by Melle Amade
“Very,” Bruta said, slowly laying out the young woman’s uniform and inspecting it for further signs. “Doesn’t look like you got any shots in,” she commented.
I rolled my eyes. “It was a little difficult with ice daggers shooting nonstop at me.”
She shrugged. “Well, at least you managed to avoid them.” She glanced over me and noticed my jeans and t-shirt were dirt and damp, but not torn.
“I want to find the group that sent her after me,” I said.
Bruta looked at me in surprise. “It’s instant death if you attempt to return to the fae world.”
“She had the Crown Academy markings on her wrist,” I pointed out.
“Crown Academy? Are you sure?” Bruta asked, but she nodded silently knowing I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true. “Why would a legionnaire be at the Crown Academy?”
“You know just like I do that place is corrupt as all shit,” I said with a growl.
A low, disapproving sound came out of Bruta’s throat. “Have you learned nothing?”
I scowled. “They killed my parents. What am I supposed to think?”
“Your parents died on an assignment they chose to undertake,” Bruta said calmly. “That is all we know.”
I pressed my lips together. We were never going to agree on this point, but I had no proof to back up my theory and she was right about the fact that they chose their own paths. I had to accept that at least.
“What is more curious,” she continued, “is why the legion is active and why they are recruiting members of the Crown Academy to do their dirty work.”
“I want to find the viper’s den,” I said.
Bruta’s fine face creased. “I had thought this might happen. In fact, I had suspected it might happen sooner.”
“What?” I asked.
“The frost fae believe you murdered me,” Bruta said. “There was always a chance they would seek retribution for my death.”
“I was punished for your death,” I said, holding up my hand. Not even a puff of smoke came out, much less the blue energy bolts that used to erupt from my palms.
“You know there was always a chance the frost fae wouldn’t accept the judgement of the King,” Bruta said. “If the legion is back in force, it means there are deeper problems going on in this so-called peace of theirs. It’s a pity.”
I glared at her. “You hated their peace,” I pointed out.
“This is not true. I just saw no place for me in it,” she said.
“You were a professor of strategic battle at the Crown Academy.” I held my hands out helplessely. “You had it made.”
“My chid, we were striving for peace. There was no place for strategic battle. There was no place for an old warrior and frankly, I never believed in this melting pot peace they were trying to create regardless. Too much blood was shed.”
“Much by you,” I murmured.
“Yes,” she nodded. “And you know as well as I do that if I can’t have that life, then I shall not have another in the fae world.”
I did know this. Masterminding her death had been an effort. But it had been a solution that suited both of us. Bruta had many enemies in the Light and Blood Fae and many followers in the Dark and Frost Fae. The only way they would ever let her live in peace was for her to die.
It had taken months of planning. She had made many trips to the New York, found her home and even rented and fitted out my loft. We knew she would not be there for my trial and banishment, but she made sure I would have a warded safe haven to go to immediately upon my release. She had taken on the transfer of fae money into human banks and taken responsibility for my sister and I once it was discovered that our parents were dead. The only thing she had done that I was never comfortable with, was making me swear to not tell my sister. She said we would have to trust my sister to know the truth or not.
Unfortunately, my sister, who had always been high strung, was not able to see the truth. She had believed I could be a cold-blooded murderer.
The Council would know that I would be unable to beat Bruta one-on-one in a duel, but we also needed Bruta’s heart to stop. We had searched out the strongest poison and most careful measurements and before the day of the duel, we had covered my arrow tips in it.
I had been scared shitless.
“What if I hit the whole blade in you?” I had asked.
Bruta had just smiled. “Then that would mean it is my time to go. I have never been afraid of death.”
Still, I practiced and practiced until I was sure I could carefully nick just the edge of her arm. Then I hoped it would be enough.
The match had taken place I the arena at the Crown Academy. It was the summer solstice and Bruta had claimed to be making a show of her young wards and our skills. Ostensibly it was to make a point that with hard training you could master gret things. It was also my supposed ‘entrance’ exam into the Crown Academy, even though it was aways assumed I would be accepted there.
When the arrow flew true and knicked at her shoulder I stood silently watching her. The crowds in the arena, my sister, the royals, all the upper fae classmen grew hushed as Bruta looked at her arm, touched the blood, and smiled at me as she crumpled to the ground.
The arena erupted in chaos and I was in custody in no time. I didn’t care. I hated that place and wanted out as fast as I could.
“I need to get in,” I said.
“Get in?” Bruta stared at me calmly.
“I helped you get out of the fae world, now I need you to help me get into the Crown Academy. I’m going to find where she came from and why she wanted me dead.”
“And you think she was a student there?” Bruta asked, lifting up the broach that was pinned to the front of the young woman’s shirt.
“She had to be,” I insisted. “She still carried the mark. That mark doesn’t disappear until you graduate or die.”
“No student kills themselves just to avoid telling the truth,” Bruta said. “You will find more than the Crown Academy behind this woman. But you are right, if you want to find out what she was doing in your house, you need to find out who she was.”
