He gestured for me to follow him and led me down the path toward the tree line. I hadn't been to this part of the woods before, and I noticed how different it felt. The air was colder and the shadows seemed deeper, more sinister. The canopy of leaves overhead was so dense that it obscured the moonlight that normally lit the landscape until it was as bright as high noon. I shivered and ran my hands over my arms, trying to warm my skin.
"Not much farther now," Niall smiled patronizingly at me. "Keep up. We wouldn’t want you to get lost in the Wandering Wood now, would we?"
I nodded and followed him, trying not to tremble with the growing sense of unease.
We came upon a dense thicket near a stream and Niall gestured toward it. The shrubbery was thicker here, looking like untrimmed hedges blocking my path.
"Here we are," he chirped. "Last I saw Aleksander, he was heading this way. They'll be right through that hedge. I would take you all the way but I'm afraid I must be going. I have tarried from my journey long enough. Push through the greenery, and if the piskies give you any trouble, you can tell them that Niall sent you."
“Thanks,” I said, trying to be polite, grateful that he was heading off. I’d feel much better without his strange eyes on me.
He flashed me a toothy grin and disappeared back into the tree line, turning to give me one last amused wave before he was gone.
The greenery was so thick I had to feel along the edges for a place where the branches thinned enough for me to move past. The branches scraped my face and my shirt snagged on another and I turned to tug it free. The material gave faster than I was prepared for and I fell the rest of the way through the hedge, landing flat on my back with an oomph.
"Ow," I moaned, rolling to my side and wincing at the pain in my back from the hard landing. I rubbed at the sore spot, trying to will the pain away, and pulled myself to standing, checking out my surroundings for Aleksander.
At first glance, it appeared I was alone in the small clearing. It was ringed in thick hedges with small lights interspersed among the leaves. If I were back home, I would think they were Christmas lights, but these looked like tiny little lanterns.
I leaned over toward one of the hedges, inspecting the light, and heard soft, sweet music playing. It was delicate and vibrant at the same time, and I felt the sudden urge to move my body along with the music, as if I would only dance, all would be well. I closed my eyes and allowed the music to wash over me, wrapping around me and soothing my rough edges. When I opened them again, I saw that I wasn't alone.
Tiny little lights of red and green floated around me, and I blinked, surprised. I held out a finger and allowed a green light to touch it, leaning in to inspect it, and gasped in shock.
It was a little person! The light was shaped like a small human with gossamer wings affixed to its back like a dragonfly. It was beautiful, and I stared in fascination as it emitted a low anxious buzz, as if it were yelling at me for disturbing their revels. So this was a piskie. I wondered why Aleksander had not brought me here to see these creatures. Niall had been right, and I felt guilty for feeling so uncharitable about the strange Fae. They were wondrous.
"I'm sorry. I don't understand," I told the chattering piskie in my palm. More of the bright piskies alighted upon me along my shoulders and arms. "I'm looking for somebody. My Caomhnóir? Niall said he might be here."
The angry buzz erupted from all of the lights now, and they darted about wildly, agitated. Sharp pain ripped through my scalp as several piskies grasped strands of my hair and began yanking and tugging at it.
"Ow! Stop that!" I batted them away with my hand, but the buzzing only increased, growing louder and louder, filling my ears. They were swarming faster now, angry and violent, and I darted toward the bushes and pushed my way through, desperate to escape their attack.
A sharp burst of fiery pain roared up my arm and I screamed, trying desperately to dislodge a piskie that had its sharp needlelike teeth sunk into my arm. I swatted it away and pulled my arm into my chest, holding it tightly as if the pressure would ease the ache. Pain burned and traveled up my arm, radiating into my shoulder and my side. The buzzing increased again and I knew they were swarming again, preparing to attack, so I did the only thing I could.
I ran.
I sprinted through the trees toward the beach, willing myself to wake up but finding that I was unable to concentrate as the fire raged in my body and the panic clouded my mind.
