“Healed.”
Her mother sat down on the chair next to the bed, her eyes narrowed again. “He wants to take you home right away. This afternoon even.”
“This afternoon?” Ritasia squeaked.
“Aye. He didn"t want to leave his kingdom without his rule for too long and it has been nearly two weeks.”
“Oh.” She hadn"t expected that. Maybe that he would want to enjoy her company for a few days here first, like her mother had initially planned. But to leave so all of a sudden like that? “Nothing untoward happened between us,” Ritasia hastened to say.
Her mother smiled then, her concerned expression melting away. “I did not think so, Ritasia, or you would have told your brother right away. And he would have informed me.” Then she sobered again. “Deveron will wed Alicia, if they can ever quit having these bouts of…well, I don"t know what is causing dissention between them.” She paused, looking to Ritasia to fill her in.
But Ritasia wouldn"t tell her Micala was causing all the difficulty by seeing the human girl. When Ritasia wouldn"t enlighten her, her mother nodded. “But he will wed and you will be alone.”
So that"s why her mother had been foisting all these suitors on her. She had been afraid Ritasia would be distraught or too lonely when Deveron was gone, not that her mother was tired of her or wanted someone else to be responsible for her.
“I"m glad you feel some fondness for the king. That"s how your father and I began our relationship, you know.”
Ritasia snorted. “I doubt you and he were lost in ancient fae tunnels and taken prisoner by dragon fae on your first date.”
At her comment, her mother smiled broadly, making her look ten years younger, although she always looked young. “You would be surprised.”
Ritasia waited to hear what had happened to her mother and father on their first date.
Neither had ever discussed such a thing with her. Had they told Deveron? She doubted it.
“Well?” Ritasia said, when her mother looked as though she was lost in the memories of her youth.
Again, her mother smiled. “I was nearly as willful as you.”
Ritasia raised her brows.
“Well, as willful. Which is why I cannot fault you too much for your wayward ways. I was angry with my mother because she wanted me to wed a lord I wasn"t interested in. But he had wealth and power and connections and would be a king of the sphinx fae in his own right.
He was a bore. So I slipped onto a boat heading for one of the islands, and we encountered a terrible storm. I refused to fae travel back home, knowing my mother might marry me off to the future king without hesitation for disobeying her.”
“She would have been so grateful you were home, do you not think?”
Queen Irenis humpfed under her breath. “She would have married me off to prove she was right. The lord I was to marry would have been furious with me and well, I decided to take my chances with the ship and the storm. Not a good choice. At the time, at least. The ship broke up on rocks, taking on water so quickly, that it was beneath the sea minutes later, and I found myself clinging to a piece of driftwood, bruised, battered, and bloodied.”
“What happened to the others? The crew?”
“I"m sure they fae traveled out of there.”
“Why didn"t you fae travel back home?”
“I hadn"t been gone long enough for my mother to even had noticed. If I returned then, she would have dismissed my concerns and married me off anyway. She wasn"t about to give me a choice.”
“But…how is this the same as my being with King Tiernan?”
“It wasn"t quite the same, but our first date was similar, in some respects. A larger ship than ours had noted our sinking, and had come to see if anything of value was drifting about in the storm-roughened seas. They didn"t expect to find a half-drowned dark fae clinging to a remnant of the ship.”
“So Father was on the ship?”
“He was the captain.” Something akin to a wicked gleam lighted her mother"s eyes.
“He was not a king,” Ritasia guessed.
“Nay. He was a pirate captain. Privateer, he informed me. He rescued me, which I thought so romantic, only he wished to ransom me to my mother. And I told him to go right ahead, that a future king wanted me for a wife, and he could ask him for money, too. He threatened for weeks to ransom me, and for weeks I told him to do so. But in the end, he decided he couldn"t live without me, offered for my hand in marriage, and when I finally became queen, he was my king.”
“He had no royal blood?”
“Oh, aye. He was a duke, but was being paid handsomely by one kingdom or another to strip the wealth from ships that belonged to their enemies. He gave up his pirating ways to be with me though. I believe only because our kingdom was so near the sea.”
“Nothing to do with you, though,” Ritasia said, smiling, loving her father all the more.
She"d wished she"d known this about him and would have asked him for days on end about his pirating adventures before he had died. He had seemed so staid. She couldn"t imagine him commanding a ship and stealing goods from other fae kingdoms. Or rescuing her mother and keeping her, threatening to ransom her.
“Oh, aye, he loved me all right, from the moment he"d seen me floating in the sea. He said he thought I was a mermaid as no fae in their right mind would have remained where I was and not fae transported home. In truth, I think he didn"t want to send me home to face a marriage I didn"t want. And we grew on each other with each passing day.” Her mother took a deep breath. “I would never force you into a marriage you didn"t want, you know.”
“Thank you, my lady mother.” She wrapped her arms around her mother and gave her a sincere hug.
Her mother returned the embrace, then pulled away and looked very serious now. “You will need to have your servants pack your things. You will fly out of Dallas since fae travel would take too long and you couldn"t handle it, I"m afraid, from what the king said.”
