All That Glows (36 page)

I breathe in, the dawn air dewy and deep in my lungs. “So our—our connection saved him?”

“It takes true love to die for someone.” The older Fae stares at Richard. Admiration, bare but bright, gilds her face as she takes him in. “That love, that bond you both share, saved him.”

“What happened at the court?” I ask.

Titania’s expression hardens. “There was no warning. There were too many soul feeders, hundreds upon hundreds. A whole swarm of them. In the end though, it was Mab who trapped us. She lured us into the throne room. It was then I saw the sickness in her eyes. I ran, the other court members held the way long enough for me to escape. I knew of the gathering at Windsor—I was there when Mab received your letter. I knew I had to come warn you, before her army came.”

“This is all well and good, but I have yet to receive my payment,” Herne interrupts. In all of his sulking silence I’d forgotten he was there.

I turn to face our growling ally, pulling myself to my full height. “My magic is yours. I don’t want it anymore. I want to be with Richard, to be mortal.”

Slight, silvery gasps from the other Faeries fill the clearing. Titania’s expression goes sour then sharp, as if she wants very badly to say something. Richard is the only one smiling.

“So be it,” Herne says in his typical brusque fashion.

My eyes squeeze shut and my whole body grows rigid as I brace myself. I don’t know what to expect: pain, emptiness, or at least a little discomfort from the separation.

“Your Majesty, may I?”

Richard’s hand slips out of mine to be replaced by Herne’s rough gloves. My skin prickles like ant bites as he probes beneath it, seeking a good grasp on my magic. In the end, my power finds him. It flows toward Herne like a magnet. For a moment I feel like a ship off ballast, all heavy on one end. Then it leaves.

It isn’t what I thought it would be. Not a draining but a weight, shedding off of my chest. Weakness takes over. I feel cemented to the earth, a wizened old oak that’s lost the desire even to sway. I open my eyes, find Richard. He stands close; his smile gives me something to cling to. It fills the strange absence of my magic.

Herne pulls away, all suddenness and jerk. Not all of my magic is gone. I feel the last dregs of it stirring in me. I look up at the woodlord, eyes narrowed.

“I’ve left you some,” he explains.

“I want all of it gone!” My hand goes out again. “Please.”

He shakes his head, the twin spiral of his horns dig into the deepening sapphire of the sky. “You should never forget what you were. Don’t worry. It’s not enough to stave off death. It’s not even enough to do anything more than a minor spell.”

He’s right. There’s hardly any magic left. It coats my insides like a thin film of oil. All of it gathered together is enough for a mending spell or something equally small. I blink and pass a few fingers over my stomach. The nausea is gone. All of it. It’s been so long since I haven’t felt the sickness.

“It worked?” Richard’s question is soft, barely there.

I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. This kiss is different from all of the others. It’s pure, unhinged. There’s no danger between our lips. I don’t have to worry about breaking him like a doll. It’s just him and me, together.

It’s like I’m diving into him, swimming down, down and never coming up for air. And I never want to. His tongue grazes mine, inviting me deeper. To places I could never go in the presence of so many watchers. Still, these waters are full of sunlight and joy.

“Yes,” I whisper back between breathless kisses. “I’m one of you now.”

I don’t let Richard out of my sight. Not when he returns to the castle to wake up his stunned sister. Not when the other Fae cluster around him in amazement. Not when we go to visit Breena’s final resting place. I keep my hand always wrapped in his, afraid that if I let him go, I won’t be able to get him back. That this will all prove a dream.

It’s Titania who finally breaks us, drawing up beside us as we stand over my friend’s grave. “Your Majesty, do you mind if I speak with Emrys alone?”

Richard doesn’t reply, he only squeezes my shoulder and looks down at me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, even though my insides are frantic to stay close.

I know he feels the same. There’s reluctance in the way his arm slides from me.

“I won’t be long,” Titania promises.

Goose bumps plague my skin as soon as Richard pulls away. I shiver when a breeze whips past and cross my arms over my chest. I’ve never felt so bare before, stripped of magic and without Richard. It’s a strange feeling, being so exposed and raw. But I won’t trade it. Not if it means being with him. Being whole.

