"War? What war?" I asked.
I'd spent the last few months attempting to stop a war from occurring between the Summer and Winter courts. Once I returned Ollie, their prince and my nephew, talk of war ceased between our two courts and things were unusually quiet. Maddox had dispatched spies to the Autumn court to warn us of any potential attacks, but they never had any news to report.
The Autumn king, Cenred, was planning something.
I knew he wouldn't take my rescue of Ollie, nor my rise to power lightly. My personal theory was that he'd already started on whatever he was planning. I'd told Maddox that I believed his attack on the Summer Kingdom was an attempt to veil his true purpose, but I'd yet to think of what his true purpose might have been.
There was only one other person who might have known, but I hadn't spoken to nor thought about him in weeks. I'd kill him the next time I saw him, so I probably wouldn't even have enough time to bother asking. A fact that may have put a small damper on obtaining information that way.
Emyr, calm and stoic as ever, landed his icy eyes on me. Fittingly, they were the color of frost, somewhere between a blue and gray, almost fading into the whites of his eyes. I expected nothing less from a Lord of Winter—though I did have the urge to try and match the color to the paints I had in the studio. Then dismissed that thought very quickly. It brought back memories I was content to leave buried.
"We are not prepared to allow the Autumn King's treachery to stand. We thought that you might agree. He did indeed take members from both our courts. While ours was returned, yours..."
It felt suddenly as if a cold wind had come and stolen the breath from my lips. My grandmother, the queen, killed in her home by Autumn soldiers. Simply because I trusted the wrong person.
My face, however, smoothed into stone. All traces of grief were tucked away in that deep pit of myself where I felt my Élan Vital yearn to be loosed. I shoved the grief down on top of it. Not many fey had the ability to sense or even see another's Élan Vital, a person's lifeblood, but I wasn't taking any chances with Emyr. Alliances and trust in Elphame, were not easily made and quick to lose. I wasn't risking anything anymore.
"Indeed," I replied, still adopting the formal tone I'd learned in the faerie courts, "the Summer Court has not forgotten our enemies... and we will not anytime soon."
Emyr cocked his head, his expression reading mine.
"I forget that this is your realm," he gestured around him to the night streets of the Upper East Side. "You speak so much like you were raised for a courtier's life in Elphame."
I wasn't sure if it was a compliment. The lines between fey and human were blurred when it came to me. Lately, it seemed that I was the worst parts of both.
"It isn't without effort, My Lord."
That much was true. My first instincts were always human instincts, but I was learning to push them down just as I was learning to push down the grief and the anger. The fey were a stoic people, and recently I'd begun to understand why.
Emyr inclined his head once, accepting my concession and offering me what I assumed was a rare smile.
"My son continues to speak highly of you to anyone in the Winter realm who will listen. It is for this reason and his safety that we extend our invitation to you."
"Your son?" I asked and he was silent as realization washed over my face. "Ollie is your son."
His brow furrowed. "Oliver, yes he's my son. He's certainly not my brother's."
He said the last part as if it were preposterous or humorous, but I didn't understand the joke. I didn't care to ask either, I was focused on one thing.
"My sister—"
"I know you are searching for her," he cut in, "I'm afraid I will be of little help. I have not spoken to her in many years."
"No," I held his stare with a firm gaze, anger permeating my blood. "You've just stormed my father's burial looking for her because you thought she'd taken him back. You've just kept her child from her and stood by while the Autumn Court used Ollie to make my sister do what they wanted. You just—"
Emyr frowned, cutting off my tirade. "You don't know? Brighid never told you?"
"Told me what?" I demanded, still fuming from my rant.
He simply shook his head in response and frustration filtered through me. How could there be so many things that I didn't know? My fingers flickered gold with the rising of my frustration as if to remind me that I didn't understand the power within me either. I put my hands behind my back, breathing deeply and pushing down whatever wanted to break to the surface.
"Told me what?" I repeated. He seemed to realize that this was something I would not relent on. If Emyr had kept mother and son apart I would refuse to align myself with their court. He seemed to know this.
"It's not my story. Brighid and I both love our son dearly and I have done nothing to keep her from him. As for Rhiwallon's—your father's—burial... we were given bad information. Clearly."
When I didn't say anything, he continued, "I knew your father. He was a good and just ruler. Complicated, yes, but a good ruler nonetheless. I am sorry for disturbing his last rites, but I would do anything to find my son. I cannot apologize for that."
"How do you mean 'complicated'?"
Emyr's expression changed into a mix of pity and sympathy. It was a strange expression to see on a Fey's face. Pity, I realized, was normally unique to human nature. The fey did not seem to recognize it. But pity was still the only way to describe the expression on Emyr's face.
"He was complicated in the way many of the fey royalty must be. You will soon see what I mean, I have no doubt."
My shoulders loosened a little. Perhaps picking a fight with a Winter lord in the middle of the city streets was unwise, but apparently, I was feeling a little unwise today. I believed him though, about Brighid and about Ollie, so I pushed the desires to fight and ask more questions aside.
I had to trust him— at least, a tiny amount. Emyr was a full-born fey and he couldn't lie. Unlike me and... no.
"I suppose the invitation to the Yule celebration doubles as an invitation to build an alliance?"
Emyr inclined his head. "It does."
"You'll forgive me if I'm tentative with where I want to build my alliances. The last one I formed did not work as planned."
"Yes," he hummed, "I would offer my apologies about your engagement though I doubt the words would benefit either of us. Edwin would be better met marrying the pointy end of a sword."
I huffed a small laugh at his words. Maybe Emyr wouldn't be so bad. My sister obviously trusted him enough to care for her son, and perhaps that was why I agreed to the invitation. The other reason, however faint, existed deep inside of me and knew that I needed the Winter Court's ice if I were to extinguish the flames of Autumn. And as I saw the frosty blue of Emyr's eyes flash, I knew he thought the same thing.
