Every Fae instinct inside Tierney recoils at the idea.
No. The river is mine.
“You’ll work it out,” Asra’leen says soothingly, a rainbow aura glittering to life around her before her mouth turns up into another bright smile. “C’mon. Let’s go meet everyone.”
* * *
Tierney blinks against the bright sunlight as she pauses at the threshold of the Wyvernguard’s arching exit. The broad obsidian terrace that rings the base of the South Twin Island is splayed before her and teeming with military apprentices—the shocking sight of what must be a Fire Fae division to her far right, the red-haired apprentices’ conjured flames flashing in the air, and an Elfhollen Fae division to the distant left, the Mountain Fae arranged in rows as they shoot arrows at targets lined up along the terrace’s edge.
But it’s the division directly in front of her that wrests the air from Tierney’s lungs.
“Myl’lynian’ir,” Asra’leen says to Tierney brightly, beckoning her with the Asrai words for come out, my friend as she steps backward onto the huge sunlit terrace, one graceful blue hand playfully outstretched toward Tierney. Asra’leen’s crystalline rainbow aura flashes brilliantly in the sunlight, her cloud of foam-colored hair brightened to a blinding white as it’s tossed about in the breeze coming off the Vo River.
Tierney can’t move. Can’t speak as she takes in the fantastical scene before her, the Vo River shifting its current to greet her, flowing in to splash against the terrace’s railing.
There are over twenty Asrai Water Fae assembled on a wide expanse of terrace near the river’s edge, all of them with the same changeable deep-blue hue that ripples like water, curled hair, broad features, and pointed ears as Tierney’s, and all of them wearing the sapphire uniforms of the Wyvernguard military apprentices, just like hers.
Stunned, Tierney takes them in, in one sweeping glance: a young Asrai woman with blue-black skin creates huge swooshes of water in the cool morning air, masses of cattails decorating her long navy-blue curls; a young man wearing a crown of ivory shells stands near the river’s edge as he conjures a slim waterspout that reaches from the river toward the white clouds above; a muscular, broad young woman circles in place, her hands gyrating as she fashions river eel shapes of enormous size from sparkling water, the black shells decorating her coiled locks glittering in the sun along with the suspended water-creatures.
Everywhere, Asrai Fae are openly wielding their water power, openly displaying their allegiance to the waters of Erthia.
A sleek, androgynous-appearing Asrai is throwing bolt after bolt of water over the Vo River, their spiky blue hair festooned with pale water lilies. And a young man with a brooding expression is forming a small rainstorm off to the side, the magic flowing from his upturned palms. He meets Tierney’s gaze, his indigo eyes widening as lightning spits from his storm, as if in startled response to her.
The forbidden Asrai tongue that her kelpies taught her is spoken freely, her ears thrilling to its fluid cadence. There are lines of runic weaponry propped against a weapons rack, Noi water-power runes glowing a bright sapphire on the hilts of swords and bows and spears and a host of other weapons.
For a moment, it’s like the entire world tilts on its axis, and Tierney has to stifle a sound of pure emotion as the storming magic inside her rises and churns with a pained joy.
We’re all free. Free to be Asrai Fae.
And not just Asrai Fae...
Asrai Fae soldiers.
Tierney’s eyes glaze with tears and she fights back a choked-up feeling, as she thrills to the blessing that is the Eastern Realm.
“Fil’lori mir Asrai’il,” Asra’leen says, compassion in her sparkling eyes, her hand still outstretched. My Asrai sister.
Her heart so full of emotion it feels about to burst, Tierney steps into the light.
Her presence draws more curious stares, most of the young Asrai men and some of the young women doing a double take as they catch sight of her, their water magery dissipating or splashing down onto the black marble terrace.
There’s curiosity there, but also something else that Tierney is still adjusting to.
Bedazzlement.
It’s a disconcerting shift for Tierney, these admiring stares that she now draws, and she doesn’t know how to handle it. She had grown used to stares of repugnance and aversion in Gardneria, when she was glamoured to look like the ugliest of Mages with her pinched, severe face. But now, everything has changed.
