by LJ Rivers
With a shuddering breath, I took the injured creature from Charlie’s hands and into my palms, closing them over it. Energy surged from my core, filling me with warmth. Flashes of light shot out between my fingers and showered me with yellow and crimson brilliance. Carefully, I opened my hands and showed the creatures their companion.
In my hand, the water-sprite, a relative to Halwyn’s Sprygeons perhaps—which was the closest mythological reference that sprang to mind—jerked. Sapphire scales rippled out across its body as the burns faded. Black sheets sailed down its wing stumps and folded back into wings once more. It tested them, batting them one at a time, then stood in my palms. Its paper-thin lips parted in a disturbing attempt of a smile as it elevated, gills flapping on the sides of its body. It swooped in a back-loop, then banked sideways and returned to hover in front of my nose. One incredibly small hand touched my lips before it gave me a sweeping bow and flew off to join the cloud of other sprites. They merged into a black giant once more, soaring into the air before diving back underneath the waves.
The waves.
Panicked, I shot to my feet. We had stayed too long.
“Red,” Jen shouted, standing human once more, water splashing around her legs a good distance ahead. “We have to hurry!”
Strong arms took a firm grip around my waist and hoisted me from the ground. Brendan was carrying me forward in a sprint.
“Put me down,” I yelled.
“We have to get to the other side, Ru, and you’re terrified of the water.”
I was. But only hours earlier, I’d clung to Jack’s neck, fully submerged. And survived. “I can do this myself,” I assured Brendan.
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
He put me down, and we legged it, water raining around us as we ran. As we closed in on Kit, who was running in circles as if waiting for us to catch up, Brendan leaned to the side and scooped him up with one hand. Charlie was running with the wolves, all in their animal shape again, clearly not going at full speed so she could keep up.
The sudden roar of the waves drowned out all other sounds as I ran. I retrieved the hourglass in my haste, watching the last few grains roll towards the narrow stem. Our time was almost up—as if the furious water hadn’t already confirmed as much. I dumped it back in the satchel. It didn’t matter at this point. Sprays of water drenched me as we raced forward, and dark figures dipped up and down in the sea all around us. A seal dived through the air and splashed back under, before it reemerged. It swam closer when the water sprites reappeared, somehow scaring it back into the depths. I didn’t want another encounter with the Serena, and I sure as fudge didn’t much care to find out what else dwelled in the water.
“Come on.” Brendan clutched my hand, and I sprinted for all I was worth. Hours upon hours of running had given me great stamina, and I had a mean sprint, but my lungs were already on fire, and my feet fell more deeply into the mud with every stomp of my feet. My muscles strained, screaming for relief, but there was no time to take a breath. We had to keep moving. We closed in on Charlie and the wolves, and I glanced at my brainy friend, whose only knowledge of aerobics pertained to those of the bedroom.
With a burst of power, I thrust my arms out and shoved the air with all my might, sending Charlie and the wolves flying forward. The wolves scrambled on the currents, and Charlie’s toes cut through the surface as they all shot towards the shore. With a sudden energy drop, my pace slowed, and I watched Charlie crashing into the water, her arms flailing as she swam on. Jen and Erica flanked her, and Jack sped past them with impressive speed.
I gasped and stumbled.
“A little further.” Brendan halted and swung an arm around me, Kit clinging to his neck. “You can do it, babe. I know you can.”
“I just need a moment.”
“We don’t have one.”
I clutched at my chest and looked up. A mountain of a wave rose ahead, obscuring my friends and the island. Terror pinned me to the ground, and my heart sank into my gut. Brendan yanked me from the spot, and I found my feet again.
“There’s no place to run.”
I blinked, shaking myself. He needed me. They all did. With a sharp breath, I called my magic forth. A glassy sphere formed from my fingertips, slowly expanding like a shield as the wave started its descent. Breathless, I pushed harder. A shield wouldn’t put a dent in this wave, much less stop the water from drowning us. Another push and the force field was complete, encapsulating all three of us.
