To Carve a Fae Heart (The Fair Isle Trilogy Book 1)

by Tessonja Odette

  With slow, elegant steps, she makes her way to the middle of the balcony and faces the council. She unfolds one sheet of parchment, then the other, reading each before holding them out for the council to see. “King Aspen has named Evelyn Fairfield his champion. Cobalt, on the other hand, will represent himself and has chosen a decision of fate.”

  I blink a few times, staring dumbfounded at the vampire. “A decision of fate? Not a presentation of factual debate?”

  “You heard her correctly,” Cobalt says, chin raised. “It’s set in ink; you can see for yourself.”

  I round on Foxglove. “What in the name of iron is a decision of fate?”

  He returns to wringing his hands, face pale. “I never thought he would choose it.”

  “What. Is. It?”

  Foxglove’s expression turns apologetic. “It’s a matter of magic.”

  “Come, Evelyn,” Cobalt says. “It’s time to journey to the Twelfth Court.”

  Chapter Forty

  “Twelfth Court,” I echo, but no one seems to hear me. Cobalt makes his way to Aspen’s throne, ignoring the shattered arm as he settles in. The council fae exchange excited whispers.

  I turn to Aspen, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “Aspen, I—”

  “Time to fight for my throne,” he growls.

  My throat feels tight at the ice in his tone. I turn to Foxglove. “What’s happening? What is the Twelfth Court?”

  “I told you,” he says. “It’s a matter of magic. The Twelfth Court isn’t a true court, but a realm of magic that connects all courts. Going there is a rare thing, a sacred and dangerous excursion. Cobalt must trust his personal cause greatly to resort to such radical action.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lorelei says. “There’s a chance you can win.” However, the doubt on her face betrays her words.

  “How?” I look from her to Foxglove. “I don’t even believe in magic.”

  The two fae exchange an amused glance as if I’ve said something foolish. “You don’t have to believe in a thing for it to be real,” Foxglove says. “It can exist with or without your blessing, you know.”

  “Perhaps, but how am I supposed to win a battle using something I don’t believe in?”

  Lorelei shrugs. “How do you breathe every day? How do you sleep when you’re tired? How do you perform surgery with your hands?”

  I want to argue with her, to tell her the first two are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and the latter is only done after years of training. But I hold my tongue, remembering the way time slowed down when I tended Aspen’s wound. The way my hands knew what to do, what to feel for. There was something chilling and instinctual about it. Something I still don’t understand.

  “We’re waiting,” Cobalt calls.

  I blanch, finding all eyes on me.

  Foxglove gives me a gentle push toward the thrones. “Go. You can do this.”

  If only I knew what this was. With trembling steps, I make my way to the empty throne and lower myself into my seat. Foxglove and Lorelei stand next to me, a comforting presence at my side.

  I take in the stares of my audience, unnerved beneath their scrutiny. Nyxia watches me with a curious expression, hands steepled at her waist. Behind her, the blue fae with the flowing hair lets out a windy hiss, while the white wolf pants, tongue lolling from between his teeth. The fae with horns and hooves scowls, and the orange fae with scales flicks his tongue at me several times. Melusine, on the other hand, refuses to look my way at all.

  I shift my gaze to Cobalt’s side of the balcony, where Amelie stands at the rail, looking as serene as ever. Even when she meets my eyes, her features remain unchanged. My gaze then roves to Aspen, still surrounded by Cobalt’s guards. His eyes lock on mine. I try not to read too much into his expression, not sure I’ll like what I find.

  Silence falls over the balcony. I lean toward Foxglove. “What happens now?”

  He bends toward me. “Next you and Cobalt travel to the Twelfth Court and petition the All of All.”

  I furrow my brow. “The All of All? Is that some god? Some deity?”

  “The All of All is a culmination of all that is and all that is not.”

  “But what exactly is it? And how do I get to the Twelfth Court? I take it I won’t find a door here on the balcony.”

  Foxglove shakes his head. “The Twelfth Court exists on its own axis, separate from the other courts, yet within them all at once. You can reach it from anywhere.”

