by Plum Pascal
My hand lifts to toy with a strand of her dark hair. Before, it repulsed me, but now I see it as simply another part of Eilish. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me close to her, nuzzling into the crook of my shoulder.
“I missed you, Dragan.”
“And I have missed you more than you know.”
She grows silent and I can tell something is bothering her. “Dragan?” she starts.
“Yes?”
She’s quiet for another few seconds as she apparently weighs her words. “It can’t just be the two of us.” She inhales a sharp breath. “Do you remember Morrigan’s words? I have to balance the darkness inside me with the lightness.”
I think about the things Morrigan said to Eilish often, and every time I return to the moment in Raflamir’s home when Eilish stroked me beneath the table while Revenant pleasured her with his fingers.
I sigh. “I feel possessive and protective of you, and I’m unaccustomed to sharing a woman.”
“I understand.”
“But, I would be lying if I said that seeing you with Revenant didn’t also excite me.”
“I thought…” she starts.
“That I was repulsed by it?” I finish for her as she nods and I shake my head. “I was jealous, yes, but not repulsed. I had to come to terms with the fact that watching him touch you… aroused me.”
Eilish presses her chest against mine, clinging to me as closely as she can. “And I like knowing that you enjoyed watching me,” she purrs. I can feel her seduction swirling around us, so I take a step back and give myself space. Now is not the time and this is not the place.
Her pout is nearly as beguiling as the seduction itself and I wish she was aware of that fact. “This wound on your chest,” I start as I glance down at it.
“I’m working on healing it,” she answers.
“Pyre taught you how to heal?”
She nods. “He’s also going to teach me how to become a leader, how to use both my angel gifts and my succubus abilities. He says we can’t base my powers off them individually, but we need to focus on me as an individual—not just a hybrid of two incompatible species.”
“He’s also taken Revenant under his wing. Who’s next? Cambion? Me?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” she replies with a smile. “You were the one who said you didn’t know much about your kind. Maybe Pyre could teach you a few things, as well?”
“You feel drawn to him, don’t you?”
She drops her head and appears slightly embarrassed. “He is beautiful, despite how deadly he is. I feel drawn to him, yes, but, not the way I feel for you and the others. Pyre is… a good friend.”
###
Flumph
The Veil
“You glad Noni back, Mr. Flumph?”
That godawful little critter back, an’ she ain’t leavin’ me alone again. I hurry off to hides from her when the necromancer come inside. He walkin’ to the fireplace an’ I flys over to see what him doin’.
“Hey, I gotta talk to you,” I say, real polite-like.
He nod him head, but then the Mother Heifer come over an’ start askin’ him a bunch o’ questions. I know she do it just to distract him, but him an’ me need to gets down to business an’ quick! Mother Heifer lookin’ real flirty when she talk to him, all but twirlin’ her hair an’ fuckin’ bendin’ over in front o’ him like a bitch in heat. But Masky don’t even react none. I seen how he is around Pretty—like he be wantin’ to sample what she got on offer. He don’t react the same way with this bitch. An’ I be glad for it. She make me madder than anythin’. Even Assface, who currently bleedin’ out on the supper table, ain’t as bad as her.
“So, Pyre is it? Why have I never heard of you before?” she ask.
“You would have if you had been at the battle like you were supposed to be.”
Oh, snaps! I fuckin’ love the psycho-ghost-talker now! He my new favorite.
“I was powerless and of no help to anyone; surely you can sense the magic I have is barely enough to keep me standing at the moment.” She lyin’ real smooth. I ain’t buyin’ it, an’ neither is Masky if that stomach flu face o’ his be any indication. “Perhaps you should get to know me better before you pass judgment.”
“I’m not judging you, Morrigan. I simply treat you the way I treat anyone. You are innocent until proven otherwise, but don’t think you’re entitled to any automatic praise and respect in this world.”
Oh, snaps again! He my hero now! Fuck yeah! The other dicks can take a long walk offs a short portal that be open up at the bottom o’ the ocean.
