11. Mendax
11
MENDAX
C aly and Aurelius stared blankly at the young girl in the doorway. Unsurprised, I craned my neck to get a better look inside. For a moment, no one said a word as they stood there in shock.
“ You’re the weathered?” Caly asked.
“Told you so,” I mumbled under my breath in Aurelius’s direction.
The puzzled fae scrunched up his tan face. “Told me what?”
So dumb. “That the weathered would be here,” I said quietly.
“I’m the one who guided us here,” he said, squinting at me.
The girl pushed the last piece of golden-brown breakfast in her mouth. “Fine, you can come in, but don’t ask me to do anything, or I’ll get really mad,” the girl said, making sure each of her words dripped with as much attitude as she could infuse it with.
She rolled her eyes but stepped back and let us inside the small house. When I walked past her, I realized just how small she really was.
“How old are you?” I demanded as I stopped in front of her. Abnormally large, vibrant, blue eyes locked with mine, squinting at me. I remained still, waiting for her to answer before quickly realizing that had been her answer. I’d only met one or two other goddesses in my lifetime, and every one of them had been filled with attitude. There was no telling how old she really was.
She slammed the front door closed and moved to the front of our small group, huffing and rolling her eyes with every step, making certain we knew what an inconvenience this was for her. She wore a cream frock with a little lightning bolt embroidered on the front pocket.
As soon as we moved past the entryway, I realized what a strong glamour the dilapidated building had been under. It was still far from being a mansion, but the inside showed a significantly larger interior than the outside led one to believe. Inside, the home was nicely kept and tidy with a small number of children’s toys scattered neatly on the ground in the front room. The old woman who had greeted us at the door sat in a chair watching over three younger-looking children.
The girl guided us to the back, into a modest-sized room with one window.
“Don’t sit on my bed,” she snapped.
Caly and Aurelius moved a stool and a chair near the bed to sit, while I remained standing. The room was plain with only a few small paintings and pieces of furniture that matched the dark wood of the small bed. Aside from the bed, there was a small wooden fold-down desk with a few stacks of books. I glanced at the books, curious to get a better idea of what exactly we were dealing with—almanacs and astrology.
“So the snow. We need you to stop it. Please, uh, Jamie.” Caly sweetly spoke as she slumped down in her chair. I watched the lines of her long legs bend and stretch as she got comfortable. She was much more tired than she wanted us to know. And Aurelius and I were not regaining our magic as quickly as we needed to be to sustain us at this level.
The girl ignored Caly and instead made eye contact with me. In passing, she looked like a teenage human with her rounded ears, but the second you got closer or held the woman’s gaze, you felt the power of a goddess wafting from her. “You know anything about the weather?” she asked me, completely ignoring the other two for the moment.
I didn’t answer right away, for no particular reason other than I didn’t want to. I wasn’t in the habit of being pushed around by tiny weather goddesses. As eager as I was to get back to Unseelie and finally have Caly all to myself, I wasn’t going to break my back for this goddess’s games. I canted my head and wondered what weather would remain if you killed the weather maker.
A corner lifted on the girl’s mouth, like she’d heard my thoughts.
“This is such a cozy space you’ve made here. Was that your mother that answered the door?” Aurelius’s friendly voice filled the room, somehow spreading a bit of warmth into the chilly atmosphere. It was suffocating and felt pushy. I would let him attempt things his way but only for so long. Caly needed to get to Moirai.
“I asked if you know anything about weather?” The girl’s wise eyes rested on me again. She looked sad and troublesome.
“I heard you,” I stated, ignoring the eye daggers Caly shot at me.
The girl’s demeanor was as cold as the ice itself. When she stopped looking at me, she turned to face Caly.
“Is this one your boyfriend?” she asked with a nod in my direction.
“Err…it’s complicated, but…uh, I guess so?” Caly answered with a short laugh at the absurd question.
I wet my lips with my tongue and opened my mouth to ask Caly what was complicated about me being her king and owner—mostly because I wanted to hear all those things spill from her full mouth—but the girl began to talk again, cutting me off.
“I could tell. You both have the same dark air about you, but he’s not trying to hide his. I’m good at things like that. Do you know anything about the weather?” she asked Caly.
