Telophy Read online

  Telophy

  Telophy

  WANDA WILTSHIRE

  Book 4 in the Betrothed Series

  First published in 2017 by Pantera Press Pty Limited

  www.PanteraPress.com

  This book is copyright, and all rights are reserved.

  Text copyright © Wanda Wiltshire, 2017

  Wanda Wiltshire has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.

  Design and typography copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2017

  PanteraPress, the three-slashed colophon device, great storytelling, good books doing good things, a great new home for Australia’s next generation of best-loved authors, WHY vs WHY, and making sense of everything are trademarks of Pantera Press Pty Limited. We welcome your support of the author’s rights, so please only buy authorised editions.

  This is a work of fiction, though it may refer to some real events or people. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, firms, events or locales is coincidental or used for fictional purposes.

  Without the publisher’s prior written permission, and without limiting the rights reserved under copyright, none of this book may be scanned, reproduced, stored in, uploaded to or introduced into a retrieval or distribution system, including the internet, or transmitted, copied, scanned or made available in any form or by any means (including digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, sound or audio recording, or text-to-voice). This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent recipient.

  Please send all permission queries to:

  Pantera Press, P.O. Box 1989 Neutral Bay, NSW 2089 Australia or [email protected]

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

  ISBN 978-1-921997-64-8 (Paperback)

  eISBN 978-1-921997-89-1

  Cover and Internal Design: Xou Creative www.xou.com.au

  Author Photo: Cowan Whitfield

  Typesetting: Kirby Jones

  Printed in Australia: McPherson’s Printing Group

  Pantera Press policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  For all the dreamy Fae folk who long for magical worlds and heart-melting romance.

  Release your wings Fae folk,

  Surrender yourself to the rays.

  Let the sunbeams take you,

  To Faera to pass the days.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  It was often cold at the top of Bald Hill. Not from lack of sun but because even when the breeze was just a whisper, up here it might be blowing a gale. Today the wind was fierce—too fierce for those who got their thrills riding the air currents strapped to giant wings. And today the car park was empty, the ice-cream truck nowhere to be seen. It seemed right somehow.

  Stretching my arms out beside me, I lifted my face to the sky, losing sight of the white-capped waves and beach-side town far below. I closed my eyes and imagined Hilary beside me, brown hair whipping about her face, arms reaching out like mine as she laughed and wished for wings. If I leaned a little to the left, our fingertips would touch. I would feel her, alive and warm, pulse beating firm and strong under her skin. Tears welled in the dark.

  A week had passed and Hilary’s absence was a pain in my heart growing harder to bear. It was impossible to comprehend I’d never see her again. But there it was. Opening my eyes, I lowered myself to the ground, brought my legs up and dropped my face to my knees. Drawing the sun inside me away from my skin, I let the wind have me, the cold biting my flesh and burying deep. It was a relief to feel the goosebumps rising up, to feel something other than this aching loss.

  ‘Marla.’ The voice was low and familiar, and more gentle than usual.

  I blinked back my tears and looked up. King Telophy’s wings glittered and vanished—a flash of brilliant white, leaving my king wild and gleaming, his dark eyes intense and the lines of his face soft and angular at the same time. I rose to my feet and curtsied. ‘Majesty.’ I couldn’t look at him without recalling him bent over my friend, his lips pressed to hers, light leaking between them as he tried desperately to fill her with his strength.

  He gestured to the space I’d just vacated. I sat back down and he lowered himself to the grass beside me, knees bent up and fingers linked loosely between them. I didn’t ask how he’d found me here when we’d arranged to meet at my parents’ place.

  He kept his attention on the scene below—salt mist blurring the crashing waves, the cliffs and the town itself, pastel-coloured doll houses perched on the edge of the world and set among hazy green.

  ‘This is beauty,’ he said finally.

  I gazed across the ocean—choppy and grey and blending into the horizon. It looked as though wisps of cloud had fallen from the sky and blown across the vast surface. This was comfort—my peaceful place. I’d stopped here on the way to see my family for what they believed was just a regular Sunday. The first since Hilary had died.

  The King reached for my hand and enclosed it in his. His power thrummed against my skin. If I asked him to, he would take me away for a while—replace my sorrow with joy. But what would be the point?

  He squeezed my hand and released it. ‘It is done. Hilary’s body has been placed into the care of her godparents and all the arrangements have been made.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’ My words were a whisper, almost lost to the wind.

  ‘Only what was decided and with the necessary confusion— your family, Hilary’s, the authorities.’

  A car accident. As far as everyone in the human world was concerned, my friend had died six days ago in a head-on crash. A freak accident—too quick for pain. Leif’s father had changed the history of Hilary’s death.