“Then why did you help them rescue me?” she ask.
“We speak for the fire in the night. Upon his flame we thrive.”
“I... I’ve heard that before.”
“That is how the Astral refer to me,” Masky reply.
“I don’t understand.”
Yeah, no shit. I ain’t understandin’ neither.
“We hear her like rain upon the stone. Beneath her charge we cannot sing, but oath demands we devote in her name,” he say an’ then he looks at her. “And that is how they refer to you. My spirits are watching The Veil always. You astral-project in your sleep, do you not? Shadow walking between the thin barrier that separates the realms?”
“If I do, I did not realize it.”
“Of course,” he say, an’ I think that hims way o’ callin’ her a fuckin’ liar. “They told me where to find you, and I know you play an important role in all of this. Astral is projection, they are that barrier where you tread.”
“Do you suspect me of treachery?”
“I only wish to protect this world. Whatever happens to the rest of it is out of my hands.” Masky walk away all dismissive-like an’ I wanna shake hims hand.
The Mother Heifer smile an’ walk back to her room an’ it look like it take up all her energy just to do that. Masky get busy helpin’ heal Assface on the table, an’ so are the others. Even Pretty gots her glowy hands all over him. My only hope—an’ gods help me for thinkin’ it—is Noni. Ugh. The little brownie too damn happy. Ain’t nobody that happy in the middle o’ all this shit.
“Noni!” I squeaks as I fly up the stairs. She be pickin’ through a sack o’ string last time I sees her, talkin’ bout needin’ to sew the satyr a pair o’ pants. But she ain’t nowhere, neither. An’ Noni don’t like bein’ nowhere, she said it her damn self. “Noni!”
Then she goes an’ pop up right behind me, scarin’ the fucks outta me an’ nearly makin’ my breeches turn brown. “Fuckin’ hell! Why ya gotta sneaks up on me?”
“You need Noni, Mr. Flumph?”
“I don’t need you! But... yeah, I guess I do need you,” I grumble an’ puffs my chest real big so I much bigger than her. “Help me spy on the Mother Heifer an’ I’ll helps you make supper. That my offer, takes it or leave it.”
“Noni leave it.”
“What? Why?”
“Noni will help Mr. Flumph if he—” She stop an’ give me that creepy grin o’ hers. “If Mr. Flumph be Noni best friend forever! Noni like Mr. Flumph, she wanna be his friend for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.”
The fuckin’ brownie go on an’ on like that for ways too long. I put my hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. “No. I ain’t doin’ it. You drive me up the walls ‘nough as it is!”
“Then Noni no help.”
“The fate o’ the realms’s in my hands, you little brat! I a hero now, not the giants. Help me spy on the Mother Heifer an’ takes my offer or I drown youze in the bath.”
She gasp an’ then fall to the floor, gigglin’ like I ain’t serious or somethin’. But I am! I picks her up, but she go all invisible an’ wiggle away. I tryin’ to find her, chasin’ her all over the damn cottage. Then, she peek her big fuckin’ head out from under the bed an’ I scream real loud, but real manly-like.
“Mr. Flumph, be Noni friend. Please. Please. Please. Please.”
“All right!” I at the end o’ my stra
w when I shouts that, ‘bout ready to kill her. She let out this piercin’ sound o’ happiness that just make my balls itch an’ try to crawl back inside my body. “Shut up! You gotta be quiet if youze gonna be spy with me. Let’s go.”
She grab my hand an’ make us invisible, like when we was sneakin’ in the Unseelie Kingdom. We slips inside the Mother Heifer’s room an’ hear her whisperin’ to the damn mirror.
Everyone ‘round here goin’ batshit crazy.
TWELVE
Eilish
The Veil
My hands are covered in blood, but the glow never fades. Pyre grips my wrist and I stare into the sightless depth of his eyes.
