Pip and the Shadow Daddy (The Twinkpocalypse #1)

Chapter 1

Aeldryc

The bright sun made me wince as I stepped through the doors into the stable yard with a detachment of the Grey Guard.

I’d sent word ahead to the grooms, and our three massive faebred warhorses stood in a line along the hitching post beside one far-too-gorgeous silver elven warmblood.

They stomped their hooves as we approached, eager to get moving.

“Why is Bram in his leather barding?” I asked the groom, as he fell into step beside me, half jogging to keep up. “Is there news of danger?”

Thom shook his head. “Bram insisted. Said it was undignified to go without.”

I shot Thom a look. “I thought we agreed to stop pretending my horse talks.”

“If I recall, we agreed that intense eye contact, head bobs, snorts, and ear flicks can constitute a language.”

I tolerated Thom’s cheekiness for one reason: because Bram liked him.

Finding a stablehand that my faebred didn’t try to bite was a victory, and I had a feeling Bram liked Thom specifically because of Thom’s horse language theory.

As I approached, Bram shook his head, ears tilting toward me in question.

“There’s word of a disturbance,” I said, running my hand down his muzzle. “Nothing too thrilling, I hope.”

His nostrils flared and he butted me in the chest, huffing with a frustration that I felt all too well. Neither of us hoped the Great Peace would come to an end, but the general lack of violence in the kingdom had left us without purpose.

I slipped Bram one of the sugar cubes I kept in a pouch on my belt. Two-hundred-year-old faebred warhorses shouldn’t be addicted to sugar cubes, but it was his one vice, so I let him have it.

I mounted and turned Bram and kicked him into motion, trusting the three Grey Guard I’d selected for this mission to follow me.

The ride out of Feravael was all thundering hooves and purpose.

We moved in a loose formation through the palace gates and past the sprawl of the capital city, through stone buildings stacked tight along winding streets.

Feravael was beautiful in the way that old, powerful cities were: a chaotic assemblage of years of construction, one thing on top of another, with minimal advance planning, but a lot of pride.

People in the streets parted for our warhorses, and I was sure they were curious.

The Grey Guard didn’t ride for parades; our presence meant something was happening.

Beyond the city walls, the road south unwound through farmland, past the border of the capital, past villages where the architecture shifted from fae stonework to the simpler timber-and-thatch of the outer counties.

The further we rode from the capital, the quieter the ride became, until even the road beneath us was packed earth and gravel and surrounded by rolling green hills.

“All right, let’s get the betting started,” Vaelith said, once we were out of earshot of any civilians. She was an air elemental who could call storms with a flick of her wrist, and summon bad jokes almost as fast. “I’m thinking boundary dispute.”

“You always bet boundary dispute.” My second-in-command, Thyren, should not have been betting.

“It’s our most common call. Waste of our talents, if you ask me,” Vaelith said, adjusting her sword belt. “What’s your wager?”

Thyren considered this for a long moment. “Clover growing in unusual patterns.”

Vaelith barked a laugh. “Oh, fuck off.”

“It’s a dark omen in Clovermere. In the past two months, I’ve been to two clover patches to investigate the presence of evil.”

“Was it evil?”

“No. Once, it was a rabbit with a creative eating pattern. The other time, a sleeping cow had flattened a circular area. Both were matters that could have easily been solved by the local magistrate.”

Vaelith whooped. “Holy hell, peace makes people paranoid. You in, Commander? Loser buys a round of drinks at the Silver Stag.”

I snorted. “It’s probably that band of highwaymen again. The magistrates don’t like to deal with them.”

“It’s a person,” Ilyndra said, interrupting our banter.

I glanced back. Ilyndra’s pale gold eyes were focused on something far down the road. There was a stillness in her that meant she was listening to the world in a way the rest of us couldn’t.

Vaelith narrowed her eyes at her wife. “Elves don’t get to participate in the bets.

You know the rules. Your magic makes it too easy to win.

” Vaelith, Thyren and I were fae, connecting to the earth’s elements.

Ilyndra’s elven magic sensed the life that moved upon it.

So if she said it was a person, it was a person.

“What kind of person would require the Grey Guard?” Thyren asked.

“A kind I’ve never felt before.” She paused. “Interesting.”

Vaelith perked up, standing in her stirrups to look down the road. “Dangerous interesting?”

