Faerie Story:  Chapter Eight

Though Langly and Frohike had already long since reached the conclusion that there was far more to Skinner than met the eye, neither were prepared for the man who revealed himself during their first two hours in Crystal City.

They had accepted his leadership during their journey without question. They had, after all, joined Skinner and Alexin, so it had seemed only natural that Skinner had been the ‘leader’ of their group.

But they soon discovered that Skinner had been *born* to lead other men.

His arrogant demand that the city guard should summon Salmon Spearer, not to mention his assertion that he was the apparently long dead founder of the city, should have met with incredulity and derision.

It *had* met with incredulity, but derision had been absent. Within minutes of Skinner’s demand, the gate at the far side of the passage had opened and a man in his forties had entered and blinked in slow amazement as Skinner had ridden in his direction.

“It truly *is* you,” Salmon Spearer gasped. “You’re unchanged, unaged, but I know you, Valtere Skinner. I know you.”

“Of course you know me,” Skinner replied. “You accompanied me during the journey from the Northern Territories and were one of those who rode with me on the day of my capture by the Faerie.”

Salmon Spearer gasped. “So that is why you appear so young.”

“It has been barely more than two weeks for me,” Skinner confirmed. “Faerie time runs slow.”

“Had we known, had we even *dreamed* you were alive, we would have sought to rescue you,” Salmon Spearer assured him, as Skinner rode out of the open doorway into the bright sunlight of the valley, and his many wounds and scars became evident.

“He didn’t need to be rescued,” Frohike announced firmly. “Skinner freed himself. Even the might of the Faerie couldn’t prevent his escape from their clutches.”

Salmon Spearer looked both awed and concerned. “Is it... forgive me, but is it *you* who has stirred the Faerie to such fury? Has your escape brought such bitter violence to our door?”

“No,” Skinner replied so firmly that even Frohike and Langly frowned in astonishment, knowing as they did how much guilt Skinner *did* feel over the situation. “When I was in the Faerie land, I learned of an insidious plot by the Faerie queens, for they are a society of vicious, vengeful *women* and so all the more dangerous for that, to ally themselves by way of a marriage and then use their combined force to destroy the entire human world.

“Knowing of the great danger to our people, I managed to escape their cruel imprisonment with the assistance of the young Faerie prince who was to be the cost of their alliance. He, innocent of their plot and greatly horrified by what his people planned to do to the human race, broke me free and aided my escape.

“To prevent the alliance from forming, the young prince bravely agreed to flee with me back to our world. He knew he would meet naught but violence at the hands of humans, but he still chose to face his fear of human hate rather than be used by his people as the cause of human deaths.

“So, yes, the raids you have suffered were the direct result of the Faerie attempting to recapture us. But they were just a faint shadow of what the Faerie truly intend to do. And now... and now, the Faerie have recaptured the young prince in the Scall Valley. Even as I speak to you, they are bearing him back to their land. Unless we stop them, unless we rescue him from their clutches, the alliance will go ahead and then destruction such as we can barely imagine will be released onto our people.

“There is no time to debate this. No time to argue with me. The future of the entire human race hangs in the balance and we have but one chance to save our world.”

Salmon Spearer was silent for several long moments. But then he shook his head as though to clear it and said, “You had best come repeat your tale to the current Chieftain and his officers. While you do so, I’ll send message birds to the guardpost at the top of Scall for news of any Faerie movement.”

“You have a guardpost in the valley?”

“To warn us, by message birds, whenever the ward-gate is used. We have learned much of the Faerie since your absence. We now know exactly the points at which they enter our land. I would tell you this. A message came that the Faerie rode into Scall in a vast army earlier today. However, at this time, there is no message that they have returned to their realm.”

“Then Alexin may still be in our world,” Skinner said. “Though it makes no sense that they haven’t taken him immediately back to his castle.”

“It makes perfect sense if he was wailing and whining,” Frohike muttered, for Skinner’s ears alone. “You know yourself how impossible it is to ignore his complaints. Perhaps he was clever enough to pretend to be too injured to ride any further without a rest. He knows full well that his best chance of rescue is on *this* side of the gate.”

“Then it is on this side of the gate we must rescue him,” Skinner said firmly, urging his horse towards the plateau on which the city was built.

It had changed greatly since his eyes had last seen it. The wooden houses had been replaced with ones built largely of stone. The already rugged cliffs that surrounded the valley were pock-marked with the scars of excavation, and the city was now as substantially defended as Stonekeep had been. More so, since even the plateau itself now had a wide moat and a thick stone wall to guard it. Should any force manage to enter the valley through the well guarded passage, it would still find difficulty in assaulting the city itself.

As Skinner had always suspected would be the case, the new Chieftain of Crystal City, Hawk Trapper – who had been a mere boy at the time Skinner had left the city - was less than overjoyed at the return of the legendary Valtere Skinner. He was a young and ambitious Chieftain. He wasn’t, however, a foolish man. For one thing, there were sufficient occupants of the city who recognized Skinner that Hawk Trapper realized there was no point in him denying Skinner’s claim of identity. For another, Skinner’s tale of what the Faerie intended had the unmistakable ring of truth.

He did, however, challenge Skinner’s wisdom.

“Knowing the threat the boy posed to our world, you should simply have killed him,” he said, and there were many mutterings of agreement among the other men.

“At first I thought to do so,” Skinner admitted freely. “However, I changed my mind when he gave me the gift of his magic.”

Frohike cringed and Langly looked stunned. Surely Skinner wasn’t going to tell of the sexual bond he shared with Alexin?

“What magic?” Hawk Trapper demanded.

“This magic,” Skinner snarled, throwing a ball of fire through the air so that it sizzled over the heads of the gathered men before bounding harmlessly through the hall’s open door. “The risk of keeping the boy alive seemed worth the power he afforded me. Without his magic, I would not have survived to return home and had I not returned, you would not have been warned of the Faerie plan to ally and destroy us.”

“With the death of the boy, the alliance would have been severed anyway,” Hawk Trapper argued, though his tone was far more respectful since Skinner’s unexpected show of magical power.

“Delayed,” Skinner countered. “Not severed but merely delayed. It *is* the intention of the Faerie women to destroy us regardless. It is just a matter of timing.”

“Then of what use is it for us to rescue the boy?” someone else challenged.

“Timing again. You will delay the inevitable long enough to build defenses and further strengthen your army. Besides, with the boy at my side, I retain my magic and I can use it in your aid.”

“It isn’t just fire Skinner can control,” Frohike interrupted. “He can turn rivers. He can even cause the earth to split asunder. As we fled here, Skinner killed almost four dozen Faerie with his magic.”

“You *killed* Faerie?” Hawk Trapper gasped. “None have ever killed a Faerie before. We have sometimes managed to wound one, even despite their near impenetrable armor, but never have we actually defeated one. The best we can do is use force of numbers to weary them until they angrily decide to flee in search of easier victims.”

“Then surely you see the value of my magic at your disposal,” Skinner retorted. “And for me to keep the magic, I *must* have the Faerie boy under my control.”

And so it was that Skinner was given control of the army of Crystal City to aid him in retrieving Alexin.

Frohike and Langly, though obviously pleased at the outcome, were nonetheless as disturbed by Skinner’s easy manipulation of his people as they were impressed by it.

“He never actually told any lies,” Langly pointed out. “He spoke nothing but the truth and it was that which convinced his people. A man speaking truth is hard to deny, because truth has a way of convincing where no amount of clever lies can persuade.”

“He spoke only the truth that suited his purposes,” Frohike snorted. “Without even stopping to think or draw breath, he carefully chose and spoke only the truth that his people wished to hear. He also implied that Alexin was both his willing accomplice and yet also his prisoner and none queried that anomaly.”

“He could hardly admit to being head over heels for the boy,” Langly laughed. “None would enter battle with the Faerie simply to reunite two lovers.”

“Even to save Skinner’s life. A point which he also cleverly omitted. He said the retrieval of the boy would ensure the continuation of his magic.”

“That’s true.”

“But he failed to mention that he will die within another day if Alexin *isn’t* restored to his side.”

“Perhaps he is simply too sure of Alexin’s rescue to even worry about such things.”

Frohike sighed. “He may be right. Perhaps *this* was the purpose of Alexin being recaptured. Remember me saying that short term problems often prove to be for the best in the long term? Had Alexin not been captured, Skinner would have come to this city in a humble way and would never have attempted to wrest control back into his hands. The necessity to rescue Alexin, however, has truly awakened Skinner’s inner warrior.”

“But to what end?”

“Who knows?” Frohike shrugged. “Perhaps only history will answer why Skinner should again take up the mantle of leadership of this city instead of simply sneaking off to obscurity in the Northern Territories with his unusual ‘wife’.”

“I think people here will be greatly surprised when they finally meet ‘the prince’,” Langly chuckled. “Skinner hasn’t prepared them for a boy like Alexin.”

“They know he is Faerie. That’s all they need to know for now. Alexin is fully capable of charming the people himself, as long as they first accept his blood. Besides, the very act of stealing the boy right out from under the Faerie’s noses once more will be sufficient to ensure everyone’s loyalty to Skinner. And Skinner won’t permit Alexin to be slighted.”

“Then everything that’s happened is a good thing, isn’t it? Even Alexin’s recapture.”

“It seems too easy, too *convenient*, that the Faerie have camped this side of the gate,” Frohike replied worriedly. Then, seeing the fear in Langly’s eyes, he shrugged and attempted to soothe his mate. “But perhaps it is Skinner and Alexin’s magic at work. Perhaps all of this *will* prove to be how things were meant to be. *My* magic still insists that we have become part of some great and crucial plan of the Gods.”

