Chapter 10
ten
“Ley lines are ancient, older than Verenthia itself,” the golem said as she made herself comfortable, pushed her skirt down her knees.
She wore black boots that went up her shins, and her feet were big.
Her hands were big. Her head was big. It should’ve made no sense that she would have such a small body, but here she was.
“Think of them as these veins that spread across the universe. They connect realms together, different dimensions, different power sources—nobody quite knows how far they go, or exactly how much they hold. They’re like these magical roads, and if you’re strong enough to access a ley line, it allows you to tap into incredible power, to cross between worlds without the need for an Aetherway. ”
I waited, and Betty was silent, too. But the golem stopped there.
So, I said, “But?” Because there was most definitely a but there. I’d been around magic long enough to know that nothing like what she described came without a price. A very, very steep price.
And the golem flinched, looked down at the sequins of her skirt, pretended to wipe away dust that wasn’t there.
“Well, I mean, it’s difficult to tap into a ley line, obviously. And-and-and it requires incredible power.” Which wasn’t it at all.
“And?” I insisted.
“And, you know…” she shrugged. “If you get lost in a ley line, you basically…pretty much…get stuck in limbo for eternity. So.” Another shrug.
Now that sounded about right. It was in line with everything else I knew about magic.
“And how are these ley lines tied to the werewolves?” I wondered, just to have something to think about while this new information settled into my mind.
Also, I was very curious.
“You said you know the origin story. Well, the fae and the direwolves of The Vale were tasked with guarding the ley lines by the stars. They were supposed to keep them sealed and stable at all times—at least their end in Verenthia. And they did so for centuries, until…”
She looked at me, almost like she was testing me.
“Until the fae king tried to access a ley line, and the direwolf tried to stop him. He slaughtered the animal, and the stars punished him by tying his soul to the wolf’s with the life-bond.” That’s what Maera had said. That’s the story she’d told me on our way to Blackwater.
A small smile on the golem’s lips. “Exactly.”
“Except the person who told me this story called them gates, not ley lines.” I remembered it—unseen places between realms, dreams and death. That’s how Maera had described it.
“Yes, well, here on Earth they’re ley lines.
It’s the same thing,” said the golem, and fucking hell, I believed her.
Not just because the description matched, but because of the way she spoke.
“They’re usually strongest near the Aetherways here, and then they get deeper, hide better underneath reality and various default individual protective magics of every realm. ”
“Every realm? Just how many of them are there?” Betty asked before I could.
But the golem shrugged. “Only werewolves are supposed to know the number of ley lines that connect to Verenthia,” she said.
“Where is the other one?” I wondered. “The other Aetherway here on Earth—where is it?” Helid had said there were two, and I had no hope that the other one was going to let me through if this one in front of me now didn’t, but it was worth a try, I thought.
Until… “Egypt,” said the golem. “And, yes, I’ve been there three times. It won’t let me through any more than this does, and the ley lines there are very difficult to access. Something about Egypt that buries them really deep for whatever reason.”
Shivers ran down my back. I imagined myself flying to Egypt the very next day—but even in my imagination, I failed in the end. Because this Aetherway here wasn’t broken. It wasn’t the problem—I was. The ink on my skin was. The shadows. The banishment of the king.
Which reminded me of something Vair said while we were in the mining cave underneath Verenthia. He said that Rune’s mark would be gone with the death of the king. Had it?
Why hadn’t mine? Because the Midnight King was dead. I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d suffocated his shadows with my own magic. His death, at least a part of it, was on my hands.
Yet I remained banished, and the only way it made sense was that Vair had meant the curse that Helem put on Rune’s memories to lock them out of his reach.
It must have been because Rune could go to the Midnight Palace after his banishment, and the fact that I couldn’t access the Aetherway meant that he wouldn’t have been able to if the banishment was still there.
Raja must have broken it together with the seal on Rune’s magic—that was the only thing that made sense.
My mind spun with ideas, thoughts, scenarios.
“So…are you going to tell me now why you have Ice magic in you when you’re not fae?”
I blinked and met the eyes of the golem again—Arez.
It was darker around us just now because I’d sent the fae light closer to the Aetherway without really thinking while I’d been focused on it.
But the moment I imagined it hovering over us to better see the golem, it did.
It came floating soundlessly, and the light reflected in her eyes, revealing their true moss green color.
“She was actually the Seelie Prince’s Lifebound, believe it or not. Went to the fae realm to save his life because he saved hers when she was like five. She’s no longer bound to him, though, and he’s an asshole, but check this: the Ice Queen of the Frozen Court split—”
“Betty.” My voice hung in the air for a moment, together with the weight of the golem’s eyes on me.
“It’s only fair. She told us everything we wanted to know,” Betty said. I did trust her instincts, but she hadn’t been around Verenthians before, and she had no clue how perfectly they could play parts. How well they could manipulate you.
“Not everything,” I said and pushed the light closer to the golem with my mind. It still was mind-blowing to me how easy that was to do. “You didn’t tell us why you were banished.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and her hands were too big so it looked weird, but she didn’t bat an eye. “Because I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. Why were you banished?”
“Like what? What did you do?” Because I already knew that she broke laws—but what kind of laws did she break?
“I stole,” said the golem. “I stole from my chief.”
“Stole what?”
A heartbeat of silence. The golem smiled. “Flowers.”
Well, fuck. Not what I expected at all.
“What do you mean, flowers?” Betty asked, and she was right to be confused. I’d told her that golems dealt in flowers, and that they could basically manipulate plants, which was all that I knew about them, too. But I doubted one could get banished for stealing flowers…could they?
“Flowers. A very rare kind of flowers. Stole them and I got caught. My chief banished me that same night.”
I looked at her. Really looked at her, and every instinct in me insisted that she was telling the truth.
