“Excellent,” Ilona said. “Now there remains but one thing for you to learn.”
“What is that, Mother?” Lara was curious.
“You must be taught how to fight, to protect yourself. When you have learned to defend yourself you will be ready to move on, and you must,” Ilona said. “You have a…”
“A destiny. A fate. I know! I know! But what is it?” Lara asked.
Ilona sighed. “What little I know I cannot tell you, my daughter. You may change your fate slightly now and again as you move along life’s path. If I speak on it I could spoil it. Have I not already done you enough harm?”
It was then Lara began to weep softly. “I missed you,” she sobbed. “I needed you! Why did you go?”
“I was torn between two worlds, Lara. As my mother’s only surviving child, I was chosen to follow after her as queen. Your father could not understand that a woman’s duty is every bit as important as a man’s. It was the only time he and I ever fought with one another. I offered to take him with me into my mother’s kingdom, but he would not go. As proud as he was, as duty-bound, he had his own fate to follow, too, and he would not change it to permit me to follow mine. There was no choice but to separate, and so we did. I wanted you with me. He begged I leave you. In the end I realized it was better for both you and John that you stay. Perhaps I should not have listened to his pleas. Perhaps I should have taken you with me. But I did not. Even faeries make mistakes, Lara. Will you forgive me?” Her lovely green eyes scanned her daughter’s face.
“Yes,” Lara said simply. Her whole life she had wanted her mother. What a fool she would be to turn her away now. She embraced Ilona, and kissed her cheek. Then she sighed. “We will begin anew, Mother. Now you have cleverly avoided telling me of any powers I might have. But you must, I beg you.”
Ilona laughed. “Very well,” she agreed. “I can teach you how to draw people and objects to you. I can teach you to shift your shape as does your prince. I can show you potions and lotions of interest to the human world. I know now how to be queen. I shall remain with you for a short time. It cannot make up for the years we were separated, but it will give us an opportunity to know one another better. Will that suit you, daughter?”
“Yes!” Lara responded enthusiastically. “Yes, it will!” And she laughed happily.
Ilona laughed, too, and then she said, “We must return to Prince Kaliq’s banqueting hall. His heart would be quite broken if he thought I had taken you off forever. Besides, I must return my mother to her own home shortly. She is so weak, and soon she will be faded away entirely. She can barely transport herself any longer, and coming here tonight took a great deal out of her.”
“I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet her,” Lara said. “Will I see her again, Mother?”
“If you wish. I know it would please her greatly,” Ilona said. She waved a graceful hand, and they were returned to the prince’s banqueting hall where Maeve eagerly awaited them, smiling happily to see her daughter and her granddaughter reconciled and reunited at long last. Now she could fade away in peace.
Chapter 11
LARA BID HER GRANDMOTHER, the great Maeve, farewell. “I will see you again,” she promised the old faerie.
Maeve shook her head. “Nay, my sweet child, you will not. I came tonight because Kaliq said you were with him, and out of the great friendship I have always had for the Shadow Princes, but I am too weak to come again.”
“Then I will come to you,” Lara said.
“Nay! I will not allow you in the Forest, Lara. The Foresters have sought for a hundred years in their feeble attempts to find me. We have eluded them for all that time, but I know there could come a time when they might discover us. I would not want you there to be retaken into bondage. I will never revoke the curse I placed upon them. They were ever an arrogant people, and for centuries we overlooked their bad behavior in order to keep the peace between us. Until Nixa was murdered. A foolish faerie woman, to be sure, but she did not deserve to die the way she did.”
“I will be free soon of the Foresters’ claim,” Lara said.
“Do you think, my child, that they will heed the law? They will not, especially if they find you in their realm. I have seen you now, and you have been reunited with your mother, which was my desire. I shall fade away happily, Lara.”
“But to lose you when I have only just found you?” she protested.
Maeve smiled. “It was never meant that I be a part of your destiny, Lara. Now give me a kiss, dear girl. It is time for me to go.”
Lara put her arms about the old faerie woman and hugged her, noticing that it was almost like hugging the air. She kissed Maeve’s cheeks several times. “Goodbye, grandmother, and thank you.” She felt the tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.
