Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Head down, I cut fast to the outskirts of camp and tried to ignore the whispered comments when I passed by.
I did what I had to do and tried my best, but the expectations grew.
A deep fear plagued me—a fear that I wouldn’t be good enough to handle it in the end.
My decisions and my power might actually be the unraveling of this world, which was prophesied when I stepped foot here for the first time.
The dark enclosure of the forest filled my veins with a familiar hush. Night was the same no matter what world I walked through. It helped to calm my nerves, but my thoughts couldn’t let go of replaying all the recent events.
I didn’t catch the snap of twigs. Gaze averted, mind stuck in an endless loop, I didn’t realize I was no longer alone until strong arms grabbed me from behind and lifted me off my feet.
A callused hand slapped against my mouth, large enough to also pinch my nose to keep me from breathing.
Or screaming.
Before I could draw my next breath, the world changed. Different, suddenly strange, the trees silver and lit by a glow as cold as moonlight. Individual veins stood out on each leaf and the forest held its breath.
The trees hung with the first breath of frost and snow, monotone shadows pooling across the forest floor.
My path blazed with unearthly light and each footstep clearly outlined like I’d stepped in nuclear waste and left a trail of devastation behind me.
A gasp pushed my ribs apart.
The hand slipped free from my nose and mouth and fresh air rushed its way to the bottom of my lungs.
My attacker released his hold and set me on my feet but kept spidery fingers looped around my arm as he shifted into my field of vision. The man’s outline wavered and shadows masked his face, but I could plainly see pale blue eyes gleaming.
How had I missed him? How had I not heard anything?
A vague yearning stirred my magic, eager and thirsting for something new. I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly he released my arm.
As soon as we broke contact, he vanished, and the world returned to normal. The forest, once again dark but no less alive, fell silent, air stagnant and holding its moisture.
Where the hell had he gone?
I stumbled backward and my spine molded to an alder trunk, hands seeking purchase in the bark.
I looked around, but I was once again alone in the forest. And then suddenly cold fingers grabbed my wrist and he reappeared, with inches to spare between us. The moment he touched me, I fell back into the strange world.
Before me stood a six and a half foot tall being. Shadows flickered around his pale blue eyes, and a rune etched into his forehead pulsed once. A long silver earring speared down from one lobe.
“I am not your enemy.” His voice rang out like the strike of hammer against stone. Misty wisps surrounded him, his body fluctuating between solid and ephemeral.
Cool fingers gripped my wrist harder.
“I need to speak to you, but I have to touch you for you to see me properly. Please allow me to do so.”
Before I could permit or deny his request, his index finger pressed tentatively against the space where my wrist and forearm met. It was enough of a connection for his words to clear and his intentions to manifest.
The longer we touched, the easier I could make out curling tendrils of brown hair sweeping across his forehead, as though kissed by an invisible wind. His eyes dropped to the place where we touched before he forced them up.
And I saw in them wariness, confusion as deep as my own. And panic. A blistering anxiety to make me understand before I could cut him off at the knees.
“I’m Veylan Orris. A Sylph,” he said, his voice normal now. “A being of air invisible to anyone unless we are touching.”
Sylph. Air beings. I’d had a professor who was a sky nymph. A mentor. A friend.
“Similar to Aurae?” I asked him.
“A cousin clan, you might say.” Veylan risked a small smile, but quickly sobered. “I sought you out because my city is now under water. I managed to escape the flood, but my people are trapped and water is deadly for us. I was told you can help us.”
The chill from his fingers skittered up my veins and caressed my heart, circling it in ice. He took a step closer and his scent, clean like a winter breeze, pushed into my nostrils.
“Who–who told you?”
Veylan chuckled, his outline ringed in haze again.
“Everyone. We’ve heard of what you’ve done.
How you saved the Encantado, the Dryads, the Fevar.
I came to find you because we need your help now.
We had gathered for a celebration when the flood struck.
I was late getting there and I am the only one who wasn’t trapped.
My tardiness saved my life. The others weren’t so lucky. But there is still time.”
Desperation worked his throat, and as much as fear demanded I step away from him, how could I? Veylan came all this way to find me.
“Please. Please help us. The flood— I can take you there. To the city. I can take you to my people. The kingdom will not help us. I haven’t attempted contact. We’re lesser Fae…”
His panic bled through me with his touch, and the sincerity of his emotions caught on mine and snagged.
“They’re running out of time. It took me too long to get to your camp, to track down the trail of your movement,” he pressed. “I had to make sure you were alone before I came. Please.”
“How did you get through the wards?”
His head tilted as if it was obvious. “We are air beings. Your protections are good but they aren’t coded to protect you from air.”
And good thing they weren’t. Hesitation disintegrated.
This is my job.
“Of course. Let’s go.”
Veylan sagged in relief. “Thank you. We’ll leave now.”
“No, let’s go back to camp. My friend can portal us to your city.” I took a step in retreat but Veylan held firm.
“There’s no need. Hold on to me.”
