Vankara (Book 1)

by S. J. West

  Fallon’s naturally suspicious mind kept him from saying a cordial ‘thank you’ right away. He studied Lanai with undisguised curiosity, finally coming to a decision about her character.

  “Thank you for your help,” he finally said.

  Fallon looked around the camp. His eyes rested on the corpse of the dragon he had slain.

  “I’d heard rumors about dragons but I thought they were just made up stories to keep us from coming on fae territory,” he admitted, letting his eyes roam the now cold corpse of his foe.

  “Maybe they’re the reason none of the people who tried to come here ever made it back,” I suggested.

  “I can sure as hell see why,” Fallon admitted. “Damn thing almost had me.”

  “Your survival is a credit to your skill as a fighter,” Lanai complemented.

  “Well, I wouldn’t be alive if the two of you hadn’t stitched me up,” Fallon held his hand out to Lanai.

  Lanai seemed confused at first but soon realized what was required of her. She held her hand out too and Fallon grasped it.

  “John Fallon,” he said as formal introduction. “Thank you again for saving my life.”

  “Your Queen did most of the work,” Lanai replied. “I simply showed her where to find the best cure for your malady. It’s her you owe most of your gratitude to.”

  Fallon looked over at me, a smile playing at a corner of his lips.

  “Thank you,” he hesitated before adding, “my Queen.”

  It was hard to tell if he was being genuine or disingenuous in calling me his Queen but I concluded the distinction between the two would always be difficult to discern with Fallon. The knowledge that John Fallon now felt a sense of indebtedness towards me for saving his life was more valuable than any sincere formal address.

  I saw Fallon’s eyes find and narrow upon the small dragonling sleeping on my shoulder.

  “What the hell is that?”

  I went on to explain how I came to be in possession of the creature and the scant information Lanai had supplied me about its behavior.

  “Can you unbind with it?” Fallon questioned right away. “It’s not like we can hide it when it grows up. People are definitely going to notice a large dragon walking around the palace.

  “Once the bond has been forged, there is no unbinding,” Lanai told Fallon in no uncertain terms. “My people consider it a great honor to be bound with a dragon. There are a scarce number of them left in the world. Your Queen has been blessed.”

  Fallon let the subject drop, seeing there would be no way to convince Lanai of the impracticality of having a dragon as a pet in Vankara. I felt sure Fallon was thinking the same thing I was: we would leave the dragonling on this side of the wall when we returned home. The logic of our simple plan seemed infallible at the time. It’s funny how things become more complicated as your knowledge on a subject grows.

  “We should get going,” Fallon said, fool-heartedly attempting to stand. The feat was simply too much for his damaged body and he quickly sat back down. “Or maybe not,” he admitted to himself.

  “Why don’t you stay here and rest,” I told Fallon. “Lanai says the Queen’s palace is only a few hours ride from here. If I go now . . . ”

  “No.” The sharpness of this one word told me there would be no argument I could present to persuade him otherwise. “You’re not going there alone. I can make it.”

  “There’s no way you can ride that much in one day,” I tried reason. “You’ll probably bleed to death before we even get there.”

  “I know of a plant which can stem the flowing of blood,” Lanai said, “if you would like to try it.”

  “Do you have shepherd’s purse here?” I asked. It had occurred to me to go look for the plant but I knew how hard it could be to find.

  “Possibly,” Lanai said, “though we call it mother’s heart here. It is most likely the same plant. Tell me, how does a Queen come to know so much about healing?”

  “My father taught me,” I said truthfully. “He thought it was important I be able to take care of myself.”

  “Well, I can show you where it grows. As you know it can be hard to find if you don’t already know where it has taken root. While you gather what we need, I will go back to my home and retrieve something to help relieve some of the pain.”

  The shepherd’s purse wasn’t very far from camp. I began pulling up as much of it as I could while Lanai scampered off back to wherever her home was. For a woman her age, she struck me as being rather agile.

