by Leia Stone
“Really?” He sneered and I glanced at Liam to see him watching me closely.
I put up my left hand. “I swear on my mother’s soul, I know how to restore Faerie.”
If the queen could restore Faerie and I could restore the queen, then I did know.
He grabbed a glass shard from his desk and looked at me through it. His dark eye looked distorted through the lens.
“She speaks the truth. I will help you both,” was all he said before setting down the glass.
Whew.
Liam looked relieved. “My father has had the crystals changed. They’re not like they were, and I’m not sure it will revitalize those of us who do not align with his energy.”
Jasper nodded. “I’m aware of the modifications your father is making to the crystals. Although quite genius in keeping Faerie from acquiring them, it is stupid to taint something so pure. He will find that they do not regenerate him and his children as the pure Crystals do. They’re, quite frankly … evil.”
Evil. I shivered.
“How can we fix them? Can you?” I said.
He nodded. “No, I cannot, but the healing pool in Faerie can. I still remember them as a child. One dip in those pure waters should do the trick.”
I frowned. “The healing pool is long gone. When Faerie fell, it was consumed with darkness.”
He shook his head. “No, child. Nothing can destroy those waters. If you send someone to retrieve a bowl full of that healing liquid, it will wash away any and all impurities.”
Send someone … Elle and Trissa came to mind, but of course I wanted to go myself. Leave the protective dome of Faerie?
“One problem…” I held up a hand. “I can’t touch the crystal without getting burned.”
Liam cleared his throat. “I can.”
I gasped. “You can?”
He shrugged. “I mean, I touched it for a minute or so that night at the masquerade ball and it was fine. It felt … dark … but I can handle it.”
The old Fae clapped his hands. “There you have it. The perfect plan. Now go and fetch your crystals and leave me be.”
Liam stepped away from his desk to leave when a thought occurred to me. “How do you … stay healthy without being near one of the soul crystals?” I looked around his house, wondering if one of them was hiding here. If it was, I didn’t feel it.
A wicked smile brushed across his face. “That is my secret. Now move along, little seekers.”
We stumbled out the front door, my mind reeling. The elders had been to see him. Liam could touch the dark crystals. The famous healing pools were still alive … and I had promised to restore Faerie. What the actual fuck just happened?
Liam and I were quiet as we descended the steps and got into the car. I gave Bashur a reassuring pat and tried not to think about the fact that he could in fact be a Urisk Fae Demon. Not a word was spoken all the way back to the safe house with the blue door either. It was only when I opened the car door and stepped out that Liam walked before me and spoke.
“It’s admirable what you want to do…” he said, stepping closer to me, holding my gaze. “Restoring Faerie and all that.”
Oh yeah, I had promised to do that. What the fuck had I been thinking?
He reached out like he wanted to hold my hand and I stiffened, so he pulled back. “But until then I need a crystal for myself.” His gaze darkened. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
I could see now that this dude had some major walls up. Last night for me was an emotional and physical experience. I’d given him all of me. But for him … I feared it was only the physical.
“Then tell me,” I pleaded.
He sighed, chewing at his lip. Too many silent moments passed, and he ran his fingers through his light hair.
I crossed my arms. “You don’t trust me.”
He shrugged. “I don’t trust anyone. Life’s easier that way.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “I can’t restore Faerie without all the crystals.”
He nodded. “I know. So we’ll get two. You take one and I’ll take one and then you can go off and hunt down the rest. That will take you some while.”
“But eventually I’ll need that final one, Liam.”
He nodded. “I know. But I need it now. More than you do. This is life or death.” His voice cracked and compassion bled through my hardened heart.
“What’s life or death? You know I can help you. You can trust m—” Bashur barked and I spun to see Mara in the doorway.
“Get it all worked out?” she called out into the front yard.
Liam forced me to face him. “I need to see someone in town. You go to Faerie and get the water from the healing pool or whatever, and then come back to get me. Then we will find the next two crystals together. One each. Deal?”
I realized then that somewhere along the way I’d fallen for this dude and would do anything for him. It was a dangerous feeling. I also realized that he was using me for the healing water because the dark crystals wouldn’t regenerate his people like they did his father’s.
I nodded. “Deal.”
He kicked off the ground and shot into the air faster than I’d ever seen a Fae fly. I watched the dark spot in the sky get smaller and smaller, before finally transforming the VW Beetle and slipping the pen into my messenger bag.
“Take me to Faerie. I need to speak with Elle,” I told Mara.
She nodded as I stepped inside. Bashur stood next to me.
“He’s not a Urisk demon, right?” I pointed to the dog and laughed. The laughter died in my throat when her face drew into one of suspicion.
“Demon? Who taught you such things?” She petted Bashur’s head. “Urisk Fae are just lonely hermits. They just want friendship.”
I gulped. I heard they also ate small children, but was hoping that was a lie. “Okay,” I croaked.
“Who did you see?” she queried.
I shrugged, careful with my words. “Some old Fae. Come on, I gotta talk to Elle.”