* * *
She talked to Trystan about this during their journey here, the two of them sitting beside each other on a rock as they looked out over the Central Ishkartan Desert’s crimson sands, the landscape increasingly suffused with the sunset’s bloodred light.
“Have you noticed how spectacularly beautiful you are?” Trystan asked as he tossed her a wry look, his green eyes glinting.
“I’m not sure what to make of it,” Tierney answered, her brow knotting over this bewildering change. “It’s like no one saw me for who I really was in Gardneria,” she confided in him, baring her heart fully, which was a thing so easy to do with kind, nonjudgmental Trystan. “But now, it’s like I’m still being seen only for what I look like.”
Trystan nodded, then glanced at her knowingly, his lip lifting as he looked over her Asrai form. “I’d imagine this is a trace better, though.”
Tierney couldn’t help but smile, conceding, as she shot him a sardonic look. She lifted her arm, considering the gorgeous, rippling dark blue hue of her skin, entranced by her own changeable color. Then she let her hand fall back onto her knee as she met Trystan’s level gaze and a familiar, melancholy ache returned.
“I’m afraid I’ll never be truly seen,” she admitted, her voice barely audible even to herself.
Trystan was quiet for a long, considering moment. Then he turned to her, his eyes brimming with suppressed emotion.
“I understand,” he finally said.
* * *
“Asrai’a’lore Yl’orien’ir!” the Asrai with the cattail-decorated hair calls out to Tierney from across the sunlit terrace, enthusiastically cutting through Tierney’s fleeting recollection as the young woman approaches along with the androgynous, willowy Fae. Welcome to the fold, Water Fae.
A swirl of joyful water power rises within Tierney in response to her immediate acceptance.
“This is Torryn,” Asra’leen says in Asrai as she smiles and sweeps her hand gracefully toward the cattail woman. “And Ra’in.” She beams as the lily-crowned Fae throws a slender arm around Asra’leen and smiles at Tierney through lovely turquoise-lashed eyes.
“We’re happy to have you among us,” Ra’in says in Asrai, and Tierney is transfixed by their beauty and the lilting voice that’s as melodic as an early summer stream. And by Ra’in’s blaring individuality that clearly refuses to be confined, just as all their Fae natures are no longer confined here. It’s an incredible thing, this freedom to be oneself without danger.
There’s a huge splashing disturbance in the Vo River, just past a break in the curving railing where the terrace’s stone angles down to meet the water for runic water vessels to launch.
A dragon made from water suddenly bursts from the Vo’s churning knot of water, and Tierney’s head jerks back in surprise. The water dragon spirals up to meet with the sky, translucent water-wings stretching out, large as sails.
A Fae male made entirely of water strides out of the spray trailing the water dragon’s ascent and steps onto the terrace, a blast of his water power eddying through Tierney with the force of a hurricane. The young man’s glistening form morphs from water to flesh, his spiky, wet hair glittering every shade of blue in the sun, his ears rising to points. He throws one hand over his shoulder, effortlessly wicking the water from his pants and body, his movements strong and graceful as a flowing river.
Tierney watches him, transfixed,
as her water magic lurches toward the formidable young Asrai, storm clouds kicking up inside her from the sheer force of his presence, and she struggles to keep them from manifesting in the air above.
He’s devastatingly handsome, with strong deep-blue features and a tall, powerful frame. And, scandalously, he’s not wearing a tunic, his muscles rippling and coated in a slick stream of sweet Vo water, his dark blue nipples exposed.
Tierney’s heart pounds as she quickly averts her eyes and swallows abashedly as he approaches.
“Is that Fyordin?” Tierney asks Asra’leen in a strained voice.
“It is,” Asra’leen says then raises her hand toward the half-naked Fae. “Fyordin!” She gives him a friendly wave, as if his partial nudity is normal here.
Fyordin nears, and Tierney is overcome by another strong wave of his water power as it courses through her in an exhilarating rush. She pulls in a hard breath and lifts her eyes to meet Fyordin’s dark blue gaze.
