The Ascension Page 3

  “Ah,

  sweet serendipity,” she said in a melodious voice that seemed to Sparks like someone pouring sunlight straight into his ears. “At last, I have found you.”

  “Do I know you?” Sparks asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “No, but I know you, my darling. I would know you anywhere. You are my son.”

  Chapter 3

  Pinned to the tree as she was, Gem could barely have the fortitude to deal with the pain of the arrow in her shoulder. The look on Sparks’ face was almost worse, though. Gem wanted to go to him so badly then. An acute stab of pain as she tried to move reminded her of why she couldn’t. Trapped as she was, Gem simply had to abide as the strange woman kept talking.

  “You are my son,” she repeated. “And since I am the Summer Queen, you are the Summer Prince of the Fairy Courts.”

  “I think you must be mistaken,” Sparks replied. “I mean, do I look al miniature and sparkly?

  I certainly don’t have wings.”

  Gem heard the certainty there. The woman claiming to be Sparks’ mother stepped back.

  “Do you think that is what we are?” She nodded at the waiting men, al of whom were tal and muscular, looking more like the other members of one of Sparks’ footbal team than the classic images of fairies. “What our kind looks like should be manifest, my son.”

  Sparks started shaking his head.

  “I don’t know what you are.”

  “They… they might be fairies,” Gem managed, gritting her teeth to ignore the pain. It seemed to permeate through al of her now. “I think the smal , winged thing is…something people made up for children. I remember hearing old stories about them being tal and beautiful.”

  They were certainly that. The fairy woman looked over to her with a surprisingly benevolent smile.

  “Your… friend is correct. Mortals have sought to portray us as less than we are because they fear us. They wanted to think of sweet, pretty nothings, not creatures who could enthrall and destroy them.

  Not creatures to fear and love.”

  Sparks kept shaking his head. Gem found herself torn between pity for the pain he had to be feeling and the hope that he would simply lie to the Summer Queen soon, and say that he believed her, since it didn’t look like she was being unpinned from the tree until Sparks did. Besides, Gem couldn’t deny the resemblance between them. Sparks, it seemed, could.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m one of you,” he said. “I know who my parents are.”

  “I thought I did,” Gem pointed out. Sparks winced.

  “It’s not the same. I don’t even look like them.” Actual y, if the only requirements were to be tal and good-looking, Gem was pretty sure that Sparks met them. Stil , he had a point. He had none of the ethereal beauty of the surrounding figures, just the ordinary good looks of the high school quarterback that he was.

  The fairy woman shook her head in apparent irritation.

  “This,” she waved a disparaging hand at Sparks’ appearance, “is a glamour, a pretense designed to fool humans. Can you not see what you are? Our kind should see through this easily. Stil , perhaps it is because you have lived so long this way. Here, you can be your true self. Expunging this il usory self wil not take much.” She waved a hand casual y, as though she felt that using grandiose gestures to work magic was beneath her.

  It was like someone had lit a torch within Sparks, so that he shone, radiating beauty almost literal y. And it was beauty. The changes, as they were, were tiny, but somehow they transformed him from merely handsome to nearly the epitome of good looks. It was the sort of beauty that made even Gem, who liked to think that she saw beyond that sort of thing, want to weep with joy at seeing it. Or that could have been the continued pain from the arrow. She wasn’t entirely sure.

  Sparks seemed to be in his own pain, but Gem suspected that it was a pain that had little to do with anything physical. In fact, he pul ed free of the arrows holding him as easily as if they had been simply drawing pins, standing clear of the tree as he stared first at himself, then at the Summer Queen, who stood there with an expression Gem couldn’t fathom for a moment.

  Final y, it came to Gem. She was afraid. Al that power, and the Summer Queen stil couldn’t know how Sparks would react.

  Even Sparks didn’t seem to know. He stood there, nearly frozen, apparently unable to decide what to do next. The Summer Queen took a step forward, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, and Gem thought better of her for doing it.

