‘I’ll take all the time I need—as agreed.’
When the door was closed, King Telophy placed Finelle gently on her feet. She swayed against him and I took a step closer, but he was already supporting her weight as he lowered her into a chair. He crouched before her, an elbow on his thigh as he leaned close. ‘I’ve wronged you, Finelle.’ She opened her mouth but he carried on. ‘I’m sorry for it, but please hear me. Your children are well. They have reached immortality and are of the kingdom once mine.’
Despite the horrible situation, my heart swelled to see Finelle’s joy, the way her lips trembled, her eyes filling with tears. I longed to shake Naobe’s mask away and let her see me.
‘I never stopped searching for them,’ King Telophy continued. ‘I sent my most trusted to the human world to try and find them.’ A memory stirred—sitting in the office of the woman who’d taken care of my adoption—Lena. What had she said, again? Something about someone having been there before me? ‘But it was my son who found your children in the end … Leif is the betrothed of your daughter.’
Finelle inhaled. ‘Out of all of Faera, it is he betrothed to she?’ The tears were now sliding down her cheeks. ‘It is because you and I were meant to be.’
For a moment no words came, then he shook his head— decisively. ‘No. I was wrong to come between you and your betrothed.’
‘Do not speak of him,’ she said. ‘I loved you. He knew it was so and came to me regardless. He knew I could not resist the betrothal connection.’
‘You have been swayed by Rual,’ King Telophy said as I tried to get my head around what Finelle was saying. ‘The messages you brought are not true.’
What messages? I asked him, frowning. King Telophy flicked a glance my way but didn’t respond.
‘You must know I have no memory of my time with the Dark King,’ Finelle said quietly.
‘It matters not … It was only Rual’s lies after all.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘I can’t answer for words I do not recall speaking. But I can tell you, what I learned when I came here has eroded my connection with Tobias. Perhaps this is what you speak of.’
What does she mean? I asked, tensing up as I stared from my birth mother to my former king. What’s she talking about? But he didn’t answer, only lowered his face, staring at the floor between his thighs.
‘Telophy.’ She waited for him to look at her before continuing. ‘It has been a long time since I took my allegiance from you.’ She reached for his hand and wove her fingers through his. ‘But I would kneel this moment and call you King if you would have me.’ Much more softly. ‘If you were not wed, I would call you husband if it were your wish.’
The truth froze me. She loved him—had she ever stopped? But what about my birth father? And what was the discovery that had eroded their betrothal connection? I wanted to will myself visible to her and demand answers. But the Dark King was waiting just outside, and there was the terrible reality King Telophy faced.
My former king was so still—as though the slightest movement would shatter him, spilling every unspoken word and unrequited emotion into the world.
‘Speak, Telophy.’
My heart ached for him as he watched their joined hands. ‘You care for me,’ he said, with control I’d rarely seen in him. ‘But despite everything, you care for Tobias more … You were happy together. You will be happy again.’
‘Anything I had with him is dead.’
‘Dead things can be resurrected,’ he said so softly I only just caught it. ‘Your daughter taught me that.’
A lump grew in my throat. Finelle went to speak, but he covered her lips with his fingers. ‘No more. I want you to go now. I need to know you’re safe.’
He stood and she looked up to him. ‘You do not love me?’
‘Love you?’ He reached down and gently touched her hair. ‘I love you more than I should.’
She rose slowly to her feet, legs trembling. ‘Won’t you come with me? I feel strange still.’
‘I am not yet finished here,’ he said, but caught both her hands in his and released a shimmer of golden sun to her. She absorbed it with a long sigh, the gleam around her brightening while his dimmed. He tugged her towards the window. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Marla and Lysander yearn to meet you.’
To me he said, Marla. Return home with your mother.
I wanted to see her safely back in Faera, to be there when she met Lysander, when she reunited with Leander and Melody. But I wasn’t ready to desert King Telophy. There had to be an answer to this mess. I just had to think of it. I’m staying with you.
