Saving the Fae (Daughter of Light Book 3) Page 8

  I gasped. “A treehouse?”

  He nodded with a grin and pulled me inside. “Jasper said it must have belonged to an elf a long time ago.”

  Elf fae were long gone, even before the dark war, sadly. They had some trouble reproducing and slowly died out. I ducked my head and stepped inside.

  “Whoa,” I breathed.

  The entire inside of the tree had been hollowed out. It was about the size of my small bedroom growing up. But on the far wall was a tiny kitchen with a stove just big enough for a loaf of bread or a small pan. The floor was filled with pine needles, but they had been recently brushed into a pile to reveal hard-packed earth. No bed to be seen, but there was a small hand-carved dining table for two with built-in chairs. All carved out of the tree and unmovable. Four windows were carved in an oval shape with a foggy thin moonstone glass that let the natural moonlight in. The ceiling was carved high up, about fifteen feet above our heads. It was… stunning.

  “I was in here, cleaning it up today. I thought it might be cool to live here,” he said with a shy grin. “That’s stupid. It’s so small.”

  “It’s amazing!” I told him, walking over to the kitchen. “You could put a fridge right here and put in some electrical.”

  Liam nodded. “I was also thinking of carving another door and adding an attached bathroom.”

  His dream, living in Faerie in this tree, staying near me, it made my heart flutter, and warmth pushed outward into my limbs.

  “What about your brothers?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “They are so used to me being in and out. I’m only a few yards away. They could come get me if they needed me.”

  That was true, and his second eldest brother would be thirteen soon.

  Shaking out the blanket, he laid it down on the freshly-swept, packed earth and patted the spot beside him.

  I walked over slowly, watching him as he pulled out soft cheeses, dried fruits, and a glass bottle of water. I sat cross-legged before him, pushing my dress down between my legs so that I didn’t flash him while he set the items gingerly onto the plate. His hands shook a little when he set a dried fig on my plate.

  Was he nervous?

  Finally, he sighed, deep and longing, and his shoulders slumped.

  “What’s wrong?” I was having a nice time. Wasn’t he? This romantic place he’d found, the picnic, the flowers with roots all attached, it was perfect.

  When he looked up at me, there were tears brimming in his eyes. “I… took your family.” His voice was hollow.

  I took your family. What an accurate thing to say. Not, I took your mom. No. Because my mom was my entire family. But I didn’t feel the anger or grief that I had before. My mom made her bed, and she had to lie in it. She tried to kill an innocent child… I couldn’t judge Liam’s choice to defend his brother’s life any longer.

  “You became my family.” I reached out and brushed the tear from his cheek.

  He looked even more pained at my response.

  “It’s true,” I told him. “You’re my family now. Soulmates, remember?”

  The fates, the gods, whoever created us, made the blue light to lead us to our perfect partner. Liam was fiercely loyal, loving, kind, and strong. My mother, had she gotten over her prejudice, would have loved him. I truly knew that in my very being.

  “Liam, look at me.” His head had dropped back down, and now he tilted it up to meet my eyes, so much anguish there. “I’ve forgiven you. I think it’s time to forgive yourself because I’m ready to move on.”

  His jaw clenched as if the mere mention of forgiving himself was painful, but then he nodded. “You’re right. You’re always right.” He reached out and traced a circle on my thigh absentmindedly.

  Warmth and wetness bloomed between my legs as need clenched deep in my gut. We were too far apart. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, I needed him closer. I needed us back the way we were because nothing felt right without him by my side.

  I burst from where I sat, onto my knees, and knocked him backward, pressing my lips to his. The breath went out of him in a rush as shock colored his face, and then he was kissing me right back. This kiss wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t delicate. It was hard, fevered, and completely all-consuming.

  I kissed him like his lips gave me life while his tongue stroked mine with a passionate rush. When I stuck my hand under the belt of his jeans, curling my fingers around his hardness, he moaned.

