Zach leaned against the pillar and watched as his beautiful princess danced on the empty ballroom floor, her bare feet barley touching the ground. He grinned and leaned further into the ancient pillar, relaxing his guard and keeping one hand idly on his sword hilt. He laughed lightly as she twirled and looked all the part a fairy princess.

Her translucent wings glittered as the moon cast a spotlight on her through the stained glass window. Her eyes were closed and her pink hair moved with her as her body moved to music only she could hear. Her peaceful face tugged on his heartstrings and he wanted to put a smile on that beautiful face. The same beautiful face that he knew masked worry and fear with a peaceful look or gentle smile. It was that beautiful face that would make her a wonderful fae queen. His heart twanged with regret as he remembered that he could not be her consort, even though he loved her. The fae might stand for a half-devil queen, but they would not stand for a Wicken king. Zach sighed deeply and glanced at the floor, only to look back up at his princess and her spider silk gown, as light as if she were air herself, not just winged.

She stopped and gracefully landed on the floor, her bare feet pointed. She was facing the window and she curtsied to someone who wasn’t there. When she rose back up, she opened her eyes and her face lost its careful mask. She looked sad, and scared. Scared of a world that hated her; a world that was not her home. The devil was her father, the previous crown princess her mother. Zach’s heart broke to see her there, alone on the dance floor, standing in the lone spotlight. He lifted himself from the pillar and walked gracefully, carefully, and quietly out of the shadows. She was still facing the stained glass window and she did not hear him approach.

“Bravo, my lady princess, bravo.” Zach said, clapping lightly. The sound of his solo hands echoed around the ballroom as Tracy whirled on the balls of her feet to face him. Her demonic, burgundy colored eyes went wide as she just stood there taking in the long missed sight of her best friend, her guardian, and her lover. He had been gone just three months to join as a magician and a spy against her father, the devil himself.

She stood there and stared at him, too overcome with emotion to say anything. She took in his all too real, all too alive black hair, shaggily left alone, hanging over his face. She loved his swirling silver eyes and Tracy knew that she had never loved them as much as she did right this second. Her eyes filled with tears as she managed to choke out his name, utterly motionless with shock and the final realization of how close she had been to never seeing Zach again. He walked toward her, his leather boots making almost no sound on the swirled marble floor. Her eyes were fixated on him as he came closer and closer to her and in his magical, ever moving eyes she thought she saw tears to match her own. Three more steps took him as close as he could get to her without touching her and one motion had her in his arms, sobbing.

She cried for what was happening to a country that was hers, that belonged to her, to her mother; that she, five months ago, had not known existed. She cried because she had gotten her wish. She had found her father, she knew why her eyes were the color of wine. And she cried because she knew. She cried out of fear. Fear for her country, fear for her life. Fear that she had almost lost the only true friend she had ever known, the only love she wanted to know. Tracy cried because she didn’t know how to rule a country and she didn’t know how to get her grandmother off of her corrupted throne. A twenty year old magical mutt and her brilliant magician boyfriend did not know how to lead the revolution of an ancient magical kingdom. But lead they would.

Tracy looked up at him and then silently, her tears quieted for now, rested her head on his chest; her body enveloped in his arms. She looked up at him again, after a very long moment and stared him straight in the eye. “You smell like death. Does the whole kingdom smell like death, Zach?” she whispered. “Yes, Tracy. Nothing has been left untouched. Faeries versus demons, my darling, no one will win this war. It must end and it must end soon.”

“You’re quite right, Zachary, darling,” the endearment was almost a hiss, but it wasn’t Tracy speaking. “The war must end as soon as possible. But I will have these naive, hateful little faeries. I will win this war.” Zach swirled around in an instant using the hands that had grabbed Tracy to put her behind him. Instantly, his shields were up and magic was at his call, but he wasn’t sure how much his magic would stand up to the devil.


“Oh, you silly little boy. Because that’s all you really are, you know. Just a boy. And you’re standing in between me and my daughter. And I don’t like that. Move, child.” And with that, Zach had gained the answer to his previous question as he was knocked off his feet by an invisible force. His back slammed against a pillar and he gasped at the pain of contact, instantly rendered helpless as invisible rope held him there, ten feet off the ground. “Tracy!” he found the breath to yell, hoping to alert others to their predicament, but he was just as soon silenced by the same magic that held him there. His eyes were riveted to his princess as his body became as rigid as the pillar and flushed with anger and hatred.

Tracy trembled with anger and hatred and pure, unadulterated fear. He wasn’t anything that she expected. He didn’t look ethereal, like the faeries, or so perfect, they appeared animated like the elves. He looked human. He looked like the masculine version of her. He was lean, in suit pants and a blue button up shirt. The sleeves were rolled up and his tie was blue. He looked like a casual professional. And his eyes matched hers, the color of red wine. Their noses weren’t the same, but their facial structure was similar. Their cheek bones almost matching and they had the same even chin. She was horrified. He made a sound of satisfaction and she looked him right in the eye. “You’re a sick b******. End this war with my people.”

“Well, look whose playing Pocahontas. Baby, they’re your people too. As hard as you’ll find it to believe, you’re my only heir. You have no brothers or sisters. Both kingdoms belong to you.” He let out a laugh that was more of a cruel bark than laughter. “Isn’t life fun?” He turned and began to walk away from her. Tears rolled down her face and Zach felt like he had never been more helpless in his life.

