“Right.”
He squeezed my hand. “Virgie, married fae couples try for decades before becoming pregnant, if at all.”
I relaxed and put my head on his shoulder. “That must be really terrible for couples who want a child.”
He trailed a circle across my collarbone. “I’d like to have a child one day.”
A smile tugged at my lips. Previously, children had never been a consideration. As a courtesan to the vampires, my job had been to pleasure them. Thankfully, interspecies pregnancies weren’t possible. The vampires often got fae servants to breed with each other, sometimes by free will and sometimes by force, but my position would’ve protected me from such a fate. Yet with Nathan I realized I didn’t fear pregnancy. With Nathan, I could imagine having a little one. One day in the far future when all of this was over.
Nathan and I snuggled together, and I fell into a deep sleep. I awoke to rustling. Nathan was already up, getting dressed.
“Morning.” I lifted up my impractical tulle dress with flower appliques, dreading wearing it for however long it took to get Onyx back.
“Morning.” Nathan gave me a peck on the lips. “As great as you looked in this dress, we do have more practical clothes.”
“We do?”
He nodded and opened a small chest on the ground that I hadn’t seen before. I practically darted over to it, thrilled to find some cotton underwear, socks, and a gray bodysuit. Best of all, a pair of sturdy black boots in my size waited next to the chest. “That’s amazing.”
Nathan nodded. “The maker of this tent really thought of everything.”
Dressed, we both ate our apples that regrew immediately, then emerged out of the tent. Caleb was standing off to the right, glaring into empty air. This time he wasn’t sulking, but rather concentrating, his hands outstretched. Blair stood off to the left. At first, it looked like she was eyeing the trees, but then a fireball zoomed at her. I jumped, but she caught it and studied it with a smile.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Blair turned to us, still holding her dancing fireball. “Well, I figured how to send this out and let it return. Now we just need to figure out how to imbue it with a message and make it find the correct person.” She glanced at Caleb. “Caleb, could you come and help us?”
He muttered something underneath his breath that I didn’t catch and walked over, dropping his arms in frustration. “Sure. It’s not like I’m making any progress with the wastelands portal anyways.”
“Did you hear the incantation Onyx used?”
He gave me a hard look. “Yes, but it’s not as easy as just saying the words. You have to truly mean them and connect with the wastelands, which requires a lot of concentration and magic.”
Over the next few hours, we quickly learned that putting a message into Blair’s fireball was also far from easy. Nathan tried to imagine a scene and imbue it into the fireball with his golden magic. It didn’t work. Apparently, his golden magic didn’t extend beyond his fighting ability and leading troops.
I stepped forward next and tried to compel the fireball to record what Caleb was saying. The fireball continued to dance in Blair’s hand. She threw it, but when it returned, it played nothing.
Caleb’s magic didn’t fare better. “Plants and fire do not mix,” he said, gritting his teeth as the saplings he was trying to grow shrunk away from the fireball that Blair held.
Even Blair seemed to be getting tired. Her arm shook a bit as she held the fireball. “Something has to go with it. The plant-killing potion did.”
“I’m only going to be useful for opening the portal,” Caleb said. “We have that answer.” Then he eyed me. I had the best chance of making the fireball carry messages.
“Caleb, try again,” Nathan said. “You’re the royal. Your father used magic to send Onyx that recording ball. Try to merge that magic with the fire.”
“I don’t know how he did it!” Caleb shouted, yet gave it another try, and another, and another. Each time, his vines either shrunk back or were burnt by the fire.
The morning turned into afternoon, and soon evening arrived with us unable to show anything for it. I tried desperately to make the two magics coexist, to convince the fireball to take Caleb’s power, but no amount of calming influence seemed to work as they fought each other.
Caleb cursed for the umpteenth time. “I don’t know what to do. Father always made it look so easy, but maybe he had one of the media fae create the message orb. Also, I’m starting to doubt that he used his regular plant magic. I have no idea what else I can try.”
