Chapter 9 #2
Earlier, in between my futile attempts to wake Darius, I stared at my reflection in the gilded looking glass perched on the washbasin in the opulent tent. I had hoped to see some evidence of the magical gag the tanned Fae—Rian—had placed on me.
But nothing looked different. The same smooth skin marred by a tiny freckle at the side of my throat reflected back at me. Until I tried to speak of the clearing.
A thin, scorching-hot black line had encircled the base of my neck, and the beautiful yet terrifying symbol Rian had crafted with his shadows glowed red just above my sternum. Between that and the faded shadows still coiling around my arms, I am too marked by the Fae for my liking.
But there’s nothing I can do, not until I figure out a way to help them. Which seems impossible after today’s failure.
“Hey.” Lev tugs me closer. His free hand rests on top of mine. “Where did your mind go?”
I lean into his side and lie, “Nowhere important.”
His muscles tense, but he doesn't press. He withdraws the arm I’m holding and wraps it around my shoulder, a silent reassurance.
The aged wooden buildings thin out the farther away from the square we move.
My hand rests against Lev’s side. When he places a gentle kiss on my forehead, my heart squeezes. Lev is a loyal friend. A supportive companion. A selfless lover.
I thank the Gods for him every day. The world is harsh and cold, but it would be so much worse if I didn’t have him in my life.
The soft emotions settle, warming me, chasing away the negative ones that have plagued me all day.
But the reprieve is swept away the moment a foreboding sensation settles on my shoulders.
My gaze darts to the forest. The feeling of being watched is undeniable, burning almost as hot as the Fae magic coiled around my throat.
“What is it?” He follows my stare.
We’re still in a populated part of town, far enough from the forest that I usually don’t feel these eerie sensations like I do when visiting the forge. There are no glowing eyes in the dark foliage, but I know something watches me.
“N-nothing.” I swallow the lump in my throat and pick up my pace. Lev’s arm falls away. “But let’s hurry. I don’t know when the Fae will come for me again.”
He obliges without complaint, but I sense his questioning eyes boring into the back of my head the entire way to Juniper’s cottage.
The road under my feet gives way to a dirt path with stepping stones curving to the left, leading toward my childhood home. The herbal garden under the front window is in full bloom—in need of harvesting before the leaves shrivel up with the cooler weather coming in.
“This is where I leave you.” Lev takes my hand and draws me into his chest.
This time, his kiss is light and sweet, but the slight pressure at the end tells me he’d let it become more if that’s what I want.
I draw back, fighting off a shudder as the heavy stare from the trees intensifies. “What will you do tonight?”
Starting this evening, Lev is off duty for the next two days. We planned to spend it together, enjoying the start of the festival…before the Fae arrived and ruined everything.
“Oh, you know, I’ll probably just hang out with the guys.” He shrugs, but there’s a tightness around his eyes that I don’t understand.
“Who will you—”
“Elara Stonebloom,” a stern, aged voice calls. “It’s about time you came to see me.”
I step away from Lev and turn to the cottage.
Juniper stands on the threshold, leaning heavily on the cane in her hands. Her long silver braid hangs over one shoulder. Her wrinkled eyelids lower as she looks me over, hardening slightly when they shift to the man at my side.
“Ironheart.”
Lev swallows thickly. “Mistress Fernweaver. I hope you are well.”
“As well as an old crone like me can be,” she clips back with a frown before looking back at me. “Well? Are you coming in, child?”
I slide my gaze to Lev and murmur, “I’ll see you later.”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Be safe, Lara.”
He retreats the way we came. The sun brings out the lighter strands of his thick brown hair. The breadth of his shoulders stretches his shirt. I can get him a larger one for his birthday later this month.
If you don’t fail and condemn Verdanthia to ruin, you mean.
Juniper clears her throat. I turn and smile at the woman who gave me and Ferria a life most orphans would kill for.
“Why you still bother with that boy is beyond me.”
My smile falls, and I sigh. “Don’t start, Juniper.”
“The Ironhearts are brutes.”
“Lev isn’t like that.”
She snorts. “Not yet.”
I lift a brow. “Is there a reason you’re so surly today?”
She pushes her spectacles up on her nose and narrows her eyes. “Hm. I’m not sure. Perhaps it has something to do with one of my daughters being stolen away by Fae during a town meeting.”
My heart squeezes.
I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around her. “I’m all right, Juni.”
