***
Oooh, Serena wanted to scream! She couldn’t believe she’d nearly finished making the potion to give to poor Niall when her own trackers had the notion to look for her at her herb cottage in the wildflower meadows. And hauled her off to the tower. The tower!
Now she was confined until her mother reigned in her anger enough to speak with her. Serena was afraid to even mention Niall, that he was dead to the world in the meadows, sleeping off the potion she had zapped him with. She had hoped she could get word to one of her lady companions to go to her herb cottage and finish the draught, then find Niall and serve it to him. Then he could go home. He’d missed the jousting tourney at least, and that was a good thing. She knew he could never face Sir Reginald the way Niall was feeling now.
She paced across the tower room, reserved especially for any of the royalty who dared disobey the queen. It wasn’t used very often—mainly because her mother usually didn’t learn about Serena’s shenanigans—but the room was nicely furnished, thank the goddess.
Lilac cushioned chairs were seated near a high window that let in light, when it wasn’t night out. Softly padded, burgundy velvet benches were situated around the room for visitors who wished to visit with the incarcerated royal. Even a wardrobe sat against one wall for storing clothes, should the prisoner have to stay for more than a couple of days. Serena had left a couple of her favorite gowns in there for the occasional stay.
A curtained bed cloaked in burgundy took up one whole wall, the curtains and covers pulled aside just for her. A maid must have been alerted to take care of the task before Serena had been brought up to the tower. A warm fire also glowed at the stone hearth, and the chamber had been aired out.
So the chamber wasn’t that bad a place, certainly not like the Denkar dungeon Serena had been manacled in, except confinement was confinement. Understandably, the tower room was warded to prevent fae travel from it.
As the day waned and the night took hold, she realized no one was coming to speak with her. No ladies came to visit to let her know just what was being said among the courtiers, the guards ignored her entreaties to send a message to one of her lady companions, and the queen did not call on her either.
Serena could just imagine poor Niall waking and discovering she’d disappeared. She hadn’t given him the antidote and had made him miss the tourney. She was certain he would be furious with her and no doubt believe she’d left him on purpose out of fae spitefulness or some such thing.
Sir Reginald, for all his blustering about besting Niall in the joust, wouldn’t come near the Mabara castle. She had met him at the Renaissance fair during one of her forays to the human world in search of fun where she could still fit in while showing off her wings. She and the knight only met there because she was certain her people would never discover she was with him since the dragon fae had claimed it as their own territory. Rarely did anyone cross them.
The first time she had arrived at the fair in Texas, Reginald had immediately shown his interest in her, despite that she wasn’t a dragon fae, and that she had wings. She loved being treated as someone special outside of her own kingdom.
Now she wondered if Niall, when he woke, would search for her. She hoped not, fearing it would go badly for him if he was found wandering around in the dark meadow or woods, searching for her. And then of course she would be questioned as to how he knew her and why he was looking for her. And who had drugged him and why.
She groaned and paced across the room some more, her stomach grumbling, and realized she hadn’t eaten in ages. She called out to the guards. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday at nooning meal. Will you have a platter brought up?”
Neither guard said a word. She really didn’t think she could eat, not with worrying about Niall. What if her people found the dark fae wandering through the meadow and put him in prison?
She couldn’t ask about him. If they didn’t know he was out there, they wouldn’t send search parties. Hopefully, he’d return home to reveal to Queen Irenis what he had learned about the winged fae, although Serena was certain he wouldn’t tell the queen about the kiss.
“Food?” she asked again, with a more appealing tone than a demanding one this time. She hoped she could scribble a message to one of the cooks who sneaked chocolate bars to her anytime she needed a fix. If she could only get word to Niall…
“Does the queen want her only daughter to starve to death?” she asked, her tone sharp, her patience gone when neither of the men responded.
She thought she heard the guards snicker. If she was queen, they’d be sitting in the dungeon. At once!
***
Deveron had the untenable task of explaining to his mother how they had not only lost the winged fae’s trail at the Renaissance fair, but also lost track of her in her own kingdom. Niall had still been with the princess, and Deveron assumed that her mother, Queen Verbenia of the Mabara, would have incarcerated Niall by now. Although he also thought once Niall took Serena home, he would have returned to the Denkar. But when Deveron arrived at the castle, he quickly learned Niall hadn’t returned home. No one had any messages concerning either Serena or Niall. Which worried Deveron.
Maybe the Mabara didn’t realize Serena had been in the dark fae dungeon. But how would the princess have explained having been with Niall? None of it made any sense.
Ritasia met Deveron in the hall leading to their mother’s throne room before he reached the entrance, and she quickly pulled him aside. She looked fretful, and he felt her anxiety, too. As highly annoyed as he was with Niall for freeing the pixie–like fae, he was concerned about him.
“Is he safe? Have you found him?” Ritasia asked.
“Nay. Well, and aye. We found his trail in the meadows surrounded by a forest. According to our maps of the region, the Mabara’s royal castle is a couple of days walk from that location. We don’t know if they returned to the castle or not. But at least she’s safely within her kingdom’s boundaries.”
Ritasia scoffed. “I don’t care about the winged fae, dear brother. She has caused our poor cousin enough grief.”
“Our cousin caused his own trouble. I still cannot believe he freed her from the cell!”
“Yes, well, you would have had to have done so as soon as our mother returned and you learned Serena was the Mabara princess, not just any royal winged fae.”
“True, but I would have brought her to see our mother and not taken her to a human Renaissance fair!
“Why would she go there, I wonder?” Ritasia asked, her head tilted to the side in puzzlement.
Deveron pondered her words. “Seems odd, doesn’t it?”
“I’m going to check it out.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Ritasia raised her brows. “I thought you were going to see Mother and apprise her of the latest news.”
“It can wait. I’d like to know exactly why Serena took Niall to the fair first.”
“Maybe you could get word to Alicia and the three of us could go?”
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 speakin
g 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 dra
gon 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.