Langly looked more worried than reassured. “If the legends are right, to be part of the Gods' plans is rarely a good thing for an individual. I begin to fear we’re mere pawns in this game, Frohike, and we all know what happens to pawns.”

~~~

Alexin spent the night in a strange state of mind that was curiously a mix between absolute terror and reluctant pleasure.

The terror was pretty much self-explanatory, given that he felt little hope of rescue – though he was positive Skinner would at least *try* to rescue him – and he knew that the dawn would herald the departure of a rider to summon Ariana to collect him.

Given the huge difference in time between the human realm and the Faerie land, he knew that he had several more human days before Ariana arrived to claim him, because the short ride from the gate to the castle and back would take as much as a week in human time.

That *should* have relieved him, since a week was plenty of time for Skinner to rescue him. The problem was that within another day Skinner would probably be dead. Unless Skinner came for him before the next night fell, Skinner would *never* be coming for him and, no matter how long it took for Ariana to actually arrive, his fate would be sealed.

It seemed to Alexin that a lifetime had passed since he’d last lain eyes on the huge queen. He certainly was a totally different person than he had been little more than a week previously. He no longer blindly accepted a woman’s right to own and abuse him. His time with Skinner had taught him that even a lover who had the need to strike him to gain his tear-magic could do so with care, gentleness and love.

Skinner was, in truth, more than he could ever have dreamed of in a ‘wife’.

Although, to be fair, Alexin had learned that Skinner wasn’t everything that he perhaps *should* have dreamed of. Skinner had a regrettably short temper and was often intolerant of his fears and confusion. Yet, overall, Alexin remained convinced that Skinner was ten times kinder to him than *any* female ‘wife’ would have been.

And, though he blushed to admit it, even in his private thoughts, Skinner *was* greatly attractive.

He no longer saw Skinner as a ‘monkey-man’ beast or a strange, unnatural hybrid of male and female. He closed his eyes, pictured Skinner in his head, and the effect of that memory was enough to make his member stiffen and his spine shiver with remembered pleasure.

That was it, perhaps. Skinner had been the one to teach him *pleasure*.

So maybe it wasn’t just the bond of magic that made his heart ache at Skinner’s absence. Perhaps it truly was a *real* kind of love.

Yet, despite his fear and his heartbreak at having been separated from his lover, Alexin was honest enough to admit that the night brought a certain amount of pleasure, too.

Though the tent he was placed within was the functional kind used by low-caste soldiers rather than one of the ornate tents designed for royalty, containing only a low cot rather than a true bed, it still felt like true luxury after his latest two nights sleeping rough in the forest.

And, though the soldiers had no suitable garments to offer him so that he might change out of his now soiled gown, they didn’t roll their eyes in disbelief when he ordered pail after pail of water to be warmed over their fire so that he might attempt to cleanse himself.

He found, surprisingly enough, that if he *had* to wash himself without aid, he could manage to do so. He also discovered that combing and plaiting his hair himself wasn’t any harder for him to manage than grooming Dinah’s mane had been. He had a momentary understanding of Skinner’s irritation at his insistence that he couldn’t take care of his hair himself, but then swiftly dismissed the thought. There was a *vast* difference between simply tidying himself and the bliss of having Skinner touch him in that fashion, he decided firmly.

His true pleasure though, was that one of the guards produced a vial of sweet smelling oil for him – with an embarrassed grunt that she’d bought it as a gift for her favorite barracks man. Perfume was one of the things Skinner had purchased for him in Stonekeep City, but *that* had been oil with a musky, heady scent rather than the light, innocent smell of roses. Alexin guiltily decided that he much preferred the oil which the guard gifted him with.

Neither did it hurt that, although guards officially traveled with just the bare basic staples of food, almost all of them had far more tasty treats squirreled away in their saddle bags and had offered those to him after Kaayn had reminded them that he was their Prince and his happiness was therefore more important than their stomachs.

Alexin knew Kaayn just wanted to keep him placid and sweet tempered for her own sake, and that she cared absolutely nothing for his happiness, really.

But that didn’t make the honey cakes and fruit tartlets taste any less sweet as he eagerly devoured them.

Eventually, with his stomach filled and his body exhausted from the journey and the stress of his capture, Alexin crawled onto the cot, pulled the blankets over himself and, despite doubting he’d be able to sleep, within minutes his eyes were closed and he was gently snoring into his pillow.

He might have expected his dreams to be filled with terror, but instead they were simply strange. He dreamed he was in a vast frozen landscape, completely alone. Then, far in the distance, he saw a speck that gradually took form and substance until it was a person. A few more minutes, and he saw that it was Skinner. He tried to move towards him, but in the dream Alexin couldn’t move his limbs. He was trapped in place, like a fly in amber. So he tried to yell for Skinner’s attention. Yet he could make no sound from his throat and, it seemed, Skinner couldn’t see him. Not even when he walked close enough for Alexin to almost touch his arm.

In the morning, Alexin woke from the dreams more confused than scared. His magic was trying to tell him something, he was sure, but he had no idea what message to take from the dreaming except that Skinner would never find him or rescue him. And since he couldn’t bear to think *that* was the dream’s true message, Alexin decided that he preferred to remain confused.

~~~

Earlier that same morning, Skinner, Frohike, Langly and Salmon Spearer had headed north through the hills bordering the Scall Valley.

It was gone ten by the time they reached the guardpost that watched over the Faerie movements. From that vantage point, they had a clear view of the Faerie camp, the ward-gate and the miles of flat terrain that separated the two.

“I expected them to break camp at dawn. Yet it’s now mid-morning and so far only one single Faerie has ridden north through the ward-gate,” Skinner said, his eyes narrowed with thought.

“Are you complaining?” Salmon Spearer laughed. “You worried all night that it took so long to gather our troops and ride out to Scall, and now you complain that they’ll arrive in time after all?”

“I just don’t like it when the enemy fails to act logically,” Skinner growled. “It makes it far harder to anticipate their next move.”

“I see that,” Salmon Spearer agreed. “Yet so far your plans are working well. The huge dust storm you’ve raised is successfully obscuring our troops as they ride up the valley. The Faerie seem totally unaware of their approach. Neither did the Faerie spy *us* as we made our way past their camp to this point, despite our path taking us within their view on several occasions. Though I still fail to understand why you wished to place yourself between the Faerie and their ward-gate with no more than three men at your side.”

“My intent is to split the ground asunder north of their encampment,” Skinner explained, “to prevent them fleeing from our troops back into their land where the soldiers cannot follow. Besides, I need to prevent *more* Faerie from joining to re-enforce their strength.”

“But why couldn’t you split the land nearer their encampment? Why must we ride almost to the gate itself before you use your magic?”

“Because they have to think they *can* flee, otherwise they’ll have no reason not to make a stand and fight to the death. Even though our soldiers outnumber them almost six to one, they *could* win the battle if they felt they had no other option except to fight. But their need to protect Alexin and their certainty that they *can* reach the gate will tempt them to split their forces, leaving half to hold back the soldiers and the others to
flee back to the Faerie realm.”

“And during that sixteen mile ride,” Frohike added helpfully, to the still somewhat confused Salmon Spearer, “Skinner has time to use his magic against the riders who flee. He can pick them off, one by one, with his fire magic, long before they reach the chasm that separates them from sanctuary.”

“Then why create the chasm at all?”

“On the basis that whatever can go wrong, *will* go wrong,” Langly sighed miserably. “Like Skinner said, we can only *assume* we know how the Faerie will react when they finally realize they’re under attack.”

“Which is why we’ll need to turn back as soon as I’ve split the land, and make haste back towards the Faerie camp,” Skinner agreed. “My magic may well need to be employed there.”

“One last question?” Salmon Spearer asked.

“Yes?” Skinner snapped impatiently.

“Does using the magic always pain you so?”

Skinner stared grimly at the dark veins pulsating visibly over his forearms. Although it had been little over twelve hours since Alexin’s capture, forming the dust cloud had already drained so much of the dark magic that his entire body was throbbing with its need for Alexin’s touch. If he allowed himself to dwell on that, he would have to admit to already having crossed over the threshold of ache into true agony. Instead he shook his head angrily. His pain was irrelevant. He’d suffered and survived more in the dungeon.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Let’s ride on. We still have five miles to go to reach the ward-gate and cast my spell.”

Two miles further north, Langly’s prediction that anything that could go wrong would go wrong was proven, when nearly three dozen Faerie burst through the gate at a full gallop towards the direction of the camp.

“Do something,” Frohike urged, his eyes wide with panic. “If they reach the camp, you’ll lose any chance of getting Alexin back.”

“Our troops can’t fight over fifty Faerie,” Salmon Spearer agreed. “It would be a slaughter.”

Skinner knew they were right. If the new Faerie joined up with those at the camp, the army swiftly approaching under the cover of the dust cloud would be easily defeated, and his best chance of rescuing Alexin would be gone.

With a bellow of fury and fear, he screamed at the floor of the valley to crack open between the camp and the galloping horses.

As before, the earth responded to his call, with a hairline crack that raced from one side of the valley to the other before splitting apart with a roar into a wide fissure some yards in front of the leading riders. The momentum of whom was too great for them to pull up in time.

Although they neighed with fear as they came across the chasm, the horses were moving too quickly to halt or even swerve from their course.

The first few horses cleared the rapidly expanding gap and landed safely on the other side. But the others all plunged into the fissure like a white wave and their screams, as they fell, echoed throughout the valley.

Of the three dozen riders, only five survived.

All five halted and turned back, staring at the chasm with obvious horror. But then, one by one, they turned and headed for the camp once more.

“They just rode on,” Langly gasped.

“Perhaps they thought it was just a natural phenomenon, like an earthquake,” Frohike suggested.

“They can’t have,” Skinner argued. “The rider who went through the gate this morning *must* have warned them I had such magic.”

“I agree that’s logical,” Frohike said, “but their reaction seemed off to me if that was the case. They should have been scanning the hills for you, as the source of the magic, not just staring at the ground as though *it* was to blame.”

“I can’t believe what I just saw with my own eyes,” Salmon Spearer said, his tone awestruck. “They will sing of you in legends forever, Valtere Skinner.”

Skinner grunted uncomfortably. “Let’s get back down the valley,” he said. “We need to get nearer the camp before the soldiers attack.”

He grasped hold of his horse’s saddle and hauled himself upwards with obvious effort.

Frohike exchanged a worried glance with Langly. The veins were now so prominent on Skinner’s face and arms that they appeared as thin black ropes binding his flesh.

“He’s in the last stages already,” Langly confirmed. “The use of his magic in such a fashion is killing him. Unless he touches Alexin within the hour, I think it will be too late to save him.”