An alliance of ice and flowers, an unlikely pairing to be sure, but I'd be damned if we lost.
***
I was well into my second cup of tea at my mother's kitchen table when I sensed my guards arrive. Sure enough, when I peaked out her window there were three of them waiting on the street. All of them attempted to appear casual and failed miserably. The glamours over the features that marked them as fey glimmered around them. As did their Élan Vitals. I was a little surprised to see it so clearly in the human realm, the fuzzy colored auras were usually muted. But they shined brightly for me now.
Bayard, my tutor, would hopefully know why. I made a mental note to ask him as soon as I returned to the otherworldly kingdom that was waiting for me to rule it. My shoulders sagged a little more.
"What are you looking at?" Mom asked, coming back with the kettle to top off my cup.
"My guards. They've arrived."
"You've got more than one?"
"I've got seven."
"Seven? That seems a bit... extra."
I let out a dry chuckle and said somewhat gloomily, "I'm the Queen of Summer now, Mom. Everything is extra."
She huffed a little as she sat down, blowing a stray strand of graying blonde hair out of her face.
"I like having you so well protected, don't get me wrong, it's every mother's dream. I just worry you'll start to feel like you have no privacy."
"I have no privacy already," I deadpanned.
"You had privacy with the other one," she argued, "with Ced—"
My throat made a strange spluttering, choking noise at her barely half uttered word. Her lips clamped shut, realizing where my reaction was coming from. A keen eyebrow rose on her brow, watching me. I doubted that my expression gave anything away— the sound had already been too much of an indication of that particular weakness. A weakness that I still felt sting me every time I had to divert a conversation that circled back to him.
Apparently, I'd grown too tired to fully divert and was resigned to merely using pained sounds.
"Mara," my mom began sternly, "don't you dare start doing that shit."
She waggled her finger in my face.
"What shit?" All of my previous courtier decorum went out the window as soon as I walked into her familiar home.
"That shit! Your father used to do that. He used to get that same expression on his face when he would close off what he was feeling so the world couldn't see it."
I rolled my eyes. "So? Dad has—had lots of reasons why he needed to keep his cards close to his chest. As do I."
At that, she softened. She reached her hand across the table and covered the back of my hand with her palm. It was a familiar touch but one that I shied away from, placing my hands in my lap.
"I'm sure you do, sweetheart. The problem with closing yourself off so the world can't see you is that you risk not being able to see the world."
We sat in silence for a moment, letting her words sink in. They didn't sink that much, however. Instead, they brushed along my skin and I sent the words away. As much as I loved my mom and the comfort that being in her presence could bring, she could never truly understand exactly the things that I was going through. Most daughters, I recognize, think the same thing about their mothers, but mine was especially true. Mine had lived her whole life in a human realm that was starting to make less and less sense to me.
I merely sent her a teasing smile, conveying an ease that I very much did not feel.
"That's deep, mom."
"Thank you. I think it was on Diego's fortune cookie on Thursday." She cracked a smile and I gave her a tired grimace back. At that, she frowned. "You ditched them, didn't you?"
I cleared my throat, knowing the them she referred to were my bodyguards. I tried to keep the guilt off of my face. "What makes you think that?"
Her face became very mom-like, eyebrows narrowed and lips pinched. Apparently, I was still a bad liar.
"You said that they 'arrived,'" she pointed out, "why would you say that if you had come with them?" I grinned sheepishly at her inquisitive look. "MARA!"
I groaned. "It's not that big of a deal—"
"If the danger you're in is enough to warrant seven supernatural bodyguards then I'd say it's kind of a big deal."
It was at that moment that Diego, Mom's longtime boyfriend, decided to walk in. He eyed the argument between me and my mother warily, only catching the tail end of the conversation. She never told him about the other side of my parentage nor the fact that I was not fully human. They did have an understanding that there were some things he didn't need to know and wouldn't understand.
Diego gave me a sheepish smile, setting his grocery bags down and seemed to realize that this was one of those conversations that he would definitely not understand.
"If you two want to put these away, I can go send a few work emails?" He suggested, already inching out of the kitchen.
Mom and I agreed but Diego had already left us to our need-to-know conversation. Mom chuckled a little and I shot her a look.
"You can tell him, you know that right?"
She shrugged. "I'm not sure it's totally necessary for him to know. Besides, how am I supposed to prove that my daughter is a," she looked over her shoulder then whispered, "faerie queen?"
I laughed. "I guess you're right. I left my crown in Elphame so we've got no proof."
"No wings still, right?"
I rolled my eyes. Ever since I was young my mom had checked my back every so often to see if I would grow wings. Even though my father and I continued to remind her that remarkably few faeries had wings, she was still convinced that they'd sprout out of me.
"No mom," I laughed, "still no wings. Promise."
"Just checking."
We chatted for a few more minutes while we put the groceries away and it was almost as if it were a regular night. I could pretend that I didn't have a kingdom to rule in a few days. I could pretend that I hadn't just been warned of an upcoming war. I could pretend that I wasn't responsible for my grandmother's death.
But the moment I left the comfort of my old home and stepped out onto the windy streets of New York, the illusion faded. I was who I was and, as my seven bodyguards trailed me at varying lengths, I realized I couldn't even be anonymous anymore.
_______
Thank you thank you for reading!!!
What are your predictions for this story? What story will Brighid tell Mara? Where is Brighid? Where is he-who-must-not-be-named?? Mara still seems pretty mad, do you think they can reconcile??
We shall see...
Stay safe and be kind, my friends.