But as she entered through the doorway, she saw him running up the stairs to the upper floors and smelled smoke.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
There was so much noise and commotion on the upper floors and smoke drifting down the stairs from the floor above that she didn"t see Sophia was headed straight for her until it was nearly too late.
“You have Queen Minova"s ability to deceive, I see,” Sophia said coldly. “But she was only a mage by magical artifacts. I, on the other hand, come by it naturally.”
“So you believe that makes you, Sophia, the mighty mage more…powerful?” Ritasia hoped her words would carry and someone would hear her.
The woman smiled. “Oh, aye. That I am. Give me the ring, and no tricks now.”
“I don"t have it,” Ritasia said, matter-of-factly. “I bargained for the king and my freedom and gave it to an unseelie fae.”
“You would not have done such a thing. No seelie in their right mind would have given such power to an unseelie.” Then she twisted her head a little as if she was reconsidering her words. “Or you lie. Either you have it, or the king does. Which means I have to kill you first as it seems the ring has taken a liking to you. Finders keepers, mayhap. Once I find it, then it will owe allegiance to me. And only me.”
“Why would you want to go to the unseelie court?” Ritasia asked, not understanding the draw when undoubtedly they"d want her death if she went there.
“They have magic we know little about,” she said. “You of all people should know that.
That"s why Minova went there in the first place.”
“She had a lover.”
Sophia scowled. “No.”
“Aye, and six children by him.”
“No!” Sophia raised her hand, and Ritasia knew that the mage planned to conjure up some kind of magic that would destroy her.
She raised her own hands in defense as if that would stop the woman, who was crazed with the lust for power.
Ritasia briefly saw the ring on her finger, just as the mage did.
“You lied to me!” Sophia screamed. “I knew it!”
Before Ritasia could get over her surprise at the sudden appearance of the ring, streaks of white hot light shot from the mage"s fingertips and sailed across the room directed at Ritasia. But before it reached her, the beam of light bounced back without even touching her as if an invisible wall separated the two women. The energy that Sophia had cast at Ritasia returned in full force and struck the startled mage in the chest. The jolt of power threw her against the wall. She screamed as she sank to the floor.
Clutching her chest, Sophia grimaced in pain and rolled into her side, unable to get to her feet.
“You will die for that, Minova!” Sophia screamed.
The queen? “You knew Minova?”
Sophia growled, “We were sisters, did you not really know? Only she would not share her power with me.”
“Sisters? So you did know her. But not just because she was a mage. If you had the natural mage abilities, why would you need her magical artifacts?”
Sophia"s eyes were gold ringed daggers, but she wouldn"t reply. Ritasia knew why.
Sophia hadn"t been as powerful as her sister. She wanted to be just like her or even more powerful.
“Did you know she had a lover?” Ritasia asked, figuring she had to have known.
Sophia snapped, “The Na prince. His father was ready to kill them both! But when she was with child, he couldn"t do it.”
Ritasia stared at her in astonishment. “She loved an unseelie prince?” So the unseelie had lied to her also. She had said Minova"s lover had been no one of consequence.
“Aye. Minova was crazy. I told her so. Our people followed her and ended up with her in a court of their own, prisoners forever.” Sophia seemed lost in some distant memory, her eyes shimmering with tears as she stared at the ceiling.
And for the first time, Ritasia saw a woman who was hurting, both emotionally and physically.
“You wanted to see her? To use the ring to see her?” Ritasia could imagine how horrible it would be if she"d lost her brother in such a way, never getting to see him again. She"d want to rescue him as soon as fae possible.
Sophia clucked. “I…wanted…to…destroy…her. And…that…useless prince. As they destroyed everything I loved.”
“She was in love.”
“Ha! And the king was tired of his son moping about her and so he took her prisoner as soon as he was able. Forced her to stay there so she could no longer return to the seelie world.”
“But you"re so young.”
“Fae glamor, dear.” Sophia coughed up blood and spat it out.
“But…if you"re her sister, why didn"t the ring work for you? Or for the unseelie who claimed Queen Minova was her great aunt, many times removed?”
Sophia cleared the blood from the corners of her mouth with a swipe of her arm, the ring around her eyes still glowing hot gold. “Apparently, the ring chose you. But now I believe if you were dead, I would have a chance to wield its power.”
Ritasia didn"t believe the mage would ever be able to call upon the ring"s power. “How did you end up here? In King Tiernan"s court?”
“The castle suffered a major earthquake. I thought those of us who were left would all die. The keep collapsed in ruins. Those of us who survived moved on. Here, I was a mage, but no one knew of my connection to the woman who could have caused a rift between the unseelie and seelie planes. She should have been despised, hated for what she had done. Instead everyone loved her,” Sophia spit out.
“The unseelie, our people. I was no longer a princess. No longer the queen for the short time I took power after our own queen deserted us for an unseelie prince.”
