by C. K. Sorens
Nicu needed a spell of the intangible. Like a parasite, he claimed the thickened ropes of power and twisted them to his desire, even one outside their preferred shape. A spell cast to cool the inside of a building might twist into a city-wide storm with his command. A Work meant to locate a lost item could be reshaped into a campfire.
The ability to manipulate and change tied him to the barrier, a power created by a mutation of the Veil. The Veil had been a gossamer shield between realms, something Fae could pass through as easily as parting a curtain when they willed it. Now, the magic had hardened, bubbled, a wall of glass unbreakable by every force the Fae and Witches had tried.
Branna was the victim of a darker mutation, one born along with her own rebirth upon a miraculous resurrection. Her chosen color was a reminder to herself and a challenge to the Fae to remember who she was, that her power stood unique among them. Not touched by High Magic, but by the cost of it. Death. Necromancy.
Their curse became the Fae’s gain. Instead of having to assign a pure Fae to the Trimarked Child, they assigned those already tarnished by chaos, a shield to protect the uncorrupted. Bonding the tainted Fae together within responsibilities and as mates left Nicu and Branna unable to connect with the pure Fae, another level of protection.
If the Child proved dangerous, a more powerful Fae would offer their skills. Not a moment before. So Nicu maintained that distance, interpreted his orders to mean the Child had to become a genuine danger, not simply a nuisance. Her chaotic choices might inspire another Fae to interpret her as worthy of removal, but Nicu knew otherwise. This realm birthed chaos, and Ember was part of that. Nothing she had done posed a risk great enough for Fae sacrifice. Nicu would approach the council only if the Child was no longer in control.
Nicu rose from his bow and noticed the tight features and the slight compression of Branna’s lips. She did not share his view regarding his duty between the Fae and the Trimarked Child and considered his definition too broad. They refrained from speaking of it to keep the peace, so it was with only a small twist of trepidation that Nicu posed his question.
“What has encouraged your ire?”
A twitch of her fingers and a flash of her angry mauve eyes gave her wordless answer. Something he’d done, and large enough that she did not want to speak with witnesses. They were going for a run, then. Nicu’s wave to Daz went unseen, the Fae focused on work.
“Good morning!” someone called over the polished cobbles. Nicu and Branna ignored the greeting, knowing it wasn’t for them. They overlooked the intended recipient who looked up from his work to accept the pleasantry, only to blanch at their approach.
“Did I forget to leave my specter at home?” Branna’s quiet words leached her compounded irritation. A nearby Fae heard her tone and rushed away from the building column he carved.
“You could get it a leash,” Edan said. He fell in beside them, and the atmosphere in the courtyard shifted toward calm. As the only untainted Terraborn of their group, Edan brought a sense of normalcy to the unit and tolerance among the Fae increased, then turned to relief as the three passed.
The balm did not reach Branna. They were not far into the upwardly steep path of their woodland jog before her strain snapped.
“Were you aware the Child had not gone straight home?” The words reverberated around them.
“No.”
Branna’s mouth clicked shut when presented with Nicu’s brief, honest answer. She stomped out a few strides.
“Edan said the Ternate has risen.”
“Yes,” Nicu said.
A few more loud footfalls expressed Branna’s displeasure, but it wasn’t long before she re-established patience along with silent steps.
“This may compound the issue.” Her dark eyes studied the tree branches. So she’d hoped for a bigger fight to buffer her own news. “Something is chipping away at the barrier.”
It took Nicu every force of will to keep his body in rhythm against the consistent incline. Could this be Ember? If it was ... He weighed his fealty to the Fae against his duty to the Child for half a heartbeat before putting the question aside. If the hybrid girl caused this, he would debate plans. Nothing could be done until he was certain of the cause. “How did you discover this?”
“I noticed the spirits’ luminescence reflected off pieces of Veil energy last night, glitter dispersed across the landscape. It wasn’t much, barely sufficient to catch my attention.”