This afternoon. She wouldn"t even have time to say goodbye to Deveron"s betrothed.
“You"ll take Melissina with you and two of my knights will go along to watch over you.”
The queen didn"t say anything more as she walked over to the window and looked out. Then she turned and said, “Melissina told me that you spoke of seeing unseelie.”
Ritasia was so startled by the statement, she hesitated as she tried to come up with a plausible explanation. “In a dream. I was dreaming.”
“We see them in the human world from time to time, though we avoid each other.”
“Aye. I"m sure I was thinking of a time when I had seen some and the experience had manifested itself in a dream.”
“What about the one you were nearly having words with in South Padre Island?”
“That might have triggered the dream,” Ritasia said quickly.
“You found nothing in the castle when you left the king in the wine cellar and before the floor collapsed?” Her mother was giving her one of her discerning looks, waiting for a reaction.
Any reaction that would clue her in as to the truth. Did she know about the ring? The medallion?
Had the king told her about them?
“Many things,” Ritasia said vaguely, not lying. “They wanted to be left where they were.
The queen"s personal memories belonged with her burial chamber.”
Because that"s what it was like, except the queen was not there. Although she deliberately had left out the part about the items that did not remain behind.
Still studying her, Queen Irenis said, “In our archives, scholars have found papers that state that Queen Minova and over a hundred of her people were taken prisoner in the unseelie kingdom of Na.”
Ritasia stared at her mother in disbelief. “Taken prisoner.” She barely breathed. “Would they still be alive?”
“Oh, aye. We live very long lives. If they allowed them to live, that is.”
Ritasia felt sick to her stomach. The queen"s bed had been turned down for her, but s
he"d never returned to the castle, never again slept in her bed.
“Purportedly, the queen had discovered an artifact that allowed her to break through the fabric separating the seelie and unseelie planes.”
“Break through?” Again a feeling of uneasiness swamped Ritasia.
“More than that, with her power, it was conjectured that she had actually created the object.”
How could the queen have done such a thing?
“But why? We"ve always been taught that we shouldn"t ever acknowledge the unseelie when we see them and they ignore us.”
“Aye. We believe that the unseelie had magic she wished to learn from. To ever break into the unseelie world was forbidden. Not after the fighting between them over nine centuries ago. It was thought neither side could ever win and if they weren"t careful, each side would wipe out the other"s existence forever and the fae worlds would no longer exist.”
“But she went into their realm anyway?”
“And stole one of their medallions. Several times, she slipped in, stole some aspect of their magic, and returned to her own kingdom. But one of the unseelie saw her. For years they watched for her, waiting for when she might show up in the human plane or waiting for her to return to the unseelie lands, the only way they could meet up with her. When she returned to the human world, she had left the artifacts at her own castle and they had no way of going to the seelie court. So they took her hostage. Every fae who went in search of her, met her same fate until those who were left behind moved on. But one wrote about what had happened and our scholars finally deciphered it.”
“She was evil then?” Ritasia asked.
“Mayhap, Mayhap not. She might have just been terribly curious, insatiable, bored. Too much so for her own good.”
She thought the look her mother gave her said she was just like the queen. “Could anyone rescue her? If anyone had the means, should they?”
Her mother"s eyes narrowed. “Nay. Her kingdom is gone. She has lived for too many years among the unseelie. Or she may be dead.”
“Is that what you were looking for?” Ritasia asked.
“The artifact must be destroyed. If it falls into the wrong hands, our worlds could very well be at war again. Do you understand the seriousness of this, Ritasia?” her mother asked, ignoring her question.
“Aye.”
“Good. Then pack for your trip, daughter, and may your journey be safe.”
Her mother normally would have told her to have a pleasant journey, so telling her to be safe gave Ritasia a chill.
Her mother gave her another hug and a kiss, then left the room. That"s when Ritasia noticed her dusty clothes that she"d worn to the dig were gone. To be washed. But also to be searched? She would find the queen"s comb that Ritasia should have left in her mother"s treasure vault.
***
An hour later, packed and ready to go to a new world, Ritasia joined Tiernan and the rest of her people in the great hall to say farewell. She tried not to be anxious and noted the concern in Tiernan"s expression as they readied to leave her mother and brother and cousins at the Denkar castle where they would transport to the airport with a small group who would travel with them.
Queen Irenis said, “Keep her safe, King Tiernan. If…,” she hesitated, then continued,
“the unseelie can find you whenever you"re in the human world. Watch your backs.”
Deveron frowned at his mother, and Ritasia knew her brother must not know what secret wisdom her mother was trying to impart to them. But Tiernan knew. He squeezed Ritasia"s hand to reassure her, then said, “I will keep her safe.”
She noted he was wearing his sword and had a dirk also. She had her own dagger, too.
And she wondered then if this was the reason he and her mother wished to remove her from the kingdom of the Denkar and send her halfway around the world.
Where she might be safer.
But when they arrived at the airport in Dallas, she noted thirty or so armed knights also escorted Tiernan, his men, Melissina, and her. Ritasia didn"t believe it was a welcome send off from her kingdom to honor the hawk fae king, rather that her mother believed they"d have trouble from the unseelie who happened to be at the airport today.
