Summer Garden

Luna

Luna pushed herself upright, almost tripping on her wings and stood there, fighting the exhaustion that was trying to take her. She was too tired to grab hold of magic, but she had to do something, anything.

Janus had walked in and taken him. Like it wasn't even an effort. He'd known exactly where Trei had been standing. He'd known how to create a gateway to Summer's realm, even though it wasn't connected to the other realms fully.

"Mage. What kind of gateway?" She spoke, slurring as she was too tired to move her jaw. Vastras winced, "Yeah, I can't do magic yet, either."

"It wasn't a gateway."

Luna turned to her sister and stared in surprise, "How are you channelling? You shifted a realm."

Summer nodded, "Yeah. It makes the small crap easy."

Vastras tapped Luna's shoulder, "Where did Astrian go?"

Luna rolled her eyes, "She'll be back. She died."

"What?"

Luna turned to her in surprise, "Seriously? You didn't notice that you burned her out? Nearly burned all three of us out?"

Vastras shrugged, "And? I burn myself out once a week. Just takes time to recover."

Luna blinked in surprise, "Oh. That's weird."

The mage stared, "Fae can't replenish?"

Summer spoke with irritation, "Sure we do. We rejoin the life stream. Our souls are eternal. Doesn't mean our bodies are. Reconstruction is required. A shorter lifespan comes with different benefits. Now, focus! Janus stole Trei. How?"

Vastras collapsed onto the couch, brushing sweat from her forehead, "You said it wasn't a Gateway. I thought Gateways, Fractures and Channels were the only ways to travel between the Fae realms."

Luna sat down, staring at the spot where he'd vanished, "There's also Dusting, Entanglement and Splitting."

Summer stepped over, a halo of light around her, looking at the air, "None of those match this... No. This is a new magic. It's... It's almost like Janus stepped sideways through the dimensional matrix. We can move short distances, and then have to bounce from a shift to a channel and back to a shift when stepping through the dimensions... But he just shifted."

Luna rubbed her temples, "A shift can't be traced."

"There is someone else who can come and go this easy." Summer said slowly.

Luna looked up at her sister, "You cannot be serious."

Vastras sighed heavily, looking at a hand stretched above her head, "Fates. They were willing to give Trei to Janus before. I guess they taught him a few things."

"You don't get it." Luna said shaking her head, "The Fates can't oppose Summer. They can't interfere with her. Summer imprinted on Trei, which makes him untouchable."

Vastras dropped her hand, looking over at the two, "Seriously? How does that work?"

Summer sighed heavily, "The Fates... They can't interfere with creatures equal to themselves. Celestials. Gods, demiurges, and so on. No celestial can interfere with another. Its a treaty. There was a war once. The entire universe had to be stitched back together, and we didn't manage to get everything in the right place."

Vastras blinked, "We? Are you a celestial, Queen of the Fae? Last time I checked, that just makes you eternal. Not something... More."

Luna burst out laughing, "You really don't know, do you? Who created the Fae, mage?"

Vastras glared at her, "Sumner. Lady Summer here was her first creation."

Summer nodded, "True. I was created as the template of all Fae... By Sumner sacrificing herself."

"Oh." Vastras replied, "You are Sumner, aren't you?"

"In a way." Summer sighed, the magic fading from around her, "My first life was her first incarnation as a Fae... It took a few lifetimes before we learned to recover our past memories. Those first few are gone. We lost them. I think I was... Five or six hundred cycles old when we discovered I was Sumner. Archaeologists knew it before I did."

The human shook her head slowly, "Wow. You are an actual celestial... Limited by a physical form... But a celestial. No wonder Janus is so jealous."

Luna looked at her, "Jealousy, you think that's his angle? Bastard has been seizing power. He wants to be King."

"No." Vastras shook her head, "No, I've dealt with politicians like him. He's trying to hurt you, Lady Summer. Everything he does is meant to embarrass you, or weaken you in front of the council. Him getting power out of it is just an added bonus. He might even believe its the goal... But he wouldn't have stolen our boy if it was just power. He'd finish cutting off this realm, permanently."

Luna flopped backwards onto the hardwood floor, struggling to keep her eyes open. "He knew we were vulnerable."

"I don't think I have a choice this time." Summer spoke quietly, "Janus is calling me out. I'm going to issue a summons. He wanted a war... He's going to get one."

The princess closed her eyes, shivering. She remembered the last time her sister had spoken those words, and what had followed. No Fae wanted that. They abhorred the violence, the destruction. Killing a Fae severed them from the lifestream. The violence that fractured a soul. Hundreds had died last time.

By her hand. She was the Shadow Knight. She was a weapon of war.

Her soul was stained with the blood of other Fae.

Now it would be again.

A single tear slipped down her cheek.