The Winged Fae (The World of Fae) (8 page)

He smiled. Neither the king of the dragon fae nor the queen of the lion fae approved of Alicia and Deveron seeing one another until she was officially of age to marry. But that didn’t stop them from making the effort every chance they could get.

***

Niall headed through the flower meadows for the woods in the dark, unable to sleep any longer, even though he still felt like he was trying to overcome some horrible sleeping sickness. Moving one foot before the other, he began to walk along a forest path. If there were thieves about, he dared any of them to mess with him as rotten as he was feeling.

He hadn’t gone far while carrying a fae light to illuminate his way when he heard someone muttering away. He headed in the direction of the elderly woman’s voice and soon spied a stone croft with a single candle glowing inside and a light that looked as though it emanated from a fireplace.

He knocked at the door, intending to get directions leading the quickest way to the castle. When the woman quit speaking but didn’t open the door, he hoped to set her mind at ease and called out, “I’m Niall and am seeking the Mabara royal castle.”

The woman opened the door and peered out. She was gray–haired and hunched over, leaning on a hand–carved wooden cane, the top forming the head of a bird of prey.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Niall said, politely.

“Why would you go to the castle? You are not Mabara royalty, are you?”

He shook his head, wondering why she would think that when he didn’t have any wings.

“Come closer.”

He moved closer and she pointed a crooked finger at his chest. “What are you?”

He pulled his golden medallion from his tunic. “From the Denkar fae.”

“Royalty,” she said, nodding sagely. “You are the one meant to marry the princess.”

“My cousin is,” he corrected, and for the first time since he’d learned of the news, he realized he didn’t like the prospect. He tucked the medallion back inside his tunic.

She stared at him, then frowned. “But you have kissed her.”

He had. But how had the old woman known? He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, hoping that Serena’s lip gloss wasn’t shimmering on his lips again.

The old woman shook her head. “So you have come to ask the queen’s permission to allow you to marry Serena instead of your cousin.”

“No, Serena…” He hesitated. “We were in the meadow together, and she was going to give me the antidote for a sleeping potion, but she’s gone and…”

“I see.”

Did she?

Niall waited for the woman to say something more, but when she didn’t, he said, “You wouldn’t happen to know a cure, would you?”

The woman laughed, then shook her head. “But if she truly was going to help you, she will not now.”

He couldn’t hide his surprise, nor his concern. “Why not?”

“Her mother has imprisoned her in the tower until she weds Count Micala.”

“No.”

“Aye, my lord. If you want her help, you must rescue her from the tower.”

Great
. First, Serena shot him with this incapacitating potion. Then he has to rescue her from the Denkar dungeon due to her own folly because of painting on the wall in South Padre Island. And now he had to risk his neck even further to help her escape her mother’s imprisonment in the Mabara tower?

“It is the only way,” the woman said, with a definite sparkle in her soft gray eyes.

“You wouldn’t know a secret passage into the castle, would you?” he asked.

“I imagine they would have them, but only the royal family would know of their existence.” She glanced down at her pouch? “Do you have anything for me?”

At first, he didn’t respond, not knowing what she meant. Maybe she expected him to bargain for information. He patted his pockets and found two gold coins and a little bit of lint.

“No, I have no need of gold,” she said. She snatched the lint from his fingertips, balled it up and tossed it in the fire. The flames caught it and burned brighter. “What else?”

“I have a dagger I always keep with me.”

“You will have need of it.”

He dug around in his pockets some more and found…

Nothing.

Then he shoved his hand in his leather pouch where he kept human coins for when he visited their world. He juggled through coins and paper money, then felt something soft and velvety. Surprised, he pulled the items out to see what they were. A handful of lilacs from the meadows. When had they gotten there?

The old woman eyed the flowers with speculation, gazed up into his eyes, and he was sure she saw the puzzled look in them, then she smiled. She offered her hand palm up to take possession of the petals.

