True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series)

by Lamer, Bonnie

  It’s several minutes before my parents float back into the room. This time, Aunt Barb is trailing behind them. She has a small ceramic bowl and a knife in her hand. Okay, maybe it’s not snakes or spiders but it definitely looks as if things are going to get worse. “What are those for?” I ask her.

  My mom answers for her. “For the blood oath. You and he will be bound with your lives to the promise that is set forth with your blood. If he fails you, he will die.”

  “I hope it’s slow and painful,” I murmur under my breath. Apparently, Kallen heard what I said if the dirty look on his face is any indication.

  Mom chooses to ignore my comment and she has Aunt Barb set the bowl down on one of the dark wood end tables. Turning to me, she says, “You need to put several drops of your blood in the bowl.” She indicates to Aunt Barb that she should give me the knife she has.

  “You want me to cut myself?” I ask in disbelief.

  Mom looks at me gently. “It’s just a few drops that are needed. If you just prick your finger with the tip of the knife that will be enough.”

  Reluctantly, I take the knife from Aunt Barb. She doesn’t look any more thrilled about the idea than I do. I use the knife to jab the tip of my finger before I have time to think about how much it’s going to hurt. Immediately, a large drop of blood gathers on my fingertip. “What do I do with it?” I ask Mom.

  “Simply let it drip into the bowl. Now, Barb, please hand the knife to the Fairy.”

  Aunt Barb raises her eyebrows but she hands Kallen the knife. He takes it and pokes his finger. He then puts his finger in the bowl and mixes his blood with mine. I don’t know if that was what he was supposed to do but Mom doesn’t say anything so it must be.

  Turning to Kallen, Mom says, “You must speak the words of your oath aloud.”

  Kallen nods once. “I swear by this blood that I will protect Xandra Illuminata Smith’s life as I protect my own.”

  Mom looks pleased. She closes her eyes for a moment and when she reopens them, she begins to speak. “Bound by blood, moon and tide, by this oath you must abide. If by traitorous heart you deceive, or by lack of courage you mislead, count that breath to be your last as the earth will claim its next repast.”

  Again, I can’t help but be disappointed by the lack of anything happening when Mom says a spell. It seems like the blood in the bowl should at least boil or something. How do you know a spell works if you can’t see any physical proof of it?

  Kallen is the first to speak. “We should go while the sun is still high.” Mom nods in agreement.

  Wow, I’m really going to have to do this. All the while I was getting my things together, and even when I poked my finger, in the back of my mind was the assurance that my parents would never ever send me out into the mountains with Kallen. But from the pained looks on both of their faces, it seems that is exactly what they are going to do.

  Not able to meet my eyes, Mom turns to Aunt Barb. “Will you please help Xandra gather as much food as the two of them can carry?” Aunt Barb’s mouth drops open. “Please?” Mom asks again.

  “My old backpack is in the hall closet. They can use that,” Dad says unhappily. Every thing about him right now screams that he doesn’t want me to go but nothing about him says that he’s going to argue that point. Aunt Barb finally nods numbly and goes to search for the backpack to fill it with food.

  Again, this can’t possibly be my life.

  Chapter 8

  The good byes were long and tearful. Mom and Dad hugged me the best they could without pressing their spirit bodies through mine. Zac was confused and angry and for some reason resentful that he couldn’t go with me. For him, this is just one big adventure. What I’d give to be eight again so I could believe that, too.

  It’s now just past two and Kallen and I have been trudging through the snow for two hours heading farther up the mountain. My feet are freezing and the cold January air has frozen the hairs in my nose. Even my eyeballs are cold. And to make things even more enjoyable, Kallen hasn’t said a word to me since we left my house.

  I can’t take the silence any more. “Shouldn’t we be going around the mountain instead of up it? We’ll be like sitting ducks up at the top.” Oh, look, another glowering look at me from Kallen. What a surprise.

  “We are throwing the runners off our trail. By going up first, we confuse their sense of smell as the thinner air carries less of our scent.”

  I knew he was lying about being able to shield us from the other Fairies. It’s not until Kallen stops abruptly and I narrowly avoid running into him, that I realize I said that out loud. Looking down his nose at me, he says, “One of the first lessons that you should learn is that you cannot rely completely on magic. Learning to protect yourself using your wits is just as important. Assuming that you have been blessed with any.”

  Okay, now I’m mad. I push my heavy backpack off my shoulders and let it drop in the snow. I point a finger at his chest coming just millimeters from touching him. He takes a step back but I follow. “I am so sick and tired of you saying mean things about me! You haven’t even given yourself a chance to get to know me. You just assume that because I haven’t been taught any of this crap that I’m stupid. You need to back off or the only thing you’ll be able to teach me is how to get mad enough to shove this amulet down your throat!”