Veylan slid his hand down to mine and looped our fingers together, adjusting his grip. Without wings, without any discernible power, he dissolved, his body turning into wisps of shadow in the air. A stretch of cloud sprang from somewhere around his shoulders and a breeze picked up.
This was no primal cyclone.
It was soothing, like soft arms cradling us. The forest disappeared as the Sylph flew us upward. Our camp shrank to miniature, and in a blink we soared past cities and over mountains.
Dizziness spun through me. I clung to Veylan in a death grip. A vibration of a chuckle spread from him to me as he guided me through the air, flesh and bone connected to something intangible.
My stomach revolted. I’m going to throw up. My wolf fucking hated the disconnect from the ground but I couldn’t lose it now.
A pale orb of moon floated overhead as Veylan spun us gently through the air.
The same silvery sheen I’d experienced in the forest encapsulated the Sylph city, carved marble and moonlight rising like a hymn. Ivory domes crowned terraces shimmering like frozen starlight. Golden lanterns hung in the highest archways.
It was beautiful.
But murky water tamped out all light in the lower levels and buried sweeping staircases.
Veylan’s sorrow nipped through our connection. This city wasn’t only built for living but for reverence, with each stately column etched by a devoted hand. Balconies whispered of grandeur.
Or at least the ones that hadn’t been submerged by the flood.
A restless roar of water crashed through buildings and streets in a dark tide. This was no gentle arrival. It surged and devoured entire districts. Grand stairways, paths of pilgrimage, now cascading waterfalls as water thundered up, down, around.
The flood devoured lower arches and intricate carvings beneath churning foam. Courtyards disappeared under whirlpools, and the elegant symmetry of the city devolved into chaos.
I gasped when I noticed Sylphs huddled on the very tops of the buildings, desperately seeking safety. By touching Veylan, I saw them all, crowds tied together in panic as the flood water rose higher and higher.
There was nowhere left to stand, nowhere for us to touch down.
Murky reflections of glowing domes broke with debris and desperate movements.
Sylph screamed from the still untouched domes, their luminous windows defiant as the flood climbed restless and higher.
The monument of the city stood suspended between ruin and beauty.
I was not an air being. My weight might very well cause the buildings to crumble beneath my feet—and the Sylph would drown.
“If you let go of me, I won’t be able to see them,” I called to Veylan above the roar of the water. “You’re going to have to hold on to me.”
Would he be able to manage it for long enough?
Veylan kept us skyward as I drew the water to me. It surged upward, a harsh greeting. And a remembrance.
I’d breathed underwater once. I’d learned the way the water moved outside of me, how the molecules of oxygen were drawn into my body, a gift I hadn’t been able to return once bestowed.
This was different.
I sent my magic to the very edges of the flood, its source and its end, anchoring the spell. Then I cast a magic net against the surging foam of raging water and tugged.
Power beat at me, resisting.
I concentrated and aimed an expulsion of magic that tightened the noose around the flood. Veylan guided me overhead, pulling me over the flood while I aimed and the very atmosphere warped around us.
The water gave a thunderous slurp, like a bubble bursting, raging. I tugged harder, desperate to end this flood before it got away from me.
I tried again, hauling the water’s elemental power into me with everything I had, my magic stretched to its limit. A burst of pain from my chest, a muttered obscenity, and I finally locked onto the structure keeping the flood’s trajectory in place.
It was a glittering chain of destruction.
So I snapped it.
Floodwaters receded, slowly sucking away from the buildings they’d tried to devour. But as magic brought it inside me, water filled my lungs. Not from outside. From within. The power turned into weight, into pressure, the kind I couldn’t shake.
The one I wouldn’t survive.
I’m not going down without a fight.
Veylan sucked in a gasp. “It’s working! Oh goddess, it’s working. Praise Faerie.”
I kept going, losing more air as I dragged the rest of the water into me. A privilege, I tried to tell myself. I could split a storm in two, and carve through the air itself. I could unbury a lake. The highest privilege, then, to unwind a flood and save a city from ruin.
Veylan struggled but kept us aloft despite losing altitude with my heaviness. He locked an arm around my waist, half carrying and half dragging me along the route of the flood. We kept going until I was too engorged to stay airborne.
My heaviness drew us both to the ground.
When he finally set me on my feet, the land soft and squelchy, my weight threatened to bury me like quicksand. I kept pulling.
More, more, ignoring the panic in my lungs as they struggled for air. Just a little bit more and the Sylph would be safe. They’d be able to live their lives.
I’d survived mud. Fire. Wind. I’d be able to survive this too.
Of course I would.
What were my powers for if not to save others?
“That’s it! Keep going, you’re doing it. You’re actually doing it!”
More shouts of encouragement followed Veylan’s. He kept hold of me but my eyes were flooded now. Water obscured everything, and I gasped but it was more like a choke. There was nothing. Only more water.
Only unconsciousness.
But my magic had accomplished the mission and the flood had receded. The last thing I saw was a crowd of jubilant Sylph, their bodies soft and silvery and ethereal, before I drowned on dry land.