  “Go to your friends,” she said. “Help them.

  There wil be time to talk, time to understand, later.

  For now, there are wounds to see to before they become grievous.”

  Sparks nodded dul y, then looked over to where Gem and Rio were pinned. The sight seemed to spur him to action, because he hurried over to Gem, a look of pure concern creasing his features.

  “Gem…”

  He looked at the arrow sticking from her shoulder.

  “We have to get this out.”

  “I know.”

  Gem also knew the part that he wasn’t saying, which was that it would hurt a lot. It wasn’t like there were any anesthetics nearby. Worse, with no antiseptics, there was every chance of the wound getting infected if they didn’t manage to keep it clean.

  “Just make it quick,” she said, and tried to brace herself for the pain. It was worse than Gem could have imagined. She screamed with it as the wood and metal of the arrow tore from her flesh, then nearly col apsed with the pain. Sparks caught her, holding her close to him.

  Something happened then. For no reason that Gem could see, Sparks placed his hands to the wound in her shoulder. Light, bril iant as the sun, seemed to pour from him, into the hole punched by the arrow. The pain vanished, replaced by a sensuous rush of pleasure that verged on the ecstatic. It felt like the best kiss Gem had ever experienced, mixed in with something deeper, a connection that she couldn’t describe even as she felt the blood around the injury coagulate and the flesh close up over it.

  The light stopped flowing from Sparks, and the two of them stood there, holding on to each other, looking into one another’s eyes. The green of Sparks’ eyes seemed to glow with an inner light, as though the iris were a planet blocking out some distant star. Amid it al , Gem could see the mixture of joy at saving her, uncertainty at al that was happening to him, and contentment to be so close to her. Gem wondered what Sparks would see of her in that moment of empathy. It was somehow more intimate just standing there than any of the few chaste kisses they had shared before.

  “I… am, aren’t I? The Summer Prince. Her son. Al of it.” Sparks breathed it, barely above a whisper. Gem nodded, putting a hand to his face.

  “It wil be al right,” she promised. “Now, go and help Rio.”

  To his credit, Sparks did turn towards the other boy to help him, but he hesitated.

  “Um… Gem, that was pretty… let’s just say that it’s not real y the sort of moment I want to share with Rio.”

  He said it louder than the rest. Obviously loud enough for Rio to hear, because the other boy made a face.

  “I’m not exactly elated either, farm boy. Just pul me off of this stupid tree.”

  The Summer Queen managed to solve some of the awkwardness of the moment, moving forward graceful y to help Rio. She pul ed the arrow from him with a speed that barely gave Rio time to bite down and stop himself from crying out, then put those delicate hands over the wound in his leg. It closed up seamlessly.

  “Brave,” she commented with a gentle smile that made Rio look away. “Now come, al of you. Join me in my home. In your home,” she added, looking at Sparks.

  There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but fol ow, and Gem fel in with the rest of the group, doing her best to stay close to Sparks. Rio loped alongside them, while the fairy warriors and the goat-legged men – satyrs, Gem guessed, walked along in a rough bunch. They didn’t have to walk like that for long. After ten minutes, perhaps less, the
trees gave way to meadow, and then to a lawn as careful y maintained as any Gem had seen.

  Not that she was looking at it by that point.

  Instead, her gaze was focused firmly forward, on the palace that stood in the center of the garden like a glittering prize. “Glittering” was certainly the right word for it. The wal s shone golden in the sunlight, word for it. The wal s shone golden in the sunlight, while half of the windows seemed to be mirrored.

  P ri sms refracted light into rainbows around the eaves, while fountains built on a gratuitously large scale lined the approach to the main doors.

  “Wel , this is certainly more impressive than my castle,” Gem muttered. “We’l have to renovate once I get back.”

  The Summer Queen let out a delicate laugh at that, but beside Gem, Sparks was silent.

  “What’s wrong?” Gem asked. “Or is that a stupid question?”

  “It’s just so much at once,” the boy said. “It’s al so strange.”

