Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2)

by Missy Sheldrake

  “Azi, you are brave, you are strong. Whatever has you in its grips, fight it. Fight, Azi,” a whisper edges into the memory, breaking me apart from Jacek. I watch him walk away from me, on to another place. He doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t know that someone else has found me.

  My name gives me power. I had forgotten it, forgotten myself, but the whisper reminds me. It bolsters me, somehow. When Jacek turns to me in this strange place, I see him differently. The threat I’ve been feeling is him. He is the danger. The scene around us fades away, and we’re once again sitting together on the chaise. I test my arms without moving them. They aren’t as heavy now.

  “What happened?” Jacek’s smoky voice snakes its way toward me again. “I had more to show you.” He reaches for me. Traces a finger along my arm. It tingles warmly, and the pleasant sensation spreads through my body. My eyes drift closed again. It’s different this time, though. This time, I remember who I was and how I came to be here.

  I wonder if he knows what I’ve recalled. I try to calm my heart, to keep it from racing. I need to get out of here. If Jacek notices that his grip is slipping, he doesn’t let on. He brings me to yet another place. This time, it’s long ago.

  We’re at the edge of a Wellspring, but not in Kythshire. I remember this one. It’s Sunteri, but it’s different from the last time I saw it. It’s ringed with enormous ferns and sheltered by a rich canopy of green. Dozens of fairies dart around it playfully. Now and again, golden jets shoot from it, up into the sky. Magic, being called forth by Mages. A toddling boy claps and giggles beside me, and I know immediately that he is Jacek. On his other side, a woman smiles down on him fondly. She’s the same woman who brought him here, the one Iren killed in the battle. His mother.

  “No, no, darling, you mustn’t touch it,” she coos at him as the boy crawls toward the golden pool. She’s distracted, though, and careless with the child. He creeps closer, dips a tiny fingertip into the pool, and is immediately stopped by a strong warrior fairy decked in rich gold armor. He points his spear at the boy and shouts in a booming voice.

  “You have done what is forbidden. You are no longer welcome here, Jacek. You are banished from this place. Leave, and never return.” The terrified child wails and his mother scoops him up with a click of her tongue at the fairy.

  “He’s just a babe,” she shouts at the fairy.

  “He doesn’t belong here, nor do you,” the fairy raises his chin.

  “And yet I am here whether you like it or not, Mevyn.” The woman narrows her eyes at him. “Perhaps I shall visit the Great Circle. Tell them of your insolence.”

  “You are the insolent one, Mage. Go. You are no longer welcome at the Wellspring.” He raises his spear to her. Others of his kind gather behind him, looming, waiting.

  “We were just leaving, anyway,” Dinaea barks. She tips her forehead to the child’s and whispers to him. “One day, it will be yours, my son. You deserve it. You deserve all the world, my beautiful boy.”

  “Everything leads back to that,” Jacek whispers. “I deserve, it, you see. All of it. My mother’s words were prophecy. One day, it will be yours, my son. And so I help it along. Little puppets in a play, and all of them dancing for me.” Jacek’s adult voice drifts over me, pulling me away from the rest of it, back to the chaise in the castle.

  “Have you ever touched the Spring, my lovely?” he asks. I try to look at him, but my eyes are too heavy. I’m so sedated by him, so tranquil I can barely make sense of his words. His fingertips brush my jaw and I feel the power that surges from them. They are the same fingers that dipped into the golden pool. The magic they hold gives me strength to open my eyes, to look into his. “Have you?” he asks.

  I shake my head, “It’s forbidden.”

  “But you have seen Kythshire’s? Been to it?” My eyes drift closed again. I let my head bob lazily. Jacek charges me again with his power.

  “Look at me,” he says with an urgency that brings me to my senses. I force my eyes open and meet his. “You have their trust, their welcome. You will touch it. Just once. Dip your hand into the glittering surface. Feel the power I have felt, then come back to me. Come and tell me what you’ve seen. You will understand, and we will be joined. Swear it to me.”

  “You’re strong,” the other voice echoes. It’s a girl, someone I don’t know. She’s close, though. So close. Jacek’s eyes pull me in again. They’re dark as the night sky, with flecks of ash that dance and float within them. I watch the random patterns as they drift close and far. They hold me and guide my thoughts. The Wellspring, yes. Just once, I would like to touch it. Just once feel what’s so forbidden, what’s so guarded.

