He opened his eyes and looked at me. I gave him a smile. He moved up, kissing me softly.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do anyth—” But he cut me off by kissing me again. This time he didn’t stop. It was as if the barrier between us had fallen. He’d bared his soul to me, and now he was going to bare his body. I kissed him back as I felt down and pulled his shirt over his head. We took things slowly, not because of my nerves, nor his, but because we both wanted this to be special.
“In the interest of being truthful, I have to tell you that I’ve never done this before,” he whispered.
“I think we’ll figure it out,” I replied back, equally breathily, pushing him back so he lay flat on the bed.
Each touch was an exploration, a revelation, both unexpected and completely beautiful. We took our time getting to know each other, bringing out feelings and emotions I’d neither expected nor understood before how powerful they could be.
Afterward, we drifted off, our limbs entangled, sweat covering our exhausted bodies. I swear I fell asleep with a smile on my face and a light feeling of happiness and contentment running through my veins.
I awoke later to find none of the hormones fizzing around my body had dissipated. The feeling of contentment remained, but the happiness, if anything, seemed to grow.
A noise came from the side of the bed, waking River and stopping me from marveling at how beautiful he looked in sleep.
“That’s my mom,” he said, almost apologetically. He leaned over me, giving me a thrill as his naked body rubbed against mine as he bent over to grab his bag. He pulled out the mirror as I pulled the sheet right up to my chin.
“Hey, mom. I’ll talk to you in a couple of minutes. I have something to share with you.”
He put the mirror back in the bag.
“Please don’t tell me that you are going to tell her about last night,” I half-joked.
“Not all of it,” he said, kissing me on the nose, then jumping out of bed and grabbing his jeans from where he’d thrown them on the floor. I pulled my nightdress on as he dressed.
“I want to introduce you to her. Are you okay with that?”
A shiver of nervous excitement ran through me. Yesterday, we’d hardly been talking, and today, he wanted me to meet his mother...finally.
“I’d love to.”
Once we were both covered up and I’d run my fingers through my hair so it didn’t look like I’d slept all over her son, he pulled out the mirror again and spoke some weird words into it. Straight away, our reflections began to ripple, and then where we had been a moment before, an attractive woman stood.
I’d had an image of River’s mother in my mind of some kind of dumpy house frau, but she was absolutely gorgeous. She wore a tight-fitting dress, and her long hair, exactly the same shade of blonde as River’s, fell in waves around her shoulders. She wore makeup, something that most people of Anchor didn’t bother with, but it was subtle and done well.
“Hey, mom, I’d like you to meet someone.”
“You must be Freya.” Her voice was deeper than I expected, but somehow, it suited her. “It’s about time he introduced us. I told him he was a fool for messing with you about last night, hiding me from you. I told him that you’d get the wrong idea. It pleases me that he came to his senses.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. McReardon.”
She laughed, and I swear a shiver went down my spine. I could almost feel her magic from here.
“I’ve not been a McReardon in a long time, and it’s not a name I’m keen to go back to. You can call me Stella.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Stella. I’d like to say that River’s told me a lot about you, but as you know, I only just found out about you last night.”
“We have plenty of time to talk in the future, but I actually called for a reason. When you were in that house yesterday, I was following along.”
“You were following along?” I said. “How?”
“River’s mirror was in his bag. I couldn’t see anything, of course, but I could both hear and feel what was going on. These mirrors don’t just allow us to speak to each other, they conduct magic too.”
“And?”
“One of my talents is that I can feel death. Even a long time after it has happened. It only came to me in the middle of the night, but I realized that I’d not felt death in that house. Certainly not the magic that lingers after a traumatic death like a fire.”
“No one died in the house when it burned down?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m sure of it.”
“Then the fire was staged.”
River looked across at me. This changed everything.
Chapter 24
The sun crested, bringing a little light into the living room in the house we'd been given for the night. I had already heard River's tale, and I let part of my mind wander to admiring the dawn and allowing memories of the previous night to enter my consciousness as River told the others what he’d told me last night. They probably wondered why I had a smile on my face after finding out that River had lied to all of us, but of course, he left out the part that was making me smile. That would be one secret that we would both keep from the group.
“Who is your mother’s friend? The one that told her about you?” Kaida asked, obviously interested as the woman had come from the dragon village.
“Why does Freya look like the cat that got the cream?” Opal asked her eyes boring into me.
“I never got her name,” River said to Kaida. “She didn’t stay long, and she didn’t tell me her name.”
“I’m just happy that everything is out in the open now,” I said, addressing Opal. She narrowed her eyes as though she suspected I wasn’t telling the truth, but she didn’t push it.
A knock at the door interrupted the conversation, and I got up to answer it, glad to have something to do that would take me away from Opals’ questioning. We still hadn’t told them about the fire being staged, but it would have to wait. The village elder stood outside in the brisk morning air, apparently unfazed by the chill. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, I brought her into the living room. “Everyone, the elder is here to see to anything we might need before leaving.”
