28. Knight

28

KNIGHT

I sign my name in magical ink upon the final document the adjudicator has presented to me, and my family’s ancient home is mine. Gazing around at the lofted, dragonfly-wing turrets and opal moon-domes of the ancient Altvie manor on the southwest side of the city near the palace, I take a deep breath. The luxurious granite and marble home has stood empty since my family died here. But every marble vault, butterfly-wing causeway, and waterfall grotto on the sprawling grounds has been thoroughly cleansed by Quinn’s, Lucca’s, and my magic over the past three days.

As I prepared to take it back—and make it ours.

“It’s all yours.” The elderly Summer Fae adjudicator from the Palace’s Annals smiles at me kindly, her sapphire eyes twinkling. “I can almost hear the laughter of children again in this house, as there were in centuries of old.”

“Children? We haven’t really thought about children…” I stammer now as I rise from the ancient white ash table, thoroughly carved with scenes of Summer Fae out hunting.

“You should, a lovely Royal faeadonna such as yourself. Not to mention those two hot princes you’ve acquired.” The elderly Fae adjudicator stands now as I steady her, wizened as she is. She winks at me deviously, and I can’t help but laugh. She laughs, too, as she reaches out with one gnarled hand and pats my cheek.

Then she’s gone, ambled out the front doors with her leather folio beneath her arm.

I heave a sigh now as I gaze around my ancient home in the oncoming night. The Altvie manor is two thousand years old if it’s a day; filled with the most beautiful antiques from many centuries of the Fae and even from the human world, I smile to know Quinn’s going to love it.

My original parents were just as much collectors of ancient wonders and oddities as Quinn is; but though the manor towers like a castle of elegance, sprawling over the sculpted grounds, it still somehow feels homey.

With over thirty rooms, it sprawls across a gorgeous ten-acre plot of land right beside the Arno River, on the south bank. I move to a towering cathedral stained glass window of roses and brambles now, throwing it wide. I can hear the burble of the river, and see it flow beyond a copse of willows at the far edge of the property.

Just as I hear a whinny of horses out by the new barn.

My father comes in then, wiping his hands off on his riding breeches as he wipes sweat from his brow with one arm. His white Fae men’s shirt is filthy; at work all day moving the horses and hounds here from the human world and getting them settled in their new barn, my father and mother have been busy while I was taking a final tour of the house and land with the adjudicator, and going through all the inheritance paperwork.

As my father enters through the towering white ash main doors of the estate, my mother strides in from a long causeway nearby that leads to her fields. My mother and father magically moved not just the entire Summers manor onto my new property, but also my mother’s extensive herb fields and concocting operations, along with my father’s barns.

It’s a monumental feat of magic, and I don’t even have the slightest clue how they did it, though they recruited twenty of their closest comrades from the Darkwatch and the Brightwatch to help them, good friends from back in the day. My entire body and aura spiked with their incredible feats of magic as they moved everything between Realms.

And settled it all in our new home.

“Well, it’s done,” my mother, Illyria, wipes off her hands on her filthy formulating apron, nearly as dirty as my father’s shirt. She wears a bright red cotton sundress today beneath her apron, with her favorite herb-gathering boots for her fields. “Every leaf, flower, and root have been moved to the Altvie fields. Though I’m going to have to do a helluva lot of magical conditioning to the ground here for a while, to get it to grow more potent things than all the prissy flowers the Altvies had planted here.”

My mother has eradicated most of the overgrown grounds here to bring her herb fields with her. That, plus moving their entire manor-house and the barns, has devoured over two-thirds of the property. I insisted on keeping the manicured grounds and grottos, sprawling stone verandas, and a topiary maze close by the house. But everything else is theirs to enjoy and make their home alongside mine.

When they aren’t at the Palace attending to Summer Fae politics.

“All the animals settled?” I ask my father now as we come together in the towering main entry hall of the Altvie estate. The beautiful butterfly-wing buttresses have been lofted high above to let in the evening breeze, their stems intertwined into a luminous crystal dome, lusciously carved with roses and brambles.

Real roses of every variety climb up every surface inside the hall, water fountains spilling from every alcove as the luminous white-grey marble features carved birds, forest animals, and more roses everywhere I look. The white and grey marble floor is run through with ancient curls of gold, like a stylized rose-bramble patch. Faeanic sigils of power shimmer beneath my feet.

Telling the ancient story of this manor—which is now mine.

