A chill seized me, and all around us, the air grew cold. The breeze picked up, teasing loose tendrils from my intricate braids. Goose bumps prickled over my exposed shoulders and collarbones. Half the tarrans in the tree branches grew dim. Dark clouds amassed like the Hunt overhead, threatening rain.
I looked to Lyel in some alarm.
His pale eyes stared ahead, expressionless. “The grove is beautiful because you are,” he said. “You are Faery and Faery is you.” Just as Lileas had told me that morning. It fell heavier upon my ears now.
I had been content, joyful even, and the weather had been clear; the pixies danced merrily, and all around me was as spring in bloom. One wistful touch of melancholy, however, and the weather threatened to turn as well. Faery reflected how I felt whether I wished it to or not.
Must I now maintain my emotions, my very spirit, lest by contagion the land itself should suffer?I thought of my wasteland visions and shuddered inside.
How could one person carry all that, and allow herself to feel anything at all?
Who do you become, I had once asked Thomas,when everyone who told you who you were is gone?
Anyone you want, Thomas had replied.
The shepherd king had lied.
Because I am Faery, and Faery is me.
It was less freedom than I had ever known.
All manner of fae creatures had gathered for my coronation, from the tiny pixies to giants so broad and tall I could only see their legs, barely distinguishable from the oak trees surrounding them. So many beautiful and outlandish creatures, dressed in their richest finery: silk and velvet, feathers and blossoms and leaves. Some creatures did not bother with clothing, but shone their horns as smooth as glass, or dotted their shaggy hair with blossoms, clay beads, and stones. And those were just the fae I could see. There must be others, for we are creatures bred of shadow, oft spied only from the corner of the eye.
I walked among them: Aos Sith to sylph, moss maiden to nixie, each more radiant than the last. Like the blazing sunset they were to the mortals’ skies of grey. Once I would have shrunk beside them, feeling myself fleshy and plain, but now I must believe myself their equal in loveliness, in grace, in that indescribable sense of the numinous radiating through our skin. Yet, at the same time, I recalled the rough touch of a shepherd’s fingers against my once-fuller hips, cupping my heavier breasts, and a tang of melancholy flooded me that I could never let reach my face.
A choir of panpipes played, their music interwoven with wordless singing, somewhere between human voices and birdsong, beautiful enough it made me cry. If heartbreak had a sound, if joy a melody, the song contained them all.
It reminded me of a flute, played light and seductive, or deep and mournful, as the howl of a wolf.
If all Faery assembles here, where is the Dark Fool?
I told myself it did not matter. Amadan said he was second in power only to the queen. Well,Iwas that queen. I should care as little for his opinions as he had that half-blood changeling girl.
Yet in all of Faery, at least Amadan had been a familiar face.
I stumbled slightly, and Lyel caught me.
“Your Majesty, are you all right?” Concern furrowed his brow.
How appropriate. For wasn’t the Dark Fool like a pebble in my path? “Where is he?” I whispered. “Where is the Fool?”
“My apologies,” said Lyel, “but a coronation is a serious occasion, not one which needs his brand of entertainment. We can summon him for the feast afterwards if you like.”
I more than liked. Ineeded. Something told me I must keep an eye upon Amadan.
“Find him,” I said with more urgency that I should have displayed. I placed my free hand to my breast and took a deep breath, giving a reassuring smile. “’Twill be a merry feast indeed then.”
Lyel nodded and made a discreet gesture to a guardsman on the edge of the crowd, who then disappeared.
We moved on, gliding across the grass as though our feet barely touched the ground. Behind us, fair sylphs tended to my train. In front of me, a child skipped, tossing petals from his basket, dressed in green, with a jaunty cap upon his red-gold curls. When he reached the center of the grove, the wee bairn bowed, peeling off to join a little goat boy around the same age. They clasped hands and giggled, prating to each other in a tongue only they might understand.
I recognized the boy.
Wee Jamie.
Here in Faeryland, as I had promised. Safe, with no one to ever raise a hand to him again.
My heart grew full. I clasped my hand to my breast, blinking back the tears.He has even made a friend.
