by Renee Wildes
“So why did the trolls switch sides?”
“Self-preservation,” Dax growled. “The goblins broke the treaty and there are few of us left. Crystal Mountain is the last stronghold of Light out here in the Shadowlands. The faeries are defenseless against physical attack. We guard the faeries and their home.”
“Why? The goodness of your hearts?”
“Why is that so hard to believe? ‘The enemy’, lad, are but people too.” Dax couldn’t believe he’d said that aloud. “We all share the same Mother. Faeries and trolls are siblings. Why shouldn’t we coexist?”
“Kin.”
“Aye.”
Brannan crossed his arms. “Then why were you and Pryseis going it alone?”
“Because Pryseis believes in direct intervention on an individual basis, and they don’t,” Dax retorted. “The council banished her for wanting to help a child.”
“A goblin child?”
“Pryseis didn’t see goblin. She saw child.”
Brannan was quiet. “So should we all,” he murmured.
They fled the setting sun as their shadows lengthened afore them. Eventually it became almost impossible to see their way, and Dax called a halt. Brannan swayed on his feet, but offered to gather firewood whilst Dax set up the tents. They both settled on opposite sides of the fire, chewing their respective travel food.
“Do you remember your parents?” Brannan asked.
Pain lanced his heart, but Dax nodded. “I was ten when they died. I was playing at Aunt Pryseis’ when word reached us of a rock slide. It was an accident. He fell trying to reach her, but she was already gone. Aunt Pryseis is all I have left.”
“But I thought the pool kept faeries alive.”
Where did the elves get their misinformation? “It keeps healthy faeries going and cures their illness. It doesn’t reverse mortal wounds.”
“My parents also are dead. My matre died years ago, and my patre never recovered from losing her. He left this world several months back. I am fortunate, I suppose—I still have my brother and my granna and granther.”
“Are you close?” Dax asked. “Your brother and you?”
Brannan’s mouth twitched. “Close, aye. But very different. I am the younger.”
Dax envied him. “How did your mother die?”
All humor fled the young elf’s face, and his green eyes were glacial when they met Dax’s. “She died of a broken heart. You wonder at the barrier bespelled to repel trolls? My younger brother fell at Enoka Pass, slain by trolls. She mourned him with her last breath.”
Fear. Fear like he’d never kenned gripped Dax. His spear breaking off in the war mare’s chest, her dying scream as she pitched into the ground, her young rider rolling free. The elven youth dropping the royal standard to draw his sword. The light fading from the youth’s eyes. Stillness.
Brannan gasped and clutched his head.
“What is it?” Dax asked. “Have they found you?”
The healer shook his head. “Nay, but they have increased the strength and range of the call. The nullifying spell is dragon, and Dara is helping Loren counter it.” He grimaced. “The Crown of Cymry helps him contact any elf at will. The spell still shields me, but Dara kens about it. She has ensured the call reaches me even if they cannot pinpoint my location. Blood magic—blood to blood.”
Blood to blood. Brannan’s use of the royals’ familiar names froze the breath in Dax’s chest. Dread. Nausea. “How? What are they to you?”
Brannan looked abashed, raking his long hair away from his face. “King Loren is my older brother.”
Sweet Mother of all, the youth Dax had slain was Brannan’s brother.
Benilo stared at Pryseis with horror. His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”
Pryseis fought to breathe through the panic. “I just wanted to fix the net. It was so weak, I feared losing him. I remember thinking I’d do anything to make it right.” Her cheeks cooled. “Oh, Sweet Mother, I called on Her for help. This is the result.” Tears blurred her vision. “I didn’t mean to! Not really.”
He hauled her into his arms. “Shh. Breathe, Pryseis. We shall get through this.”
She tucked her head beneath his chin and jerked against the ankle cuff chaining her to the pillar. “How? I can’t get back to the pool. All I am is now bound to the net. I’ve no reserves.”
“Well, I have.” Benilo glared down at her. “I can keep myself alive on the elements. I swear I shall find a way for you, as well.”