The dark-haired girl, Jamie or whatever, moved from her bed to a wooden dresser and pulled open the middle drawer with a tug. She removed a crisp, white sweater from the drawer and pulled it over her slight frame. Her eyes flashed, looking more white than blue now.
“No, I’m sorry. I could lie and tell you otherwise, but my extent of weather knowledge is only from television in the human realm,” Caly said with a smile.
Stars, she was beautiful. Standing a bit off in the corner like I was reminded me of watching her sleep in the Seelie castle. The way her skin smelled and tasted when she didn’t know I was there. I had watched her for hours from the dark corners of her room. It was a game of will to see how long I could watch her sleep before I had to touch her skin. I couldn’t wait to play with her more.
I watched Caly play the sweet, innocent girl, and it got my cock hard recalling how I’d been subject to the same act once. My fingers tightened around the wood of my chair in an effort not to walk over and lick every inch of her body. Fuck , even the way she anxiously bit at the flesh inside her cheek had me ready to make a scene.
“The human realm?” Jamie perked up. “Oh, that’s Luna’s doing. It’s great, isn’t it? I’ve seen her work before, really talented with the earthquakes. Did you see her tsunami in 1498? Volcano and everything.”
“Really? Wow. I’ve heard a lot about her work, but no, I wasn’t around to see that one…” Caly trailed off. The fire had sparked behind her eyes, just the slightest bit.
This was absurdly fascinating, watching her wheels and gears start to move as she formulated how to get what it was she wanted. She was not to be underestimated, and anyone who did underestimate her deserved what they got. She was magnificent in action.
“We are so sorry to intrude like this. You don’t strike me as someone who has a lot of enjoyment chatting with three strangers, so we will speed this up,” Aurelius said with an easy, kind voice.
“So that’s what you think about me,” the girl said as she crossed her arms.
Aurelius side-eyed Caly. “Is what what I think about you?” he questioned nervously.
The weathered moved to stand in front of a little wooden table with a square mirror leaning on the wall behind it. “You think I’m cold, that I think I’m something that I’m not? Is that it? That I don’t have friends?” Her voice had escalated in pitch until I felt it grate the inside of my brain like claws.
Caly chuckled gently, standing to put her hand on the weathered’s arm like they were old friends. “He didn’t mean it like that at all. I can tell you have lots of friends. Can you tell me about all this snow? Is it hard to make so much of it?” she said, sounding like she had a genuine interest in it.
If I wasn’t mistaken, the girl’s eyes seemed to darken a little, making the white appear a bit more blue.
Interesting.
“I told you not to ask me for anything,” she snapped at Caly.
My eye froze on the small window of the room. Snow had begun to fall outside. It seemed to be picking up speed somewhat rapidly.
I stilled, sensing a heartbeat on the other side of the wall.
“I’m so sorry. How annoying. Does that happen a lot, people requesting different weather for the in-between?” Caly picked up a silver brush from the vanity and began to brush Jamie’s short, black hair as slowly and as cautiously as if she were grooming a nocturneye.
“Why are you grooming me? You are the one that needs a bath,” the girl stated. “You think I don’t know what you are doing? Leave, now. All of you.”
A shadow cast over the corner of the window for a second before it vanished from sight. I saw the flutter of a clear butterfly landing on the windowpane for a moment before it was knocked down with the heavy wind and snow.
Someone was outside—the person who had been following us.
“Aurelius, Caly, step outside for a moment. I need a moment alone with…err…Jamie,” I said as I adjusted my overcoat. I had insisted that Caly wear my chest plate after she had used it as a sled. She needed as many layers as possible in this weather, and I wasn’t taking any more chances with her as she weakened.
My traveling companions looked horrified at each other before Caly shouted at me. “No! You absolutely cannot kill her!”
Apparently the in-between had caused my pet’s discretion to falter.
“He can’t kill me. No one can,” the weathered grumbled.
“There are more glass butterflies outside this window, and they are alive at the moment,” I said firmly, keeping my eyes on Aurelius. His hand absently reached for the long blade at his side, and I knew he understood my meaning.
