by Eva Chase
“We’re almost there,” Priya said, motioning to a tree that must have been a landmark for her. Several steps farther, the tingle of the enclave’s protective boundary washed over me. It would have repelled most regular human beings, but it didn’t appear to affect Priya. The fae must have adjusted their magic to make her a welcome visitor despite her biology.
A lean, long-haired young man stepped out of a sunbeam to meet us. A faint gleam shone in his bronze skin. He bowed to me with the same respect he’d shown when we’d first met last week.
“Hey, Ohanko,” Priya said. “Thanks for coming out to meet us. Are the elders ready to talk?”
He made a pained expression that didn’t offer much hope. “They have agreed to meet with Merlin. They were hesitant to discuss how we might get involved.”
Well, they figured we were coming to ask them to battle the Darkest One. They might be overjoyed when I told them I was here on a much simpler errand. “That’s fine,” I said. “I’d actually like to talk to them alone, at least to start.”
“Are you sure?” Priya said.
At the same time, Ohanko gave me another deep bow. “But of course, Daughter of Eóghan. Should you need any assistance, just call on me.”
I bumped Priya’s arm with my knuckles. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been talking to light fae types for hundreds of years longer than you have, remember?”
Ohanko motioned for me to follow him. The trees within the enclave were spaced more sparsely, so warm streaks of sunlight dappled the ground. I drank it into my body as I walked behind the fae man. I might not light up like they did, but I still felt and welcomed the sun’s power.
Ohanko led me to a large clearing. A dozen stones the height of stools stood in a ring at its center. Most of them were already occupied by light fae so translucent I knew immediately they were the elders. Ohanko directed me to one of the free stones. I sank down onto its hard, smooth surface, and the younger fae faded back into the trees.
The elders peered at me from around their circle. Their bodies were so filmy it was hard to make out much difference between their features. Their hair and skin faded into the light beaming down from above. If I tried to focus on any one of their faces for more than a second, my eyes started to sting.
They’d been part of this world for an awfully long time. I wasn’t sure if that was to my benefit or not. Obviously this enclave hadn’t seen much disruption over the years. That might have fortified them—or made them even more wary of conflict.
“Welcome, daughter of Eóghan,” the woman nearest me said with a voice like a tinkling bell. “We understand that you come to us with a request for help.”
That was as straightforward a statement as I could hope for from a light fae. “Yes,” I said. “And thank you so much for agreeing to hear me out. I’m sure you’d like to keep out of this mess around the Darkest One as much as possible. I promise I’m not going to ask you to do anything that involves her, at least not today. I’m hoping you can advise me on a different matter.”
One of the elder men bobbed his head, his silky hair drifting around his face. “There are many paths that may lead to the same destination,” he said. “We cannot see the end without the beginning.”
Yeah, that was more the kind of conversation I expected from these types.
“Right,” I said. “So here’s the thing: I swore an oath to a few light fae in Britain. I promised to do something that I didn’t think I’d ever be in a position to have to do. But... things worked out differently than I expected. Circumstances changed. And now doing that thing, it wouldn’t actually make things better. It would make them so much worse, for everyone.”
“That is unfortunate,” the first woman said. “The winds of life are always shifting.”
I nodded as if that remark was in any way helpful. “Yeah. So, I’d rather not follow through and cause even more problems. Since it’s light fae magic that went into the oath bond, I thought maybe you all would have some idea how to dissolve it.”
The elders exchanged a glance around the circle. They didn’t try to hide their discomfort at my suggestion. It flickered through their glow like a passing shadow.
The elder man who’d spoken before turned to face me again. “To give one’s sacred word, it is a root dug deep. Cutting it off can only do harm.”
“Well, that’s not necessarily true,” I hedged. “I mean, what if that root had a sickness take to it? And then if you cut off the root, you’re actually saving the rest of the tree from dying. That’s the kind of situation we’re talking about here.”