  “How?”

  “Enough chatter,” Cobalt says. “Let’s go.”

  “But I don’t know—”

  “If you can’t figure it out, then you don’t deserve to petition the All of All.” With that, he faces forward and closes his eyes.

  My pulse races, mind spinning as sweat beads at my brow. I can’t do this. I was wrong when I made Aspen choose me as his champion. I don’t know how to access an invisible court, how to petition some magical deity. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t know how to get out of this. I messed up. Big time.

  I feel a squeeze on my shoulder, Lorelei’s fingers. I remember her words. How do you breathe every day? How do you sleep when you’re tired? How do you perform surgery with your hands?

  With a deep breath, I close my eyes, trying to shut out my fears, my worries, my regrets. I focus on the feel of my breath rushing through my nostrils, the sound of my blood pounding through my ears, the feel of my heart hammering in my chest. I summon my surgeon’s calm, of hands that remain steady in crisis. I summon my fiery passion, the part of me that chose to open my heart to Aspen, to explore unknown parts of myself. I summon the mysteries I’ve yet to unfold, the instinct I felt when performing Aspen’s surgery, the magic of a little girl putting her hands on the sick. I summon my mother’s strength, her care, and my sister’s reckless love.

  My eyes flutter open, a calm warmth spreading over me. I’m not surprised by what I see, even though the vision before me looks unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The balcony remains intact, but its shape is more liquid than solid, like particles of light weaving together to create a floor, bright glowing orbs of multi-hued radiance to represent the bodies in the audience. I turn my eyes to the sky, finding dark shades of violet and indigo swirling with other colors I can’t put a name to.

  Time isn’t quite frozen, but it isn’t what it was before. It’s slow and fast, gentle and violent. This world is everywhere and nowhere at once. Oddly, the thought doesn’t worry me. It makes perfect sense and no sense at all. I accept it.

  A warm yellow light beckons me forward, and I leave my throne to follow it. I’m subtly aware that my body feels weightless, like I’m nothing more than one of the glowing orbs the council fae have become. I follow the light as it flutters away from me, down what used to be stairs, into a tunnel of swirling particles. The particles give way to darkness, with nothing to see but the light that leads me on and on.

  The light stops just ahead and disappears, pitching me into a black void. My mind begins to sharpen, growing clearer. A violet speck of light begins to pulse in front of me, growing larger and larger, providing subtle illumination. I glance at my hands, aware that my body has returned to its familiar shape and density.

  The speck of light becomes a violet sun. It rises overhead, beaming rays of warmth onto me. As it sets, a crescent moon takes its place and stars shoot across the sky. Violet clouds cover the moon and the sun returns, but my attention snags on something near my feet. Narrow stalks shoot from the ground and open into dazzling violet buds. The petals unfurl into flowers, then tower higher and higher. I walk through the enormous flowers, mesmerized, watching them sway in a warm breeze. The sun shines high overhead, warming my face.

  When the sun sets, the flowers shiver and shake, petals dropping at my feet, each one as large as I am. I run forward, dodging the falling petals, spinning to avoid being pinned beneath them. Once the petals cease falling, the stalks begin to wrinkle and sag, then shrivel back down toward the ground. In
the blink of an eye, there’s nothing. Everything is smothered in a blanket of violet. Silence. Death.

  A flash of panic rises inside me, and all I can think is to run. Escape the nothingness. Then suddenly, something sprouts from the nothingness. Then another. New blooms, born from death. Calm returns to me as I continue on, watching the cycle repeat around me, again and again. After a while, it no longer terrifies me when the nothingness returns.

  As the petals unfurl yet again, I’m starting to wonder if this is all I’ll see, if the Twelfth Court is nothing more than this endless cycle where seasons change and the sky shifts high above. Then a violent breeze sweeps by, blowing away the petals, the stalks, the ground beneath my feet, until only darkness remains. The wind swirls around me, pushing me on all sides, making me lose my balance. As I right myself, a figure stands before me. Like everything else here, she’s composed of violet particles of light. Her long hair flows behind her, like the blue fae on the council. This fae, however, has the wings of a pixie.

