15. Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Magic is a cycle. It comes from some beings and gives life to others. It is power that life gives to life. Dragons create it and banshees consume it.
~Vyran the Black, A History of Magic and Dragons
Maeve
Sandor Arden, my Da, is laughing next to Rivertail as he shows the faun how to steam a fish, a new cooking technique for the villagers of Aerwyn. Da’s eyes look so full of life. Even compared to how I remember him, he’s different now.
Shadows stream from my fingertips, and the steady rhythm of peace flows through me at the same time. I’m neither full of lust nor cold as stone today. I’m content in a way that I can’t remember since my childhood, and somehow that simple emotion doesn’t interfere with my magic at all.
“Maeve, tell Rivertail how much you enjoy steamed fish!” Da says, his eyes moving to me rather than the cookfire he’s been working at for the past hour.
“To be honest, I don’t remember steamed fish very much, Da,” I say, and he frowns. “Uncle Trevor and Aunt Prudence never cooked it.”
He shakes his head. “I made it two weeks ago,” he mutters. “It’s really hard to get used to the idea that so much time has passed.”
I bet it is. I can’t look away from him. Except when he’s sleeping, something he does more than I remember, I’ve tried my best to spend as much time as possible with him. “It doesn’t matter. I’m excited about you cooking again. I remember how much you enjoyed cooking the things that Vesta and I caught.”
He grins. “I was always proud of how good of a hunter you were. We could have bought nearly any food we’d wanted with how much money your mother left us with, but you needed to learn to hunt, and I liked how big your smile was when we ate something you’d caught.”
I had always been proud of my hunting skills. It’s too bad that I never had any skill, and it was just a latent House of Earth ability.
“My hunting skill is a House of Earth power, Da. I just didn’t know back then. Nearly everything was because of my Earth bloodline or the fact that I was a Wyrdling.”
He cocks his head. “That’s not true. Otherwise, I’d have those same skills, wouldn’t I?”
I don’t know. He has a House of Earth bloodline, but it’s faint with how little Immortal blood is in him. “Maybe? My magic comes from Mother. My Earth bloodline comes from you, but I don’t know if you’d be able to do the same things I can since you don’t have as much magic as I do.”
“He couldn’t,” Cole says from behind me. I turn to see him looking far more like his old self. “You’re not wrong that a lot of your hunting skills are because of your bloodline, but a lot of them aren’t. You wore the Forgotten Ring, and you were only a Wyrdling when you brought down wolves and wild boar. Maeve, you were naturally gifted at tracking, but you weren’t a High Fae. That’s skill, and you shouldn’t dismiss it. You worked hard to be that good. Your ability with a spear is learned, not granted through your bloodline. Your cleverness is learned. Don’t dismiss your accomplishments.”
He says it all so sharply and focused that I almost forget how broken he is. This is the man that only yesterday was bowing and telling me he wasn’t worthy.
I smile at him, and I see my Da grinning at both of us. “I don’t know nearly as much as the Immortals you spend your days with, Little Star, but I know when words make sense. These do.”
There’s a sparkle in Da’s eyes. It’s hard to believe that only a few days ago, I thought he was dead.
A thrum of pride flows through the bond between Cole and me, and my heart swells. Cole has been just as proud of me as Da is. Every bit of training. Every new piece of magic I’ve learned or showed him, he’s been even more proud than the last.
A terrifying realization shakes me.
“Where’s Mother?” I say, my head whipping to Da. “You’re bound to her, so where is she?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’d expected her to be here.”
“So reach out to her through your bond,” I say, every bit of power inside me beginning to swirl. “She could protect you from the void. You should be able to show her where you are. She should already be here. She…”
“I can’t feel her, Maeve. It’s like she’s gone, but there’s no hole in my soul like she’d explained. It’s almost like we were never married.”
I glance at Cole. “Is it because he’s human?”
Cole shrugs. “I have no idea. To my knowledge, your mother is the only Immortal that’s been stupid enough to bind herself to a human.”
He pauses, a glimpse of fear crossing over his face after calling my mother stupid, but then he brushes it off. It’s something he would have said before. He never worried about hurting my feelings, and his brutal honesty was one of the reasons I never expected the manipulation.
I don’t comment on it. I don’t want him to be afraid of being himself. More cracks in that tower when it’s finally beginning to heal are the last thing I want.
“You don’t know…” I say softly. “Da, have you ever pulled on the bond before? I mean, you must have when I sent you to the void, or Mother wouldn’t have known you were there.”
He nods. “I’ve tried to reach out to her until my head hurts every day. Something strange has happened, and I’m sorry. I don’t know as much as everyone else. I can’t describe it better than that.”
Cole says, “There’s not any history of this happening, if that’s what you were wondering. We could sneak into Draenyth and try to research it, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile. The only thing I’ve ever heard about people that are magically married is that they can easily contact their spouse or their spouse is dead. There is no other option.”
I shake my head. “Then what could it be?”
“What if she’s lost in the void?” Cole asks. “The connection could be too fuzzy, then. Even shadows make magical connections fuzzy. Moving into the void could definitely cause that distance.”
I blink. “Then the connection would have been clearer when Da was forced there. Then she could have reached out and protected him.”
“But why didn’t she bring me out then? And how could she be lost there?” Da asks.
I look at Cole, who shrugs. I don’t know either. “Maybe we need to take another trip into the void,” I say.
Da grins before going back to his fish. A soft song escapes his lips as he opens the pot and checks the fish, steam rising around his face as he looks into it. Like the song of the void, it reverberates even though he’s being so quiet. It’s a song I can feel more than I can hear.
It pulls at me like I’ve heard it so many times in the past, and I just don’t remember. Or maybe the memories were taken from me? Could someone have stolen my memories? Wouldn’t the Painted Crown have given them back?
