Chapter 13
We started walking. I was going to need a place to rest before I could attempt bringing us back, so hopefully the other guys wouldn’t worry too much.
Oh, who was I kidding? Gabriel was probably tearing his hair out. Mistral would be worried but not showing it. And Sebastian… Well he at least would probably give me decent odds and not concern himself too much.
Either way I needed a moment, so we might as well investigate and see if there were any shadow creatures around, or if the realm was safe and secure for a fresh pathway.
“How do you know where to go?” I asked. Crispin was leading the way, and he seemed to not need to think on which direction we went, even though the lush grass dampening his pant legs showed no path.
“Because this is where I’m from.”
I stopped walking and stared at his back for a moment, then hurried to catch up. “Wait, didn’t you like, live at the royal court?”
He glanced at me as I caught up to his side, then turned away, his expression guarded. “Not the place I left. This is the place I grew up. I told you, you were thinking too much of me when you tried to make the pathway.”
I crossed my arms and stopped walking, this time waiting long enough that he stopped too. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“In this case, it is.” He still wasn’t facing me, but he wasn’t walking away either.
“Why are you so cranky? You would think you’d be happy to be back.”
He finally spun on me, panic flashing in his eyes. “You had all of our magic to get us here, Eva. To get us back, you only have me.”
Taken aback, I lifted my brows. “And are you not enough?” He had already proven his magic was stronger here. And he had traveled to earth on his own before, without me or the Realm Breaker.
Jaw tense, he looked away again.
“You’re not upset about us being here alone,” I said. “You’re just upset about us being here.” I gestured vaguely at the surrounding trees.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he finally met my eyes. “I had hoped when we came we could jump straight to the capital. This isn’t where the pathway used to be.”
“We could still try. I might be able to jump us there with enough instruction.” And end up in a random ditch, because by the gods I am exhausted, I added internally.
His shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, then slumped further. “I apologize for my reaction. It’s just… difficult being back here. I accidentally destroyed my old home when my mother shipped me off. And I never came back again.”
I stepped closer, tentatively sliding one hand over his shoulder, but I didn’t say anything. Sometimes, there really wasn’t anything to say. I had lost my father young, and had thought I’d been betrayed by my mother, but neither experience was quite like what Crispin had endured.
After a quiet moment, Crispin’s hand slid over mine and squeezed. “It’s not much farther. Are your feet okay?”
“Why wouldn’t they be okay?”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Because mine currently feel like lead.”
Having a sneaking suspicion, I didn’t offer again to try to take us to the capital.
Because it wasn’t my thoughts that had brought us here.
I had never been to this place, and my intent had been to create a pathway to the pocket realm.
Crispin was the one who had been thinking of home, and pushing extra magic into me as he did so.
I didn’t think it was on purpose, but subconsciously he wanted to go home.
And now he was the one who needed to face it.
I took his hand and moved to his side. “Maybe your feet will feel a little lighter if we walk together.”
After a few long moments of silent walking, he replied. “They already do.”
He hadn’t been lying when he’d said it wasn’t far.
After around ten minutes I smelled woodsmoke, then we came upon a village bisected by a dirt road.
The outside of the buildings looked like tree bark, and the roofs were densely woven branches with large green leaves.
Flowering vines grew up the bark, parting around clear glass windows and heavy wooden doors.
The homes looked both grown from the earth, yet modern with the windows and doors.
“Most of our cities are made from stone.” Crispin stopped walking, observing the nearest structures. I could hear voices further in the village, but no one seemed to be close to us. “But the older villages used the magic of the land to build themselves.”
“Build themselves?” I blinked, realizing what my eye had been snagging on before. There was no separation between the foundations of the homes and the earth. They literally had grown right from the ground.
“So cool,” I breathed.
Finally, Crispin smiled. “Let’s go. You need something to eat.”
“But we don’t have any money.”
He put a hand at the small of my back to start me walking. “We elves age slowly. Even if my mother is not here, surely there will be someone who knows who I am.”
“And likes you enough to feed us?” I joked.
He snorted. “Maybe not that, but when they hear a celestial has come to heal the pathway—”
“Half-celestial,” I corrected.
“We’ll keep that part to ourselves. We want to inspire confidence if we want tea with our meals.”
We walked further into the village toward the sound of voices. The first elf we saw was a woman hanging laundry in her yard. She didn’t seem to notice us, so we kept walking until we reached a tavern, judging by the mouthwatering smells wafting on the breeze.
