Elder Jarlath walked to the altar and placed his hands palms down on the surface. “You may sit,” he said, and we all did as asked. He looked around the room, and then began, “Citizens of the Sanctuary,” he said. “Last night, two refugees arrived at our border after the long, treacherous journey through Hypernia.” The citizens smiled at us, looking up at us with pride, and Elder Jarlath continued, “May I present our newest arrivals, Selena Pearce and Julian Kane!” He motioned toward us, and the crowd applauded. Not the raucous applause of the fae in the Coliseum, but the kind, welcoming type meant to make us feel at home.
It reminded me of whenever we welcomed a new supernatural to Avalon.
Elder Jarlath waited for the applause to die down. Then, he continued, “Selena and Julian come here in peace,” he said. “However, they aren’t your typical half-bloods. They’re chosen champions, gifted with magic from the Roman gods and forced to play in their cruel, barbaric Faerie Games.”
Light blue and steel gray shimmered in my peripheral vision, and the crowd gasped at the sight of my and Julian’s wings.
Their welcoming expressions twisted into suspicion and fear.
“Their kind has no place in the Sanctuary!” a half-blood in the back yelled, and that was enough to start the chaos.
“They can’t be trusted!”
“They’re spies from the Empire!”
“Send them away!”
“They can’t know of our existence! They must be silenced!”
About half of the crowd stood as they expressed their outrage, glaring at Julian and me like we were monsters to be slain. Verbal abuse, coming from everywhere.
The worst part was that they weren’t necessarily wrong.
A tall, slender woman in the front shot a red ball of magic toward us, and Elder Jarlath shot it down with magic of his own.
My magic stirred, urging me to fight back. But I pushed it down. If the people of the Sanctuary were going to trust me with the wand, I couldn’t strike against them. That would only make a bad situation worse.
Julian also didn’t move. He was as stone cold as ever as he faced the crowd.
Elder Jarlath raised his hands, and some of the people sat. Others remained standing, their hands glowing with magic, ready to defend themselves. “Guards!” he said, and he looked to the side of the room, where a few men and women stood at the ready. Liam and Niall were among them. “Apprehend Lady Caitlin for her attempt to harm our latest arrivals. But keep her by your sides, in the temple with the rest of us. She needs to hear what I’m about to say. We will determine her punishment later.”
Two of the guards dragged the woman—Lady Caitlin—from her seat. They snapped cuffs around her wrists, and the cuffs glowed gray. Their magic extended outward into small domes around her hands. Her beautiful dress faded away, revealing the plain brown frock she was wearing under her glamour.
She stood straight as she followed the guards to the wall, and she shot us another death glare on her way there.
The first man who’d spoken out against us pushed his way out of his pew and stood in the aisle. “Allowing them in here is a disgrace!” he said, and then he spun around, walked to the door, and reached for the handle.
The door wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard he pulled.
He spun to face the altar, his face red with anger, and pointed at Elder Jarlath. “You can’t trap us in here!” he said. “It’s against the laws of the Sanctuary for free half-bloods to use their magic against unprovoked citizens!”
“Yeah!” said a woman in the middle of the crowd.
“Let us leave!”
More chaos. More chanting.
It was just like the crowds in the Coliseum.
My head spun, and electricity sizzled under my skin. Everything that had happened in the past few days—all of the impossible decisions I needed to make—it was just too much. My magic was an angry hurricane, begging to be unleashed.
Because I was just like them. My natural magic was bound, and I was oppressed by the fae.
Why couldn’t they see that I wanted to help them?
Suddenly, the crowd silenced. They stared at me, frozen, many with their jaws dropped and their eyes wide. Even the angry man at the door’s face had paled.
“Selena,” Julian said softly. “You’re glowing.”
I looked down at my arms. Sure enough, tendrils of electricity danced like crazy across my skin. The magic crackled and popped, the only sound in the otherwise quiet room.
“The chosen one with lightning magic,” said an elderly woman in the center of the crowd, her voice full of awe. She was a bound half-blood, although she didn’t hide her tattoo. She bore it with pride.
For the first time, being called their chosen one didn’t feel like a burden.
It felt right.
I stood up and controlled my electricity so it danced across my skin. “Yes,” I said, and as if my magic agreed, sparks of light flew up from my fingertips and arched into a bright bolt above my head. “Not only am I a chosen champion, but I’m a half-blood with bound magic, just like many of you. And I’m here to help you.”
A few people cheered. I pushed more electricity into the bolt arched over my head, and more of them joined in. Some of the half-bloods still looked at me skeptically, but most were enraptured by what my arrival represented.
Freedom.
“This all sounds grand,” said the woman who’d attacked me and been apprehended by the guards. Lady Caitlin. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Julian. “But who, exactly, are you?”
Julian stood, pulled two swords from the ether, and threw them up in the air. They poofed away right before hitting the ceiling. “I’m Julian Kane, chosen champion of Mars,” he said. “Selena’s my soulmate. We’re the first soulmated champions to ever play in the Faerie Games.”
“Then how are you here?” she asked. “From what I know of the Games, only one survives.”