All of the fae were invisible, though Tiernan had explained how he had wanted to obtain a seat for her in first class so that she didn"t have to deal with humans who might sit in the fae-chosen seats. But he didn"t say why they had to remain invisible, and she didn"t ask. She was afraid it had all to do with the unseelie should they join them on their flight today.
But it wouldn"t be easy for the unseelie to be able to spread out so thin, to watch anywhere that Ritasia and the king might travel, though she suspected they"d be watching South Padre Island, so far south in Texas that it wouldn"t have any consequences for her here in Dallas.
But she"d been in South Padre Island when they"d seen her there, and the witch of a redheaded unseelie had had words with her, so she figured they"d be watching that area in particular. Maybe the mall the king told her she"d taken them to. That had been in San Antonio, so again, too far from Dallas to cause concern.
Relieved, she saw no unseelie in the terminal area and she and the king, her maid, Melissina, and the king"s men boarded the airplane. But what she couldn"t believe was that her mother"s guard entered it also. And took seats throughout the plane.
“My mother said nothing about sending guards with us,” she whispered to the king as he ushered her into one of the first class seats. She was afraid Tiernan would be offended, believing that her mother did not trust him or his people with Ritasia"s safety once she was at the hawk fae kingdom.
“For your safety, princess,” Tiernan said, quite congenially, sitting next to her. “They will return home to your people after we have arrived at my castle.”
“Do you still have the ring and medallion?” she asked.
“Aye. At least one of them is a magical artifact that can transport the wearer through the fabric that separates the two courts. Mayhap both are magical. They need to be destroyed.”
He watched her reaction closely as if trying to see if she believed as he did, or if she wanted to keep them for herself. Or even give them to her mother.
“How will we successfully destroy them?” she asked, to ensure him she only wished to get rid of the objects permanently.
“Two of my people have the ability to destroy the magic without demolishing the object carrying the magical properties. But Sophia can make it appear as though the magic is still captured within.”
“Why would that be important?”
“The unseelie will come for these, princess. If they know the magic has been destroyed, they might fight us. Or not. If they believe they are still magical, they may return with them to their own court and try to discover why the objects no longer work.”
“What if Queen Minova is trapped in the unseelie world? Imprisoned as long as she lives?” Ritasia still had it in mind that she would like to free the queen and her people.
Tiernan let out his breath in a weary sigh. “She is trapped. We cannot risk going there to free her and cause a rift between the worlds. It is very much like playing with fire. Get too close and you risk all. She made her choice.”
“And her people?”
“Unfortunately, they did, too.” He looked thoughtfully at her, then took her hand in his and gently said, “How did you end up in the dragon fae"s dungeon?”
She raised her brows. She hadn"t expected him to bring that up again. “I was trying to save my cousin Niall. He had fallen head over heels for a winged fae, and she was seeing some knight of the dragon fae at the Renaissance fair in Waxahachie. I had to learn what I could to try and stop him from getting his heart broken.”
At that, Tiernan smiled and shook his head. “I doubt you could have stopped that.”
“You"re right, of course. It was already too late for him. Then the dragon fae knight ordered me sent off to the dungeon at once. But all ended well.”
&nbs
p; Tiernan grunted at that and squeezed her hand as if he"d wished he"d been there to protect her and she would never have ended up in any dungeon, dragon or otherwise. Well, except for her own dungeon. She"d heard the guard who had not come when Tiernan called for their release had been fired and banished from the kingdom. Her mother would not tolerate the mistreatment of prisoners, unless to get a confession. But once they were serving their time, she expected them to be cared for if they needed it.
“And the unseelie fae who recognized you at the great hall in the unseelie world?” he asked.
Despite how out of it she had been when she was sitting in Tiernan"s lap in the great hall of the unseelie fae, she should have known he"d ask why the unseelie knew her and was so hostile. She had really wanted to say something in retort to the haughty woman, but as muddled as her head had been, all she could concentrate on was Tiernan"s urgent coaxing to get them out of there. And hoping she"d do it right.
She tried not to squirm under the king"s scrutiny, felt her face warm considerably, knew he noticed it also. She didn"t think he"d appreciate if she told him she was going to look for a male human"s companionship for the afternoon, found one, in fact, and was about to come to daggers with the unseelie fae who targeted him, too. But how could she explain why the unseelie hated her so much, otherwise?
“I was there, seeking to help my cousin Micala, who, I"m afraid, has lost his heart to a human girl. Deveron ordered him not to see her. I like Cassie, and I planned to meet her in South Padre Island instead of my cousin, and well, let her down gently, that Micala wasn"t coming to see her. Ever.”
At least that sounded…noble.
Tiernan caressed her hand with his thumb, nodding. “You do indeed seek to save your cousins from their own folly.” Then he took a deep breath and added, “But it doesn"t explain what occurred between the unseelie and you.”
She wanted to clear her throat, give her a moment more to think of her answer, then she figured what the goddess? She was a fae and fae were known to play with the humans. If he didn"t like it, so be it.
“I saw a human that I fancied could buy me an ice cream sundae.”