  The backs of my eyes prickled. Not only did it seem a great disrespect to Hilary, but forevermore I would have to lie to my parents, to Hilary’s godparents, to everyone I knew. What else could I do? I could hardly tell them she’d died at the hands of the last Shadow K
ing.

  I closed my eyes and massaged them with a finger and thumb, fighting the lump rising in my throat. ‘Has Leif …’ I stopped, unable to go on.

  ‘My son sleeps still,’ King Telophy said.

  I looked up, finally meeting his eyes. ‘But he will wake up?’ The memory of the last time I’d seen Leif haunted me—face pale and lifeless, torn wing hanging dull over the edge of the bed.

  ‘We must allow time to knit his body back together—only that can bring him back to us now. His mind knows this and keeps him sleeping.’

  He didn’t say what we both knew—that his son’s living was a miracle. That before King Telophy ended him, the Shadow King had almost sliced Leif’s wing clean from his body. That there’d only been two or three centimetres between life and death for Faera’s prince. Any other faery would have died instantly. I shivered, the cold making its way to my bones.

  ‘Why do you stay away from him, Marla?’

  Because I don’t want the first person he sees when he wakes to cause him pain. ‘It’s not my place to be with him. It’s the place of his wife-to-be.’ It was like a mantra, pressed into my head by Haigen each time she’d swept past me as I stood at the end of the hall yearning to go to him.

  King Telophy took my chin in his hand, lifted my face. ‘How sure you sound.’

  I made myself hold his gaze.

  He gave me half a smile. ‘Will you come back with me after today?’

  ‘I need to be with my family.’ I paused. ‘You’re coming to the funeral?’

  He nodded. ‘Come home the day after. There is a meeting I wish you to attend.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And remember—while you remain in this place, refrain from using your power. It will do you no good.’

  ‘Yes, Majesty.’

  He stood and I stood with him, and he brushed the backs of his fingers down my cheek. ‘I’m sorry for what has passed, Marla … For Hilary. She was … good, and …’ He shook his head, frowning slightly, as though he couldn’t quite find the words he wanted. ‘I share your pain,’ he said finally, then he released his magnificent wings—a pure white so dazzling it should have been impossible to look.

  I wondered what he was thinking as his eyes continued to hold mine. King Telophy always seemed tense, but today it was as though he was standing on the edge of a blade. Not only had Hilary lost her life on that terrible night, but many other faeries had too. The attack had been vicious and well organised, reaching far beyond the castle, the usually dysfunctional Shadow Fae working together under the command of their kings. The only light in the darkness was that Leif clung to life. That and the fact all five Shadow Kings had been slain. Now King Telophy was left with the aftermath—families to comfort, funerals to attend, his subjects’ spirits to lift and his guard to restore. An overwhelming task, even for a king—especially one whose queen seemed to have zero interest in the affairs of his kingdom. I’d seen Atara show the strength of a lioness when it came to defending her family, but as far as their kingdom went, King Telophy was on his own. It struck me how he always seemed that way. Despite our history, the realisation made me sad for him. As I dropped into a curtsy and prayed everything would go smoothly as he tried to pull his kingdom back together, I wondered if there was some way I might be able to help him.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Where do you think she is?’ I asked Jack as we drove to Hilary’s funeral. The Fae believed our friend was one with the Great Spirit, her soul bathed in love and light. It didn’t matter that her body hadn’t turned to glittering dust, she’d been sung to the evening sky like a faery, a rainbow of firelights released in her honour.

  Jack glanced my way. ‘Well, if there’s a heaven she has to be there, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Do you think there is?’

  He let out a long sigh, eyes fixed to the road once more. ‘If there’s not, this would be the ultimate example of life not being fair.’

  That old saying about the good dying young popped into my head. I would never again hear Hilary’s voice, see her smile, laugh with her. But if her soul lived on … well, that was everything. If her soul lived on, then one day I’d see her again. ‘There has to be,’ I whispered as I watched my fingers twist together. I couldn’t think of Hilary being anywhere else. My father had sat by my bed every night since I’d returned home assuring me Hilary was in a better place, reunited with her family, all of them wrapped up in God’s love. ‘Dad says she’s probably got her wings by now.’

  Jack looked over his shoulder as he changed lanes. ‘You should listen to your father.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know … sounds like a fairytale to me.’

  I looked out the window again, watched the world slide by. ‘I wish I had Dad’s conviction.’

