One of her Fios skills was the ability to enact shields to protect herself. Well, she rolled her eyes, why hadn’t you thought of that sooner?
Nothing human or non-human could get past her shields for it was Fios and Fae Magic weaved and interlocked. She put a shield in place between her and the two paths leading deeper into the cave, and then another at the mouth. There, she thought with some satisfaction.
Now, she would take a moment and plot out what she needed to do next to get back to Trevor.
She sank down onto the earth and thought if only she had a bed of at least some palm fronds--and the next thing she new, she did.
Okay, okay, think it and if it is within range, you shall have it, Trevor had said. Food…like bananas, do they have bananas here?
The next thing she knew at least ten pounds of bananas lay on the fronds beside her. She was starving and stuffed her face for a moment before she put down a half eaten banana and said softly, “What are you doing Jazmine Decker? We need to get home, so think, no eating, just thinking.”
But as hard as she tried, even her Fae mental faculties had nothing yet to suggest.
Chapter Three
THE DARK PRINCES, Pestale, Hordly, and Graely, with Morrigu beside them, and countless monsters of every Unseelie Caste at their backs, stood in the heavily membraned inner closure of the portal, momentarily trapped.
They were damned uncomfortable in the sticky pulsating tunnel of living tissue. The inner walls began to make a roaring sound that was deafening in its force. Its floor of goo vibrated and shook, and it was obvious it wanted to spit them out and be done with them.
Eventually, even the Queen would not be able to keep its entrance to the human world shut down. Eventually, it would spit them out one by one if it had to. It would not tolerate their presence much longer and could not send them back into their own realm due to the gravity pull of the Human Realm. Once called on to open, it could only open into the World where its receptacle had been prepared.
All portals were not the same.
This one was amongst the strongest of the largest portals.
This one had its own rules, because not only was it ancient, but it was a living thing with specific needs and at that moment its need was to complete its purpose.
Its purpose? To be a portal, to transfer other living beings from one realm to another. Even if the Seelie Queen demanded otherwise, it could not obey her much longer. even if it wished to
Pestale envisioned the immediate future as he stood with his army at his back.
He knew that his arrival in the human world be so unlike the Seelie Fae’s arrival in that world.
The Seelie Fae had arrived in Ireland in a mist, with no thought to destroy. He, on the other hand, meant to destroy any that opposed him. He knew how he would look with his brutal, bloodthirsty forces of grotesque beings at his back. He knew the terror he would inspire.
Oddly enough, that was only a means to his end. A means he would not thoroughly enjoy, like Morrigu and Hordly. Eventually he would curtail the destruction of humans—eventually.
But now his army was hungry, and they would need to feed before they did anything else, and feed he would allow. Chaos is what he needed before he brought order.
They would come without the disguise of invisibility, without human Glamour. He wanted humans to cower and cringe before they sank to their knees in supplication. Their guns would be useless, as would their bomb dropping planes. His magic would redirect their firepower back to them.
They would fall, helpless and willing, begging subjects and then he and his family—his family, he liked the sound of that in his mind, would march on the Isle of Tir and take the Seelie world for themselves. He saw his future as glorious and it spurred him on.
He wished he and his brothers, his dear Morrigu, were about to enter Killarney where the Royals stood waiting to cut them down. He wished he could have faced Danté and Chancemont and watched their faces as he marched on the villagers and allowed his hungry army to feed.
Wisdom however, had guided him.
Right now the last thing he wanted was a battle. He had a better plan. As much as he would have liked to engage, it would not have served his greater purpose.
He was going to take the easier road. He was going to surprise them.
He had created a fork in the membrane. He had infused a false portal with dark magic, and now it was time to abandon it and leave through the Monoliths that had been there waiting to receive him for eons. Stonehenge!
The foolish humans had argued that the stones were set for funerals and sacrifice. Idiots. They were and always had been Fae Portals.
The stones had been used by the Fae for transporting to and fro from Tir, long before the final battle, before ‘shifting’ was so widely incorporated into their travels.
Stonehenge was one of their greatest Portals.