by Hannah West
But I halted after only one step, my heart bobbing into my throat like a buoy that had been shoved underwater.
A guest I did not expect stood before me like an apparition, escorted by the head maid, whose mouth hung ajar as she took in the fay’s willowy form and tapered ears.
“Rynna,” I breathed.
She looked different. Instead of sage green, her eyes gleamed deep lavender blue, reminding me of my secret stone. Rather than fawn colored and traced with green veins, as I recalled in my fond imaginings, her skin shone golden. Freckles splashed across her nose and cheeks, matching the rich tawny of her hair. Straying far from her forest home seemed to have caused her adaptive features to undergo their seasonal change from spring to summer early.
“I’m sorry to come unannounced—” she started, but I rounded the table and trapped her in my arms, shaking with disbelief. She laughed near my ear and returned the embrace. “I hoped you would be glad to see me.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, putting enough distance between us to peer at her face, but not enough to lose the fragrance of sunshine on grass and heady tree sap. She smelled like Wenryn.
“I have business to bring before the Realm Alliance.”
“What sort?” I asked, surprised that she would want anything to do with the Realm Alliance. The ancient fay lived in seclusion and secrecy. I hadn’t even known they still existed until they sought out our small troupe in the forest.
“The urgent sort,” she answered. “And when I share it, we’ll be able to talk of nothing else. So, why don’t you show me the shore and tell me how queenship is treating you while we wait for the others to arrive?”
I resisted the urge to interrogate her, seeing as these moments might be the only pleasant ones we shared.
“I’ll set another place,” the head maid said before ducking her head and scurrying away. With a crooked smile, I recalled how unsettling our group had found the presence of the ancient fairies at first. They had seemed almost menacing, but quickly proved to be true allies. I would have died were it not for their healing nectar. And without Rynna and Theslyn’s help storming Darmeska, Valory might never have reached the Moth King’s towering lair.
I pivoted to link arms with Rynna, who stood a palm’s length taller than me, and steered her toward the stairs that would deposit us on the beach.
“How is queenship treating you?” Rynna asked, sending a sideways smile my direction. Her wardrobe was a bit peculiar. She wore a typical loose-knit green garment and boots, but she also sported unseasonable cloth gloves.
“It’s…” I thought of the letter hiding in my jewelry case, the magical stone reposing under the hollow of my throat. “Complicated.”
“You always knew it would be.”
“Yes,” I admitted. Out of habit, I clung to the broad balustrade and kicked off my sandals when we reached the last few stairs, which high tides had eroded and discolored. I sauntered to the water’s edge, letting the evening tide brush over my toes. To the ankle was as deep as I ever dared go. Thinking of creatures residing in the murk of the ocean gave me gooseflesh. I had learned of the existence of the sea folk—and monsters of the deep that even they feared—and now there was no returning to blissful ignorance.
Rynna removed her left glove to grasp a handful of sand, letting it slide through her fingers.
I had dreamed of our reunion every day. I had rehearsed the encounter again and again, fantasizing of losing myself deep in the forest, believing she would find me even if I couldn’t find her. But I hadn’t expected her to come to the palace at Beyrian and didn’t quite know how to conduct myself.
“Isn’t it marvelous?” I asked, gesturing at the view as though she were a visiting diplomat whom I was meant to regale with prosaic chatter.
She swung her gaze back to me and tilted her head in unabashed admiration. “It is something to behold.”
My knees went feeble. Unable to resist, I paced back to her, laced my fingers through hers, and tugged her into the shade alongside the staircase where no guards or meddlesome maids could see us. There, needing no further encouragement, she splayed her gloved hand along my bare side and stroked my bottom lip with her opposite thumb. Her mouth closed over mine, light as the brush of a bird’s wing at first. My lips hungrily responded, and soon her lithe body pressed flush against mine while I grasped a silky handful of her hair.
“I missed you,” I whispered against her lips.
“And I missed you, my mortal dear.” She played with a strand of raven hair that had fallen from its knot. “But you’re not so mortal now, are you?”
