The Unseelie King (The Kings Book 6) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“So… they’re alive?”

“The Twixt is home to many creatures, but I took you to that particular part of it for a reason. The Duwomm make their homes there, and as I said, they have two lives. Since they almost never leave the Twixt, that I know of, the only Duwomm to die even once so far is Drummar.” Caliban gave a nod of recognition to the old man who stood by the door, and the old man smiled and nodded back.

“Taking you there was a lesser of risky decisions for me. There was always a chance there would be no one in the clearing or the forest beyond, and that would have been ideal. We didn’t luck out in that arena. But they
were
Duwomm. And they still have one very full, very long life to live.”

Minerva processed this. She still had all of that terrible knowledge inside her, all of that destruction to face up to, along with the fact that if she didn’t learn to properly control her powers and one day lost control again, she could make the same horrible mistake.

But the harder, sharper edges of that knowledge were blessedly smoothed out by the fact that the women and the children, the fathers and brothers who had been in that part of the Twixt that day were
alive
.

“
How
long?” she asked, wanting to know exactly how many years they’d been spared.

“Longer than you can fathom,” Caliban chuckled.

“And I can tell you from experience, my lady,” said Drummar in his ancient, gravelly voice. “When you only have one life to live, you treat it with a bit more respect.” He moved closer to the bed. “And if you’re smart, you fill it with a lot more fun.”

He smiled a weathered and truly happy smile, and Minerva couldn’t help but smile back. It was the first true smile she’d managed since coming out of the Twixt and… away from the Slenderman.

“The Slenderman,” she whispered aloud, not meaning to.

Caliban frowned beside her. “Why do you call him that? Your sister was calling him that, as well.”

Minerva took a deep breath and shook her head. “It’s nothing. It’s just that he very much resembles an urban legend in the mortal realm. He looks a lot like a monster made up by someone online. Tall, skinny, dressed in a dark suit, pale face – the whole shebang. People call him the Slenderman.”

“And he causes nosebleeds,” chimed in Lalura from where she sat in a rocking chair not far from the bed, knitting what honestly looked like a small sweater with six armholes. Caliban didn’t even want to know what it was for.

Minerva nodded. “Yeah, that’s part of the legend, too. He really fits the bill.”

“Well…” Caliban sat back a bit on the bed. “At times, mortals spy something unnatural, and if their memories aren’t properly erased, they might later believe they imagined what they saw. Either in a dream, or in a drunken stupor, and sometimes they even believe they made it up, just out of nowhere. Some of the most creative mortals are those who have been fortunate enough to witness things not of their world.”

“So you’re saying, the Slenderman is real and has visited the mortal realm?”

“He might have been, as you say in your world, ‘just passing through’,” offered Drummar. “And a creative mind took it and ran with it. Some of the best mortal stories begin this way.”

Caliban smiled. “Drummar is another who has read every book in my library. He’s addicted to words.”

“I am,” the old man grinned. “In fact, I’m hoping you’ll one day introduce me to the Vampire Queen. I hear she’s a bestseller on those new fangled eBook devices. And if I play my cards right, I might even get to meet Malcolm Cole.”

Now Minerva laughed. She was familiar with the author Malcolm Cole, but had no idea who the Vampire Queen was. She was sure she would find out soon enough. Selene had already filled her in on so much.

It had been two days since the attack in the Twixt. Caliban hadn’t returned to the mortal world to find out why his businesses had suddenly been in so much danger; he hadn’t been willing to leave her side. However, he
had
deployed several very talented “people” to deal with the problem head-on, and at the moment, everything was once more stable. Cal very much suspected the entity that attacked Minerva had also had something to do with the trouble with his corporations. It had coincided with the airplane attack and the black diamonds. The entity, it seemed, was going to come at them from all angles, and it also seemed he –
it
– had an inexhaustible supply of helpers. All kinds of helpers.

In the fae realm, things had returned to “normal,” as well. The platform had been repaired, as had all of the damage it caused when it went berserk. Dahlia Kellen was still missing; she hadn’t been seen since she’d disappeared spouting gibberish from the Mover that night. Her sister, Violet, was apparently asking around for her.

Though Dahlia’s actions that night still stung Minerva, and it would be a while before Minerva could get past the malignant envy the woman had shown toward her, she found herself
feeling
for Dahlia as well.

She couldn’t help it. It was just who she was.

She imagined Dahlia laying down and opening her legs for a man all those years, giving and giving and giving and hoping against all hopes that the act would instill some sort of deeper emotion, only to find that it had never meant anything at all to him. Granted, sex for the unseelie fae was a restorative act much like eating was for a mortal, or drinking blood was for a vampire. But it was still
sex
, goddamn it. In the end, and deep down, it was still a very real violation of a man’s body upon, and inside of, a woman’s.

Dahlia only wanted what every woman everywhere wanted in exchange for that sacrifice. She just wanted it to
mean
something.

And Minerva also couldn’t help empathizing with Violet. She could only imagine how desperate she would be to find her own sister if Selene were in very real danger.

