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“There is a road. I will take you to it.” The Chimera raised a scaled hand and motioned for me to follow. “On foot, it will take you until the sun touches the horizon to reach the Royal City.”
And then I had to navigate the city's busy streets to the castle without getting lost. Oh god. Dagda would be long fallen by the time I reached the palace gates. I remembered the maiden in the ballad that he had sung to me. How she rushed to her love’s side after she was freed from her watery prison only to find his gravestone. How her grief had birthed the queen of the banshees.
My throat constricted. How come Dagda never told any stories with a happy ending? “I won’t make it.”
The Chimera glanced at me. “I suggest you use your powers.”
A humorless laugh escaped me. “What powers? My faerie guardian doesn’t respond to me. My ability to see the future—well, even if it were still around, it wouldn’t be any help. I have nothing.”
Nothing to help protect me against Badb and Macha if, by some miracle, I made it to the palace. Well, nothing except the crossbow strapped to my back that was now feeling wholly inadequate.
“Splitting from your sisters has also split your less innate powers, rendering them useless. And yet, you have one ability, as ancient as you or your sisters. One that originally allowed your sisters to be confined in you. An affinity unlike any faerie has ever known, granted to you by the goddess Danu herself.”
I stared at him. “Morrigan was born without an affinity.”
The Chimera’s head tilted as if surprised. “You do not know the story. Three sisters were created, born of the goddess Danu, granted affinities unlike any of the other faeries. One for war. One for cultivation.” His reptilian eyes shifted to me. “And one to be sovereign.”
I laughed. “You’re saying that being queen comes with some sort of magical ability?”
“Tis true. You were created for your position by the Goddess herself. Created to rule over your sisters, over the faeries, over the very Otherworld.”
I rubbed my arms, a tingle moving through me, a curling in my very soul that sought to confirm the Chimera’s words. “If that’s true, I don't even know what that is. Or how to use it.”
“You have already accessed the power once this evening.”
“Psh, sure.” I paused, thinking about how I’d yelled at the Chimera when trying pass through the portal, of the force that blasted out from me, of how the Chimera had then agreed to make a bargain with me.
“What is it? How does it work?” I asked.
“It is the power to get others to obey your will, to persuade others to follow you, to do your bidding.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Before tonight, I’ve never used such power.”
But then I recalled all the years I’d spent getting my way. The queen of the high school. Ruling in both fear and love.
And then there was Dagda…
The Chimera watched me knowingly. “Are you certain?”
“I… I think I may have used it to almost destroy my oncemate bond with Dagda.” My fists clenched. “But I don’t see how this power will help me reach the palace faster?”
“There are creatures around who, though reluctant, might aid you should you use your ability to persuade them.”
Except I had no idea how to access it. I turned to the Chimera, eyebrows raised. “Can you help me?”
And it was no power, only kindness, and perhaps the knowledge of what danger the Otherworld stood, that inspired the Chimera to say, “I suppose in the interest of time, I should assist you in your arrival to the Royal City.”
And with that, the Chimera transformed. His face shifted into a giant lion’s jaws, and it dropped onto four furred paws. A large white goat's head protruded from its back and a long snake tail that ended in an actual snake head swung behind it.
“Climb on, your majesty,” the lion head growled.
Chapter 37
Weraceddownthepath leading to the royal city. The Chimera’s large lion paws slamming into the unpaved road over and over. The crossbow knocked against my shoulder blades with each lunge. I clung to the coarse fur of the strange goat head projecting from the Chimera’s back, an occasional bleat of annoyance reverberating inside its throat when my nails dug too harshly.
As the walls of the royal city rose before me, a guard let out a shout and more guards holding crossbows lined the wall.
Aimed at us.
