Chapter 11
ELEVEN
CAIRN
The road out of the copse runs west through a landscape that grows emptier with every mile.
The last farmhouse we passed lost its roof a long time ago.
A crow was perched on the chimney stack, watching out of intelligent black eyes as we rode by, and I found myself envying the bird’s ability to simply leave this world behind.
The road degrades beneath us. Packed earth becomes a rutted track, which becomes more overgrown the farther we go, until eventually the land takes even that back. There’s nothing in any direction but grass and trees and sky.
It doesn’t matter. It may have been three centuries since I was last here and the shape of the land has changed in that time, but I know exactly where we are.
The breeze shifts direction, bringing the smell of wet grass, sweat and … Selveryn stumbles, his flanks shuddering as the magic he’s formed from recognizes its source.
Magic bleeds through the skin of my hands.
My fingers tighten on the reins, and Alleria makes a small startled sound as the glow of power crawls up my forearms. My body locks as I battle for control.
The first two times this happened, I held it.
This time there’s too much. It’s coming too fast, and my grip on it means nothing.
The magic keeps flowing, keeps pulsing, filling my lungs, and flooding down the bonds that hold me to the Guard.
Vel hisses on my left, her spine snapping taut as the wave hits her.
I’m vaguely aware of Therin swearing on my right, the sound thick with a shock that borders on pain.
I don’t dare turn to check on the rest. I can feel them through the magic—eleven points of light igniting in a row, eleven hearts stuttering as the magic reaches for what has been starved since the Seal formed.
“Cairn?” Alleria's eyes are wide as she searches out mine.
“Quiet.” I utter the word through gritted teeth. I can’t afford the distraction of speaking right now.
My next inhale brings with it the taste of salt water, and the scent of wild magic.
Underhill.
There’s no doubting it this time. The magic inside me lunges for it, and my lungs fill with the taste of home. Magic. Free fae magic, wild and unbound. The sweetness of it coats the back of my throat, salt burns in my nose, and I throw my head back, gulping in air like I’ve been drowning.
In front of me, Alleria’s head tips back slightly, her lips parted.
“What is that?” she whispers.
I can’t answer her. I don’t trust my voice, and my jaw is locked too tight to form words.
Silver pulses beneath my skin in a rhythm that matches the pounding of my heart—fast, frantic, and terrified that if I stop breathing, the magic will vanish again.
Every inhale is another mouthful of home I’m desperate to hold onto.
Selveryn has halted beneath me. Therin has pulled Kaethros up alongside me. I glance over at him and see his jaw is set hard, the muscle ticking in time with the pulse in his throat.
At some point Iorel must have dismounted because he’s on his knees on the ground, with Serath beside him, both their steeds forgotten as they clutch each other.
Vel sits on her steed like she’s been carved from stone, eyes fixed on the horizon, but her fingers flex on her reins in a constant, restless rhythm.
Brael’s eyes are closed, his face tilted toward the sky, and his lips moving around words I can’t hear. Kaelith has both fists pressed to his mouth. Maerwyn is weeping. Riahn has bent low over her steed, one hand fisted in the mane, her shoulders shaking.
Then it fades. The salt goes first, then the sweetness thins. I have to fight the urge to lean forward, to chase the receding tide of it. As if fighting it will force the magic to stay.
It doesn’t.
What replaces it is the empty, flat, flavorless mortal air I’ve been breathing since Underhill was sealed away.
Iorel takes a long, ragged breath, then pushes himself to his feet. Therin turns to look at me, and his eyes meet mine, but he stays silent. No one says a word. They don’t need to. I can feel the grief, longing and hope through the bonds linking them to me.
I unlock my fingers from Selveryn’s reins, dragging my mind back to the present through a sheer act of discipline. Alleria is staring at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide, her pupils blown.
“What was that?” She repeats her earlier question.
“Underhill.” It’s Therin who answers her. He glances at me. “That lasted longer than last time.”
I nod without answering. There is no question about what is happening now. The Seal is weakening. Underhill is calling us home.
I take a slow breath, close my eyes, and reach down past the threads of the Guard to the broader net.
Every living fae left in this kingdom is on it somewhere.
Some burn strong against my mind. Most are faint, worn thin by iron and years and whatever has been done to them.
And some have gone dark, the thread fraying into nothing where a life used to be. Those we will mourn later.
The rest are alive. And now they are mine.
