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Aldronn

The sounds of celebration fade behind me as I leave Moon Blade Village to follow the forest trail back to my campsite. Dravarr offered me an empty heart tree cottage to stay in, but I turned him down. Normally, I reside in each village with my guard whenever we visit.

Yet this is no normal visit.

This village has become the meeting point of the orc alliance with the dragons, unicorns, cat sith, and cu sith. I remain in the area to hold council with all of them.

And to guard the door to Avalon.

I step out of the pine trees and into the open space the dragons have cleared next to the village’s magical standing stone. The dark purple sky spreads moonless overhead, our goddess nowhere to be seen.

Tan leather tents wait in a familiar circle around a central campfire. Most of the guards are back in the village, eating and drinking with the others.

Grugg jumps to his feet as soon as he spots me and bows his head ingratiatingly. “King Aldronn.”

If Grugg were as courteous to others, he’d be one of the best of my guard. But he’s not, and his repeated slights of my cousin Wranth have put Grugg on shit duty for the foreseeable future.

“Has there been any change?” I eye the hazy shimmer that hangs over the crystal resting on the ground. It might not look like much, but it’s actually a door of Faerie, one that leads to a dangerous realm.

“No, My King.”

“You’re dismissed. Go get something to eat in the village.”

He bows his head and disappears into the trees, trotting along the path I just took.

I stare at the door, wondering for the millionth time what waits on the other side. Avalon was once the shining jewel of Faerie, the premier realm ruled by elves and orcs and populated with numerous other types of fae. But a lot can change in three-hundred years, and from everything Wranth told me, Avalon’s done nothing but change for the worse.

I adjust the sword at my hip and settle onto a log, then leap right back up to standing. My magic tingles along my nerves. Most orcs have nature magic, but an elf ancestor gifted me with the power of premonition.

My sword slides from the scabbard with the ring of pure metal, the moon steel of its blade the finest in all the land.

Coils of black smoke slip out of the door, followed by a man dressed in a black leather vest, pants, and boots. He’s almost as tall as an orc and of slightly slimmer build, which means he’s still impressively muscled. Long black hair frames a pale face, but the bare skin of his neck and arms writhes with dark tattoos, out of which pour shadows.

He’s no elf. There are no more elves, our cousins lost to a Dark God.

This is a dark fae.

He takes a step toward the closest tree, his hand outstretched, his eyes widening.

What will his dark magic do to it?

“Halt!” I bark.

His head whips around, and his lips curl in a snarl, exposing fangs. Shadows shoot from his extended arms, reaching for me.

My sword sings through the air, its length glinting in the firelight. The razor-sharp edge slices the shadows in two, their severed ends fading to nothingness.

The fae gives a pained grunt, his green eyes going wide. “Impossible. No blade can touch my shadows.”

“Fool.” I bare my tusks in a feral smile, battle lust rising within me. Moon steel is a special alloy, gifted to us by our goddess. It appears to have properties we never suspected. “My blade will do far more than touch you.”

His shadows punch toward me, coming from all sides.

I leap right, slicing the ones in front. But no matter how fast I am—and I’m exceedingly fast—I can’t avoid all of them. Pain bites into my left shoulder. I dive to the right. Rounding my back, I roll from shoulder to hip and spring upright, facing him, my sword slicing through more of his shadow tendrils.

He staggers back, clutching his chest as if I’ve done him a bodily injury.

When I advance, he dives through the door.

No! He can’t get away! He came alone, so he might have stumbled across the door by accident. But if he returns to Avalon, he’ll tell the other dark fae, and we’ll have a full-scale invasion on our hands.

I lunge forward. One footfall touches the beloved soil of Alarria, and the next falls on deadened ground, stripped of magic. Without the campfire, it’s darker in Avalon, but twin moons sail overhead, casting colorless light on a small clearing.

I leap after him, chasing the flickering sight of pale skin past the ruins of a stone house.

Instead of disappearing into the night-draped forest ahead, the fae launches into the air, his shadows forming wings that carry him up into the night sky. In moments, he’s lost to sight.

“Fuck.”

The dark fae have discovered the door to Alarria.

The village pub is a pale echo of its earlier revelry as I sit across from grim faces. Glow stones cast golden light that warms the honey-colored wood of the living heart tree that makes up the walls, ceiling, and floor. This should be a place of nothing but joy, but we’ve shoved aside the tankards of ale to make battle plans instead of celebration.

