Bride of Fae (Tethers)

by Rigel, LK

  “I suppose that’s true,” Beverly said. “How do you feel about that?”

  “I’m fine with that bit.” Cade winked at Lily. “I must say it’s a shock to discover the woman I love was born a hundred years before me.”

  His eyes were greener. Maybe it was the firelight, Beverly knew it wasn’t that. His fae nature had been activated. Lily’s eyes, too, looked more hazel than blue. Beverly hadn’t considered the consequences of bringing them to the fae realm. It would change them.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” Lily said. “My mother is alive!” She gave Morning Glory a hug. “But how, Mother? You were cremated.”

  “That was for your benefit, Lily—Lily! Lily! Lily! It’s so wonderful to speak your real name.”

  Morning Glory spun up into the air, tossing exploding fairy dust, and settled down again.

  “I couldn’t stand being away from fae one more day, and you’d grown to human adulthood. I was more bother than help to you there. I risked a little magic, a spell to appear dead, a quick transport out of the pine box before it went to the flame. I found portals to New York and took a lovely cruise ship named for Queen Mary back to England, then to Mudcastle.”

  “And we were all so happy to see you again.” Cissa came in with Max. Her face was drawn—naturally she worried about Dandelion—but beautiful as ever. Gorgeous. She still looked twenty-five.

  Max was the only one who looked worse than in Beverly’s memory. The lines on his face were deeper, the crease between his eyebrows darker. He moved slowly, as if his joints hurt. He was grouchier.

  And shorter, oddly enough.

  “Good,” he said. “You made it.”

  He pulled three tether jewels out of his pouch and handed two to Cissa and Goldy.

  “When I discovered Idris meant to create a prison of cold iron cages in the bower, I figured the first fairies he’d go after were Dandelion and Goldy. And you, princess, if he couldn’t ultimately control you.”

  “How are these different than the others?” Goldy turned his jewel over in his hand. “Mine looks the same.”

  “They’ll bring you to Mudcastle instead of the faewood.” He held up the third jewel. “This is a duplicate of Dandelion’s jewel. I was able to hide the original in the ground under his cage when I brought him there. I dropped what clues I could, knowing Idris would be watching. It has looked like he’s been trying to dig it up, but if he’d found it he’d be here by now. I fear he’s too weak.”

  Morning Glory spun up into the air and settled. “Being surrounded by cold iron is worse than death.”

  “What do you mean?” Goldy said. “How would you know?”

  “From living in Indio. Every building there is made of cold iron. I stayed because I knew Idris would never look for us there.”

  “How did you bear it?” Goldy said.

  “I found a stock pot made of Dumnos steel. Dumnos Clad, they call it. I slept with it over my head every night.”

  “Oh, Mom,” Lily said. “I knew you were unhappy, but I didn’t know you were in pain.”

  “I'm sorry I let you think I was dead,” Morning Glory said. “I thought it was the best way to keep you safe. I thought no one would ever find you, especially not a wyrding woman with a glimmer glass.” She looked at Beverly. “But I’m so glad she did.”

  “Where is this bower?” Beverly said. “We have to get Dandelion out of there.

  “We?” Cissa said. “You’re human. You wouldn’t last two minutes in the faewood. You’ll be safe here with Cade and Lily while we’re gone.”

  “I’m going,” Beverly said.

  They all stared at her like she was crazy. She realized what she must look like to them. An old human woman. What could she do?

  “I’m more powerful than you know,” she said. “I’ve incorporated all of Elyse’s knowledge. I have my own connection to the world tree.”

  “Right,” Cissa said. “Wyrders always think their magic is better than fae magic.”

  “And the fae always think the wyrding way is a hoax, that it isn’t real magic.”

  “Girls, girls! Let’s not fight,” Goldy said. “We’re all on the same side.” He looked at Beverly. “Don’t mind Cissa. She’s been in a wretched mood since she got engaged.”

  “What is this?” Max held up Lily’s glimmer glass, trembling with rage. “How did this get here?”

  “It came from Idris,” Lily said. “A wedding present.”

  “It’s how I saw Dandelion,” Beverly said. “But there’s something wrong with it. What do you know?”

