The Shadowed Path

2. Reine-1

2

Reine

No matter where you're from, home has its own smell. The first thing I did when I stepped into the cave that served as an entrance into Faerie was take a deep breath. In spite of the cold atmosphere, the delicate perfume of moonflower and something indefinable—like electricity and the petrichor odor of leaves after rain—tinted the air. I doubted the humans could smell it, but it enveloped me like an olfactory hug. The humans stood to one side, marveling at the smooth, sparkling walls. Ellerin squinted into the watery light of a winter sky that shone in through the entrance.

The second thing I did was swat at the creature that left a stinging welt across my cheek. Sir Raleigh, in full bat-winged panther form, growled and lashed his tail. Glowing purple lights appeared and streaked across my vision, darting to and fro.

"Duck!" Ellerin called out.

I grabbed John and Kestrel and pulled them to the ground with me. John, his glasses askew, moaned and rubbed the side of his neck. Kestrel looked up with wide eyes…that glowed firefly gold.

"Ow!" Whatever it was stung my ankle. A buzzing noise and streak of glowing lilac alerted me that the thing was coming for another bite of my face. When I swatted at it, I added Fae repel energy, and it disappeared in a puff of violet sparks. But not before it showed me what it was—a creature resembling an Earth lightning bug, but twice as large and with a tail that glowed light purple rather than yellow.

John asked with an edge of panic, "What are they?"

I searched my memories for Faerie creatures and found one that fit. "Black lightning bugs. They can hurt, and enough bites can kill a human."

He whimpered.

Luckily, being back in Faerie meant I had access to all my powers. When I reached into the core of my spirit, blue light and bliss flooded through me, and I closed my eyes in ecstasy and stretched out my hands. I didn't need to see the black lightning bugs to take care of them—I felt them. Little jerks. They buzzed around, seeking exposed skin, weaving among us so as to confuse.

Ellerin called out, "Princess…?"

With a mental push—a mere nudge, really—I dispelled them all back to wherever they had come from. I opened my eyes to see the showers of sparks as my will-spell expanded outward and caught them. I did enjoy a good show, after all.

"Thank you, Princess." Ellerin's face under his gray fedora had a sheen of sweat and a couple of welts. I touched my ankle, then stood and put a hand to my cheek, fixing my own injuries. Then I healed John's neck. He looked at me wide-eyed, and I asked, "Are you all right?"

He took a shaky breath and nodded. "What…just happened?"

I helped hoist Kestrel to her feet but—as per usual—didn't sense anything odd about her. The golden aura had faded when I’d banished our attackers. Sir Raleigh prowled around the perimeter of the cave, his eyes glowing green.

"Yes, Ellerin," I said, glaring at him. "What was that? I thought no one knew we were going to be here. What's with the welcoming party?"

"I don't know." He closed his eyes and sighed. "I truly don't. This isn't my usual entrance, so perhaps the black lightning bugs were here to attack someone else."

"Uh huh." My intuition told me otherwise, that they had been meant for us, or me in particular, but I couldn't tease apart whether he lied or he didn't know. "Were you testing me?"

"No, I know better."

I crossed my arms. "How?"

"One of Maeve's daughters could take care of those pests easily. No, Princess, I suspect they were here for a different reason."

"What did you do to them?" Kestrel asked. "Did you kill them?"

Ah, right, human girls liked their pretty things, even if deadly. I grinned. "No, they didn't deserve to die for being what they were. I sent them back to whoever had decided we needed a welcoming party."

Ellerin chuckled. "As much as I appreciate the thought of someone getting black lightning payback, we should get moving. They may come to investigate."

"Good point." I motioned for him to lead the way.

We emerged from the cave into woods crisp with winter air and bare branches that clawed at a heavy leaden sky. Dry brown leaves and grass crunched under our feet.

Home. I was home. The air tingled along my skin in a wash of welcome. That didn't mean I’d let my guard down. Dark vines twined through and over the naked hardwoods, and a thick mist wound among the trees like a living creature, giving the illusion of movement.

Apparently, it felt cold to the humans, who glanced at the mist and then back at us with wide eyes. Kestrel zipped her jacket, and John dug a navy-blue fleece from his backpack and put it on.

"Where are we?" John asked in a hushed tone. He took in the scene with a bewildered expression. "Is it always like this? It's not what I was expecting."

Kestrel giggled, almost giddily. "What were you expecting, Dad?"

"I don't know. More green?"

Ellerin c****d his head to the left, where a path wound into the trees. "This way. And this is the realm of the dark Fae. Faerie is divided into three realms. Well, two, really. Light and dark, and the Gray Zone in the middle, where chaos and light overlap. While many feel that the dark realm is the most hazardous, the true danger is found in the gray space between, where things are less predictable."

"As predictable as they are in Faerie," I added. I shivered at the memory of my recent visit to the Gray Zone, where I’d overheard Ellerin talking to my grandmother. What role did she play in all of this?

"So, this is where the evil Fae live?" Kestrel squinted into the trees like she searched for goblins.

Ellerin snorted. "No, at least not technically. I can give you a full history lesson later. Now we should be quiet and keep our ears open for other trouble. Whatever you do, stay on the path. Princess, take the rear." He moved forward, and the light gray mist parted in front of him. What sort of Fae could command the mists?

"All right, let's go so we don't get separated." In the dark Fae lands, obfuscation ruled, and I had no doubt that if we lost sight of Ellerin, we'd be in trouble.

