Bittersweet (24 page)

 

 

We stayed as we were, Zanthiel's body shielding mine as we lay on the ground. Waiting. Holding our breath, until the last trace of the toxic cloud had passed. His face was an inch from mine and I could feel the beat of his heart through the cold metal of his armor. I'm certain mine was beating at least twice as fast. Our eyes locked for a moment. But only a moment, before he pushed himself off me.

“Do you see?” he said rising, then gruffly pulling me to my feet. “That is exactly the sort of danger that seeks you. Apparently the elf king has even turned a wizard over to his cause, as a poison cloud can only be summoned by a powerful sorcerer.”

I watched as the remnants of the yellow fog disappeared in the distance.

“Exactly why I need to be here.” I fought to restore a normal heart rate. “Unless I learn to control this, my life will constantly be at risk.”

“Only if you remain here.”

I dug in my heels. “I'm staying.” The subject was no longer open for debate.

Zanthiel eyed me speculatively as I dusted the grass and leaves from my clothes. “How has your training progressed?” He reached out to pluck a leaf from my hair.

“Fine,” I replied.

His mouth twisted. “You are a terrible liar.”

He was right. My powers eluded me still. I'd never felt so helpless. Well yes, I had, but that time I had a whole bunch of beings to guide me. This time, I was on my own. And with every inch the blazing sun dipped toward the horizon, I was failing. “Well, it will be fine if you don't force me to leave before it's through.”

“I've given up fighting you. It's apparent you have no intention of doing the wise thing. And so we will do what we came here for. We need to keep moving. We do not have the luxury of unlimited time. The veil will be sealing soon, and if we are to return you to your world in one piece and better than the shape you arrived in, we must find your father.”

We headed to the gazebo outside of Titania's castle. Violet and burgundy blossoms opened their petals as we walked past, dusting us with a heady dose of their perfumes. The air sparkled and there was little trace of the poison that had rolled through on a toxic storm cloud not long before. Typical of Faery. It went from breathtaking to deadly and back at breakneck speed. I perched on a quartz bench carved like two massive stone hands. Zanthiel leaned against the frame, his back resting against the braided tree trunks, once again withdrawing into his thoughts.

“Odd time for a sojourn in the Summer Court, considering all that is crumbling down around you.”

I squinted up at the silhouette of a figure I couldn't have been more happy to see. “Hawthrin. You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

“Is that so?” He puffed on his pipe, blowing rainbow hued ribbons of smoke into the summer air. “Well, it is indeed a good thing I have found you. News of your current predicaments have spread far and wide amongst the High Order of Wizards. They felt it best I leave you be, and let the situation resolve itself organically.”

“But you didn't?”

He furrowed his bushy brow. “Of course not. You are not the only one adept at disregarding instructions. Much like when you were warned to never return to the Nevermore.”

“I know, I know.” I held my hands out in front of me. “But this was an emergency. I have to find my father.”

The wizard narrowed his gaze. A labyrinth of fine wrinkles lined his eyes. “Dear girl, you cannot cross into the Mythlandrian realm. You would not even safely pass the Elssarian realm without being cut down by one of King Etienne's hunters. Attempting it would be your end. To what lengths will you go to end your own life?”

Zanthiel smirked. “I've offered to do the deed for her, but she keeps refusing me.”

I threw him a dirty look. “It may seem like I'm making impulsive decisions here, and I know I've made some in the past—”

Hawthrin coughed. He and Zanthiel traded looks, both trying not to laugh.

“Okay fine, so I've made a lot. But this isn't one of them. I've given this a lot of thought. And if I can get to my father, I know I'll be able to fix things.”

“What's meant to be will always find a way to be. It is true therefore that you must try. However, unless you have found means to teleport to their exact location under the cloak of an invisibility spell, you will be killed and every ounce of your blood drained before you set eyes upon you father.

Zanthiel folded his arms across his chest. “She'll have me by her side.”

“And that will ensure an increase in the amount of bloodshed spilled,” Hawthrin snapped. “But it will not ensure her life. You know this.”

