by Ciara Graves
“Her fever’s back, higher than the last time,” the woman said, sounding worried. “Aiden, we have to take her somewhere.”
“Where? If I can’t find an antidote, they won’t be able to either.”
“She’s going to die, and what she said about the king…”
The tension between these two people I couldn’t see rose enough for me to feel it.
“I didn’t kill him,” I whispered on a breath.
There was a long pause of silence then, “You see? They think she killed him. They’re going to be looking for her, and we have no idea who she is.”
“I’m not just handing her over without getting the whole story. She was attacked.”
“Yeah, probably because she killed him.”
I might not have had a lot of strength, but my instinct as a trained assassin let me find my target without being able to see her fully. I fisted my hand in her shirt and dragged her to me. The man yelled, but I bared my canines at him to back off. His outline froze, and the woman I held in my grasp did the same.
“I did not kill him,” I snapped. “He is my king… was my king,” I corrected.
“Alright,” the man said, and his hand gently covered mine, which was still holding tight to his companion. “We believe you. You have to rest now.”
When I still didn’t let go, he pried my fingers loose.
“I didn’t kill him,” I repeated, the pain inside me twisting into a vicious knot as it hit me all over again. I lost not just my king, but the fae I had loved. He was dead. Gone.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, not until we get this sorted,” the man assured me.
I wasn’t about to trust him, but another touch fell on my shoulder, one I knew very, very well. “Jeric,” I whispered and fell back to the cot. The sensation of his touch drifted to my cheek. I leaned into his hand as my eyes fluttered closed.
The hushed voices of the two people fell away, and it was just me and Jeric.
The same two voices roused me from a feverish dream. I’d been with Jeric in his study, watching the fire crackle in the hearth. We’d been sitting close on the couch, enjoying some time alone. He’d said something toward the end, but it was lost in a whooshing that filled my ears. Then came a weird clicking sound. I frowned, trying to reach for Jeric, but he fell away like he wasn’t even there. His lips moved again, but then he was gone.
I came to, and was able to see this time, at least. I was in a log cabin. The shelves covering the walls were filled with jars of herbs, tonics, books, and more herbs and ingredients. Dried bunches of plants hung from the ceiling.
A rustling sounded behind me, and I twisted my head around. A tall, lean fae stood at a table, tapping his fingers. Pointed ears stuck out from a mess of silver hair. His hands weren’t wrinkled though, so he wasn’t old.
“You have to be in here somewhere,” he murmured.
I pushed up on my elbows, but my arms gave out. The cot squeaked as I fell back.
The man immediately whirled around and hurried over.
“You can’t get up yet, I’m sorry,” he said as he pulled the heavy blankets over me.
I shivered, my teeth clacking together. Now I knew what that weird clicking sound had been in my dream. “Where am I?” I managed to get out between my chattering teeth.
“My home. I found you on the road.”
“What road?” A conversation came back to me in pieces. He said there’d been an accident.
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter right now is healing you.”
“Poison?”
He nodded, his forehead crinkling. “One I’ve never seen before. Just rest.” He smoothed the hair back from my forehead, then placed a cool rag on it. With him hovering over me, I had nothing to look at but his face. Kind, light green eyes stared back at me, a question in them. There was worry, too. His right arm was marked with a tattoo, one I wasn’t familiar with. His gaze followed mine. “Healer. You’re in good hands.”
“Hope so,” I mumbled. “Don’t let me die, not yet.”
I wasn’t one for begging, ever, but the words came out before I could stop them. I grabbed the man’s wrist and brought him closer.
“I have to avenge him, you hear me? I have to.” I shivered, and my teeth chattered harder.
The healer, I thought the woman had called him Aiden, tucked the blankets in around me, then placed his hand to my cheek. “Your fever’s back. Rest. I’ll do everything I can to save you. That’s a promise.”
Trusting strangers was another thing I never did, but those light green eyes put me at ease.