Marla—
I’m staying. He must have heard the steel in my voice because he placed a kiss on my mother’s forehead and together we watched her fly away. I wondered if Linden noticed her pass above him.
King Telophy returned to the seat, falling into it as though everything in his heart and mind weighed him down. ‘My apology extends to you too, Marla. I am filled with shame by all I’ve said and done. That time—’
‘Don’t,’ I interrupted. ‘You’ve apologised enough.’
He watched the floor. ‘If not for me, you would be living happily in Faera with your parents.’
I went to him. ‘If not for you, I wouldn’t know my parents. I wouldn’t know my sister, or Jack … I wouldn’t have known Hilary. If you’d married my mother, I wouldn’t even be … If not for you, Majesty, Leif wouldn’t be.’
He swallowed. ‘Call me Telophy … Better—marry my son and call me father.’
Incredibly touched, I stepped closer to him. ‘I heard what you told my father that day—about calling me daughter when he no longer could.’
He lifted a hand, held it open to me. I gave him mine and he closed his fingers around it. ‘My daughter is what you are destined to be. You and Leif will marry and when it happens I won’t be there to see … I won’t be there.’
His voice was filled with anguish, pulling at my soul. How could this be it? Leif would lose his father, Atara, her husband. ‘There has to be something we can do.’
‘There is nothing. The deal is made.’
He went to stand, but I dropped to my knees and put my arms around him, a choked sound catching in my throat as I lay my head in his lap. ‘Hush,’ he said, his hand on my head. ‘Don’t worry about me. Go home to my son. He is a good son.’ His voice was strained when he added, ‘I don’t know if I told him.’
‘I’ll tell him for you. It’ll be the first thing I do.’
I held on to him a moment longer, coming away when Rual stepped into the room, the light from the lanterns soaking his blond ringlets blood red. ‘Well, King, the time is come,’ he said as I got up, wiping my eyes. ‘Give me your soul or have it torn from you.’
I stepped back to give King Telophy room as he stood. I must see you go, he told me. You have been a comfort to me, but Rual will know you are here as soon as he begins searching my soul.
I felt a fizz of energy around me, like the air itself was shivering.
‘Ooh, what was that?’ the Dark King said, his eyes going wide as he glanced around the room like he might be able to catch it. ‘How delicious!’
But Rual’s reaction barely registered because the shivers were sinking into my skin like sherbet, shifting everything inside me. I felt as though a wall was crumbling in my mind, or great curtains, velvet heavy, were being drawn away. And then a feeling so exquisite came upon me. I barely managed to stop myself crying out as every masked emotion I felt for Leif came rushing back. My former king had lifted his confusion on me. He caught my eyes as he held his hands to the Dark King. Light began to slide from King Telophy’s fingers in long ribbons, so pure and white and glittering they displayed every colour of the rainbow in tiny fragments. The Dark King’s face was filled with awe, his palms stretched out, ready to absorb them as they moved close, wrapped around him, swathing him in sparkling light.
I don’t want you to go.
King Telophy watched me, nothing but so
rrow in his face. Goodbye, Marla. And before he released what remained of his light, I made sure he saw me go to the balcony and vanish into the night.
Then, masking myself from my ex-king once more, I came back in through the window, as every trace of King Telophy’s light was sucked into the Dark King until only the husk of my former king remained.
Chapter Thirty
Rual laughed gleefully, his face resembling a malevolent clown as he began blasting sparks from his hands, energy cracking like a whip. Lamps smashed and pillows burst—a cloud of feathers above his bed. A shattered chandelier as he tried and failed to control King Telophy’s power.
And then the Dark King stopped, frozen in place. I watched his pale face grow rage red as a rumble started in his throat, exploding as he roared, ‘No!’ The sound was still bouncing off the walls when I felt a rush of wind pass my cheek and heard King Telophy grunt. His hand came up and grasped an arrow wedged beneath his collarbone. I slammed a hand over my mouth as another arrow struck his bicep. And then another in his ribs before a blade skimmed his ear, lodging into the wall behind.