Zanthiel's expression chilled, but he didn't respond. It was what he and the witches had been insisting all along.

“Are you telling me this is impossible, Hawthrin? You of all people.
Mr. Positivity
101 believe and make it so
,
is actually telling me this
can't
be done?”

“I did not say that,” he replied. “I merely said it cannot be done the way you have planned.”

“I'm listening…”

He paused to draw in a long puff of his pipe.

Shifting my weight, I fought back the urge to run over and shake the smoke out of him instead of waiting for him to exhale and spill it already.

His dark eyes studied us closely. “There is only one way to stop the hunt. Only one way for this to end. You must take the throne as Faerie Queen. You are to reign over the Faery Islands as queen united with its future king.” He looked pointedly at Zanthiel, who scowled.

My stomach took a nosedive. “You did not just suggest what I think you did,” I murmured.

“It is prophecy, and as you've witnessed for yourself, one cannot outrun one's fate forever. Eventually it catches up with you,” Hawthrin said. “Fulfill the prophecy and free yourselves. Or die trying to avoid it.”

Zanthiel's voice lowered. “And what if I do not wish to be king?”

“Then you condemn the girl you fought so long and hard to protect to certain death, should she follow her stubborn impulse. Which we all know she will.”

I threw up my hands. “Die trying to do what's right, or agree to a fate I want no part of? How is any of this fair?”

“Fate, like life, is seldom fair. It sweeps you up in a current too powerful to resist. To struggle against it is to fall under, and drown in its depths. But to flow with it… ahhh, there you will find peace. As it floats you to where you were meant to be. Let go. Trust."

“Do you have any idea how hard those words are for me?”

“I do,” he chuckled compassionately. "You must do it anyway.”

I looked at Zanthiel. More than anything I wanted to hold on to my disbelief in the power of destiny. The whole idea of a path having been laid out for you before your birth seemed ludicrous. And yet, it was impossible to deny its tenacity. So much of what had been predicted had come to pass. My powers had taken a turn to the dark side. Adrius had returned to Venus. And Zanthiel and I had grown closer. Did that mean I wanted to spend eternity with him ruling over the Faerie Islands? Not really. Yet once again fate pulled a checkmate, and that was what awaited us.

“I want no part in this, wizard. There must be another way,” Zanthiel said. His tone was resolute.

“Zanthiel, I don't think it matters what we want. All that matters is what has to be done. And undone. We can't let things continue the way they are. I don't have to remind you what's at stake.”

I turned to Hawthrin, feeling a bead of perspiration trickle down my back. “I'm not ready to accept that kind of responsibility. I can't run a kingdom. I can't even get my trig homework in on time. How could I possibly govern the behavior of faeries? It's impossible.”

“I believe you said that nothing was impossible.”

“I might have. But
this…
is
.” I paced back and forth, gnawing my thumbnail to the skin. “So you're saying that in order for me to stop the veil from sealing and undo whatever freakish thing has happened to turn me into the Grim Reaper, I have to become queen of the fey. Anything else?” I asked. “Split the atom? Reinvent the wheel, maybe?” My brain was fried. I couldn't seem to process anything through the short-circuiting mass of nerves screaming
this can't be happening
.

“'Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift',” Hawthrin quoted. “Dante's Inferno.”

“How apt.” It was uncommonly straightforward for him. While I appreciated not having to decode his metaphors for a change, it wasn't helping.

“You have a destiny to fulfill, Lorelei. Both of you. Things can only right themselves once that has come to pass,” Hawthrin said.

Peterson's offer was looking more and more appealing. Be rid of magic forever in exchange for a normal mythological being-free life? Sign me up. Except… I'd grown more than a little fond of those mythological beings. Turning my back on them was also turning my back on my family. Gran would be so disappointed I was even considering the option.

Exhaling a heavy sigh, I turned to Zanthiel. “Okay. So let's just say for the sake of argument, I agreed to this new level of crazy. What would I have to do, exactly?”

Hawthrin's gaze shifted to the floor before he exchanged looks with Zanthiel.

