She bobbed her eyebrows. “I’ve been around this Tinker Bell hill before.” She told him about Aborella and Sedona.
“I ne’er liked that fairy,” he said. “Aborella played an increasin’ role in the palace when I was a bairn. None of us liked her.”
She nodded in agreement. “So where do we get an iron weapon? What is your sword made of?”
“Steel. All our weapons are steel. Have been for a century.”
She sighed. “So we need an antique iron weapon that’s still strong enough to slice off a fairy’s head.”
“The head. Aye. Even immortals need a head.”
They both nodded knowingly.
“Where do you keep ancient weapons? Do you have a museum or something?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Mostly folks keep their ancestors’ wares.”
“Should be easy enough. All the people here have been around for generations, right?”
Xavier rubbed his chin. “In theory, but goin’ door to door askin’ for iron weapons might not serve our cause. Lachlan will have poisoned the clan’s mind about me by now, and Glenna says they’re after ye as well.”
“Right.” Avery spread her hands. “There must be another way. This shouldn’t be hard. We are literally living in a cottage with a brownie. Shouldn’t one fairy know how to capture another?”
Xavier raised an eyebrow and muttered something in Gaelic. The brownie appeared by his side. After an exchange of words and squeaks, the furry man led them both to a trunk at the back of the cottage. Avery had noticed the chest before, but it was covered in a musty quilt and a layer of dust. She removed the quilt and a puff of dust rose into the air. She coughed and covered her mouth and nose with her hands.
Xavier reached down to lift the lid and magic swirled in the air. Avery only recognized it from the time she’d raised the circle with her sister Clarissa. The air grew thick and her skin tingled. The chest vibrated as if there was something alive inside it.
Xavier lifted the lid.
“Books!” she said.
Xavier glanced back at the brownie, and the furry man bowed and then disappeared. “This was not whit I was expectin’.”
“What were you expecting?”
“I didna want to scare the fella by askin’ how to murder his kind, ye ken?”
She nodded.
“So I asked to learn more about fairies. I wasna expectin’ a library.”
She selected one of the tomes and opened it. “This is filled with sketches of fairies. All the labels are in Gaelic.”
He grunted and selected another book, flipping through the pages. “Must be somethin’ here. And it looks like most of them are in English.”
Avery groaned and tilted her head back. “When I said I would help you, I didn’t know there would be research involved.”
“Ye donna like books?”
“Oh, I love to read… fiction. I’m just not much of an academic. School was never really my thing. I mean, certain subjects clicked. Others…”
“Aye. Ma talents as a young dragon lay more in the fighting pits than the classroom as well.”
Darkness passed behind his normally bright eyes, and she couldn’t help but wonder at what haunting memories must have caused such an expression. “Did you like fighting?” she asked, closing the book in her hands. The man in front of her was far more interesting than anything within its pages. “Nathaniel said you were the best of any of his siblings.”
Xavier gave a deep grunt that she interpreted as agreement. “In Paragon, every dragon male is taken to the pits when they’re old enough to hold a weapon. We were no exception. The Highborns entertain themselves by watching their whelps fight.”
“Highborns—that was the aristocracy, right?”
He nodded. “Our father, Killian, coached us, but he took special interest in me. Because we were heirs to the throne, our lessons were longer and harder than the others’. Not that it mattered. The other Highborn children were taught never to win against us, just as we were taught never to defeat our eldest brother Marius.”
“Some of the matches were fixed?”
“Aye. They were, although it was an unspoken rule. A confusing one at that for a bairn who didn’t know the why of it. I remember one match when I rebelled and let a male from a lower caste win. He broke my arm and my wing. I crawled to Killian, injured and in the worst pain I’d ever felt, and he picked me up and sent me back into the pit.”
Avery’s stomach turned. “He made you fight injured?”
“Aye. ‘Donna come out until ye’ve won,’ he said. And I dinna. I pummeled my opponent bloody. Couldn’t move for a week afterward.”