We didn’t quite make it through the open double doors before an elderly elf walked out.
He was shorter than most elves I’d met, and walked with a cane.
Circular, wire-framed glasses made his brown eyes look 3 times larger, and they were currently blinking rapidly.
At first I thought he might have recognized Crispin, but then I realized I was the one being balked at.
I probably should have considered that a human might stand out here. The closest thing any of them would have seen would be a celestial.
“Do you think they’re going to be mad at me?” I whispered. Avery might have grasped the situation quickly, but others might not be so forgiving of what my mother had done.
A few other elves came out of the restaurant to see what had happened, and they all soon comprehended what the elderly elf was staring at. At least he had finally regained his senses, and now stepped forward, putting space between himself and the others. “Who are you? Why have you come?”
Another elf shuffled out, a female I would guess was middle-aged, though middle age was a pretty wide span of years when it came to elves.
Her brown dress was simple, and topped with a white apron.
Her hair was blonde, and coiled into a painfully tight bun at the nape of her neck.
Like the others, she did a double-take, but this time the surprise was for Crispin.
Her eyes were the same spring sky blue as his. Could she be…
“I’ll take care of this,” she snapped, marching toward us.
The wizened elf stopped her with a hand on her arm. “She could very well be a celestial.”
The female elf stood straighter, and I noticed just a hint of silver glinting in her blonde hair. The rest of her though seemed young and agile, and like she might try to pummel us. “He’s my son, Allistair. Any business he has here will pass through me.”
Well there was the confirmation, then. The other elf, Allistair, hesitated, but finally nodded, and Crispin’s mother walked away from the others, coming to stand before us.
Ignoring me, she looked at Crispin. “This way.” She jerked her chin toward the path.
With that cold look in her blue eyes, I wasn’t sure if we should follow her, and Crispin seemed frozen to the spot.
“Walk,” she said, then did just that, turning down the path and clearly expecting us to follow.
I shook Crispin’s arm and he startled, then shook his head. Not meeting my eyes, he took my hand, then tugged me along to follow his mother.
Crispin kept close to my side as we passed more homes, most occupied with elves peeking out through curtains or over stone garden walls. The smell of both greenery and woodsmoke were thick in the air.
Crispin’s mother hustled along, boldly giving us her back. But maybe she knew that even after everything, Crispin wouldn’t lay a finger on her.
I, however, was still pretty pissed that she had sold him to a less than kind wizard as an apprentice. And I did have a sword.
She led us down a path made of hard-packed earth between a few small fields of crops. There was one more home at the end of the path, all on its own. A surrounding gate was closed and partially overgrown with brambles, not inviting any visitors.
Reaching the gate, Crispin’s mother jerked it wide open, fighting the overgrowth. A narrow foot path made it clear she usually only opened the gate wide enough for her to slip through. Once she had the gate as open as it would go, she continued toward the home.
I went next, then glanced back as Crispin entered, the slithering of vines catching my attention. The brambles all retreated at his touch, leaving the gate a little lopsided from lack of support.
Ahead of us, his mother opened her front door, then went inside.
I looked back toward the path we’d traveled, seeing a small crowd of elves gathered to watch us, but keeping their distance.
“The trees delivered the news to them,” Crispin explained, then gestured for me to head for the open door.
The trees? I would definitely be asking him more about that later.
We stepped inside, finding that the sitting room, dining area, and kitchen were all one modest room.
It seemed a small space for someone who seemed to have some authority within the village, but maybe she liked it that way.
Maybe after Crispin had destroyed his childhood home, she’d wanted something different.
I wondered if she was so cold because she blamed him for that loss, even though it hadn’t been his fault. Wild magic left untrained could be destructive. I had been learning a whole lot about that.
His mother waited near a small dining table with only two chairs, her arms crossed over her chest. “Why are you here?”
Crispin’s jaw twitched. “Eva, allow me to introduce you to my mother, Serentha.”
Serentha’s eyes narrowed.
“Eva is a celestial. She’s here to reopen the pathway.”
Not so much as a blink.
“Now is the part where you say, How wonderful! Welcome home, son!”
Serentha finally blinked, but that was it. “How about, sorry for destroying your home, mother?”
I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like I shouldn’t be witnessing any of this.
Crispin took my hand before I could think about stepping outside. His tone was defeated as he said, “We are here to repair the pathway. We just need to know if there’s anything dangerous here that might come through.”
Serentha’s eyes lowered to our joined hands, then drifted back up to Crispin’s face. “Only in the night.”