Crown of Destiny

“I can’t forget it,” Lara admitted. “I am ashamed to admit that I thought it extremely clever of him.”

Kaliq laughed. “It was,” he said. “But it is evidence of how dangerous Kolgrim really is. If we cannot stop him, he will envelop the world of Hetar in a deep and terrible darkness from which they may never escape.”

“Then we have to stop him, Kaliq,” Lara said. “However we must first learn what wickedness he plans before we may take measures to prevent it.”

“Let us first see what Coilen can learn,” Kaliq suggested.

“Very well,” Lara agreed. “But if he can learn no more than he already has, I must go into the Dark Lands myself to see what I can see.”

They decided they would give the Shadow Prince known as Coilen a moonspan in which to ferret out any information that he could. But when the month had passed Coilen came to tell Kaliq and Lara that he could learn nothing. Whatever Kolgrim was planning he kept it to himself. Possibly the old chancellor, Alfrigg, knew, but he was not a man to gossip.

“There is nothing of any interest to report,” Coilen said, “unless you are interested in hearing that it is said Kolgrim may take a mate. But that rumor comes up now and again. It means naught.”

A chill ran down Lara’s spine. “No!” she said sharply. “How long has it been since that rumor was last heard and bandied about?”

Prince Coilen thought for several long moments. “I don’t think I have heard it,” he said slowly, “in decades. It was spoken in the mating season after he disposed of Ciarda, and possibly a season or two afterward. But nay! I have not heard it in decades, Lara. Can it mean something?”

“Possibly,” Lara answered him. “Has anyone new, anyone dark, been brought to the Twilight Lord’s House of Women lately?”

Coilen shook his head. “Actually he has but few women. Many Darklanders hid their daughters after what happened in the wake of Ciarda’s death.”

“What exactly did happen?” Lara wanted to know.

“Kolgrim had his daughters, their mothers and any of his many women who might be with child, or were known to be with child, murdered. Then he put a spell on the remaining women closing their wombs to his seed and keeping them young. He slakes his lust with those few, but there have been no more children. It is reported he said he wanted no siblings challenging his son’s right to inheritance one day.”

Lara smiled grimly. “Ciarda’s legacy,” she said. “Had his half sister not attempted to usurp her brothers’ place this would not have happened at all. Kolgrim is truly Kol’s rightful heir that he could have been so heartless as to slaughter all those innocents to protect a son not even conceived by a bride not even known.”

“That is the past,” Kaliq said. “We must consider the present and the future.”

“We will need to know if Kolgrim is truly planning a marriage for himself. Has the Book of Rule directed him to find a bride? Or has it told him the bride to seek? These are the questions we must answer before we can proceed, or even decide how to proceed,” Lara told him. She felt stronger today. Stronger than she had felt in years. The Shadow Princes, in generously sharing their passions, had passed on to her a measure of their power. They did not, Lara knew, do this lightly. “I thought once,” she said to Kaliq, “that my destiny was to unite Hetar’s civilizations. Now I know it is to save them. But am I strong enough?”

“Only time will tell us that, my love,” the Shadow Prince answered her.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I AM BORED,” Marzina, the youngest daughter of Lara, announced with a sigh. She was a very beautiful young faerie woman with long straight black hair and violet eyes. Seated by a small pool she combed her silky tresses with a mother-of-pearl comb.

“How can you be bored?” Ilona, Queen of the Forest Faeries, her grandmother, wanted to know. “There is so much to do in the forest. What happened to your lover?” Ilona was seated upon a delicately woven rug that had been laid upon the forest floor. “He was rather nicely made for a mortal. You have such a good eye, child.”

“I sent him away,” Marzina answered. “He was becoming as boring as my life now is, Grandmother. Perhaps I shall go home to Terah and visit my mother. I do enjoy seeing how it upsets the Dominus to have both of us in the midst of his court. I know his thoughts. He refuses to accept magic, and thinks we should both be long dead. It makes it very difficult to deny the existence of something when it is standing there in front of you.” And she laughed mischievously.

Ilona laughed, too, but then she said, “Your mother has finally left Terah, and no sooner had she departed than the Dominus, her great-grandson Cadarn, began dismantling the southwest tower of the castle where she lived. I suppose he thinks if he destroys her home she cannot come back. But he will never get that tower down for each night after his workmen have left it I use my magic to rebuild the tower.” Ilona chuckled. “The Terahns are beginning to be frightened, and Cadarn is quite frustrated. He even attempted to blow up the tower. Eventually he will simply give up. He may put Lara from his thoughts, but he will not destroy the evidence of her existence in Terah.”

“I suppose Mother has gone to Shunnar,” Marzina said casually. “She always runs to Kaliq when she weakens.”

“Your mother has done great things for Hetar and Terah,” Ilona said quietly. “Do not be angry at Lara because Kaliq loves her. He did from the moment he first laid eyes on her, Marzina. Your mother and Kaliq are life mates. They always were, but your mother had a path to follow, and she did.”

“Mother has never been kind to me since Kaliq tried to seduce me. She blamed me, Grandmother,” the young faerie said. Though she had lived over a hundred years, she looked no older than a girl of sixteen.

