Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Poppy couldn’t carry an entire battalion of giant trees with her magic. Neither could I.
Well, maybe I could, but I needed more training opening a portal without killing anyone.
We arrived back at camp with a pop and the magic ejected us like it was happy to be done. Poppy landed in style. I stumbled.
The Dryads would be coming on foot within a week or so. I halfway wished we’d traveled the old-fashioned way. These portals unsettled my stomach, and the aftertaste of Poppy’s magic left my tongue tingling.
Bronwen and Noren were the first to see us. She erupted in a squawk of surprise as Noren bolted forward. Two massive paws landed on my chest and knocked me straight down. I landed flat, the wind pushed out of me, his furry muzzle at my neck and my mouth full of fur.
“It’s good to see you too,” I managed.
I went to stroke his ears and shocked him. The spark zipped from my finger to the tip of his ear and Noren growled, leaning back on his haunches.
“I’m sorry, boy.”
Yellow eyes narrowed on me before he huffed out what might have been acquiescence. I ruffled his fur before standing up, one hand at my back until a small crack brought relief.
Bronwen hustled forward and grabbed me in a bear hug. Another spark struck her but she brushed it off, ignoring the static electricity and the reek of ozone.
“You might not want to touch me for a while. I got struck by lightning.”
Her brow furrowed at my comment but she retreated with a nod.
Poppy, in her usual fashion, strode through the camp like it was her backyard. “Listen up! Get this place ready! The Dryads will be arriving within ten days because yours truly can’t carry an entire battalion of giant trees through a portal with my magic. They’re coming on foot.”
Energy strung my ribs together and shook me like a marionette. “You heard her?” I said in a lower tone to Bronwen.
My friend rolled her eyes. “The entire camp heard her. I’ll spread the word in case someone has cotton in their ears.”
She grinned before shifting and took off with a flap of black wings, her crow form darting low among the camp tents.
I called Noren to my side with a whistle and he was smart to keep his distance this time, close enough for me to touch but I wasn’t about to shock him again.
Coral stuck her head out of her tent, a scowl on her face. The lines only deepened when she saw me.
“It took you long enough,” she griped.
“It’s good to see you too.”
“We’ve got visitors coming?”
“Yup, a whole army of Dryads.”
Her features changed, shifting into something like curiosity with a splash of excitement. “I’d better put on a nice face. I’ve still got some of my makeup. Vicious Trollop.”
She said the color like I was supposed to get the reference on instinct.
When I said nothing, she shook her head. “You’re useless. And your hair literally looks like you stuck your finger into a light socket. Plus you reek. Have you been playing with chemicals again?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary to put on lipstick, Coral.”
“We’re expecting guests,” she said pointedly.
“Have you ever seen a Dryad before?” I asked with a chuckle.
Whatever vision she had of them in her mind, my cousin was in for a rude awakening.
I kept walking. “Do you know where Melia is?”
“She’s over by the kitchens helping out. We’ve got our own set of arrivals coming in.” Coral winked and ducked back into her tent to primp.
Only Noren heard my groan. Only Noren walked with me toward the makeshift kitchen area with its own fire steadily fed in a pit of stones.
A fire witch held her hands over the flames without getting burnt and dipped her chin to acknowledge my arrival.
“Mel?” The kitchens were nothing but a small tent open on three sides, with two long tables designated for prep.
Melia glanced up from the pot she stirred and smiled. “I was hoping we’d hear from you soon. You were gone for a couple of days.” She set aside the wooden spoon and wiped her hands as if she prepared to hug me.
I held up a hand to keep her in place. “I’ll shock you if you touch me.”
“I think I’ll survive. Explains the hair, though.”
She threw her arms around me. As I expected, the electric jolt lifted her wild curls in a halo around her head and she laughed when she let go.
“I’ve got lightning inside me from where I got hit. I can’t seem to get rid of it.” I scrubbed a hand across my belly.
“Try to get grounded because we have more joining us. Julie is bringing people from the human realm.”
I wiped sweat from my brow. “What? Why?”
Melia grabbed the handle of the wooden spoon and resumed her rhythmic circling. “Because she and the adorable Officer Allen have found more shifters who want to join the rebellion. Did you know the human world has an entire community of displaced shifter halflings with nowhere to go?”
It took me a while, but at some point my mind stopped spinning and her words made sense. “I had no idea there were so many.”
