The Sprites made a portal for us to go to the Otherworld castle. Liam and Duff abandoned their wedding wear in favor of more practical clothes. We all dressed in the clothes we’d worn at the beginning of our journey, except for Liam who refused to wear what he was captured in.
We were going home after this, but the royal couple would be staying behind. Until Duff got tired of being queen, the Mortal Realm was going to be a whole lot lonelier place for me.
At the edge of a grassy, lush field outside the wall, I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. Behind me, Wizard stomped the ground to let me know he’d heard me too.
“That wasn’t for you. I’m calling a friend of mine. I owe him a favor,” I told Athena’s Pegasus.
An eagle screeched seconds before Alastor landed in front of me. I bowed to the deformed Pegasus. “Told you I’d come back.” I held out my hand indicating the royals. “This is King Liam and Queen Duffinnia. Liam is a Light Elf. He’s willing to try and restore you.”
Liam and Duff moved closer to the Pegasus. Duff raised a hand and put it on the Pegasus’s neck. “Hello, Alastor. Who did this to ya?”
“Hamlin paid to have it done,” I said, answering for him.
Liam put a hand on the Pegasus’s neck and another on one of Alastor’s eagle legs. “This is definitely Dark Elf magic gone wrong.”
“That’s what Petal said about it.”
Petal had left the wedding party without eating. She’d promised to see me at work. Anyone could see it broke her heart to leave.
And that tall Sprite I’d seen when we arrived? Petal finally confessed that she’d turned him down when he offered to stay and wait with her while she waited for me. I gave him a whole lot of man points for still being interested in her, which he wasn’t even man-cool enough to try and hide.
They’d spent centuries apart since that time, and I knew Petal felt that loss. I reminded Petal that Liam and Duff had been apart for a long time too. If everything in my plan worked out, Petal would be returning home soon, and then they could renew their relationship. I told myself that I wasn’t running a paranormal dating agency, but sometimes it felt like I was.
Liam petted the other side of Alastor’s majestic neck. “Show me what ya once were, big fella.” He walked to the front of the Pegasus and Alastor bowed his forehead until he and Liam rested against each other.
Two minutes passed in silence. Like the rest of us, Duff watched as the Elf she’d made king used his magic. When Liam opened his eyes and moved back, he chuckled. “I think I can put ya back like ya were, but I can’t make it pleasant. Do ya still want me to try?”
Alastor clawed the ground with eagle feet and screeched his permission.
“Very well,” Liam said. He looked at his bride. “Move away, Duffinnia. He may not react well to what I have to do.”
Duff did as Liam commanded and came to stand beside me.
Liam chanted loudly in Elvish and moved his hands down one eagle leg of the Pegasus and then repeated his actions on the other. He stood up and faced the Pegasus again. “This is the hard part. Yell for me as loud as ya can and keep doing it.”
The moment an eagle screech left Alastor’s mouth, Liam spoke harshly and put one hand on Alastor’s nose. Spiraling black energy tore away from the front part of the Pegasus and Liam opened his mouth to swallow it.
Gross. I hadn’t expected that. My face probably showed it too.
“It’s not gross, Atlanta. Liam takes the dark energy into himself and turns it into light energy. That’s why Light Elves can always defeat Dark Elves.”
Behind me, I heard Cale snickering. Soon he moved away to try to get control of himself. Good Gaia, I had to stop blurting my thoughts out.
I glanced at Athena and Indar. Both had hands clamped over their mouths. Geez… how bad was my habit?
When my attention returned to Liam and Alastor, the Pegasus was making horse sounds again and his front legs were back to normal.
I stepped forward when Liam began petting Alastor’s neck again.
I faced the Pegasus and bowed my head. “You don’t have to stay here in Otherworld, Alastor. You can come home with me to the Mortal Realm for a while. Wizard seems to like it there.”
Alastor snorted at my words and blinked his dark black eyes at me. He looked fierce all the time.