So that"s why the woman felt she didn"t need to acknowledge King Tiernan"s title as king, not when she had become queen in her own right. But then her people had abandoned her for her sister. How that must have wounded her.
“Why did you not look for the ring in the queen"s chambers?”
“She had taken it with her. Or so I had thought.” Sophia smiled bitterly. “Where did you find it?”
“In her jewelry chest among her other rings.”
Sophia shook her head, looking defeated. “I would never have thought the ring that yielded such power would be so plain.”
Which Ritasia was certain was the reason Minova had crafted it as such. But Ritasia still couldn"t understand her own connection to Queen Minova. “How could the dark fae be descendants of the queen if her children were unseelie?”
“Your people are not descendants of the queen"s unseelie offspring,” Sophia said angrily.
“But a daughter she had before Minova got mixed up with the unseelie prince. The daughter had run away. Some say she lived with the sphinx fae, the oldest fae civilization still in existence, and that her offspring eventually moved to the area where the dark fae now rule. As to my sister, you are nothing but her servant.” Sophia raised one hand.
“No!” three ladies screamed, and Ritasia glanced briefly to see some of Tiernan"s courtiers watching what was going on.
Ritasia, fearing the mage would attempt to kill her, again held up her hands as if she could deflect or redirect the woman"s spell.
A red laser light flashed across the room toward Ritasia, but then twirled around and headed straight for the mage. It struck her in the heart, and she screamed. “How? How are you doing that?” Her words were raspy and harsh.
Ritasia was deflecting her spells. Not creating the weapon of destruction, but redirecting the killing force back on its creator. If Minova was so evil that she had wanted more power by stealing from the unseelie, why did she create a ring—as that must be what was channeling the energy—as a defensive rather than an offensive weapon?
She didn"t think Minova had any evil intentions.
Sophia"s face was gray, her eyes half shut. She barely raised her hand off the floor and sent a shimmer of blue light that dribbled across the stone floor an
d petered out. Her eyes grew dull and lifeless, and she lay very still. Ritasia thought she was dead, but she didn"t draw closer in case she wasn"t.
“She killed her,” one of the women sobbed.
But Ritasia couldn"t quit staring at the mage who had wished to kill her, still fearful the woman would come to life and try again.
“My lady,” a woman said, but she was standing so very far away, and she didn"t draw any closer.
“Tell the king!” another said, who sounded as though she was standing near the other woman.
“Get the king at once,” a man said. “My lady…”
Several people rushed down the stairs, though she couldn"t look to see who was coming.
She couldn"t tear her gaze away from Sophia. The mage had been Queen Minova"s own sister.
And in a very distant way, Sophia had been related to Ritasia and her dark fae brethren.
Smoke snaked down the staircase, and she could hear people shouting and coughing. Out of the confusion, several ran down to the first floor where she stood frozen.
Footfalls ran toward her. And before she could see him, Tiernan dragged her into his arms. He looked shocked to see her in the keep when he"d told her to stay in the gardens. But then he saw Sophia, gray and wizened lying on the floor on the other side of the room, her glamor that would have made her appear youthful still, gone.
She hadn"t realized she"d been trembling or that tears were running down in rivulets against her cheeks until she leaned against his strength and he kissed away her tears.
A physician quickly checked the mage"s heart. “She is dead, my king.”
Tiernan said, “Have her taken away and cremated. Have Eleron ensure her ashes hold no magical power.”
To a still stunned Ritasia at the turn of events, Tiernan said, “You will marry me.”
It wasn"t a question or an offer. But a command.
“She wasn"t evil,” Ritasia said, kissing Tiernan back, finally breaking free of the shock as two men quickly removed the mage"s body from the great hall.
“Aye, she was. She would have killed you.”
“Sophia, aye. Well, mayhap not even her. She had lost everything. Her home, her family, her people, her position. Minova was in love with an unseelie prince. She…she saved my life.”
Tiernan studied her as she frowned up at him, then he slid his hands over the ring on her finger and raised a brow. “I"m glad. You will be my wife. No one will think to threaten your life, not after you eliminated the most powerful hawk fae mage in our kingdom.”
“But we have to destroy the ring.”
“I"m beginning to believe there was a reason for you finding it.”
“To protect me?”
“Aye.”
“But what about fae travel? And what about the unseelie?”
“If you remove the ring before you fae travel, you do not arrive at an unseelie court.”
“But I"ll never be able to travel to the human plane either.”
“Perhaps you can learn how to use the ring to protect yourself from the unseelie when you visit the human world. Or mayhap my remaining mage can remove the ring"s ability to take you to the unseelie world. We"ll figure out a way to solve the problem one way or another. Now about our marriage…”
“Not before I have any say in it,” Queen Irenis said, stalking into the castle with Deveron, his bride-to-be Alicia, and Ritasia"s cousins Niall and even Micala in tow.
Ritasia"s mouth parted, but she couldn"t say anything. Her family must have taken a flight shortly after they did. But why had they come? Not that she wasn"t glad to see them, but, she just couldn"t believe it.
