by Amy Sumida
“We're not going to break his nose,” I chided.
“If you say so.” He looked away as if he had every intention of doing it anyway.”
“Thanks for not asking about the fight.”
“I honestly don't want to know unless you need to tell me.”
I smiled softly at him. My dragon could be so chivalrous.
“My King and Queen,” Duchess Isleen, the castle chatelaine, came striding into the hall with a Goblin by her side. The Goblin wore a tabard with the crest of the House of Spirit: a crown over a nine-pointed star.
Yes, the High Royal House of Faerie is represented by a nine-pointed star, just like the Trinity Star inside my chest. Their star represents the Nine Great Magics: Love, Power, Protection, Health, Abundance, Transmutation, Beauty, Acceptance, and Hate. They happen to be the same magics I have a direct line to through my star... when my star wants to cooperate. Why was a Goblin—a Fire Faerie—wearing the House of Spirit's device? Because every house is required to send members to the High Royal House to serve for a few years. It was considered an honor to be chosen.
“Duchess Isleen.” Arach nodded to her. “And Aren, it's good to have you home. Is your term over?”
“No, my King” Aren bowed, his dandelion fluff of hair settling softly on his pus-green scalp.
Most Goblins preferred to stay in a... well, an unkempt state. They prize dirt and grime the way everyone else enjoys the scent of soap and the feel of clean skin. They do bathe regularly—they don't stink up the castle or anything—but once clean, they tend to smack on something to deal with that annoying state. That being said, the High Royal Household has different standards than the House of Fire and they don't permit their staff to slick back their downy hair with lard. So, poor Aren was left glaring at his snickering friends as he self-consciously smoothed the fluff that would have normally lied respectfully limp around his excessively large ears.
Aren stepped forward with his shoulders back and straightened to his full height of about four feet two inches. “I have come with a request from the High King.”
“You may deliver it.” Arach made a prompting gesture.
“King Cian requests that you and Queen Vervain join him at the Castle of Eight this evening for a meeting concerning all of Tír na nÓg.”
The Fire Fey went still and alert. Their king narrowed his dragon eyes.
“This evening?” I asked. “That's rather short notice.”
“The High Prince has just returned from a visit with his mother and has some unsettling news that he wishes to discuss with every monarch.”
“That's not at all ominous,” I muttered.
“Very well, have some breakfast with your family before you leave, Aren.” Arach waved toward the Goblins. “It appears that they've missed you greatly.”
“Thank you, my King.” Aren bowed then strutted over to his fellow Goblins.
Although Aren's pristine state was far from the Goblin ideal, the high royal tabard made up for it. His fellow Goblins admired the uniform as he joined them, especially the women. I hoped Aren wasn't going to return to the High Court with grubby fingerprints all over the royal device.
“Will you be joining us, Isleen?” I asked.
Our Leanan-Sidhe chatelaine had been dating the High Prince for awhile now and since he'd just returned from the God Realm, I assumed that she'd want to see him.
“If it's all right with both of you.”
“Of course,” Arach said. “Have a carriage prepared for us. We'll leave after lunch.”
“Yes, my King.” Isleen hurried off to handle the arrangements.
“Who are we leaving in charge?” I asked Arach.
“No one.” He gave me a face that said the mere idea of someone other than himself being in charge of the Fire Kingdom was laughable. “What could have possibly compelled you to ask that?”
“We're taking Isleen with us. She runs the castle. What if there's an emergency while we're gone?”
“They will summon us back.”
“What if we can't get here in time?”
“I will advise them through a mirror.”
“Or you could leave King Roarke—”
“Do not finish that sentence, A Thaisce,” Arach warned me.
I laughed and gave Roarke an apologetic look. “Sorry, I tried.”
“Well, don't do it again,” Roarke retorted. “The last thing I want is to be in charge of this kingdom. I can barely handle leading the Fire Cats; what would I do with an entire kingdom?”
“Burn it down, likely,” Arach muttered. “And not in a good way.”
“You're not wrong,” Roarke agreed with him. “I'll stick to my Fire Cats, thank you very much.”
“Thank Faerie,” Anna muttered.
The children laughed boisterously and Roarke turned a grimace on them. But then the man returned with Hunter's repaired bow and handed it back to the Fire Cat Prince. Jubilant declarations of gratitude were lavished upon the Sidhe who had repaired the bow as well as Arach, then the children urgently requested to be excused. Once permission was given from both sets of parents, the three boys ran from the dining hall to go—and I quote—shoot anything that doesn't move. It was the doesn't move part that put my mind at ease but it didn't have the same effect on Arach.
My husband stood up and shouted, “Halt!”
The three princes came to a screeching stop in the middle of the dining hall and slowly turned to face the fury of the Dragon King.
“You will not go releasing arrows randomly within my kingdom,” Arach announced. “If you wish to use that weapon, you will report to the archery field, where Master Baelin will teach you how to handle a bow and arrow properly.”