“Anyway,” I said, finding it hard to talk to him. He was so intimidating. All Pegasi were. “I owe you big for helping Princess Petal save me from that Troll guard. It would be my honor to return the favor and take care of you until you’re ready to move on to whatever is next in your life.”
Alastor tossed his head and walked away from Liam. He stopped inches from my face and I instinctively leaned back a little. I tried to see his thoughts, but couldn’t. All I could do was talk and hope he understood.
“Once I finish the Doomsday Prophecy, I’ll even take you home to Uncle Hades if you want to go back to him. I don’t know why any Pegasus would want to live in the Underworld, but you can make your own decision. Just know that I can’t visit there right now. Uncle Hades will try to get me to stay and I have five more prophecy tasks to solve.”
Alastor bobbed his head up and down. What did that mean?
I reached out a hand and stroked the side of his nose. “If it makes you feel any better, I sent three Dark Elves to the Underworld. I don’t know if they were the ones who messed with you, but they were trying to capture Duff and… well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime if you want to hear the details.”
Alastor stepped forward more and put his head over my shoulder. The only thing I could do was put both my arms around him. He turned ever so slightly and rested his head against me. A wave of the most unconditional love I’ve ever felt from any creature swept over me. In that wave was his profound gratitude to me for helping him get back to normal.
“You’re very welcome,” I whispered, hugging him tight. I chuckled as I backed away to look at him again. “You did great with those eagle claws, but they weren’t a good look for you. Horse legs are much better—more handsome and way sexier.”
Alastor made a strange horse sound. Was he laughing at my joke?
I turned to Athena. “See, sister? Alastor thinks my jokes are funny.”
I stepped away to create more distance and to put myself out of temptation range. What I wanted was to keep hugging the black as midnight Pegasus.
Eventually, I met his eyes once more. “Okay. So I’m glad that worked out for all of us,” I said again, patting his neck a final time. “Now, I’ve got to go finish what I started here. Think about my offer. We’re leaving by portal after I get done. If you’re not here… well, I guess I’ll see you around.”
Wizard neighed loudly. Alastor neighed back. I looked at Athena. “Are they talking to each other?”
My sister rolled her eyes and didn’t answer.
Fine. I’d stalled long enough.
No matter how much I wished I could leave Duff’s parents in their amber prison, the task of the prophecy was clear now. Callie was right about what I had to do—well, half right. I’d been right as well.
Freeing Duff and Liam from their pasts was important, but it was only half of the task. Freeing Duff’s parents so she could confront them and get closure was important too. Only then could both sets of Otherworld kings and queens be free.
“Okay. See you later, Alastor.”
Then I turned and walked toward the castle with my tired helpers at my heels.
Indar and Cale removed the glass case surrounding Duff’s parents. The weak magic holding it together was no match for two Dragons with glowing eyes. When they finished, the amber holding the Otherworld king and queen, or rather the former versions of them—pulsed in front of me like a living entity.
The two life sparks inside the amber grew agitated and even more frantic to be let out.
Liam and Duff sat in the two primary throne chairs watching and waiting to see what I would do. Indar and Athena sat on simple chairs located nearby. Cale stood some distance away waiting for his help to be needed.
Castle keepers who’d gotten the word about the wedding and the change of regime now hovered behind the thrones not sitting at all. Duff kindly offered each an invitation to sit and watch, but eventually their panicked reactions made her stop.
“Change takes time,” I told her when I saw how disappointed she was.
Facing the amber blob that surrounded Duff’s parents, I tried to see if I could learn any more than I already knew about it.
Did I know how to get her parents out? Not really.
Did I have something to try that might work? Yes, that I had.
I slipped Marcus Aurelius from its holster on my leather armor, glad I’d put my original clothes back on before we left Sprite-landia, as Cale and I would now forever call it.
Holding the spear up to the light, I looked at the markings running up and down it. They’d risen to the surface when I’d first used the spear ages ago, but hadn’t changed in the years since—not until today when I used it to kill the Druidic Witch at the wedding. Now the markings were more pronounced and darker—much darker. Whatever the spear had absorbed from the DW, it now looked like blood in the marks.