As far as Minerva herself was concerned, she still had physical scars, and plenty of them. But they were slowly fading. What would never fade was the memory of how much those scars had hurt to earn. She could never have imagined that kind of pain. It was like being on fire, inside and out.

What she couldn’t admit to anyone just yet was that the physical pain had been almost welcomed at that point. When the entity that she called the Slenderman first invaded her body, Minerva had known she had sheer moments, less than seconds, to do everything she could to win that battle. She’d pulled her magic together and made a wish. She couldn’t say it out loud; by the time she knew what she was going to wish for, the Slenderman already had control of her mouth. All she could do was
think
it. But she’d thought it with every ounce of her will, every single last tiny bit of it. She’d wished that whatever Caliban was going to do would work.

Because she’d known he would do something. In her heart, she knew. And she didn’t have time to come up with anything herself. So, she’d cast the wish spell, and stepped back, weak and spent. The entity had taken over full-force.

But when Caliban had used her own wish magic to throw the knowledge of what she’d done to the Duwomm into her head, it was amplified by the spell she’d just cast – and she’d wanted to die. There was no other way to describe that amount of pain. The strength of the two wishes together made it unbearable.

So the agony of the iron chains was, quite frankly, a welcome distraction, the lesser of two god-awful hells.

There were few things as effective as physical pain to even things out for a troubled mind. The other was pleasure, but pleasure was so terribly rare. And doctors sure as hell weren’t going to provide it for anyone.

So those in agony turned to pain. It was one of the reasons cutters hurt themselves. There was a part of them that wanted to hurt as badly on the outside as they did on the inside. They were unbalanced, tipping the scales of agony, and it was too much to bear. A slice here and there, though, and there was something else to feel, and things were just a little more even.

Now, Minerva glanced at the tall window that graced her room with beams of sparkling light through breaks in the rich, brocade curtains. She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her silver-white hair. “I think I want to go outside,” she said.

Cal straightened where he sat beside her on the bed in one of the smaller rooms in his palace. It was a guest bedroom, and Minerva preferred it because it was “cozier.” That was the only way she could describe it. After the events in the Twixt, she’d just wanted to feel closed in, protected on all sides.

But now…. Sunlight streamed in through the window, and she knew there was a world more magnificent than she could imagine just beyond the glass. She’d only seen it at night.

It was time to see it for real.

Cal looked deeply into her eyes and gently cupped her face. The heat from his hand seeped into her, warming her to her core.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She threw the bed’s soft covers off of her, noticing flashes of scars along her arms as she did so. But she simply pulled the long sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt over her arms to hide them, and looked back up. She smiled. “Never been more sure of anything.”

Chapter Thirty

No one knew where she was. She was probably going to die here, in this absolute darkness. She could hear things moving around her. Slippery things. Maybe clicky, crawly things. But she couldn’t see them. And thank the gods, she couldn’t feel them either.

For Dahlia, there was only the cold and the dark. And time.

*****

Violet Kellen stared into the surface of the liquid in the goblet and tried to keep down the revulsion she felt knowing it was blood. It was
her
blood. It had been the only way to complete this particular spell.

Her reflection on the liquid’s surface was oddly clear for the blood’s thickness, but this was magic. She’d come to expect the odd things.

Her face had always reminded her of those China dolls mortals kept, too smooth, too heart shaped, too perfect. She was a Tuath. Her sister had always tried to tell her that perfection was simply the Tuath way. But to Violet, it was distracting. Her lips were too symmetrical, too pink, her eyes too large and far too bright. They looked like smokey quartz to her that had been lit from behind by a candle’s flames. No one’s eyes were supposed to look like that. None of the girls in the books she read about looked like that.

Her hair was so thick, it could be braided into the width of a human arm, and it shimmered like satin – literally, like satin – in layers of dark brown to light gold that framed her face in long, straight layers and fell about her like a veil to her waist.

Still, even though her beauty was strange enough to Violet that she rarely looked in mirrors, she felt that her sister Dahlia was far lovelier. There was a mystery to Dahlia that added to her beauty. She was the dark one, black hair like a waterfall of night, eyes as green as Dorothy’s
Emerald City
.

That was one of Violet’s favorite books.

Concentrate, Violet
, she scolded herself. Magic like this did not abide distraction. It wanted all of your attention for itself. One slip, and darkness slid past the boundaries of a spell to disappear out into the world. And that was the last thing the world needed more of.

Violet chewed on her bottom lip, narrowed her gaze, furrowed her brow, and leaned in – to see past the reflection on the blood’s surface.

Slowly, another image took shape. When it formed fully, Violet very slowly straightened. A coldness swept through her, tightening her skin into goose bumps.

“She’s in the Dark.”

Few knew that she’d trained herself in various forms of non-fae magic, including the warlock spell she’d just utilized to locate her sister. A fae warlock. Was there such a thing? Well, she guessed there was now.

Her gut churned. Her head began to throb.

“The Dark, huh? You don’t wanna go there,” said Pi in his crackly voice from where he bounced in the hearth across the room.