Which wasn’t saying much because she was a Verenthian no matter how she spoke and what she wore. She was a Verenthian, and they were master manipulators. They could fool you without breaking a sweat.
“You don’t look like you regret it,” I said in wonder. There was no remorse and not even the slightest bit of sadness anywhere on her that I noticed.
“I never said I did,” she told me.
“Do you?”
“Not even a little bit.” And now I wanted to know why she’d stolen flowers she knew she would get banished for and still didn’t regret it.
Fucking hell, my curiosity was an insatiable beast.
Then Betty hi-fived her. “You’re pretty cool, Pink.”
“I think I like that name,” she said with a nod, but she was still looking at me. “Your turn.”
“I was banished by the Midnight King because he didn’t have the heart to kill me.” The was the truth. Not all of it, not even close, but it was the truth, and she could tell.
“You’re joking, right?” she said. “The Midnight King didn’t have the heart to kill you?”
“Yes.”
Laughter, and she wasn’t even trying to stop herself. This time I was the one looking around the forest to make sure nobody was close. As far as I could see, we were alone.
Arez eventually stopped laughing, and said, “Did the Midnight King change in recent years or something?”
My blood turned ice-cold. “Why?”
But even before I could begin to ask myself a million questions, she said, “Because the man who sat on the Midnight throne when I left Verenthia was one of the most ruthless kings in the history of the realm. He would have taken great pleasure in killing you. They used to say he killed his first wife because she refused to obey him blindly. Made her drink the Iyandra, forced it down her throat.”
My skin crawled and I most definitely believed everything she said about Rune’s father, but… “What’s Iyandra?” Pretty sure I hadn’t heard that word before, either.
“Iyandra. You know, the end. The drink,” said Arez.
The end? I shook my head. “I have no clue what that is.”
Now she was shocked. “Are you serious? It’s the end. The death of fae. The drink they drink when they want to die—you know, Iyandra!”
Fuck me sideways.
“What the hell? They drink a drink to die?” This from Betty, and she was definitely just as surprised as I was.
“Duh. Fae are immortal. How did you think they died?”
“I…didn’t.” It had never once crossed my mind to imagine it—I just thought they were killed or something. Fucking hell, I thought they were all murdered.
“Well, it’s Iyandra, which literally means the end in Verenthian, and it’s basically death in liquid form.
Golems grow the flowers that make it. Back in the day only royalty had the right to it.
They make a big deal, throw a last feast and everything, when they decide to go.
It’s supposed to feel like a dream. It doesn’t hurt.
The fae don’t feel it at all. They just drift into a dream and then die.
” Arez shrugged. “It’s how they’ve done it for centuries. ”
“Holy fuck, that’s actually insane,” said Betty because I still couldn’t speak.
A drink to end an immortal life. A feast. Holy shit, it made so much sense.
“It is. Fae are really intense in their ways,” Arez said.
“But why though? Why would they want to die? I mean, I’d give up my left arm to be immortal—”
“Don’t say that. Believe you me, it’s not what people here think,” Arez cut her off.
“They get bored. They get tired. After centuries and centuries of the same games, the same life, they just don’t want to bother anymore.
And the royals had to eventually step down and give way to their offspring to take the throne—thrones demand it themselves after a while.
No fae ruler can sit on one permanently.
My momma used to say the fae could never handle loss of power properly. They legit picked death first.”
Something about what Raja said in that cave, about how the Midnight Court wasn’t the same anymore, how the Midnight King had destroyed it. I was finally beginning to understand what that meant.
“Anyway, now any fae can get it. They do kill each other a lot, and only a handful of children are born every dozen or so years, but there are those who choose to buy Iyandra for an early end. It’s pretty standard stuff,” said Arez, her eyes on me still.
“Something you should have known, considering you were obviously in Verenthia, up close and personal with the actual Midnight King. I still don’t get why you have magic, though. I saw it with these eyes—how?”
“It’s complicated,” I said because I didn’t want to tell her just yet. I couldn’t handle thinking about it myself without freaking out so it wasn’t just because I didn’t trust her. “Where is this key line you told us about?”
“Oh. I see how it is,” she said, and she didn’t even try to hide how annoyed she was right now. “It’s just outside Prain, possibly an hour away. By car, that is.”
Prain was the town closest to Lavender Hill. It was bigger, with more residents, much livelier than here. We used to go with Dad and Fi before, for movies and shopping, and to just get away from familiar people. I’d always liked Prain.
“What does it look like?” Betty said, and in my mind, I was shifting gears, testing my feet against imaginary pedals, just to make sure that I remembered how to drive.
I wasn’t the best, but I did have my license, and Dad had no trouble giving me the car for rides back when I was still excited about driving.
Until he grounded me to never again take his car after one trouble or another Betty and I caused around town. Can’t say I really missed it, but I thought I would know how to drive. Especially in the night when the roads were mostly clear.
“You can’t actually see it. It’s just like a river of invisible energy. You can tap into it with magic, but I don’t really have much, so I haven’t been able to test anything out,” Arez said, and her eyes moved up to the light over her head. The fae light that I’d made with my own hand.
But I’m not fae though, a voice in my head mocked me. I swear, sometimes I was my own worst enemy.
“So, how do you know how to find it?” I asked.
“I already have. I’ve used satellites to pinpoint the locations of the strongest sources during the years, then I’ve double-checked them personally.
This one is the only one I can tap on because it’s closest to the surface.
So far, I haven’t found a better location,” she said—and her every word rang true.
I was finding it hard to stick to suspicion because she didn’t hesitate for a second.
Betty looked at me, and in her eyes was the question painted clearly for me.
Unfortunately, I already had the answer she was looking for.
“In that case, let’s go.”