Fates Fulfilled: Halven Rising

Lex cradled her head with her palms, attempting to keep her brain from exploding with information overload.

“Are you okay?” Garrin said. “What happened?”

Lex winced. “Head hurts.”

She couldn’t explain what Mertha had done because she didn’t know. But the old woman had most certainly done something.

Lex’s brain was firing on all cylinders, as though every neuron worked at once, making connections Lex couldn’t track. And some that she could.

She’d been here before. To Dark Kingdom. Memories swept through her mind of running through a snow-filled village on a sunny day. Being served food at a table with Jas and his family, though Lex had never met them before. Only she had. Many times. She just couldn’t remember it until now.

And it wasn’t only a few memories of her childhood that were returned to her, but several of Mertha’s memories too. Lex processed the images of her past with ease, but Mertha’s memories came in pieces, like a skipping record.

“What did Mertha mean when she said your father was why we are here?” If Lex could figure out Mertha’s purpose in sending the information shock wave through her, maybe she could make sense of the visuals filling her head.

“I imagine she blames my father for why we are stuck in Dark Kingdom,” Garrin said. “And the truth that has long been hidden.”

“You trust Mertha?” she asked.

He gave a curt nod. So even Garrin was disturbed by all that had been discovered this day.

“Will you be all right for a moment?” he asked.

Lex nodded, and Garrin rose and spoke quietly with Mertha’s husband.

After a moment, he returned to Lex and helped her stand, placing his arm around her waist. They made their way through the village and back to Garrin’s court through back doors of the castle, if there were back doors in a castle. But Garrin didn’t take Lex to her room. He took her someplace farther away, with Zirel following quietly behind.

“Is this your bedroom?” she said as they entered a massive chamber with two rooms just beyond, one that looked like the room she’d hidden in earlier and another that held the biggest bed she’d ever seen. And, of course, her first thought was of Garrin taking women to the bed that was large enough to sleep four. “I don’t want to be here.”

He’d admitted he felt the same pull for her that she did for him. But if they both wanted intimacy, what was to stop them from being intimate? And if they didn’t stop, what would become of her? Would she leave this place with a broken heart? She certainly didn’t see Garrin leaving Dark Kingdom and his court to be with her in the Earth realm.

His eyebrows drew together. “It is safe, Lex. We can talk here.”

She shook her throbbing head, not caring that Zirel was listening. “You’ve been here with them.”

“With whom?” He looked confused.

“Your girlfriends.” She felt like an idiot, and yet she couldn’t help the words coming from her mouth. Jealousy over a man wasn’t something she’d experienced.

His face relaxed and he let out a sigh. “The women in my court aren’t allowed in my chambers. They have their own rooms.”

Was that where he visited them? She squeezed her eyes shut. It didn’t matter. She had bigger issues to deal with.

“I would like Zirel to heal you,” Garrin said gently. “You seemed to suffer great pain from Mertha’s power.”

“No,” she said, and stumbled toward a couch. Her head hurt like a bitch, but she didn’t want anything to happen to the information Mertha had given her. What if Zirel healed her and accidentally wiped her new-old memories—the ones she’d only just gotten back? Or the memories Mertha had entrusted to her? She couldn’t risk it.

Garrin looked at Zirel and notched up his chin. A signal the other Fae interpreted, because Zirel promptly left the room and closed the door behind him.

Lex was just about to sink onto the cozy-looking couch she’d perched against when Garrin caught her by the elbow. “This way.”

He led her into the bedroom, letting go of her arm briefly to pull back covers on the giant four-poster bed. “You must rest.”

It was probably the only command from Garrin she would gladly agree to, because her legs were about to give out.

Lex climbed onto the bed, and Garrin pulled off her boots and slid the heavy coat off her shoulders and down her arms.

He tucked her under the covers and sat beside her. Garrin’s bright blue eyes appeared warm in this light, his gaze filled with so much concern.

“I remember,” she said.

He studied her face. “Remember what?”

“Some of my past, here in Dark Kingdom. The memories I lost when they placed the spell on me and took away my magic.”

“Was that what happened when Mertha touched you? She gave you back memories?”

Lex nodded. “Along with something else. She gave me her memories too.”

Garrin gripped her arm above the covers, his eyes wide. “You must tell me what they are. They could provide the information we need.”

“To accuse your father of betrayal?”

