The Promised Daughter's Return
DAPHNE
“You are angry,” I say to Klyesque when we are seated in the dining hall enjoying a luxurious breakfast much like the one we enjoyed before we ventured down the river. However, this time, instead of bacon there are deliciously crisp slices of some sort of charred beast that I believe Dionie introduced to me as phelox.
Beast? Or was it a bird?
Or is a bird a beast?
Whatever.
The point is, I have just found my new favorite breakfast treat.
“I am not angry,” Klyesque snarls under her breath as a few of the guardsmen, her guardsmen, scuttle past as if they too can sense their captain’s wrath. “I am pissed. Fuming. Anger is too romantic a word for what I am feeling at the moment and I beg you Daphne, take care to tame your pompous prince as best you can tonight, for tomorrow he might sight himself at the end of my blade for wagging his arrogant tongue.” She sneers, stabbing a thick piece of roast pig with the needlepoint of a dagger. “Lock me in a cell, will you? Ha! I’d like to see him try.”
Giggling while I chew, I nearly choke to death on a piece of fruit. Klyesque hands me a goblet of sweet juice and I guzzle it down as she leans toward my ear. “Tonight while you beguile your prince I shall procure the appropriate maps for us. There aren’t many routes that will take us around the realms, but I do happen to know of one that may lead us between kingdoms. It’s called the Alley. Used only in the past by lesser Fae without high magic. And mortals, once enslaved, that were smuggled home through the Lost Gate. It’s rumored to lead around the very western portions of the Woodland Realm, in a trench that was drained of magic. I have seen the trail once, when I was younger. I know precisely which map we’ll need for our journey.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I whisper, eyeing a couple of maids that wander past, the pair of them gazing over at me as if I am an animal put on display. “Are we not welcome in the other realms as we were in the land of Cinder?”
Klyesque smiles, taking a large chunk out of her meat with two of her four razor sharp incisors. “Oh Daphne, trust that the only one welcome in Cinder was you. The rest of us were merely tolerated. As far as the Woodlands… you are more than welcome there,” she says softly, reaching beneath the table to gather my hand in her own. “The people, for the most part, have been under false rule for over eighteen turns. He who resides there, he who sits upon the throne, he is not the favored choice. Many of the Fae who make their home there would seek the promised daughter’s return.” She fixes me with a pointed look. “Queen Clayeira was loved by many and there are those who lie in wait seeking any sign of her magic. But they are not the issue. The issue is-”
“Him,” I finish for her, fondling the whistle tucked behind my tunic and thinking of Celeste.
“Exactly,” Klyesque affirms. “Don’t get me wrong, he would welcome you as well… in fact, he likely already seeks you, but those are chains that he would dress you with, and poison that he would use to sate your hunger. Not to mention the Dracuum that roam the forests. Unless you’re willing to practice your magic on them, I think the Alley is our best bet.”
“We will needs clothes and supplies, will we not? Horses?” I whisper, turning my head toward the door on my left when I hear the echo of booted feet behind the wall.
“Not to worry. I will prepare everything.” She releases my hand just as the door begins to slide open and she whispers, “Do not forget the book.”
I nod tightly, just as Ash steps out of the shadowed hall beyond the strange stone door and steps toward our seats. He fixes me with the oddest look. It is suspicion and disbelief, longing and fear, all at the same time and I avert my gaze from his haunting gray orbs because I can’t bear to see him looking at me that way a moment longer. I tire of it so desperately that I could almost wish myself blind.
“I have news,” Ash says rather loudly, and the entire table, Dionie and Petra, Klyesque and myself, grant him our undivided attention. Despite that I’d rather throw meat at him. “News… that cannot - will not leave this room-” his eyes slide toward Klyesque “-until I have returned from the North.”
“What news?” Klyesque practically spits the words with a snobbish jilt of her chin. “Or shall I guess?”
Ash glares, a frightening swirl of red energy dancing in his eyes for a moment. “Dionie, secure the space.”
Dionie leaps to his feet, maneuvering around the room as he seals off the archways and latches the doors. Once he resumes his seat, Ash approaches the dais, stepping up next to the table and focusing his attention on me.
No… not on me… on my stomach.
“It appears that the witch did in fact speak the truth,” he says quietly, still staring at my belly. “The curse…”
“It’s broken?!” Petra chirps excitedly only to be hushed by Dionie’s hand over her mouth.
Ash’s eyes glow silver white for a moment, then gray, then red, then a mingle of each and they are so mystically beautiful that I can hardly stand to look at them for too long. “The curse that would have ended my line, my mother’s line… appears to have been broken. My mother-” he pauses, lifting his eyes toward Klyesque’s “-she wakes. After eighteen cycles… she has simply returned.”
Dionie and Petra begin squealing with joy until a sharp look from Ash ends their fervor.
Klyesue says nothing, simply continues to eat, elegant teal eyebrows wrought for the ceiling in a sort of pretentious nod.
“Which means,” Ash returns his gaze to my stomach, “that you more than likely carry my child-”
“More than likely?!” I growl, unable to contain my fury at his remark. “I ought to…” I search the table for something expendable, something disgusting… something I can throw.
For the first time in days, that devilishly handsome smirk that I fell for so easily in the mortal realm tilts the corner of his lips and he suddenly dives for me, lifting me out of my seat and into his arms. Cradling me close to his chest, with the warmth of his body and the strength of his muscles all around me, he whispers, “We should speak alone.”
His eyes find mine and the fear I see there is more than a little troubling. “Okay.”
With a final glance at Klyesque, I am carted away.