Lursa, he could barely stand. How could he hope to keep them both alive for as long as it might take to solve the problem and free them? Pryseis turned back to where the goblin lad sat, weaving his visions. He looked up as she pulled the curtain back, and his close-set black eyes widened at her altered appearance. He pointed to the cloth monster and then at her. She nodded and tried a wavery smile.
“’Twill be all right, little one,” she whispered. “The monster won’t get through this time.”
As long as she breathed, the net would hold, shining and strong.
As long as she breathed…
Benilo came up behind Pryseis to draw her back into the tent and placed a kiss on her trembling shoulder. “Tell me about the sorcerer. We were unaware the goblins had achieved magic. Tell me about that staff.”
He shuddered, and Pryseis swore she felt his remembered horror pierce her own heart. She kenned well what that blast of blue black power had felt like—iced poison.
Death.
She shook her head. “I don’t think the goblins have achieved magic. I think the sorcerer found the staff somewhere. It doesn’t feel goblin, if you ken what I’m trying to say.”
There was a wary, watchful expression on his face as he nodded.
“It feels much older and darker.” Pryseis bit her lip. Heat flushed her skin when his gaze lowered to track that movement, chasing the chill away.
“What does it do?” Benilo’s voice was hoarse. “If I had to venture a supposition, I would say he controls it by thought.”
“This is pure speculation, but I think it focuses thought. He thinks something and the staff makes it so.”
Benilo looked troubled. “I wish now I had paid more attention in my mage classes. Are there markings on it? Runes?”
Pryseis tried to recall. “I think so, but I don’t remember anything specific. I’d have to look at it again.” She shuddered. That was the last thing she should want. Every scrap of self-preservation she had left told her such a wish was insanity. She kenned the power of wishes.
“I think there is something more going on here,” Benilo stated. “I think there are two problems going on, separately and together. The staff is very direct. But there is an insidious negativity as well. I do not believe the staff has any control over it. I think mayhaps that negativity affects the sorcerer as well, and that is what causes him to use the staff as he does.”
“The staff doesn’t control him?”
He shook his head. “I do not believe so. It does not have a sentient feel to it.”
“So if we got the staff away from him…” Pryseis’ heart began to pound.
“He would be just another ordinary goblin.”
Now that felt workable, in a born-of-desperation sort of way. But the other wearing-down problem…
“Tell me about the other issue here.” Benilo drew her down onto the makeshift bed.
Pryseis wrapped her arms around her knees. “The negativity? It feels like a happiness leech. A hint of doubt, sadness, fear. Over a bit of time, it intensifies, magnifies, until you lose control. The goblins were just practicing weapons training, but it got out of control until one went mad and killed the other.” She waved a hand at the back entrance. “The lad’s fear is now open terror, crippling. I don’t think he’s sleeping at all, and lack of sleep causes its own madness.” She trembled. “His monster is sliding into everyone else’s dreams. This whole place is beyond depressing.”
The front curta
ins parted, and the sorcerer strutted in to loom over them, staff held at the ready. Benilo stayed relaxed, but he tracked the goblin’s every movement. Pryseis was grateful to notice the tip of the staff was dull blue black, which meant the sorcerer was not preparing to use it imminently.
Thank the Mother for small mercies.
His dark eye glittered at them as he studied them. He raised the staff, and Pryseis flinched afore she could stop herself. He smiled, baring pointed crooked teeth and a broken fang. Benilo’s muscles didn’t even tense up. Not even when the sorcerer brushed the elven healer’s hair with the staff. The goblin sneered at her, turned and strode back out.
Pryseis gasped for breath in the wake of his absence. “What was that for?”
“Easy. Breathe.” Benilo rubbed her shoulders. “I think I ken why we are here. He wants to see if what affects his people affects us as well. Not individually—racially. If elves and faeries are also susceptible to whatever darkness resides here.”
