Flame and Starlight (The Esteria Series Book 1)

by Dana Isaly

  “Don’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.” I looked to the door and saw the healer standing there awkwardly, looking from me to Asher. “Help him!” I shouted and motioned towards Asher. I coughed, my throat feeling raw from Asher’s assault. The healer made his way over to him and helped him sit back on the couch.

  Asher’s skin had gone deathly pale. The exertion from the sudden movement had caused him to lose a lot of blood. I was absolutely soaked in it, I realized as I looked down at myself. I was also indecent. My nightgown was all the way up to my hips, my underthings completely on display. I felt my cheeks burn as I quickly yanked it back down. Emric cleared his throat and stood up. Asher’s blood had completely covered my chest, shoulders, and arms. Emric held his hand out to me to help me stand, but I shook my head. Pain seared behind my eyes.

  “I’m going to sit here for a minute. If I stand up too quickly, I’m going to pass out.”

  Asher groaned, and Emric’s attention latched onto him. I tentatively brushed the back of my skull with my fingers. There was already a lump forming. If I remembered correctly, it was always better to have a lump because it meant it was pushing out and not in? Or was that some old wives’ tale I had heard?

  Stupid, fragile human body.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood,” Mavka was saying to the healer. I looked up at her, and she seemed unharmed. For a moment I wished my Fae blood had already kicked in. It didn’t seem safe to be so breakable around all these Fae. The healer dug through his bag, pulling out herbs and oils. He picked up one of the clean cloths I had left lying next to the couch. He layered and smoothed them out across it and then gently laid it across Asher’s wound.

  “This poultice will help the healing process. The wound should be closed by the morning, but he’s going to be sore for a few days.”

  “We’ve got a room nearby that you can stay in for the night.” The healer gathered his things and stood to follow Emric. He bent down to my level and gently checked the back of my head. He nodded and then handed me a small vial of clear liquid.

  “This is going to help your headache and help you sleep. You seem to be going through a lot these past few days,” he said and smiled. The smile reached his bright green eyes, and I found myself smiling back. “How about you rest for a couple of days and let your body heal?” I nodded, and he followed Emric out of the room. I slowly stood, using the wall to keep my balance.

  “I told you to fucking leave, Alyssandra,” Asher said, already sounding stronger. I turned my attention to him and saw Mavka’s eyes widen.

  “I’ll take her back to her room and—”

  “I’m not done, Mav,” he said, cutting her off. I stared into his eyes, black in the dim light of the room. “You—”

  I stopped him. “Yes, well, I am, Your Highness.” His title dripped off my tongue with malice. “I was just trying to help you as you were lying there, chest ripped open by Gods knows what! You are seriously the most ungrateful person I have ever met!” I swiped at the hair that had fallen in my face.

  “I would’ve been fine, and I didn’t ask for your help.” He tried to sit up but winced and slunk back down into the cushions. “Your injuries could’ve been far worse than they are! You are human. I could literally crush your bones to dust if I wanted. And look at you!” He looked me up and down. What looked like disgust flashed across those dark eyes, and gooseflesh raised across my legs as I remembered just how little of me was covered. “You are covered in blood and barely clothed.” I crossed my arms as Mavka made her way over to me, trying to escort me out of the room. He chided me like a child, and suddenly, I didn’t feel much older than one.

  “Good to know. Next time I won’t lift a finger to help you, even if it means saving your life. I guess you can save yourself from now on.” I saw him roll his eyes and lie back down, not up for any more of a fight tonight. I turned on my heel, letting Mavka lead me out of the room, and flipped him off over my shoulder.

  “Oh, my cloak,” I said as we entered the hall.

  “Maybe best we leave that for tomorrow,” she said, patting my shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to ruin it.” I shivered against the cold but agreed and let her lead me away and back into my room.

  “Has he ever come back injured that badly from Mayassar?”

