Chapter 44 #3
“No need for sarcasm, little wolf.” He canted his head, watching me closely, his eyes slowly narrowing.
Whatever he was thinking, he was thinking hard about it.
He had never scrutinised me so closely, not even when we had been in those early days, when he had been trying to figure me out and I had been doing the same to him.
“I merely meant that if you possess the blood of kings, that you might be able to empower your magic through a connection to nature—to Lucia—and that might be why your magic was too strong for you to control when you tried to use that route to learn how to wield it.”
I had heard him call upon the land once, when he had been trying to break that barrier back in Canada so we could reach Everlee and Danica, and Lucas.
“It is not hard. You simply must feel the words in your soul and reach through them to the lands—to nature.” He eased into a crouch and pressed his palm to the grass.
I followed suit, and the moment my palm met the ground, that connection bloomed inside me. “I’ve always felt different here. As if I’m more connected to nature in this realm.”
He nodded. “Calling upon the land is an unseelie tradition, but maybe you can do it too.”
I wasn’t sure about that. I felt connected to nature, but to draw on its power to boost my own? I wasn’t even sure where to begin.
Kaeleron closed his eyes, his face growing placid and his body going still, and his voice curled around me, laced with magic as he murmured, “By the wrathful god of the west. With your breath, release mist and mire. With your heart, spill sharp poison. With your blade, sever all between you and eternity.”
I sensed his power growing, felt it vibrating the air and buffeting me, as strong as it had been the day I had met him in that dungeon, when I had feared his power would crush me.
But then it was gone, as if he had severed that connection he had built in the blink of an eye.
Before anyone could notice it.
“Now you try.” He dipped his head in my direction.
“I don’t know where to start. What am I meant to say?” I blinked at him, suddenly uncertain, and feeling a little silly.
“Whatever you feel in your heart.”
“Okay… but if you could just shut your ears for a moment, that would be great.” I forced a smile when his lips curved at the corners, trying to pretend I was kidding.
He saw straight through me, of course. “There is nothing ridiculous about this and you do not need to be embarrassed. Here… let us think of words together. If that will help?”
“Gods, yes,” I muttered. “At least… we need to find a start and maybe the rest will come?”
“Your power is solar, the Summer Court is aligned with the solstice in your world, and that is the rite of the sun rising in the east on the longest day of the year.” He frowned at my hand where it still pressed against the grass. “So perhaps… by the rising goddess of the east?”
I nodded several times. “I like that. A rising goddess. Warm. Powerful. Majestic. Bringing light. I can work with that. I still feel stupid.”
That last part just spilled from me, slipping out before I could stop it, and he smiled softly at me.
“I shall not listen to a word you say, my love.” He pressed his hands over his pointed ears and turned away from me, as if that would stop him from hearing me with his sensitive fae hearing.
I drew down a breath and mulled it over, thinking through the words that might give me a power boost and meant something to this court.
“By the rising goddess of the east. With your rays, cast day’s first light. With your heart, wake slumbering earth. With your heat, become the burning blade of my wrath.”
And nothing happened.
“I didn’t feel a thing,” I muttered at my hand, feeling like a fool, and then looked at Kael. “Shouldn’t I have felt at least something… a stirring? A connection?”
He said, “I cannot hear you, remember?”
I stood and poked him in the back, rocking him forwards. “Be serious.”
He lowered his hands and turned back to me. “It will come in time. It might take many tries to find the right words, the words Lucia whispers to your soul that will forge a stronger connection with her. It will come in time, Saphi.”
I wasn’t so confident that it would, but I appreciated that he was.
“You did not feel anything? Not even the slightest stirring?” He took hold of my hand and toyed with my fingers, and then the ring on my left hand.
“Nothing. By the rising goddess of the east sounds right… feels right… but maybe it’s not right. Maybe it’s not right for me.”
“Perhaps.” He glanced at the darkening sky before lowering his gaze to meet mine again. “I have another idea.”
“More magic?” I groaned, not feeling physically exhausted, but mentally. Learning basic spells had lifted me up and made me feel great, but failing to find the words to connect me to Lucia had left me feeling miserable again.
He slowly shook his head, that look of pure mischief that curled his lips telling me it was something far more fun than magic.
His grin curled my toes in my boots and I knew whatever left his far-too-kissable lips was going to be three things: dangerous, exciting, and a little reckless.
“How would you like to go on an adventure?”