We walked at a brisk pace back to her office, but just before we got there the house shook a little. Pictures rattled on the walls and furniture shook. I grabbed on to an end table to steady myself.
I looked back at Mara. There shouldn’t be any earthquake at Mara’s, since I was pretty sure we were in some in-between realm. Right?
“Was that normal?” I asked her, but by the way she was frozen and looking off into the distance like she was calculating something in her head, it was not.
“No. And it shouldn’t be possible…” she mused.
Before I could ask for another explanation, she led me to the office and I strapped in.
Was Faerie shaking? Is that why we were too? I hoped to gods not. I needed more time. I didn’t have the next crystal.
When I opened the door into my home world, I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything looked normal and well. Fae were flying about at a slow and normal pace, the sun was shining down through the protections, and everything felt calm. Whatever that shaking was, it wasn’t Faerie.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I told Mara, and she nodded before I closed the door.
I took the path away from the blue door and jagged rocks, walking briskly to the center of town.
There. Just who I was looking for.
Trissa was training six warriors. They held sticks, clacking them together with horrible coordination and balance. When she met my gaze, I called her over.
“How are you?” She hugged me, but when she pulled back her face fell. “Why so serious?”
I hadn’t talked to my mother’s loyal guard in a while; a lot had changed. “Everything about this new life is serious.” I surprised us both with that answer.
“That’s true.” She frowned. “Do you need my help?”
I nodded. “The crystals have been … tainted. One or all of them are dark now.”
She nodded. “The elders told me.”
I figured. They were close. “But I’ve found a way
to heal them and I need you and Elle to accompany me to seek something.”
“Anything.” Trissa looked eager. Nothing was too dangerous for this woman. She was a lifer to the job. It was killing her to train people rather than be out there.
“I need you and Elle to help me fetch a bowl of water from the healing pool of Spring.”
There, I’d said it out loud.
She chuckled, looking ten years younger in that moment. “You’re joking, right? The healing pool went under with the rest of Faerie.”
I nodded. “I know, but the healing pool is still there, I’ve been assured.”
She sighed, running her hands through her hair. “We’d have to swim under the protections, and then from there—”
“Can it be done? Because the fate of Faerie rests on it. This is the only way to heal the crystals and restore the Tree of Life.”
She chewed at her fingernail. “There are monsters and darkness that lurk beyond this village. Things that have morphed over time, horrors you can’t even imagine.”
I shivered. “That’s why I’m asking you to go with me. For Faerie.”
She sighed, tightening her belt that held her prized sword. “Alright, let me talk to the elders while you get Elle.”
I almost wanted to tell her not to involve the elders. They were on my shit list right now. Something about that scene with Liam didn’t sit right with me, although I understood it. They hated him; they saw him as evil. It was crazy how quickly Indra had gone from a loving and wise leader to … whatever that was. It unsettled me toward them. They saw the soul light and still didn’t believe he was my soulmate.
After finding Elle training in her garden, I filled her on everything. I mean everything.
“Soulmate ceiling sex!” she gasped, her brow beaded in sweat as she stepped away from the crudely made leather punching bag. I slapped my hand over her mouth.
“Yeah, but he was a giant douchebag the next morning.”
She shrugged unstrapping her gloves. “Well, he was raised by the leader of the Dark War so …”
Touché.
I changed the subject: “So now I need you to go with us to get this healing water and then we can meet up with him and get the next crystal.”
She nodded. “Not gonna lie … half terrified to leave Faerie and head out into the darkness, and half curious what it’s like out there.”
I chuckled; she always was a curious soul. “We’ll have Trissa. It should be fine.”
Right? That dude wouldn’t lead me astray on purpose … would he?
Trissa arrived wearing her traveling cloak and a backpack slung over one shoulder, bow and arrow on the other.
“We’ve been permitted to go if it will help heal the tainted crystals,” she announced.
Permitted? Since when did I need permission to go exploring in my own home?
“Alright.” I decided to play this politically correct. Something about the elders was rubbing me super wrong.
Trissa pulled a wax-coated map from her side pocket. “If we swim under the protection shield and head east, we should meet the other side of the river in about a five-minute swim.”
I rolled out my neck. “Not bad.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Not if we don’t get attacked by water creatures, no.”
I gulped. “We could fly over the river? Not as fast with our wings wet, but doable.”
She shrugged. “If memory serves me, the trees of Spring have fallen over the river and blocked out the sky.”
Geeze.
I shifted on the balls of my feet. “Okay, let’s just assess it when we get in there.”
Trissa nodded. “Good plan.”
She started to wade into the water and my stomach tightened with anxiety. Never had I questioned myself and my decision-making skills so much. Was Liam to be trusted? Was the old warlock? Were the elders? Could I even trust myself at this point? That was the scariest thought. When we reached the edge of the dome, the water was up to our waists.
“Lily, the elders have told me that the dome will only part for a seeker,” Trissa said. She waved me to go in front of her and Elle. “You must touch it for it to move. We’ll swim through quickly and then you can remove your hand.”
