by Alexia Purdy
“I am not human.”
“How would you know?” she asked him. Rylan looked around as all eyes fell on him, looking paler by the second. “You know nothing of your birth, your history, your heritage. Enter the circle, and I can show you what you’ve been searching for your entire life.”
I watched as Soap took a moment to digest her words. Finally, he stepped forward, eyeing the mangled mushrooms on the forest floor. He stepped over them without resistance, stunned that he’d been allowed to enter.
“Come now, half-breed and elemental. I have much to show you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Soap
The inside of the cottage was full of stuff, so much so that I wondered if we’d fallen into an episode of one of those hoarding shows without knowing it. Shelves lined every free wall, stocked full of bottles, dried herbs, jars of dead animals, spices, and some things I couldn’t identify. It was definitely cozy and bigger inside than out.
I wondered what sort of spells this witch had used on her home. Powerful energy flowed through the place, and even for Benton, who was quite adept at stuff like this, seemed momentarily taken aback. I was used to Benton’s witchy powers, and Shade’s, but this was a whole different kind of witch.
“Where’s Zena?” Benton asked as we crossed the threshold.
“She’s right back there.” The witch walked toward the rear of the room and lifted up some material covering a doorway. Behind it was another room about the same size as the first. There, we spotted Zena sitting quietly, playing chess with an unseen companion… or maybe just by herself.
“Zena!” Benton called out to her, but as he ran for her, he hit an invisible barrier much like the one surrounding the cabin. “What the hell?” He turned toward the witch. “Let me through!”
“I’m sorry, Benton. I can’t do that.”
She was sorry? I pressed my lips tightly together and gave her a dirty look as Benton stepped back and glared through the doorway.
“What do you want, witch?” he snapped, turning back toward the woman. She smiled gently, as though she couldn’t hurt a fly. I knew better. She was venom disguised as sweet nectar. There was only so much you could do to hide a black heart.
“You have something I need. So does Zena. I’ve been searching all over the world for the last of the Sight stones.”
“Why?” I asked.
The woman appeared annoyed by my question and huffed out a breath as she dropped a few herbs into a concoction cooking over a small fire on the tabletop. The place looked like a chemist’s dream—or a meth lab nightmare.
“The human realm does not need to see the world of Faerie. Humans with the Sight… they’re not only in danger from faerie folk but also a danger to others and themselves. This world of magic—it’s unnatural. Seeing it is even more so.”
“Like you’re so au natural?” I snickered.
She ignored my insult and kept rummaging through the things on the table. I wondered what she was up to and grew suspicious as she kept on pouring fluids and mixing stuff and muttering indecipherable words under her breath.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I glanced at Benton. “That’s not a spell to mess us up, is it?”
She didn’t stop but threw a sharp look our way. If I wasn’t such a gentleman, I would have wrung her neck right then and there. But witches were not to be trifled with. One should especially be cautious while they’re casting spells.
“Stop what you’re doing.” Benton held out his hand and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the witch halted her words, and her arms flew to her face, crossing them just in time to let Benton’s spell smash into her forearms. It caused her to step back a bit, breathing out hard as she eyed Benton wildly.
“That was unwise, elemental.”
“You’re the one who’s doing unwise things, and I suggest you stop whatever it is you’re doing and let us go.”
She shook her head but did not move to continue her spell.
“What do you want with us?” I asked.
She scoffed, frowning deeply as she eyed us both up and down before settling on Benton. “You’re so much like your ancestor. Handsome. Powerful. And yet… not so bright.”
Benton looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Brendan. Your uncle.” Benton tensed at the sound of his ancestor’s name. “He was quite a looker in his day. Too bad he’s nothing but dust and ash by now. Returned to the earth.” She sighed and reached out for a flask of bright blue fluid. Benton lifted his hand and flicked his wrist, pushing her fingers away from the bottle. She bit her lip and placed her hand back on the table.
“Make a move for your concoctions, trinkets, or whatnot again, and I’ll remove your arms myself.” Benton’s mood had soured, and I almost wanted to chastise the witch for getting on his bad side. I wouldn’t want to be in her position. He could be mightily frightening if you caught him on a bad day, let alone if he had a bone to pick with you.
“Elemental….” She tsk’d through her teeth, shaking her head. “I thought I’d gotten rid of most of your kind long ago. I can see that in my solitude, I have grown careless and once again let your kind flourish like weeds. I won’t be making the same mistake again.”
She reached out for the blue fluid once more, but before Benton could swipe her hand away, she flicked her fingers and hexed him. He stood frozen, shocked from being unable to move yet still breathing and fully aware of where he was. My mouth dropped open, as I stepped forward to grab the witch. She produced a cord from nowhere and tightly coiled it around my body. I lost my balance and flopped to the floor.
“I didn’t think the Teleen would be such fools, yet I find I have been quite incorrect as of late. You.” She pointed toward me and approached, taking a far closer look than I cared for. “Half-blood, are you? I can see that you have no idea what your heritage is or who your family is. Would you like me to show you?”