Caly and Aurelius locked eyes before they fled the room, both eager to see who or what had been following us, as was I, but someone needed to get the weathered to cause a flood, and it was going to be me.
I noticed Jamie’s face wrinkle in disappointment when the other two left the room. “Aren’t you going too? You should hurry. The butterflies will leave when he does.”
I wanted to ask what she’d seen, but I caught ahold of something that might be more helpful. She had the tiniest flicker in her voice, something barely noticeable, but still something I recognized.
“So you say you cannot be killed? But were they killed?” I sat down in the chair that Aurelius had been sitting in.
“Who?” she asked, sitting back down on the edge of her bed.
I waited and watched, choosing not to respond to her again. I was listening to the outside also but was having a hard time hearing through the strong glamour of the cottage.
“The person you are in love with.”
Her cold blue eyes widened. “It’s always the evil ones who are the best at reading people, isn’t it? I don’t care for your friend or your girlfriend. They are disingenuous and manipulative.”
“Apologies. We are trying to find Moirai and are in a pinch with the time we have been given,” I said flatly. “So can the person you are in love with die, as you say you cannot, or have they died already? It’s why you are so frigid, isn’t it?”
A crack of thunder outside confirmed my suspicions.
The girl squinted at me, overflowing with anger. “No, she hasn’t died. Are you going to threaten to kill her too? You think that will get you whatever it is that you want?” she snapped. The volume of her voice rose with fury. Lightning cracked through the falling snow, sending a flash of light through the dim room.
“I’m going to get what I want no matter what.” I moved around her room, picking up small objects that looked like they could be of importance. “I just happened to recognize the familiar sound of it in your voice.”
“The sound of what?”
“The sound of loving someone you can’t get to.” I picked up a trinket with an unusual yellow flower frozen in a bubbled ball of glass.
“Don’t touch that!” There was more feeling in those three words than I’d heard from her yet.
Perfect.
I moved to replace it on the small table but stopped just before it touched the wood, instead turning and handing it to her. She took it reluctantly in both hands. I said nothing but watched her face with interest.
“She—she gave me this to remember her while she was gone. It is a symbol of her love for me. She’s the only one who can make this type of flowers.” Jamie sat back on her bed, looking closely at the bubble of glass.
“So I have no grounds to entice you with an offer of her death to get what I want then?” I quirked an eyebrow, half expecting her to fly off the handle as she had done earlier with Caly.
Instead, the weathered smiled for a moment, and a flash of sunshine heated my shoulder through the window. It was gone as quickly as it had come. Her emotions were what controlled the weather. When she was icy, so was the weather. Anger created a small rumble of thunder that shook the walls, and it seemed happiness or fond memories caused the sun to peek through the dark clouds. How long had she held this snow? I’d heard my father, King Marco Thanes, speak of a snowy journey to the in-between ages ago.
The floorboards creaked and adjusted as the temperature turned unbearable. Thankfully, Caly was with Aurelius, and he would be sure to keep her warm for as long as this petulant goddess threw her icy tantrum, though from the sounds of it, the goddess rivaled me in obstinance.
“She cannot die. She cannot live. Flora is stuck…because of me,” she said, repositioning the globe carefully on her empty nightstand.
“And why is that?” I looked out the window, feigning disinterest but also trying to get a bead on Caly. “Is she trapped in Tartarus? I have friends in low places. I’ll have her out by tonight.”
She rolled her eyes. “We are goddesses of the elements. When we expire, we simply reincarnate into whatever element the Fates wish. Besides, Tartarus is where the Unseelie and the worst of the Seelie go. Do you think I belong there instead of the Elysian Fields, where all the most exquisite of creations go to rest? You’re definitely not as well versed in flattery as your friends.”
“I care next to nothing about the in-between. In my realm, it is known only as a lost space where forgettable things go to slip from the minds of all other realms. No one remembers it even exists most of the time.” I met her cold stare with bored, half-opened eyes.
She sucked in a deep breath, and her face flushed. I wanted to look out the window and see what weather this mood had brought with it, but I didn’t dare show my interest.