  ‘It’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Even if the whole thing’s a fantasy … My father says it’s all just a crutch for the weak. But he’s got none of your dad’s contentment—even when he’s planning what to spend his latest bonus on.’ Jack shifted through the gears as he slowed for a red light. ‘I’ll tell you what I do know,’ he said, turning my way when we’d stopped. ‘If heaven is real, Hilary’s up there.’

  I smiled at my friend and when the lights turned green, Jack drove on.

  Falling back into friendship with Jack had turned out to be less awkward than I imagined. Not like last time, when Leif had swept back into my life and lifted his confusion on me—that time Jack and I had been left with a whole load of unfinished business. Now we knew what we were meant to be to each other. Good friends—the way we’d been before Leif had started calling to me in my sleep. The challenge for me and Jack now was to learn not to be so dependent on each other. It wouldn’t be easy; we’d been leaning hard on each other for a long time. He must have felt my eyes lingering on him and when he looked my way again a flick of honey hair fell across his forehead. ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re with me, aren’t you?’

  He reached over and took my hand in his.

  Jack parked the car and we walked to the church in silence. We were early but already mourners were climbing the sandstone stairs and vanishing inside, their sombre clothes and sorrowful faces clashing with the summer blue sky. But there was one face missing from the crowd—Ruby, the old woman I’d been left with as a baby. She’d been devastated to hear about Hilary, but was too unwell to attend. I’d promised to take her to the cemetery when she was feeling better.

  Hilary’s godparents were waiting for us, their two little daughters clinging to their sides. We went to them and the priest soon joined us with the lady from the funeral home. I listened, numb, as they ran through what was about to happen, their words all blending together—music, readings, blessings, eulogies, tokens, prayers, but all meaning only one thing: my friend was truly gone.

  Eyes swimming, I watched as the hearse rolled up and the casket was taken from the back. I touched the flowers on top, the smooth wood. Hilary was inside. She’d only just turned nineteen. I started to tremble, a sob sneaking up my throat. I’d watched her sung to the waning day in Faera, but this was much more real, the coffin so solid. Undeniable.

  Jack took his place with the pallbearers and the procession began. I followed the casket down the aisle, holding the hand of Hilary’s littlest godsister, tears running down my face. Halfway down I saw King Telophy. He wore a black suit and stood out among the mourners, looking every bit the Fae King he was despite the human clothing. He sent a sprinkling of love and light our way, like a handful of fairy dust—a little bit of hope.

  The funeral was a blur of tears and disbelief, mourners filling the pews and spilling out the doors, drenching the place in sorrow. I’d never been the kind of person to seek attention. Never wanted it. But I wanted it today—for Hilary. When my moment came, I made my way to the altar, straightened my shoulders and cast my eyes around the church. My human family and my Fae were to my left, my sister’s eyes reaching across the church to my brother. L
ysander was to my right, his arm around Claudette as she wept on his shoulder. With them were Atara, Ameyah, Haigen and her father Nian, as well as a large number of guards and other faeries. At their centre was King Telophy, like a pulse they drew strength from.

  I looked down to the pages, flattened them with my fingers and began, putting everything I was into the eulogy I’d written for my friend. I spoke of our first meeting, of her kindness and strength. I told of what she was to me, what she was to others—a connector, a friend, the most love-filled person I’d ever met. When I was finished I pushed the pages aside, barely managing to keep it together. ‘Above all else, Hilary was a guiding light. She never forced, never even tried to persuade. She only ever shone and made you want to follow. She was like sunshine on a cold day … and I’ll never forget her.’ With tears flowing down my cheeks, I left the altar and made my way back to my seat where Jack, his tears falling freely, pulled me into his arms and squeezed the breath out of me.

  Later, I watched as Hilary was lowered into the ground, her godparents and their little girls taking turns throwing flowers and earth in after her. As I took my own turn, reality smacked me again, dragging up a sob. I released the earth from my hand—I would never see Hilary again.

  As I left the cemetery with Jack and our friends, Peter and Abby, someone behind us cleared their throat. I glanced over my shoulder to see Brittany hurrying ahead of Rachel and Jason. All through high school, just the sight of her across the quadrangle had made my heart pound. Now, her eyes were puffy and red.

  She caught up and matched her pace with ours. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’

  ‘Had what in me?’ I said. Jack moved closer, but didn’t say a word. Abby gave Brittany a sour look.

  ‘I thought you were just a little snowflake princess. I didn’t know you could actually talk.’

  I turned away from her, a bitter taste in my mouth.

  She stopped and grabbed my arm. Jack hesitated before walking on with Peter and Abby, calling back that he’d meet me at the car. I knew it was difficult for him. The desire to rescue me couldn’t be overcome like magic. Brittany let go of my arm and stared at me awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I know I was a total bitch at school.’