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Mordren got a frustrated look on his face.
“Look at me,” he demanded again. “You will name me your King Consort!”
I opened my mouth to deny him again, but then I heard a familiar voice whisper in my ear,
“Agree with him! Pretend you’re under his spell or he’ll kill you!”
“What?” I looked around but didn’t see anyone, though I could have sworn it was Lady Nolana whispering to me.
“You will name me King Consort!” Mordren insisted again.
“Agree!” Lady Nolana whispered in my ear and I felt her cool hand slip into mine. As soon as she touched me, I could see her standing there beside me, a worried look on her face.
But though she was visible to me, it was clear that neither Mordren nor Elgiana could see her at all. I remembered what she’d said about how being unseen was part of her magic. Clearly she was concealing herself from them. But how could following her advice help me?
I wavered for a moment—then admitted to myself I had no better ideas. I had to agree with Mordren or risk getting killed at once. So I pasted a zombie-like blank look on my face and said, in a flat, emotionless voice,
“I will name you my King Consort.”
“There!” Mordren brightened up. “Was that so hard?”
“It took you long enough,” Lady Elgiana remarked. “Go on—tell her the rest.”
Mordren looked into my eyes again.
“You will stay by my side for one year only. Then you will declare that you are stepping down and going back to the Mortal Realm—you’ll say that you’re not a true Dark Fae because you weren’t raised in the Midnight Court.”
“Not a true Fae,” I repeated robotically, though his words made me so angry it was hard to keep the blank look on my face.
“And you’ll name Lady Elgiana as your successor,” Mordren went on.
“I’ll name Elgiana as my…as my successor.” I forced myself to say the words.
“But why do we have to wait a whole year, Mordren?” Elgiana pouted. “I want to be Queen now.”
“We have to wait because the people are already fond of the Princess—it has to look like her decision or you won’t be seen as a legitimate Queen,” he shot back. “Now be quiet and let me work!” He stared at me again. “Do you understand what you’re going to do, Princess?”
“Declare you my King Consort and rule for one year before going back to the Mortal Realm and making Lady Elgiana the Queen,” I said.
“Exactly. Good!” He nodded as though he was satisfied and finally moved out of my space. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief—his face was gorgeous but his breath smelled unpleasantly fishy—but I knew I couldn’t show anything. I was supposed to be magically hypnotized.
“Good, now go along as he leads you to the clearing. I’ll be right with you,” Lady Nolana breathed in my ear. “The main thing is to stay alive for your people, Princess.”
Her hand in mine seemed to give me strength and without thinking about it, I pulled on the Power I felt in her and shoved it into the ground in front of Mordren’s feet.
“Come on—I think the Court is getting restless,” he said. He started to take a step and then stumbled over the enormous root that was suddenly in front of him. “What in the name of Lolth?” he snarled, barely catching himself against the trunk of a nearby tree. He looked down at his feet. “Was that there before?”
“It must have been,” Elgiana remarked. “Come on—we have to go. But what should I do with these two?” She nodded at Sel and Krynn, who were still tied to the tree branch, their heads bowed.
“Leave the half-breeds.” Mordren cast them a contemptuous look. “They’ll be dead by morning. Then we can cut them down and hide the bodies.”
I felt a surge of possessive, protective anger I could barely control. How dare he throw away the lives of the two men I loved so easily? I wanted to slap his face and rake my nails down his cheek. But I stayed still and pretended to be under his spell because I knew a secret.
The root he’d tripped over hadn’t been there before—I had called it up from the ground myself, using the magic I’d gotten from Krynn when I drank from him and the Power I felt running from Lady Nolana’s hand into mine. It made me think of my ancestress—the Queen that Sel had told me was able to pull Power from others just by touching them. Was that possible for me? I didn’t know, but I was determined to find out.
I was beginning to have the ghost of an idea about how to save both my Kingdom and Krynn and Sel.
The only question was, would it work…or would trying it get me killed?
