Page 39 of A Dance with the Fae (Mistress of Magic #1)

Levantiana, Faerie Queen of Murias, stood with her back to Faye and before a vast sphere of what looked like ice, suspended above a golden altar table. The room was lit by flickering torches that bathed it in warmth.

‘Where am I?’

Faye’s voice echoed against the stone walls. She swayed on her feet; she was exhausted, cold and still felt awful.

‘Take a moment to recover, sidhe-leth . You will find that being in Murias has a swift restorative power.’ Unlike her voice as she stood in the sea, which had been harsh and sharp, Levantiana spoke now in a voice that sang and flowed like a sweet river.

‘You offered an acceptable exchange. I am fulfilling my part of the bargain.’

Faye nodded and sat heavily on a nearby chest, which was draped in luxurious fabrics. She felt the tiredness leave her bones, and strength return to her as if she had drunk some kind of magical draught. Unlike being in Murias with Finn, being with Levantiana felt… restorative.

‘Thank you,’ she answered wearily. This was what she wanted, but this was a realm of high magic: there was no going back. ‘I just…want to learn what you can teach me. So that I can protect myself from…’ She looked away. Finn’s name hung between them, unsaid, a phantom.

Levantiana was fine-featured and golden like her brother, and tall and well-muscled; yet there was something more changeable about her, as if she could not be fully perceived. Faye had the sense that the edges of her were fluid like water; that she was everywhere and nowhere at once.

‘I know what you wish,’ the faerie queen replied, giving no indication of what she felt. Her loyalty would be to Finn, surely. He had told Faye again and again how he and Levantiana were the same, brother and sister, king and queen, the two halves of the kingdom. They were Murias.

Faye warmed herself by a great fire in a silver brazier to her left. Around the walls were lamps and silver censers, the censers billowing out smoke fragranced with lavender, rose and jasmine.

‘Welcome to my quarters.’ Levantiana smiled and bowed slightly at the waist. She stood, looking closely at Faye’s eyes.

‘I can see Lyr’s features in yours. Lyr has taken many human lovers, as humans are most aware of his element over them all, even though you drink our waters and breathe the air and warm yourself in the fire of the sun.

Without any of these things you would all die.

But the mountains and the trees are the things you feel are the most real.

Perhaps it is because you can cut them down and use their stones and logs to make your palaces of money. ’

‘I’m one person. You can hardly blame me for generations of industrialisation,’ Faye argued back.

Levantiana remained impassive. ‘I didn’t bring you here to discuss such things.’ She regarded Faye critically. ‘This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? To come to my private chambers to learn our magic?’

‘Yes.’ The blinding pain in her head and her lungs as the water had taken her over was gone, as was the feeling of heaviness in the water, of the shadowy sense of despair.

Faye felt a strong sense of trepidation at being back in Murias – what if Finn found her here?

She had not asked Levantiana to keep her presence here a secret, nor had the faerie queen offered such a thing.

Still, Faye was determined not to be afraid. Learning the faerie magic was her only chance at being able to stand up to Finn, so she had to risk being here in the meantime, if that was what it took.

Levantiana circled Faye slowly, her blue eyes almost black in the dimly lit room. ‘You offered yourself as a weapon against Lyr. That is very serious, Faye. Before we begin, I must know that you are certain. Otherwise, our little arrangement will end.’

‘I am serious.’ Faye watched the faerie queen pace around her. ‘He is no part of my life. I hate him. He broke my mother’s heart.’

‘But you don’t know what that means. To be a weapon against him.’ Levantiana delivered it as a statement, not a question. ‘You would willingly make a bargain with me and not know the terms. That is rash, to say the least.’

‘When you say a weapon, do you mean that it would hurt me in some way? Physically?’ Faye cared nothing at all for a father she had never known, but it would be stupid of her to agree to anything that would bring harm to herself.

‘No. You are half fae and half human. That gives you certain qualities we do not have; qualities we can use to build power in Murias. Also, Lyr is famously fond of his children. When he knows of you, he will want you with him. We will use that.’

‘I don’t want him. I don’t want to know him at all,’ Faye muttered.

‘That is your concern. I wish to subjugate Falias and Gorias. If we can remove Lyr from his throne, that will go a long way to winning the war,’ Levantiana said.

‘Falias is corrupt, and the High Queen Moronoe spends all her days fucking her slaves. She will be no competition for the throne once Lyr is gone.’

‘You plan to take over Falias?’ Faye frowned.

‘No.’ Levantiana gave her an unreadable look. ‘I cannot. I am of Murias, and cannot be of anywhere else. But there can be an heir to the throne. A young heir that can be…mentored…before it comes of age.’ She smiled, narrowing her eyes.

‘What heir?’ Faye frowned.

‘That is my concern, not yours.’ Levantiana shook her head. ‘I had forgotten how wilful the Morgan women are. Your mother was the same.’

