I grimaced but didn’t hesitate. Again, this was part of the plan we’d established. These Otherworldly denizens were here for me. If I was gone, and they weren’t destroyed first, they’d likely leave once they realized only Jasmine and Pagiel (and Volusian) were left. I felt like a coward and had to keep reminding myself, If you die, the twins die.
I took off at that half jog, continuing to use my magic to lighten the storm and make my passage easier. Ahead of me, a ring of bright yellow buttercups stood out in sharp contrast against the park’s green grass. No matter how many times the landscapers mowed them down, the buttercups always returned within a day. They marked the gate.
I was steps away from it when something hit me from my left. The force knocked me over, and I only barely managed to twist my body in a way that minimized the jarring as my knees hit the ground. It had been foolish to think the gate wouldn’t be guarded. My attacker was another elemental, seemingly composed of moss and leaves. They decayed and shifted before my eyes, marking just how weak the elemental really was. It could barely exist in this world. The creature’s chances of survival were slim, yet it had apparently thought it worth the risk to its life to come and take mine.
I struggled to my feet as it came at me. In one leafy hand, the elemental held a copper dagger, honed to a fine point. Copper was the toughest metal gentry could wield, and even if it wasn’t as effective as steel, it could still kill. The elemental’s moves were awkward and lumbering, giving me enough time to get to my feet, even in my addled state. I still held the iron athame and felt some satisfaction that pregnant or not, I was faster than this bumbling creature. It swung at me, and I easily dodged, giving me an opening with my athame. The blade made contact, slashing across the elemental’s green chest. It shrieked in pain, and I made an instant decision not to finish it off. I didn’t have the luxury of playing hero. That injury was more than enough to slow the elemental and let me spring for the gate. I hurried into the ring of buttercups and reached toward the Otherworld. The gate was a strong one that worked at all times of the year and required hardly any effort from someone who knew how to use it. It was another reason we’d selected this area.
The paths between the worlds opened, and I felt a slightly disorienting sensation, like I was being taken apart and reassembled. Within seconds, I found myself standing in the Honeysuckle Land, surrounded by my own soldiers. There was no sign of any foes here, and from the startled looks my guards gave me, my battle-marked state was totally unexpected. They wasted no time in responding, however, and had their weapons drawn the instant the elemental followed me through the gate.
Only, it was no longer an elemental. It wasn’t even an “it.” It was a she, a gentry woman no older than myself with brown hair braided into a high bun. She staggered two steps toward me, still holding the copper blade, before falling to the ground. Blood spilled from her chest, showing the severity of the wound I’d given her. It had been done with iron—the gentry’s bane—and occurred in the human world, where she was at her weakest. Maybe she could have survived a similar injury in this world, but now, it was too late. The blade fell from her hands as she feebly clutched at her bleeding torso. All the while, her eyes never left me.
“Death ... to the prophecy... .” she gasped out, just before death took her. The light left those hate-filled eyes, and soon she saw nothing. I felt ill.
New arrivals from the gate immediately drew my guards to attention, but it was only Jasmine and Pagiel. They looked as if they’d been in a fight but otherwise showed no serious damage. Jasmine looked at me first, and despite her hard face, I knew she was checking me for injury, just as I’d done for her. It was hard to believe we’d once been enemies.
Satisfied I was okay, she then glanced at the dead woman before meeting my gaze. “Well,” Jasmine said, relaxing slightly. “At least you don’t have to go to Ohio anymore.”
Chapter 2
The layout of the Otherworld defies human physics. There are no straight lines from point A to point B, even when you walk along a road that doesn’t seem to curve or fork away. One step forward on a road may take you into a kingdom you thought you’d cleared ten miles back. Most of the kingdoms tended to stay in the same proximity to each other, but there were no guarantees. A road whose quirks you thought you knew by heart might suddenly change without warning.
Fortunately, there were no such surprises today. The road we’d taken to reach the Hudson gate eventually got us back to the Oak Land, with only the expected detours into friendly lands. The Oak Land wasn’t one of my kingdoms. It was ruled by my strongest ally, who was also the one who made me the most nervous. Dorian and I had once been lovers and waged an Otherworldly war together. Things had fallen apart when he’d tricked me into a quest designed to conquer a kingdom I didn’t want. We’d been quite hostile toward each other for a while, but my pregnancy had changed our relationship. He was one of the advocates of the prophecy that said my father’s first grandson would conquer humanity, and so, even though he wasn’t the father, Dorian had vowed to aid and protect my children.
