Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  “Are you all right?” Simith asked quietly.

  “Fine.”

  She shouldn’t have snapped at him. Should she apologize? He didn’t look offended.

  “Why are you at war with the trolls?” Jessa asked, opting to change the subject.

  “All peoples in my world require a conduit to wield their magic,” he said. “Each race uses something different, something that enhances their magic better than anything else. The fairies can use any gemstone, but the diamonds of the Twilight Grotto work better than the stones found in their lands.”

  “I’m guessing these grottos belong to the trolls.”

  “Correct. There was an attempt at trade, but it devolved into conflict that spilled across the realm a century past. The pixie clans joined the fairy legion ten years ago after the trolls burned our moorlands.” His voice lowered. “Attacking our homes is a tactic they continue to use.”

  Jessa glanced over her shoulder at him. His eyes held a faraway look she knew from herself, full of old pain, ground in so deep it was impossible to imagine a time when it wasn't there.

  She dropped back to walk beside him. “What do pixies use for conduits?”

  “A tattoo carved into our skin with evergreen ink. The ink is rare, made from the sap of trees found in a forest near the Giant Hills. On our eighth name day, our parents take us to collect the sap and decide the emblem we wish to bear.” He touched his chest with a faint smile. “Afterward, there’s a celebration.”

  It sounded like a lovely tradition. Jessa thought of her own tattoo, the letters and numbers written down the column of her spine to the small of her back. The pain of the needle had seemed cleansing at the time, but now she could swear she felt each of them like a weight that would never lift.

  FLIGHT 276

  She cleared her throat and halted. "Let's put you here, by my workbench. There's a clear view to this spot from the front doors and more room to maneuver in case you need it." She gestured to the wedge of space separating it from the aisles.

  "Very well."

  He turned his back to her, joining his hands behind him so Jessa could tie the bonds. She took the ropes Relle had given her from her pocket, and grimaced at the raw, bruised circle of skin at his wrists. Spying a succulent on her workbench, she paused.

  “Wait. Let me put this on first.”

  He faced her. “We haven’t much time.”

  “This won’t take a second.” She snapped off one of the fleshy leaves. “It’s just a bit of aloe. It works as an ointment on cuts and burns.”

  He allowed her to take his arm, watching as she squeezed the plant’s clear gel-like liquid onto one wrist. “You’re a healer?”

  She snorted. “This is the extent of my expertise unless you count knowing Band-Aids should be applied with the sticky side down.”

  Gently, she spread the aloe over the abrasion. It felt cool on her fingers in contrast to the warm night and his even warmer skin.

  He exhaled softly. “It is soothing.”

  “Good. You’ve had a lot of hurts over the past few hours.”

  “It has been a long night,” he agreed. “What is your occupation, if not a healer?”

  Such a common question. She wondered if it would ever stop feeling so loaded.

  “I used to write poetry,” she said. “Now, I just teach it.”

  He stilled. “You are a maker of verse?”

  The reverence in his voice was endearing. “That’s a more heroic description than I’d give it.” She switched to his other wrist.

  “Those who use words as their instrument are held in high esteem among my kind. From your fingers, whole realms of thought are sprung.” He eased his wrist from her grasp. “And they should not be salving the cuts of a mere soldier.”

  “Soldiers aren’t viewed highly?”

  “Violence wasn’t our way until the war, but the courage of knights is valued.” A muscle moved along his jaw. “Brutality is not.”

  The shame in his voice pulled on her stomach. She didn’t know anything about war, but she understood the look in his eyes; the devouring grief, the vanishing self. She, too, had seen the stranger staring back from the mirror.

  Jessa set the ropes on the workbench. “I’m not tying you up.”

  He glanced at her empty hands. “What?”

  “Relle and Ionia only want to make sure you can’t run, but if something goes wrong, you’ll need to defend yourself.”

  His brown eyes held hers, inscrutable. “You shouldn’t trust that I won’t abandon you if something does go wrong. You don’t know me.”

