Then Owen had enough of waiting, worried the women had been kidnapped and transported to somewhere else.
“Owen!” Sigrid snapped, as soon as she saw him. She was tying the rest of her corset closed, her cheeks blushing. “I said we’d be right back.”
“I worried you needed rescuing. Besides, we are married.”
“You are not married to me,” Tanya said, buckling her belt.
Sigrid sat down on a moss-covered log and began to pull on one of her thigh high boots. Owen quickly helped with the other. “Come join us!” Owen shouted to his cousins. He wanted them all in one place.
As soon as they joined them, Connelly and Tarrant helped Tanya on with her boots.
Sigrid was wearing the black tunic and skirt with pants and high boots, like she’d been dressed the first time he’d seen her. Only this time she was wearing a sword.
He hoped she didn’t intend to have to fight, using a sword.
Tanya was wearing a pale, sky-blue gown with pants, and soft butternut leather boots.
“Tanya, I want you to return home to your cottage. If you were more protected inside the castle walls, I believed that you would be safe enough here, but not like this,” Sigrid said.
“I agree,” Owen said.
Tarrant and Connelly were in agreement also. She was a dream-weaver fae. Not a warrior meant for battle.
“I’m staying,” Tanya said, her chin lifted, and Owen knew she wasn’t about to be dissuaded.
“When you are king, I hope you have all the gate guards strung up,” Tarrant said loudly to Owen as if the prince was hard-of-hearing, figuring the guards could hear him.
“Well, standing near the front gates of your protected castle will get us nowhere. I’m not familiar with your territory. Where’s the highest point we can find near here?” Sigrid asked.
“This way.” Owen was furious with his father, and didn’t blame Sigrid if she left them so that they had to sort this out for themselves. He, on the other hand, owed it to his people to do what he could. He’d deal with his father later.
Connelly said, “I didn’t expect to be locked out of the castle on this mission.”
Tarrant gave a dark, humorless laugh. “We should have after what Owen told his father he had to do for Sigrid’s help.”
“I will help you with this,” Sigrid said, “because I promised, and I hope I can do what you need me to do to stop this. Once we’re done, I’m returning home to the place that took my grandmother and mother and father in. That’s my home.”
“You’re my wife, and you’ll stay with me.” Owen wasn’t giving up his wife for anything.
“You are free to move in with me in my cottage. We can always expand it if we begin to have a family.” Sigrid waited for him to agree with her.
Connelly smiled at him, his expression all-knowing.
This was his home, and Owen was bound and determined to force his father to concede he’d made the bargain, and he was going to keep it. “You will live in a castle and be the queen of it,” Owen said.
“Which is just what I’ve been doing, living in my cottage ‘castle’ and I have been the queen of it.”
They wound their way through the woods to a small stream, and despite Sigrid’s objections, Owen carried her across it to keep her boots dry. He knew they would be waterproof, but she was his wife, his princess, and he had always thought himself chivalrous.
Tarrant scooped Tanya up in his arms to carry her across before Connelly could do it. “This does not mean anything but that I am as noble as Owen is.”
Tanya laughed. “I did not take it to mean anything more than you are a prince who is gallant.”
Tarrant cast a dark smile at Connelly.
“I would have done the deed if you hadn’t rushed so to do it.”
They reached the other side of the stream and put the ladies down and continued walking.
“We cannot just transport there?” Sigrid asked, watching her footing as the forest turned to broken slabs of rock.
“Out here beyond the forest and stream, and all the way to the butte, the land is covered in mossy broken slabs of rock filled with iron ore,” Owen said. “Though we could use our wings to fly there.”
“Let’s do that then,” Sigrid said.
Everyone but Tanya unfurled their wings.
Connelly grabbed Tanya around the waist, startling her and she cried out. “Sorry. I’ll take you to the top.” And then he flew off with her.