The two orcs across from me radiate strength, their seven-foot frames packed with slabs of hard muscle that their brown leather pants and linen tunic tops do little to hide. We’re three of a kind, all with swords belted at our hips, and there’s no one I’d rather have at my side.

Wranth’s frown threatens to dig permanent furrows into his green brow, his lips peeling back from his tusks in a silent snarl. In years past, he was one of the fiercest of my guard and is one of the best swordsmen I know.

Dravarr scowls harder the longer I speak and flicks his long black hair over his shoulder with an impatient shove. The trimmed beard hugging his jaw highlights the flat line of his lips.

It doesn’t bode well that these two warriors, who I now depend upon as my most prized advisors, look even dourer than I feel.

“I don’t want an invading horde this near my village,” Dravarr growls. As warlord of Moon Blade Village, it’s his duty to protect his people.

Yet his people are my people as well, along with all other orcs in Alarria. I may not stand on pomp and circumstance, yet I am still king. “I do not want that either. But the same holds true for every village.”

“There’s Elmswood Keep,” Wranth says. My cousin and I grew up in the castle together, even if we didn’t know we’re related until recently. “As the only stone structure, it’s the most defensible.”

“It is.” I nod. “But the village surrounding it is not.” Orcs love their heart tree cottages, cocooned in the life and magic of living trees, and who can blame them? I know I prefer staying in them in every village I visit.

Strategies and tactics fill my mind, ones learned from ancient history. Orcs were prized warriors in our home realm of Avalon, our battle prowess turning the tide of many a war. But in the three-hundred years we’ve been isolated in Alarria, we’ve never faced all-out war.

“To plan, we need to know more about the dark fae,” I say, frustration eating at me. “Do they number in the hundreds? Thousands? Do they all have this shadow magic?”

“Do they all have the ability to fly?” Dravarr’s glare threatens to burn any foe where they stand. His moon bound bride, Ashley, is a human witch who can fly. If we face enemies in the air, she’ll be first in line to go up against them. As powerful as she is, she’s not a warrior trained to kill, and I would not squash her sunny nature by expecting such from her.

“We could leave the crystal somewhere isolated,” Wranth says, “like the Northern Wastes.”

“And let potentially thousands of our foe enter Alarria uncontested?” I shake my head. “No. The door to Avalon might be a danger, but it’s also a bottleneck. They can only come through one at a time. We must hold the door.”

“Ironic.” Wranth snorts. “Our people spend three-hundred years bemoaning that the doors of Faerie closed, but as soon my Naomi opens them, I wish we could close them again.”

“No, you don’t.” I clap a hand to his shoulder. “Visiting Avalon allowed you to discover the truth of who you are. And the door to Earth lets your bride visit her friends and family.”

“You’re right. I’m glad of all that.” His mouth twitches upward on the left in his familiar wry smile. Then his expression hardens. “But this…”

“We need the dragons,” Dravarr says.

“We need all of our allies,” I agree. Thank the goddess, these past few months, I’ve forged strong bonds with the other types of Wild Fae scattered across Alarria.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” I say. “We’ll keep the door at the campsite temporarily with a rotating guard of at least six warriors, using my people and warriors from the village.”

Dravarr grits his teeth and nods.

“We send messengers to the dragons and the others, calling for a meeting. Perhaps the dragons know of a way to lock a door of Faerie.” As the historians and knowledge hoarders of Faerie, the dragons are our best hope.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Wranth says.

“I haven’t either. All the stories say that once the doors are open, the magic of Faerie flows through them, making them impossible to close.” I press a fingertip to the wooden tabletop. “So if we can’t close it, we decide where to place the door to best defend against the dark fae.”

We hash out the logistics of setting up the rotation to watch the door, each of us putting ourselves in the mix. It’s late by the time we break up the meeting, the night air cool when we step out of the pub into the village green. The moonless night is dark with all the business-filled cottages ringing the open area closed for the day, but my eyes adjust fairly quickly.

“Thank you both,” I say. “It’s a good plan. We’ll meet again in the morning with more of the—”

Blinding light and the high shriek of piping horns cut across my words as the moon appears in the sky. The goddess!

My heart skips as she dives for me, her celestial music strident.

Light suffuses my entire being, filling me with her ringing command.

Magic thrums through me, tugging at the chain now anchored in my heart. I spin toward the north. By the time my eyes readjust to the sudden return of darkness, I know exactly where I must go.

All of the careful plans I just made mean naught.

I have been summoned.

I will go where the Moon Goddess bids me.

And at the end of my journey, I will claim my moon bound bride.