Spellkeeper

by Courtney Privett

  She kissed him again. “Shannon, honey, I need you to come sit on the settee with your son. I need to get help and have them bring someone who can feed him. I know you can't breathe right now, honey, and I can't fix anything, but I need to get help. Can you stand up and follow me?”

  Shan kept his eyes fixed on Marita. She was so perfect, so peaceful. Maybe she had only fainted. Maybe if he stayed she would sit up and ask why she was on the gods-damned floor.

  “No,” he whimpered. He kissed the baby's temple. “She was going to tell me his name. I'd left it to her to decide and she said she'd tell me when she woke again. She woke and then she didn't. He doesn't have a name now.”

  “You're not going to move, are you?” Jaylarae ran her fingers across the short spikes of Shan's hair and sighed. “I don't think I could, either. Shannon, he has a name now. Elven tradition has given him his name. When a parent dies during birth, or before a child is born or is named, that parent's name becomes the child's name. His name is Maritan Goldtree.”

  “He shouldn't be Maritan. She needs to name him. She will.” He drew as deep a breath as he could manage, then sobbed it out. “I'm alone now, aren't I? I wasn't supposed to be alone. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with her. I'm only a half-elf, she should have outlived me.”

  She laid her hand over his. “You're not alone. Please, please realize you're not alone. You have your son. She left him behind for you. She left you Maritan.”

  “Maritan is not a name she would ever consider. She knows what giving him that name would mean.” He looked down at the baby's face and saw only her. He looked like her, he inherited her magic, and now he had taken her name. “Baby, I love you so much. I love your mom, and I love you. I'm going to protect you, always. She is supposed to help me with that because I'm an absolute mess. We only have each other now, don't we?”

  The baby's face reddened as he screamed.

  Jaylarae slowly lifted her hand to wipe the tears from her own eyes, then stood. “I'm not going to force you to move. I just wanted to keep you in sight. I'm going to the door now, to get help. Offer him your finger for now and see if he'll suckle it. He's so new that he only needs tiny drops of milk to start, but I'll see if they can bring him a wet nurse immediately. I have one in mind, but I need the High King's permission to bring her here. I think for you he'll grant that permission.”

  Shan touched a finger to the baby's lips. He immediately took the fingertip into his mouth and began to suck. “Do what you need.”

  He listened as her feet padded down the hall and Rayna continued to panic. The tiny dragon was feral now, wild and aggressive because her dragonbound was...

  Gone. Marita was gone. Dead. Dead on the washroom floor, water on her nightclothes and her protective bracelet shattered. How had that happened? Why? Did she die because it broke, or did it break because she died? Did she cry out for him when it happened? Did he sleep through her call? Or, did she silently fall to the floor and become no more?

  Would she still be alive if he hadn't slept?

  No. Such a foolish thought. Banish it. Expel it immediately. Whatever happened to her, it must have been sudden. He hoped she felt no pain. His own was agonizing, and the baby desperately sucking on his fingertip seemed to know something was wrong.

  He'd never know his mother. That realization alone slammed into Shan's gut and left him gasping and dizzy. She wanted this child so much, even before he was conceived, and she had only been allowed to know him for one brief and blissful instant.

  Shan tapped the back of his head against the wall. He needed to get up or he'd keep tapping and tapping until he broke either the wall or his head. His son needed him and he needed to do something, anything, to keep his mind from exploding.

  He went into the bedroom and retrieved the journal and pen, then returned to the washroom. She was still there. Why hadn't she moved? Why hadn't she sat up to reach for her baby?

  Gone, gone, gone, gone now, gone forever.

  He held the baby to his chest with one arm and propped the journal on his knee. He found the first blank page and dragged his trembling hand across it.

  MOM AND DAD,

  My son was born just before midnight last night. He is healthy and doing well. He looks like his mother. His name is Maritan.

  -Shan

  HE CLOSED THE BOOK and dropped it next to his knee. The name alone would tell his parents what he couldn't.

