by SA Magnusson
“Solera—”
With the words, Bryan immediately placed himself between me and Solera, seemingly more concerned by my presence than by Aron’s. If he should worry about anyone, it would be the archer.
A spell built, coming from Bryan. Pale streaks of white magic trailed around him, crackling in the air. It was different than a mage spell.
I’d seen magic before, but only when it was summoned by dark mages. This was different, a surge of pale white light rather than the deep blue that I’d seen from the dark mages.
“We only came for answers, nothing more,” I said.
“No answers. Not for them.”
Her demeanor had changed when Aron had mentioned my name. She had recognized it. There was only one reason in the magical world for her to recognize the name like that.
What had my grandparents done to her?
“If you do this, I’ll fulfill my promise,” Aron said.
Something changed.
I couldn’t exactly tell what it was, but the energy in the air seemed to shift, becoming different. Harsher. It was almost as if an expectant energy hung in the air.
“You’ve refused for so long,” Solera said.
Shifting off to the side of the path, I caught a glimpse of her stalking around Aron in a very predatory way. He stood still, his whole body stiff. Whatever promise he referred to was something he very much didn’t want to fulfill.
“Were it not for the importance of this, I’d refuse even longer.”
Solera stopped near Bryan and tapped him on the shoulder. Whatever spell he’d been holding faded, the pale light surrounding him disappearing, and he took a step back. What would he have done had I attempted to attack?
It must have been a barrier spell of some sort.
“What is she?” Solera asked.
“That’s part of why we’re here. I don’t know.”
Solera turned her head so that she could look over at Aron, but her body never moved. It remained angled at me.
With sudden understanding, I realized the source of the magic I’d been detecting since reaching the island.
It was her.
That tingling sense burned along my spine, a steady throbbing sensation. It was an odd sensation, one that was so different than what I detected when mages used their magic. This was constant and steady, the kind of power that suggested either an ongoing spell… or someone with incredible power.
Magic so cold it burned and raced along my spine, taking my breath away. It blasted into me, settling over me before I had a chance to react.
The magic within me answered for me.
It pressed up, as if knowing that it needed to protect me, drawn out of a place deep inside of me, pushing against whatever spell Solera used on me.
Her eyes narrowed and she took a step toward me. The sense of magic intensified, and as it did, I pulled on more magic. This time, it came from me intentionally.
As I drew on my magic, the sword helping to augment it as it often did, I couldn’t help but step back into a defensive stance and bring the sword up in front of me.
Solera’s eyes narrowed. The spell she used on me faded but the cold along my back continued to tingle. The spell might not be attacking me but that didn’t mean that she’d let go of her magic.
“I can see why he brought you to me.”
With that, she turned, disappearing into the trees.
I stood, magic flowing through me, sword held out as if I might try to carve through her. With as powerful as Solera was, I didn’t know if that was even possible. “What was that about?” I asked, looking over at Aron.
Bryan had already followed his master but waited a dozen steps in front of us.
“That was an invitation.”
“It didn’t feel like one.”
Aron faced the direction of Solera’s disappearance, a frown pinching his face.
“Why do I get the sense that you’re not exactly pleased by that invitation?”
“It’ll be fine,” he said, nodding for me to follow.
I hesitated only a moment, glancing back in case I could see any of the tree nymphs before deciding that now wasn’t the time. There would be questions later—quite a few of them, by the looks of it.
“It doesn’t seem as if you’re fine. What is it?”
“It’s where she’s leading us, Kate.”
“Isn’t this where you wanted us to go?”
Aron pointed along another path. “That’s where she normally leads me. I’m not sure what’s along this path.”
8
The sense of magic continued to build as we walked along the path. It was different magic than what I detected when around mages, and different even than what I had detected when Solera had hit me with her magical attack. It was soft, subtle, and almost warm.
Trees arched over the path. A gentle breeze tugged on the treetops, rustling the leaves and causing the branches to sway. The movement made the light shimmer across the path, sending light and shadows dancing. There was something quite calming about it.
“Kate?”
I blinked at the concern in Aron’s voice.
“You have to be careful in a place like this. It’s easy to lose yourself when under the influence of Solera’s magic.”
Was that what I’d been detecting? Maybe it was nothing more than that. “What kind of magic does she have?” I looked around the forest, staring at the trees. The light that shimmered off the trees reflected on the higher branches.
Not reflections at all. There was movement, much as I had seen when we’d first met Solera. Could they be tree nymphs too?
“Fae magic. Seelie magic.”
“How is that possible? I didn’t think the fae could cross the Veil.” Not only cross but have a potency. All of this was magical, from the trees to the presence I felt to the fluttering of nymphs or whatever creature they were. It was all magical.
“There are places where crossings are possible. They’re a reflection of a time before.”
