by Everly Frost
I roll out of the way just in time to scream at Treble. “Fly! Hide in the clouds!”
The last thing I want is for Treble to get hurt—especially if his wings were crushed.
I recover from my shock fast enough to roll out of the way of another branch—this one aimed at my legs. A second branch swings at my head as I try to roll to my feet. It narrowly misses me and hits a nearby tree instead.
An angry hum meets my ears. Ducking between thudding branches I make out the shape of a humblebee hive hanging from the tree that was hit. The hive is a large silver cone that matches the color of the silver stripes on the humblebees’ bodies.
Oh, dear stars. Humblebees are peaceful creatures—unless their hive is attacked. Then they retaliate with swift ferocity and their stings burn like dragon’s fire. The last thing I need right now is a swarm of humblebees ganging up on me with this damn tree. It will only take one more unwanted bump on the hive for the bees to swarm. The tree’s branches have already bruised my ribs, maybe broken a couple. I’m not about to let it pound me into the ground while the bees sting me.
Dodging another swipe and descending into a defensive crouch, my hands shoot upward, starlight shrieking through my arms and up into the attacking branch.
With a crack, the wood splits and shatters, showering me with debris. The tree gives a final groan and its roots burrow into the earth again.
As soon as it stops moving, I wait a beat to listen to the silence around me, breathing a sigh of relief that the bees’ angry humming has stopped along with the tree’s attack.
I jump to my feet, running to Nathaniel to check that he’s okay. He’s unconscious again. Dirt and leaves stick to his wounds and now the chances of infection are a thousand times higher. I scream out my anger as I rise to my feet, my fists clenched, and stand at his side, ready to protect him from the next attack.
“Aura?”
It’s a voice I haven’t heard for many years. Deep, fatherly. The closest to a father I ever knew.
Evander’s dad emerges from the tree line. Like Evander, he has strong eyebrows that draw down with a ferocity that would make anyone run for the hills, but his hair is ash-gray like his eyes. Evander inherited his mother’s Frost power as well as her arctic-blue hair color and her more slender physique. Crispin is bulkier, and somehow even broader and more muscular than I remember. I guess seven years changes people.
“Nice welcome,” I say, calling across the clearing since he hasn’t come closer. “I take it you’re still mad at me.”
“Not as much as you might think.”
He doesn’t have power over nature—only Springtime fae could have controlled the tree just now, so I call out a challenge. “Tell your friends to show themselves or I’ll cast light into their hiding places and make it very uncomfortable for them.”
Five men, equally muscular, emerge from the trees. Judging by the size of their arms and chests, they’re woodcutters. Each of them has dark brown hair shot through with forest-green highlights, a trait that belongs to Springtime fae.
Five men to control one tree.
They’ve learned to combine their power to achieve the strength of one woman. But I won’t belittle their efforts. They’ve figured out how to work together, not against each other, a quality that Crispin tried to teach me. It only made me feel more alone. My power couldn’t be combined with anyone else’s. My starlight kills new plants, burns dead ones, cuts fae instead of healing them, and fails in sunlight. I had no place here in this timber community, but I couldn’t make him understand that.
“Why are you here?” Crispin demands.
“I need your help.”
“What makes you think I’ll give it?”
No reason. Not a damn one that will make up for me walking out on him seven years ago.
“Because I’m asking,” I say.
He hesitates before he strides toward me, his anger growing. “Who’s asking? The Queen’s Champion? The Twilight fae? The girl who turned her back on her community? Or the daughter I raised to know better?”
He stops within the circle of twilight that I’m sending through the dark, his anger rapidly fading as he peers at me.
I struggled to answer his first question. Silence is the only answer to this one.
My hair is already pulling from its bun, my hood askance, so I pull both free as I stand my ground and return his silent stare.
“I was wrong,” he murmurs. “Here stands before me a woman I haven’t met before.”
His gaze drops to the ground—to the person I’m protecting—as if he’s seeing Nathaniel for the first time, but I know he’s been aware of Nathaniel the whole time. Nothing escapes Crispin’s sharp gaze.
