Page 52 of Awakening the Dark Throne
Only a few touched down at a time, allowing the dark alfar to board them before taking off into the sky. Their beautiful scales shimmered in the sunlight as their massive wings pushed them powerfully off the ground. Erendrial was the last to mount his exquisite ragamor. He nodded to the royals one last time before he took flight, shooting up so fast it knocked a few of the light alfar to the ground. The alfar and humans alike watched in awe of the creatures.
The enemy was gone, yet somehow, I felt more alone than I had experienced since arriving to court. I made my way back into the castle before the crowd, finding busy work to occupy myself with until I had to return to Gaelin’s room. He was up, standing at the railing of the balcony, looking at the kingdom. I joined him, taking in the beautiful landscape.
“I think we deserve a bit of a distraction, don’t you?” he said without looking at me.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
He took my hand and headed out of the room. Everyone gawked at us as we passed by, heading through the halls still hand in hand.
“Gaelin, you’ll get in trouble.”
“If I am to be their king, then they will have to get used to the sight of us together,” he said, smiling back at me.
I returned the smile, following him down to the stables. He mounted a horse and offered his hand to me, pulling me up behind him. We took off, leaving the court, the politics, and the laws behind us.
I held onto his waist tightly as the horse ran at full speed. We rode for a long while before Gaelin finally stopped at a natural spring that fed into a massive lake. He dismounted and reached for my waist. I slid gently down beside him, as he kept his arm wrapped around me. We stood for a moment, looking at the crystal-clear water. You could see straight through to the bottom of the lake.
I smiled, taking in the beauty of the fae world. We didn’t have anything like this back home. All our bodies of water were dark and murky. I was even hesitant to eat the fish that was caught from our lakes. This was like something out of a dream. I felt his fingers brush a piece of loose hair from my face.
“Do you like it?” he asked, peering down at me with a smile.
“It’s magnificent.”
He slowly took my headband off, revealing my ears. I went to cover them with my hands, but he stopped me. “It’s just you and me here. You can be yourself,” he said softly.
I smiled up at him, running my hand along his arm. He sat on the grassy hill, pulling me down to lean against him between his legs. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in closer to his body as we watched the water ripple. “Watch closely,” he whispered.
I sat back, eagerly waiting for something to happen. As moments passed, I watched as the water began to rise in the middle of the lake. Horses burst through the surface, galloping across in a herd. Made entirely of water, the majestic creatures slid over the lake as if they were skating. The sunlight bounced around their translucent bodies, creating rainbows that danced across the surface.
“Come on,” Gaelin said, taking me by the hand, leading me to the edge of the water. He held out his hand toward the water horses, making ticking noises with his tongue. One of them looked at us and slowly trotted over to him. The horse allowed Gaelin to touch its snout. “Go on, touch him,” he said to me.
I held out my hand cautiously, allowing the creature to make the first move. It looked identical to a real horse. Its mane feathered around its strong shoulders. Even the small hairs around its mouth and on its eyelashes were visible, but the creature was completely made of water. It walked towards me, moving its jaw from side to side as it chewed on something.
The skin of the water horse was cold and smooth like velvet. I touched the side of its mouth, feeling its strong jaw rotating under the skin. I looked into its watery blue eyes, searching for a soul. It knocked my face with its nose, snorting a powerful burst of water toward me before turning to walk away. I laughed, now completely drenched from the creature’s affection. Gaelin smiled, moving my wet hair from my face.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Kelpie. They’re water spirits bound to the lakes and rivers of this land. They are shapeshifters but tend to favor the horse form.”
“I’ve heard of them, but our legends say that they draw people to the lake and then drown them.”
He laughed. “Humans think everything out here is dangerous, don’t they?”
“Can you blame them?”
“Kelpie can take the physical form of a human, but their hooves usually remain visible. They’ve always been gentle creatures, but I’ve never angered one, so I don’t know what they’d do to retaliate if someone harmed them.”
We sat down next to each other by the edge of the water. “So did you need a break from court?” I asked.
He nodded, looking over the water. “I was groomed to be king from a young age, but I never wanted it. I thought that King Lysanthier would find a better candidate for his daughter, but here I am, months away from marrying a female I can’t stand the sight of.”
“She’s beautiful. Any man would be lucky to call her his wife,” I said.
“Beauty doesn’t mean the same here as it does in The Frey. All alfar are beautiful. We are vain in the worst possible ways. Outward beauty means very little when it comes to being physically attracted to someone,” he explained.
“If the alfar are so vain, why do they lay with humans? We are so flawed and frankly ugly in comparison.”
He laughed, shaking his head as he glanced at me sideways. “You are not ugly, nor flawed. Besides the physical enjoyment human bodies offer us, I think we take some sense of joy in what humans get to experience in their lives. We live for so long that things like love, happiness, satisfaction, even complacency tends to mean little. A human life is brief, but in that time, they experience all of these intense emotions and feelings. In the span of sixty years, they fall in and out of love. They experience sorrow, pain, yet still find a way to see the joy and happiness in life. They bear children, raise those children, and become grandparents. In a way, I think we envy the simplicity of their lives.”
