The Sorceress of Belmair (12 page)

“How long have you know about Vilia’s ancestry?” Lara asked him.

“We always knew that Usi had two concubines he had impregnated. We knew that when Usi’s brother had no sons it would be Usi’s son he made his heir, and so the line of descent has been clear there. We did not know about Vilia until Kol took pleasures with her on the Dream Plain. There was no need for him to use her unless he had a very good reason. He could not create a son with his cousin, but he could influence who that child would be by bathing the unborn creature in his juices. And doing that with just any woman wasn’t enough. He needed a child that carried Usi’s blood as Vilia’s son did through her,” Kaliq explained.

Lara nodded. “I will tell Magnus,” she said. “We will meet in my mother’s forest palace tonight.” Then, stepping back into the shimmering tunnel through which she had traveled earlier, she was quickly gone from his sight. She stepped from the tunnel into the small windowless room she used for these journeys, and hurried back to her bedchamber where she was relieved to see her husband sleeping soundly. Lara slipped back into bed.

When the morning came she told her husband, “I think I shall go and visit my mother today, my darling. It has been some time since I last saw her. The children will be at their studies, and Anoush will work in her herbarium as she does most days.”

“Must you go?” he grumbled. “I miss you when you are gone. How long will you remain with Ilona?”

“A day, possibly two,” Lara said, stroking his rough cheek. “Isn’t it better I go and visit with her, than she come here? You know as well as I do that your mother has a spy or two among our servants. The second my mother arrives, yours will be close behind. Then they will quarrel over the children as they always do. I just want to spend some time with Ilona without any fuss.”

He chuckled. “Why are you always right?” he asked her.

“Because I am,” she teased back.

“Go then with my blessing, Lara, my wife,” Magnus Hauk, Dominus of Terah, told her. “Go and enjoy your faerie world with your faerie cakes and wine. And take my love and deepest respect to your mother. Maybe I will call Dillon home to visit with me while you are gone. We haven’t seen him in some time, either.”

“Dillon contacted me last night on the Dream Plain,” Lara lied. “He is off on some magic business of Kaliq’s, and will be gone several weeks. He didn’t want us to worry, Magnus, my love.”

“Drat!” the Dominus swore lightly. “Well, perhaps I shall take Taj and visit Uncle Arik at the Temple of the Great Creator. It’s time my son began learning some of the responsibilities that will be his one day.”

“What a grand idea!” Lara said. “Give your uncle my love.” Her conscience was now clear.

They dressed and ate breakfast together. Then Lara sought out her children to tell them she was going to visit their grandmother.

“Your father and Taj are riding to the Temple of the Great Creator and so it will just be you girls,” Lara said. “Anoush, I expect you to keep order among your sisters. Zagiri, Marzina, you will listen to your elder sister, remembering she speaks for me. And no, Marzina, you may not ride Dasras in my absence. He is much too big a horse for so little a girl. Do you understand me?”

Marzina looked up at her mother with her beautiful violet eyes. “Yes, Mama,” she said meekly. “But can I ride out on his daughter? She doesn’t have Dasras’s wings, but she goes so swiftly on her four feet. And, yes, I will take a groom with me.”

“If Zagiri goes, too,” Lara said, “yes, you may ride your own horse.”

“Thank you, Mama,” Marzina said.

Zagiri rolled her eyes. It was a look that said “she’ll disobey you if she thinks she can get away with it.” “Give Grandmother my love, Mama,” Zagiri said.

“I will bring her all your loves,” Lara said, and then kissing each of her three daughters, she hurried off to the small windowless room she used for privacy. Closing the door she looked directly at a wall and said silently,
Open!
A shimmering tunnel of light appeared before her. Again her silent voice commanded,
Golden road I wish to roam. Take me to my mother’s home.
Then she stepped into the tunnel and walked quickly through it, exiting into the dayroom of Ilona, queen of the Forest Faeries.

“Good evening, Mother,” Lara said. “Kaliq should be joining us shortly.”

“Lara! What a lovely surprise!” Ilona said rising to kiss her daughter. She drew Lara down onto a pale lavender silk couch with her.

“If Kaliq is coming it must be important,” Ilona noted.
Wine!
A carafe and three crystal goblets appeared on the low brass table before them. “Can you give me a hint?” Ilona smiled, reaching out to stroke Lara’s face, an almost mirror image of her own, with her slender fingers.

