Heir of Earth (Forgotten Gods) (49 page)

Without another word, her body turned just as slowly as her head had, and began to drift back to the tangle of teal trees where she had appeared.

“I must…go now.” Her awkward words trailed over her shoulder as her body was drawn along the path under someone else’s control. She floated just like the crowd that had gathered to watch Dayne’s arrival in LisTirna. My first instinct was to follow her, but I knew who held the strings that pulled her away, and I wasn’t about to go chasing after him without Dayne at my side.

Moments after Christine had disappeared into the woods Dayne burst back to the surface of the water and landed on the bank in one motion. He tossed the glittering, sparkly shells he held to the grassy bank and wiggled back into his clothes. I was breathless from running when I crashed to my knees beside him.

“Dayne, I found Christine!” I yelled with excitement. “We have to get her. We have to take her back,” I pulled against his arm, trying to drag him in the direction she had disappeared.

He frowned at me, “We can’t.”

“What? Why not?” I looked back to the spot where she had disappeared, wondering why we couldn’t save her.

“She belongs here now. She belongs to him. Even if we could get her out, their connection would bring her back.” He patted the grass beside him with a simple shrug of his shoulders.

My temper flared at his calm. He was a protector. Why wasn’t he protecting her? I watched as he arranged the shells on the ground around him, furious he wasn’t spurred to action like I was. He had known all along where she was, but he hadn’t said a word. He let us all worry for her safety and our own. But what was worse, he had silently watched me wrestle with the guilt I felt over her disappearance and done nothing.

“You’ve known where she was the entire time. That night at the dance, you knew what was happening.” I remembered how fiercely Dayne had threatened the man when he tried to dance with me. It was the first time I had seen something different in him. Yet, he had done nothing to protect Christine when the stranger decided he would take her instead.

“Why didn’t you save her?” I punched at his shoulder with so much force he fell back against the grass. He caught himself with one hand and stared back me, utterly bewildered by my anger, but I didn’t care. I was furious with him for letting an innocent girl get hurt.

“I protect the Sidhe, Faye. Remember.” He looked away from me, obviously disgusted with himself, but powerless to do anything about it.

I jumped to my feet and paced away from him, too angry to look at him. “But her family,” I muttered to myself as I shook my head in disbelief. They would be so happy if they knew she was okay.

“Do you think I like what I do, Faye?” He spit the words from his mouth like a bad taste. “Don’t you know me well enough by now to know that I hate this life? I would give anything to live a normal life, but that’s not a possibility for me.” He sprang to his feet and began to walk over to me. “I have only lived so long because I’m the Queen’s son.” He grabbed my shoulders firmly in his hands and stopped my pacing, forcing me to look at him. “This whole world runs the risk of discovery if they let dissenters live as I do. I am bound to Ennishlough, to my position and to my people. I do not live freely in your world.” He released my arms and turned away from me, staring up to the distant waterfall. I realized Christine and Loren weren’t the only prisoners the Sidhe kept around. Dayne was one too. As freely as he appeared to live, he was bound to a life he hated just as they were. I put my hand on his shoulder but said nothing. I didn’t know if I should thank him for saving me from such a fate at that point or kiss him for being so amazing.

“I have welcomed death so many times, but my mother refuses to let me leave my responsibilities here. Death would be easy. This life is impossible,” he said gesturing at the enchanting forest around us. I shook my head but still said nothing, sighing desperately as he turned back to the glittery shells on the grass.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Dayne wish for death? How could I ever live in a world where he didn’t exist? I saw the pain on his face, the broken slump of his shoulders where he steeled himself against the harsh judgments of his world.

Losing Christine was bad, but losing Dayne was unthinkable. I immediately turned back and fell to the grass beside him.

“Don’t say that,” I said as I reached out for his cheek and turned his head to mine. “You are too important to say things like that to me. Do you understand how much I need you? Do you realize that you are the only person I have in this world? Don’t ever say that again. Promise?” My fingertips lingered on his chin as I looked into his eyes, waiting for the anger to burn away.

