At the very top, we reached a flat area. A breeze of movement rustled behind us, and I turned to see a gathering of the forest people silently following our progress. They floated over the rocky surface without so much as a whisper, quiet as shadows in the dark.
Dayne and Ara stood on either side of me, facing an altar of carved stone. It looked like it belonged in the pulpit of the grandest cathedral in the world– out of place in its woodland surroundings.
On the altar sat a regal looking red fox, his head tilted as he studied something in the distance. Dayne cleared his throat and the fox turned his smart gaze to us. A smile spread across the foxy lips, more human than animal.
In an instant, the snout turned to human lips and the body of the fox became that of a man. He was glorious, illuminated in a single beam of light as it shone down on him in the ethereal light. I recognized King Finvanna from his portrait. He looked so lovingly at us the fear that had tightened my stomach melted away.
“My son, you have returned.” He floated instantly to Dayne in one swift motion, grabbing his hand and bringing it to his lips.
“Father.” Dayne acknowledged him with a stiff bow, but looked ahead.
Father? I looked at Dayne with disbelief. This was a big part of the story to leave out. King Finvanna was Dayne’s father? Which meant Dayne was a prince? Which meant I had kissed a fairy prince?!? I bit my lip and stared at the ground with the memory, feeling even more inadequate in my surroundings.
“What have we here?” His gaze floated to me. Every move he made was effortless.
“Dayne has a girlfriend.” Ara beamed in her nasty way, too happy to play the tattletale.
“Enough, Ara,” Dayne spit the words out.
“Dayne, that’s no way to talk to your sister,” Finvanna scolded as an afterthought as he took me in. “Interesting. Why is she here, Dayne?”
“Dayne’s been hiding her. He thinks she’s one of us.” Ara let a little laugh escape.
“I see.” His hand reach out and swept quickly across my cheek. My body snapped to attention with the surge of power that charged through me. The motion was so quick I might have missed it if it weren’t for the sudden shock. His hand was back at his chin in an instant. I remembered what Dayne had said. Luckily, I was too occupied with the thought that my boyfriend was in fact a prince to think much about myself.
Finvanna looked me up and down once more. He looked from Ara to Dayne and smiled.
“It’s so nice to have you back, son,” he said as he backed away from us and held his arms out to the side. He flung his head back to the sky and let out a great cry. An eagle’s call rose up to the heavens so loudly I was sure they heard it in Clonlea.
A rustle of leaves high above floated down to where we stood and a great eagle appeared, circling around us, surveying the scene before landing on Finvanna’s outstretched arm. As soon as the talons gripped his arm, they turned into slender fingers and the body of the bird became Daoine, regal and stunning before us, silhouetted in her own beam of light.
“My son! I didn’t expect you so soon.” Daoine reached out to Dayne, taking his head in her hands and placing the gentlest of kisses on his cheek.
Jerking around, like she smelled something bad, she stared at me. “You brought an interloper with you?” Her anger flared, igniting the flame of her red hair. It glowed in the air around her. A gasp of shock rippled through the crowd and Arabette beamed victoriously at my side.
Ara glanced at me with a hateful sneer wrinkling her beautiful face.
“No, mother, she’s no interloper. Feel her.” Dayne had thrown his body between us. Now he reached out for her hand and guided it to my chest. He looked at me intently, being sure I remembered his instruction.
I forgot about Ara and focused on Daoine, her beauty, her grace, her powerful presence.
Her touch was soft, like Dayne’s. I felt her boredom, jaded by an unnaturally long life. I felt her pleasant surprise when she saw how awe struck I was by her. “I see.” She opened her eyes and looked me over. “She is not known to me.”
“But, she is not human?” Dayne questioned his mother.
“No, but I am unsure of her kind,” Daoine studied me in a lackadaisical way. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was bored with life, or had seen this all before. “Where are you from, child?” She picked up a lock of my hair and twirled it around her finger.
“America.” She put the hair back down on my shoulder.
