Chapter 22
The House of Earth was given its powers by Kasan the Lifegiver.
These include the power to see through and manipulate stone, to become stronger than any other Fae, to force a terrible poison into another as well as to draw it out, and to find that which you seek.
My House’s powers were the most varied and hidden of all the Houses.
~Maeve Arden, The Future of Magic and Dragons
Fiona
I feel the hum deep inside me, and I grit my teeth. Azric’s pouch of beads is somewhere nearby. Darian’s standing beside me, my guard for the afternoon, and he has an amused smile on his face.
I still feel exhausted, but my body’s working again. The handprint on my throat has faded, and Isola thinks it will be completely gone tomorrow, but I still can’t stop my thoughts from being drawn to Azric. That kiss was… a lot.
At least until I started hunting for my cloak. Now, those twinkling bells sounding from the ermine fur pouch are all I can think of.
“What do you mean it’s close? How can you possibly know that?”
I try to focus on the sound no one else can hear, even as I speak. “I don’t know. I’ve always been able to find god-touched items, and I happen to have one in my cloak.”
Then I’m moving as I identify the direction it’s coming from. We’re in a part of the castle that no one seems to go to very often. In the west tower on the fifth floor, it’s obvious the servants haven’t cleaned the cobwebs from the corners or restocked the candelabras.
“Wait, you can find god-touched items? How’s that possible? Not even Maeve can do that, and she’s always been able to find things with her House of Earth powers.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m just drawn to them.”
The hallways are only lit by the windows as I follow the sound of a soft bell ringing.
Darian is on my heels, but he’s not really helping.
My father would have known to be quiet while I was hunting for something, but Darian just keeps talking, and as we stand at a fork in the hallway, I pause again.
“How can you not know why or how? You realize that’s not normal, right?”
I turn to him, finally getting frustrated.
“Do you know how your body turns wine into piss? No, you don’t.
It just happens, right? Well, it’s the same with me.
What I know is that the more you jabber, the harder it is for me to hear the sound.
You wouldn’t sit there and make idle conversation while a tracker was hunting a deer, would you? ”
He closes his mouth and accepts my chastisement without argument. I listen again and turn right, hoping the sound grows louder. It does, and I start running. Our footfalls don’t get close to drowning out the ringing that’s growing in intensity.
A thick wooden door appears on our left, and I slam the door open, not even considering that it might be locked.
We step into a closet meant for the servants to keep cleaning supplies in.
Brooms and mops lean against the walls. Shelves hold jars of powder and liquids with hastily scribbled labels on them.
I ignore all of it, moving toward the sound as though a tether were pulling me toward it.
The back wall. The cloak isn’t there, but the sound is so close.
I run my hand over the stones of the wall, and my fingers find a tiny hole that’s been carved out.
There’s a defined edge to the hole I know from experience to mean there’s something hidden.
“There’s a key somewhere nearby,” I say as I open boxes on the bottom of one shelf. “I think it’s close by, but I can’t be sure.”
“A key? To what?” Darian asks, sounding very confused.
“Just look for a key or something that might be a key.” I fling the first box open and dig through the rags stored in it. Nothing here.
I open the next one while Darian looks on the top shelves, lifting jars and opening boxes.
There’s nothing in here except silver polishing supplies.
I open the next one, and right there at the bottom of the box is a long sliver of metal with a key bit at the end.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to open a locked secret room.
I stand up and go to the hole in the wall. Darian comes up behind me to watch as I slide the length of iron into the hole and turn it. It takes a bit of effort, but as soon as I hear the near-silent click, the entire back wall slides two feet and reveals an entryway.
“How in Kaelith’s name did you know that was here?” Darian asks.
I shrug as I move toward the entryway. “I didn’t know it’d do that. All I’m sure of is that my cloak is on the other side of this wall.”
He tries to go into the room, but I stop him. “Sometimes these things are trapped. Whatever’s hidden on the other side of this wall is probably valuable. Pay attention and don’t get us killed, okay?”
He nods and puts his head into the room. His eyes change, growing larger until they look almost like… bird eyes? “There are little pieces of twine running across the floor.”
I keep my eyes out for them as I walk into the room. The only light that illuminates the room is the dim bit coming from the entryway, making it impossible to see anything, and I swear. Then, Darian begins glowing, and it’s like someone opened a non-existent window.
I have to blink a few times to let my eyes adjust to the light. “Well, that’s a useful trick,” I say.
He chuckles. “House of Light powers don’t come into play nearly as often as I’d like.”
Everyone knows about the Great Houses from before the gods woke.
They ruled the High Fae and Lesser Fae along with Draenyth.
They were powerful enough that the House of Steel can go toe-to-toe against the Godforged.
