AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I must know,” he said slowly. “What do you hope comes from this knowledge? How will the past change your fate?” He rested against one arm and cocked his head to the side.
His question quickened my fears that this wouldn’t solve anything, but I shoved the doubt away. “I’m hoping the answer lies within,” I said stiffly.
“You’re about to be greatly disappointed. Nothing will save you.” With that somber declaration, my heart sank. “The tale of the Mortal Queens dates back thousands of years, when my grandfather was still a young lad.” I brushed past the oddity of that sentence. “A fae king fell in love with a mortal girl and made her his queen. She was our first Mortal Queen, and she was adored.”
Already a million questions swarmed, starting with how that didn’t align with the story I knew of a man from the five islands forging the relationship between the mortals and the fae. How did a fae king meet a mortal woman when our realms were separated? What was her reign like? Was she closed off to her home realm just as I was?
I bit my tongue to keep from speaking and ruining my second question as Bastian’s tale continued.
“Their relationship was greatly esteemed, and though a mortal, that queen’s beauty surpassed all. But it is difficult to hold the attention of a king, and exactly two years after making her a queen, her reckless husband betrayed her with another. In her sadness, our beloved queen threw herself off the land and died.”
He watched me knowingly, and my blood turned to ice. She’d died the exact same way I’d just tried to return home. Both of us sought freedom. She found hers, but it came at a terrible price. If Bastian hadn’t saved me, the same fate would have claimed me.
What if she’d only been trying to get home as I had? No one would ever know.
Bastian turned his face upward to the grey rock of the ceiling. “The other six kings wept for their fallen queen, and the seventh king rushed to the mortal realm to find a queen to replace her. But there is a magic that binds this realm together, something more powerful than us all, and it longed for its mortal queen to return. It ached to its very core, almost toppling our entire realm in its sorrow. To punish the king, that force punished us all.” His gaze returned to me as I stood completely still, soaking in every word.
Bastian’s expression softened like he was looking upon a wounded animal he couldn’t save. “With that punishment, your fate was decided thousands of years ago. We’d forever be dependent upon a Mortal Queen. But just like the first, we’d never be able to keep her, always losing her two years after she arrives.”
His voice held all the sorrow of the realm, but it still wasn’t enough to console me.
His people did this to mine. The fae condemned generations of daughters to die, all because one of their kings chose to stray.
Their crime. Our punishment.
“That isn’t fair to the mortals.”
“It’s unfair to you,” Bastian agreed, “but it’s torment to us. No matter how hard we fight it, we fall madly in love with you. The lure to you is unavoidable. I can’t avoid it myself. But I’m destined to lose you, and there aren’t enough stars in the sky to fix that. I’m constantly yearning for you, while forever mourning the queens I’ve already lost. The pain is unimaginable.”
Losing the one you love isn’t as terrible as losing your life. “There must be a way to undo the fae king’s punishment.”
Bastian set his jaw. Any hint of compassion was now covered by the stoic expression he wore so well. His tone hardened. “There isn’t. The realm’s desires can’t be undone. As long as you are a Mortal Queen, you will die.” He stood and swept past me. “Do you have a second question? Or have I given you enough disappointment today?”
I clutched my stars. His story was the answer I sought but granted me nothing useful. I had no real purpose here. There was nothing to accomplish to win the right to live.
I was here solely to die.
Clicking heels sounded. A woman as beautiful as the night with hair of stormy clouds and skin of polished glass glided into the room. She bowed her head low. Four earrings adorned her ear. “My King. I need to speak with you. It’s about your sister.”
“One moment.” Bastian regarded me. “Thea, I must take you back now.” Urgency rang through his voice and the way he moved. The woman bowed again, but her eyes were on me.
Bastian summoned the chariot and stepped through the doors onto it. I followed in painful silence. I’d just aligned myself with a young king and received nothing in return other than a bleak story and a few pretty stars. My ability to make decisions today was poor.
As the chariot took off, the story played in my head again and again. I mourned for the lost girl and yearned for a way to end the pattern of the queens. It had never been our wrongdoing in the first place. It was the cruelest sort of punishment.
Bastian’s story was a far cry from the tales we’d been fed. One where the girls we offered were living in paradise, where this realm was something so magnificent our minds could not comprehend it. The tale was one of sorrow, and it cut me to my core because I saw myself there in that first queen, desperate to escape. Feeling alone. Lost. So confused she was willing to throw herself off the edge of land and into an empty sky just to find a way home.
I held the stars so tight that the glass surrounding them burned my hand. Then we landed in the courtyard outside my palace where I stepped off the chariot.
“Thank you, Bastian,” I said. “I needed to know that story.” I’d dig through the trails in it, and they were bound to lead somewhere.
Bastian’s hands held the chariot rails. His eyes were clouded, so unlike how they’d been when he confessed he couldn’t help but love me.
He’s only using you, I reminded myself. The same way you will find a way to use him to get home. Somehow, this king would be my salvation.
His eyes cleared. “Call me Bash. It’ll better suit the alliance. You’ll promise not to jump off the island once I leave?”
I nodded, and the chariot rose. Bash’s voice floated down to me. “I was right when I first met you. This is going to be very interesting.”
