34. Callum
Callum
My leg hangs off the cot, and my back aches as I shift to sitting. I’ve barely slept since we left Vaelier, and even before that, being in the Quietus Court made for restless nights. I rub my thighs where they ache from days of travel.
Back home, a week’s trek would be nothing. Here, the weight of my magic is heavier on my bones.
Moonlight shines through the window, casting an ethereal glow over Elorie’s face as she blinks at me. Her freckles, which have shined since her magic bloomed, are dull. And while this is who she was to me for years, there’s something unsettling about how that hint of her magic slumbers now.
“You’re already awake.” I toss off my blanket.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Her gaze drifts back out the window, and though she doesn’t say it, I sense she’s thinking about Wilder.
If our time on Alyssium was any indication, she only rests when he’s near. Those few months we were stuck together in Letia’s house, she was awake most nights, worried and staring out the window.
Many who haven’t met their mate judge those who have because having a mate is said to make you weak and vulnerable. But as I watch Elorie, seated at the edge of her bed with her shoulders tight, I wonder what comfort Wilder brings her that no one else offers.
Her eyes move to me, and I wish I had the words to make her feel better. As one of her oldest friends, I should know what to say, but I don’t. There are too many unknowns. All I can do is keep her safe and get her home.
I climb off the bed, slipping into my boots.
“Oh good.” Perame pops up. “Are we all done pretending we’re sleeping?”
Elorie breathes out a laugh. “Who else is up for scouring for intel?”
“Anything to get me out of this gods-awful place.” I glance at the wall, where the moans from next door have been filtering through all night.
“The innkeeper did tell me they had additional services they could offer my very handsome male friend, should he need them.” Elorie waggles her eyebrows, and I cringe. “Then again, she also thought you might already have your hands full.”
Elorie glances at Perame, then down at herself.
“Gross. She thinks we’re—” Perame’s nose wrinkles as she points her finger between the three of us. “No, thank you.”
Perame sweeps me with a final look of disgust, and I can’t help but chuckle when I know she has absolutely no interest in me or Elorie. Especially not since she’s been spending so much time around Seren in the human wing at the palace.
“Last night I heard talk of a parade that will go through town at daybreak. Some sort of celebration for their summer harvest.” I shrug on a cloak. “Maybe the overlord will be there.”
Elorie laces her boot, glancing up at me. “If not, the more people, the more likely we’ll overhear something.”
Elorie and Perame finish their boots and toss cloaks over their shoulders. When we step into the hallway, it’s still dark, and Elorie winks as we pass the room next door. They’re even louder now. Slapping flesh and screams echo down the hall.
“Just saying,” she mouths.
I shake my head and look away. Not embarrassed, simply uninterested.
It’s not that I’ve never bedded a human. I’ve had my fair share of humans and Fae over the centuries. Looking back, I can’t remember when that changed. When I stopped trying. When this weight settled in my chest, and the thought of taking someone to bed had dread pooling inside me.
A few years back, on a trip to Ruse Village, I downed enough wine to think I’d gotten over it.
A pretty Fae from the Guard had been flirting with me all night.
She stripped bare the moment we were alone, and with how long it’d been since I’d lost myself in another, I wanted to be lost in her.
But the moment her fingers grazed my skin, something surged.
A resistance I couldn’t shake.
Visceral repulsion.
Disgust I couldn’t mask.
I don’t know where it came from, but it was so potent I immediately pulled away.
She left the tent with tears in her eyes when it wasn’t her fault. I sat for hours on the beach, leaving on the first ship the next day to return to Alyssium. I stopped trying to connect with anyone after that. It was easier on everyone to just accept that I’m broken.
When we step outside, the sun has yet to rise, leaving the streets mostly empty.
Elorie takes in everything with complete awe.
For Elorie and the rest of the villagers’ sake, I hoped we’d find something better than what we’ve seen so far of the Mortal Realm.
How can we send them to this place when half the town is boarded up, and trees rot in the forest?
As the sun starts to rise, we linger at the edge of town, keeping to the trees to blend into the shadows. Our hoods cover our ears as people gather for the parade. We hang back, out of sight.
“Do you think the overlord will be here?” Elorie leans against a tree, watching the people arrive.
I observe the crowd. “It seems everyone in town is here. We need to keep a lookout.”
“Maybe we don’t have to search that hard after all.” Perame urges her chin to the commotion gathering in the streets.
A carriage pauses at the fork in the road, drawing attention. The man up front stands, waving with a broad smile on his face. His finely fitted suit is nicer than what anyone in the crowd is wearing. At his side sits the woman from the crypt.
In the light of day, the dark veins webbing down one side of her face are even more obvious.
They’re pitch black, drawing lines across her porcelain skin in a way that reminds me of Hazel’s magic moving up her arms, although the void feels entirely different.
For a female with such rich color in her gaze, there’s nothing bright about this woman in front of us.
Her smile is cold as she glances at the overlord. Her body is stiff.
A pulse in the air thickens as she watches the crowd, not looking nearly as comfortable as the overlord, who basks in attention.