I reach down every thread at once, and the magic answers in a rush that makes my teeth ache.
Come to me.
These fae have sworn me no oath. They are not part of the Nightwild Guard. But that doesn’t matter. They’ll feel my call, they’ll move toward it without knowing why. That’s all I care about.
Come. Find me.
I hold it there until every thread is aligned, and the entire web is humming through me like a taut bowstring, then I let it go.
The drain hits immediately. My vision grays at the edges, and for a heartbeat I think Selveryn is going to stumble again, or worse, dissolve into mist. Then the world steadies.
Cost. There’s always a cost.
But it is worth it. Every fae in the kingdom will have felt my call.
“Cairn?” Alleria is staring at me, eyes full of worry.
“I’m fine.”
Therin snorts. When I look at him, he raises one eyebrow.
“What? I was just going to ask whether you were planning to fall off Selveryn now, or if you’re planning to keep that as a surprise for us later.”
“Neither.”
“You’re a joy. Have I told you that recently?”
“Yes. Every day.”
“And yet …” He waves one hand toward my face.
I shake my head. My hands have steadied, but I can feel the weakness the sending cost me in my marrow. Alleria is still watching me, her eyes tracking the tension in my face. I reach for the dregs of my power and straighten in the saddle.
“We need to keep moving.” I touch my heels to Selveryn’s flanks, and he moves forward at a slow walk.
The sun is low by the time the signpost comes into view. It’s made from weathered wood and iron brackets, but the sign itself is new. Replaced often enough to keep the threat clear.
All travelers must take the left fork. No passage to the right. By order of the crown.
“Stop!” Alleria clutches my arm.
I bring Selveryn to a stop beside the sign, the rest of the Guard pausing around me.
“We have to take the left road. We have to.” Her hand tightens on my arm. “The right goes to Therison Vale.”
“I know.”
“No one goes there. It’s forbidden. The decree goes back further than anyone I know can remember. There are soldiers who patrol it that have no purpose other than to detain anyone who tries to enter the Vale.” Her voice climbs a little on the last sentence. “Please, Cairn. We have to go left.”
I turn Selveryn’s head to the right.
The color drains from her face. “No. Cairn, no. We can’t.”
“We can.”
“This isn’t a warning you can just ignore. It’s a law.” Her voice is shrill. “Anyone found near the Vale will be executed on sight.” She turns half-around in the saddle, one hand clutching white-knuckled to Selveryn’s mane. “There’s a garrison kept here. You’ll be killed.”
“I have no plans to die today.”
“They’ll have iron, and a mage. You don’t—you can’t ride in there!”
“Alleria, stop.” My voice is soft. “I need you to listen to me, because I’m only going to explain this once, and then we’re going to move.
That ground is where my people made their last stand.
” The words come out flat and level. “That is where the last stand of the Nightwild Guard was made. That is where human mages cast a ritual that cut us off from our home. That is where half of us died. Where Underhill was closed over our heads while we were fighting to stop it.”
Fury rushes to fill my veins. I let it rise. I have spent far too long swallowing it.
“We were cut off from everything. Our home. Our magic. Our families. And there was nothing we could do. That valley is why we have spent lifetimes in iron. It is why you grew up believing the fae are animals. It’s why you were excited to hunt me for sport.”
Her breath catches, and she flinches at my reminder.
“Therison Vale is where I knelt surrounded by the corpses of my kind, and the screams of the survivors in my ear. The keep I was born in, the cliffs, the sea, and every fae I have ever loved. All of it, cut away from us in a single breath, while I stood there with a sword in each hand and could do nothing to stop it.”
My fingers tighten on Selveryn’s reins, Nightwild magic racing over my skin in silvery sparks.
“I have carried the memory of that day in my head for three hundred and twelve years. Your kingdom called it a victory. Then they turned their backs to the battlefield, so the kingdom beyond it didn’t have to see what it was built on.”
Armor flows over my body, covering me from neck to feet.
“So understand me, Moirthalen. The warning on that post means nothing to me. I don’t care what a sign says. I don’t care about soldiers. And I don’t care about human laws. That ground is where my people died. It’s where Underhill was taken from us.”
Alleria’s eyes get wider with every word I speak.
“The fear your kingdom has built around the name of Therison Vale doesn’t touch me, because I was there the day that name became a part of your history.
” My lip curls. “Your king can have his decree. I have been waiting centuries for this. The Seal is breaking and I am going back there to finish it.”