by KC Kingmaker
She palmed the locket. It didn’t seem to burn her the way it had me.
“That’s odd,” I said, cocking my head. “I’m practically immune to heat.”
She opened the circular locket and a sharp inhale flared her nostrils in surprise. “Merlog be damned,” she muttered. “Look.”
She turned the pendant to me, which I’d never seen inside of before. I just knew she always had it.
The inside had four nondescript runes sectioned off between a cross. Three of the runes were bland and gray, but the upper left one blazed red and orange, swirling like liquid flames.
“All four of these runes were gray before now,” she said, pointing at it excitedly. “But this one is—”
“The color of fire,” I finished for her.
“What do you think it means?”
“By the gods, I have no idea. You’re sure it wasn’t lit up before now?”
Her eyes narrowed and I could practically see the cogs turning in her head. “Not before we . . . made love, perhaps?”
My eyes bulged. Well that’s an interesting development. But by all that’s sacred, what the fuck does it mean?
A flicker caught the corner of my vision, like a bug hovering directly over Levia’s shoulder.
“Leviathan,” I rasped hoarsely, scanning the trees behind her.
She saw I was looking past her and her eyes widened as she looked over my shoulders, and that’s how I knew we were in trouble.
Shadows had appeared in the tree limbs to surround us, midnight black against the backdrop of the purple sky above. They stared down ominously from their perches.
One of the figures stepped out of the darkness on the forest floor and approached, partially illuminated by a tendril of moonlight that washed over his slim, tall form and pointed ears.
He cocked an alien head at us, his eyes pure black in his dark, woody frame. My skin rippled with nerves.
His voice was high and almost painful to my ears. “Ah, a dragon shifter and an Unscaled traipsing through our woods, entangled in our branches. But who told you it was wise to fornicate against our tree-kin, hmm?”
25
Levia
COALT AND I DIDN’T bother fighting the strange people surrounding us. We were severely outnumbered and even Coalt looked unsettled by them—not the confident shifter he’d seemed around Unscaled, even when circled by eight of them.
Plus, I was in no condition. After our torrid, life-changing lovemaking, and the story I’d spilled on him like a hot waterfall, I was exhausted.
The tall being who had spoken to us pointed the spear he held at our piles of clothes. “You’d best throw those on and come with us.”
Well, at least he’d give us that. He wasn’t going to imprison us naked.
“You’re the forest fae?” I asked hesitantly.
“No,” he said in a droll voice, “we’re the forest beavers.”
I raised a brow. Okay, so these people are at least a bit whimsical. But why does his smile look so creepy?
In fact, everything about them was creepy: the leaves and hide clothes they wore, the twigs and ornaments in their long, straggly hair, the black eyes settled deep in their smooth faces. And how did he know I’m Unscaled and Coalt’s a dragon shifter? It probably wasn’t too hard to tell with me, but with Coalt?
We quickly changed into our clothes, slightly embarrassed as we wriggled into them. The company of fae watched with unabashed amusement the entire time.
Once finished, I grabbed Coalt’s hand at my side and faced the leader with an upturned chin. I wouldn’t let him scare me, even if his depthless gaze was unnerving.
“Follow us and we won’t have to bind you,” the man said.
“And if we try to run?” Coalt asked.
The fae shrugged nonchalantly. “Then we’ll knock you out and drag you with us.”
“So this isn’t a welcoming committee, then,” I said. “It’s a kidnapping.”
“Call it whatever you want, child. Just don’t leave our sight, or I’ll turn the forest against you.”
I fell behind him as he started through the trees. Coalt was right next to me. There were at least five fae in front of the leader and five behind us, keeping us hemmed in.
“You can do that?” I asked. “Control the forest?”
“Do you really want to find out?” he called back.
The branches did seem to curl out of their way to allow the fae passage, even as they slapped back into mine and Coalt’s faces. It was strange.