A figure appeared behind him, and tears came to my eyes. Jeric. He was there, watching over Aiden’s shoulder. His body faded in and out, but he nodded firmly, as if to tell me to listen to this healer. He wasn’t really there. He couldn’t be. He should’ve moved on. His lips lifted in the crooked grin I’d fallen for. He moved through Aiden and for a split second, it was Jeric’s hand against my cheek. I leaned into it as Aiden’s brow furrowed. Then Jeric was gone and I fell back asleep, unsure if I’d live.
Unsure if I even wanted to.
“Fight,” I thought I heard Aiden whisper close to my ear. “You have to fight.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one currently on death’s doorstep. He said more, but then I was drifting away on a current of feverish dreams.
Chapter 6
Aiden
As Iona passed out again, her eyes flitted behind their lids, clearly from feverish dreams. She’d been in and out of it the last two days. She hadn’t been coherent enough to give me more information on how she ended up in a truck on the side of an old, dirt road. The poison continued to rampage through her body. I’d been confident I’d find a way to save her, but going on day three, that confidence began to waver.
I rubbed my eyes and went to take a sip of coffee, only to find the chipped red mug empty. The pot was empty too. “Course you are,” I muttered and pushed away from the worktable to get another one going.
Ever since Iona asked me not to let her die, and how intensely she told Teresa and me she had nothing to do with Jeric’s death, I’d been wondering about her and the late king. I believed her when she said she didn’t kill him. The fierceness in her gaze wasn’t something a guilty person could fake.
“Jeric,” she whispered.
I stopped making coffee.
“Jeric.” She lifted her shaking hand, but her eyes remained closed.
Teresa might be uncertain about Iona, but I was beginning to think she was more than just the king’s head bodyguard. She wanted to avenge his death. A head guard might want to do that too. I guess, but not with that much conviction. When she was awake last, I was sure she was seeing someone else in the cabin. Someone other than me. She could merely be hallucinating. Then again, if she and Jeric were more than just king and bodyguard to each other, I leaned toward the chances that whatever she was saying might be real. I thought I might’ve sensed a presence in the cabin, but it wasn’t strong enough for me to be certain if I was actually feeling it or if I was simply over-tired.
Iona’s hand fell back to the bed. She shook all over. I hurried to check her fever. It was back, again. Quickly, I grabbed another cool cloth and draped it over her forehead. I took more towels, dipped them in ice water, and laid them over her arms and across her chest. She raised her hand toward my face as her eyes opened. She squinted, then cursed, and her arm dropped.
“You.”
“Yep, still me. Sorry to disappoint.”
She tried to sit up, but I pushed her back down.
“I don’t want to lie down anymore.”
“I don’t really care. You’re still running a very high fever. You’re weak. You won’t make it more than a few steps.”
“What day is it?” she rasped and gave up on trying to get off the cot.
“Doesn’t matter.”
She swallowed hard, then threw her head to the side, vomiting.
That was a new symptom.
I rushed around, putting a bucket under her face, and held her hair back. The vomit was a dark shade of green, mixed with what looked like black sludge. When she finished heaving and wiped her mouth on her forearm, she laughed. The bitter sound grated on my ears.
“Damn that bastard.”
I frowned, not sure who she was referring to. “King Jeric?”
“No, you moron. King Jeric didn’t poison me with this shit.” She spat into the bucket, then fell back. The bags under her eyes looked worse than they had a few moments ago. The vomiting seemed to have drained her of whatever bit of energy she managed to save up from sleeping these last few days. “Knew I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”
I’d never seen a poison create this array of systems and was amazed she was even alive at this point. “You know what this is?”
“Yeah. Reaper Venom.”
I blinked, then shook my head. “No, that can’t be it.”
“And how would you know, huh?”
“I’ve been studying poisons and antidotes for the last thirty years of my life, that’s how,” I informed her. “That poison is an urban legend, at best. No one’s ever been able to make it work.”