  “We get along well,” she says with a mischievous grin.

  “What do you mean?” My voice sounds strange in this place, like a version of me I’ve never heard before.

  She taps the side of her head. “Thought. Intellect. You live your life in your head much of the time, yes?”

  “I do, but…what does that mean?”

  “It means the air in you is the air in me.” With that, she disappears.

  I’m left in darkness again. I take a few steps forward and see something up ahead. It’s small, round. A rock? As I reach it, the rock seems to come to life. It rises on gnarled legs, then turns to face me.

  A goblin. I leap back.

  “I know you,” he says with a snarl.

  My breath hitches. Can it be? This goblin may be violet, but he looks uncannily like the one that chased Amelie and me. “You!”

  “Ah, you remember,” he says. “Vile beasty, you are. Why are you here? Did my claws teach you nothing?”

  “They taught me to fear your kind.”

  “Fear. Pah! You think you know fear? You scared my children. Nearly crushed their toes with your giant beasty boots when you came to my land.”

  “Your children?”

  “Did you not see them playing near the rock? No, your beasty eyes were fixed elsewhere. No respect. No caution.”

  I think back to our excursion to the faewall that day. When we crossed the wall to the other side, I remember seeing nothing but fog. We were hardly on the fae side for more than a few seconds, but I admit, I hadn’t considered our surroundings. I was so fueled with terrified excitement at the time. “I’m sorry if I scared your children, but you scared me and my sister. You glamoured her. You nearly bit her.”

  “Just a nibble,” the goblin says. “A price for making my babies cry.”

  I furrow my brow. I don’t know if I can forgive the goblin for the havoc he wreaked on me and Amelie, but I can understand his motivations, in a twisted sort of way. “I know what it’s like to want to protect the ones you love. To fight for them.”

  “Safety. Security. Family,” he says with a nod. “The earth in you is the earth in me.”

  The goblin disappears and darkness returns. I remain motionless, puzzling over the odd encounter. What is this place? Is any of this real? I continue on through the black nothing.

  I take only a few steps before warmth envelops me. A ball of violet flame emerges from the black and floats around my head. I follow it with my eyes, watching as it undulates and grows, then takes the shape of a beautiful woman. Her hips sway as she dances around me, eying me with scrutiny.

  “You think you’re better than me,” she says, voice light and sultry. “But we know each other well.”

  “Passion,” I say with a shudder.

  She nods, then lunges forward, feminine face shifting into a beastly snarl. “And rage.” I pull back, but her snarl dissipates into a trilling laugh. “That, you know well. The other, you are just getting to know.”

  “Yes.” This time, I know what to say. “The fire in you is the fire in me.”

  She winks, then disappears.

  I take off into the darkness again, eager to finish this strange quest. I need to find the All of All, not these mischievous fae. How do I find this deity? The thought is barely finished before something emerges from the ground. It begins as a bead of violet water and grows, rippling into the form of a hulking horse-creature.

  Kelpie. Of course.

  The creature bares its teeth at me. “Twice you have gotten away. You won’t escape three times.”

  “I won’t bargain with you this time.”

  “No? Isn’t there somewhere you are meaning to go?”

  I try my best to steady my nerves. None of the previous three fae were anywhere near as terrifying as the kelpie. “I am looking for the All of All.”

  “You are lost,” he says. “Stupid human, invading places that are not your own and getting lost on the way.”

  “I’m not lost,” I say. “Looking isn’t necessarily lost. I’m simply on my way somewhere that I have yet to find.”

  “Sounds like lost.”

  I take a deep breath, remembering what the kelpie said when he confronted me and Aspen. “I’m sorry my kind have invaded your land, and I’m sorry humans infuriate you. You love your land, your water.”

  “Fury and love are human emotions.”

  “Yet you have them just the same,” I say. “Admit it. You’re angry that I’ve escaped you twice. Anger is an emotion.”