Blair’s fire ball disappeared, and she wiped sweat from her forehead, looking pale. “Tomorrow is another day.”
I nodded. “Yes, we’ll try again tomorrow.” But even as I said it, I wondered if tomorrow would be different. We didn’t have any books or anyone who could give us advice. How on Earth were we supposed to learn new magic without instructions? Especially when it appeared that the magic we needed to access was only available to the king or queen of the fae realms.
6
Virgie
The next morning, I woke to Caleb shouting.
“No!” he yelled in the distance. “Blair! You’re going to—”
She yelled something back, drowning him out. In my half-asleep state, her words sounded like, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Nathan, being the ever-so-vigilant military guy, took his arm off me, exposing me to the chill of the borderlands, and sat up. “Something’s wrong,” he said, already alert.
I groaned and blinked my heavy eyes open to remember that I was in my sleeping bag in the compartment that Nathan and I shared.
Caleb yelled again. “...the whole borderlands! Shit, the tent.”
I sniffed. “Is that smoke?”
“We need to get out!” Nathan unzipped my sleeping bag and dragged me to my feet. “The woods are on fire.” He threw some clothes at me. “Hurry!”
I threw on the lilac tunic and tan leggings as Nathan got dressed as well, donning a white tunic and pants that matched mine. I tried peeking through the fabric of the tent, but it was almost opaque, letting in nothing but faint morning sunlight.
“Nathan! Virgie! Get out of the tent now!” Caleb yelled.
“It’s fine!” Blair shouted. “I have it under control.”
Caleb cursed. “It’s bad! All the trees—”
“Uh-oh.” Blair’s tone dropped. “It’s spreading.”
I unzipped our compartment, and Nathan and I bolted out of the tent to find flames and rising smoke outside. I eyed the strangest fire I’d ever seen. Flames had engulfed half the trees in the vast circle of pines and autumn trees, but none of the leaves and needles were curling in response to the heat. No embers or sparks rose into the air. The fire seemed to form an aura around the trees and nothing more. “Blair?”
Her attention was turned to the edge of the blaze. “I had control,” she said slowly. “I was trying to train the fire to capture the image of the trees and it was working and then...and then Caleb distracted me.”
“Of course, I did! This is crazy!” he shouted.
I followed her gaze to the edge of the flames, and I saw what she meant. The fire here was a normal one, and the pine tree it had leapt to was definitely burning. Blair’s magic had grown too big. She had stretched herself too thin, and a real fire had started.
I ran forward to help Blair.
“Virgie!” Nathan yelled behind me, but I didn’t stop.
I linked my hand with Blair’s, whose forehead was scrunched up. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. If she panicked, everything would only get worse. Her fire magic hadn’t listened to me before, but maybe if I had Blair helping me, maybe if I sent my influence to her and the magic at the same time—
You are in control, I told Blair. Then I split my awareness, focusing on the real fire that had started. Listen to Blair. She is your master. I switched back and forth, injecting confidence into Blair and orde
ring the fire to obey her. My head hurt from splitting my awareness. After a minute, the crown of the tree burned lower and lower, and the fire aura calmed. Me, the fire, and Blair became one. It was the strangest magical feeling I’d ever encountered.
The false fire around the other trees remained, not harming the leaves and needles. Blair breathed evenly now and relaxed. “Thanks, Virgie.”
“We might be onto something. Can you summon a fireball?”
She nodded, and a fireball appeared in her free hand. She sent it out toward the trees that still had the silent fire aura around them.
Record this image. Remember it, I urged the fireball. It merged with the glow, joining it before re-forming and flying back at Blair. She caught the fireball, mouth falling open.
“We really need a water fae,” Caleb grumbled.
Ignoring him, Blair smiled at me. “Virgie, I don’t know what you did, but it worked!”
