“I don’t know the first thing about being a queen, Titania,” Minerva whispered. “It’s not time yet for me to get involved.” She turned back to the fairy, who was studying her carefully. “You didn’t really want to ask me about the mousse, did you?”
Titania smiled guiltily. “Well, it doesn’t hurt to get a mortal perspective on something created by mortals, but no. I knew you were uncomfortable and that what you really wanted was a way out. And that’s my job, my lady. To make you comfortable.”
Now it was Minerva’s turn to smile. “Thank you,” she said gratefully. She meant it.
Titania laughed. “I understand. You’re being thrown to the sharks. And some Unseelie fae are… well, I can see why you’d want to ease into this. But you won’t be alone.” She nodded at something over Minerva’s shoulder, and Minerva turned to see that the Lubraine had departed. Caliban was heading toward her, his stride long, his eyes fastened on hers. “And you were born to do this, my lady. Never forget that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caliban took Minerva’s hand and held it firmly in his as the floor began to rumble. He’d made sure to explain everything that would happen so she would be prepared, but even so, he could feel her tense beneath his grip. She watched the edges of the Moving Floor with wary excitement as it magically separated from the surrounding walls.
Overhead, the ceiling shimmered and then vanished, leaving the Great Hall open up to the vast, star-filled night sky. Minerva looked up, her gaze filled with awe. The small blue flames at the centers of her pupils flickered admiringly, dancing to life with the flux of her excitement.
The Mover lifted then, smoothly as ever, and Minerva looked down suddenly, taking a step back that brought her closer to Caliban.
He smiled, stealing the opportunity to release her hand and instead slide his arm around her slim waist. He used that hold to pull her up against him as the Moving Floor rose above the walls of the Great Hall and was at last free of its earthly hold.
The magic that had created the Mover long ago now protected its passengers from the effects of its flight. There was no wind, there were no inclement weather or temperature changes, there were no insects.
After a few moments of free, smooth flight, Minerva relaxed beside Cal – and looked up at him with a bright, beaming smile. It took his breath away.
“I’m going to the edge,” she told him with the exuberance of a child. She pulled free from his grasp, lifted her skirts, and hastened to the Mover’s edge. Caliban stood frozen, still in the magic spell of that unequaled smile, and watched her scoot up right along the outer limits of the floor to look down.
Though he’d ridden the Moving Floor thousands of times and knew well that it was impossible for anyone to fall off its edges, the sight of her there, inches away from such a prospect, made his heart feel like ice.
A terrible sensation swept through him. Caliban recognized it as fear, but it was unlike any fear he’d ever before known. It was the kind of fear one experienced when they suddenly had something to lose, and that something would destroy them to live without because it meant more than life, itself. There was no fear in the realms like it. And now Caliban knew it first-hand.
She’s going to kill me, he thought suddenly. He sensed a change in him, the burgeoning of a weakness. He stood there and could imagine the years to come – if he was lucky – in which he wondered where she was when she wasn’t beside him. In which he missed her, worried about her, and yearned for her. This was a fragility that was utterly and painfully new.
It was ironic to him that his queen, the one thing in the multiverse that could make him more powerful than he was already, was also the one thing that could bring him to his knees. There was a depth to him now that was positively exploitable.
He would have to stay on his toes. The lifetimes to come were going to be one wild ride.
*****
Minerva marveled at the ground that sped by below. Roads paved with multi-colored stones, rooftops constructed of everything from thatch to carved stone tile, and gardens with mazes, rows of strange vegetables and flowers, and even fountains blurred by at exhilarating speeds. She found herself laughing with delight when the tops of impossibly tall fae trees nearly skimmed the bottom of the platform.
She placed her hand to her chest and looked up, grinning like an idiot at the multitude of stars that glittered like pixie fire and diamonds strewn across the sable night sky. She felt high, as if she’d been sipping moonshine or smoking some exotic fairy weed.
She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there admiring the view when she heard voices behind her and turned to find that the first of the invited guests were arriving. They appeared through an archway at one end of the platform. It acted almost as a portal, sucking people up from below and presenting them on the landing to the Mover.
Minerva imagined it working a little like a Star Trek transporter beam. It even looked similar, removing the guests from below and causing them to reappear in a cloud of sparkling energy until they were once more fully materialized.
Titania the fairy suddenly appeared at Minerva’s side. “Here they come,” she said excitedly.
The first guests were two women and a man, all of course dressed regally. “That’s Andari Novall, her husband, and their daughter. She’s been in the Unseelie Court for nine hundred years.”
Andari Novall was a tall, stately woman with purple and silver striped hair, yellow eyes, and skin the color of an eggplant. Her husband was perhaps an inch or two taller, with similar eyes and skin, but with all-gray hair. Their daughter, a stunning young woman whose skin was slightly lighter in color, possessed hair that was all purple but for a single silver stripe behind her left ear.
