Page 134 of The Forbidden Fae King

There is nothing left holding me to Aldrin and his world.

I ride a white dappled mare on the journey to Appleshield Castle, and actually miss Kai’s insane prancing and spurts of galloping. The pace is incredibly slow as we meander behind Finan’s royal carriage.

Every time I look at the gilded thing of unnecessary opulence, my chest constricts and I fear I will suffocate.

He almost forced me to ride in it with him, but I insisted that I desperately wanted to experience the sights, sounds and scents of my home. How I longed for them. I didn’t even feel guilty telling the lie.

The lands have changed with the passing of time. The spring blooming is well under way and transitioning into the summer. I have to remind myself that only a single month has passed here. It feels like a lifetime. Trees now boast a full canopy of leaves, with small, hard knots of fruit beginning to redden. Bulbs flourish across the fields, dotting them with color.

I once would have found beauty in this sight, but it is a mockery compared to the Spring Court of the fae.

We reach the Appleshield Fortress, my home, but the sight doesn’t fill me with the relief and warmth I would have expected.

I stare at it, trying desperately to elicit an emotional response. It is like the blocky, golden towers and turrets that jut high above theimmense wall suddenly mean nothing to me. Neither do the many watch towers or the slanted roofs of red tiles that shimmer under the sunlight.

None of it screams home anymore.

Masses of the common people flank the road that winds up toward the castle, cheering our arrival and tossing petals onto our path. They must see two newly appointed priestesses, dressed in white gowns with crowns of jasmine and ivy, but I do not see them at all. My mind is completely blank, refusing the world around me.

I blink and find myself in the courtyard entrance of the castle, and an intimate group of my family and friends fills it. I am helped down from my mare and engulfed in my mother’s embrace, then my father wraps his long arms around the both of us as they laugh.

In a heartbeat Diarmuid lifts me off the ground and squeezes me so tight I feel it in my ribs. My brother only lets me go so our baby sister Brianna can hug me.

I am like a limp ragdoll, tossed from person to person, but it helps to melt the ice in my chest. Caitlin keeps shooting me worried glances as she talks intently with our father.

My focus drifts to my grandmother. She whispers in my mother’s ear with urgency, whose expression changes as she turns sharply to me, seeing what is before her. The grief on my face and the fact I am struggling. My mother charges through the crowd, wraps her arm around my waist and pulls me away from all those bodies.

My bedroom is exactly as I left it. The chamber is too small and simple for the woman I have grown into.

I sleep for an entire day and night, and each time I open my eyes, either my mother or Caitlin are right there in the room with me. My father and grandmother visit multiple times, and they speak in hushed voices in the corner. Finan arrives at the door and demands to see me, and he is sent away with explanations of me needing time for recovery.

I know I can’t melt down like this every time life throws me hardships. That I need to grow up and toughen up, but it is so hard tofunction when my brain shuts down. When my ears roar and my legs turn dangerously weak.

I have always been more prone to bouts of depression than other people. Maybe it's okay to be weak and soft and vulnerable. To feel my emotions so vividly, because it lends me great empathy.

This kingdom would be a better place if there were more people with compassion in it.

I wake to my grandmother sitting on the corner of my bed. “Sometimes, when pilgrims return to this world, they struggle to find grounding here. A piece of them still lingers in the Otherworld. I believe your heart stayed behind.”

I swallow hard and nod.

“I say this from a place of love. You need to harden your heart, lock away your grief for later, and get back onto your feet. What you do next will set the course for the rest of your life. Do you understand me?” Her body is whipcord tight.

“Yes.”

“Do you agree with me?”

I nod.

“Good. Because you need to decide if you are going to marry Finan, or if you are going to take on the full duties of a working priestess. You have options now, but the royal family won’t wait for much longer.” She places a hand on my knee through the blankets. “But first child, tell me everything that happened. Do not leave out a single detail.”

We talk for long, bitter hours, and it feels cathartic. For the first time, I hear more details of my grandmother’s pilgrimage all those years ago.

Our stories are so similar, and so very different.

Aldrin had never turned into the wrathful, possessive fae that tried to lock my grandmother away and stop her from returning home. Not even at the end, when I told him I was leaving. The thought starts my sobs anew.

When the shadows lengthen across my bedroom floor and brightbeams of the afternoon sun burst through my window, I pull together my resolve, and find Finan.

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