I burst through the trees and hit a large obstacle, knocking us both to the ground. I cried out as I landed on my already injured arm, and rolled myself into a ball, desperate to protect myself from the swarming sprites.
"Cassie?" Aleksander's voice registered over the panic, his fingers running over my face and body, checking for broken skin and bruises.
I sobbed when his fingers touched my arm, the pain throbbing and burning at his touch. "Please don't!" I bawled. "Don't touch my arm!"
The buzzing grew louder as the piskies broke through the tree line behind me, but they stopped short when they saw Aleksander.
He took in the their sudden appearance and then looked down at where I lay curled in the sand crying, my wounded arm pulled tight into my chest. His face blackened with rage, his eyes flashing as he held out his hand, and a bright light flared in their direction. They barreled into the light full steam and bounced off as if they were hitting a wall.
"Did you do this?" he demanded.
The buzzing abated and the strange chattering began again. The little piskie gibbering at Aleksander was no doubt blaming me for not allowing them to rip out all my hair. They weren’t wondrous at all. They were terrible, horrible little demons.
"Niall?" he asked the sprite, his face paling as he looked back down to me. "When did you talk to Niall?"
"Earlier today," I gasped, the burn in my arm spreading now to my chest, making it hard to breathe. "I waited for you, but when you didn't show up, I went to the cliffs to watch the Kelpies. He was there and said he had last seen you near the piskie nests and took me there. He said to tell them he sent me."
Aleksander let out a string of words in a language I didn’t understand that sounded an awful lot like profanities and dismissed the piskies with a glare and a warning before examining the bite marks on my arm.
"Niall is no friend of yours or mine—or the piskies for that matter. Fae cannot lie but that doesn't mean you can trust them, especially not the Unseelie," he said, ripping off a section along the hem of his shirt and trying to fasten what looked like a modified tourniquet above the bite.
"Well apparently nobody told him about the ‘no lie’ thing because you weren't at the piskie nest." I winced as he tightened the fabric, cutting off my circulation in a belated attempt to stop the fire blazing through my veins.
"It wasn't a lie," Aleksander said flatly. "The last time I saw Niall, I was near the piskie nests. What he neglected to tell you was that this was after he’d terrorized the poor things, stealing all their wine and hiding their instruments. Nor, I imagine, did he tell you that this was almost two seasons ago. He didn't lie to you. He just wasn't honest with you."
I blinked at him. His face looked odd. Blurry and distorted, like looking in a cheap metal mirror. I felt lightheaded and queasy, as if I had had too much alcohol to drink and was going to be violently ill.
"It burns," I said, rubbing my chest with my other arm like I could massage the pain out. "In my chest, it burns."
Aleksander paled. Or at least I think he paled. He looked so odd. His eyes were huge and luminous, much too large for his face. Laughter spilled from my lips, and I reached to touch his features, wondering if he knew that his face was all out of sorts. I needed sleep. It had been so long since I had really slept. I was always here when my body rested, and when it wasn't, I was in my normal life. Going, going, going—never a chance to rest.
"I feel like a clock that hasn't been wound," I sighed as he scooped me into his arms and held me against his chest. It was warm, and I rested
my head wearily on his shoulder as he carried me away from the beach. "I feel like I'm running out of time, winding down, slowing down until I stop."
"You're not running out of time, Cassie," he said brusquely, his voice thick with something I couldn't pinpoint with my head so fuzzy and unclear. "We have all the time in the world. Although I can’t say the same about Niall when I get my hands on him. The Queen will be hearing about this."
"I like your hands where they are," I sighed and snuggled into his chest, feeling myself drift. Do faeries dream? I wondered. I had the distinct feeling that I was about to find out. "I'm so tired..."
"Hold on, Cassie," he pleaded. "Hold on for me."
I'd do anything for you, I thought silently, too tired to give voice to my unwelcome thoughts.
Chapter Nine
I had died and gone to hell. There was no other explanation for the fire that racked my body, burning me from the inside out and making me want to peel the flesh from my bones just to give the heat an escape. If, that was, I could somehow move, which at the moment felt like a task of Herculean proportions.