“You brought a Fell creature to my door,” Crispin says, his eyes narrowed to gray slits.
“I need you to heal him.”
He peers at me again. “Why does a bright, courageous woman need a dark creature healed?”
“Because he’s the reason I’m bright.” My answer slips from my mouth before I stop it. Too much truth. Without enough explanation.
I brace for Crispin’s response, but he simply nods. “Better not say any more about that.”
He turns to the watching men. “Bring the creature inside. Do it quietly. We’ve already made enough noise.”
I remain close to Nathaniel as four of the men stride toward us and pick him up, two at his shoulders and two at his feet, lifting him as easily as the timber logs they’re used to carrying.
The fifth man draws level with me. He’s older than the others and I find myself gaping up at him. “Gehrig?”
“Little Aura,” he says, a warm smile growing on his face. “I used to carry you on my shoulders through the trees.”
“I remember. Those are good memories.”
He gives me a slow nod. “Better to keep the good memories and discard the bad. I apologize for your reception just now.”
I shrug. “I didn’t expect a warm welcome.”
“It’s not that.” He places a hand on my shoulder, firm enough to make me pause. “We thought you were someone else.”
I frown up at him, but he moves on, entering the room ahead of me. I consider what he could possibly mean. I’m dressed in the same armor as the Queen’s guard. Both Night and Border Guards wear this armor when they ride out on their thunderbirds. Who did they think I was? And why would they attack that person?
Inside, the cabin feels larger than it looks from the outside. The bedrooms are upstairs. Downstairs is divided into two areas: living area and kitchen.
Crispin directs the men to lay Nathaniel on the rug in front of the cold fireplace before he kneels at Nathaniel’s side. “I need the fireplace lit, a bucket of water to clean his wounds, and a knife to cut off his shirt.”
Several of the men set about lighting the fire while Gehrig heads to the kitchen for water. I pull my dagger from my armor, handing it to Crispin as I kneel on Nathaniel’s other side.
Crispin quickly rips through the burned material and carefully peels it from Nathaniel’s chest before rolling him onto his uninjured side to inspect his back. He pauses there, staring at Nathaniel’s back for long enough to frustrate me.
“What are you waiting for?”
He leans on his heels. “I need to be careful. This is not an ordinary Fell.”
“Why do you say that?”
Crispin points to the scars on Nathaniel’s shoulders. “Do you see the mark?”
I know what Nathaniel’s back looks like. “I see scars.”
Crispin leans forward. “Beneath the scars.”
I relocate to Crispin’s side and lean closer, studying the crisscross of cuts across Nathaniel’s shoulders. Nathaniel said he had a cut for every person he’s lost, that a witch crossed them over each other like the prison bars Nathaniel had created for his life. If I squint hard enough, maybe I can also make out an image beneath them, a series of crescents and straight lines inked into his skin.
No amount of squint
ing is going to tell me what the mark used to be. The scars have obliterated its true form. “I can’t make it out.”
“I would have guessed it was a mark of ownership,” Crispin says, “but this creature is nobody’s slave. He’s well fed, strong, and healthy. What do you know about him?”
“His name is Nathaniel Shield. He’s the Fell King’s champion.”
“So I heard,” Crispin says. “What else, Aura?” Crispin tips his head. “Not his name. Not his occupation. Who is he?”
“I don’t know. Not really.” My frustration grows stronger. “Are you going to heal him or not?”
“Of course I will. But if you don’t know who he really is, then you don’t know what you’re asking me to do.”
“I know that I’m supposed to face him in the arena at the end of the third day,” I say, knowing that Crispin will have already heard about it. Even out here in the mountains, news from the city travels fast. “I know that he lost his mother and that she was sick before she died. I know that he’s a fierce fighter and he…” Could kill me.
I swallow. “What I know most of all is that if you don’t heal him, it will destroy every good memory I have of you as the fair and honorable man I know you are.”
Crispin presses his lips together as if he’s holding his tongue.