  His hands climbed up under my dress as he peeled my panties off, and then his fingers slipped inside of me. An unrestrained growl left my throat as I sank into him, rotating my hips to rock on his hand.

  Man, I missed this. I missed him, being intimate, being vulnerable, being loved. Soulmates weren’t perfect. I’d learned that the hard way. But we were better together than apart. As if the Universe wanted to show me the truth of that thought, the blue light started to pulse in my chest and then in his, reminding us just how special our bond was, and when he kicked off his jeans and we came together as one, I promised to never let anything come between us again. Forgiveness was probably the hardest yet most important part of love.

  Chapter 9

  Liam and I slept that night, draped in each other’s arms, inside the hollowed-out tree, and it was perfect. The next morning, I awoke with sunlight on my face and Liam’s arm wrapped around my waist. He was watching me with a smoldering expression.

  “I was thinking.” I pointed to the far wall. “We could carve a little reading alcove there so I could bring my books.”

  His smolder turned into a smile but then quickly vanished. “Lily, you’re the Queen. They’re not going to let you live in a treehouse.”

  He laughed.

  I scoffed. “They can suck it. I’ll do whatever I want. Besides, I’m a temp Queen until the real Queen wakens.” I quickly filled him in on my memory of Indra and how she flew off when we tried to arrest her.

  “A witch? That makes sense.” Liam rubbed his chin.

  I grinned. “So, you’ll carve the reading alcove for me?”

  Liam reached up and fisted my hair, bringing my lips to his. “I’ll do anything for you. I love you, Lily.”

  My heart fluttered in my chest. “I love you too.” I was breathless.

  He released me and stood. “I’ll start today. Cam can help with the plumbing, and we can get a working toilet. Maybe Mara can pop me over to the hardware store.”

  I grinned. Moving in with Liam sounded perfect. Living away from town, away from the responsibility of being Queen was even more perfect. By the time our little treehouse was ready, the Queen would be awake, and I could step down and live my simple life with Liam.

  “Sounds wonderful. I’ll go to the Spring Court today with Jasper and Elle and get my full power, and when we get back, we can go crystal hunting.”

  Liam froze. “I forgot about the Spring activation thing. I’ll go with you.”

  I waved him off. “No, stay, and work on the house with Cam. I… need something to look forward to.”

  His face became somber. “I know what you mean. But will you be safe to get there?”

  I nodded, sitting up. “This isn’t like when we went to Winter. The Spring Castle is just beyond the farm fields and wasn’t taken over by the darkness as much. I’ll be in and out.”

  He reached out and threaded his fingers through mine. “I’m glad we’re starting over… I’m ready to move past everything. If you are.” His voice was low, and I knew it might be hard for someone outside of our relationship to understand how I could forgive my mother’s killer, but… I did. I wanted to remember the mother who sang me to sleep while brushing her fingers across my forehead, the mother who would run along the riverbank with me laughing and carefree. I wanted that loving woman to be the only memory I had, and I was ready to forget the ugliness I saw in her in Liam’s memory.

  “I’m ready,” I told him, leaning forward and pressing my lips to his. He moaned, reaching out to pull on my bottom lip and take it into his mouth before pull
ing away.

  “Wait, does this mean we’re moving in together?” He looked up at me expectantly.

  A grin washed over my face. “Once it has a bathroom,” I declared, and he burst out laughing.

  “Deal. I’m going to the hardware store today!” The excitement in his eyes brought me such joy. To see him excited in a project, for us to have something to focus on besides all the drama, was so nice.

  “I’ll see you tonight, then.” I stood and gave him a long hug.

  “See you tonight.” He kissed my neck.

  As I walked back across the river to the Tree of Life and where I now lived, there was a lightness in my chest, a feeling that everything was going to work out fine.

  “If I’d known there would be this much walking as your royal warlock advisor, I wouldn’t have taken the job,” Jasper growled as we trudged through the farmlands and specks of mud littered his Gucci loafers.

