“Do you know how many centuries I have looked out these very windows into my forest? Four and a half,” she continued, answering her own question. “It pains me that I must leave, but there is no choice. Our race cannot survive in the darkness. We need the light of the stars, the moon, the long days of sunlight.”
“I’m sorry I have brought this upon you,” Lara said.
“Nay, nay,” Ilona quickly protested. “If Hetar had been able to change, no Twilight Lord could have brought this upon us. It is the fault of those damned mortals!”
Lara laughed softly. “Will you take Dillon’s offer, and relocate to Belmair, Mother? Moving away from the familiar and comfortable is difficult, but Beltran is a beautiful province filled with forests. I believe you could be happy there.”
“Aye, we will take Dillon’s offer, but we shall also seek out another world eventually, where it will not be known that we reside. You know we Faerie folk like our privacy. We do not like mortals to be aware of us. Gwener has already located her people, the Meadow faeries, in Beldane. Annan has chosen Belbuoy, for it has several fine rivers and many streams for his Water Faeries. King Laszlo likes the mountains of Belia for his Mountain Faeries. It is all a great inconvenience, Lara, but it was bound to come sooner than later. Has the wedding been celebrated? What a word to describe the marriage of a Twilight Lord who will bring the darkness upon us.” She laughed wryly.
“Kaliq said you are overseeing the evacuation of all the magic folk,” Lara said.
“Aye, I am, and a difficult task it is, I want to tell you. Finding homes, if even temporary ones, for elves, gnomes, giants ad infinitum is not a simple task. The mountain gnomes in the Emerald Mountains have decided they will remain. Gulltop speaks for both the Ore and the Jewel gnomes now. He says they are few, and old. They are used to the darkness, but will disappear into the mountainsides until the light comes again. They will not labor for the Twilight Lord.”
“The light will come again, Mother?”
“Oh, Lara, the light cannot be extinguished entirely. Even in the darkness there is always a small flicker of it somewhere. And eventually that flicker will grow and grow until the darkness is pushed back into the Dark Lands, and the light rules again,” Ilona said to her daughter.
“Then why must we leave?” Lara wanted to know. “Could we not hide like the gnomes of the Emerald Mountains?”
“Oh, my darling,” Ilona said. “It will be centuries before that happens. Once the darkness takes hold of a world it is difficult to overcome it. Gnomes, used to living in their tunnels, can survive that time. We of the other magic races cannot. We need the light if we are to thrive. All the good magic there is in Hetar must leave it.”
“Kaliq said he knows my destiny, but he will not tell me,” Lara said to her mother.
Ilona laughed. “He probably does,” she said.
“He says we are to be together, for now our destinies are one,” Lara continued.
“Does he?” Ilona wasn’t surprised. Kaliq had always loved her daughter, and would of course share whatever destiny Lara had. “You are fortunate in your life mate, my daughter. He is the greatest of the Shadow Princes, next to old Cronan.”
The door to the chamber opened, and a slender young girl entered. “Aunt Lara! How wonderful to see you again! Will you be coming with us to Belmair?”
“I imagine I will,” Lara said. “I am certain your mother is glad you are returning home, Parvanah.”
“I suppose so,” Parvanah said, shrugging. Parvanah was the daughter of Lara’s brother, Prince Cirillo and his wife, the Great Dragon of Belmair, Nidhug. And she was her grandmother’s heiress after her father.
Cirillo and Nidhug had left an egg to hatch in the dragon’s nursery cave in the mountainous province of Belia well over a century ago. The dragon that would hatch from it, a young male, would one day take his mother’s place as Belmair’s Great Dragon. The Queen of the Forest Faeries had finally and reluctantly accepted the fact that her only son and heir loved the female dragon. But she was distraught when he could not seem to settle upon a faerie maid to create an heir who would follow him as ruler of the Forest Faeries once his mother was gone. And then one day Nidhug had told her lover that she was about to lay another egg. They had both been surprised for the egg in the mountain nursery was destined to follow Nidhug. There should have been no others.
