Page 31

May

Oh, god. Aldronn really does believe in me. The sweetest emotion fills my chest, thickening my throat and bringing tears to my eyes.

It’s been so long since anyone’s had this kind of faith in me and my abilities. Naomi and Hannah try. They always cheerlead whatever I’m doing, but sometimes I get the feeling it’s because they love me, not that they still believe I can succeed.

But Aldronn doesn’t look at me like that. He looks at me knowing I’ve got what it takes. It’s fucking heady. I’m already falling in love with him, and when he looks at me like that, I’m ready to brave the rest of the fall.

I give him one last squeeze before pulling away to stroke my fingers over the scroll. I have an answer now, a way to try to use my magic, and it’s all because he believed in me so much he confronted Luke to make it happen. I’m ready to be someone new, someone seriously fun—because, hell, I still want to be me —but also competent, the kind of person I’ve always dreamed of being.

The kind of person Aldronn already thinks I am.

“I want to try it.”

“Now?”

“Yep, now!” I laugh. “Seize the day, there’s no time like the present, and all that other crap.”

We sit cross-legged, facing each other, and he holds my right hand while my left grips my crystal. Right before I close my eyes, I catch one last glimpse of him watching me, his intent eyes shining with pride.

The scroll might have said house, but that’s not what I picture when I think of Aldronn. Instead, a castle appears in my mind. I have no idea what an orc castle looks like, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that this imaginary castle matches what I think of him.

Thick slabs of stone stretch overhead in an imposing wall with a small walkway at the top. I float along it until I come to a twenty-foot-tall wooden door. But it’s not a door that hinges open to the side. It’s a drawbridge, and I have to make it lower.

I think this is where I’ve gotten stuck before, in working with Luke. But this time, instead of battering uselessly against the door, I imagine winches inside the wall spinning in place, doling out chain. The drawbridge creaks and starts to drop open.

Yes! I’m doing it!

It finally slams into the ground with a deep thump, and I fly forward, only to come to a halt. I’m not inside the castle yet—I’m in a walled green space. The castle waits ahead of me. It’s made of the same gray stone as the parapet walls, and there are a few bits of decoration here and there, but overall, it’s a handsome building made regal because of its solid strength and clean lines instead of due to a flashy exterior.

An arched double door guards the entrance made of honey-colored wood lovingly carved with a forest of trees. Birds flit through the branches, and animals peek out from behind trunks. It speaks to the love of nature I’ve seen in Aldronn.

The heavy doors swing open smoothly at my push, perfectly counterbalanced.

I step into a marbled foyer as large as some of the apartments I’ve lived in. A double staircase twines up the walls on each side, framing a large archway that leads further into the castle. A ballroom waits to my left, and a massive dining room sits to my right. Both have chandeliers and fancy furniture, the walls covered in richly colored tapestries.

“May?” Aldronn’s voice echoes all around me.

“I’m here,” I say.

“Good. I knew you could do it.”

I expect to feel pride or pleasure, but there aren’t any emotions attached to his words. And as much as I strain, I don’t tap into his inner thoughts.

But that makes sense. If this castle is a visual metaphor for his mind, I’m in the public spaces right now. I’m only going to hear what Aldronn specifically says to me.

I need to go deeper, into the more private parts of the castle.

Floating, I glide up the right staircase to the balcony above. The archway here leads to a long hallway lined with doors on each side. Everything’s made from the honey-colored wood again, the marble and gilt of below falling away.

I float down the corridor and open a door on my right. A young Aldronn stands in the courtyard I passed through to get to the castle. He holds a wooden training sword, his feet in a martial-arts stance. Across from him is an even younger boy, and it takes me a bit to realize it’s Wranth. Other orc kids form a circle around them, expectant expressions on their faces. They’ve been teasing Wranth. Now that I’m in his inner rooms, I can feel Aldronn’s emotions, and he’s angry. The bullies think he’s stepped in to finish the job, leaning forward, eager to watch him beat the orphaned outcast. Wranth expects it too, his little face wearing a resigned look no one that young should have.