“I thought places like the basilica were the way to reach the fae queen.”
“That’s where you can reach the queen, but there are places like this where it’s a more direct influence.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Solera can’t leave here, Kate,” he said softly. “This acts as something of a sanctuary for her, a reminder of what she lost, and she’s not able to return.”
“Why not?”
“The reason is complicated, and I’m not sure I even understand all of it. The council knows, but I don’t. It has something to do with a penance she has to serve, though to hear Solera speak of it, this was all by choice.”
That meant my grandmother would know. Would she answer if I asked? “It doesn’t sound like a sanctuary. It sounds like a prison.”
Aron sniffed. “It could be, especially after as long as she’s been here.”
“And how long is that?”
“A long time.”
We reached Bryan, who motioned us to follow as he ducked beneath branches that crisscrossed in front of us. The sense of magic was stronger as we neared the branches, and when I ducked my head, I could feel the power of a spell wash over me.
Not a spell, though. It would be fae magic.
Why would I be able to detect it?
I looked up at Aron. He walked stiffly, but there seemed to be an edge to him. He might not say it, but he worried about my magic, too. Probably more now than he had before. And how could he not? I shouldn’t be able to detect magic like this, not without using a spell.
What was I?
That was the question that Solera had asked the moment she’d seen me. Now that she’d used her magic on me, would she know the answer?
The path opened up in front of us, leading slightly downward. Aron grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop.
“I’m not sure what she intends by bringing you here, but you need to be ready for whatever she might try.”
“Might try? I thought
you said we’d get answers.”
“I thought we would, but this… this isn’t like her. I don’t know what this is, but it’s unusual.”
Solera waited for us by a small pool of water in the center of the clearing. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, ripples of water rolling across the surface reminding me of the spell Aron had used to summon her. Could this be how she had known?
“You should not have brought one like her to my realm, Archer.”
Realm? What did she mean by that? And what did she mean by “one like her”?
“If I had another choice, I would have taken it, but there was none. And it’s more than about her. There was a shifter attack.”
She waved her hand. “I care little about that power, as you know.”
“We suspect the Great Ones were involved,” I said.
She studied me. “That could not be.”
“One of the shifters claims another has summoned power from the Great Ones.”
“Power is fleeting. It matters little in the scheme of things.”
She stared at the water, and I realized there was no reflection in it. The water moved but looked to be nothing more than a pool of darkness.
“Torn is involved,” I said.
She looked up. “The Watcher would not have intervened.”
“I saw him. I—”
“You saw nothing, Kate Michaels. You know nothing.”
“Then help us understand,” I begged.
Solera turned away from the small pool, putting her back to me. “I can tell you nothing that you want to hear.”
Aron stiffened. I couldn’t tell, but it seemed to me that anger surged through him. Even though I didn’t know Aron all that well, I’d seen him tense up like that a few times, often enough that it told me he was either ready for an attack—or he worked to suppress a surge of anger.
It was time for me to intervene before he did something he regretted, if he hadn’t already done that. Whatever promise he’d made to Solera was involved.
Ignoring the way Bryan watched me, I stalked around the pool and positioned myself in front of her. “What is it? What aren’t you telling us? Why won’t you even help us with the shifters?”
Solera regarded me with an edge of disdain. “You don’t even know, do you?”
“Know what I am? What kind of magic I have? That’s part of the reason I’m here!”
She held my gaze and I wanted to look away but couldn’t. “Do you even know what it is that you carry?” Her voice was soft, barely carrying to me.
“It’s a demon sword.”
She stared at me with irritation. “Demon. Yes. The mage council is quick to call them demons, though it’s because they don’t understand. And demon might be the translation that makes the most sense, even if it’s not fitting in the traditional way, and certainly not in the way of your religions.”
“They’re not demons?” I looked back at Aron and he stared at Solera’s back, making a point of keeping his gaze fixed there and not on me. This wasn’t news to him. Which meant there was something that he knew that I didn’t.
“What are demons but power, Kate Michaels?” Solera asked.
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
She took a step toward me and her magic surged. It happened with a sweeping sensation that was both uncomfortable and pleasant at the same time. “You carry the Daemon Sword, and you don’t understand?”
“Daemon?” I said the word the same way that she did, elongating the “a” sound, but it felt strange on my tongue. “I’ve seen the demons. I know how dangerous they can be.”
“You’ve seen what they’ve sent across. Servants. That is all. They have a dangerous power, but the same can be said for all powers on the other side of the Veil. It’s through that power that we each coexist, carving out our own sections, Seelie, Unseelie, Daemon, Gorlash, Ancients, and the Dragon.”