"Shh, Cassie, it's going to be okay," a honeyed voice crooned, wiping my brow with a damp cloth.
I was horribly disoriented, having bounced back and forth in consciousness to do anything but lie quietly and long for the peaceful oblivion of legitimate sleep. I moaned. My mind was a painful blur of fire and waking nightmares that left me weak both physically and mentally.
"Drink this," the voice urged softly, holding a glass to my lips.
I drank greedily, the cold liquid soothing the fire burning in my throat if only for a moment and holding the fire that consumed me at bay. I wanted to say thank you, to ask where I was and what was happening, but it was no use. My eyes felt as heavy as lead and my tongue felt too thick to form words.
I frowned and gave up eventually. I didn't have the energy to force my body to do what I wanted, especially when I was so tired and hurting so much. Most of the time, I was nothing more than a ball of flame, the heat scalding every inch of me, making it hard to breathe, hard to move. I drifted in the fire, crying out when the pain became unbearable and wanting nothing more than a dark and dreamless sleep, soothed in the odd moments I managed some hazy sort of oblivion.
"I'm so sorry I let this happen to you," the voice said darkly. It was so familiar, and I struggled to sift through my memories and capture the name. I vaguely recognized it this time as Aleksander's, thick with an emotion I had never heard from him before. Despair.
I wanted to reassure him, to apologize, but I couldn't seem to muster the energy, fading out to the darkness and the pain instead.
I had no idea how much time had passed before low voices pulled me from the haze of pain again.
"It's my fault," the honeyed voice said, and this time I definitely recognized it as Aleksander's. "I wasn't there when she needed me. I'm not fit to guide her if I can't even protect her."
"You cannot be everywhere," said another voice, this one deeper and somehow comforting. "You had no way of knowing she would arrive early, and even if you had, you could not have disobeyed a royal summons. The only one to blame here is Niall, and given his actions, I have no doubt the Unseelie were not being honest with Oberon about the disappearances of their Síofra. You have been by her side since she fell, nursing her back to health. That alone shows how much you care for the safety of your Síofra and how seriously you take your position. Nobody could fault you for what has happened."
I wanted to open my eyes and ask what disappearances and what an Unseelie was, but the news that Aleksander had been with me the whole time, trying to nurse me back to health, distracted me. A small heat, warmer than the fire in my soul but not painful at all, built in my chest. I tried to open my eyes, to let them know I was okay, but I couldn't pry them open. I was a prisoner in my own body, immobilized and racked with a pain that scalded in its intensity. Instead, I lay still and tried not to move so that the pain would stay at a low burn and not roar back to life at full force.
"I wish I knew what to do," Aleksander replied, his voice full of regret. "I feel so helpless, Jackson. I can't do anything to help her and it’s killing me. You say this isn't my fault, but I still like I failed her. If not before, then certainly now. It's just like with Margaret."
"She is not Margaret. You cannot blame yourself for her death forever, and I will not let you use Niall's actions to further punish yourself."
Who was Margaret and how had she died? Why would Aleksander blame himself for her death? Was she bitten by piskies too? My mind filled with questions.
"It feels like it did then," he replied dejectedly. "I'm not suited to be a Caomhnóir. I don't even know what holds Cassie here let alone how to heal her. She should have gone back to her human body by now."
"It’s the venom, Aleksander," Jackson told him firmly. "Piskie bites are poisonous to mortals. It’s why she is still here and not in her body. Her body is most likely rejecting her soul while the poison works its way through her system. Human bodies are amazing with their survival instincts. Have faith, my friend, both in yourself and in her ability to heal. I do."
There were footsteps and the sound of a door followed by silence. I was alone. I wanted to ponder what I had overheard but did not get the chance before I felt the pain roaring back to life and the void swallowing me again. I was almost beginning to welcome it.