  “Only once. His first time, he was young and distracted.” Her voice was hushed like he could hear us. “It must have been an unspeakable soul to be able to harm him that badly. But,” she said, a bit lighter as we made it back to my room, “he will be fine. He will still be a bit sore tomorrow, but overall, he’ll be fine.” It sounded like she was more trying to convince herself than me.

  I ran myself a bath while she stoked the fire and added some more wood. By the time I emerged from the bathing chamber, no blood left in sight, Mavka had the fire roaring and the bedsheets turned back. I sighed and started to braid my wet hair to the side.

  “He’s never been the easiest person,” she said, taking over, her thin fingers moving deftly in and out of my hair. I scoffed. She turned me around when she had finished and smiled at me. “He knows his strength. He knew tonight he could have killed you. That’s why he was angry.” She patted my cheek. Her weariness seeped into me through that touch. Her worry tasted sour.

  “I was just trying to help.” I climbed into bed, throwing back the vial the healer had given me like a shot of apple vodka. The thought suddenly had my heart hurting and missing home. I missed having people to confide in. I missed Tom’s laugh. I missed Aoife’s hugs. I could have really used a smile and a hug right then. The elixir went down much more smoothly than the apple vodka. It tasted like honey and made my entire body go warm, my headache barely there anymore. Tiredness hit me like a brick wall, and I practically fell back into the pillows.

  “He’ll come to his senses,” she said, tucking the covers up under my chin. “Hopefully, anyway,” I heard her laugh. “Stubborn as a mule, that one. Get some sleep.” The tone of her voice betrayed the love she had for him. She spoke about him like my mom used to speak about me.

  “I’m not holding my breath,” I said, slipping into sleep. I didn’t hear her close the curtains or close the door on her way out. I fell asleep replaying memories of my friends back home. The memories blurred into dreams, and then the dreams twisted into nightmares. Aoife’s hugs turned into vise grips, and her laughs turned into threats. Her ears were pointed, and her fingertips were black as coal, snaking up onto her palms and wrists. Fire flew from her hands and creeped its way around my neck, branding me the Autumn Court’s property.

  And then there was Asher, stepping in between us to save me and pushing me away, hurdling me across the room in the process. This time when I heard my skull crack, everything faded into black. And I had no more dreams.

  Chapter Eight

  The next couple of weeks passed uneventfully. The healer, Kyrin, kept me in bed for three days after that night with Asher. I was surprised at how worn-out I actually was. My body had a lot of bruises and bumps to heal over those few days, and I had slept through most of them. The handprint on my throat took the longest to go away, but there was hardly any pain thanks to the elixirs Kyrin had left me.

  After those three days were up, Emric showed up at my door bright and early every morning. We sank into a routine pretty easily after my body got used to it the first week. I was able to run around the entire lake in one go, so Emric had started pushing me to do it twice. I started lifting heavier weights, so Emric added more. I actually learned how to throw punches, so Emric started teaching me how to really fight. I was actually learning pretty quickly, and my strength was building faster than I thought it would.

  No matter how hard he pushed me or how exhausted I was, my Fae side never kicked in. I was long past the point of frustration. If this was going to be my new life, I needed to not be this fragile little human. I was too weak and vulnerable against their strength. Emric had to hold back with every move he made when we fought just to make sure I didn’t go so
aring across the room.

  I told him so many times that I needed to be able to fight with him at his full strength because every Fae I’d be up against had at least five times the strength any human did. Every time I brought it up, he would just roll his eyes and tell me he wasn’t going to risk breaking my bones.

  Some days, different Fae that Emric trusted would join us, giving him a break from taking my hits. Ideon was Emric’s second-in-command and was often stationed outside my room. Some days he would take over for Emric and let me take jabs at him, and other days he would merely lie on the floor and make snarky comments about my stances and moves.