“Jenetta, please. I don’t like the term elder, even if I am elderly.”
James looked up, and when Jenetta bowed to him, he motioned for her to rise. “You're gracious to offer. Fresh feed for our mounts, I should think, and then we'll start home. We have to figure out what to do next, it seems.”
Jenetta stood upright again. “Of course. It is already done, and more is available for your packs, if you wish to take any. I am truly sorry that we could not help you more.”
I bit my lip, considering whether to ask my question or not, but decided it needed asking. “Jenetta, can you please tell me, is there any possibility that the woman actually survived the fire?”
She gave me a wan smile as Opal glanced at me questioningly behind her. “No. Our investigation was very thorough. Although her body was consumed by the flames, no one could have lived through that. And besides, if she somehow magically survived that, why has no one seen her since? I'm sorry.”
James exchanged a glance with me, then spoke in turn. “Tell me about the woman.”
Jenetta had been young when it happened, but she told us her recollections of what others had said about the woman. “She was odd, but well-liked, despite being somewhat reclusive. I can’t really say any more. I barely knew her.”
Kaida thanked her for the information, and added, "It's good that she was liked. She must have been terribly lonely. Such a big property, and no one to share it with."
“That's not entirely correct,” Jenetta replied. Her polite smile turned into a smirk, and she said, “She did have one person to share it with. Someone she quite obviously shared much more with, including her bed, if the rumors are to be believed.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. My people did not much discuss s
uch things in public, only in whispered conversations, and after what had happened between River and me the night before, I was keen to move the conversation along. River glanced across at me and gave me a knowing smirk which only served to redden my cheeks further. The others, though, were completely unmoved by it.
James nodded. “Do you know who her suitor was?”
Jenetta smiled. “He was a shady character. I can’t say I liked him much, although he never did anything bad as far as I was aware. It always felt as though he was planning to. He came to town one day as a stranger. The woman let him in for the night as he had nowhere else to go. I guess she took pity on him. Anyway, as I said, he ended up staying. Officially, he was her lodger, but well... anyway, I digress. He must have turned himself around because that young man now heads the most prestigious university in the kingdom. He’s the Dean at the Anoria University.”
I saw River’s eyes widen at the revelation a split second before I whipped my head around to look at Jenetta. Just behind him, Opal's mouth dropped open in shock.
James blurted, “He heads the university? Are you sure?”
“Exactly so, Your Highness. I believe he had the honor of being one of your professors, or perhaps a department head, at that time. Ateris now leads the university as you are, no doubt, aware yourself.”
The room went silent. Ateris… He had lied to us the whole time. And between the pendant he'd stolen from the university and the woman's…
I heard myself mutter the ugly truth. "Firefae! He has Jet."
Opal snarled aloud.
Kaida shook her head as she reached for her travel pack. "Yes. And now he has two of the ruby pendants. He knows we have one.”
“And we told him where the fourth was,” James finished for her. He grabbed his pack, too. “We must hurry. It may already be too late.”
Chapter 25
“Hey!” The clerk chased after us, his robes tangling around his feet as he went. “You can't go in there, you need an appointment.”
I was exhausted after the two-day trek back to the capital and had to stifle a yawn.
Just outside Ateris' office, James spun on his heels, his eyes flared and face flushing crimson spots as he roared back, “Open this door, immediately or be gone.”
The clerk saw who was yelling at him, and in his haste to kneel, fell on his face. When he scrambled back up, he bowed until his head was within a foot of the floor. “Prince James, forgive me. I knew not...”
“Silence. Open this door, right now, or I'll have you unloading crates in the warehouse before the sun sets.” James stared pointedly at the man.
The clerk shuffled forward, bobbing as he bowed over and over, and then bowed yet again as he held the door open without a word.
I glanced into the office. Empty. “No…" I repeated it twice more.
Opal grabbed the clerk by the front of his robes. “When did Ateris leave? Tell me now.”
“He… He left right after you came the last time, and he sent a courier to tell us he would be out today for a personal matter. We haven't seen him since he left.” The clerk's face grew pale, and he flinched away from her, pulling his head back.
James spun on his heels. “Put him down, Opal. Come, we must tell the queen of this.”
We raced back to the palace through the streets, the sounds of the unicorn’s hooves thundering on the cobbles beneath us.
As we made our way into the castle, James dispatched one of the servants to advise the queen he needed an urgent audience. Other servants showed us into the lavish waiting room and brought a pot of tea and dainty little cakes.
As they left, River’s bag began to make a muffled noise. I knew it to be his mother trying to contact him.
He fished the ordinary-looking mirror from his pocket.
“It’s his mom,” I whispered to the others as he held the mirror up to face him.
“Hello, Mom,” River said as the others moved forward in their seats to get a closer look. “Everyone is here. I’m at the Anorian palace with my friends.”
