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

by Melinda Kucsera

  She held out the silver blade Simith had given her. Jessa came forward to take it, relief washing through her.

  “Where did you find this? I thought I’d lost it.” She’d searched all over the Neverstems’ guest room before giving up.

  Relle blinked in surprise. “The pixie gave you that?”

  “He called it a token.” She recalled his somber brown eyes as he’d done it, the warmth of his hands around hers.

  Relle gazed at the blade with a contemplative expression. “Tokens aren’t given lightly. They’re a gesture of high esteem, a bond of gratitude and trust.”

  “A bond?” Katie said incredulously. She looked at Jessa. “You knew him for one night. What exactly happened when you walked him back to the trees?”

  “I—Nothing. A conversation,” Jessa sputtered.

  Relle waved the matter away. “I thought he’d simply dropped it in his fight with the trolls, but if he gifted the blade intentionally, this will work even better.”

  “What will?” Jessa asked.

  “It’s spelled with his magic, see?” She traced a finger down the delicate green vines along the blade. “It’ll lead you to his whereabouts over there.”

  “Like a tracking device?” Katie tentatively touched the design.

  “Sort of, yes. This is precisely why tokens are rarely given.”

  “How do I get it to work if I don’t have any magic to activate it?” Jessa asked.

  “You don’t need any.” Relle produced a slim, leather belt and slid the knife into a sheath along its side. “The blade itself has magic. As its bearer, you only need to touch it and hold in your mind a wish to find him. When the magic reacts, it’ll feel like instinct, a pull to go in a certain direction. Follow that guidance.”

  And hope wherever it led wasn’t toward danger. Simith had intended to arrange another meeting with the troll king when he got back. It’d sounded like a dicey prospect before. Since he never arrived at the first one, it was likely even more so this time. A grim thought occurred to her.

  “Relle,” she said hesitantly. “Ionia said Simith and I are tethered to each other, but she didn’t mention what would happen if one of us…if something happened to one of us.”

  Relle’s eyes held sympathy as she handed her the knife and belt. “You share a single life force. Neither of you can survive if you lose the other half.”

  Jessa shivered, cinching the belt around her waist with hands that didn’t warm even in the July heat. “Then the sooner I leave, the better.”

  “We,” Katie corrected her. “I’ll need to stop by my place for a couple things.”

  Relle hesitated at that, lips pursing. She nodded. “We must hurry in that case. Granny wanted to close the doorway today. We have to arrive before she does.”

  Ionia was already there.

  It had taken less than twenty minutes for Katie to grab a few essentials, switch into her riding gear and a pair of boots that looked far sturdier than Jessa’s sneakers, and arrive at the tree line, but somehow Relle’s grandmother beat them to it. The old woman took in the sight of the three of them, dark eyes managing to look down on them despite her view from the wheelchair.

  She fixed her gaze on Relle. “No,” she told her. “You cannot go.”

  “I’m half-human,” Relle said. “You always say my magic has a different feel than yours. The curse—”

  “Is likely to kill you anyway.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “She’s not going with us anyway,” Katie put in. “It’s just me and Jessa. Can’t you wait a few days so we can bring this guy back and find a way to untangle them?”

  “No.”

  Katie put her hands on her hips. “I thought you were mad he wasn’t still here this morning. Now you don’t care?”

  She rolled her chair a pace closer, a dangerous air to her mien. Jessa found herself taking a step back. “To walk him back to the doorway is to risk others finding it. And you,” she pointed at Relle, “are a fool for even considering this.”

  “If I’m careful, the curse won’t find me.”

  “You say that because I have spared you from knowing the worst of its effects,” Ionia said. “There is a reason I have kept you from going there.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.”

  “Are you.” She opened her palm to reveal a small image of Relle standing there, exactly as she was now. “Would you feel the same when the blood runs from your eyes and spills from your mouth?” She lifted a hand and red streaked from the false Relle’s face. She collapsed, clawing at herself, writhing in agony. “You would not die. Not for many days. Not even if you begged for death. Not even if someone tried to give you it to you.” The girl’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Ionia snapped her hand shut. “You would suffer until the curse filled your heart with maggots and your body rotted through. Even then, you would linger for a time longer.”