  Max’s loathing was palpable. “It’s an abomination,” he said. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “I knew something about it wasn’t right.” She took it from him and pressed it against her forehead. Something…someone was breathing inside. She gasped and jerked her head away. “I think there’s someone in there.”

  She put the glimmer glass on the floor and spread her hands over it, focusing on the consciousness in the glass. She concentrated on the idea of that consciousness existing separate from the glass, flicked her wrists, and said, “Separate!”

  The glass shattered. Among the shards, a fairy trembled, crying. It was Violet, who had terrorized her in Hyde Park.

  “You saved me!” Violet threw her arms around Beverly’s knees.

  “Um, it’s quite all right. Truly.” She was too pathetic. Beverly couldn’t hold a grudge.

  “Her tether!” Max was at Beverly’s side in an instant. He tore Violet away. She screamed as Max ripped off her choker.

  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  “So I call that magic,” Goldy said. “What do you say, Cissa?”

  Cissa gave a begrudging nod of approval.

  “Right,” Cade said. “That’s me mum.” He flashed the wicked smile Beverly loved, and she knew he was proud of her.

  “Max,” Cissa said gently. “How did you know about this? Idris’s glimmer glass has something to do with the hold he has on you, doesn’t it?”

  Max collapsed into the other rocking chair, his shoulders slumped. “Idris has my sister,” Max said. “Trapped in his glimmer glass. That’s how he gets them to work in fae.”

  Everyone was silent, aghast.

  “Abomination is the proper word for it,” Cade said.

  “He’s promised to release her, and like a fool I believed him. I know now he never will.”

  Cissa had tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Max.”

  “We have to free Dandelion,” Beverly said. “Then we can deal with Idris.”

  “There you go with that we again,” Cissa said.

  “I agree with Beverly,” Max said. “She’s the best person to smuggle the jewel in to Dandelion. I doubt the panopticon can pick up a human, and she’s immune to cold iron. She can hand the jewel to Dandelion through the cold iron bars.”

  The other fairies cringed at Max’s emphasis on the words cold iron bars, and Beverly smiled inwardly. The goblin knew how to make his point.

  “And—no offense, Beverly,” Max said, “but at your age you can pass as a goblin. A tall goblin.”

  “None taken.” He was right. She must look hideous to the beautiful, youthful fae. She wasn’t looking forward to the look on Dandelion’s face when he saw her. Petty, yes, but that’s how she felt.

  “I’ll get you as close to the bower as I can,” Max said. “Two trusted gobs guard the back entrance. They’ll let you in when they see this.”

  Max opened the bottom drawer in a chest Beverly recognized. Goldy had sat on it that first night when she thought he was her guardian angel. Max took out the most beautiful cloak she’d ever seen.

  “It has two large interior pockets, handy—as Cissa can tell you—in case you see anything you’d like to bring back. The cup is in the bower. If you have the opportunity, I hope you’ll grab it.”

  Beverly slipped the cloak over her shoulders. She felt beautiful in it. Sexy and—dare she even think it—young.

  “Cissa, you’ll have to
distract Idris,” Max said. “Keep him from looking in the abom- the glass.”

  “It’s all he does now,” Cissa said. “Even I can’t get him away from it.”

  “Tell him you want to do something romantic,” Beverly said. “Go sky-surfing in the borealis.”

  Everybody looked at her with one kind of amazement or another. She just chuckled.

  “Remember, Beverly,” Max said. “Wyrding magic doesn’t work in fae. If you’re caught, you’ll have to abort the plan.”

  “I can break the binding spell,” Beverly said. “Let’s go.”

  Beverly said nothing as the goblin guard opened the door to let her into the Bower of Elyse, though she wanted to scream hurry up! Max had stressed she needed to move quickly. The jewel should take Dandelion back to Mudcastle in an eyeblink; she’d have to go back the way she came in.

  The door clanged shut behind her, and she hurried through the chamber. Something made her look up, a memory that wasn’t hers. She didn’t know why she expected to see the sky, but she was surprised to see an actual ceiling.