“I’m sorry.” His gaze fell to the ground and when he looked back at me soft wrinkles of regret pinched the skin around his eyes. His hand came up and wrapped around mine as he slid me closer to him with his other arm. “I didn’t mean to get so upset. Believe me, I’ve wrestled with the guilt of that night much more than you have. But it was either her or you. And losing you wasn’t an option,” he said and turned his head to kiss my palm.

I said nothing, staring at the way his skin shimmered with diffuse light.

“What are those?” I nodded toward the shells lying in front of him, hoping they would take our minds off our first official fight. I pushed the memory of Christine to the back of my mind, vowing I would find a way to get her out of this beautiful prison.

He smiled at me and held one up between us. The outer shell sparkled and glistened like snow in the sunshine.

He cracked the shell open and held it between us. With our heads together we peeked in at the clear pearl, cloistered among the soft folds of pink flesh. It looked just like the bead in my necklace.

“What is it?” I reached out to touch it. Dayne stopped me.

“It’s a wishing pearl. One of our most treasured possessions.” He plucked the pearl from its home and held it between his fingers.

I clutched the necklace dangling against my chest and rubbed my fingers over the smooth surface of the clear pearl I had worn for years without really paying much attention to.

I’m not sure if it was the intensity with which Dayne’s eyes burned into mine, or if the spark came from somewhere within me, but suddenly, the pieces of my uncertain life began to make sense. Dayne’s face held the only answer I needed, but he said nothing, giving me time to process what all this meant. Fear, as hot as it was cold, swept a wave of goose bumps from my head to my toes.

“Is mine…?” I whispered, not really sure what answer I wanted to hear.

Dayne nodded, trying to read the expression on my face. I really didn’t know what to feel about such a revelation to be honest.

Oddly, the emotions were somewhat numb, but I leaned away from him as I thought about what this meant. I had never given my unknown origin much contemplation. Though that would have been an easy place to start, my life had been a bit of a whirlwind lately. Even when all the truths about what I really was came pouring out that night, I still hadn’t thought of my birth parents.

I never thought of them. They had given me up. They hadn’t wanted me. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always wondered if it was because, even as an infant, they had known what a loser I was destined to be.

Two people who I didn’t have a single memory of held all the answers to my life. I was torn. Part of me felt like my parents had suddenly become strangers all over again after losing the imaginary people I created growing up. Now, for the first time, I had to wonder if they had given me up to save me. They obviously knew about this world and the dangers it would pose for me. Had they really done me a favor by disappearing all those years ago?

“Are they here?” I asked weakly, fearing I was about to come face to face with yet another ghost from my past in this crazy, beautiful world.

Dayne shook his head, and I was surprised at how relieved I was.

“No,” he said softly. “Every Sidhe is accounted for. There is no way one of our kind could have escaped this world or hidden a child from us. I told you there is other magic in the world. These pearls are not exclusive to LisTirna.”

“Well, at least I have some answers now,” I said, forcing a smile to my face. I was surprised at how easily the old wound of not being wanted opened up. My birth parents had abandoned me, left me alone without another thought about me. They had never called. They had never wanted to know how I was doing. They didn’t even give their information to the adoption agency. I guess now their secrecy made a little more sense. Regardless of what their motives were for giving me away, it didn’t make up for it one bit in my book.

Dayne smiled at me and reached out for my hand. He placed one of the shiny pearls gingerly in my palm.

“How does it work?” I rolled the little ball around in my cupped hand. It was weightless and the cool surface glided easily over my skin.

“Hold it in your palm, just like that.” He held his out in demonstration. “Close your fingers and your eyes.” I did what he said. “Now concentrate on what your heart desires. But, not like
I want a steak
, like the fact that you are hungry. Focus your thoughts and connect to your heart.”

