Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) (47 page)

When my eyes adjusted I saw we were in the great hall of Ennishlough, but it was different. The quiet, museum–like stillness was gone, replaced by movement and noises emanating from every corner of the castle. Beautiful people laughed and talked. Music echoed from the far end where dancers, more graceful than any prima ballerina, twirled around. The ominous feeling of the place had lifted and now merriment and joy flowed through every room. As if commanded by some fairy magic, my feet began to dance along with the music swimming around me.

“No.” Dayne shook his head as he grabbed my arm and pulled me to him.

The
click-thump
from earlier was now a quick
clip-clip
, as Ara rushed us down the hallway. The portraits whirred by me, blurred by our speed. We came to a door on the outside wall of the great hall. Ara looked to Dayne.

With great hesitation, he pulled the enormous ring of keys from his belt and unlocked the heavy door. They pushed together with great effort and the doors slowly swung against the ancient hinges.

We stepped over the threshold into the cool evening air. In the darkness I could see it was a garden. White roses basked all around us in the powerful moonlight, shining like stars against their dark green leaves. I strained my eyes to make out the darkened human forms playing in the shadows around us, stopping to smell the fragrant flowers or lingering along the maze path cut from hedges at the far end. The garden went deathly quiet when they saw me—an interloper in their midst. Their bright jewel toned eyes shone through the darkness like an animal trapped in the headlights, and I knew they were not human eyes that watched me. One by one, the shadows froze and two radiant pin–pricks of soft glowing light focused on me in the darkness, wrapped around the strength of Dayne’s arm.

“Dayne, what’s happening?” I fumbled for his hand in the darkness, needing the reassurance he wasn’t going anywhere. With one hand snaked around his arm and other holding his hand in a vice-like grip, I followed him into the garden.

When he turned to me, I saw for the first time his eyes were glowing the warm emerald green they did when he used his magic, as if stepping across the threshold had washed away the spell that made him look normal in my world. I gasped and instinctively pulled away from him.

“Shhhh…” he soothed in a whisper so soft Ara didn’t even hear it. I looked to her and saw her eyes burning green through the night, glowing so brightly her face was cast in an alien hue. I began to shake uncontrollably and had to stifle the whimpers begging to escape from my throat. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was at that moment.

Dayne squeezed my hand tightly, his colossal strength a welcome comfort, and he tucked me further behind him, his body guarding me from glowing eyes around us. As his shoulder passed in front of me, it towered at least six inches above where it normally would have, glowing with the same hulking muscles I had seen before. He was huge and impenetrable in his Sidhe warrior form, and my fears suddenly seemed somewhat foolish with a guardian like him. I knew he would die before he’d let anything happen to me.

“Dayne…what is this?” I whimpered my question again, not at all sure what was about to happen to me.

“They know our secret, Faye.” He answered me without taking his eyes off the glowing orbs around us, ready to strike at any moment if they dared to approach me.

“What does that mean?” I had never been scared when I was with Dayne. I had always known that he could protect me from anything, but Dayne was different standing there before me with the magic he used in my world washed away. Something in his demeanor had changed. He was distracted, watching those around us so intently he didn’t even acknowledge my question.

Ara’s garish glare turned to me.

“It means the Queen must decide your fate. If she deems you one of us…” Ara raised her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh, “…you will remain in LisTirna. If she sees you are not one of us, your memory will be washed, and Dayne will pay the price of life for betraying us.” My heart sank down to the very pit of my stomach where it churned around with the fear of what was about to become of me. How could I have been so stupid? Dayne had warned me what could become of us both if anyone knew our secret, but like a fool I had told on us and in doing so had probably destined us to the one fate Dayne had tried to protect us from.

Ara smiled as she watched a sick look spread over my face, and for a moment I considered giving up, sacrificing myself to save Dayne and end the hopeless uncertainty we both faced. But when Ara stuck her bottom lip out and furrowed her brow in sarcastic pity, it suddenly enraged me, just as she had at the cottage. I wasn’t going to let her win. My eyes narrowed to slits as I glared at her, and I tossed my chin into the air.

