Chapter 55 Aerin
AERIN
After the Witch’s declaration there is silence. Malice and Emrys take turns glancing over their shoulders at Aerin. She doesn’t know what it means either, shrugging before they all turn their attention back to the Witch.
“Come.” The Witch gestures, turning on her heel and casually walking up the steps of the ruins as if she wasn’t inches from blasting Aerin into oblivion minutes ago.
Aerin shares an uneasy glance with Malice before following.
The males flank her as she enters the ruins.
Where before, the marble was coated with dirt and leaves, it’s now so clean it shines.
A blanket lies in the middle, adorned with various items in small bowls that encircle a larger ceramic one.
The Witch sits cross-legged on the far side of the blanket, her back to the ocean.
She gestures for Aerin to sit across from her.
Aerin doesn’t dare glance at Malice again before sitting down across from the Witch, magic still hovering at her fingertips.
Malice stands back, planting himself against a pillar, arms folded across his chest. Emrys sits directly behind Aerin, so close she can put a hand down to her side and feel his massive paws.
“I will help you, Aerin Tolvare, just as my grandmother did before me.” The Witch holds out her palm. Aerin hesitates, studying her. Features of the Witch from her childhood fall into place on the one before her, like a murky picture: same eyes, same nose, same cheekbones.
“I am sorry, for what happened to her,” Aerin placates, telling the Witch the truth as she fishes the locket from her backpack. She places it in the Witch’s outstretched hand.
The Witch immediately drops the necklace into the central bowl.
She doesn’t speak as she adds things from the smaller bowls: a white crystal, green powder, blue liquid.
The Witch holds her hands over the bowl, her purple magic once again swirling in her palms as she begins a low chant in a language none but the Witches know.
A sacrifice will come next, always in the form of Aerin’s blood. Fishing the knife out of the heel of her shoe Aerin holds her hand over the bowl, wrapping her fist around the blade.
Aerin hisses as she slides the knife out of her grip, and blood runs in rivulets out of her fist and into the bowl. Each drop is accompanied by a sizzling sound as her blood is consumed by the magic and fused in the locket.
The Witch continues murmuring as Aerin pulls her hand back to her chest. Malice, appearing at her side, takes her palm, wrapping the cut in a strip of cloth and gently tying it off.
Aerin’s chest warms as he does. The cut will be closed in less than ten minutes and yet Malice doctors it.
She pushes down her feelings as the Dragon-Fae backs away again, taking up his position at the pillars once more.
In a flash of purple magic, the Witch goes silent, and inside the bowl lies only one item: the locket. She picks it up by the chain and holds it out to Aerin to take.
“This should be enough to mask the Human,” she says.
Aerin stills. She never told the Witch why she needs the locket.
As if reading her mind the Witch says, “I know many things about you, Aerin Tolvare. Many things you don’t know about yourself.”
“How?” Aerin asks immediately. The Witch holds up her hand, halting the questions poised on Aerin’s tongue.
“I will answer three questions, one from each of you. This is all I can give you, Aerin Tolvare.” Her brown eyes dig into Aerin. It’s like Witches to be tricky, to be careful with their words and their gifts.
“The Dragon-Fae may ask first,” she says, turning her full attention to Malice leaning against the wall. Aerin expects Malice to consult her, to know what she wants to ask, instead he speaks.
“Why did you call Aerin a Phoenix? To my knowledge, a Phoenix is a creature of Old. One that’s born from three lineages of magic, has died, and been resurrected.” Malice’s blue eyes find her. “Aerin only has two types of magic, and has never died.”
Malice narrows his eyes at Aerin, as if daring her to correct him. The Witch looks back to Aerin with a smile on her face.
“A prophecy was foretold many, many, years ago. The Curse would end, Novhelm reunited, with the rise of a Phoenix. Aerin Tolvare is the first born with three magics since the time of Old.”
Aerin’s head spins.
“Who are her parents?” Emrys asks, his voice deep and rasping as a Wolf, hardly a voice at all.
“Aerin’s mother was half-Wolf, half-Witch. Murdered in the Zeneith Royal Village at the hands of her full-blooded Fae father. Blood was spilled upon her birth and blood will spill upon her death. Only then will things be right again.”
