by Ana Calin
“What? What is it?” I demand, ignoring the outraged faces of the people surrounding him. “I am the Queen.” I push up my chin like I have every right to act the way I do. “I have the right to know. Besides, I might be able to help.” They still stare at me as if I’ve lost my mind. I grin, my irises glowing. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
Xerxes nods at Duke Draven, who takes the cue and goes on to explain. The courts gasp as they hear the words.
“The Council of the Arcane have summoned all the realm leaders to the Palace of Realms in the Flipside. The reason is settling the grievances between King Xerxes and the Archangel Samael.”
“What in the cursed realms,” one of the High Courts breathes, while Kareim joins the group with a glimmer in his cunning eyes that betrays the truth—he knew this all along, which is why he grinned the way he did when the servant took Duke Draven out of the Hall through the back. This is another one of his schemes, and it’s pretty damned far-reaching.
“The news just came in,” Draven says. “When he saw that Xerxes now has too many powerful allies, he went to the big people to solve his problem.”
“But that’s good news in a sense, right?” I intervene. “It means the war is over.”
“No, Your Highness,” Kareim says mockingly. “It means there will be no more clashing between the armies, but the King will most probably have a very hard time at the Palace of Realms. This is, after all, a trial.”
I glare at him, showing him that I know he’s behind all this, that there’s no point pretending with me.
“The Council only convenes once every hundred years,” one of the courts chimes in. “If they convened now, because of this, it is a trial indeed. The Council will be judge and jury, and the realm leaders will be the witnesses.”
“This is going to get ugly,” Draven says, looking at Xerxes with concern. “Messy, probably bloody.”
“Well, I’m going with you.” All eyes snap to me. “I got you into this mess. It’s only fair that I help get you out of it.”
“Oh, how generous of you,” Kareim says in that mocking, murderously annoying tone of his. “May I remind you that you slept with the enemy, Your Highness? If you’re going there, it will be to slip into Samael’s bed again, and run another knife into our King’s back.”
Xerxes flashes a murderous glare at him, but luckily I’m the only one who catches it. It goes like sugar down a bitter throat, because I was seriously starting to worry he might desire Zestari over me, but now I know it was only my jealousy, which comes with the territory of the kind of love I feel for him, I guess.
“Well, I have a few conditions, if the Queen is coming,” Kareim says out loud, taking enough distance from us so that as many people as possible can hear him. The music dies, everybody in his range turning attention to him. “If the Queen insists on going, then so will I. To watch over our King.”
“I can watch over our King,” Duke Draven steps in.
“Wait,” Zestari chimes in, jumping into the middle of things. She stares at me with hatred. “I didn’t mean to say anything so as not to embarrass the King.” She turns to him and bats her lashes. “I’m sorry for this, Milord, but under the circumstances I have to do it.” She turns her poisonous red eyes to me again. “The Queen snuck into his bath chamber last night. To her surprise, the King wasn’t alone, though. He was with me.” She juts out her chin proudly. “So she couldn’t achieve what she’d come there for—using her bonded mates’ connection with him to seduce him, to pull him back into her web. But I’ll have you all know that he rejected her, and sent her away. Now look at her, trying to use this new situation in her own favor.”
“Enough,” Xerxes commands, his powerful voice vibrating against the walls. His features sharpen so much they look deadly. Zestari can’t see it, because she has her back to him, facing me. My ears buzz so loudly I can’t even hear what Xerxes tells the crowd, but the moment Kareim speaks, the stunned reactions of the courts tear my attention to him.
“Yes,” he says with a grin, and then he repeats what I assume triggered all the others a moment before. “All it takes, revered Courts, is for you to place the Queen under my custody. That way, I would be responsible for her, sort of like a legal guardian, until the trial is finished, and the Council has decided how this conflict between Samael and the King is to be resolved.”
“There’s not a chance in the cursed realms that I’ll accept your custody,” I grunt, but the murmur and nods among the Courts tell me they are ready to embrace the idea.
