The Sorceress of Belmair by Bertrice Small & Bertrice Small

Author:Bertrice Small & Bertrice Small [Small, Bertrice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

THE YAFIR HAD been stopped from stealing any more of Belmair’s women. But the young queen was among the missing. Soon all of Belmair knew it, and would have mourned but that Dillon would not permit it. He sent Nidhug with messages to all three dukes, telling them that now the real battle would begin. They had to find where the Yafir were hiding themselves and Belmair’s queen.

After having convinced the dragon that even she could not have been in two places at the same time, and was with her king, which was only right and proper, Nidhug ceased her weeping to everyone’s relief as she had caused her own moat to overflow in her guilt and grief, temporarily flooding a third of the gardens that separated the two castles. Cirillo’s company had helped. He soothed her with especially delicious faerie cakes iced in gold that he conjured from the air, and with his magical kisses, which seemed to melt away her sorrow.

The three dukes were called to the royal castle to discuss the crisis. On this bright late-autumn morning they sat about a rectangular table within a small room with tall windows that looked out over the hills now dressed in scarlet, orange, purple, yellow and several shades of gold and brown against a bright blue sky. A fire in the large hearth warmed the room, the large logs crackling as the flames leaped high up the chimney. At each participant’s place there was a chased silver goblet decorated with green malachite.

In the table’s center was a large decanter of dark red wine.

Dukes Alban, Dreng and Tullio looked curiously, and perhaps a bit nervously, at Kaliq of the Shadows and Prince Cirillo. They had grown quickly familiar with the young king, and they all knew Nidhug well. There was much magic to be found about the table and the dukes were frankly a little bit afraid if the truth had been known. They waited for Dillon to speak first.

“We have contained the Yafir as you know,” he began. “Now we must find them, and take back those women who wish to be repatriated to Belmair. And we must rescue the queen, my wife.”

“Surely, my lord, many of the women stolen over the years are now dead,” Dreng said. “And as for the others it is unlikely their families will want them returned now that they have been tainted by the Yafir. The threat is contained. It is no more, and our women are safe again.”

“The women stolen over these last centuries are very much alive, my lord,” Dillon told him. “Mortals living in the faerie world do not age. They remain as they were when they were stolen away. These are women of childbearing age. Many were married. Those stolen in the past few years may well wish to return to their husbands and homes. As for the others, the families that they knew are long gone. They will undoubtedly remain with their Yafir husbands and children.”

“It is unlikely their families will receive them back,” Duke Alban said quietly.

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