Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Merrick
Merrick barely had a beat to catch his breath before Esmeray vaulted over the edge of the falls, her midnight wings tucked tight at her side.
He yelled in panic, the stitch in his side causing it to come out more like a garbled gasp, as his best friend’s mate plunged towards the sharp rock outcropping at the base of the waterfall.
He scrambled to the lip, falling to his knees when his feet slipped dangerously against the moss, searching for Esmeray amongst the silvery mist. He watched her snap her wings out a second before she dashed against the stones, shooting up perfectly parallel to the barreling waterfall, landing lightly at his side.
“You are fucking insane,” Merrick panted, leaning back and resting his palms on his knees as he fought to calm his racing heart.
She grinned at him, her bright eyes sparkling like the stars dotting the sky above them.
“I had no one to teach me aerial maneuvers.” Nonchalantly, she ran her fingers through the hair caught in the spiral of her horns, shaking the strands away from the curl until they cascaded down her back once more.
“After a few tried and failed attempts, I learned that the air coming off a waterfall is a great training exercise to hone agility–especially with the pressure off the initial plummet. You should try it.”
“I’ve trained as a soldier my entire life,” Merrick retorted flatly, straightening and flexing his wings out. “I’ve outflown every other gargoyle in my legion. Why do you think your father chose me for his King’s Guard? Because I’m pretty?”
“Then it should be easy for you, oh grand King’s Guard,” Esmeray goaded, showing off perfectly white teeth with those slightly lengthened fangs that fae possessed–just a tad longer and sharper than Merrick’s own gargoyle canines.
She gestured to the waterfall. “Just jump. And spread your wings to catch the wind at the last second. See if you can shoot straight up and land…here.” She toed an “X” against the moss with her boot, making a target.
Merrick sighed roughly. He was being serious–the King had indeed seen Merrick’s flying abilities as tactical, and Merrick trained countless other gargoyles to fly as well as he did.
And here was this saucy little Queen explaining to him the best way to leap off a waterfall. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
Merrick advanced closer to the edge, swallowing down a snide remark, before backing up three paces.
With a battle cry that woke half the birds nesting in the woods behind him, he took a running jump and free fell.
The world tipped on its axis as Merrick was buffeted by the strong pressure of wind coming off the waterfall, and he swore as he flipped his wings up and launched skyward, nowhere near the straight trajectory Esmeray displayed annoyingly effortlessly.
Backflapping hard to stop himself from careening into the tree branches on the opposite bank, knowing he’d never hear the end of it, he cursed again, filthier this time–a word he left for special occasions…
like getting his King’s Guard warrior ass handed to him.
Still swearing, he glided back over to a ridiculously gleeful Esmeray.
“Show me again,” he growled.
She obliged, thankfully, without saying a word of his failed attempt–even though she did add a degree more pomp to her “lesson” as she twirled over the edge.
He watched her fall, memorized the angle, the twist of her body, how she used her wings to fall faster–but as more of a counterweight.
And finally–the way she snapped her wings open, riding the gust that rose over the rocks before she shot up again and landed right next to him on the “X” pressed into the thick moss.
She bowed.
Merrick felt a muscle jump in his jaw. “I’m going to figure out how you did that. I’m trying again.”
It took him six more embarrassingly failed attempts before he managed a decently straight shot into the sky, and eight more after that to perfect it.
Esmeray had taken the opportunity as he either crash landed next to her or disentangled himself out of various trees to sit on a rock and give him offhand pointers while using magic to grow and shape her nails.
“That one was much better.” Esmeray gave him a look of approval as she tapped her now three-inch long, dagger-sharp, black fingernails against her horn, testing their strength.
“It’s not as easy as it looks. I’ll be the bigger male and admit you may have bested me at waterfall jumping,” Merrick ground out, hands on his hips.
With no proper flight training, she was already faster than him and more agile.
Gods, why hadn’t her father trained her as a warrior?
She would have run circles around the gargoyles in the aerial legion.
His questions must have shown on his face because she climbed down off the rock she had been lounging on, the starlight above illuminating their surroundings gently.
She moved to the grassy edge of the waterfall and sat, legs swinging over the rim.
He stepped to her side and eased down next to her, still picking small pieces of bark and tree needles out of his hair.
“I know you were stationed at the Opal Palace, but the male that trained you, honed you as a weapon, and encouraged you as a warrior was not the same male I dealt with growing up. My father was…strict with me. Moreso than he was with Adara. When my magic began to show, he was ecstatic to continue his lineage–as any fae would be when their child was born to a gargoyle mother. But when he realized my gifts were given by a different god than his, he did not take the news well.”
Merrick pulled blades of grass out of the earthy ground and let them drift over the waterfall, watching as they disappeared into the billowy mist below. “Your fae lineage had gifts from the God of Water, Beyos, right?”
Esmeray hummed, “I don’t have a drop of water magic in me.”
“Does Adara?”
“Yes, she does, and if we weren’t twins…
my mother’s virtue would have been called into question.
” Esmeray waved her hand in the air, and two bottles of wine appeared with a soft thump in the grass between them.
She took one and ripped the cork out with her sharp canine. Merrick stared at the wine bottle.
“Is that an illusionist thing? You can just conjure up alcohol?”
Esmeray smirked, “I can open pockets in our realm–I don’t know any use for that other than a magical type of storage.
But it takes the edge off the strain of me not wielding my full powers just carrying around a few invisible bottles of wine for a couple hours.
I put them in there before we left Sparrow’s house.
” Her pale skin seemed to glow under the stars as she tilted her head up, and Merrick began understanding why Keerian had fallen in love with her so quickly.
She was stunningly gorgeous in a wicked and dark way, but much more complex than the roles she played at the Opal and Obsidian Palaces.
They sat in a comfortable silence as the minutes passed.
“I never spoke to you while you were Princess of the Opal Palace.” Merrick hadn’t ever said a word to her. All of the elite warriors–Keerian included–had been expressly ordered by their King to never associate with either Princess.
“I was a real peach back then,” Esmeray said sarcastically, raising the bottle to her lips and taking a swig.
Merrick laughed, grabbing the bottle of wine from her as she let out a screech of indignation. He chugged it for a beat before handing it back.
“I was a spoiled Princess with no real friends except my sister for the first decade of my life. Honestly, I blame Sparrow–after her family came to court, she and I really started causing trouble.”
“Sparrow was at court? I never saw her,” Merrick stuttered. Esmeray must have caught how quickly the words tumbled out of his mouth because she gave him a smug grin.
“She was, but by the time my father put together the King’s Guard you were on, she’d already moved to Florra.
Court life wasn’t the life she wanted to live.
” Esmeray sighed and leaned back, her tattooed arm bracing her as she took another generous swig of wine.
“To be honest, it’s not the life I wanted, either. ”
Merrick understood that all too well. His father had dumped him at the Obsidian Palace gates, leaving him to either pass the grueling training to become a warrior or die trying.
He turned to Esmeray to tell her that he sympathized, when Esmeray launched to her feet, the abrupt move making the wine bottle clatter and roll off the lip of the waterfall.
Merrick paid no attention to the alcohol falling to the watery depths as Esmeray flared her wings and let out a snarl to the dark tree line at their backs.