I glance at Cole, and he’s frowning just as much as me. I don’t know why, though, and I reach out across our bond, tentatively at first. He welcomes me in, and I find myself on that desert landscape.
“Do you know that song?” I ask.
Over the wind that used to be scorching, Cole’s voice comes loud and clear. “Yes. But I don’t know from where.”
I scan my memories, trying to think of any place we’d have heard a song. Maybe in Draenyth? In a tavern? The Firelight Café? In Aerwyn? I can’t remember a single time that someone was singing that song.
“I feel like it’s important,” I say.
“It is. It’s a song of power, the kind of magic that the world was built of. You can hear similar songs in places of power. They came from before the dragons; they’re songs of the gods.”
I didn’t think that the High Fae believed in the gods.
I shake my head. “That’s a question for another day, then. It’s not that important, is it?”
“No,” the wind whispers to me. “Spend time with your father, Maeve. Nearly everything else can wait.”
I sigh and let the connection between us break apart. Da is grinning at me. “Dinner is done,” he says and hands me a plate. He passes plates out to all of us, the fish smelling of fresh herbs that had been gathered while people were fishing.
Rivertail smiles as he takes a deep sniff. “This smells so different from normal. Thank you, Sandor.”
Da just smiles and walks around the fire to where I’m sitting, and he sits next to me. Cole moves to the other side of me at the table. “You know, when you talk to him like that, your shadows get darker. Remember that I’m married to a Lady of Shadows, so I know what that means.”
I can’t help but blush at the comment. I shouldn’t be ashamed, and coming from any other person in the world, I wouldn’t be. But my Da? So I say nothing at all. I’m sure that the pink in my cheeks says more than enough, though.
“I hear that you built this village,” he says to Cole.
Cole shakes his head. “My friends and I rescued a few people and set up wards to protect them from being found. We couldn’t have made these trees as large as they are or even really built the cottages. We just… kept finding people who needed a safe place, so we brought them here.”
Rivertail’s smiling from across the table. “I don’t think that you’re explaining well enough. You, Darian, and Lee rescued all of us from either unfair punishment or eternal slavery. A High Fae lady from the House of Earth decided that I’d looked at her lustily while I was in the market. I was, in fact, looking past her at the chocolate merchant’s stall behind her. Maybe I had a bit of lust in my eyes thinking about those chocolates, but it wasn’t for her.”
Da frowns. “You didn’t act on anything, though, did you?”
“I didn’t need to. Fauns and satyrs are considered lewd by the High Fae, only meant to be seen in brothels and other sexualized environments. Except that we have to eat, too.” Rivertail shrugs.
Lirael the banshee huffs, her thick black hair flowing in the air. “As if the High Fae are always so proper. The House of Shadows doesn’t wear any clothes at all. You can’t tell me that the way they wear their shadows was proper .”
I think back to my midnight dresses and realize that I could have made them in any style, and after seeing some of the high fashion at the ball, I know Lirael isn’t wrong. “So you were going to be imprisoned?” Da asks.
No, that wouldn’t have been Rivertail’s punishment. “No, I was not,” he says. “The lady thought it would have been an appropriate punishment for me to serve her as a slave. She said that if I was that desperate for her, that she could teach me to use that lust in a useful way.”
Cole interrupts the conversation then. “The House of Earth was well known for their dislike for anyone outside of their House. They were just as quick to punish the Lesser Fae as the House of Steel are, except that they did it from a place of hatred, while the House of Steel does it from a place of power. I’m not sure which is more detrimental.”
“The House of Flames isn’t blameless,” Duncan the gnome says. He runs a small hand over a thick brown beard that hangs nearly to the ground. His eyes sparkle with youth, but there’s anger behind the light. “They may not believe in enslaving everyone, but they certainly don’t like any of the folk from the ground. Goblins, brownies, and gnomes are ridiculed and tormented simply because we’re smaller than you. All the High Fae push around the Lesser Fae, and if we try to fight back, we’re punished or killed. Present company excluded, of course.”
At the end of his tirade, he pulls his stocking cap off and balls it in his hand, exposing a bald head. He’s obviously nervous talking to Cole like that. I didn’t spend that much time with Duncan the last time I was in Aerwyn, but from what I remember, he was very deferential.
I look at Cole, whose eyes are cold and uncompromising. “You’re right, Duncan. The High Fae have forgotten the role they were given when the dragons left. Instead of protecting Nyth, they’ve become overlords. While I don’t believe there are any alternatives currently, a shift is happening. When this war is over, things will change. For the first time in almost fifteen hundred years, a new group of rulers will step up. My father will not be King of Flames again. Maeve will be the Queen of Earth, and by the end of the war, Gethin will be dead.”
There’s a silence as Cole’s statement of intent reverberates in our minds. We’re not just fighting to fix the world. We’re fighting to remove the corruption within the High Fae as well. I don’t think that’s actually been stated yet. I didn’t agree to fight against Gethin for the High Fae. The mess they’re all in is self-inflicted for them, but the Lesser Fae? The humans? The magical creatures? They can’t fight back, and I’m willing to step up for them. When this is all done, the world won’t be the same for them.
“Well, those are some lofty plans,” Da says. “It’s strange thinking about you doing anything more important than worrying about your plans for the day, Little Star. A week ago, in my mind, you were only eight. Now you’re talking about overthrowing the most powerful people in the world. In my head, you’re still my little girl, though.”
He has a smile on his face, but there’s sadness in his eyes. “I missed so much,” he finishes.
There’s no response to that statement that will be any reconciliation. Instead, I just put my arm around him and give him a side hug, reminding him he’s here now. He looks at me and smiles. “Even without me around, you turned into a wonderful young woman that I’m so proud to know.”
There’s a lingering sadness, though, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.