  “You can overcome this,” the girl whispers firmly.

  “I will,” I whisper, more in reply to the echoing voice. Jacek takes it as my vow, though. His eyes widen with triumph. Then, with a wave of his arm and a rustle of his cloak, he’s gone and I’m falling, falling into darkness, falling away from him, tumbling into nothing.

  My shoulder hits the ground first hard and without warning, and then my head. It cracks painfully on the cold stone, sending stars bursting across my vision. These injuries, this agony is nothing compared to the loss of Jacek. He left me, he cast me away. Now I’m alone in the darkness, blind and helpless in his vast world. I feel empty, discarded. Finished. I could die.

  “Wake up,” the girl whispers to me. “Just wake up.”

  “Who’s there?” I cry. I try to see, but it’s too dark. I should stand up, but my legs are tangled in my gown and I can’t be bothered to fight free. My head pounds so much that I fear it will split open. I press my palms to it as if trying to keep myself from breaking apart.

  “Who’s there?” I call again, and my voice is wracked with sobs.

  “Just wake up,” she whispers once more, but I can’t. I’m tired now, so tired. So heavy. I press my cheek to the cold stone floor. My eyes close again. This time when I sleep, I don’t know for how long.

  I dream of strange things and even stranger places. The gold fairy appears to me more than once. He shows me people and places. There is a man, and there are children, and there is Jacek. Faces flash before me. Red hair, black hair. Jacek, the boy who became Dreamwalker. He’s angry. Jealous. Dangerous. He lashes out, causes pain. His power is more than they can control.

  They have to do it. With Mevyn’s help, they send him away. Someplace distant, someplace safe. Guard the others, the other children, the ones who stole his father away. The ones who deserve pain. Ward them and guard them until Mother and Father can stop him. It’s confusing, frightening. I can’t watch his pain anymore. I turn from it and find myself safe in my bedroom, facing a small, circular hatch. My hatch. Our hatch.

  Rian, oh, my Rian. Oh, my Rian. My love, my only love. I reach up and push the door open with a shaking hand. Will he understand? Will he forgive me? I peer inside at his usually rumpled bedroom, but it’s stripped bare. Nothing remains but an undressed bed and a cleared off table. Downstairs, our housekeeper, Mouli, is singing. The aroma of her cooking makes my mouth water. I go to my door, try to open it, but it’s locked from the outside. I shake the handle, pound on the door, shout for someone to let me out, but no one comes. The house is empty, the Elite are no more. The smell of her cooking is gone, and so is she. I’m alone, all alone, trapped in my room where they think I’ll be safe. Trapped and alone. Alone and forgotten. Rian has left me. They’ve all left me.

  “It isn’t real,” the girl whispers, “whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. Wake up.”

  I spin around to see where the voice is coming from, but there’s no one else here. Outside my window, dawn is breaking. I can see the sun peeking up over the horizon of thick green leaves.

  Trees tower over me. Their trunks are broader than my shoulders and so close together that there’s barely room for the light to shimmer through. I’m not in my room anymore. I’m in the forest where I started. Through the narrow cracks between the tree trunks, I can see the meadow. I’m st
ill in the Dreaming.

  As the morning light grows brighter, it pushes my memories of Jacek away. The pain in my head and shoulder fades, too. Instead I think of Rian. I fill my heart with him. I focus on him as I push my way between the trees. I need to get back to him, to the inn where my family is waiting, and away from this strange, confusing place.

  I finally reach the meadow and take in its beauty. The newly-risen sun splashes across it, causing the morning dew to sparkle brightly in a vast array of colors. It reminds me of someone else. Someone dear to me.

  “Flitt!” I call out, “Flitt, where are you?”

  “Azaeli, wake up.”

  The voice isn’t hers, but someone else’s. The whispering girl.

  “How?” I shout. “How? Help me!”

  “Just…open your eyes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Awakening

  Azi

  Open your eyes. It seems like such a simple suggestion, and so obvious. Why hasn’t it occurred to me until now? I saw myself fade from my mother’s arms in the inn. I felt the shift to this realm. I’m so confused. Is it another of the Dreamwalker’s tricks? Is he trying to make me believe I’m not really here, that I’m actually asleep somewhere? That all I have to do to escape this strange, confusing place is simply wake up?

