Chapter 7
VALANCE
“My grandmother?”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, disturbed by a chill beyond the snow and wind.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Before she ascended the throne for her hundred years.”
Sidhe fae monarchs were given a century to rule before being forced to step down for the next in line unless they were slain.
Queen Dovelar Rosestar stepped down for my father, and he wanted to give way to my elder brother first or my sister second.
Instead, he’d lost the two children he’d favored most, left with his one disappointment.
Me.
I tried to swallow, my lungs remembering to draw breath they probably didn’t need. “You… You and the queen?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I’m sorry. I never wanted you to know this tale.”
I rubbed my neck, the chill replaced by a throbbing ache. “This isn’t possible. How… I… I don’t understand.” My mind was overrun with ivy choking my capacity to think clearly. “Did you…” I struggled. “Did you really… Did I mishear?”
“I wandered Faerie for many centuries looking for love. A darkling knows long life like a Sidhe and a Tuatha. I was searching for that one person who would understand me.”
I sat back, listened as the sky slowly lightened toward dawn.
“Many lovers, many times broken-hearted. Many women, human and fae. With Winter long dead, any purpose I might serve out of reach, I hunted with my heart. One day, on a Summer beach close to the Sidhe mounds, I saw her running through the waves. Hair as silver as yours, ever so sleek, her eyes a radiant blue, her luminous pale skin as radiant as moonlight. A true beauty she has gifted you with.”
Without the vibrant, colorful eyes of the Sidhe. But we did share the silver hair of our kind.
“My heart stopped, heat pooling in my belly,” the old woman continued.
“I knew the Sidhe fae were beautiful beyond compare, even more so than Tuatha fae, I must admit. Her eyes sparkled as they met mine, and I approached her, sweaty and dirty from my travels and another failed relationship. This time with a mermaid, an exhausting time of sexual ferocity—the mer really are rampant creatures. I enjoyed her for a while until I realized I was nothing but a sexual toy for her. I left the mermaid in Spring, heading for Summer, deciding on the north of the continent, contemplating my return to Winter.”
“Until you met my grandmother,” I said.
“Yes, Your Majesty. We fell in love quickly, in secret. I would hide in the woods near the mounds, even found myself an abandoned cottage there. Turned it into a home. She would come to me when she could escape. To make love, to talk, to fall deeper in love. We planned on running away.”
“Impossible.”
A deep, lamenting sigh. “I know. She was destined to be queen, set to marry your grandfather and take over from her father. But I lived in hope she would choose me over Prince Aidan, that our love would be enough. Until it wasn’t.”
I never met my grandfather. He was killed battling Fomorian fae many years before my birth.
“What happened?” I asked when she fell into a drawn-out silence.
Her gray tongue traced her lips. “Things began to shift, her behavior erratic. One moment she wanted to kiss me. The next, she was anxious, angry. Paranoid even.”
“I suppose a queen-in-waiting would be scared of having her illicit affair discovered.”
“Yes. I tried to placate her, to make things better. But she spiraled into fear, started to blame me for turning her head from her path to queenhood.”
“I see.”
“A deep shame, regret. It drove her to take steps against me.” A long, heavy sigh.
“She came to me one night in a heavy cloak, most of her face hidden inside a hood. I’ll never forget the darkness, how foreboding it was.
She wasn’t Dovelar anymore, but a creature from a nightmare with a pretty face. ”
Exactly how I thought of my wretched grandmother.
“She told me she hated me for what I did to her. That she would always hate me and blame me for cursing her with feelings for me. In return, she would curse me.” A shaky breath to pause with.
“A man entered my cottage, a Fomorian fae. A shadow sorcerer. Before I could react to him, he put his curse upon me. Aged my body inside and out. I tried to resist with my magic, failed to do so. His curse was potent and permanent.”
“She worked with the enemy,” I said.
“She did.”
I wasn’t entirely shocked by her working with the other side. She was still doing it.
“You can’t ever lift this curse?” I asked.
“No.”
“Should I try?”
“No. It will not break as long as I draw breath.”
“I took your head from your body,” I said. “Shouldn’t that have tricked the curse into thinking you died? You have no lungs.”
“Clearly not, My King.”
“What if I kill you now? I can bring you back as I have everything else?”
“I will return to draw breath, though. Thus cursed again.”
I felt my forehead crease. “Do you think that will happen?”
“We can try, but it will only waste time.”
Honestly, despite her story, I wanted her to remain just a head. At least for now.
I nodded, listened to the rest of her tale.
“After they cursed me, the shadow sorcerer took me away from Summer in a boat. Dumped me in the northern reaches of Autumn. And so, I wandered farther north, back into my homeland, until the hope of you came, when I saw beyond the stars and knew I could change the world.”
I remembered what she’d said to me… And then you were born with your ‘cursed’ appearance, and the roses bloomed pink, and I read destiny within the stars. I knew hope had returned.
“Kormac was sent to you, to aid you, part of your destiny,” she said, his name on her lips setting my blood to run cold.