“But look,” Frohike said, pointing southwards. “The dust cloud is almost upon the Faerie. I’d judge the battle will commence within the next half hour. There still is hope of victory.”

~~~

Queen Ariana, never known for her good temper anyway, rode into the camp in such fury that if she’d shared even a fraction of Skinner’s magic, Kaayn would have been incinerated on the spot when the Captain gave a confused look at Ariana’s four companions and made the grievous mistake of wondering aloud her surprise that the queen hadn’t brought more guards with her.

Instead, Ariana settled for driving her sword into the hapless Captain’s guts.

“Who is second here?” she roared, as Kaayn clutched at her spilled intestines and collapsed to the ground.

“I am,” Nary admitted reluctantly.

“Well, *Captain*, where is my prince?”

“In yonder tent,” Nary advised. “Awaiting your medicant’s attention for his ill treatment at the hands of his captor. But, I must confess, we were not expecting your arrival for several more days,” she added, with a frown of confusion.

“Fortuitously, I was already at the gate, preparing to ride through it, when your messenger came through,” Ariana advised. “I’d ascertained that the ward-gate the beast broke through was actually the old, disused one at Ragrain. Since the forests are impassable there, I decided to ride through this gate and head east. Only, of course, to meet your guard as she came through with the news that the prince had been rescued. Your messenger said Alexin was too ill to ride. Tell me, is he scarred?”

“No, your majesty. He still appears most comely, if somewhat the worse for his ordeal. He incessantly demands that he should be *properly* bathed and dressed before he’s seen by any woman of breeding. We endeavored to give him all the comforts we could offer him last night, but this morning his temper is greatly foul. In fact, he now says he will not move from this camp until his nurse has been sent for to groom him, and suitable garments have been brought for him to wear for his journey home.”

Ariana snatched a veil out of her saddle bag and brandished it in the new Captain’s face. “This will more than suffice,” she snarled. “I have no time to deal with a boy’s foolishness. I will veil him now to cover his shame, and he can be restored to his beauty later.”

“As the Captain of Queen Sylvana’s guard, I must challenge your right to enter the Prince’s tent,” Nary said, though her tone and expression made it as clear as possible that she was only putting up a token protest. “A boy is sacrosanct until his eighteenth birthday, my queen. You cannot veil him for two more nights.”

“You think me a fool? You think I know not how time passes in the monkey-man land? The boy is *already* a man, and so long overdue his veiling.”

“If the boy is a *man*, then he belongs to whomever claims him first,” Nary admitted, as though she had only just realized the fact. She allowed an expression of great dismay to cloud her features. “You mean I carefully shielded his honor last night from the other guards without cause?”

Ariana smiled grimly. “Not without cause. For had any of you stolen that which is mine by promise, you’d all be lying with your intestines spilled like your Captain.”

The threat was rather less than it would have been if she’d been accompanied by three dozen guards rather than the mere four who had survived the fissure, but Ariana was arrogant enough to believe her own strength and reputation was sufficient in itself to instill adequate awe in Sylvana’s soldiers.

“I will not only veil the boy here, but claim him fully as is my right.”

She was stretching the truth a little by saying she had the right to take Alexin’s virginity under such circumstances. A boy as well-bred as Alexin had the right to expect a certain level of ceremony at the time of his veiling. A feast, gifts, and definitely a proper bedchamber. But Nary’s comment made it imperative that she acted quickly. An unclaimed man was, by right, the property of the barracks. Had the guards been intelligent enough to realize that for themselves, one of them could have legitimately taken Alexin’s magic for themselves already. Sylvana would, probably, have rewarded the thief with an agonizing death, of course, but Ariana doubted any such low-ranked female was capable of reasoning past the immediate urge of her own loins.

So even though she’d been in two minds whether to take Alexin’s magic immediately or whether to veil the boy and return with him to the Faerie realm for his deflowering, the fact she was now so outnumbered by guards loyal to another queen made her decision obvious.

She reached into her saddle bag once more for a vial of the drug which would ensure Alexin’s cooperation, and told Nary to stand aside.

“The Queen will be...”

“Furious with you if you don’t obey me,” Ariana snarled. “You know full well that the boy has been promised to me. Stand aside, or die.”

Nary bowed and stepped aside, turning slightly so that Ariana wouldn’t see the triumphant smirk on her face.

~~~

The magic induced dust cloud rolled up the valley to within two miles of the Faerie encampment and, hidden within it, one hundred and seventeen soldiers of Crystal City began to draw their swords and ready themselves for battle as they galloped northwards towards their still completely unsuspecting enemy.

~~~

“We should stop here,” Salmon Spearer said. “If we can see the camp, the camp can see us.”

Langly nodded his agreement. Despite the fact they were still riding along the cover of the hills, so that their bodies blended with the shadows overcast by the ground rising behind them, they were close enough to the Faerie to make out individual guards walking around the camp, and that meant they were close enough to be seen also.

“We need to be closer still,” Frohike argued, with a worried glance at Skinner.

He was bowed over his horse’s neck, breathing so heavily that it was painful to listen to his obvious struggle simply to draw air into his lungs. Though he’d made not one groan or sob of pain, his blood was so charged now with its need for Alexin’s magic that Skinner’s veins were visibly throbbing as though a thousand insects were crawling under his skin.

Langly followed his gaze and blanched slightly. Skinner had already claimed to have a limit to how far he could throw the fire magic. In such a weakened state, it was likely that his limit would be greatly reduced. As Frohike said, if they were to have any chance of succeeding, they’d have to get considerably closer to camp for Skinner’s weakening powers to have any effect.

“Look to the south,” Salmon Spearer said. “The soldiers are almost upon the camp.”

“Then the Faerie will be too pre-occupied by them to notice us,” Frohike said firmly. “We ride on.”

Skinner said nothing, being incapable of making any sound without risking that his words might emerge as a howl of pain, but he confirmed his wholehearted agreement with Frohike by simply kicking his horse's flanks to urge it onwards to the Faerie encampment.

~~~

Alexin backed away to the far side of the tent, shaking his head at the vial in Ariana’s hands with a look of horrified denial on his face.

“I won’t,” he wailed. “You can’t make me. I’m a *prince*, not a barracks man. You can’t...can’t bed me in a *tent*.”

Ariana growled with irritation and flexed her biceps menacingly. She’d just lost thirty of her best guards in pursuit of the boy. She definitely wasn’t in the mood to deal with Alexin’s tantrum.

“Drink it, or have it poured down your throat. I care little either way, but I promise that *you* will care when you’re over my lap in a minute, if you dare to show me any more defiance, little one.”

Alexin’s eyes widened with terror, but he thought furiously and decided his best option was a flood of tears rather than a show of anger.

“It’s not fair,” he wailed. “I want to be *beautiful* for my first bedding. I want to be clean and groomed and in my...my...my bedding gown. I’m...I’m dirty and...and...and my skirts are torn and my hair’s a mess and my nails are broken and I look *ugly*.”

As he’d hoped, his plaintive wails made Ariana chuckle with sudden understanding and her temper eased as she decided he wasn’t refusing her right to bed him but simply feeling shamed at his unkempt appearance.

“Silly boy,” she laughed. “You couldn’t be ‘ugly’ if you tried. You are, I admit, somewhat disheveled but you’re still beautiful. I promise I’ll ensure you soon regain your physical perfection, Alexin. A few weeks at my castle and you’ll once again be the beauty I first espied.” Then her voice hardened. “But in the meantime I find you perfectly acceptable to mount, so stop your nonsense and take the drug already.”

Alexin thought furiously for a more convincing argument. He dismissed out of hand any comment about his mother being furious if he were claimed in such a rough fashion. As long as his mother had the alliance she sought, he suspected she’d care little whether he’d been taken on silk sheets or on the floor of a rough guard’s tent. But it occurred to him suddenly that surely no queen could take a *husband* in such a fashion, without damaging her own reputation. Although he already knew Ariana had changed her mind about taking him as her husband, he decided to gamble that she didn’t *know* that he knew.

“I may only be a boy,” he sniffled. “But my nurse and tutors told me exactly what to expect of my wedding. They said I would attend a great feast, bare faced so that all could see my beauty, and only after all present had admired me, would I be led away to be bathed and oiled and prepared for bedding. Then my face would be veiled and I’d be dressed in my bedding gown and led through the castle to my wife’s bedchamber so that all might envy my wife and grieve that they would never again see my beauty. Even though I know I am male, with no *other* rights, I know I have the right to be married thus.”

“You aren’t to be my *husband*,” Ariana spat impatiently. “I take you as concubine, so you have *no* rights.”

“I don’t want to be a concubine,” Alexin howled and, though he was deliberately aiming at being dramatic, his distress *was* genuine. “You promised to marry me. To make me your husband. I’m a prince. I’m not supposed to be a concubine. It’s not FAIR!!”

“To be the concubine of a queen is an honor,” Ariana snapped impatiently. “Stop your hysterical nonsense, child, and swallow the potion.”

“But...but you said... you said I was ‘the prettiest thing you’d ever laid eyes upon’,” Alexin reminded her desperately.

“As you are,” Ariana agreed.

“Then...then it’s not fair that...that you should take my magic and then just throw me aside for another less beautiful boy,” Alexin argued. “Why waste my beauty so?”

Ariana frowned. Although Alexin was a mere boy, his words made sense. Did she really only want the pleasure of lying with him only for the two years until Zyana’s son was old enough for the veil? It had been far easier to imagine doing so when Alexin had been out of sight and she’d had only the memory of his exquisite looks. Now, looking at him, she began to wonder whether she really cared that he came with the taint of scandal.

And having lost 30 horses down the fissure she could *really* do with Alexin’s dowry of sixteen horses.

Perhaps she *should* marry the boy, secure the dowry and keep him for a while. He was so fragile she doubted he’d live past his mid-twenties anyway, and Queen Rayna of Deepfell had a *very* pretty ten year old boy-child who would be a far more satisfying replacement in her bed for Alexin than Zyana’s son would ever be.

“I agree,” she said. “You are far too beautiful to be a concubine, Alexin. I’ll take you as husband.”

Alexin was so relieved he almost fainted.

“Now drink from the vial.”

“But...but...” Alexin gasped, totally confounded. He hadn’t wanted an offer of marriage, he’d just assumed an offer of marriage would buy him more time. “But...but I have the right to a proper wedding.”

“You have the right to nothing except gratitude that I’ve changed my mind. Don’t push me, child.”

“But...but what will people think? You can’t break tradition like this.”

“It’s a little late to worry about your reputation, Alexin. It was ruined the day that beast stole you. Be thankful you’re beautiful enough for me to offer you my veil and the status of husband despite the scandal you carry.”

“But...” Alexin blurted again.

Ariana’s patience snapped. With a low roar, she moved forwards, grabbed the slight boy around the waist, pulled him against her until his head was lodged against her breastbone, used one hand to force his mouth open and the other to pour the drug down his throat.

Then, while he was still gasping and choking, she lifted him up by the scruff of the neck, carried him over to the low cot, sat down, threw him over her lap, pulled his skirt up to expose his panties and carelessly ripped the silky fabric apart to reveal his lush buttocks.