The idea of a young Xavier fighting for his life in the pit gave Avery a chill. She opened her mouth to say something and couldn’t find the words. In the end, she gave up on trying and looked down at the books in her hand.
Xavier reached in and picked up another tome. “So…”
She sighed. “All right. Well, I guess we should get started… reading… these old books.” She rocked back on her heels.
“Would ye like a whisky to dull the pain?” He gave her that charming, crooked smile.
“That’ll work.”
She settled into a chair at the table while he fetched a bottle and two glasses from the stash of supplies the brownie had provided. He poured them both a healthy dose and sat down across from her. She opened the book and began reading a painstakingly detailed account of the first fairy sightings in Scotland. She sipped her whisky.
“Are we ever going to talk about the fact you saw me naked, or are we going to pretend it didn’t happen?” she asked, not looking up from the text.
“Which da ye prefer?”
“How much did you see?” When he didn’t answer right away, her eyes flicked up to his.
He sipped his whisky and flashed that crooked smile again. “Enough I’m lucky not to ’ave gone blind from the glory of it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Everfield
It had been six days since Aborella had been rescued from a hole in the ground, and she was feeling more herself than she had in months. Her skin had regained its deep purple hue, and her limbs had grown back enough that she could walk around the cottage, albeit with a limp. Both her wings were healed as well, and they fluttered often as she inspected every corner of the cottage at every opportunity.
She’d been careful to use her regained magic to hide her identity. To others, her skin appeared a deep rose color and her normally silver eyes sparkled green as new spring leaves. Perhaps the only thing that remained truly hers was her platinum hair. That at least occurred frequently enough in the regular fairy population to not give away her identity.
“Will you take part in the waning ceremony?” Dianthe mixed another batch of cookies in a giant bowl on the counter. The woman’s oven was always on as far as Aborella could tell. She was a baking machine, a goddess of home and hearth. “You seem well.”
“I think so.” Aborella hadn’t left the cottage since arriving here and was looking forward to a change of scenery. Plus she hoped the opportunity would arise for Dianthe to introduce her to additional Defenders of the Goddess.
“We haven’t talked much about what happens next, but I’m assuming you’ll want to make a fresh start. I’ve talked with Briar Blackcliff at the mill, and he said he has a job for you if you’re not opposed to working on the line. It’s not hard work collecting pollen, but it is repetitive. If you go tonight, I can introduce you.”
Although her initial reaction was to sneer at the idea—the High Sorceress of Paragon reduced to collecting pollen for fairy food production?—an unexpected longing filled her. The idea that she might start anew, leading a simple life like this one, a life where she might grow to have relationships based on basic kindnesses, gave her an unwelcome warm feeling behind her ribs. She cast it aside and focused on the task at hand.
“Will other members of the Defenders of the Goddess be there? Everything you’ve told m
e about the DOGs has convinced me it’s where I need to be. I’d love to become more involved.”
“Now that Sylas is back, he’s reconnecting with the leaders from the other five kingdoms. We need to be careful right now. He’s a fugitive. One wrong move could land him back in the dungeons of Paragon. It will be some time before we meet with other DOGs again.” Dianthe rested her spoon against the side of the bowl and lowered her eyes as if she were reciting a silent prayer.
They’d been here before. Dianthe had spent hours explaining the rebellion to Aborella, but without any real details the fairy sorceress could act upon. In short, each of the five kingdoms had a network of DOG sympathizers, but members never used their real identities. Instead, they each went by a code that was constantly changing and had to do with their rank in the organization rather than their specific person. Sylas was currently Everfield, red zone, number one. ERO for short. For the two years he was imprisoned, someone else had served as the ERO.
This was why the kingdom of Paragon could not squash the rebellion. It was like a hydra—cut one head off and another would take its place. And the more Aborella learned about the movement, the more she was convinced that the five kingdoms were crawling with rebels.