In truth, Sir Raleigh ended up being last in line. He let out a startled, "Mrrowr?" just before the sound of my shirt ripping and pressure, like someone pushed my shoulders, alerted me to drop my pack. A sudden weight on my back made me stumble and land on all fours.

"What now?" John asked. "Are we being attacked again?"

"No," I ground out. "I forgot one very important thing. It's been so long since I was here."

Then the sensation of someone pulling my shoulder blades from my back and stretching them made me bite my lip so I wouldn't scream.

"Wings," Kestrel breathed. "You have wings. They're beautiful, Reine!"

The pain disappeared, leaving relief and lightness in its wake. I stood and almost fell backward before regaining my equilibrium. Note to self—balance would be different from now on. I pulled a mirror from my pack and used it to look behind me. I saw not my usual blue and gold butterfly wings—royal Fae issue, Rhys and I used to joke—but ones of rainbow hue with dark red starting at my shoulders and moving through the spectrum to end with dark purple tips at the points of the wings.

"Huh, that's different." I forced myself to not touch my neck where the vampire had bitten me. She'd told me something I hadn't believed about my origins, that I had light and dark Fae blood. And Rhys had then revealed my aura had all colors as well. No Fae I knew had multicolored wings like this. My scientific curiosity borne of centuries of being a healer in the Earth realm kicked in—could our wing characteristics be determined by what we knew or believed about ourselves? That would be an interesting window into Fae psychology.

Ellerin, who had walked ahead a ways, returned, and he raised his eyebrows. When we left the cave, his normal gray suit had morphed into attire that resembled traveling clothes from a different Earth century but kept their neutral colors. Now he wore a cloak over a tunic and soft leather pants and boots. His briefcase had turned into a cross-body satchel, and he walked with a crystal-topped staff. A flat cap had replaced his Stetson. Rather than being hinted at, his dangerous nature and power showed through.

"Really?" he asked, and his disapproval stung. "Rainbow? That's not subtle at all. Can you furl them? You've made yourself into a brightly lit target."

I drew myself up to my full height and quoted something I'd heard often from my mother. "A Fae princess doesn't furl her wings. And…" I rolled my shoulders, unaccustomed to the extra weight. "I've, uh, forgotten how."

"You've forgotten…" He shook his head. "Never mind. Here." He approached me, his right hand extended. I took it. He hadn't deliberately touched me before, but I found something familiar in his energy, confirming my suspicion we were related somehow.

Tingles raced up my arm from our joined hands. I looked at him in surprise, and the slight wrinkles at the corners of his green eyes—the same shade as mine—deepened as he grinned. The electric sensation flowed from my shoulder through my torso and into my shoulders, which relaxed as the weight of the wings disappeared.

"Where did they go?" Kestrel asked.

I exhaled with relief. "They're furled." A sensation of pressure along the tops of my shoulder blades told me they were still there and would appear when I wanted them to. I promised myself I'd figure out flying again soon.

Ellerin released my hand, and a pang of remembered loss shot through me along with a brief flash of memory, a child saying, "I don't want you to go." I blinked so tears wouldn't emerge, and the crush of grief faded into the realm of strong feelings during dreams—only the echo of it remained.

John frowned. "Doesn't furled mean that they're folded against you, not hidden?"

"Not for Fae," Ellerin explained. "And hers had been furled for so long while in the human realm she's forgotten how to control them."

"We can't use them to fly anywhere but here in Faerie," I added. "As he said, they make us targets." But that didn't explain the color change.

He gestured to my ruined attire. "Best change your shirt so we can move along, Princess. Doctor Graves, if you will accompany me. Miss Graves, can you assist her?"

John and Ellerin walked ahead. Kestrel wrinkled her nose. "What does he mean, assist?"

How to explain to an American girl that we'd come to a place where social hierarchy meant something beyond social media influencers and celebrities? I went for direct honesty. "I'm a princess. You're a young woman accompanying us. He means for you to be my maid."

"What?" She lowered her eyebrows in the exact same way her father had done at me moments earlier. "I'm not a maid."

"Yeah, don't worry about it." I pulled off my now ruined T-shirt and bra. Thankfully I hadn't put my favorite faux leather jacket on. I'd've been pissed if that had been torn. I put the scraps of clothing in my pack and pulled a new set. Again, sorrow pricked at my heart when I put on the bra, which was the one I'd been wearing during my make-out session with Lawrence. Hades, I didn't need to be thinking about that right now. Or his rejection.

I donned a light blue T-shirt as quickly as I could to cover the offending bra and the memories. As for the jacket… I left it off just in case of more wing surprises.

"Hurry, Princess," Ellerin called.

The urgency in his tone made me bite back the sharp retort I wanted to make. "What is it?"

"We need to get going. We're not alone."

"How can you tell? The mist makes it look like lots of things are following us."

"Trust me. I know these lands. Something is back there, and it may not be friendly."

Kestrel and John exchanged worried glances. I needed them to be cautious, not terrified, so I smirked at Kestrel and whispered, "How's that for stereotypical fantasy dialog?"

She giggled, but it sounded forced. "He sounds like my dad in the morning when he used to drive me to school, always rushing."

"Indeed." Yes, Ellerin and I had a lot to talk about. However, with him being a gray Fae, the question was whether he'd give me any straight answers. I looked down at Sir Raleigh, and he gazed back at me, then over his shoulder behind us, as if to confirm what Ellerin had said.

We had more important things to worry about.