  I look down at my hands, which are familiar and unfamiliar. Thin golden lines swirl across them, glittering and shining in the sunlight. I turn them over and rub my fingers together. They feel real. I feel real. When I fell, I was in pain. I felt my bones crack. I reach up now and press my head gingerly where it hit the stone. The pain is gone.

  I close my eyes. Somewhere in the distance, someone is calling my name. I don’t know the voice. It sounds like a boy. A young Jacek, perhaps. I block it out and try to wrap my mind around this new concept that maybe I really am asleep, and all I need to do is wake up. Wake up, I tell myself, wake up.

  Slowly everything around me shifts, and with it comes the feeling that I’m fading out and in again. This time, I’m lying in the grass with the sunlight warm on my face. Someone is beside me, holding my hand. Close by I’m aware of familiar sounds: Dancing, singing, laughter. The air is thick with magic. It seeps into me and settles over me with such a subtle power that my breath shudders from the shock of it. When it touches me, I know in an instant that I’m in Kythshire.

  “I think,” the one holding my hand announces quietly to the Ring, “I think she’s waking.” It’s the girl, the whisperer. “Sir Azaeli?”

  The dancing stops abruptly. Everything is quiet. My eyelids are so heavy, but I force them open. The first thing I see are green eyes framed by a shock of red curls. The girl grins and squeezes my hand.

  “She is! She’s awake! Oh, I’m so relieved.” She pats my shoulder through my armor. My armor. I have it back. My free hand searches in the grass.

  “My sword?” I feel for the hilt at my back, but it isn’t there. I start to panic.

  “It’s here,” the girl says. She reaches to the grass above my head and pulls my weapon close. The look in her eyes as she holds it is that of awe. With a careful reverence, she lays it beside me and places my hand on the hilt. When she looks at me and smiles, her eyes are glistening with tears.

  “What’s your name?” I ask her. I feel like I’ve seen her before. She has a vague familiarity, like a face in passing who I’ve seen many times but never really met.

  “Saesa.” She straightens a little and gives me a respectful nod.

  “Saesa, you saved me,” I say. “I heard your whispers. I thought I was really there, but your words, they made me see another side.”

  “Good thing you sent me for that crystal, Crocus,” Shush’s voice comes like a breath of wind from somewhere close by. He zooms to Saesa’s side. I smile at the familiar sight of him as he pushes his goggles to his forehead. “It really worked,” he whispers, pointing to the orange-colored crystal that bobs over my chest.

  “It was foreseen, and so it was,” Crocus declares abstractly. All around us the fairies murmur their agreement. Shush leans over me and blows softly on the crystal, and it fades and disappears.

  “What was that?” I ask him.

  “Just a little something to open up the channels,” he replies, always whispering. “Avenside crystal. Always does the trick. Of course, this little one did most of the important work.” He points to Saesa. “Couldn’t have reached you without her.”

  “Nessa taught me that words have power,” Saesa beams. “I guess she was right.”

  “Nessa?” I prop myself up on my elbows and she helps me to sit up in the grass.

  “She’s my mother. Well, foster mother. She takes care of me and my brothers and sisters.” She sits back on her heels again and slides my sword to her. While she talks, she buckles the harness around my shoulders. “There were six of us until Tib came. Now I guess that makes seven. She teaches us things.” She helps me to my feet and clasps my hilt to the harness.

  “Thank you,” I say absently. While Saesa fetches my gloves I look across to Crocus, who’s watching the scene with interest. As always, a gentle sort of curiosity plays in her smile and her bright eyes.

  “We recognize Azaeli Hammerfel, The Temperate, Pure of Heart, Reviver of Iren, The Great Protector, Cerion’s Ambassador to Kythshire, Champion of Kythshire, and we are glad to see you restored.”

  “That last one is new, isn’t it?” I ask Crocus. Saesa fastens my cloak to the golden clasps at my shoulder and adjusts its draping as Crocus and I talk.

  “It is,” Crocus nods slowly.