  The baby rooted and mewled. Shan returned a finger to his mouth and rocked him. He gazed upon Marita, taking in every freckle on her skin, every curve of her body, every wave of her auburn hair. This was the last he would see of her, outside of his memories and everything their son inherited.

  He looked down at the baby's beautiful face and wept as he whispered, “You're my light, Maritan. Now I need to learn how to be yours.”

  SHAN, DID SOMETHING happen to Marita? My grandson has a lovely name, but it's his mother's name and I know what that means. Sweetie, I love you. I wish more than anything that I could be with you and Maritan right now.

  –Mom

  I LOVE YOU, MOM.

  This is difficult to write, but I need to convince my mind of the truth because I keep expecting to hear her voice and feel her next to me. She got to be with him for about ten hours after he was born. There were no problems during the birth, but she was so tired after and she mentioned a couple times that her heart was racing. That's what killed her—her heart. I didn't know that until a couple minutes ago, when the physician gave the midwife his report. I found her on the floor after I woke up to the baby crying. She was already gone.

  Maritan is asleep on me right now. I can't bring myself to put him down and it's almost impossible to hand him off for someone else to feed him. Two of the Hall staff were taking turns feeding him earlier, and it took all of my resolve not to scream until they placed him back in my arms. The midwife just told me a permanent wet nurse is being sent to us in a few minutes. I'm grateful to the mothers who are helping us, but they are not his mother. I'm glad he had those hours with her, but it will never be enough and he won't remember her. I'll be able to give him my memories of her when he's older so he'll know how much she loved him.

  I've run out of tears, but I can't stop crying. I'm lost. I don't know how to do this.

  –Shan

  ONE BREATH AT A TIME, my Shan, and keep holding your little boy close. I'm so, so very sorry. Your father is sitting next to me and we're both crying. We want to be with you and help you through this. It's tearing us up that we can't help you. We love you so much.

  –Mom

  YOU'RE HELPING ME JUST by existing and reading what I write. I know you two enough to know you're thinking about coming here. Don't. It's not safe for Dad or my sisters. Embrace me from afar through these pages. I know you care and I know you love me. I'm wrapping myself up in that right now because that and Maritan are the only things keeping my heart from shattering. I won't let it. My son needs me and will always need me. I'm his whole world now, and I'm going to let him be mine. He is the part of Marita that is still alive, and through him she'll always be with me. Maybe someday that thought will bring me comfort instead of despair. This is still so sudden and new that my mind can't seem to work any of it out.

  He's waking to be fed and it sounds like there are some people here. Hopefully someone who can nurse him. Please keep writing to me, Mom. I need someone familiar to help me ground myself right now. I can't reach out and touch you, but when I read your words it almost feels like you're here with me.

  I love you,

  Shan

  SHAN SET THE JOURNAL on the nightstand, then cradled Maritan and stood from the bed. His knees wobbled and it took him a moment to center his balance. It had been a full day since he woke to find Marita, but he hadn't yet slept. He was afraid to. What if he woke to find something else terrible had happened while he slept? It was a fear he couldn't fight much longer. Pain and exhaustion were ripping through his body with snapping jaws and poisoned
talons. The edges of Marita's spell that countered the agony of his Spellkeeper transformation were fading and he knew soon either sleep or excruciating physical torture would claim him.

  He stroked Maritan's chubby pink cheeks as he shuffled toward the door. The baby looked up at him, blissfully unaware that his family had been fractured. There was already comfort and trust within those big, blue-gray eyes. Even when he was hungry or needed a change, he calmed at the sound of Shan's trembling voice.

  There were too many people in the suite's main room. Jaylarae and her apprentice blocked Shan's view of a woman seated on the settee. Nylian, Lyndarian, and Nyssandrian stood nearby, and a silver-haired elf sat against the wall with a wary-eyed, Faunfae-horned toddler on his lap. Shan had only seen this elf once, but he recognized him immediately. If Korion Snowberry was in Shan's suite, then the woman on the settee must be the Twilight Spellkeeper.

  Maritan cried out and everyone turned to look at Shan.