Titania waits until the king is beyond hearing. We’re alone in the yard.

“You did well, Emrys.”

I look at Titania. Her face is like Mab’s used to be—unreadable and without cracks—encasing secrets. I turn her words over in my head.
Well. You did well.
That statement feels so far from the truth, now that I’m standing by Breena’s grave.

“You protected the crown. You did what needed to be done. The Guard will be sad to lose your services.” Titania pauses. “You’re sure you won’t reconsider? I have some sway with Herne. I can get him to return your magic.”

How can I explain to her that none of this was for the Guard or the crown? That it was all for Richard? For a life and a future with him? “I—I can’t.”

Silence holds the duchess for a moment. The wind wreathes through her hair, sparking off brilliant glints of light. “Mab was in love once, you know.”

Mab?
I think back to the rabid creature in the woods, the one that scorned my love for Richard. “What?”

“She loved the Pendragon. It’s one of the reasons she bound all of us to him. She wanted to keep him safe from Mordred and all the soul feeders that were out for his blood.”

“Mab loved Arthur?” I can barely believe the words I’m saying. They sound absurd coming from my lips.

“She never told anyone. Not even him. I only knew because I plied the truth out of her. I thought an alliance with the mortals wouldn’t be in our best interests and I told her so. It soon became clear that she’d let emotions interfere with politics.” Titania sighs, a sound full of years and loss. “When Guinevere left to become the Pendragon’s queen, it crushed Mab’s heart. I thought it might be the end of her—but she was stronger than that.”

Memories of Mab’s wrath after Guinevere’s choice return. I see them in a new light, from the other side of the looking glass. It wasn’t Guinevere’s loss that our queen was mourning, but her chance at King Arthur’s heart.

“I suppose though, she always held a seed of resentment against the crown after that. As deeply as she buried it, she couldn’t protect it from the madness. When it started stealing her reason, she took all that anger against the crown and started wreaking her revenge. As twisted as it was . . .” The duchess’s words fade, eyes hazy with memory.

For some reason the betrayal seems easier to accept, now that there’s some pain, some emotion behind Mab’s actions.

“I’m staying with Richard,” I tell her. “It’s what I need to do.”

“It’s your choice.” The way Titania says this makes me think she wished it wasn’t.

A cough, brutal and filled with pain, racks Titania’s body. I hear the blood rattling just behind her lungs. Despite the closeness of Herne’s woods, the Fae is too old to be here.

“You’re going back north?” I ask, my question pointed. It would only do harm for her to stay, inviting the madness.

“It seems I must,” she admits between coughs. “There will be much to tend to in light of Mab’s unmaking. Herne has told me of the accord he struck with King Richard.”

“Yes . . . the world will be very different now. For the better, I think.”

“Such hope. Such youth.” Hair like water-strung comets pours over Titania’s shoulders as she laughs. The sound rings like a church bell, full of sorrow. “The world has always been spinning forward, evolving. . . . Only time will tell us what difference this will make. But I hope, youngling, I hope for all our sakes that you are right.”

It’s strange, looking at her and knowing our worlds are now severed. I won’t be in the court when the new queen rises from the swell of courtiers. I will not watch as the strongest, most ruthless of the Fae first rests on Mab’s earthy throne. But there’s little doubt in me which Frithemaeg it will be. Titania’s sway in the court is already strong. Not many will challenge her.

“Peace be with you, sister,” I say.

She nods. “And with you.”

Those words mark the end of my life as I know it. The end of Fae and the Guard. The end of spells and soul feeders. The end of forever.

There’s a light on in Richard’s window, clear and dazzling despite the late morning sun. I run to it.

Thirty-Four

M
ortality is a sweet, terrible cup. I’ve learned to drink it slowly, day by day. The weeks seem longer than before, filled with complicated duties. Introducing magic into the mortal’s world is no easy task, but it’s one Richard has accepted wholeheartedly. They laughed at him, Parliament, the press, all of them. Then the Fae began appearing. The mortals were terrified at first. But after several silver-tongued speeches, Richard put most of their fears and misgivings to rest.