  She saw a ceiling jewel and pulled the cloak’s hood over her head. No one knew if Idris’s panopticon could register a human, but she didn’t want to be the one to find out. She ran.

  It was clear what humans found attractive about the fairylands. Being here felt wonderful. She felt stronger and younger with every breath. She reached the cage. It was exactly as she’d seen it in the glass but for one thing.

  Dandelion wasn’t there.

  The cage was empty. There nothing in the cavernous room but row after row of cages exactly like the one that was supposed to hold Dandelion. What kind of a monster was Idris that he could even think of something like this?

  Beverly stared at the hole burrowed in the cage’s center. She had to believe Dandelion had found the jewel. Sun and moon let him be safe at Mudcastle.

  She turned to go, but the cup caught her eye. In the cage directly across from Dandelion’s, as if put there deliberately to taunt him, the fairy cup sat on a pedestal. She reached through the bars and took it.

  The cup disappeared easily into one of the big interior pockets of the glimmermist robe. Goblin magic was wonderful! It was as if the cup weighed nothing and took up no space.

  Lighthearted, even euphoric, she fled back through the cavern toward the door. Max would be waiting down-tunnel with his pony cart to take her back to Mudcastle. Sun and moon, let Dandelion be there.

  But wait. There was one more thing to do, something for Max. If she could find the other glimmer glass, the abomination, she could free Max’s sister just as she’d freed Violet.

  She flicked her wrist to set a tracing spell—then remembered. Wyrds had no power in fae. But she felt so strong here, so powerful. At the bower door, she nodded to the guards—Sturm and Drang, Max had called them. She dearly longed to turn right, go to the throne room and find the glimmer glass. With a sigh she turned left, back the way she came.

  A force tugged at her awareness and demanded her attention, wanting her to turn around. This way! It felt just like a trace. In her gut she believed it was, despite all knowledge to the contrary. She trusted her gut.

  Of course it took her the other way, past Sturm and Drang and into the heart of the faewood. She passed a few brownies and pixies. They looked at her and furtively glanced away. The two pixies whispered something about a tall goblin woman. Beverly smiled, remembering what Max had said.

  She came to a huge room where the trace was strong. At the far end of the room she saw Aubrey, passed out, draped over a dazzling throne. The trace led to him, but that couldn’t be right. Cautiously she moved closer, moving through the disgusting scene. Fairies and leprechauns and even humans were drunk, self-absorbed or asleep.

  There was no sign of Idris. Cissa must have been successful in distracting him.

  The trace led behind the throne where a red-haired fairy was bent over, digging into the pocket that held the abomination.

  “Cissa!” Beverly half whispered and half hissed.

  Cissa’s head jerked up. “Idris saw you,” she said. “He’s coming.” She stuffed the glass into her hidey pouch. “Get back to the tunnel.” As Cissa disappeared, Beverly heard one last word:

  “Run!”

  Beverly fled from the throne room, down the hall and once again into the tunnel. She really, really wished she could transport. Fairy magic had its advantages, she had to admit.

  Great gods, no! She stopped in her tracks.

  Idris stood in the tunnel at the Bower of Elyse. The doors were open, and Sturm and Drang were lying on top of each other, knocked out.

  Beverly had to catch her breath. She’d never seen Idris up close and personal, but Elyse had, and her body responded with desire according to Elyse’s memory. So creepy; she must have really felt something for the guy.

  He smiled, and that was creepier.

  “What did you do to them?” Beverly said.

  “Something painful. Nothing final.” His voice was seductive but she heard the thin vein of cruelty. She thought of Dandelion’s agony in the iron cage and Max’s sister trapped in the glimmer glass. Idris was a monster. He raised his arm to throw a spell.

  “Cage,” Beverly said without thinking.

  Idris screamed. His eyes flashed with rage, and he pounded against invisible walls. “Let me out of here, you bitch.” He pointed straight at her to throw the spell. “You can dance yourself to death!”

  She jumped, but nothing happened. This was no time for questions. She lifted the boundary with Idris captured inside it and directed it into the bower.

  “No!” he yelled. “Stop, it hurts!”