“That’s only because she’s gone. Once, the in-between was quite memorable.” The girl turned to face the back wall that butted up against the side of her simple bed. “It’s awful and forgettable now because she can’t return to me.”
Fuck, this was so mind-numbingly boring. I should have left Aurelius in here and had a taste of Caly’s little pink nipples in the snow instead.
I grunted. We would never get the next scroll if I left now. Both Caly and Aurelius were too good-natured for what needed to happen next.
“Flora is the goddess of the flowers and ferns. She’s magnificent and beautiful and always brings out the best in me,” the girl said with a soft smile as she looked down at her lap.
I didn’t need to look out the window to see the sun creating long, demon-like shadows across the floor where I stood.
Shit. I don’t want the fucking sun. I want rain—and a lot of it.
“What did you do to make her leave? Must’ve been bad.” I chose my words—and how they cut—slowly and methodically, grating the blade against the surface…just enough to sting.
As expected, the shadows and sunlight left with her gasp.
She whipped around to face me, sadness brimming in her eyes. “It was bad. I miss her desperately. I am lost, hopelessly in love with her. Flora can only return when the lands are ripe and ready for flowers, insects buzzing and ready to pollinate. She…she cannot return until I bring the sun out.”
Not quite yet…though closer…
“And you can only bring the sun out when you are happy.” I filled in the blanks, awaiting confirmation. What was Caly doing right now? Was she warm enough? Also, could she swim?
“And I cannot possibly be happy without Flora here.” Her voice quivered slightly, and I heard the distant tap of rain or hail on the thatched roof.
I moved closer until I was towering over her. Old goddess or not, I was gifted with the ability to induce fear in everyone. That was why I was the Unseelie prince.
Discomfort rolled from her little pores, and I felt the ground shake beneath my boots.
Son of a bitch!
Her trembling was causing an earthquake.
“I’ve seen those yellow flowers bloom through the frost before. She could come if she really wanted to,” I stated softly. “It’s obviously you she doesn’t want. Why else would she stay away for an eternity?”
Closer.
Her eyes gleamed and shimmered with tears as she stood, frantically grabbing my forearm. “No, no! That’s not it! You don’t even know what you’re talking about! It’s my fault. I cannot bring her back.”
There they were. Plump, steady tears began to roll down her deceptively youthful cheeks.
“Sure,” I said with a nod before taking a few steps toward the open door. “How many visitors do you really get?”
She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it again.
“None,” I said, answering for her. “If you do, it’s only because they need you to perform a duty you are so clearly incapable of. I’ve never seen a more boring and forgettable goddess in all my life.”
I could practically smell the ambrosia tang of her blood before I pushed the last bit of my metaphorical dagger in for the kill. I looked her over carefully and with a grimace walked to the front door, passing by the old woman and children still playing.
“Wait! I can help you! What is it that you needed? Something about the snow? I have a hard time listening. I just get so numb to everything. I want to do better. I know I can do better. Please don’t leave yet.” She clamored to block the open door as tears streamed down from both the sky and her face.
“You couldn’t do it anyway. I’ll go to the Seelie realm. Have you seen their sun?” I asked with a grin.
Her face fell before she answered, “No, but I’ve heard it’s the brightest of all the realms. That’s Kalista. She is the most powerful of us in that regard.”
“My group will go to her. She is obviously the better choice,” I said as I turned and stepped out the door and onto the small porch. I turned half-heartedly to face her as I scanned the area for Aurelius and Caly. “You certain those little yellow flowers from Flora are one of a kind? That only she can make them?” I asked. “There are absolute fields of them in Seelie. They are considered a weed, they grow so obnoxiously. Kalista must be a very talented weather goddess to have such pull over your love.” I walked away, picking up pace when I spotted Caly’s tired body sitting on an abandoned porch next door.
Thunder rolled with a loud crash as the rain came. The floodgates—so to speak—had been opened.
I didn’t feel bad in the slightest, but there was a tinge of discomfort in knowing exactly how the goddess felt not being able to reach the love of her life. That had been me after Caly had left to go to Seelie. I had recognized the devastation in her voice because it was so familiar to me.
“We need to find something that floats, and quickly,” I said.