“Aw, Dad!” Rian whined. “We were going to go into Weeping Woods and pretend to be Robin Hoodlum.”
“First off, it is Robin Hood, not Hoodlum,” Arach took great delight in being the one to do the correcting for once. “Second, you are not yet competent enough with that weapon to be set loose upon the residents of the Weeping Woods, willy-nelly.”
“Willy-nilly,” I whispered to him.
Arach glowered at me.
“Nelly is fine.” I held up my hand in surrender.
“Once you have proven your competence and responsibility, we will discuss whether you may range out to the woods,” Arach went on. “Until then, report to Master Baelin as I instructed.”
“Yes, King Arach,” Hunter said as he started pulling on Rian's sleeve. “Come on! Let's go before he says that we can't shoot at all.”
Rian made an annoyed face but followed his friend's wise advice and left with great haste.
“You planned that as soon as you saw that bow, didn't you?” I asked my husband after he resumed his seat.
Arach smiled smugly. “It's about time that they start their training. A bow is the easiest weapon to learn which makes it the perfect one to begin with.”
“Training?” I frowned at him. “Training for what?”
“For being men.” Arach stared at me as if he wasn't sure if I were teasing him. “They are princes. That means that they will need to learn the art of war so they can lead their people in battle.”
“What battle? We're not going to war.”
“Not today, but our faeries have partaken in several battles, many on your behalf, A Thaisce.”
“I think you mean participated in, not partaken. Partaken means to receive or to consume.”
“I meant exactly what I said.” He grinned viciously, displaying his fangs. “We are the Wild Hunt, we partake in war, not merely participate. This is who we are. Do you think that will change in ten years?”
“Ten years?” I nearly shrieked. “You want our sons on a battlefield in ten years?”
“They will be grown men by then, Vervain,” he said gently.
“In ten years?” I whispered, my voice gone pitiful. “They'll be teenagers, that's not grown men.”
“With their advanced maturity, it makes them closer to w
hat humans call young adults,” he reminded me. “And that makes them men. At least, it will if I have anything to do with it.”
“Leave my babies alone,” I whimpered.
“We will surely have Samara by then,” he pointed out. “You'll have a daughter to baby.”
“That doesn't mean I want my other babies to be adults,” I grumbled. “That's not fair.”
“Don't worry, I'm willing to father as many children with you as you want,” Arach said magnanimously.
I snorted. “I'll bet you are.”
Arach beamed at me.
“I'm not going to start popping out dragon babies every ten years just to avoid an empty nest, Arach.”
“An empty nest?” He scowled at me.
“A home without children.”
“Ah, well, we'll see.” He went back to looking smug. “You've become a very good mother, Vervain. That speech you gave the boys earlier was brilliant—worthy of a queen and a mother.”
“Thank you,” I said warily.
“I can't imagine you with no one to pass your knowledge on to. That would be a terrible shame.”
“Uh-huh,” I said skeptically. “And this wouldn't have anything to do with you wanting to single-handedly—or single-dickly—save the Dragon-Sidhe race from extinction, would it?”
Roarke tried to hold back his laughter and failed horribly.
Arach glared at him. “Mind your own business, Fire Cat.”
“I would have if your wife hadn't said single-dickly,” Roarke shot back. “That's utterly impossible to ignore. I support your efforts though, my King. In fact, I think I should follow your lead.” He waggled his brows at Anna. “This single dick is up for the challenge.”
“Well, the man attacked to that dick will become single himself if he thinks I'm going to birth an entire race,” Anna snarled.
“I was joking!” Roarke said urgently. “Merely jesting, my love. My beautiful, understanding, gloriously kind wife.”
I looked at Arach as if to say, what she said.
“We have eternity, A Thaisce,” Arach reminded me. “That's a long time to go without babies. We'll see how long you last.”
“You mean, how long you last before you drop to your knees and beg me to give you another child,” I snapped.
“If I get on my knees for you, it will not be to beg,” Arach declared with a wicked grin. “But I promise to be convincing.”
Yep, I was going to have a lot of dragon babies.
Chapter Seventeen
We decided to spend the morning swimming in the new pool Arach had built for the castle. It was past the Pixie Village to the left of the back entrance, near the edge of the Warm Woods. The Weeping Woods, where the children had wanted to roam with their bow and arrows, was to the right, along the mountains that form a border between us and the Air Kingdom. Air's cool currents turned the heat of the Fire Kingdom into moisture that clung to everything in the Weeping Woods and dripped constantly, giving the woods its name.
The Warm Woods, on the other hand, was across a clearing from Weeping and wasn't affected by Air. The clearing itself only held patches of plant life interspersed with dry land and was veined by vents that ran down to the magma rivers beneath the Fire Kingdom. The heat rising from those rivers was to blame for the spotty greenery. Only the hardiest plants were able to grow near the fissures.