“Lady Novall and her family are Endray,” supplied Titania. “Very mild mannered, for unseelie, and very reliable. Lady Novall has been a loyal supporter her entire life. Not much means more to her than the security of the throne.” Titania smiled at Minerva. “Which means she will probably become your best friend before too long. And a good friend to have, too. She’s quite powerful amongst the Endray, which make up a good portion of the unseelie population.”
Minerva nodded. She made a mental note to be on her very best behavior around this particular woman. She wondered whether her sister had been forced to face this sort of thing yet. In fact, she wondered how Selene was, in general.
Caliban had told her earlier that Selene was safe with Avery, the Seelie King, and that she was content as the queen of their realm. It wasn’t safe yet to visit her; their enemy would expect the twins to want to reunite. Minerva understood that, and for the most part, she accepted it. She and Selene had always been close, but they were not conjoined. They weren’t the kind of twins who couldn’t stand to be apart. It was enough, at the moment, to know that Selene was safe.
“The daughter’s name is Linneah. You’ll notice her earrings,” added Titania softly, leaning a little toward her for privacy. Minerva had noticed them, in fact. They were long, dangling earrings composed entirely of a pastel rainbow of sparkling gemstones. “Those were a gift from her husband-to-be, Jennid, a Korred fae who will be arriving shortly.”
The earrings were beautiful. “Got it,” said Minerva, who was quite proud that she was catching on to this political stuff pretty quickly. “So I’ll make sure to congratulate her on the upcoming engagement.”
Titania’s smile became a proud grin. “Exactly.” She took Minerva’s hand and patted it comfortingly. “You are indeed catching on quick. Which is good,” she added, releasing her and turning toward the archway where more guests were arriving in quick succession. “Because you’re about to get a comprehensive lesson on the entire Unseelie Realm.”
Time moved strangely on the platform. The world literally blurred by, and it was always night, and there were always new guests, so it was an indeterminate amount of time later that Minerva glanced up from the group she’d been conversing with to find a new group of guests arriving at the arch
way.
This time, it was not only interest that was piqued by their appearance – it was fear.
Titania was at her side at once, and there was a gentle hand beneath Minerva’s elbow, as if to steady her. She watched Caliban approach the newcomers, ever tall and confident, but this time, Minerva felt something other than pride at the king’s appearance and mannerisms. She felt nervous. As if she were afraid for him.
“My lady, there is no cause for alarm. I understand their appearance is unsettling, but you are perfectly safe here.”
Minerva swallowed, but it was hard to get past the lump that had formed in her throat. Her mouth had gone dry.
The men who’d arrived looked as though they might have come directly from a Hollywood movie set. They were all tall, they were all dressed in tailored and fine dark clothing, and they were all breathtakingly handsome, from chiseled features to strong chins to perfect, broad-shouldered builds. Their eyes were so vivid, she could see them even from a distance, slashes of green and blue hues that would make any woman melt. However, beyond this façade of genteel beauty, there was a savage core, and Minerva recognized it at once.
“Why are they scaring me so much?” she whispered aloud, leaning toward Titania.
At once, the men at the archway looked up, each of them zeroing in on her with their cold, beautiful eyes.
Titania quickly took her queen by the elbow and pulled her further away from the archway. Minerva felt the men’s eyes on her as she retreated, and her body moved stiffly, almost mechanically. Once she and Titania reached the outer edge of the platform, Titania turned to her, taking her hands in her own and squeezing tight. “You see them for what they truly are because you are the born queen. Only a very powerful fae could glimpse past their glamour. You breached their masks with ease.”
It was a poetic way to describe it, really, since all Minerva “saw” was what was there – three painfully handsome men. There was no real “mask” to see past. But it would have been difficult to describe any other way, and Minerva understood totally what Titania meant by her words.
“Titania,” she said as she chanced a glance in their direction only to find that Caliban had reached them, and their attention was now on their king. “What are they?” The tightness in her chest made her voice tremble.
“In the mortal realm, you have legends and myths that speak of certain creatures who resemble humans, but are really something much, much more dangerous.”
Hesitantly, Minerva nodded.
“Well,” said Titania, with a knowing glance in the direction of the newcomers. “Usually, those legends and myths are true. And we have them in the fae realms as well.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The arrival of the three men had caused a stir. Caliban could sense the immediate unease on the platform, traveling through the party’s revelers like a rippling wave of disquiet. But this night was not an event solely for the trusted. It was for the unseelie as a whole – the entire spectrum of its many darknesses.
They were known as the Malek Taal. They lived in very close proximity to the Shades, in the Unlit Forest on the far edge of the Unseelie Realm, where it bordered the Shadow Kingdom. The Malek Taal, named for their leader Malek, had lived there for as long as the unseelie had recorded their history. No one save Lord Malek himself knew how they’d come into being, and in all these years, none of them had ever died. Their number remained constant; they were immortal in nearly every sense of the word.
Like the mortal legend of their “human” counterparts, the vampire, the Malek Taal were infamous for one reason alone: They subsisted solely on the blood of their fellow man. The very long, very sharp, and very deadly fangs they sported beneath the glamour that hid them so well were testament to their true design.