The saddest part was she had to acknowledge the DOGs had a point. She’d learned from Dianthe that more than half of what Everfield produced was collected by Paragon as a tax. The remaining half had to feed, clothe, and shelter the population. Many shop owners attempted to hide a portion of their production to help needy families, but the Obsidian Guard had cracked down recently. Random raids now occurred with common frequency, and if the Guard found any undeclared property, the punishment was immediate beheading.
Sometimes illegal activity wasn’t even necessary to draw the Guard’s attention. She’d learned of several fairies who had been tormented by the Guard for sport. Had Dianthe not been the one to tell her that, Aborella might have thought it was a lie. But the fairy had been brutally honest from the beginning and shared specifics that made Aborella’s blood run cold.
At first Aborella wondered if Eleanor was aware of what was going on or if the Highborn class had orchestrated the tactics without her knowledge. But the more she thought of it, the more she was sure Eleanor was behind the crackdown and likely condoning the raids. Her entire purpose was always to unite the kingdoms under herself by any means. What better way than to create such mass poverty as to break the individual governments and force them to accept her offer to join Paragon, the only remaining truly prosperous kingdom?
A tug deep in her torso stole her breath, and she rubbed her chest. She was struck by a sudden and overwhelming urge to return to the Obsidian Palace. Was it her second sight warning her of danger in Everfield? No. As she examined the strange sensation, she chalked it up to apprehension. Despite what Eleanor had done to her, the empress would be unhappy if she discovered where Aborella had been this past week. The feeling in her gut was undoubtedly her body warning her that the longer she stayed in Everfield, the greater the risk that Eleanor would discover she was missing and punish her for it. She was relieved when the feeling faded.
“I’ll take the job. I’d love to go tonight and to meet Briar,” Aborella said. After all, she couldn’t go back to Paragon without something, anything, to buy her way back into Eleanor’s good graces. She needed more information, and speaking with this mill operator might buy her that.
“Excellent.” Dianthe’s grin was warm and genuine. She handed the bowl to Aborella. “Now help me shape these into moons for tonight.”
Chapter Seventeen
Xavier was having trouble keeping his mind on his book. It was Avery—her scent, her spitfire spirit, the way she bit her thumbnail gently as she read. It wasn’t a simple attraction. His dragon had taken an unparalleled interest in her, prompting him to watch her when he should have his eyes on the words in front of him. Everything about her was intriguing, including the mystery of her relationship with his family. She knew more about them than he did at the moment.
“I think I found something!” Avery’s eyes flicked up, and he pretended to be reading instead of watching her as he had been.
“Oh?”
“Listen to this. There was this blacksmith named Alasdair MacEachern who had a son named Neil. His wife was dead, so he was raising Neil on his own. This guy lived near a fairy knoll, and so he always hung a rowan branch over his cottage door to keep the fairies from stealing Neil because he was such an adorable young bairn—I guess that means child, right?”
Xavier nodded.
“Anyway, one day when Neil was around thirteen, Alasdair, who was a blacksmith, had to travel a distance to deliver his wares to a customer. He told Neil to replace the rowan branch above the door before bed. But Neil got distracted and didn’t. And guess what? The fairies took him.”
“Hmm.” Xavier rubbed his chin. “And I suppose they replaced him with a changeling like Lachlan. There are many stories like that.”
“But that’s not the end of this story. Alasdair, suspecting his son had been replaced with a changeling, visited a wise woman in the hills who was suspected of being a witch. She confirmed his fears and helped him get his son back.”
“How’d he do it?”
“First he had to burn the changeling in a massive fire with some magic words, which is clearly disturbing considering the thing looked like his son. But he did it and the creature went up in smoke.”
Xavier scoffed. “I think it will take more than fire and a few magic words to rid this world of Lachlan.”
“I’m not suggesting you burn him. There is more to this story, Xavier. The witch told Alasdair to take a bible, a sword, and a crowing cock by the light of the full moon to the fairy knoll, where Alasdair used those three items to trick the fairies and rescue his son.”