She noticed they were slightly bruised, but put that down to the fact he’d been on horseback at the time of his rescue, and proceeded to spank Alexin’s bottom until it was a totally satisfying vibrant scarlet.

~~~

“I’ve never seen such a storm in this valley before,” Nary said to her troops, as the dust cloud approached

Her tone was unconcerned. If the storm was too great, she knew that Ariana would be able to easily dissipate it. Unfortunately, the two high-caste women who had ridden with them the day before had been lost in the chasm created by the monkey-man, and no mere guard had the power of the storm magic. But, as a queen, Ariana would have no difficulty in raising a wind to drive the dust clouds away.

Well, after she’d bedded the boy, of course.

Nary wasn’t sure how long it would take her to do so, or to realize the boy’s magic had been stolen...

“Damn,” she snarled, as realization suddenly struck her. Ariana *didn’t* have the storm magic, because she’d presumably already severed the bond with her latest concubine before riding to claim Alexin’s hand. And mounting the boy wasn’t going to restore Ariana’s powers, so they all *were* going to suffer the full effects of the storm.

“Start breaking camp,” she ordered. “We move back to the gate the moment Queen Ariana has claimed the prince. In the meantime, cover the horses’ eyes to protect them from the dust.”

“I don’t think it’s a natural storm,” one of the other guards said, frowning at the rapidly approaching cloud. “I see dark shapes moving within it.”

Nary frowned at the storm cloud for a moment, then cursed loudly.

“It’s the monkey-man’s magic again. The storm is covering an attack. Possibly from that large city to the east. The one with the army.”

“They’re just monkey-men,” someone scoffed. “They can’t hurt us.”

“They can if they manage to unhorse us,” Nary snarled. “Our armor won’t help against their puny weapons if they surround us like wolves and attacks from all sides. If they wear us down enough to pull the armor from our bodies, our flesh is as mortal as theirs is.”

“Gods, there are dozens upon dozens of them,” a guard cried, as the Crystal City soldiers began to emerge from the dust cloud. “They outnumber us perhaps five or six to one.”

“MOUNT,” Nary roared.

The Faerie began to scramble for their horses.

~~~

The boy’s tears were sweet as honey, Ariana decided, as she licked hungrily at the liquid pouring down Alexin’s face. She had, perhaps, been a little too overenthusiastic in her spanking of his buttocks, she admitted to herself, because the boy was crying so hard he could barely breathe, but the drug had done its work while she’d been occupied with Alexin’s buttocks and his maleness was standing proudly from his body as she straddled him and licked eagerly at his tears.

She was a little confused that the tears, while sweet, were not *quite* as delicious as she’d anticipated them to be, and neither were they sending the usual rush of heady, tingling excitement to her loins. But then the surroundings were hardly conducive to their coupling and, anyway, she’d taken the magic from enough husbands and concubines that it rarely overwhelmed her anymore. Drinking magic was a little like drinking alcohol, in that the more a woman partook of the substance, the more tolerant she was of its side effects.

And the boy *was* exquisite. The more so now his cheeks were wet with tears and his face was almost as red as his heated buttocks. There was *nothing* quite as pretty as a sobbing, submissive male.

She reached down and twisted first one nipple and then the other, loving the way the boy squealed and yelped as she squeezed the tender nubs between her fingers. She would, she decided, pierce the boy’s pretty nipples and link them together with a gold chain. It was her habit to keep her husbands naked in her bedchamber, depriving them of all the jewels and pretty clothes they’d been raised to *need*. It took very little time before they were so grateful for *any* adornment that they’d eagerly accept the idea of being pierced and then chained or bejeweled on any part of their body.

She might even decorate the ridges of Alexin’s member with a series of emerald studs. She’d done something similar with her second husband and it had increased her pleasure greatly when she’d ridden him. The only downside of such a procedure was that piercings like that needed to be done by a medicant to ensure they were safe, and it was tiresome to first convince some stupid woman that Ariana had no problem with the idea of a medicant seeing her husband’s body, and then to find a replacement for the gullible idiot after Ariana had slit the medicant’s throat.

But Alexin *was* pretty enough that the effort would be worthwhile.

She grinned at the thought, as she began to lower herself onto the boy’s hard member. In just a few more moments, the boy’s magic would be hers and his seed would flow into her body to produce perhaps a boy-child as perfect as Alexin was. A child who could either be used to cement an alliance or even to replace Rayna’s son. That, perhaps, was the most *perfect* solution of all. She’d keep Alexin until Rayna’s son was of veiling age and then, by the time *he* was failing, Alexin’s child would be old enough to bed. She rather liked the idea of marrying her own son if he turned out to be as pretty as his father. That way she could ensure the boy was brought up to suit her tastes perfectly.

“QUEEN ARIANA!”

“HOW DARE YOU?” Ariana screamed, as a guard rushed inside the tent calling her name. She automatically rose off the boy, leaving him naked and exposed, and reached for her sword. She cared not that the guard was momentarily seeing even more of her ‘husband’ because she intended to slit the guard’s throat open within the next twenty seconds anyway.

“Please, my queen, forgive me. But we’re under attack. At least a hundred monkey-men on horse. They approached us by stealth, under the cover of a dust storm and are almost upon us. We need to flee immediately back to the ward-gate,” the guard gasped, her eyes terrified at the look of murderous rage on the queen’s face.

Ariana strode past her, looked out of the tent, saw the rapidly approaching soldiers and the Faerie scrambling for their horses, and narrowed her eyes. She was no fool. She could see at a glance that they were hopelessly outnumbered despite their greater physical prowess and their virtually impenetrable armor.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “We must flee.”

The guard gave a gulp of relief, which turned to sudden horror as Ariana’s sword buried itself inside her stomach and ripped upwards to tear her breastbone in two.

“No one sees *my* male and lives,” Ariana snarled.

As the guard’s body slumped lifelessly to the floor, Ariana returned her attention to Alexin.

“I’m afraid there’s no time for further gentleness,” she said, easily straddling the boy despite his desperate struggle to escape her. “I need your magic *now*.”

~~~

“The horses,” Frohike yelled excitedly. “Burn the horses, Skinner.”

Skinner could barely stay on his own horse. His blood was so enraged now that he could feel his heart literally threatening to explode inside his chest. He could hardly see, for the blood capillaries bursting inside his eyes. The running Faerie were no more than a dark blur, but he *could* just about make out the shapes of the huge white Faerie horses.

He raised a trembling, black veined hand and pointed it towards the camp, willing fire to leap from his fingers.

“YES!” Langly roared, as one of the Faerie horses caught fire and charged through the camp in such blind, screaming agony that it knocked several of the warriors off their feet and set several of the other horses off in a panicked bolt.

Skinner sent another fire ball, then another and another, though each release of the magic made him cry out in ever increasing agony.

“Enough,” Salmon Spearer cried, staring with horrified eyes at the obviously dying Skinner. “Our soldiers have reached the camp, the battle has commenced, half the Faerie are still unmounted because of the panic you’ve caused within their horses, and many of the Faerie are already fleeing, not aware they have nowhere to flee to. It’s enough, Skinner.”

“Not... ’nough... til... ’lexin... safe,” Skinner grunted, continuing to rein fire onto the Faerie camp.

“He’s right,” Frohike yelled, grabbing Skinner’s arm. “What good will it do if we win the battle and free Alexin but you’re dead? Save what little magic you have left. One of them is bound to grab Alexin and attempt to flee. That’s the only horse you need to burn now.”

Skinner grunted his assent, shook Frohike’s hand off his arm and kicked his bay stallion towards the north of the camp so he’d be close enough to see what he was doing. He was near blind now and wouldn’t dare flaming the horse Alexin was on unless he was much closer to the camp and could see what he was doing.

The soldiers meanwhile had discovered the secret of killing a Faerie.

If they attacked en masse, surrounding a single unmounted warrior, and struck her repeatedly from all angles, she’d eventually fall to her knees from exhaustion. Then all they needed to do was pull her armor aside enough for their swords to enter her flesh. Naturally, at least one or two soldiers died for every Faerie they downed, and many more were wounded, but they so outnumbered the Faerie that their eventual victory was assured.

One by one, more Faerie chose to run instead of fight and fled northwards. Often with more than one warrior mounted on a single horse because many of the horses had fled riderless when Skinner had been throwing the fire at them.

“THERE HE IS!” Langly screamed excitedly, as a huge warrior burst out of a tent with a limp shrouded figure that *had* to be Alexin slung under one of her vast arms.

She threw Alexin over the withers of the single remaining horse, as carelessly as if he was a sac of provisions, swiftly mounted behind him and lashed the animal’s flanks so that it leaped into a gallop and fled out of the camp in the direction of the ward-gate.

“That’s the horse you need to bring down,” Frohike agreed. “There’s no other Faerie near to help the bitch. Bring her down, burn her ass and we can gallop over and grab Alexin.”

He turned to Skinner with a huge grin on his face. He couldn’t believe it had gone so smoothly or that rescuing Alexin was going to be so damned *easy*. The warrior was barely 500 yards from them and just two tiny fireballs would ensure Alexin was back with them and Skinner would be….

”Skinner?” he gasped, his expression horror-stricken.

Behind him, Skinner sat on his horse, pink-stained tears rolling down his face from raw, blood filled eyes. “It’s too late,” he said.

The black veins were no longer spidering over Skinner’s flesh. He no longer looked as though he was going to explode from the pressure of his burning blood. He just looked pale, exhausted and defeated.

“My magic’s gone,” he whispered. “And it seems that I’ve also gone blind.”

And, as Frohike, Langly and Salmon Spearer gasped with horror, the lone Faerie rider continued to gallop northwards with Alexin.

~~~

“Twenty-three dead, forty-two seriously wounded, and we lost nearly thirty horses,” Hawk Trapper complained, but his words were at odds with the gleam of triumph in his eyes.

He was as blood streaked and weary as the rest of the soldiers but, like them, he was filled with a burning sense of satisfaction. Fifteen Faerie lay dead in the remains of their camp, fourteen more had fled in terror and, according to Salmon Spearer, another thirty or so had earlier plunged to their deaths into a ravine created by Skinner’s magic.

There was no evidence of the latter, since the crevice had closed again to leave the ground unscarred, but the soldiers watching from the guardpost had confirmed the magical rift appearing in time to kill the Faerie coming out of the ward-gate and had also confirmed that it had mysteriously closed again, just in time to allow the fleeing Faerie to escape back to their own realm.

It had, on all appearances, closed at the moment when Skinner had lost his ability to perform magic, as though the stripping of his power had broken whatever spell had been holding the earth open.

“The Faerie reign of terror is over,” Hawk Trapper announced firmly. “We know now that they *can* be killed and, more importantly, *they* know that we have the knowledge.”

“What we *know*,” one of his soldiers complained, “is that they will come back in greater force to punish us for our actions today, and now we’ve lost Skinner’s magic to aid us.”

“Then we will meet them with even greater force,” Hawk Trapper retorted. “I’ll send riders to Emerald City to immediately purchase five dozen more horses so that we can strengthen our army once more.”