He turns Nathaniel onto his back again and begins at the heart of the wound—the burn strike from which the flame spread. He reaches for the water and cloth that Gehrig left beside him while we were talking, beginning the task of cleaning out the debris from Nathaniel’s fall.
After he puts aside the cloth, a dark glow begins beneath Crispin’s palms. It’s a deep ebony, much darker than any healing power I’ve ever seen. Much darker than Crispin’s power usually is.
Alarmed, I grab his arm before he can release the power into Nathaniel. “What are you doing?”
He casts a glance at me. His eyes are filled with ebony power, overflowing with darkness. “The sunlight that struck him was created with malice, Aura. Darkness attracts darkness. I must suck out the malice before I can heal him.”
A shiver runs down my spine. “Darkness attracts darkness. Do you really believe that?”
“It’s the nature of the old magic. It’s filled with all the nuances of the human heart: both light and dark, happiness and sadness, anger and love. The new magic we know is made only from light.” He focuses fully on me for a moment. “His attacker drew on malice to make the fire burn more fiercely. She drew on old magic. Maybe without knowing it.”
I release his arm. He’s Nathaniel’s only chance. I have no choice but to trust him.
As soon as the dark light touches Nathaniel’s chest, he trembles, shivers racking his body. I nearly reach out to stop Crispin again. How do I know he isn’t killing Nathaniel quietly? Crispin lost his wife in the last battle with the Fell. It was the reason I was placed with him.
“Trust me, Aura,” Crispin whispers, casting another glance at the hand I’m reaching toward him, ready to pull him away from Nathaniel. “He may be a Fell, but I won’t hurt him.”
My heart remains in my throat until the dark light beneath Crispin’s palm finally changes, becoming golden like it should be. Then new skin begins to grow across Nathaniel’s chest and shoulder, extending down his arm. Nathaniel’s breathing deepens, his features relax, and the color returns to his cheeks.
I can breathe again. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
Crispin leans back with a tired exhale. “He’ll sleep now, but you shouldn’t leave his side. He could wake up at any time and he might not react well to his unfamiliar surroundings. Especially if he thinks we’ve hurt you.”
I nod. “I’ll stay right here where he can see me.”
Crispin pauses in the act of rising, staring down at me. His voice takes on a stern tone, as if he’s shaking his head at me. “Aura.”
I don’t take my eyes off Nathaniel. “Crispin?”
“You didn’t contradict me.”
I turn to look up at him, finding his expression as stern as his voice. “What would I contradict?”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Think about it.”
Without giving me time to demand answers, he gestures to the watching men. “We’re good here. You can all go home.”
“Are you sure?” Gehrig asks, his thick arms folded across his chest.
“I’m sure.” A broad grin breaks through Crispin’s scowl. “If the Fell tries anything, Aura will protect me. If I try anything, Aura will protect the Fell. I’m sure we’ll all get along.”
One by one, the men quietly leave the cabin, slinking out onto the porch and away into the woods. I watch them disappear through the open door until Gehrig closes it behind him with a final smile at me—still warm.
Crispin sets about cleaning up while I relocate to the well-worn armchair near the fire. Curling my legs to my chest, I rest my head back and sink into the familiar leather, inhaling the scents of my childhood.
How is it that a scent can take me back so swiftly? An unwanted burn of tears builds behind my eyes as I remember sitting in front of this fire on many cold winter evenings. Evander loved to leave the doors open and let the frost in, reveling in the crisp air that made him feel alive, while I would huddle in blankets, gazing through the frosty windows at the stars that glittered in the winter sky. Sometimes—often, actually—I’d follow Evander outside and we’d climb the peaks behind the cabin and compete with each other about whose power could make the sky sparkle brighter—snowflakes or starlight.
When Crispin reappears beside me, I smile up into his grumpy face.
“That’s my chair,” he says.
I don’t move. “That’s why I’m sitting in it.”