“We made it to the final two, but not even the gods wanted to force one of us to kill the other,” I continued, feeling stronger now that Julian was standing by my side. “So Juno banished us from the citadel. But with help from the Sibyl of Cumae, and even Queen Gloriana herself, we found our way here. We don’t stand with the Empire. We stand with you.”
I looked to Julian, and he gave me an approving nod.
Elder Jarlath stood as well, and the crowd silenced. “Only one true test will show us if Selena’s the one we’ve been waiting for,” he said. “It’s time for her to claim the Holy Wand.”
37
Selena
Elder Jarlath looked at Liam and Niall. They stood at full attention next to a small door. “Elder Liam, Elder Niall,” he said. “Bring in the box and place it on the altar.”
My mouth nearly dropped open when he addressed Liam and Niall. Elders Liam and Niall.
No wonder they hadn’t stood when Elder Jarlath had entered the room last night. They were nearly equals.
Were all of the guards Elders?
Liam and Niall bowed their heads simultaneously. Then, they opened the door and walked into what seemed to be a smaller room attached to the temple.
They returned a few seconds later, carrying a crude wooden box that was about half a foot wide and about four feet long. They looked like pallbearers bringing in a coffin.
They walked up the steps, onto the platform, and placed the box on top of the altar. They opened the lid, bowed their heads slightly to me, and left the stage.
Elder Jarlath stepped to the side and motioned for me to approach the altar. “Selena,” he said. “It’s time.”
I stepped up to the altar and looked down into the box.
Wands weren’t used by any supernaturals on Earth. But in fiction, they were usually plain, straight sticks of wood.
This was nothing of the sort.
The wand was three feet tall, perhaps slightly more, and it took up the majority of the box. A light blue crystal about the size of a baseball sat on the top
of it like a flower. The “stem” was the perfect size for me to wrap my hand around it, with smaller light blue crystals embedded into it from the bottom to the top. Each one was progressively larger in size.
I held my hands above it, feeling the magical aura seeping out of it. The magic floated up through my palms, and warmth hummed inside of me. An ember trying to break free from an inescapable place of darkness.
Not the magic that had been gifted to me by Jupiter.
My magic. The fae magic locked inside of me. I’d occasionally felt it during times of strong emotion, but it had never thrummed like this, like it was trying to push its way free.
I lowered my hands, and light hummed to life in the center of the crystals. A breeze stirred around me.
This is it, I thought. The moment of truth.
Not wanting to delay it any longer, I reached down, wrapped my hands around the middle of the wand, and held it up in front of me.
Electricity rushed through me. It lit up not just my skin, but the wand, too. The energy grew and grew, and then a bolt of lightning punched through the ceiling and struck the crystal on the top, like it was powering up the gem.
Magic traveled through my veins and exploded in a burst of light in my core. It rushed outward like water breaking through a dam, surged out of my palms, and swirled around me in a brilliant helix of silver and violet.
I sucked in a deep breath and inhaled the delicious scent of flowers and vanilla. This wasn’t just my fae magic. It was my witch magic, too. They were one—a combination merged together, feeding off each other, one unable to thrive without the other.
How had I existed before this? Every prior moment had been dark in comparison—cold and colorless. Jupiter’s magic had made it brighter, but this was different.
This magic was from inside of me. A part of me that had been ripped away, locked in a box and unable to break free.
Now, I was finally whole.
The magic sank into my skin and settled in my soul. The crowd returned to view, all of them staring at me in awe. Flowering vines climbed along the walls and the pews. The altar was gone—reduced to a circle of ash around my feet. But the ash bloomed with flowers, life emerging from death. Sunlight shined around me from the hole in the ceiling where the lightning had broken through.
The first row of people sank down onto their knees, their palms together in front of them, their eyes lowered in respect. The rest of them followed in a wave toward the back, until they were all kneeling in front of me like they were praying to the gods.
Julian drew a sword from the ether and stared down at the crowd, ready to fight anyone who might rise against me.
Elder Jarlath surveyed the crowd and beamed. “The people of the Sanctuary have guarded the Holy Wand for over a thousand years, waiting for it to show us the one who will lead us to the next era of peace,” he said. “Now, she has finally arrived. All hail Selena Pearce, the new Queen of the Otherworld!”
“All hail Selena Pearce!” they said in unison.
My heart stopped in my throat, and I tightened my grip around the wand.
The new Queen of the Otherworld?
No.
I stepped back, icy tendrils of fear seeping through my veins as I looked out at the hopeful crowd. Yes, I wanted to free the half-bloods if I could… but the Otherworld wasn’t my home. And I certainly had no intention of being its queen.
I glanced to Julian for help. But he was still standing at the ready, prepared to protect me if necessary.
Elder Jarlath moved closer to me, although he remained focused on the crowd. “The word of the Founders, passed down from generation to generation, promises that the queen will use the wand to free the half-bloods from bondage,” he said. “Who will be the first to step forward so she can release you from the dark magic inked upon you by the fae?”
The free half-bloods glanced around at the brown garbed ones around them.
The bound half-bloods shuffled on their knees and murmured amongst each other. None of them met my eyes.