They looked like sisters separated by a year or two rather than mother and daughter. Their faerie blood allowed them to age very slowly. Ilona was over four hundred years old, but she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

“I am here!” Prince Kaliq suddenly appeared. “Ah, Lara, you arrived before me. Have you told your mother yet?”

“Told me what?” Ilona filled the three goblets with wine.

“Nay,” Lara said sweetly. “On reflection, I thought I should leave it to you, my lord.” She smiled brightly at him.

“I will tell half,” he bargained with her, “and the second part needs my voice. You must tell your mother the beginning.”

Lara stuck out her tongue at him. Turning to her mother, she said without any preface, “Kaliq has recently told me that Dillon is his son, and not Vartan’s.”

“Of course he is,” Ilona replied calmly. “All that talent for magic he has did not come from just you, and it certainly didn’t come from Vartan who could do nothing more complex than shape-shift into a bird.”

Lara looked astounded.
“You knew?”
Was she a fool that she had not guessed it?

“I suspected it although each time I broached the subject yon wily prince either denied it or led me into another topic,” Ilona said, amused. “Well, I am glad now that it is all out in the open. What did Magnus said?”

“It is in the open only in the magic world,” Lara said. “I have no intention of telling Magnus. Despite my husband’s best intentions he is still jealous of Kaliq. I wish to remain with my mortal husband until he is no more. If I told him that Kaliq is Dillon’s sire, do you really think he could accept it? Especially as he loves Dillon as his own. You will say nothing to him, Mother. Do you understand?”

“I can’t believe he hasn’t figured it all out himself,” Ilona muttered.

“I didn’t,” Lara replied. “I believed Kaliq when he lied to me. After all, is not the great Shadow Prince my closest friend? My friend would not lie, but he did, didn’t you, Kaliq?” She smiled at him again, but it was a wicked smile. “Now, do tell my mother all the rest of it, my dear
friend,
” Lara said in dulcet tones.

“You are still angry with me,” Kaliq said softly.

“Aye, I am,” Lara admitted. “If Magnus ever learns the truth he will think that I lied to him because he believes his faerie wife to be indomitable.”

“Now, do not quarrel with the man, Lara,” her mother said. “Shadow Princes rarely fall in love, but if they do their love is an endless one. Kaliq cannot help himself.”

“Thank you, Ilona,” the prince responded drily.

“Tell her,” Lara taunted him, and she laughed when a tiny flash of irritation appeared in his bright blue eyes.

“What?”
Ilona repeated.

“My son was needed on Belmair,” Kaliq began.

Ilona’s green eyes darkened.
“What have you done?”
she demanded to know.

“A powerful sorcerer was needed on Belmair,” Kaliq continued. “The old king was dying. The dragon could find no successor to him, and the king’s daughter, the sorceress, wanted to be queen in her own right. Belmair is not ready for such change. Their world has found perfection by living in an orderly fashion. Change needs to be introduced slowly to the Belmairans, Ilona. You know I speak the truth. With King Fflergant dying, an heir had to be found. The sorceress needed a husband, and Belmair needed a new king. I spoke with the dragon myself, and she agreed that Dillon was the answer. The sorceress needed a husband she could not intimidate although if the truth be known the dragon could teach her little, and Cinnia, for that is her name, can only do simple sorcery. But she is beautiful and clever, and Dillon is already half in love.

“Belmair, however, has a problem that has plagued them for over a hundred years, but being the people they are, they have avoided the issue because it was distressing. Now their world stands in danger of extinction unless the answer to the mystery can be found. For a little over a century young women of marriageable age have been disappearing from Belmair. Sometimes one of them will return, but when they do they are old, and have no idea where they have been or what has happened to them. Dillon is now attempting to learn what magic exists on Belmair for other than the dragon, and now Cinnia, the Belmairans have no remembrance of magic in their world.”

“But of course it is magic!” Ilona said impatiently. “So you have wed my darling grandson to a Belmairan princess, and made him a king. Is it totally legal by their laws? And have the Belmairans accepted him?”

“Everything was done according to their traditions,” Kaliq assured her. “And the three dukes have approved the dragon’s choice and pledged their loyalty to Dillon.”

“Well,” Ilona allowed, “that is something at least. And the girl. Cinnia? Has she received him as her bridegroom and her king?”

