AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lords and Ladies of the Midnight Court,” he began, in a warm tenor voice, “Tonight you have all gathered so that we may resolve a dilemma that has troubled us for many seasons. Who shall sit upon the Silver Throne and rule our people, The Dark Fae, now that our beloved King and Queen have both passed beyond The Veil?”
I stared at the Fae as he spoke—he was even more beautiful than most, I thought. Even in the flickering firelight his features were ethereal—he had the face of a fallen angel and his flowing white hair had streaks of gold in it. He also had some unusual tattoos on his pale platinum skin—intricate curving markings of gold on either side of his neck. I couldn’t make out what they were supposed to be, but the side I had a better view of looked almost like a spider web. Strange.
I found myself contrasting the Fae who was speaking to the really big Fae—the one who was wearing a metal breastplate and had greenish skin tones. He also had the same markings on his neck—though his tattoos were done in silver ink, not gold. His features, while strong, were more blunt than the other Fae in the clearing, I thought. No one would call him “pretty” or “ethereal.” He wasn’t ugly—just less androgynously beautiful than the others.
The extremely gorgeous Fae went on talking—he was speaking about how sad they were to have lost both their rulers and how it was time to choose someone else to watch over and guide the Midnight Court.
“But what of the Lost Princess?” the Fae with greenish skin tones asked, stepping forward. “Why should we choose a new ruler now, when one of Royal blood may still be alive?”
The Fae with bluish-purple eyes who was sitting on the chair spoke up.
“The Lost Princess has been gone for nigh on half a century.” He had a drawling voice that dripped with contempt. “Why should we continue searching for a babe whom no one has been able to find for so long? Our people need a ruler now.”
“We need a ruler who has the blood of Lolth in her veins!” the tall Fae argued. “The Dark Fae have never been ruled by a non-Royal.”
The other Fae sat up in his chair, his blue-purple eyes flashing.
“I have Royal blood in my veins, Captain Seldarin, as you well know! My eyes attest to it!”
“The blood in your veins has barely any Royalty, Mordren,” the tall Fae argued. “You used it to become our Regent after King Valerin passed, but that doesn’t mean you may become the next ruler after him! We should be searching for the Lost Princess—not standing here, about to invest a non-Royal as our next King!”
There was more shouting back and forth after that—I promise I would have listened more closely, but at that moment I saw the source of the amazing scent which had lured me into the forest in the first place. A few yards down on my left was a golden table with curving legs and a glass top. It looked like a kind of buffet had been set up on it because it was absolutely filled with food.
Elaborate pastries…slabs of meat…cakes with multiple layers—they all seemed to call to me. And right in the middle of the table, towards the back where I might be able to reach without anyone seeing, was a mountain of fruit. I saw juicy apples, ripe pears, cascades of grapes and jewel-like berries that seemed to glow from within, as well as lots of things I couldn’t even name, though they still looked delicious.
My stomach rumbled hungrily as I stared at the table, everything else forgotten. I hadn’t had anything to eat since the stale pack of crackers I’d found in the glove box of the minivan that morning. I was so hungry the pit of my stomach ached and clenched like a fist at the sight of all that food. I had to have some.
Moving as quietly as I could, I began making my way through the trees towards the table. Luckily, I’ve always been light on my feet, so I managed to get myself right behind a tree that was at the back of the table.
Crouching down, I reached for what I could get—which happened to be a handful of the glowing berries that were right near the edge of the table.
I looked at the berries uncertainly for a moment—they looked kind of like extra large blackberries only they were lit up from within and glowed a soft pink. As hungry as I was, I hesitated to put them in my mouth—what if they were poison? After all, who ever heard of berries that glowed?
But then I caught a whiff of them and realized that this was the source of the amazing strawberries and cream and cinnamon scent that had drawn me into the forest in the first place. Anything that smelled that good couldn’t be bad—could it?
I couldn’t stop myself—I popped one of the berries into my mouth and nearly moaned in ecstasy. It was delicious. The tiny spheres of light popped on my tongue, releasing the most succulent juices. As good as the berries smelled—they tasted ten, no a hundred times better.
But it wasn’t just their amazing flavor that had me gobbling up the handful I had and reaching for more—it was the fact that the berries fed something in me—some hunger that had been there all my life. It felt like they were fulfilling a craving that had been inside me forever—scratching an itch I’d never been able to scratch before. I know it sounds weird, but I can’t explain it any better than that.
I finished the second handful and reached for a third, groping carefully along the table, hoping that everyone was directing all their attention to the argument still going on between the tall Fae and the one in the chair who was claiming to be Royal enough to rule.
I was about to put the third handful of berries in my mouth when I realized that one of the glowing dots in my hand wasn’t a berry at all—it was one of the fireflies I had seen from my van, dancing in the darkness of the forest.
Only, on closer inspection, I saw that it wasn’t a firefly at all—it was a tiny person. A pixie, maybe, with wings that flitted and fluttered as she feasted on one of the berries in my hand.
At least, I thought the pixie was a she—it was a little difficult to tell since she was face-first in the glowing berry which was bigger than she was. She was wearing a kind of slip and a glowing light seemed to come from within her—it was pale blue instead of pink like the berries, which was why I had thankfully noticed it before gobbling her down along with the magical fruit.
I stared in wonder and finally she lifted her head from the berry and seemed to notice me. Her tiny ink-dot eyes widened in fear and for a moment we stared at each other in frozen silence.
Then the fairy launched herself off the pile of berries in my hand and flew up into the air. She began to make a high-pitched, shrieking sound—almost like an alarm.
I froze in fear, my hand clenching tight over the berries which dripped glowing juice that puddled on the ground below me. The argument between the tall Fae and the one in the chair stopped abruptly as all the tiny, glowing pixies took up the call. In less than ten seconds the woods were ringing with their shrill voices.
“An intruder!” the tall one—Captain Seldarin—exclaimed. “There is a spy amongst us—find them!”
I wanted to run, but it was too late—the Fae were pouring into the forest to search. Instead of running, I tried scrambling under the table, hoping the shadows would hide me.
No such luck.