“Pretty,” she sounded just like Arabette. “Your parents?”
“I’m adopted. I don’t know them.”
“They were from Ireland. She was born here.” Dayne looked from Daoine to me smiling as he said this, obviously encouraged by how this was going.
Daoine reached down and picked up the locket that lay against my chest. She ran her finger over it and then looked back at me. “We will consult the oracle. You will remain here until we have decided.” Without another word she turned and retreated to Finvanna. Hand in hand they disappeared into the woods behind the stone alter.
“It’s nice to have you home, son.” Daoine’s majestic voice lingered in the air.
“UGH!” Ara punched her hands down at her sides and stormed off in a huff. Dayne turned to me.
“I think it’s going to be okay.” He brushed my hair away from my face and cupped my chin in his hand.
Relief washed over me and I let out a little sigh as I fell into his chest.
The crowd that had gathered began to dissipate, chattering excitedly as they left the amethyst rocks.
“I can’t believe he’s back,” a woman said.
“I know. I thought he was gone for good,” her companion answered
“I wonder what this means?”
LisTirna’s prodigal son had returned.
Chapter 26
Heavy Connection
Dayne picked up my necklace just as Daoine had done. “This is from your birth parents, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Come with me. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.” He took me by the hand and led me along a lush path lined with powder puff blooms of white and pink that illuminated our way through the tangle of woods. Like a grand church cathedral, looming branches of blue-green trees bowed overhead, forming the aisle we walked down. We came to the banks of a stream, silently snaking its way along the iridescent forest floor that alternated in the same blue and green hues of the forest. In the distance, a glimmering waterfall poured into the valley from between two pointy, purple peaks.
Dayne dropped my hand and began to shrug out of his clothes. I turned my head out of habit, but my eyes involuntarily opened, and I found my head slowly turning back, hoping to catch a glimpse of the chiseled body I imagined beneath his clothes. To my surprise and obvious disappointment, I saw nothing. The glow that illuminated his skin burned hottest at his center, shining so brightly it obscured his torso and anything that might be inappropriate for my eyes.
“Where are you going?” I asked, sinking to my knees on the bank beside his clothes, running my finger through the multicolored tufts of mossy-soft grass.
“I won’t be gone too long,” he winked and ran to the water’s edge. My playful Dayne was back, having been relieved to find his mother so welcoming. He was giddily happy, the black cloud of dread and guilt no longer shrouding his features. It actually seemed like he was enjoying himself, now that the future of our fates seemed a little more certain, and he ran to the water with all the excitement of a little boy.
I caught a satisfied smile on his face just before he sprung from the bank, forming the perfect swan dive, just as Arabette had when she entered LisTirna, and disappeared beneath the water.
The last ripple of his splash had just reached the bank when the rustle of leaves startled me.
“Faye? Is that you?” I spun wildly around, shocked to hear a familiar voice in this unfamiliar realm.
A woman made her way from the cover of the enchanting forest. A calm and dream-lik
e peace rested on her brow. Her hair was tied up in silky ribbons of watery blue. A billowy gown of the same color circled around her with puffy cap sleeves at her shoulders. I knew she was not Sidhe. There was no illumination encircling her. She did not compete with the beauty of her surroundings. She merely complimented them.
As she came closer, I noticed something familiar in the way she moved, but it wasn’t until her lips parted in the innocent smile that had been just as radiant in our world that I recognized my friend.
“Christine!” I exclaimed when she stood before me, just as beautiful and wholesome as she ever was. “You’re alive!”
I rushed over to her and grabbed her up in a hug, so happy to see her and feel her and know she was okay after all the weeks Clonlea had spent trying to find her.
She did not return my hug, standing still as the trees in a dream-like trance, her body swaying with mine, but not as it should. I stepped back from her, looking her up and down to be sure it was really Christine.
“I heard you were here. With Dayne?” She asked in a voice that was not her own. It was slower and softer, more pronounced than before, a dream-like way of speaking.
