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“What!? That’s not how Mina, I mean Jazrael… she has a boyfriend and they…” I cut myself off, realizing by the narrowing of his eyes that I shouldn’t continue.
“Then she has transgressed her vows,” he said, as if he’d pronounced her execution.
Before I responded, we rounded the corner and the magnificence of the hall before us drove any comeback from my mind.
It was a wide open hallway that stretched the length of the palace. On one side, long windows let in the light of day to shine on the huge, woven tapestries that hung along the opposite wall. They were gorgeous, colorful, intricate—depicting scenes with such brilliant technique they looked ready to come alive.
Illya stood before the first tapestry, hands on his cane, his milky eyes gazing up at its magnificence as if he saw it. Which he couldn’t, considering he was blind.
Keelin bowed. “I shall wait at the last entrance should you need me, your majesty.” He turned and marched off.
I moved next to Illya, and he took my arm.
“I spoke with your friends through the glass ball,” Illya said. “They are worried about you.”
A warmth spread through my chest when I thought of Nellie and Mina. “Did you explain?”
“I did. They are still concerned.”
Going home wasn’t an option. Not yet, at least. It would be safer for them if I dealt with my sisters here, in the Otherworld. As much as I missed my friends and family, I didn’t want to put them in danger.
“I saw a vision,” I said.
“So Dagda told me. Would you like to discuss what you saw?”
I frowned. I couldn’t even trust Illya. He might tell Dagda, too. I turned to the masterpieces on the wall. “These tapestries are beautiful.”
“They are a record. A keeping of the significant moments in faerie history.” He grimaced. “As determined by the royal family.”
He nodded toward the first tapestry. “This is a commemoration of the first time you and his majesty met, after the events with your sisters and the bog witch, but long before you were crowned king or queen.”
A warrior woman with flowing brown hair and beautiful gray speckled wings flew in the sky while a man with long red hair and a sword stood on the ground, his dark feathered wings spanning out behind him, flames flowing from his fingers. Both of them had delicately tipped ears, and they faced off against a large, ferocious giant of an ogre more than twice their size. The large flabby creature had a squat head and gaping jaws that looked ready to swallow them whole.
Illya tugged on my arm. His cane thumped dully on the floor as we moved down the line of woven images. We passed depictions of battles and one of Morrigan and Dagda posing in front of a large tree. I gazed up at my past incarnation. She wore a black diamond, shaped in a teardrop, about her neck that seemed to draw the focus of the tapestry.
“Tell me about this one?” I asked. “It has Morrigan and Dagda standing before a tree.”
“It is the day that you and King Dagda entered the oncemate bond,” Illya said.
I stared up at their smiling faces. “Can oncemate bonds be undone?”
“All bonds can be undone. Some, however, are so ancient that they are more difficult than others.” Illya again pulled on my arm and I reluctantly followed him, past more battles, past tapestries marking the birth of children—my brows furrowed as I counted four as opposed to only two—past mine and Dagda’s coronation, past more battles.
A lifetime—more than a lifetime—lifetimes of events. I began to feel small, and almost reverent at how short my current life had been, at how ancient my soul must be.
I stopped again in front of another tapestry.
“What is this one, child?” Illya asked.
It was a portrayal of Morrigan, holding the golden rod of her scepter high, with wingless human-like figures surrounding her, clutching her skirts, reaching upwards, a mixture of panic and adoration on their faces.
I described it to Illya.
“It is the creation of the Otherworld.” he said. “Faeries were the only people powerful enough to create such a world. They gave up their power to Queen Morrigan’s scepter. Every one of them, including you.”
It was why in this tapestry, the wings and pointed ears were no longer present. “The other faeries look like they are worshiping her… Morrigan.”
“Pleading with her to save them,” Illya said. “Humans had been attacking magical creatures for quite some time, determined to wipe them from the earth. It was the death of your two eldest sons at their hands that finally convinced you and King Dagda to create the Otherworld. A place for all beings of magic, safe from the wrath of the humans.”