I dropped to the floor, barely managing to stop myself screaming his name as a barrage of arrows shot into the room. Like magic they recoiled from Rual, curving around him and clattering impotently to the floor as the Dark King ran shrieking towards the balcony. Outside, I saw faeries hovering, another round of weapons at the ready. One called ‘release’ as Rual slammed the doors and window shutters closed, arrows battering against them.
‘Taelen!’ Rual bellowed as he set the locks. The door opened and I caught a glimpse of Naobe, wide eyed, as one of the three guards entered the room. The Dark King called Naobe closer with a hooked finger, indicating the wounded king and telling her to tend him. To King Telophy he snapped, ‘Be still.’
Pale and shuddering, my former king’s hand fell away from the arrow trapped in his heaving chest.
‘Master?’ Taelen asked nervously.
The Dark King was watching King Telophy with narrow eyes. ‘I’ve been tricked. Can you believe it?’
I tried to make sense of what was happening. The faeries outside were the same I’d seen in the distance earlier. The colours of their wings matched perfectly—red, orange, blue and green. In all my life I didn’t think I’d forget the focus in their eyes as they fired weapons at King Telophy. But why would they attack a king?
‘This … this king has come with a death mark.’ Rual perched on the edge of a chair and scrutinised King Telophy. ‘Of course, now I’m in possession of his soul I know the reason was to deprive me. But still, to make such a sacrifice.’ The Dark King shuddered dramatically. ‘Such ludicrous heroics. How did I miss the signs?’
The truth knocked the breath out of me. King Telophy was on a suicide mission. He’d never had any intention of letting Rual keep his soul and the power that went with it. Everything made sense now—why he’d brought Bryn to Atara, why he’d given up his kingdom, even why he’d been anxious about whether or not he’d told Leif he’d been a good son.
‘No point in self-rebuke,’ Rual was saying as he stood and dusted his hands together in a time-to-get-busy kind of way. ‘These faeries will not give up. They’ve been given one instruction—don’t stop till the King is dead.’
King Telophy looked so helpless—locked in a nightmare with the enemy holding the key. His breathing was laboured and he swayed on his feet, eyelids heavy and flickering. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and blood leaked from around each arrow’s shaft. Horrified I watched his trembling legs give up, and almost in slow motion, bring him to his knees. Suddenly I was just as determined to save his life as he’d been to end it. I straightened, ready for what came next.
Rual tilted his head in King Telophy’s direction as he instructed Taelen. ‘Put him on the bed, and after you help Naobe tend to the wounds, you are to take him underground.’
‘Underground, master?’ Taelen said, exchanging a glance with Naobe who, I was dismayed to see was not only shaking, but clutching her hands so tightly together, her dark skin was almost white at the knuckles.
‘You dare question me?’ Rual said, the pale blue leaking from his eyes as they flashed red sparks in the guard’s direction.
Taelen dropped to his knees and began to beg forgiveness, but the Dark King just continued to issue instructions. ‘Allow the faeries intent on murder to find the King, and I will have you tortured till the end of time.’
Taelen rose to his feet, head bowed to his king.
Rual sniffed the air. ‘And just so you know, that annoying princess is around here somewhere. Marla. The last thing our king saw before he became mine was her sweet pink wings fluttering out the window. Judging by the tender feelings the two share, I doubt she’s gone far.’
Pulse thumping, I cleaved closer to the wall, terrified I’d give my presence away.
Rual ordered Naobe to go and gather what she needed to heal the king, adding, ‘And tell my leaders to prepare the Great Hall. I intend to provide an irresistible welcome for those murderous faeries.’ I shivered at the implications of his command. Perhaps I wouldn’t need to save King Telophy from their arrows after all. But then, how could I let them walk into a trap? They’d just been following King Telophy’s orders. I prayed they had the strength to resist whatever temptation Rual was about to throw in their path.
Both Naobe and Taelen left the room, returning a short while later with their arms full. Naobe’s eyes flickered in my direction and away again just as quickly as Rual ordered her to get to work. She adjusted King Telophy’s limbs, and he groaned as arrows shifted position inside his flesh. Then leaning over him, she propped up his head and poured thick, dark liquid that made me think of congealed blood down his throat. His head fell back, eyes closed, as his breathing quietened.
