Page 59 of Calling of the Crown

Balgair smiled and placed a kiss on her forehead. He pulled her in for a tight, brief hug, and as they squeezed each other, he said in her ear, “Do me a favor. If you have a boy, name him Balgair. It’s a good name.”

Alesta gave a sad, wet-sounding laugh. She let go as Balgair walked backward from his friend and her husband. Crashes and shouts sounded from the hallway beyond the door, and Balgair’s shoulders went rigid. The Land Fae soldiers were nearly there.

“What if it’s a girl?” Khal suddenly asked. He glanced at the doors then back at Balgair. The desperate look in Khal’s eyes was like a man seeking to distract everyone from what they all knew was coming. “What if we have a daughter? What do we name her?”

Balgair seemed to consider the question a moment. “Bria. I’ve always liked the name Bria.”

Khal nodded. “That’s a beautiful name. I’ll make sure she knows someone truly amazing and brave gave her that name.” The voices in the hall drew nearer. “I’ll also make this quick and painless.”

Balgair gave a somber smile as the shouts reached the door. He got in a defensive stance across from Khal. “Please do.”

The doors busted open as Balgair and Khal rushed each other. Alesta screamed as she fought off the newcomers, but despite her fierce movements, all that could be seen on her face was pain. Grief. Loss. Because right behind where she fought the Land Fae soldiers, her husband ripped the heart out of her best friend.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

THE MEMORY FADED, FIZZLING AWAY like bubbles rejoining the current. Pain lanced my heart as I swallowed hard. The truth of what had happened was far harder to swallow than before. An innocent man had been taken from the world in an effort to protect his family, and another had been stolen because of a warped version of that same tale. None of it was fair. Balgair’s death. My father’s death. The story of my mother. It was all so unwarranted, and it made it hard to breathe.

Alesta sniffled, “Not a memory I ever replay.”

I took a deep breath and shook my head. “This stupid war has taken so much, Mom. It’s broken everything.”

“The war has indeed stolen much and hurt many. That’s why I’m so proud of you. It’s time our kinds made peace and rejoined, just like we used to be. We’re all Fae, all a part of the same kind, though that has been forgotten.”

While the sentiment that Water and Land Fae were part of the same group was a lovely one, it confused me. As far as I knew from the studies I remembered in this state of mind, the two kinds of Fae were part of different Kingdoms.

Curious, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Water and Land Fae have been fighting a senseless war, because we aren’t actually different Fae from different Kingdoms. We were part of the same Kingdom once upon a time. That history has just been forgotten. I, myself, only learned about it once I got here, and the water showed me.”

Alesta waved a hand, drawing the water to her. It spun on itself to create a ball, and she passed it to me as she asked, “When you think of water, what comes to mind?”

I caught the orb, and it vibrated in my palms like a raging sea within a case. “Well, the ocean, I suppose. Lakes. Rivers. Bodies of water.”

Alesta smiled sweetly. “That’s what a lot of Fae think of, especially these days. But we forget that water isn’t bound to just the sea or streams. Water is everywhere. It falls from the sky, flows through the earth, dwells within plants, and runs in all of us. Water is life, Dewdrop. It’s why Water Fae are able to heal others, and it’s why we aren’t contained to the sea.

“Long ago, back in the time of the ancient language, there were no Land or Water Fae. There was just Fae with different skills and different forms. When the world started to evolve and humans became more advanced, Fae worried that humans would somehow find a way to breach our world and discover us. Those you now know as Water Fae decided that, since they could survive on land or underwater, they’d flee to the ocean where they’d be safe from any threat posed by nosy humans and even other clans of Fae, should issues arise.

“That’s where Water Fae remained for centuries, and the land above was slowly forgotten. It wasn’t until much later that our kind finally got curious about the world above again and started making trips there. It had been so long since Water Fae had surfaced that Land Fae had also come to think of us as strangers, no longer part of their world. We were suddenly just visitors and no longer welcome to call land home.

“Water Fae started spending more and more time on land, venturing into the human realm, breeding with Land Fae and humans. Our abilities started to weaken. Powers that we used to have, ones that got stronger when we moved to the water, got duller and fainter. Water Fae found it far more strenuous to merge with our element. They started losing the ability to breathe underwater for long periods of time. Our very essence was changing, and very few were left with those original skills—something I’m sure you’ve seen first-hand.”

Shocked at the history I’d just learned, I slowly shook my head. “So how do I fix it? How do I make Water Fae stronger again?”

“You bring peace,” Alesta answered. “You continue with what you’ve started. Bring Water and Land Fae back together like we once were. Show Ambrolia what kind of world Fae could have when our two Kingdoms get along and coexist. It will make everyone stronger. Fae can learn from each other and regrow together.”

Her encouragement choked me with a fresh wave of emotion, because there were times when I couldn’t help but doubt it all. The few memories I could grasp from my time before here were hard. I questioned if I could do it, or if I even should. Maybe Land and Water Fae weren’t meant to get along. To hear my mother, the Queen of Water Fae, not only encourage me in my efforts but truly believe in them was like being handed the sun as I stumbled around in darkness.

“I’ll try,” I said roughly. “And I’ll keep fighting for a way to bring you back. Until then, I’ll come visit you here.”

Fear flashed in her blue eyes. She leaned forward to grab and squeeze my hand. “You can’t come back here, Bria. The pull of the water is too strong, and without a stronger pull to keep you tied to the surface, I fear you’ll get stuck here like me. The price you’d have to pay in order to go back to reality, the emotion you’d have to feel to keep you from getting stuck like me … it wouldn’t be worth it.”

“You can teach me,” I pleaded desperately. “You can teach me how to come and go freely.”

“My sweet Dewdrop, how can I teach what I do not know?”

Helplessness sank its teeth into me with a cold sting. I’d just gotten here. I’d just gotten my mom back, yet now she was saying I had to return and leave her behind. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to stay as water with her.

Something in the back of my mind had me on edge, like an itch just barely out of reach. There was something I was forgetting. Something really important. But the chime-like voices whispering within the current seemed to push whatever it was away, and I was hit with a desire to stay once more.

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