“Do you have a name, Vero? So I don’t have to call you ‘fae’ the whole time?” I asked.
“Well, it’s certainly not ‘Vero.’”
“My apologies,” I said. “It’s simply an honorif—”
“I know what it is, child.”
“I’m not a child,” I spat.
“To me you are.”
I shook my head and just decided to stay quiet. This fae was clearly quite clever and argumentative. I’d always heard fae were a sneaky folk and now I was seeing it firsthand, the way he twisted my words and chided me like I was, well, a child.
“It’s Aru,” he said after a time.
Ah, we’re getting somewhere. “Nice to meet you, Aru. I’m Levia. And this is Coa—”
“We know who you are, girl. We didn’t just stumble upon you.”
“Though their panting and moaning was enough to wake the whole forest!” another fae called out from somewhere behind me. The entire group snickered.
I glanced at Coalt shyly, my cheeks burning. His face was stern, eyes narrowed as he stared ahead, seemingly deep in thought. The muscles near the back of his jaw bunched together in the sexy way that happens when you’re clamping your teeth down too hard. He didn’t look too pleased to be a captive of Aru and the forest fae.
“Our king has been expecting you,” Aru clarified. “And we were called upon to gather you up.”
“You have a king?”
“Of course we have a king, in the same way your dragon friend has an empress.”
“She’s not my empress,” Coalt snarled.
Aru glanced back at him with a lazy expression. “Well, Oakwreath is our king, and he’s told us not to harm you.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He doesn’t tell me these things, girl, and I don’t ask. I just follow, also like your dragon friend—”
“Enough,” Coalt said. “It doesn’t look like your homeland would be very receptive to dragon fire.”
Aru chortled to himself. “You wouldn’t be the first to suggest that.” He had learned how to push Coalt’s buttons in about three minutes, which didn’t bode well for keeping my dragon mate in check.
I’d told the fae my name, and even though he hadn’t used it, at least he was calling me “girl” instead of “child” now, so that was some progress.
Despite their strange forms—long-limbed, tall, incredibly slender, with arms and legs that went too far and sharp, tapered ears—they didn’t seem so bad. Their skin was the color of the brown boles around us; their hair was actually quite similar to mine: long and white, gray, or silver. Just a bit more tangled.
Before long, I heard shuffling sounds around us in the trees. When I glanced up, branches rustled as shadows darted across them—more fae, moving like so many small animals through the trees.
How can they be so light to glide across the branches like that without snapping them?
I watched with some bewilderment, until the dense forest opened into a giant grove clearing. My mouth dropped open and I gawked, truly awestruck.
We had entered some type of faerie sanctuary. Wooden walls and twisted branches high up in the trees acted as makeshift houses. Some small settlements littered the forest floor, mostly made of leaves and sticks, but the majority of the fae’s living arrangements rested up in the canopies. Wood platforms bridged the houses from tree to tree, creating a complex, natural network of sorts.
It was phenomenal.
Black eyes and d
ark faces poked out from the treetop village to stare down at us. There had to be dozens of the people, if not hundreds.
Coalt and I peered around, our heads on a swivel, until our eyes met. We were both clearly shocked the fae had such an advanced-yet-primitive civilization in this forest.
A tall man appeared from one of the tents and approached us, surrounded by spear-wielding warriors. He wore a cloak of leaves and moss, a perfectly circled wooden tiara atop his silver-haired head, and wooden earrings in his pointy ears. A long white beard reached his belly. I recognized him as the only bearded fae I’d seen so far—everyone else was smooth and clean-shaven, whereas this one looked a bit more rugged.
Aru inclined his head to the man. They were silent. I cocked my head and studied them both: their mannerisms, nonverbal language—
These are the ones?
The voice in my head sent a flutter through my throat. It had not sounded like Aru’s voice, so I assumed it was the tiara-wearer.
But how in Merlog’s name had I heard him in my head?