I didn’t know what the symbols on it represented, but Duff’s comment about the spear being ‘possessed’ lingered in my mind. It did come from the Titan forges below the Underworld and from two people who were determined to see that my father suffered for their fates.
The spear’s creation was something I’d need to further investigate. Going forward, I was going to be more careful about what I used the spear for in fights.
“Want to help me break through some more Druidic Witch magic?” I asked it.
After the day I’d had, talking to my weapon didn’t seem strange to me at all.
I lifted the spear as I approached the amber blob holding Duff’s parents. Pressing the tip against the amber at their feet, I felt the spear wanting me to press down harder.
Was it talking back to me now?
Shaking my head over my wild imagination, I used my power and applied a little more pressure. I was still very tired, so it wasn’t like I had a lot to use.
When the spear slipped past the magic barrier, I felt it break through the amber as well. “Yes,” I exclaimed, laughing as the spear vibrated in my hand. “I think this is going to work.”
I expected the amber to melt into a giant puddle of golden goo, but what I got instead was a minor explosion as I pressed down on the spear.
The amber popped off Duff’s parents like a giant soap bubble bursting and covered me instead. Tree sap dripped off me everywhere when it was done. I could feel sticking to my face and pulling my hair.
Duff’s parents, though, didn’t have a drop of sap on them.
In my hand, the spear vibrated in a strange rhythm of starting and stopping. I held it up and glared at it. “Seriously? Was that your idea of a freaking joke?”
More and harder rhythmic vibrations were my answer from whatever life force seemed to now be animating my weapon. “If you ever do that to me again, I’m giving you to Zavak to use as hoof pick for his cows and horses,” I threatened… and I meant it.
Indar came over to me. He motioned for Cale to come over too.
“I can fix this. Watch what I do,” Indar ordered.
Standing two feet away from my stickiness, Indar blew hot Dragon breath all over me. I could feel the heat drying the sticky stuff on me, but remarkably, I didn’t get toasted by fire. After Indar pronounced his work done, I looked down at my clothes and watched blobs of dry sap crackle and harden before falling to the floor.
Cale came closer and used his fingers to carefully remove what he could from my hair. Then he and Indar were dusting off my clothes with hard hands that didn’t linger long in any one place, but definitely made themselves known.
“Having fun there, boys?”
“Yes,” they both answered with a grin. Then they laughed like a couple of frat guys.
Duff parents walked over to thank me. I nodded to them, but didn’t say much beyond “You’re welcome”. The new queen needed to handle the real confrontation. If I opened my mouth, they were going to hear my whole opinion of their poor parenting. Just like I never cut my father any slack, they wouldn’t be spared either.
A set of tinkling chimes suddenly rang out over my head. It drew everyone’s attention, but only Cale smiled at me. “Listen to that sweet sound, Atlanta. It means you now owe me another date.”
“Yes, I do. Thank Gaia we got task four done,” I said, smiling back at him. “Let’s go home. I miss Night and the puppies.”
“It must not matter that we completed the tasks out of order,” Cale said as he took my hand.
“Yes, that is a good thing. We’re nearly ready to complete task three, though. It’s the logistics of getting everything together that will be hardest to pull off.”
“Are we going to work on it tomorrow?”
“No. I need a day off. How about you?”
“A day off sounds wonderful.”
I looked at Duff and Liam. “Okay, we’re out of here. Later, royal dudes.”
Athena cleared her throat and then rolled her eyes at me when I gave her a blank stare. “What?” I demanded.
Couldn’t my sister see that I still had tree sap in my hair?
Did she have no sympathy in her soul for a fellow woman who was suffering a bad case of feeling icky?
“Show some respect to the royals,” Athena said.
It was my turn to roll my eyes. Duff would always be Duff to me.
“Fine.” I said, putting one finger on my nose and pointing at Duff with the finger of my other hand. “I’m all done here, Queenie. Call me if you need me.”
I heard Duff giggling over the thousand questions her parents were suddenly asking as I walked out of the Otherworld reception hall.