “I want all of you to go to the Twilight Court, where you will stay until I can find the impostor. With you under the watchful eyes of my father, you will have an alibi, a royal alibi. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I see your logic,” he nodded. “So be it, Princess. We will go to court and submit to observation. But how will we help you find the culprit if we're in another realm?”
“You are going to stay here with me,” I said to him and he began to smile; slow and sensuous. Just like his father. I nearly rolled my eyes. “Not that kind of stay with me,” I snapped and his smile faded. “You'll stay here, in the Council House, with me and my guards. You'll be under our supervision while you help us find whomever is behind this.”
“Alright, Princess Seren,” he sighed and looked to his people. “But first, I will see my family safely to Fairy.”
“I'll help with that too,” I agreed. “I have fairies waiting for me at one of the raths in Twilight. We'll take your people there and I will escort them through with you. Then my fairies will lead the raven mockers to Twilight Castle. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes,” he nodded and scooped me up, launching us into the air.
“What the hell?” I snapped.
“I'm taking you back to the Council House,” he glanced down at me with a little smile. “I'll leave you there and return tomorrow evening. My family and I need a night to gather our things and prepare to leave.”
“Oh, okay,” I settled in against him. “I guess that works.”
“It will have to,” his low voice slid over me and I thought again of his father.
Raza had told me that he was one of the last of his kind and that his race would eventually go extinct. Rayetayah was proof of that. The dragon blood wouldn't continue past Raza, instead, it had helped to create a new line entirely. Which I guess, was Nature's way. One race ends and another begins.
Chapter Eight
I called Tiernan from the air, to let him know I was alright and to tell everyone to stand down; I was unharmed and on my way back. He was angry but relieved enough that it didn't matter. I made a mental note to thank my Uncle Dylan for the cell phones. Without them, Tiernan and the rest of my Guard would have been wandering around Tulsa, searching for me all night.
As it was, we returned to find the Council House all lit up, floodlights illuminating the entire yard, and were instantly surrounded by fairy knights and extinguishers when we landed. Rayetayah gave me a smirk as he let me go.
“They're still scared of me,” he chuckled.
“They're afraid that you'll hurt me,” I corrected. “But that brings up a good question,” I waved everyone back as I turned to look up at him. “Why have you been attacking the Council House if you're innocent?”
“We never attacked them,” he shook his head. “We heard about what went on with the shaman and knew we'd be blamed. So instead of just waiting for them to hunt us, I thought it would be better to try and simply scare them off. No one gets hurt that way,” he shrugged.
“Except that it made you look guilty as hell,” I sighed. “Alright, go do what you need to do and meet me back here tomorrow evening.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” he took my hand and bowed, kissing the back of it. Then he launched himself straight up into the sky.
“I know,” I said to everyone as I walked towards the house. “I have a lot of explaining to do. Let's go inside first, it's cold out here.”
“Ambassador, are you all right?” Councilman Teagan stood on the porch, waiting for me.
“I'm perfectly fine,” I assured him. “The raven mocker leader was concerned for the safety of his people, so he flew me to a neutral location for us to speak.”
“He was concerned,” Councilman Murdock huffed.
“Let's talk in the living room,” Teagan ignored Murdock and waved me inside. “I think everyone has a right to hear what you have to say.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed and followed him in to take a seat on an overstuffed beige couch beside him.
Tiernan sat beside me, taking my hand to give it a relieved squeeze before letting it go. Cat laid across my feet and my Star's Guard spread themselves around the room, keeping a watchful eye on everything as they listened. The extinguishers made like my Guard; standing around the room, several near windows so they could keep a watch over the perimeter of the house. The council members though, just came in and took seats.
“Now that we're all settled,” Teagan nodded. “Please tell us what you've learned, Ambassador Seren.”
“I believe the raven mockers are innocent,” I said and the room erupted into surprised shouting; mostly from the council members.
“Enough!” Teagan yelled over everyone and got the silence he demanded. “Please go on, Princess.”
“I understand how this looks,” I began again. “If you had said the same thing to me earlier today, I wouldn't have believed you.”
“Why do you think they're innocent?” Tiernan asked gently.
“For one thing, they told me they are,” I said simply and Councilman Murdock made a disgusted snort. “They have no reason to lie to me but I won't argue the point. Rayetayah, their leader, told me that initially they were behind the attacks but the other local fey, including his mother, asked them to stop out of love for the Native Americans.”
“You're telling me that fairies asked other fairies to stop hurting humans?” Murdock scoffed.
“Councilman Murdock, are you deliberately trying to be insulting or are you just too senile to remember our history?” I said snidely.
“You-” Murdock started but was cut off by Teagan.
“Stop arguing with the Princess,” Teagan said to Murdock. “Let her finish and then we'll ask our questions.”
“Thank you,” I nodded to him. “Fairies have a history of loving humans and vice versa. The Native Americans especially appealed to the nature-loving fey and several fairies became guardians of the tribes. The humans thought they were animal spirits or gods.”
“Gods,” Murdock huffed.
“Say one more word and I w
ill remove you from this room myself,” Teagan glared at the older councilman and Murdock looked away. “Go on, Ambassador.”
“Rayetayah is the son of one of those spirits; a raven spirit to be exact,” I explained and all of the fairies in the room nodded in understanding. It made sense that the mother's traits would influence the son. “His mother had a deep respect for the Cherokee and she felt that he was hurting them, so she asked him to stop. He says that they did but something else had been watching them and took over where they left off.”
“So the monster is telling us it's another monster's fault?” Murdock huffed.
Every fairy in the room tensed, including me. Teagan started to say something but I waved him down as I stood. I had the supreme satisfaction of seeing Murdock's face go white. I admit that I relished his fear as I closed the distance between us.
“How did such a horrid racist become a councilman?” I asked him in a deceptively calm voice.
“I am not a racist,” he sputtered.
“You've insulted me and now you've insulted my people,” I narrowed my eyes on him. “Either you're a liar and a bigot or you're very, very stupid. Because if we truly were monsters, you should be afraid of what we might do to you,” I leaned in to whisper, “without you even knowing we were doing it.”
“How dare you?” Murdock drew back his hand and all of my guard reacted, moving towards us with fairy speed.
They were fast but I didn't need their help. I could protect myself, especially from some old fool. I didn't even strike him or use any of my new fey magic. I used good old fashioned human telekinesis to give his hand a small nudge. Just enough to send it into his own face instead of mine. The slap rang out and the councilman sat there in stunned silence as a red mark appeared on his cheek.
“Stop hitting yourself,” I mocked him in the sing-song tone of a child.
All of my guard stopped short and with extreme effort they managed to hold in their laughter. Not so for the extinguishers and council members. They laughed at Murdock and it was a merciless, growing laughter that started out small and shocked but evolved into full out hilarity. Murdock stood and left the room without another word.