Chapter 2
Lor
My wife was late as usual. I stood at the border, which we were supposed to inspect together this morning.
We did monthly inspections of the entire barrier around Fairwitch Isle, making sure there were no holes, weak spots, nothing that would indicate the magic that kept our kingdom invisible and safe was weakening.
This was important. I may have only been king for two years, but I knew that before Castle had chosen me and Aoife as its rulers, the border had been weak, the magic that protected our city failing and exposing the city to those who would do it harm.
I didn’t know why Aoife had to be so difficult about these things.
I’d gotten that ridiculous document that she wanted separate schedules, but I’d refused to sign it.
We were both adults. I was forty-two years old, and Aoife had about four thousand years on me.
Maybe we didn’t get along, but we could put aside our differences to do what was best for our people. At least that was what I’d thought.
Yet Aoife was nowhere to be found. I shoved a hand through my hair, and it fell back into place, brushing my shoulders.
“There you are.” I looked up to see my older brother striding toward me, his full beard streaked by grey, his mop of hair tousled in the morning breeze.
I was tall and muscled, typically taller and bigger than most, but even I wasn’t as big as Wolfe, who towered over everyone, a mountain of a man.
“How are you?” I said, already tired, and it was first thing in the morning.
“Better than you, by the looks of it.” Wolfe clapped a hand on my shoulder. “What’s troubling you?”
I turned from the invisible border. I’d have to check it later for any potential issues when Aoife actually decided to do her job as queen.
“Let’s go.” I nodded my head away from the barrier, and Wolfe stomped toward the city, pine cones and needles crunching under his boots, his black cloak flapping behind him.
The castle rose up in the distance, tall with gleaming white stone that never seemed to get dirty despite the rain and mud and creatures that found homes in its peaks and gutters.
Stained glass windows shimmered under the sun, all the colors of the rainbow glimmering and sparkling.
It was a beautiful castle, and sometimes, I still couldn’t believe I was its king. That it had chosen me to lead it.
I wouldn’t fail it. Not like I’d failed before.
We walked across the forest floor, the tall pine trees and thick redwoods growing sparser the closer we got to town, the fresh mountain air surrounding us.
Wooden and stone buildings lined the main cobblestone road that wound around Fairwitch Isle, and a screech echoed through the forest as my advisor flew straight toward me.
“Your Majesty,” Fargus said, landing on my shoulder.
“Where is she?” I asked my advisor.
He cleared his throat, feathers ruffling.
“What?” I asked, already knowing I didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to say.
“Her Majesty had a message for you.”
I snorted. Of course she did. “What is it?” I asked warily.
There was a pause, and I looked over to see if the owl heard me. I raised a brow at him.
“It’s not appropriate, I’m afraid. I can’t say it out loud. It wouldn’t be right to speak in such a way to you.”
Wolfe crossed his arms over his chest. “Does it start with an ‘F’ and end with a ‘you?’”
Fargus’s wings twitched, and his head swiveled to look away from me, not meeting my eye.
“I think we might have cracked the code,” Wolfe said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So she got her schedule request back, I take it?”
“As I suggested, she was not happy about it, Your Majesty.”
She wasn’t happy about anything I did. Ever. So I wasn’t exactly surprised.
“What happened now?” Wolfe asked as we came closer to the city.
“Aoife wanted to rearrange our schedules so that we no longer have to interact.”
Wolfe pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t dare speak for you, Your Majesty,” Fargus said. “I only told her advisor that I suspected you didn’t think it would benefit Fairwitch Isle.”
“I don’t know about that,” Wolfe murmured.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked as we approached a row of squat stone buildings with thatched roofs.
He scratched the back of his neck. “Nothing. I’m not getting in the middle of your marriage.”
“You might need to speak with the queen about this,” Fargus said. “Directly. It’s not easy when it’s Meera and I communicating between the two of you.”
Yet another conversation I didn’t have time for. Not when I was trying to blend two very different communities while also keeping us safe from anyone who might want to breach our border, to take our magic. So many problems, and if I actually had a partner to help me, it would be so much easier.
“I will speak with her.”
My jaw locked as we slipped in the alley between my younger brother’s apothecary store and the town tea shop. We emerged on the cobblestone street that wound around the castle, businesses lining either side of it.