My adapting of his metaphor seemed to impress him at least a little. He pursed his lips, but he’d tilted his head in consideration. A couple of the others leaned closer to murmur to him and the elder woman who’d spoken first. I waited, trying to look responsible and deserving. Not like someone who made oaths willy nilly without consideration of the consequences.
I was trying to save the world from having the Darkest One inflicted on it, I thought, biting back the urge to say it out loud. If your kind weren’t so bloody self-absorbed, I wouldn’t have had to make wretched oaths like that one just to get some help.
The woman shook back her shimmering hair and met my eyes. “It is not something any of us has ever attempted,” she said. “But we will examine you and make a decision then.”
“Sure,” I said, my spirits lifting. They were actually going to try. “What do you need me to do?”
They consulted each other a few minutes longer. Then the man gestured to the middle of the ring. “Sit in the midst of our energies, and we will see from all angles.”
Fair enough. I walked to the center of the stone circle and hunkered down on the soft grass. The combined presence of the light fae warmed the air enough that the ground here wasn’t even cold.
Several pairs of glowing eyes honed in on me. I closed my own, a quiver passing over my skin. Exactly how much were they going to see?
A wash of light passed over me, flashing softly behind my eyelids. Then another, and another, as if it were the ocean’s surf sending its waves toward me. A warmth bloomed throughout my body. A honeyed scent trickled into my lungs as I inhaled. The quivering spread across my scalp and into my head. It tingled through my thoughts.
Were they releasing me even now? Wearing down the tie between me and Cormag? I could almost taste the release on the tip of my tongue.
Then a faint cry split the air. I looked up, startled. Another fae woman was staring at me, the glow around her body dimmed and shivering. The man who’d asked me to sit there turned his head away with a jerk. His neighbor shook his head over and over, muttering something to himself. The waves of light and warmth fell away. Abruptly, I felt chilled.
“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
The woman who’d addressed me before held out her hand. I let her help me to my feet. As I sat back on my stone, she looked down at her lap, her brilliant face creasing before she found the words.
“I am still not sure if we could touch the cord that binds you,” she said. “But we do not want to. We fear more what would happen if the oath is broken than if it remains in place.”
What? I bit my tongue before I could snap the question at her. “How can you say that? You don’t even know—”
“We know,” she said, even and solemn. “We saw. The one you serve has a sickness of a sort in him, yes, but it’s not because of your oath. It’s already in the core of him. You swore to defend the world from it. Can you not see that doing so may be the right thing after all?”
She looked at me, her eyes pleading. My throat closed up. My hands clenched, but I couldn’t summon any real anger, not when her expression was so distraught. She didn’t like saying this to me. She was only saying it because she couldn’t bear not to.
She believed my king was meant to die.
“How can you condone it?” I said. “Killing an innocent person...”
“He has lived more than his fair share of lives already, has
he not?” she said. “And how many other innocents might be swept up in the tide of darkness if the one you fear takes him first?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what she did to him.”
“Perhaps that is the answer you should seek then,” she said. They all stood up to leave, not one giving me another glance.
Chapter Seven
The warm, salty water of the bath lapped at my arms. I lowered them deeper into the bathtub, breathing in the tang that wasn’t quite like the ocean. Too much chlorine in the tap water for it to be an exact imitation. But it was real sea salt I’d laced the tub with, along with a sprinkling of burnt frankincense.
It didn’t matter what the light fae had said. I’d learned something from them anyway. The oath was a thing they could see inside me, a thing they’d felt in my mind. If they could grasp hold of it and comprehend it, then I could grab it too. Grab it and hopefully snap it, if I’d picked my tools right.
The purifying bath had seemed like a reasonable first step. I’d cleanse myself as much as possible from any outside influence. Let nothing remain but me and the oath. Maybe the immersion would even wear it down a little before I got to the real work.
