The Exiled Queen

Chapter 1

Vivi, Oak and I sit at the table in the small, cramped kitchen. Vivi and Oak happily eating pizza off plates made from paper. Oak's little legs swing contentedly back and forth from his chair. Vivi reaches for her third helping; pizza is decidedly their favorite among the unfamiliar foods here, I notice. I pick at a salad, not interested in the sloppy, greasy looking meal. I miss the cooks at home and Tatterfell too, I think as I glance around the untidy apartment.

I didn't realize how spoiled I had become having been raised in Elfhame as Gentry. There are no cooks or servants here in Vivi's home. No one to draw me a bath--lushly scented with crushed flowers and herbs--no one to launder my clothes and make my bed. There is also no fresh baked breads and meals of rare, dripping meats topped with sweet-tarte berries to be served.

And the nights are for sleeping. And are not sultry and warm with the seductive scent of everapple blossoms. The trees don't dance with the sparkling glimmer of sprites and I can't hear the rhythmic sound of Orlagh's sea crashing against the shores of the isles. I sigh.

I am homesick.

Oak was asleep the night Vivi left and came back with a small rectangular box for me, shoving me into the bathroom with her and shutting the door. Two dark-pink lines came into view nearly immediately, "It says to wait up to 3 minutes for the results but yours showed up right away." Vivienne marveled.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you are definitely pregnant, Jude. Very pregnant."

But that was months and months ago. Months and months and here I am still in exile. Forbidden from my home and trapped in the mortal world. Except it's not just me now. And now I can never go back.

Not without putting Auron and Virion in danger.

I glance down to where my twin sons, only a few weeks old, lie side by side, swaddled in muslin cloth in a basket at my feet. They fuss and wail if we separate them and I wonder if Taryn and I were the same. Funny how we could grow so far apart. I worry about the boys growing to hate each other one day, when now they cannot even sleep unless they're bundled up together as one.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I see flashbacks, snippets of their birth. The horrors of laboring. Vivi calls it post-trauma something or other. She still tries to persuade me into mortal medicine but I refuse. Mortal medicine and hospitals terrify me. And I do not want to take the risk of anyone knowing about the twins. Vivi can only glamour so many people to forget.

We had found a midwife who attends home births and does the monthly care checks in-home as well. The less people who know where we are the better, and the less people Vivi has to glamour the better. I felt much safer with the private care of the midwife and Vivienne felt much more contented that I was receiving care and also that she did not have to help with the birth alone--which she affectionately said was, "By far the most disgusting and horrifying, yet also, beautiful thing I have ever seen but hope to never see again."

I agree. It was awful, horrifying and beautiful. And I do not want to ever go through that again. I am still healing, weeks later. And exhausted from the demand of two infants.

Like true faeries, they are night dwellers, although I believe that has more to do simply with infants in general. I find myself awake most nights alternately nursing and diapering and coddling. But sometimes I don't mind lying in bed in the quiet of night with my two little warm bundles tucked into my side, if not for just breathing in their precious smell.

Auron was born first. The midwife pulled him from my womb and lay him, slick with blood and I did not care what else, right onto my bare chest, "Skin to skin right after birth is very important, it helps baby regulate their temperature and learn your scent," She had said. She then rubbed his back vigorously with a large rectangle of fabric until finally he let out a gurgling cry and then another.

Vivienne and I marveled at the small creature I had made. A wisp of dark hair, a slight point to the ears and--Vivi quickly draped a blanket over him, our eyes locked--he was definitely half-faerie. And most definitely of Cardan's sire: at the base of Auron's spine was a small, extra nub of skin.

Vivi suppressed a laugh and I shot her a look. "What? It's cute!," she amended.

I tried to push thoughts of Cardan out of my mind. Even though I was lying here holding his newly born son. His first born son. An heir to the crown. And about to have another. The pains started again. The midwife bundled Auron up and passed him to Vivi. 

And ten minutes later, Virion was born. Completely identical to his brother from pointed ear to tail.