The Fae King's Ruin

The Princess and a Glimpse from a Keeper

No. Nope, this cannot be happening. This cannot be happening! There was no way that she said those words to Avery. She must be dreaming! Aislin desperately wanted to hurl herself off a bridge. She can not— and will not— show her face to anyone at the moment, especially Avery.

Oh, gods. There would be no saving her now. While she meant the words she said to him, it was not how she planned on telling him. The whole thing made her seem so careless, not to mention that her running off does not exactly paint her in a good light. It was bad— all bad and terrible, and yet Aislin still ran as quickly as she could without a destination in mind.

The only problem was that there was nowhere to run to. The Manor was still off-limits with the Queen's guard manning the entrances, the garden still had the party in full sight, and there was no place she could see that would afford Aislin the privacy she so desperately needed. 

In a word, she was trapped.

"Psst..."

Aislin stopped in her tracks. She angled her head to where the sound came from and saw the willowy figure of Anaïs smiling at her from beside a tall tree, completely bathed in its shadows. She waved at her, beckoning her to come closer. 

Well, that was not odd at all.

Despite the invitation being totally out of the blue, Aislin reluctantly walked towards Anaïs. Her blue eyes were trained on her as she approached her little hiding place, not at all weirded out by the way the Keeper seemed to see nothing wrong with how they both stood in the dark. In fact, Anaïs looked as if she rather liked where she was— removed from everyone else and enjoying the rhythm of her own music.

"Lady Anaïs," Aislin greeted her with a small curtsy. "You seem to have found solitude over here."

"I am quite content observing the crowd," Anaïs replied rather breezily, pushing back a stray curl from her golden updo. “It gives me the chance to appreciate the gift of what is now. How about you, Princess Aislin? What are you running from?”

“Me?” The blood drained from her face. “What do you mean?”

She smiled. “I am a Keeper of the Past and the Futures, princess. I see things. But, most especially, I admit I have been keeping an eye on you and the Fae King the whole night. It makes me curious how happy you were one second, then fleeing the next.”

Aislin heard her blood pounding against her ears. “So, you saw?” She briefly squeezed her eyes shut. “Why were you keeping an eye on me and Avery? Were you ordered to?”

“Oh, dear gods, no!” Anaïs laughed, throwing her head back. “No one on the Council with their right mind would task me of keeping an eye on anyone. They all think me lofty and airheaded, looking down on the gifts of my kind.”

She frowned, understanding just a little bit of why no one seemed to have close relations with the representative of the Keepers. “If no one put you up to the task, then why?” she asked. “Do you not trust me?”

Anaïs raised a brow. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

Her back straightened. “As a matter of fact, I do. I quite like knowing where I stand with people just so there is no air of pretense between us. It makes dealing with them easier.”

The Keeper leaned against the tree casually. “Very well,” she said. “I, in fact, do not trust you, Aislin of Cetha. Your past is dark and your future is much too uncertain even for my abilities to consider letting my guard down around you. The Fae King has always been meant for greatness, Princess Aislin, but when I see your future tie with him, more often than not, his empire crumbles to dust and I do not know what to make of that. Do you?”

She took a step away from Anaïs, her chest tightening with heavy emotion. “What do you mean? That if I married Avery, the courts would perish? Is that it?”

“That is one way of putting it, yes.” Anaïs smiled sadly at her. “I am sorry, princess. I see that what I have revealed to you has upset you very much.”

Aislin stared at her with huge disbelief. “I have never— not even once— thought ill of Avery, the people around him, or his kingdom. The gods honest truth of it is that I probably would not be alive if it wasn’t for him! Why would I repay that kindness with malice? Why would I—” She shook her head and whispered, “Notwithstanding how much I love him, why should we bother getting married at all if that is what our future would look like?”

The words broke her heart. She had agreed on marriage in the first place because it was what has been required of her; because her people needed it. But in a short span of time, Aislin began to want the marriage not out of duty, but out of the real feelings she had for Avery. She had promised ‘someday’ to him not because she wanted to manipulate the King, but because she had real intentions of seeing what the future held for them.

And for Anaïs to tell her that the future ahead of them would lead to the destruction of the very thing they were trying to build? She could not help but question if everything they were standing for was the right thing. What if she and Avery were not the solution that the Great Council of the Faes were looking for?

Quick, heavy footsteps interrupted Aislin’s muddled thoughts. Avery came into view, his frantic eyes connecting with hers and she knew the exact moment that he read the distress in them. His gaze traveled to Anaïs, then back to her, his heaving breaths puffing like smoke with every exhale.

“Aislin? Why did you run? Gods, I-I need to talk to you,” he blubbered, tripping over syllables and words. “Anaïs, could you…?”

The Keeper nodded. “Of course, Your Majesty.” Giving Aislin one last glance, she fluttered away, making a beeline for the pastry table ahead of her.

Despite the warming spells placed over the garden, Aislin felt freezing under Avery’s confused stare. She refused to look at him, knowing she’d cry if she did.

“You look upset,” he murmured, stepping closer to her. “What did she say to you?”

“Nothing,” she said, taking a step back.

Avery paused. “Really? You want me to think Anaïs said nothing completely mental to you, but you don’t even want me near you when you were just declaring your love for me minutes ago!”

Aislin shook her head. “I don’t think she’s mental, even for someone who sees futures.”

His snort of derision made her look up. “Everyone on the Council knows that if you want to know what the future has in store for you, you go to Peia Solaris. Not Anaïs and her crew of bumbling, braiding bimbos. Honestly, I thought you had at least covered this with Res.”

She glanced at him with uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“Am I sure that she had absolutely no help in the actual ‘Seeing’ department during the war? Yes. Did you know that she even flirted with Laurie even if it was apparent something was going on between him and Ella? So, no. I do not trust anything that Anaïs said to you without actual stock of knowledge to go along with it. Now tell me what she said to you.”

But Aislin found that she couldn’t speak. She was confused, not knowing what to really believe. On one hand, the other Council members’ dismissal of Anaïs’ abilities was well-established. But on the other hand… well, it’s not as if Avery could definitely say that Anaïs was wrong. And with what she had already heard so far, Aislin was too afraid to ask Peia Solaris and know for sure now.

Avery sensed that she was not going to share, at least not now, and crossed his arms.

“Fine, if you are not going to talk. I will,” he said. “And I’ll begin by saying the words that you would have heard from me on that dance floor if you just kept still for a moment to let my initial shock pass.”

Aislin blinked at him once, her heart beating faster and faster until he opened his mouth and the thing in her chest went silent.

“I love you too.”