Chapter 16
BLUEBELLS
“Time to rise, Little Baker.” The king’s voice beckoned to me through my heavy dozing.
“What?” I sat up, my heart quickening. I pulled my hood back and blinked back the bright sunlight that beamed above me. Through my straining eyes, I could see that it was already midday. “We’ve slept half the day away.”
Elden’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “Yes, it seems we needed the sleep. Our first stop is a half day’s ride.”
“Oh, good.” My cheeks heated at the king’s smirk. “What? What’s so funny?”
Elden bit down on his lip. The look so casual, so attractive, I blinked back in surprise— almost forgetting why I’d been upset.
The king was happy to remind me. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
I grabbed a fistful of grass and tossed it at the king, “I do not.”
Elden laughed, the sound as light and delicate as a snowflake. “Oh yes. Something about a rogue rolling pin, if your mutterings are to be believed.”
“I’ll whack you with a rogue rolling pin.” I muttered under my breath as I stood, brushing the grass and fallen leaves from my backside. “Are we going or what?” I chirped, trying to hide the pink of my cheeks.
“I have already readied the horses.”
“Good.” I stomped over to Sapphire, pleading with her to bend a knee or something to allow me to climb into her saddle with ease.
“Allow me,” Elden said into my hair, ruffling the curls, then wordlessly placed his hands on my waist and lifted me into the saddle.
“Thank you,” I said through a heated face. Would I ever get used to this strange attention from the king?
As the yellow sunflowers of the fields gave way to lush green rolling hills, I studied the delicate world around me.
The Undying Lands were so similar to the human lands.
Small villages gave way to large rolling fields and farmlands.
But the land shone strangely, as if I wore a pair of amethyst glasses over my eyes.
The grass blades themselves seemed to be made of crystal.
The leaves, the flowers, but when I would reach and touch them, they felt as any leaf of flower would in my lands.
Here, the colors were a bit more saturated, as if the world itself were more concentrated here.
Like a shortbread—thickly lined with butter and sugar—far from the fluffy yeast breads of the human lands.
The thought caused my stomach to growl.
As we rode along, part of the wood looked as if touched by fire. Large swaths of burnt trees of ash lined one side of the road. The smell of rot hung limply in the air.
“Was there a fire here?” I asked the king as we rode side by side.
Elden shook his head, concern written across his eyes. “What you see before you is the blight. It has spread farther than I realized.”
On one side of me was an ancient forest teeming with all manner of sounds, movement and life.
To the left was a desolate landscape as foreign as the surface of the moon.
Gone were the green twisting branches covered in leaves.
The black sticks of a forest were as charred as scorched bread. Angry. Wrong.
I sped up to ride beside the king again, both of us staring at the dead forest, the silence pricking my ears. The edges between the live and dead forest smeared with the surrounding wood, almost pulling the live trees in.
Evoking them with hungry, dead fingers.
We continued at a slower pace than last night, passing untouched, wondrous enchanted lands, but still a pace that turned my legs to water by the time we reached a small village set in the hills.
Curved doors and cheerful plants popped out from hillsides and tree trunks.
Elden slowed so that I could pull up beside him.
“This is Spindlewood. Its people are very hearty, but flighty. They seem to find a reason to celebrate with one another almost every night.”
I smiled. “Sounds wonderful.”
“We will stay at the Inn.” For some reason, my stomach squeezed at the thought. Yes, we would be staying at inns together. What did I think was going to happen? “We will need to travel as, well, we couldn’t pass for brother and sister so…husband and wife.”
Now my stomach was really doing flips. Flips and dips and all kinds of other flutterings.
“But I’m a human—” I started and didn’t finish.
I didn’t have to. Humans and elves did not marry, not like they used to, before The Great Darkness.
Before that fateful winter six hundred years before.
If, indeed, a human and an elf did get married, news of it would spread throughout all the lands bringing both excitement and fear.
It would make history. Change the world.
“No, of course,” Elden nodded. “Which is why I must ask permission to alter your appearance. Not that I do not find your appearance…” He cleared his throat. The king seemed to find the mane of his horse quite enthralling. “It must be done.”
I squirmed, my cheeks heating for no reason.
“You can do that? Cast a charm on me to make me appear as an elf?”
“It is more of an illusion,” Elden explained. “I can alter my own appearance, my very being, but on others? My powers work as more of a visual alteration. You will stay the same muddy haired Little Baker beneath the illusion. I would never dream of altering you too far.”
Now my neck was heating, and I found my horse’s mane to be just as appealing. “Do what needs to be done.”
“I will only alter the color of your hair and the shape of your ears,” Elden said. “The rest of you will pass.”
“Thanks for that.” I grumbled, but found myself smiling beneath all the flutterings.
I chanced a glance at the king, who was also smiling that little side smile I’d somehow grown fond of.
Then the king unexpectedly asked, “What is your favorite flower?”
My favorite flower? My heart jumped at the question. Was he going to present me with a flower? My cheeks flushed even more.
“Um, bluebells,” I answered truthfully. “My father would bring home bunches of bluebells in the spring that he gathered on his delivery rounds.”
The bright indigoes and purples would pop in our kitchen for weeks on end, as he brought bouquet after bouquet every few days.
Sam had given me the last bluebell of the season only a week before.
I didn’t have to look in my cookbook to see that same flower pressed there between the front pages.
Yes, to me, bluebells would always mean home. Love. Comfort.
Elden dismounted his horse in a glade between wild pine trees and twittering birds. A stream rushed nearby and several bees buzzed happily on their rounds.
“Bluebells. Interesting. Human folklore warns that if you pick one, you could summon the fairies or worse, be trapped in their world forever.” He mused. “Let us hope we don’t come across any of those sprites on our journey. Though they do tend to stay near their homeland during the colder months.”