The trickle of fear I’d also held on to since the trip to the desert doubled. It pushed out against my insides, friction and discomfort tightening my skin.
I eyed Melia as she cheerfully stirred the pot. “We’re literally preparing for a war.”
“Yes. And?”
“How can you be so calm about it? It’s a war. We’re being driven into it and…” I trailed off.
I’d gotten dragged unwillingly into the battle at EverRose. But this, this was actually preparing to take my friends and my family into a fight they might not survive.
“I get it,” Melia said into my silence. “No one wants to be on the front lines and that’s exactly where we are. But nothing is going to change until we change it. There’s no skipping the messy parts.”
I flung myself down on the table beside her and jostled a pyramid of apples, a pop of lightning bursting one and leaving only the stem behind. “You’re too cavalier about this.”
Even my nearness sent a small shock through Melia, the static electricity gracing her eyes with inner fire. Like everything else, she took it in stride.
“Oh, you think I’m cavalier? I’m absolutely freaking out. I’m not in a good mental space and that’s why I have to work hard to keep it together.”
I bit my lip. Something told me I’d need to take a page out of her book.
“So when will Julie be back?” I asked. “And who’s watching Livvy while she’s gone?”
“I’m not sure. We haven’t synchronized our watches or anything. Livvy is fine. She’s healing and doesn’t need a babysitter.”
An itch beneath my skin started at the base of my neck and worked its way outward. I wanted Mike, wanted the chance to lose myself in his arms for a minute.
“Okay.” I pushed up. “Can you send out feelers for me? Since you aren’t busy enough?”
“Sure. What kind of feelers?”
I sent up a silent prayer to whatever or whoever would listen because Melia was amazing. I didn’t want her in battle. She was capable. We all were, when the chips fell. But Melia had special skills.
“Any news you can get of disaster within the realm, find it and pass it along. I know you’ve been talking to people and setting up your communication network. Pluck those strings for me, please.”
She wiggled her fingers. “You’ll get your intel. Whatever you need. If it reaches these ears, you’ll know immediately. I already have a small group of people…never mind. Now take some soup. It’s Cornish hen and wild mushrooms with spring garlic.”
Sounded heavenly, but when I reached for it, I electrocuted the bowl right out of my hands, spilling the soup in the process. Until I had a chance to ground myself, I couldn’t touch anyone or eat anything.
Clock ticking down, I cut through worn muddied trails from the kitchen to the healer’s tent. Livvy didn’t need a babysitter? Like hell.
I’d spent most of my life reconciled to my parents being dead. My world view turned upside down because my mother was alive.
Whatever Jade had done to her when he took her from the academy, he’d reap what he’d sown and then some. I had a thousand and one ideas in mind to make him suffer.
All of them raced through my head, heart pounding and teeth clenched, as I pushed through the tent flap. I froze.
Livvy and Nixa sat on the cot with their heads pressed together, their hands laced. Locked. One redheaded sister and the other brunette, her auburn tones shining through the loose hair around her shoulders.
Noren lifted his head from the floor with a thump of his tail before huffing out a sigh and resting his snout on his paws.
It warmed the cold parts of me to know Noren was there with them.
He stuck close to Livvy whenever I was gone, it seemed, as though he knew she needed the protection as well as the companionship.
The two sisters both turned nearly identical expressions toward me.
Another moment where the world shifted on its axis. Another life-altering occasion where I marked the resemblance between the sisters, reunited after so long.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said to Nixa, throat catching the words.
She smiled. “Coral came and got me and her father. But this was the first place I had to come. To see Dae.”
They kept their hands together, both sets of knuckles pale, as though any break in the connection would result in more lost years.
Emotion pushed tears free and they clung to my lash line, stubborn. “I’m glad she did.”
I’d gone from having no family to being surrounded by them. Coral hadn’t been my first choice for a cousin; she was prickly on a good day and smart enough to know how to use it like a weapon. But to have her and my aunt and my mother here…
Livvy sat up straighter and stared at me. Most of the wounds from her escape had healed, although time hadn’t been kind to the hollow bruises beneath her eyes.
“Why do you smell like lightning?” she asked.
Because I was made of the stuff. Because I had an entire thunderstorm inside of me and ozone seeped from my pores, the electricity in my blood lifting every fine hair on my body.
I let the crackle of energy pry my lips into a smile instead. “It’s a long story. But I saved Areia.”