Xavier narrowed his eyes. “A bible—”
“—never mind. I have no idea. The cock completely threw me off. Anyway, he got the boy back, his real son!”
“Oh?”
“Only, the kid had completely lost his ability speak.” Her eyes widened.
Xavier sipped his whisky.
“Later, that boy Neil, who’d apprenticed under his father as a blacksmith, forged an iron sword for the chief of his clan, a one of a kind fairy-killing blade. Here’s the important part… Neil had remembered how to do it from his time among the fairies.”
“Are ye suggesting the blade was forged with fairy magic?”
“Yes. Forging that fairy blade broke the curse over his tongue, and Neil began to speak again. As soon as he said his first words, all memories of the fairylands left him, but he still had that one blade. It says here that Neil was never able to forge another weapon of its kind but that the chief of his clan never lost a battle so long as he used that sword. It was nicknamed murtair sídh.”
“Fairy killer,” Xavier translated.
“If this is real, this blade could kill Lachlan.” Avery slapped her hand down on the page. “Is there any chance the sword is here? In the builgean?”
Xavier stood and paced. “Clan MacEachern originally hails from the Isle of Islay, but over the generations they’ve mixed with the Campbells. A few of their descendants live here, near the loch. They have a preference for water, ye ken. It’s possible they’d have the sword. It would have been something their clan would wish to secure from the British, and there’d be nowhere safer to hide it than here.”
“Excellent. Where do they live? Let’s go ask them.”
He chuckled. “We canna simply rush up to their door and ask if they have a magic sword. For one, Lachlan probably has them brainwashed against me. If they see me, they may attack or report back to Lachlan.”
“So I’ll go. I’ll…” She drummed her fingers on the table. “I’ll pretend to be a mother who has lost her baby daughter to the fairies and has it on good authority that they have a weapon that can help get her back.”
He narrowed his eyes on the woman. “It’s frightening how fast ye came
up with that, lass. I damn near believe ye, and I ken it’s not true.”
She gave him a toothy grin.
“But remember, Glenna said Lachlan has put out the word to look for ye as well.”
“Even if Lachlan produces a sketch of me to pass around, what are the chances it would have made it to the MacEacherns’ already? It can’t be very good. We were in the same room only a handful of times. I have new clothes. I’ll cover my hair. I doubt anyone will recognize me. And if they do, I’ll scream and you can come and rescue me.”
“It’s a good plan, lass, but I have a better one. I’ll disguise maself, and we’ll go together. It will be more believable for a couple to be seekin’ their bairn.”
“How far is it?”
“About a half day’s ride.”
Avery nodded. “We’ll leave first thing tomorrow then.”
That night, after a morning of cattle rustling, hauling a dozen buckets of water for her bath, hours of studying old books, and more than her share of whisky, Avery should have been bone tired. But she tossed and turned in the bed, unable to think of anything other than Xavier, asleep on the floor in the main room. Was he comfortable? It was a cold night, but her thick blanket kept her warm and cozy. Dragons didn’t get cold of course, but she couldn’t help fantasizing about what it might feel like to snuggle in beside him and share the mattress.
She pushed that last thought out of her head. She’d only known the dragon for two days, and she was not the type of woman to rush into a physical relationship. But damn if she didn’t understand now what her sister had experienced with Gabriel. The crush Avery had on Xavier was positively distracting. Only the memory of him brushing her hair eventually lulled her to sleep.
In the morning, she woke to the sound of footsteps on the weathered boards of the cottage’s porch and the glow of diffuse light shining through the window sheers. She peeked out and saw Xavier serving the brownie a bowl of milk that the little man lapped up ferociously until there was cream soaking his whiskers all the way to his ears. The brownie served the one who fed him. If they wanted the fairy’s allegiance, it was paramount that they take care of him.
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