  As if to punctuate the point, a trio of watery figures leapt from one fountain to another.

  “Nixies,” The Summer Queen supplied. More figures stepped briefly from the house, managing to look, if anything, even more beautiful than the others.

  “Nymphs.”

  The Summer Queen turned to Sparks. “I know this must be difficult for you, my son.” Sparks was silent for a moment, but then nodded, Gem slipped her hand into his.

  “It’s… like this means that my life, everything back on the ranch, was a lie. None of it was real.” The Summer Queen shook her head.

  “It was real. It could stil be real. But it is the life of a human, and you are not. I know that there is pain now, but time wil salve it, and then you wil be able to see this as your true destiny. You wil be the Summer King in time, and wil choose a Summer Queen to rule beside you.”

  Gem caught the smal glance Sparks gave her as the Summer Queen said that. The fairy woman smiled, and there was a wistful edge to it.

  “Just be sure to choose wisely, because she may end up ruling longer than you, as I have done with m y king. Stil , for now, you don’t have to worry about that. You only have your duties as the Summer Prince to worry about.”

  “What sort of duties?” Sparks asked. The Summer Queen’s expression turned serious for a moment.

  “The main one is to fight against the encroachments of the Winter Court. They would make the whole world a thing of ice if they could.

  Fight their minions where you find them. Beyond that, Fight their minions where you find them. Beyond that, try to raise the spirits of our people where you can.

  The fight has been hard, and Winter has gained ground, recently.”

  “Is that al of it?” Gem asked. “Only, we’re supposed to be looking for someone…”

  The Summer Queen turned that bril iant smile on her.

  “Oh, don’t worry, girl. There is some pleasure in his duties. After al , he must seek out the one to be his Queen.”

  She clapped her hands.

  “Now, before the mood turns maudlin, let us celebrate. My son is returned to me, and I plan to rejoice in that fact. Dancing! There must be dancing at once!”

  Gem watched her whirl off to give a flurry of orders. Sparks leaned in close to Gem.

  “So, now what?”

  “You heard her,” Gem replied. “We dance.”

  Chapter 4

  A party thrown by mythical creatures should have been an ebullient occasion. Certainly, the last few hours had seen plenty of activity, with dancing, singing, feasting and games. For Rio though, tucked away in a corner of the Summer Queen’s feasting hal beside a pair of tables that seemed to have been grown whole from living trees, it was proving to be anything but joyous. As inhumanly beautiful figures danced and whirled to a seemingly incessant stream of music from a quartet of musicians in one corner, Rio found himself just picking at the nuts and summer fruits that formed most of the food there.

  It wasn’t the dance itself that was the problem.

  Although Rio abstained from the gavottes and gal iards, waltzes and stranger dances, he had to admit that the sight of the fairy folk joining them was a beautiful one. Nor was the rest of the hospitality the issue. Rio found glasses of summer juice that looked like liquid gold and tasted like sunlight pressed into his hands, while the feast would have been a gourmand’s delight in other circumstances. Rio was no glutton, but normal y he would have enjoyed the contents of the elegant silver plates with relish.

  It was hard to do that, though, when Rio had to watch Gem spinning across the floor in Sparks’

  arms, under the eyes of the Summer Queen and laughing delightedly at what was probably some inane joke on the quarterback’s part. Why did Gem like him so much better than Rio? Ok, so it turned out that Sparks was some sort of fairy prince, heir to t h e sovereign of a kingdom and possessed of iridescent beauty. So what?

  Rio drank more of the juice and he sat and ruminated on the basic unfairness of it al . It looked like Sparks might get Gem too, while Rio… al he’d had in the past few weeks were sudden rushes of anger, far more body hair than he knew what to do with, and the feeling that he no longer had control over his own body. It had been so embarrassing that he hadn’t dared mention it to the others, before.

  Rio tried to distract himself with the fairy juice.

