Page 53 of A Kiss from the Fae (Mistress of Magic #2)

Morgana Le Fae towered over Black Sands Beach like a statue carved into the headland, or an ancient effigy, risen from a land long forgotten under the waves.

There was a sudden hush, and everything stopped: the wind, the waves, the thunder. Everything found a moment of stillness, and in that stillness, the sun shone a bright, wide beam of light onto the beach.

Faye, on her knees, feeling the baby come, was only dimly aware of it.

All her attention was focused on the pain, and the overwhelming desire to push.

The pain was a dark red sea, and every breath brought her to the surface for a brief second of respite before sinking back into its churning depths.

There was nothing but her body and the child that seemed desperate and yet unable to get free of it – like a fish in a net, grasping and bucking, terrified of the air that awaited it and the loss of the comfort of water.

Morgana Le Fae, the faerie queen of the Crystal Castle, the place where all faerie magic ended and began, held up her left hand.

Her skin was black and scaled like a snake or a kelpie, and she had no fingernails.

She wore a silver robe with a hood that lay on her shoulders; the outer edges of her were indistinct, shadowy, but her gaze was as though moonlight projected through slits cut in a black mask.

At her command, the two faerie queens froze in stillness like the storm they had created. Without speaking, Morgana swept Faye into her arms and disappeared into the moonlight.

Faye awoke to the sound of quiet singing. She tried to sit up, but couldn’t; immobility forced her head back against the soft pillows that held her in a reclining position. Her eyes adjusted to the pinkish light.

She lay in a wide, white bed in the centre of the seven-pointed Crystal Castle of the Moon.

It was exactly as she remembered from before.

Made of a pink, glowing crystal, the walls reached up into towers, and the floor under her featured a seven-pointed star that mimicked the shape of the castle in black crystal of some kind – jet, perhaps, or obsidian, like Lyr’s crystal.

Apart from her bed, there was nothing and no one else there.

The nearby singing appeared to be coming from the castle itself.

Remembering the beach – that she’d been on her hands and knees, giving birth as the two faerie queens argued over her baby – her hands went instinctively to her belly. Something was wrong. The baby. Where was the baby?

She could feel nothing at all from her breastbone downwards: no pain, no movement from the child. Her belly was slightly deflated, though it was nowhere near flat.

‘Where am I? Where’s my baby?!’ Faye screamed, terror giving her strength. Despite her paralysis, she pushed herself up on her arms and looked around her. ‘Please! Where have you taken my baby?!’

Her voice echoed back at her from the crystalline walls; there was no answer.

She started to cry. Despite everything, the child had been taken from her.

She knew this was the centre of all magic in the faerie realms. What did that mean for her and the child?

Did it mean that Levantiana had won and brought them here?

Or Moronoe? It seemed unlikely that it was Faye’s aunt; surely Moronoe would have taken her to her own queendom.

So, she must be here at the behest of Levantiana.

Which meant that she would never see her child again…

There was a sudden movement in the air, and Morgana Le Fae appeared next to the bed. Faye took a deep breath at the faerie queen’s presence. They had met before, and Faye had forgotten what an intense experience it was, being in the same space as the Mistress of Magic.

Morgana’s appearance had changed. Now, as she laid a hand on Faye’s brow, she appeared as a maiden – young, milk-skinned, with waist length white hair.

She wore a silver crescent moon circlet on her forehead and a white garment that suggested an old-fashioned nurse, with a long apron over a longer, full-skirted dress. She held a bundle in her arms.

Faye’s eyes widened and reached for it. It felt as though her heart was exploding with a warm desperation.

‘My baby! Give him to me. Is it a boy? Or a girl? Please, Morgana. Please,’ she begged, alight with an electric blue panic that surged from her womb and clutched her heart in its cold grip.

It was more than worry, more than anxiety: she needed to hold her child, like she needed to breathe and eat and drink.