  I was grinding up the last of the shepherd’s purse when she reappeared with a jar of red paste.

  We coated Fallon’s wounds with the shepherd’s purse first and then Lanai rubbed the red paste parallel to the jagged edges of the slash marks.

  “Is that red pepper paste?” I asked.

  “Yes, it should help numb some of the pain. You will still feel discomfort,” Lanai told Fallon. “But it should help you at least get through this day. You can take the jar with you. You need it more than I, Vankaran. When you return home, you should seek out a healer to stitch up your wounds so they can mend properly.”

  Lanai and I wrapped the roll of bandages around Fallon’s torso as tightly as we dared without completely restricting his movement. The front of Fallon’s jacket was completely ruined but we had nothing else for him to wear. So, he buttoned it, where it still had buttons, as best he could.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” I told Lanai as I draped the Mantle of Power back across my shoulders, being careful not to disturb the still sleeping dragonling.

  “There is no need child. I’m just glad I was able to help. I have to admit,” she smiled lending her aged face a pixyish glow, “it has been a while since I had so much excitement.”

  “Is there anyway I can repay your kindness?” I asked.

  “Keep yourself and those under your care safe,” her subtle reminder of the babe she thought I carried was not lost on me. “And keep your eyes open when you meet with Nuala. She may be young and beautiful but keep in mind she is quite cunning. Don’t be fooled by her charms.”

  “Thank you for your warning,” I said, not quite sure why a Fae would be telling me to not trust her own leader. Lanai’s words of caution seemed oddly placed to me at the time.

  If only I had heeded her warnings more.

  Chapter 15

  We said our goodbyes to Lanai and made our way down the forest path to the fae Queen’s palace. Fallon took the lead. I felt sure I was in better shape to protect us considering Fallon’s physical state but didn’t want to wound his pride anymore than it already was. Though, why his pride should be wounded I hadn’t a clue. The man had just slain a dragon, something I felt sure not many people could boast.

  I could tell the ride was causing Fallon pain. His shoulders were hunched and his head hung low. I suggested he might want to take some of the laudanum he brought but he stoutly refused.

  “I want to be clear headed when we get to there,” he said.

  “Well if you won’t stop, is there anything I can do to help you?”

  He brought his horse to a halt until I came up beside him so we were eye to eye.

  “How about telling me more about yourself,” he suggested as we rode next to one another. “Maybe if I’m thinking about something else I won’t concentrate on the pain as much.”

  I never considered my life as a source of conversation and had no idea where to start.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  “Well for starters, what was so bad about being April Pew? You said you saw her in that alternate world Bellas took you to. What made you desperate enough to become Sarah Harker?”

  “Being April Pew was a nightmare,” I admitted with a shake of my head. “It meant living with a mother who was never forgiving of mistakes and a father who was never around to care. They weren’t my real parents anyway. They just adopted me so they could show me off to all of their friends and pretend they were good people. My life d
idn’t become worth living until Gabriel helped me become Sarah Harker when I was seven.”

  “So what were the Harker’s like?”

  “Loving. Kind. Self-sacrificing. They loved me more than anything in the world.

  “Yeah but it wasn’t really you they loved was it?”

  Fallon’s question cut me to the quick, delving into an insecurity I had harbored since transforming into Sarah Harker. The pain he caused must have been written in my expression.

  “I’m sorry,” Fallon said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s all right. It’s not like I haven’t asked myself that same question a thousand times or more in the past thirteen years. I can only hope it was me they loved and not just the biological relationship I was supposed to share with them.”

  “After thirteen years, I’m sure it was who you had become they loved,” he tried to reassure me.

  I thought talking about my past would be easy, but found the task harder than I ever imagined. To verbalize how deceptive my life was made me feel as though I didn’t really know who I was at all. I transformed myself into people who were better than April Pew, hiding in their lives, never taking the time to find my true self. Even April Pew was just another disguise. She had been the product of a desperate couple who only wanted to have what all their other friends had, a family. I almost felt sorry for the Pews, almost.