The water crashed down with a thundering weight, slamming the force field onto the surface. It bounced off and careened through the air. In the wrong direction. I held on as best I could when something cushioned our flight and sent us ricocheting like a pinball back the other way. We swooped above the wave, and I caught a glimpse of a black cloud before we bounced onto the shore beyond.
The force field evaporated, and I sank to the sand, Brendan plopping down next to me. Kit rolled off him, stumbling for a few steps before collapsing between us. My boyfriend’s index finger brushed against my forearm, then circled my palm.
“Man, that was intense,” Jack said, standing over us, droplets falling from his hair onto my forehead.
“Jack,” Jen scolded.
Slowly, I rolled to my side and propped myself up on my elbow, feeling the weight of the wet satchels around my waist. I slapped myself for my stupidity. What had Halwyn said? ‘Should you meet any creature you don’t want to be eaten by, throw a handful of Leaves of Unsight at them’. Had I remembered, I would have used them. Then again, after what had transpired, I was happy I hadn’t hurt the sprites any more than I had.
I turned my attention up the beach. Erica and Charlie sat on a slab of stone, dripping wet, but seemingly none the worse for wear. Everyone was all right.
Carefully, I rose to my feet and surveyed our surroundings.
It looked like any peaceful shore back on earth; sand and rocks, the rolling waves behind us, and a grassy hill beyond. But this wasn’t just any random place.
This was Avalon.
Chapter Eight
The temperature had increased since we left Crochan Island, but there was still a chill in the air—one I suspected might always be present in a world with a defunct sun. After a rest on the beach, we had turned uphill. My internal furnace kept me warm enough, but the humans in our group were struggling, especially after having been drenched once more. The three wolves only needed to shift to shake the cold, however, and I was now sporting three T-shirts like some kind of weird skirt around my waist, in the hopes that the clothes would dry faster. I had draped the wolves’ respective jeans over their backs and tied the legs around their necks, which made the wolves look cartoonish and a lot less frightening. At least they might have dry clothes whenever they shifted back.
They bounced over the rocky terrain, now and then leaping across the winding path, with Kit desperately trying to keep up. He chased them as if they were his prey, even though they could have gobbled him up in one bite if they were so inclined. Luckily, they had all warmed to one another, and I liked that Kit had friends to play with.
Charlie and Brendan were a different story. She was rubbing her arms with furious intent, while his chattering teeth were beginning to worry me.
“Want us to stop again?” I asked them as we climbed another rise in the ground. “I can make a fire for you to warm yourselves.”
Brendan gave me a sideways glance. “I’m not sure you should be using your Sorcery while we’re on Avalon. Judging by those bags of nuts back in Perllanafal, someone with a mixed lineage like yours might not be greeted with open arms.”
He wasn’t wrong. I’d had those same thoughts myself, but I didn’t like seeing my friends shivering from cold. “I wouldn’t be doing much with it, just aiding the fire a little.”
Charlie exhaled in ragged breaths. “We shouldn’t stop. This hill is pretty steep, so we’ll likely warm up in the next five minutes or so. Once our clothes are dry, we’l
l be fine.”
Brendan strode forward more briskly than he had. “Quitting is—”
“Not an option,” I finished.
A chill crept up my arm when Brendan took my hand in his, but I didn’t complain.
“I taught you well, milady.”
I squeezed his hand. “I thought we were over that?”
“What? Milady? I know you had an issue with it for a while, but seriously, look around you. I’ll bet people will be calling you milady left and right in no time, so better we start practising.” He snickered. “Would you rather I called you a princess?”
I cringed. “That’s what my father calls me, you eejit. And again, I abdicated.”
Charlie skipped on her feet, clearly in an attempt to warm herself. “That was before, though, when we thought this place was long gone. Now that you’re here, you’re truly the heiress to the Avalonian throne. And Merlin’s too, I suppose.”
I shot her a scornful glare.
She held her palms up. “Hey, I’m just saying. Don’t shoot the messenger. Besides, you know I’m right.”