  Shan ignored the Lightborns and approached Jaylarae. He kissed the baby's head and whispered, “He's hungry.”

  “That's why I'm here, Shannon,” said the half-Fae on the settee, who already held one baby to her pale breast. She tucked her white hair behind her Fawnfae ears and horns as she looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and expectation in her pale gray eyes. Shan hadn't seen her since her introduction at Liantor's murder, and it took him a moment to remember her name. Jei Snowberry.

  Jaylarae touched Shan's arm. “Honey, she has agreed to nurse your son during the day. Her own little boy is only three months older than yours. My daughter Linamae will take over at night so Jei can be with her own family.”

  “Okay...” Shan kept his eyes fixed on fussy Maritan. “I just . . . I just need him fed.”

  “Does it bother you that she is a half-Fae?” Jaylarae asked.

  “No. Why would it? My stepfather is a half-Fae, and my little brother was a quarter-Fae like Jei's babies.” Shan glanced up, making uncertain contact with Jei's pale eyes. “I wanted to meet you, but not like this. Thank you, Jei.”

  Jei reached toward him, then beckoned Korion to take their content baby. “I am relieved I can help you, Shannon. I'm so sorry about your wife. I know you don't want to let go of your son, but he's going to be difficult to calm if we wait any longer to feed him.”

  “Yes. You're right. He needs you.” Carefully and hesitantly, Shan placed Maritan in Jei's arms. As soon as he was situated, Shan turned away. “I'm sorry. I can't watch him with you right now. I'm so thankful to you, but he should be at his mother's breast, not yours.”

  “I know. I'll bring him back to you when he's done.” Jei's voice was soft and comforting, like a heavy blanket on a cold winter day.

  “Thank you.” He caught a falling tear on his palm as he stepped away from her, and hoped time would make it easier to pass his baby into the care of other mothers.

  “Shannon...” Nylian whispered from the other side of the cold hearth.

  “Not now. Please leave. I don't want you here.” Shan held up his hand, then walked into his bedroom. There was another baby in need of care.

  Rayna shook out her wings and hissed at him as he approached her cage. The contents of the copper dragon's food and water dishes were sprayed around the floor and she had taken to relieving herself on her bed. Marita had carried the dragon around with her and only used the cage so Rayna would have a safe place to sleep and eat, but now that safe place had become a prison for a feral infant.

  “I'm going to help you,” Shan whispered as he lifted the cage handle. Rayna scurried up the bars to nip at his fingers, but he kept them just out of reach. “Your elven mom liked to take you outside so your dragon mom could come visit you. I'm going to take you out so she can come get you.”

  Shan ignored the stares of the intruders as he carried the cage into the solarium. He thought about letting her loose among the greenery, but it wouldn't be safe, especially if she remained aggressive. She needed to be set free in the wild, and the only access Shan had to the outside was the garden balcony.

  A warm spring wind greeted him as he opened the glass doors and stepped onto the balcony. The apple tree to his left was in full bloom and the sweet scent of the blossoms drifted into his nose as he looked upon the slopes and valleys of Anthora. Below, on the immense network of bridges, chains clanged as the breeze rustled red and silver flags.

  Shan set the cage on the patch of grass beneath the apple tree, then crouched to look at Rayna. “I'm sorry. You lost her, too, and I can't even comfort you over it. I'm setting you free now. You should call out for your mom.”

  A flap of small wings tickled the air as a mature copper dragon landed on the edge of the balcony. He stared at Shan for a moment, then preened beneath his wings.

  “Well, I guess your father is already here. He'll take care of you.”

  Shan lured Rayna to one side of the cage with a finger just out of biting reach, then opened the cage door. He crept back and sat against a planter to watch her escape. She sniffed around the edge of the door, then craned her neck toward her father.

  “Take her home, Caedron.”

  Shan startled as Nylian shuffled onto the balcony. He drew his knees to his chest and scowled while the High King loitered near the solarium door. “I told you to leave me alone.”