“No,
you
don’t want to go there,” corrected Poppy, Violet’s best friend, and the only other fae aware of Violet’s magical dealings. “No light, no heat,” Poppy shook her head. “No
wonder
. But we’re not fire elementals.”

Poppy’s given name was Persephone, but because she hated being compared to the Greek goddess, and because she loved picking poppies, everyone had called her Poppy since childhood. She seemed stubbornly oblivious to the fact that picking poppies caused her to resemble Persephone even more.

She turned back to Violet. “I’ll go with you, Vi.”

Violet had known she would offer. But she also knew she couldn’t allow it.

“The road to the Dark is paved with Shadows,” she said aloud, quoting an old fae nursery rhyme.

“That means you actually have to travel through the Land of Shadow to get there,” came a new voice. Violet and Poppy turned toward the door.

But it was Pi who greeted the newcomer first. “Good evening, Lalura!”

“Good evening, Pi.”

“Lady Lalura,” greeted Violet respectfully. She knew what the old witch was in the mortal realm: A magic user nearly unrivalled in power, and worth more respect than people normally possessed to give. She had an inkling she knew what she’d once been in the fae realm, as well.

“Violet,” Lalura nodded, making her way into the room. “I hear you’re off to save your sister, or some such thing.” The old woman was utterly unconcerned, except that she looked from one piece of Violet’s furniture to another with an arched brow and a rather put-out expression.

Violet jerked herself into motion, rushing to take a pillow from one hard wooden chair and place it over the cushion of her velvet loveseat. “Please, sit here,” she gestured, smiling hopefully.

Lalura hobbled over to the chair, gave it the once-over, and then turned around and settled into it, setting her cane to the side.

Violet sighed in quiet relief. Then she said, “I suppose you don’t think it would be wise for me to go?”

Lalura laughed. It was an odd, dry sound that somehow got into Violet and felt funny. “Oh, I absolutely don’t think it would be wise,” she said, still smiling. Her blue-blue eyes twinkled in the low light of the fireplace where Pi still bounced, watching and listening. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go.”

Violet’s eyes widened. She looked to Poppy, whose brows just about hit the ceiling. Poppy came around Violet and addressed the old witch. “You think I should go with her, right?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Poppy’s mouth dropped open. “But… she has to travel through the
Shadows!
”

“I’m well aware, child,” Lalura said testily, moving a little bit to adjust the position of her rump on the pillow. “That’s exactly why you can’t go.”

Now Lalura looked up and settled a very stern, very powerful gaze on Violet. The air in the room grew still, and the Pi stopped bouncing. “Violet Kellen, you must make this journey alone. Something waits for you in those shadows.”

Violet’s throat tightened. “Like… what?”

“That’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself.”

Time skipped, and the space between them shrunk.

“I’d go so far as to say, it might just be your destiny.”

*****

“So we’ve narrowed it down to one of seven possible traitors amongst the Thirteen.”

“Make that six,” Lalura corrected as she entered Roman’s study.

Evelynne D’Angelo was there, as were Damon Chroi, Diana Chroi – and their three newborn babies. “Oh my goodness, now why didn’t anyone tell me there were wee ones here?” Lalura instantly lost focus on whatever else she’d been about to say and instead made a bee line for the bassinets lined up against one wall. Vine-covered canopies hung over each one, and tiny sprite-like creatures danced atop those canopies, peeking down once in a while to make faces at the babies.

Squeals and giggles of joy emanated from the folds of the blankets inside.

“Kobolds,” Lalura muttered as she approached the first bassinet. “Good babysitters, but not much for gettin’ the kids to sleep on time.” She leaned over the opening, and the tiny kobolds leapt from the other bassinets to join her as she pulled the blanket down to reveal the baby’s face.

“Why, Diana, dear… I have never seen a more beautiful little goblin princess.”

She said it as if she truly meant it, with all her heart, and Diana beamed with pride. The Goblin Queen left the table where the others stood and joined Lalura at her baby’s side. “Her name is Anyu. She’s the youngest, with two older brothers.”

She turned then to peek in on her other little ones. “This is Lagan,” she said, as Lalura turned and smiled down at the little boy. “And this is Doryan.”

“Oh my,” Lalura laughed that sound of leaves on parchment that somehow managed to be a sound of pure joy. “Little Anyu is going to have a very difficult time getting away with anything with these two watching over her.”

“She already steals their food,” Damon said, chuckling from where he stood at the table. “She’s going to have them wrapped around her little finger.”

A few moments passed, in which the majority of them cooed over the children, who were admittedly beautiful, and then, at last, Diana turned to Lalura and asked, “What did you mean when you said we only had six kings to worry about, rather than seven?”

Lalura took the baby from her arms and cradled her lovingly against herself as only a very experienced woman can do. “We needn’t be concerned with Mr. Pitch any longer,” she told them while making faces at the baby. Little Anyu squealed and reached for Lalura’s nose, grasping it tightly. “The Shadow King has found his queen,” Lalura continued. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”