But they’re so very wrong about Aldronn. He might be young, but he’s already very mature, years of lessons about responsibility already weighing on him. He repeats the attack the larger orcs were using against Wranth but moves at half speed, giving the younger orc time to figure out how to block. Their swords clack together instead of Aldronn’s hitting flesh. “Good,” he says. “Again.”

I back out of the room as Wranth’s eyes glow with relief.

It seems I’m not the first person to be on the receiving end of Aldronn’s empowering ability to believe the best of them.

The next door I try opens on another memory. A campfire holds back the night, the now-familiar forest of Alarria surrounding us in a ring of trees. An orc works over the fire, his precise movements making the fiddleheads and mushrooms in the iron skillet jump and turn. An orc woman strides out of the woods, a young Aldronn beside her. She holds two squirrels, already cleaned and prepared for cooking, and Aldronn carries one, too.

“Look what our son did!” she says. “His first hunt.”

“We’ll eat well tonight.” The man makes a show of taking Aldronn’s squirrel, threading it onto a spit and cooking it first, praising its plumpness the entire time.

Aldronn’s love for his parents overflows, so strong it takes my breath away, and I see where he gets his generous spirit.

I move through several more rooms quickly, Aldronn a bit older in each—the time he gets irritated during warrior training and strikes another boy in anger; his first kiss, fumbling and sweet; a village meeting where he has to pretend he’s interested, because he doesn’t want to offend anyone, when all he really wants to do is go to the river and swim with the other teenagers.

“I don’t want you to see these,” he says.

“I promise I’m not trying to look at the things you don’t want me to,” I answer. It’s true, and it’s a problem. I’m thrilled I’m able to use my powers, but I still haven’t figured out how to get them to do what I want.

When I float back out into the hallway, I pause. All of these first rooms are his distant past, but I want to connect with the Aldronn of now. I race down the endless corridor, doors streaming past so quickly they form a blur. Gliding to a halt, I open one.

A twenty-two-year-old Aldronn rides into a village on Starfall, his guards surrounding him. Awe fills me as I see the heart trees for the first time. They’re far wider than the biggest redwood but so short they look cute as hell. Crowns of branches sprout from their tops, each covered in bright-green heart-shaped leaves wider than my hands. He meets the village elders inside the pub, the furniture, walls, ceiling, and floors all made of the honey-colored wood I’ve seen throughout his mind castle. It’s his first set of village rounds after being made king, and he’s worried about doing a good job for his people.

I dash down the corridor, skipping several years. This time a mid-twenties Aldronn forces himself to smile at a young woman in another village pub. She’s pretty, her long black hair twisted into intricate braids, her tunic top bright yellow and heavily embroidered. Her father pushes her toward Aldronn, grinning widely. She giggles, one green hand covering her mouth as she glances shyly at her king. I feel Aldronn’s resignation—he’s not attracted to her. But this encounter is expected of him, and he will do his duty and pretend, so he doesn’t hurt her feelings and offend the people of the village.

“May, don’t watch this,” he says, his voice going bossy.

Instead of bristling against his order, I agree with him. “I wasn’t going to.”

It’s the truth. I back out of the room, not needing to see what happens next. I’m not the jealous type, especially not for something like this, when he didn’t even like her. But I’m only human—I don’t want to see something I can’t forget.

Another long flight down the corridor reminds me that Aldronn has twelve years on me. He’s in such great shape, with the kind of body any guy in their twenties would kill for, that I kind of forget it.

The next door I try opens on a battle scene. A thirty-year-old Aldronn fights a massive ogre in a small clearing. Around him, all of his guard, including Wranth and Starfall and Zephyr, fight as well. They’re all exhausted, worn out from riding hard for several days to stop this war party before they can attack another orc village. But you’d never know it to watch them, the orcs and unicorns battling the larger number of ogres. The only good thing I can see is there don’t seem to be any kelpies this time, so the unicorns can focus on the ogres, too.

