Twelve Realms Ch. 11

"Fasten your trousers and get dressed, Jake. Seeing her marks on you is just keeping me angry," the king told him.

Jake looked down at himself and noticed for the first time the tiny bites Fiona had left on his chest and stomach to just below his belly button, highlighted by his own semen drying on his belly. He felt his face burn with even more embarrassment as he buttoned up his pants and shirt. He felt like his whole body was on fire with the need to go to Fiona and protect her from her parents' anger. He started rocking his body in the chair, fighting the urge to get up and go to her. He lost the battle with himself and stood abruptly. The king silently put both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down.

"She needs me," Jake pleaded with the king.

"Jacob, she doesn't 'need' you. She wants you. She is desperate for you. She may not think it now, but she can survive without you," the king's voice was still rough with anger, but he was rapidly cooling now that the evidence of Jacob's tryst with his daughter was hidden from his eyes. "Her Aelfir magic is desperate for you and she has no control over it. It's made you both reckless."

Suddenly the noise of the storm outside diminished and then stopped altogether. The tension left Jake's body and his limbs went limp. He took a deep shuddering breath and closed his eyes before slowly letting the air out of his lungs and looking up at his king.

"I am so sorry, sir." Jacob whispered.

"Jake. I need you to be honest with me," the king said, his tone more gentle.

"Yes, sire?"

"Did you have intercourse? Could Fiona be pregnant by you?"

"Nnnnn... No, sir. We didn't..."

"Thank the Gods!"

***

Fiona tried to cover her nakedness with her arms as her father dragged Jacob out of the room. Tears spilled from her eyes and her body shook as she sobbed. The turmoil she felt inside was reflected in the storm she caused to rage around the Kype. She felt heavy snow fall with her tears.

"I hope this was worth it, princess," her mother said, her tone icy. "You are acting like a common whore!"

"I love Jake," Fiona cried. "I need him, mama. I can't live without him."

Maeve silently handed her daughter her dress and helped her fasten it over her bare body.

"Have you had sex with Jake? Has he ejaculated inside your body?"

"What? No. He... uh... he wouldn't let me... " Fiona continued to sob softly as the sounds of her storm continued unabated.

"Thank the Gods one of you was sensible enough to stop before you took that step."

Fiona stooped down and gathered Jacob's discarded shirt in her hands and held it to her face, breathing in his scent.

"Mama. I need Jake here. I need him with me. I have to touch him. I have to..." Fiona sounded more and more frenzied as she spoke.

The king swung the door open and gathered Jake's boots from the floor and then looked around for his shirt before spotting it in his daughter's hands. He silently pried it out of her fingers. Fiona tried to follow him back out the door but her mother grabbed her about the wrist and held her tight.

"Don't even think it, child," Maeve hissed.

"Mama, I have to go to him. I have to!"

"No, you don't.

"Sit!"

Fiona sat for a moment and then stood. Before she could take a step towards the door, Maeve made a gesture with both hands. Fiona was thrust back down into the chair. She was unable to move her arms and legs. Her eyes widened in fear and multiple bolts of lightning struck the stone battlements outside the royal chambers.

"Let me go!"

"You haven't once apologized for defying your father and me on this, daughter. You are being incredibly inconsiderate. Your father is furious at Jacob, and yet you and I both know you caused this and are doing it still."

"I won't apologize! Jacob and I are in love!"

"You are a little girl and don't have any idea what you are meddling with.

"What will you do if I let you go?"

"Find Jacob! Run away! Have his babies!"

"At least your Jacob knows he has a duty to his King and his people. You are being selfish. Do you have any idea how much you are hurting Jacob with this?"

"Jacob? I'm hurting Jacob?" the girl started crying again and the snow that had tapered off, again came down in sheets.

"You are causing him to battle himself even as we speak. The loyalty you love in him is warring with your magic's call to him. If you don't stop, you might damage him."

"Damage him?" the princess cried, her storm raging outside. "I don't know how to stop it. Help me?

"Help me, mama? I don't know how..."

The queen placed the palm of her hand on her daughter's head and called her sleep. The girl fell limp in the chair and her storm abruptly ceased but for one last final rumble, then that too was silent. Her mother lifted her onto her bed and the princess was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

***

The door opened behind Jacob and the queen stepped into the king's study. She looked over at Jake briefly and then turned to her husband.

"I finally had to put a sleep spell on your daughter. I was afraid she'd use her glamour and sneak away to this one at her earliest opportunity."

"Her magic was certainly trying to pull him to her until a few moments ago.

"Jake," the king said directly to him, "you will take this as a royal command. You are not to see my daughter again. You may not speak to her in public or in private. You will not write. You will not talk to her over comms. You are going to forget about her. Put her out of your mind."

The blood drained from Jacob's face and he could do nothing but shake his head in response.

"I can't," Jacob finally said through clenched teeth.

"You must! Make a blood oath to me that you will not seek her company or counsel."