“How did you know?” I asked, releasing her to press two fingers against the stone hiding under the loose fabric of my bodice. “Is it so obvious?”
“I sensed it. Was it a gift from the all-powerful queen of Calgoran?”
“Yes. One I might be ashamed of accepting, even if it means I’ll get to live a long time like you.”
Rynna gave a melancholy half smile. “Even elicromancer lives are short compared to ours. They kill one another off or grow tired after a century or two.”
“I may not keep it that long,” I sighed. “I’m not sure the Realm Alliance can afford more controversy.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Our foreign allies don’t want to associate with a realm whose most powerful citizens can bring plague and devastation on a whim. Nissera is recovering the best we can, but the ruler of my home country is inventing excuses to sever diplomatic ties. If he learns that Valory is giving out elicrin stones to mortals, he will have even more reason to.”
A voice carried from the veranda, soaring above the whisper of the waves. “Kadri!” Fabian called. “They’re here!”
“Coming!” I called back, and pressed my lips to Rynna’s for one last, long gratifying kiss. “We’ll have more time together after dinner,” I said, kicking up sand as I returned to the foot of the stairs and wriggled back into my sandals.
“I’m not certain we will,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She removed her remaining glove. A textured gray crust coated the back of her hand. Peering closer, I noticed that it looked similar to the leafy lichen I’d seen sprouting from tree trunks in the woods.
But this seemed to be affixed to her flesh, or even…growing from it.
“There’s something dark where the Water used to lie,” she said gravely. “Something has taken its place, and it’s destroying the forest. It’s destroying us.”
She scratched at the base of the thumb where the growth met bare skin. She plucked away a tiny leaf, but grayish-red blood bubbled up in its place. I gasped. By the set of her jaw, I could see it was painful.
“That’s what happens when we try to remove it,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “A few have bled to death trying.”
I stared, too horrified to say anything. The ancient fay were supposed to be untouchable, sheltered from the problems that rattled the rest of Nissera. “What could it be?” I finally managed. “A remnant of the Moth King’s power? A disease? A curse?”
“We don’t know. But it’s made Wenryn uninhabitable,” she explained, forcing her voice to remain even as she slid both gloves back on. “Our fruits and grains spoil before we can eat them. We can’t sit idle for even a moment; the growths only spread faster. Those of us who were able to departed from Wenryn, but Malyrra was too weak. She stayed behind. Theslyn is leading the others to safety.”
“What about the nectar?” I asked, sorrow crushing my chest at the thought of Wenryn being invaded, changing and darkening. “It healed me from the blight disease.”
“It’s soured,” she said. “I hope you elicromancers are able to stop this. We can’t seem to.”
The way she so casually counted me among the elicromancers struck fear into my heart. This wouldn’t be like the journey north, when I followed along and fought when necessary. No, I was a leader now. Ridding the forest of this foul intru
sion would be as much my responsibility as everyone else’s.
“You came to our aid when we needed you.” I took her gloved hand in mine. “The Realm Alliance will help save Wenryn and your people.”
SIX
KADRI
BUT the Realm Alliance was short two of its members today.
There were so few of us to begin with that the absence of both Glisette and Valory made the pit of fear inside me yawn wider.
Something felt off.
Glisette had departed for Perispos, dispatching her brother to the meeting in her place. After several days, Valory hadn’t returned from answering the distress call that even Mercer knew nothing about.
It was nearly impossible to muster concern for Valory’s safety now that she was so powerful. If anything, I was irritated by her ill-timed absence. She did have a prophetical lover in Mercer, after all, and should have known this meeting would be important. And even though she couldn’t materialize, she could use the portal box King Tiernan had given her to arrive just as swiftly.
Her truancy left six of us, seven including Rynna, scattered along the first row of seats in the meeting chamber overlooking Beyrian Bay: Mercer; his brother, Tilmorn; Fabian; Devorian; Valory’s cousin Melkior; and me.
The other tiers of benches rising from the circular center of the room remained empty. The rest of the former Realm Alliance, those who had not been murdered by the Moth King, had fled back to their towns or countries of origin.