‘The potion will stem the bleeding and make him relax,’ Naobe said, and I wondered if the comment was directed at me. In a way it would suit her if King Telophy died—his soul would return to him, leaving the Dark King without. Yet her life would become even more unendurable if she had to suffer Rual’s wrath at the loss.
‘Just get on with it,’ Rual told her.
After directing Taelen to secure King Telophy’s arms and legs, Naobe braced herself with a knee against the bed and grasped the arrow lodged in his chest. I gritted my teeth, nails digging into my palms. Then she heaved. There was an awful tearing sound, another long groan from the semi-conscious King and Naobe was packing the wound with muddy green poultice and covering it with gauze. She bandaged it in place and repeated the process with the remaining arrows. Then she and Taelen created a makeshift stretcher from the blanket of fur, and dragged King Telophy to the wardrobe. They vanished inside and the Dark King locked the wardrobe before stashing the keys beneath a lamp stand.
I watched him leave the room, closing the door behind him. My insides tumbled like the sea at high tide as I crept across the room and took the keys. Nerves pinging, I tested them in the wardrobe, my eyes jumping to and from the door. After discarding the first three, I felt the lock turn. I slid the door open and went inside.
The only thing sharing the space with me was a single light and several racks of extravagant clothing. I reached behind them and my palms hit stone. There was nothing, not a dip nor bump in the smooth walls. Faeries couldn’t just pass through stone. So if it wasn’t the walls, it had to be either the ceiling or the floor. I got down on all fours and discovered a groove just wider than a sheet of paper. The join ran all the way around. I was kneeling on a sliding floor—I was sure of it. But there were no keyholes, no levers, locks or catches of any kind. I pushed down on the corners, along the edges, as close as I could get to dead centre. It didn’t budge.
On a hunch, I closed myself inside the wardrobe. The light went out and as I was plunged into darkness, the stone beneath my feet slid back, taking me with it and burying me in leather and velvet and silk. Beneath the false floor was a hatch, a ruby red jewel glowing faintly in the centre. I pressed it a
nd the trapdoor sprung away. I peered inside, the smell of damp stone and the hint of something putrid rising up. Pinching my nose, I stared down into a tunnel—obsidian black and polished to gleaming, hazy swirls of buried colour brought to life around random splashes of light. It spiralled steeply down, vanishing around a bend. All I had to do was climb inside, let myself go and I’d be sliding after King Telophy. But who would close the trapdoor? Or lock the wardrobe? There was no way to do either from inside. And even if there was, who would replace the keys?
Not only that, but at any moment, Linden might come looking for me. I wracked my mind for a solution. A memory popped into my head—a favour owed to me. Then I heard voices—distant and muffled.
I lowered the trapdoor, the voices drawing nearer. After hearing the click, I shot out of the wardrobe, my fingers slipping as I worried the lock on the door, my pulse screaming. I raced across the room and stashed the keys just as Rual walked in with another guard. Hand over my mouth to hide the sound of my panting, I tiptoed away as the Dark King crossed the room and reached beneath the lampstand.
‘Well, well, well,’ I heard him say as I went out into the hall. ‘I was sure that annoying little princess would follow the King.’
Rual had known I was there all along. I thanked God I hadn’t taken his bait as I made my way out of the castle.
Linden let out a long sigh of relief at the sight of me, quickly indicating he wasn’t alone with a nod of his head. My faery mother sat staring in the direction of Rual’s chambers. She looked like a small extension of the shadowy rock, her arms wrapped around her shins and pale hair a veil around her face and shoulders. ‘Strange thing, Marla,’ Linden said, too quiet for her to hear. ‘That female came out the window and soon after, four faeries started firing arrows in.’
I followed Linden’s gaze. ‘Did you see where they went—the faeries?’
‘After they were shut out, they started looking for a way in. They disappeared around the other side of the castle.’
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