Reaching out, Maeve brushed the tears away, and then before Lara’s eyes she disappeared in a cloud of pale smoke. “Goodbye, Lara.” Her reedy voice echoed softly.
“You have made her very happy,” Ilona said to her daughter. “In a few weeks she will fade away completely, and I will be the new queen of the Forest Faeries. I will have to return then, and so we have little time together.”
“I know that faeries live for several centuries, but if I am your only child, Mother, who will follow you?” Lara asked Ilona.
Ilona sighed. “Once my mother has faded and I am crowned, I must take a mate who will sire a child on me. Son or daughter, it does not matter as long as I have an heir to follow. The Forest Faeries have been ruled since the beginning of time by our family. Because you are half-human you are not eligible to follow me, Lara. Our line must remain only faerie,” she explained.
“You preserve your purity as the Forest Lords once did, and continue to pretend they are doing,” Lara remarked with a small smile.
“I suppose we do,” Ilona replied. “I never thought of it that way. But if faerie blood becomes too thin the magic disappears as well. We are pleased to mate with humans, but my heir must be all faerie.”
“Do you have someone in mind?” Lara asked her mother, curious.
Ilona nodded. “His name is Thanos. He has been my faithful suitor for many years. Since before I knew your father. He has been patient in his waiting.” She smiled. “We are friends as well as lovers now. I will make him my consort.”
“Not your king?” Lara was surprised.
“If he were king, he would take precedence over me,” Ilona said. “Nay, he will not be king. Learn from me, my daughter. You were taught by your grandmother, Ina, a good but foolish woman, to be subservient to menfolk. That is the way of it in the world of Hetar. In the faerie world, women are the equals of their men, and ofttimes their superior. Let no man tell you that you must give way to him. If you choose not to, you do not have to give way in love, or war, or anything else, Lara. This is your first lesson.”
“Will you teach your daughter faerie ways then, Ilona?” Kaliq asked, hearing her words. He smiled to see them together, so beautiful, so alike.
“Yes, prince, I will. And I will beg hospitality from you for a short time as well,” Ilona replied. “Who is your best warrior?”
“Lothair,” Kaliq said.
“I want him to begin teaching Lara how to use a bow, a sword and a staff,” Ilona told him. “She must have the ability to defend herself in this world. Her path will take her to dangerous places. I will provide her with the staff myself.”
“I hope it is like Master Bashkar’s staff, Llyr,” Lara said with a smile. “It is always scolding, and complaining, but when Llyr praises you, you know you have done not just well, but very well.”
“Aye, it is a staff with a spirit. It is called Verica, and when it speaks it gives you the advantage of surprise against your enemies,” Ilona told her daughter. “But first you will learn to fight with just a plain pole so that you come to depend on yourself alone, and not another. Prince Kaliq can tell you that warring is a hard business, whether you war for a cause within a great army, or simply for yourself against the world.”
“I will inform Lothair of your wishes, my lady Ilona, and it will be done,” the prince told her.
In the weeks that followed Lara had scarcely any time at all to herself. The days were taken up with lessons from Master Bashkar in the mornings, and from Lothair in the afternoons. Lara invited Noss to join her in learning the martial arts as well as her other studies, and Noss, to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be an archer of the first rank.
“Usually such skills are faerie,” Ilona noted.
Lara preferred the broadsword and the staff, and soon excelled with both. Each evening mother and daughter would forswear the hall, and Ilona would teach Lara how to make certain potions, how to bring objects to her when she extended her hand, and most important of all, how to change her shape. This was the faerie skill that most fascinated Lara, and the first time she was successful at it she was astounded to find herself in the shape of a cat.
Ilona laughed as the small yellow feline jumped nervously. “Is that what you meant to be, daughter?” she asked.
“Yes,” the cat replied. “I just didn’t think I could really do it.”
“Change back,” Ilona said, and Lara stood once again before her mother. “Excellent! You have a good strong mind, daughter. Now, become a bird.”
“What kind?” Lara asked.
“A songbird?” Ilona suggested.
Lara contemplated a nightingale. “Aral go!” she said, and becoming the bird she flew about the garden before lighting again upon a marble bench and saying, “Lara return! Mother, this is amazing! Can anyone do it?”
“Nay,” Ilona told her. “This is your faerie blood that now sings in your veins.”
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