Page 70 of The Forbidden Fae King

Before I can ask her where she learnt such a song, the waterfall beside us stops flowing. It is the eeriest sight. All that crashing water halts and defies gravity, the loud white noise it created oddly missing. Then the waterfall parts like curtains and a figure steps through onto our platform.

The female is made of iridescent water, glowing with blue light. She assembles herself before our eyes from ribbons of water still connected to the still waterfall. They encircle her silhouette, thickening arms and thighs, reaching out from the top of her head, before cascading down into hair.

Within a few heartbeats, the fae is fully formed, her curvy figure shrouded in layers upon layers of light, gauzy fabric that are almost sheer. Puffs of it stand erect at her shoulders like webbed fins and ribbons trail down her back.

As she steps forward, her body completely detaches from the waterfall, which crashes down into a torrent again. Her skin turns a pale pink, not dissimilar from my own, but her hands, forearms, chest and cheeks all have a flush of blue. Small, shimmering scales are scattered across the areas that a human might have freckles.

Her long hair is white as snow, and it drapes to her waist, pulled back from her face with combs of shells from the creatures that live in her waters.

I can’t stop staring at the beauty and otherworldliness of her.

“You have returned.” The Lake Maiden’s voice is like a song. “And you have brought a friend.”

“My sister.” Caitlin approaches as she would a wild animal she is afraid to frighten away. “The one I told you about.”

“Yes. I can see the kindness in her eyes. The warmth in her soul. She is strong and fragile. Vulnerable but fierce. I have met many kinds who have crossed my waters over many years, but never one like you. Tell me, dear sister, of your quest. Of your desire to save your people.” The Lake Maiden holds out her hand to me and I take it. Her graspfeels like ice dripping through my fingers, but she smiles kindly at me as she leads me to the seats.

I glance at Caitlin and she nods.Tell her the truth.

“What is your name, Lake Maiden?” I ask.

She cocks her head to one side. “Odiane.”

I shuffle on the frozen rock, trying to get comfortable on the seat. “I have traveled from the human realm, Odiane, from a region that brushes up against this one. We are losing our magic, just as the fae of this realm are losing theirs. Our lands may not be dying, but our way of life is, and our world is returning to the mundane. Without magic, we will return to the dark ages from before the Tuatha Dé Danann gods visited our realm and created the fae.”

“We will become vulnerable to disease and famine again. Subject to the whims of untamed weather in hovels that cannot protect us. Already we have lost the ability to reproduce the technology we rely on. Soon, we won't have the power to maintain them. It is my quest to ask for a token of magic to return to my realm, and in exchange, I will offer my service to take your seed-stones to other bodies of water in this realm, so that your children can grow there.”

A jitteriness fills me. I did not expect to meet a Lake Maiden and immediately proposition her, but from one look at Caitlin, it is clear she has been forming a bond with this fae over days.

Odiane turns to my sister. “You are right, this one has a conscience and heart. Many humans have tried to slay me and steal my heart-stones. Many fae have tried to do the same for my power. To take my seeds, so they can have the privilege of a Lake Maiden guarding and nurturing the waters in their lands. But some would see my daughter as their slave, a pet to be used up by them. We could never be tamed.”

Odiane's huge, strange eyes hold my own. They are dark pools of rapidly moving blue, like her waterfalls. “I have been a part of these waters for centuries and seen countless armies clash. Sometimes I join the fighting and sometimes I watch from the sidelines, with my own amphibious court the only one to benefit from the slaughter and the feast it provides them. Rarely have I chosen to surrender a seed-stone freely.”

Her white hair ripples through air as it would below the surface of the pool and trickles of water run down her body and away from her in small rivulets, back to the waterfall.

I wonder how long she can last on land, before her whole entity crashes down and returns to its home.

“Do you want your seed-stones to be spread to other waters? For your children to grow and reside there?” I ask her. It won’t be much of a bargain, if she doesn’t care for children.

“Oh, yes.” Euphoria crosses her face. “I desire to hear the songs of my daughters from their waters across the lands. To hear their stories of what their homes are like, of the people they meet. As I once sang with my mother and my sisters. Not many of my sisters are left, and I have so few daughters.”

“That sounds very lonely,” I venture. “I also know what it feels like to be surrounded by people,” I indicate the fortress around us and the fae within it, “but to feel utterly alone. Like there is no one who quite understands you or is the same. I lived a privileged life before crossing into this realm, but one devout of meaning or purpose, other than to wait on the man I would marry.”

I take in a shuddered breath, but continue. “Everyone around me had their busy roles. Caitlin preparing to become the next lord protector and dealing with the political maneuvering that comes with it. Our brother training to become a druid. My younger sister has the greatest powers in our generation of our family, and she practically manages the orchards with my father.

“But I was to wait and bide my time, until the prince was ready to marry me. To educate myself on history, on the customs of the other kingdoms, on finance and trade, but every time I saw him, he didn’t care for my opinions. I came here to live. To forge my own path and achieve something that was mine, before I return to my duty and live for everyone else again. I can’t complain. I’m not hungry or poor or oppressed, but to me, my struggle is still very real.”

The Lake Maiden examines me for a long time, drinking in my emotion like a person dying of thirst.

“We can bring your seed-stones to waters of your choosing,”Caitlin ventures. “Where they will be safe and valued, and you won’t be so alone anymore.”

Caitlin’s greatest strength as a leader is finding out what a person needs at the depth of their soul, not only the shallow little things they want, then dangling it in front of them for a bargain that would benefit both parties.

Perhaps she is more fae than we realize.

“Maybe I will allow you to take my seeds to other waters. Maybe I won’t,” Odiane says. “Before I can trust you, I need to know you. But if you earn my trust, if you bring my daughters to other lakes and rivers and springs in this realm, I may let you bring one back to your land. Your sister tells me the magic from my realm bleeds into yours. Into the air, the water, the soil. If my seed is closest to the veil between our lands, in the waters that flow from here to there, perhaps my daughter would be born with a soul, a body and a mind. If I come to trust you both, I might give you two daughters, each in very different forms.”

Odiane looks to Caitlin, whose skin is flushed and stares at her with such open hope. She could give Caitlin the magical pregnancy she desires, without the requirement of a male fae touching her. And she could give me a seed-stone to put into a lake back home.

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