  “Why don’t you tell me who you are,” I suggested. “All I know about you is that you were once Queen Emma’s bodyguard and the circumstances which led to you being sent to the Outlands. Do you have family? Where did you grow up?”

  “Well, I grew up in the palace,” Fallon said. “My father was King’s Marshall during King Leopold’s reign. He died in a horse riding accident when I was thirteen. Now that I look back on it I think Leopold was trying to groom me to take my father’s place. If I hadn’t broken his trust in me, I probably would have been made Marshall before he died.”

  “Why was he so mad about you and Emma?” I had to ask. It was a question I had wondered about ever since the Queen told me the story.

  “Leopold loved Emma more than anything, even his own country. He always turned a blind eye to her indiscretions, but when he found out I had been with her, he completely lost his mind. I think it was because he thought of me as more of a son and the idea of me and his daughter together drove him mad.”

  “Were you in love with her?”

  I knew it wasn’t a polite question to ask but I wanted to know.

  “Who wasn’t?” He snorted.

  I could tell he was hiding his true emotions behind a mask of indifference. Fallon had loved Emma, a woman he could never truly have because of the disparity of their stations.

  “Is your mother living?” I asked, deciding to change the subject. It wasn’t my objective to cause him pain from remembering a lost love from the past. I simply wanted to find a way to take his mind off of the very real physical pain he was dealing with in the present.

  “She moved out of the palace when my father died and moved back with her people in the southlands.”

  “How long has it been since you last saw her?”

  Fallon had to pause and think about the answer. “I guess it’s been about ten years. Geesh,” he chuckled, “not a very good son am I?”

  “Do you write to her?”

  “Not as often as I should, sorta hard to get a letter out of the Outlands. You usually have to bribe one of the trader people who come deliver the water and food. It doesn’t come cheap.”

  Fallon let out a grunt of pain and clutched the front of his jacket, being careful not to touch his bandages.

  “Are you sure we don’t need to stop?” I asked, worried about his welfare.

  “No. The sooner we get there the sooner we can head back. Just keep talking.”

  “I’m really not that interesting of a person,” I admitted.

  “Then talk about someone you know who is,” he said in exasperation.

  I didn’t take his tone personally. He was simply a person in pain who was doing whatever he had to do to ease his discomfort.

  “I suppose my father is the most interesting person I know… knew.”

  “Knew? Is he dead?”

  “He died from the plague a little over two weeks ago.” Had it only been that long? It seemed so much longer.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

  I shrugged. “How could you? I think this is the first real conversation we’ve ever had with one another.”

  “True, completely my fault,” he grunted, shifting his weight in the saddle to what I had to presume was a more comfortable position. “It wasn’t until that night in your study when I transported on top of you I finally found a way to separate you from Emma.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I stopped you from falling and looked into your eyes, it was like I could see Sarah Harker, not Emma. I’m not sure why but that made a difference for me. Now when I look at you, I don’t see Emma at all. I just see you.”

  Fallon’s words touched my heart. It felt good to know it wasn’t only Gabriel who saw the real me. At least one other person in the world could look past the façade of the Queen I was pretending to be.

  “Tell me about your father, Sarah. I’m sure he was a good man.”

  “He was a great man,” I corrected.

  For the rest of the ride towards the fae capital, Fallon and I shared details about our lives, no subject was off limits. At least not until Fallon asked me one question which made me uneasy.

  “What was the name of the first boy you kissed?” He asked me, a seemingly innocent question with a not so easy answer to admit.

  “I feel confidant you don’t want to know the answer to that question,” I replied, feeling a rush of blood flood my cheeks.

  “Come on, it can’t be that bad. It’s not like I’m gonna know him.”

  I could feel my cheeks grow hotter and hotter.