Yes, my liege, Aru said. He turned to me. We found them copulating in the eastern grove-ruin. They—
He stopped himself as his black eyes met mine.
My lips were parted, my brow furrowed, and I must have had a complete look of confusion on my face.
I suddenly understood what was going on: These two were talking to each other in their heads.
What an amazing thing to be able to do, I thought. But why can I hear them?
When Aru spoke to his king in their mind-speak next, it was in a completely foreign tongue made of clicks and snaps, as if he had realized I could overhear their conversation in my own mind.
Coalt leaned toward me. “Odd how they’re just standing there in silence, isn’t it? Sends a chill through my bones.”
I stuttered, pursing my lips. “Y-Yes, very strange.”
So, Coalt can’t hear it. Only I can. What does it mean?
After some silent conversation, the bearded fae with the tiara and mossy cloak stepped forward. His thin lips pulled into a tight smile. “You are the Unscaled and dragon shifter.”
“And you are King Oakwreath,” I said.
He bowed his head slightly.
Coalt strode forward, making the spear-wielding fae around us a bit jumpy. They raised their spears as the huge dragon shifter stepped closer to their chieftain.
“I have questions for you,” Coalt said in a low voice, ignoring the spears.
Oakwreath frowned, his lips disappearing in his white beard. “Are you in a position to ask these questions, dragon?”
Coalt crossed his arms over his chest, swelling his lungs to stand tall and imposing. “How do you know who we are and why have you been looking for us?”
Oakwreath blinked strangely, as if thinking about how much to say. “You have this wrong, my friend. It wasn’t I who went looking for you—you came searching for us.”
Coalt jerked, taken aback.
Is that a riddle of some kind? I wondered.
Coalt ran a hand through his wavy hair. “I suppose, uh, that’s technically true—”
“Nay, it is true in every sense. You found something you believed would lead you here, so you came searching for us. Is that not correct?”
“Well . . . yes,” Coalt said. “But did you leave it for me to find? That’s what I find odd.”
“And what did you find?” Oakwreath asked. His voice was more gravelly than Aru’s, but still sharp and amused.
“Sleepershade in a dead man’s drink. I know Miran is the only place it’s naturally found.”
The fae king raised a finger and a brow, as if realizing something important. “Ah, yes!” His excited mood mellowed. “That wasn’t me. I suppose it was our resident oracle.”
“Your resident oracle?”
“You might call the oracle a hermit,” Oakwreath said. His chuckle was giddy, almost crazed. “Though the oracle is not to be trifled with.”
“We don’t mean any harm to this person,” I blurted, taking a step forward to stand alongside Coalt. I didn’t want to be in his shadow any longer. “We just have some questions.”
“As I’m sure Elowen does for you, too. Come, I will lead you to her.”
Oakwreath’s roundabout way of speaking confused me. He said he hadn’t been searching for us, but obviously his oracle had by leaving that clue at Manek’s house. I couldn’t get a sense of why these people would trouble themselves with the squabbles of Unscaled in a city so far away. It didn’t add up.
Perhaps, I thought, they exported the Sleepershade poison and someone else used it on Manek. Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree, as it were.
We walked for a while through the grove, then out the other side and into more dense trees. All around, the fae seemed to have disappeared into their homes, no longer interested in our arrival.
When we came to a snaking path through the undergrowth, I spotted a giant tree ahead that was bigger than all the others—thick and old and towering.
A hole was carved in its center.
“Elowen resides in the spirit tree,” Oakwreath told us. He stopped about fifty paces from it. “But you will approach at your own caution, and I will not join you.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Is it dangerous?”
“Elowen doesn’t make her presence known to just anyone. She is separated from our society for a reason.”
“What reason?”
The king shrugged. “I won’t tell you that. Perhaps she will.” He shooed us forward with two flaps of his slender hand. “Go on now.”
I gulped and nodded to Coalt. The king and his bodyguards stood back as we strode forward. I kept my hand near my dagger and he had his near his swords.