His power gives a palpable flare of interest as his lips quirk up, and Tierney takes in the metallic blue hoops lining his pointed ears, embarrassment sizzling through her over the fact that his brazenly exposed nipples are also pierced.
“This is Tierney Calix,” Asra’leen announces, a hush falling over the entire group of Asrai as Tierney’s heartbeat quickens and she averts her gaze from Fyordin’s once more.
“Asrai’il,” Fyordin says, breaking the silence, his authoritative voice flowing deep into her. She can feel his torrent of power in the center of that voice. And she has to draw up every storming thing inside her to keep from being submerged in it.
Fyordin holds out his hand and Tierney swallows, nerves leaping, as she reaches to grasp hold of it, suppressing a gasp as the edges of their storming power brush up against each other.
Fyordin’s blue lips lift farther, his eyes sparking. “No,” he states with some censure in the Asrai language. “Not like a Vor’ish’in. Like an Asrai.” He slides his hand up past Tierney’s grip, his fingers grasping hold of her forearm.
Water streams from Fyordin’s forearm to twirl around Tierney’s arm in glistening ribbons, drenching her tunic’s cloth as it sends a pulsing thrill straight through her arm. “Join your water to mine, Asrai,” Fyordin invites as Tierney’s heartbeat quickens. “This is how Asrai’il greet one another.”
Unexpectedly moved by this offer to throw off Gardnerian ways for those of the Asrai, Tierney pulls in a deep breath and summons a stream of water to flow from her skin, around their joined arms, and through Fyordin’s water, the two streams colliding then coalescing and strengthening with a power that sends an intoxicating rush straight through Tierney. For a moment, she doesn’t want to let go of Fyordin’s arm as she looks up at him, tears glazing her eyes.
Asrai’il. My people.
A shimmer of warmth ripples through Tierney as Fyordin’s mouth lifts into a broader smile, his grip on her arm tightening. “Welcome home, Asrai’il.”
Tears escape her attempt to blink back her fierce swell of emotion as Fyordin holds on and a broader rush of water swirls around Tierney, coming not just from Fyordin, but from all the Fae converging around her.
“You’re not trapped in Gardneria anymore,” a young Asrai woman fiercely declares, her dark blue hair woven into spiraling braids and decorated with row upon row of small pale shells.
Tierney’s heart opens as something that she’s never felt in her entire life washes over her like a beloved tide.
Belonging.
“I am My’raid,” the pale-shell-decorated woman says warmly as Fyordin releases Tierney, his power drawing back along with that of all the other Asrai.
“I’m Tierney Calix,” Tierney says to the young woman, caught up in the communal rush of feeling. Tierney extends her arm, and the young woman grasps hold of it then sends a whoosh of warm mist around Tierney’s arm that Tierney subsumes with her own rushing stream of power, not able to hold back her magic’s sheer strength.
The woman looks at the water coursing around their arms with evident surprise. “You are powerful, Asrai’il,” she says. “And you likely do not know the full extent of your power. Most of us did not when we first came to the East.” She flashes a beaming smile. “But now you are here and freed. And you will build a new Sidhe land with us and all the Faekin.”
Tierney looks to half-naked, glorious Fyordin and lets herself meet his mesmerizing gaze and even more mesmerizing smile. Fyordin’s gaze locks onto hers with an intense interest that sends a ripple of warmth coursing through her. Never has a young man looked at her in quite this way. It makes Tierney feel like a heated spring, and she fleetingly wonders, as her body flushes, what it would be like to be kissed by another Asrai.
“You need to reclaim your Asrai name,” Fyordin encourages, his smile dimming as his expression grows serious, “and cast off this false Gardnerian name.”
Tierney hesitates. “I was never able to safely use my Asrai name, so I’m not used to it...”
“But now you can use it,” My’raid points out meaningfully, a sheen of emotion flashing in her lake-blue eyes. “The Crows hold no power here.”
Tierney’s newfound sense of belonging is jostled as she internally winces at the slur.
Crows.