Once she had them in her hand, she peered at them closely, then took one and set it aside on her wooden table. The rest she tossed in a pot hanging over the fire. “I can use that in my tea. You will follow the path through the woods to the east. Once you reach the castle, you will go to the south side of the castle and climb the southeast tower wall. No guards can see that side. Use your dagger to grant foot and finger holds. Her room is near the top. You will see one window. But be careful. ‘Tis a hundred–and–thirty foot drop to the paving stones below.”

He wasn’t worried. He’d just vanish and reappear on the stone below the tower if he began to fall. If he didn’t fall asleep from exhaustion before he reached the safety of the ground first.

But he couldn’t use fae travel to climb up a tower. Without ropes, how would he manage? She could probably get them to ground if her potion did him in before he could get them to safety.

“Come,” the old woman insisted. “Share a cup of tea with me before you go.”

“But I must—”

“Humor an old woman. Come, tell me how you met the princess.”

She reminded him of his grandmother, who was always trying to get him and others to stop and visit with her for a while. Seeing how this woman must be lonely, he felt badly that he had neglected his own grandmother. He would visit her when all this was over.

“Are you all right out here by yourself?” Niall asked, as he joined the woman inside her croft.

“Aye. I am a witch, so the Mabara say. They leave me well enough alone. I am Magdana.”

Not bothered by her revelation as he’d known several witches who were no more wicked than some fae, he nodded and glanced around at the croft. He expected it to be barren and cold, but a fire glowed warm in a stone hearth, and the walls were covered in pale blue, and murals of winged birds were painted over them, flying, or standing in the flower meadows, similar to the one he’d been sleeping in.

“You wonder about the murals,” Magdana said, brewing the tea, then pouring it into two blue mugs. “Princess Serena is the artist.”

From this to painting graffiti on the Denkar wall? Was there a message here, too?

***

A guard rudely awakened Serena in the middle of the night, and she knew this was not good. Her mother only summoned her to a meeting that late in the evening when she wanted Serena half—asleep and more easily manipulated. Serena rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she walked with her two—guard escort to the queen’s chambers.

They’d even manacled her with anti–fae travel wrist links, which infuriated her. She wasn’t going to slip away right now. Well, not until she had a talk with her mother. She would tell her just the way things were going down. She would marry the dragon fae knight, Sir Reginald, and the Mabara would have an alliance with the dragon fae instead of the lion fae. Both kingdoms were just as powerful, so what difference would it make?

Besides, her maids had said that the dark fae she was to marry was rumored to be dallying with some human at South Padre Island. Not that fae couldn’t dally in a meaningless way. But if it got to be a regular thing with one human, that was a different story.

Her mother sat stony–faced on her throne in her sitting room and motioned for the guards to stand outside the room. She was wearing red, which always meant she was angry. Serena had heard other queens did the same. Must have been something they’d learned from one another. Want to go to war? Wear red.

Her mother’s blond hair was pulled severely back like she did whenever she was unduly irritated. But when she wore her crown—the symbol of her position of power—that meant she would hear no objection from any of her courtiers, including Serena.

“Serena,” her mother began, motioning for her to take a seat on a cushioned bench nearby.

But if Serena sat, she was afraid she’d lose her nerve. So she stood and said, “I want to marry a dragon fae!”

Her mother’s eyes widened, then quickly narrowed. “Unless he is the king…”

“Oh for heaven’s sakes, the king is old enough to be my grandfather.”

“Then you will not be marrying a dragon fae,” her mother said sharply. Then she suddenly asked, “Where did you meet a dragon fae?”

Serena wasn’t about to tell her the truth. If she did, she knew her mother would have men search the fair grounds and terminate any dragon fae who might be the one Serena was interested in marrying.

“You’ll be marrying Count Micala and that’s my final word.”

“He’s seeing a human on a frequent basis!”

Her mother dismissed her concern. “When he sees you, he will want nothing more to do with this human.”

“And if he still does?”

Her mother shrugged. “Eliminate her.” She smiled, her expression pure innocence, but Serena knew she was deadly serious.