The rest of them flew next to the gray rocks, trees, and small brush filling crevices where soil and water collected to reach the expansive flat butte on top. Owen and his cousins had climbed this before in their youth as something fun to do, pretending to be explorers in another realm. Today, he had much more important business to attend to.
“What are we doing after we reach the top?” Connelly asked.
“We’ll build our own castle, of sorts. We’ll have shelter, and it will be made of the gray stones, so it will look like it’s just part of the butte. It won’t have fancy castle spires to tell the world we are here,” Sigrid said.
“How will we manage that?” Connelly asked.
“And how will this help us to fight our enemies?” Tarrant asked.
“We can see them before they see us. We will have protection, since they can’t transport here. We’ll have shelter from the elements and a place to sleep, eat, and drink. If I’m not mistaken, the weather looks like it’s about to get nasty.”
They all looked in the direction she was staring, and they flew faster. Flying in a thunderstorm wasn’t safe.
When they reached the top of the butte, Owen wondered what she planned to do. Before he could ask, she raised her hands and said an incantation. A rumbling noise began slow, then the noise increased in volume. Loose rocks began to float up from down below to where she was standing, and they began to settle in a giant pile. She began to sort them—largest rocks on the bottom, layering them one after another until they had walls and narrow windows all the way around and one entryway. He was impressed. If he’d had his powers still, he could have done something like it, but he wasn’t sure he would have come up with the plan in the first place or done such a great job.
“Too bad you couldn’t help her and make it go faster,” Tarrant said, studying the structure. “It’s completely sound.”
“It is. She’s done an outstanding job,” Owen said. “If I could help, I might be just getting in her way.”
“Are you sure you haven’t gotten your powers back?” Sigrid asked. Before he could answer, she asked, “Where is your father’s solar?” She peered out one of the narrow windows she had created to see the castle off in the distance.
Owen drew close to her to peer out the window, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry for what I’ve gotten you into.”
“I agreed to this. Well, not exactly this, but I knew I’d have to expect anything.”
The thunder was growing closer, lightning flashes filling the darkening sky.
“We need a roof still,” Tarrant told her, as if she didn’t know that.
Frowning, Owen punched him on the shoulder. “She’s working as fast as she can.” Not to mention she had to think of how to do this right, or risk burying them in a pile of rubble, if she didn’t.
She kissed Owen back. “Show me where your father’s solar is.”
“The chamber nearest the south tower spire. The one with the slightly elevated roof.” He pointed in the direction.
“Thanks. That looks to be nearly the right size.” Sigrid raised her fingers in the direction of the castle and said an incantation.
A rumbling sounded off in the distance, but not from thunder this time. He and the others watched out the windows of their butte castle, and he couldn’t believe it when she tore the roof off his father’s solar and then drew it over the tips of the pine trees and the rocky terrain, until she could settle it on top of their own castle.
Owen’s cousins cheered. Tanya gave
Sigrid a hug, and then she finished the job, shrinking it until it fit snuggly on top of their makeshift castle.
“Will it hold?” Connelly asked. “I mean in the storm?”
“Just like any castle would,” she said, but then she took a seat on the rocky top of the butte. She looked up at Owen. He crouched next to her, knowing using that much inherent magic had taken a lot out of her. He hated that she’d had to use it to protect them, when she shouldn’t have had to. Not when a perfectly good castle should have done the job.
“Owen, you have your abilities.” She took hold of his hand and squeezed. “I feel them thrumming through my blood whenever we touch. I don’t know if you can call upon them, but you haven’t lost them for good.”
Owen had felt the same thing, but as much as he’d tried to use his abilities, he just hadn’t been able to call upon them. Then again, he hadn’t tried since they’d kissed that first time, or danced, or even now.
“I didn’t bring your father’s solar roof here on my own. You had a hand in it,” she said.
He had tried to help her move it, afraid it was too far away for her to carry it. Had he really used his ability to make her own abilities even more powerful?