When I pulled myself back from the darkness, I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I was no longer alone and the burn was almost nonexistent. A warm hand gripped mine tightly and Aleksander's velvety voice whispered to me.
"Fight it, Cassie. You have to push it out of you. I'm so sorry I let you down. I should have been there when you fell asleep, not arguing at Court. I should have been more wary when I heard that Niall had been at Court. He's always pulling some vicious tricks. I swear, when I get my hands on him, I'll make him regret his actions. Fight it, Cassie. Fight it and come back to me. I won't let you down again."
He let out an odd noise, almost like a sob. I tried to pry my eyes open and look at him as he sat next to me, his cool hand wrapping around mine. His normally bright eyes were dark with worry, and he had furrows etched into his brow from frowning.
"Stop apologizing," I croaked weakly, my throat burning from being unused. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have listened to Sir Perfect Hair."
"Cassie!" he cried, grasping my hand tighter with one hand, the other hand stretching out and tenderly cupping my face. I turned my face into his palm, the coolness a balm against the fire of my own ravaged body.
"Where am I?" I asked, looking around the small unfamiliar room.
"This is my home," he replied quietly. "When I found you, the venom was already spreading through your system and you were starting to drift. I tried to tie a tourniquet and keep it from spreading but it was already too late. I brought you here so I could seek help."
I thought of the other voice I had heard, the man he had called Jackson. I wondered if he was a doctor. His voice certainly had been soothing enough.
I looked around the room with more curiosity now that I knew it was his home. Under any other circumstances, I would have thought it was a charming room with pale blue wallpaper and a large window with delicate, lacy curtains filtering the warm sunlight cascading into the room. I had never seen sunlight in Otherworld and it caught me off guard, my breath hitching when I saw how the light caught Aleksander's messy hair, making it almost look like a golden halo if not for the pained expression on his face.
"How long have I been out of it?" I asked, every word painful against the dryness of my throat.
"Almost two days," he said, his hands brushing my cheek, my forehead, my hair, as if reassuring himself that the fire that had burned through my soul was truly gone. It was pleasant and soothing, and for a moment, a feeling of comfort and peace settled within me.
It was nice to know that someone had taken care of me. My mother had always been the one to take care of me when I was si
ck. Becca would sneak in if I wasn't contagious and keep me company, insisting that we spent so much time together that she probably had what I had too and at least she could keep me from dying of boredom. She was such a good friend.
"Oh my god," I moaned, flooded with concern. "Becca must be going out of her mind with worry!"
"She wasn't the only one," he smiled ruefully, still gripping my hands in his. "Piskie venom can be painful to a Fae and fatal to a mortal, but you aren't exactly either. I wasn't sure what it was going to do to you."
"So what's happening to my body?" I asked, my mind filling with all sorts of horrible imaginings.
"It would have been sleeping the same as it does any other time you are here. It wouldn't have accepted your soul with the venom, but I'm told that it would have burned with fever just as your soul did. I imagine your friends think you've been ill."
I frowned and tried to sit up. That was a bad idea, and I was dizzy. I ached from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and felt like I had been hit by a car. I stifled a moan and laid my head back on the pillow, closing my eyes and trying to wait out the dizziness.
"Don't push yourself," Aleksander cautioned, his voice full of panic. "You've done a great job fighting it off so far, but let’s not push our luck, okay? I don't want you to wear yourself out”
When I turned to look at him again, I was struck by the concern on his face. I felt horrible for putting him in this position. He'd probably get in loads of trouble if his charge was killed off by evil floating Christmas lights with needle-sharp teeth.
"I'm so sorry," I moaned, my throat burning again, this time from regret. I felt the sting of gathering tears prick my eyes and looked away, not wanting him to see.
"For what?" he asked, confused.
"For not waiting for you at the beach," I answered, "I should have waited instead of wandering off on my own. I shouldn't have trusted Niall. I knew something was off. I felt it and I didn't listen to it. I know I've probably gotten you in trouble."
The Changeling (Book One of The Síofra Chronicles) Page 7