by C. J. Anaya
What a freakin’ punk!
My core exploded with tingly bursts of heat, but I kept my face composed…a blank mask. This dude was seriously underestimating me.
I must have given him some kind of reaction though. His little smirk was too satisfied by half and made me want to deck him. I’d never had such a visceral reaction to Kheelan and I had no idea how to feel about that. I tugged on my hand, but he held it for a moment, letting me know he could keep it prisoner within his grasp if he really wanted to. After this silent war where we fought each other with our eyes he finally let go of my hand.
I faced the others, just now realizing that all four of them were completely silent. Graul and Roderick were staring at us like they didn’t understand what was going on between us. King Vargis seemed to approve wholeheartedly with whatever he’d witnessed. Even going so far as to give Jareth a respectful nod and a wink, and Mira’s look was far too knowing for my own comfort.
Geez. Jareth and I hadn’t said two words, but apparently we didn’t have to.
“So what’s the plan?” I said, cursing the hoarseness of my voice and taking note of Jareth’s tiny smile.
It was official.
I hated both Jareth and Kheelan. Arrogant bunch of—
“We’ll need to present our findings at the next assembly. Every royal within the Unseelie Court must be in attendance for this,” Roderick said, interrupting my mental onslaught of expletives. “King Moridan must be accused of the murder of Insley and the human babe, the use of Dark Magic, and the poisoning of our world. Rodri must be accused as complicit in the murders, and Kheelan will be charged with kidnapping and attempted murder. We have enough evidence to support all of this, especially with my brother as an eyewitness to most. We’ll simply need to vote on our course of action once the facts have been presented.”
“There has to be an assembly made up of both Courts,” King Vargis said. “There will be many faeries of the Seelie Court who will be willing to join our cause. We do not want to fight against those who would join us. Though I fear many will be disbelieving or already corrupted by magic.”
“We’ll need that information your mother embedded within your mind,” Jareth said, laying a gentle finger on my temple. “We won’t get the vote we want if we don’t have something to reassure the royals and the nobles.”
“Then I suppose we should return to the palace so you and Crysta can get started on reversing the damage Kheelan has wrought,” Roderick said.
“Can they not stay for one night, my love?” Mira asked, caressing her husband’s arm while I gritted my teeth to ward off the pain. “Crysta looks spent, and it might be good for her to spend a little time digesting this new information. She’s had a rough time of it.”
While I felt grateful for her thoughtfulness, I wished to hell she’d stop touching her husband. I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my chest and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Please, stop touching him.” I said.
The queen shot me a bemused look.
“What do you mean, Princess?”
I pointed to her hand. She looked at it for a moment and then lifted it off King Vargis’ arm, still watching me with concern crossing her features. I was finally able to breathe easy once she placed her hand at her side.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to throw orders around, but every time you touch him I feel a terrible pain in the middle of my chest.”
King Vargis raised a brow. He kept his eyes on me as he lifted his hand and reached for Mira. The moment they made contact, a pang of loss, sorrow, and need gripped me so hard it made me pitch forward. If the table hadn’t been there, I probably would have hit the stone floor face first.
“Crysta,” Jareth said as he bent low to grab me. The pain stopped suddenly. I lifted my eyes to see that the king had released his hold on his wife.
“I have to fix this,” I said. “I can’t handle the separation between you two.” I tried to stand on shaky legs. I wouldn’t have been able to make it if Jareth hadn’t been there to support me. Which, incidentally, was extremely annoying.
“Your Highness, you must be mistaken. We don’t feel any pain of separation,” the king said. He looked at his wife questioningly. “Mira, has your condition worsened? You promised me you would let me know.”
Mira shook her head, looking just as perplexed as everyone else in the room. The only confusion I harbored was their inability to miss this breach in their connection. It was like the king and queen were standing next to each other, but unable to access one another, unable to truly see and touch each other. Their cores were so disconnected, it was impossible to understand how they had survived this magical separation for so long.
“Please, let me fix it,” I said as I gritted my teeth. My nerve endings felt as if they were on fire, even though King Vargis and his wife were no longer touching.
“There is nothing to fix, Highness,” Mira said.
“Please,” I repeated as sweat trickled down my spine. “Please, I have to fix it.”
The king shrugged his shoulders as if to say, she’s the heir to the Unseelie Court, the least we can do is humor her.
“I need you to stand up and face each other,” I said. They hesitated for a moment, but finally did what I asked. I then walked over to them and placed my left hand on Mira’s heart and my right hand on the king’s. The unbearable longing engulfed me again as his core called out to Mira’s and Mira’s called out to his. It was unfathomable to me that they had never felt this horrible separation before. Guided by instinct, I pictured their core magics melding together, their cores bonding and becoming one in a way that allowed them to share in each other’s essence and give back and forth to one another as needed. But one magic was still missing. Summer magic. Jareth’s magic.