“What does that mean?” Edan asked. Nicu opened his mouth for a deep breath, the action meant to hide the tension in his lips.
“I don’t know,” Branna huffed. “Someone’s trying to get out of Trifecta, or break in? They’re tiny fragments, maybe large enough for a thought.”
Nicu rolled his shoulders with the news. The scatter could also be a sign of movement. Last night’s wave wasn’t the first one, but it produced the most violent reaction.
A layer of cold perspiration pricked under the damp caused by exercise. Connected to the barrier, he’d investigated the waves when they’d begun. Clues at the outskirts of human territory and an investigation into who used the area had led him toward Ember. He refocused on potential damage to the Veil’s power. Once he recognized the events as nonthreatening, he had stopped gathering intel.
Because he’d once granted Ember a promise. All Fae had the ability to grant promises, agreements enhanced and enforced by High Magic. These covenants were the basis of much of the humans’ fairy lore and were a way for Fae to engage High Magic on another’s behalf without invoking it themselves. As a young Fae, Nicu had thought this side-step an ingenious way to secure his success with his Fae and Trimarked duties. Instead, it had become another burden, and just as powerful as his blood ties to the Fae.
“Can you identify if this phenomenon is external or internal?” Nicu asked as they rounded a bend that would lead them downhill. There were too many variables within these events for him to assume a cause for Branna’s discovery. Wist’s external experimenter was a likely culprit. Leaping to a conclusion would tilt the balance he fought to maintain.
Branna mimicked his answers. “No.”
“Wist suggested someone tampered with the barrier,” Edan spoke with intention, echoing Nicu’s earlier thought.
“Ember’s house is just off the center of Trifecta.” Branna shook her head. “It could be something different.”
“It could be,” Edan agreed. “Yet, though Ember’s home is far from the border, it is near No Man’s Land.”
Nicu stopped at the bottom of a decline before the mountain rose one last time, then descended the rest of the way to Center. His ability to hide the depth of his agitation cracked, and he turned away, though the wide trees and rocky terrain left little option beyond staying on the path. Three deep breaths returned enough control to allow him to face his companions.
“Do you have more to share?”
Branna shrugged, gestured with an empty palm.
Edan linked his hands behind his back, spread his legs and met Nicu’s demand with silence. Edan was, in part, a spy for the Fae. The only pure Terraborn of the group, he was a vigorous collector of information and the Fae expected him to share. As far as Nicu had seen, Edan preferred to keep most secrets close, both a boon and a frustration.
Nicu’s trust in him was situational. Sending Edan last night might prove a mistake, though at the moment there was no sign he knew anything relevant. It would be redundant to point out Edan was keeping something from Nicu. He hoped, as always, that whatever secrets Edan collected did not prove dangerous.
“This information is not unimportant,” Nicu ground out. “The Chaos Star has risen. Wist has informed us someone is trying to press in from outside Trifecta. Now you find fragments of Veil material around the hybrid’s house. We cannot risk losing control over this. It threatens peace. It threatens lives. We need to gather adequate intelligence so we can react correctly and not be blindsided as we had been with the convergence. Edan, I need to know what your c
ontacts say. Make sure it’s done. Today.”
Edan’s features closed in response to Nicu’s mention of sources beyond the borders. A twitch in his jaw was the only hint the other Fae felt uncomfortable, and a twist to his mouth as if he disclosed something bitter.
“There has been a problem with communication.”
New knowledge. Nicu took a deep breath to ward off the sharp pain reverberating between his temples. A quick scan of Edan’s discomfort showed him it was not the secret he kept most close.
“Is there a way to restore it?”
Edan’s hesitation allowed the natural noise of the forest to drift between them. He stepped closer. “I have an option. I’m not sure it’s viable or what it may cost.” Words unsaid, not Fae approved.
“Then explore with caution,” Nicu murmured.