  “You saved my life.”

  "After causing the harm, and you had already saved my life."

  "Yes, and it was a lot of trouble, so I'm not about to let you lose it now."

  "Jessa." He ran a hand over his mouth and sighed. "If this works, I will run. The Fae won’t let me go even if we succeed."

  "I know. That’s why I’m not tying you up."

  He gazed down at her.

  “You didn’t come here looking for them. I was there. You didn’t even know where you were.”

  He moved closer. “Why do you defend me?” he asked, though it sounded more like a plea.

  “I…don’t know.”

  “Jessa—” His head snapped toward the door. His hand closed over hers on the flashlight. “They’re coming.”

  She switched it off. “I don’t hear anything,” she whispered.

  “The Sorrow Blade sings for my blood.” He turned her around, his hand briefly squeezing her shoulder. “Get to cover,” he said, his words as soft as a breath in the dark. “And no matter what occurs, stay hidden.”

  Chapter Seven

  They made no attempt at hiding their approach. The doors blew open on a gust of magic, the rusted hinges Jessa had mentioned screeching like a felled bird. All three had come, a move that struck him as unusual. Trolls typically sent one of their party to scout along the perimeter. Had the Fae spun such a believable tale?

  With his head lolled forward and his body slumped against the leg of the table, Simith kept his arms looped behind him as though bound. Through lowered lashes, he watched them stride in without hesitation. Moonlight drenched the entryway, marking their position clearly. They did not, as he’d expected, spread out or stalk along the side aisles. They tromped up the narrow lane leading to him, their thick builds forcing them to fall into single file. Simith tried not to question this luck. In another few moments, their strangely reckless behavior wouldn’t matter.

  Trailing their rearguard was the woman they’d abducted. Magical tethers pinned her arms to her sides and held her feet floating a handspan off the ground. She twisted and struggled, giving him hope she was uninjured. She said something to the nearest troll. With the gag in her mouth, the words were unintelligible, but from the snarled tone, the insult didn’t require interpretation. The one leading the group grumbled irritably under his breath. Simith wondered if she’d caused them some hassle during her captivity. What a wonderful thought.

  “Do you see him?” one growled.

  “I think that’s him by the wall?”

  “That’s a shovel, you idiot.”

  “It’s too blasted dark in here.”

  Simith just barely held off a frown. Too dark? He’d once seen a troll shoot down a fellow knight from fifty paces under a moonless sky.

  Their steps slowed, still not yet near enough to be certain of the trap. He let his wings hang slightly lopsided and issued a soft groan.

  “There, that’s him.”

  Their pace quickened again, confident now. Simith held himself still and forced his muscles to stay unclenched. The steps closed in.

  Now, Jessa.

  As if she heard his thought, latches snapped somewhere behind him, and blinding light flooded the room from above. The sudden illumination nearly made him echo the shout of alarm from the trolls. On instinct, he shifted into a crouch and scuttled one row over, shaking his head to clear his watering eyes. The t
rolls had gone silent. Had it worked? Still blinking, he rose up to his knees and squinted across the aisles, hoping to find figures of stone.

  What he saw turned his blood to ice. The green skin was gone; the lamplight eyes replaced with browns and blues. What were once hulking figures had become tall and lanky-limbed, dressed in dove-colored tunics. They rubbed their eyes, still muttering their surprise between them in voices no longer gruff, but high and musical. Simith dropped back down and gripped his brow.

  Fairies. They were fairies. Not trolls, but glamoured to look like them. For what possible reason?

  The answer came immediately. Simith tipped his head back and closed his eyes. The meeting with the troll king. Somehow, they’d discovered what he was up to and intercepted him before he could arrive. But why the deception? If they’d intended to kill him all along, why bother to trick him into thinking the trolls had betrayed him?

  “What is this magic?” one of them hissed. “We are revealed. Naught but daylight could have torn that disguise from us.”

  “Shoot a volley,” another ordered, and Simith’s eyes snapped back open. He knew that voice. He hadn’t recognized the others, but this fairy he knew. Helm Firo.