  “Good.” She threw him into the cage he’d made for Dandelion. “Maybe King Dandelion will show you mercy,” she said.

  She created a hologram of the fairy cup and left it on the pedestal where the real one had been.

  “I don’t feel merciful today.”

  Bride of Fae

  PAIN SNAKED THROUGH DANDELION'S body. His feet arched with spasms. His knees, hips, and elbows shook with sick, toothache-like pain. Tucked under his scapulae, his wings burned inside his back. His head pounded, pounded, pounded, pounded, pounded. With every movement razorblade-like pain sliced through his muscles.

  Yes, the earth he’d dug out and spread through his hair and over his face relieved the pain of the cold iron—from one hundred percent to ninety-eight percent. When the glimmermist came off, even that small relief evaporated.

  He’d dug a tunnel as wide as a gopher hole, the length of his arm. Something so close to his reach felt good. Just beyond his fingers he could feel it, whatever Max had hinted at.

  But it was too late. Even thoughts of Beverly no longer helped. When he pictured her in his mind now, instead of resolve he felt failure. “I’m sorry,” he said aloud. “Forgive me.” Everything went dark. Blessed unconsciousness washed over him like a blanket—or was it even more blessed death?

  He heard the sound of water, a brook running over rocks. A lark sang, and the aroma of newly-blossomed lilacs filled the air.

  “Dandelion.”

  The voice was both male and female, like moonlight and sunlight all at one time.

  “Have courage. There is a reason you and Cissa were spared bondage to Idris. You must end the regency and restore the proper monarch to the moonstick throne.”

  Ack! Pain ripped through him. He was in the panopticon. The vision was gone, and someone was coming. With one last effort, he burrowed into the dirt and stretched his arm another inch and found it, a tether jewel. Max, I’m going to trust you on this one. As footsteps approached, he pressed the jewel to his throat.

  It worked. He was back at Mudcastle, sprawled over the threshold. The pain was gone, but he was so weak he couldn’t extend his wings. Two young faelings found him and carried him to his bed.

  Within a week, Dandelion had rejuvenated. In fae, Beverly too had begun to grow younger-looking and younger-feeling, but once she returned to the human re
alm her body resumed its inevitable decline.

  She sat on the marble steps of the Temple of Joy and Wonder, looking at the lake. Dandelion sat two steps below and leaned back.

  “Fairies never fall in love.” He looked up at her, his green eyes brilliant in the sunlight. “Except when they do. And when they do, it’s forever. I love you, Beverly. Stay with me. As I will be king, so you’ll be queen.”

  “I’m too old for you,” she said. He was gorgeous and fit and young. “Can’t you see that?”

  “That’s a bit ridiculous, you know. I’m twelve hundred years older than you. Or is it thirteen?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” She believed he didn’t see their physical age difference, but she did and it drove her crazy. “Besides, once the Oracle ring was removed from my hand, I started to die. Soon I’ll be gone.”

  But gone where? Will Igdrasil accept me as it did the others?

  “Not a bit of it.” Dandelion smiled as if she’d said the silliest thing in the world. “Wyrding magic doesn’t work in fae. Everyone knows that.”

  “But it did,” she reminded him. “For me, at all events.” No one had any idea why.

  Dandelion kissed her fingers. “When I was in the panopticon and so riddled with pain I wanted to die, Brother Sun and Sister Moon appeared to me.”

  Beverly’s fingernails sparkled with fresh color left by Dandelion’s kisses. Without thinking, she ran her hands through his hair.

  “They said to have courage,” he said, “that there was a reason for everything. I believe it’s the same with you, Beverly. Your wyrds worked in fae for a reason. You aren’t meant to die.”

  He puffed out his chest and extended his hand. With an incredibly bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impression he said, “Come with me if you want to live.”

  She burst out laughing.

  Beverly still had her same room at Faeview. James had closed it up when she disappeared. Lily and Cade were staying at the Tragic Fall Inn until Faeview renovations were complete. After returning from fae, they couldn’t be in the house more than five minutes without getting a splitting headache, so all the square and rectangular cold iron door and window frames were being replaced by round ones of wood or Dumnos steel.