Chapter 2

"I was young, impetuous and headstrong, much as you are my darling. Only I grew up in circumstances far different from yours. Mortal I was but I belonged to a line of powerful women and men; that had the power to act as seers and vessels between worlds. And this meant that I grew up with a strong sense of responsibility; identifying and keeping all those parts of those worlds that could collide distinct and separate from each other.

I had vision beyond what my ancestors had seen and yet, when I met Him, it seemed all my eyes went to sleep. He was royalty, groomed since existence to govern the world of magic that existed above our own. He came from shape shifters and sorcerers and belonged to those who could alter worlds. Beyond the time that they came to our realm for Council, their interaction with mortals was limited to invisible movement among people or preferably even more just to observing through the veils that hid them from us.

It was at one of these Councils that He and I actually met. He was there to convince the others to allow the fae for a limited time to walk among humans as they are. Shrouded in glamour suited to time and place, their true might and form concealed so as to protect the humans and the fae themselves. He suggested the fae be bound by law, by magic and by word to govern the extent of the relationships that they may form while on earth. It was scandalous! Allow magic and non-magic folk to interact. It would change things. Where it could open new doors for the fairy folk, where would it lead humankind if even a whisper of it got out. Nonetheless, he was convincing, and his eyes, gleaming gold, so much like yours had triumph and challenge in them even as he got the Council of Elders to agree.

I could hardly breathe for the sight of him. The height and breadth of him, with the long fair, and the flashing eyes seemed like something out of a dream and when he came to me, it was a dream. He took me and I him. There was nothing new about seers fucking fae folk but what was new, was that he loved me, or so he said.

We had the ultimate clandestine wedding, shrouded by veils of time, and scattered over worlds to protect the union from the fae and my people, for such unions were prohibited before the sanctioning of crossing of worlds and after, it had been reinforced to the extent of forcing amnesia and memory loss in the humans should their be a fear of very real and very binding human emotions threaten to come to fore.

We had our own world, where we lived for a while as man and wife, bound by no laws but the immortal ones of faith and passion, and equal amounts lust and love. Unfortunately, we did get caught and were brought in front of the council to face rebuke and anger. Accusations flew around, telling us how we had risked the very balance which allowed our worlds to co-exist but we were wrapped up too securely in each other to let their arguments sway us and begged for some chance, for something that would allow us to stay.

We were offered a choice. The only way was for him to walk through a portal and lose his place in fae-dom and become mortal. And he faltered. I felt his hand drop mine and felt him step away from me even before he actually moved. And all I remember then, is the echo of the Veiled Judgment barring me from further Councils and issuing me warnings of how should their be repercussions of the union, the child would be stripped from me to be brought up as 'al'ihan'; half mortals half faes who serve the faes till they reveal their powers in which time they are allowed induction into the ranks of the warriors or failing to be anything more than mortal, reduced to be nothing more than soulless shades.

And yet, even as the voice echoed, I felt you within me, my daughter and used all my skill to veil my womb from those who could have taken you from me and allowed myself to be led to the portal that would take me away from my community and in a land where I would be an outcast, no longer a privileged one turning back just once to vow as I looked at the cowardly creature who had been my lover to never let him touch your life. And I ensured it, by using spells and incantations as old as time, as part of me as the magic that had been stripped and weaved around myself and you, a cover enough to conceal us from those eyes that I knew would spy.

And then you were born. So much like me and yet there is no way you could not have been his with those eyes; open and dreaming and seeing so much, including the fae who still preferred to walk with us in shrouds. And I was scared that you had the vision and then the dreams started. The visitations from a fairy prince whose existence has come down in seers only as a prophecy;

"Beware he who walks between the times with eyes of winter and hair of the sun; He brings the seer's blood a destiny unheard; a choice for eternity, damnation and bliss! Mark the choice in time for fae mortal alike changing the course of the world For when it comes down it will be death or life, hers and his!"

My child's destiny interlinked with one of the faes, so powerful he is deemed a prince; yet so dangerous that he appears as no more than one of the faes own tales. And I begged you, to guard your heart, and your mind against temptation that has grown with you, from innocence to an age where your desires combine with lust.

You need not tell me for me to know how you toss at night, how your skin grows warm and your secret place gets damp. How your dreams charged with thoughts of lustful embraces and heated kisses make your body dance? But beware my child; I have spent my life protecting you from a fire that has burned me. It is not late yet, for still his countenance is only as real as his eyes, for even he lies unaware for the moment of the physical reality of you because of the binds I have in place but I do not know if they will survive after I am gone.

Guard yourself my darling for I do not wish to see you at the same crossroad that I stood at not so long ago, expecting a fickle fae to hold on to me, except this time the choice will come down to death. Guard your thoughts my darling; protect your heart and draw on all that is mortal within you and your world to be your shield from eyes that prey too deep. Give strength to the veil I spun around you. Stay safe."

"stay safe"

Sarah could still hear the echoes of those words standing as she did with her back to the door of her apartment; still feel the way her mother's hands had gone cold within hers lending the chill to envelop her heart and her thoughts and after the night of the burial, the dreams had stopped and she had become what she was today, With the exception of Di, who was too stubborn to allow herself to be whipped away by Sarah, she had managed to control her interactions and relationships with a cold mindedness that stunned people.

After all, that is what Jason had said when he had walked out on her.

"You drew me to you with some inkling of a fire that I can sometimes sense but you never let me close enough to know if it's really there. You're too cold Sarah! Even when I lie with you, inside you; even when you touch me in the most carnal or intimate of ways, I look into your eyes and I can sense all those parts of you that you keep locked away. I can't live like that! I just can't!"

Until now... And today, she had seen him and he was as splendid as he had been in her dreams of late; stunning in his lethal beauty and the power he wore like a skin; that the darkness within her visions has concealed. Suddenly tired, she covered her eyes with her palms;

"Damn it! After all this time, it can't be real!"

"I assure you Mistress, I am very real!"

Sarah felt her breath leave her as her hands fell away to look at him as he stood in front of her, barely 6 feet away, and very, very real.

And as she turned, she felt his body come up behind her, his hands slapping against the door so that she stood surrounded by him; feeling the smoldering heat emanating from him; sheer sensuality with a dash of temper.

"I had not seen a coward in these many days that I watched you. And even when you ran from the park, I attributed it to nerves but rushing away a second time would have me think that I perhaps overestimated your courage and your pride."