With a huff, he sinks onto the nearby couch. It’s not quite as well-worn, but it’s still scuffed. It has a couple of frost burns where Evander scorched it before he could control his magic. Or so I was told. That was before I came to live with them.
“I didn’t belong here.” I chew my lip as I stare into the fire.
Crispin sighs out an exhale. “You don’t belong to her, either.”
He means the Queen.
I take a deep breath because I’ve had this conversation with him before. It didn’t end well the first time and it probably won’t end well now. At least neither of us can storm out this time. Well, maybe he can. I can’t leave Nathaniel behind.
“She pulled me out of that explosion, Crispin. I owe her my life. I’ve always owed her.”
He leans toward me with pure vengeance in his eyes, his voice as sharp as claws. “When will you consider your debt paid? When you’re dead?”
I can’t face the certainty in his gaze that he’s right. Will my loyalty to the Queen get me killed? If I weren’t so loyal to her, would I have reacted differently to Nathaniel this morning? Am I already reacting differently to him? And does that mean I’m already less loyal?
Scary thoughts. I don’t want to face them. Not yet.
I say, “If that’s what it takes.”
“No!” He thumps his knee so violently that it makes me jump. He lurches to his feet and paces around the room, skirting a path wide of Nathaniel and all the way around the back of me. He wears the floor down twice—and I don’t try to stop him—before he finally drops back onto the couch, his shoulders hunched over.
He seems to have left all his anger behind on his path because now he only sounds defeated. “I’ve kept a lie for fifteen years,” he says. “A lie I thought would spare you, but now I realize it only made you a slave. You deserve the truth.”
A chill passes down my spine, making me snappish. “What truth?”
He meets my eyes. “Didn’t you think it was strange that the Queen chose to place you with a widower and his son? A home with only men in it? When there are so many other families to choose from?”
I frown back at him. “You lost your wife to the Fell. Evander lost his mother. Imatra knew you’d understand what I was going through. She was looking out for
my heart—”
“Your heart!” He scoffs. “She has no care for your heart, Aura.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “When she came back from the battlefield, she sent out word to every powerful family in Bright. She asked who would volunteer to take you into their home and raise you.”
The crease of denial in my forehead is deep now. “That’s not what happened. She said she chose you—”
“Nobody wanted you.”
His statement drops onto me like a block of ice. I freeze where I sit. Tightness spreads across my chest. My back is stiff, my jaw hurts where my teeth are clenched, and my breathing is shallow. I force myself to operate outside of my feelings, to ask for answers without showing my emotions. “Why?”
“Because nobody knew you existed before that night.”
My demand is short and sharp. “How is that possible?”
“Your parents kept you a secret. Nobody knew they’d had a child, let alone that you had the rarest of all powers. Our first Twilight fae.”
I swallow. Take a breath. Hold my head high. “Okay, so I was a surprise,” I say, trying to rationalize it all. “Why hate me for that?”
“You lived on the border miles away from our civilization, hidden from the rest of us. All it took was one Solstice fae to suggest that you might be the child of a Fell creature. Your parents weren’t alive to deny it or explain why they’d kept you a secret and… well… you know how whispers grow poisonous in Bright.”
I turn away from him to stare into the flames. A log crackles and drops. I taste ash in my mouth. Unable to look at him, I ask, “How did I end up here then? Did she make you take me?”
“I asked to raise you.”
Now I search his gray eyes. Is he telling me more lies to spare my feelings?
“Evander and I heard about you,” he says, his gaze compelling me to believe him. “We understood what it meant to be different, and we were hurting after our loss. Evander especially… He was only a boy, but he already understood very clearly that we were different than other male fae. His mother had been a shield for him against the world, but she was gone.”
Crispin clears his throat. He never cried in front of me, always a rock of endurance. “We went to the city to find you. We knew from the moment we saw you that we had to take you away from that place. You were standing in the middle of the Inner Sanctuary with your little hands clenched as if you were daring the whole world to fight you. Your cheeks were pale and all the light was gone from your eyes… Only the stars know what you saw that night to steal the light from your heart…”