He raised his hands to the castle, wanting to bring the king’s supper and his table to their own empty shell of a castle. He felt the power building, the desire, the shimmer of magic running through his blood. He had to lift the table several flights of stairs to the solar where he could move it through the gaping hole Sigrid had left when she’d brought the roof here.
Sigrid motioned to Tarrant to help her up, and when he did, she clung to Owen, hugging him as he brought the table and meal to their castle, floating high above the landscape.
“Hurry, before the rains come,” Connelly said, holding onto the rock framing a window. “Your father must be livid over this business.”
“Good,” Tarrant said. “It serves him right. Can you imagine what he’s thinking now? Maybe not that Sigrid could eliminate him, but that she truly has incredible powers. Even though now Owen is using his own abilities.”
Owen couldn’t speak, having to use all his concentration on keeping the table level or he’d spill all the food over the edges and it would drop to the forest and rocks below, and ruin what was a perfect mission otherwise. He was certain Sigrid’s hugging him was helping too—at least as far as the magic went. Otherwise, she was stealing his concentration. And he knew then, he had to bring his bed next, if the rains didn’t come before he moved the table.
Then he was pulling the table into the room and everyone cheered.
“One more thing,” he said, smiling down at Sigrid. He went back to the window, and she hugged him again.
“What are you bringing this time?” Connelly asked, returning to the window to see what Owen was doing next.
Owen concentrated on lifting his bed, turning it, and moving it through the chamber door sideways, then out into the hall and into his father’s solar. Once it was free of the solar, he moved it across the land. The storm clouds were building into huge, dark thunderheads, and moving in their direction.
“Your bed,” Tarrant said, laughing.
“What about ours?” Connelly asked.
“They will be there when you return,” Sigrid said.
Tarrant pointed out the window toward the castle gates. “Guardsmen are mounted on horses and headed in our direction.”
“The two of you finally got a reaction out of the king,” Connelly said. “High time.”
“The storm will pummel them,” Tanya said.
Owen brought the bed to the butte, and maneuvered it inside through the open doorway. “You must rest, Sigrid.”
She took a roasted turkey leg—something the fae had enjoyed at a Renaissance fair and had brought turkeys back from America for their own meals—and sat down on the edge of the bed. “No chairs.”
Owen grabbed a turkey leg and joined her. “No need. We can use our packs for chairs. My cousins and I can use our sleeping rolls.”
“Good. Then Tanya can sleep with me in the big bed.” Sigrid finished her turkey leg and washed her hands in the water bowel that had been sitting on the table when Owen had moved it.
“You have been outmaneuvered,” Tarrant said. “If you insist your wife sleep with you, she’ll remind you that you are chivalrous and would give your bed up to Tanya.”
Owen shook his head and sighed. “Don’t remind me.”
Connelly continued to keep watch out the window. “What are we going to do about the ten guards who are coming for us?”
“Talk to them, if we can.” Owen tore of a piece of a loaf of bread. “I’d rather gain their trust and have them side with us, then kill them, which would send word back to our people that we are as dangerous to them as our enemies.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Connelly asked.
The rain poured down as flashes of lightning struck the ground, and the thunder boomed right overhead.
They all glanced in Sigrid’s direction to see her take on it. She was buried under the covers of the bed, sound asleep.
11
“What are we going to do?” Tarrant asked Owen, keeping his voice low as Tanya went to sleep in the big bed with Sigrid.
Owen knew Tarrant wasn’t trying to keep anything from the women, but didn’t want to disturb their sleep, especially if they needed Sigrid’s abilities to stop the guards from killing them.
“Are your abilities back?” Connelly asked.
“No. Not full strength. Sigrid helped me to channel my power so I could do it. I think I helped her move the roof that had been on top of my father’s solar.”
“So that means what? You’ll have to always be touching her to use your magic?” Tarrant asked.
“My arrogance, when I fought our enemy’s mage, thinking myself superior to him when he was a school-trained mage, and not an inherent magic user like me, was my undoing. In some devious manner, he used my power against me. And somehow, Sigrid is helping me to channel my abilities again.”