  “I didn’t earn it.” I shake my head. “I’ve been foolish, and quick to anger. I’ve allowed myself to be manipulated. I’ve…” A pang of guilt stabs my heart. I pull off a glove and look at my hand. The golden swirls have faded, but they’re still visible. “I’ve used magic, Crocus. Selfishly.” I hold my hand up to show her. Around the edge of the Ring the fairies lean in, wide-eyed and curious. They whisper among themselves. Crocus beckons me closer and takes my hand.

  “Mentalism,” she says quietly. She looks up at me curiously. “You learned this in the Dreaming?” I nod apologetically. Her mention of the Dreaming brings a hint of a thought to my mind. A memory of promises made. One in particular, a strong one that I never ought to have bound myself to. I shake my head and push the thoughts away.

  “Do not be ashamed,” she says brightly, “this magic is rare, but it isn’t ours to steward. Kythshire has little dominion over it. It comes from another place.”

  “Sunteri?” I ask. It seems the next likely source.

  “Not Sunteri. We shall tell you another time. Right now, your path lies ahead of you. You must return to the Dreaming and seek those who ventured to rescue you.”

  “Those who ventured…” I turn around and scan the circle, and my heart starts to race. Rian. Flitt. They’re not here. How did I miss that before now? “You mean they went, they’re there? They’re in the Dreaming? How? Why would you send them there if you had that crystal?”

  “The crystal was a failsafe, and Shush retrieved it much more quickly than we anticipated.” Crocus says regretfully. “We had to ensure your return, one way or another.”

  “So you put my friends in danger?” I ask frantically.

  “We did what we knew we must,” she says. “We did not wish to lose you.”

  “I have to find them before nightfall, Crocus!” I cry. “You don’t understand what they’re facing. How can I get to them? Please!” She knits her brow together painfully as I squeeze her hand in my panic, and I drop it right away. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll take her,” a voice calls out from across the Ring. It takes me a moment to place it. “I have to go, anyway, to make a delivery.”

  “We recognize Tufar Woodlish Icsanthius Gent, Steward of Princess Margary, Keeper of the Castle.” Crocus beams.

  “Twig,” I whisper and turn to watch him float toward us with his dirt-encrusted toes brushing the grass. A loop of woven ribbons and pearls is slung over his shoulde
r, and upon his arrival those outside of the circle erupt into cheers.

  “Margy’s Twig?” Saesa asks behind me.

  “How do you know the Princess?” I ask her.

  “We’re friends,” she grins. “Tib and I. We brought her bracelet here for Twig, see?” She points to the loop that Twig is holding. He nods to her.

  “And I thank you for it,” he says. “Now the Princess will have a new tether to replace the one which was lost. I’d like to thank Tib as well, for setting me free from that box. Is he here?”

  “No, he went with the others,” Saesa sighs and looks away. It’s obvious she’s worried for him, whoever he is.

  “Are you certain you’re well enough?” Crocus asks Twig cautiously. She reaches out for him and he hugs her. A soft green glow settles around them both, and Crocus seems to grow a little. Her colors brighten. “All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” she giggles. “Don’t overdo it. Very well, then, Twig, you may take Azaeli into the Dreaming with you.”

  “What happened, Twig? Who’s Tib?” With the mention of his tether, my hand automatically goes to the pouch where I keep Flitt’s. It’s empty.

  “Well, the long and the short of it,” he explains, “is that I tried to visit with the princess and got trapped in a box for a few days until Tib found me and let me out. My tether was destroyed, so I have to bring her another one through the Dreaming.”

  “Oh, that’s horrible, Twig! How frightening.”

  “It was at the time, but I’m fine now,” he shrugs. “Just concerned for the princess. I haven’t seen her in several days,” Twig looks off toward the east, toward Cerion. His brow is knit with worry.

  “Yes, the Dreamwalker is growing bolder by the day. Right now we are warded against him, but we fear his reach may soon extend into Kythshire if he isn’t stopped.” Crocus’s sweet voice is filled with warning.

  “Do you mean to tell me,” I turn to him, “that it was the Dreamwalker who held you prisoner?” I remember a moment in the Dreaming, when Jacek showed me how he compelled the maid to bring him the object of power. “It was your tether,” I whisper. “That’s what he wanted.”