Destined for the Fae King (Courts of Faery #3)

Chapter 9

W hen I envisioned meeting the fae children, I always placed us in a classroom of sorts. Somewhere educational and indoors where we’d sit at little tables and talk to the kids while they worked on art projects or something.

Instead, it’s about the opposite of that.

We meet in a lush inner courtyard similar to the one we performed yoga in this morning, except this one is a little more open with a large, grassy oval in the center, the outsides smattered with bushes and trees, including some that look like especially tall palms. But where the palm trees I’ve seen on trips are tall and narrow with all their fan-leafed fronds draping from the top, these have branches that jut out from the trunk as well. Perfect for climbing, and the fae kids clearly think so too.

Two of them are high up in the branches. A distressed fae male shouts up at them from the ground, demanding they come down that instant.

Grace snort with laughter as Alex mumbles, “I told you kids are trouble.”

Maybe so, but they’re clearly having a good time. As are many of the others already gathered in the wide, oval space. One group of kids plays a soccer-like game with three balls of varying sizes, though I don’t see any goals. Little ones crawl in the grass near their caretakers, all of whom wear a similar uniform to the shouting man’s, consisting of a tunic and pants in a sandy-colored material that shimmers in the light.

“Eh, they’ll be fine,” Cora says, gesturing at the young ones in the tree. “It’s important to let kids have some fun in life. Actually…” A fierce grin breaks across her face. “I might join them.”

To the surprise of…well, probably all of us, Cora rushes toward the tree.

“Cora!” Katherine whines, but it doesn’t stop her. Cora doesn’t even bother to acknowledge her friend.

“At least we’ll get a break from hearing about her date. Dios mío.” Gabriella rubs her temples like she’s fighting off a headache, and I can’t blame her. I was tired of hearing about it in the first two seconds, and from the expression on Gabriella’s face when I walked out of my room and into their conversation in the hallway before coming here, I have a feeling she’s been forced to endure much more than me.

“You don’t really think they kissed already, do you?” Zoe asks no one in particular.

My smile transforms into a grimace. “I hope not.”

It’s hard to say. I wouldn’t put it past Cora to go for the first kiss, even if she had to steal one, just to get a leg up on all of us. Plus, she made it clear enough that she’s willing to use all her wiles to get what she wants, even if Elaine discouraged such things.

“I didn’t get a kiss,” Gabriella pouts. She’d had a breakfast date this morning, one that didn’t go as well as she’d hoped, it seems.

The fae younglings stop and stare at Cora as she advances toward the tree. Some of them finally find the rest of us where we’re gathered near the edge of the courtyard. Squeals of joy and conversation break off as awareness rolls through the gathered fae like a wave and they turn toward us. A few of the little ones back toward one of the many caretakers. I guess they teach stranger danger here too, and a gaggle of human women aren’t something they see every day. Truthfully, humans and fae don’t look that different. They’re generally taller with more lithe figures, but that’s not always the case. They also have just as much diversity in their hair and skin colors—more, actually. We’re a bit dull and ordinary by comparison.

Some of the younglings, especially the older ones who look around six or seven in human years, leave their little groups to rush toward us, beaming with excitement.

I generally like kids—part of being an older sibling—even if I don’t have much experience with little ones anymore. But even I brace for impact as they advance, rather than dropping down to welcome them with open arms and excitement like Bailey and Adeline.

We weren’t given any specific instructions for today. Not yet anyway. Spending time with the younglings, that’s all. But when it comes to excited young ones, instructions aren’t necessary and would probably be cast aside in moments anyway.

The kids take the lead as the more outgoing ones pick their favorite human and lead them off toward various activities. Bailey and I get corralled by the same group and talked into building towers out of blocks of some foamy substance that manage to be light and soft yet sturdy enough for construction at the same time. In fact, erecting a tower and jumping into it to knock it down seems to be the favored game.

Bailey is a natural, and the kids seem to know it, swarming about her, taking her hand, and immediately climbing in her lap the one time she sits down .

“You’re really good at this,” I say, adding another block to the masterpiece in progress.

She pushes a few strands of brown hair that have fallen loose from her braid behind one ear and glances over at me. “I come from a big family.” She shrugs one shoulder. “When you’re the oldest of about a dozen siblings and cousins that always hang out together, you have to be good with kids.”

“So many,” I say. And yet, I’d heard there weren’t many gifted in her family line. Strange for that to be the case when they’re so prolific. Yet more and more gifted families struggle to pass on the gift these days. Some have had the gift skip the latest generation completely.