I couldn’t hold back my own smile as the red orb floated upward, showing first the trees with the now-dying fire aura, and then me and Blair, scrunching our faces in concentration. It was only a still image, not a video, but it was definitely a beginning.
Blair gasped. “So I need to surround something with fire, then have the fireball pick up the image.”
Nathan joined us and put his hand on my shoulder. “You did it, Virgie. That’s amazing.”
I nodded slowly. “To control someone else’s magic, I need to have contact with them and we need to work together.” Letting go of Blair’s hand, I could barely contain my excitement. I glanced past at Caleb, who rubbed the bags under his eyes, looking as if he’d stayed up all night.
I resisted the urge to put him in a better mood. Instead, I asked, “Blair, can you record the trees and see if we can get movement and sound?”
Blair flung the fireball back to the trees, and once again, I took her hand and helped her focus. We waited for a minute as the fireball floated back. This time, it hovered right in front of our faces, and grew bigger until it was three-foot wide and tall. There in the fireball was the image of fiery trees and even the hint of a fiery ground. The trees swayed in the wind and a single bird flew overhead, chirping.
We had video. And we had sound.
“We did it.” Blair did a little happy dance. “We did it! We recorded a scene!”
I bit my lip as a thought hit me. “How are we going to record people?”
Blair dropped her hands and also her grin. She let the three-foot-high recording of the trees shrink back into a ball before it zipped back into her palm. “Good point. We might have to experiment a bit more to achieve that, but it should be possible.”
Nathan nodded. “With you guys working on it, either I or Caleb will do the talking.”
Caleb cleared his throat. “I want to talk to Peony.” He gave me a thoughtful look. “Maybe your power could even help me open a small portal to the wastelands. I think I got close to doing it last night.”
That explained the bags under his eyes. “You need to rest first,” I said. “I’ll be happy to help, and I’ll also be happy to be in the recording, too. If Blair could record all those trees without burning them, we should be safe as well.”
“I don’t need rest.” The determination in Caleb’s face told me he wouldn’t sleep until he succeeded. He was exerting himself too much, but arguing with him right now would do no good. “Okay, let’s try.” I extended my hand and he took it as royal magic tingled in his palms. Nathan frowned, and I could tell it was hard for him to watch me try all these new magic combinations that could be dangerous. I appreciated him not interfering.
Caleb scrunched up his forehead, and his magic flared into my hand and zapped up my arm. Without me having to ask, he dropped his mental shield. He must’ve realized from my exchange with Blair that to combine our powers, I’d have to manipulate his magic and influence him.
You can do this, I whispered into his mind. You’re royal and strong. If your father can open a portal to the wastelands, so can you.
Despite the bags underneath Caleb’s eyes, his irises glowed with energy. Just believing my words was helping him. He clutched my right hand tighter. To my left, the air began to ripple. The rippling was only the size of a baseball. Desperation clouded Caleb’s features. He stared at his free right palm that was outstretched and muttered the Latin incantation Onyx had used to open the wastelands portal. “Patentibus mors terras, Patentibus mors terras, Patentibus mors terras!”
Wastelands, open up.
He trembled. I pushed more of my influence into his tingling magic. Caleb is your master. He is heir to the throne. Obey him! The portal felt heavy and dead. Obey him! He is royalty! I screamed, and my temples pounded. I pushed past the pain and forced more of my magic to merge with Caleb’s.
A hint of gray appeared in the small ripple. It was so tiny, I was afraid it would disappear if I blinked. I tightened my grasp on Caleb’s hand, willing him to give everything. We were so close.
“Patentibus mors terras, Patentibus mors terras, Patentibus mors terras!” Caleb’s muttering got faster and faster.
You are in control, I whispered, using some magic to reassure him, then I focused on the wastelands. Obey the future king!
Slowly, the gray grew, revealing mountains and cracked earth on the other side of the portal. The air whooshed out of my lungs and my magic wavered at the contact with this hellish dimension, but Caleb grinned.