“My lady,” Tiernan said graciously greeting her with a low bow. He didn"t look concerned that her mother might try to prevent the marriage.
“When our men searched Queen Minova"s chambers, they found her journal,” Queen Irenis said, “which is the reason why we have come unannounced.”
Romero said, “She was in love with an unseelie prince.”
The queen frowned at him, and he instantly looked chagrined, and held his tongue.
Ritasia knew the page must have read her mother"s mind and in his exuberance to tell all, he"d spoken when he shouldn"t have. Her mother wished to tell the tale and would not suffer someone to beat her to it.
The queen then turned to Ritasia and added, “She met him in the human world, fell in love, and found a way to imbue the ring with power that would allow her to slip into the unseelie world and see him.”
“She was in love with him,” Ritasia whispered, squeezing Tiernan"s hand. “She wasn"t trying to steal magical secrets from the unseelie world.”
“You"re correct, Ritasia,” her mother said. “His father discovered their secret rendezvous and when she was in the human world, he had his men take her prisoner. But he did not do it to keep them apart. His son was hiding the fact that he had fallen in love with a seelie queen and was disconsolate about every betrothal his father tried to get him to agree to.
“When the king learned who was responsible, he decided Minova would join the unseelie court one way or another. He was not allowing his son to live in the seelie kingdom, but if she refused, he intended to eliminate her as an obstacle to his son"s future happiness. Until he discovered she was with child, which was the grandchild of the unseelie king. Minova made the ultimate sacrifice—giving up her kingdom and the love of her people, to be with the prince she loved.”
“But he was unseelie,” Ritasia said, still not able to fathom it.
“Aye. Her people were so melancholy at losing their queen that the unseelie king took pity on them and gathered those up that he could when they looked for her in the human world and brought them to his court so that they could continue to attend their seelie queen.”
“But how did anyone know that"s what happened?”
“The king allowed one of the women to be returned who had left a husband behind. She wrote what had happened and left the journal in the queen"s chamber for anyone to find later who wished to know what had become of the queen and her people. An earthquake later destroyed the castle and everyone else moved away.”
“Including the woman and her husband?”
“Aye, I suppose.”
“But then why would the unseelie want to kill me? Or King Tiernan when we arrived at the unseelie court?”
“I suspect that the word had spread that you intended to give the queen whatever device she had used to travel between the planes and free her. She is forever tied to the unseelie court.
She might look like us, but she has become one of them.”
“Then we still must destroy the ring.”
“Keep it. Use it for your protection. If we can find a way to dispel the ring"s ability to take you to the unseelie realm, we"ll do it. Now, about another matter. Do you wish to marry this king, or should we take you home? Deveron swears no one can protect you like he can.”
Ritasia smiled at her brother.
“I dare you to prove me otherwise,” Deveron said, a wicked gleam in his eye.
Ritasia stiffened. This was one challenge she didn"t need. “King Tiernan said that marrying at the end of the month…”
“Would be too long in coming,” Tiernan said. “Your family is here. Let the proceedings begin.”
No one moved an inch. Not his people. Not hers. As if waiting for her agreement.
Tiernan frowned. Then roared, “Now!”
That"s what everyone expected of him. Their tyrant king with his thunderous voice proclaiming everyone was to do as he wished. His people hurried to put everything in place.
Except Ritasia knew what the king was really like under that gruff posturing.
And someday, she knew his people would realize it, too. But it might take some years.
***
Hours later, they all gathered in the great hall in their finery and not only did they celebrate the wedding between the dark fae princess and the hawk fae king but she said a prayer of well wishes to the seelie
queen and her beloved unseelie prince.
This time at the feast, Ritasia ate heartily as the musicians played, even stealing olives and bites of cheese from the king"s plate, to his dark amusement, and Deveron shared his food with his betrothed, Princess Alicia.
Tiernan couldn"t have been more pleased to have found the princess of his dreams, an adventurous vixen sure to give him gray hairs way before his time. But he would love every minute of being with her—no matter the circumstances.
She smiled up at him, his bride, his wife, his hawk fae queen, and he wondered just what kind of trouble she would be into next. But he cherished her for being just who she was. Free-spirited, kind-hearted, willing to risk her own life for others, and though she hadn"t always looked or acted the part—his queen, who was perfect for him in every way.
###
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning author of urban fantasy and medieval historical romantic suspense, Heart of
the Wolf named in Publishers Weekly's BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR, NOR Reader Choice for BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE.
Terry Spear also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She"s a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has an MBA from Monmouth University and a Bachelors in Business and Distinguished Military Graduate of West Texas A & M. She also creates award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, to include personalized bears designed to commemorate authors" books. When she"s not writing or making bears, she"s teaching online writing courses in the Heart of Texas.
http://www.terryspear.com
Terry Spear, The Ancient Fae
(Series: The World of Fae # 4)
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