  Nylian tapped his fingernails on the door handle. “I'd thought it disrespectful when you had your wife bind with the dragon I gifted you. Then our last session lasted far longer than I thought it would, and I realized it was likely fate that Rayna bound to Marita. They became close during your absence.”

  “Go away. Please.” Shan clenched his eyelids as the tears became a torrent.

  “Shannon, I am grieved by the loss of your wife. This is a tragedy I never expected, and I am sorry.”

  “Sard off already,” Shan growled as Rayna continued to contemplate the logistics of her escape. “I didn't want to have children. Never did, even when I was a child myself. You guilted us into having one, and Marita is dead now because of that. I love my son, more than I've ever loved anyone, but he'll grow up without a mother because you sarding meddled in our life and then shredded it between your abominable talons. This is your fault. You took her from us.”

  “I did not stop her heart, Shannon.” Nylian gazed across the balcony, his dragonlike eyes glossy. “There are many transgressions you can legitimately blame me for. This is not one of those. You are overwhelmed by grief and searching for any answer that might explain why this happened. There is no why, only the chaos of life and death, of nature.”

  “He's going to lose me, too, isn't he? When you finish what your bastard daughter started with me? Marita was supposed to be here for him even if I no longer was. I know you're going to do whatever you want to me, and even if it doesn't kill my body, I won't be me anymore. But you can't stop that, can you? You have to . . . have to finish cleaning up this mess you've made of me. And my son will be left lost and alone, without even a memory of the parents who loved him more than they ever thought possible.”

  Nylian's voice reached him as a gentle whisper. “I do not know what will happen to you, but I believe you will still be yourself. Your personality and memories will remain intact.”

  His vision blurred, Shan glared at Nylian. “That could mean anything. I was still me when you trapped me in the void. Maybe that will happen again, or maybe something else will take me over and I'll be imprisoned on the inside, watching but unable to scream that the thing controlling my body is an impostor. I'm trapped here now, within this cage you've constructed for me, and you've been lying to me all along. You never even allowed me to walk into the damned library like you promised. I've freed Rayna from her cage, but you'll never free me. You'll never let me take my son out to see the world, even the tiny part of it I can see from this balcony. But you know what? I wanted to die before because of what you've done to me. I don't want to die now. I want to make certain Maritan grows into a better person than the monsters he descended from.”


  “Once you complete the process, you will be free to travel within Anthora,” Nylian said, but his eyes remained fixed on Caedron.

  “You're a sarding liar and I'll never be able to believe one sarding thing you say to me.” Shan sobbed into his knees, then shook his head. “Nothing about you is real. Nothing. And I don't give a damn anymore. I don't care about you. I just want to be with my baby. I just want to hold him and know there is one good thing left in this world.”

  “Eep?” Rayna narrowed her eyes, then scrambled out of the cage. She started toward Caedron, but looped around the back of the cage and darted past Nylian into the solarium.

  Shan pressed his fingers against the back of his head and sighed. “Great. Now I've got a feral dragon hiding in the only room in this gods-forsaken realm that I liked.”

  “Leave the outer door open,” Nylian said. “Caedron will retrieve his mate so she can coax her out.”

  Shan stood, then brushed his hands over his aching legs. His tremble came as much from the returning physical pain as it did from the grief and exhaustion. “Why are you here? To offer me empty condolences? To make sure I wasn't going to kill myself before you finished your little craft project? Please respect me just this once and leave.”

  “I came to see if Jei panicked when she saw you,” Nylian said, looking away. “She did not. Her mother prepared her from infancy to become a Spellkeeper, so I believe she already knew the extent to which a Spellkeeper is transformed. I have expanded her allowed movement so she can come to your residence. I have now expanded yours to the nearest library and the garden on the other side of this level. It is a large balcony with an inlaid labyrinth path at its center and more space for you to walk.”

  “I'm not going to thank you for that,” Shan mumbled.

  “No. I suppose not.” Nylian fully opened the solarium door and ushered Shan inside. “Lyndarian is here to renew your painkiller spell. You are going to need regular visits from him from now until–”