“No,” I said, determined, my forever answer.
They had struggled for such a long time to make me surrender the information, one that only royals had the privilege of holding, and every single time I remained strong, unyielding, no matter how great the pain. No matter how much I wanted it to end and prayed to the goddess to take mercy on me and end it before they did.
But every day, that energy beat inside my heart. Every time I woke up, I found a little more strength to carry myself through the day.
This could not be the end. I would not allow it.
“No?” Drahden acted surprised, as though he truly expected that this time, with the new threat, I would suddenly change my mind. “Are you sure prince?” he acted it out, a show for his court.
He was not giving me a chance to reconsider, he wanted to make sure everyone heard my negation, that everyone saw how after an invitation to court and a warm meal, I refused to grant their king a minuscule request. He would spin the story and make me look ungrateful, proving how they had to keep fighting us. Because we did not deserve the place we were granted at the surface of the earth.
“Just kill me,” I muttered, half begging for my life to end.
“Kill you?” I will do no such thing, prince. We are not beasts!” Drahden placed his hand over his chest, acting offended. From far away within his court, echoes and sighs sounded, copying the King’s reaction. The only ones not participating were Crypto and the queen, who chose to remain seated at the table.
“I will not kill you, prince. You are our guest after all, and even though you brought an offence to our court, we will not treat royalty in such a way.” He pressed the words, forcing them to resonate across the room, dragged to all of his subject’s ears. “I have much better plans for you, Ansgar. Remember that name, by the end, it will be the only thing left of you.”
Chapter Seven
I stopped. And laughed. I laughed fully, until my lungs filled with cheer and my stomach hurt.
“Anwen…” Rhylan wanted to say something but I stopped him.
“You expect me to believe that my brother, who died in a hospital bed right in front of my eyes, had some kind of underwater adventure and was killed by mermaids?” I huffed at him and started laughing again.
“I expect you to understand the truth. And I already told you that you are too emotional to grasp everything that happened. We should take it slower, we still have a few hours of flight,” the old fae advised.
“And where, might I ask, is this magical siren place where my brother happened to wander?” I mocked, knowing full well that Rhylan tried to catch me in another one of his tricks. Maybe, he wanted to distract me from demanding to see Ansgar or wanting to know where he was. That is, if he truly lived, which at this point, I seriously doubted. At the thought, another jolt of pain rushed through my veins, forcing my heart to drop.
“In the Philippines, close to Mindanao Island. There is a cave in one of the gulfs that leads underneath the surface and into the Water Kingdom,” Rhylan offered a breathless explanation. “It can’t be accessed freely by other fae, or humans for that matter, only if one is summoned, taken there or if a solstice is in bloom. That is when the gates to the kingdoms open. Laws of the goddesses.”
Mindanao? Erik had been there. I knew he had because I accessed all his travels, jet bookings, and tickets from his card. And he had travelled in all the three places that resonated with Evigt.
“Where are the other entrances into the kingdoms?” I enquired, keeping what I knew to myself and trying to find flaws in Rhylan’s spin of the truth.
“Well, you know Evigt, for the Earth Kingdom, and then there’s Mindanao for the Water Kingdom, St John’s for the Wind Kingdom, and Goa for ours,” he explained, pointing at each location on the map.
The way he saidours, instead ofhis, truly disgusted me. He was up to something.
“I understand Evigt because it is guarded, but how do the fae prevent people from just walking in? These are public places, full of tourists and humans,” I questioned.
“Did the tree princeling not explain appearing to you?” Rhylan asked, surprised.
“Appearing?” I repeated and shook my head no.
Rhylan sighed. “Did the two of you just spend all this time mating and nothing else? Did you not feel curiosity towards his origin, not questioned things?”
He sounded more like my dad than an evil fae who wanted to take over the world, but it still made me blush slightly at the truth of his words. Ansgar and I had truly lost our purposes into one another and the only thing that mattered was to be together. On my end, I felt happy just spending time with him and getting to know him and felt content with whatever information he offered from time to time.
That’s what happens when one thinks they have all the time in the world. I could have never imagined that within months of getting to meet the love of my life, he would be taken away so abruptly. My biggest issues consisted of explaining his appearance in my life to my parents, deciding where we would live or if his family accepted me.
“Rhylan, I don’t know if you ever had a mate or not, but from your general knowledge, you should know how it feels. How my heart aches for him and how I would give every remaining second to be in his presence. Do you honestly think, that when I had a man like that by my side, I concerned myself with history lessons?” I replied truthfully, not caring of whatever mocking sounds he made.
Very unlike his normal behaviour, he kept silent for a while, taking in my words.
“Male…” he finally said.
“What?”