Garrin’s eyes closed briefly. “Yes. All signs point to my father having betrayed his people. Mertha’s knowledge could help free us.”

Lex sighed in frustration. “That’s the thing. I don’t know what the memories mean. They’re not a part of my past. They’re snippets of images from Mertha’s life, and it’s like trying to put together puzzle pieces that have no meaning on their own unless you see them together as a whole. I couldn’t describe them even if I tried.”

Garrin’s shoulders sank. “We must find a way, Lex. Mertha wouldn’t have given you the last bit of her life’s energy if it weren’t important.”

“I understand, but I’m so tired and my head is full to bursting.” Her face felt hot with fever, and her temples throbbed.

He let go of her arm as though it was fragile, and his expression softened. “Rest. I’ll make sure you aren’t disturbed.”

Lex slid her hand from the covers and quickly grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t leave me.”

Garrin was a womanizer. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. He’d taken her from the only home she’d known in order to use her. But he’d also saved her life, brought her back to her birthplace, and returned her to her mother. He’d cared for her all those days in the Land of Ice, offering her a warm shower out in the middle of nowhere and even his last food. He meant her no harm, even if he hadn’t said as much. And the way Garrin had kissed her earlier…

Lex wasn’t the most experienced in that department, but Garrin touched her with a care and passion that spoke of emotion. Emotion he never uttered but that came through just the same.

Whether it was convenient or not, they shared a connection, and there was no one Lex trusted more in Dark Kingdom than Garrin. Not even her mother.

Now that Lex had some of her memories back of Dark Kingdom, she realized Isle Meinrad hadn’t been the ideal mother. She’d often left Lex for long stretches of time in the care of Jas and his family. What her mother did during that time, Lex hadn’t a clue. But it had affected Lex. She’d often felt lonely and abandoned, no matter how hard Jas had tried to cheer her up.

No wonder Jas had been her guardian on Earth. They’d grown up together.

Garrin reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You have my word, Lex. I will not leave you.”

She felt his oath to her soul. And with that oath, the last of Lex’s energy waned. She sighed and sank into a deep sleep.

Lex opened her eyes, but Garrin wasn’t in the bedroom like he’d promised.

She threw back the covers, swung her legs off the bed, and looked down at the blush-rose dress she wore with what looked to be cut diamonds waterfalling down the length. It was beautiful, but what the hell? Someone changed her while she slept?

She hurried barefooted across the wooden floor to the door that led to the large chamber they’d entered from the hallway, but it too was empty.

Lex ran across the room and tried to open another door. It was locked, and her heart raced. She banged on the wood. “Garrin!”

No answer, nothing. Not even the sound of the wind whistling against the room’s frosted-over windowpanes.

She paced to the fireplace, hands clenched. Garrin couldn’t have been gone long. The fire hadn’t died down.

And then she saw it.

A foggy haze creeping along the floor toward her.

Lex backed up until her shoulders knocked into the corner of the mantel. “Help!”

Her heart pounded in her ears as the fog whirled and coalesced, causing the hair along her arms to stand at attention.

The fog grew taller until a male figure formed—sometimes blurry, and sometimes in sharp relief. Except for the face. The face was a blank mask.

She couldn’t see the color of his eyes or his hair, and especially not his facial features. But he wore a crown, and his voice rang clear.

“I see you.”

Lex screamed.

Lex woke abruptly, gasping for air.

Garrin jerked upright from a chair across the room and ran to her side. “What is it?”

“How many kings are here? Do they all wear crowns?”

“In Tirnan? Three: New Kingdom, Old Kingdom, and Dark Kingdom. Sunland has never had a proper court, and New and Old Kingdom have changed power since I returned. A queen rules New Kingdom. A young woman about your age they say isn’t even Fae, but Halven. The King of Old Kingdom was a soldier for most of his life. I don’t know if he wears his crown.”

“And your father?”

“My father wears a crown.” Garrin grabbed her hand. “What is it, Lex?”

She looked around frantically. “Paper. I need a piece of paper. And a pencil.”

Garrin crossed the room to a desk.

He brought back what she asked for, and Lex sketched out the shape of the crown on the man in her dream. The dream was important somehow. And it had felt real.

She held up the sketch. The drawing was of a triangle with a circle weaved into it. “Does the top of your father’s crown look like this?”

Garrin’s expression froze. “Where did you see this?”

“Your father knows who I am.”