She heard it murmured countless times on the way here, directed at Trystan as the Vu Trin talked among themselves. And she heard it tossed out in reference to her Gardnerian family and her fifteen-year-old Asrai brother, whose Gardnerian glamour is refusing to give way. The casual use of Crow increasingly filled her with concern as her Gardnerian mother and father and her Asrai brother escaped East with her, her adoptive family now thrust into their new role—Gardnerian refugees settling into the nearby capital city of the Noi lands, Voloi.
Tierney’s unease over hearing the slur seeps further in as she remembers what she and Asra’leen overheard during breakfast in the huge Wyvernguard dining room—that slurs were marked all over Trystan Gardner’s room last night. That three primordial Death Fae were the only Vu Trin apprentices willing to welcome Trystan.
“Are you ready to fight with us, Asrai’il?” Fyordin asks with a hint of challenge, breaking into her unease as a subtle glimmer of his water power swooshes around her, a rakish glint in his dazzling deep-blue gaze.
Tierney straightens, trying to not let her thoughts scramble in response to the sight of his handsome face and his strapping, half-naked form.
“I am,” Tierney replies, sending out her own whoosh of invisible water power toward Fyordin.
Fyordin gives her an intent look that Tierney feels straight down her spine.
“Your training in your Asrai for’din, your Fae power, will be fast and intense,” he says, growing more serious. “We’re likely to be deployed west. And soon. The Vu Trin are mobilizing for war with the Roaches.”
Tierney gives a sharp, inward draw back.
Roaches.
Unease twists in Tierney as a storm cloud forms over her head that she’s unable to tamp down. “I’m ready to fight Vogel and his forces,” she says, holding Fyordin’s gaze. “But you should know that there are Gardnerians who are with us in that fight.”
Tierney can feel it, the energy around her instantly changing, becoming unsettled and not quite the lovely embrace it was just a moment ago.
Fyordin’s lips twist into a dominant sneer, his invisible water power swelling, no longer powerfully enticing, but churning with chaotic energy. “The Roaches have no place with us.”
“They’re called Gardnerians,” Tierney snipes back.
She can sense the combined water power all around her receding, and part of her wants to scramble to reclaim it, to reclaim the moment of belonging. Instead, she stands her cursed, obstinate, subversive ground.
This is your special talent, isn’t it? Tierney bitterly considers. Making yourself into an outsider everywhere you go.
&n
bsp; The side of Tierney’s neck prickles as she senses attention homing in on her. Not the attention of the Asrai all around her, suffused with water magic. No. This is something foreign.
Something that briefly flickers her internal water power dark as night, turning its rippling blue to the murkier shades of a deeply submerged pool.
Her gaze is drawn like a compass needle to a dark, distant figure—a young man, tall and quiet, dressed all in black that matches his shock of night-black hair. His attention is wholly focused on her as he leans against the stone railing of the curving terrace just past the Lasair Fire Fae division, flames circling and rising above them.
Tierney is sure of it, even from this distance...
He’s one of the three Death Fae here at the Wyvernguard.
The Death Fae, she’s already ascertained from this morning’s conversations, are feared outcasts, here only because the maverick commander of the Vu Trin forces, Vang Troi, wants to make use of their unique magical abilities, just as she wants to use Trystan’s.
Thrown by the dark Fae’s presence, Tierney turns back to Fyordin to find him giving her a blistering look.
“Half of everyone here,” he snarls, his invisible water power rearing as he loses all trace of welcome, “half of all of us were glamoured and raised by Kelts. Sheltered by Kelts in the West. Kelts who saved our people from being killed by the Gardnerians. The other half of us were smuggled East and raised by the Noi. Who saved us from being killed by the Gardnerians.”
Tierney’s hackles rise. “My adoptive family is Gardnerian,” she acidly refutes. “Who saved me from being killed by the Gardnerians. Some of my closest friends are Gardnerian. All of them ready to fight Vogel.”
Fyordin’s narrow look tightens. “I heard you came here with Trystan Gardner.”
“I did,” Tierney replies with an air of confrontation that Fyordin instantly meets.
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