Chapter 8
W hile he’s gone, I gather dry wood to use for a fire.
It’s not hard. This once may have been a lush forest, but many trees have fallen, their trunks now decomposing husks on the forest floor.
Many of the ones that still stand are dry and twisted, their spindly branches reaching toward the dark sky.
There are no stars here. Or rather, any stars in the sky are blocked by the same haze that cloaked the sun and shrouded the sliver of a moon that’s bluer than ours.
It casts a muted, eerie light over everything, and though my eyes have started to adjust, I still can’t see well.
It takes forever to find the matches in my pack, but I finally close my fingers around the little box. It may be my first campfire in forever, but I’m pretty proud of it. I even thought to build it in a nice dusty spot away from grass and trees so I don’t set the whole place on fire by accident.
An eerie sound rises in the distance, ringing through the night like a wolf’s cry but much deeper. The sound echoes straight through me and has me dropping into a crouch near my pile of sticks.
I’ve got to get this thing lit. I strike a match, and it flares to life.
“What are you doing?”
I scream and drop the match. It snuffs out in an instant.
“Elias?” I twist this way and that, trying to find him in the gloom.
Finally, I spot him. Despite the dry grasses and twigs strewn over the uneven ground, he moves with eerie precision and near silence.
I had not even heard him approach. Something is bundled in his arms, and it takes me a moment to make out that it’s his cloak, which he’s taken off and used as an impromptu sack.
I really hope there’s not some animal he’s hunted bundled up in there.
“You scared me,” I scold him.
“My apologies, but do not light that fire.”
I blink at him, hoping it’s a joke but realizing it’s not. “Did you not hear that horrible sound moments ago?”
Elias comes to crouch near me on the other side of my would-be campfire. “I did. They should leave us alone. Unless you light that fire and it gets the best of their curiosity. They are known to be quite inquisitive and travel in packs.” And there’s the humor in his voice again.
Shit. Of course animals here would do the opposite of what I expect. And that’s not the only problem. The cold is already seeping through my coat, and the temperature is still dropping.
“So no fire.” I sigh.
“There’s another reason for that. I will show you soon. But first—” He spreads open his cloak, revealing a pile of assorted forest debris. “Food.”
I can’t help it. My lips wrinkle in disgust.
He tsks. “So quick to judge.” Clearly, the dark is no impediment to his vision. “Though perhaps this will please you.” He picks up something that looks like a chunk of wood and moves it toward the edge of the cloak. “Bark of the Siponet tree.”
“What!” I spring toward it, knocking into my pile of sticks and toppling it over.
But in the moment, I couldn’t care less.
I scoop up the precious hunk of bark. Coarse on one side and mostly flat on the other, it’s slightly curved where it was wrapped around a tree.
And this, ground into a powder, is one of the ingredients I need to save Matt. “This is it. You’re sure?”
When I tear my gaze from the bark to Elias, I’d swear a hint of a violet glow radiates from him. But then I blink, and it’s gone. Maybe it was the moon.
All that matters is the short nod of his head. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s why we came this way. Those trees tend to grow around here.”
“Thank you, thank you.” I clutch the bark like the treasure it is. Less than a day in Faery, and I’m one step closer to my goal. Maybe not the coven’s. But I’ll worry about that later. Once I find what I need for Matt.
“It’s only one ingredient,” he says, as if it’s nothing.
But it means a lot to me. Could I have found this on my own?
Maybe. Would other fae have been so helpful?
I’m not so sure, but then, what is my judgment based on?
Very little, other than rumor and hearsay.
Maybe I’ve been very wrong. Maybe we are all wrong about the Unseelie, if Elias is anyone to judge by.
“Still, it means a lot.” I smile, the joy in my heart breaking free. “I’m going to go tuck this away for safekeeping.” I do a little happy dance as I tuck the bark away in my pack. “One down!”
I’m still grinning when I return to Elias with a protein bar in tow.
“Cheers.” I hold out the protein bar toward him like a drink for a toast.
He blinks, staring between the bar and me.
“Sorry, human celebration thing,” I say, trying to shrug off the weirdness of the moment. Awkwardly, I lower the bar and shrink in on myself. Not a fae thing. Right.
“It’s too early to celebrate. We’ve only acquired one ingredient, and it is the most common.”