I frowned. My mother told me to never touch the protection. Was this why? It would have opened up? That thought was unnerving. I wondered why it would open for a seeker and not any other Fae. Maybe it used the same crystal technology as the blue door.
Without thinking much into it, I waded out into the water, kicking my legs to keep myself afloat. The water was the perfect temperature, warm and soothing. When I reached the protection, I did the thing my mother told me never ever to do. Reaching up, I pressed my hand to the cool, flexible, magic encapsulation.
The second I touched the iridescent structure, it vibrated wildly. The vibrations sent ripples throughout the water, and Trissa and Elle swam closer. My hand suddenly fell through the structure, creating a small opening. Reaching up instinctively, I grasped the edges of the protections and pulled them apart slowly like they were made of thick clay. The gap widened, and as it did, murky black water rushed into Faerie from the dark world beyond.
Yuck.
“Go!” I yelled, not wanting to pollute what was left of our world. Trissa burst from the water and dove through the hole, as did Elle right behind her. Using my legs, I stuck those through first, before awkwardly moving my upper body into the opening. At some point my wrists were tweaked too much and I had to let go of the protection and float through. There was a current on the other side that I wasn’t prepared for and it carried me away quickly. Frigid cold water consumed my body as I battled the raging black waters, feeling disoriented. Everything was so incredibly dark. The sun looked blotted out by ash and thick, burned trees, but my major concern was on the opening in the dome and whether it had closed once I’d gone through. This foul black water would kill the fish in Faerie. Flipping over mid swim, I glanced back and saw the hole snap shut.
Relief poured through me just before Trissa’s scream ripped across the river. “Look out!”
Flipping over in the water, I turned just in time to come face to face with … a four-eyed, mutated fish creature from hell.
A shriek tore from my lungs as the fish opened his mouth and I gazed upon three rows of serrated teeth. He had black and green scales, but some spots were missing, and in its place were open wounds that wept pinkish fluid. He lunged for my face, and I threw my arm up to block it, when a knife sailed through the air and stuck in the side of the fish’s head. The creature fell to its side and sank to the bottom of the river.
Looking up on the shore in the direction of whoever threw the knife, I expected to see Trissa, but it was Elle.
“Nice shot,” Trissa told her as my mother’s old guard climbed up out of the water.
I kicked my legs like mad, making my way to the shallow edge of the river so that I could climb up onto the shore as well.
Elle winked. “I had a good teacher.”
“Kiss ass,” I teased her as she reached out, helping me up out of the water.
We all gave a little lighthearted smile, which quickly died as we gazed around the ruins of what was once the most beautiful and enchanted forest of all time. I’d seen a painting once, on the mantel of Glena’s house. This … was not that. Spring was … life; it was color; it was the very breath of Faerie. And now … now it was covered in death and darkness. Small tendrils of smoke seeped up from the ground and towards the sky. Tiny pools of lava gurgled and popped on the once beautiful forest floor.
I looked over and saw that Elle was crying. Trissa, however, looked haunted and more traumatized than sad.
“My home was just through these woods. About a ten-minute walk. It was my favorite walk,” she said, voice hollow.
A tree branch snapped to our right and Trissa flinched. “Come on. We shouldn’t linger. Gods know what’s here now.”
With that, she walked through the brittle and dry lands
while I followed after her, looking left and right and seeing blackness and ash as far as the eye could see. “What … happened? Fire?”
Trissa sighed. “Fire. Ice. Dark magic. Plague. What didn’t happen is the question.”
Gods. We walked in a V-formation, with Trissa at the lead.
After a few moments, a twig snapped. Trissa pulled her bow. Elle had two throwing knifes in each hand, and I had my obsidian dagger.
“How much farther?” I queried.
“If it’s still there, we should be coming up on it, just over this hill,” Trissa called out.
It was a slight incline as we crested a small, dry, blackened dirt hill.
The collective gasp was audible.
There, in the middle of what I imagined hell looked like, was the most stunningly clear blue pool of water. Bright lily pads and lotus flowers floated at its surface, a stark contrast to the smoking black ash surrounding the pool’s edges.
“It’s still here,” Trissa said in wonder.
That crazy warlock dude was right.
Trissa unshouldered her pack and pulled out a giant canning jar big enough to hold water for at least two crystals.
Snap.
A twig broke again, this time closer.
Trissa turned to me slowly, alarm showing in the way her wings snapped erect.
“I’m going to need you to get the water and then be ready to run. We’re being followed.”
She handed me the jar and Elle pulled a few more throwing knives from her thigh holster.
Snap.
Snap.
Followed? By what?
I couldn’t see anything out in the thick dark woods, which was more terrifying than knowing what was out there. Taking a deep breath, I trusted that the girls had my back and swooped down to the edge of the waters, crouching on my heels. The small pond was only about thirty feet in diameter, with black charred grass that came all the way up to the edge. Foul smelling, sulfurous smoke ebbed from tiny holes in the ground, but the water … the water was the most beautiful color of teal I’d ever seen.
Unscrewing the lid of the jar, I reached my hand into the water. The moment my fingers touched the turquoise water, a zap of power shot up my arm and whacked my funny bone.