Which do not feel at all like I expected them to. Instead of stone, I’m met with the feel of something warm and supple. Not quite liquid, but not quite stone either. It’s like the point right before the thick glass used for the palace windows becomes the impenetrable barrier that can withstand even the hardest of volleys.
It feels as if there’s a fire burning beneath his skin, and I can’t say it’s unwelcome. His heat extends to me as we fly across the slight crescents of the thirteen Lunaterra moons.
Until he begins a sudden descent, and a large statue of a perhaps apocryphal animal from the old planet comes into view. It has a wide, portly body, large ears, and a long trunk where its nose should be.
Elephim!
I recognize the kingdom immediately since I was here just a couple of solars ago for the wedding of Princess Seraphyne’s sister to their weak-chinned second prince, who was technically also her second cousin. (The Stone Fae King wasn’t completely wrong with that inbreeding accusation.)
My heart soars with a new joy as the Stone Fae King slowly lowers me to the ground, allowing me to release my death grip on his heavily muscled forearms.
What a terrific idea! All we have to do is talk to the royal family. They’ll vouch that I am not the Stone Bride Princess of Aralysse, that I am only her lowly…
My words trail off when I search for but do not find the great palace that sits beneath the giant statue that can be seen from as far a distance as the northern seas. It’s considered a beacon by the desert traders who cross vast dunes to reach our fertile lands. And the Elephim Light Palace is considered one of the Four Wonders of the Stone Kingdom, along with the Aralysse gardens my father’s line has tended for generations.
But now, only a huge swath of darkness remains where the palace once stood, its windows always lit through the night, as if to show off their plentiful stores of the light energy the Aralysse palace only uses in case of emergency.
Maybe I got the location wrong? The eldest princess’s wedding was over two solars ago…
But then the sound of a match lighting comes again, and I sense the lantern being raised—this time behind me to illuminate the space beneath the statue.
There’s… nothing there. Only stone and an assortment of rubble I can’t make out. But one piece looks an awful lot like a toppled throne.
“Would you like me to escort you to the royal family?” the smoke-and-glass voice offers behind me.
I cling to that offer, thinking maybe they’ve decided to move.
But when I turn to face the Stone Fae King, all hope dies in my chest.
Holding the lantern high, he extends his arm toward a collection of tents, fires flickering sporadically between them.
It looks like something out of one of the ancient stories about how our human ancestors crashed on this planet. Rude and desperate. People eking out an existence in the wake of catastrophe.
But… how?
Elephim is the second richest of the four lesser kingdoms in the Stone Lands, with a lit-up city that had made me wish I’d been born there instead of in Aralysse—where the farming peasants live in simple shacks unless you have a special talent to offer the palace, like my father and all the royal gardeners before him.
“Where’s their grand palace? Their city of lights?”
I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until the Stone Fae King answers, “The Elephim King broke his pact with us. We caught him trading with the ruler of the Desert Deadlands, offering them a share of the gifts that were due to us.”
Gifts. That’s what the Stone Fae call the sixty-percent cut of every product produced in the kingdoms they “protect.”
“This is what becomes of oath-breakers who do not appreciate our protection,” he says, his voice utterly emotionless. “We left them their fields. Let them scrape by on roots and ash. Rebuilding will give them something to do while they reflect on their disloyalty.”
Anger surges inside me, too hot to care who I’m talking to. “You punished all of these innocent people… for their king’s crime?”
He stares at me, completely unrepentant. “With the Stone Fae, you are always given a choice. He was given one after we discovered his duplicity. His life, along with that of his two heirs, or watch his kingdom be razed. He chose the latter.”
Of course he did.
Resentment rises like bile in my throat. Royals always choose themselves.
“Now, you have a choice, Princess Seraphyne.”
The Stone Fae King’s voice slices through my fury, precise and merciless.
“Recant your obvious lie about not being the princess. Or keep insisting that it’s true.”