“Jareth,” I said as I focused on the magics within my core. “I need you to face me and place your hands on their cores. When I tell you to, give some of your magic to each of their cores.”
“I must protest, Princess,” King Vargis said. “It isn’t safe to mix magic like that.”
“Then your wife will die.”
I don’t know how I knew something like that with so much certainty, but I did.
He nodded at Jareth to continue. It didn’t escape me that Jareth never once questioned my actions or my instructions. Blind faith in me? The thought was humbling. I closed my eyes again and focused on the spell needed to fix this breach between the two royals.
The words to make it happen came to me on instinct, and I repeated them three times.
“Renovare. Vivifica. Restituet. Emendandum solvatur.”
Light built just beneath my palms as magic from both their cores traveled up my arms and met in the middle, mingling with the magic in my own core. I closed my eyes and pulled up a mental picture of the activity within my core, watching as it repaired the breach between the four magics now circulating within me, melding them together and discarding the dark elements that appeared responsible for repelling the different elemental magics from one another. Once the black barriers were removed, the magics began to weave themselves together, building into a powerful force of energy that engulfed the whole of my core, pressing and pushing for release until I couldn’t contain it any longer.
“Now Jareth!”
Magic shot through my core, down both my arms, and channeled directly into the cores of King Vargis and his queen. Jareth’s magic added to the mixture. As I sensed his element entering their cores I latched onto it and weaved it into the spell. For a moment, bright light engulfed all four of us and then it just as quickly subsided.
I heard a loud shout from someone behind me and commotion to the side. I opened my eyes to see the king holding up his hand to stop his guards from approaching. His breathing was heavy, but his eyes looked clear and bright. He glanced at his wife in wonder, as if seeing her for the first time.
“Did you feel that?” he asked. “Do you realize what she’s managed to do?”
I turn
ed to look at his wife, shocked to see the tears streaming down her face, but even more surprised to see the sores on her body had completely disappeared.
“Mira. You…” the king grabbed her and studied her face, running a hand over her smooth skin, shock and wonder etched across his features. “You healed her?”
“ I…I don’t know,” I said. “I was just trying to fix the breach between you two.”
“Our core magics have bonded. They are linked. We are linked to one another,” Mira said. “I can’t believe it,” she choked out. They reached for one another and held tightly to each other. Dark wisps of blue, amber, gold, and green magic moved back and forth between them as their cores fed one another.
The pain and anguish I felt at their separation was completely gone. They were one in a way they never had been before.
“How did you do that?” King Roderick asked as he came up behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t really know,” I said. “I just felt their cores’ suffering, I guess. They were incomplete. I had to fix it. I had to bridge that gap between their magic and fix what was broken between them.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” Jareth asked as he approached my other side.
I stared at Mira and her smooth skin while shaking my head as if to deny that I’d had anything to do with her miraculous recovery.
“You’ve repaired their cores and bound them together. They can no longer be classified as Winter or Spring Faeries. They even have the elemental magics of Autumn in their cores now, no doubt from mingling with the Stargis magic that is within you. Do you have Spring magic in your core now, Crysta? Did this procedure enable you to share in Mira’s magic?”
I turned my sight inward and analyzed the different colors that swirled within me.
“I’m guessing the various shades of green threads of magic come from Spring’s element?” I said.
Jareth nodded.
“The only thing you lack now is Summer magic since you first bound it within their cores rather than your own,” he said as he stared at me. “I think if I had pushed my magic through your core, instead of theirs, it would have bonded to you properly.”
“Maybe,” I said. I honestly had no way of knowing, but it felt as if Jareth was a necessary part of the equation. Like I couldn’t have done the procedure without him even if Summer magic had been present within my own core. I told him my thoughts and he looked a bit surprised.
“You think even if you do possess all four elements you’ll still need my help? Why?”
I was reluctant to admit this, but I had no choice.
“I think it has something to do with our fated mate connection. In order to get rid of the dark breaches within their magic, I had to imitate the magical make-up of our own bond and give their cores a blueprint to follow in order to seal together.”
“Are you saying their cores are imitating a fated mate bond?” Roderick asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible since we aren’t officially bonded,” Jareth said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, we have a connection due to our marks, but the bond is only halfway complete. The marriage bond is the other half of that puzzle. How did you replicate the whole bond when we only share half of it?”
I shook my head, unable to give him a clear answer.
“I have no idea. I just did what came naturally and fixed it the way I thought it needed to be fixed, but I was only able to do it with your magic and your core linked to theirs for a moment.”
Jareth marveled at my explanation.
“I told you our relationship would never destroy us or this realm. I told you we were right for each other.”
I had no memory of that, but the forcefulness of his words and the conviction lacing them made me believe we must have had that conversation several times, and I must have been seriously lacking in faith.
Why?
Had I truly loved him or had I been as conflicted about my relationship with Jareth as I was at this very moment?