“They’re a handful, especially my cousin’s twins.” She shakes her head. “I swear, one of them would have found a way to get hurt by now, even with how soft these blocks are. And don’t get me started on the teenagers…” She gives me a meaningful look.

I grimace in return. “ That I know something about.”

If fae teenagers are even half as moody as human ones, then I’m glad it’s just the younger ones we’re spending time with today. Bailey and I add a few more blocks near the top, and the younglings deem it complete.

Askar, a fae youngling with seemingly boundless energy, jumps into the latest tower with Kispet, whose black hair is tied back in braids entwined with silver ribbons. They go down together in a heap of blocks and giggles as Bailey and I cheer with the other kids around us and their caretakers. Apparently, this game is safe enough, where tree climbing wasn’t. When the two boys finally come down, they have to sit on a bench for a little while and miss some of the fun, though from the way I saw them whispering and gently shoving one another, I gather they find joy no matter the situation.

I’ve just started to place the beginning blocks of a new structure when a familiar brush of sensation sweeps across my back. Askar’s giggles shut off abruptly. His golden eyes fly wide before a toothy grin breaks across his face. There’s no time to even glance around before he’s up and sprinting past me.

My heart stutters a little in my chest when I finally see who he did. Vasilius and Lysandir walk side by side toward the oval, slipping between the outstretched fronds of the odd palm trees. They’re not dressed like royals today, or rather, they’re not in the formal attire they’ve donned before. The brothers are similarly dressed in loose pants and flowy tunics, not all that different in color from those worn by the caretakers. Geometric designs are embroidered in slightly darker thread along the edges and give a more refined look. The ends of the pants are tucked into brown boots laced up their calves, and though the long sleeves of the shirts and their flowy material hide most of their muscular statures, a small split in the middle top of the shirt gives just a hint of what lies beneath. And people say low-cut shirts on women are tempting. I nearly snort. A low-cut blouse has nothing on that tease of golden muscle.

In fact, with their attire, it looks like they’re here to…play.

I wave at Vasilius, hopeful he’ll join us, but his gaze slips straight over me and settles on where Zoe and Gabriella play a ball game with a number of younglings. Damn.

He breaks off from his brother, striding toward them with determined steps while a handful of younglings trail in his wake. I watch him with wistful longing until Bailey whispers, “Don’t look too forlorn. We’ve got company.”

“Who—” The question catches in my throat as I look in the direction she bobs her head. With all my attention on Vasilius, I’d managed to lose sight of Lysandir. Just my luck that Askar certainly didn’t.

“Look who I got, Lady Mira!” Askar raises his and Lysandir’s joined hands as he leads the prince near. The boy is absolutely beaming, chin raised with pride like he’s just dug up a diamond from the dirt.

I force a smile for Askar’s benefit. Poor little guy can’t know that Lysandir seems to like me just about as much as I like him, as in, not at all.

The kids in our group squeal with glee. Even the caretakers seem to have brightened up with genuine joy and excitement. Two little girls dance around the prince as he nears, and he has to quickly sidestep to avoid tripping over one of them. But he doesn’t seem to mind. The opposite actually—he laughs and ruffles the hair on top of her head. In fact, his whole face is lit up as bright as the kids.

“Prince Lysandir.” I dip a little curtsy. Bailey echoes me and does the same.

He waves his hand. “There’s no need for that on my account.” To the kids, he asks, “What are we working on here?”

I’m sure he already knows, but he smiles and nods along as some of the younglings explain the game. Askar does most of the talking, finally releasing Lysandir’s hand so that he can gesture in broad motions about the things we’ve built.

“Miss Mira and Miss Bailey are great builders,” Kispet pipes in.

“I’m sure,” Lysandir replies with a wide grin at Bailey and, to my surprise, me.

In fact, it doesn’t even look the least bit forced, which shocks me enough to make me sit back down on the grass. To my continued bewilderment, Lysandir sits on the grass a few feet away, his legs crossed in front of him .

Askar all but climbs into his lap as he asks, “Can you tell us about the tournament? You said you’d tell me about it, but you haven’t yet.”

Bailey looks up from where she’s helping one girl with a block. “We’re going to have a tournament?”

Lysandir shakes his head and opens his mouth to reply, but another boy answers for him. “No, the tournament in the Court of Air!”