She cackled as she stared at the ceiling. “He did.” Her eyes began to close, and she gritted her teeth as if fighting back a scream of pain. “Good luck with saving me now. Probably for the best.” When she opened her eyes again, the haze that had cleared earlier was back. “Should’ve known she’d hire him…” Her head rolled to the side.
“Iona?” I tapped her cheeks to rouse her, but she was out.
If she knew what the poison was, she might know the antidote. Reaper Venom. It was in many of the older books, but there was no exact recipe to make it. Worse, was there was no antidote listed. If I could find all the variations of it and figure out the ingredients they’d used, there could be a way to counteract them. I had a tonic that could isolate specific parts of a poison. Might make it easier to tackle.
After giving Iona another dose of the fever-reducing tonic, I got the coffee brewing and rushed to the stacks of books I’d already pulled from the shelves. I had a few hundred in my small cabin. If I had to go through all of them to figure out this mystery, I would.
I was on my third pot of coffee and the tenth book that contained a possible recipe to create Reaper Venom when a car door slamming made me jerk. I dropped the heavy leather-bound book on my foot and was hopping around on one leg when Teresa bustled inside. She had two paper sacks filled with food and gave me a curious look as she set them on the small counter in the kitchen.
Iona mumbled quietly. Teresa gave the half-goblin a weird look.
“We have problems,” she said, hurrying back to check out the front window.
“You think? I just found out what this poison is,” I muttered, rubbing my sore foot.
Teresa grabbed my arm. “Aiden listen to me. There are royal guards in town.”
“In Timber Falls?”
“Yeah, and they’re looking for her. They’re turning everyone’s place inside out to find her. I’m going to assume they know about you, right?”
“I’m a registered healer. Of course they do.”
“Then you have to turn her over to them or something,” she said in a panic. “They looked ready to kill. The fae leading them, he wasn’t normal,” she added on a whisper. Teresa had been through much hardship in her life and I rarely, if ever, saw her scared. Her hand trembled. She was terrified of whoever this fae was. “Please, I don’t want anything happening to you because of some stranger.”
Iona mentioned a he when I asked her about the poison. Was this him? If he made the poison, it was safe to assume he had the antidote. If he did come here, then I could… I could what? I ran my hand furiously through my hair and kicked my worktable. Yelping as I hopped around.
Teresa eyed me like I was on the verge of losing it. I probably was. I wasn’t a fighter. If he came here, I wouldn’t be able to convince him to save Iona, not if he was the one who poisoned her. There was no way I could fight him for it either.
The question remained. What happened to King Jeric, and why did they think Iona was the killer? “Did you hear them say anything else about her?” I asked Teresa, gingerly standing on my injured foot.
“Yeah, that she’s wanted for high treason and the murder of our king. Aiden please, just let them take her. She’s not doing well anyway.”
“I’m not letting her die.”
“You might not have a choice. If they find you harboring her, what do you think they’ll do to you, huh? Or me if I’m here. I’m a goblin, remember? They might take us in with her.”
She was right. I was fine with putting myself at risk, but I couldn’t ask Teresa to do the same. “Leave, go back to Henry and stay away from my cabin until I call you,” I urged as I guided her toward the front door.
“What? I’m not leaving you here alone with her,” she shouted and put her hands against the doorframe to stop herself from being shoved out to the porch.
“Yes, you are. I’ll be fine.”
“No, Aiden. You’re being ridiculous. Why do you care so much about one fae, huh? She’s one of them, remember? I know you’re not a goblin, but you sure as hell don’t act like any full-blooded fae I know.” She pushed back, and I let her go. “She was the head bodyguard for the king.”
“Yeah, a king that was trying to make things better,” I argued. “Besides, I don’t think she was just his head guard.”
“What do you mean?”
