Chapter Twenty-Four: Solstice

If my guards were listening in, and they almost certainly were, they sure got a lot to listen to that night. They got plenty to listen to in the morning, too. I usually rose before Meliswe, but I awoke to her staring at me with a blissed-out expression sparking across her emerald eyes. As soon as my eyes cracked open, she slid along my body, her soft skin brushing along mine with nothing in between us.

"I was so mad at you," Meliswe whispered. "I almost forgot how much I want you."

She showed me exactly how much she wanted me, kissing me full on the lips, the tips of our tongues swirling around one another. Her hair draped over me like a great rose gold tent, and when she murmured her happiness, I wrapped my legs around her and engaged in a little Fang School lovemaking, rolling myself into a dominant top position and, straddling her, attacking the lovely pink promontories of her nipples. Then she showed me the present she'd got for me while I'd been making her bloodwood bracelet… the present she'd held back, in case our reconciliation had been incomplete… but it was very complete, and now I was very pleased, even without her present: a fine new grimkey skull for me, complete with a summoned zephrylite.

"I wonder what two of them can do?" I said.

"Let's find out."

Quite a bit, we found out. The things worked in tandem, vibrating our various toys far better than any human hand could. And, even so, we exhausted the little air daemons. The hum of our double-saddle as we mounted up and kissed, our hips rocking in unison as we groped one another, was drowned out by our cries of passion and, even though it was only nine o'clock on the morning by the time we'd exhausted the zephrylites, Meliswe and I had to help one another to the bath, limbs loose and sighing happily, to rinse off the sweaty sheen of our exertions. I hated to have argued with Meliswe, but the make-up sex was exquisite.

After that, Meliswe fitted back into my schedule, occupying my nights with whatever mewling, grinding debauchery we wished to get up to. And my guards always shared a sly look with one another as Meliswe sauntered in to stay for the night, but I didn't give a hoot. She was mine and I was hers and I was now perfectly content to spend however long it took in house arrest. It turned out to be about four weeks in total - four weeks until the day before the summer solstice where, like it or not, Alathea would have to let me out of my chambers, out of the palace, out of Vernal entirely so our royal procession could march out to Estival and I could get married.

In the week before, an artist came to paint my marriage portrait - something traditionally done on a piece of wood, which had suddenly become passé after Calivar introduced canvass painting to Estival. The painter was a human woman with paint spatters all over her hands and clothes… a good sign in a painter, I guess. She came in with a fresh canvas, about two feet by two feet, with the background already painted in (since I couldn't be out in the garden to pose). She had me sit as still as I could (pretty still, but not quite still enough for her liking) and she painted me in the gown I would take for the procession of spring into summer.

It was actually an armor that I'd commissioned with fashion input from Meliswe and armament input from Dhyr - much of the material was a meshwork of translucent, charcoal-dark chiffonet from Wyrmsreach alchemically treated by Morwen to be virtually unbreakable. I'd tried with a sample, too - arrows would pierce it, but not very far and blades could puncture it, but it took a good bit of extra push. A similar material had been used to make up the dark rose bloom of the one pauldron - as a fighter in the Fang School, I only needed to be decently armed on my dominant side, which was my left. The gown itself would have been completely indecent but for the vest of ornate leatherchrome - an alchemically-treated leather almost as strong as plate steel. The whole thing only weighed ten or twelve pounds, didn't hinder my flying at all, and looked like a million mithrins. The portrait artist's only complaint was that I wasn't wearing my crown… which wasn't even present in my chambers. We had to call down to the royal treasury to get them to release the thing for a few hours. I'd only ever worn the thing once before, when I had to sit in Alathea's stead at court because she disliked both of the lords in a particular land dispute and didn't want to be seen as choosing favorites when she honestly hated them about equally.

The artist finished her work and placed the canvass in a transport box without letting me see it. "I'll get this touched up this evening, my princess, and present it to you and the queen for inspection tomorrow."

The portrait artist presented the painting to Alathea on the day before we left for the solstice ceremony and my wedding right after. I already had butterflies in my stomach… nervous… anxious… eager. It was hard to say. I hope my satisfaction with the portrait came through, though - it was perhaps the finest portrait I'd ever seen, and it was of me! It even had my name right above me in glittering golden letters: Princess Laeanna.

"Excellent work, Gioni," the queen said. "You do your family proud." Apparently, her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had painted Alathea when she married Fostolas a few centuries back. In Alfheim, it's not at all unusual for humans to age well and live to a hundred, but Fae longevity is no joke.

My painted portrait got loaded up with our other valuables - trinkets, gifts, and a chest of mithrins to toss to the teeming throngs of Estivalia, and we headed out. As with my first trip out to Estival, I was in the royal carriage with Alathea and her handmaiden, Chelaean. Meliswe didn't accompany me, as she wasn't my handmaiden - she rode in one of the other VIP carriages with Morwen and my two guards-in-disguise. Ben was along for the ride, too, in a different carriage with some gentleman VIPs.

