Chapter 6
Aoife
The world stilled around me as I moved my body in the gentle motions of tachika kan.
I bent over, legs and arms straight and pushing into the ground as I stretched my body, letting my muscles loosen, letting all the tension fade away.
Sweat was already prickling my skin under the warm sun, the grass cool and spongy under my feet.
“You know Lor doesn’t like it when you’re outside of Fairwitch Isle. Someone could spot you, Your Majesty.”
I straightened to see Ambrose approaching, the sun glinting off his blue wavy hair.
I always thought the blue hair looked ridiculous.
The Fair Folk could manipulate how we looked, could shift into animal form or elemental form, depending on our abilities, but I’d never liked to shift.
The godwitches had given us that power to use us as spies.
I always preferred my true form, pointed ears and all.
I stood and stretched my arm across my body. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t care what Lor thinks, and since when do you?”
Ambrose walked toward me through the tall trees with a lazy smile on his face, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets. He was beautiful with his bronze skin and golden eyes, his face and body that looked like it had been chiseled from stone.
Whereas Ambrose was all muscle, toned waist and arms, I was thick everywhere. I loved my wide hips and tree-trunk thighs and thick arms and round stomach. Despite all my curves, all my softness, I’d always felt like my body was strong, and it made me feel strong in turn.
I bent my front leg until I was in a warrior position, arm stretching out.
“Want to spar?” Ambrose asked, and I raised a brow.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting in trouble with your king?”
He just shot me a smile and assumed his fighting stance, legs bent and braced, arms crooked, entire body taunt like a bowstring about to release an arrow.
“I’m surprised you remember how to fight like this.
” I so often saw Ambrose with the other Fair Folk, training in the courtyard with weapons I refused to touch.
Not when they’d been forged by the godwitch of war, the one who’d created those weapons to use against us in war.
Just another thing my people had forgotten.
“I remember well enough,” Ambrose said.
I mimicked his stance. I was done stretching and ready to fight.
Lightning fast, his arm struck out toward my head, and I blocked the movement with my own arm.
“Why don’t you just use the training courtyard like everyone else?” Ambrose asked, using the strength of his arm to turn mine downward, the force of it spinning and pushing me a few paces from him.
“Because I don’t want to,” I said. “All the Fair Folk train with weapons now. It’s like they’ve forgotten our beginnings, how we fight with our bodies, not with metal.”
The godwitches hadn’t allowed us to have weapons, so the Fair Folk created tachika kan, our own way of fighting.
We’d practice in forests just like this, where we were hidden from the eyes of the godwitches.
I didn’t want to train in that courtyard, the same courtyard the godwitches used to train in.
It was another prison, and my people didn’t even recognize it anymore.
Ambrose lunged for me, and we sparred with our arms jabbing, blocking, striking. “I think you’re not training in the courtyard because you like defying Lor.”
“Maybe that too,” I said. “But there’s no one out here at the top of this mountain. I’m being perfectly safe.”
I spun so my back was to the faerie, then kicked back, my bare foot landing right in his stomach.
He let out an “oof” sound as he stumbled back a few paces. “He’s just trying to protect us, lovely.”
I softened at his use of the nickname he’d adopted for me thousands of years ago.
“He’s just trying to keep everyone safe. The brotherhood are out there. They’re powerful. And they’re a threat if they find us.”
Anger shot through me, bright and hot like the sun, as I whirled to face Ambrose, assuming a fighting stance.
“So you’re on his side?” I asked. I was so sick of everyone agreeing with Lor, thinking that he knew best. Especially Ambrose, possibly my only friend, the faerie I’d always been closest with.
Things had changed between us after I got married, and Ambrose had been more distant.
Just another thing I’d lost because of Lor.
“Come now, lovely,” Ambrose said as I lunged with a series of attacks, my arm chopping right in the crook of his neck.
He winced and tried to defend himself as I fought him backward right into a tree, my hand slicing toward his Adam’s apple but stopping short of actually closing his airway.
He held his hands up. “I’m not on anyone’s side.
Sometimes I think you’re too stubborn, too proud, to understand that Lor is trying to do good.
You’re so afraid he’s going to control you that you won’t give him a chance to be your partner. ”
Meera had said something similar, and it irked me that nobody could see my side of things.
I turned, crossing my arms tight. “Doesn’t he control me? I can’t even come out into the forest to train without someone reminding me how it will displease Lor Wolfgang, like he rules over me.” Just like Fairwitch ruled over me. Just like the curse ruled over me.
I felt the heat of Ambrose’s body behind me, and he put a hand on my shoulder. I leaned into his touch, and he stepped back, his warmth gone.
My jaw clenched. “Why did you come out here? Was it just to lecture me?”
“No.” He walked around me so that I was facing him as he pulled a scroll out of his pocket. “I actually came because I have some good news.”
I gasped. Was it my schedule change? Had Lor changed his mind after our fight the other day?
Hope sprang up inside of me as I took the scroll, frowning as I clumsily read the words.
I didn’t recognize all of them, but I knew enough to see this wasn’t my schedule change proposal. It was something else entirely.
An edict? From who?
My gaze snapped up and Ambrose rubbed the middle of his forehead, a spot right underneath his blue hair, styled in some fashion that he no doubt picked up from the mortals. “Castle issued it yesterday,” he said.
I looked at the scroll again, heart pounding at what this could mean for me.
“What does it say, exactly?” I asked, and Ambrose raised a blue brow as he explained it all to me.
Excitement vibrated through me as he spoke.
Freedom. Castle only wanted one ruler, and it was going to . . . let us decide?