She sniffs, and one of her arthritic hands pats my back. “You’re lucky you came by. I was just about to stomp through that forest to give those males a piece of my mind.”
My chest warms.
Juniper is feisty, loyal, intelligent, and hardworking—everything my sister and I aspired to be when we grew up.
Ferria certainly has me beat in the feisty department, but Juniper bestowed strong morals and character within us from an early age—giving us the grit to persevere in this unfair world and earn our places in town.
I owe her everything.
A sharp whistle pierces the air.
“Ah. The tea is ready. Come.” Juniper steps out of my embrace and shuffles into the cottage.
The scent of vanilla and spice fills my nostrils. Memories of reading stories, and later medical texts, in front of a lit fireplace with Ferria experimenting with scraps of metals in the flames float through my mind. My thoughts clear, and the unrelenting anxiety twisting my gut loosens a bit.
I take in the sparsely furnished home, smiling at the drawings nailed to the kitchen wall. Before Ferria found her gift with fire, she fancied herself an artist. She took lessons from one of the widows in town in exchange for helping her clean her home.
The pencil drawings of me, her, and Juniper throughout the years capture us well. She could have made a living drawing portraits for other families, but the magic in her veins had other plans.
“Would you like honey in your tea?” Juniper asks as she hobbles to the kitchen.
“Let me, Juni.” I move to intercept her. “You should rest.”
“I will rest when you offer my body to Velmira on a funeral pyre.” She waves me away.
I bite my lip and pretend I don’t notice the way her hand trembles. Her stubbornness is another characteristic my twin and I may have acquired.
“Sit at the table,” she says. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
I do as she says, lowering myself into the same sturdy wooden chair I’ve sat in my entire life. Juniper’s chair sits across from me with Ferria’s chair situated between us.
I trace my finger over the gouge in the wood where my grip slipped and I stabbed it with my dinner knife when I was nine.
“I’ve been meaning to get that filled in and buffed.” Juniper hobbles over, balancing a teacup and saucer in her hands.
I take them quickly, lowering them onto the table with a chuckle. “You’ve been saying that for years.”
“And I’ve meant it every time,” she counters, heading back to the kitchen. “But you of all people know how busy a healer’s life is. There are never enough hours in a day.”
Tell me about it.
“Why not just ask Elder Whitestone to do it the next time you see him?” I ask as she returns with a second cup and saucer. “Wasn’t he a master carpenter in his day?”
And despite her refusal to marry him, the kindest Elder still pines after my adoptive mother. He’d happily mend her table. He’d do anything for her.
Juniper’s eyes narrow. “Do not start.”
I blink innocently. “Start what?”
“I am not in the mood for your games,” she huffs, setting her tea on the table and lowering herself with a grunt into the chair across from me. “I know your avoidant strategies by heart after all these years.”
I take a sip of tea, hoping to hide my wince. I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing.
Get it together, Elara. You don’t have time to waste.
I lower the teacup. “You’re right.”
“I know I am.” Wise eyes lock on me over the delicate cup. “Whitestone tells me you cannot speak of the Fae.”
I blink. “He told you?”
“Of course he did,” she says, then frowns at the smirk tugging on my lips. “And keep your comments to yourself. Am I correct in assuming you’re here regarding your deal?”
I nod and stiffen, but relief floods through me when the heat around my neck stays dormant. “I need…help.”
“I’ll help you in any way I’m able, child.” Affection softens her glassy eyes. “Tell me what you can.”
I take a deep breath, brace myself, and then begin to run through different facts and questions to see what the power at my throat will permit me to say.
There’s a cursed Fae in the forest…
Burning.
Do you know anything about Fae illnesses?
The burning morphs into a flickering flame.
Have you heard of a curse that causes Fae flesh to decay?
The flame flares hotter in warning.
Thought after thought, nothing meets the approval of the magical chokehold wrapped around my throat. I fidget in my chair and scowl at the marred table.
Juniper’s patient stare rests on me.
The quiet sound of her sips reaches my ears, and I think she must be nearly done with her tea before I’m finally about to grind out, “I need information on Fae.”
I pant for breath, frustrated that I can’t be more specific, but relieved to finally have figured out something to say.
A line forms between Juniper’s brows as she purses her lips. “Hm… Historical information?”
I shake my head.
“Information about the royal family? Their magic?”
Both forbidden topics would be fascinating to dive into, but they won’t help me lift Darius’s curse. I shake my head again, exhaling a thread of frustration that I can’t say more.