Even Rayed had left. Erdem had given him no choice.
Eventually, we would need to invite more leaders back into the fold: mortals, nonroyals, foreign diplomats, and advisors with governing experience. Yet the hidden rifts and deep-rooted deceit in the former Realm Alliance, which the Moth King had gleefully exploited, gave us pause. Our new administration was too new, too fragile to make the mistake of allowing an untrustworthy person into our ranks.
While Rynna explained the plight of her people, I studied my comrades’ faces. Mercer was a tense shadow perched on the seat nearest the wall of windows, the setting sun skimming the top of his tousled dark-blond hair. Next to him, Tilmorn cut a similar, but bulkier, outline. They both absently stroked their chins, and though I had to squint against the light, I found identical consternation carved into their foreheads. Surely, surely, one of these elicromancers would recall something pertinent from their dense elicrin history books. Surely one of them would recognize the growth on Rynna’s hand as an obscure curse that could be broken, or a matter of magical botany with an antidote—perhaps a potion brewed during a full moon and boiled with the bones of an enemy, or some other archaic elicrin nonsense. But they remained silent.
I toyed with my bangles as Rynna concluded, “It has not worsened since I left the rotting area of the woods. But the rate at which the ruin has taken over our forest troubles me. We already lost the northern stretch to the Moth King’s fires. We can’t allow this to invade what remains.”
“We should have anticipated this,” Mercer said grimly. “Whenever deep magic is eradicated, it leaves a gap, a hollow place of power. It presents an opportunity for another supernatural force to establish dominion. It’s just like—”
“Otilien’s Shrine,” Tilmorn finished, exchanging a look with his brother.
“It’s an old story from our region in the mountains,” Mercer explained to the rest of us, “about a warrior who defended his village from invaders. After he died, the village built a shrine to honor him, a statue that wore his armor and stood over his grave. Before the dry season or on the eve of battle, the villagers would spit on his helm and polish it for luck. They prospered for decades. But when Otilien’s son was preparing to die of old age, he asked to be buried in his father’s armor. The villagers reluctantly honored his last wishes. The very night of the son’s funeral, a storm destroyed their crops. Lightning struck Otilien’s shrine. It cracked the sepulchre and toppled the statue. The villagers dug up the armor, but it had lost its power. Season after season, the land refused to yield. Outsiders pillaged until nothing was left. The villagers believed their home was cursed and eventually abandoned it. It’s one of many stories our elders told to teach us not to disturb powerful magic.”
“So you’re saying that when Valory accidentally dried up the Water, she left an empty space that would inevitably be filled?” I asked.
“Yes. By something more sinister,” Mercer clarified. “By the laws of magic, a broken blessing becomes a curse.”
“More sinister than a pool that kills someone if they aren’t magical enough?” I scoffed.
“How do you know its point of origin is the Water pit?” Melkior asked, training his regrettably rodent-like eyes on Rynna. He tapped his knee with a removed expression while he spoke. There was something squirmy about Melkior, but if Valory trusted him, then I did too. The alliances in this room had been forged in fire and were iron-strong.
“Theslyn saw it there before it spread,” Rynna replied. He encountered the pit not far from our dwelling. It used to lie in the burnt stretch of forest, but it’s moved closer.”
“At least that is not abnormal,” Melkior said. “The Water has always moved to protect itself, to remain secret.”
“I think, this time, it moved so it would have life to feed on,” Rynna replied. “Whatever inhabits the pit now couldn’t flourish surrounded by scorched earth.”
“So, what do we do?” Fabian asked.
“We should help Wenryn’s people first and then try to stop the invasion of their lands,” I said. “Can you heal her, Tilmorn?”
After the Moth King’s fall, Valory had taken Tilmorn’s elicrin gift and given him Melkior’s, changing Tilmorn from Purveyor to Healer. In turn, she had stripped Knox Rodenia of his gift and made Melkior an Empath in his stead. Unfortunately, the Moth King had targeted the Healers in Nissera so that the blight plague could run rampant. As far as we knew, Tilmorn was the sole remaining elicrin Healer, a demanding role that Melkior was relieved to turn down. So many desperate hopes rested upon Tilmorn’s shoulders each day. Today, they were mine.