“Speaking for myself, that would be a resounding ‘aye’.” Pryseis wrinkled her nose in self-disgust. “When I thought Dax was dead, I could hardly breathe, let alone move. I’m not a coward, but I’m so afraid.”
“You are a prisoner of the enemy. Being afraid is a natural reaction. If you were not afraid, then I would worry.”
“You didn’t seem afraid.”
He sighed. “I am too old to be intimidated by a schoolyard bully. I was correct—the magic is not his. I do not believe it is even magic in the true sense of the word. There are many things that affect moods and emotions. Tangible things like herbs, molds, mushrooms. Those things I ken. That is where I shall start.”
“Did you see the runes around the stone’s setting?”
“Nay. They were too tarnished to make out.”
“Aye.” Enthusiasm bubbled up. “Tarnish is a type of darkness. I think I can pull it away tonight, in my dreams.”
“How?” Benilo’s voice was skeptical. “It is a physical darkness, Pryseis, not a spiritual one.”
“With just one word.” She bent over to trace it in the sand with her finger. R-E-V-E-A-L. She wiped it out again. “What do you think?”
“I think we are both mad. Mad enough to try. Who kens but that it just might work?”
His lack of enthusiasm was underwhelming. Pryseis sighed.
The sorcerer’s voice, raised in command, distracted her. Crawling to the front of the tent, she peered out to see many goblins rousing from varying levels of “drunken stupor”. A babble of voices, a gathering of weapons. What was disconcerting was that it appeared everyone who wasn’t female, oldster or child was arming to leave—even the visitors.
“They’re going off to raid.” Her heart froze. Where were they going? Whom were they arming against?
“And that leaves fewer here to drain your strength,” Benilo reminded her. “Now is the best chance you have to rest. Save your strength for when they return to their own sleep.”
Pryseis watched the goblins leave the encampment and gave up trying to discern their intended target. Benilo was right. She curled up next to him. They both needed rest. At least she wasn’t alone. He pulled her into his arms, and she ended up half-sprawled across his chest. She stiffened and pulled away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Does not hurt in the slightest,” he said.
She felt no deception in his thoughts. And she felt better, surrounded by his warmth, his strength. His heart beat under her ear, slow and steady. She went boneless by slow degrees, matching him breath for breath. His scent curled around her, through her. That’s what had been absent afore, in her dream. He’d not felt real, for all they’d shared. Now there was solid warmth, hot male skin scented with sunlit ferns. She toyed with a lock of his hair—unexpected softness, a cascade of light. His calloused fingers caressed her back, and she shivered at the goose bumps that rose in their wake. Unbidden, her mind drifted back to the dream. Her breasts swelled and she flushed, embarrassed as her nipples tightened against him.
His fingers trailed over the curve of her backside. She tried to squirm away, but Benilo held her still. “Shh, easy, beauty,” he soothed, the brush of his mind in hers seduction itself. “Do not fear me. I would never hurt you.”
“It wasn’t real,” she denied.
“But it was, and this is. Look at me.”
Pryseis was caught in the hypnotic blue power of his gaze. Blue as the mountain sky, hot as the living fires within the earth. Open desire there for her to read, to feel. She gasped, and his eyes darkened. She reached out to trace his lips with her fingers. He captured her hand in his, raising it so he could tease, not her palm, but the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. It caused an unexpected tingle in her breasts, and she whimpered as her nipples tightened further, an almost painful arousal.
“This is crazy.”
“The sweetest madness.”
“Anyone could walk in.”
“Then we shall have to be quiet.” Benilo rolled over so they lay side by side, raised himself up to nibble along the side of her neck. Her nails tightened on his shoulders when he found a sensitive spot, and he stroked her there with his tongue, suckling on her skin until she whimpered and wriggled closer. He curled a hand around her breast, circling her aching nipple with his thumb, and she gasped in his ear. He shuddered at the sound, and moved to capture her lips with his.