  Elle and I shared a grin while Trissa just rolled her eyes.

  “You’re doing great. We’re almost there,” I told him, but I wasn’t actually sure. I’d never been here. The Spring Castle was just outside of the protection dome the Queen had set up. She’d had the foresight and power to cover the farmlands and river to give us fresh food and water but wasn’t able to encompass the castle.

  As we passed the fae plowing the fields and pulling the harvest, they stopped what they were doing and waved to us or crossed a fist over their chests in a sign of respect. Elle thought it would be good PR for me to walk across the farmlands and ‘see the people’ instead of flying over in a rush.

  I noticed a tall, young man stand and face us. He wore no shirt and held a shovel, and sweat dripped down his chiseled abs. When he gazed upon Jasper among us, he winked at the warlock, and I spun to find Jasper’s cheeks had gone crimson. I was about to comment when a woman stood. She was tall and lithe with long blue hair draped in a braid at her back. Only the crinkles at the edges of her eyes showed that she was an older woman. Her body looked twenty. “Hey, Jasper. Coming by later?” She looked him up and down.

  Jasper seemingly choked on his spit, bursting into a coughing fit and just waved her off. “Official business.” He pointed to me.

  Elle and I burst into laughter.

  “Jasper, you’ve been busy on your visits out here,” I told the warlock.

  “Oh, mind your business,” he growled and marched off ahead of us.

  Again, Trissa stayed silent but rolled her eyes.

  I felt lighter than I had in days until I remembered where we were heading and why. Taking power away from the Queen felt wrong, but I knew it needed to be done. I’d been thinking about that vision with Indra. The Queen, my biological mother, fell into her drug-induced sleep, thinking that I was her daughter and assuming all was well with me and her sister. She was going to wake, and I’d have to tell her that I didn’t think of her as my mother… that my entire life, I hadn’t even known she existed.

  I was pulled from those dark thoughts when we reached the edge of the farmlands.

  Black, ashy ground met the rich green grass of Spring in a starkly contrasting line. This was where the protection dome must have reached.

  “The castle is about a mile from here.” Trissa sounded wistful. “Best we fly now.”

  “Finally!” Jasper groaned.

  One by one, we kicked off the ground, flying over the ashy smoking earth. The entire time, I kept my head low and watched the thin streams of lava or black pools of oil that desecrated the land. Spring was the exact opposite of this, and I prayed with all my heart that when the Queen woke, she could restore all of it. The fae deserved a fertile, restored land that wasn’t dead and wasted like this.

  Elle coughed as we flew through a plume of putrid sulfur, and Trissa shot her a sympathetic look. “Spring was last to fall, so it’s got more recent traces of disease, but I’m told the dark beings don’t go here.”

  That was interesting. I wondered why not.

  I was so busy looking down at the desolate land where my mother and the Queen grew up that I almost missed the castle. When I saw the brilliant gray stone wall stacked twenty feet high, I looked over it and into the courtyard and gasped.

  “It survived.” Trissa’s voice held so much awe.

  In the center of the ashy black ground was a tree so rich in greens and blues that it looked fake. Like someone had just painted it with fresh globs of color and left it to dry.

  “Is it like the Tree of Life?” I asked her as we set down near it.

  “Their seeds were twins.” Jasper’s voice pinched with emotion.

  “Twin seeds? I didn’t know that.” Trissa seemed to know what he was talking about.

  “What’s a twin seed?” Elle asked what I was thinking.

  My boots settled into the black, dusty ground as they crunched across the gravel toward the magnificent tree. “They say there was once a magical tree near the healing pools, which every thousand years grew a single piece of fruit with a single seed. If you used the seed from inside of it, you could grow a tree with magical properties.” He inhaled and then sighed deeply. “The last fruit, when opened, revealed two seeds, and it’s said the Tree of Life and this tree were grown from it.”

