“You want me to kill the Horde King? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds? He’s the biggest scariest thing in this world, and my own. He is the only person who can kill the Fae, and make them really dead. I was an Enforcer for the Guild; I did assassinations for a living and even I won’t go down that road of crazy!”
“If you fail, you only lose your life. You will lose it anyway if he keeps you, child.” Her voice was urgent and filled with more tears. She was trying hard to hide the emotion, but, like me, she was failing. “I can’t live knowing that you belong to him, when it should have been me. How was I supposed to choose one child over another? I died the day that I handed you to your father to take away. He ordered the guards to lock me inside my room and guard me, because he knew I’d come after you, and I tried to. I never stopped looking over my shoulder, wondering if I’d see you in a crowd, or wondering if you would find your way back to us. Not knowing if you were okay, or if your family loved you enough, was worse than knowing what was happening to your brother at the hands of that monster. I replaced one hell with another.”
“You tried to stop the trade. Why?” I asked with my throat closing up.
“Because you were mine, and I loved you too much to just let you go, and Lasair knew it. We made the choice together, but when it came time to hide you, I just felt as if my heart was being torn from my chest. Liam knew that I loved him, but you,” she stopped, and cleared her throat. “You would never know that we had loved you. You were just a baby, so sweet and innocent. I had no idea where he was taking you to, or if they were good people. He thought it best that I didn’t know which family he had given you to either, or which country in the human world he’d placed you in.”
“They died protecting me from your son. They gave their lives to keep me safe. I was loved by them. I was cherished until the day they died,” I said, trying to make her feel better, but unsure why I felt the need. She smiled through the tears in her eyes and nodded.
“You seek to give me comfort, while knowing that I have to hand you over to that monster. You must have had a wonderful mother indeed,” she replied squeezing my hand softly.
“I did, until Faolán raped her and turned her mind to mush to do his bidding. She would have shot me, had I not been able to cast magic from an early age. He meant to kill me, and would have if he had found my hiding place. He tried again right before I came out as the Light Heir, and he would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the Dark Fae warrior who saved me. From what I saw and heard, he isn’t yours or your husband’s biggest fan.” She shook her head in confusion, trying to deny my damning words.
“Faolán tried to collect you when the war started up again. The Horde King kept demanding you and wouldn’t believe you had died. Of course, we fought to buy time, but, in the end, your father had to send him,” Madisyn explained.
“Well, he’s lousy at following instructions. He called the king a weak idiot, and said he would finish this. He wanted war, and, even now, he is working with the Mages who destroy this world. You sent a coldblooded killer to my door; one who wanted me dead.”
“My son wouldn’t do that,” she argued, but I could see the sliver of doubt in her eyes.
“When is the last time he was home? It hasn’t been recently, and I’m willing to bet he reported his findings, or rather lack of finding me, without a hint of what he did to my parents in his story. Even as a child, I could tell he was kind of an evil nutcase. I don’t know what his problem is, but he’s definitely trying to take the Blood King and the Horde down. I Transitioned, and I can’t lie—not that I would make anything like this up, because it was a pretty crappy thing to go through.”
She turned pasty white as she wrung her hands in front of her. I hated telling her everything that happened, because, for some reason, I felt sorry for this beautiful woman and it made me reluctant to hurt her. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying this to upset you. You need to know what he’s been up to. I won’t be the only one after his head if the rest of the Fae find out he’s the one helping the Mages poison this land. I already know of some Fae that have him on video in connection with an attempted mass murder of Fae in the human world.”
“If what you say is true, then Faolán is lost to us. Faery will claim him as a sacrifice to the Goddess Danu. He will pay with blood for his trespass on her children. Only she can pass judgment on her children.”
My sister nodded sadly and moved to hug her again.
~~~~~~~~*
A little while later, I was in less clothing, and glad of it, since the other dress made moving near impossible. The shredded, bloody wedding dress was gone, and I’d changed into a more comfortable dress that was made of soft green silk that at least moved and flowed easily and covered me to my ankles. My mother—it sounded weird saying that, had done my hair. She’d smiled the entire time as she and my new sister talked happily around me, as if the Horde King wouldn’t be here tomorrow, and everything was right as rain in their world.