“You dirty bastard,” I hiss, my fingers curling as dark energy channels itself through my hands, but Marayke stops me in time. She grabs my elbow and pulls me back.
“There’s no way around this, Cerys,” she breathes in my ear. “Don’t fight it, not now, you won’t stand a chance. I’ll come along, and I swear by the high realms, that I’m going to help and protect you.”
“There’s more,” Kareim goes on, his grin wide and foxy, his self-satisfied glare still on me. “Zestari should also come, and attend to our King. Between the two of us we can ensure that Queen Cerys and her ensnaring powers are kept in check.”
Duke Draven draws so close to Xerxes they’re shoulder to shoulder, and I can see why—he’s keeping Xerxes back in the same way Marayke is doing with me. Xerxes stares at Kareim with murder in his red irises, which is bound to awaken suspicion if he doesn’t get a grip soon.
“Don’t forget,” Marayke whispers. “Kareim can’t find out about you and Xerxes. He has to feel like he’s won.”
I press my teeth so hard against each other that they crunch. The courts gather around Xerxes, and intense discussion starts within the crowd, allowing Marayke and me a moment of privacy. Zestari is too busy orbiting around Kareim, elated that she gets to be around Xerxes on this trip, even against his will.
“Your bother is even more tenacious than I thought.” I tell Marayke. “I mean, look at the crowd. They all hate me thanks to him, and they’ll never accept Xerxes and me ever being together again.”
“You will win them back as soon as it’s safe to uncover the truth.”
“That’s easier said than done. Even if we do win, which is far-fetched now that both Kareim and Samael have changed their strategy, it will take more than explaining what happened for the fire folk to ever trust us again. I mean, what will we tell them? That we let Kareim manipulate them on one side, so that we could manipulate him on the other? That both the King and the High Mage went behind their backs? How are they supposed to trust us ever again after such a thing?” My eyes fill with tears as I speak.
“Pull yourself together, Cerys.” Marayke’s mailed fingers sink into my arm, ripping through my long lace gloves. “We have more pressing matters to worry about now.”
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again. The most dangerous thing about your brother is his intelligence. He should build on that instead of chasing an impossible dream. Even if he does obtain the kind of magic powers that will make him worthy of his standing, they will never be his strong suit. And you know what? It’ll be a shame.”
Cerys
IT’S NO SECRET TO ANYONE that, back when Marayke and I first met, we hated each other’s guts. She was in love with Xerxes and, just like her brother, she wanted me dead. When they both betrayed us to Samael, Kareim did it in exchange for true magic abilities that would justify his unearned status as High Mage of the Fire Court, and Marayke did it in exchange for a love potion that would have made Xerxes fall for her. Luckily for me, she soon saw that she and her brother were in the wrong, and realized that not even the strongest love potion would be able to break the love that Xerxes and I shared as bonded mates. Not even against the backdrop of a faked betrayal from my side that broke Xerxes’ heart.
Now, Marayke is the only person at the Fire Court that I can call friend. I watch her as we prepare for the journey to the Palace of Realms in the Flipside, and catch her hand as she’s sorting through suits of mailed armor th
at she wants me to bring along.
“What?” she says. “You’re gonna need more than dresses if you want to help Xerxes. If I learned anything in the years that I’ve been serving in the Fire Court Military, it’s that war always finds the King of Flames.”
“It’s not the armor,” I say softly. “I’ll sleep in one if you like. It’s... I’m not sure I’ve been perfectly clear about how much I appreciate you.”
Another thing I’m sure Marayke doesn’t know is that, when she smiles, her whole face changes. Her features are still long and forbidding, but they become vulnerable and noble when she shows emotion. Her eyes are sharp, the eyes of a hawk, and they’re one of the reasons she’s famous. She has an aim like no other. But when they fill with emotion, I see the glow of the woman she is behind all that. I think few people can see behind her façade like I do, and she senses that. It’s why she and I have connected on such deep levels. Who would have thought back when we met that we would become...friends.
