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GLIMMER-NIMMS

N ight fell around us as we made our trek back to the palace, but we had no need of torches or glow stones. Along the path and frolicking among the branches of trees, shrubs, and flowerbeds were the glimmer-nimms I had only read about—lights no bigger than the end of my little finger, carried or created by beings no one could see because of their blinding illumination.

They never came out in daylight, and they were rumored to escape to a different plane of existence to make their nests and sleep. But it was also believed that they drew the energy for their little lights from heartstone, which gave me a sort of kinship with them. And I wondered if the caverns below the palace might house more than just dragons…

Some books claimed they had magic. Some claimed the entire race was extinct. I was delighted to see the latter assertion was wrong.

Rowena leaned toward me and whispered, “They love the king. It’s rare he is out after dark, so this is a treat for them.”

“We don’t have them in the south. I never expected to see one, ever. But they’re…beautiful.”

A sudden burst of tinkling laughter proved they were listening, and when I turned to watch behind us, I noticed the lights brightened as the king passed them, then dimmed again.

I admitted, “He is a rather easy man to love.”

Tearloch strode along on my right, loosely holding my hand, catching my fingers with his if we strayed too far apart. Moire kept pace with him on his right. I could feel her peeking at me, but I ignored her for the most part.

Ahead of us, Griffon, Lennon, and Ghloir. The king’s carriers followed behind us, and our friends just beyond them. A procession of eight soldiers led us, and another group brought up the rear. It was a long, cheerful spectacle for such a late hour, complete with clusters of people—servants, royals, and even some druids—watching from numerous gardens as we passed.

It seemed none of them wanted to waste a chance to see the king, no matter the time of day.

The guards preceded us into the center building of the palace and on to the receiving room in which I’d been forced to wait for Tearloch when he’d had his audience with Moire. The guards stepped away before we reached the tall silver doors. They were opened wide at our approach by the little man who’d denied me entrance before.

Now, he bowed deeply. “Welcome home, Your Majesties.”

Once we were through the doors, I pulled Tearloch out of line so I could make sure all our family made it inside. When Lears, Poole, and Nogel were left, the little man took a step and raised a hand, but when I shook my head, he inclined his head and stepped back again.

“My family,” I said. “Try to remember their faces.”

“Of course, Princess.”

Our friends were careful to hold their laughter until they were through and the doors closed behind them. From the next room, a woman shrieked, and we hurried under a high arch of a doorway to find everyone frozen in place. Everyone but Moire, whose pointing finger shook.

“How dare you!” She lunged forward a step but stopped herself.

Sitting on an elaborately carved throne of well-smoothed wood and royal purple cushions…sat Demius clothed in his best robes and calm as you please, as if he’d waited a long while and would wait longer if necessary.

“Demius!” I cut through the crowd to get to him, threw my arms around him and closed my eyes. Then I recoiled. “A changeling! It has to be! Demius is dead.”

“That’s not Demius,” the king said sadly. Then made his way to a chair along the wall and lowered his old bones onto a cushion.

Whoever it was, he was bold to remain on the throne with the King of Hestia in the room.

“Of course it’s Demius!” Moire seemed incapable of anything but a shriek. “You stole my grandchild!”

Rowena went to her mother and tried to calm her, led her to a seat but failed to get her to sit. The woman couldn’t take her eyes off the usurper of the king’s throne. If he didn’t have the blood of the king in his veins, he should have been dead already.

The changeling split his attention between me and Aristaeus. Patient as Demius, amused as he ever was when he would watch me trying to work out a problem on my own. But I knew I couldn’t make sense of a man returning after faybowse , so I shook my head and surrendered.

“I saw Demius murdered. I lit the fire that burned his body. You cannot be Demius.” I resisted the urge to pull the drawing from my boot to compare.

He nodded. “I am, and I am not. Just as you are Asper…and you are not.”

Moire crept up to stand next to me. “Do you realize you are mortal now, old man? So much easier to kill.”

He closed his eyes as if praying for patience and shook his head. “You and your prophecies. If anyone stole that pretty child, it was you, when you took her from her mother, to save her for your own machinations. You are the thief, not I.”

Moire stuck her nose in the air. “And what about the library, thief? ”

He waved her words away. “An afterthought. You were unworthy to protect our history when you couldn’t be trusted with the child. I should have stripped you of your visions when you interfered the first time.”

She gasped. “Stripped me of—” Her voice fell an octave. “Who do you think you are?”

“He’s Agrios.” The king’s voice was weak, as if he could barely find the energy to interrupt.

“Agrios.” A dozen people whispered the name of the Severe God. And while we watched, my old master’s countenance changed. His ragged robes turned to something fine and untouchable. His face lost a thousand years of wrinkles and imperfections.

Agrios had made Hestians immortal when Aristaeus begged him to save his people. And now that contract was broken?

I asked, “What now?”

Agrios looked at me. There was mirth there. “You do not fear me? You do not bow before your god?”

I rolled my eyes. “You taught me that bowing is only for patronizing. But if you’d like me to…”

I started to bend, but stopped when he laughed, and I laughed too.

“You see?” Moire was back to preening. “I was right. My prophecy is coming true! I was right to use gevri ?—”

“Fool!” Agrios’ patience was wearing thin.

She would be better not to draw his attention. Demius in a sour mood was a reason to disappear.

“Your prophecy was fulfilled the moment she and I left here together. She is the reason I will not punish you for bringing back your husband. She is the reason…you still live.”

I didn’t understand, and he recognized it.

“You would have wanted to meet her, to know why she did what she did. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from me. It didn’t sound reasonable. You would have doubted.”

He was right. But… “You did lie to me about a lot of things.”

“Like the distance to Sunbasin?”

“Like the Prospectors.”