“What would you know about my family?” I grunted, trying in vain to break through the restraints. My struggle only made the ropes tighten, and my attempt at setting them on fire with my powers left them smoldering, stinking up the room but failing to ignite. Even the malicious witch made a face at the stench.
“Don’t bother trying to singe anything in this room. It’s fireproof. I know better than to give fire elementals or half-bloods like you any fuel. I’m not that stupid.” She snapped her tongue against her teeth, tsking away again as she continued mixing her spell. She finally poured the blue fluid into the pot.
“Rylan of the Teleen… yes, you are from Teleen, but your mother was banished from there long ago.”
“You know nothing about my family. How dare you claim to know anything?”
Her eyes narrowed at me, focusing a sharp, icy glare that dug into my head like a migraine. I gasped for air as her unrelenting eyes caused me anguish, and all I could do was try to take short, quick breaths through the excruciating pain.
She finally let me go and continued muttering her spell, offering me information in between her chants.
“She wasn’t too keen on the old ways of the Teleen, so she left them long ago, never wanting to return. Iana was a lovely woman. Fair skinned, emerald eyes, thin figure. Just like a beautiful Teleen. But she wasn’t a full Teleen. Not all of them are as pure of blood as they would like to believe. You see, her leaving didn’t go unnoticed, for a woman with an affinity to fire is a rare flower, and the men of the Teleen were hungry for mates then as they are now.”
I clenched my eyes together. “I don’t need to hear any more.” My raspy voice barely came out above a whisper; the ropes were too tight for me to breathe more than a few words at a time. “I can’t breathe,” I whispered, feeling my blood pushing into my head and pounding like a drum in my ears.
“Oh, sorry about that. I had to be sure they wouldn’t let you go.” She waved her fingers, and the ropes loosened enough so I could breathe again. I went slack against the warm, earthen floor of the cottage, letting
the life-giving air revive me and relishing the lack of pressure against my chest and head.
“Now, where were we?” she wrinkled her nose as she grabbed a snake from a sack, snatching it by the sides of its head and forcing its mouth open. Two large fangs hung out, and as she leaned forward, she milked its venom into the bubbling concoction. “There. Just a few drops of that and the life of it for good measure.” She snapped the snake’s neck, twisting until the head came off the body. Its tail whipped as she drained its lifeblood into the basin as well. “Like I was saying, your mother was a rare Teleen woman and there were men who wanted her very much. Especially one.”
“Who?” I asked, glancing up at Benton, who was dripping with sweat. “Can you please stop what you’re doing to my friend?”
“Oh, right,” she muttered. She thrust a hand out, ending the hold on Benton. He collapsed to his knees, panting from being held rigid for so long. Despite his exhaustion, he attempted to rise and run toward the witch, but she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He ran right into another invisible barrier, bounced off, and was sent sprawling onto his backside.
“Let us go, witch!” Benton’s anger flared across his face as he shot flames from his hands, letting the small spheres of fire sail toward the walls. They bounced off another in visible barrier and fell to the earth, reabsorbing harmlessly into the earth.
“I told you, I may be naïve at times, but I’m not so stupid as to fall for your tricks twice. You need to sit and wait, elemental. Your time is coming.”
“This is bull.”
She paused, amused by his annoyance, her eyes sparkling like stars in a black sky. “No, my dear. This is revolution.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Benton
“What do you want with us?” I asked, feeling defeated at being trapped in an invisible cage. I didn’t have the energy to even attempt to break through the barrier. There was nothing to do but wait and listen, hoping she’d make a mistake.
“Shhh. It’s quite rude to interrupt a story!” She glanced over at Soap, flicking her wrist again. His ropes dropped off and turned into small black snakes which slithered away, quietly finding holes to burrow into. Soap rubbed his arms and legs where the ties had dug in and breathed a sigh of relief. I held out a hand to help him to his feet, which he took gratefully. He joined me in my stare down as I tried to figure out what sort of imprisoning spell she’d cast over us. I’d never read about this in any of my ancestor’s grimoires. How could that be?
“Now where was I? Oh yes.” She turned back toward Soap and smiled. If I hadn’t already known about the tar black soul inside her, I might’ve mistaken her for a nice person.
“Your mother was raped by a Teleen man who had just joined the ranks of the fire clan and had become enamored of her. But you see, he wasn’t all Teleen either. He was a type of creature who could morph into anything, be anyone. I thought he was a friend of mine. He joined me on my expedition south, where it was rumored to be warmer and the beaches were gorgeous. I traveled with this man for a while before I realized she wasn’t who she said she was. In fact, she wasn’t a she at all. When Tycob discovered that I knew he was an impostor, he changed back into himself and decided to claim me.”
Her eyes darkened as her mind flew into the past. My eyes darted to Soap, who was paling by the second as he stared hard at the woman now lost in her memories. Has she admitted to what I thought she had a moment before? It couldn’t be….
“He raped me. He took my innocence. I rightfully should’ve been able to give it to a man I chose. He wasn’t just a Teleen, he was a monster, a half-breed of some sort with a touch of elemental magic. He overpowered me with his own brute strength, and I was unable to fight him off.” She inhaled sharply, looking like the pain of the memory had just ripped open an old wound and let a crimson rush of blood gush out.
