Caliban was behind him, having followed him through; Avery felt the man’s hand grip his shoulder. The portal slammed shut with a bomb-like calamity, and both kings shoved themselves to their feet, casting up transport spells with the speed of instinct and experience. Now that they’d crossed the border into the forbidden kingdom, they would be able to transport from one point to another within it.
They were hurtled through time and space so fast, it nearly knocked them senseless. Something was wrong with the melted colors and liquid hours; they’d gone dark and twisted and seemed to be edged with the pain of fire.
With death.
The exit portal to the transportation spell opened like a sliding glass door to toss them both violently into the shifting and burning great room of Damon Chroi’s massive stone castle. Avery hit the ground hard, but rolled, managing to get his boots under him to rise once more. As he did, the room tilted. He leaned, grasped the nearest couch, and held on tight as he cast his gaze about the room to take it all in.
Not far from him, Caliban seemed to be doing the same thing. His tall, broad frame was wedged safely against an outcropping of carved stone near a stained glass window that had already been shattered, either by the unsteady movement of the castle or by a stray bolt of lightning; the electricity was erratic across the Goblin Kingdom’s angry and tumultuous sky. Caliban’s dark suit was ruined; the expensive, once immaculate material had been muddied and torn by their short trip. The Unseelie King’s eyes were lit from within by the power that flowed through his veins, heightening their contrast of amethyst and jade.
Avery knew his own were doing the same. Their magic was at the ready. One of the fae worlds was literally coming to an end.
The rugs, throws, and tapestries in the great room were on fire. Most had fallen from their casings along the walls. The crystal and candle chandelier that had once hung from the high domed ceiling far above had fallen to the ground to shatter into a billion icicle shards that littered the floor like diamonds.
The ceiling was cracked open, and the crisscrossing of maniacal web-like lightning overhead illuminated the great room through the fissure. The stone floor had split in two, dividing the great room evenly in half. On one side of this divide was a pile of sand roughly the size of a human male.
On the other was a beautiful woman with a waterfall of shimmering ginger hair. She was kneeling, head bent as if in mourning. In front of her lay the unmoving form of Damon Chroi, the Goblin King.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Diana barely noticed the twist and turn of time and space when she was pulled through the transport spell this time. A small portion of her mind was beginning to grow accustomed to the sensation. But it was the state of the rest of her mind that truly made her numb to the spell. Her hands rested on Damon Chroi’s broad and un-breathing chest – while the Seelie King, and the Unseelie King each gently grasped her upper arms to cast the magic around the four of them.
Diana could not look away. The world had fallen apart around her, beams had fallen, the ceiling had cracked open, and fire was everywhere, but she’d remained where she was, taking life for granted in numb shock, gazing down at the man who had just made real, honest love to her.
Damon appeared to be a sleeping god, his terrible perfection unmarred by his battle with his doppelganger. His eyelids didn’t move, but she half expected them to. He looked as though he dreamed. She wondered what those dreams would be about. His lips were slightly parted, as if he would speak any moment now. When he did, everything would become heightened senses, temptation, and electric sexual tension. Everything would be perfect – like it almost was.
The spell ended, and vaguely, Diana recognized the feel of a thick, soft rug under her knees. But still, she couldn’t look away.
There was a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder, and a scratchy, weathered and aged voice said, “He’s gone, child.”
“No, he’s not,” Diana replied. Her tone was foreign to her own ears. It was like she was listening to someone else speak through her. “He’s dreaming.”
There was no response for a while, and after some time, Diana steeled herself and looked up.
Lalura Chantelle stood beside her. Behind Lalura stood Dannai Caige, Jason Alberich, Roman D’Angelo – and behind him, around half a dozen men that Diana didn’t recognize. All of these men were beautiful in different ways. All wore dire, stricken expressions. All were gazing down at the Goblin King.
“I’m sorry,” whispered Alberich. “For a warlock to resurrect someone, he must be more powerful than the one who’s been killed.” He shook his head and Diana processed his words. Her mind was working slowly, as if she’d been dipped in cold, bitter molasses. “I’m the strongest of my kind,” he admitted, but it was not a boast. He, too, looked truly stricken. “But I’m only a king, and no more powerful than another king.” He looked down at Damon and any other words he might have had to say slipped away into silence.
Diana barely understood what he was telling her. Somewhere in there, there was an explanation for her dawning agony, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.
“You are a queen now,” said Lalura, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You will need to pick up where the king left off.”
“I’m not,” said Diana. Her voice came to her through a tunnel long and narrow. She’d met the king a single eye-blink ago. She’d known him for a heart beat of time, no more. She was not a queen. And she hated the universe.
“What matters is the heart,” said Lalura. “You were born with one that beat like royalty. You have already taken your place on the board.”
*****
Lalura watched the new Goblin Queen with knowing, sad eyes.
The night came unnoticed to Diana Piper. While at Dannai’s house, seated around the dining room table, she had told them all that she loved the moon, for which she’d been named. But now the moon she normally looked upon as a smiling Cheshire cat friend rose and fell in its frolic but never gained in her its faithful audience. It must have looked down and noticed the odd cast to her eyes, the distant expression. Perhaps it worried. Maybe it mourned for her, its bright white smile a mask.