Edan’s brisk nod acknowledged he’d heard. Nicu studied him a moment longer, then turned to Branna. “Try to discover if these remnants are elsewhere in Trifecta, or solely around the Child’s house before we concentrate on No Man’s Land. I will check for activity there after I assess the health of the barrier itself.”
The pair left him on the path, their direction toward Center. What he had not pointed out, what he could not say, was this was a direct threat to the Trimarked Child. Nicu needed both Edan and Branna to support his balance between duty and was glad they were his team. However, there were too many secrets, too much expectation between them to forge true trust.
Branna would want to address the Elders, if only to end her babysitting responsibilities. Edan would, perhaps, be forced to share secrets even Nicu did not know he had, things best kept unspoken. At this point, it was unnecessary to include the Elders. Nicu was strong in body and spirit. He had worked his entire life to manage control within himself, to use that knowledge to help control her. He was not as quick as Branna or his Elders to assume Ember’s chaos would break the realms further than they were, and had seen no proof she was capable of such a thing, despite her reckless choices.
His caution now proved justified. Today came with sharp awareness that the hybrid girl’s chaos might not be the only he had to fight. He did not appreciate realizing he was unprepared.
Nicu practiced patience as his team dropped behind the next hill, and he was surrounded by solitude. With a pivot, Nicu faced the closest tree, swung a stiff right hook, dented his knuckles against pitted bark, jarred his shoulder, the sound compact and short lived in the thick wood.
6
Aaron
Three miles into a five-mile run, Aaron sagged with the unfamiliar weight of defeat. In search of Brandt, he’d run the asphalt roads, passed homes that faced downhill toward the neighbor’s backyard, space so thick with young pines and owner-planted maple or birch trees that they blocked the view of the house on the next street. He looped along the grid of colonial and saltbox houses, past Brandt’s house to find it silent. Other team members’ homes were still dark in the early Saturday hours. Brandt wasn’t somewhere on the open school grounds where he sometimes crashed when he didn’t want to deal with his dad’s temper.
The skin on Aaron’s back itched with discomfort. He weighed knocking on Brandt’s door as he jogged toward home, but decided against it. Brandt and his dad fought like wet cats, and starting one of their famous shouting matches was not Aaron’s first inclination. His friend would turn up. He always did.
Then again, Brandt hadn’t challenged a Fae before. Aaron tugged at the front of his sweat-soaked shirt. Damn.
Had he found real trouble in this stupidly quiet town? Had he gone after Nicu?
Aaron reached the uppermost street and slowed his jog to a walk, taking this last stretch to cool down. He pulled air in through his nose, careful to keep it measured so the chill didn’t cramp his hot lungs. He stared at his house with trepidation, as if the structure reflected his dad and might tell him through shaded windows or painted columns what mood the old man was in this morning.
Aaron stretched against the stairs of the front porch, a delaying tactic that left him without answers and more cold than cooled down.
He strode through the front door into the entryway. Straight ahead, stairs rose to the second floor. Left took him around to his dad’s study and the living room. To his right sat a long, empty table they only used when members of the team came over for dinner.
“Dad?”
His shout reached every part of the two-story home. Yelling proved the most efficient system for finding each other. Brandt had always joined right in, claiming it was the bachelor’s chosen form of communication, which made Aaron wonder if things would be different if his mom hadn’t died when he was two. With or without her, loud shouts and long workouts had become the language of their small family. For proof, a gruff sound greeted him, muffled by layers of house that told him his dad was in their basement gym.
Aaron passed through the dining room into the kitchen, which was a mess with dirty dishes in the sink, a used blender on the brown granite island and binders full of coaching papers spread out. The basement door hung wide open and he lobbed down stairs stacked under the upstairs set. Gus warmed up with light bench presses.
“Good, you can spot me.” Gus loaded more weights. Aaron noted the plates and mirrored them on the opposite side. “Did you get the car back?”
“Yeah, last night.”