Moddie. Faye’s heart yearned for her mother. ‘Can I see my mother? While I’m in Murias?’ Faye asked.

‘No,’ Levantiana said harshly. ‘That is not allowed.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it isn’t,’ the faerie queen retorted. ‘Do not test me, Faye Morgan, or I will send you back to the human world and you can fend off my brother with your pathetic charms for the rest of your life. Do not think I will not.’

‘Will you teach me what you taught her?’ Faye persisted.

She thought about how different it was, being in Murias and feeling the lushness of the faerie world, and yet not going under and losing control as she did when she was with Finn.

In Levantiana’s quarters, she was able to think. She could keep her head.

‘Yes. I will teach you the same magic as I taught her, because there is only one magic of Murias,’ Levantiana replied tersely.

‘But do not think that I will reunite you out of the goodness of my heart. I do not have goodness in my heart in the way that humans imagine. My heart is a faerie heart. We are different to you.’

I am closer to you now , Faye thought, ignoring Levantiana’s warnings. I am coming, Moddie. I will find you again. Somehow, I will find you.

‘You will return to live in Murias. That is your destiny, and I cannot argue with his decision. My brother has chosen you as his own,’ Levantiana said, as if Faye’s will was secondary, and as if Finn’s appetites were unquestionable.

To Levantiana, she supposed that they were.

I will not , Faye thought, but she said nothing.

Learning faerie magic is what will protect me from him.

‘If Finn wills it, he may allow you to see your mother, one day. But I doubt that he will.’

‘Why? What would be so terrible about letting us see each other?’ Faye pressed the faerie queen. ‘Levantiana, Queen of Murias, Mistress of the Cup, I demand that you tell me,’ she said, using the faerie queen’s full name to compel her to tell the truth, as she had with Finn.

‘Because it poses too much of a risk to have two Morgan women who know the secret magic in Murias. The Morgan women have been our friends in the human world for the ages, but they have also been our bane. The balance must be kept. The Morgan women cannot have too much power, which is partly why my brother seeks to keep you as his whore,’ Levantiana said simply, and then looked shocked at the words she had spoken. ‘I…I did not intend to say so much.’

‘I want power. I need power to be able to come here as an equal to your brother. I will not be his concubine,’ Faye replied.

‘I should do nothing other than send you back where you came from and let him use you as he wants,’ Levantiana snapped.

‘But your offer is interesting; the war goes badly for us, and we need whatever help we can get. If the prophecy is true…and my brother believes it more than I do, but…if it holds some grain of truth, then I can see the logic that it is better to have you on our side. However, the teaching of magic to living mortals is forbidden, so no one can know of our bargain. I will teach you here in my quarters; call me at the tideline and I will come for you. Is that agreed?’

‘I agree,’ Faye said, steeling herself. She had come too far now to go back, whatever the cost. ‘Will Finn know I am here?’ She decided to be honest with the faerie queen. ‘If he knows I am here, he will take me, and I will not be able to be your student. That would have implications.’

‘What implications?’ the faerie queen asked, though Faye thought that she knew very well.

‘You know what would happen. He would take me to be his… slut …and never allow me any power. Hence, I would never be able to rule the Crystal Castle. You know what I need to learn, to take it.’

Levantiana regarded her for a long moment.

‘No,’ she replied finally. ‘I will not tell him you are here. It would endanger our future as a realm for my brother to know. He is…’ She broke off for a moment. ‘My brother is too in thrall to his desires to be an effective ruler. He is not a strategist.’

Faye nodded. ‘What must I do?’ she asked, fear gripping her heart. Entering into a bargain with the fae was perilous. She knew that. Be sure , Grandmother’s voice sounded in her mind.

‘We seal our agreement with a kiss,’ Levantiana said. ‘Repeat after me: Tha mi a’ gealltainn mo ùmhlachd do rìoghachd Murias agus Levantiana a banrigh .’

Faye repeated the promise. She knew that the words were Scots Gaelic, but she did not know what they meant.

‘It means I pledge my obedience to the realm of Murias and Levantiana, its queen ,’ the faerie queen said, and Faye wondered if she could read her mind.

‘Now, you kiss me,’ Levantiana instructed.

As Faye’s lips touched her right cheek, Levantiana said in a low voice, ‘Finn will not know. While you are with me, you must not leave this room unless I show you where to go or I am with you. He will not know you are here; my quarters are protected with my magic. But go anywhere else in the kingdom, and he will know. And, outside these rooms, you will feel the effects of his enchantment upon you. You know how that feels by now.’ Levantiana’s blue-black gaze was penetrating.

‘Do you understand?’ she said quietly. ‘And, when you come back to be his lover,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at Faye when she opened her mouth to disagree.

‘When that happens, you must not lose your head and tell him the magic I have taught you.’

Faye nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Then we will begin,’ said the faerie queen, and the flames in the lamps around the walls glowed bright, filling the chamber with blinding incandescence.