“We did it.” He released my hand and dropped his other hand as well, yet the portal remained, fed by our magic. How long would it stay? Would it allow a fireball to get through and then return to us?
“Now for the fun part.” Blair stepped closer. “Let’s record this bad boy.”
7
Onyx
Teaching Peony to fly in the wastelands was far from ideal. We needed space, but if we returned to the ground, it would drain us both. The bleached sun wasn’t quite as high in the sky anymore, but I had no doubt that it could still give Peony heat stroke, which meant we’d have to stay in the cave until it set. Flying in the cave presented its own challenge as it was no more than ten feet high.
Then, of course, there was the problem of Peony having received absolutely no instruction on flight before. Unbelievable. Since King Peter didn’t want the former earthbound fae to have any advantage that didn’t benefit him, I had to train her muscles from scratch. “I can’t believe they didn’t teach you this at the Summer Court,” I grumbled as Peony continued to flap her wings and break a sweat without much happening. She’d been going at it for what felt like hours without any results.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t exactly encourage independence.” Peony’s hazel eyes flashed with anger, and she balled her fists like she wanted to deck me.
“Hit me, then,” I challenged, my patience running thin.
Peony brought her hand back like she was about to take me up on it. Her wings fluttered faster as she arched her back. But instead of taking a useless swing, her feet came off the ground. She stared down at the floor and let her jaw drop. “I’m floating.”
It was just an inch, but it was better than nothing. “Good. Focus on your anger, then. It’s working.” I could barely contain my smile and my relief. Progress. Excellent. So much for drilling Peony to bring her shoulder blades together in a V formation over and over again.
Peony clenched her jaw and every muscle in her body. “I hate King Peter. Hate what he did to me.” She brought her shoulders back, clenching them together, and shot up high, nearly hitting her head against the ceiling of the cave. “Wow!” Her eyes went wide as she looked down on me.
I flapped my wings and joined her, giving her a high five. Peony hesitated, then slapped my hand while gripping the wall with the other.
“Well done. Maintain that very slight arch in your back. Keep those shoulder blades together. That’ll give you the lift you need. Now, let’s fly in a circle around the cave.” I angled, lifting my legs so that my stomach faced the ground. This particular posi
tion wasn’t necessary to go up the mountain, but it allowed us to work with the length of the cave, which was twice as long as it was high.
“I’m not sure I can do that.” Peony’s throat bobbed up and down. “What if I fall face-first to the ground?”
I chuckled. We were in the deadliest realm of the faelands, and she was worried about breaking her nose. Typical Peony. “Don’t worry. I’ll catch you.” I turned so that my stomach no longer faced the ground, but my back did. Facing up, I floated below Peony, maintaining my height.
She inhaled nervously and then tilted forward, flapping her wings at a rapid speed, but not moving.
“Slow down. Otherwise, all you’ll do is exhaust yourself. From this position, you have to push the air back instead of down. Angle your wings just a tiny bit toward the back of your head.”
Peony ignored me like I hadn’t spoken and continued to beat her wings like a trapped butterfly, her eyes wide.
I rose higher and took her hands. If anyone would’ve told me that I would be holding hands with my former nemesis even a week ago, I would’ve laughed my ass off, but right now, I was prepared to cuddle Peony and give her a massage if it meant making it up that tall mountain. “Relax,” I said and moved backward. Peony floated with me, and as she realized we weren’t crashing, some of the tension seeped out of her face.
We floated the length of the cave twice before I let go of her hands. Her face puckered up again, and her green-white wings flapped faster.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll be right here if you fall.” I flew with her, ensuring I was always directly under her. That seemed to help, and soon, Peony grinned with victory as she angled her wings just enough to push the air back. We flew circles around the cave. I was no longer her safety net, but flying next to her. Then out of nowhere, her mouth twisted. “Ouch!” She fell downward.
The Nocturnal and Fae Prison Academy Boxset [A Complete Paranormal and Fantasy Series Boxset] Page 105