“So you’ve said,” I replied.
“I saw him, I saw you, and—”
“Enough. I don’t want to hear any of that again.”
Written in the stars, destined to be together until I took his life.
What a vicious knife in the dark.
I directed the conversation away from him. “Do you mean to kill my grandmother?”
“I’m not sure what I want to do, Your Majesty.”
And I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or on her side.
She wanted revenge, had used Kormac and me.
Yet she’d also led me to gain the power to bring down my enemies.
Precisely why she would not be reunited with her body anytime soon.
It was being stored in the lower dungeons of the Winter Keep, buried under snow, filled with my life-giving magic.
Kormac’s magic…
If my grandmother were any sort of decent fae who loved her grandson, who didn’t turn on him and leap into the bed of the enemy, I would be repulsed by Brigid’s lust for vengeance against her.
Sadly, the former queen wasn’t the kind of grandparent to offer love to anyone but herself.
Possibly her dead son, her other grandchildren.
But never me. She’d loathed me from the day I was born, the child without the true markings of the Sidhe fae.
Cursed, as she liked to call me, as the Summer court often whispered.
“Is this the truth, Brigid?” I asked.
“I swear by Danu and the human’s gods, the past, the future, and the present.”
“That’s a lot of swearing.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, King Valance. I want the best for you, for Winter.
I want to see you take the Faerie Throne and shape this world under your rule.
Things must change. This silly, endless war between the seelie and unseelie courts has to end.
Break it, be the one and only court to swear allegiance to.
” She lifted off the log by a few inches.
“I believe in whatever vision you decide upon.”
“And that is a lot of faith,” I answered.
“I know. But you’re of the Tuatha blood.
You have brought Winter back to life. Just look at the sky.
It will soon be dawn. The sun hasn’t touched these lands since Winter was broken.
Now the dark fae can enjoy it again, see the days move by rather than pass time in the endless stagnated twilight that was before. ”
Queen Dovelar and Brigid. Interesting, very interesting. A terrible tale, my grandmother forever showing herself to be a vile woman.
“My motivations weren’t and aren’t all about Dovelar, only part of it,” she added. “You are my purest focus. I want you to be king. Your grandmother is insignificant within the grander scheme of things.”
The old woman was clearly heartbroken, which I could use to make my grandmother pay, to suffer.
“Listen to me, Brigid,” I said. “If I discover this story to be false, I will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine.”
“I understand. Every word is true, Your Majesty. I hated telling you, but I want you to understand me better.”
“Good. I’m glad you did tell me.” What was this sensation tickling my soul? Sympathy for the dark fae who’d manipulated me?
“May I say something else?” she asked.
“You may.”
“I’m deeply sorry for the loss of Kormac,” she said. “Even if I knew what had to happen to give you his power, for you to feed it back into Winter. I should have—”
“Enough.” My voice was loud, startling an owl into flight on the other side of the clearing. “We are done with this.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.” She went to float away.
“Wait.”
She stopped. “My King?”
“Maybe I’ve been too harsh with you,” I said, the words dirty on my tongue. “I will never forgive you for how things unfolded, but I also thank you for this power. For your belief in me. You have saved me on many occasions.”
“Your Majesty…”
“You said I would face my destiny here in the north, and I did, no matter how painful.” I drew in a long, agonizing breath.
Kormac…
“I want to reward you in some capacity,” I continued.
“Not with the return of your body, not yet. But I want you to have my grandmother.” I stood up, brushing snow from my cloak.
“If she survives the end of the war, then she is yours. I won’t touch her.
I don’t want to see her face if I can help it.
But I do want to know that she suffers. She has to.
What she did to you isn’t insignificant, and neither is her betrayal of me and our family name.
Do what you will with her, if the opportunity arises.
My only request is you don’t kill her, not for a long time.
I want every hour of every day to be agony.
Death is too good an escape. Do you accept this? ”
She smiled at me, revealing her broken, rotting teeth. “With my deepest thanks, My King.”
I nodded, tearing my eyes away from her grizzly appearance. “We leave as soon as the sun rises. If you require more rest, take it now. We have a big day ahead of us.”
As the sun broke over the horizon, the fire now dead, something came upon the bitter wind. A soft, warm sound.
A whisper. Familiar. Masculine.
Calling to me…
My name…
“Valance…” it said.
I looked to the sky, pink hues flooding the purple.
“Valance…”
My skin prickled with anticipation, with a hint of fear. I listened. I longed for the voice a third time.
“Valance…”
I got to my feet, reaching for the heavens with one hand as if I could suddenly touch them, pluck that voice from the air.
“Is that you?” I asked.
“Valance…”
“Kormac?” I wondered. “Are you talking to me?”
The voice didn’t respond, didn’t come again as the sun rose higher.
“Kormac?’ I tried again.
Nothing. My imagination playing tricks on me, a punishment for not sleeping.
Kormac is gone.
Forever.
I had to accept that.