“Of course, son,” she replied in her husky voice. “This affects all of you. And all of everyone, in the end, I suppose. I felt a great ripple in the…” she took a pause before speaking again. “Reality is like a fabric, held together by magic. That's the best I can explain it right now. That fabric is fluttering.”
River nodded, but before replying, he set it down on the table at the center of the seating, allowing everyone to see her more clearly.
She said, “Hello, Guardians. It’s an honor to meet you all. River has told me all about you.”
“You’re a Miranin!” James exclaimed.
It sounded rude to my ears, but Stella laughed that laugh of hers that made me shiver.
“Stella, please.”
“Stella, of course. We've been deceived by someone we trusted, and now the enemy not only has the Diamond key but two of the Ruby pendants, as well. We have the third, and the last resides in the palace vault, here.”
Stella listened, nodding. “I assume you will next seek to protect the third and final key? The Sapphire key.”
Opal became rigid before leaning toward the mirror. “How do you know of us?” She glanced to River, who shrugged. He’d obviously told his mother of our adventures. None of us had discussed going on to the southern kingdom of Mirandor, but as we hadn’t found Jet and it had become obvious that someone really was after the three keys, it had become inevitable.
Stella smiled. “I know many things. Just whom do you think could have wielded enough raw power to create the keys in the first place?”
Opal's eyes went wide, and she gasped, “You?”
“No, not I.” Stella's smile waned. “But people of my kind were among those that created it, to be sure.”
Opal seemed satisfied with the answer, if not entirely happy about it, and lapsed back into silence, listening.
Stella looked back to River. “My son, before your companions even ask, I must tell you that I can't help you in this. I can't intervene.”
River frowned. “Why not? I was counting on your help when we travel to the southern kingdom...if we travel to the southern kingdom.”
“It has to do with the way magic works, and the method used to forge the pendants. The power needed to create them is beyond any one witch. Whoever created this was far more powerful than I. But, just because I can't cast a spell to make life easy for you, that doesn't mean I am powerless to help in another way. You are all welcome to stay with me while you seek the third key.”
River, without even turning to look at the others first, replied, “Thank you. I'm sure we'll work it out. But if not, I'm glad to have the offer if we need it.”
I watched his face carefully. It was one thing to speak to his mother through a magic mirror, quite another to actually meet with her.
Abruptly, the mirror flared brightly for the span of a heartbeat, then faded until there was nothing left but the regular-looking, reflective mirror. Only a moment later, the door opened, and a servant rushed in. Cheeks flushed, he said loudly, Her Majesty, Queen of Anoria, Protector of the—”
“Do be quiet, please,” Queen Linara shushed him as she strode through the doorway. “They know me.”
She entered the room and swept past her attendant, shooing him away. “Welcome back, son. Welcome, all of you. Tell me, how did your journey go? Did you find what you were seeking?”
James looked down, which was a bit startling. He never slumped like that, at least, not that I had seen. The queen took her glance from James to look at each of us in turn.
“Tell me of your mission,” she insisted. “Clearly something went awry, beyond merely finding nothing new.”
James cleared his throat, then took a deep breath before speaking. “I regret to inform you, Mother, that the university director, Ateris has stolen the pendant...pendants. He not only took the one from the university, but he stole one a great number of years back from the village we traveled to. We found out yesterday morn
ing.”
Linara's jaw dropped. For the first time since I’d met her, the queen was speechless. At last, her voice came in a higher pitch, tight and cracking, as she said, “Ateris? Are you… How can you be certain?”
Another awkward silence. Opal broke it first, putting her hand on James's shoulder at the same time. “We had the aid of a Miranin from the South Kingdom. She was certain the woman didn't die in the fire. I—we, rather—have good reason to trust her in this.”
Linara's eyes widened for the briefest of moments, but she nodded. “I see. I find it hard to trust this information, given the source. The term Miranin is just another term for witch. However, I do trust you and your judgment. I can’t believe Ateris stole my mother’s heirloom. I should have known where she had put it. I should have asked questions all those years ago when she told me of the pendant.”
“This isn’t your fault, mother.” James said.
She shook her head and held up a hand to silence him. “Son, I may well be the ruler, but I let the literal key to the world's survival fall into the enemy's hands.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Who else is in my court, plotting and waiting to strike?”
I watched as James wrapped his arms around his mother, helpless to fix the situation or to make her feel better. My thoughts turned toward my own mother. How must she have felt when I left on some wild adventure with weird people who were, at the time, complete strangers? The queen’s shoulders slumped, and her hands crept timidly around her son to return his embrace. “I'm so sorry. My mother told me so often that the pendants were important, as I was growing up. I've failed her, James.”
“No.” He stepped back, though his hands stayed on her shoulders as he peered into her eyes. “You have not failed. We'll find the traitor and the pendant. We'll find Opal’s brother and the key he carries. All is not lost.”
The Unicorn Quest Page 16