Chapter 7 #2
“It’s a wishflower,” I said, feeling stunned to realize that a bit of fantasy from my childhood could come true. I seized his arm. “Fieran, you saw it first. Probably no one has ever seen it before. Make a wish.”
In fairy tales, only the very first person who ever saw a wishflower bloom got their wish.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt childish and silly. It had just been so surreal to see something that I’d only heard about in fairy tales and find out that it was indeed real.
“Claim your wish,” Fieran told me.
The thing I wanted most, to find a way to save my sister’s magic and to save my brother’s life, pressed against my chest like it would choke me.
I felt a sudden sense of loss, opening up as if it would swallow me. Fieran had seen it first, of course. His eyes were keener. But why hadn’t I believed in the fairy tales? Why hadn’t I come out here, braving the leopards, and found the wishflower for myself?
I tried to remind myself that it was just pretend. There was no way that plants could grant wishes. Wishes were never granted. Wishes were made real in an alchemy of hard-won plans and dirty hands and bloody knuckles.
“I’m giving my wish to you,” Fieran said, sounding lighthearted.
The wishtree’s magic was pretend. And if it were real, there would be rules governing that magic, and he’d been the first to find it with his keen night vision. “That’s not how it works, Fieran.”
Whether or not magic could change our destinies, I needed to dig my destiny myself out of hard-packed earth.
“Are you the expert on magic now, little mortal?”
I heaved a sigh. “Fine. I’ll make a wish if it will make you happy. And if you will refrain from ever calling me little mortal again.”
“It will,” he said, his voice close to my ear.
My emotions were so wild I could barely make sense of them. But there was one wish that was always pounding through me.
Let Tay be healthy and well, and let Lidi have her magic.
For a split second afterward, I felt a sense of peace. As if it would all come true.
The next second, my sense of peace curdled. A wave of superstition swept through me. Nothing good ever happened in the stories from people who stole wishes. It was Fieran’s wish to spend, not mine.
Now that I had voiced what I wanted the most, I had this terrible sense that both would vanish in the light of my stolen wish, like fog melting away under the sun.
“Are you all right?” Fieran’s voice had changed from warm to worried.
The sense that he could read me was so incredibly distressing. I took a step away from him, needing to put space between us.
I needed to be practical. Wishes wouldn’t save my brother and sister, but I could. If I were just smarter, if I just worked harder, if I could just put the last pieces together. I fixed my face and turned to face him.
“Of course.” It felt so humiliating to need him for a favor after his friends had established that morning that mortals were always searching for favors from dragon shifters. As if saving our lives wasn’t enough. But I must. “I have to ask you for a favor.”
“What do you want, Cara? If I can help, I will.”
“Thank you,” I said. Before I could lose my will to ask for something I didn’t really want, I asked, “Can you help me get a job working for the Fae?”
“Why?”
“I want to get out of the village.” I’d rehearsed this answer on my path to the inn, in case he asked, but it sounded less convincing now that he was looking at me the way he was.
“I haven’t known you very long, but I can tell that if you’d wanted to get out of this village, you’d already be gone.” He studied me with that too-intrusive gaze. “The Fae aren’t kind. What is it you really need? Because I doubt that need will be met serving some cruel Fae.”
“The Fae aren’t kind,” I repeated. With those simple words, it felt as if my plan was wild and unhinged. I prickled, embarrassed by my own stupidity.
I almost told him about Tay, but it would sound like I was spinning a story for pity. I had a feeling hopeful-eyed mortals were forever spilling their sadnesses before the shifters. As terrifying as the dragon shifters were, they were as close as people like me would ever come to the Fae.
I didn’t want him to think that I just wanted to take things from him.
Even though it seems like I had nothing to offer him, so really, what was he supposed to think of me?
While he was choosing his words, obviously carefully, I stewed in my sense of humiliation.
“I need to get out of this village. To have a job. To build a life of my own, instead of waiting for my family to outgrow needing me.”
The words became more true as I spoke, and I winced at hearing the truth voiced aloud that I’d never spoken.
But I wouldn’t abandon my family. I wouldn’t make my own life until theirs was on solid ground. I was only leaving them to protect Tay’s life and Lidi’s magic.
I hoped they would understand.
“Then I can help.” He turned to face me, the two of us coming to a stop.
The moonlight trickling through the lattice work of interlaced tree branches above us seemed to cast an ethereal glow on his beautiful face.
“It’s a mistake to leave the village. It’s your mistake to make, and I’ll help you.
But the life you have here…it’s a beautiful life for a mortal. ”
“For a mortal?” I repeated. It sounded so condescending when he said I had a beautiful life for someone who was mortal. As if this were all I could ever hope for.
“There are so many mortals living and serving the Fae, convinced that they’re going to be the ones chosen to be elevated among the Fae. To gain their magic back, and more. To be powerful.” He was watching me carefully.
I felt myself flush hot. “That’s not what I’m hoping for. I know it’s ridiculous…the Fae almost never raise someone to be like them…”
“Raise?” he repeated pointedly, the word lingering in the air.
“I’m not saying they’re better than us. But of course they have powers…” I realized I shouldn’t have lumped him into my us. “They have powers we mortals don’t have.”
“Because they take your magic,” he said.
“Even without that. We can’t heal…” My fingers fidgeted with his cloak. It was too heavy for me, weighing down my shoulders. My muscles were beginning to ache from the tension. “What is there that matters besides being able to save the people we love?”
His gaze softened in a way that made my heart tilt, feeling more vulnerable than I could bear. “Is that what you want, Cara? Is there someone you’re trying to save?”
My need to protect my brother and sister felt like a living thing, something swelling in my chest until I could choke on it. I was afraid if I tried to tell him, I’d tip over into tears. “Will you help me?”
“Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “If that’s what you want…I’ll find a place for you. Close enough to my own home to keep an eye on you. To make sure they can’t mistreat you.” He said the words as if mistreatment were such a sure thing.
I bit my lower lip. I hadn’t thought beyond taking care of Tay and Lidi. Suddenly, the thought that I would be in danger going to serve in the houses of the Fae pressed down on me.
But just like I wasn’t afraid in the night forest, maybe I wouldn’t be afraid in the Fae cities if I could rely on Fieran.
If I could. I barely knew him.
“And,” he added, adjusting the cloak on my shoulders, his touch familiar as if we were old friends. “Then I’ll be close by so I can make sure you don’t forget what I said earlier. We live in a world where everyone is obsessed with magic, but it’s not magic that makes you special.”
“It better not be,” I said. “Because I don’t have any.”
“Lies,” he said, his smile seeming sharp in the moonlight. It gave me another jolt of fear that he saw right through me, but that sentiment was mixed with something heady and intoxicating. “You might have lost part of yourself, but no one could take away all of what makes you magical.”
No one had ever made me feel special before like he did.
And I’d never met anyone as special as Fieran.
Then he was leaning down, his perfectly shaped mouth in my line of sight. I raised my face toward his, and my palm found his chest, and it felt as if his heart were beating a little faster too.
When our lips were almost about to touch, we heard a shout in the distance.