Chapter 14
Xavi was no stranger to powerful magic. The war that destroyed his homeland had been fought as much through the exchange of complex enchantments as through physical blows, and he and Kel had once sparred with magic as often as with blades.
But the power that filled the mountain the moment the human touched Kel’s hand…
It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced or imagined.
He moved instinctively to shield the human. Soft and fragile as she was, he doubted she could withstand such forces unaided, but no sooner had he done so than he remembered his true duty was not to the human, but to his sworn liege.
And then it was too late.
He felt himself stripped from the very fabric of the world he knew.
Scraped by the winds of a strange, barbed magic—scoured clean and left bleeding, not without, but within.
His ears rang, his center of gravity reeled, and then he was once more on solid ground, with his body pressed close to the warm, trembling form of…
His eyes opened.
The human was huddled within the protection of his arms, her knees pulled tightly to her chest and her head leaning into his shoulder.
A moment later, she pulled away and stared at him with wide, startled gray eyes.
This close, he could see a few pale freckles scattered across her small nose and wan cheeks, as her dark lashes fluttered in confusion.
“Xaviel?”
He released her. Jerked his arms away and stood up, so quickly that the world spun in dizzying circles.
Something was very, very wrong.
The human seemed to realize it as well. “Where in all of Abreia are we?”
Xavi! Lady Camryn! Can either of you hear me? Where are you?
That did seem to be the question of the hour. The only problem was, Xavi had no idea how to answer Kel, because nothing about their surroundings made any sense.
They were not underground.
There was no mist.
There were not even mountains.
Instead, there was a round room with a cozy fireplace. The air smelled of tea and wood smoke, and the floor was brightened by a simple woven rug. Lamplight brightened the space, giving a warm glow to walls of polished wood, a low, round table, and two stumpy chairs covered in overstuffed cushions.
It might have been any rustic residence but for one curious omission—there was no door.
“I’m sorry,” the human said in a small voice. “It seems I’ve been unforgivably foolish.”
However Xavi might have been tempted to answer, he never had the opportunity. Someone else answered for him.
“That, my child, remains to be seen.”
The voice was rasping, ancient, and female, and Xavi instinctively pivoted to place himself between the human and whoever had spoken.
“So many years I’ve waited. Waited while the world moves on, my strength wanes, and your king grows gradually weaker.”
The human stood up abruptly, like a coiled spring unleashed, her head on a swivel until she spotted the owner of that voice.
A woman sat in the chair closest to the fire, though Xavi would have sworn she had not been sitting there the first time he scanned the room.
She spoke the language of Dunmaren, but she was neither night elf nor human, and to Xavi’s nose her magic stank of pepper, sulphur, and damp stone.
Her stature was short and slight, to the point that her feet did not quite reach the floor, and her age…
was difficult to determine. Her skin was creased, her hair pure white, but her dark eyes seemed bright and fathomless.
Strangest of all were the swirling silver patterns inscribed on every visible inch of her skin—patterns that glowed with the inner light of magic.
For a moment she regarded Xavi with what appeared to be genuine surprise, before switching her gaze to the human. And while her face eventually settled into an expression of gentle benevolence, her dark eyes remained cold and somehow empty.
“I suppose you believe yourself to be the mortal bride foretold by the curse. The one who might yet have the power to free the King of Mists from his long sleep.”
Kel was right.
But who was this woman, and how did she come to know any of this?
“A fae,” the human whispered in awe, and Xavi took a step to the right, placing himself more completely between the human and the old woman. Perhaps the crone did not truly mean them any harm, but he was taking no chances with Kel’s fated bride. Not before she’d actually managed to undo the curse.
“And who might you be?” the fae demanded of Xavi. “You are certainly not the King of Mists.”
“You may call me Lesh,” he told the strange woman coolly. She clearly knew something about Kel’s curse, but until he had more information, he would hand her no power that could be used against him. “After the guardian spirit of the forest.”
A laugh rasped from the fae woman’s throat. “If you’re a guardian spirit, then I’m a salamander.” She eyed him from head to toe. “Are you not a night elf?”