I’d been soaking long enough that my fingertips had pruned. I rubbed my thumb against them, grimaced, and climbed out of the tub. I pulled on my undyed cotton bathrobe and ambled out to the supplies I’d laid on the floor in my bedroom. I’d ordered Darton not to disturb me unless there was a total emergency. After seeing my face when I’d gotten back from the enclave, he hadn’t even tried to argue.
I whispered to the sticks of copal incense set around my circle of twigs. They started smoking. The crisp, woody scent curled into the air. I set a black onyx stone on both of my knees to strength my will and resolve. A pile of bay leaves waited in front of my crossed legs, ready to accept the energy I planned to shed.
I brushed my hands over the stones and inhaled deep. The copal smoke seeped into my lungs. I exhaled it and scooped the bay leaves into my cupped hands. Closing my eyes, I turned my awareness inward. Deep, deep into my head, where the oath wound through my thoughts.
There. I couldn’t see it, but I could almost hear it. Like a faint humming just a little too distant to pinpoint. But the itch beneath my fingernails shifted when the humming did, in time with the beat of my heart. If I could just find the threads of it, pick them apart...
“Let me see what I seek,” I murmured in the old tongue. “Bring distant ties to visibility.” Keeping my focus inward, I reached out to the life energy in the twigs at the same time. It thrummed into me. My nerves jittered alongside it. The tug of the oath’s compulsion rippled through my muscles and squeezed at my lungs.
“No,” I said. “Let me find it. Let me grasp it. Let me—”
I hauled at the energy around me even harder, slamming it against the magic twined through my head. That was the wrong move.
The burst of energy hit me like a punch. My thoughts spun, and the oath’s power lashed back. My hands jerked, the bay leaves scattering. A flood of light seared behind my eyes. My body listed. I tumbled over, and the world went dark.
Everything was dark. I couldn’t feel my body, not even my breath. I was floating, still and numb, in a blackness that might have been as vast as the universe or as shallow as my bathtub. I tried to turn, to feel, but there was nothing to move. Nowhere to move it to.
I’d knocked myself out into some kind of vision. But usually my visions hurtled me toward whatever they wanted me to see. They didn’t just toss me into a random void. What was the point of this?
How did I get out of it?
Cold tendrils started to wrap around my consciousness like trickles of frigid water. I would have shivered if I’d had a body to shiver with. I still couldn’t see anything, but a drifting sensation crept over me, as if I were gliding very slowly downward. Down and down and down, without any impression of what was slipping past me.
Was this some kind of trap the light fae had worked into their oath, to punish me if I tried to break it? It didn’t feel like light fae work, but Cormag had struck me as being a little on the sadistic side. The only thing I knew was I didn’t care for this situation at all. Was there some way to knock myself free?
I stretched and pushed my awareness, but that didn’t seem to get me anywhere. I just kept drifting on. To where?
A thin crackle of laughter sliced through the darkness. The chill deepened, twisting around my mind. I sensed without seeing a gaze fixed on me. A gaze even more icy than the tendrils that tangled around my thoughts.
The presence expanded until it loomed over me, until it filled the blackness all around me, as if it had swallowed me up. I was pinned in place by it. My entire being strained to get away.
It was her. I’d know her essence anywhere.
“There you are, little wizard,” said a voice that was both low and crisp. It echoed all around me. “Did you think you could run from me? Such a pathetic specimen of both fae and humanity. I’ve been waiting a long time to have you in my grasp. Don’t worry. It won’t be much longer until I’m there in the flesh to fully enjoy your torment.”
The tendrils sharpened into frigid claws. They scraped through my mind, severing thoughts and sparking panic. I tried to cry out with a mouth I couldn’t find. Some part of my will remained, an unbroken thread in the midst of the Darkest One’s game. I held onto it tight. It was only a vision. I could endure this. She couldn’t break me with an ocean between us.
Only I wasn’t completely sure of that.