I’ve heard of it of course. Most up on coven news probably have, even though our coven has limited ties with the Court of Air. Still, it’s a rare thing for a human to participate, much less win, to say nothing of the fact that it was the King of Air’s mate, Wren. Or rather, I guess she wasn’t exactly his mate then but is now. Anyway, it should have been the biggest news of the year, but with the happenings involving the Unseelie court, the supposed rise of an Unseelie King, and two previously untracked gifted families now having members as consorts of Seelie royal courts… Well, it’s been one hell of a banner year.

“Ah, where to start?” Lysandir muses, as if setting in for a long tale. He tips his head toward the sun, basking in its light.

The younglings all move to sit near the prince, a few so close they’re touching him, though he doesn’t seem to mind. He even pulls Askar into his lap and says nothing when a young girl leans on his knee.

“The Court of Air was not eager to let an outsider compete in their tournament,” Lysandir begins before pausing for dramatic effect. “But I can be quite convincing when I need to be.” His gaze flicks to me for the briefest moment, and something does a little flip in my chest.

“Did you fight your way in?” one of the boys asks as he leans in eagerly .

“No. That would not have earned me entrance,” Lysandir replies. “I explained the benefits of positive relations between our courts to one of their senior advisors, but I don’t think that’s what you all want to hear about. You want to know about the challenges I competed in, right?”

A chorus of agreement follows from the kids, and I have to admit, he’s piqued my interest too. The little girl Bailey was helping has given up all interest in blocks and joined the others, so Bailey settles in near me to listen as well. Lysandir takes his time telling the kids about the competition—the feats of skill, bravery, and even luck that he participated in. As he talks, he gestures with his hands and pitches his voice up and down, even changes his tone completely to voice a few of the others he encountered. I’ll give it to him; he’s a great storyteller and even better with the kids.

Even so, I can’t keep my gaze from wandering across the oval toward the king. He does something I can’t quite see, and all the nearby kids cheer for him. He seems to eat up their attention, shifting into a pose that elicits more applause. Zoe and Gabriella both buzz around him until he moves from their group onto another with Katherine and Grace. He hasn’t even bothered to look our way.

“What did you plan to ask for if you won?” one of the kids asks.

I glance back at the prince just in time to see his smile abruptly fade. He looks away, down at the ground before giving himself a little shake so subtle most of the kids probably miss it. “I saw something I would change if I could.”

A few of the kids gasp.

“In one of your visions?” a little girl asks. Others clamor for more details.

Seelie fae magic is linked to the power of the court itself and the territory in which they reside. Some skills are court specific, but others manage to appear at random throughout the various courts. Fae histories say it’s a result of how the ancient queen Aine split her powers ages ago, back when there were just Seelie and Unseelie. She felt her power and life force fading but could not decide which among her children should inherit her magic when the time came. Rather than leaving it up to the magic to decide and because she loved her children dearly, she split her powers among them and faded away.

Fae scholars argue over whether she simply did not section off some of her powers and thus they went to all courts or if she intentionally planned it. I suppose we’ll never know, and it doesn’t really matter. But one of the rarest magical gifts to appear among the fae is the gift of foresight. Some fae blessed with it may only get a few visions in their lifetime, but Lysandir with his royal blood, is powerful, and so is his gift.

“Do your visions always come true?” I ask.

The kids stop and look between us.

Lysandir blinks at me, a hint of surprise in his features before he nods. “Yes, the ones that have the chance to be fulfilled. Not always how I expect or in exactly the way I see, but yes.”

It must have been something truly terrible then, whatever he saw, to make him go to such length to try and change it.

“You won’t tell us what it is?” Askar groans.

“Not today.” He pats the boy on the shoulder.

Askar looks up at him with big, golden eyes. “Tomorrow?”

Lysandir laughs and moves the boy off his lap. “Not then either. Now, who is going to show me this game you were all playing?”

The suggestion has the kids dropping the topic and rushing back to the blocks. Bailey and I are put to work along with the prince building the biggest structure yet, a castle-like thing longer than me and so tall I have to reach on my tiptoes to place the very last block.

“Almost…” I slowly slide it on top of the tower where the kids instructed, but every inch I move it makes the darn thing sway like it’s going to topple over and destroy the creation. The kids would hate gravity knocking it down instead of them. I stretch higher onto the rounded toe of my flats. Finally, it settles. “Got it!”

The kids cheer. One of them knocks into me before I’m fully back on the flats of my feet, and I stumble. My shoes slip on the grass, and I’m about to go head first into the blocks when something solid wraps around my middle and pulls me back. I barely have time to gasp before my momentum shifts and I fall back against a solid chest.