“Yes, but what about you?” I thought about all the posters plastered around Clonlea, the desperate searches her parents made every weekend. “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t imagine how she could have slipped past Dayne and into this world.
“The man from the dance was no man.” A contented smile rested on her lips. “I am happy.” Her words totally confused me. Of course, we hadn’t been best friends, but this was not the girl I remembered at all. She didn’t talk like a normal 18 year old. Her words had the rhythmic lilt of some ancient Gaelic tongue.
“He brought you here?” I didn’t have to ask. I knew exactly which man she was talking about. A chill raced through my body as I pictured the ice-cold eyes that had haunted my dreams for weeks. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had known all along he was the one that had taken Christine. A fact Dayne had to be aware of too, but the last few weeks of my life had been filled with so many unbelievable revelations it had completely slipped my mind to ask. My stomach knotted in a familiar way, knowing I had failed to save sweet Christine...again.
“What about your parents? They’re sick with worry. Couldn’t you at least let them know you’re okay?” I thought of Mary and how she had stared at April and me the night we picked herbs. How could Christine be so calm and unfeeling about her parents’ heartbreak? This was not right at all. I wanted to shake her and wake her from this spell she was under.
Her slender, graceful arms drifted up in front of her, as if under a spell all there own. Floating in her head like falling feathers, her eyes focused on two beautiful bracelets circling each wrist. The carved white stones glowed against her skin, illuminated like the Sidhe.
“I cannot.” The words were dreamy and weak. I ventured a hand out to touch them, and she pulled them from my reach with a measured gasp. Her head turned slowly back to the forest, as if someone had called her name. Was she being watched?
I looked closer at the strange bracelets around her wrists. They pressed tightly against her skin, no clasp to open them. They were not bracelets given as a token of love. They were handcuffs holding her here against her will. Even prison was beautiful in LisTirna.
Without another word, her body turned just as slowly as her head had, and began to drift back to the tangle of teal trees where she had appeared.
“I must…go now.” Her awkward words trailed over her shoulder as her body was drawn along the path under someone else’s control. She floated just like the crowd that had gathered to watch Dayne’s arrival in LisTirna. My first instinct was to follow her, but I knew who held the strings that pulled her away, and I wasn’t about to go chasing after him without Dayne at my side.
Moments after Christine had disappeared into the woods Dayne burst back to the surface of the water and landed on the bank in one motion. He tossed the glittering, sparkly shells he held to the grassy bank and wiggled back into his clothes. I was breathless from running when I crashed to my knees beside him.
“Dayne, I found Christine!” I yelled with excitement. “We have to get her. We have to take her back,” I pulled against his arm, trying to drag him in the direction she had disappeared.
He frowned at me, “We can’t.”
“What? Why not?” I looked back to the spot where she had disappeared, wondering why we couldn’t save her.
“She belongs here now. She belongs to him. Even if we could get her out, their connection would bring her back.” He patted the grass beside him with a simple shrug of his shoulders.
My temper flared at his calm. He was a protector. Why wasn’t he protecting her? I watched as he arranged the shells on the ground around him, furious he wasn’t spurred to action like I was. He had known all along where she was, but he hadn’t said a word. He let us all worry for her safety and our own. But what was worse, he had silently watched me wrestle with the guilt I felt over her disappearance and done nothing.
“You’ve known where she was the entire time. That night at the dance, you knew what was happening.” I remembered how fiercely Dayne had threatened the man when he tried to dance with me. It was the first time I had seen something different in him. Yet, he had done nothing to protect Christine when the stranger decided he would take her instead.
“Why didn’t you save her?” I punched at his shoulder with so much force he fell back against the grass. He caught himself with one hand and stared back me, utterly bewildered by my anger, but I didn’t care. I was furious with him for letting an innocent girl get hurt.
“I protect the Sidhe, Faye. Remember.” He looked away from me, obviously disgusted with himself, but powerless to do anything about it.