  He had to get out of here.

  There came a yelp and something clattered onto the tiles. “I can’t draw these iron arrows, not without the glamour shield.”

  “Use a knife, then.”

  Glass shattered above, debris scattering against the floor like crystalline raindrops. Simith used the sound to cover his movements toward the door. All Helms knew the true names of the pixies in the legion. With his name, Firo could compel him to do anything. He could compel him to carve out his own heart. Why he hadn’t done so from the beginning mattered less than putting as much distance between them as possible.

  “Those mages thought to trick us,” one sneered. “If we’d been trolls, we’d be stone and dead now.” The rasp of a knife leaving its sheath made Simith pause. “We should take the girl’s life for their duplicity.”

  “Too dangerous. This world is strange and its magic stranger,” Firo said. “We swore not to harm her, and foreswearing ourselves here is to take a risk we don’t understand.”

  They didn’t know the half of it. If they realized the bargain had been struck with Fae, no one would speak of harming their hostage. Nightmare tales were still told around the fire of the Fae’s savagery against those who broke agreements.

  While they argued, Simith darted beneath the table beside the front door. He gazed out at Jessa’s garden, its leaves and petals iron-grey beneath the night sky. In a moment the fairies would notice his absence. This was his moment to escape.

  His shoulders drooped. Escape to what? He didn’t understand their motives behind this elaborate scheme, but clearly his commanders had discovered his dealings with the trolls, and they wanted him dead. And what of Jessa and her friend? If he left, would that mean the bargain was off? Jessa wouldn’t do anything brash like trying to save her friend herself, would she? He thought of Rimthea, and what he’d have done to save her if given the chance. Even outnumbered, even without magic or weapons, he’d have damned the odds for his best friend.

  But perhaps he didn’t need to here, not if he wagered his luck on a risky plan.

  “Hey,” one of the fairies snapped. “Where has he gone?”

  Simith ducked out from the table and stood. “Helm Firo, I am here.”

  The others whirled and drew their knives. Firo turned with more calm and kept his crystal blade sheathed. The wrath in his hard, blue eyes belied his serene posture.

  He gave no greeting before he spoke. “Simith Safflower Sun.”

  Simith stiffened, his true name wrapping him in a tight grip. He’d anticipated this, but not quite so soon.

  “Yes, Commander,” he managed.

  “Come away from the door and join us here.”

  His limbs moved under the order, as separate from his will as a tree branch caught in the wind.

  “If I had known it was you who followed me, I would not have run,” he said, attempting to direct himself to arrive near Katie. His body thankfully deemed the action to be one that still complied with the command.

  “Would you.” Firo’s baleful gaze watched him approach. “That is an interesting claim, given the treachery you were about tonight.”

  “I only meant to speak with the troll king for the sake of peace.”

  “You’ve no authority to offer that, even if you had the will of the court.”

  “Peace must begin somewhere. I merely wished to open the door.”

  Firo’s lip curled. “They are ungrateful, undeserving beasts. It was fairy kind who defeated the Fae. By rights and by honor, the trolls should have given us those caves long ago.” He waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. Our enemy is close to defeat. Peace will come when our legion has vanquished them.”

  And by vanquished, he meant slaughtered. Simith had already imagined that battle, seeing himself at the front, cleaving through what fighters the trolls still had. Then the arrival to the Twilight Grotto, to homes and children and elders, and a handful of young ones left to defend it. He imagined the other pixie knights, watching him for direction. Follow the order and slay every life inside, or defy it?

  Simith had made his choice long before that moment ever arrived.

  He drew even with Katie where she hovered in her tethers and flexed his mind to stop his legs. They took two steps past her before complying.

  “Defeating the Fae was meant to make us free,” Simith said. “A century of war and countless deaths. All have suffered. Why dwell in blood if there’s a chance for truce?”

  The others moved back as Firo stepped close, violence shimmering in his gaze.