“Are you telling me that fairies are…real?” I blinked in surprise.
“Of course.” He knit his eyebrows in confusion at my ignorance. “They are beautiful, but dangerous creatures.”
I could say the same of the elves.
He held his hand out to me. “Give me your hand, Little Baker.”
A shiver trembled through me. How many bluebells had I picked in my life?
Maybe this was my punishment. Not with the fairies, but trapped in the land of elves forever.
I stopped Sapphire beside Braddock and dismounted.
I placed my hand gingerly, timidly, in his.
My heart sputtered wildly, the connection between us electric.
His hands were warm and callused from his time in the gardens, but he held mine in his, almost reverently.
“The first pillar of magic is intent. Your intent is your will, but more than that, it is a forced will. It must be demanded. As the kudzu vine grows and devours everything in its path, blanketing over any trees and shrubbery in its path, so too must be your will. Your intent. You must will it for the magic to come to pass.” Elden swallowed.
“You must clear your mind of all of your feelings and doubts and push the true intent of your magic to the forefront of your mind, allowing nothing else to surface, or the magic will weaken and flow out of you like a gentle mist. Its power will defuse, the potency lost.”
I nodded as the electricity between our hands continued to build. I will not be overcome. I felt like a child trying to outrun the lightning.
“What happens to that unfocused magic? Does it cause harm?” I asked. Elden had claimed he was not a good teacher, but I was enthralled. I needed to learn all I could from him as I attempted to harness my magic along this journey.
Elden bit his bottom lip in thought. “Scholars believe it is absorbed into the wind and carried up into the glowing stars.”
“Beautiful,” I breathed.
“The second pillar is touch.” Elden raised our joined hands.
“Touch?” I breathed. We stood so close to one another, though I had to crane my neck up to look at him fully. Time slowed to a crawl.
“Your connection to the physical world is every bit as important as your mental connection. You need to feel the essence of the objects you are infusing with magic. Touch will bridge the gap between your mind and heart, connecting both to the physical items. You must force your will, your intent, into the physical.” He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Bluebells it is.”
Warmth rushed over me from the top of my head down to my toes as if someone poured a pitcher of warm cream over me. Elden opened his eyes and a bright smile touched his lips. “It suits you.”
I reached down and stared at the braid of hair that lay across my chest. My brown hair had turned a magnificent blue—an iridescent quality to it like the color of dragonfly wings. But it was unmistakably the color of bluebells. My mouth popped open in awe, and I rushed toward the stream.
My face was untouched by magic, but my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were a brilliant blue. And my ears! They were tall and pointed like the elf king’s own. I reached up and touched them, but felt only the round human ears beneath the illusion.
“Your ears are the same round human ears they ever were,” Elden said from beside me.
“I look”—I shook my head— “amazing!”
“I am happy you are pleased, but I still prefer your hair of mud,” Elden teased. He teased!
I shot him with a look that promised swift retribution. “Mud is a perfectly wonderful thing to squish in your toes.”
Elden held up his hands in surrender. “As you say, Little Baker.”
I wrinkled my nose, but still glanced at my reflection. I may have stared a little too long, but I looked…dazzling. Shiny. And with the new flush in my cheek, I could almost pass for— happy.
“How long will this illusion last?”
“As long as you wish. I will remove it when we no longer have need of it.”
I nodded. I could get used to this, at least for a little while.
We made our way back to our horses and through the giant wood, past door after door until they became more frequent.
Until elves on horseback, in carriages, and carrying bundles of goods greeted us as we passed.
The females wore long flowing dresses or tight-fitting trousers under flowing tunics.
The men wore white shirts behind colorful vests and trousers to match the females.
Most everyone wore shades of green, deep crimsons, and gold.
They seemed to have been made in and of the forest itself.
They wore flowers and ribbons woven through their hair.
We were in a grand village center now, with trees larger than any I’d ever laid eyes on.
Homes and shops were built into the trees, becoming one with them.
Curved doors and runes met my eyes. Smells of fried dough with sprinkled sugar, curries, rice, grilled vegetables, and spices I could not name reached my nose.
I breathed in the new scents like a tonic. My stomach growled.
I wanted to eat everything.
Large signs swung in the cool autumn breeze in the square. Ribbons danced as they wound through the branches. The people were preparing for a celebration.
We passed smiling elf after smiling elf bustling about carrying brown paper packages tied with various colored strings.
Pine-scented air curled through the cobbled streets, mingling with the smell of cinnamon bread and chimney smoke.
My stomach grumbled and my nerves peaked.
Would I have to share a room with the Elf King tonight?
We stopped before an enormous tree with a tall sign out front written in elder tongue.
The door in the tree was curved like that of the others in Spindlewood.
Flowers and shrubberies surrounded the trees which were themselves connected by little bridges that went from tree to tree.
Gemlights glowed inlaid in the bark like jewels on a ring.
Elden slid from his horse and tied him up to a pole, then he turned to me and offered a hand. My stomach dropped. Did I take his hand? His eyes widened as if to say, we are supposed to be acting as husband and wife.
A portly elf with a long sloping mustache exited the door of the Inn and offered us welcome.
I smiled in greeting, then glanced back at the king who held a hand out expectantly.
I pulled in a deep breath and took the hand of the Elf King.
It was as if all of my senses converged upon the place where our fingers met.
A jolt of fire shot up my arm. A warmth that went all the way to my toes.
Elden helped me down from my horse and set me gently onto the grass.
My toes hit, then my feet balanced, and Elden finally met my eyes with his own.
Warmth filled my cheeks, and I noticed with a jolt of pleasure that his cheeks were also stained pink.
This was going to be a strange night indeed.