Once he’d ascertained I was alive and well, however, he showed little sympathy upon hearing about our ambush.
“I never understood why you had to go to that Ohoho place anyway,” he said, pouring a glass of wine. “I say good riddance.”
I sighed. “It’s Ohio. And you know why I was there. The twins need medical care.”
“So you claim. They can receive ‘medical care’ here. Ours is just as good as humans’. Do you want a glass?” He held up the wine bottle.
I rolled my eyes. “No. And that’s exactly the point. Medicine here’s not the same at all. Wine’s terrible for babies.”
Dorian swept into the sitting room to join me, elegantly arranging himself on a love seat that displayed his purple velvet robes to best effect. “Well, of course it is. I’d never dream of giving wine to an infant! What do you take me for, a barbarian? But for you ... well, it might go a long way to make you a little less jumpy. You’ve been positively unbearable to live around.”
“I can’t have it either. It affects the babies in utero.”
“Nonsense,” he said, tossing his long auburn hair over one shoulder. Life would be easier if he wasn’t so damned good-looking. “Why, my mother drank wine every day, and I turned out just fine.”
“I think you’re proving my point for me,” I said dryly. “Look, I know you believe everything’s fine here and there’s no reason I should ever set foot outside the Otherworld, but I just don’t feel safe not having this pregnancy monitored by a—human doctor.” I’d been about to say “real doctor” but caught myself in time. It was true that I’d watched the gentry perform some amazing feats of healing. I’d literally seen limbs reattached. Yet, despite all the gentry magic, nothing could match the comfort I took in the reassuring numbers and bleeps of medical machinery. I was half human, after all, and had been raised that way.
“You don’t ‘feel safe,’ eh?” Dorian gave me one of his laconic smiles. “Tell me, did the assurance you got from your human doctor today outweigh the potential damage you received when that elemental knocked you around?”
I scowled and looked away. Even though I’d managed to land fairly well when I’d fallen near the gate, I’d still had Dorian’s healers check me out when I returned. They’d performed some minor spells on me to relieve bruising and had sworn there was no injury to the twins. They had no diagnostic equipment to prove it, but gentry healers did have an innate sense for such things in the body, just like I was sensitive to the components of storms. I had to take it on faith that the healers were correct.
“We should’ve been more prepared, that’s all,” I muttered.
“How much more prepared can you be?” asked Dorian. He still spoke in that easy way of his, like all of this was a joke, but I could see the hardness in his green eyes. “You already traipse through this world with a veritable army at your back. Are you going to start bringing them with you into the human world too?”
“Of course not. We’d never get a hold of enough jeans to outfit them all.”
“You risk yourself. You risk them.” Dorian pointed at my stomach, just in case there was any question who he meant. “You shouldn’t be going to the human world. Honestly, you shouldn’t be traveling between kingdoms here! Pick one. One of yours, mine, it doesn’t matter. Just stay still somewhere, and stay protected until they’re born.”
“I’m not very good at staying still,” I remarked, noting a similarity between this conversation and the one I’d had when I told the doctor about my physical frustrations.
To my surprise, Dorian’s face actually softened into sympathy. “I know, my dear. I know. But these are unusual times. I’ll give you this: moving around does make it harder for them to find you. Maiwenn and Kiyo can only monitor so many places at once, so there’s something to be said for not staying entirely stationary.”
Maiwenn and Kiyo. My heart twisted. We rarely ever spoke those names. Usually we just said “the enemy” or simply “they.” But even though there was a large contingent of gentry who wanted to stop Storm King’s prophecy, we all knew that two in particular were the real threats. Maiwenn was queen of the Willow Land and had once been a friend. Kiyo was my ex-boyfriend and half human like me.
He was also the father of my children.
Kiyo ...
If I thought about him too long, my emotions would get the best of me. Even after our romantic relationship had begun to fracture, I’d still cared about him. Then, he’d made it clear that he considered me and the twins acceptable losses to prevent any threat to humanity. I certainly hadn’t wanted to see the gentry conquer the human world either, but his actions had left me reeling. It was still a hard reality for me to accept, that I could know someone so well ... and yet not really know him at all.
