Wanderess

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Fayre felt herself freeze. A baby? A child, a small living child...a son. Her sister had a son. What this the reason she was banished? To protect her child from the life that the royal family leads? Threats from an invading species at every corner- a hard life of decisions and decrees. Was this why she abandoned her family?

Fayre felt anger at the child rise in herself. It was because of him that she was led to believe her sister was dead- that she was never coming home, it had to have been. The spike in anger towards the small boy was unreasonable, she realised. Instant guilt filled her up- threatening to implode. It wasn't like the boy asked to be born. Yet she couldn't help the slight resentment towards her nephew.

"I can see you're in a state of shock, so let's sit down and let me explain." Isa gestured to the stones and she placed herself upon the closest one, the boy residing on her knee. Fayre and Adrian followed suit. Adrian unusually quiet, Fayre stubbornly silent. Isa glanced back and forth between them- studying their body language intently. Adrian sat, his legs angled towards Fayre, his hand protectively clutched in hers- his posture stiff and tight, as if e were anticipating an attack and wanted to be on high alert. She couldn't blame him, he was in a new and strange place and he clearly felt the need to protect her sister- for that Isa was grateful, yet she wasn't sure she liked the proximity her younger sister was within the literal Demon. Fayre sat poised; every bit the Queen she was destined to be, she had pulled their joined hands into her lap and was playing nervously with their fingers. Isa knew that only heartbreak would come from involving oneself with Demons, yet she could tell they were both much on their way into the endless pit that was love- even if they didn't know it themselves. She observed how they seemed to gravitate towards one another, how when one inhaled, the other exhaled. Like two sides of a coin, two essentials in an equation. You couldn't have one functioning without the other. Fayre wouldn't look Isa in the eye, or even lift her head to hear the story.

She cleared her throat once before her story began.

"Two years ago, I was only months away from my Ascension and earning my Birthright. I was so close to getting my wings, so close to making history, to making father proud. But something inconceivable to any small-minded person happened. I fell in love.

I fell so deeply in love that I threw all caution to the wind. He made me feel so spectacular. My entire life I was expected to be this...this thing- this emotionless, royal robot ruling with her heart and not her heart. But he made me feel like a had a choice in everything I did. He made me believe the world could be better, undivided and united as one kingdom. That was a topic I brought up often with the King, he wouldn't hear it. 'This is how it has been for a thousand years. I will not cooperate with any terrorist in any form. You should know better Isa, especially after everything the kingdom has suffered,' he would say. It was the same answer anytime I brought it up, eventually I learned not to speak of it. Father has always been too set in his ways to conceive any form of change, for better or for worse.

The man I fell for, he saw the way the world could be. He saw it as a blank canvas- much like the ones you used to paint on when you were younger, Fayre." The younger Ayer sister had since tilted her head up to gaze at Isa, intent to listen to the tale.

"He was a Demon. Not a royal like your Adrian here- but a Guard. His name was Asmodeus. He convinced me that the Demons, Angels and the Travellers could live under one monarchy, that we could live peacefully- we could sign a treaty or an accords, we could come to peace with a little effort. This ideology he painted inside my head was so beautiful. It was a dream come true, but that was all it was; a dream. Father wouldn't listen, and he wasn't high ranking enough to get an audience with Malvat- no one would hear our ideas, we were alone. You were much too young still, Fayre- to know what was going on. So, I kept it a secret, I kept him a secret. Asmodeus and I fell deeper and deeper in love each day, my Ascension growing closer with each passing day. I could feel the power begin to thrum in my veins- I could feel myself growing into the Queen I was apparently born to be." She paused, sighing deeply, appearing to be holding back tears.