My heart sank when he read the final part of the edict, about how one of us had to voluntarily cede the crown. “Lor will never give up this role.”
And I would once again be stuck with him forever. I had no idea what Castle was playing at, but disappointment filled me. Maybe this was a false promise, something Castle was trying to do to placate me, to give me this illusion of the freedom it had promised me so long ago. A broken promise.
“All this is going to amount to is a month of Lor and I arguing over who would be the best fit for Fairwitch Isle, only for us to not agree, as usual, and then at the end of the month, nothing will be decided, and we’ll once again be stuck together.”
Ambrose tsked. “That’s not the Aoife the Warrior Queen I know.”
I stared at him glumly.
He raised a finger. “The Aoife I know would fight.”
I scoffed. “I can’t kill him. This edict says as much.” Besides, maybe I didn’t like Lor, didn’t agree with him on most things, but that didn’t mean I wanted him dead. Even I could see he was a good man. That he cared about our people. I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted him gone.
“That’s not what I meant,” Ambrose said.
I inhaled deeply, letting the fresh pine scent of the forest fill me. To think I’d come out here to get rid of all the tension filling me, only to have that ruined by Ambrose’s visit.
“You don’t have to fight him with your body,” Ambrose said. “Use your wits. Like you did against Fairwitch.”
He waggled his blue brows. “You didn’t fight Fairwitch to save yourself from being beheaded. You were clever. You convinced the godwitch of stone to give you that potion, to be able to curse yourself.”
And I’d regretted it ever since. I still remembered standing in that dungeon, not sure if I should go through with it, turn myself to stone, curse myself. Castle had convinced me, had promised me it would be worth it.
The leaves rustled in the cool breeze, birds chirping and flitting around us.
“But it wasn’t just that. You were outwitting Fairwitch all the time.
Doing things to poke at Fairwitch, to make them so angry they’d make mistakes, and eventually, you did something so brilliant, you made Fairwitch realize just how superior you were, how formidable you were.
Your uprising was the reason Fairwitch decided to leave for the Otherworld.
Cede their power in the mortal lands. You’re still that warrior queen, lovely. ”
I smiled, remembering my favorite rebellious activity.
It hadn’t been the uprising. It had been something much quieter, but still impactful.
The Fair Folk had our own customs, our own laws, our own vernacular that we’d created in secret.
Our own culture. And for the very first time, we’d created our own secret festival to celebrate all of it.
We were going to meet in the dead of night, when our masters wouldn’t be awake.
We’d prepared food, had stolen instruments, and planned to dance and tell stories and share in joy.
Fairwitch had found out, of course. Planned to put a stop to it. But I couldn’t allow that. Not when just planning this festival had already given my people so much hope, so much joy. I’d seen a fire in them I hadn’t seen previously.
So I’d created a distraction. A rumor that there would be a rebellion. By the time Fairwitch had returned in the early dawn morning, our festival was waning. My people were full, happy, and hopeful for a future where we’d be free.
“That was a good evening,” I said fondly, remembering how Ambrose and I had swayed in the firelight together. “Our very first Fairtine Festival. I still remember the way Fairwitch arrived to see us in all our glory. They were so angry, but it was the first time they saw me as an actual threat.”
“No, lovely.” Ambrose shook his head. “It was the first time they saw you as a queen.”
I met his golden gaze and sucked in a sharp breath, an idea forming.
“All Lor and I do is argue over laws and edicts and plans. I’ve been so busy hiding away from him, avoiding him, fighting him for the last two years that I haven’t truly shown him the kind of queen I can be.
I haven’t shown our people the kind of queen I can be.
Reminded them of who I am.” Who they are.
A smile spread across Ambrose’s face. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to bring back our customs. Our culture. And I’m going to make Lor participate in every bit of it. He’s going to see the joy it brings to everyone.”
I thought of Lor coming to the Fairtine Festival, letting loose and dancing and sharing in stories. He would never.
“He’s also going to realize how unfit he is to rule the Fair Folk along with the mortals.
” Once my people remembered they weren’t mortal, remembered who they were, they wouldn’t bend to Lor’s rule any longer.
“He’ll see how rigid and stiff and controlling he is.
He’ll see me exactly how Fairwitch saw me. He’ll see that I am meant to be queen.”
It wasn’t a perfect plan, and I wasn’t even sure it was the right one.
A faint voice whispered that maybe Lor was meant to rule, not me.
That Castle had made a mistake choosing me, but if there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that pettiness drove me.
I pushed that voice away and let the pettiness win.
I’d show Lor I was better. I’d show everyone.
There were many things that could go wrong, but I was sick of sitting back and letting others decide my fate. I was sick of feeling like a shadow of myself.
“Okay,” Ambrose said with a laugh. “That’s grand and all. But how will Lor react?”
“Oh, that’s the best part.” I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. “He’s going to hate it. Every bit of it. He’ll be so miserable by the end of this month, he’ll be begging to give up the crown.”
“You really think it’ll work?” Ambrose asked with a raised brow. “Lor is stubborn.”
“Lor will hate it,” I said, laughing and clapping a hand over my mouth.
“He’ll hate all of it. So even if it doesn’t work, that alone will make it worth it.
” This whole time I’d been trying to convince Lor to let me be queen, to let me do my job.
I’d been asking for permission. But I was done with that.
I wasn’t going to ask anymore. I would do everything I’d been wanting to do—and I’d infuriate Lor in the process.
“You’re diabolical, lovely. So what now?”
I put my hands on Ambrose’s shoulders. “Now we plan.”