“You—you’re my mother?” Soap was too stunned to understand, and I knew I had to break through this blasted barrier and get Zena out before this woman came back to her senses.
She swallowed as she stared hard at her son. “Once he’d had his fill of me, he drank himself into a stupor. But not before tying me to a tree. I broke through the bonds with my witch powers—I hadn’t yet revealed my powers to any of the Teleen. Then I killed him as he slept, stabbing his cold heart with a knife he had strapped around his waist. And I fled into the night.”
Soap’s face fell, his shock spreading across his features as he listened to her story. I was pretty surprised myself, but I eyed the barrier, sending small jets of magic to probe its surface. Maybe it would be weakened while she was distracted.
“I bore a child from that dark union, and try as I might to love it, I saw that man in the child’s face. He’d left me barely alive, without regard to what would happen to me afterward. I know that if I hadn’t gotten free, he would have left me to die. A man like that deserved death, and no trace of him can be allowed to remain.”
I widened my eyes. What the hell was she saying?
“But that doesn’t explain why you want all elementals dead. Why are you doing this? And what do you want with Zena?”
The witch broke out of her reverie and focused on me. I suddenly regretted drawing her attention again. Every time she stared at me, my chest felt like it was going to burst. I prayed she would remain a bit foggy, lost in her mind, before she remembered to torture me again.
“He was part elemental, as am I. But he never used it for good. I had to get rid of all elementals, especially if I was to get my revenge. Not just his family, but all those who help the elementals too. Even those with the Sight, who caused me more pain than I thought possible. I tried to hide with human elementals, but they did not care for my faerie powers. One among them with the Sight exposed me. Their betrayal left me no choice but to kill them as well.” Her unfocused eyes sharpened and really looked at me then. “Your Uncle Brendan helped me with that. I tricked him into becoming my friend. He was my lab rat. I used him to find the perfect solution to destroying all elementals.”
“But he killed that witch… the witch of the woods. He killed her, and that was his demise, his undoing. She’d cursed him in death.” My eyes burned with hatred, but she didn’t notice that I was focusing on something else, something the witch couldn’t see just yet.
“He thought he killed me, but he had only defeated a projection of a monster I created to frighten him. He fell for it, and with its dying breath, like a darkling creature, it injected a poison into him that ended his life. My success depended on that poison killing him. Although it took longer than I would have liked, it did its job and found me a way to kill Tycob’s family. And all elementals.”
“You would kill all elementals for the actions of one?” I flinched at the increasing pain in my head. The sharp ringing in my ears was growing louder, and as the agony amplified, I found myself on my knees, growing weaker. “We are not him. You cannot condemn one race for the faults of one. It’s genocide.”
“It’s cleansing.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong. You condemn the earth and all of Faerie if you take these kinds of matters into your own hands. And what of the Teleen? Why not kill them too?”
“I don’t care about the Teleen. They are already dying. Why do you think there are no females born to them? Who do you think cursed them with that misfortune? Female Teleen were always rare anyway. They would have died out eventually; I’m just helping that process along. Soon the blood of all those who betrayed me will be gone.”
“Does that include me, Mother?” Soap was on his feet and standing at the edge of the barrier, facing his mother. She turned, and the pain in my head subsided. Soap was no doubt taking the brunt of her mental attack.
It failed to bring him to his knees, and she watched him as he got as close as he could. He placed his palms against the invisible wall and stared at her.
“I dreamt of you my entire life. I remember you now, even though you took steps to make me forget everything. Your spell
did nothing to keep my thoughts from wandering to that faceless woman who would feed me, tuck me in at night, and sing lullabies when I refused to sleep. You may have rejected me due to the violence of my conception, but you could not bear to hurt me. You told me yourself that it would be good for me to be with others of my kind. You could not bring yourself to kill me, so instead you let me go.”
She shook her head and looked away, tears forming in her deep hazel eyes. Her lips quivered as her hands began to shake regardless of the drive inside her, working to complete the spell. “No. I failed back then. I won’t fail again.”
“And why would you bring us here now? What does Zena have to do with you and me and your hatred of elementals and the Teleen? Why does a human with the Sight have anything to do with what you’re planning?” Soap tilted his head toward his mother, and I knew that he had figured out something that was just now dawning on me.
“You loved Brendan!” I blurted out, feeling the barrier give under my power. I’d probed it enough to find a weakening frequency. It was old magic that I had read about in the grimoires, weak and subtle, but it was working against her barrier spell. “And he refused you. Didn’t he? What else would bring about a war against the one thing my uncle had strived to save in his lifetime? The ones with the Sight. The vulnerable humans he watched get torn apart before his eyes, helpless and unable to defend them against the magicals like me, like Soap, like you.”
Now her eyes were back on me, tears sliding down one of her cheeks and hatred marring her pretty features. She was immortal, like any Teleen faery, but she was also something else, hence her witch blood. A man strong enough to subdue her would have had to have been one powerful man in the Teleen clan. Of course she’d killed him, and for that I didn’t blame her. But the rest of this vendetta? She had lost herself in her quest for revenge. It had extended to all Teleen, all elementals, and all of those gifted with the Sight.