“Why won’t you give me my mother? You used her for your sick ends, what could you possibly need her for? You’re incapable of love! What could she mean to you, give me back my mother!” Tracy yelled in a sudden spurt of bravery. She was going to tell him what she had thought of him because she might never get another chance. She felt the power rise within her, she felt the anger and she knew it was fueling her words. “Its knowledge that you found and its knowledge that you revel in. You think you know everything, whatever, maybe you do know everything, but you don’t understand it! So you play these little mind games, make people believe you hold all the cards, but you’re not capable of emotions. You feel nothing for my mother, but you want too. She’s beautiful, graceful, playful, everything the perfect woman should be. But she’s haunted by you, by your pain, by your touch. You’re sick, letting an innocent woman be haunted by you and enjoying it, because you can’t enjoy anything else! These people dying are just numbers, just souls because you’ve seen so many of them go by, they don’t even matter to you anymore. But they matter to me. She matters to me. He matters to me. I know their faces, their names, their lives. It’s my job. And it’s my job to rid the world of you. And goddamn it, I’ll do it. Hate and misunderstanding and fear created me. The tears she cried, every night, just because you touched her. Well you know what? I hate you. Truly, deeply, maddeningly I hate you. And I mean it.” She took one shuddering breath and she stared at his back, eyes ablaze, “Leave my kingdom, you b******, and you are banished from ever returning. Send my mother back, alive and aware, and never touch her again. End this war or you will have heaven to answer to. Goodbye, father.” She practically spit out the word, as if she didn’t like the way it tasted.

The tears rolled down her face silently now, blue tears, as blue as faeiry blood could be. “My curse on you is that you never understand anything. Not love, not happiness, not the joy of having a child. I hope you rot in your own misery. Leave me!” Tracy almost whispered, shaking, infusing her magic into her wish. He stood with his back to her as calm and as composed as if she had simply told him about her day. She should have known he wouldn’t respond to her. She watched as he turned to face her, swiveling on his heels like she always did, bowed low and looked up at her. “Goodbye, then, daughter.” And she watched as fire enveloped him and her eyes stared back at her from the flames and slowly disappeared.

“Someone’s seen Alice in Wonderland.” She muttered hatefully before sitting herself on the ground and crying, her tiny body wracked with sobs. A lot of this she could accept. She really could. She had pink hair and red eyes for heaven’s sakes, she had been better than ok when she had been told of her fairy heritage. But this was too much for her. Getting Zach back, having a confrontation with her father years and months in coming. All at once? It was unreal and it only happened in movies. Maybe her life was a movie. Her beautiful mother, taken hostage by her devil of a father who wishes he could love her, her grandmother forcing faries to live in fear and poverty, cursing half blooded creatures to a life of gypsydom, and her all powerful magician/best friend/love/protector/partner. Some script. They might contact her if the Sci-Fi channel ever collaborated with Lifetime. She sniffed and picked herself and her hatred off the floor and looked up at her pillar bound Zach.

“How am I supposed to get-hiccup-you down from there?” she asked, hiccupping because she was crying. She didn’t know what to do and then she went for the obvious. She pointed her finger at him and tried to channel the magic that was in her right arm. A lesson of Zach’s while they had been on the road. She focused all her energy through her finger and made one swift pointing motion to the floor. It didn’t work. She tried again and again until she just got so frustrated that she yelled, “I want you at my feet right now!” pointing at her little toes. Not a split second later had he fallen ten feet and dragged across the floor to her feet. Tracy’s eyes went wide as she went to her knees in front of his fallen figure. Shaking his shoulder with her right hand. “Zach…Zach!” she yelled frantically as he refused to stir. He’d just disappeared from her for three months and now she was the one to injure him. She wracked her mind for anything that she could do for him, anything that might be of use, that Jenny might have taught her. Then, she remembered the cheesiest thing ever. A kiss. CPR, but a kiss, nonetheless.

Her breath caught in her throat as she moved his breathing, but unconscious body onto his side, then his back. God he was heavy. And dear God was he beautiful. She leaned over him and put her arms on either side of his face, her wrists leaning on his shoulders. She kissed him so hard, he had to have felt it, unconscious or not. Like a slap to the face, or water. She closed her eyes and put her heart into the kiss, feeling the soft press of his lips against hers. Her tears, still falling, dropped onto his face. His lips opened beneath hers to take in a large breath and she quickly removed hers as he did so. She leapt off of him as he turned half on his side to cough as hard as he could, trying to regain normal body function.

His eyes looked up at her panic stricken, kneeling figure. “Some reunion, huh Princess?” and he half grinned at her, the same cunning smile he’d had since they were teenagers. She didn’t remember him acquiring it, but she certainly could not remember him without it. It gave her hope.

“I’m going to win, Zach. We’re going to beat him. We’re going to beat my grandmother and we’re going to turn this place into the Melandria it should be. It’s no longer a game. I want this country. It’s mine.” Tracy said, her eyes looking glassy. Zach felt like he was looking at him, but looking past him. Those red eyes were looking at a future, dreaming of one where the towns people weren’t afraid of their government, and their queen knew all of their troubles.

“And so it shall be, my Queen,” He replied, “and so it shall be.”