“Take with one and give with the other,” he instructs calmly, gentling his hold. I look down at my hands and focus on matching my breathing with Kolvar’s until we synchronize.
“Very good,” Pyre praises. My heartbeat begins to match the rhythm of the satyr’s, and for a moment it feels as if we’re linked by more than the glow I cast on his flesh. Pyre instructs the others to remove their energies.
“Eilish,” he addresses me directly. “Take with one and give with the other.”
Then I feel it, a shift in myself, and I reach for it. The glow on my left hand changes, morphing into a red shadow, more than a light. “Pyre…”
“You know how to feed, Eilish. Take his pain into your body the same way you would feed off the life force of another. And with your other hand, pool your healing energy into his body.” He moves to stand behind me, but he’s careful not to touch me.
“I don’t know,” I start.
Pyre leans in and whispers, “You can do this. I’ve seen both sides exist in you at once. It doesn’t have to be either or. You can be both.”
Take with one and give with the other.
I repeat those words in my head like a mantra, willing myself to obey the command. The red smoke leeches into Kolvar’s chest and I close my eyes. “What am I looking for?” I ask. “What does pain look like?”
“Stop looking. Feel, Eilish. You know what pain feels like—you’ve experienced a world of suffering. Find it in Kolvar and take it.” Pyre pauses. “Do it now or he dies.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I feel a sensation that’s not entirely cold but is more like the damp chill that lingers after coming in from the rain. It’s sadness and worry. Beneath it is something that…
My eyes blink open as I sense too much and the pain is overwhelming. I force myself to concentrate on the rhythm of Kolvar’s heart again, using it to anchor me as the pain burns my soul. That red smoke chases after it, devouring it, and I pull it back into my hand and into my body as if the pain’s my own.
My legs buckle but I don’t fall.
“Good, Eilish. Now, envision yourself standing between two doors that are very close together, closing in on you. Put one hand against the door on your left to keep it from opening and use your right hand to turn the knob on the other door. You’ll feel some resistance, but fight it.”
I try to do as he says, but I’m afraid to reach for the handle. My entire body begins to tremble as if we’re back in the mountains. I fight the fear.
Do it now or else he dies.
Kolvar risked his life to buy us time. I owe it to the satyr to save his. In my vision, I see my fingers around the handle of the doorknob and I push. The door on the left, the one with the pain, begins to open. I battle between my own fear of tapping into that energy and keeping the other at bay. The pain only lessens when I accept that both must be done.
Kolvar takes a deep breath as the purifying white light fills him. I watch the wounds on his body stitch themselves back together as the others look on with identical expressions of surprise. When the transition is complete, I feel beyond exhausted.
I’m panting and dizzy. I start to fall against Pyre and he lifts me into his arms, before carrying me outside. He sets me on the ground and instructs me to close my eyes and envision both the doors again. Once I see them, he instructs me to open both.
“Push all of that energy into the soil, Eilish. Expel it from your body.”
I let go, allowing the control to snap as I channel it into the earth. The scent of moss and dirt fills my lungs and I allow it to soothe me. Pyre removes his hands from my body and I let myself doze off, but only for a second. When I wake, there’s a new sense of peace in my heart. The pain is gone.
“It’s done,” I say.
Pyre nods and helps me to my feet. I can stand but I’m still tired. With Pyre, I return to the cottage.
###
Cambion
The Veil
In the kitchen, I find Baron leaning over a boiling pot of something that smells rancid. The vampire stiffens, sensing my presence before I even step into his line of sight.
“Quit creeping around, elf,” he snarls. I stand beside him and grimace at what appears to be a crude poultice of some sort.
“Didn’t you just heal from an injury?” I ask.
“Didn’t you?”
“Eilish helped with that, surprisingly.”
“Why surprisingly?” The vampire limps over to the apothecary and searches through the various containers of herbs, liquids, and other substances that I couldn’t possibly identify on my own. Though I’m skilled in all aspects of magic, there are some things that even a being of my caliber neglects over the years.
