Blood of Half Gods (7 page)

“We have taken turns,” Alita says softly.  “When not trying to wake you, Kallen, Kegan and King Dagda, as well as Radella, the drivers and the overseers, have been trying to take back control of the carriage.  Unsuccessfully.”

I can’t help but gulp.  All of them were trying to use their magic against mine and they couldn’t get control?  What is there to say to that?  “Um, sorry.”  Yeah, that sounded weak even to my own ears.

Someone I have never met comes to the door, startling me.  Which, of course, makes me start drawing magic.  He’s short in stature, and dressed in a wrinkled white shirt and dark brown pants.  His face is heavily lined and he looks like he’s spent way too much time in the sun. 

“Xandra,” Kallen says, with more than a little reproof in his voice about me drawing magic.  I think he might be a little tired of my magic at the moment, what with two holes to fix and a hijacking.  Wow, I’ve packed a lot into one day, even for me, and it’s not even over yet. 

I force my magic back down.  “Who are you?” I ask the now very nervous Fairy standing in the doorway.

“I-I am…,” he stutters. 

Kegan takes pity on him.  “This is Sindri, Dagda’s assistant.  He has come to call us to Dagda’s quarters.”

“Oh, okay.”  Guess it’s time to face the music.  Or guillotine.  I bet he keeps one in his office.

Alita looks nervous and Kegan looks resigned.  This is not going to be good.  Kallen comes to my side and I tentatively take his hand, wondering if he’s too mad at me to want to hold hands with me.  He gives mine a reassuring squeeze and I smile up at him.  He’s not smiling, but I think that’s more because of fatigue than me.  He has dark circles under his eyes, and he looks like he’s ready for a six hour nap.  Or twelve hour nap.

Like a funeral procession, we walk single file down the circular staircase, coming to a halt at Dagda’s door.  Sindri steps ahead of us and after a light knock, he opens the door.  Dagda is sitting behind his desk, and I have never seen him look so haggard.  He has the same dark circles under his eyes as Kallen. 

“Thank you, Sindri,” Dagda says, as he rises from his chair.  “Please stop at the kitchen and let the chef know we are ready for dinner.  That will be all for the evening.  We will be back on the road in the morning, and as soon as we start moving, meet me back here.”  Sindri nods and backs out of the room, closing the door behind him.

“Shall we?” Dagda says, sweeping his arm towards a door that I assume leads to his private quarters.

Kallen has to tug a little bit on my hand before I follow.  I feel like a kid whose Mom brought her back into the store because she stole a piece of candy, and now has to apologize to the store owner.  This day is completely ruining my equilibrium in regards to Dagda.  I don’t want to feel like a little girl around him.  Now, I’m embarrassed
and
defensive.  Yeah, this is going to go well.

We walk into a sitting room with a gold leather couch and a brown reclining chair. The floor is carpeted in a light brown and the walls are a soft tan.  The room is comfortable and masculine at the same time.  I wonder if his wife decorated it.  There is a mahogany table against the back wall that has a decanter full of a brownish liquid and several glasses.  Dagda heads there and pours himself a drink.  I don’t think it’s tea.

After taking a stiff drink, he turns towards me.  “You certainly do keep life interesting.”

“Must be my heritage.”  I said I was feeling defensive.

He sits down in the chair and leans back.  “Yes, I suppose it is.”  Huh. I thought he’d get defensive, too.  Good job sucking all the air out of my attack.  “Have a seat,” he says, waving his glass towards the couch.  It’s a tight squeeze for all four of us, but we manage.

Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Dagda asks, “What were you dreaming?”

He’s takes me by surprise again.  I guess I’m kind of amazed that he’s the first one to ask me that.  “I was dreaming of my parents.  My real parents,” I add.  Hmm, not one feather ruffled on him.  I want to scream at him to stop being so accepting of my behavior.  Then, I’d have a reason to take out my tension and humiliation on him.  Wow, I’m mature at the moment.

“And,” he prompts.