Oh man, this was going to be bad. My panic amplified. “Just tell me.”

Zanthiel spoke up first. “You would have to retrieve the crowns of all three courts. Summer Court, Winter Court and…” he paused, still unable to look me in the eye, “Shadow Court.”

This time the gasp of horror came from me and echoed through the half empty hall. They can't be serious. “Are you kidding me?” I put my hand out in front of me, fingers splayed. “You're telling me that I have to dethrone the one faerie monarch who actually likes me, another who wants my head on a pike…
and
the one who abandoned me as a child.” Saying it out load made it sound that much more suicidal.

Zanthiel's head nodded ever so slightly as his gaze finally lifted to mine. He didn't have to say anything else, neither one of them did. The fact that the cold Shadow fey couldn't make eye contact spoke volumes, and not one word of it was good.

“She can't be expected to undertake such a task, wizard. One cannot walk into the court of a Faerie regent and simply demand their crown. It's madness. It's treason and it's punishable by death.”

“Not if the asker has the right. Lorelei has both prophecy and bloodline on her side.”

“And little else. Neither will save her from the wrath of the Queen of Air and Darkness alone.”

“That is where you will come in,” Hawthrin said. “It would be your task to keep her safe from backlash.”

“I'm not sure I understand this. How can I possibly be entitled to rule all of Faery, being I'm part witch?”

Hawthrin drew lazily on his pipe and exhaled a long puff. “Let us recap, yes? Essentially there are two factions of Faery. The Seelie, faeries of light, good… they reside in the Summer Court.”

I nodded, chewing my thumbnail which barely had anything left to chew.

“The Unseelie are fey dark, bad,” he paused to glance at Zanthiel, “No offense, my boy.”

“Offense taken.”

Hawthrin continued, “The Unseelie are divided in two: the Winter Court, who were the original rulers, and the Shadow Court, who came into power later on after a coup. Your father once ruled the Winter, but was cast out. After the separation, he in secret came to preside over the Shadow Court.” Hawthrin moved slowly about the room as he spoke, pausing to draw on his pipe every so often. His cape dusted the floor. “Prophecy predicts you are destined for royalty and we'd all assumed that would be fulfilled in Mythlandria, given your connection to…”

My chest tightened at the almost-mention of Adrius.

He cleared his throat. “But if that position was carried out within Faery, you and Zanthiel would reign as the rulers of all three courts. Seelie and Unseelie, Summer Winter and Shadow, united for the first time in a millennium under one Faery Court. Simple, yes?”

“Disturbingly so,” Zanthiel grunted.

“He's right,” I added. “History shows that anything that looks too easy isn't. Especially here.”

“Your history is valid but we are not our pasts. We must forge a new future, and leave what came before behind us or risk carrying it forward to relive.”

“Whose quote is that one?”

“My own.” He beamed proudly.

“Truly wizard, I believe you have lost all traces of sanity this time.” Zanthiel crossed his arms, the muscles in his jaw clenched and unclenched. “Not one ruler of Faery will freely give up their power.”

I stared at him hard. He was right, of course, but it surprised me to see him fight so hard against the idea.

“Of course they may have to be coaxed to do so, but nothing is impossible.” Hawthrin winked at me. “Sometimes we must make sacrifices to serve the greater good.”

Sure. Only, what exactly was the greater good here? There wasn't just one agenda, one mission to complete. There were several, each more intricately complex than the next.

“By becoming queen, King Etienne would have to call off his hunt and terminate the bounty he has placed on your head. Your protection would be assured.”

My hand moved to my throat as I swallowed. Always a joy to be reminded of that threat.

“You came to me for aid. I offer you a solution. One that could mend all of your problems, Lorelei.”

“By creating a whole bunch of new ones?”

“You can unite all three of the courts. It is time.” Hawthrin puffed on his pipe and I watched as the lavender rings coiled into the night sky and dissipated in the cold.

It was true that the two courts were more like three, but the courts were separate for a reason. They couldn't play nice with others. How was I going to change any of that?