He conveniently ‘forgot’ to mention that the purchase of the horses was possible only because Skinner had gifted him with a fortune in the form of some exquisite Faerie jewelry before they’d even set off that morning.

Although he’d deferred to Skinner during the battle itself, accepting that the magic Skinner bore made him their natural leader during the conflict, he had every intention of wresting back full control of his city in the wake of their victory over the Faerie.

Despite mourning the loss of Skinner’s magic for the sake of his people, he was personally selfish enough to take pleasure in Skinner’s failure to retrieve the Faerie boy. Had Skinner returned to Crystal City with Alexin at his side, it would have been inevitable that the population should call for Skinner to be reinstated as Chieftain.

But, legend or no, Skinner wasn’t only stripped of his magic now but was *blind*.

To be honest, Skinner should be grateful that Hawk Trapper was generous enough to allow him to return to the city at all. A blind man was of no use to anyone. He was just a burden on his people.

A *rich* burden though, judging by the wealth of jewels he’d spied when Skinner had handed him two intricate necklaces earlier to quieten his protests that the city couldn’t afford to risk all of its horses in one insane charge up Scall Valley.

That’s why he was conspicuously solicitous of the stricken man, loudly declaring that a ‘guard of honor’ should escort Skinner and his companions back to Crystal City so that a medicant might treat Skinner’s strange injuries.

Hawk Trapper highly doubted anything could be done for Skinner. So many veins had burst inside his eyes that they were flooded scarlet, making Skinner look like a red eyed demon of legend.

A defeated demon though, grey skinned and shivering, shrunken on his horse in a posture of both exhaustion and grieving despair.

Although he knew himself unkind for his feelings of satisfaction at the outcome of the battle, Hawk Trapper was honest enough to acknowledge to himself that he *was* extremely pleased with how everything had worked out.

So pleased that he didn’t even care that his soldiers fought loudly over which of them should form the honor guard.

Let Skinner have his momentary status of ‘hero’. It mattered not. A blind man would swiftly fall from favor within the city and he, Hawk Trapper, would be the man that history would remember as the *true* hero as he led his people into even greater victory during the days and weeks to come.

~~~

The moment Ariana rode through the ward-gate, she yanked on her horse’s left rein and spurred it savagely in a north-westerly direction, rather than towards Sylvana’s castle.

She was so furious that she didn’t dare to stop and think about the unconscious boy slung face down over her horse’s withers. She knew if she did so, she’d probably slit his throat.

So instead she concentrated on the truly *urgent* matter.

She needed magic.

Never, in over two hundred and thirty years of life, had Ariana ever turned her back on an enemy and fled like a cringing cur. It mattered not to her that by the time she’d realized Alexin’s deception, it had been too late for her to do anything but flee or die. The camp had been filled with the monkey-beasts, the other Faerie had fled, and though she’d slaughtered five of the animals as she’d crossed from the tent to where a single horse had remained – because its rider had at least had the sense to tether it securely before she’d presumably been killed by the monkey-men - she’d been too hampered by the burden of Alexin under her left arm to make a stand.

She *had* briefly considered simply tossing the boy to the ground and leaving him to be slaughtered by the beasts, but common sense had prevailed. Alexin was still of use to her people as a barracks man and, anyway, she’d need *something* to pay for the boy she was now racing home to claim.

Normally, she took her free pick from the low-caste boys when she took a concubine and even the rare mothers who cared about their boy-children were usually so grateful at the idea of their son being taken by the queen rather than automatically becoming barracks men that no payment was required. Ariana had to get her magic from *somewhere* between marriages and so, while the of the castle guards were good for little more than a brief dalliance, they kept her filled with magic while she looked for a politically advantageous husband.

But she’d severed her bond with her last virgin concubine – by handing him over to her guard for their pleasure – before leaving Hallowfall and heading for Sylvana’s castle. She’d done so for three reasons. Firstly, although a concubine could be veiled and taken on a journey, a boy was always a hindrance. They inevitably wailed and moaned their discomfort for the entire trip and, if the magic had remained unbroken between them, Ariana wouldn’t have been able to leave the brat behind even if he *did* begin to drive her insane with his sniveling. Secondly, she’d been so sure of gaining Alexin’s magic that temporarily depriving herself of her power for a mere moon, while living in the safety of Sylvana’s castle, had seemed little hardship. Thirdly, one of her advisors had broken her neck during a hunt, widowing a particularly beautiful husband. Ariana had always been somewhat jealous of her advisor over the boy – he’d come of age while Ariana had still been married, so she’d been unable to claim him for herself at the time – and so she had decided to take the boy into her bed for a few nights before handing him over to the barracks. Since doing so would have broken her bond with her concubine anyway, she’d decided the timing was fortuitous.

Now, though, her only thought was to regain the magic, collect her troops, return to the land of the monkey-people and lay waste to them all in vengeance for the humiliation she’d suffered in being forced to flee.

And the only reasonably attractive virgin boy currently available for her taking was the fifteen year old son of one of Hallowfall’s cooks.

Like all low-class boys, he lived in one of the breeding pens beneath the barracks. Boys who were destined to be no more than barracks men required little care in their upbringing. All that was necessary was that they were kept carefully segregated in individual cells, fed, watered and kept cowed and docile by their trainers.

Most mothers cared little for their sons, save for the payment they received for bearing a boy-child in the first place, but Solyn, the mother of the boy Ariana now intended to take as concubine, was most peculiarly ‘fond’ of her child. Apparently she frequently visited him in his cell to feed him treats from the kitchen and even gift him with little fripperies. Solyn would, therefore, inevitably put her foot down about Ariana bedding him three years before he became a ‘man’.

Normally, Ariana would simply solve the problem by arranging for Solyn to have an ‘accident’. But the fact was that Solyn was a particularly excellent cook. Ariana would *miss* the delicate little fruit pastries that were Solyn’s specialty.

So the logical answer was to give Alexin to Solyn in exchange for the boy. Well, not *give* him, exactly, but agree that Solyn could have him to herself for at least a week before he entered the barracks properly. Alexin was so pretty that Ariana couldn’t see the cook refusing such a generous offer.

Besides, even if it weren’t for her need to acquire Solyn’s son, Ariana still had good reason to take Alexin to Hallowfall alive.

Breed him to enough of her guards and surely *one* of them would beget a boy-child.

Eighteen years wasn’t *that* long to wait for Alexin’s child to grow old enough for her bed.

Yet, despite all of her desperate reasoning and intricate plans as she galloped through the woods towards her own land, she was still filled with fury at the boy.

Not that he had let his magic be stolen, for how would a boy prevent such a thing? But that he had pretended to still be virgin to wrest an offer of marriage out of her mouth.

Ariana assumed he’d known no better. He wouldn’t have known that something precious had been stolen from him, since he would have been unaware he had magic at all, but still he’d dared to pretend virginity and that was unforgivable.

Naturally, Ariana assumed the thief of the boy’s magic had been the Captain she’d slain on her arrival in the camp. The rider who’d informed her of Alexin’s rescue had told her nothing of the monkey-man’s powers and she hadn’t realized that the crevice which had opened up to swallow so many of her troops had been an unnatural phenomena. It was strange, certainly, but not unheard of that the land should split apart because of fiery rumblings far beneath its surface.

She hadn’t questioned Alexin as to how his magic had been stolen. As soon as she’d realized that their bedding was devoid of the magic she so desperately needed – with a battle literally taking place outside of the tent – she’d struck the boy so hard that he’d been unconscious ever since.

She had no intention of questioning him. Her interest in him had been shattered completely. Without magic he was of no use to her personally. His only possible value was as a stud.

Though she saw no reason why she couldn’t enjoy him a little as she rode, if only to cheer herself up.

It was a long ride to Hallowfall.

She decided to entertain herself by easing her horse to an easy canter, breaking a switch off a tree she passed, and using it upon the boy’s buttocks until he woke up. It would, if nothing else, give her an outlet for her temper.

Several minutes later, she realized that she’d obviously punched him in the jaw even harder than she’d thought, because his buttocks were badly welted before he uttered his first cry of pain.

She *had* intended only to wake him so that she might harangue him for his deception. But his yelp of pain was so soothing to her fury that she instead decided it would be more satisfying to continue the beating.

After all, she doubted her guards would be concerned whether his buttocks were scarred or not. All they’d be interested in would be his member.

~~~

For three days after the battle, Skinner refused to speak.

He also refused to eat or drink.

He was, it seemed, determined to die.

Frohike and Langly were frantic. They begged, they pleaded, they yelled, they did everything they could think of to break through his despair. Yet even they could see no real reason for Skinner to pull himself together.

Crystal City’s chief medicant had carefully inspected Skinner’s eyes on the first day and had reluctantly pronounced the blindness to be permanent. All of the blood vessels in Skinner’s eyes had burst, and there was simply too much damage for any possibility of a cure.

“How can he live like this?” Langly asked, his voice choking with sorrow. “He’s lost everything, Frohike. It’s not just his sight or the fact he’ll spend the rest of his life dependant on others. That’s reason enough, perhaps, for a proud warrior to choose death as a preferable option. But he’s lost the magic. Even if a miracle were to happen and Alexin were somehow restored to him, they can never repair their bond. I...I’d want to die too, Fro. If...if... I lost you, I’d want to die, too.”

~~~

Riding south from Sylvana’s castle, Rhianna and her personal troops arrived at the ward-gate perhaps five minutes after Ariana had passed through it.

Unlike Ariana, Queen Rhianna reined her horse to a halt and carefully questioned the wounded, shell-shocked guards who had dismounted almost immediately after re-entering the Faerie realm and were now milling around in complete confusion, so shattered by their routing at the hands of mere ‘animals’ that they were barely capable of explaining what had happened.

It took Rhianna a good ten minutes to ascertain the unbelievable truth of the situation.

All the guards were staring at her with fearful eyes, certain she’d act as Sylvana would act in the same circumstances. In other words, call them liars and order their immediate execution.

Instead, Rhianna sighed with grief and shook her head sadly. “The poor, poor boy. It makes me shudder to think of the pain and terror he must have suffered.”

“Then...then you believe us, about the monkey-man taking his magic?” one of the guards mumbled.

Rhianna shrugged. “What other explanation is there? Though I cannot grasp how a male might mate with another, I see the evidence of such on your bloodied limbs. It would seem that Behaana’s curse *can* possibly be broken by a part-blood male.”

“No longer,” one of the guards said. “Queen Ariana bedded the boy, not knowing his virginity was gone, and so the beast has consequently lost the magic it stole.”

“Thank the gods,” another muttered. Though the legend of Behaana’s curse had been passed down orally, changing much in time as all such stories do, it was well enough known by the guards that they had come to the same conclusion as Rhianna. Perhaps even more easily than *any* queen could, since the guards were more prone to make judgments based on facts rather than their preferred vision of the world.

“And Ariana took the boy with her, despite knowing this?”

“I don’t think she does know the worst of it,” the first guard confessed. “We... um... didn’t tell her. We didn’t dare return the boy tainted, and we thought... well... we thought...”

“That Ariana wouldn’t say anything to Sylvana about the boy no longer being virgin?”

The guard nodded glumly.

“I can see she’d still want him as stud,” Rhianna agreed. “But I know her well. Her only real concern at this moment will be to restore her magic as swiftly as possible, so I fear for the boy’s safety in her hands.”

The guard blinked in amazement. “You care about the boy? Even though he’s of no use now to any but the women of the barracks?”

“Of course I do,” Rhianna replied, but her smile of assent wasn’t as pleasant as might have been expected considering her words. “I think, perhaps, the boy is of more *use* now than he ever could have been, had this not come to pass,” she continued, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “But Ariana’s too blind to see what’s right before her eyes.”

She abruptly made a decision, wheeled her horse around, kicked it into a gallop and led her troops in pursuit of Ariana.

She knew that what she was intending to do would put her at war with the other queendoms.

But it might, she suspected, ultimately save her people from a far more dangerous threat.