Way to rain on my parade. I rip open my bar with a little more force than necessary. It nearly tumbles to the ground, but thankfully, I grab it before it does. “Every accomplishment, no matter how small, is worth celebrating.”
Elias grabs a round object from his cloak and digs his nails into a seam. “That is a very optimistic way of thinking.”
A sharp crack rings out as the outer layer of the thing—a nut?—falls away.
“It is,” I reply, notching my chin a bit higher. Clinging to hope is something I have a lot of practice with.
He grunts softly in response, giving one of those short nods. He’s silent for a moment, lost in thought, before he holds up the nut he just shelled. “Here. You should eat.”
I stare at it dubiously. “Um, thank you, but I’m good.” I lift my protein bar before taking a large bite. “I brought my own food.”
It’s hard to tell in the gloom, but I swear his nose wrinkles in disgust. “That is no food I have ever seen.”
I shrug. “It’s from my world.”
“It smells unappealing.”
He can smell it from there? I sniff, barely picking up the scents despite holding it.
“That looks unappealing,” I counter. Not that my protein bar looks all that much better.
“Looks can be deceiving. The value of a thing is not always obvious. What to you may look unappealing is life-giving for my kind. The Siponet trees persist, and so do we.”
I lower my protein bar. “That’s how you knew about the bark.”
He adjusts his position on the ground, planting one booted foot flat on the soil, his leg making an upside-down V, knee to the sky, where he rests one arm. It’s an oddly human stance. Casual and yet unnervingly distracting as it draws my attention somewhere I really shouldn’t focus.
“It’s important to know about the land in which one lives. Knowledge is strength, and the strong survive.” Elias stretches out his arm, the nut resting in his upturned palm. “Try it.”
My lips press into a thin line. But how can I say no after those comments?
I pull the wrapper over the rest of my dinner and set it aside.
I rise on my knees and reach out to take the nut.
My focus snares on his clawed nails. They’re dark, not black but gray, and slightly curled in near the tips.
Distracted as I am, my hand brushes over his as I go to take his offering.
A shock zips up my arm at the contact. His hand jerks.
The nut falls. But our gazes jump to each other’s and catch, the quiet of the night never so thick as now.
“Sorry—” I start.
We both reach for the fallen nut. I get there first. His hand covers mine. So warm and real. And then he jerks it away.
“I—” he starts but looks away.
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth as I grip the nut and bring it to my lap. Such a simple, incidental thing, one I wouldn’t even think twice about if it were with a friend, a co-worker, even someone handing me a coffee or something.
Maybe it’s because he’s fae.
Or more specifically, Unseelie.
They’re villains. He’s supposed to be my enemy.
And yet, with the way he ducks his head and lets a little bit of his shaggy brown hair fall across his face, he looks like a school boy who just tried to kiss a girl for the first time but chickened out and ran away instead.
There was no kiss. Barely a touch. But it’d be a lie to say I didn’t feel something too, something way too complicated and inconvenient, given everything.
Just a touch, Aimee. Get it together!
This place is messing with me, and I don’t like it.
The nut gives a little when I tighten my palm, totally forgetting that I just picked it up.
Searching for distraction, I raise it to my face and give a little sniff.
A sweet nuttiness tickles my nose. It smells oddly like the almond croissants from the coffee shop near my apartment, and when I take a bite, my teeth easily slide through its surface. I nearly groan in pleasure.
Despite the smell, saying it tastes like pastry wouldn’t be quite right. There’s a hint of sweetness, but it’s more like a dense, nutty bread. In fact, it tastes a bit like my mom’s banana bread. Of all the things I expected to find in Faery, that was not it.
“This is actually really good,” I say.
Elias looks back at me, a grin blooming on his face. “I’m pleased I could surprise you.” He grabs another and cracks it open before taking a bite for himself. “It takes few to satisfy. At least for us. Perhaps it will be the same for you.”
I’ve finished the first and have to hold back from licking my fingers. Elias must notice because he cracks open another one and hands it to me. A few more follow.
Then he rises, dusting off his pants. “Come. There is something else I wish to show you.”
“In the dark?” I ask but stand as well, a third nut in my hand.
The hint of a chuckle slips through the night air. “Sometimes the darkness can show what the light hides.”