We stayed at the gate fortress for a few hours to rest - we were supposed to meet the Estival procession in the middle of the wild as close to midnight as we could manage. We headed out with an extra platoon of mounted guards from the fortress. We had over a hundred guards in our escort to protect our five carriages of VIPs and valuables, even more than our last time out. We weren't going to get ambushed for this occasion and nobody was getting kidnapped - or so the theory went.

"Are you nervous, my sweet?" Alathea asked.

"A bit."

"I'm sure we'll be safe - we're meeting up with Alvaelic's procession at the half-way point, which should nearly double our numbers. An enemy would be insane to attack us… plus, I gather that you're quite adept at looking after yourself."

"I can be," I said, and I pretended to be relieved.

Really, the source of my anxiety was wondering how things would go between Meliswe, Calivar, and myself. I'd nearly fouled everything up with Meliswe the last time I was in Estival, and now I was getting married to the dashing foreign prince (who happened to be a former German lieutenant). I would try not to dote on the man publicly to spare Meliswe's feelings, but I would be expected to engage in bedroom activities with him and, if you subtracted out the possibility of hurting Meliswe's feelings, I was actually looking forward to it, at least a bit. But I needed to trust that Meliswe understood the churning waters I was trying to navigate through.

We were perhaps two hours into the wild when our procession slowed to a plodding pace - our guard had spotted the procession from Estival's lanterns and it was time to mount up for the theatrics. Alathea debated having me stay behind in the royal carriage but decided it would make us look weak. So I mounted my horse and trotted along half a length behind the queen with our guards, attendants, and various VIPs following in our wake. Alathea held the Sceptre of Fae in her slim hand, a silvery, twisting, gem-encrusted thing passed down through the millennia. It was vaguely magical, its jeweled head glowing as bright as any of our crystal lanterns, and represented the advance of the season from one court to the next.

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It was a pleasant night, as most nights were in the wild realm between spring and summer, with great swaths of hooting, chirping, singing forest to either side of us. The wood had been cleared for ten yards on either side of the road and the road itself was perhaps ten yards across - a well-maintained and sizable road despite being in the middle of nowhere. The lanterns of the Estival procession bobbed up and down as their horses trotted to us and it wasn't long before I spotted Calivar craning his head around his father's horse to get a look at me, eventually dropping back and around to the other side, his pearly smile glistening in the pale green moonlight. He didn’t have a clue what had transpired between Meliswe and myself after we left Estivalia, though he'd no doubt heard of my capture and daring escape out in the wilds.

As the two processions drew close, both groups stopped and Alathea held the sceptre aloft. "It is midnight of the solstice, and the season now proceeds. Spring turns toward summer, as it has always been and shall always be. By virtue of this Sceptre of Fae, I hold the authority of the Vernal, and on this night of the solstice I prepare to pass my authority to hold court to the Estival and our cycle shall continue."

"It is right that the seasons should proceed," King Alvaelic said. "It has always been thus. Please join me in our passage to the summer lands, and at the threshold shall I accept authority to hold court as spring turns to summer."

Our two groups merged with one another - nearly two hundred soldiers and several dozen royals, attendants, and VIPs trotting or rolling through the gentle moonlit night. Calivar stared at me for a minute, grinning like a man who couldn't quite believe his luck (in fact, it was exactly that). He held out his hand, and so I placed my hand in his and let him bring it to his lips and kiss it. Further back in our train, I imagine Meliswe saw and I hoped I wasn't breaking her heart all over again. This was the reality of courtship in the fae and I wasn't going to insult Calivar or Alvaelic by playing the part of a cold and emotionally distant princess.

"That dress is quite becoming on you… it looks almost like an armored gown…"

"It is an armored gown," I said. "You're not the only one who's been engaged in combat theatrics." I gestured toward his own dress - a smart military-style uniform. He might have found himself at home in some old czar's court with his epaulettes, fancy gold threadwork at the collar and sleeves, and double row of ornate gold buttons. His crimson-red hair flowed out like a lion's mane and I could easily imagine him as a conquering hero.

"I've also been teaching our men in modern tactics. I've got some prototype rifles built, too, but they're not ready for deployment."

I'd considered doing something similar but didn't know the first thing about building a rifle. But if I could find another Earthling to help us… "You've heard about the raids in the far southern kingdoms - men with rifles and, from the sounds of it, a destroyer? It took a master wizard to sink the thing."

"Something like that," Calivar said. "The details may vary a bit but, yes, tales of men crossed over from Earth without any limbo in between, some of them engaging in piracy and naval terror. Some of them even washed ashore in Hibernal."

I nodded. "Two Germans and an American. My brother in Hibernal told me about them." I didn't mention that that American was rolling along in one of the carriages not so far behind us.

"Well I've heard no tales of them anywhere near Estival, so I imagine we're pretty safe…"

As if to make a liar out of Calivar, the rat-tat-tat of firing rifles cracked out of the dark. I could see muzzle flashes, but they were hard to differentiate from the flicker of fireflies. My body jostled as a bullet grazed off my black rose blossom pauldron and ricocheted off into the night.