  “Oh my God, was it Gabriel?” He asked.

  “Heavens no,” I laughed, feeling some of the tension leave my body at such an absurd thought.

  “Then who?”

  I simply shook my head, hoping he would give up after seeing how uncomfortable I was with the subject.

  Fallon was silent in concentration for a few seconds before his head snapped up and he looked at me.

  “Chromis?” He asked, not completely confidant his assumption was correct.

  The heightened hue across my check bones silently answered the question for me.

  “How is that even possible?” He asked incredulously. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “How does a twenty year old woman avoid being kissed all of her life? I mean even ugly girls get kissed and I certainly wouldn’t have stuck you in that category.”

  “When we lived in Iron City, I did have boys try to kiss me but I usually beat them up before they could. And when we moved to Peony, there just weren’t many opportunities for romantic interludes.”

  “And you were ok with that? Didn’t you ever want a boyfriend?”

  “I was happy where I was,” I shrugged. “I didn’t see the need to confuse matters.”

  “So Chromis gave you your first kiss,” Fallon shook his head like such a fact was shameful. “Well, how did you like it?”

  “That is not an appropriate question to ask a lady, Marshall Fallon.”

  I held my head high, refusing to denigrate myself any further.

  “That bad, uh?” He asked knowingly. “Well I can’t say I’m surprised. Never figured Chromis was as good a lover as he thinks he is.”

  For some unexplainable reason, I felt the need to defend Aleksander’s honor. Perhaps I was simply feeling the desire to protect a special first in my life.

  “He was quite a good kisser, if you really must know,” I confessed.

  “So you did enjoy it,” Fallon grinned.

  At least the conversation was helping him forget about
the pain he was in, which was the whole purpose.

  “Yes, I did,” I admitted, to him and myself. “Are you satisfied now?”

  Fallon raised an eyebrow at me. “Not really. I mean it was your first kiss. You have nothing to compare it to. How can you know for a fact it was any good?”

  “A woman knows these things,” I could feel myself tipping off the precipice of revealing too much information. “He seemed very talented in the way he used his mouth... and tongue.”

  Fallon chuckled. “Darlin’ until you’ve been kissed by at least two men, you’ll never really know how good or bad that first kiss was. Trust me.”

  “Can we just drop this subject?” I asked. “It really isn’t any of your business. Besides Aleksander thought he was kissing the Queen, not some spinsterish farm girl. Even my first kiss wasn’t really my first kiss. It was meant for someone else.”

  “You shouldn’t sell yourself short like that, Sarah. You have a lot to offer someone. You just haven’t found the right person yet.”

  “But don’t you see? I’ll never find someone who really knows me. I might end up being Queen Emma Vankar for the rest of my life: beautiful, powerful, everything a man could dream of, but it will never truly be me he knows. No one will ever know who I really am.”

  “I know who you are,” he replied in a consoling voice. “If I can see past the way you look, others will too. You are not Emma. And that isn’t a bad thing, Sarah. You’re parents did a good job raising you. You know who you are. Not a lot of people can say that about themselves.”

  I didn’t reply because I wanted to stop talking about such intimate matters with Fallon. I had to admit we had bonded further than I ever thought possible. He seemed to truly think of me as Sarah Harker, not Emma Vankar.

  Chapter 16

  The sun was just reaching its zenith in the pale blue sky overhead when we caught our first glimpse of the fabled fae capital city. To me, it wasn’t exactly what I would have termed as a city. There were no tall buildings made of stone or factories and shops dotting paved streets of cobblestone or brick. The city simply looked like a continuation of the forest we had been traveling through all day. A multitude of giant redwood trees in the area seemed to be hallowed out and made into dwellings for the fae. White smoke rose from short stone chimney’s built into the side of the trees indicating warm hearths within. Round doors of hammered gold marked the front entrances. There were no windows or other markings that would distinguish the trees from the rest of the forest.