  The bright, afternoon sun seemed too bright in the quiet that followed her hideous proclamation.

  Katie swore, voice quavering. “How badly did these fairies hate your people to make a curse like that?”

  “Enough to each sacrifice their youngest child, render their small bones, and drink a brew of their remains.” Ionia smiled thinly. “They hated us, yes. We earned their hatred with the many and terrible games we played.”

  A shudder wracked Jessa from head to foot. It didn’t surprise her that the fairies became so ruthless. No one could walk away from an act like without losing some critical part of their soul.

  “So, you see, child,” Ionia turned to Relle. “You cannot go.”

  Relle’s chest rose and fell rapidly. She lifted her chin. “The choice is mine and I have made it.”

  “Hang on,” Katie interrupted. “You’re not going Relle. Only Jessa and I are.”

  “Katie…”

  “You’re not. You’re not even packed.”

  Ionia turned her gaze skyward. “Why must my only granddaughter be enamored with this nitwit?”

  “Hey—”

  “Do you truly believe she’d allow you both to walk into a world of magic helplessly?” Ionia twitched a finger toward Relle. “She’s already dressed and packed to go. You just can’t see it.”

  The view of Relle shimmered and cleared. In place of her cutoffs and tank top, she wore cargo pants and a t-shirt, tall hiking boots, and a plump pack over her shoulder.

  Katie made a shocked noise. “When were you going to say something? Or was your plan to follow us in and hope we didn’t notice?”

  “I hadn’t decided on that part yet.” Relle met her eyes, unrepentant. “I couldn’t take the chance you’d refuse my company. I won’t see you hurt again.”

  The hard set to Katie’s jaw remained, but the fire in her gaze softened.

  Relle turned to her grandmother. “I know it’s dangerous, and I hear your warnings. I have always listened to your warnings. You told me to stay away from the human world and the world of the Fae, and I have. I didn’t want to, but I obeyed.” She drew herself up somewhat shakily, but her eyes brimmed with challenge. “I can’t obey anymore. What is the point of my life if all I do is hide? These people matter to me, just as Grandpa Edam and his sisters mattered to you. I have to help them and you have to let me.”

  Jessa couldn’t help but recall the many whispers and snide comments about the Neverstems in Skylark. How isolating that must’ve been for Relle, who longed to join the world she’d been born into.

  Ionia’s lips flattened with irritation. Exhaling sharply, she lowered her head, propped an elbow on the armrest and rubbed the space between her brows. “Of course, you invoke your grandfather’s name. You and Edam are cut from the same stubborn cloth.”

  Relle smiled. “Does this mean you won’t stand in our way?”

  “I suppose it does.” She sighed heavily. “But you must use caution with your magic. The power there is greater than anything you’ve felt before. Your blood was made to wield it. Don’t be tempted.”

/>   “I won’t.”

  She jabbed a finger at her. “No big displays. Your human side will only protect you if you don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  “Understood.”

  “I pray that’s true. Let us hope neither of us regrets this.” Ionia leaned back and regarded them skeptically. “First, we’ll have to glamour your appearance. You lot can hardly blend in looking so thoroughly other.”

  Jessa swallowed a laugh. It was an odd thought to contemplate that she’d be viewed as strange in a world filled with magical creatures.

  “Any thoughts on a disguise?” Ionia prompted.

  Jessa considered. She could think of only one.

  Chapter Five

  Simith stood immobile outside the great tent while fairies tightened the straps of leather armor around his chest. Supple and soft, it was finer than any he’d ever worn, and white as a frosted lake. In the torchlight, it gave off a pearlescent sheen, glittering like unmarked snow on a bright winter morning. The perfect canvas, he thought, on which to spill his blood when the troll king cut him open.

  He closed his eyes. He could not think like that. Down in the darkness where they’d left him for hours, his desperate mind had conjured a plan. Its chance for success was slim enough without stacking doubts against it.