I jumped to my feet and paced away from him, too angry to look at him. “But her family,” I muttered to myself as I shook my head in disbelief. They would be so happy if they knew she was okay.
“Do you think I like what I do, Faye?” He spit the words from his mouth like a bad taste. “Don’t you know me well enough by now to know that I hate this life? I would give anything to live a normal life, but that’s not a possibility for me.” He sprang to his feet and began to walk over to me. “I have only lived so long because I’m the Queen’s son.” He grabbed my shoulders firmly in his hands and stopped my pacing, forcing me to look at him. “This whole world runs the risk of discovery if they let dissenters live as I do. I am bound to Ennishlough, to my position and to my people. I do not live freely in your world.” He released my arms and turned away from me, staring up to the distant waterfall. I realized Christine and Loren weren’t the only prisoners the Sidhe kept around. Dayne was one too. As freely as he appeared to live, he was bound to a life he hated just as they were. I put my hand on his shoulder but said nothing. I didn’t know if I should thank him for saving me from such a fate at that point or kiss him for being so amazing.
“I have welcomed death so many times, but my mother refuses to let me leave my responsibilities here. Death would be easy. This life is impossible,” he said gesturing at the enchanting forest around us. I shook my head but still said nothing, sighing desperately as he turned back to the glittery shells on the grass.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Dayne wish for death? How could I ever live in a world where he didn’t exist? I saw the pain on his face, the broken slump of his shoulders where he steeled himself against the harsh judgments of his world.
Losing Christine was bad, but losing Dayne was unthinkable. I immediately turned back and fell to the grass beside him.
“Don’t say that,” I said as I reached out for his cheek and turned his head to mine. “You are too important to say things like that to me. Do you understand how much I need you? Do you realize that you are the only person I have in this world? Don’t ever say that again. Promise?” My fingertips lingered on his chin as I looked into his eyes, waiting for the anger to burn away.
�
��I’m sorry.” His gaze fell to the ground and when he looked back at me soft wrinkles of regret pinched the skin around his eyes. His hand came up and wrapped around mine as he slid me closer to him with his other arm. “I didn’t mean to get so upset. Believe me, I’ve wrestled with the guilt of that night much more than you have. But it was either her or you. And losing you wasn’t an option,” he said and turned his head to kiss my palm.
I said nothing, staring at the way his skin shimmered with diffuse light.
“What are those?” I nodded toward the shells lying in front of him, hoping they would take our minds off our first official fight. I pushed the memory of Christine to the back of my mind, vowing I would find a way to get her out of this beautiful prison.
He smiled at me and held one up between us. The outer shell sparkled and glistened like snow in the sunshine.
He cracked the shell open and held it between us. With our heads together we peeked in at the clear pearl, cloistered among the soft folds of pink flesh. It looked just like the bead in my necklace.
“What is it?” I reached out to touch it. Dayne stopped me.
“It’s a wishing pearl. One of our most treasured possessions.” He plucked the pearl from its home and held it between his fingers.
I clutched the necklace dangling against my chest and rubbed my fingers over the smooth surface of the clear pearl I had worn for years without really paying much attention to.
I’m not sure if it was the intensity with which Dayne’s eyes burned into mine, or if the spark came from somewhere within me, but suddenly, the pieces of my uncertain life began to make sense. Dayne’s face held the only answer I needed, but he said nothing, giving me time to process what all this meant. Fear, as hot as it was cold, swept a wave of goose bumps from my head to my toes.
“Is mine…?” I whispered, not really sure what answer I wanted to hear.
Dayne nodded, trying to read the expression on my face. I really didn’t know what to feel about such a revelation to be honest.
Oddly, the emotions were somewhat numb, but I leaned away from him as I thought about what this meant. I had never given my unknown origin much contemplation. Though that would have been an easy place to start, my life had been a bit of a whirlwind lately. Even when all the truths about what I really was came pouring out that night, I still hadn’t thought of my birth parents.
Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) Page 38