“A half-truth is not a lie.”

“Yes. It is. Also, I wasn’t left on your stoop.”

He balked. “You were left in a hole in the ground. The point was, you were left.” He looked kindly at Rowena. “I should have told her that her mother loved her.”

Rowena nodded, accepting it as the closest thing to an apology she would get from a god.

“You were right about Viggo.”

Tearloch tensed behind me. I quickly explained and he relaxed.

Agrios lifted his chin in Tearloch’s direction. “I am not so sure about this one. Is he worthy?”

I squeezed Tearloch’s fingers without looking back. “Utterly.”

The god accepted it with a nod. Then he turned to a surprised Minkin and asked her the same thing of Sweetie. To which she replied, “Utterly.” Then he beckoned Lennon forward. “And you, who have lost so much. What can I do for you?”

She caught her breath. Then, with tears in her eyes, she asked if she could have Kivi back.

Agrios shook his head sadly. “You cannot. There are contracts with nature not even I can break. But know that her sacrifice did not go unnoticed. Such a worthy spirit has a place with me.” He smiled. “Now, anything else?—”

“Yes,” Griffon said, wrapping his arms firmly around his wife from behind. “We wish to return to Earth. And we wish…” He tilted his head to look Lennon in the eye, then waited for her nod up at him. “We wish to be mortal as well. If we have learned anything during our time together, it is that immortality is overrated.”

Agrios smiled like he understood. “Mortality, I can do.” He moved his attention to the next man, Ghloir. “And you?”

“I also belong…elsewhere.”

Agrios nodded without further detail, then moved on to Bain who stood to Ghloir’s right. “Well?”

The younger man’s crooked smile was contagious as always. “I was just thinking I might want to tag along with them.” He indicated Griffon and Lennon. “If life is to change, might as well be a big change, yeah?”

Griffon laughed, then nodded. “You’re welcome to give it a try, but there won’t be any DeNoy left to bring you back.”

“Fine with me. When do we leave?”

Before Agrios could address Dower, shouting arose outside the residence, then someone broke through the residence doors and the volume doubled. We retreated to the side walls and we women were pushed to the back behind our vanguard of fighting men. Ghloir stood between the archway and his father, the king. Agrios straightened in his seat and waited.

Whoever was coming was in for a surprise.

A mass of pale robed druids clogged the arched opening, then pushed through. Light flashed along the steel blade in one fiend’s hand just before he sent it flying toward the king. Another aimed for Tearloch.

“No!” Moire yanked Tearloch back and took his place. The blade had already been released, and after a tiny gasp, she slumped to the floor. Poole and Nogel wrestled the two assailants to the ground, but there was another.

He showed his teeth as he pulled his arm back. “Ruined everything,” he growled, then let his blade fly. Not at me, but again, at Tearloch. I tried to push him to the side, but he wouldn’t budge. Lears reached the druid too late, but he grabbed the man around the neck and pulled him to the ground. Guards clambered through the archway, weapons drawn. But the fight was already over.

I wrapped my arms around Tearloch from behind, tried to catch him as his legs crumpled, but he was too heavy. When we reached the floor, he slumped, and I could see the hilt sticking out of his chest. His weight held me down. I didn’t know how to help him!

“He’s mortal,” I cried. “What do I do?”

Agrios came to us, bent down, saw the weapon and pursed his lips.

“Demius! Help him!”

Those familiar eyes cut to mine.

“Demius,” I whispered. “This time you have to tell me what to do. I know nothing.”

His eyes smiled. “Yes, you do, Asper. My silver ball of joy. Do it.”

I shook my head, my mouth open, my heart shattering. I knew what to do? Impossible! I had no power?—

Oh, yes I did.

Demius lifted Tearloch’s shoulders. I reached forward and remove the blood-smeared dagger. Then I wrapped my legs and arms around him, closed my eyes, and summoned that mass of Hestia’s energy that I’d taken from Skullcrusher, the energy I’d swallowed and never drawn upon.

I imagined it all condensing into a little silver ball of joy and willed it into Tearloch’s body, hoping it was enough, hoping Hestia’s power and my love would be sufficient to heal.

His chest still rose and fell, but the blood stain on his shirt continued to spread.

“Come on, Tearloch,” I murmured in his ear. “Heal, my love. You can do it.”

I was vaguely aware of Rowena nearby, pulling her mother into her arms, sobbing quietly.

Nothing changed.

“You’re healing, my love. Feel it? The power of Hestia is healing you. The magic of Hestia is healing you.”

Someone knelt at my shoulder and I told them to go away. This was no time to give up. My love alone was surely enough?—

“Tearloch, listen to me. If you need more, I want you to take it from me. Do you understand? I’ll get more. I am gevri , remember? I’ll get more. Just take all you need. Take it all.”

Again, I closed my eyes and imagined a little silver ball of joy. I breathed deeply, in and out, willed my very soul into it?—

“Don’t you dare.”

I felt Tearloch’s rough voice rumble in all the bones I had wrapped around him. It was raspy, stirring—the voice he used in the whispering hours. And that little ball of joy inside me exploded into a million bits of light that could rival a hundred gardens full of glimmer-nimms!

I hovered over him so he could see them in my eyes. Then I kissed his blessedly warm lips over and over again.

With little help from me, he rose to sit. Across the room, King Aristaeus of Hestia, my great-grandfather, sat on the floor beside his handsome son, patting his shoulder and speaking words Ghloir would never hear.

Only feet away, Rowena fussed with some stray strands of Moire’s hair and stroked her lifeless cheek.

“She must have loved you,” I told Tearloch. “She knew what would happen and she jumped in front of you anyway.”

He shook his head carefully. “No, my love. Don’t you see? She did it for you.”