“Georgia? That’s where you’re from, right? I’m sure that life is awfully excitin’.” She said with the fakest of southern accents. Clearly her only idea of my hometown was
Gone With the Wind
.

“Maybe you should visit us sometime. We could certainly teach a girl like you some manners!” I shot back at her, and she immediately lunged toward me only to meet the solid wall of Dayne’s arm as he instinctively blocked her path. She let out a disappointed hiss, and I stuck my tongue out at her. I knew she couldn’t get to me with Dayne between us.

“Shut up, Ara,” Dayne growled at her with a voice so malevolent she actually cowered a bit, which wasn’t surprising given the huge differences in their sizes. While Dayne had grown to the massive proportions of his warrior body, Ara still remained dainty and petite in comparison. She rolled her eyes defiantly from a safer distance and crossed her arms over her chest before stalking off down the path before us.

I stumbled along behind Dayne and we finally arrived at the edge of a little pond in the middle of the garden. It glowed bright white, the surface of the water vibrant in the dark. Strange little patches of gray mottled the surface. It was the moon’s reflection, so large it took up the entirety of the pond.

“What is this?” I clung to Dayne’s arm, preparing myself for a woman to shoot up at me from the depths of the lake, like in the movies.

“Good gosh, Dayne. Have you told her nothing?” Ara was impatiently tapping her foot on the green grass. I felt sorry for the grass.

“Shut up, Ara!” He squeezed my hand. I could tell he was searching for a way around this. The surface of the pond rippled as if his voice had disturbed it, and he sighed. “This is the entry to LisTirna, Faye.” His words washed over me. Another ripple skittered across the surface. The pond was waiting for me.

Ara took a few steps into the water and turned back to us. With a satisfied expression on her face she turned back and leapt into the air. Her body stretched out and formed into an elegant swan dive position—arms pulled away like wings, her back arched and red soled high heels pointed behind her. She hung suspended for a moment in the air, smiling at us before releasing her body to the water below. With the tiniest of splashes, like a pebble tossed into a babbling brook, she broke the surface and disappeared.

“Dayne, I’m scared.” I poked a toe at the water in front of me. To my amazement, the toe of my boot was dry when I pulled it out.

“I would never let anything hurt you, Faye.” He looked from the water, to me, to the garden around us, searching for a way out of this, but there was none. “I wish there was some way around this,” he sighed.

“Can’t we just leave?” I had walked away from Ennishlough a hundred times. Tugging at his arm, I pleaded with him, trying to drag him away from the pond with me.

“Not now. There’s nowhere to hide. They’d find us.” He took a reluctant step into the water. I expected the water to react some way, burn him or evaporate to steam. Nothing.

“But there are tons of Sidhe who live in this world. You told me so yourself.” It made perfect sense to me. We did not have to do this. We could just continue as we were.

“Only with the Queen’s permission.” I had forgotten that part, the string that was attached to a free fairy life. Dayne shook his head, knowing that was not a life either of us could live. I shuddered thinking about the danger we were in.

“Listen,” he whispered to me. I stepped closer to hear. “She will try to read you, but I think you may be stronger than her because your magic is so new. Hide your thoughts; don’t let her see into your soul. Our only chance is if she thinks you are something else, something lesser than what you are. You cannot be perceived as a threat.” He was holding my shoulders with both of his enormous hands and his strength was so great that he shook me just a little bit with the flow of his words.

“Okay,” I whispered, nodding my head in the soft glow of the pond as I stared up into his eyes. “How do I do that?”

“Distract her with her own vanity. Do not think of yourself, think only of her or the beauty of LisTirna. Anything but yourself.” His green eyes sparked in the darkness before me showing the intensity burning within. I signed with relief. He had a plan. We were going to get out of this.