“Careful.” Lysandir says. A lock of his hair brushes against my cheek, and my breath hitches. “Wouldn’t want to bring it down before they’re ready.”

His strong fingers flex on my side, and my whole body flushes. One moment, he was a few feet away, and the next, he moved impossibly fast to pull me back from falling into the tower, his arm around my middle.

It takes effort to remember to breath, and when I do, my senses swim with the scents of sandalwood that reminds me of spice cake.

His arm unfurls from around me at the same moment I pull away, putting much needed space between us. I shake my head to clear it, sucking in another breath that thankfully doesn’t smell only of him.

“That, um…” I stammer, unable to quite look at him, but there’s no hiding the flush creeping up my neck and cheeks. “Thank you.”

He nods his head in my direction. “You’re always welcome, Lady Mira. ”

My gosh, how can such a simple statement feel like so much more? I busy myself righting the blocks. But Lysandir does the same just a few feet away, and I can’t help but feel some kind of weird energy leaping from my skin toward him and distracting me so thoroughly that I manage to knock over the beginnings of the tower I’m working on.

One of the younglings squeaks in disappointment, and I rush to repair the damage. I stack a final block before proclaiming, “There, all better.”

But instead of cheers, a hush sweeps over the little ones who stare at something just past me.

“Lady Mira,” a deep voice says.

I freeze at the unexpected voice. My already off-kilter insides give a little flip-flop.

Suddenly I wish I wasn’t kneeling on the ground, probably getting grass and dirt all over the legs of my stretchy, fae pants. I whip my head around, craning my neck up to take in the tall form of Vasilius where he beams down at me. Damn, he’s a sight. The sunlight catches just so on the lighter highlights in his hair, giving them extra shimmer and accentuating the upturned corners of his lips. It’s a good thing I’m already on the ground, or I might just go a little weak at the knees.

“Your Majesty,” I say after what’s been entirely too long of a pause. And from the mischief dancing in his eyes, he knows it too.

He offers a hand to help me up, which I gratefully accept. So warm and strong. Maybe it’s a Fire Court thing, but the way his touch is soothing and disorienting all at once is truly something else.

“Would you like to join me for an early lunch today?” he asks.

A little laugh catches in the back of my throat. As if I would say no .

“I would love to.” I beam up at him. This is it, the moment I’ve been waiting for. A chance to get to know him better and build something between us.

“This way then.” He gives my hand a little tug.

“Oh!” My eyes fly wide. “Right now.”

Duh, Mira. But I should at least… I look around at our little group.

“Have fun.” Bailey beams and gives me a little wave as if she truly doesn’t mind that I have the next date with Vasilius. I guess we’ll all get a turn eventually, but I doubt I’d be so chipper if the situation was reversed. The younglings give a chorus of goodbyes, even a few comments about how much fun they had.

Lysandir is the only one not saying anything, a completely blank look on face. Ouch. He really doesn’t like me around his brother.

I do my best to ignore him and focus on the younglings instead. “It’s been nice playing with you all today.”

“Thank you for keeping her entertained,” Vasilius tells the children who positively glow in response. Actually, I think one of them might literally be giving off the hint of a glow. Or maybe it’s just the way the sunlight hits him.

“Should I change first?” I ask Vasilius, overly conscious of the fact that he still holds my hand.

He shakes his head. “This is fine. As long as you don’t mind that I don’t change.”

“Not at all.” In fact, the idea of a casual lunch is perfect. Much better than some stuffy formal dinner where we’re stuck at opposite ends of a ridiculously long.

“Excellent. Let’s be off.” He holds out his other hand to me, and I stare at it in confusion. “Ah,” he says, reading my expression. “We’ll need to shift there.”

“Oh?” Now that’s interesting .

“I know it can be a bit disorienting for humans,” he continues. “But we’d miss lunch if we walked all the way.”

My confusion has already faded, replaced by a wistful excitement that tingles in my veins. “It’s fine. I’m excited actually.”

“Oh?” He cocks his head, and I bite my lip at the mimicry of my earlier comment.

Vasilius flexes his open hand in invitation, and this time, I take it, forming a little ring between our bodies as we face each other.

“I’m ready.” I nearly bounce on my toes.

The corners of his mouth lift. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.” But the words aren’t even out of my mouth before the world around us starts to warp and shift, the air constricting like suddenly being stuffed in a too-tight sweater.