  He actually seems speechless for a moment. His mouth opens and closes several times before any words come out. Finally, he says, “I may have been a bit harsh in my judgment based on your ignorance.”

  “May have been harsh? You’ve been a giant ass is what you’ve been.” I stand there glaring at him for several moments before he speaks again.

  “What is it that you wish me to say?”

  “I want you to say that you’re sorry and that you’ll stop being such a jerk since we’re apparently going to be spending a lot of time together.”

  Inclining his head slightly, he says, “I apologize.” He doesn’t really look like he understands what exactly he’s apologizing for but that’s probably the best I’m going to get. I pick my back pack up and try to get it back on my shoulders but it’s so heavy that I almost fall down when I try to put my arms through the straps. Aunt Barb had helped me put it on before we left.

  “Allow me,” Kalen says stiffly and instead of helping me put it on my back, he takes it by the top strap being careful not to come into contact with my hand and starts walking again. He’s so tall that the backpack doesn’t even touch the snow. I stand there dumbfounded for a moment. It’s such a surprise that he’s doing something nice for me that I don’t know how to react. After a moment, I continue to follow him up the mountain and we slip back into our uncomfortable silence.

  As we continue to walk, Kallen will occasionally add a piece of clothing to his ensemble. When we first started out, he was still only in the black pants he put on this morning and a pair of what looked like moccasins. They were leather and laced up the front. After a while, he added a long sleeve dark blue shirt and it went on like that until he was wearing a heavy coat, knee high boots, and a hat and gloves just like me. A big part of me is glad that he can be affected by the cold more than he had originally let on. I couldn’t help a smug smile every time he added a new piece of winter wear.

  By five o’clock, I am exhausted and a little nauseous. It’s been a long time since I’ve been at this altitude and it’s taking its affect on me. Even Kallen seems to be slowing down and breathing heavier as we keep ascending. For the past three hours, our conversation has consisted of things like ‘watch out for that rock’ and ‘careful of this branch.’ The climb has been significantly better with him carrying my backpack, though, which he still has in his hand.

  “Kallen,” I call. He’s about twenty-five feet ahead of me. He stops and turns around. “I need to take a break. I’m tired and I’m hungry.”

  He looks like he wants to argue but after a moment he nods. “It looks like there’s a place just up ahead where we can stop.” I give hi
m my first genuine smile since I met him.

  As he promised, about fifty feet ahead there is an overhang with a small concave area underneath it. Kallen drops both backpacks and from the one he started out carrying, he pulls out two small camp stools. They only sit about twelve inches off the ground but it’s better than sitting in the snow. I have a seat and unzip the part of the backpack with food in it. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Kallen struggling to sit on the small chair. He looks like a giant trying to sit in a chair made for a child. I pull a couple of granola bars out of the backpack and toss him one when he’s finally as comfortable as he’s going to get. He looks at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

  “I take it that you don’t have wrappers in your realm?” I ask amused at his confusion.

  He looks up at me. “No, our food is prepared more naturally than yours.”

  "You have to rip it open like this,” I demonstrate by opening my package. He does the same to his and takes a bite and chews. He doesn’t seem to hate it since he takes another bite.

  “Can I ask you something?” I ask tentatively. We seem to have some sort of truce going on that I don’t want to mess up with my ignorance but it’s been bugging me.

  “Yes.”

  “What did Maurelle mean when she said that you were the Fairy King’s favorite nia and that you had turned Brathadooer.”

  Kallen smiles sadly. “The term is Brathadóir, which means traitor. I am the king’s nephew and have often been accused of being his favorite regardless of our differing philosophies.”

  I didn’t see that coming. “Does that mean we’re cousins if he’s my father?”

  “Not by blood, simply by hand-fasting.” I’m about to ask him what that means but he continues to say, “That is equivalent to what you call marriage. My mother’s sister is the king’s queen. We do not share the same ancestry.”

  For some reason that makes me really happy but I don’t want to think too much about why that is so instead I ask, “If you’ve been branded a traitor, what will happen when you go home?”

  His face becomes a blank page. “That is of no concern.”

  My brows come together in consternation. “How can that be of no concern? Surely the king’s going to be really pissed at you.”

  “Perhaps you should eat more. I would like to travel for several more hours this evening.” Okay, that wasn’t subtle at all. Obviously, that’s not something he wants to talk about.

  “So, you’re not going to answer my question?”

  “No.”

  “How come you get to know everything about me but I don’t get to know anything about you?”

  He gives me a smile with just a hint of haughtiness in it. “Because I am not the one that needs to learn to use my magic.”

