Lileas placed upon the plate an apple, a pear, and a fruit as pink as maiden’s blush. “Correct.”
“And since there is no dawn, there must be some way to mark the new day’s beginning. So, by custom it is when the queen awakes?” This struck me as a lot of power to have.
Lileas sliced the bread and served it, then sat beside me on the bed, holding the plate of food. “Not exactly. It is difficult to explain, and I know your heart has many things on which to dwell.” She took the bread and tore it, brought it to my lips. Feeding me as Thomas had Margaret of Roxburgh.
A pang struck me then, as if a thorn pierced into my heart.
I bit into the bread she offered, honey-sweet and yeasty, enough to make me swoon. Yet I caught Lileas by the slender wrist and stopped her. Her eyebrows lifted, golden brushstrokes on the perfection of her face.
“I am accustomed to doing it myself,” I told her.
Lileas lowered her hands, chastened, head bowed like a young novitiate about to take vows. “As you wish.” She passed the plate of food to me and made to stand.
“Wait.” I caught her arm again. I did not want her to go. I might not yet know how to use an attendant or a chatelaine.
I still needed a friend.
I tilted my chin towards her and lifted my brows. “Explain to me how the day starts when I awake? What of the day laborers, the baker who must awaken before dawn, the farmers who rise with the sun?” In a land with no sun, somehow both underneath and alongside the mortal realm. My head began to ache.
Lileas smiled indulgently as she took her seat again. “I forget how new it is to you. Not only your title but this very place itself.” She cocked her head while looking into my eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Overwhelmed, honestly.” I took a pear and bit into it. ’Twas the perfect ripeness, as sweet and juicy as any I had ever tasted.
“No doubt. But physically?”
“I feel well.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Is that all?”
I chewed my fruit with relish and considered her words. I felt... rested. More than well rested. Like I had slumbered the winter away and awakened to an eternal spring. “I feel restored. No, that is not strong enough. Reborn. Like the world and I were only birthed this morn.”
A phoenix, yes, but scrawny and wet from the newness of my birth.
Lileas reached out and clasped my hand. Her face radiated beauty, as though bathed with sunlight, green eyes fresh and new as spring. “The world feels that way as well,” she said kindly. “It restores itself while you slumber, lives the day away while you do, and when you have both become fully exhausted, it is time for you to go to bed. Or sometimes it will be the opposite; you shall be driven by the strains put upon the land, and the hungers it feels. As I told you, you are Faery, and Faery is you.”
“And when I was gone?” In my mind’s eye, I saw a desert of stone, trees dead and twisted, their leaves gone. The scent of bone dust and metal invaded my nose.
She stared into the distance, jaw tight, mouth grown thin. “It did not thrive. There was none to feed the land. Some say the Dark Fool tried to take matters into his own hands, to no avail. Faery needed its queen.”
From years distant, the memories returned: ringing bridles and hoofbeats outside the Grieve house on a stormy night, when I was but six years old.Ye shall not have her, Mairi screamed out, and though there were eight of us children, four still at home, I knew, as she did, they came for me.
Another memory floated to the surface: a heaviness in the air followed by unearthly laughter as Mairi stumbled to the ground. She took ill for the next five years, and never again was right in the head.
With one touch I bring pleasure, with another, paralysis, madness, death, yet my victims will crave it all in the end.So had the Dark Fool boasted, and ever had I noticedhisfingers were as long as those that brushed against Mairi’s cheek.
He might have been punishing her if she did not give him what he desired. If the Teind he wished to pay was me.
When we first met, he spoke of the Teind gone yet unpaid. He showed me a vision of Faery as a barren wasteland, was disappointed I did not immediately suss out its meaning, said I was not ready to help.
Was I now? Did he seek an alliance, or something darker?
Are you friend or foe, Dark Fool?Why should I care? He was not here.
Lileas clapped her hands upon her lap. “These are dark matters for a time which should be filled with celebration. Our queen has returned.” She raised her hand to my cheek, dropped it again before she made contact. “Faery will thrive while you do. Do eat up, Your Majesty. You have a long day ahead of you, and your coronation is nigh.” She stood and made a clicking noise at the two hobs, who scurried out the door behind her.
Leaving the phoenix chick alone to try her wings.
Thirty-Two