An orc drops to the ground under an ogre’s battleaxe. Aldronn slices the head from the enemy he battles and leaps over the body to stand over the fallen orc. He yells, “Starfall!”

Her angry whinny cuts through the air as she lashes an opponent with her hooves, then wheels to gallop to Aldronn. He fights off another ogre as she gets down on her knees and touches the downed orc with her horn. It glows like a miniature sun, magic rippling through the air. The cut in the orc’s chest seals, and she sucks in a gulp of air and sits up at the same moment as Starfall passes out.

Damn! They told me unicorns could heal someone on the brink of death, but seeing it is amazing!

Aldronn fights on, taking several cuts as he protects Starfall until every last ogre is defeated.

The whole thing makes me gush. “You were wonderful.”

“I did nothing less than Starfall would do for me,” he answers. I can feel that it’s not false modesty—Aldronn really sees what he does as normal, as fulfilling his duty to others.

It’s so much more than that. He’s so much more than that.

I dash down the hallway again, pulled to a certain door. Inside the room, Aldronn meets Ashley for the first time. He hides it, but he’s startled by her shortness and the color of her skin, eyes, and hair. I suppress a chuckle—it really is true. Humans are the outsiders here, and none of us are green.

I also feel his amazement that the goddess has started gifting the orcs with moon bound brides, as well as his hope that he’d receive one, too.

“You got what you wished for, big guy. How’s that working out for you?”

“Better than I could ever have imagined.”

I grin.

Flying a bit farther down the hall, I open another door and step out into a campsite at night. Aldronn sits alone, staring at the fire, then leaps to his feet a few seconds before a man steps out of thin air! It doesn’t look the same as one of Naomi’s teleports. Instead, smoky tendrils appear first, followed by his foot, leg, etc, as if he’s stepping from behind an invisible curtain.

He’s tall, with pale skin and midnight-dark hair as long as Aldronn’s. He’s wickedly handsome, the bad boy effect magnified by his black leather clothes. Smoke tendrils spiral up from the tattoos decorating his skin. It’s the shadow fae! He must have come through the door to Avalon.

They fight for a few minutes before the man disappears back through the door. Aldronn plunges after him, and my consciousness goes with him into a new world. I can’t see much except the twin moons riding high in the sky… until the shadow fae flies across their brightness on a set of shadow wings he didn’t have before!

As soon as we’re back in the room, I say, “This is what you’re worried about. That he got away.”

“Yes. I worry he’s told his Dark God about our hidden realm and that even now they amass to invade.”

“But you’re here, doing this with me instead of preparing.”

“You are my bride,” Aldronn says, as if it’s that simple. “Besides, I hope the Moon Goddess wants to be freed so that she can protect us from this Dark God.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be great,” I mutter, wishing I had as much faith in his goddess.

One last flight brings me to the end of the corridor. A tapestry blocks the way ahead, the woven threads forming indistinct shapes that make me feel like my eyes are out of focus no matter how hard I stare at them. I shake away the weird feeling and peek behind it, seeing construction ahead—preparation for memories yet to come.

I turn to the door on my right. As soon as my hand touches the knob, a zip of lust goes through me, the lingering echoes from our encounter this morning. I flush, getting turned on all over again. But as good as this feels, this isn’t what I really want. I know Aldronn desires me. Hell, the very first thoughts of his I read made that abundantly clear.

No, what I need to know is how he feels about me. Is he falling like I am?

Spinning back to the hallway, I eye the multitude of doors. I’ve reached present day, but opening doors willy-nilly is pretty damned time consuming. How can I find something specific?

If this is a castle, then it should have a map or blueprints or something. As soon as I think it, a map appears in front of me. I trace a finger over it, thinking about what I want to know. One of the rooms starts to glow.

I float a little way back down the hallway and pause in front of its door.

“No, May! Don’t.”

This time I rebel as always. It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. But shit, who could refuse? If you could really know what the person you’re into thinks about you…

I open the door.