“Everything’s settled.” My father smiles, gripping my shoulder rather than draw me into a hug, he’s so filthy. “The animals will need a few days to get accustomed to their new stomping grounds, but thanks to us moving the old barn and hound-house here, they’ll adjust quickly. We’ll set up paddocks and lunging areas in the next few days. Until then, your mother and I will check over the house to make sure none of the foundations cracked, or the stones shifted as we moved it. Everything should be more or less in order within the next week, I’d guess.”

“All my rosemary bushes started to die when I got them in the ground here,” my mother grumps now, though her dark eyes twinkle as she waves a hand in an Italianate gesture. “Something about this land was magically conditioned to make roses bloom in a riot, but kill off rosemary. No worry. I’ve got them all in big pots now until I can figure out what in blazes is going on. Altvies and their roses. Ugh.”

My mother grins now, however, and as I clasp her filthy hands, I share it. Because we both love the roses that bloom in a riot all over this property, even in the gutters, if they’re left to their own devices for a few days.

“I’ll have to hire a wealth of Summer Fae gardeners to tend this place.” I chuckle now as I squeeze my mother’s hands.

“Thankfully, the Altvie coffers are up for it.” She winks, having heard just how much untold sums of money, gemstones, and precious minerals I’ve acquired as the only main-line Altvie heir, approved now through the new Summer Fae High Council despite my Dark Fae status.

My original parents owned several Summer Fae formulating houses, flower growing operations, and stoneworks. It adds up to quite a pretty penny, a situation I’ll have to get Quinn and Lucca to help me with, to manage all those holdings and operations, which have been building wealth all these years with competent managers still operating them.

“Thank you for letting us move everything here, Aria,” my father says now as he moves in, taking one of my hands from my mother and squeezing it, his green-grey eyes sober. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

“I wanted to.” I squeeze his hand and my mother’s. “This way, you two can be at the palace as much as you need to be for the Council, which is just a hop-skip-and-a-jump away. And I can rest easy, knowing you’re not accidentally attracting too much attention in the human world any longer. It’s a win-win.”

“It’s so nice to be a family again, figlia mia !” My mother croons now in her passionate way, reaching out and stroking my wild red hair, unbound though I’ve got it pulled back in a plain silver circlet.

My mother insisted I wear something to signify my royal birth today as I toured my ancient family grounds and signed all the paperwork. I paired the circlet with an embroidered Summer Fae blouse and human-world jeans, plus some nice turquoise silver Fae jewelry and my turquoise leather human-world sandals I once bought in Rome.

I’m a creature of two worlds now, rather than just two magics. And I intend on getting back to the human world to enjoy it, just as soon as I can manage it.

I might even take my two renegade princes with me, to have a holiday.

“Any idea where you’ll go to relax in the human world, now that everything with the Gold Eyes is over?” My father asks now, as if reading my mind. Though he and my mother have accepted an honorary status as council members for the United Haven of Florence, and subsequently bound their magics to the Haven, they don’t use our bonds to pry into my thoughts, and I don’t pry into theirs.

My father always seems to know what I’m thinking anyway, though, courtesy of his old Darkwatch magic. I smile at him, laughing and shaking my head.

“Not yet. Greece is lovely in the fall, though. I’ve never been to Santorini…” I grin at him.

“Santorini is amazing. I’ve been a few times, though I would very much like to go again, with you and Lucca.” Quinn’s silken baritone slices through the evening now as he trots up the manor’s marble front steps. I’d been so engrossed in my conversation with my parents, I’d barely registered the smooth purr of a Maserati pull up in the front cobblestone drive .

As Quinn bounds up the steps of my new home, he does it in the most cuttingly sexy manner ever. I trot out from the inner main entry hall to meet him at the door.

We come together upon the threshold, and Quinn takes me in his arms. Wearing a sexy dark maroon Armani suit with a black shirt and tie, plus a bright gold pocket square, he heaves me up with his preternaturally strong hands, spinning me around and letting me slide down his rock-solid front before I land on my feet.

We kiss a long time at the threshold of my house, tongues licking and delving, decadent, as he cups my jaw in his hands. I hear Lucca’s bright voice chuckle as he clears his throat, Quinn’s and my kissing has gone on so long.

I flow to him now to kiss him next.

Lucca stalls me, however, as he holds out a hand. “Oh, no you don’t. Not before we do this properly.”

“Properly?” I ask in confusion, not understanding what he’s talking about as he guards his thoughts through our bond.

With a devious light in his summer-blue eyes, darkening to cobalt in the settling evening, Lucca moves forward. I’m hefted up into his powerful arms as he steps us back across the doorway and out onto the sprawling stone porch.