  “Did you hope to change your legacy? Become a peacemaker at the last gasp? You, Sun Fury, who counted his glory in the number of trolls slain by his blade?”

  He had no answer to that. Snickers filled his silence.

  “What is this world you’ve brought us to?” Firo said. “What allies have you here?”

  “I came upon the doorway by accident.” He winced, the order tugging more information from his tongue. “I was told it’s called the Michigan.”

  “Told by the mages we bartered with?”

  “No.”

  “Who then?”

  The name shoved itself from his mouth. “Jessa.”

  Katie made a quiet sound behind him. Firo glanced at her and Simith took the moment to shift back a half-step.

  The Helm’s gaze returned to him. “Where is she now?”

  He tried not to speak. He clamped his mouth shut, reaching for some way to dodge the question.

  “Simith. Safflower. Sun,” Firo repeated. “Where is she?”

  He shook with the strain, swallowing down his voice, but his body would not heed him. It knew a single command, nothing more or less until it was obeyed. His lips parted, the very air in his lungs pressing out a whispered reply. “She is here. At the back.”

  Katie made a garbled protest of fear and outrage. Firo nodded at two of his soldiers. They sped to the far wall.

  “She has no part in any of this,” Simith told him urgently. “She helped me as a kindness, nothing more. She’s no danger to any of you.”

  Pottery crashed and one of them spit out a curse. Simith ignored Firo’s dark glare, trying to catch a glimpse of what occurred, but he couldn’t see beyond the tower of objects he’d stacked on the table. There were sounds of struggle. Jessa cried out.

  He lunged forward, shoving Firo aside, but a fairy emerged from behind the table with Jessa in his grip. With one arm looped across her ribs, he held a knife to her throat. Blood seeped from a split on her lip.

  His fingers curled into a fist. “Let her go.”

  “No allies, yet you concern yourself with her fate?” Firo’s eyes narrowed.

  “She’s innocent of any treachery that you believe I’ve committed.”

  “Believe. Perhaps you think you’re innoce
nt as well.”

  “Why did you come here like this?” he demanded. “Why glamour yourselves to look like trolls if you knew of my dealings? Why not arrest me outright?”

  Firo scoffed. “How would that look to the other pixies if even the Sun Fury questions our methods? We are at the precipice of victory. Executing you for treason would incite doubt among the ranks, especially given the pacifist nature of your kind.” He unsheathed a dagger from his side. No, not a dagger, he saw with a jolt to his innards. The Sorrow Blade. The ice-blue metal shimmered beneath the bright lights, rippling as it caught him in its reflection. It sang a sharp, shrill melody, like a scream trapped at its highest note.

  “No,” Firo told him. “You will be a noble sacrifice, the one who was sent to offer mercy to the troll king, only to be betrayed and murdered by a Sorrow Blade. That,” he said, advancing with the weapon, “will be the end of any talk of peace.”

  Simith retreated, but another fairy grabbed him from behind. Magic pulsed from his captor’s grip, holding him in place with unnatural strength. He glanced back. Katie hovered just behind. So close. If he could break free for even a moment to enact his plan, they might have a chance.

  But Firo was already there, pulling open his leathers, and Simith knew it was too late for hope. The blade brushed his skin, the metal shivering in its eagerness to drink his cries.

  Only, the cry that erupted wasn’t his. It came from behind Firo. The Helm turned at the sound. The fairy that restrained Jessa had toppled to the ground, grabbing a bloody nose while Jessa herself held the back of her head, wincing. She searched the ground. What was she doing? The fairies would recapture her if she didn’t move.

  “Jessa, run!” Simith shouted, but she didn’t. She bent down and retrieved a slender stick from the tiles. His eyes widened. It was the iron arrow that had been dropped earlier. She held it uncertainly, as though she’d never touched one before in her life. Clearly, not a fighter. Then the fairy she’d head butted stirred and she jabbed his arm with the arrowhead. He fell back with a howl. Simith almost laughed in astonishment. Maybe she was a fighter after all.