“Because you love her,” Connelly said.
Owen glanced back at Sigrid. “Maybe.”
“Maybe you love her? Or maybe that’s why you are able to work together to use your abilities again?” Tarrant asked.
“Maybe that’s the reason her touching me has renewed my powers.”
“Or believing in yourself,” Sigrid said.
Owen went to the bed, crouched down beside it, and took her hand. “I’m sorry. We were trying to be quiet and not disturb your sleep.”
“I can’t help you. Not for a few hours. Believe in yourself if you must fight the guards. I can only wield a sword, and I’m sure not as powerful as the king’s guard would be.”
Connelly straightened. “They have reached the rocks at the base of the butte. Two of the men are flying to our castle atop the butte.”
“Only two?” Owen asked, surprised.
Tarrant was looking out the window too now. “Yes. The others are waiting down below.”
“To pretend they wish us no harm?” Connelly asked.
“Or to genuinely welcome us back into the fold before we remove anything else from the king’s castle,” Owen said. “I had considered taking my father’s bed, just to prove a point, but I didn’t want to sleep in it.”
His cousins chuckled.
“Or, they want to ensure they aren’t all wiped out in one show of magical power,” Tarrant said.
Owen kissed Sigrid on the cheek. “Rest. We will take care of this.”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
A few minutes later, a man shouted from outside in the pouring rain, “We have come in peace, Prince Owen.”
Each of the princes drew their swords.
Though Tarrant made the move to see to the men, Owen said, “I’ll see to them. Connelly, keep an eye on the others down below.”
“They’re still down below.”
“Good. Tarrant?” Owen motioned to the women in the big bed. r />
Tarrant quickly moved to stand in front of it and guard the women.
Owen moved toward the opening where a door should be and realized they needed one pronto. He concentrated on taking his father’s bedchamber door and moving it here.
“What are you doing?” Tarrant asked, when Owen didn’t go to the opening to allow the men to come in out of the rain.
Sigrid reached out from her covers and Owen joined her, then concentrated again, drawing the door forth. It was so much harder to do alone, but now with her help, working as a team, it was so much easier. Though he knew she had to rest, they needed a secure door too.
Tarrant called out to the men standing outside the walls. They were being cautious about intruding without Owen’s express approval. “Prince Owen will be with you in a moment.” Tarrant sounded hopeful that Owen would be.
“It is the king’s bedchamber door,” the one guard exclaimed as it moved toward their castle on the butte.
Once it was in place, Owen made sure it was secure, then went to open it, sword ready. Though he thought he might be able to use magic on them if they tried to kill him.
He opened the door and saw the two guardsmen, both with swords sheathed.
“My lord, we beg your forgiveness for what has happened. We were under strict orders from the king himself not to allow you entry. He said you were a traitor to your people.”
“Come in out of the rain.” Owen pulled out the vellum that stated his father had agreed to leave the throne so that Owen could take over.
The man pulled a dry cloth out of his pack and wiped his hands, the rest of his clothes and skin dripping wet. He took the vellum and read the missive. “He said you might have forged such a document to take over the rule of the kingdom because you don’t want to actually kill him. Not when he has been a good ruler all these years. Not to mention he’s your father.” The guard glanced in the direction of the bed where the two women were sleeping. “Is that the magic user?”
“My wife, Princess Sigrid, queen, when my father does what he had agreed to do. She risks her life to come here and fight for us and as such, she’ll be our queen.”
The guard gave him a half smile, while the other guard pulled a cloth out of his pack and wiped the rain off his face. “The king was horrified when you removed the roof from his solar, stole his table and his dinner, and even moved your own bed out of the castle. We couldn’t believe the lass could create a castle on top of the butte either.” He looked around at it. “It’s well done. Our master castle builder couldn’t have done any better. And here your wife had no help at all.”