Chapter 17 #2
“Indeed. He’s one of the most brilliant fae I know. Normally, we use this device to find our way home. If I activated the magic on our residence in Whiteolf, that’s where the needle would be pointing right now.”
“But Whiteolf is behind us, so what’s it alerting us to?”
“The Wishing Stone.”
His eyebrows shot clear to his hairline.
I giggled, unable to help it. “You look surprised.”
“You said it’s pointed toward the Wishing Stone. I think that warrants some surprise.”
“True, but considering that until yesterday I never saw any emotions on your face, you can perhaps understand my delight at how you look right now.”
His eyes narrowed, but his eyebrows dropped back to a normal level. “Okay, I’ll bite . . . how do you know that device is leading you to the Stone? Nobody knows where the Stone is.”
“Seekerill.”
He cocked his head. “What?”
“Technically, it’s called a seekerill. That’s the name of this invention.”
“All right, in that case, how do you know your seekerill will lead you to the Stone?”
“I don’t, but I’m hoping it will.” I grinned again and didn’t bother telling him about my book or constellation scroll. It was too fun to observe his confused reactions.
He continued watching me, and a small smile played upon his lips. “You are a strange one, Miss Hollaran.”
“Perhaps, but delightfully strange, no?”
His mouth cracked more, then lifted in a genuine smile. My heartbeat inadvertently raced.
“Aye, I can agree that you’re delightfully strange.”
My chest locked up, my lungs refusing to work.
Heart thumping, I shifted my attention to the Wood and took a deep breath, using the cold air to ground me, and cold it was.
It’d grown darker, which was odd considering the sun was still rising, but the swamp of trees around us could explain it, along with the thick cloud cover.
The Wood here was denser than I’d ever seen it.
Patches of foliage even drifted entirely across the road, as though the Wood refused to be tamed in these parts.
“And your uncle, you said he’s an inventor?
” Kole’s deep voice pulled my attention back to him.
I couldn’t have ignored him if I tried. Something about his tone, his scent, his feel, his everything, had latched onto me, as though a rope had been cinched around my head and forced it to turn in whatever direction he lay.
Perhaps Kole was my personal seekerill. “Are you and your uncle close?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes, very. Even though he’s my uncle, he’s more like a father to me. I’ve lived with him and my aunt nearly my entire life.”
“Not with your parents?”
I shrugged, but the old pain that had once caught me in a death grip as a child anytime somebody mentioned my parents didn’t appear.
Enough seasons had passed that I’d grown used to their passing.
“No, my parents died when I was an infant so my uncle, who’s my father’s brother, has been the only father I’ve ever known. ”
“May I ask how they died?” he asked quietly.
“It was a carriage accident.” I swallowed, dryness creeping into my throat, but I also knew Kole didn’t ask questions of other fae like this, and I hoped that if perhaps I opened up to him, he would do the same with me.
“It happened in the Clawfur Mountains. That’s where I was born.
I was told their carriage slipped off a mountain road during a freak storm and plunged into a river below.
If I’d been in that carriage with them, I would have died too.
Following their accident, my aunt and uncle came to take care of me.
They were so supportive, and even though I was only a baby, they still allowed me to grow up in my parents’ home until I turned eight, then we moved back to the capital so my uncle could be closer to the palace for his work.
He works for the king and queen of Mistvale Kingdom. ”
Kole was quiet again, his gaze intense. “Did your uncle continue working for the crown while he lived so far away?”
“He did. He’s such a brilliant inventor that the royals didn’t want to lose him, but eventually, they pressed him to return, so we had to. I’ve been living in Whiteolf ever since.”
He nodded, then said gruffly, “I’m sorry you lost your parents.”
“I’ve had thirty-two summers to get used to it. It’s fine. Truly.”
His brow furrowed. “You’re thirty-two?”
“I am. And what about you?” I held my breath, wondering if he would answer.
“Eighty-seven.”