I sigh.  I’m kind of embarrassed to talk about it, but then again, I don’t think any of them are going to make fun of me.  “I dreamt that I woke up in my bed back in my own realm and my parents weren’t ghosts.  They were real.  And I tried explaining to them that it couldn’t be real…” I pause a moment, thinking about how real it did feel at the time, “They thought I was crazy, or sick, or something.  They tried to convince me that I had a bad dream, and that they were reality.” 

“Xandra woke believing she had only been asleep for five minutes or so.  She was completely surprised that it had been six hours,” Kallen adds.

I nod.  “I swear, I was only in my realm in my dream for five minutes.  The rest of the time, I must not have been dreaming.”

Dagda looks thoughtful.  “During this dream, did you use any type of magic?”

I shake my head.  “No, none.”

He’s deep in thought again.  Finally, he asks, “Your home in your realm, it would be west of here?”

I have to take a minute to think of my geography lessons.  “Northwest, but yes, west of here in general.”

“Do you think she was trying to go home?” Kallen asks, sounding dumbfounded.

Dagda shrugs.  “That seems to be a plausible explanation.”

It sounds ridiculous to me.  “But, I chose to stay in this realm.  Why would I try to go home?”

He nods.  “True, but in your dream, you had parents who were not spirits.  Would you choose to go back to the Cowan realm if that was the case?”

Yeah, I probably would.  Maybe.  Huh.  That’s something to think about.  But, I’m still not buying the theory.  “Even in my dream, I knew that my parents weren’t really corporeal.  I kept trying to wake up so I could come back to reality.”

A light knock on the door keeps Dagda from responding.  “Come,” he says gruffly.  I guess it’s a Fairy thing to say it like that.  It still seems rude to me.

A tall, skinny Fairy with a receding hairline and mostly gray hair, wheels in a trolley full of covered dishes.  He doesn’t say anything to any of us, he just pushes the food through a small archway where a dining room table of red oak is laid out for dinner.  I didn’t even realize I was hungry until my stomach grumbles.  The room is so quiet it echoes loudly.  I get some raised eyebrows.  I hope they know it was my stomach and not a fart.

Dagda stands up and downs the rest of his drink.  Setting the glass back on the table with the decanter, he walks wordlessly to the table.  The rest of us follow just as silently.  I wish my nap had been more restful; I think this is going to be a long night.

Chapter 6

Dinner is made even more comfortable by Radella joining us a few minutes after we start eating.  She sits down across from Alita and she doesn’t even look in my direction.  “Are we secure for the evening?” Dagda asks her.

She looks over at him and nods.  “We have a perimeter with three guards outside and two in.  As far as we can tell, there is no one within several miles.”

“Damage to the carriage?”

“Minimal.  Mostly scratches and minor dents.  Her magic was able to steer the carriage around major obstacles, and when necessary, cleared the trees out of the way.”

I cut down trees?  That wasn’t very ecofriendly of me.  “I took us off the roads?”  I know that Kallen said there was only one major roadway heading south to the Uluru area where we’re going.  But, there must be roads that shoot off from it to the east and west.

“You did not seem to care how you got to wherever you felt like going, you were only concerned with your own selfish desires,” she sneers.

I’m about to remind her that I was sleeping at the time, when Dagda slams his palm down on the table, make Alita and me practically jump out of our chairs in surprise.  “Damn it, Radella, I have tolerated enough of your petty jealousy and disrespectful attitude towards Xandra.  If you say or do one more thing that makes her even raise an eyebrow, you will have your magic bound, be tried for treason and punished by death.  Do you understand me?”

Okay, I admit, he’s pretty scary at the moment.  His eyes are now a dark, velvety green and his voice has the feel of satin doused in liquid cyanide.  His handsome face is set, as if made of marble.  Unblinking, impassive.  His voice completely void of anger or passion.  There is no doubt in the mind of anyone at the table that he is dead serious.

Radella’s mouth opens.  Then closes.  Then forms a straight line, making her thin lips disappear altogether.  She nods.  At least I think she does.  Her head moves about a fraction of an inch up and then down.

I’m going to sit here and eat my vegetable soup.  Very quietly.  Even if I’m not sure what all the different vegetables are. 