When we reached the tree, I glanced back to find Oakwreath still gazing upon us from afar, his dark eyes like pools of black water in the trees.
There were some makeshift stairs carved into the trunk, which we ascended to make it to the hole.
Inside, it was pitch black, but a dim magical light slowly flickered to life when we walked in. The sapphire light was coming from two pairs of tiny wings fluttering in the air around us.
Ah, so there are tiny fae! I thought triumphantly. If not for the ominous vibe of the hole in the tree, they would have been quite cute.
The crevice seemed to go back further than it should have, like it was bigger inside than out, until I felt like we had walked for ages.
Then we came to the end of the tunnel. A small figure sat before us on a bed of moss and plants. Her legs were crossed and the blue light brightened to show a fae with colorless hair. Wrinkles cut across her level face, making her seem older than the king and the others outside. Her pointed ears curled a bit inward.
“Ah,” the elderly woman said in a bemused voice. “I am surprised you made it this far.” She was staring right between us, as if blind or not knowing who to focus on.
“Who are you speaking to, Vera?” I asked.
“Both of you and none of you, I suppose.”
I sighed. Great, another one full of riddles. Her voice sounded on the verge of mania.
“You are Elowen, then? Why do you live here alone and not with your people?”
She chuckled, a sound like nails on bark. “I suppose the others don’t trust me. I see things they do not.”
“And did you poison Manek?”
“I don’t know who that is. But I know who you are, youngling.”
I tilted my head. We could return to Manek’s sudden death later, but for now her last words had intrigued me. “And who do you think we are?”
“You are Leviathan Sunfall and Coalt Firesworn.”
My breath caught in my throat. Coalt let out a guttural sound.
“How do you know us, woman?” Coalt growled, stepping forward. “We’ve not told anyone our identities—not completely.”
The dark surface of the surrounding tree-wall was suddenly quite stifling. This fae woman made me nervous. She was old but young;
a trickster but a truthteller; and she knew us both? How was that possible?
“Because I recognize you, of course,” she said matter-of-factly. “Son of Dante Firesworn.” Her voice almost sounded forlorn at mentioning Coalt’s dead father.
Coalt bared his teeth. “I hate cryptic messages, woman.”
“And I hate rude, brash young men.” She reached up to twirl a strand of white hair out of her face, her arm skinny and withered. “Though I suppose I loved them, once upon a time.”
“Enough nonsense,” Coalt said. His hands bunched into fists at his sides.
Elowen’s tone darkened. “You’ll listen to my nonsense if you wish to see your precious dragonrune sword, won’t you?”
Coalt’s entire body went rigid. “You know where it is?”
“Of course. It’s why I led you here, after all. I’m just surprised it took you so long. Dante would not be happy about that.”
“Enough!” Coalt yelled, his voice bouncing around the hollow of the tree. The blue lights of the floating wings brightened yellow and fluttered for a moment. “You know nothing of what would please my father!”
“So you say,” Elowen replied in a calm tone, bowing her head slightly.
I put a hand on Coalt’s arm, trying to get him to stand down. “He’s just frustrated, Elowen. Please understand. We’ve been on this wild chase for ages, it feels.”
“Oh, I’m sure it feels that way. I have been waiting for the day when you would arrive, so I suppose I’m a bit testy as well.”
Again, I wasn’t sure who she was talking about. “You mean me, or Coalt?”
Elowen shrugged, which was absolutely infuriating.
“No one else has come searching for the sword?” I asked. “No other bounty hunters, perhaps?”
“Oh, no, they have,” she answered.
I tensed.
“But I glamoured them and they forgot all about it,” she added, then cackled. “They were sent on their way, none the wiser.”
“And why are you talking to us?” Coalt asked. “What makes us different?”
She faced him. “Who says you’re any different?”
We both backpedaled, our heads jerking back in surprise at the flatness of her tone and the seriousness of her voice.