Bruta’s fingers the amulet and pulls on one of the turquoise blue side baubles. A needle comes out of the amulet.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Strong and ancient magic,” Bruta says. “We created them for war. If a Frost Fae died in the battlefield, you would take the broach to the family, but this needle, well, it holds the person inside it.”
I shrug. “So, we can stick that in something and it’ll tell us everything we need to know?”
“Perhaps,” Bruta twisted the needle around delicately looking at it in the light that reflected blue off it. out a needle.”
“Well, what do you stick it in?” I ask, anxious to get this underway.
“The last person to see them alive.” Bruta’s violet eyes pierced me. A deep chill enveloped my body. “In this case-“
“Me.”
5
I hold out my hand for the needle. “Let’s do this,” I said. “Where does it go? My arm, my chest, my ass? If all it takes to figure out what was going on in this woman’s head is sticking this needle in me, I’m all in.
I was a black belt and a fae. No stupid little needle was going to put me off from finding out why Tat died.
Bruta’s laughter is low. “It’s not that easy, young one. Don’t leap before you understand the repercussions. Sometimes in this world you need to know what you’re doing and make sure you can pay the price. There is more than just gaining access to her memories. You will become her.”
“What?” I asked, not sure I’d heard correctly.
“It was one of the more masterful weapons we had in the wars,” she said. I could trun at entire legion of dark fae into frost fae simply for a certain offensive, and then switch them back to dark fae when they had to slip into the shadows.”
“The wars are over,” I said. “But someone is still after me. Maybe it’s because th
ey think I killed you and maybe it’s because of my parents, but regardless, Tat is dead, and I need to know why. If I take on her look, I can return to Crown Academy as her and find out what is actually going on.”
“You need to be singular of purpose if you go to do this. You need to aim for exactly what you want and attack it,” she said.
I tried to look like I was hesitating, but I wasn’t. I had already made my decision. I had spent years avoiding the fae and the Crown Academy and paid a heavy price to avoid it. Now I would go back and finally find out what happened to my parents.
“Where do you stick it?” I asked.
Bruta’s hand reached gently around my neck and tapped the spot just above my top back bone.
“Do it,” I said, turning around and bowing my head.
A light chuckle fills the air. “You would have made the most formidable officer in my army,” Bruta said and I could hear the wistfulness in her voice.
“Do you miss the wars?” I asked.
There was a long pause as her fingers stroked my neck. “One must always be able and willing to adapt to new conditions. But more importantly, you must find a way to make this adaptation suit you.”
Her fingers gripped tight on my shoulder and a sudden sharp pain pierced my skin, searing me down deep into the tissue of my neck until the hard metal of the needle scraped against my bone with a clicking sound.
I clenched my teeth down hard, tensing every muscle in my body but not uttering a word. It was as if my entire body was dissolving and disappearing into this point where the needle had dug down into my flesh.
I couldn’t have breathed if I wanted to.
Pain shot out from the base of my neck, pouring through every vein of my body, a pulsating sting that ripped through me. My body tried to collapse, but Bruta’s grip was strong on my shoulder. It was the only thing I could feel that didn’t hurt, the five points where her fingers and thumb touched me.
Suddenly a cool sensation slid across my skin. I watched as my body began to grow and my skin turned a pale white. My long purple locks that were hanging limp around my face looked as if white paint was pouring over them.
I was turning into her. The bitch that killed my werecat.
My hands gripped the counter and I could see my nails turning a pale blue. I was repulsed, but at the same time mystified. Had I been away from the fae world so long that I forgot the wonders of its magic? How a being could be one thing in one moment and appear as something else.
“How long will this last?” I gasped as my breath returned.
“Until someone removes the needle,” Bruta said. “I suggest you wear your hair down, so the blue bead doesn’t show. Most people won’t understand what it’s for, especially at the academy, but some will know, and it will make them susipicious.”
She turned me to face the floor length mirror that leaned against the wall facing the sun.
Holy fuck.
I wasn’t me anymore at all. My nose was longer, my cheeks fuller and my eyes a shimmering frost fae blue.
“I’m her.”
“Well, you carry her form for now, but remember if you show who you truly are, well, everyone has the King’s own permission to kill Gaia Blackstone on sight.”
“So, I’ll make sure I’m not seen,” I said.
“Your life depends on it,” Bruta nodded and in her gaze, I saw the love and caring that she had always approached me with, even when she was a fearsome war general.
“I understand,” I nodded.
“Now what is your name?” she asked.
“Gaia Blackstone,” I shrugged. It used to be Gaia Morningstar, but every Unforgiven is stripped of their birth name and given the name Blackstone.
“No, the name of the frost fae,” Bruta clarified.
My brow creased together, and I turned away from the mirror to look at her. “I have no idea.”
“Nothing? There’s not awareness of who this woman is?” she asked.
I shook my head. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” I asked.
But Bruta was pacing the atrium, her fingers stroking the leather cuffs of her billowing white shirt. “You aren’t truly fae anymore,” she murmured.
“How can I not be fae?” My stomached roiled at the thought. I mean, okay, I didn’t want to be in contact with any fae and I didn’t have any magic, but you can’t just change what you are. Being fae was part of my DNA. It’s what I was born.