“Kallen, Kegan, I will need your help in the morning.  We will assess the damage and fix what needs to be fixed.  I want to start the journey back towards Uluru just after sunrise.”

“Of course,” Kallen says.  Kegan nods his agreement.  Then, all that can be heard is the ting of silverware against the bowls and our teeth.

I can’t stand the heavy silence.  It’s like I’m stuck between two sleeping hippopotamuses about to roll closer together, squishing me in the process.  My mouth opens, and says the first thing to come to mind.  “What will happen now that we’ll be so late?”

Dagda sits back in his chair and sighs.  “I have sent a messenger on ahead to tell the giants I have been delayed.  Of course, I did not tell them why.”

That makes my cheeks turn pink.  “Sorry.”

He raises his brows and looks at me for a moment, then says, “A princess need not apologize for such a tremendous show of power.”  Wow, I actually think he means that.

“What’s going to happen when we get there?”  I hate to admit it, but I haven’t asked any questions about the Giants.  He gave me some information, but I ignored it in a mental protest of the trip.  Now that I may have set things off to a bad start, I’m a little more curious.

“Quinn and Ellu are the tribe leaders for each line of Giants, the Daityas who have mixed their bloodline with Cowan blood, and the Devas, who see them as weaker because of that.”

“So, it’s like the Pooka, the Sheehogue and the Cowan Fairies, then,” I say and the table becomes silent.  Alita is sitting next to me and her face turns several shades of pink.

Finally, Dagda says, “The difference being, we Fairies have learned to live amongst one another peacefully.”

I can’t help but frown and snort.  “Are you kidding?  Racism is rampant amongst the Fairies.”  This earns me a stern look.  Hey, I can’t help it if the truth hurts.

Dagda inclines his head.  “Be that as it may, we Fairies do not murder each other in cold blood as an answer to solve our problems with each other.”

He does have a point.  Sort of.  He was perfectly willing to murder Cowans, or humans, in cold blood not that long ago.  This might not be the best time for that discussion.  “Okay, they hate each other and they’re killing each other.  Got it.  Is their magic strong?”

Radella seems to have choked on a spoonful of soup.  Or she’s laughing at me.  Probably the latter.  She gets herself under control quickly when she realizes Dagda is trying to burn holes in her with his eyes.  And he’s drawing magic.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.  “My soup was hot.”  Liar.

Kallen answers my question.  “The giants possess great strength, but they are not magical creatures.  They are, however, immune to many types of magic.  Witch magic is useless against them.”  I wonder if that means my Witch magic?  And it seems like he could have mentioned some of this over the last few days.  Then again, anytime someone brought up the trip, I groaned and changed the subject.

“They’re not immune to Fairy magic?”

Dagda leans forward and rests his arms on the table.  “Some, but not all.  It takes a powerful Fairy to go up against a Giant.”

“But, they recognize you as King?”

He nods.  “Yes.  It was a battle fought long and hard, but the Giants are now under my realm.  Both for protection, mainly from each other, and as citizens that recognize the laws of my dominion.”

“What’s going on with them right now?”

“I am glad you have finally taken an interest,” he says with an amused smirk.  I wrinkle my nose at him, which just makes him chuckle.

Leaning back again, he says, “There has been an increase in violence amongst the Giants.  Random murders, brawling, a complete breakdown of communication.  Each tribe is threatening to declare war.”

“As King, aren’t you the only one who can declare war?”  Probably a stupid question. 

That’s confirmed by Radella choking on her soup again.  Oh, wait a minute.  I think she’s really choking this time.  Suddenly, she’s not making any noise, and it’s not because I took her voice away.  Her lips are getting a little blue, too.  One of us should probably do something besides watch.  No one is rushing to help her, though.

“Oh, good lord,” I grumble.  I use my magic to squeeze around her middle.  Unfortunately for her, I squeeze so tightly, that the large carrot that was lodged in her throat has become a projectile missile.  That hits Dagda in the eye.  Wow, Fairies have come up with some cuss words that are really creative, not to mention physically impossible.  I think.  I guess with enough magic, he could make some of them work.  That doesn’t bode well for Radella.