Pryseis opened to him, taking him deep, savoring the dark, wild taste of him as her tongue tangled with his. Every stroke of his tongue heightened her craving, her need. This was naught like the dream. It was so much more real. She felt herself swelling, softening, kenned he caught the scent of her arousal when he slid his muscled thigh betwixt hers, drew her leg up over his hip. Benilo bent his head to her breast, taking a long pull, teasing her nipple with the rasp of his tongue. She bit her lip to silence the cry that rose. Sweet Mother, how he made her ache!
“You make me burn, beauty.” He drew her hand down to his erection, pulsing hot and heavy against the fingers she curled around him. His mind was a swirl of hot air, boiling water, pure fire. A chaos of pure need pulled her in until she drowned in sensation. Desire and need. The light of his passion drew her, but instead of burning, she took it in, took him in. It was a magic she’d never kenned, a joining she’d never conceived of. Body and mind. Heart and soul.
“Dracken rue, beauty, this is as real as it gets.” Benilo sounded desperate as he thrust into Pryseis’ wet, willing body. She held him close, in her heart, in her mind. He surged into her body, again and again, taking them both higher until barriers shattered as the Light swamped them both. “I bind myself to you. Whenever, whatever your need, I shall come to you. To you do I answer with body or blood. My life for yours. My soul to yours, ’til our last breath. Never again shall you be alone. You are mine, in this lifetime and the next. I shall ever be yours, for always. We are one.”
Pryseis shattered in a splendor of Light, and he took her mouth to silence her cry as she screamed in his mind and pulsed around him. His heart answered her back as he poured himself into her. Solid earth in his muscles, churning water in the trickle of sweat, the blood boiling in the fiery heat of passion, the air in their shared breath, his very life as he succumbed to passion. She took it all in and flew. The cold air of the mountaintops, the Mother’s very breath. The Light settled deep within their souls—sun, moon and stars.
Her net shone bright. She felt rejuvenated, almost as if she’d drunk from the pool itself. And Benilo…he felt whole. Healed. Balanced.
He gasped for breath. His eyes widened as he sensed the change in them both. “Lady of Light, what have I done?”
“Umm…I think you healed us both.” She grinned. “Interesting technique, healer.”
“It is more than that. Give it a moment.” He looked wild and a little desperate as he took her hand and placed it against his stomach. “What do you feel?”
“Your skin under my hand.” She stroked her hand across his stomach, and she flinched as she st
ruck a ticklish spot—on her own side. It was as if she felt her own touch. Her heart pounded in her ear—with his trepidation. “Wait…”
He reached out to run his fingers through her hair, and she shuddered as the silken strands slid across her knuckles. “Stop it! What did you do?” Pryseis hissed, trying to keep her voice at a whisper. “Get out of my mind.”
“I cannot.” His voice was grim. His face, grimmer still. “I found a way to heal us, aye. But the only way to do so was to open up to the elements—and each other. I found a way for you to take my energy—by binding us together. As life mates.”
She felt him in her heart, in her blood. In her mind. The words of the vow came back to her, blessed by the Mother. Permanent. Irreversible. “I don’t believe this!”
“It was not what I intended to do at all,” he defended himself. “I did not even intend to kiss you.”
“Don’t you blame me for this!”
“I do not, but I believe there was a higher power involved.” He glared at her. “Without the pool, you would have died, Pryseis. I remember that much of my lessons. Faeries do not survive without a direct infusion of elemental energy. I can give you that. As much as you need, as often as you need.”
His conviction burned in her chest. His pure intentions. He hadn’t intended to bind them together, but it was the only way to do what they both needed doing. He’d needed healing as much as she had. And with the sharing, they were both stronger. She tried to recall what she kenned of elven life mates. They kenned what each other felt, thought. No secrets. No privacy.
“No loneliness,” he whispered. “Total support. A passion that just grows hotter with time…and practice…with a partner who kens what you need almost afore you need it.”
She shivered at his words, at the way his gaze dropped to her breasts. She could almost feel his mouth on her, there…
He groaned, and she felt her body—his body—tighten in response. “Careful, beauty.”