“Do you think you can defy me again?” she said. “Oh, halfling abomination, you know how many years I’ve had to contemplate the many ways I can take my revenge. Your death will be slow, slow and horrible. That’s a promise. Your king’s, though? You don’t need to worry about him. That life I intend to snap fast. The better to unwrap that beautiful present inside.”
Her laugh carried through the darkness again. No, I thought. No, no, no, no, no. I wouldn’t let her. I’d make it through. I couldn’t think any farther than that, not with her icy fingers digging deeper and deeper into my consciousness. No, no, no, no—
“No!” The shout broke from my lips. I flinched awake, my elbows smacking out against arms that held me in place.
Darton’s arms. His solid football player frame was wrapped around me. His warmth and his citrusy, earthy smell washed over me.
I blinked at the scene around me. Most of my twigs had disintegrated into dust, and that dust was smeared in violent streaks all across my pale floorboards. Bay leaves scattered the room as far as I could see, as if a gale had whipped through the room. The onyx stones had both shattered. Dark shards speckled the floor around me like shiny black teardrops.
“Hey,” Darton said. “Hey. I’m here. You’re back. It’s okay.”
My mind tripped back to the memory of the Darkest One’s presence swallowing me up, and my throat constricted. No, it wasn’t. Nothing about this was remotely okay. I had failed, so badly. I couldn’t even make myself safe for my king, let alone anything or anyone else. Even as my body came back into focus, that sodding itch was tickling up my arms. Reminding me of the oath I hadn’t fulfilled.
I’m not going to, I thought at it, with a defiance that was more like a teenager sticking her tongue out at her parents behind their backs than anything really convincing. You can’t make me.
Other than it probably could, if I let it go on long enough. If I didn’t sever it soon. Not that I had any clue how, despite my best efforts.
Darton’s arms shifted around me, tugging me closer. I let my head tip against his chest. My bathrobe had loosened during... whatever had happened while I was lost in that vision. The soft fabric gaped to the swells of my breasts and bared my legs halfway up my thighs. His hands rested so close to that naked skin...
A different sort of heat swept over me, embarrassment and longing mixed. “I told you not to come in,” I muttered.
Darton sputtered a laugh. “Unless it was an emergency.
Believe me, it sounded like one. You were yelling out stuff I couldn’t even understand, other than I think I heard my name in there at least once, and when I came in you were shaking on the floor. You couldn’t seem to hear me at all. You wouldn’t open your eyes. It’s been—I don’t know, but a long time, since I came in. Where were you?”
“A vision,” I said, the irritation draining out of me. Light help me, I must have terrified him. “I’m sorry. I had no idea what was going on outside my head. It didn’t give me anything useful. The Darkest One showed up personally to add in a few more taunts.”
Darton’s body tensed against mine. “Oh.” He lowered his head, his cheek brushing my temple. “Are you all right? Did she hurt you?”
“No. Not really.” A splinter of a headache was working its way through my skull, but that might be my own fault for messing with the oath. “She said she’d make her way here soon. At least that means we can be sure she’s not here yet.” What was her idea of “soon,” though? She might mean tomorrow or a year from now for all I knew.
I started to push away, but Darton’s embrace tightened. “No,” he said. “You stay right here a little longer. Lord knows you need more than five minutes to recover before you go charging off in some other direction.”
I made a muted sound of protest. “I still have that wretched oath to break.”
“I’m just asking for five more minutes. I don’t want my wizard completely run ragged. How are you going to come to my rescue then?”
He said the last sentence jokingly, but I heard the hint of bitterness in it too. “Seems like you’re the one coming to my rescue,” I said. That earned me a chuckle that sounded a little less strained.
“I try.” He shifted me against him so we were almost facing. His fingers stroked over my hair. Then they dropped to cup my cheek. His lips brushed against my forehead. Almost a kiss. My pulse kicked up for reasons that had nothing to do with the enemy whose grip I’d just been in.