I’ve become an ambassador of sorts: the go-between for magic and mortal. My days are filled with reports from the surviving Fae and interviews with the clamoring press. It’s hard without Breena. I miss her every day, and that ache refuses to go away.

Even in the middle of all this chaos, we still find time together: stolen, candlelit dinners, strolls down the river in the last long draws of autumn light. Some evenings we’re too exhausted to talk much. We just enjoy each other’s company: strokes of the arm, the brief, tingling meeting of lips.

This evening, walking along the Thames beneath the amber sunset, Richard’s face looks especially agitated. I hook my arm into his, walking nimbly over the pattern of gray-brown stones.

“What’s wrong?” I catch glimpses of shadows behind us, Richard’s human security, following at a distance. And somewhere, on the other side of the river, Ferrin keeps watch.

“Long day.” He shrugs, rakes his stray hairs back with his fingers. “We talked about the concept of magically infused technology in Parliament.”

“Oh? How’d they take it?”

“There were lots of questions, of course. You’ll have to go talk to them. They want to know about all of the different properties of magic: its reliability and safety. Things like that. I don’t even know where to begin with that stuff.”

“You? The most magical of us both?” I tease him with a jab between the ribs.

He jerks back, bumping into the river barrier. “Hey, now! I might have to hex you or something.”

“I’d like to see you try.” I smirk. Richard’s magic, though powerful, was never like mine. It works on its own terms. He hasn’t quite gotten a handle on it.

“Will you see them?” he asks after our playful banter dies.

“If that would make it easier for you. But I’m going north to meet with Titania tomorrow to talk about the redistribution of the Guard and policing London for soul feeders. She’s just been appointed the new queen.” News I greeted with relief. Despite my past differences with Titania, her blunt ruthlessness is what it takes to run a kingdom of Fae.

“How did they decide that?”

“It’s mostly an age thing. . . . But I think most of the older ones didn’t want the job—it’s a lot of responsibility.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he laughs.

“It’s good it’s not one of the older ones,” I go on. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mab.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s Titania. I like her.” Richard wraps his arm around me, steers me in his own direction.

“Where are we going?” I forget Titania and all of the meetings.

“I want to show you something.”

We cross a street thick with traffic and walk along the bridge over the river. It’s soon obvious where we’re going. Straight ahead is a structure of such power and elegance that all of London revolves around it: Parliament’s clock tower.

We climb the limestone steps all the way to the tower’s iconic clock face. Fire-flared, tangerine sun-rays fill the glass around the lacing black iron. I stand, admiring the web of light.

“My father used to bring me up here when I was a boy. He loved clocks. Loved the gears, all of it.” Richard lets out a little laugh. There’s only a hint of the old sadness in his eyes. “Of course, you probably remember that.”

“I wasn’t with you then,” I whisper, entranced by the show of color. The light ebbs, fading into pale rose before the glass returns to frost white.

“That was just a sideshow,” Richard tells me, and walks back to the stairs. “The real view is up here.”

We climb a few floors above the cloudy clock face.

My heart aches at the height. I hold my breath and look out on the blooming night lights of London. One by one they flicker on, like harmonic, long-lived lightning bugs. The view is bittersweet: a breathtaking reminder that I’ll never fly again.

“You showed me my kingdom once,” Richard says, coming up behind me. He wraps his arms around my waist and gazes out onto the glowing landscape. “You showed me what I could be. You showed me how much you loved me and believed in me.”

I clasp his hands tighter to me. Being up so high, without the reassurance of magic, has made me a bit dizzy.

He hugs me closer. “None of this would have happened without you, Emrys. It’s just as much your kingdom as it is mine.”

London’s lights form patterns—an electric cosmos riddled with constellations. I squint my eyes and they become a blur. A single, blinding brightness.

“Do you remember what you asked me at Windsor? The night you made your choice?” Richard moves to my side. The wind bites my back where he once stood. “You made me promise that this—us—would be forever.”

I turn from the smearing lights and stare at Richard. He’s looking down at me, eyes smoky and intense.

“It’s you and me now, Embers. And one day, someday, we’ll tell the whole world that. But for now all I can offer you is this.” His hand slips into the pocket of his trousers and pulls out a small velvet box. “It’s a symbol of my promise.”