  One day while we were taking a water break, Ideon stood with his back to me, talking to Emric. If Emric saw me creeping up behind Ideon in my bare feet, desperate not to make a sound, he didn’t betray me. And the moment I was close enough, I swung my leg out and kicked Ideon hard in the back of the knee. He didn’t fall, but it knocked him off-balance and backwards long enough for me to reach up and grab his tunic at the neck and pull him down. He landed with a very satisfying thud, and Emric and I burst out in laughter.

  “Touché, Wheezy,” Ideon had said. He’d adopted the nickname Emric had given me as well, even though I was far past wheezing at physical exertion anymore. He jumped back to his feet and gave me a hard pat on the back. “Maybe we underestimated you. Care to have a fair fight?” He got into position, and I tied my boots back on, ready to try again.

  Every day I woke up at sunrise and trained with Emric until lunch. I took to eating lunch in my room after a bath, and I went exploring in the afternoons. A guard always followed me, making sure I wasn’t getting into trouble or that trouble didn’t find me. I got a sense of where pretty much everything was from the kitchens to the many, many guest rooms. There were a few great rooms that were covered in dust. It must’ve been a long time since anyone had danced in them.

  Early on, I’d stumbled across a library that had to be filled with thousands and thousands of books. The English major inside of me melted at the sight when I first found it. There were rows and rows of them filling up the entire room. The ceiling was curved, and the big windows arched to match it.

  Most afternoons after I had made some laps around my new home, I would make my way there to curl up in one of the deep cushioned chairs against a window and read until the sun began to set. It smelled like old leather and yellowed pages in there, and I wished I could bottle it. From the library windows, I could see the lake slowly icing over more and more each day, completely covered except a few spots in the middle where it was deepest. The mountains in the background sat there collecting snow under the soft pink-and-blue sky.

  I hadn’t seen Asher a single time since the night he came back slashed to hell. After a week of dining with Emric in that massive room, my temper flared and boiled over. Asher had brought me here and then dumped into a big empty castle with little to no answers and hardly anyone to keep my company.

  “Is there a reason I’m being ignored by him?”

  Emric looked at me and smiled. “He’s away taking care of things. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows here all the time,” he said, taking a long drink from his wine. “There’s unrest in our world right now, and he’s trying to keep it at bay.”

  I sighed and went back to eating. I had come to learn over the past couple of weeks that Emric was willing to answer a few questions here and there, but he wasn’t an open book.

  It was lonely. Yes, I had Emric, sometimes Ideon, spotted throughout the day, and Mavka the few times she came to my room. And even though there were plenty of Fae walking around all day every day, none of them dared even look at me, let alone talk to me. I started to wonder if Asher even had any friends. Did anyone have any friends? No one came to visit, and the only Fae I could see around were either staff or guards.

  I missed having someone to talk to. I missed going to school, to work, and going out with everyone. I hadn’t shared a real connection or conversation with anyone in over two weeks now. Granted, I had Emric to talk to during our training. We joked around and laughed with each other, and I felt friendly towards him, but I couldn’t really trust him. I had to assume everything we talked about was promptly reported back to Asher.

  Every day I woke up wondering if Aoife would come find me. Every day that ended without her showing up was a disappointment, and that hope of being taken home was quickly dwindling. Asher’s seed of doubt he planted in my mind about her getting close to me for nefarious reasons was growing, sprouting roots, and taking hold in my heart. I didn’t want to believe that my best friend would have been spying and plotting behind my back. I just didn’t think she had it in her. But obviously a lot of things I had believed weren’t true. I believed my world was the only world, and that clearly wasn’t true, seeing as I was now living in one ruled by magick.

  I still hadn’t told anyone about the emotions I could sense from people either. It terrified me when I had first arrived and Mavka touched me. I knew those emotions weren’t mine, but I had written it off as exhaustion. But then when Emric had touched me and I had that same feeling, I knew it was some sort of dormant power awakening in me. Which was just the perfect talent for an anxious person to have. My entire life, my mind had held me back from doing so much, terrified of the thoughts of other people. Social anxiety, my therapist had labeled it. Now I was able to feel others’ thoughts every time they touched me.