  A solicitous fairy, apparently concerned that it might not be suitable for a human, had warned him that the stuff was strong, but so far, Rio didn’t think it was having any real effect on him. He went to put the glass back on the nearest table, missed, and settled for putting it on the floor instead.

  “Would you like to dance?”

  One of the fairy folk had approached while Rio was watching Gem and Sparks cross the floor in a tight embrace. She was as beautiful as al their kind, blonde-haired and delicately featured, with a gauzy dress that seemed to float around her like gossamer strands of cobweb caught by the wind.

  “I’m not real y interested, thanks.”

  “Oh,” the fairy woman made a disappointed face. “But your friends dance so wel together, and I was thinking we might be able to show them how wel you dance too.”

  If she was hoping to goad Rio into action, it worked. He took her hand and rose less steadily than he’d expected. The fairy woman gave him a gently mocking grin.

  “A little too much juice, perhaps?”

  Rio shook his head, and together they headed out to the dance floor, just in time for the musicians to strike up another tune. This one was lively, and he had to work hard to keep up with his partner, who seemed pleasantly surprised that he did so wel .

  “There,” she said, stealing a kiss before Rio could react, “I knew you’d be good at this.” Rio didn’t know what to say. Not that long ago, the thought of such a beautiful woman kissing him would have been a pleasant one, but now it seemed a frivolous thing when Gem and Sparks stil turned around the dance floor together. Rio started to make an excuse to go back to his seat, but the woman’s hand tightened on his arm.

  “One more dance? I didn’t do something wrong, did I?”

  Rio couldn’t think of a way to say no, even when the musicians turned their hands to a slow waltz. His partner treated him to a sensual smile, and

  moved

  closer,

  dancing

  with sinuous

  movements that Rio did his best to match. His heart wasn’t in it though, and Rio spent the whole dance looking over his partner’s shoulder to where Gem and Sparks were talking and laughing as they danced. Rio was miserable. Al summer long since they had parted at Word Castle, he had thought of Gem and how she had cared for him, stood up for him, even fought for him in Anachronia. No one had done that for him before, no one had ever believed in him like Gem did. He thought she was just another pretty rich cheerleader when he first saw her at Word Castle, but she had proven over and over again how she was the kindest noblest girl, no, person, he’s ever met. No wonder why she became the Ruler of Anachronia. No wonder why
he couldn’t stop thinking about her, although he knew in his heart, she was way out of his league.

  Rio had heard what the Summer Queen had said earlier about Sparks having to find his perfect match. More than that, he had seen the look that had passed between the other boy and Gem. Even now, Sparks was probably plotting some happy life for the pair of them, ruling over a kingdom they hadn’t even known existed this time yesterday.

  Rio knew he had to do something. If he didn’t act soon, Gem would be swept up so completely in Sparks that he wouldn’t have a chance. Just the thought of that fil ed Rio with anxiety. He pul ed back from his dance partner without so much as a word, ful y intending to stride over to the dancing couple and find a way to cut in, and got at least two steps before the feeling struck, deep in the pit of his stomach.

  “Are you al right?” the fairy woman asked.

  Rio waved her off. For a second, he thought it was simply the juice and he vacillated between rushing outside to get some air and continuing towards Gem. The feeling grew stronger though, and Rio ran for the nearest door, rushing through the crowd of dancers and leaving his partner far behind.

  He made it out onto the palace lawn and sucked in air in great, heaving gasps. It brought no respite.

  This didn’t feel like the juice anymore.

  Instead, darker thoughts surfaced in Rio, of sensations he’d been trying to ignore for these past weeks, shivers that seemed to want to spread through his whole being, and that frightened him with the thought of what they might do if they did. Rio stood there and fought the sensation resolutely, retaining a tenuous grip on himself as best he could.

  It was no use. Whether it was the juice, or being in this new world, or simply the strength of his jealousy brushing aside the last few barriers, the feeling spread through Rio until it seemed that his whole body might be set to explode. He looked down at his hands, only to find thick grey hair sprouting from them.