Not A Sovereign
DAPHNE
I’ve seen paintings before of places like I’m standing in now. With toadstools the size of trees and pixies no larger than my hand. Faeries that flit from flower to flower, their stems to waist high and with blossoms bigger than my very own head.
In Hadimere, I always wondered if such a place existed and now I know.
Yes. Yes it does.
The soil beneath my boots is not so leeched of life as the soil within the trench from which we came. Not a pallid, desperate gray but a deep, rich chocolate speckled with glimmering yellow-green stones and bright aquamarine moss sprouted with tiny blush-colored flowers. The high ceiling is spiked with unmined gems that glow with a light to bask what lay beneath. The walls of this great cave are lined with doors made from what appears to be the dead bark of the woods above. There are fifty on each side at least. As if the faeries that dwell here made a home of this place. As if they somehow created a city beneath the earth, which according to Magda, is exactly what they did.
Though… they had help.
Magda says my mother yielded this place. A great feat that she barely managed before she disappeared into the Mortal Realm. Invented to serve as a sort of refuge for the Hidden Fae who feared the False King’s wrath and unjust laws. The fae that couldn’t return home.
It has remained secret from the Meadow King all this time and according to Magda is only half the size of the Forest of Whispering Leaves in Hadimere.
Small, but giant at the same time. Because what this place protects is the gateway to my origins. To the one place that my mother never granted her husband access. To the Missing Meadow… the Hidden Realm.
I’m as excited as a child on Saint’s Day as I take a seat at Lohan’s small kitchen table with Klyesque at my side and Magda across from us.
Once most of the faeries had gotten over the shock of meeting me, Clayeira’s daughter, the lost one - or so they referred to me as - Magda made the announcement that we would be traveling to the gate and that all that wished to join us need prepare. That put a significant end to my royal welcome as suddenly the entire cave was a flurry of movement. It seemed everyone wanted to go.
Now we sit in one of the lower-level cave dwellings, a tiny hold in the wall that boasts about as much space as the cottage I grew up in. Although it is sparsely decorated, it is quite cozy and exactly how I imagined faerie’s home might look. In the main room there is exactly one table made from a shortened toadstool and bark, a homemade bookshelf riddled with different herb jars and trinkets, and four tottering chairs built from braids of sturdy stems and blue moss. Here is where we take our lunch from the saddle bags that Klyesque packed for us and here is where we have decided to talk while Lohan packs his more precious items in his bedroom.
“I sent word to the Shadow King the very day I passed through the Northern Gate,” Magda says softly. “The bird that carries his reply has yet to return to me, but I have no doubt he received my message, for it was his beast that found me when I crossed. A shadow hawk, he sent. One of the rarer breed of bird with abilities much like that of your steed. Only shadow royalty can command the shadow beasts in the way that he can. Sylve is shadow royalty now but her origins are of Vael, not Phantom and she was born to a noble, not a king. So as far as the wilder fae are concerned - she is not one of them. And well, the hawks-” she laughs “-they’d spear her before they’d spy for her. Ergo, they do not answer to anyone other than Bastian.”
“Bastian?” I question, taking a deep drink of the water provided in a large, petal made cup that was thrust upon me by Lohan before he dove into his chamber. It’s so delicious and refreshing that for a moment I close my eyes and when I reopen them, I almost swear that I can see better, that I feel less weary… even rejuvenized. How odd.
Magda meets my gaze with a smile in her eyes and says, “Bastian Drauger, born prince of the isle, the Shadow King. Your father and might I add, probably one of the most dashingly handsome fae ever to grace the realms.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I suppress a shiver. “Your mother was his match in many a way. Both of them entirely too beautiful for their own good and both of them betrothed to imbeciles. Such a shame that they did not meet until after their marriages were sealed.”
“What a moment!” I exclaim, a frown creasing my brow. “He’s married?”
Magda nods gravely. “He is. As was your mother when you were conceived.”
“So the only proof that I am his and not this… this Meadow-”
“Ah!” Magda warns with a shake of her head. “Do not speak it until your magic has-”
“-been restored, yes, yes, I remember,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “The false one, then. How are you so certain that I am not his?”
“Because your mother only ever laid with that bastard twice, she hated him so. Once years before you were born, and the second time… right after she realized she was pregnant by Bastian. And that time she only did so to cast doubt upon your birth should you ever need to, but it was folly in the end because what the false one planned for you was unheard of, and… unlawful.”
“What did he plan,” Klesque spits through clench teeth and I can see how angry she is becoming just hearing this tale.
Magda’s eyes sparkle. “The same as many others. To sacrifice her to the Tithe and steal her magic, his very own child. Can you believe that?”
“Somehow, I do,” Klyesque clips out. “But it is illegal and he’d have been hunted down!”
Magda snorts, “Perhaps. But Clayeira knew what he did not and that practice is only outlawed between kin. Meaning-”
I gasp, “Meaning he would have taken everything from me, because I am not his.”
Magda nods. “Exactly.”
Now it is I that is anxious. “We must hurry. We go now.”