Page 47 of Raven's Dawn
A dome of silver, twinkling energy circled the city—a beautiful and insidious barrier. Beneath could be described as the quintessential kingdom for fairies, if the person describing it had never stepped foot on the Fae Realm.
In the center stood a palace. It must have been twenty stories high and at least a football field in diameter. The Elvan ore castle Iliantha resided in was wondrous, of course, but almost modest. The only decor she used was edible: vines and flowers and herbs which were both beautiful and useful. I couldn’t make out the details from the distance, but this place wasn’t so humble.
Parts of it were more subdued—just standard sandstone—but every turret shimmered like a light show in the glow of the dome overhead. It was as though every square inch was coated in gems. They were color-coded, in fact. One turret on the left was covered in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of purple hues. The one beside it was no different, but with red crystals instead. The next was green, and the last pink.
“That’s not what I expected from a Fae,” I said.
“Because they’re not Fae.” Eyes washing over the city, his nose scrunched up a bit in disgust. “They’re Elves.”
18
EZRA
From the lore I had read, I was under the impression that Elves and Fae were practically one in the same. Elves had the pointed ears that Fae did not. Their power was closer to what I would consider a Witch than an elemental, but otherwise, they were mostly the same. After all, Véa was queen of the Fae while Nix was the Elvan prince.
As we dismounted the dragon, however, Graham made it clear that that was not the case.
“We used to be pretty similar.” Graham held Rain’s hand, helping her to the frozen soil. “But that changed recently. Caeda is the reason why.”
“Because she uses that spell?” I fastened my backpack around my shoulders and secured my coat while I was at it. Although there wasn’t snow on the ground, the chill in the air here was all but unbearable, even for me. “The one that grants her immortality?”
“Kind of, but not really.” He squinted at the conifer trees in the distance. “That’s a big part of it. But she just doesn’t act like our people do. We’re matriarchal, and she lets her husband make way too many decisions. He’s more of a ruler than she is.”
Oh. Yes, I understood why that could be an issue for the Fae. Kings were titles. They were not rulers, not here.
“That’s a little sexist, isn’t it?” Rain asked. “I mean, is he a bad guy?”
Graham shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not from here. All I do know is that my mum and pa never respected Makora. That was the theme in every Fae village growing up. We don’t like the Elves, and they don’t like us.”
“Because they’re more patriarchal than matriarchal,” Warren said, a bit of question at the edge of his voice.
“And because they don’t believe in the gods. More than that, even. They openly reject them, hate them.” Fixing his cloak around his shoulders, he nodded to the others dismounting across the field. “But they wanted us all together. Let’s walk and talk.”
As we continued toward the group, Rain’s flock of ravens descended from above. They were almost impossible to see in the setting sun, just a quiet flap over us, behind us, until one fluttered onto Rain’s shoulder. She gave its cheek a scratch, then found mine and Graham’s hands.
“Why?” Genuine curiosity took hold of my voice. Granted, I hadn’t finished all of my reading, but within the holy books, one thing was clear. Although flawed, the gods were good, decent people. “Is there something I don’t know about?”
“Well, they never killed Lux,” he continued, curling an arm around Rain’s waist. I stood closest to Graham, hand in hand with Warren. Cold soil crunched beneath our feet with each step. “If they had, the war here never would’ve started. That’s how the Elves see it, anyway. I disagree, but that’s a whole other conversation.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that the premise of religion here?” Warren craned past me to look at Graham. “It’s not that people are bad. Their actions may be, but they can change. They can do better. That’s why they didn’t kill Lux.”
“And that’s what the Elves hate. It’s not even that I disagree with them.” Graham shrugged. “When we met the guy, I asked Laila why she hadn’t killed him. I don’t blame the Elves for wondering the same thing. But it’s just a difference of opinion. I think that at their core, they do what’s best for their people. The Elves don’t see it that way. They think that they selfishly kept Lux alive for Nix and Hana.”
In the old books, Lux, Nix, and Hana shared a father. Later, Nix fell in love with Lux’s wife, Véa. Véa then had a hard time convincing Nix to join her in overthrowing her husband, his brother.
As Graham had read it to me, I found myself torn on Nix’s behalf. Lux was still, no matter how awful, his brother. He loved him. He knew that taking the crown would destroy their relationship forever, perhaps more than taking his wife. In the end, he chose Véa, but he still spared Lux.
“Well, I can’t say I disagree with them,” I muttered.
“Neither do I. But that’s just it.” Cloud of steam forming before his face, Graham looked my way. “Those are the type of moral qualms that those of us who worship the gods love about our faith. No one ever said that they were infinitely good or infinitely bad. It’s all about the gray and forming your own moral compass from it.”
“Touché,” I said.
“And that’s it. Religion.” Rain arched a brow at him. “That’s why you all hate each other.”
“I don’t hate them. I don’t hate anybody because of something they can’t control.” There was an edge to Graham’s voice. Not anger, but clarity. He did not want what he was about to say to be misunderstood. “I greatly dislike the queen and her husband. Using the dark magic our greatest enemy used to attempt genocide on our people for their own gain is disgusting. That magic is illegal for good reason. It was used to destroy worlds. But they use it anyway, because they would rather get eternity by killing than through the tree of life. Even if you don’t love the gods, you should at least respect our customs, and the tree of life was around before Véa. They spat in the face of that. Practically rubbed shite all over our culture. The patriarchal aspect is just icing on the cake.”
“Hey, good job, man.” Warren leaned around me to smile at Graham. “Icing on the cake. That’s the right idiom.”