Page 34 of The Rebel Seer

I frown her way. “You see each other? You can converse?”

It’s not that way on the Earth plane. Each spirit is solitary. They exist in some kind of bubble where they are utterly alone, able to see the living world but not interact with it. There is no dead world to live in on the Earthly plane. Death without the light is to be sentenced to a singular prison. Until you find someone like me.

The nymph goes underwater and quickly reappears close to what I might call a sprite. All I know is she is definitely a woodland Fae.

I hear Rhys telling someone to let me be, that I will find more information out if they pretend not to notice us.

So they are listening, though they can only hear one side of the conversation.

“We’re Fae, not human,” the sprite tells me. “We are more in touch with our energy than any human.”

“Why have you not moved on?” I ask. “Do the Fae not see the light?”

The nymph’s lips curl up in the slightest smile, the expression a bit cruel on her pale blue lips. “I have seen only darkness here since the king decided to rule with an iron fist. I thought he left for an outer plane. I saw him with his guards.”

Time flows differently for the dead. Harry talked about it quite a bit. He died the day the king and queen went missing, but he didn’t find me until years later. He remembered nothing of the time in between. His soul got stuck, or rather as Harry died he made the choice to not leave. When his soul picked up enough energy, he could manifest himself again. For others, they immediately start their lives as ghosts. So it’s not surprising that she’s talking about the king leaving like it was yesterday. For her, it might be. “He means you no harm. I know the king can seem intimidating.”

“That one looks to be his son,” Shea says, her gaze on the party sitting around the fire. “Did you know the bastard has a bastard, Clem?”

“He does. At least that’s the rumor. He had a child with a woman from one of the villages on the edge of the forest,” Clem replies as she shifts on her rock. “I suppose that’s him. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is wrong. Can you not feel it?”

“If you’re talking about Rhys, he is most certainly the king’s son.” While not exactly by biology. I’ve been told I shouldn’t have to explain the dynamics of a threesome here in Faery.

Clem gasps slightly, and I can now see the marks on her neck where someone held her, likely until she could breathe no more. “Do you feel it? Sacred One, are you carrying a blue stone?”

I pull out one of the stones Matilda gave us. “Yes, we came through a doorway we wouldn’t usually use.”

Now Shea’s smile is full, and I can see her fangs. She laughs. “Is the king hiding from his own people? Wouldn’t that be well deserved.”

“I don’t think the king is who you think he is,” I reply.

Clem is staring behind me. “He certainly looks like our king.”

I am confused. “Your king? You have a queen.”

“What kind of nonsense is this?” Any amusement in Shea is gone. “Is he trying to hide? He can’t hide from the dead. He can’t hide from what he did to me.”

She turns and her back is a mass of open wounds. Like someone burned her and then beat the pained flesh. So it hurt more. Blood pours from her mouth, and there’s a sword in her belly.

“I do not know what happened to you, but I know King Daniel did nothing of the kind.” I know the King of All Vampire has done brutal things in his past, but he would never torture a Fae creature like this.

“I don’t know who Daniel is, but I assure you I spent time in Seelie dungeons,” she hisses. “Anyone who was protected by his brother was tortured.”

“The king doesn’t have a brother,” I point out.

“Of course he does,” Shea spits back. “He had a twin. He murdered him and took his throne.”

The hound at my feet goes perfectly still, and I hear growling from behind me.

“I don’t think that’s our king, Shea,” Clem says right before a blast comes through the forest and I feel fire all around.

Chapter Ten

Zoey

I’m sitting in between Sasha and Daniel watching Shy talk to a large rock when I hear Neil growl and then feel the blast of heat that threatens to singe my arm.

Then I’m on the forest floor with a werewolf on top of me.

---