“Marzina, Marzina,” Ilona chided her. “Kaliq did not try to seduce you. You made a very blatant attempt to seduce him. An attempt to which he did not succumb, I might add. And when your mother learned of it she was rightly and justly angry. It was a very naughty thing to do.” But Ilona could not hide her smile. Still it disturbed her that Marzina could twist the truth to suit herself.

“You and Kaliq were lovers once,” Marzina said.

“Whoever told you such a thing?” Ilona demanded.

“No one told me, Grandmother. But I know it to be true. Kaliq has lived for centuries, and so have you. And you and mother look alike. He could not have you for you were born to succeed Queen Maeve. So he had mother instead,” Marzina said.

“My dear child,” Ilona said, “I do not know how you wove such a tale, but unweave it, for it is not so. Kaliq and I have always been friends, but never have we been lovers. Oh, I will not deny I have always thought him an attractive creature. But as you have so rightly pointed out, Marzina, I was born to take my mother’s throne. Kaliq was born to be Lara’s life mate. Her destiny is entwined with his, and it was always meant to be. Your mother loves Kaliq as she has never loved another.”

“Even my father?” Marzina demanded.

“She loved Magnus Hauk for the mortal he was even as she loved Vartan, lord of the Fiacre, in the same way. But Kaliq is magic as your mother is magic. Their passion is magic, and far different from any passion magic could feel for a mortal.”

“I have never been in love,” Marzina said.

“I know,” her grandmother replied.

“But why?” Marzina wanted to know.

Ilona laughed softly. “You have not yet met the right one for you,” she responded. “Oh, you have enjoyed pleasures with both mortal and faerie, but none was the one. When he comes into your life, Marzina, you will know it, I promise.”

“Was your husband, Thanos, the one?” Marzina inquired boldly.

“Thanos? Gracious no, child. Thanos was the mate I needed to sire my heir. We have little else in common although I will admit he is a fine gentleman faerie, and he gives me no difficulty, nor does he cause scandal.”

“Who was the one for you, Grandmother?” Marzina persisted.

“I am not certain there was ever a special one for me, child,” Ilona said slowly, “but if I had to choose it would be John Swiftsword, who sired your mother on me. He was such a beautiful and exciting boy. And he loved me unconditionally, but his fate lay in Hetar, and mine lay in the Forest Kingdom.”

“What if I never find the one for me, Grandmother?” Marzina asked her.

Ilona shrugged. “It does not matter if you do or not, child. A companion to take pleasures with is very nice. Love, however, complicates things, Marzina. Each of you must be totally unselfish, must be willing to sacrifice yourself for the other. I don’t think I could have ever done it. I am selfish, and make no apologies for it. And I need no male of any species to succeed in life. No female should. Your mother and Kaliq are unique creatures. The love they share will do great things, Marzina. Do not be jealous of it. And better to be happily free than to be unhappily bound in a relationship you don’t want or need, my child. You must continue to be an independent creature. Males are for pleasures, or if you want a child. There is no other need for them.”

“I don’t think I want children,” Marzina said. “You have to invest too much of yourself in your offspring. Like you, Grandmother, I am selfish.”

Ilona reached out and stroked her granddaughter’s silken head. “You are faerie, my darling child. Pure faerie.”

Aye, she was pure faerie, but she shouldn’t be, Marzina thought. Not with a mortal for a father. But perhaps, as neither her twin brother, Taj, nor her sisters Anoush and Zagiri had magic, it was Marzina alone who had inherited their faerie mother’s magic. They were long gone, of course. Sometimes it was as if they had never existed at all, Marzina considered, feeling a prick of sadness. Of course her big brother, Dillon, the king of Belmair, was all magic having had Kaliq for a father. And he lived.

Kaliq. How she had lusted after him, and if the truth be known, she still did. In her vivid imagination none of her lovers, mortal or faerie, could equal Kaliq. But he had made it very clear he wanted nothing from her, not even a single evening of pleasures. How it had wounded her pride to have him refuse her. He had done it gently at her first approach, but she had persisted, Marzina recalled, flushing angrily at the painful memory, until finally taking her by the hand he had brought her to a group of his brothers, saying, “This bitch is in heat. Cool her unseemly ardor.”

What had followed had been a night such as Marzina had never known before or since. The Shadow Princes came by their reputation as magnificent lovers honestly. She experienced pleasures heretofore unknown to her, and her lust had been eased. But having tasted such passions Marzina had never stopped wondering about what pleasures with Kaliq would have been like. She never knew who told her mother of her attempted seduction of Prince Kaliq, but Lara had sought her daughter in the forests of Hetar and excoriated her cruelly for her behavior.

“It is bad enough you would betray me, my daughter, but to embarrass Kaliq, who had been so good to you is unforgivable!”

“’Twas he who approached me,” Marzina lied. She was frightened by the way her mother was looking at her.

Liar! Do you think I do not know Kaliq, Marzina, that I would believe that ridiculous falsehood? Did you learn nothing from me? From your father? Magnus Hauk was the most honorable of mortals. When did I ever behave so disgracefully? You ought be ashamed of yourself, my daughter. Lara’s words spoken in the silent language of magic were far more stinging than if she had voiced them aloud.