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She breathed through the pain until she could let the power flow. As soon as it did, she began quickly to rebuild the veil of mist, a process she repeated every night.
What she couldn’t get Stone to understand or perhaps to believe was that Vojalie was right; Rosamunde had been the sole reason Margetta had so far failed to conquer the Nine Realms. If the Ancient Fae, as Margetta was known, had once accessed the elf-lord power that originated in Ferrenden Peace and which caused Rosamunde so much nightly pain, Margetta would have funneled that power into her war machine. A thousand years of her savage rule would have come to every citizen of the Nine Realms.
She felt the veil of mist grow stronger and as it did, the pain dissipated.
She’d never told anyone about her suffering except Vojalie and Davido. The powerful fae had tried to work with her to help her channel the power better but it had come down to something very simple: Rosamunde did not have the proper physical structure for the process.
As the stream of energy receded, Rosamunde dropped from her levitating state to the woven carpet on her stone living room floor.
Vojalie was with her immediately. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to endure this.”
“Actually, I’m not.” And she wasn’t. If she’d obeyed her mother as a child, Evelyn would still be alive. A thousand years of pain seemed like a small punishment for being the cause of her own mother’s death.
She took a couple of deep breaths, grateful the pain was gone. “Thank you for coming to me tonight and lending your counsel. I don’t easily go-with-the-flow, but I will try to where Stone is concerned. As for the mist, I’ve repaired it fully so you and Davido shouldn’t have any problems. Will you both be at Joseph’s for the evening?”
Vojalie snickered. “That forest gremlin should be shot. Have you seen his lair lately? I vow he has enough stolen goods in there to support a small nation.”
“He’s hopeless, yet somehow I adore him.” She’d met Joseph a few decades ago when he’d been trying to steal a birdbath from her private castle garden. She’d never met a forest gremlin before. In fact, realm-folk rarely ever saw them. Yet, Joseph had stood there, then commented that she was as pretty as a sunset, what with her red hair and violet eyes.
He’d become an occasional confidante, though she reminded herself that self-interest would always define a forest gremlin and Joseph no less so. He’d left the garden without taking the birdbath, but by the next evening, the small stone edifice was gone. She hadn’t been able to figure out how he’d managed it until he invited her to take tea in his underground dwelling. When she saw his intricate system of pulleys and rolling carts, she understood how the eighteen-inch tall creature had managed the theft.
Rosamunde shrugged. “He’s a good man, he loves his wife, and he does everything
he can to keep impressing her with his thieving abilities. The truth is, I hold him in great affection, though there are times I want to kill him.”
“Same here.” When Vojalie laughed, Rosamunde joined her. After a moment, Vojalie continued, “Davido is with him now and will be there through the night.”
“But not you?”
“Not this time. Bernice has been cutting molars and is miserable without me, so I’ll be returning to Merhaine to care for her. Don’t worry, though. Davido can support the mist by himself.”
“I’m sure he can.” The old troll had more power than any realm-person she knew.
But there was a sudden odd light in Vojalie’s eye, one of serious concern. Yet, she remained silent.
Rosamunde watched her for a moment. “What are you not telling me?”
Vojalie caught both her hands and squeezed them hard. “You’ll need to be strong tonight, Rosamunde, stronger than you’ve ever been. And for the next few nights, as well. My instincts tell me we’re fast reaching a crisis with the Ancient Fae. But that’s all I can tell you. I can’t even give you a direction for my concern.”
Rosamunde squeezed her hands back. “Thank you for the warning and please don’t worry about it. I’ve been feeling something similar.” Looking into the future was a difficult and not always advisable undertaking. Sometimes it was better not to know too much.
Rosamunde felt a new soft vibration in the air, very fae. She also felt the elf-lord power ramping up again.
Vojalie looked around and lifted her arms. “I can feel that Stone needs you, or rather Aralynn. I’m getting something about Charborne, the village where Stone grew up.”
“Me, too. And a vision is coming.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
“Thank you.”
Rosamunde closed her eyes and accepted the terrible pain all over again. Because it was the second wave of the evening, she bore it better than the first.
This time, it was the vision she’d been waiting for and it came swiftly, as often happened after she’d channeled the elf-lord power for mist-rebuilding. She wasn’t surprised that Vojalie felt it as well. These were fae attributes.
In the vision, she saw Stone’s Vampire Guard battling a number of wraith-pairs in the village of Charborne. At what was twenty minutes in the future, she saw herself in the woods approaching what looked like an abandoned mine. She had the sense that Stone was on his way as well and would meet her there. At that point, the vision ended.
As the elf-lord power eased away, she shook out her legs. She also let a degree of healing flow through her body, which helped to ease the troublesome elf-lord power.