She looks down and takes my hands in hers. She’s not wearing armored gloves for a change, and I can actually feel the touch of her raw, strong fingers. They are nothing like the flowery touch of the ladies I usually had to deal with before. Even witches, who work with the elements, herbs and metals, feel softer than this.
“This time we were able to fool Kareim. He thinks there’s no better place for you than at my side, but in order to keep up that illusion I’m gonna have to treat you roughly in front of him.” She looks up slowly, her eyes meeting mine. “But I want you to know I’ll hate every second of it.”
“I know. And don’t worry. I’m not as fragile as I used to be.”
“Quite frankly, you never looked fragile. The first time you appeared in the dungeons at the Castle of Edinburgh, everybody saw a girl with glowing white skin and golden eyes, a black cat on her shoulder. You were the epitome of white witch power. But you exuded a very special kind of power. And Kareim, he... He already knew things about you. He wanted Xerxes to reach out to you because he had his own agenda for your potential.”
“I realized that.”
“No, you don’t understand. He knew things about you that you might not know about yourself.”
“I’ve always been aware of my bloodline, Marayke. I’ve always known I could tap into the Tartarian powers of Hades, and Merlin.”
“Yes, but what you don’t know is that, if you die, those powers can be harvested. And that’s what Kareim’s ultimate intention for you was.”
She looks down again, unable to hold my stare. Her chin trembles, and her hands clamp too hard on mine.
“Now that I know you the way I do, I... I’m ashamed of all that, and I hate myself for it.”
“You do seem to always find a reason to hate on yourself.” I seek her gaze. “Marayke, it’s not like I didn’t know all that. You never really went behind my back. You were openly hostile. It takes honor to do that. And a lot of guts, considering that I was your king’s only hope of getting his power back, and save you all.”
“And he got all that and more.” She squeezes my hands. “No matter what happens on this journey, Cerys, always be sure that I’m acting in your best interest.”
“Don’t worry. Thanks to your genius intervention, we will be sharing a room wherever we go, and Kareim won’t bother to keep an eye on us because he trusts you completely to be as mean to me as possible.”
The shadow of guilt falls over her noble features again. “I feel bad, doing that to him. Going behind his back, betraying his trust. But I know it’s the right thing to do. There’s no getting out of this nightmare without picking sides.”
I press my lips together, remembering my promise to her, namely that I’d make sure her bother is spared in the end. I’m not so sure I’ll be able to fulfill that promise anymore, but I sure as hell will do everything in my power to honor it.
CHAPTER III
Xerxes
Here we are in the Flipside again. We step out of the portal in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the historical vaults under the city. It’s a place full of ghosts, laden with a painful past. Ghostly moans fill the distant catacombs.
“I knew no portal could bring us to the Palace of Realms directly,” Draven says, whipping out his daggers as he senses evil spirits. “But did it have to choose the vaults?”
“The portal was supposed to take us to the nearest place,” Kareim puts in as the portal closes with a strong suction force. My mouth distorts at the mere sound of his fucking voice. “This isn’t the nearest place.”
I can hear the squeak of leather and clanking of blades as he pulls the two guards he brought along in front of him.
“Oh, come on, Kareim,” I grunt. “You’re the High Mage of the Fire Realm, you can banish all evil spirits with the magic glow of your staff alone.”
Draven laughs. We both know Kareim couldn’t summon real magic to save his life, and if we can’t do anything to finish him, given the circumstances, at least we can use the chance to humiliate him. He flips the daggers expertly in his hands, allowing me to lead the way while he waits for the others in order to remain at the rear, and protect our backs.
I don’t have to look at Cerys to feel her close behind me, Marayke by her side, two guards separating them from Zestari. It’s just the seven of us heading to the Palace of Realms. The other realm leaders might bring much bigger retinues, but we decided it was best to travel light.