  The kelpie’s violet eyes burn brighter.

  “You are more than just an animal. You feel emotion.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do, and I understand wanting to deny that. I too have denied emotions before.” I think about how I suppressed my tears after I thought Amelie had died, how I refused to recognize my attraction to Aspen.

  “Humans can deny them?” His tone is curious.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t make them go away.” I take another deep breath. “The water in you is the water in me.”

  I expect the violet kelpie to disappear like the others, but it doesn’t. He just stands there, considering me. Perhaps I wasn’t convincing enough. Finally, he lets out a slow hiss like a sigh. “I will take you to the All of All.”

  I hesitate. “I told you, I won’t bargain with you again.”

  “If you are not lost, I will not require a bargain.”

  I watch him for a few moments, seeking hints of deception. Logic is telling me not to trust the kelpie, but my heart feels calm. “Fine,” I say and climb upon the kelpie’s back. Steadying my hands on the creature’s neck, we take off into the darkness. Time swirls around us, racing and reversing. Hours pass. Seconds pass. No time at all has passed.

  Before I know it, I am on my feet, and the kelpie is nowhere to be seen. I’m again in the black void. A voice speaks into my mind, but it sounds like no voice I’ve ever heard before. It’s quiet and loud, powerful and meek. “You seek us.”

  “Are you the All of All?” My voice sounds harsh against the emptiness, returning no echo, no resonance.

  “We are the All of All,” the voice says. “What are you?”

  “Human,” is all I can think to say. “I am petitioning on behalf of King Aspen for the Autumn Court throne.”

  “What is it you offer us?”

  My mind goes blank. No one said anything about an offering. Besides, what could I possibly have to offer all that is and all that is not? I’m nothing special, have nothing special. Cobalt has lies, words, conviction, passion. I have those things too, but how could mine compare to his? What do I have that he has not? “I…I don’t know.”

  Silence.

  I begin to tremble.

  “You can offer us a look at your heart,” the All of All says. “If your heart is true, we will allow your petition to pass. Do you agree?”

  I swallow hard. “Yes.” With a jolt, a ball of violet light escapes my chest to hover in the air before me.
Images swirl inside it, memories. I see myself, Amelie, Mother. I watch myself giggle and laugh, then scream and cry. I watch as I hug Mother, then shout hurtful words at her. I see myself turn my nose at the sight of Maddie Coleman, watch as I help Mr. Meeks perform an amputation. The violet ball goes still, then shifts. It’s Aspen’s face I see now. I see myself shouting at him, ignoring his smiles, his jests, his flirtations. Then I watch as I fold myself into his arms, lips pressing into his. I watch as I face him as a stag, hand outstretched as I give him my name. Then I see myself on the balcony, using that very name against him.

  The violet light goes still again, then lurches back into my chest. Panic seizes me. There’s no way the All of All will allow my petition to pass after seeing all of that.

  “Your heart has darkness,” the All of All says. “It also holds light. It is smooth and rough, holds hate and love. It is both a wild beast and a tame creature.”

  There’s no use denying it. “Yes.”

  “This is a true heart.”

  Surprise ripples through me. “It is?”

  “There is magic inside it. Things you don’t yet understand. Things you will explore.”

  I nod.

  “We have made our decision.” Before I can respond, the darkness explodes into thousands of particles of violet light. It surges around me, pushing me back. The breath is stripped from my lungs as I lurch through the void, feeling it rushing past me as I’m tossed backward.

  With a lurch, I slam into the back of my throne. I open my eyes, meeting the astonished faces of the council. A collective gasp roars through them. I feel a hand on my shoulder and meet the wide eyes of Lorelei. Foxglove covers his mouth with his hand, gaze sliding to my brow.

  That’s when I feel the weight on my forehead. I reach a hand, finding something firm surrounding my skull like a…a crown.

  I lift it from my head and find a gold circlet decorated with strange, swaying feathers. Or perhaps leaves. It’s delicate and exquisite and breathtaking all at once. My eyes find Aspen’s. His expression is equally as awed as everyone else’s.