Chapter 21 #2
The land would respond to the Sylphs and their temples. And once Faerie returned to this world, things would be set right.
Iron bands around my heart finally unclasped. This wasn’t some oppressive god who would punish people for breaking rules, no fire and brimstone retaliation to sin. At least, I sure hoped not.
She had drowned me twice to get a meeting.
Veylan escorted me back to camp, with more thanks and thoughts of gratitude trailing us out of the Sylph city. I realized I’d never gotten its name.
I’d go back one day, I promised myself. I wanted to see how it looked restored, to walk those ivory staircases and stand beneath domes of worship.
When this rebellion reached a conclusion and Mike and I were free to be whoever we wanted…I’d like to travel and experience this world without the scars of destruction over it.
The moment my feet touched on the banks of the Y-bend in the river, the cavalry arrived.
Mike and Noren led the charge, with Melia hot on their heels, and, surprisingly, Professor Marsh. Her long red hair flew behind her like a war banner.
“I’ll take my leave, Tavi. Thank you again for everything you’ve done.” Veylan nodded his head, exhaustion fanning lines from his eyes. “I can’t tell you what it means to me.”
“Thank you. I hope we meet again soon.”
He winked, released his hold on me, and vanished, the connection broken.
“What happened?” Melia practically bowled me over.
I lifted my hands to shield myself from their concern. “It’s not a big deal.”
“My dear, it is a big deal when you’re waterlogged and reeking of elemental magic.” Professor Marsh sniffed. “Did you decide to go for a midnight swim and get lost?”
It was awkward and different to see her out of her usual pencil skirt and spiked heels.
She’d traded both for a loose pair of linen pants and a vest laced over her chest. Her cat-eye pupils contracted beneath the glare of the moon, and whatever shifter I’d first seen in her was more on display here than it had ever been at the Fae Academy.
“Let’s get you up to the healer and have Julie look at you.”
Before I could protest, Mike swept his arm around me and helped me up the bank, with Noren at my rear also helping.
“Wyn, will you run ahead and let Julie know we’re coming and we need her?” Mike barked.
“I’m fine,” I insisted as Professor Marsh took off. I realized I hadn’t known her first name until now. “I’m safe now.”
“Are you, though? You look like someone caught you in a net and pulled you from some lake,” Melia said.
“I fixed the fourth obstacle. I survived.” I didn’t tell them I’d nearly died.
Mike fussed over me too much as it was.
It was hard to lift my legs on my own, as though the water I’d pulled settled in both limbs. They didn’t look different, but in my mind’s eye they were enormous, weighted, swollen with water. I left a trail of water droplets behind as I walked.
“What was the fourth obstacle?” Melia scurried up the bank behind us. “We thought you were out for a walk and got caught somehow! We were terrified.”
Their fear blanketed me but I shook it off. “The Sylph. Their city was underwater—” I barely got the words out before she interrupted.
“You did get caught in a flood. I knew it. And why didn’t the Sylphs want to come and talk to us? Why didn’t they pledge troops? You came back alone.”
“I wasn’t alone.” But I didn’t have time to explain to them how Sylph magic worked.
Mike bent and lifted me into his arms, ignoring my added water weight.
“I don’t need the healer, I need Livvy,” I insisted.
This issue went beyond Julie’s capabilities. Not that I doubted her, but if anyone understood how much my body took on through these obstacles, it was Livvy.
“I really think it’s best if you go to the healer’s tent. You need to rest, Tavi. You can’t keep pushing your body through these things and expect there to be no damage or repercussions.”
Mike stared stoically ahead. His profile, lit by the stars, had hardened since the first time I met him. He’d grown into someone stubborn and solid, from unsure to unapologetic. I loved him.
But I resisted even as he held me closer.
“Get Livvy. Please.”
Melia worried her hands, shifting her weight from foot to foot as the stare down between me and Mike.
Choking up more water just then probably didn’t help my case, but the moment it dripped down my chin, Mike flinched.
“Put me down, Mike,” I said in a no-nonsense tone. “Melia, fetch Lizzy.”
Mike reluctantly set me on my feet. Another belch of water ran black down my chin.
He tracked the trail of water until it disappeared in the ruins of my shirt and when his gaze lifted to mine again, his eyes were hard as emeralds. Jewels with no warmth and only concern like cutting edges.
“Tavi—” He held himself back.
Better for both of us that he did.
I worked my teeth side to side until my jaw cracked. Tension strung tighter until he groaned.
Melia returned shortly with Livvy. The silent standoff between me and Mike stretched painfully thin until they arrived.
It was a bubble bursting.
Livvy took one look at me and snapped her fingers, pointing south. Noren huffed after us and set up a watch, his eyes glowing.
I didn’t breathe easily until the shielding limbs of river willow, real and creaking, kept us from the prying eyes of the camp.
This patch of forest grew denser, thicker, their roots searching for water and forming gnarled hollows on the riverbank.
“Mike was so worried about you. We all were, of course, but Mike especially. He loves you, you know.”
I reached up to scratch the edges of the scar across my throat and caught the involuntary gesture. “I know he’s worried, but this is what I have to do. There are no other choices. A Sylph male came to get me. His people were going to die.”
Livvy searched my face before something crumpled inside her. She gestured to the ground and we mirrored each other in cross-legged seats.
“I don’t like it either,” she admitted. Noren came closer, settling his body like a crescent moon linking us together. “I hate seeing you like this and sensing what it does to your magic.”
She held a hand in front of me and warmth tingled along my skin, the outlines of her fingers heating like a desert mirage.
“You’re drawing it into yourself,” she said with no little awe.
“To save people. To correct a problem I caused.”
Her lips thinned like she wanted to say more but it wasn’t the right time. Not with my magic waterlogged.
“Help me siphon out the water,” I pleaded.
There was no more deliberation or wasted time.
Livvy walked me through a ritual to release the water, and with the last words of power spoken, the remaining water hung in the air, an amorphous liquid shape.
It moved and flowed over itself like clear gelatin before I lifted my arms—infinitely lighter now—to help direct the water to the river.
It crashed down into rapids and melted away.
“All the beings who have been plagued are elemental based,” Livvy said once we’d finished.
She blew out a breath and a quick spell sucked the rest of the moisture from my clothing.
“I’d noticed that too,” I replied. “I’ve helped earth, fire, water, and air.”
“Which only leaves Spirit.”
Something inside me went still at the mention. An eerie sensation buzzed around the inside of my brain and our eyes locked. “I didn’t know there were beings in Faerie connected to Spirit.”
Her throat worked. I didn’t want her to say it. I didn’t want to hear what new hurdles rose up after I’d completed this sprint of my life.
I wanted to go back to my tent and talk to Mike. I wanted to lose a few hours in his arms, or go for a run with Noren and release my wolf and just be. Sleep was out of the question.
“There’s only one race in Faerie known to have Spirit powers. They call themselves the Aether. But they’re spirit beings. They live in the Summerlands.”
I knew that word. I’d heard it slip from Faerie herself, tumbling from her lips like she had no idea it landed as corrosive as acid.
“Nobody knows how to access the Summerlands, a separate but connected world to Faerie. It’s the afterlife.”
“The Summerlands are where the dead go,” I whispered.
I’d never seen Livvy so terrified.
We both understood, and I wondered if she felt the cold brush on the nape of her neck the way I did. There was a way to get to the Summerlands. The only way.
I had to die.