My brows pinch at what sounds like a backward statement, but I follow a few steps after him anyway.
We come to the edge of a rocky outcropping on the hilltop with a clear view of the wide valley below.
The narrow river I first followed winds its way through, distinguishable only for its flatness and the slight glimmer in the muted moonlight.
“What are we looking for?” I whisper.
“You’ll see,” he says with equal quiet.
A chorus of distant sounds—the deep howls like I’d heard before—ring out. The sound draws my attention but not Elias’s. Something about his calm eases my fears, and I stare back in the direction of before.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask again when a lighter area moves. I thought was moonlight filtering through the clouds, and I suck in a breath.
“You see them,” he says.
“I…” Golly, I want to. It moves again, this time reaching the river, disrupting the calm. “I think so.” The pale blue light shifts to a dull orange, and I shiver. It wasn’t moonlight reflecting off pale skin. I step forward, straining to see better. “It’s glowing.”
“Yes.” His voice is nearly behind me now.
The creature moves across the water in a back-and-forth motion like a giant snake slithering across its surface. It’s quite a distance away, but it still has the fine hairs rising along my arms. “What are they?”
“Nageth.” The word is strange to my ears. “They are another reason why we cannot have a fire this night. This is their mating season, and they use displays of light to attract and seduce a mate. We would not want them to mistake us for an interested party.”
Definitely not. I lean forward, spotting what I think are a few more. One is violet. Another gives off a greenish tinge. “They’re all different. Do the colors mean anything?”
“To the Nageth, perhaps. But what, I do not know.”
I go to take another step when a firm hand grabs my shoulder and gently tugs me back. The touch has me jumping in my boots.
“Careful.” Elias draws me back until I can literally feel the heat of his body. His voice is so close it makes me shiver. “I won’t lose you to a fall.”
I look down, breath catching in my throat at how close to the edge I’d gotten. He releases me and steps to the side, but it does nothing to dim the hot flush of my cheeks, which stands in sharp contrast to the chill of the night.
“Beautiful,” he says.
My blush only worsens.
He glances back toward the creatures. “Are they not?”
It takes a moment to realize he’s talking about the giant glowing snakes.
“I—Uh—Yes, they are.” Sort of. And terrifying. I’m really glad now that he stopped me from lighting a fire and accidentally bringing those things right toward us.
“Perhaps you will think more highly of this world rather than viewing it with scorn.”
“What?” I say, taken aback.
“I see the way you look at your surroundings.” He gestures around.
“Your face says much, even when your words do not. I know our land is different than the territory of the Seelie fae. I suspect it is different than yours as well. Tir na Tuchas is not what it is said to have once been, but this is all I have ever known. There is beauty here, if you have the will to see it. Even the persistence of life, the adaptability of our flora and fauna in what our Seelie brethren call a dead land, is a testament to its beautiful endurance.”
All the tender thoughts of moments ago have been stripped away in an instant.
Instead, I feel like a scolded child. He’s not wrong though.
That’s the worst of it. Everything I heard about the Unseelie painted them as monsters, their land a nightmare.
My first impressions of the world matched that expectation, even if Elias is not what I expected of its people.
I accepted what I wanted to see, what I thought I saw. I didn’t consider beyond that. How foolish. There’s always more beyond the surface. Didn’t all my years of research teach me that?
“You’re right,” I say at last, the words hard to force out. No one likes to admit when they are wrong. “I will try to see more of what you do while I am here.”
“Good. That is my request for helping you find the remaining ingredients for your brother. That you attempt to see Tir na Tuchas and the Unseelie beyond whatever has been taught to you.”
As we walk back toward the campsite, I ask, “It’s really important to you, isn’t it? My view of this place?”
“It is.”
“Why?”
He pauses, thoughtful. “How often have the Unseelie had the opportunity to share themselves with humans of late?”
I squint at the ground as I try to recall what all I learned over the past two weeks, from Matt, Selena, and others within the coven. The consort of the King of Air was captured and held by the Unseelie for a short time. Beyond that…
“Rarely,” I say.
Elias nods. “You’re right. I’ve glimpsed fewer humans than I have fingers. As far as talking to them, having the opportunity to truly show them this place? That’s a rare gift, and I will not squander it.”