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Story: The Tales of Arcana Fortune
Chapter Eight
A nyone who had known Serena starting from childhood to the present would know that she was seldom at a loss of words. There’d been only a handful of times one could say she was struck absolutely speechless.
This was one of those times.
Besides her, Grim’s posture had gone slack, as if he was too surprised to be on guard. He was the one who spoke first.
“You’re the Faery Queen,” he repeated.
The Faery Queen, Nerida, looked at him as if she was only just noticing him for the first time.
She raised her brows at the question and snapped her fingers.
Her raven locks swept up, dancing around her face, before forming an elaborate updo.
With her hair out of the way, they were both able to glimpse beautiful translucent wings the color of a sky at dawn peeking out from her shoulder blades.
They looked absolutely ethereal, and Serena ached to touch them, to see if they felt as silky as they looked, to know if they glittered so beautifully in person.
Tamping down her embarrassing musings, Serena addressed the queen, “How did you and my aunt even meet? Aunt Maeve did not leave the cottage much and you… I mean…you’re the Queen of the Faeries, and no one has heard from Faery in centuries.”
A look of grief passed over Nerida’s face.
“Faery is not…what it used to be. Humanity’s loss of faith in fairytales has wounded us, weakening us in so many ways.
Our land is dying, and our people are vulnerable.
It was safer for us to close our borders and disappear rather than risk a King of Lumina deciding to invade us.
For as much as they have discouraged belief in Faery, the early kings viewed us as very real enemies. ”
“But that still doesn’t answer my question. How did you meet Aunt Maeve?”
“What do you know about your family history, Serena?” asked Nerida.
“We’re descended from Arcana the Storyteller, or her sister Larke, to be more specific. The Faery Queen, I mean you, entrusted Larke with Arcana’s books, and her descendants chose to add to that collection, keeping fairytales alive while Lumina tried to eradicate them.”
“Indeed. Faery owes your family a great debt. Without the Larke family choosing to safeguard fairytales, and creating a network of scholars and other learned people who still believed in us, Faery would have died a long time ago. As it is, we are holding on by a thread, with the help of the faith of the few believers that refuse to bow down to the kingdom’s brainwashing—by the faith of those who still tell tales of the faery and the spirits to their descendants, making sure that we are not forgotten completely.
We do not take our debts lightly, and so I have been keeping tabs on Larke’s descendants, making sure that if you ever need our help, we will lend it as best we can.
In the usual way of things, I keep watch from afar with no one the wiser.
Your aunt was different, however; she surmised there must be something more than just keeping Arcana’s books the queen had entrusted Larke with.
At first, I was amused, so I would keep up with her frenzied research.
She was incredibly persistent, even when she faced dead end after dead end.
It was because I was keeping watch that I was able to stop her when she discovered the truth and came close to undoing a spell that I had cast, a spell to bind an incredibly evil immortal who has sworn revenge on me, and on Faery.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding at the dawning comprehension on Serena’s face, “your aunt not only discovered the book’s existence but its location as well.”
Of course I had to stop her, it was the first time I had set foot in the human world in... centuries. Not much shook Maeve, but I think spotting a real live faery in her study came close.”
It was impossible to mistake the warmth in Nerida’s voice when she spoke of her aunt, and it took Serena by surprise.
“When I told her the truth about the book, she yelled at me a good solid minute about how dangerous it was to have something like that and how she wasn’t going to allow it to remain there.
” she smiled at Serena for the first time, “She was worried about you, you see.
'I have an incredibly nosy niece who has a penchant for picking up the wrong thing,’ she had cried, 'I can’t have something like this in my house! '”
“It took me an hour to convince her that there was no way someone could find the book unless they were looking for it, and even then, they would have to know about the cloaking spell to actually reveal the true book underneath. She still didn’t like it but agreed to still keep it in the cottage.”
“I never knew,” whispered Serena, suddenly feeling a sense of loss at how little she had known her aunt. “I never knew any of this.”
Nerida seemed to understand her conflict.
“Your aunt didn’t want you to know,” she said softly. “She thought it would be safer for you to not get mixed up in anything like this, at least not unless you were much older.”
“So, Aunt Maeve knew about Lore?”
A peculiar expression crossed Nerida’s face.
“Lore,” she murmured. “That is the name he gave you then. Yes, your aunt found out and agreed to keep the book where it was.”
“Why not just destroy it? Burn it or bury it somewhere,” Grim asked.
She then focused on Grim, her gaze cooling considerably. “And I am guessing this young man is the reason you discovered the book and the cloaking spell?”
“This is Grim, he—”
“Oh, I know exactly who Grim is and what he’s here for,” she said with a sharp smile. “So, what was it that finally led those old crones to think of anything other than themselves?”
Serena was taken aback by the coldness in Nerida’s tone, and for the first time, she saw the dangerous immortal the stories talked about .
“The Old Ones decided it was time they regained what was rightfully theirs,” replied Grim stiffly.
What were they talking about?
Nerida threw back her head and laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Oh, it must be more than that, especially since they consult that Oracle of theirs for everything. There’s no way that’s the only reason they risked freeing Lore.”
“The Five said nothing about there being something trapped in the book. I don’t think they knew anything about it.”
The queen threw him a brittle smile. “They know about him all right. They’re the ones who helped me seal him. No, it probably has something to do with so many of them disappearing recently.”
Serena looked at Grim but he was looking confused at Nerida’s words as well.
“They really didn’t tell you anything, did they?” Nerida sighed. “Just sent you on a quest to retrieve the wand no matter what.”
Grim looked at her quickly, and Serena knew this was one of the things he had not revealed to her yet, and she gave him a look that promised consequences and then addressed Nerida.
“The wand?”
“The Spirit Wand was a magical artifact that was possessed by the Spirits, and it is most often used for delivering blessings or curses. Many legends claim it was the power of the strongest spirits that was able to cast curses, but it was actually the Spirit Wand that had cast them.
“I have been hearing all is not well in the land of the Spirits either. More and more of them are losing their forms, and I am sure it has to do with the prolonged absence of the wand. No wonder they’re desperate to get it back and using a human to do it.”
Serena turned to Grim.
“Is that why you invoked the right of Accompaniment? Because you knew that the curse was cast by the Spirit Wand, and you want to steal it from Lore?”
His silence was answer enough.
Nerida raked Grim with a cold gaze. “I suppose you’ll still be able to help her by the looks of it.
Not that I trust anyone the spirits would send.
To answer your initial question, that book became a magic entity as soon as Lore became trapped in it.
There’s no telling what would happen if we tried to destroy it, and it would not be worth trying.
” She looked at Serena again, her voice distinctly softer.
“Could you tell me more about this curse?”
Serena detailed what Lore had said and both the curses he had cast. The queen paled a little when she got to the rose mark on her chest and what the immortal had said.
“I see,” Nerida said with a tremor in her voice. “I never thought he would go this far…but I suppose the years trapped in that book have driven him completely mad.”
“Who is he, anyway?” asked Grim, his brow furrowing.
“An immortal cursed to be trapped in a book because of his own villainous deeds. It is best I do not speak about it much. Words have power, after all. You could say he is what is commonly known as a demon. A being existing as a shadow of itself, sustained by rage and malintent.”
“He said he was doing this to send a message,” said Serena slowly.
Nerida flinched, almost imperceptibly, but it was enough that Serena noticed.
“I suppose it was for me, since I am the one who sealed him. For now, it seems like he’s planning on using the tales to strengthen his own power.”
“Is that possible? ”
Table of Contents
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