Diana would never know.
None of the 13 Kings had ever before been buried. There had never been occasion. Sovereigns had come and gone, but under war and conquer and subjugation. Not like this. Not where the deceased was one of the powerful, eminent, and unforgettable men who had once been seated at the world’s ultimate table of peace and cooperation.
It seemed the entire universe knew and mourned. Traffic on the streets seemed slower. Lights were dimmer. It was raining… everywhere.
Everywhere, that was, but in the Goblin Kingdom. There, the clouds hung heavy but did not weep. They would not. It was out of deference. The teasing drench they had forever unleashed on the king’s realm was now quieted and held back. Instead, fog covered the ground, thick and sorrowful. A silence accompanied it, deep and true.
As the fallen king lay still as death in the otherwise empty chamber beneath the castle he’d once inhabited, the others gathered. Among the royalty of the 13 supernatural factions, the tones were hushed, fear and desperation levels were elevated, and the colors had all been turned black. Every suit was dark. Every dress somber.
All but one.
At her softly spoken request, Diana Piper’s long satin gown had been turned from black to green. Dannai cast the spell without a word, only waving her hand slowly through the air, revealing the shimmering emerald hue as her hand lowered back to her side.
Diana looked down, her expression unreadable. But she nodded. “Thank you.”
All too well, Lalura understood. Green… was the color of Damon Chroi’s eyes. It was then fitting that at midnight on the full moon of May, the emerald month, Diana Piper would be addressing the inhabitants of the Goblin Kingdom as their queen. It would fall to her burdened shoulders to decide what she must do: Return to her world and attempt to put the pieces of her life back together again ami
dst danger she could not comprehend? Or take over for the man she had only just met and only just lost and attempt to put that new life together from scratch?
Lalura felt an ache she hadn’t felt in decades. She would miss Damon Chroi and his beautifully twisted smile and genuinely kind heart. She could not imagine what Diana must have been going through.
The old witch turned in her transported goose feather chair in the magically repaired castle great room and looked to where Diana now sat beside the stained glass in a plushly cushioned window seat.
Diana’s gaze was distant, stretching far beyond the fog that striped the windows with condensation and blurred the world. But as if she could sense that she was being watched – that she had an audience, she began to speak.
“The last time I cut my hair, I was with my mother,” she said, her voice as distant as her gaze. “We went to the hair dresser together, a ‘girls day out’ kind of thing. It had been forever since we’d taken the time to treat ourselves. She was a public defender. She’d gone to law school when my father died…. She wanted me to have a good life.”
Diana paused and straightened a little. Her hair fell to her mid-back and cascaded over her shoulders like ginger water. She took a lock of that strawberry blonde hair and gazed at its ends. “This right here,” she said, turning the hair between her fingers, “this is the day before my mother died.”
The empty ache in Lalura’s chest intensified.
“We got our hair cut, we went to a play, we had dinner – Thai food – and then she went home. The next morning, my mother was shot by a former client. A man she couldn’t keep out of jail. But he was only given fifteen years, and grudges last longer than that.”
She stopped turning her hair now, and Lalura saw the firelight from the hearth reflected on the tear that escaped Diana’s storm-filled eyes. “This,” she said, lifting the hair a little and at last meeting Lalura’s gaze. “This is my final moments with my best friend in the world.” She dropped the hair and turned back to look out the window. “And now it’s falling out.”
Lightning struck somewhere far, far away, barely visible across the vast distance of the realm. “I’m losing it. I’m losing everything.”
Lalura slowly turned away to once again face the fire. It crackled and popped nervously under her gaze. She looked closer.
“I see,” she said softly.
The fire settled down at once, pretending to be nothing more than a regular fire.
“You can show your face little one. Your queen needs your support now more than ever.”
The fire jumped a few times, and a face did indeed appear. “I thought she could help,” the small fire elemental said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh?” asked Lalura. She could hear Diana move on the window seat behind her. There was a shuffling, and then the padding of bare feet drawing nearer.
“I led her to the great room thinking she could help the king. She’d helped all those xenobe goblins. She could save dying animals and humans. I thought….” The elemental wavered, disappeared behind a shower of sparks as the logs shifted, and then slowly came back into focus. “It’s my fault,” he said. “If she hadn’t gone to him, he never would have spoken his own name.” If fire could weep, it did so now. “He would still be here.”
Lalura wasn’t sure whether or not what the elemental was saying about Diana’s appearance during the fight was true. But at the moment, she didn’t really care. Something else the living flame had said struck Lalura, setting the wheels spinning in her head.
Her mind clicked into place, the cogs of her ancient mental clock shifting and fitting like puzzle pieces slotted to one another. She sat up straighter.
Diana’s footsteps stopped beside the chair.
Lalura turned to face her, reaching out to take the woman’s hand. “You helped the xenobes?” Everyone in the world of supernatural circles knew about the xenobe goblins. They were the most dangerous, most miserable fae monsters the fates ever drew with messy pen and could not erase – all claw and shark-like toothy maw and spirit mean from remorseless pain.