I stared down the channel formed by the clearing between the two forests. It went straight forward, into the kingdom like a road, following the path of the underground river. You could tell where the magma branched off by the way the terrain changed. Steam rose in misty ribbons, turning the strange landscape into something mysterious. Fey animals called to each other and the occasional bird took flight but none of them crossed the border of the hazy clearing. I don't think it was fear that held them back, or even the mist that rose from the narrow cracks—simply preference. Some animals didn't mind the humidity while others were more comfortable in dry heat. Fortunately, the Fire Kingdom could provide both conditions, mere feet away from each other.
We stopped at the Pixie Village since it was Summer and the Pixies were in residence. I said a quick hello to the smallest of my people, who also happened to be the most courageous. To be honest, I wasn't there for them. I circled back to the courtyard before the tiered village that was set into the mountainside facade of Castle Aithinne. There, within a plot of earth bordered by tiles the Pixies had made for her, grew Blossom. We brought her out here during the warmer months to enjoy another view of the kingdom and socialize with the Pixies. When it got colder, we'd take her back inside to live in a tall pot in our bedroom.
Blossom was a nostradim—a type of fey flower with yellow petals and lacy stamens that glowed like a stoked fire when you blew on them—but she wasn't just a flower. I had called her forth from the soil of Alfheim when I'd been imprisoned by Freyr. My Fey mother had made a bargain with the Norse Gods to help them build their territory in the God Realm in exchange for one of the Nine Worlds for her child to rule. I won't go into all of the details, suffice it to say that I was once connected to the magic of Alfheim (now Brevyn holds that link) and that magic had responded to me through Blossom. She couldn't speak exactly, but she could move and she used those movements to communicate. When I freed myself and left Alfheim, I took her with me and brought her to Faerie.
“Hey, pretty girl,” I said to Blossom as I stroked one of her petals.
Blossom stretched, then bent her head to brush my fingers. Dexter and Deidre bounded up to sit beside me, their black coats shining in the sunlight. Dex leaned forward with his narrow snout and nudged Blossom. She shivered as if giggling. Then the nurials ran off after Arach, who had continued toward the pool without me, well accustomed to my visits with Blossom. I watched them go with a smile. Dexter was taller than me now, a massive animal who I nonetheless thought of as a baby. I'd raised him from just a little nurial so he'd always be a baby to me.
Deidre was still a little smaller than her father despite being fully grown. As a female, she didn't have his neck ruff or horns, which made her ears more prominent. She'd likely leave soon, perhaps even next spring, to go and start her own family. I'd miss her, but I had hopes that she'd return to have her babies at the castle, as her father had returned after his mating season, and eventually brought her to live with us.
“Babies,” I said to Blossom. “So many babies. I hope King Fionn and Queen Breana will bring Eveline with them today. I haven't seen her since she was born.”
I'd helped the Air Queen give birth to her first daughter not too long ago. Okay, that was a bit of an overstatement. I was there when she gave birth and I gave the baby CPR after she'd been strangled with her umbilical cord. The Air-Sidhe midwife didn't know about CPR but quickly picked up the technique after seeing me employ it and then refined it with her air magic. The baby, who would have been assumed stillborn and buried without any efforts made to revive her, had recovered from her traumatic birth and lived. It was a close call—Faerie herself (that's the Consciousness of the Faerie Realm who likes to speak in my head at the most inopportune times, not the land) had spurred me to the Air Castle—but I'd made it just in time for the delivery.
“What about you?” I asked Blossom. “You gonna send some seeds out one of these days? Make a whole field of blossoms?”
Blossom drew herself upright as if the mere thought were offensive.
I chuckled. “Is procreation beneath you? Or would propagation be a more applicable term?”
Blossom shook her head at me in disgust.
“Better guard your stamens against bees then,” I warned her as I stood up. “See you later, pretty girl.”
Blossom waved her leaves at me as I left.
“Guard your stamens,” I murmured under my breath and chuckled. “I suppose that's the floral version of gird your loins.”
I opened the gilded gate and strode into the pool area. Arach had decided to build a wall around the pool for a couple of reasons. First, he didn
't want the children playing there without supervision; drowning is one of the few ways a Fire Faerie can die. Second, he didn't want the animals to drink the water. A warm, bubbling pool of water wasn't unusual for the Fire Kingdom and some fey creatures were just fine with drinking warm water. Animals using the pool as a drinking fountain meant that it would need to be refilled and cleaned more often. So, Arach decided to add the wall.
“Speaking of loins,” I whispered as I neared the pool. “I think mine are whimpering.”
Arach was swimming. Those three words don't do justice to the intoxicating carnality of the act. His powerful body shot through the bubbling water, his arms breaking the surface to glisten as they bulged, and his legs pumping. I swallowed past my dry throat and dropped our towels on a wooden lounge chair as Arach reached the far end of the pool—the deep end. He came up for air—lips parting to draw breath—then dove back under to come streaking back in my direction. The steps into the shallow end were right in front of me and that was where my husband was headed.