I struggled to keep up with what she was saying. I’d heard of the Seelie and Unseelie. They were fae, but they were opposing factions. And if the Daemon represented the demon kings, I had heard of them. Were the Ancients the gods Aron had mentioned? And what did the Gorlash and Dragon realms represent on the other side of the Veil?
Did it have anything to do with what had happened with Ariel?
“Why does this matter? Why are you so concerned about this sword? We took it off a demon who’d crossed the Veil, attacked the city—”
“Attacked on behalf of his master,” she said softly.
I stared at the blade. “This is one of the demon king’s swords?”
“You hold it so easily as if you should know, as if he had sent you, but you don’t carry that power within you, not the way that I would have expected. Yet there’s power within you, Kate Michaels, the kind of power that I don’t often experience these days.”
“What am I?” I whispered.
As much as I might want to help Ariel, the answer to that was what I wanted to know more than anything. If I could discover the answer to that, maybe I could finally have peace with my magic.
“That is a difficult answer.”
“Why?”
“You are something that should not be.”
“Am I a demon?”
Solera watched me for a moment and then turned her attention to the pool of water again, dipping her hand into the water and tracing it around in a circle. As she went, the water began to shimmer before clearing. A reflection appeared, but it wasn’t what I expected. Rather than a reflection from the trees overhead or of Solera, there was a deep forest looking nothing like what we’d walked through to get her. A mist clung to the ground and there looked to be a building made out of the trees.
“What do you see when you look into the water?” Solera asked.
“I see a forest. Not this forest.”
Solera smiled. “Not this forest. No. This is but a pale reflection of a true forest.”
“You mean compared to those on the other side of the Veil?”
“The other side contains beauty that cannot be replicated on this side. There have been attempts, but none have ever succeeded. How could they replicate what took millennia to create?” She glanced up at me, watching with an intensity that reminded me of when I’d first me Aron. “And the fact that you are able to see beyond this pool of water tells me that you’re connected to the magic on the other side.”
We had suspected that. From what Gran and Gramps had said, my mother had chased the kind of power that could only be found on the other side of the Veil. It would have been dangerous, and it likely had cost her life, but what if she had succeeded long enough to conceive me?
If she had, I still didn’t understand how she’d managed to cross the Veil—and then return. From everything that I’d learned of the Veil, a crossing like that would have been impossible without having the necessary power to make it, and even an incredibly powerful mage wouldn’t have had enough magic to have actually crossed over the Veil. She would have needed help.
Why hadn’t I ever considered that before? Probably for the same reason that I didn’t spend that much time thinking about my mother—or my father. There was no point.
“If I’m connected to magic on the other side, why is that such a problem?”
“There have been crossings before.”
“Crossing over the Veil?”
“Crossings between peoples of various power.”
“Like between the fae?”
Solera gave a mysterious smile. “Some within the Seelie court have crossed with mankind for many years. The mages have reaped the benefits, much like the others have benefited from the Unseelie, but that isn’t what I refer to.”
What did she mean that the mages have reaped the benefits? Did mages use those who had been crossed with the fae? And what of the Unseelie?
The Dark Council. That had to be it.
“What is it?”
“As you’ve heard, there are others on the other side who would love to ga
in access to this side.”
“Like the demons.”
“Daemons. If you must use a term, at least use one that doesn’t turn them into something they are not.”
“I’ve seen them. They’re demons.”
Solera tilted her head to the side, seemingly weighing me. “Yes. I suspect that you have seen them. You do carry a daemon sword, after all.”
Did she know that we’d confronted the demon king? How would she have learned about that unless she had some connections within the mage council—or she had some way of feeling the crossing. Seeing how she could seemingly look across the Veil—and show others—I had to wonder if perhaps that weren’t possible.
“I’ve told you about the sword.”
“You’ve told me that you have it, but not how you managed to hold onto it. A daemon sword will search for its master, even on this side of the Veil.”
I glanced back at Aron. He was watching but not saying anything. Had he known?
There hadn’t been any evidence of the demon king coming after me since the last attack. And I suspected Aron would have been aware if there had been. At least Gran and Gramps would have learned.
What if the sword viewed me as its master?
There was no questioning I had been able to use the sword, and that with the sword, I had managed to help prevent the demon king from making the crossing. Was there something I could have done that would have set the sword for me?
If that were the case, then I wouldn’t need to worry about the possibility that the demon king would come after me.
“What if this sword has no master?”
“That kind of weapon must have a master. If something happens to its master, it will search for another. That is part of its creation.”
“By the daemons.”
“By those who are as powerful as the daemons.”
This just kept getting better and better. “Then it’s not a demon—sorry, daemon—sword.”
“It is something else,” she said.
“And what does this have to do with me?”
“Everything, Kate Michaels. Have none questioned the fact that you were able to use the sword?”
“Many people have questioned it,” I said softly.