  The attendants gestured and Simith extended his arms to allow them to affix silver vambraces engraved with whorls of roses. He’d expected sleep to evade him in his earthen prison, but the constant fatigue had dragged him under. He was grateful for the small respite now and the pleasant strangeness of once more finding Jessa in his dreams. In such detail he watched her weeding her extensive gardens, writing determinedly at her desk, and strolling along the dirt roads of her homeland. He’d imagined himself there with her, the sun warm on their faces. And her soft smile—perhaps it wasn’t cast toward her surroundings, but at him.

  Ridiculous notions, of course. He’d never see her again, but the fantasy had warmed the despair in his heart. Even the plaguing chill had lessened when he’d awoken. He hoped she wouldn’t mind the juvenile longings of a condemned knight.

  Drums began in the distance, a resonant thunder like the boom of his pulse. The arena was prepared. They’d come to lead him off as soon as the attendants finished. He inhaled deeply, readying himself. Night had fallen, full of stars. Simith stared up at them. He had not prayed to the cloak of souls since his home was burned. It was easier that way than to imagine Cirrus among them, looking down at the ugliness growing inside his younger brother. It would be a terrible hypocrisy to bother any of them with a last-minute appeal on the eventide of his death. This was a fate of his own making, and he would bear it alone.

  Simith cast his eyes back to the ground while they strapped a wooden shield to his forearm. An ivory belt with a silver blade went around his waist. How he longed to draw that sword and fight his way free, but bound by his name, he couldn’t move. Such a deserved reversal of circumstances, especially when he recalled watching the execution of prisoners other contingents had captured in battle. Yes, it had disgusted him to see trolls bound on their knees, forced to watch as the sun rose to turn their skin to stone, but he’d done nothing to stop it. His inaction was as good as complicity, no matter that the sight of his enemy dying like that lessened his sense of victory. He had muttered as much to Rimthea whose appeal against it had already been refused by the Helms. Her anger had lashed out like a whip.

  “You whisper when you ought to shout,” she’d seethed at him.

  “If it were your choice, shouting is all anyone would do. The Helms already made their decision. What would it gain us to continue the argument?”

  “More than our silence ever has. Holding our peace in the face of open cruelty brings not triumph, but defeat.”

  It had become a common argument between them and he hadn’t been in the mood. He’d turned away, but Rim had grabbed his arm. “Don’t shout then, if that’s your wish.” She’d yanked him around, eyes blazing. “But speak when it counts, Simith. That’s all I ask.”

  Now, here he stood, both his will and his voice taken from him.

  But I will speak, Rimthea. His gaze sought the sky once more. Friend. Sister. I will be silent no longer.

  Horns blew across the camp. The triad emerged from the tent behind him.

  “Let us proceed,” Lady Florian said to the fairies that had prepared Simith. “Send the order to deploy the legion once the fight begins.”

  The pair bowed and departed. The triad took positions around him, forming an arrowhead.

  “Come, Sun Fury,” Lord Jarrah said at his side. “It’s time to defend your honor.”

  Pale banners fluttered in the evening wind, harbingers of temporary truce ringing the knee-high circle of stones that would serve as their battlefield.

  The rules of combat were simple: No magic and no iron. Simith’s wings were held down beneath his armor, and King Drokeh would wear a sheer band of fabric over his eyes to inhibit his night vision. It would be as fair a fight as could be arranged—at least, so it appeared outwardly. When the moon set, Simith was ordered to die upon the blow that followed. He eyed its position. Less than an hour.

  The crowd was already gathered around the arena, though far fewer than Simith expected. To one side stood a small contingent of fairies, chatting amongst themselves in low voices that nonetheless shimmered with excitement. Torches burned brightly on this end compared to the darkness shrouding the other. Lamplight eyes glowed in the shadows on that side. Simith searched among them, but he couldn’t be sure which pair belonged to King Drokeh.

  There were no pixies anywhere.

