Enchanted Moon (Moon Magick Book II) (2 page)

She
reached toward the light, wonder fluttering up her chest.

Aye,
Colm might kill her. Or thank her.

She
retrieved her bow and one arrow. Should Maera have been brought here
unwillingly, her captor would hear no more than a whisper before meeting his
swift end.

Chapter Two

The
violet glow snaked over shadowy boughs, wound over mossy rock, and drew Ailyn
deeper into the wood. The soft glow pulsed, begging her forth. Or was that her
growing sense that she’d be finding Maera soon? Her heart pounded in
anticipation. She moved one hand to the hilt of her dagger. Should her bow
prove the lesser weapon, she had her blade. The other she laid on the tree
limbs, feeling her way. The magick invisibly pulled at her. She’d never felt
the like.

It
hissed. Or was that only the hush of shivering leaves she heard? Aye, on ye go.
Follow her fast, lest Maera betrayed the kingdom whole and through.

Ailyn
walked deeper into the glade, readying to take Maera by surprise and then
to
 
demand answers. How could Maera
up and flee? Did she not fathom the weight of her every action in these
precious hours? The banquet had been solemn, aye, but the circumstances called
for such. The thousand-year alliance between all four Fae tribes deteriorated
alongside the queen’s health day by day.

The
dewy floor masked Ailyn’s footsteps conspiring with her. Maera
. What’ve ye run from?

Nothing
could warrant the princess abandoning her people. Nothing. She’d bet her best
saddle that Maera had come here. Of course she had come here. Ailyn could feel
it in her bones, no longer chilled in the near-wintry night air, but eerily
warm instead. The glade was strange and different compared to her childhood
memories.

The
violet wisp stole away, forcing Ailyn to increase her pace. The pull of it
strengthened. Wrapping resolve around her like a blanket against the cool fear
inside herself, Ailyn stepped into the sacred space. For a scant moment, she
could not move. Her breath left her. She’d never beheld such beauty as the
rippling glow above the glassy pond.

Magick.
True and pure. The likes of her ancestors. The kind her mother’s mother weaved
tales around. Impossible tales only a child would wish were real.

A
ripple of azure moved up the gauzy mist. Ailyn found her breath again. The veil
that concealed the Fae realm from man’s hateful eye thinned by the second.

She
shouldn’t get so close. No Fae, noble or common, dared get close to the portal.
One memory of such a thing did exist, should she let her mind live it again.
Bands of water, spiraling outward from the small tip of a child’s finger. The
child’s hand touching the water, so close to that portal, reaching out to touch
the glow….

A
new prickle on her skin brought her attention back to the glade. She tore her
gaze away, squatting. She unsheathed her blade, awareness sneaking over her
scalp, down her back. Movement caught her eye.

Ailyn
hissed her anger, the sharp noise piercing the stillness.
Maera?

A
breeze moved the leaves louder, fingering through her hair in cold warning. Her
vision focused as the shadowy figure approached the water’s edge. She pulled
the arrow taut against the string, watchful, ready. Aye. Ailyn knew the line of
those wings. Her princess was found. And she was alone.

Ailyn
shot to her feet and strode forth. “Maera!” she called, anger welling in her
chest.

Maera
swung to face her. The light illuminated her future queen’s alabaster skin.
“Ailyn? By Brigit, you scared me.” Her hand trembled atop her breastbone.

“Who
brought you here?” Ailyn said, barely containing her derision despite keen
cognizance of her station. “Are you alone?”

Maera’s
eyes narrowed. “Aye. I came alone.” She backed away a step, which took her into
the water. The tips of her wings sank. “You can lower your bow. I’m safe. Did
Colm come with you?”

“My
liege, no, I ... I ...” She didna have the courage to lie, and her relief
warred with her anger. Guilt found room, too, plucking her chest. She should
have insisted that Colm and she stay together. She should have somehow brought
the whole lot of the guard with her. “I’ve come alone.”

Ailyn
trod with care, needing to be closer, lest Maera get too near the portal. The
glowing ripple above the pond’s center thickened, flirting for her attention.
She shook off the effect, directing her mind to her duty. To her kingdom’s
future.

