Ravyn POV
After her speech full of venom, Ylavi whirled when she heard a faint flutter of wings behind her. "YES?" she snapped.
A tiny faerie as big as Ravyn's hand, not yet dark, studded with orange and red crystals, fluttered into the room. "My queen ... are the prisoners going to be fed?"
"Eventually, Sparkler," Ylavi replied, barely acknowledging the petite faerie.
Ravyn felt a glimmer of hope. Logically, if some of Ylavi's court hadn't yet turned dark, she and Jude could, perhaps, throw themselves on the mercy of those faeries. Where Ylavi smelled like rotten fruit, Sparkler smelled fresh, like a meadow.
Hades responded to Ravyn's thoughts. "The little one is the key to our freedom!"
Jude answered crisply, "But let's not endanger her. She seems earnest."
Hades huffed. "Marieke was willing to--"
"Different situation," Jude reminded him. "Marieke was intimately involved, and no one knows that better than you."
A rumble through the mind-link, and Hades huffed. "Yes, well, enough ancient history. Moving on to our escape. We need to break out of here before our family comes after us."
Ravyn groaned. "That's right. If they tried to reach us, we've been unconscious." She reached out with her mind.
Hades and Jude joined with her, sending out a desperate signal for help through the link. However, it felt like whistling into a dark cave. Nothing.
Ylavi smiled smugly at them. "We can hinder the mind-link with your pack, you know."
Ravyn's violet eyes went to Sparkler, the diminutive Ember Faerie palace servant. Sparkler flapped her wings in a steady, strong beat, with a soft breeze swirling. She looked confused.
"Faeries CAN hinder the mind-link but they never have," Hades informed them.
"Not in a thousand years has that happened," Ravyn said in a steady, calm voice. "Or very close. You know we witches have vast knowledge of all kinds of magical information, and shifters know what to expect when they leave their lands."
Ylavi raised her hands, her dress swirling and her eyes flashing red and black. Her hands formed balls of crackling black and silver energy. "You both should NEVER have left after what happened in Wildefell. Could you not spare us your sickening joy after you--"
BUZZ. BUZZ.
Sparkler looped around her with the precision of a hummingbird, and Ylavi lowered her hands. Black and silver energy fizzled out.
"My queen," Sparkler said in a high-pitched voice. "They are prisoners ... we always treat our prisoners fairly. No matter what they have done."
From a slight hesitation in Sparkler's voice, she didn't entirely understand what crime Ravyn and Jude had committed, but she wanted to speak up anyway.
"And in any case," Sparkler said, quivering upon seeing Ylavi's smoldering anger, "the council is waiting for you."
"Why did you not say so before?" Ylavi attempted to save face. "Blathering on about affairs that you have no business voicing your opinion on." She leveled a glare at Ravyn and Jude. "I will deal with YOU later."
She swept out, her taffeta-like skirts beating the air because she went so fast. The door slammed behind her with a mocking sound.
Jude exposed his throat. "Thank you, Miss."
Sparkler curtsied, her orange and red skirt fluttering. "I don't know what you shifters have done. Oh well, it's not the place of a mouse to question a cat."
Ravyn muffled a chuckle with her hand.
Jude looked at Sparkler. "Thank you for helping us. We ... I mean, I hurt the queen's feelings when I found my fated mate. Maybe she felt I broke some faerie taboo."
Ravyn's eyes widened. Jude smelled guilty. She would not have revealed herself so easily--
Her wolf growled at her to be quiet and less judgmental.
"Your wolf is right," Hades said in her mind. "So is your mate. Look at the wee faerie."
Glancing at Sparkler, Ravyn saw the indecision. "But ... but you seem so nice, how could you turn the queen's heart dark like that?"
Jude sighed. "Grief can turn all of our hearts dark, and muddle our minds. I'm not proud of it, but your queen and I both found ourselves in that darkness."
Frowning, Sparkler pirouetted around them. Radiant in orange, she looked conflicted. "But ... but surely that's a private matter, not one deserving of the dungeon."
Smiling slightly, Jude replied, "I couldn't agree more. But it's no good looking back now. A wolf that does that runs the risk of getting pounced on by the predators in front of him. I just want to apologize to your queen, make amends if I can, and avoid an incident between our peoples that could spin out of control."
* * * * *
Hades POV
How clever Jude was. He'd sized up this faerie and seen her heart. Ravyn was more cautious, given the situation, but Jude's reaction was the right one. His revelation touched Sparkler's heart. She seemed less than sanguine about her queen's recent behavior.
Sparkler seemed to have a level head. "But ... but the queen should understand that if it wasn't a good match, then surely it was better to find out before you married? I don't know what happened. I mean ... you hear bits and pieces, but our queen doesn't just open up her soul and share everything, even before this."
Jude nodded and said, "Sometimes the people don't need to know everything that is in a ruler's heart. I am sure you all grieved when she lost the king."
"Oh yes!" Sparkler flitted around, eager to talk. "It was horrendous."
Part of Hades itched to be gone. To enchant Sparkler and make her let them out.
But then what?
"DON'T." That was Ravyn's stern voice in his mind. "How far do you think Jude and I would get? We're already drained."
"I know, I know. I just have had enough of being powerless." Guilt flooded him. "And i caused this. I did the Dark Goddess' bidding and placed Ylavi in Jude's path, for freedom that would never come."
"Not your wisest move ever," Ravyn thought wryly.
"Don't rub it in, if you please," Hades thought.
She re-focused on Sparkler, who smelled like fireworks. Sparkler was a perfect name for her. "And you all knew she was seeking another husband?"
"Oh yes," Sparkler confided, looking around with her tiny orange-dandelion head on a swivel to make sure no one overheard their conversation. "Her advisors and the nobles all wanted her to marry, and a shifter Alpha was attractive to them. The Shifter Federation is hotter than a bonfire. But if you don't mind my asking, why didn't things work out between the Alpha here and the queen?"
"She wasn't my fated mate," Jude confessed. "I've had one before, and it was painful when I lost her. I decided to take a second mate for convenience's sake ... but it didn't turn out that way. Thank the Goddess." His hand found Ravyn's and held it.
Sparkler's eyes widened. "Oh, I see now. But everyone knows shifter fated mates are respected! Just like faerie soul mates. Again, the queen should have understood. Truthfully, her advisors pushed her to marry. So lost in the swamp of her grief was she that they feared they would lose her forever ... and it seems we've lost her anyway through meddling."
Jude's eyes blazed with golden purpose. "Sparkler ... listen to me. We can help you get your queen back. The Dark Goddess has her."
Sparkler stuffed her tiny hands in her mouth to stop her scream.
Jude continued. "But we have freed others from the Dark Goddess. We can help her ... but we need you. Will you help us help your queen?"
Hades howled with joy.
Sparkler took her hands out of her mouth and said bravely, "What do you need me to do?"