“This fish is rotten!”
We stopped, staring across the street at the log cabin restaurant, where the owner, Myrna held a fish, waving it in front of Gidhe’s face.
The faerie’s blue skin had a red, angry tint to it, the gills on his neck opening and closing rapidly.
I still hadn’t quite gotten used to the Fair Folk and their abilities to shift, to take on whatever form they liked.
Many of them, like my advisor, chose an animal form while others chose human forms but with animal features, like Gidhe with his gills.
Myrna’s white bun bobbed as she jabbed the fish into the faerie’s chest. She was pushing one hundred years old, yet that hadn’t seemed to slow her down in the slightest. “I’m not paying for this.”
Gidhe looked down at the fish head pushing into his chest. “Oh yes you are. I portaled to the sea, got you your fish, and you will damn well compensate me for my time.”
I eyed Wolfe, and he nodded. “I’m on it.”
He walked toward the arguing residents as I continued to the towering castle.
I often wondered if part of the reason why these arguments between the Fair Folk and mortals broke out was because their king and queen couldn’t even manage to come together on most things. On anything, really.
“Do you think those two will ever get along?” I nodded my head toward Myrna and Gidhe, who were now both grabbing either end of the fish in an odd tug-of-war situation.
Fargus’s wings twitched. “We’ve only been together for four years, and I think you’ve done a wonderful job of merging our communities, Your Majesty.”
More than anything, I wanted to bring these communities together. I wanted Fairwitch Isle to thrive. I wanted to make up for all the mistakes and failures of my past. The ones I couldn’t even think about because they were too fucking painful.
If Aoife could be just a little more agreeable, we could achieve all the things I wanted.
Instead, I was stuck with a woman who threw temper tantrums at every opportunity and who hated me, though I wasn’t sure what I’d ever done to her.
Of all the things I had to deal with, she was the most tiring and also the one thing I couldn’t rid myself of.
Not ever since I made the choice to press my lips to hers and break the curse that had turned her to stone.
Fairwitch Isle’s magic had been restored and we were safe from outside enemies .
. . for now. But we had to be vigilant. We had to constantly work to ensure that safety remained.
And we needed to work together. The tension between me and the queen would eventually spill to our people.
We wouldn’t even need enemies to destroy us when we were going to do that to ourselves.
It was my responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen. If Aoife couldn’t act like the adult in this relationship, I had to for the both of us.
His voice echoed in my head. This is on your shoulders. You have to be better than everyone else. You can trust no one but yourself.
I shook the words, the memories of him, away, but he’d be back. The ghost of him followed me everywhere.
We approached the looming castle, the sun glinting off its vaulted peaks and stained glass windows, and raised voices rang out as my younger brother, Cillian, jogged up to me, his glossy waves shining under the sunlight, his perfectly symmetrical face pinched.
“So there’s a problem,” he said in his usual chipper voice that made everything seem better than it actually was.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What now?”
“Sir Arthur is threatening Ambrose, who in turn is threatening to throw the suit of armor off the mountain.”
I didn’t entirely disagree with Ambrose on that front, but Sir Arthur was part of Castle’s magic, something it had brought to life, and it was not up to us to destroy it—and possibly anger Castle in the process.
“Also, Sir Arthur might have somehow gotten a hold of a real sword.” Cillian made a yeesh face as I broke out into a run toward the castle, dashing up the stairs where the twin gargoyles statues sat.
They sprang to life, both reaching out to grasp the brass handles and open the double doors.
“Hi boss!” Barty said.
“Later,” I shouted as I ran into the foyer to see Sir Arthur dueling Ambrose.
The suit of armor was painfully slow, its movements clunky and awkward as it jabbed its sword toward Ambrose.
The faerie jumped back, dodging Sir Arthur’s attack.
Ambrose normally wasn’t bothered by Sir Arthur, seeing the suit of armor as more amusing than anything else.
I wondered what had changed this morning.
“Sir Arthur!” My voice rang out over the space, my boots clicking on the shiny white tiles as I walked toward them. “That’s enough!”
“Your Majesty! This ingrate is threatening to throw me off a cliff!”
