Epilogue
Rex
That”s it. Just a little more.
I pushed my will into the head of my weaver. I sat comfortably on my throne at the Diamond Court in Alancia, a simple crown adorned with diamonds resting atop my swath of platinum blond hair as my piercing gray-blue eyes stared out at the few lords and ladies who had been brave enough to show up to Court that day. Those present hoped to benefit from my good mood should things go according to plan, but they risked much being near my wrath if the events of the day did not go to my liking. Admittedly, I was prone to defenestration when displeased.
I could feel and see my weaver who stood at the southernmost border of Alancia hundreds of miles away from where I sat on my throne. Taking note of the perspiration rolling down his pallid face in beads, I knew that the weaver’s mind was moments away from breaking.
But it would be worth it if I can pull this off at last.
King Heroux thought he could keep me out of Valencia. He thought he could keep me away from what was rightfully mine with his web of intricately weaved magic. The invisible magical wall between Valencia and Alancia was an impressive bit of magic, I would give him that. But anything could be undone with enough time, and what was time to an immortal? Since the moment the magical barrier between the two kingdoms had gone up nearly twenty-three years ago, I had maintained a constant rotation of weavers working to undo the unparalleled magic King Heroux had put in place.
It was an unnatural bit of magic too, throwing the balance of all fae’s magic off. I had experimented with different holes in the wall along different locations, and it seemed like the ambient magic would keep those holes open, maybe even worsen them slightly, but the magic had not altogether gotten rid of the damned wall. And then King Heroux had gone behind me, foreclosing on whatever progress I had made. But all along, I had focused my best people on a solitary area in the wall. I would not let anything come between me and my future queen.
I could not see the magical barricade myself, but through the eyes of my weavers I could see that the wall was like a big, knotted, messy ball of thread. First, we had to find the tail of the magical thread which had been hidden by King Heroux like a needle in a haystack. That had taken us a decade.
Once we had found the tail of the magic, the hard part began. We had to work the thread through the elaborate matrix of magical weaves, having to work through knot after knot as we did so. The process was slowed by the slight diminishing of our magic. Until, at last, we had finally reached that sweet spot of the process where the thread of the magic started to pull through relatively easily. I could see it in my weaver’s mind. A few more tugs and there would finally be a hole in the wall. Just a small hole. We would still have to work to bring down the remainder of the wall, but a small hole was all I needed to get started.
The weaver hesitated, sensing that he was at the limit of his powers and that if he pushed much further, he would drain his magic possibly beyond the point of any recovery. He was also concerned that there was some kind of trap waiting for him if he was the one who unmade King Heroux’s magic. I tended to agree with the weaver on both counts, thinking that either of the weaver’s concerns, perhaps both, were only moments away from being realized.
The weaver had only gotten so deep into his magical reserves to begin with because I had used my channeling ability to get inside his mind and persuade him. My power was based in both light and darkness, which was so rare it was believed by most to be impossible. I was the only known living fae who had a magical ability of both light and dark affinities.
My power was that of light and dark, and I knew how to wield both with expert precision after honing my skills in my nearly three hundred years of life. So, I had pushed the weaver, getting inside his head and playing upon his love of his King and his country, showing him scenes of being welcomed back to the Diamond Court as a hero showered with riches and the approbation of his King and his fellow lords and ladies. And when the light side of my power no longer sufficiently motivated the young fae, I switched to my dark abilities, playing upon the weaver’s fears of displeasing me and what exactly his welcome back to the Court would look like if he failed.
But, at this point, I knew that only showing and making the young fae feel like he was experiencing his deepest fears would motivate him to push past the point he and his body knew would ruin him, possibly for eternity. I dug deep into the young fae’s mind, searching its darkest recesses until I found what I was looking for. It appeared that the weaver had a paralyzing fear of being stuck in small spaces. I conjured in the weaver’s mind a vision of him failing at the border wall. He tried to make a run for it—he would hide in the harsh, isolated mountains of the far north. But no, there was no running from me. I knew everything and would find him anywhere he went.
He returned to the Diamond Court, arriving in the throne room to accept his punishment for failing his King and his Kingdom. He bowed his head in shame as he walked into the expansive throne room. Every lord and lady of the Court was present. I did not even address the disgraced weaver, merely gesturing at the cage in the middle of the room. The cage was small enough to fit a smaller animal, perhaps, but not large enough for a man to fit in it without being doubled over. The high fae lord knew there was no point in trying to resist his punishment. The young lord climbed into the cage of his own volition, despite his entire body shaking with his fear of small, enclosed spaces. He hoped that perhaps if he accepted his punishment with dignity, I would have mercy on him and end it sooner rather than later.
But his hopes of mercy never came to fruition. Each day, the failed weaver would be displayed in the throne room in his cage, sometimes just sitting on the floor, other times hanging from a hook dangling from the ceiling. At night, he would be freed from his cage only to be placed in another small, confined space, a space between two walls, pitch black and so narrow that the lord had to sleep standing. And then, one morning, they didn’t come to put him in his cage, and he feared he would be encased inside the wall forever—
I gave the weaver a reprieve from the nightmare running through his head to see if he was ready to make the correct decision. The moment I freed the young fae from the horror playing out in his mind, he jumped at the opportunity to please me. That was the great thing about my ability—I rarely ever had to follow through with the dark scenarios I conjured in the heads of other fae. Usually, the threat alone was sufficient.
The weaver pulled at the magical thread of the wall and the moment before he collapsed, unconscious, I felt his elation at having finally succeeded—I could see through the weaver’s eyes a small opening in the wall, wide enough for about three men to fit through. I pulled back from the weaver’s mind, causing my light-hazel eyes to disappear and be replaced with the weaver’s own dark gray eyes, which rolled into the back of his head as he lost consciousness.
“Take me there. Now,” I ordered the traveler I had standing by for this exact moment.
Seconds later, I appeared at the southern border. The sun shone on my skin, which had a pallor to it that would have seemed unnatural to most, but which only complimented my light features. The weaver lay sprawled out at my feet. I could feel that the weaver’s mind was still intact, so I had not pushed him too far, after all. Good. We were going to need a bigger hole. However, the young fae had been right about the possible traps that had been waiting for whoever was successful in taking down King Heroux’s magic. The weaver was afflicted with a particularly nasty spell.
“Get him to a healer,” I barked at the traveler.
I stepped through the hole in the border wall and breathed in the air of Valencia for the first time in twenty-three years.
My queen was waiting.