Diana nodded.
“How?” Lalura asked.
Diana frowned, and then licked her dry lips. “I… just healed them. They were only hurting, like everything else.”
“Even Damon could not control the xenobes,” said Lalura. “You’re….” And it hit her. “You’re more powerful than him.”
In the game of chess, the queen is always more powerful than the king.
For a warlock to resurrect someone, he must be more powerful than the one who’s been killed….
“By the gods.”
Lalura’s mind rewound, playing scenes from recent memory. She had not too long ago been forced to lend her power to Jason Alberich so that he could resurrect Katherine Dare, wife of Byron Caige. Katherine had been an ex-Hunter and the Curse Breaker, no ordinary werewolf, if there was such a thing. And Jason hadn’t yet become king. He hadn’t yet been a warlock powerful enough to resurrect someone so important on his own. So he’d taken magic from Lalura, and together they’d brought Katherine back.
“By the fickle fae gods,” she repeated, leaning heavily on her cane as she got to her feet. Her old heart was racing as she turned to fully face the young queen. “My dear,” she said. “You are more powerful than a king.” She laughed – she couldn’t help it. The sound filled the great room with the noise of dried leaves skittering across an autumn floor. The fire in the hearth leapt and crackled, straining to listen, aching to hear her speak the words.
Diana was a healer. She was also a seer. And now she was a queen.
“You,” she continued as her grin almost painfully creased her own weathered, ancient face, and her hands tightly clutched Diana’s between them, “can help bring Damon Chroi back.”
Chapter Twenty-something
No pressure, she thought as she gave a surreptitious look around at the multitude of people who had come to see her and the Warlock King perform this miracle.
They’d passed through the land of the arborean goblins to get here. They were the goblins who lived in the trees. The lights shimmering from the tree house windows had been turned to black flame in honor of the kingdom’s loss. Black ribbons by the billions had been magicked onto branches and flapped in the breeze.
The cobbled stone road that passed through each portion of the realm was bordered in black stones and black banners that waved forlornly. Even the sea that edged the mighty kingdom so far in the distance had turned the color of liquid tar.
And where Diana and her companions gathered in a field near the base of a waterfall, the somber color surrounded them at every turn. The rain water that normally poured from the cliffs so high above, thundering to the ground in white-capped glory, was now as black as the mourning oceans. The flowers in the field, all manner of wild blooms, had darkened to take on the shade of the late Damon Chroi’s beautiful sable hair.
The procession had moved without a word, and though lightning ringed the kingdom, a show of celestial agony the clouds could no longer hide, the sky in its deference continued to hold back its tears. Diana walked beside the casket, which had been carefully created of pure emerald. Through this precious green crystal, she could see the blurred and faint features of her lover.
He would stay like this forever, they’d told her. The fae did not decompose. They simply slept for all eternity, as beautiful in death as they had been in life.
It was fortunate. Because she’d also been told that resurrection was so much easier when the body was fresh.
Now, everyone who would not be involved in the complicated spell stepped back and afforded the others room. They seemed to be holding a collective breath, and Diana couldn’t blame them. She was short of breath herself.
The emerald coffin was released to levitate three feet off the ground at the center of the black bloomed field. Several feet away rested a round stone platform, atop which had been piled an enormous stack of kindling and wood.
A ge
ntle breeze brushed through the ebon petals of the field that stretched around them as the Seelie and Unseelie kings each approached the casket, placing their palms against it. The coffin’s lid shimmered away first. When it was gone, the sides shimmered out of existence as well, leaving Damon Chroi resting in death atop a floating sheet of pure gemstone.
Diana didn’t need to be signaled or told. Her feet carried her to his side automatically. As she neared him, her eyes roving over the curves and angles of his sleeping face, she caught the scent of rain. Still. Even in death.
Lalura Chantelle took her place at Damon’s other side, joined there by the Warlock King, Jason Alberich. Then the old witch turned to the small crowd and nodded at Dannai Caige, who had been carrying a lit torch.
Dannai lowered the torch to eye level and spoke to it. “That’s your cue, Pi. Call the others. We need a big one, please.”
The small fire elemental dancing on the end of the torch grinned so big, Diana could even see it from where she stood. “I’m on it!”
Dannai lowered the torch to the prepared sticks and logs. The flame leapt from the torch to the kindling and disappeared beneath the wood. A puff of smoke escaped the canopy of wood and dissipated into the air.
The crowd watched the wood in silence. For several long seconds, nothing happened.
And then Dannai leapt back, startled to the point of stumbling into her husband as the entire enormous stack of flammable material combusted, exploding outward before shrinking back to the size of a large bonfire. The clearing was washed in radiating warmth. Diana could see various new faces swimming in the depths of the conflagration, at least three dozen of them. Perhaps more.
Pi had done his part. The fire elementals would lend not only their heat and flame to the spell, but their innate supernatural power as well.
Lalura turned away from the fire and faced Diana. “Are you ready?”