“I want someone who wants me! And that I want back.” She couldn’t imagine terminating a human girl he had interest in, then expecting he’d finally fall in love with Serena instead. What kind of nutty thinking was that? “He hasn’t even come to see me yet. To court me. To even pretend he’s interested in this union.”

“I don’t believe Queen Irenis has reached him to give him word yet of the impending marriage.”

“Oh terrif. Well, release me and
I’ll
give him word.”

“No, you won’t. It’s his aunt’s place to do so. And until that happens, you’ll be locked in the tower for your own impertinence. I can just imagine you being a tyrant with the count and forcing him to want to end the contract. Beyond that, I will not have you seeing this…this dragon fae on the sly. If I learn who he is, you know what will happen to him. So be forewarned.”

And
that
was the queen’s final word. She called to her guards, and they promptly marched Serena right back to the tower.

Okay, climbing a hundred–and–thirty–foot tower in manacles without ropes couldn’t be impossible if she could loosen the bars on the window, manage to slip through them, and find purchase along the brick wall, would it?

Chapter 7

Deveron, his betrothed, Alicia, and his sister, Ritasia, arrived at the Renaissance fair after it had closed for the night. A few security lights glowed high above, casting shadows over the treed paths and booths and stages where humans dressed in costume plied their trade during the day. Deveron lifted his nose to breathe in the hint of the aroma of turkey legs that had been grilled here earlier in the day, reminding him he hadn’t eaten all day.

But what Deveron and Ritasia concentrated on most was the faery dust trails left behind in certain areas. The glimmering dust collected more where the fae had stayed longer—at a tavern that served ale. And at the jousting grounds inside the fencing, and in the building where the knights stayed before they entered the ring. Alicia still couldn’t discern much about fae trails, having lived so long with the humans.

“One of the knights is a dragon fae,” Ritasia warned, although she quickly cast an apologetic look Alicia’s way.

“Aye. And the others that frequented the tavern were also dragon fae. The fair seems to be one of their claimed territories,” Deveron said.

They both looked at Alicia as if questioning her as to the identity of the fae.

She shrugged and folded her arms. “Don’t look at me. I’m not a tracker, and I wouldn’t know pixie dust from fae dust, let alone one fae trail from another.”

Deveron cleared his throat. Pixie dust and fae dust didn’t look anything the same.

“And certainly,” Alicia said, noting Deveron’s disapproval and giving him an annoyed look back, “I haven’t any idea which trail belongs to which dragon fae.”

“Hmm, so why would a princess of the Mabara come here?” Ritasia asked.

“To meet with a dragon fae on the sly?” Deveron ventured.

“Wouldn’t her mother be upset with that? You said that your mother made arrangements with her mother to marry her off to Micala.” Alicia made a face. “Even though my girlfriend, Cassie, still thinks he might come back and see her.”

Cassie was human and Niall knew better than to have more than a passing acquaintance. Deveron frowned. “He was supposed to have wiped his visiting her from her thoughts.”

Alicia scowled at Deveron. “Well…he…
didn’t.
”

Ritasia waved her hand, dismissing the two of them. “If you’re going to both argue again, I’ll have to do this alone.” She went back to tracing the knight’s trail as she walked across a footbridge situated high above a creek, trees towering all around them.

“I told you that Micala better not hurt Cassie’s feelings or he’d pay for it,” Alicia said to Deveron as they followed Ritasia.

“I’ll speak with him again,” Deveron assured her. “I
did
command him to clear her memories of having anything to do with him, Alicia.” He frowned as he thought about Micala’s pretending to really enjoy Cassie’s company. Had his cousin not been pretending after all?

He’d better not be thinking of stealing her from the human world. Not when he had a contract to marry the Mabara princess. Queen Irenis frowned on the fae bringing any humans into her kingdom for all the trouble they could cause.

“Where is he now?” Alicia asked, her tone sharp and accusing.

Deveron glanced at her, furrowing his brow in his best dark fae scowl. “How would I know? I’m
not
my cousin’s keeper!”

“First, I had to keep
you
away from her! So that you wouldn’t break her heart. Now I have to stop Micala!”