As I lead the way, rivulets of fire snaking through my skin, my body emitting shadow to keep the evil spirits intimidated and at a distance, I have to admit that Kareim is right. This is too far from the Palace of Realms. It will take us at least two days of travel to get there. The northern forests of Flipside Scotland aren’t easy to reach.
We find the old stairs that lead up to the surface, and I realize—this is what the Council wanted to achieve by preventing us from getting any closer. They’re forcing me to the surface. The people of Flipside Edinburgh are wary of me, because of my power, and my viciousness, and because I drove terror into all the realms. But now that they know I’m in a conflict with Samael and that I’ve been summoned to the Palace of Realms for an extraordinary meeting with the Council, they hope there’s a chance against me. Some fools might even try to take me down before I even reach the Palace.
All it takes is for me to emerge to the surface, and walk down the winding streets of downtown Edinburgh towards the Royal Mile. People stop in their tracks, witches look long after us with their mouths open, shifters retreat in the shadows, vampires hiss from dark side streets. Merchants close the doors to their shops, staring out from their heavily filled shop-windows.
Fire crackles through the rivulets that crisscross my skin, more shadow smoking off of me the more fear I smell around me. I can hear whispers everywhere, especially from the group of warlocks several streets behind that now think they’re too far for me to still hear them.
“The guts on him to show up here,” the older warlock starts.
“It’s what the powerful do, isn’t?” Another one says. “They shit on all of us. They can do whatever to us, and we’re forced to cower back from them when they make an entrance.”
“He doesn’t just shit on us,” a shop owner puts in as he joins the group along with some others who are relaxing now that they think they’re at a safe distance from me. “Hadn’t it been for Lysander the King of Frost, he would have taken over all the realms. We would all be flailing in a sea of fire and ash now, bending to his will. If he had his way, he would remake the Flipside in the image of Hell.”
I clench my jaw, walking further. Nothing has changed, it never will. They’ll always see me as no better than Lucifer, here to abuse my power and bring despair and destruction to their world. But just as I’m about to quit listening, something happens.
“It’s convenient to look at it only from that perspective, isn’t it.” That’s a younger warlock speaking. “It’s Xerxes and his people that have been keeping us safe from cosmic behemoths like Apophis the Go
d of Chaos for millennia. If you’d researched the history of the fire fae, you’d know that they were the only ones strong enough to fight the evil that looms outside of our worlds. They were practically sacrificed to the cause. Facing only evil and terrors, sure they became brutes. But instead of understanding and gratefulness, all we showed—the people whom they protected—was rejection and disdain. Whoever committed a crime of passion blamed it on the fire fae the moment they regained their wits. Of course the fire fae became ruthless.”
I imagine the young warlock as someone wearing a student’s spectacles, and carrying books under his arm. He’s probably one of those youngsters that meet up at pubs to discuss philosophy and history until some drunken bully kicks them out.
I disconnect from them with the ghost of a smile on my face. I glance back at Cerys, and her eyes tell me that she knows what I’m feeling.
I have to look away from her before anyone catches us stealing looks at each other, but it’s fucking hard. She’s mouthwatering in her black leather outfit that resembles a catsuit. It enhances the shape of her body that’s curvy in all the right places, and I’m sure as fuck I’m not the only one who feels that way about her. I pick up the vibration of lust everywhere around her, filling my head with images of her on her knees in that leather catsuit, sucking my cock, her witchy golden eyes drinking the pleasure from mine. My seed squirting onto her face, and onto the leather covering the mounds of her tits.
I shake my head, forcing the thoughts from my head, but my heart is already pumping more fire into my veins. Lava flows along with passion through me, demanding that I make this woman mine, re-stake my claim, make it clear to all these bastards around drooling over her that she’ll be only mine till the end of time.
“So what’s the plan,” Draven says, falling into step next to me, retracting his blades back into his side-arms.
“There’s surely a reason why the Council didn’t allow the portal to take us closer to the Palace. I say the first thing we do is find out what that reason is.”