Then he walks us forward again; with a beaming smile, he carries me across the threshold into our new house. I laugh as I realize what he’s doing, and Lucca chuckles, masculine with glee. He sets me down inside the foyer—but not before doing what Quinn did, letting me slide down all his hard planes and incredible, lean muscles.

I kiss Lucca now, and our kissing goes on just as long as it did with Quinn. I lick and linger, reveling in my bright prince as Lucca sucks my lower lip and grins. And then we’re parting as he slings an arm around me possessively.

Quinn doing the same on my other side .

My father clears his throat, and only then do I blush—though my mother is beaming.

“We’ll leave you three to settle in,” my father says now, though even he gives a subtle smile. His forest green eyes spark with joy to watch me with my men.

I beam back—happy.

My parents depart, off about whatever they need to do this evening to finish settling their farm into its new grounds; as Lucca corrals me around the waist, my back to his front, he growls low in my ear with pleasure like an animal. Quinn is silent as he comes to my front; but his dark eyes sear with fire now as he moulds his incredible body to me.

He presses everything together down there , making me writhe upon him and Lucca with delight.

“Before we get to other activities tonight to celebrate your new home, Ariana,” Quinn says now as he kisses me briefly on the lips, though any kiss from Quinn always manages to be decadent. “Lucca and I have housewarming gifts for you.”

“Housewarming gifts?” I blink as I pull back, grinning as I stare up at him. “Like, sexy gifts?”

“There will be plenty of those later.” Quinn chuckles deviantly as he whispers his lips over mine. “First, we have some actual gifts for you. To commemorate everything we have been through and survived—and awakened to, by these past few months being in each other’s lives.”

“I like the sound of that.” I nuzzle his nose, Lucca lipping at my ear now, and kissing my neck. I reach a hand back, gathering him to me as I cinch closer to Quinn. “What are these oh-so-mysterious gifts?”

“You have to come outside.” Lucca grins at my ear. I feel him guarding his thoughts hard now through our bond, so he doesn’t spoil the surprise, just as Quinn is.

“Alright.” I square my shoulders, gesturing out the door. “Take me to this surprise. ”

“This way.” Lucca takes my hand, Quinn following as Lucca tugs me out the towering front doors of my new manor, into the settling night.

The deepening evening is blue and purple, with the white Twilight nimbus around the margins of the sky. Vivid stars pop out high above, though there is no moon, a new-moon night.

As Lucca leads us around the side of the sprawling manor, through a beautiful topiary and rose garden burbling with fountains that I insisted not be overtaken by my mother’s herbs, we come to a spot on the far edge of the property that Lucca demanded be left wild.

I don’t know what he plans for it; once a sculpted waterfall garden on the property, it’s become overgrown in the most beautiful way now with night-blooming flowers.

Lucca leads me to a trio of waterfalls now, which reminds me of the waterfall glade where we once made love. As he leads me into the center of the overgrown grass there, of what once might have been a sprawling patio or even an outbuilding long gone, I see something in the grass.

Beautiful, it’s a tree; a lovely sapling slightly taller than Lucca, it glows silver-green in the night. Its branches are covered with luminous white flowers; with a start, I realize it’s the same kind of tree that was Lucca and Quinn’s Livingtree.

But that tree was brought down by the Summer Fae battle when Lucca was captured more than a week ago by his father. I’ve not been to the battle site, but Lucca has, and told me the old tree was dead.

Though I feel through him now that this brand-new tree was born.

“Lucca, is this…!?” I ask him as I reach out, touching the slender sapling. As I whisper my fingertips over its silver leaves, it sings, shimmering incredible sounds through the air.

The Music in its purest form, created by the plants, the trees, and by the earth itself.

“The parent tree died, but this sapling survived,” Lucca says with a sober demeanor now as he gazes upon the tree. “I thought I would move it here; give it a new life where our new life will be. The old tree gave its all into this single new sprout. I was thinking we could all grow it together, you, me, and Quinn… to be our Livingtree for the rest of our lives. And for our children, perhaps.”

“Every Fae needs a Livingtree, even if they have a more modern house. It would be prescient to regrow this one as ours, from the old one that was.” Quinn comments now as he looks upon the tree with something like awe in the night. He reaches out, touching the tree also, and it sings for him, as well.

Dark, luscious, and beautiful in the settling evening.

“I would be honored to grow this tree with you both,” I say now as something incredible fills me. Though outward manifestations of the Music are gone from our trio now, I feel that most ephemeral sound fill me up, deep inside, as I revel in my beloveds and this incredible gift Lucca is giving us.