I blew out my cheeks, and my shoulders slumped in defeat. “I know, but Avalon has a queen already. Perhaps she has another heir or heiress by now.” Hope blossomed for a moment.
“I thought you said Fae can only bear one child in their lifetime,” Brendan interjected, stomping on my brief relief.
“They do, but who knows, maybe that’s an Earth thing?” I was grasping, but there wasn’t a bone in my body longing to be royalty. Princess was certainly never on my list of career choices. All I wanted was for my last remaining family and my friends to be safe. However exciting it was to be in this other world, Earth was my home. Besides, so far, two of my friends had fallen under some kind of sleep spell, I had almost been seduced into the water by a water demon, failed to rescue the Juniper guard, and encountered a cloud of sprites that I was pretty sure could do real damage with those tiny, sharp teeth of theirs. And we had been here less than twenty-four hours.
Brendan raked a hand through his dishevelled hair. “I’m sorry, Ru. I didn’t mean to upset you. You’ll always be just Ruby to me. In fact, Ruby Ruby is the girl I fell for, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
My lips quirked up. Just Ruby was all I wanted to be. “Don’t worry about it, I know what you meant. And I suppose I might have to adjust to being called milady for a while. It’s only temporary. As soon as I know my grandparents will be all right, we can all go back the way we came.”
“You mean, back into Rhina’s Deep.” Charlie shuddered. “I sure hope Halwyn knows when it’s safe to go down there, and when it isn’t. From what you told us about the tide in that place, I’d hate to get stuck. I’m actually kind of happy to have been asleep during all of that.”
“I would have been happy to have slept through it myself,” I admitted.
We turned around a bend and passed a few large boulders on either side. Ash-blue moss covered the rocks, dry and browning at the edges, and a pair of round, golden eyes stared at me from the shadows inside the plants. It blinked and retreated. Such peculiar creatures this world held, and I had no idea what to make of any of them. It was hard to distinguish friend from foe, and one wrong step could quickly get any of us into trouble. I would simply have to be on top of my game at all times, preserving my energy as much as I could for when it really mattered.
A squawk sounded above, and Charlie jumped into my arms. She patted my shoulders, and a grin spread across her face. “Got spooked for a second.” She giggled and freed herself, turning her face up. “Wow, look at that.”
Brendan and I both turned our gazes to the sky. A swoosh of air ruffled my hair as a giant creature soared past, its wings spanning perhaps thirty feet across from tip to tip. Its bushy lion-tail arched as the animal banked sideways to join another like it, this one bigger than the first. Their brilliant white fur shone as if covered by snowflakes, and its ebony-coloured wings sailed majestically on the air currents. The largest of them dipped close to the ground, its eyes fixed on mine, before it turned its beak skyward again. It had a glorious, bright orange beak, protruding from a feathered face, and its green eyes, rimmed in black, were spellbinding, like staring into the deepest forest imaginable.
“Griffins,” Charlie squealed. “I can’t believe this!”
“They’re magnificent,” Brendan said.
I nodded and watched the half-bird, half lion-like creatures fly off towards the distant mountain to the north.
Brendan wrapped his arms around me. “Could have used those for transportation. Halwyn said to head for the mountain, but it’s not exactly around the corner. We should try to find some kind of shelter within a few hours. I’d say before the sun sets, but—” He gestured at the dark sky with one hand.
“At least Halwyn gave us some of his plants that he said could fill our tummies for hours with a single pinch, so food won’t be an issue for a while yet. And we still have water, though I guess we’ll need to fill up the water skins every chance we get. I don’t see any streams yet, though surely there has to be some freshwater around.” I hoped. So far, all I had seen were rocks and grass.
After we had been trekking the up hill for seven turns of the awrglass, the climb finally came to an end. The wolves sat on the edge of the hilltop, Kit balancing on Jen’s shoulders. I sauntered over to sit on one of the large rocks next to them, careful not to disturb anything that might be hiding in the moss, and raised my eyes to survey the scene in front of me.
