I didn’t want anyone to know what my mother had become in the end, that she’d been so desperate for a crystal she was willing to put a gun in a sick five-year-old’s face.
“Yeah,” I lied. He did deal the first blow that injured her, so it wasn’t a full-fledged lie.
She shook herself, smoothing her hands over her dress. “Right. You’re here because you need my power? When Indra put me into a sleep, I still had my connection to the tree as it is a link to my power, my consciousness. So I used what little magic I had left and created a portal from the tree to my mind before I fully lost consciousness.” She looked off into the distance. “It was a flippant thought that if Indra somehow kept me asleep too long, your aunt could bring you to the tree when you came of age so that you could become Queen and take over. I never really thought I’d stay asleep this long.”
She started to pace the tall grasses, flattening them as she walked. “You should have been crowned at age fourteen. What’s taken so long? How did Indra pull this off? You look in your twenties!”
She looked at me then, and I could see the confident Queen in her. Something I wasn’t, not yet, maybe not ever. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t want to lie either. She would see right through that. Although I knew it would hurt her, I told her the truth.
“Indra… manipulated everyone’s memories. It’s one of her witch powers.”
The color drained from the Queen’s face, and then something dawned on her. “You… you didn’t grow up hearing about me, did you? That’s why you weren’t crowned when you came of age…”
Tears pricked my vision, and I tried to hold them in, which just made everything blurry, so I let them fall. “We’ve… all been living under the assumption that all royalty was killed in the dark war and that I was just a normal seeker fae. I only learned you existed a month or so ago.”
Her lip pulled back into a snarl. “I’ll fucking kill that witch.” But her anger quickly vanished as she realized what this meant. “So you… grew up without a mother?”
Gods give me strength.
“No… I… your sister was my mother. Indra messed with her memories and made her think that I was her child.”
A sob formed in her throat, and she nodded with tears rolling down her cheeks, but then her frown turned into a radiant smile. “I’ll bet she was a good mom. Probably too soft on you, but good.”
I laughed, smiling with her. “She was great.”
The Queen nodded, wiping at her eyes. “So, you were loved, had a good childhood?”
More tears rolled down my cheeks, and I swatted them away. I never in a million years thought I would be having this conversation when I set out this morning. “Yep. Very.”
She looked out onto the landscape again. “That’s good. That’s what I wanted.” Silent tears rolled down her cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away. I wondered if, since we were in her mind, she couldn’t control her emotions like she’d be able to in person. I certainly felt more raw and exposed than normal.
“Are you married? Children?” She looked down at my ring finger.
I shook my head. “No, but… I met my soulmate.”
She grinned. “Like a real one? Blue light?”
I nodded. “His name is Liam.”
I could simultaneously see the joy and sorrow play out on her face.
Losing my mother, watching her die was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life, but this was second. Watching a woman openly grieve the loss of her child, being robbed of her daughter even knowing she existed, it broke my heart in two.
“When I did learn about you—” I stepped forward “—I did everything I could to protect you, to figure out what was going on.”
She smiled weakly, stepping closer to me. “You did well. Tell me what’s going on. Did your mom not get the crystals back?”
She had no idea how big the Winter King’s resistance had become. How scattered the crystals had gotten out on Earth and that the Sons of Darkness needed them to survive.
“She got six. I got the rest, but then the king stole them all, and the protection dome fell. Now we have three.”
Determination settled into her features. “I tied the protection field to the Tree of Life, which weakens without the crystals.”
I quickly rambled anything else I could think of, I didn’t know how much time we had. I told her how the king was changing the crystals to be dark, how he was working with Chrysanthemum, the witch, and how we’d formed an alliance with a small band of rebel halflings, which was actually led by Liam. She didn’t look as shocked as I’d thought.
“Good. Alliances are good as long as you know you can truly trust them.”
I told her about Indra and how I’d confronted her and she’d fled; she stood before me, listening to every word as I finally unpacked everything I’d been carrying and rested it on someone else’s shoulders.
“Now he has all of the remaining crystals on Earth and is creating a ‘New Faerie’.”
She nodded as if she wasn’t surprised. “Okay. Here’s what you’re going to do.” She stepped forward and rested two hands on my shoulders, looking me square in the eye.
“You’re going to take my power from the tree and restore the dome, widen it so that it can encompass more land. Then, you’re going to march into ‘New Faerie’,” she said those two words with venom, “and tell every fae on Earth, halfling, full-blood, warlock or witch, that they are welcome to return home.”
My jaw dropped open. “What?”
She nodded. “This war has gone on long enough. And you can’t fight a war without an army. Your halfling alliance sounds