“Alone?
Are you certain?” Maera’s penetrating gaze tripped Ailyn’s heart anew. Fifteen
years it had been since last they’d been here.

Small
hands braiding pink petal flowers into a crown. One for Maera, one for Ailyn.
Muddy toes dipping into cool waters. Heavy magick on the horizon under a bright
moon. Maera had comforted Ailyn’s broken heart then. She’d convinced Ailyn to
leave the glade, her hiding place, before the portal could seduce them in.

Ailyn
willed the images back behind memory’s jagged curtain. They were no longer
children. No longer playmates. “I’ve come to escort you back, my liege.”

“Me?
Go back?” Maera laughed hollowly. “No. You are who must go back, Ailyn. Not I.
Tell them you couldna find me.”

A
flash of anger warmed her chest anew. But a small voice inside her warned to
take care. Maera was not herself. The indrawn shoulders. The tremor in her
glorious wings as she lifted her skirts and backed another step into the water.
A thousand pleas darted through Ailyn’s mind only to leave unspoken. She
stepped closer, recognizing the fear in her princess’ bearing.

“My
liege, stop please,” Ailyn said, holding out both hands, struggling to keep her
voice light. Lighter than her heart. “Lest you chill your bones through.”

“I
feel naught but warmth here, Ailyn. Hope. Possibility.” Her voice did not sound
hopeful, though. Maera’s frown deepened as she glanced behind her. “D’you think
it is true?” She paused for three heartbeats. “That if you pass through, a part
of you remains here, as they say?”

Ailyn
scowled. She did not like her princess’ uncharacteristically fanciful tone.
“Nay, Maera, dinna consider it. Nothing can be so terrible that you would
attempt the veil.”

Maera’s
hands settled—one to her throat, the other on her stomach. Grief
contorted her features. Ailyn strode closer, weighing the risk of scaring Maera
against the danger of her proximity to the portal. She could not ignore,
either, the longing building within her to touch the pulsing hue herself.

“Leave
me now, Ailyn,” Maera said, her tone harsh. “I will not go back. I relieve you
of your duty to me. Go.”

Foolishness!
Her childhood friend was made of stronger stuff than this, surely. She nearly
shouted as much, but something held her back. Her station permitted no
argument, while her duty forced her to stay her course. Protect Maera. Protect
the kingdom.

With
only a few feet separating them, perchance she should pounce on Maera and drag
her by her raven hair to safety. They’d be too equally matched, though. Maera
taller, Ailyn stronger.

She
should have forced Colm to listen.

Conjuring
one other tactic, Ailyn strolled over and plopped down at the water’s edge. She
yanked off her boots and hiked each pant leg high, re-strapping their leather
bindings with much ado. “I have not come to beg you back. I know better than to
force your hand.” Ailyn nodded to the lavender blur as though her every muscle
did not bunch in awareness of its danger. “How long now?”

Maera
eyed her with caution. “I canno’ say.”

Ailyn
watched the shimmer with careful fascination. “It is their sacred day, is it
not?”

Shrugging
one shoulder, Maera murmured, “Who is to say what conjures the veil?”

Ailyn
let silence swell around them, readying for Maera to make her move. So much
hung in the balance this night.

The
queen’s once-brilliant golden wings, said to outshine Anu’s own, had wilted.
Then blackened. And a fortnight past, the edges disintegrated. A concerned
kingdom followed Maera’s every step and sneeze since the day her mother fell
ill.

“My
liege, please, come out of the water a moment at least. I shall not stop you,
but I’ll neither be leaving.”

Maera
regarded Ailyn a long moment and then waded over, hiking her filmy skirts high,
then sitting down. Ailyn realized those skirts could aid her. Wet and tangled
as they were, if she swept Maera’s feet out from under her, wound them about….
Bah! She’d planned this poorly, she had.

The
lavender air rippled with deep azure. At the center, the mirrorlike surface of
the water began extending upward. The portal was opening. She had to get Maera
away. How?

By
changing her mind.

