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Chapter 37: Surrender
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Prince from the Other Side Chapter 38: Fortification
Sy brought the poker with us to the bedroom, I think as a bit of a security blanket. We laid down together on the broad bed with its picture windows looking out over the stormy mountain ravine. We were too preoccupied to notice the view. We lay together, clothed, and safely enfolded in one another's arms. Sy kissed my lips, my nose, my eyelids, and I pressed my forehead against his, treasuring the small, sure contact of skin to skin, of his hand stroking my waist, my back, of my arm draped around his strong, lean form. I heard the storm fade, the thunder going soft in the distance. And no Seelie or Unseelie appeared to drag us apart. No Jarrah, no Raelen, no armored warriors of a Seelie Queen or an Unseelie King…"Sy," I said, beginning with our small ritual of offering the other's name. "We need to talk about the whole prince thing.""Do we?" he sighed, and I felt his dear, wolfish smile as he kissed me. "Can't we just keep on ignoring it?""I mean, I wasn't ignoring it per se,
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 39: Good Morning, Doom
I made fun of Sy, but only a little, for bringing the iron poker with us downstairs again when we finally got out of bed. I had to pour our whiskeys at the living room bar because he kept the poker in one hand and his other arm wrapped tightly around my waist, as if I would vanish if he let go. And I had to admit that was a real possibility. How did our magic actually work? It had banished my uncle as the iron had banished Jarrah…but neither had returned since. We didn't know the rules of this game. But we were stuck playing it. I could only hope nobody else understood either. Uncertainty might make them less likely to make another attempt to retrieve—or destroy—either of us. But for now, our shared magic seemed to be our best defense. Our best, and only. Which, frankly, as things went, wasn't the worst. Far from it. Because it meant that the responsible thing to do was to take our whiskeys down to the recording studio, set up with our guitars so close our legs pressed together, an
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 40: Break
I could feel the prickly residue haunting us as we settled into the studio though. At the bottom of the golden sense of the music between us, there was the rocky underbelly, like a rough stream bed sharp against your feet. Underneath the lyrics and melody, the melding of the chords into flow as we experimented with new beats and jazzy combinations, there was that unsettled sense of disquiet. It clung to us like brambles as we tried to move past it. And eventually, I couldn't take it anymore.I stopped playing at the end of a long improv session, bouncing off each other, alluding to songs we knew and riffing on them in the chord progressions. The sense of warm golden strength between us hovered like warm mist. Through that brilliance, I met Sy's eye."I think we should talk about what you said," I broached bluntly. "I know it was the heat of the moment and all that. But when my uncle was saying all that about the war, and you said you didn't believe it was really happening…What did yo
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 41: Just Like Magic
I raced up the stairs, knowing with cold, terrible certainty that I'd be too late. "Sy!" I screamed, rushing into the open kitchen and living room. Nothing. Nobody. I could see nearly the whole span of the house, and out onto the patio as well through the chalet's huge windows. Sy was nowhere. And the sweet, clear sense of Seelie magic was everywhere. I wanted to scream, but somehow my voice was gone. My logical brain said look upstairs, look all over the house just in case. Make sure the car was outside. He could be speeding around the mountain roads, burning out his anger and doubt, reason told me. But I knew at a gut level that it wasn't true. He wasn't here."Uncle!" I screamed into the emptiness. There was no response.Why would my uncle have taken Sy, rather than me? It made no sense. He wanted to get me away from Sy, that was clear, but he'd been intent on bringing me to Faerie only yesterday. I didn't like it. What could my uncle want with Sy? Would the Seelie court res
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 42: The Way Is Open
There were preparations to make first. I had the energy—the comments just kept coming—but now I needed direction. Wandering into Faerie with nothing but a lovelorn heart and bald desperation didn't seem like it would take me very far at all, and it certainly wouldn't do Sy any good. I gathered up the various mismatched scented candles from around the chalet's various over-designed bathrooms and arranged them in a careful circle on the living room floor. There was a convenient grill lighter stocked beside the wood stove. Then I descended down into the studio and retrieved the nearly empty whiskey bottle from last night and Sy's beater guitar, the less-than-tour-ready model he played around on for fun. Into the candle circle they went. I had the iron poker, but in a world of magic and fae forms, the iron wouldn't be doing any convenient banishing. It would certainly hurt any faerie flesh it touched, but in all likelihood that would just make the fae party pissed and pained rather t
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 43: Homeward Bound
I knew before I opened my eyes that it had worked. The sense of the air was entirely different here, the magical energy in every atom of the breeze against my face. But there was something strange and sour about the overwhelming tide of Seelie magic prickling against my skin. Something cold at its heart, where there should be summer warmth and vibrance.I opened my eyes. I was sitting on a vast, rocky plain. It was somewhere I'd never seen before. It wasn't Seelie land; neither was it Unseelie. This must be the barren no-man's land between the two realms, in the space where the Seelie's eternal summertime sank into Unseelie shadow. I stood carefully, gripping the iron poker, and slung the guitar over my back. I didn't like the raw sense of this place, its tangled sense of chaos and unbalance. But Sy was around here somewhere. I was sure. I'd spent so much of my energy getting here focusing on him, on my longing for him, that I knew the magic wouldn't have dropped me far off the
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 44: A Trap Closes
Darkness and cold buffeted my skin, tangible malicious magics nipping at me like tiny insects. But all of a sudden, we burst out again into air and light—that same, no-man's-land gray light of the sky. I twisted, trying to grip Jarrah's wrist to relieve some of the terrible tension on my scalp as I dangled by the hair in his grip. My eyes swam with tears, but I blinked them away, trying to focus. We were in the overgrown, stony ruins of what might have once been the great hall of some ancient palace. The floor was broken by huge tree roots and the shifting of earth. This place had been empty for a long, long time—forgotten, in fact. I'd never heard of a palace in the borderlands between the Seelie and Unseelie realms. I heard a cry of distress and despair—in a voice I knew as well as my own. "Sy!" I screamed. "Sy, where are you?!"Suddenly Jarrah's hand let go of my hair, and I crashed, sprawled, onto the broken stones. I raised my head, mind swimming with pain and confusion a
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 45: An Opportune Murder
"Uncle!" I screamed, vision blurring with relieved tears. Lord Raelen turned his elegant, serene face toward me, wreathed in silvery Seelie magic, and I saw nothing at all in his expression. That's when I knew I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake."Lord Jarrah, I believe I was perfectly clear," said my uncle calmly. "I instructed that she be dead by the time of my arrival. I have no wish to see this."Maybe there was the smallest tremor in his voice. Maybe."Uncle?" I wheezed, straining to make sense of this—though of course it made perfect sense. I just couldn't admit it to myself. "Silence, child." Lord Raelen did not look at me, his face turned deliberately away to look instead at Jarrah's face. "This is necessary. It pains me, but it is quite necessary. Jarrah—""Why?!" I shouted, choking, hands scrambling against the stones. "Uncle, what is happening?!""War is a necessity, my dear child," whispered my uncle, and his composure did not slip an inch. "The Queen is weak. Th
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