Deception (16 page)

I held his gaze for a second and then my little piece of ecstasy by smoothing my lips across his and pressing in. When I flicked my tongue across his top lip he froze.  Then...I moved my tongue slowly across his bottom lip.  When his tongue racked across my top teeth, I lost my balance and fell into him no longer in control.  This.was.bliss.

We let go of our embrace and turned to walk towards my room holding each other close.  Two of whom I know to be his personal guards walked up to Ian.  He smiled a “wait right here” smile at me, let go, and walked over to them before they came closer. I had a feeling he summoned them earlier by the way the first question was phrased…or he could read their minds.  Just not mine. I heard the guards whisper something to him distinctly saying, “Is he out there?” 

Who did he mean?  Where? 

The guards nodded.  He whispered something else to them, but I only caught the word “surrounded.”  They walked away and he came back to me. I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.

He then walked me to my room where Danella was standing watch obviously, playing mother hen!  He kissed my hand, his eyes never leaving mine.  I watched as he walked away.  

He’d explained that a new room was prepared for the future princess and queen. 
That was me.  ME!

“Danella, were you waiting for me?” I cut my eyes sideways and folded my arms knowing the truth without asking.

“Yes, Miss Grace.  I was ordered too,” she smiled and puffed out her chest in a production of loyalty.

“Can I ask you something?”

Danella nodded sheepishly.  I had a feeling Ian was the only one my thoughts were shielded from.

“Does he sleep?” I looked to where I last watched Ian walk off.

“Silly!  We don’t need much sleep!  Very little.  But we knew you were coming so provided a beautiful room for you.  And your things have been moved.  The previous room is still yours and is attached through the new room from the opposite side of your personal bath.  It is now a sitting area for visiting.  The bedroom is encased in walls like your human one at Ian’s request.”

I attempted to peek around the corner now the opposite direction.  “Can I see?”

Danella stood aside. 

The room I’d been in last night was fine and cozy, too, but this was beyond words.  The ceiling was made of stars, if it really was a ceiling. It looked so real.  I really couldn’t tell for sure.   The bed was more than adequate.  It was this soft, feathery almost floating silver encased “coffin.”  The veil that surrounded it screamed privacy and prayed I wouldn’t get claustrophobic. 

I wondered briefly what Ian would stay up doing tonight or any night. Or even come join me.  I slapped my inner self with a silent “shame on you”.    At least he couldn’t read my thoughts on this subject anymore.   Though I beg to believe that he might just be able to read my face and body language just as well since he’d been able to piece them both together for so many years.  It was an unfair advantage on his part. 

“
But
I can read yours, little lady!” Danella scolded.
“He is a gentleman.  Have some hormonal patience, Miss Grace.”

I felt like I was talking to my mother.  Danella seem to have that kind of motherly feel even if she was less than half my height so I didn’t dignify with a response except follow her to the bath and change clothes and climb into the floating feather of a bed. “Did you happen to know if anyone found my brush?  It is the only brush that gets these horrid tangles out and not break and damage my hair.”   I’d lost it back at home, but found it in the pouch my mom packed for the party.  Had she known then?  Yes!  And now, it was missing again. Trivial, but some treasures are worth getting worked up over.

“Sorry, Miss Grace, it is still missing.  But I did look everywhere for it.  It must have been misplaced in the move.” 

Before I could close my eyes I eyed Danella folding my clothes across the silk covered blue ottoman made of weaved vines and much like the wicker chairs on the back porch back home.  “The guards said someone was surrounding us.  Do you know what they meant?”

“Miss Grace, Ian has the court very secure.  The guards are just very protective.  And perhaps there was something out there, but Ian has never failed us before.”

I didn’t have to worry for long or wonder if rest would find me tonight.  I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

The next morning I felt completely rested.  By the time I found Ian he was already sitting with the court seer.  When I walked up, the man was telling him, “Many things are unknown when it is unknown.  Don’t pretend to predict what will happen, but what can happen.”  It sounded like riddles to me.

Ian heard my approach, but let the seer finish before he stood and pecked my cheek causing an instant beaming smile to spread across my face.  I couldn’t help but lavish in the thought of being able to do that back in the high school cafeteria.  

He motioned for me to sit down
1
and turned back to the seer even as I continued to fantasize.  Ian told the seer,  “I visited the human world this morning and every mind was active but hers!” 

The human world isn’t ready for this.  I still would love to see Caylie’s face when I reached up and planted a big one on Ian’s mouth.  They all had to wonder where we went.  Did they worry about me?

The seer chuckled.

Ian looked at the seer, puzzled, and then sideways my direction, but not at me. 

“The scratch?”  The seer asked Ian for his arm.

All three of us looked down to where he pointed.  It was barely a scratch, yet he told the seer it throbbed. 