“Before everything could be legal a joining had to take place. Both the dragon and I bore witness to it. Cinnia seems content, Ilona. And my son has had enough women in his lifetime to be ready to settle down now with one,” Kaliq told Ilona.

“If she’s mortal she will die, and he will know others,” Ilona said drily.

“Belmairans live several hundred years,” Kaliq informed her. “It is something in the water, I believe.”

“Tell her the rest,” Lara said.

“What rest? There is more?” Ilona sounded outraged.

“Your mother knows the rest.” He turned to the faerie queen. “It is the true history of Hetar to which she refers,” Kaliq explained.

“Oh, of course I know that,” Ilona said. “It is, after all, a part of the history of the Forest Faeries, for we, like the Shadow Princes and the Terahns, are native to the world of Hetar. We were already long here when they came.”

“Why did you never tell me?” Lara asked her mother.

“There was no occasion to tell you. Until now it should not have mattered to you. Belmair is that great star in the evening sky, and nothing more,” Ilona explained.

“Until now,” Lara said softly.

Ilona nodded. “Aye,” she agreed, “until now.”

“I need Cirillo,” Kaliq said.

“What?”
Ilona cried. “You are not satisfied with removing my favorite grandson from our world? You would take my only son and heir, as well?”

“Dillon believes there is faerie magic involved in Belmair’s difficulties,” Kaliq explained. “Only a faerie prince can undo faerie magic, Ilona. You know that is truth.”

The queen of Hetar’s Forest Faeries glared at the Shadow Prince. “Indeed it may be truth, but I cannot put my only son at risk even for you, Kaliq. And you are cruel to even ask it of me.”

“There is little risk, Ilona,” Kaliq assured her. “A door to a room of forbidden books has been hidden within Belmair’s Academy library. We know that all the books and histories referring to magic in Belmair are within that room. Only Cirillo can find that door, and we need to find it if we are to learn the kinds of magic that once existed in Belmair. Only then can Dillon begin to solve the puzzle of the missing women, and why whoever is taking them needs them.”

“Thanos will have a fit,” Ilona said. “He dotes on his son. Would you go with him? Remain by his side and protect him?” she asked.

“Aye, I will,” the Shadow Prince promised her. “I will guide my son and yours as I have always done, Ilona.”

“Is there another way?” Lara, who had been silent until now, asked him. “I do not want my younger brother in any danger, Kaliq. Could I not find the door for Dillon?”

Kaliq shook his head. “Your blood is not one-hundred-percent faerie, my love. And even if it were you could not undo this magic. Only a faerie prince can overrule a spell created by other faeries.”

“You cannot even be certain it is faerie magic,” Lara replied.

“If it isn’t then Cirillo will be gone but a few hours,” Kaliq said. “But you yourself know that all worlds have faeries living within them. Dillon believes it is faerie magic, and I must concur with him that it probably is. We need Cirillo.”

“For what do you need me?” Prince Cirillo of the Forest Faeries had just entered the room. “Mama.” He kissed Ilona’s cheek. “Big sister.” He kissed Lara’s cheek. “I shall not kiss you, my lord, never fear,” he told Kaliq with a grin. He was a tall, slender, handsome faerie man with silvery-blond hair and crystal-green eyes. He was garbed in beautiful ice-blue silk garments.

“I suppose you are in the mood for an adventure now that you have discarded your latest little mortal lover,” his mother said drily.

An interested look came into the faerie prince’s eyes. “
An adventure?
Aye! I should enjoy a good adventure! It’s dull as muffins around here these days.”

Lara laughed and shook her head.

“Clarify it to him,” Ilona said, her voice tinged with irritation.

The Shadow Prince took his time, and explained to Cirillo all that had happened to Dillon, and the reason his assistance was necessary. When he had finished he asked the young man, “Are you ready to come with me now?”

“Indeed, my lord, I am! It’s been over a year since I last saw Dillon. So he’s your get, my lord? Well, I suppose I knew it all along. His powers are so extraordinary. No mortal could sustain them.” The young faerie prince chuckled. “And you’ve given him a kingship and a wife. You quite dote on the lad, don’t you, my lord? Is she pretty?”

“She is beautiful as you will shortly see, Cirillo.”

“Blond? Brunette? Redhead?” Cirillo asked.