“That’s not what I mean,” Bruta turned her attention on me. “Yes, of course you’re fae, but your magic was removed. It’s like a surgical procedure when they remove a body part. It’s literally just not there anymore.”
I shuddered remembering the feeling of loss I’d experienced during the procedure. It had been painful and dark. As if they were taking the core of each one of my cells and vacuuming it out of me. “I still have all my fae traits,” I said.
“Yes, but this tool that we created, it works on a very special system that isn’t just hooked up to the nerve endings. It needs magic to engage the memories and, well…”
“I don’t have any anymore.” I let out a sigh, for the first time in years wishing I had my magic back. I stared in the mirror at the strange Frost Fae young woman who stared back at me. My stomach churned. As long as I had this needle in my neck, I was going to be looking at the face of the one who killed Tat. “What are we going to do? You still have your magic. There must be something you can do.”
Bruta was already walking around the atrium, her leather pants silent as she brushed fingertips along the leaves and began plucking a leaf here and a leaf there. “There isn’t much I can do, to be honest,” she said. “That needle will keep you looking like her, but it isn’t going to give you her memories. If you’re going to go through with this, you’re walking straight into the lion’s den. You’re going to have to be pretty nimble to navigate a world where she is known, and you know no one.”
“I’m familiar with Crown Academy,” I said. “I lived there my whole life.”
“Yes, but you don’t know where she fits into it.” Bruta turned to the counter and dropped the handful of leaves she’d collected into a pure white mortar. She slowly ground the moist green leaves into a pulp. “And you don’t know what it’s become since you left. Neither of us do.”
“You don’t have any contact with anyone there?” I asked, mildly surprised.
Bruta chortled. “I’m dead, remember? Best thing that ever happened to me. No one bugs me at all anymore.”
“What is that?” I asked, nodding towards the green mash.
She scooped a small piece out of the mortar with her fingers and rolled it into a pea-sized ball. She held it gently in her hands, murmuring an incantation over it. Her hands glowed red briefly and then faded. She held her palm open to me. The small pea was now brown. I took it between my thumb and forefinger. Bruta had never used magic on me or even potions. Even when I was sick. I had insisted that if I was going to be human, I was going to live as humanly as possible. But now everything had changed. “Will this fix the problem?” I asked.
“Place it under your tongue and let it dissolve,” she said. “It will take awhile to have any impact, but it should allow some of her memories to drift to you, probably in your sleep.”
“But what about her name?” I asked.
Bruta nodded, “That’ll either be the first piece of information you get, or you won’t get it at all.”
“Smashing.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Bruta said.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do. I ran away one time and lost nearly everything. Now I have lost the last thing that mattered to me, well, besides you. But I can’t stay here. If they are stalking me and successfully finding me, I need to leave you, too.”
“Just remember, Gaia,” Bruta held a hand on my shoulder, “if they discover who you really are, they will kill you. Even if I tried to save you, I would not be able to.”
“I know.” I gripped her hand. “I wouldn’t
want you to. We got you out for a reason, besides, you look much better without the horns.”
We both turned to look into the ornate mirror, smiling at each other with a sad determination.
Bruta didn’t say a word, she just reached forward and touched the glass. I only watched it for an instant before I took a firm step through and back to everything I had hated.
6
It didn’t take but a second to get my bearings. Grutas mirror led to the main portal in the front courtyard of Crown Academy. It was a common entryway for people to arrive. The biggest danger was standing there too long. It was kind of like a human escalator there was always somebody coming in behind you, so you had to move quick when you got in.
The shock of the portal wasn’t nearly as harsh as the shock of finding myself back in the middle of Crown Academy. I never thought I’d see this place again and when I left, I was so despised and feared, my body seized up just standing there; tense and ready to defend myself.
“Get the hell out of the way Frosty.” A shoulder bumped me as a bulky dark fae guy came through the portal behind me.
Right. I was a Frost Fae now. No one knew I was Gaia Blackstone, Unforgiven outcast of the fae world.
I still stood out a bit odd. Unlike the other students milling around I didn’t have any bags or books, but I quickly step to the side and with my back against the wall, I surveyed the scene. The café and restaurant were just to my left nestled in one of the massive patrol towers that marked one side of the entrance to the courtyard. That matching tower on the other side was the home of the café lounge. The only real difference between the two places was one had couches and the other had tables and served food. Early on when the Crown Academy had first started allowing anyone but Dark Fae to attend, the lounge had been the territory of the Dark Fae only, but the King put an end to that. This new brand of academy was supposed to be a melting pot for the clans that had been at war for more than a thousand years, having one meeting place being segregated wasn’t really helping the cause.
Fortunately for the King, Prince Kylian carried out his every wish. He immediately started inviting the Light, Blood and Frost Fae into the lounge and throwing parties, making them feel at home. This was all when Heather, my sister had just started attending and she was so enamored with Prince Kylian, she would have done anything, even spend time with a Blood or Light Fae, just to get his attention and approval.