  I didn’t know why his story made me emotional, but it did. Tears welled in my eyes.

  “You said there once was a magical tree? What happened to it?” Elle asked.

  “Dark war. It was the first thing to burn.” He looked wistful, and I found myself wondering how old he was and how he knew all of this.

  We stood in reverent silence for a moment, just watching the leaves sway in the wind.

  “I wonder how it was saved with no dome,” I finally spoke.

  “The Queen, no doubt.” Trissa lowered her head in respect.

  She had the power to cover this before the fire and darkness took it? Maybe because she knew, one day, I would need it?

  I shook my head. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  Elle straightened her spine, peeling open an old tome and flicking the pages between her fingers. “Okay, according to this, the tree will recognize your lineage. Merely placing your fingers onto the bark will activate your powers and transfer them from the Queen to you.”

  Transfer them… what if it killed her? What if this wasn’t what she wanted? Or it wasn’t the right choice? What if—

  A strong hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. “She’d want you to do anything to save Faerie.” Trissa’s voice was firm, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my mom, the Queen, or both.

  I nodded, looking to Elle. “Just grab the bark?”

  She consulted her book once more and nodded.

  Okay, that seemed easy enough. I unslung my backpack and set it on the ashy ground before wiping my sweaty palms on my pants.

  “I’m just a temp Queen. After I get the crystals back and wake the real Queen, I’m giving the power back,” I told my three witnesses.

  They all nodded, and I looked away before I could read more into their individual expressions. Stepping forward, I placed my hands on the bark without ceremony.

  A shot of energy raced up my arm and into my head, and then everything went black.

  There was only darkness for a moment because, from the blackness, I was pulled into a bright light. It felt like someone had hooked me behind the navel, and everything spun. It took me a second to realize I had touched a portal. That tree trunk wasn’t some normal wood. After the darkness, then flash of light, my feet slammed down onto soft grass.

  What the…

  I stood before the Queen. Long pink hair flowed down her back as blades of tall grass tickled her chin. She wore a confused expression, brow furrowed, hands up in warning. Her short blue summer dress flitted in the breeze of the open field we were in.

  Her gaze roamed over me, and her confusion led to shock. Her entire face fell, hands shaking.

  “Lily? Is that you? How long have I been asleep?”

  Okay, I didn’t know what the hell
was going on, but she looked real, and she clearly knew she’d been asleep.

  “What is this place?” My voice was dreamy, sleepy sounding.

  A sob formed in her throat, and she stumbled forward. “Lily? Are you my Lily?”

  My throat clenched at the agony in her face as her hands flew to clasp mine. “You’re here?” she breathed, and then her mouth formed an O shape. “The tree. That means… how old are you? Oh my beautiful girl!” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she pulled me into a hug, wrapping her warm arms around me.

  How did you tell someone that you didn’t think of them as your mom? Someone who fought so hard to keep you safe, someone who loved you so much she hid you with her own sister in an effort to save your life.

  You didn’t.

  “It’s me,” I said.

  Pulling away from me, she examined my face. “You’re so grown.” Worry pulled at the edges of her mouth. “Indra… she’s keeping me asleep.”

  I nodded. “I just found out. We’re trying to wake you, but she’s been feeding you sleep potion for two decades, and we only have three crystals. It will take time.”

  When I said two decades, she stumbled backward a little, nearly falling over. “I missed everything… missed watching you grow up?” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and at this point, I accepted the idea that I’d taken some portal into her mind somehow. I wondered if my body was still back at the tree but only my consciousness had traveled. That seemed most likely.

  “Yeah…” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to break her heart.

  Her face brightened. “Your aunt, did she tell you all about me? Did she tell you how much I love you? How is she? I miss you both so much.”

  At first, I was confused. My aunt? But then, I realized she meant my mother… A sob formed in my throat. “She’s… dead.”

  Every single ounce of confusion or sadness left her body in a rush, and rage replaced her features. “The Winter King?” she growled.