~~~

On the fourth day, when Frohike had so given up on ever getting a response from Skinner that he was barely paying attention as he pressed the cup of water against the larger man’s lips, Skinner unexpectedly opened his mouth and drank.

Then he further confounded the little Faerie by meekly accepting the broth which Frohike hurriedly summoned for him.

Skinner’s self-imposed starvation, on top of the strain to his body of using the magic while deprived of Alexin’s touch, had left him so physically weak that all he did for the remainder of that fourth day was sleep.

On the fifth day, Skinner still slept for most of the day but he woke up naturally on several occasions and obediently, if silently, drank and ate whatever was put to his mouth.

On the sixth day, Skinner woke early, ate a full breakfast and then announced, in a voice croaky from disuse, that he intended to return immediately to the Northern Territories.

Frohike was so shocked that he dropped the cup he was holding and it smashed into a dozen pieces.

“How can you ride when you’re blind?” Langly protested.

“I sit on my buttocks, not my eyes,” Skinner snarled. “I have no need of sight to stay on a horse.”

“But to know where you’re going...”

“If none will offer to accompany me,” Skinner retorted pointedly, “I have sufficient wealth to buy the services of a guide.”

“We’re not refusing to go with you,” Frohike protested. “We just fear for your safety, Skinner.”

“Your sanity, more like,” Langly huffed. “You sit there like a corpse for almost a week, and then suddenly announce you’re just ‘going home’? Is that it then? Was that all Alexin meant to you? Sex and power? You don’t care what terrible fate lies in store for him now because you’ve lost the ‘magic’, so you don’t give a damn about him anymore?”

Despite his blindness, Skinner still had the other keen senses of a hunter. His hand shot out and unerringly wrapped itself around Langly’s neck. Shaking the blond as though he was a rat, Skinner snarled, “I’m not giving up on Alexin. Say anything like that to me again, and I’ll crush your lying throat.”

“Then why are you going north?” Frohike demanded, grabbing Skinner’s arm and trying to shake his savage hold on Langly.

“It’s taken me a little time and a lot of thought, but I finally understand what I need to do,” Skinner replied, abruptly releasing the blond.

“You mean you were *thinking*?” Frohike blurted. “There we were, sure you were trying to kill yourself, worried out of our minds, and all you were doing was *thinking*?”

“The trees said I’m ‘The One’,” Skinner replied, ignoring Frohike’s burst of emotion.

“The one what?”

“I don’t know,” Skinner admitted with a shrug. “But it damned well isn’t ‘the one blind useless man who lost his lover and didn’t even try to get him back’, is it?”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Frohike snickered a little at the droll comment.

“You’re saying that this *can’t* be how the story ends, aren’t you?” Langly said, rubbing his throat fretfully but staring at Skinner with bright excitement.

“I need to find Behaana,” Skinner replied. “The trees said she’s my destiny. And if I have a ‘destiny’, then no, this isn’t the end of my story.”

“I hate to point this out,” Frohike muttered, “but if Behaana is a Faerie queen, she’s here in the Southern Territories, isn’t she? So what’s the damned use of us going to the Northern Territories?”

“Knowledge,” Skinner replied firmly. “There’s some legend I’m supposed to be a part of and, until I know what that legend is, I’m going to be running around in circles. Which may, admittedly, be the safest thing for a blind man to do.”

“How can you jest about such a thing?” Langly whispered.

“How can I not?” Skinner shrugged. “I have to believe that my lack of sight will be irrelevant in the end. If I don’t, I’ll give up. If I give up, Alexin will never be rescued. So, I have to believe that it’s unimportant whether I can see or not.”

“I still don’t understand why we’re going to the Northern Territories,” Frohike whined.

“Because the only way I’m going to find out about Behaana and the legend of ‘The One’ is from a cooperative Faerie. And I highly doubt I’ll find one this side of the ocean.”

“Gods,” Langly gasped. “You’re planning to enter the northern Faerie realm, in search of the banished males, aren’t you?”

“Who else can, or *will*, tell me what’s truly going on here?” Skinner answered. “They have the answers I need.”

“You don’t *know* that,” Frohike argued.

“I know,” Skinner replied firmly. “Inside of me, I *know* I have to ride north and cross the ocean. Don’t ask me to explain the feeling, Frohike. I can’t blame *this* gut feeling on Alexin’s magic. Yet, still I know that this is the thing I must do.”

Frohike swallowed heavily. He *too* felt a tug of compulsion deep within himself. An echo of the feeling he’d experienced in Stonekeep when he’d somehow known that he and Langly were *meant* to ride with Skinner and Alexin to Crystal City.

“I too share the feeling,” he admitted, in a near whisper. “I can explain it no more than you can, Skinner. Yet my magic tells me this is something we *should* do. Perhaps it is even the reason my magic told us to follow you in the first place. Because, somehow, I knew you would eventually need us to act as your eyes.”

“I thank you for that comment,” Skinner said. “Because if my blindness was predestined, then perhaps Alexin’s capture was also, in some inexplicable way, something that was meant to happen. Perhaps events have unfolded this way for a reason. Certainly, were I not blind, I would ignore my instinct to go north and instead would follow Alexin right now.”

“And simply die,” Frohike agreed. “This way, perhaps, a better option will show itself to us.”

“Even if we ride like demons and have a swift crossing over the ocean, it will take at least two weeks to reach the mountains of the Northern Territories,” Langly pointed out.

“Time is on our side,” Skinner replied quietly. “As the days pass here, minutes pass slowly in the Faerie realm. Surely nothing too grievous can happen to Alexin in such a short time.”

~~~

For eighteen years, less two short weeks, Alexin had lived a life in which pain had been almost unknown. Except for the breaking of his arm when he was five, and the pricking of his thumb on the day before his escape with Skinner, pain had been an abstract concept to the boy.

He’d thought he’d made a full acquaintance with pain during his time with Skinner.

The rapes, particularly the assault at the ward-gate, had taught him what pain truly felt like. His blisters, his aching limbs as he’d strained muscles unfamiliar with exercise, the feel of brambles catching in his hair, of being *dragged* by that hair, the feel of Skinner’s hands paddling his bottom until it was scarlet, all these things had, he’d believed, given him a full and thorough understanding of what it felt like to be in ‘pain’.

Yet he soon realized he’d been mistaken.

Nothing in his life, not even his short time with Skinner, had prepared him for the agony he woke to on Ariana’s horse.

He was dying, he decided. Or perhaps he simply *hoped* he was dying. Because the fire ripping through his buttocks with each savage strike of Ariana’s birch was beyond any bearing.

Had he been capable of reason at that moment, he might have found irony in his remembrance of looking at Skinner’s burned and welted body and believing him to be exaggerating his moans of distress because he ‘didn’t have any broken bones’.

Within seconds of his awakening, Alexin learned that to be whipped hard enough that his skin split under the assault was the *worst* pain he could possibly have imagined.

But he was unaware of the lesson he was learning, or the message that sent of how *truly* brave Skinner had been under torture, because all Alexin was capable of doing was screaming.

And even that was almost beyond his capabilities because he barely had time to gasp breath into his lungs before Ariana struck him again.

The only thought that Alexin was capable of was the surety that he was dying and the prayer that, if so, he would die quickly.

~~~

Hawk Trapper made no more than a token protest when informed of Skinner’s decision to return to the Northern Territories.

He was so pleased with the idea of the blind but still worryingly popular man leaving Crystal City that he offered a small escort guard to accompany them during their journey to the ocean. He also cheerfully provided supplies and a generous supply of furs to aid the travelers in the far colder conditions of the north.

Skinner was well aware of the reason for Hawk Trapper’s ‘generosity’ but cared little. He was realistic enough to know that his presence threatened Hawk Trapper’s authority with the citizens of Crystal City. While none would accept a blind man as their Chieftain, still they would look to him for a second opinion whenever Hawk Trapper made a decision they didn’t like.

No pack, whether human or animal, could have *two* leaders.

So he left the city quietly, some hours before dawn, on the sixth day after Alexin’s disappearance through the ward-gate.

He was accompanied by Langly and Frohike, the latter riding a new horse to replace the sorrel which had fallen in Scall, and five well armed soldiers who would ride with them only as far as the ship which would take them over the ocean.

It was both easier and harder to travel in a group of eight people.

Easier because they had little fear of being beset by wild animals. Harder because eight horsemen made a far more noticeable trail and, with the furious Faerie still likely to ride abroad in search of human victims, that necessitated them taking a slightly circuitous route to the northern coast.

Not that it would have been an *easy* journey under any circumstances.

To reach the coast, it was necessary to ride through the mountains in which the Faerie dwelt.

Although they were traveling through the human world rather than the Faerie realm, the fact that both worlds overlay each other in the mountains meant that the land was unstable in places. It was as though nature itself rebelled against the notion of two different realities existing in the same space.

On his original journey through the mountains after arriving from the Northern Territories, Skinner had assumed the frequent landslides, rockfalls and unpredictable fissures he’d encountered were natural phenomena. In the subsequent years, he’d come to understand that the places where the earth seemed most angry were where the barriers between the two worlds were faded and fragile.

It was disconcerting, to say the least, to know that he was crossing through Faerie land even as he rode through the human world. Since the Faerie realm existed in the same space as the human realm, with one world somehow superimposed upon on the other, his feet were simultaneously moving through *both* places. And yet he knew he existed in only one place or the other at any given time. Only a ward-gate enabled passage between the two realms, so he knew he had no fear of ‘falling’ into the Faerie realm by accident, yet it still felt most odd to know he was *on* Faerie land even if he wasn’t *in* it.

