“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 pulling 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