Behind him, Xavi sensed the human rifling around in her pockets. Though what she could possibly be carrying in there that would help this situation he couldn’t imagine, and if she pulled out a book, he was absolutely going to…
“The professors are going to cry with envy when I tell them,” he heard her whispering, right before she popped her head out from behind him and addressed the ancient fae in a disgustingly cheerful tone.
“Hello, I’m Ryn. Lady Camryn Halivard actually.”
Of course she would true-name herself to the first fae she met.
“I’m so pleased to meet you. You have no idea. May I draw your picture?”
Xavi looked down in horror, and sure enough, the human held her little notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. Her head was tilted to one side like a curious squirrel, and her face was positively beaming with joy.
Gods save him from the impracticality of scholars.
The fae’s piercing, dark-eyed gaze seemed to search the human’s form for a few moments before a frown crossed her face, rippling oddly from one side of her mouth to the other. “Ancestors help us. Does this creature truly have the power to undo the curse and free us all from its clutches?”
Xavi’s gaze drifted slowly from the human back to the aging fae as a dark, uncomfortable suspicion began to take root. “What do you mean, us?”
The fae woman let out a sigh that seemed to echo even in that tiny space. “I mean that I, too, am bound by this curse that ensnares you. My life is caught up in its toils as surely as yours, and I cannot truly be free until it is broken.”
“Bound?” Xavi echoed in a soft, deadly tone. “How? What can you possibly have to do with my king’s suffering?”
The fae regarded him patiently, as if weighed down by an ancient grief. “Because I,” she said plainly, “am the one who cursed him.”
For the span of three heartbeats, Xavi viewed the world through a red-hot haze of disbelieving rage.
She’d cursed Kel.
So the human had been right all along.
A moment later, his dagger was in his hand, its razor edge kissing the fragile skin of the fae woman’s throat as he bent over her chair, pinning her down with a trembling grip on her shoulder.
At the touch of the blade, her silver markings flared with light, but she produced no other magic in response.
“Yes,” she said tiredly, making no move to defend herself.
“Behead me if you think it will help. At least then my own suffering will be over. Do you need further motivation? Then know that this curse was never meant to last so long. I was foolish and blind, and it was through my own ineptitude that we have all suffered for so many centuries.”
“But if I kill you, it will be over in a matter of moments.” Xavi’s voice became its own sort of blade, as his dagger bit ever deeper. “We will all be free.”
“A delightful notion,” the fae returned calmly. “Also very likely wrong. But I suppose feel free to experiment with all our lives if that is what you believe you must do.”
An oath fell from his lips, but he released her. “Explain, fae witch.”
She pushed up from the chair—trembling for a moment as she gained her feet—and then hobbled towards the fireplace, where a cane leaned against the stone hearth. Once it was in her hand, she turned, resting most of her weight on its support.
“I was the guardian of this mountain, and of all these lands around us. The place where your people decided to make their home. It is not in my kind’s nature to share our lands with those whose hands are stained with violence, as its presence causes great pain.
But I was not without sympathy for your king’s plight, and so I decided to test him. ”
For a moment, Xavi thought he heard the human murmuring something under her breath. Something that sounded suspiciously like, “I told you so.”
He ignored it.
“I met with him beneath the mountain—in a guise other than the one you see now—and presented him with a simple request, as is usual in such circumstances.”
The human was nodding along with the story, even as her pencil continued to move across the page.
“He refused me,” the fae said softly, “as prideful men often do. Cast me aside, and so I cursed him for his hardness of heart.”
Hardness of heart? Kel?
“You must have been wrong,” Xavi said coldly.
“If anything, Kel suffers from being far too soft.” Never in all the years they’d known one another had Kel hesitated to give of himself and his strength to anyone and everyone who asked.
“And what of the volcano? The ground shook beneath our feet. The mountain erupted in fire. Both of us remember it.”
“As I said,” the fae reminded him, “I was the guardian of this place. It was a simple matter to manipulate the natural magic of the land to convince you that an eruption was imminent.”
Mother of shadows, the human had been right again, and it was a bitter draught to swallow.
There had never been a volcano—only a vengeful fae enchantress.
Xavi had no idea what he might have done next, had the human not interrupted, even as she continued to sketch with her eyes on the page.