Gus grunted as he rolled his spine onto the bench, then shifted until he aligned himself. His wide leg shorts drooped halfway to the floor, workout clothes the only kind Gus cared to buy from the Witches. Otherwise, it was human hand-me-downs and repairs for Aaron and him, which was basically the wardrobe of all Trifectan humans, though each one had their own preference for new, clean-cloth items.
Aaron settled into a steady stance at his dad’s head, hands out and ready to spot. Gus put the weights down after eight reps and shook his arms out.
“Did any of you idiots break through last night?”
“Oh, yeah,” Aaron said. “The pop heard around the world.”
Gus chuckled before he sipped from his water bottle.
“Back in my day, there was barely enough room for us to fit between the trees. Fewer kids these days, I guess,” Gus mumbled, referring to the low population bust with a frown. Locked up tight, many people didn’t want to add kids to this trap, but that wasn’t what he wanted to discuss.
Aaron hesitated and checked the clock. His dad would go for another set soon.
“So, um.” Aaron bounced, fingers rested on the silver bar. Gus twisted and looked at him with a raised brow. “We talk a lot about how the mages are assholes and such, but uh, could you tell me what they did? At the beginning?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
Aaron winced against the echo bouncing off concrete and mirrors, set his feet and slid his hands toward the bar as if spotting already, a concession of sorts for pissing off his dad.
“Last night, there were some guys saying they could take the Fae,” Nothing like the I-have-a-friend strategy. “Nothing’s happened in twenty years, they think, so what’s up with them, anyway? I wasn’t sure what to say. Not sure if it was possible. Taking a Fae. I just thought, you know, that you would know.”
The added ego boost worked to calm his dad. Instead of boiling over, he sat there at a simmer, face reddened but shoulders relaxed.
“Their arrival messed everything up,” Gus said. “We weren’t rich, but we had it good. State champions of soccer. Not too bad at football, either. Good.”
“Yeah, the glass factory closed, right? Brandt’s dad worked there.” Aaron hoped to move the conversation along by skimming over it himself. “The barrier stopped us from getting materials and we couldn’t send anything out, so—”
“It wasn’t only things, Aaron.” Gus licked his lips and checked the time. “Let me get these out.”
Eight more reps, during which Aaron had to focus on the movement. His dad had fake dropped the bar before to make sure Aaron was alert. Gus appeared too preoccu
pied for that test today. He sat back up and grabbed a towel to mop his face and neck.
“Take a Fae. Yeah, pretty confident you could do that. I could do that. Fist to fist, they aren’t that much different from us. We’re as matched as anyone else who works out the same. But they have magic.”
“But… they haven’t used it against us?”
Gus watched the second hand tick in its circle. Usually he took active rests between sets, skipping or jumping jacks, but Aaron figured his heart rate raced from the effort of their conversation, negating the need.
“This goes back to the Fade. It happened in the three years prior to convergence. No one understood what was happening. The Fae seemed fine enough, a bit confused and… dizzy. The Witches were quick to light an ass on fire if a person tried to start something. It was a strange thing. They’d be here, we’d remember. They’d leave, we’d forget. When they returned it wasn’t new again, it wasn’t amnesia, it was just… We didn’t remember.”
“That’s not so complicated. Why doesn’t anyone talk about it?”
Gus sighed. “Look. The barrier locked everyone in place. No one could fix it. There was some fighting, then the Laws were hashed out. We decided to let you kids be kids and keep the pointless parts out of it.”
Aaron gripped the bar and twisted. “So what happened?”
“What?”
“What did the Fae actually do?”
Gus darkened from within, blood thickened in his neck.
“They are the ones who kept making us forget. I can’t tell you how I know, it’s a gut thing. And when I think about it, if I focus really hard, I’m pretty sure they’re still doing it.”
Aaron wrinkled his brow, not understanding what his dad was trying to explain.
“What do you mean? We don’t forget them.”
“Really? How many times a day do you think about your school teachers? Brandt? The team? And now many times a day do you think of mages, either the Fae or Witch kind?”