I glanced back at Iona and remembered the pain that had been in those black eyes. It wasn’t just pain from losing a king. “Do you recall hearing any rumors about Jeric having a future wife in the works? Or someone he might’ve been seeing? Anyone ever in his time as King?”
Teresa nodded, then stopped and tilted her head. Her face took on a quizzical expression, then her jaw dropped, and her eyes went wide. “Are you saying he was involved with her?”
“I’m saying I think there’s more to this situation than we’re able to see.”
“Aiden, I mean, come on. She’s a half-breed. They’d never let them be together. They sure as hell wouldn’t let her be his queen. They might’ve been having an affair, but it couldn’t be more than that.”
“Not that it matters now anyway,” I said quietly. “Either way, I’m not letting these guards take her away. Not yet. When I figure out the antidote for the poison and get the whole story, then—”
“Then what?” she cut me off. “You have no idea what she’s capable of. You said she already tried to kill you.”
“Wouldn’t you do the same if you woke up in a strange place?”
“No, actually, I wouldn’t.”
I didn’t care what Teresa said. I wasn’t giving up on Iona. It wasn’t in me to just hand over a wounded and dying person no matter who they were. It was one of my faults. My teacher, amongst others, had told me being too nice would eventually be the death of me. If that was my fate, then so be it, but no one was taking this woman out of my care. Not yet.
The air in the cabin shifted, and the hairs on my arm stood up. There were many fae who were sensitive to the presence of spirits, ghosts, whatever the humans wanted to call them. I was one of them, but it was so rare, I usually forgot I could until I bumped into one.
Or until they stood right in front of me.
“Aiden?”
I held up a hand to Teresa and slowly looked around. There was no one I could see, but someone else was here. I could feel it. He hadn’t been earlier, but he was now. And it was definitely a he. His presence was strong, intense, and focused on Iona. He wasn’t intimidating exactly, but he was letting me know he was there. I closed my eyes, breathing in and out deeply through my nose.
Teresa said my name again, but it sounded from far away. I reached out with my sixth sense, turning toward where I thought the fae stood.
A fae I quickly realized was King Jeric.
His form took shape slowly. There was the
familiar head of red hair and the thick beard that covered his face. His shoulders were broad, and he stood taller than me. If he noticed me, he made no indication. He leaned over Iona and rested his lips against her forehead. I couldn’t see him with my waking eyes, but in this light meditative state, he was there, plain as day. I wondered how long he’d been watching over her.
He was staring right at me.
I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t, and then he was walking toward me. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. The steely gaze that had me rooted to the spot was loud and clear. If I let Iona die, if I let those fae take her, Jeric would take out his undead rage on me.
I nodded firmly and then sucked in a deep breath as I was able to open my eyes again.
Teresa was holding my arm.
I blinked rapidly, trying to get my bearings back.
“Aiden, can you hear me?” Teresa asked. “Aiden?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” I replied and hurried around her to check on Iona. She seemed more at peace than she had since I brought her here. The fever remained, though. The stack of books on the floor awaited me, but they’d have to wait. “Teresa, I need to hide her. If you want to leave, I suggest you do it now before the guards get here. I have a feeling they’re getting close.”
She threw her head back, and I was pretty sure she was cursing me profusely. “Fine, I’ll help, but if we get arrested, I’m blaming everything on you. I hope you have a plan.”
I shrugged then beamed at her. “I do, but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like it.”
Barely an hour after I saw Jeric, several car doors closing reached my ears. I’d almost forgotten about Iona’s crashed truck on the only road that led to my cabin. While Teresa had taken care of things here, I’d raced out there to hide the damaged truck the best I could. Getting it deeper into the woods had been a challenge, but I’d managed.
Now, I was in the front room with a small cauldron bubbling in the hearth and dried herbs strewn everywhere, the exact ones I’d use if I was treating a severe case of goblin pox. I’d burned sage, as well as a few other choice plants, for the last twenty minutes, filling the air with hazy smoke. Anyone not used to them would get woozy fairly quickly.