The prince’s skin glowed then, almost as if happiness was bleeding from him. He gave me a slight nod. “Thank you. Very few leaders offer to help. My father made the right decision in trusting you. The Winter Court believes the only way to survive this imbalance is to destroy all shifters. Then they’ll return to Earth and reclaim the mecca. My father believes you can fix it, that you can send the mecca back to the fae lands and restore the balance. If the mecca is returned, we’ll gain much-needed strength to not only retrieve our object of power, but push back against the Winter Court. We have more numbers than them; the Spring Court is on our side, and they are numerous. We need the power back though.”
Well, great. “Okay, and do you know exactly how I am supposed to do this?”
Of course, give me another impossible task when I already have ten to get through this week.
He nodded. “You’re the queen of mecca now. You have the full force of the Earth side power at your disposal.”
“I don’t understand what happened, what my late queen did in the first place to offset the balance. To be honest, I was raised without any knowledge of the fae or your world, so the chance that I can somehow send the mecca back there is very slim.”
“Slim?” He looked confused.
I tried not to groan in frustration. I needed to brush up on my Shakespeare.
“Not happening,” Violet clarified. “Difficult. Impossible. A true pain in the butt.”
The prince frowned. “Oh, right.”
Some of his glow dulled. I had to offer some hope. I needed them to keep fighting the Winter Court until we figured this out, because he had just all but told me that if I didn’t fix it, his kind was going to make my kind go extinct.
“I know an expert in the mecca and I’m training with him. So I’ll do everything in my power to find a way to fix this. I make no promises, but if there is a way, I’ll figure it out.”
It was the right thing to say, because his eyes softened and his posture relaxed. “How much time do I have?” I asked him.
Please don’t say a week or something crazy like that.
“If I can get the Sword of Light back from the Winter Court, it could buy us a few weeks.”
“A few weeks!” I said loudly, losing all queenly composure.
He put out a hand to calm me. “In fae time. That would be … one or two seasons here.”
One or two season. So three to six months. Okay, I could deal with that timeline. Right? Violet must have noticed my panic, because she stepped in to finish the conversation.
“How can we contact you to see how things are progressing?” she asked him.
Prince Caspien looked at Violet, his brow furrowed. “You’re a magic wielder.”
Violet let out a frustrated wolfy growl. “We’re not taught your ways or your magic.”
This was the exact reason I was going to open up that locked room of fae magical books. We would know everything by the time my reign as queen was done.
Prince Caspien reached out and gently caressed a nearby flower. “When you’re lost, always look to nature. You’ll find you can communicate with us through the plants and other things of this kind. It’s the reason we can cross in bodies of water. Nature joins our two lands.” In a flash, he plucked two of the bright purple flowers, bringing them close to his face. Then he pulled out one of his hairs, laying it inside of one of the flowers, before handing it to Violet.
Her face lit up. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
She reached for one of my hairs, but must have decided it wasn’t completely safe to link me to the Otherworld, and pulled out one of hers instead. Laying the hair inside of the other flower, she held both in her closed palms. Then she pressed her lips to her hands, spoke an incantation, and her palms glowed purple for a few moments.
The prince watched her closely. “You’re powerful,” he said. “Most fae have some mecca affinity, but for the more complex spells we use specialized and highly trained magic wielders. Lucian, the palace magic wielder, could not have linked those flowers so quickly.”
Violet shrugged off his compliment and handed him the flower that once held her hair. He nodded and placed it in his pocket. I was immediately reminded of the flower in the Red Queen’s trinket box. It had to be the same thing, a communication device. But for who? Who had the queen needed to communicate with in the Otherworld? I wondered if there was a spell Violet could do to trace the link.
Prince Caspien faced me and I was blasted with the full force of his beauty, and that subtle glow which seemed to dim and brighten on and off.
“We are well met, Your Majesty,” he said formally. “If a war begins, you have an ally in the Summer Court.”
“Yes, we are well met,” I offered back, unsure of the protocol. I had so many more questions, but he seemed to be in a rush to go. As if he read my thoughts, he gestured behind me.
“If I spend too long in this realm, my people weaken further. In my world, royalty are linked to our people. We feed them in a sense, with power, magic. If my father, brothers, or I leave, the court weakens. With the mecca already fading, it’s best I return quickly.”
“Yes, of course. It’s the same here with the queen and her shifters. I’m sorry that your people are suffering, but I will fix this,” I declared boldly, catching a raised eyebrow from Violet.
The green deepened in Caspien’s eyes. “I believe you. The moment you were crowned, the sky lit up in my lands like it was mid-summer.”