It was her body that told her; the baby was part of her. It needed to return to her.

Morgana smiled as a thin cry reverberated into the crystal chamber.

‘You can do better than that, little one.’ She held him aloft and shook him gently.

Faye flinched, reaching out for him. The baby cried, louder now.

The faerie queen cocked her head, listening to the baby wail, and lowered the bundle so that she could study it dispassionately. ‘It is a boy,’ she added.

‘Please. Give me my child.’ Faye tried to move, but was still motionless from the chest down.

Morgana smiled and brought the baby back down, and as Faye watched, unhooked her apron and unbuttoned the white dress underneath.

‘All in good time, sidhe-leth ,’ she said, and held the bundle to her naked breast.

‘No! He isn’t yours. Please, Morgana. Please, give him to me!’ Faye cried, the blue electricity spiking and cutting into her aura. She felt as if she was being slowly torn in two.

The faerie queen turned up the white sheet in which the baby was wrapped, so that Faye couldn’t see his face. Faye watched with the possessive horror of a new mother as her son suckled at the faerie queen’s milk.

‘Yes. Drink, child,’ Morgana murmured, turning away from Faye.

Faye felt a tear roll down her cheek.

‘Why can’t I move? What have you done to me?’ she screamed at Morgana, but the faerie queen kept her back turned.

‘We have given you the gift of a painless delivery,’ she replied levelly. ‘Many human women beg for it when their time comes. You should be grateful. The paralysis will wear off soon.’

‘You can’t…keep him from me,’ Faye panted, trying to pull herself up the bed and failing.

‘Do not be sad, Faye Morgan,’ the faerie queen said. ‘Now, I have given him the milk of the faerie realm, he has my magick in him as well as yours. This will be a son of the realms as none has been before. He is the one that songs have been sung of, sidhe-leth .’

‘Why? Why did you bring me here?’ Faye appealed, holding her hands out for her baby. ‘And where is Finn? If this is his child, why isn’t he here?’

Morgana held out a glass of water. Faye took it with her spare hand and drank thirstily.

‘I did not say that the baby was his,’ Morgana answered coolly as Faye tipped the glass up to get the last of the water.

‘Is it his? Finn?’ Faye demanded, but the faerie queen smiled and shook her finger playfully in Faye’s face.

‘You will see soon enough,’ she chided.

Frustration and fear tore at Faye again. She felt as though she was going mad. Morgana was torturing her by not letting her have the baby. She was holding him hostage, but why?

‘Who won? Of the two queens? Levantiana? Did you take me for her?’ Faye handed the glass back to the queen, and it disappeared in her hands as if it had never existed.

‘Neither of them. I brought you here. You must remember, I am impartial. I am not part of their petty rivalries, and my magic surpasses all magic.’ Morgana laid the baby in a cradle made of plaited green reeds a few feet away from the bed.

From where she lay, Faye couldn’t see into it.

Her heart and stomach lurched with grief.

Every second that the baby wasn’t with her, she felt him pulling away from her; renouncing his humanity and becoming more and more faerie.

If she could only reach him and feed him from her breast, he would be hers. She ached for him.

‘Why? Why not let whichever of them have me?’ Faye was crying and couldn’t stop. Morgana sat down on the side of the bed and placed a cool cloth on her brow. Faye could smell lavender and something else; another, more musky herbal smell.

‘Try to be calm, Faye. I intervened because Finn Beatha asked me to watch over you and the child.’ Morgana’s tone was soothing, but Faye railed against it. She’d be soothed when she had her baby and not before.

‘Finn?’ she took some deep breaths to try and regain her composure.

Morgana looked grave. ‘It is best that you recover and look after the child. You are safe here.’

‘Where is Finn?’ Faye kept her voice low so as not to wake the baby, but she was desperate, and the baby stirred, half-woken by the urgency in her voice. ‘Why won’t you tell me if he is the baby’s father? Is he?’ She had to know.