I was hungry. The mention of food made my stomach grumble. I heard Dayne chuckle, and punched in his direction, landing a light blow on his arm. “Ouch!” He cried in mock protest. “You aren’t concentrating.”

I thought about what my heart really wanted. The imagined image of my birth parents immediately popped into my mind, and I quickly shook the memory away. I saw Christine, how happy she appeared even though she wasn’t herself, and shook that from my mind. I saw my parents, welcoming me home with the same distracted, forced love that always greeted me. I shook that thought away, too. I pictured the perfection of Clonlea, how happy I had been this summer with Rose and Phin and a smile spread over my face.

Then I pictured Dayne’s cottage– sitting on the porch, wrapped in a blanket and the bliss that had come when I pictured what our future would be like one day.

The pearl jiggled in my hand and grew heavier at an alarming speed. When I opened my eyes and saw a key sitting in my palm, I knew exactly what it was. The golden scrollwork twisted around the clear pearl in the center, it’s long chain draping through my fingers. It was the key that had fallen from Dayne’s coat pocket long ago. It was the key to our cottage.

The look on Dayne’s face was all soft and warm, his excited adoration barely contained by the glow of his emerald eyes as he watched me lovingly stroke the golden key. In his hand he held the most beautiful of bracelets. It had the same golden scrollwork of the key. Thick braided ropes twisted together to form the base of the cuff. Golden flowers with jeweled centers lay their petals open gracefully around the ropes. One large rose, its petals spread open on the bracelet, dominated the center with a huge clear pearl at its heart. The key and bracelet were a matched set made for one another.

Dayne took my arm without saying a word, smiling so broadly at that moment words may have been incapable of finding their way past his lips. I hesitated when I remembered the beautiful handcuffs circling around Christine’s wrists and shrunk away from him.

“It’s just one, Faye. It means I have promised myself to you.”

Promised?
I thought, immediately drunk on the idea of Dayne being all mine. I gave him my hand, and by some form of fairy magic, the bracelet appeared on my wrist, looking as if it had always belonged.

“How do I promise myself to you?” I immediately wanted some way to claim him, too, a way to tell the world that he was mine, and I was his, forever.

“Just by wearing it. A bracelet like this cannot go onto a wrist that does not desire it.” He pulled my hand to his heart and reached out to mine as we lay back and let the soft grass tickle our cheeks. He looked at me, sighed once in an utterly contented way, and closed his eyes.

Just as it had when I sat on the cottage porch imagining our future, the power of Dayne’s soul found it’s way into mine. His heartbeat surged rhythmically, hard and heavy, rattling my chest, synching itself with my own heartbeat. Euphoria I had never felt washed through me. It was the ecstasy of his body knowing he finally had a home. Finally, we both belonged, and the moan that escaped my lips was far from worthy of the sensations echoing inside.

My stomach growled again, and even though I hated to interrupt what had just happened between us, I was starving. He chuckled softly and sat up. I frowned when his hand left mine and didn’t open my eyes at first, hoping he would come back.

He didn’t. Instead he lifted me easily from the ground and helped me brush the grass from my skirt, which confused me because I had been wearing jeans. I looked down only to discover I was wearing a gown of the softest gold with embroidery and pearls in a braided pattern scrolling around the neckline. I notice Dayne’s shirt had the same scrollwork around its collar, as well. The neck of my dress was daringly low, almost revealing the cleavage that had seemed to spring up with my arrival in LisTirna. The hair that hung around me was my own, but different. The messy waves now formed perfect little ringlets that wound down much longer than they were supposed to.

I walked over to the river and looked at myself. The reflection staring back at me was so beautiful I doubted it was my own. I felt just like the Ugly Duckling, seeing myself as a swan for the first time. It was my face, but stronger and more delicate. My normally dull, hazel eyes were now shining like a golden orange topaz, polished and brilliant. It was freaky to look at myself through eyes that were not my own.