But the dragon could not restrain herself, and she laid this new egg upon their bed. It was pale pink imprinted with deeper pink roses. And it was smaller than her other egg. Both Nidhug and Cirillo watched in astonishment as the egg cracked itself open and within the shell lay a tiny female faerie infant waving its dainty fists and cooing. Ilona was called immediately. She examined the child carefully and pronounced, “She is pure faerie, although I don’t know how this is possible. Look on her back. Do you see the wing buds?” And then Ilona named her granddaughter Parvanah, telling Cirillo, “She will follow you and one day be Queen of the Forest Faeries.”
Now fourteen, Parvanah was a perfect Forest faerie in appearance but for her eyes, which were like her dragon mother’s, dark with gold-and-silver swirls and thick purple eyelashes. She bowed to Ilona. “The evacuation of the Meadow, Water and Mountain Faeries is now complete, Grandmother. I have sent our soldiers into those areas to make certain that no one was left behind. The areas are clear now. The returning guards said you could feel the loneliness. Isn’t it sad?”
“Aye,” Ilona said quietly. “It is indeed sad. It would appear, my daughter, that you have come to the forest just in time. Tomorrow our own people will begin their departure. We are through with Hetar.”
13
“I KNOW THIS IS HOW IT MUST BE,” LARA SAID, “BUT I am still unhappy over it.”
“We will revisit our history in the forest tomorrow,” Ilona said. “It is important that we say our goodbyes. And you will see how low the Forest Lords have fallen.”
“I don’t know if I want to revisit that particular place or time,” Lara said.
“Nay,” her mother replied. “You must. Do not fear. They will not see us or even know we are there.”
“Why don’t you like the Forest Lords, Aunt Lara?” Parvanah asked.
“I will tell you one day in the hall of your kinsman, King Dillon,” Lara promised the girl. “It is an unhappy tale.”
“But you had a happy ending,” Parvanah said. “Prince Kaliq,” she sighed, “is a delicious man, aunt. To have such a life mate is surely wonderful!”
Lara thought a moment, and then she laughed. “Aye, it is wonderful to have such a life mate, my love. Thank you for reminding me.”
“Let us have our meal now, and rest,” Ilona said. “Tomorrow will be a trying day for both of us, my daughter. Parvanah, you have done well. Tomorrow you will oversee the departure of our elves, brownies and the few gnomes who will go. Run along now, dear.”
Parvanah curtsied prettily to her grandmother and her aunt as she left them.
“Will any of the gnomes leave?” Lara asked curious. “I thought they chose to remain, Mother. Gulltop speaks for them all now, and he isn’t one to change his mind easily.”
“Aye, the youngest among them, males and the few females young enough to still breed will leave Hetar. They are not a large race, and so I have suggested this in order that their kind not be lost. There are few gnomes on the other worlds, and their skill at finding ores and jewels is quite special. I have spoken myself with Gulltop on this matter. It was not an easy negotiation, mind you. He is almost ten centuries old, and not easily persuaded any longer, if he ever was. But I was finally able to convince him of the wisdom of sending some of his people with us by pointing out we could not know how long the darkness would last. If it held Hetar captive for too long his younger gnomes would be too old to breed, and their race would certainly die out. That he understood. And so those five centuries and younger will come with us.”
“You look tired, Mother,” Lara said.
“I am,” Ilona admitted. “This has been a terrible undertaking for me, and for Thanos. Your stepfather has exhausted himself seeing that the rare species of flora and fauna native to Hetar are removed to Belmair that they may continue to propagate. Too much darkness will kill much of what exists upon this world, for an endless Icy Season will set in. But let us not speak anymore on so unpleasant a subject.” Ilona waved her hands over the low table before them, producing two plates of faerie bread and cups of forest berry frine. She sighed, reaching for the faerie bread and tearing off a chunk. “I am ravenous of late with all this work. Umm! Roasted meat!”
