Chapter 8
8
KAEL
I watched the thicket, the strange human disappearing behind it. Leading Stormbreaker to the stream, I knelt down and laid both hands on the grass below me. Closing my eyes, I felt the ground, the water running in the stream beside us, the human’s movements, and smaller ones as well. Animals of the forests of Aetheria, some similar to our own and others unique to this region… and then, nothing. I had no doubt those pursuing us would have been able to knock down the wall I’d constructed. But the hoof prints I’d laid in the fork just beyond that wall, heading east when we’d taken a western path, seemed to have worked.
Even so, until we crossed the border into Gyoria, I would not feel safe. I had to get this human to my father, to the elders and mages who, with luck, would be able to determine how she’d come through a closed Aetherian Gate.
That human woman emerged.
Surprisingly strong, she was a whirlwind of contradictions. Her long, dark blonde hair framed a beautiful face that seemed perpetually caught between curiosity and defiance. Like her personality, the human’s eyes couldn’t seem to choose one path; brown and blue mixed together in a hazel color that was rare among Elydorians but more common among humans.
Yet, there was little common about this one. I sensed it, wishing I had the human capability of foresight to determine what role, if any, she would play here. Unfortunately, my father had ensured no human in Elydor would ever willingly ally with a Gyorian long enough to assess the woman. It was one of many arguments we’d had over the years over our strict policies against any interactions with them.
Content we were safe for the moment, I relieved myself, hearing the human return as I did so. Her shoulders slumped when I emerged.
“Am still here. Sorry to disappoint you, princess.” Of course, I was not sorry in the least. Only glad I had been at the Gate when she’d come through; a stroke of luck or, some would say, something more fortuitous.
Before she could respond, I went to work.
It was as good a spot as any. If we were to make it to Gyoria, she would need to eat and rest, at least for a spell. Waving my hands toward the clearing, I gathered rock sticks and other materials, quickly fashioning a small hut complete with two pallets of moonleaves. I built and started a fire and then, most importantly, blended it seamlessly with the landscape, making it impossible to see. Next, I constructed another shield for Stormbreaker, and a post to tie him to beside our temporary lodgings. Imbuing both with as much copper as could be found in this soil, a defense against erosive air magic, I finished by taking out a bit of quartz from my leather satchel and used it to conceal the energy that had been created fashioning both structures.
“You really just did that.”
She stood at my side now, that curiosity of hers having returned, replacing the anger, at least for now. This human was a fiery one.
Sighing, my suspicion confirmed, I said, “You know nothing of Elydor.”
She was an Uninitiated.
Knowing its smoke was our best chance at discovery, I added smokeshade to the fire. Thankfully we were far enough south that the plant was readily available. Next, I moved two large rocks toward the fire.
“Your throne, princess.”
Without waiting to see if she would sit, I returned to Stormbreaker to retrieve a bow. By the time I’d caught and skinned a rabbit, darkness had fallen. I didn’t have to wait long for her reaction to our meal. Hundreds of years ago, it would have been different. But as the human world innovated, those who came through knew less and less about living with the land, neither theirs nor ours. Their technologies were useless here, thankfully, and in many ways our world remained a much simpler one.
“What is that?” she asked as I prepared our meager meal.
“Rabbit.”
“How were you able to do”—she waved a hand at our surroundings—“this?”
It would be a long night. And despite my dislike of humans, even ones as comely as this one, I’d also taken her for a reason— to discover how she’d gotten through the closed Aetherian Gate.
“How did you come to be here?” I asked, leaning forward to roast our meal over the fire.
“I believe I asked a question first.”
“You’re no longer afraid of me?” Or more like, she did not wish to be. But the fear was there, behind her mask of bravado and indignation.
“Should I be?”
If she’d have asked any other human on Elydor the same question about me, they’d not hesitate to say “aye.” And though it was true I bore no love for humans, neither did I kill indiscriminately as some would have her believe.
Did I mean her harm? Nay. But that did not mean my father would take kindly to her presence. Since I did not wish to lie, even to her, I offered the truth. “Perhaps.”
It had been many years since I’d been forced to explain Elydor to a human. Even when the Gate had been open, that task had fallen to those who had wanted them here. Never me.
“You would call it magic, a term used here too thanks to your kind. Your turn. How did you come to be here?”
She stared first at me, and then into the fire. “This is really happening, isn’t it? I’m not dreaming or hallucinating?”
Aye, very much an Uninitiated.
“I am as real as you are, princess.”
She looked up, as if just noticing me. Acceptance was happening more quickly than usual. They were rare, the Uninitiated. But unmistakable when it happened. The wide-eyed shock. Fear. Curiosity. Eventually, acceptance.
“How?” I prompted once more.
She blinked. “I… we were with Jon in the pub and…”
My eyes narrowed. The human lied. If she were with Jon Harrow, she knew of Elydor. The pub owner’s son would have told Mia everything before sending her through.
“He told us of the portal. Of Elydor. But said it was closed and had been for many years. When I touched it, the stone… glowed. And then it started to hum, like a buzzing in my ears. I stepped through without a word, without warning him. Without realizing what was happening.”
I watched her closely. So not completely Uninitiated, but clearly she knew very little of Elydor if she had no knowledge of our magic.
“You have abilities of your own?” I asked, knowing they would only intensify the longer she remained here. “What are they?”
“I have none. Jon did mention only those who possessed some sort of intuitive abilities could pass through, which is why I didn’t think much of getting too close. I have none,” she repeated.
Staring at the woman, I pulled the roasted rabbit from the fire, pulled off a piece of meat, and handed it to her. Expecting her to decline by the way she looked at it, Mia surprised me by taking it.
I ate, attempting to make sense of her story. “If you have no magic, then how did you know of The Crooked Key?” Knowledge of Elydor typically was passed through a particular community of people, one she claimed not to be a part of. “And why did Jon allow you to pass?”
Something did not make sense.
“I accompanied my friend on a work trip to York when we stumbled into the pub, and I read a chalkboard message that intrigued me. When I asked the owner, Jon, he told us of the legend and took us to the basement to show us the portal. He didn’t tell us much before I touched the carvings and ended up”—she waved an arm around our makeshift camp—“here.”
I took a bite of rabbit, handing her another. “Why do you lie to me?” I asked her bluntly.
Taken aback, she was either genuinely surprised or pretended to be as much.
“Lie? What do you mean?”
I could tell her Jon and his family had taken a sacred vow, one that had been passed through his family for centuries, not to reveal the portal, as they called it in the human world, to anyone who could not come through. And even if so many years had passed that he assumed the vow no longer held, Elydor relegated to legend, he’d never have let her attempt it.
So I said as much. “Jon would not have allowed it.”
Her chin raised. “Well, he did. I’m here, am I not?”
Indeed, she was here. But something about her story did not make sense. “He did not try to stop you?”
“It all happened so quickly. Why does it matter? Why would he not have allowed it?”
Still not believing her, but wanting to see how much she knew, I watched her carefully. “Because if you truly have no magical abilities of your own—to foretell the future, to look into the past—and you tried to come through that Gate…” I thought of the last time one had done so. It had not been a pretty scene.
“What? What would happen?” she demanded.
So I told her.
“You might have died.”