I prepared myself for this trip, for harnessing such an object and containing it. Except the void is not an object at all, and feeling it now, it’s nothing like Hazel’s shadows, so I doubt I would have the same effect anyway. The pulse radiating out of this human is unlike anything I’ve felt.
“That must be Overlord Farseth.” Perame’s eyes narrow.
He removes his hat, showing off the gray patches at his temples. He’s older than I expected. His eyes are bright and wide, but there’s a certain darkness in his gaze. Wrinkles at the corners of his eyes put him close to Elorie’s father’s age.
“The innkeeper was right. She travels right at his side, it seems.” Elorie’s fingers thrum against the handle of her dagger as the carriage creeps closer.
It pauses every few feet, and townspeople surround it. Men walk beside them, passing out gifts that the crowd fights over.
Perame squints. “There’s something between them. I remember there being a tie in my vision, and it didn’t mean anything at the time, but now… the girl is bound to him. There’s a tie between the void’s wrist and the overlord.”
“I don’t see anything.” Elorie’s head tilts.
“It’s a magical bind. You can’t see it. But it’s there. I feel it.”
“You’re saying a human is wielding magic?” Elorie’s eyes widen when Perame nods. “How?”
“There was a time Fae spent a great deal of time traveling between this realm and ours,” I explain.
“Trading metals, wares, secrets, books. King Erdem was close with the queen who ruled before the Arches closed. At that time, some humans here studied magic. We don’t know how that information spread over the past century, or to who, but it’s unsurprising they’ve tapped into what little their realm holds.
Just because they aren’t Fae doesn’t mean they can’t use objects for spells or to channel minor abilities. ”
“Humans wielding magic.” There’s wonderment in Elorie’s eyes.
Sometimes I forget how new this all is for her when she’s been alive a mere twenty-four years.
“It’s dangerous,” Perame says, resting her hands on her hips. “There’s a reason humans need aeraliss to withstand the magic of our realm. Their bodies can’t handle it, even when channeled through an object.”
“That explains the gloves.” My gaze falls to the gloves covering the overlord’s hands and forearms. Rings decorate his fingers on the outside of them. “The rings must hold whatever magic he’s wielding.”
“Do you think if we get the ring that ties the void to the overlord, we can break it?”
“You can’t.” A voice comes from behind us, and the three of us turn to find the woman with the strange spiderweb marking on her face standing before us.
“How did you do that?” Perame’s eyebrows pinch. “How did you break free?”
“I didn’t.” She weaves her fingers, pushing them through the trunk of the tree beside her to prove she’s merely an illusion.
When I glance back at the parade, her body is seated beside the overlord in the carriage, although her gaze is distant.
“Projection,” Perame whispers.
The woman’s expression remains cold. “Who are you? Why are you following me? And why do you feel like… that?”
She licks her lips, moving her tongue like she tastes something in the air.
“I’m Elorie.” She steps forward first, pulling her hood back. “And this is Callum and Perame. We came from another place. One with more magic. Who are you?”
She lifts her chin, and her brown hair rustles. “Esen. But I suggest you go. If it’s true that you’re from another place, you won’t find anything good here.”
“Nothing good will find us there either.” Perame frowns, her purple eyes drifting off. “Where we’re from, the realms are dying.”
“Like ours?” Esen asks, following Perame’s gaze to the gray forest.
“Yes.” Perame looks at her. “It’s why we’re here; we were looking for something to fix it.”
Esen’s eyebrows pinch. “What here could possibly help?”
“You. Your magic.” Perame steps forward, and Esen takes a step back, shaking her head.
“It’s true.” Elorie cuts in, not moving as Esen’s illusion flickers. “There is something very powerful in our realm. It’s tearing it to pieces. Nothing contains it, but there might be a way to quiet it with your help. You—”
“No.” Esen shakes her head. “You do not understand what I am.”
“Do you?” I ask, and Esen’s gaze shoots to me.
Her green eyes narrow. Not in anger but curiosity. Her head tilts. The thick braid on one side of her head shifts.
Esen’s teeth grind. The smallest tick as she watches me. “I am what the gods left behind.”
Cheers come from behind us, and we glance back as the crowd gets rowdy. They cheer and throw flowers while Esen’s body remains beside the overlord in the carriage.
“I am not someone who can heal or help. And I am not free to do so even if I wished to.” Esen draws our attention back to her.
Any warmth has drained from her cheeks. Light dulls in her gaze. She is here in spirit, with us physically, but her mind is somewhere else.
“Please.” Perame reaches out as if she forgets Esen isn’t in her body, or perhaps she doesn’t mind.
Her hand brushes the illusion in the air, and Esen’s eyes widen. She steps back as though Perame shocked her, and Perame does the same, clutching her hand as if she’s hurt.
“Don’t come looking for me again.” Esen shakes her head. “I can’t help you. I won’t.”
With that, a barrel of darkness stirs the air around us. The musk of a fire being smothered to ash floods my lungs. When I turn back around, Esen’s eyes blink from where she sits beside the overlord, and she refuses to look our way.