Chapter 35
I ’m not sure how much time passes. Enough for a second round and for me to doze against Elias’s chest. I blink awake to the feel of his hand gently stroking my face.
“Mmm?” I nestle into his warmth. The length of his erection presses against my thigh, and my mind goes right back to sex.
The stamina of this man. Our first joining was quick, both of us so eager, but the second?
There was no lack of enthusiasm from either of us, but Elias seemed determined to take his time, bringing me to the edge again and against until I was a mewling mess of need and frustration.
“I wish I didn’t have to wake you,” he whispers, “but I fear my sister is growing impatient.”
I let out a little gasp, suddenly very awake and searching the room for said sister as I tug up the covers.
He chuckles. “She’s not in the room. But I can hear her in the hall.”
Oh, to have fae hearing. I can’t hear anything but the thump of his heart.
“She knows better than to burst in right now,” he says loudly, staring toward the door.
“Oh, I’m considering it.” Katiya’s raised voice comes from beyond the door. “I know you two are doing important things .” I can almost see her making air quotes as she says it, not that she would, being fae, but she would certainly be the type if she were human. “But you need to see this.”
I look at Elias in question, but he merely shrugs one shoulder. Loath as I am to leave his bed, curiosity has me thoroughly intrigued. “Let’s go find out.”
We clean up and dress quickly, Elias in casual pants and a loose cream-colored shirt. If one didn’t know better, he could be any Unseelie dressed like that. My outfit is similar, the same one I wore for gardening with Vada.
“No armor?” I ask, half teasing.
He smirks. “Katiya would have barged in if there was trouble of that sort.”
Noted.
Katiya practically leaps off the wall she was leaning against when we finally emerge. Elias halts, a curious look crossing his face as his ears twitch. Does he hear something I don’t?
“Come on!” She bounces on her toes, tail flicking back and forth.
Katiya grabs my wrist and hurriedly draws me down the corridor. As we near the hallway with the arched openings to the gorge, I finally hear what Elias must have heard.
It sounds like…a party.
People laugh. There’s the hum of music and conversation.
Though the gorge appears illuminated, the light is flickering, like it must be fires or fae lights providing the illumination instead of the muted sun.
Katiya releases me as we near the first archway.
I half stumble and come to a stop, taking in something that I know wasn’t there before.
“Is that a plant?” I gape and point to what’s unmistakably a vine curling down from above and extending into the arched opening to dangle there, the end a bright green curlicue.
Elias, who’d been trailing behind, hurries to the opening. He freezes then leans forward, staring this way and that with his mouth open before stumbling back.
“Elias?” I reach his side, and my reaction is much the same.
The Unseelie King wraps one arm around me, holding me close, as we both struggle to take in the change.
The gorge has erupted with life.
Vines hang down from the rim above. A few small trees have sprouted out of cracks. A little waterfall trickles down opposite us that was nowhere to be seen before.
“Impossible,” I say. It defies every human law of the world, everything I have ever learned about nature, life, and growth. No models could predict this. Science would say it cannot happen. But it has.
A shiver races across my skin. Elias’s grip tightens as he pulls me closer to his side.
“The land is healing,” Katiya says, smile blinding. “It’s isolated to this section of the city from what we can tell. But look.” She gestures widely.
“This…” Elias’s chest rises and falls with heavy breaths. “This is the beginning of what I’ve dreamed of. A new life for our people.”
“Hope,” Katiya adds. “It looks like hope. And they all see it.”
Tears fill my eyes. It’s pure joy bubbling up from the people below.
The promise of something better, something new.
A world none of them has ever seen. And I’ve helped make that.
I may not have changed any lives with my research back home the way I’d always hoped, but here?
This is real. It’s true healing, of the heart if not the body.
I smile up at Elias. “We did this.”
I’d swear unshed tears glisten in his eyes as he smiles at me in return. “We did. And I believe we can give them even more to hope for.” He turns to Katiya. “You brought the others?”
“Of course,” she says. “They are safe and resting. Some were loath to leave the site unattended since they believe there is still much to discover, but we can return them at some point.”
“And you slept?” he asks.
There’s a wild look in her eyes that says she hasn’t, which is only confirmed when she cackles and says, “Sleep? When our world is finally changing?”
A huff of laughter catches in his throat. “Wake the counsel if they’re not already up. We have something else to show the people.”
“Your mark?” She raises her brows suggestively.
“You know?” I ask. Our clothes cover them completely, even large as they are.
She laughs again. “I can feel the power of it. Anyone who sees you will feel it and know.”
“Oh.” Heat rushes to my cheeks. Great, I forgot that little detail.
I might as well be wearing a blinking sign that says Property of the Unseelie King.
Though honestly, most of them probably already thought of me that way before and were just waiting for this to happen, so maybe it won’t be too awkward.
“You’re not bothered by it, are you?” Elias’s features are pinched with concern.
This poor, scarred man. I’m not about to let my human prudishness unsettle him.
“No.” I lean closer into him. “I am proud to stand at your side.”
And I am. He’s a good king. A good man. How wrong the Seelie and humans are about him.
The adoring look he gives me in return threatens to turn me into a pile of goo.
“You’re going to try to heal the sword,” Katiya says with breathy anticipation.
“Yes.” Elias turns to her. “We will give our people a night to remember for all time.”
“And if the engraving was wrong or incomplete?” she asks, brow raised. “It would not be the first time we were wrong.”
“You’re not. Wrong,” I clarify as they both turn to gape at me. “I dreamed this,” I say, turning to look out the window at the growing plants. “Not this scene exactly but me giving the land life.”
I’ve never believed in dream theory. A few weeks ago, I would have called it nonsense. It did not conform to my carefully curated view of the world.
But that was the human world. Here, everything is different. And my intuition has yet to steer me wrong.
“I can’t explain it, but I feel like I was meant to do this,” I say, “and I feel the same way about the sword. I feel like I can heal it.”
I turn around, expecting them to look at me like I’ve grown a second head. It’s what I would have done in the past. Katiya’s face is tilted in cautious curiosity, but Elias stares at me like I just offered him the sun—or rather, I am the sun.
“I feel it too,” he admits.
My worries evaporate as we stare at one another. Maybe it’s our bond. Or maybe he just wants to believe me. Either way, his support means the world and bolsters my courage.
I say, “Let’s do it.”