‘He has been captured in battle. In the kingdom of Falias,’ Morgana replied.

‘What?’ Faye cried. The baby stirred again, and she lowered her voice. ‘Captured? How?’

‘The legions of Falias. Lyr’s son, Luathas, took him in battle. He is alive, held prisoner there.’ Morgana sighed. ‘The battle has grown intense. All sides wish to control my castle.’

‘But none of them can. You’re more powerful than all of them,’ Faye whispered. ‘Please. My baby…’ She held out her arms. ‘Please let me hold him.’ The desperation was turning now. Faye felt a wall of despair coming for her. What if she never got to hold her child?

‘In good time. Finn Beatha did you a good deed, Faye Morgan. I was surprised, but it seems he has…feelings for you. Perhaps. But more importantly, there is a prophecy that some of them have interpreted – they think there is a way for me to be overthrown.’ Morgana smiled, untroubled.

‘Finn Beatha believes in this prophecy. He believes that your child will be the one to take my castle.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense. If he thinks that, why did he ask you to protect us?

And why would you protect the child that will one day destroy you?

Don’t you believe the prophecy?’ Faye hugged her arms in an attempt at comfort, but the grief for the child just a few feet away was overpowering.

‘Please. Please, Morgana. My baby. Please give him to me,’ she begged again, but the queen of the Crystal Castle of the Moon ignored Faye, and wrapped her long hands in each other.

‘I believe it. How it transpires, I cannot predict. I play my part in the weaving and unravelling of life. I am of the moon, and the moon is changeable. It waxes and wanes. Your son has drunk of my power. That may mean that he will challenge me one day for power. Or it may mean that my milk has protected me from him. We will see. But I chose to take control of the prophecy of my ending. I chose not to let it be decided by Moronoe or Levantiana. Finn was wrong. He thought that it was you that was the one named in the prophecy, but I know that it is the child.’

‘Can I see him? Finn?’

‘He is in Falias.’

‘Does that mean yes or no?’

‘It means that is where he is.’

Faye felt as though Morgana’s every answer was a stream of mystery and obstruction.

‘You’re not telling me anything. And what do I do next, anyway? Stay here forever?’

‘You cannot stay here for long. But I can protect you in the human world.’ A soft sensation of pins and needles had started in Faye’s toes, and she wiggled one set carefully. Her body was awakening. Morgana couldn’t keep her from her baby much longer.

Morgana turned the cold cloth on the forehead over. ‘Every one of the faerie realms seeks this child. I will protect you both until he becomes old enough to walk into his power.’

‘How?’ Faye stared at the woven reed cradle. How could anyone so small and helpless hold such power over the entire faerie realm?

‘How is not your concern.’ Morgana sighed.

‘And Finn? Will he…will he come back?’ Faye’s emotions were a jumble.

Part of her was elated that Finn had been captured.

He had caused Aisha’s death and the deaths of other humans.

Finn was amoral, dangerous, selfish. But a deep, instinctive part of her grieved for him.

Even if he wasn’t the father. He had been her lover, and – indirectly – he had saved her child on the beach.

‘It is unclear,’ Morgana said as a wave of exhaustion overtook Faye. She felt her eyes closing and Morgana’s gentle touch lifting the cloth away. ‘But I have never known Finn Beatha to lose his grip on the things he wants. He wants you, and he will want your child.’

The faerie queen stood up and went to the crib. Faye watched her fearfully, dread rising in her gut as Morgana bent over and reached her black, scaly long-fingered hands into it.

‘Please don’t hurt him.’ Faye felt the tears come again; she was helpless. She still couldn’t move.

‘I would not hurt him,’ Morgana said reprovingly as she laid the swaddled baby in Faye’s outstretched arms at last.

‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Faye held the baby to her, and relief flooded her still-paralysed body.

‘He will need a name before long,’ Morgana warned. ‘It is unlucky to be without a name, especially in the faerie realms.’