It took my breath away. Ahead, the landscape sloped, dipping up and down like golden and green waves. A forest stretched out to the west, its canopies a muted blend of browns. Even in the dim light, I was able to make out the contours of the nature surrounding us. In a sloping valley below, a few lights twinkled, revealing the dark shapes of what I presumed were dwellings. Beyond it, I spotted an inky pool of what could only be water, and a stream journeying from it to stretch towards the shadowy rise of the mountain to the north.
“Think we might be able to find shelter down there?” Brendan asked as he sat next to me.
“Depends. I don’t know what to expect from the people here. But I guess it’s our best bet.”
“You could always pull the princess-card.” He nudged me gently.
“You’re a real comedian.” I tried to keep a straight face, but when I looked at him, he was staring at me with those heart-melting eyes of his, and all I could do was smile.
The wolves had clearly rested long enough and began padding down the hill, Kit still sitting atop the white wolf’s shoulders.
“Coming?” Charlie asked as she wandered after the animals.
I clasped Brendan’s hand.
“After you, milady,” he said.
“Oh, no, after you, milord.”
We had left Halwyn at the beginning of the eleventh awr, and once we closed in on the lights we had seen from atop the hill, I turned the awrglass again. It was the sixteenth awr of the day now, or what I assumed equalled 4 pm back on Earth. My feet throbbed. Though I was used to running, I wasn’t used to trekking through rough terrain for hours on end.
One of the wolves barked when a figure appeared in our path.
I gasped and stepped ahead of the animals. A young boy, who appeared to be in his late teens, hovered above the path two feet ahead. His silvery wings fluttered slightly as he stayed suspended in the air. Fiery red hair rolled around his face in thick curls, and his slanted, cerulean eyes were fixed on mine.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“My name is Ruby,” I said.
“Manners, Lance,” another voice said, and an older Fae swung into view.
He was the spitting image of the boy, only a full foot taller. He had dominating crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, and his red strands were salted with white.
“Forgive my son.” The older Fae turned to me and alighted on the path. His wings folded on his back as he cupped his hands on his elbows.
“I b
eg your forgiveness,” the boy said. “My name is Lance, and he is my father, Kay.”
“Lance?” I smiled, crushing the guilt that surfaced at the very mention of the name.
“Like Lancelot,” the boy said, assuming a pose as if he were stabbing an imaginary sword in the air.
“Pleasure.”
Kay straightened and regarded my entourage while Lance swooped around me.
“Peculiar.” The boy tilted his head and banked sideways, looking me up and down. “Where are your wings?” He tugged at the T-shirts still attached around my waist. “I sure hope this isn’t the latest fashion from Avalen. You won’t be finding suitors wearing these rags.”
“Lance!” his father said in a stern voice, and the boy fluttered off, hanging his head in a submissive gesture, though I could still see his smirk hiding underneath his curls.
Kay folded his hands on his back. “What are your kinships? The Changelings I recognise, but what of you? I do not know what you are.”
“I’m a Fae,” I said, acutely aware that I was missing a critical Fae trademark.
“Forgive me, but you do not have wings.”
“I realise it’s out of the ordinary, but I’d rather not explain.” So, instead, I conjured a force field and wrapped it around a pebble, suspending it in the air.
“I’m inclined to agree with my son. That is mighty peculiar, and yet I cannot deny the truth of your words. But what of those?” He gestured at Brendan and Charlie.
“They’re my friends. Charlie and Brendan. Does it matter what … kinship they are?”
“I suppose not.” He glanced at the wolves again. “I’m guessing they are Changelings like the others in your company.” His eyes rested on Kit. “But that. What in Merlin’s name is that?”
My cat meowed and hopped off his spot on Jen’s back to approach the Fae. Kit rubbed against his feet, his purring engine revving up. “That is Kit.”
Kay beamed and picked him up, scratching him behind his strangely pointy and increasingly large ears. “What a marvellous creature. And such a pretty name, not unlike my own.” He chuckled. “You must have travelled far. Perhaps all the way from Awarnach? I have to admit, I have yet to journey outside Avalon’s borders, so you must forgive my ignorance.”