“The mark simply symbolizes her “mark” on you.  She did it unwillingly.  Consider it a birth mark if you will.  The birth of the prophecy.  Her signature on you.  I believe it to mean nothing more.”  He giggled like a schoolgirl.  “It happened once before.  Queen Myra, a previous queen marked her betrothed over two hundred years ago, when her crown slid from her head and her betrothed caught it and replaced it.  A single tear in his skin, much like yours, left a permanent mark.  That’s why the crown is woven into the hair now,” he seemed amused.  “That was my idea.” 

He’s been around a while.

He laughed aloud. I could only guess he was reading my mind.

Finally, I spoke.  “What will happen then?”

The seer continued, “I believe nothing, but
what is
continual in the Fey world we live in today?  You are from the humans.  Things could change.  You never know what may be revealed.  Sometimes my revelations are just simply...guesses.”

“My eyes didn’t change.  Do you know why?”

“No!” He looked like he was hiding something.  Yes he does.  “For now, walk the path you must,” and he turned to the sun again expecting us to leave.

Ian took my arm and led me to the garden area. Or at least, as of late,
our
garden spot. 

“Is he honest?”

He looked appalled.

I didn’t know this man and apparently Ian held complete faith in him. I shied away from his scrutiny thinking it obvious he was hiding something.  Yes, and Ian knew it.  He trusted this guy a lot though.
 
“So I gather we play it by ear?”

“I guess!”  He tore the small twigs apart near him on the ground.  I willed the daylight to hurry, but not too fast.

We sat and watched the sun come up in silence.  He seemed distracted or otherwise thinking heavily for the few minutes we had alone.  “Are you okay?” I asked.

He smiled, “Oh, yes.  I am just trying to figure things out.  I will worry for the both of us.”

That was strange to say.

“
You crinkled your forehead up.  That usually means you are worrying?” he assessed.

“I do?” I was amazed he was that observant.

“You always have.  I have had a lot of time to study you.”

I loved the idea of being studied, by him though could be as dangerous as the reading minds.  “I often try to figure out what exactly it is you do worry about and come up with nothing but your mother.”

Ian laughed.  “We are doomed.”  He kept laughing.

“Explain?” I expressed with extreme concern.

“Later!” He was still laughing when we headed to the table.

We had breakfast.  “Where to today?” I asked enthusiastically.

He’d looked happy once again until I mentioned it.  No answer though. 

“What are you thinking?” That made him smile.  Then he frowned again.

“I was thinking about my mother.”  He never looked up.  His mother, the queen, didn’t seem to have much affection for him, so I wondered if it was a question of missing her or the idea that she was no longer in control.  She was still his mother after all.

I didn’t say anything.  Presumably, Queen Lazyra was dead.  How morbid this process sounded.  Why did one ruler have to die to have another?  The historians answer had been centered round the idea that it is just simply the way it is in the Fey world. A very unbecoming custom in my opinion.

“We have to go visit Pike.”  He was still picking at the knotted bread in front of him.   I had grown accustomed to the fresh bread aroma I found every morning when I walked to the table.

“Who?” I’d already heard about him with Danella, but only his name.  “You mentioned him last night.”

“You already know him.  Don’t be alarmed.  He really is on our side,” his voice quivered which was very unlike him.  “He has watched over you too.  It was his job to keep the Nyms and Unseelie court uninterested in you.”

“Tell me more about the Nyms,” I wanted to understand why everyone is at war with each other.   His mother mentioned them in the conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear.   I didn’t understand his nervousness talking about Pike or the Nyms.  “Why do they want to hurt me?”

“From the beginning to understand better.  They have been in existence slightly less longer than the Fey.  It is our understanding from the historians that a wayward Fey once mated with a true mountain dweller and what we see now are the vast results of the offspring.  They started out peaceful and sharing the lands after being enslaved for a time, but in the last hundred years have become hostile and seem only to want to destroy us.  At the time, the Unseelie court turned over a new king, as well as our own gained a new one as well.  Both stayed in turmoil for a time after that.  We have tried to treaty with them, but they have no care for peace talk.  It is the belief of many that this
grace
of the prophecy will end the war and bring peace back to us.”

“How is it that I was named Grace?  The prophecy came and, wow, let’s name the new baby coming, Grace, and she will be our savior.  I am not sure how I necessarily fit into that picture.”  I said the first part more with my hands and a rather sarcastically driven whiney voice just like I did when describing the dramatic part of my favorite movies.  It only seemed right to make it dramatic when one uses their own name in a tale of sorts.  It sounded too much like a movie to all be real anyway.

He paused then put on his own faraway voice like we do, “The day your grandfather died, his dying words were, “Name her Grace.  She will be a strong and healthy babe to end our strife.  Keep her safe.”  You could tell he was reciting something he’d heard many times.

I wondered why my grandfather suddenly became a prophet.  “That does not mean anything but a grandfather thinking of his daughter’s child.  And that does not make me a savior of us all.  Quote, unquote.”  I held up my fingers to show the symbols for quotation marks.

He smiled and looked like he was mocking me in his mind.  “Your grandfather didn’t know your mom and dad were going to have a baby.” 