The Witch’s words echo around them, seeming to bounce around in the silence. Aerin scrambles to clear her head, to figure out what question to ask next. She has a sinking feeling that her time with the Witch is running out. Like sand falling through her fingers.
Aerin has a thousand questions, but the most pressing one, the one eating at her chest, at her heart, at her very soul, comes to her lips before she can stop herself.
“Who will kill me?”
The Witch looks over Aerin’s shoulder to the trees beyond the ruins, tensing. Aerin senses something there, someone. Her ring burns on her finger. Malice and Emrys both turn. Aerin goes to turn as well, but before she can, the Witch grabs Aerin’s wrist across the bowls.
“Trust your gut, Aerin Tolvare. You must master your magic. You must bind all five, before it’s too late. Keep them close to you; it is not safe anymore.”
In a flash, the Witch, and all her things are gone. The floor is dirty once again, leaves rolling through the open space, the salty wind howling. Malice is at her side, hauling her to her feet.
“I am so fucking mad at you,” he says, lifting her in his arms. The air outside crackles with something dark, shadows extending from the ruins far beyond their natural reach. “But for right now, we need to get the hell out of here.”
Before Aerin can protest, or ask what they are running from, he shoots them into the sky.
They land just outside of Zeneith’s gates in a small grassy clearing surrounded by tall trees.
Emrys comes loping into the clearing only seconds after Malice places Aerin on her feet and puts space between them.
Emrys shifts into his Fae form, taking up a stance next to Malice.
He looks just as pissed, his lean features severe when painted with anger.
Sharper still when that anger is pointed at her.
Aerin rubs her face, biting the bullet. “I had to, alright? I hated doing it, but it was the only way.”
Malice snarls in response, his fangs bared. “Do not feed us that bullshit!”
Aerin’s eyes follow as Emrys’s hand lays reassuringly against Malice’s wrist. She watches Malice’s hand twitch in response, though he doesn’t pull away.
“What would you like me to say?” Aerin concedes.
She does feel guilty, somewhere inside of her, for tricking them.
But at the end of the day, her plan worked, and she has about a thousand other things to think about right now.
Like that fucked up prophecy and the warning the Witch gave. She needs their irritation resolved.
“Or rather, is there something I can do?” Aerin corrects, making her voice sultry and taking a small step towards them.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Emrys says, seeing right through her tactic.
Aerin’s eyes go to him, to his fingers still wrapped around Malice’s wrist.
“Are you upset with me as well?” Aerin asks Emrys.
Malice makes a grumbling sound but says nothing, allowing Emrys to speak for himself.
“Of course I am. You lied to me. And worse you let that Viper pretend to be you.” Aerin waits for the rest, for the lashing out, for the sharp words that will pierce her deeply. They don’t come. “But it is not my place to question your decisions, Alpha.”
Aerin looks away, an uncomfortable feeling crawling over her skin at the Wolf’s admission. Aerin looks back into his brown eyes. “I am sorry, Emrys…” Aerin trails off, the words of apology all she can give him. Any more and her carefully crafted control may come crashing down.
It seems the wobble in her voice is enough to convince him. Emrys lets go of Malice and crosses the space between them, wrapping Aerin in his long arms.
“We will achieve all of your goals, Alpha,” he murmurs into her hair. As he pulls back, his lips find hers in a tender, apologetic way. “I am here to carry some of the burden. Allow me to do this for you.” He wipes away a lone tear in the corner of Aerin’s eye as she nods a yes.
Nine years ago, Aerin lay in Emrys’s arms in a clearing like this one, crying into his shoulder and confessing all her worries, all her unhappiness. But Aerin isn’t that young girl anymore; she can’t cry into someone’s shoulder and hope everything works out. Now, she has to be strong.
“Good,” Emrys says, stepping out of her arms and taking a place at her side.
The look of repulsion on Malice’s face says it all. Aerin meets his haunting blue eyes and says, “I promise, no more secrets.”
She means it this time; she’ll tell them everything. Malice doesn’t flinch.
“You heard the Witch—we need to stay close, we need to work together,” Aerin finds herself pleading.
Malice’s face contorts into a sneer and Aerin braces herself for what is coming.
“I am bound to you, Aerin Tolvare, and in exchange for keeping my secrets, I gave you my loyalty. That, I cannot change. But mark my words, if you want my forgiveness, you will have to earn it.”