However, in the smaller Fae cities, the Lesser Houses ruled, the House of Light being the best known.
My attention is focused on the loud ringing of that silver bell in my mind, and I don’t respond to him. Careful not to disturb the tripwires that have been set up in the room, I cross the space. Against the back wall is a simple wooden box. I know my cloak is inside it.
I take a deep breath and open it. How many times have I found god-touched items hidden away in forgotten places of the world just like this?
There it is. My tattered black cloak. I pick it up, and without a moment’s hesitation, I put it on. The familiar weight in the hidden pockets gives me a sense of relief. I won’t be forced to go without my Infusions.
The ringing ends. The beads are mine, and just like every time, as soon as I have the item in my hands, the sound goes away. “That’s so much better,” I say.
Darian frowns. “It almost looked like you were hurting while you were in that closet.”
“Think about how it’d feel if someone was beating a bell right next to your ear. That’s what it’s like when I’m close. Some objects aren’t as annoying, but this one… This one was miserable.”
He gets a thoughtful look on his face, but I ignore it. I want to get away from here. The last thing I want to do is have to explain why I’m in a secret room in a part of the castle no one would expect me to be in.
Darian stands beside me as I relock the hidden keyhole, and the wall slides back into place. I carefully place the key back where it was, matching its shape with the dust marks, before closing the lid and putting it back on the shelf I got it from.
Then we leave. It’s not until we’re crossing the yard between the walls of the castle to the main hall that Darian stops me. “I need to understand how you did that,” he says. “That’s not normal. I’ve never heard of anyone, much less a human, with the power to find things like that.”
I shrug just as I did before. “It’s not something I’ve put much thought into. Maybe it’s like you said. Maybe I’m Veris-touched. They say Veris and Taldor work their magic on people all the time for small things.”
He shakes his head. “No. I’d sense either of their effects.”
“What does it matter? I can do it. Isn’t that all that matters?” How am I supposed to figure out where that little oddity about me comes from?
He slowly shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s magic. There’s no doubt about that, but if neither you nor your father knows, then I’m not sure how to learn more. It’s puzzling, and it feels important. It’s certainly more important than you seem to believe.”
I shrug my shoulders. “But it’s probably not as important as preparing for the trial. I’m sure that your sister would be furious to know we’ve been on a treasure hunt instead of training.”
Darian chuckles. He stares across the yard at the building we’re walking toward and gets a look on his face that reminds me of Bram’s when he talked about the old days.
“I remember when Lee was just a normal High Fae. She and I used to play pranks on each other. And Cole, of course. She wasn’t the force of nature she is now.
There wasn’t the weight of all the innocents in the world on her shoulders back then.
She was just… she was just Lee, my sister. ”
He sighs, and I see the mask he wears so instinctively fall away.
There’s so much pain in those eyes. “We’ve seen so many terrible things over the years.
We’ve failed so many times, but there’s nothing else to do other than carry on.
You know how many people we help. You’ve seen the ones we’ve brought to Stormhaven and the rest of Sylvantia.
Those are the best cases, the ones we think can thrive without help.
We don’t bring you the permanently injured, the ones who have lost all their loved ones. We…”
He shakes his head as if he’s doing his best to keep himself from falling apart. I reach out and take his hand in mine. “It’s okay, Darian. I know that all of you are doing your best.”
“You don’t understand, Fi. You can’t. We save a lot of people, but every time I walk into a village and realize we were too late, I see them.
The children torn apart by demons. The men and women whose bodies have been mutilated to create new abominations for the Corpsebinders.
I’ve seen the pain they go through with my own eyes too many times.
I’ve had to decide who to save and who to abandon.
That pain… those failures don’t go away just because we save others.
It never leaves. I’ve spent eighty years watching people who’ve done nothing wrong become the playthings for creatures that should never have been allowed to survive. ”
He looks up at me and says, “We’re tired, Fi.
Ainslee, Rhion, and myself. It’s not just our side either.
There are starting to be deserters within the Godforged’s ranks, people who can’t take the fighting anymore and just want the simple lives they had before.
Marriage, children, and little pleasures rather than death and training.
They want to read books and watch the rain while they sit around a cozy fire instead of slaughter.
We’re all so damned tired, and for the first time, there’s a possibility of a better future.
He lets out a soft sigh. “You could stop it all. That’s why we’re all so worried about making sure you’re safe and that you win.”
“I understand,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “You don’t. You can’t. But that’s fine. Maybe you understand and will trust a little more.”
“I’ll try. That’s all I can promise.”
He takes a deep breath, and it’s like I’m watching him physically put on the mask again. The tears he’d been on the verge of only moments ago are gone, and in their place is a smirk. “Good, then let’s go figure out how a group of misfits can somehow beat the strongest warriors in all of Nyth.”