“What
are you planning here, my liege?” Ailyn asked.

“Not
planning. Executing. What I must,” Maera said, then sighed. “I wish I could
rest my head, shut my eyes, and awake to it all being a dream. A terrible
dream.”

Ailyn’s
chest ached. Losing her mother, faced with four nations’ futures…aye. Ailyn
couldn’t begin to guess the weight of Maera’s burden.

Ailyn
set her bow and quivers on the ground beside her and attempted a light tone.
“Sleep? Here in the mud, then?” She dug her toes into the wet dirt as
demonstration. The dirt was damned cold. “Aye, cozy. Far better than returning,
to be sure. Might I join you?”

Maera
cracked the smallest, briefest of smiles. “You’d be sorely missed.”

“As
are you this very moment.”

Bunching
her wings in tight, Maera set her chin upon her knees, her gaze transfixed to
the widening light. “They are better off without me.”

Ailyn’s
heart tore. She wished she could knock shoulders with her liege, turn this
“passing through” notion into a jest. To somehow make Maera look Ailyn in the
eye, and swear all would be right and well. But all was not right. Nor well.

“D’you
think it true what they say?” Maera said, squeezing her eyes shut a moment.

“What
who say?” she finally braved asking.

“If
we crossed,” Maera said, fingering the muddy edge of one wing. “And all our
body survived to the other side. D’you think the mortals truly hunt us? Use our
skins for skirts and our bones for their lost magick?”

“Skins
for skirts? By Morrigan! What a hideous image that conjures! Who told you such
a tale?” A tale she knew well enough, too, though.

She
shrugged, a grin threatening her cheeks but not her eyes. “The guard.”

Ailyn
grimaced. She’d heard worse among them, but Maera should never have. “Aye, and
the intentions of my peerage prove honorable yet again.”

Water
lapped at their feet, a bit higher, faster. The glassy center stretched higher
and wider, a full myriad of colors at play.

“My
mother passed through once.” Maera stared, entranced.

“Of
course she did. In a merrow’s sealskins and with the bloodstone in hand, no
doubt.” Ailyn imagined Tullah passing through the portal, sneaking about among
barbaric humans. The very thought made her sicken. Maera’s stare pinned her,
though, sobering her. “Are ye serious? The queen? How?”

“I
haven’t any idea. She walked up and stepped right through, I suppose.”

As
legend told any faerie of noble blood. At least Maera was talking.
Contemplating rather than attempting. She had to keep her talking and pray
someone would find them in time. Between the allure of the portal and her own
meager negotiation skills, ’twas a miracle Maera still sat beside her.

“I
dinna mean how she made the passage,” Ailyn continued. The water glowed. The
power beckoned inside her like a seductive whisper to her soul. Certainly Maera
felt the pull, too. The longing. The heart-deep need. “I ken the laws of it.”
She couldn’t hide the edge in her voice. “I meant how do ye know such a thing?”

Maera’s
hard stare matched Ailyn’s tone. This time, the shafts of gray in the princess’
blue eyes held resolve. “Last night. My mother whispered a tale to me. She told
me of the bloodstone and swore it was real. She bade me retrieve it.”

Shivers
raced over Ailyn’s skin. The queen had whispered words to Ailyn as well, though
not last night. Not about the mythical bloodstone, either. Words far more
cryptic had escaped her parched lips.
He
will kill her.

“She
held my hand in hers,” Maera said. “And spoke of how she’d left our realm. She
clutched my hand and wouldn’t let go until I repeated her words.”

Ailyn
swallowed against welling emotion. Tullah was more than their queen. The woman
had given Ailyn every kindness through her orphaned years.

“I
thought she would die. Right there with no one save me to bear witness.”

Ailyn
bit down, lest her lip tremble. She did not want to hear of the moment Tullah
did in fact die. “Was she lucid, then?” she asked instead.

“Aye.
Lucid enough.” Maera drew up her legs and stood. She shook out her long skirts.
“She survived.”

Survived?
For months, the kingdom had lived and breathed a deathwatch. Waiting for word
that their beloved queen had returned to the goddess.