  He has a point but it’s still not fair. I try a different tack. “Are you really three hundred and sixty-seven years old?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you hand-fasted or what ever you said?” Where did that question come from? A hint of color flows into my cold cheeks. Is that amusement in his eyes over my discomfort?

  “No, I am not.”

  “How come?” The words just keep tumbling out of my mouth all on their own volition. “After so many years it seems like you’d find someone you like.”

  Kallen shrugs. “I am still considered quite young. It is not unusual for someone my age to not have done so. You must also remember that there are fewer and fewer full blooded Fae so it can be difficult to find one who shares the same status as me.”

  “So, you’ll only marry someone who’s a full Fairy?” Why can’t I let this drop?

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds like you’re going to be pretty lonely when you go back.” I wait for him to comment but he doesn’t. He stands up and walks out from under the overhang and looks out over the trees. I can’t think of anything else to say at the moment so I take his advice and have another granola bar.

  It’s full dark and difficult to see by the time Kallen decides we should stop for the night. At some point over the last few hours, he changed direction and we had started heading west instead of up. So at least I was beginning to adjust to the constant altitude but I have never been so physically tired in my life. Dad’s camping trips were nothing compared to this.

  I’m already missing my family like crazy. I’ve gotten over a lot of my anger and I’ve moved on to being glum. I’ve never spent time away from my parents or Zac and now I don’t know when, or if, I’ll be able to see them again.

  I’m not sure if I’m happy or annoyed when Kallen finds a small cave for us to spend the night in. I hadn’t been serious about living in caves. “What if some animal is hibernating in there?”

  “Then we will be very quiet,” Kallen remarks and I’m pretty sure he’s laughing at me.

  “You’re enjoying this awful little adventure, aren’t you?”

  “I will admit that I do enjoy the outdoors, yes.”

  “Where do you live when you’re in your world?”

  He raises his eyebrows, “Remember, this is my world. I am simply from another realm.”

  “I’m not sure I understand how that works.”

  “And if we successfully keep you from entering my realm you will never have to understand.”

  “Did you take lessons from my mother in being vague and cryptic?”

  A smile dances around his lips. Maybe the fresh air is good for his disposition. “Your mother seems to have kept a lot from you but I believe she may have had a reason for being vague. Your destiny was not one to be shared with a small child.”

  “So now you think it’s okay that she didn’t teach me anything about magic?” I ask as I shine my flashlight around the shallow cave looking for any sign of animals. Thankfully, there is none.

  Kallen shakes his head and the smile falls from his face. “No, I do not think she was right in keeping you ignorant of magic. Even if your powers were bound, she could have been teaching you many of the principles of magic that would have been helpful when your unbinding occurred.”

  A thought trickles into my frozen brain. “You mean things like live and let live – fairly take and fairly give?”

  Kallen tilts his head and stares at me curiously. “Yes, that is a basic tenet of white magic. The principle being that when magic is called forth, a drain is put on the earth and eventually the magic must be released back so it can return to its natural state or an imbalance occurs. For instance, the clothes I have on. I called upon the magic flowing in the earth to create them but when I no longer need them I will let the magic go and it will return to the earth until it is called again. Practitioners of black magic do not follow this creed so they create imbalances.”

  “What happens if there’s an imbalance?”

  “The earth becomes unstable and reacts violently. Imbalances have caused some of the worst natural disasters.”

  “I thought global warming did that?” Kallen stares blankly at me. “You know, the ozone is deteriorating and our shield from the sun is getting thinner and thinner.”

  “Most of that I believe is caused by your Cowan made chemicals but imbalances can occur both above and below.”

  I’m impressed he’s answering my questions without making me feel like an idiot. “Thank you,” I say.

  He looks thoroughly confused now. “For what are you thanking me?”

  “For not treating my ignorance as stupidity.”

  He looks down at his hands that are dangling between his knees as he sits on his heels to get a fire going in the little cook stove. I don’t think he’s going to respond but after a long moment, he says without looking up, “Again, I apologize for my earlier behavior. I am afraid you are not the only one coming to terms with the situation we find ourselves in.”

  Wow, that was a real apology. I’m stunned into silence. This new and improved Kallen is going to take some getting used to. I watch him start the fire and then I warm my cold hands against its heat.

 
; We sit this way for quite some time before Kallen breaks the silence. “We should rest for the night. We will begin again at sunrise.” He removes my sleeping bag from my backpack and begins to unroll it.

  An embarrassing thought occurs to me, we only have one sleeping bag. “Um, where are you going to sleep?” I ask as color floods my cheeks and even I can hear the slight panic in my voice.

  Kallen looks up from what he’s doing and he has a hard expression on his face. “You need not worry; it is not my practice to take the innocence of half-breeds.”

  Hey, there’s the Kallen I know and am growing to hate with a passion. “I wasn’t implying that you were.”