Several times he experienced the weird, uncomfortable, spine shivering sensation that indicated – according to Frohike – that he was briefly occupying the same space as a Faerie.

It occurred to him that he could even be sharing the same space as Alexin, though neither of them would be aware of the fact. Though that, admittedly, was highly improbable.

His other main concern was his blindness.

As much as he’d underplayed his reaction to his companions, the truth was that Skinner found it terrifying to be blind. Not only because of the bleak future that such physical incapacity promised him, but even on a minute by minute basis.

Every time his horse stumbled on the treacherous pathways of the mountain, Skinner’s heart leapt inside his chest with fear. Every time he heard the far-off howls of wolves or the low guttural growl of mountain bears disturbed by their presence, he was struck anew that he, who had always prided himself on his strength and courage, was basically incapable of defending himself against *any* danger.

That wasn’t the worst of it, though.

At night, when they camped, he was not only totally dependant on his companions to set a fire and cook his food but he also needed assistance when toileting. Frohike and Langly took turns to guide him out of the camp to a safe, suitable place to relieve himself. And, despite their deliberate air of nonchalance over the duty, Skinner loathed being so helpless.

But not once, during the week long journey to the coast, did he speak his fears or complaints aloud.

His seeming acceptance of his disability forced his companions to *also* come to terms with his blindness, even though it was the norm for any warrior so inflicted to quietly take his own life rather than become a ‘burden’ to his people. Had he complained or mourned his loss of sight, perhaps his companions would have begun to resent his condition and see his insistence to remain alive as evidence of cowardice.

But by accepting his blindness with dignity, he somehow managed to retain the respect of all.