“Whatever this is may not submit to elicrin power,” Mercer warned delicately.
But Tilmorn rose to his impressive height and strode forward. Even the lissome, tall fay looked diminutive as Tilmorn approached her and cradled her hand in his. He made a brief study of her ethereal features before blinking down at the lichen growing on her otherwise perfect flesh. Rynna watched him, head cocked, eyes radiant as violet gems splashed with starlight. A prick of envy pinched my navel. But as a bright light swirled in Tilmorn’s smoke-gray elicrin stone, Rynna slid her eyes to meet mine, quirking up the corner of her mouth, and my grudging feelings subsided.
But then she cried out in agony and tore her arm free of Tilmorn’s hold, collapsing to the floor. I ran to her.
She whimpered as I peeled her hand away from the afflicted flesh. “I can feel it deepening its hold,” she said.
Nothing had changed that I could see, but the terror in her eyes was a dagger twisting in my gut. I had survived the blight disease. I knew how it felt to fear my own body, to sense a wrongness taking hold.
Tilmorn clenched his giant fist, staring at it as though it had betrayed him.
“What do we do?” I asked. I despised the desperation in my voice.
Mercer stood and strode to the mosaic sea serpent coiled at the center of the tiled floor. “We should materialize to the woods and study its source.”
“And risk exposure to it?” I asked.
“Unless you’ve a better idea.” Tilmorn hiked up a brow and the faint, shiny scars marring his skin caught the light.
I didn’t know what to say. We didn’t even bother to reach an official consensus before the boys began to gather the weapons they wore out of habit and don their spring cloaks.
Fabian’s mother, Queen Jessa, had so gracefully commanded the powerful people who used to occupy this room. Yet here we were, acting on rash ideas, no strategy in sight. Glancing up at the rows of em
pty seats where many noble leaders once sat, I wondered whether we would ever truly fill those spaces that death had left vacant.
I wondered whether King Agmur was right to doubt our competency.
I nearly admonished Mercer and the others for being so impetuous. But this was Rynna at stake. And Wenryn. So I was silent.
Mercer pecked a farewell kiss on my cheek and followed Tilmorn, Devorian, and Melkior as they flung open the chamber doors. They would materialize as soon as they passed through the magical barrier, beyond the front gates that faced the city.
“Be careful!” I called after them, feeling like a young girl excluded from a rough-and-tumble boys’ game. As far as they knew, I possessed no elicrin stone and could not come. Fabian brushed a kiss on my temple and followed the others, his steps confident.
When I could no longer see him retreating, I reentered the meeting chamber. Rynna stood with her back to me, looking east over the bay. I felt yanked in two directions; I wanted to stay and comfort her, bask in her presence to ease the dark fear squirming in my heart. But I also wanted to join the others and defeat this scourge through outright determination.
Huffing a decisive breath, I turned and started the journey back to my upstairs quarters, pacing past servants lighting lamps in the corridors. Rynna followed me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going with them. I’m going to materialize.”
“Have you even learned to do that yet?”
“No.” I checked to make sure my room was empty and locked the door behind Rynna. I shoved aside the beaded crimson curtain of my boudoir and yanked open the bottom drawer of my wardrobe, tossing out undergarments as I hunted for the volume of basic elicrin enchantments Valory had given me. Rynna caught a lace corset, eyeing its rigid shape with a mixture of intrigue and mistrust.
“I understand that you want to take action,” she said. “But this is dangerous.”
“How hard could it be?” I asked. “You say the spell and you imagine where you want to go.” I hauled out the heavy book and plopped it on my desk. It exhaled a puff of dust as I began to riffle through pages of Old Nisseran spells. I had a proclivity for languages and already knew many of the spells by heart, though I’d have to ask Valory about the pronunciation of the more complicated ones.