“A tall one,” Ambrose added with a glint in his eyes. “Very tall.” He was baiting the suit of armor, acting like this was all some joke.
“At least someone’s having fun,” Cillian said, and I rolled my eyes.
He and Ambrose had become good friends over the last few years, both of them no doubt bonding over the fact that they didn’t take anything seriously enough.
“He won’t throw you over a cliff,” I said. “Let’s take a minute to—”
Before I could finish that sentence, Arthur backed Ambrose up into a door I hadn’t even noticed existed. That happened sometimes with Castle. Doors appeared out of nowhere. Rooms popped up or disappeared.
The two of them burst through the door and into the dark room, and I shoved a hand through my hair. I did not have time for this. I was supposed to be finding my wife and dragging her to our border inspection, not breaking up fights between a sentient object and one of the Fair Folk.
“You should probably go after them,” Cillian said, nodding toward the door, a glint in his eyes.
I shook my head and stalked after them and into the room, where I stopped short right inside the doorway.
A table was set with candles, two glasses of wine, and two silver platters. A harp sat in the corner, the strings plucking themselves and playing a soothing hymn.
“Don’t you surrender, you coward!” Sir Arthur roared, but Ambrose was no longer fighting him, instead gesturing toward one of the chairs, a lopsided grin on his face, his golden eyes sparkling.
“Have a seat,” he said to me in his usual jovial tone.
“What is this?” I asked, not liking the situation, which I didn’t entirely understand. Maybe that was what I didn’t like about it.
A portal of glittering gold magic appeared, and I smelled her before I saw her: she always had this smokey scent, one laced with plum and leather. I swallowed thickly as Aoife appeared.
The golden magic glowed over her deep russet skin, her long dark hair flowing down her back.
Leather trousers hugged her thick thighs and wide hips, a sleeveless tunic tucked into them.
She was a fearsome sight with her golden eyes flashing and her fierce expression.
I could see how she’d earned the nickname “the warrior queen.” She certainly lived up to it.
“What is happening now?” she asked. “Margaret told me you were fighting the armor,” she said to Ambrose, not even noticing me, and it stung the way she looked with concern over the faerie, the way she stepped toward him so intimately, laying a hand on his arm.
“You know, I think we resolved our differences. We’re going to leave now.” Ambrose began shoving Sir Arthur out the door.
“We have certainly not resolved our differences,” Sir Arthur shouted. “You must pay for threatening me!”
“What is happening?” I asked, whirling to see Ambrose’s and Cillian’s mischievous smiles before they shut the door in my face. I attempted to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
“We’ll let you out after you’ve had a meal together,” Cillian said from the other side.
“And a conversation!” Ambrose added.
I understood why my brother might scheme to get me and Aoife in the same room, but I didn’t understand why Ambrose would be part of this. I saw the way he looked at my wife, knew there was some history between them that I didn’t understand and Aoife would never reveal to me.
“I’m going to kill you both for this,” Aoife said, a lilt to her voice that always gave her threats this lyrical quality. Even when they were aimed at me.
“That is why we plan to go into hiding,” Ambrose said. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that the only way you’re getting out of that room is by sitting down and having a fecking meal together.”
They’d planned this. They’d staged that fight to get me and Aoife in the same room.
A throbbing headache formed in my temple, and I slowly turned to see Aoife staring at me, daggers in her eyes.
Maybe this would be our chance to talk, to work out this schedule change nightmare that she was clearly upset about.
“I can just portal out, you bloody idiots,” Aoife said.
“You could,” Cillian agreed as I slowly turned and sat down.
“What are you doing?” Aoife whispered. “Don’t sit down.”
“I’m eating. Would you like to join me?” I asked as a cloth napkin appeared on my lap.
So Castle was somehow in on this too.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she snapped. “I’m leaving.”
“And then what? We do need to talk, you know. You can’t avoid me forever. And they won’t stop. They’ll keep finding ways to push us together.”
“He’s right!” Ambrose called. “We’re very persistent!”
“Go away,” I shouted. “I’ve got this.”
Their footsteps pattered across the floor, fading into the distance, and I gestured to the seat across from me. “Please sit?”
Aoife let out an annoyed huff but dropped into the chair.
It was finally time to speak with my wife.