“No. Just interesting.” Ilyndra shrugged, smiling at her wife. “Sorry to disappoint, my love.” Vaelith loved nothing better than a good spot of danger.

The road to River Bend curved gently past a mill where the water wheel turned with enchanted regularity and through a stretch of oak forest that turned the afternoon golden and dappled.

A woman sat on a cart six miles from the border, her pony grazing on a nearby patch of grass. She was small, sturdy, and grey-haired. A human, well into her later years. She squinted up at the four of us with a frown.

“Good day, madam. Are you the one who sent the missive to Feravael?”

“Oh! You came!”

“The realm’s security is our responsibility.” And the Queen was craving some entertainment, but I didn’t need to tell her that. “Can you show me the dangerous apparition you sent word about?”

She pointed down the road with her stick. “He’s that way. Took you long enough, by the way.”

“He?”

“A young man.” She said young man the way you’d say unattended fire or suspicious package. “In scant clothing. Magical, I think. I was on my usual route, on the way home from River Bend, when I passed him. Naturally, I slowed down and kept an eye on him, from a safe distance.”

“Naturally.” I nodded. “Could you give us more information?”

“He stumbled into the road as if from thin air!”

“Could he have been behind something?”

“Heck if I know, but he was suspicious.” She frowned. “He tried to speak to me, but it was no language I’ve ever heard. Definitely magical.”

“Did you respond?”

“I don’t deal with magic.” Humans often said that, right before demanding magic solve their problems. “He looked enchanted. Dangerous. Kept smiling.”

“Dangerous.”

“And beautiful,” the old woman said, as if this were damning evidence. “Too beautiful for Clovermere.”

I supposed that was fair. Clovermere was a sensible, gentle place, not known for beauty. Pretty, sure, but not beautiful.

Vaelith shifted in her saddle, looking around. “What was he wearing?”

The old woman’s mouth worked for a moment, as if the answer was physically difficult to produce.

“Pink,” she finally said. “Sparkly pink.

I think he forgot to put on his trousers; his lower half was clad only in short drawers.

And a tunic that —“ She gestured vaguely at her own chest. “It ended here.”

I couldn’t imagine that at all. “Thank you for your service to the kingdom. Making a report was the right thing to do. We’ll investigate.”

“Careful. Anyone who smiles that brightly is sure to be dangerous.”

“We are always careful, madam.” I turned back to my soldiers. Vaelith looked like she was going to laugh. Ilyndra was peering down the road, her horse so close to her wife’s that their legs touched. I cleared my throat. “Thyren, take down the witness information in case we have more questions.”

Vaelith snickered. I shot her a hard look. She shrugged and smirked at me.

This was, perhaps, the most absurd missive we’d gotten recently, but I didn’t want the locals to think we laughed at their concerns. Giving the woman a little salute, I steered Bram around her cart, and coaxed him into a trot.

Within minutes, he appeared. I understood why the woman was concerned. This person was something none of us had ever encountered before. He didn’t look dangerous, just… strange.

It was the sparkle that caught the light first. The man’s clothing caught the sun and threw it back in tiny prismatic bursts, as if he had jewels sewn into his tiny trousers.

He was walking with the wide-eyed determination of someone who had no idea where he was going but had decided that going somewhere was better than standing still.

He was a human-shaped adult, smallish with a slim body.

His clothing would barely pass for undergarments in Qoksmere.

The top was a tunic in the loosest possible definition of the word.

It ended several inches below his chest, leaving his flat, toned stomach bare down to his waistband, which was well below his navel.

Two lines of muscle angled down from his hips, and a thin trail of hair pointed the way to where a sparkly garment hugged a nice-sized bulge between his legs.

His arms and legs were bare, except for some unusual footwear.

He looked up at us, at four mounted warriors in armor, weapons visible, riding in formation on warhorses that would dwarf most creatures, and he waved.

And it was not a tentative, uncertain wave. It was a full-armed, frantic wave, the kind a person used to call for help, accompanied by what appeared to be a full-body wiggle of relief.

Then he was running toward us, or maybe more like bounding? It was joyful, though the distinctive whisper of Vaelith and Thyren pulling out their swords cut through the moment.

The young man skidded to a stop about ten feet from Bram, breathing hard, and started talking.

The words meant nothing. Not the Common Tongue, not Old Fae, not Fae, not Troll, not any dialect of Elvish I had encountered. A torrent of unfamiliar syllables, fast and animated, accompanied by expressive gestures.