I stared at her in the reflection, my face showing my bafflement. The queen and the Fae woman both chuckled, but there was no malice to their laughter. “I’m not sure I understand,” I said carefully.
“Marriage amongst the Fae and magical brethren is much simpler than amongst mankind,” she said gently and with patience, resting her hand upon my shoulder. The Fae woman resumed styling my hair, setting the circlet into the locks. “It’s an invocation of the rule of threes. Three openings to refuse, three declarations of intent, and, of course, three consummations...” she arched her eyebrows, prompting me. “Did Rivyn never mention the rule of three, to you?”
My chest tightened as my heart picked up speed. Remember, anything important involves threes, Siorin, Rivyn had said to me. The conversation had struck me then, as out of place. He had been, I thought, trying to tell me that he had ta
I stared at her in the reflection, my face showing my bafflement. The queen and the Fae woman both chuckled, but there was no malice to their laughter. “I’m not sure I understand,” I said carefully.“Marriage amongst the Fae and magical brethren is much simpler than amongst mankind,” she said gently and with patience, resting her hand upon my shoulder. The Fae woman resumed styling my hair, setting the circlet into the locks. “It’s an invocation of the rule of threes. Three openings to refuse, three declarations of intent, and, of course, three consummations...” she arched her eyebrows, prompting me. “Did Rivyn never mention the rule of three, to you?”My chest tightened as my heart picked up speed. Remember, anything important involves threes, Siorin, Rivyn had said to me. The conversation had struck me then, as out of place. He had been, I thought, trying to tell me that he had ta
We stepped out of the portal, and Rivyn drew in a deep breath. I looked up at him. The expression on his handsome face held confliction - joy and trepidation. He was glad to be home, but the culmination of the past three weeks risk and strain lay ahead of him, and, even after two peaceful days in Benal reading Isyl’s book, he was weary from our adventures. “Rivyn,” I wrapped my arms around his waist, trying to offer him reassurance, where my own heart raced in fear for him. “You have faced dwarves, ogres, mages, Dark Elves, pirates, mermaids, a dragon, and you have torn a city apart in your anger. You can do this.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “Thank you, my wife,” he murmured. “I appreciate the encouragement.” We stood before an arched fortified gate build of the white stone that seemed to be used throughout the city and castle beyond, the portcullis raised, points frighteningly lethal overhead, and
We stepped out of the portal into Benal, and I felt as if I had come a full circle in my adventures. I was where I had intended to be when I set out the night that I had encountered Rivyn in the forest.Isyl’s pretty little cottage was set on the edge of the forest where it opened into Benal.Immediately upon her arrival, there was a flurry of activity as the fairy folk came to greet Isyl in her flower-strewn garden.“Yes, yes,” she said. “He is. They’re very flustered by the arrival of royalty,” she told me taking my hand and drawing me up her path as the fairy folk gathered around Rivyn, the rise and fall of their voices indicating that he was being bombarded with questions.“Oh, I guess,” he cast a look towards us, almost pleading for rescue.“Come inside and have a cup of tea,” Isyl denied it, leading me within
I woke alone to a bright morning with no sign of dragons in the sky. The city was eerily quiet, the residents still hesitant to venture out of their houses for fear of the Dark Elves that had terrorised the castle overnight. I wondered what remained of the castle and the mages’ college. Hopefully, very little. My mouth felt much better. There were no sharp spots of pain, no feeling of swelling as result of injury, but it felt delicate and fragile, as if the wounds were closed, but only just so. I touched my face trying to determine how badly the tears on my lips had scarred, frightened to find out. There was no surface within the room that would show me my reflection. “She can smell magic, and she walked through a mage spell as if it were a stroll around the garden,” Rivyn had left the bedroom door open when he had left, and his voice drifted up the stairs to me clearly. “I know very little about sirens, even less about half-sirens...”
As if Rivyn had cast a spell of invisibility around us, he strode through the castle grounds unnoticed and unbothered. Around us, the castle servants and courtiers ran in screaming chaos, pursued by the Dark Elves, and harried by Aurien’s swoops and flames. Rivyn’s stride was unhurried, and his path unwavering.“I can walk,” I told him, “you are injured.”He shifted his grip on me, cradling me against his shoulder. “I am fine,” he said firmly. “Where is this good-witch?” He asked the half-Ogre as we passed out of the castle grounds. The street beyond the castle wall was quiet. In the distance I saw a woman run across the street into a building, slamming the door shut behind her.“This way,” the half-Ogre led us between two buildings.“You saved me,” I murmured.“Don’t speak until we ca
I closed my eyes. I could understand why that secret would be closely kept by the sirens. If the brethren knew that half-sirens could sing brethren to death, sirens would be hunted by both mankind and brethren alike. It would be motivation enough for a woman to kill her child, or herself. In mankind’s hands, a half-siren could sing mermaids to land, Fae ships to wreckage, dragons into man-form... In mankind’s hands, a half-siren was a weapon.“We want you to sing,” the Queen said softly. “We want you to make this ogre take his own life.”I looked at the man. “I am more than happy to sing a wind for you, my Queen, because that is within my powers, but I will not even attempt that.”“Sing them to death,” the half-ogre growled at me. “Sing them into jumping through the windows to their own doom.” One of his armoured guards backhanded him, and the young