I was almost speechless.  Almost!  I let out a small sound that didn’t sound ladylike.  He caught it by the jerk of his head.  My mom always said that, “a lady does not let foulness leave the lips of grace and beauty.” Most cannot hear my mind! Or my mumbles!  

“And the prophecy was made the night of his death.  He never knew about you.  Your mom chose to stay in the human world.  She didn’t want any part of the Fey if it meant losing that which she loved so she returned only to light the Summer Fire and left again. Your grandfather had not seen her to know about you.  She said she was just keeping you protected and safe,” he paused again.

Again, I didn’t know what to say.

“And I knew what the prophecy meant the second I was told.  I knew what you would be even if I reluctant at first to follow it.  You are special, Grace.  I told you that more often than you wanted to hear.  But hearing this, do you believe me now?”

There was no way to respond to any of that.  So, I didn’t.

“Wow, I left you completely speechless.  I have never done that.”

Yes, he did.  Once before.
 
“Yes, you did.  When you told me you loved me,” I spoke fast, and then blushed.

He tried to stiffen his back and turn businesslike, but it didn’t work.  He closed his eyes to clear his mind I guessed.  I loved that I had that effect on him.  With his eyes closed he said, “Since the prophecy, you becoming queen is said to change the course of Fey history.  I don’t think you realize yet what all is coming.  No pressure, huh!”  His choice to be playful about it didn’t subside the sudden fear.

None what so ever!  The reckless, angry side of my brain was ready to combust.

“Because you are labeled a half-breed, THEY are said to be more willing to follow you.”

“Name calling does not give me much encouragement.  So why are
THEY
trying to kill me then?”   I didn’t like the term in the least. 

“Sorry, their words!  THEY don’t believe you are the right one.  They have tried to find a way to experiment or torture you so they can find out if you are the one the prophecy is about.  I have no idea what they would do to you.  If they had, you’d probably be caged or worse right now.”

“Except you didn’t let that happen, did you?” I asked not expecting much of an answer. He was never the bragging type.

“I had help!”

I didn’t understand, but he only ever volunteered information at his pace. 

“So…this Pike is going to help us?  And we are going to meet with this group of…whatever, to convince them I am me. Sounds like a terrible plan to me.”

“Why?”

“Because if THEY are devious and conniving and—“

His brow furrowed.  Protector Ian was showing through.  “Well, yes.  But you will be heavily guarded, and essentially we will have a liaison sent to have a message that you want to meet.  They will be told to send only one though we expect them to be heavily guarded also.”

Guessing he needed me to feel like he was my protector, I gave that gift to him and let him hold on to it but reserve the right to defending myself also. Though I need to get busy learning this defending business soon if I don’t want to get squished like a bug.
 
I smiled inwardly, “I guess two years of debate class will have done me well then.  Maybe they just want to hear what they want to hear.  How will I convince them I am the real deal?”

He sighed.  “I am not really sure now.  Your eyes should have changed at the ceremony.  That is the one true distinction among the queens of old and new.  I am not sure… but I think, from listening to the seer, that either it is because you are labeled human or because the scratch altered the ceremony or both, perhaps.  Not much of it makes sense to me yet and he is being quiet about the whole thing.  I don’t trust any of my own ideas right now.”

He was being quiet about it too.  Perhaps no one really knew the answers to the Grace puzzle of life in the first place.  It was comforting and not so at the same time.

“We cannot just go dancing in there.  We will talk to Pike, then go from there.”  He stayed still and looked to be thinking heavily on something.  “Of course, if you wore the Seelie amulet, it would be hard to discredit you.  It would announce you to our court…and no other.” 

His face looked pained.  I resulted to shocking him with, “Sounds like a plan.  Bring it on!”  He jumped at my overconfidence.  “Just keeping it real, babe.  So were all the gaudy necklaces I wore for years full of magic?  I was just some guinea pig?”  Just a guess, but I was betting I was right.

“Not a guinea pig.  Safety.  The amulets were keeping your thoughts from Kinsler, Pike, or anyone else if needed.  It just didn’t always work.”

“But how?  Even you?  I thought you could hear me?” 
Kinsler?  Pike?

The color drained from his face altogether, “Later!  For now, just make sure you wear the Seelie queen’s amulet when meeting with other courts or traveling.  It serves only the purpose to show your title.  And, you have to be touching the amulet to your skin for the extra defense.  Often, you had the others between your shirt and sweater.  I knew when it lost contact to your skin.”

I didn’t want to think about this deep level of knowing me that Ian really did
know
of me.  Later maybe.

“Grace?  Do you hear me?”

  “Do you think I could get a look at these, Nyms?”   I picture four foot and

“Slow down.  Let’s talk to Pike first.” 

I puffed my chest out a bit for effect, “Well, we are a team, right?  My prophecy, queen like manner combined with your strength and knowledge!  We can do anything.  Surely, they cannot mean one insignificant girl could ‘save them all’ so to speak.”