  I got more curious and a bit braver with each day I was here. I would let Mavka touch my bare skin as she buttoned my clothes or handed me a cup of tea. Each time her emotions would flood into me, tasting sweet and soothing. I would make contact with Emric throughout our training more often than I would at first. My fists would come into contact with his bare arms or face, and I could feel his emotions pour over. His were always focused but on edge, like he was just waiting for me to burst into fireworks.

  “Where are you today?” Emric asked, bringing me out of my trance. He threw a right hook, and I dodged it, not bothering to swing back. I took a step back and held up my hands to signal I wanted a break.

  “I’m getting frustrated,” I said, running my hands over my face. “I’m getting stronger, better, but not inhumanly so. I’m still a very breakable human.”

  “You’re breakable, but you’re stronger. You’ve got muscles forming, and you’re getting much better at hand-to-hand combat.”

  “You’re fighting at my human level, not your Fae level. If you did, I’d be dead in a few minutes.”

  “Give yourself more credit. You’d survive at least five.” He smirked, and I punched him in the arm.

  “Hilarious,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Look, I have never been around a halfling that was stowed away in the human world for so long. Normally halflings, or changelings, are brought back here much sooner. Your magick is buried very, very deep. We just haven’t kick-started it yet.”

  I stared out one of the windows while I thought hard about telling him about how I could feel other Fae’s emotions and thoughts. On this side of the castle, I could see the front gardens leading out into wide-open fields. They rolled gradually up and down until they ended in thick pine trees. The road that normally split them down the center and led into the woods was covered fully with snow, no tracks to be seen.

  I knew whatever I told Emric would get back to Asher, but maybe it should. Maybe if I told Emric, word would get back to Asher, and he would come back and give me some answers. I had been living here for over a fortnight with very little information as to what his stake in this whole thing was and what my future was going to look like. Because there was no way I was going to stay here for the rest of my life just training with Emric and reading in the library. I sighed.

  “I think that a little bit of my magick has actually made itself known,” I said at last. I braved a look at him out of the corner of my eye, but his posture hadn’t changed. He just looked at me with questions in those violet eyes.

  “And what little bit would
that be?” As if out of his control, his eyes flicked to my still-rounded ears and then back to my face when he found nothing had changed there.

  “Okay, I probably should have told you both this when I first got here, but I wasn’t sure what was actually going on until recently. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about before I brought it up.” He looked at me and nodded, telling me to continue. I took a deep breath and flexed my fingers a couple of times. “I can feel your emotions.” His eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they might fly off his face. “Only when we touch,” I amended. “And it’s not just you. It’s Mav, too. I guess anyone I touch, really.”

  Thinking back to the times Asher had touched me, I realized that last statement wasn’t actually true. I had never been able to sense what Asher was thinking or feeling. The only insight I got into his brain was his shadows and biting words.

  “That’s definitely new,” he said, crossing his arms. I caught some wariness in those eyes. Like me keeping this from him had been an invasion of privacy that he didn’t appreciate. I couldn’t blame him. When I found out that Asher was able to sense my feelings and also keep track of me with his stupid little cloud of dust, I wasn’t too keen on the idea.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I jumped up and sat on the table that was pushed against the wall and watched him think it through.

  “So,” he said, turning to face me, “let me try and understand how this actually works. Can you hear my thoughts when you touch me? Like actual words?”

  “No,” I said and picked up an apple I brought for a snack, taking a bite. “I can’t hear what you’re thinking like stream of consciousness. When our skin touches, it can’t be through clothes. I just feel how you feel. If it’s a really strong emotion or if you’re really focused on feeling one thing, I can kind of taste it.” I took another bite and pulled my legs underneath me as he sat down next to me, not having to jump up.