“Because her kind are not supposed to have healing abilities,” I respond.
“Were you paying attention to anything in that room?” The vampire demands. “Eilish all but single-handedly healed Kolvar’s injuries. She repaired months of damage done by torture in less than three minutes. I’d like to see you do the same.”
“I don’t wish to argue with you. That isn’t why I came.”
“Then get to the point or fuck off. I have shit to do.”
I roll my eyes. “What did you see in Oronrel? Did you see Theren?”
“No, I didn’t see your asshole of a brother. And I’m glad I didn’t, or else I would have tried to put his head on a pike for sentencing Aima to execution.”
“Enough, please. Just tell me what you saw.”
The vampire huffs and slathers the strange goop on his abdomen. “Theren is reckless. He has very few guards stationed in his palace. We fought maybe a dozen soldiers.”
“There are objects of immense power in that palace. Why would he—”
“He’s crazy,” Baron says, cutting me off. “It appears there are only women with positions in the Unseelie Court now. The men are almost exclusively soldiers or busy serving some other purpose.”
He walks out of the kitchen, leaving me to contemplate his words.
Theren is reckless. I could have guessed that, but the extent to which he endangers the Unseelie race is barbaric. He’s leaving Oronrel open for attack, and that doesn’t sit right with me.
I visit Dragan next. The gargoyle is nearly as surly as the vampire and I’m running out of patience. Admittedly, it’s not as though I’ve been a ray of starlight recently, but at least I have the decency not to look like I want to carve the flesh off the people around me.
“Let me guess, you want to know about Oronrel?” Dragan drawls.
“Yes.”
“Aima is convinced Theren didn’t order her execution.”
“And what do you think?”
He shrugs. “There might be something to it. Or you’re both just blind to his cruelty, each for different reasons.”
“You’re the last one to talk about…” My words trail off as Dragan lifts his hand.
“Let me stop you there,” he says. “All of that is in the past now. Time to come to terms with the fact that you’re just as ignorant to Theren as I was to Lamia.”
“Don’t compare a king to a succubae whore.”
“That succubae whore was a queen in her own right, so in my eyes they’re one and the same. Theren and Variant’s manipulations make them no different than any other creature in the realms. Everyone is out for themselves, bu
t we don’t have to be that way.”
“You’re pretty eager to band together, all of a sudden.”
Dragan snorts. “No, just eager to survive—and each of us should be catching on to the fact that we can’t do it alone. You were the one who said we needed allies in the first place. Just because Raflamir was a traitor doesn’t mean the rest will be. This journey has barely even started, Cambion.”
“What changed? In you, I mean.”
“Thoradin,” he answers simply and shrugs as if mentioning his dead Centurion is a perfectly reasonable response. “I need to let go of whatever’s weighing me down if I’m going to keep moving on. You should, too.”
“What if my sins are best kept where they are now… hidden?”
“I don’t have the answer to that, Cambion. I’m still trying to figure all this bullshit out for myself. But at least I’m making an effort to change.”
I nod as I watch him walk away and I wonder if my sins can ever be forgiven.
THIRTEEN
Baron
The Veil
“You were right,” I say with only a hint of sarcasm, and I’m proud of myself for it. Pyre looks up from his desk and sniffs the air. Yeah, I smell bad, but I don’t care. That stinky sludge is doing what it’s supposed to—healing me, and I’m going to let it. Pyre quirks his signature brow as if to agree that he’s always right, so I flip him off and sit backwards in the chair beside him.
“What was I right about?”
“About me not belonging in the other world.”
“I know.”
“When all of this is over, I want to be here in The Veil. But I want to know what being the guardian means, and what exactly we’ll be protecting the spirit realm from.” Folding my arms over the back of the chair, I wait for Pyre’s answer. He scribbles a few more notes in his book, the ink disappearing into the paper. He turns to me and his eyes look... normal? Well, not normal, but more normal than usual. The white is gone, replaced by a rare shade of violet.