  The horns rang out again as the fairies parted to allow Simith and the triad access to the wall. Simith’s body moved of its own volition with the first of his commands. Leaping atop arena stones, he faced the fairies and drew his silver sword, jabbing its point toward the sky and baring his teeth in a silent snarl. They roared with cheers. Yes, this was how they truly saw him. A beast they could set loose. A weapon of flesh. He’d never postured like this, neither before a battle nor afterward, but they watched him as if it were his custom. He’d always been careful to hide the dark satisfaction he derived from felling his enemies, the thrill of power boiling in his chest with each swing of the blade…

  Simith jumped down into the arena, and waited as a messenger from each side strode to the center of the ring. “Sun Fury! Sun Fury!” came the fairies’ bellowed chant, and shame settled into the hollows of his stomach. He’d succeeded at hiding nothing. Led by the twisted fury that’d consumed him after they’d buried Cirrus half-burned, half cut to pieces, he’d cast his own heart in the ground with him. The righteous flame of revenge had felt preferable than the damp ache of loss. If only he had recognized that moment of reckoning. Had he been too grief-stricken to see the diverging path before him, or willfully blind? Perhaps that too was a choice. It was far easier to believe that the wrong choice could later be undone, or that one rash decision wouldn’t indict all the days thereafter.

  Drums began anew. The messengers exchanged banners, a gesture of ceasefire for the duration of the fight, and departed the ring.

  “Return with your honor restored,” Lady Carraway said with a deft push against his shoulder. “Or not all.”

  In his throat, the geas burned away all the words he wished he could say in reply. Simith brought his sword and shield forward, and advanced. The dirt gave a little beneath his feet, the soil soft enough that it marked his footsteps. Good. He worried it would be too dry for what he had in mind. With the pommel of his sword, Simith banged his shield three times to call his opponent forth.

  Amid the pack of glowing eyes at the far end, King Drokeh emerged from the darkness. Unlike the grace of fairies or the speed of pixies, trolls embodied unstoppable force. They were the plunge of great stones from high on the mountain, crushing any who stood in their path.

  Broad-shouldered, thickly muscled, and stout limbed like his kinsman, the king wore the typical batt
le dress of trolls. Leather breeches clad his legs, his feet shod in spiked-toed boots. Otherwise bare-chested, straps held in place a single, round breastplate that covered his heart, both front and back. Troll skin proved difficult to split with even the keenest blade, but they were vulnerable over their hearts. Simith had found ways around such protections, however. The eyes. The inside of the mouth.

  He shook himself, appalled at how his soured mind fell into its murderous pattern. Today he was not meant to take a life. He was meant to give his own—a life he wouldn’t even have if not for the kindness of another. It bolstered him somehow to think of it, that a maker of verse had looked at him and seen something worth defending.

  They came within half a dozen paces of each other, and slowed. King Drokeh stood only slightly taller than Simith, middling height for a troll, but the weight of his presence made his stature grow to Simith’s eye. The king’s gaze locked onto him, a veiled torch burning through the sheer fabric. No, there was nothing at all middling about the troll king.

  “Well, now, Simith of Drifthorn,” King Drokeh rumbled. “Sun Fury. Accursed bane of my race. It has taken much effort to bring you here.” He stretched his neck to one side, then the other, muscles bulging. In his clawed hands gleamed a vicious hatchet and a long-bladed dagger. “Let us waste no time with formalities. You had an offer of peace in mind. I will hear it.”

  Simith blinked in confusion, but kept his shield up. What did he mean by that? Was it a ploy to throw him off his guard? He’d be disappointed if that were so.

  “Do I have you speechless?” Drokeh said, moving forward aggressively. Simith backed up. “I was much the same when my lookouts reported seeing you attacked by trolls on your way to our meeting.” He swung his hatchet, a broad stroke easily dodged.

  “Imagine my fury,” the king continued, “to think my own would make me break my oath. But of course, they weren’t trolls attacking you, were they?” His hatchet came down hard on Simith’s shield. He stepped in close, stabbing with his dagger. Simith grasped his arm, meeting the glow of Drokeh’s gaze. “They were fairies.”