"Jacob," the queen interjected, "I understand. You don't think that I do, or that I have no sympathy, but that's the furthest from the truth."

Jacob looked at her dully.

"You must do this because if you don't, if you consummate your love for each other, Fiona will surely die. This is the ultimate consequence. Her body is not ready. It may never be."

"She'll die?" Jacob asked, his confusion evident.

"Yes. She will," Maeve assured him. "The Crown Law forbids marriage because she will die."

"I know I can't marry her. That doesn't mean we can't be together! We can... "

"It's not a marriage that is the problem, Jacob! It's the sex. She will die trying to bear your child!" Maeve's eyes blazed.

"I know the law doesn't matter much to you, Jake," the king grumbled. "But surely the life of our daughter does?"

"Yes, sir. I don't want to hurt her."

"We both know it's far too late for that."

"I promise on my life that I won't do anything to harm her. She's more dear to me than my own life."

"And you promise not to contact her or seek her presence?"

"Can I tell her goodbye?" Jacob whispered. "Please?"

"No, you can't," the queen said, before the king's soft heart could allow one last meeting. "Her magic is very powerful. I can imagine a dozen ways such a meeting could lead to disaster. No."

"If you will not make an oath than we have no choice but to keep you separated by any means at our disposal, Jacob," Maeve's quiet assurance was far more terrifying than the king's rage. "I will use my not inconsiderable power to make sure you never hold each other again."

Jacob just stared at her and slowly shook his head.

"Jake, it's 2 in the morning," the king finally said. "Go to your quarters and get some rest. We will speak more tomorrow."

Jake leaned down and pulled on his boots, stood and bowed to the king and queen and silently left them.

***

"Fiona is asleep in my room," the queen said, walking over to her husband and sitting down on his lap to embrace him. William nodded but said nothing. "I left a guard. Not that one could keep her in, but it will keep Jacob out should she wake and her magic call to him.

"We are lucky that she isn't deceitful. I asked her what she would do if I let her go and she was quite honest with me when she said she'd 'find Jacob and have his babies'. She doesn't realize she's barely more than a baby herself.

"I will take her to Academy in the morning."

"She will miss Solstice with us," William murmured, finally letting tears roll down his cheeks.

"She will, husband," the queen replied. "At this point it can't be helped. I can only keep her under a sleep spell for so long. And if she is awake and on the same planet with Jacob, her magic will find a way. It will draw her to him like bees to honey."

"I wish... Well, as her father I would have been angry tonight whoever I found her with, but I do wish I could let Jake and Fiona be together. He is the son of my heart and I would like nothing better than for him to find happiness with our Baby Girl. The Crown Law can be changed... ."

"Right now we must just assure she and Jacob do not have intercourse," the queen informed her husband. "The danger to her is very real. Her body is not mature enough to survive the Land Law magic bindings that go with a royal pregnancy, let alone the additional Land Law bindings of Citadel if Jacob fathers her child. The magical weaving would quite literally break her bones.

"If Jacob's will were not so strong... as is his sense of duty, I have no doubt Fiona would already be with child. But her magic erodes that will. It won't be long before he will be unable to refuse her."

"I have no doubt that tonight was just the latest in a series of trysts that have become more and more dangerous for her," the king sighed. "Jacob fights it, but he loves her. Her death in childbirth will destroy him too. We would be left with no Duke of Citadel. Edward would be left to rule without his strength. That would be disastrous."

***

Jacob woke confused, tangled in his bedsheets, and with a desperate urge to get to the Kype's landing field as quickly as possible. His entire body screamed at him to go there and find Fiona. Since when he'd gotten to his room the night before he hadn't bothered to undress, he just jumped out of the bed and ran. He looked a wrinkled mess in his bare feet, day-old clothes, uncombed hair, and stubble of beard as he burst out onto the field only to see Fiona, struggling against her mother's hold, being carried into a transport ship as the king stood close by watching with tears in his eyes.

The skies opened up with a downpour of heavy snow and lightning strike after lightning strike lit the sky and discharged into the ice floes on the river surrounding the Kype while Jacob ran toward the king and the transport, slipping and sliding in the deep snow the entire way.

William's quick reflexes were all that prevented Jacob from throwing himself at the closing hatch of the transport. He grabbed the younger man by his wrists and held him in place while the transport's hatch finally closed and the vehicle rose into the air. Jacob struggled mightily against William as the storm raged around them, but the king would not release his hold. Eventually, both the storm and Jacob's struggles subsided as the transport rose into the air.

"It is a good thing that not all royal princes and princesses have such command of the Land Law as does my daughter, don't you think?" William said to Jake, his tone wry but his face a mask of grief. "She is the first in a dozen generations who can call storms.

"It gives me some hope that she will survive this with you."

"What does that mean? Sir? What does that mean?" Jake asked, his voice rough with emotion.

"Go get cleaned up, Jake. It's the morning of Winter Solstice. A time for joyous celebration," the king responded, his voice just as rough.