+++++

"Ambush!" I shouted, along with about four other people. I leapt off my horse just as she was struck by a bullet, bucking and whinnying as she panicked.

I glanced back and spotted Dill, still making a big target of herself seated atop her white mare. I grabbed the collar of her gown and yanked her from the horse, hunkering down with her as rifles cracked and bullets zipped around us, hitting horses and carriages and a few people. It was only a matter of time - we were going to get slaughtered. Our attackers were hidden out in the woods beyond the tended meadow to either side of the road… but there was still plenty of vegetation in the meadow. I nudged Dill and pointed to the other side of the road.

"Raise ironwood!" I shouted, and I commenced with doing the same thing - singing out into the night, projecting my mana toward the first few yards of the meadow to raise a sturdy wooden barrier to protect us.

Using the woodsong, you could coax plants into changing their properties, even into changing into other sorts of plants. That's how I'd made Meliswe's bloodwood bracelet - bloodwood was incredibly rare and didn't grow in Vernal at all, but I'd figured out how to sing binder's vine into iron-hard bloodwood. Similarly, I could sing the plants of the meadow into ironwood, easier to grow than bloodwood and nearly as strong:

I am unprotected

in this world…

but the trees are my armor.

Grow for me,

grow strong, my brave protector,

grow trunks and twigs like iron,

grow roots immovable,

and you shall be my barrier,

and I shall relish in your shade.

Grow out, grow up, grow deep,

become a wall that shields,

a secret place behind which I am safe,

and I shall whisper secrets

that only you can hear.

Rise now, my protector.

As I sang, the earth itself rumbled at the power of my song, small plants suddenly growing the deepest of roots, the hardiest of trunks, and creeping up from the earth in a dense copse of trunks, trunks broadening as I sang, bullets cracking and ricocheting off of them, and eventually finding no space whatsoever to get through. Dill and I had just raised a bulletproof tunnel ten, perhaps twelve yards long. Long enough for most of us to huddle inside, but not enough for most of the horses or carriages. I nudged Captain Vittoro.

"We have to get the people out of those carriages," I said.

Vittoro nodded. "These assassins are using wizardry - their mana will exhaust itself soon enough."

"It's not that sort of magic," Calivar said. "They can pick us off all night long if they like and, come daybreak, they'll see exactly where we are and have no trouble killing whomever they like. Captain, choose a few of your men and come with me - I can provide us cover."

With a wave of his hand, Calivar extinguished the nearby lanterns. Then he poured a little water into his hand, shaped his mana, and blew. The water became a great gout of mist and steam roiling forth, and each breath sent more clouds of the stuff puffing out. Calivar, the captain, and three guards dashed off through the mist to help the people still hunkered in the carriages - Ben was one of them. Shortly thereafter, I heard shouting and the sounds of hand-to-hand combat. Alathea looked to her fae guards.

"Whatever guards are strong flyers, I need you to fly straight up fifty or sixty feet. I'm going to illuminate the woods - see if you can get a glimpse of where our attackers are."

Three men saluted and buzzed up into the night. Honestly, it was probably a lot safer than hunkering down behind the ironwood barrier. Alathea grabbed a lighting crystal from a lantern and used it to cast a great globe of light over the northern wood. I found my own extinguished lantern and copied the spell - it was a pretty obvious spell, even if it wasn't one I'd done before. The light was unnatural - a single glimmering point, brighter than the sun, casting light across forty or fifty feet of forest.

"Archers! Bring archers!" the men flying above us shouted. Then they quickly buzzed back down, as their shouts had drawn attention to them and they took fire, one man taking two bullets through the wings.

I sang to the wood again, bringing a series of raised bumps into being - high enough that a man could hop atop it, glance over the wall of ironwood, and fire off an arrow or two. As our magical light illuminated the forest, our archers popped up and down across our line, taking shots at enemy riflemen who were suddenly much better-illuminated than they were. Within a minute or two, the shooting and the shouting stopped.

"They're retreating!" one of the guards shouted, and the rest cheered.

We sent scouts out into the woods, and they managed to capture several wounded men as well as half a dozen rifles, most of them the Lebel model that the French infantry used. We didn't want to give our attackers a chance to regroup and rethink their strategy, so we mounted up, leaving all but the valuables carriage behind, and rode off. We'd lost horses and had some people who didn't ride too well, so it was two fae to a horse, or at least fae women since most of us were light enough to ride together without overtaxing the mount.

"Sorry, I think you're too heavy," I said to Calivar when he offered to share horses with me. Instead, I hopped onto a horse behind Meliswe, gripping around her slim waist and whispering into her ear: "does he look jealous to you, my love?"

"Just disappointed," Meliswe said. "What you did with the ironwood trees was incredible."

"Dill and I," I said.

"You and Dill," she agreed. "But it was your idea," and she brought my hand up to her lips and kissed it, looking over to Calivar the whole time. And, as I traced my finger along the blooms of her bloodwood bracelet, I wondered how I could ever make things work between Calivar, Meliswe, and myself.