Page 100 of Bound to the Orc King

“What’s going on?” I murmur in May’s ear.

“They’re yelling at each other.” She shakes her head. “It’s too loud and fast. I can’t make out a single word.”

The music from each of them gets louder, the high strings and bells of the goddess underscored by the bass thump of the god.

May gasps again. “It’s all one song!”

She’s right. The music each plays is half of a full piece. Brought together, there’s a completeness the disparate parts lacked.

The Moon Goddess swells as she floats toward the ceiling, and the Dark God grows at the same pace. Soon they fill all of the vast area over our heads until finally, they touch.

Magic blasts outward in an explosion of power that knocks everyone flat.

I blink rapidly, fighting to clear my vision as I reach for May, her sweet weight having landed on my chest.

“I’m fine.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m… oh.”

I follow her gaze up to where two fae fly near the ceiling.

The man looks a great deal like Severin, with milk-pale skin and inky-black hair. Shadows pour from him, making great black wings on his back.

The woman is something altogether different, with long silver hair and shining silver eyes. Ribbons of light pour from her, forming shimmering wings the color of the aurora.

At first her skin appears to be the pure black of the darkest night, but the longer I look, the more I realize I’m wrong—that’s far too simple a description. Her skin is the rich green of orcs, the blue of pixies, the white of unicorns, the purple and red and gold of dragons, the clear transparency of water nymphs, the yellow-green of kelpies, the pink of sprites, the light green of gnomes, the gray of ogres, and even black is in there—the black of pookas.

All the colors of the Wild Fae flicker and gyrate on her skin, a deep rainbow of hues racing across the black like colors swirling on a soap bubble.

“Who are they?” May breathes.

“They are Titania and Oberon,” Lukendevener says. “The missing first fae.”

“Your scholarship serves you well, dragon,” Titania says. Her voice is resonant and terribly beautiful, but she speaks so that all may understand instead of using the celestial tongue. “Titania is indeed one of my names. Yet perhaps it is too familiar, for all of my children forgot that I am, in fact, your goddess.”

May’s chin lifts. “I’m not your child.”

“You aren’t Wild Fae, it is true.” Titania turns her full attention on my bride. “Yet I still marked you as mine.”

May gasps, holding her necklace away from her body as the crystal glows.

“I sent the human witches tiny pieces of myself. With the doors of Faerie closed, they were cut off from magic, but it allowed me to find them when the time was right.”

“How clever you are, my dear,” Oberon says, his deep voice booming. “You freed yourself so quickly this time.”

“It is your turn to be punished, husband.” She flicks her fingers, and Severin leaps to standing. “What have you done to the elves?”

“They aren’t your Wild Fae,” the god says, sounding rather petulant, like a small child called out for something they know they did wrong. “I did what I had to.”

“They may not be Wild Fae, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for them.”

Her hand waves, and Severin slumps to his knees, sucking in huge breaths.

“I have freed them of your chains,” she says. “I cannot undo the physical changes you have wrought in them, but they have their free will again.”

“Thank you, goddess.” Severin bows his head. “My people thank you.”

“Now come, husband of mine,” Titania says. “You have upset the balance for long enough. You have much to do to make amends.”

She flies closer, wrapping him in her arms. They start to fade from view, and Oberon’s voice whispers through the room as they disappear, “But it was only three-hundred years.”

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