As Alexin had proven, during their flight from the Faerie realm, when faced with something that couldn’t be changed, there was *bravery* in simply accepting the inevitable with quiet grace.

~~~

Although Ariana originally had over fifteen minutes headstart on Rhianna, she lost most of that advantage when she slowed her pace considerably to easier facilitate her enthusiastic beating of Alexin’s buttocks.

That wasn’t the only reason Rhianna swiftly caught up with her, though. Ariana’s horse was weary, tired not only by the crazed flight from the encampment but from rearing and plunging in terror against its tethers as Skinner’s fireballs had immolated the horses around it, and so even at full gallop it would have been no match for Rhianna’s far fresher mount.

And, of course, it was easy for Rhianna to track Ariana when all she had to do was listen to the pathetic sound of Alexin’s screams of pain.

Which was probably the only reason that Ariana’s savage beating of the boy didn’t prove to be fatal to him after all. In just fifteen minutes, she’d stripped almost all the flesh off his bottom and was showing no sign of any intention to stop her assault at the point she suddenly found herself surrounded by Rhianna’s troops.

Ariana reined her horse to such a savage halt that blood spurted from its mouth.

The only blood Rhianna noticed, however, was that which was streaming down the back of Alexin’s thighs from the raw wounds on his buttocks.

“You have a strange method of bedding a boy, sister,” Rhianna said dryly.

Ariana’s face contorted with fury. She considered Rhianna’s use of the term ‘sister’ as a grave insult, since it was used to denote equality of position, and the only queen powerful enough to claim ‘sisterhood’ with her was Sylvana. Still, she considered angrily, Rhianna had probably *intended* to insult her.

“Tell your guards to move out of my way,” she snarled.

Rhianna appeared to consider her words for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so, *sister*. I find I care little for the way you’re treating the Prince.”

Ariana startled, then glared at Rhianna in total disbelief. “You dare to interfere with how I handle my male?”

“If your idea of handling him is thus, then yes,” Rhianna agreed calmly.

“You waste your time if you think of stealing him for yourself, Rhianna. I’ve already bedded him. So stand down or feel my wrath,” Ariana screamed, raising her right arm as though to call a storm of lightning to her aid.

Rhianna chuckled contemptuously. “I already know his magic was stolen before you mounted him, sister. So exactly what *wrath* are you intending to show me?”

Ariana paled momentarily, but then her face suffused with anger once more. “Do not dream of setting yourself against me, Rhianna. My queendom is five times larger than yours. Do you really wish me to call war upon you?”

Rhianna shrugged. “I see no queendom *here*. I see only a lone magic-less queen surrounded by three dozen of my loyal guards. I suggest you amend your attitude accordingly.”

Ariana’s eyes blazed with fury. “You dare to...”

“I dare much,” Rhianna interrupted. “Choose wisely whether you wish to know *how* much.”

“For *this*?” Ariana snarled, gesturing at Alexin’s sobbing, blood streaked body. “A used boy, good for nothing but your barracks? You’re insane.”

“Perhaps I am,” Rhianna agreed easily.

Trembling with rage that, for a second time in one day, she was being forced to concede defeat, Ariana reached down, grabbed the back of Alexin’s left shoulder and wrenched him so violently that he was thrown off her horse, landing with a scream of agony as his badly beaten buttocks impacted with the ground.

“Take him,” Ariana snarled. “If you want him *that* much, the useless creature’s yours. Now move out of my way!”

Rhianna signaled two of her guards to dismount, grab Alexin and carry him to safety. Then she turned her attention back to Ariana, and the look in her eyes was pure steel.

“So that you might go, regain your magic and then raise an army against me in vengeance?” she purred. “I don’t think so, Ariana. I believe I will end that threat to my queendom here and now.”

Ariana paled considerably. Though she knew herself a match for Rhianna in a fair fight, there was no suggestion in the other queen’s face that ‘fair’ was part of her agenda. In fact, most of Rhianna’s guards were unsheathing their weapons, making it clear that Rhianna’s intent wasn’t a ‘challenge’ but simple murder.

“Kill me, and my people will take arms against you until every last person in your queendom has stained the earth with their blood,” she warned.

“You think so?” Rhianna laughed. “I would think that the Princess Luta will be so thrilled to finally gain your crown after over two hundred years of waiting, that she might even feel the desire to send me a gift of appreciation.”

“My daughter *will* avenge me,” Ariana snarled.

Rhianna shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. And, even if she does, she won’t attempt to do so for *at least* another year and, in probability, several years. By which time her temper will have faded considerably.”

Ariana’s mouth twisted with fury at the truth of Rhianna’s words. Luta had only recently wedded her third husband, a truly beautiful boy, and would neither wish to risk his life by taking him along with her to battle nor sever the magic between them until at least one boy-child was born of the union.

She saw her death in Rhianna’s eyes and so, with a bellow of rage, she pulled her sword from its scabbard and kicked her horse forward, intending to take Rhianna with her to her grave.

Rhianna didn’t even reach for her own blade. She simply back-reined her horse and allowed her guards to surround Ariana. She didn’t even wait to watch the fight, knowing that Ariana’s death was inevitable and caring little whether Ariana died well or not.

Instead she rode over to where one of her guards was carefully easing salve into the boy’s welts’ while a second guard poured a generous quantity of the pain dulling potion into Alexin’s mouth.

“Will he live?” she asked.

“He’ll live, and soon he’ll be free of most of his pain,” the second guard advised her, with a disgusted shake of her head at Alexin’s terrible injuries. “But I’m not sure how we can move him. His stomach is greatly bruised, from where he lay over the bitch’s horse, and his buttocks will inflame greatly if he sits upon a horse properly.”

“Pick him up and hand him to me,” Rhianna ordered. “He can travel on my lap, with his weight on his thighs so that his bottom receives no further injury.”

And so it was that less than an hour after crossing through the ward-gate, Alexin became the property of a second queen, while the corpse of the one who had treated him so cruelly was simply left to the animals of the forest.

“You imagine me kind,” Rhianna said, once the boy had been carefully lifted across her thighs and she had signaled her troops to move onwards back to her queendom. “You think I saved you from Ariana out of no more than pity for your plight.”

Alexin’s tear-filled eyes just blinked at her warily. Although the potion had stolen the agony from his buttocks, he was in a state of shock over both Ariana’s treatment of him and his unexpected rescue.

“I would that it were so,” Rhianna sighed, feeling an unfamiliar surge of protectiveness towards the boy. It wasn’t *fair* that he was so very pretty. And it wasn’t even just his beauty that confounded her, but the air of innocence he’d somehow retained despite the ordeals he’d suffered.

It was his enduring attractiveness, one that managed even to overcome her distaste at the idea his body had been used sexually by the monkey-man, which assured her that her decision to kill Ariana had been right.

“What know you of Behaana’s curse?” she asked.

Alexin’s wide green eyes flickered with faint recognition of the name, but it was obvious he was telling the truth when he whispered that he knew nothing of any ‘curse’.

So Rhianna found herself telling the boy the legend as they rode. It wasn’t that she imagined he’d understand the significance of her words. In part she spoke the tale to quieten him and take his mind off his injuries, since boys were easily distracted by stories.

“So Behaana was the Queen who led the defeated Faerie into exile?” Alexin queried cautiously, when she’d completed the tale.

“She was,” Rhianna agreed.

“So she’s long dead?”

“She must be. No queen has ever lived past three centuries,” Rhianna replied. “That’s why few actual details of the war are known. No written records survived, so tales of that time have been simply handed down by word of mouth. Even the legend itself is, I’m sure, much changed through the years of telling.”

Alexin chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. “And after her defeat, the borders of our land were sealed against her and her people?”

“So it is said. And then she swore vengeance, even if it took millennia for her to achieve, and cursed that one of her blood would eventually shatter the spell of banishment, return to our land and lay it to waste.”

“Then which part is the curse?” Alexin asked, frowning in confusion.

“What?”

“I’m sorry to be so stupid, but I don’t understand. Does the ‘curse’ refer to the banishment itself, or to the shattering of the spell? It seems to me that you have defined *both* as the curse. I’m very confused now.”

Rhianna blinked with astonishment. The boy was right, she realized. She had always, without really thinking about it, interchanged both the spell and its banishment as being Behaana’s *curse*.

“Perhaps the legend is changed more in the telling than I suspected,” she admitted. “For, in truth, I know not the answer to your question. I have heard both be named the curse in different stories, without ever giving the fact much thought. It probably simply depends on one’s point of view, doesn’t it?”

“Why *did* you save me?” Alexin blurted suddenly, as her words reminded him forcibly of his own precarious situation. Although her attitude to him seemed friendly enough, and her killing of Ariana suggested she had been horrified by the abuse he’d suffered, she’d clearly stated that she hadn’t rescued him out of any feeling of ‘pity’.

“Because you’re far more valuable alive than dead, and I knew Ariana well enough that without your magic to quell her excesses, you would have been lucky to survive a week in her hands. Though, I admit, I was surprised that she hurt you so badly so quickly, when she didn’t even know that it was the monkey-man who stole your magic.”

Alexin gasped in shock, his eyes widening with terror, and he stiffened on her lap as though expecting a blow.

“Relax, you silly child,” Rhianna snapped impatiently. “You’re a male. Only a fool like Ariana would imagine you had any choice over whether or not you were bedded. While I admit I feel quite nauseated by the idea, I don’t blame *you* for what happened.”

“Y...y...you d...don’t?” Alexin stammered, his face crumpling into tears of relief as, for the first time, he dared to believe that Rhianna truly wouldn’t harm him.

“Now tell me the truth, Alexin. Did you fall in love with the beast?”

Alexin’s mouth dropped open in horror and he cringed once more.

“Don’t imagine my patience endless, child. I would have an answer. A *truthful* answer.”

Alexin began to sob with fear, shrinking in Rhianna’s arms as though certain now that his ‘rescue’ had been no more than a cruel trick and, any moment soon, Rhianna was going to continue the beating she’d interrupted.

Rhianna rolled her eyes impatiently. “Well, I suppose that’s answer enough,” she snapped. “I suspected as much. The beast managed to steal your power so it was safe to assume you were caught in the thrall of your own magic. The important question, I suppose, is whether the creature fell in love with you. Did it?”

Although he was struggling to breathe for the tears pouring down his face, Rhianna’s surprising acceptance of his love for Skinner gave Alexin the courage to mumble, “Yes.”

“I’m not talking about lust, child. I’m asking whether it *loved* you. Do you understand the difference?”

“Yes,” Alexin sniffled. “Skinner loved me.”

“How do you know?” Rhianna demanded, not querying the boy’s honesty, but because she was uncertain whether a male truly had the wit to know the difference between lust and love.

“B...b...b...be...because...because he was...was...was...kind to me,” Alexin stammered, before bursting into such a hysterical bout of tears that further conversation was impossible for several minutes.

Rhianna suppressed her feelings of impatience and allowed the boy to cry himself out. Truth be told, she was impressed that Alexin had managed to hold a coherent conversation at all. After his experiences with the monkey-man and Ariana, Alexin *should* have been a quivering wreck, incapable of speaking at all.

The innocent child she’d known previously *would* have been a wreck.

Alexin had changed.

He hadn’t lost his sweetness, but he *had* lost his aura of childish helplessness. It seemed that all that had happened to him had strengthened him.

Another Faerie female would have found that idea horrifying. Rhianna merely found it intriguing that a male could learn bravery without becoming at all womanly in appearance or behavior. The way Alexin was weeping in her arms was pure ‘boy’, and yet a *true* boyish response should have been a faint followed by a nervous breakdown.

Yet from the moment she’d heard of the monkey-man’s ability to use Alexin’s magic, Rhianna had ceased to care overmuch about the boy’s reactions to what had happened to him except in that Alexin’s surprising resilience made it far easier for her to obtain the information she needed.

She waited until Alexin’s sobs faded to hitching breaths, then asked, “How is it that this ‘Skinner’ has abilities that no woman has ever wielded?”

Had he been a human boy, Alexin would probably have pretended ignorance. But Alexin had *never* lied to a female. The closest he’d ever come to deception had been his failure to tell Ariana that he wasn’t a virgin, and even then he would have crumbled if she’d asked him the right question directly. So he replied automatically.

“Skinner said it’s because all magic belongs to the males and a female can access only a small portion of male magic, but another male can access all of it. He said... he said that the great war wasn’t a fight between the queendoms, but a battle between male and female Faerie. He said the Faerie banished were all male, and that’s why there’s so little magic left in the land.”

Rhianna hissed low in her throat, but she spared the boy a deliberate smile lest her fury should frighten him and stay the flow of words from his mouth.

“Tell me more, child. Tell me all about this beloved Skinner of yours, and his words of wisdom about the Faerie.”

Alexin blinked uncertainly at her for a moment, but saw nothing in her face except polite interest.

“What if what I say makes you mad with me?” he asked, his chin trembling and his eyes lowered in misery.

“How could I be ‘mad’ with such an exquisitely beautiful child as you?” Rhianna replied.

“You...you think me beautiful still?” Alexin asked tremulously. “Even though I love Skinner?”

Rhianna forced herself to smile gently. “Of course, I do.”

And, as she’d suspected, Alexin proved himself *all* boy by preening happily and proceeding to tell her everything that had happened since he’d fled the castle.

The tale was grimmer than she’d expected, and yet confirmed all she’d suspected. Either Skinner was ‘The One’ or he was, at the very least, proof that ‘The One’ *would* come to fulfill the prophecy.

Even if Skinner had been stripped of his magic, his existence proved that *any* similarly blooded human male could do exactly the same as he had done. Perhaps a whole *army* of part-blood human males might one day descend upon their land and use their powerful magic to defeat the Faerie females.

Yet Rhianna’s gut told her it was Skinner whom the legends had spoken of.

It didn’t even matter that he’d been stripped of Alexin’s magic because all ‘The One’ had to do to restore his power was to somehow kidnap *another* Faerie male to take Alexin’s place.

Skinner wouldn’t need Alexin any more.

But he’d *still* want him back.

No *queen* would allow her husband to be taken hostage without going to war to rescue him. It mattered not that she wouldn’t want him back in her bed. The point was that honor alone demanded the kidnapped husband’s retrieval or death. Perhaps Skinner was male, but Rhianna felt in her gut that his actions were likely to echo those of a queen.

If Skinner merely considered the boy his ‘property’, he would rather see the boy dead than in someone else’s possession. But if he *loved* the boy, Skinner would want to retrieve Alexin alive and that would afford a certain amount of protection to whoever held the boy.

If Skinner truly *was* ‘The One’, destined to be Behaana’s Sword of Vengeance who according to legend could raze a city with a single word, then the only queen that had a chance of surviving the coming conflict was the one who held Alexin within her castle walls.

“Although you’re only a male, I am going to talk to you now as though you were female,” Rhianna said. “I’ll make this as simple as I can, for I understand that true reason is beyond you, but I suspect you have far more intelligence than the average male, so I think you’ll follow my words.

“Although I have the right to do with you as I will, for an unwed male *has* no rights in our land, I would rather have your willing cooperation than your fearful obedience to me. I would *prefer* no one to ever be able to accuse me of holding you against your will. I have a strange feeling that a time will come when it may be crucial that I can say that in truth.

“So, I’m going to make you two offers, Alexin. And whichever you agree to will be a solemn and binding pact between us. I will tell you the terms I offer and you will say which option you choose, but I will not make any compromise on either.

“Your first choice is to return to my land simply as a hostage against this Skinner of yours. I will take every action to defeat him, should he somehow enter my queendom in force, using you as my bargaining chip against him. I will do to you anything that must be done to stay his hand, even to sending him pieces of you, bit by bit, until he retreats. But, at the end, should he seem likely to defeat my armies, then I will slit your throat myself rather than allow him the satisfaction of retrieving you.

“While you are my hostage, however, I swear that none shall touch you. You will be safe from my females and will live a life of ease and luxury. Should your Skinner never come to rescue you, you will live out your days in comfort and safety.

“Your second choice is harder. You will agree to return with me and willingly bed any and all females of my choice until your seed is spread so widely throughout my queendom that almost every child of the next generation will bear your looks. If you do this, and your Skinner then comes for you, I will release you immediately into his care without protest.”

“Why?” Alexin said, his eyes stark with horror.

“Because one who loves you, as you say you are loved, will not raze a queendom filled with your offspring. He will not slaughter women who bear your children in their wombs. He will not kill the mothers of your children. If Skinner truly is ‘The One’, if the queendoms are to fall as the legend says, then at least *my* queendom will be safe.

“The question, Alexin, is whether you truly believe Skinner will come for you. Whether you *truly* believe he loves you enough. If you do, then you will take the second choice because, no matter what you suffer in the short term, you will eventually be reunited with your beloved.

“But if you *don’t* believe Skinner loves you enough, I’d suggest you accept the first choice.”

“Why give me a choice at all?” Alexin demanded sulkily. “Why not just *make* me lie with your females? It’s not like I could stop them from stealing my seed.”

“Because the children of rape are less likely to inspire Skinner’s sympathy than children born from consensual bedding,” Rhianna replied bluntly.

“It’s rape either way. Whether I’m defeated by force or by blackmail. If I have no choice, then it’s rape,” Alexin replied.

“You have a choice,” Rhianna reminded him. “It’s simply not a choice that you like.”

Tears brimmed in Alexin’s eyes and his lower lip quivered. “I once...once thought you kind,” he whispered. “I once thought that I would...would choose *you* as my wife. Now...now I see why boys aren’t given a choice of who we marry. Because we’re fools. Because we dream of seeing kindness when in truth we see only a different form of cruelty.”

Rhianna flinched, sorrowed beyond words that everything could have been so different if not for Sylvana’s treachery. She would have treasured Alexin as her husband. She would have sheltered him forever from the harsh realities of the world.

But it was too late now.

Her duty was to her people.

“Make your choice, Alexin. Decide whether *you* believe Skinner is ‘The One’.”

Alexin was silent for a long time, and when he did speak his voice was brittle with grief.

“You ask me to choose whether I believe Skinner will attempt to save me. Yet if I choose to believe he will not and so keep myself chaste as he would wish me to, I will never see him again even if he comes to your castle with an army to free me. But if I choose to believe he *will* come, I must willingly lie with others, like a sluttish barracks man, and when he learns of my unfaithfulness, he will no longer want me. You will hand me back to him so soiled and shamed that he will turn away from me in disgust.”

Rhianna blinked in amazement at the boy’s ability to reason so well. She hadn’t expected him to find the lie she’d buried so carefully within her truths. She’d laid out the two choices in surety that he’d pick the second, simply in the hope of being eventually reunited with his lover. It had never occurred to her that a boy would be capable of seeing through her deliberate deception and realizing that *no* lover would forgive such unfaithfulness as she was asking Alexin to agree to.

“Your choice,” she prompted again, though she was certain now that he’d take the option of being merely her hostage.

Alexin thought carefully.

“I will lie with your females,” he said firmly, though his eyes were dark wounds of dread.

“Why?” Rhianna demanded, too confused to feel any sense of victory.

“Because even if all I see in his eyes is hatred of what I’ve become, even if he spits in my face and calls me slut, at least that way I *will* see him once more,” Alexin replied simply. “At least I’ll have a chance to say goodbye.”


 

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