My heart fluttered in panic, and I looked to Elder Jarlath. “I need to practice first,” I said. “With someone who can teach me how to use the wand.”
“No one has been able to touch the wand since it arrived at the Sanctuary,” he said simply. “Queen Gloriana was the last to use it. None of us know how.”
I froze.
Why hadn’t Queen Gloriana given me a heads-up about this when we’d dined together?
“No.” I thought back to my training with Finn and Bryan, when I’d practiced using my magic on rats. I’d hated practicing on animals, but it was better than the alternative. “I won’t use you as test subjects. I need time to learn how to use the wand.”
“The Holy Wand is your destiny.” He held my gaze, daring me to defy him. “You will be able to use it on instinct. Besides, there’s no way to practice freeing a half-blood from the tattoo. You can either do it, or you cannot.” Nonplussed, he turned back to the crowd. Then, he smiled. “Who wants to go first?”
I looked desperately to Julian, silently begging him to be the voice of reason. He was far better at that than I was.
But he returned his sword to the ether, his eyes as hard and determined as ever. “I trust Selena,” he said. “And I’m ready for her to set my magic free.”
38
Selena
Julian and I stood there, our eyes locked.
He showed no signs of fear.
My hand trembled around the wand.
“No,” I said through the lump rising in my throat. “I can’t.”
“Just focus on healing me.” He stepped up in front of me, faced me, and sank down to his knees. “Focus on releasing this poison from my body. All of it.” His intense, ice-blue eyes stayed locked on mine.
He believed in me. He’d always believed in me.
Every time he had, he’d been right to push me beyond what I thought I was capable of doing.
But what I was feeling now wasn’t a lack of belief in myself.
It was fear. Fear of doing something—anything—that might accidentally hurt Julian.
“You won’t hurt me, Selena,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “You’ll free me.”
My eyes teared, and I nodded. Because of course I wanted to free Julian. Magic was an integral part of the souls of all supernaturals. Suppressing it—especially at birth—was unnatural and cruel. Julian deserved to be able to use his magic, just like I always should have been able to use mine.
The wand thrummed with warm, soothing energy. A faint glow pulsed in the centers of its crystals. Its magic filled me, connected with the electricity inside my veins, and softened it. My fae and witch magic swirled through me and evened out the volatile electricity, too.
The wand continued to pull at my magic, and the crystals glowed brighter and brighter.
Allow the wand to harness your magic, the words fluttered over my skin, more of a breeze that I instinctually understood than words I truly heard. Conduct it through the crystals.
Confidence rushed through me.
I can do this.
I reached for the wand with my other hand, so I was gripping it with both of them. Then I released my floral witch magic, my soft fae magic, and my wild lightning magic out through my palms, into the wand, and up into the crystals.
A beam of light blue, silver, and violet flooded out of the top crystal and surrounded Julian like a cage. It glowed brighter, and then tendrils stretched out of it and pierced his body.
He swayed back, his chest arched toward the ceiling, and he sucked in a long, pained breath. Sweat beaded his brow. The tendons in his neck tightened, and I could tell he was holding in a scream.
I tried to rein in my magic, but it fought against me. It had sunk its claws into him, and it didn’t want to let go.
His face twisted in agony, like my magic was ripping out a piece of his soul.
“Julian!” I screamed, and I tried running forward, but my feet were cemented in the groun
d.
Stop, the non-voice that I suspected was the wand’s fluttered over me. We have to remove the poison.
Slowly, the tentacles of magic piercing Julian’s skin sucked out beads of red. The red was a deep, blood-red. The same color as the tattoo.
My magic was literally sucking out whatever poison the faeries had inked into his soul. More and more of it came out, until it trickled down to practically nothing.
Once the last of it was gone, my magic released him from its grasp and flickered out.
Julian sat back on his heels. His wings shimmered, and an ice-blue ripple spread over them. It was the same color as his eyes. The blue mixed with the steel gray, swirling around and settling into a beautiful pointillist combination of the two. His wings looked so magical that I was breathless.
He opened his palms, and balls of blue light hummed above them. They floated upward, followed by more, like bubbles as they danced around and popped into little fireworks of light.
He stood up, his eyes dazed as he watched the bubbles of light escape from his hands. “Fae light,” he said, and then he turned his loving, adoring gaze back to me.
“Your wings,” I said softly. “They changed.”
“So did yours.” He stopped releasing bubbles of light and used his magic to create a thin, square, reflective ice-blue sheet in front of me.
A mirror.
My wings were a stunning combination of light blue, silver, and violet. The colors sparkled, iridescent and otherworldly. A mixture of my three types of magic.
I balanced the bottom of the wand on the ground and twisted around to make sure what I was seeing was correct. Sure enough, the part of my wing that I could make out over my shoulder looked the exact same as it did in Julian’s magical mirror.
The mirror disappeared, replaced by Julian’s face where I’d been looking at my own.
“You did it,” he said. “You freed my magic.”
I knew in my gut that it was true, but my eyes wandered to his bicep anyway. “Are you sure?” I asked softly.
The Faerie Wand (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 4) Page 16