Outwardly, their male society was beautiful, calm, refined, and highly intelligent. On the inside, however, they were pure predators – always hungry, always hunting, ever on the prowl. They did not proliferate; again, their numbers never changed. The same sensations, both emotional and physical, that other species achieved and yearned for through traditional copulation, the Taal experienced during blood exchange. It was sensual, but violent, and normally left their victims cold.
The single and small upside to this pattern was that the Taal needed to feed only once a month. They normally chose women who were not needed by society, either fae, mortal, or otherwise, and made certain to erase all evidence they’d ever existed.
On the rare occasion the Taal allowed a victim to live, the bitten was considered “chosen,” and given a choice. They could remain alive as a slave to the Taal who’d bitten them, or they could be taken before their leader, the original Malek, to be “erased.” Their memory would be wiped clean of the traumatic event, and they would be set free.
Rarely did this last, however. The Malek Taal had chosen them and allowed them to live for a reason, after all, and the breed was tenacious, if anything. Hence, the cycle was almost always repeated until, eventually the woman grew too weak to resist any longer. She would become a slave, and would later die of a weak constitution. For this reason, the leader of the Malek Taal strongly discouraged becoming attached to any victim. It wasn’t nice to play with your food.
They were not what one would call a benevolent society. The others on the platform had good reason to be wary of them.
Caliban had sincerely considered not inviting the Malek Taal to this engagement. However, the unseelie fae were considered unholy, unlucky, and every other synonym for “bad” because the plain truth of it was – that’s what they were. All manner of very dangerous breed inhabited the Unseelie Realm. Minerva was their queen, and as such, she very much needed to be aware of their existence in the world she now ruled. It would do no good to hide anything within its borders from her.
When he sensed their arrival, Caliban made haste to greet the Taal, knowing instinctively that they would sense Minerva in the room, feel her intense magic, and view her as one hell of a potential meal. He was no fool. Minerva was exquisite, inside and out. He’d expected that they would desire her; it was simply impossible for their kind not to do so. But the intensity and speed with which they’d honed in on her, and the swell of hunger he sensed from them admittedly forced roaring, painful flames once more into his own gaze.
It was something he’d hoped to avoid, this unconscious clashing of power over the most tempting woman in the realm. Not only because it physically hurt when the fire in him lit up, but because he didn’t really want the Moving Floor to become a battlefield that night.
Fortunately, one of the three representatives to arrive that night was none other than the leader of the Malek Taal himself, Lord Malek.
He no doubt noticed the fire in Caliban’s eyes immediately, and being the skilled diplomat that he was, Malek at once bowed, showing both respect and reverence. He then made a point to express to the king his gratitude that he and his men had been invited to the engagement event.
All in all, the exchange went over well. Once you pressed stubbornly past the fact that every meal for the Taal equated to murder, it had to be admitted that they made good company. They were charming, quick witted, and extremely disarming. It helped that Caliban, himself, had nothing to fear from them.
The matter smoothed out so well, in fact, that Caliban was beginning to think it might be time to introduce the trio of Taal to his queen. That is, until he looked up to find Minerva no longer standing where he’d last seen her, and Dahlia Kellen standing in her place looking secretly very pleased with herself.
“Oh, mother hell,” he muttered aloud.
Lord Malek, who’d been sharing a drink with him, glanced in Dahlia’s direction to see what had upset him. Putting two and two together, he said “An odd mortal colloquialism. But in this case, I would have to agree.”
*****
Caliban was deep in conversation with the three Malek Taal. He spoke to them calmly, smiling with the perfect, genteel ease of a man who could handle anything. He w
as the perfect king.
You have to get used to this, she told herself firmly. It was something she was going to have to learn to live with, this dealing pleasantly with people she didn’t like.
This is your place now. Caliban is depending on you.
But who was he, anyway? In order to be the king of a land with people like those men, what kind of man did you have to be, yourself?
You’ve shared the most intimate form of passion with him, Minerva. You know damn well who Caliban is. You know what he is.
You know better than this.
But those men, those monsters wrapped in the finery of a gentle façade, they killed people for a living.
No, they eat. A lot of animals in the mortal realm have to survive by eating living beings too. What about natural carnivores like tigers and sharks? They have to eat, Minerva. And so do the Taal.
Her stomach did a belly-flop. But her inner voice kept at her, trying its best to convince her that the situation was not as bad as it seemed.
And that leader of theirs, Lord Malek? Titania said he had never taken a slave, himself. She said he felt it was wrong.
So he was a nice monster. That was about the best it could amount to.
You like cats, her inner voice pressed. Cats kill more living beings than just about anything else on the planet.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and gritted her teeth. The conversation she was having with herself wasn’t doing any good, and frankly it was bordering on clinically insane. The hard fact of it was, she couldn’t get past seeing the Taal as serial killers. And the Malek Taal were one race. One breed of unseelie fae. How many of the people in that room were just as bad? How many of the visages around her were nothing more than masks for monsters?
She ran her hand over her face and turned away from them all to stare out at the black, blurred landscape that was so much more enchanting.