I nodded my head and tried to look brave. “Do I hold my nose?” I looked down at the water as another ripple danced across.

“No.” His amused smiled melted whatever resistance remained, and I knew I would follow him anywhere.

The pond was warm as bath water. Weightlessly welcoming me instead of pressing against me, making my clothes cling to my body as normal water would. It wasn’t wet either. The part of my legs that had disappeared below the surface remained dry. Dayne gave me an encouraging nod, and I continued walking into the water beside him.

I was up to my chest now. My hair still remained at my sides, not floating around me. I couldn’t see through the water. The silvery reflection of the moon all around me made that impossible.

“It’s okay, Faye.” His hand squeezed mine somewhere below the surface. It was reassuring to know he was there.

I nodded at him, took a big breath and held it. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and slipped beneath the water’s quiet surface.

“You can open your eyes.” Ara’s impatient voice was the first sound I heard in LisTirna, making my fists curl into little balls at my sides and the top half of my face crinkle in disgust.

She stood before me, impossibly more beautiful than she had been before. Everything about her glowed: her skin, her hair, even the emerald green eyes sparkled more brightly than before. A white gown with intricate green embroidery draped against her curves. I hated her even more than I had before.

Dayne shone just as brightly beside Ara. The radiance of his silver skin glowed softly in contrast to the loose white shirt that hung open at his chest. His hair hung around his shoulders, looking like it had been professionally styled when he slipped through the water. His dark emerald green eyes cast the same soothing spell over me they did in my world.

“Welcome to LisTirna. Welcome to my world.” Dayne’s voice was somewhat clipped, like he was saying this for the benefit of someone else. For the first time, I realized someone may be watching us.

LisTirna looked exactly like the garden we had been standing in, down to the white roses and statuary. I wrinkled my forehead in confusion. Above us, what I knew was the pond’s surface danced just like the moon in the sky. If someone had fallen into the pond by accident, they wouldn’t have had a clue they were in LisTirna at first. Maybe that was a trick to hide their world, or maybe it was intended to give their prey a false sense of safety when they entered the realm that would inevitably be their undoing.

I wiggled my toes on the cool green grass beneath my bare feet. The only thing different about my new surroundings was the light. The dark shadows of night were gone, replaced by softly filtered light raining from some unseen source. We followed a grassy path to the edge of the replicated garden where we met a tangle of forest instead of Ennishlough’s white walls.

Dayne disappeared before me between the gnarled roots of a gigantic tree. I paused, but a tug of his strong hand pulled me through behind him.

I slipped through the roots with a puff of wind that blew the rough bark away like a cloud long enough for me to enter. I stood beside Dayne in a forest that almost defied description in human words. Our language didn’t seem worthy of such things. I thought I had seen beauty in my world before, but standing there, I knew humans could never know the real meaning of beauty.

Petals showered down from above like enormous fluffy snowflakes. Mixed in with the petals were tiny sparks of violet light, glowing as they rained down on the forest, the petals and drops of purple landing on leaves, branches, grass and anything else in their path. They would linger for a few seconds, lighting the forest around them before melting away and being replaced by another falling orb.

We continued down the grassy path in the falling confetti, and it landed on my shoulders, in my hair and on my eyelashes– each flake light as an air kiss on my skin. Happy sounds played through the forest. Little bird songs, carried by the wind, plucked through the treetops like harp strings to my ears. I looked to Dayne with wide-eyed wonder, unable to keep the smile off my face. My fears from earlier were gone. LisTirna was so beautiful it was hard to believe anything bad could ever happen in a place like this.

Giant trees, with branches so high I couldn’t see were they began, grew on either side of the trail, their silvery bark reflecting us and the falling petals like mirrors as we walked past. At the base of these trees giant elephant ear leaves sprang from the ground in variegated shades of green, silver and the darkest of blues.