“She’s also managed to do something that no one has been able to accomplish. Bonding core magics together has somehow healed Mira’s illness. There is a cure for griesha,” King Vargis said. He continued to examine Mira’s arms and face. It was obvious he was afraid this new turn of events might be too good to be true.
I couldn’t blame the guy. He’d been preparing himself to lose his wife to an incurable disease.
“But is the cure the actual bonding of cores together or is it infusing cores with more than one elemental magic?” I asked.
“And if the cure has to do with bonding cores, what if the people who are sick don’t have someone they want to be bound to?” Jareth asked.
“That’s definitely something we’ll have to experiment with,” Roderick said.
“And how is Crysta supposed to heal every single person who is ill once we figure that out? It would be impossible.”
Jareth placed a protective arm around my shoulder. I kept my back stiff even though leaning into him felt like the most natural thing in the world at the moment.
“One step at a time, Jareth. Let’s figure out exactly what Crysta has managed to do first…and how…and we’ll go from there,” Vargis said.
“Either way we must present this to the delegation as quickly as we can. Who knows how many more lives we can save as we try to depose King Moridan,” Roderick said.
A sudden tiredness overtook my limbs, making gravity feel as if it had more of a hold on me than usual. I turned my eyes on Mira, hoping I could take advantage of her offer, at least for a little bit. She gave me a kind smile filled with sympathy and understanding.
“I’ll show Crysta to her room. I think it would be best for her to get some sleep right now.”
I walked forward quickly, worried Jareth might follow or quite possibly insist we immediately return to the Unseelie Palace, and I just didn’t think I was ready for that transition yet.
“What will we do with Kheelan and my fath…Rodri?” I asked.
“I will keep them confined to the dungeons until the delegation. We will need their witnesses to seal King Moridan’s fate and their own,” Vargis said.
I almost felt sorry for Rodri and Kheelan. From the evil glint in the Saytr King’s eyes, I could tell he held zero respect for them and might receive sick satisfaction from watching them suffer.
Which wasn’t something that should bother me any longer.
But it did.
It bothered me quite a bit.
The room Mira brought me to was unlike anything I had ever seen. The walls were covered in glistening jade stones with light pink furnishings that made me feel fresh and girly…and five years old. I’d expected a room that was both austere and menacing, but it looked as inviting as the enormous bed situated within the middle of the room. After she handed me a nightgown to change into, she sat on the bed and waited as I took my time bathing and changing in an adjoining room. I could have stayed in that rose-infused bathwater forever, but reality pressed in along the edges of my mind. There was no running from my own thoughts. They were always with me, threatening to bring forth Jareth’s image and force me to analyze my feelings for him.
What feelings? I felt nothing.
Quit lying to yourself. You know there’s something there.
And what happened if I allowed myself to trust in this relationship as well? What if I found out all sorts of things I may not have known before? The kind of things that were deal breakers in relationships, like someone creating a false history of memories for you and holding your true memories hostage.
I let out a heavy sigh and sank back into the water, willing to admit to myself that I was attracted to Jareth. I responded to him on a physical level, and I definitely felt some kind of pull when I looked at him, but I wasn’t about to let that rule my thoughts or dictate my choices as I moved forward. I’d work alongside him.
But th
at was it.
I needed to know who I was and who I was meant to become before I allowed myself any thoughts of venturing into a relationship.
I didn’t want another person spoon-feeding me my identity either. Since I couldn’t remember who I was, I would start over and be who I thought I should be…who I wanted to be. Strong. Fierce. Independent. Loyal. A leader.
I could do that.
I could be that.
But I had to be that by myself.
My own person.
I quickly got out, dried off, and stepped into the soft fabric of my nightgown. A comfortable, thin material that formed to my slight figure in a flattering way. Too bad I had no one to show it off to.
Wait. I did not just think that.
As I walked back into the bedroom, Mira gave me a soft smile and patted the bed next to her. Once I sat down she got right to the heart of the matter.
“You have every right to keep Jareth at arm’s length. I understand your hesitance after the lies Kheelan fed you. You must feel incredibly vulnerable without your memories.” She brushed some hair behind my ear. “And it won’t do to rely on anyone to tell you who you are or whom you love. Jareth will have to come to terms with the fact that he is starting over with a blank slate when it comes to you.”
I let out a puff of air, relieved that she was supportive instead of censuring me for my behavior.
“I know he wants whatever is between us to go back to exactly the way it was, however that was, and I can’t…be that person for him. There’s too much to deal with right now. A relationship seems like a distraction.”
Mira thought about that for a moment.
“It might be a distraction, but the love of a partner, a soul mate, a spouse, will always work to help strengthen you. It never diminishes your own strength in the process. Needing someone doesn’t make you any less than what you are. I’m not telling you this to urge you to explore those options with Jareth, but I do encourage you to simply allow things to happen naturally like they did the first time around.”
“I have no idea how it all happened the first time around. Although, the circumstances surrounding it hardly seem normal. He showed up in my apartment to kill me. How does a healthy relationship spring forth from that kind of scenario?”