“Stand close to the tree, and we’ll form a ring around it,” Lucca says quietly now as he smiles at me. “First, we generate our love for each other in our hearts. Then we touch the tree… filling it with our love and wishing it growth forevermore, as part of our family.”

“So beautiful…” I say now as Quinn, Lucca, and I move around the tree, ready. As we set our hands to our hearts, then decide holding hands is better and change position in the night, I feel us come together.

As we all raise our revelry together—for the beauty of the night, the closeness of our bodies, and the lovingness of our touch—it fills me up, deep inside. The Music that remains inside me sings a thousandfold now, surging throughout my entire body as I sway in the light wind with my mates.

They sway with me as we listen to that song in our hearts, and in our bodies, and inside each other. Even though we can’t manifest it in our outer world anymore, or even sing it via our voices, we reach out our left hands now. Touching the tree, we pour that most ephemeral and deeply loving Music deep into its limbs, roots, and bark .

Right to its heart from ours.

The tree shoots up in the night. I blink my eyes open to see it lengthen in a towering might, thirty feet high as it widens a hundredfold. From a slender sapling is born a real tree, sturdy and strong. Its roots delve deep into the cracked plain of the ancient foundations; pieces of gilded tile like an ancient veranda are thrust up as the tree widens and lengthens, its limbs heaving to the night sky.

All through its towering boughs, little white flowers burst, glowing in the deepening night with a thousand colors. A scintillating pollen scatters down, diamond-fine and glittering like stardust as it shimmers through the night.

Magical.

I beam up at the tree, then at my beloveds. We come together before the tree now rather than stand around it; as we hug each other, Lucca kisses me and we revel in the new tree’s growth. I have no words for him as I pull him to me and kiss him longer. Quinn cuddles to my back, pressing his cheek to mine as I kiss Lucca.

And then Quinn and Lucca are kissing, as I revel in their newfound togetherness.

There’s nothing more to say as we inhale the decadent aroma of the new tree in the night. Lucca’s gift is beyond precious; I wonder how Quinn’s going to top that as he turns now, retrieving a parcel from behind him I missed him grabbing when we left the house.

Covered in brown paper and of a moderate size, it’s tied with a silver-gold bow. From its dimensions, slender but rectangular, I know at once it’s a painting.

I beam at him now, wondering what in the world it is.

“Open it.” Quinn nods.

“Okay,” I say, stepping to the wrapped painting. As it leans on the ground, supported by Quinn, I pull off the graceful bow and rip off the paper. As it is revealed, I inhale in shock.

Then stare up at Quinn—a slow smile lifting my face .

“I thought you sold it.”

“I bought it back.” Quinn shrugs in his effortlessly elegant way, though his dark eyes beam at me like firebrands, reckless and beautiful. “It doesn’t matter that the new owner wanted ten times what it sold for at the Pitti Palace’s auction; I had to have it and give it to you, Ariana. It marks the very first time we all came together, you, me, and Lucca. And something about it… it’s as if Raphael knew we’d be a trio someday, the three of us; dark, Light, and balanced in our scorching day and seething Night. The two male angelic figures look almost exactly like Lucca and myself; not surprising, since Raphael met us both when we jaunted to the human world in his day. But there’s been no one quite like the female knight who slumbers between them. Raphael was a dreamer; he had visions, some say, and luminous dreams from which he painted. The knight’s face is yours, Ariana. Look closely and you will see what you see in a mirror, each and every day. Raphael dreamt of you coming someday to save us. And that Lucca and I would stand by you, and our trio would somehow awaken you… when all might otherwise have stayed inside the dream, lost.”

As I peer more closely now at the female knight in Raphael’s strange Vision of a Knight rendering, beneath her shining helm, I see now that she is me. I’d missed that before, when I was looking over Quinn’s piece for that art auction at the Pitti Palace in the human world all those months ago.

But now I see how she has my high cheeks, my heart-shaped chin, and the precise shape of my eyes, though hers are closed. She has my same arching eyebrows and long eyelashes; I glance up at Quinn, and he feels my surprise.

Leaning the painting against our new Livingtree, Quinn comes to me. As he wraps his arms around me in the night, I know I am home. As Lucca does the same behind me, I feel the sensation expand a hundredfold.

Because we are one now, as the Music beams all through us, incredible in the falling darkness .

As the twilight fades out, we sear with joy and Light to be together, as that most incredible Music flows. Though it can’t be made manifest anymore, our own Music can: kissing, and touching, we sink down into the grass.

To be together tonight.

And for the rest of our lives, at last.

THE END