A flurry of warmth drifted through me. Something told me he rarely disclosed that to fae. “Well, in that case, we’re about the same age.”
“Indeed.”
Quiet descended between us once more, and when we passed underneath a rare opening in the Wood’s canopy, a small ray of dim sunlight hit my face.
“So how long has your uncle been doing inventions for the Mistvale royals?”
I bit back a smile, trying to hide the fact that his interest in me made me feel positively gleeful. “For hundreds of full seasons.” The lightness in my voice faded. “Well, at least he used to. He’s not working at the moment. He’s too sick to work.”
Kole’s face gave away nothing, but I could have sworn that something brewed behind his cerulean irises. “How sick?”
“Very. It’s actually why I’m hunting the Stone. I’m hoping to find it so I can cure him. Nobody’s been able to heal him, and he’s likely to die within the next few weeks if we don’t do something. At least, that’s what the palace healers have said.”
He nodded, not responding, but that flicker happened in his eyes again.
Another moment of silence passed, and then Kole asked in an even more serious tone, “Do they know what his sickness is? Palace healers are notorious experts in their field. I’m surprised they haven’t cured him.”
I shook my head. “That’s the problem. Nobody knows what’s wrong with him.
He became ill gradually. Initially, it started with indigestion, then a fever, fatigue, and weakness.
Each day he grew a little bit worse. And now—” I cut myself off and blinked rapidly.
“Now, he can’t get out of bed. He won’t eat or drink, and my aunt has to force fluids into him.
When I left, he was asleep in his chambers, in the dark, and he looked so thin.
Skeletal almost following weeks of poor appetite.
” Images of his emaciated frame had carved themselves into my mind like unwanted engravings.
Kole’s aura rippled behind his Shield. “That’s a strange illness.”
“Exactly. It’s an unknown ailment, whatever it is.” I sighed angrily. “It’s also why nobody knows how to help him.”
“Yet you and your aunt never contracted it?”
“No, that’s the odd thing. It doesn’t seem to be contagious.”
Kole watched me again. “Is it just the three of you in your home?”
“Yes, well . . . no, I suppose. We have a live-in servant. She has a room on the main floor.”
“A servant?” His eyebrows rose slightly.
“Yes, I know, I know. Having servants sounds so pompous, but it’s because of my uncle’s position.
He’s always been paid quite well, so my aunt and uncle have always employed household staff.
Their current servant is named Verin. They hired her earlier this season after our previous servant left to be closer to family.
The poor thing. Verin hadn’t been with us long before my uncle fell ill, but she’s been a huge help in his care.
” I thought of how Verin had always been shy and meek but still tried her hardest. She was brave too.
She’d never batted an eye over my uncle’s illness, always offering to help when others were too afraid to.
“And she hasn’t fallen ill either?”
“No, she’s stayed healthy as well. Thank the stars.”
Kole watched me for a moment, his gaze penetrating.
I bit my lip, anything to stop it from trembling, but then I forced a smile as we sailed down the road. “But no matter. I’m going to find the Stone, and I’ll save my uncle. He’s going to be fine.”
“You’re quite a positive thinker.”
“Always have been.”
“Was that a learned trait?”
I laughed. “Oh no, my aunt is anything but optimistic, and while my uncle isn’t as pessimistic as her, he’s more of a realist, I suppose. My endless optimism is for me and me alone. I was definitely born this way.”
Kole’s lips curved, ever so slightly, and a streak of triumph bolted through me that I’d made him smile again. “So your ball of positive energy is innate?”
“It is. And what about you? Would you say you’re an optimist?” He gave me a flat look, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. “I take it, that’s a no?”
“I’m positive if there’s a reason to be,” he said dryly.
“But that reason doesn’t present itself often?”
“I imagine I would align more with your uncle. I would consider myself a realist versus an optimist. In my line of work . . .” He shrugged. “It’s not always pretty. Optimism can be hard to hold onto.”
My pulse thrummed, and I asked cautiously, “Have you been an Imperial Warrior for long?”
“Going on thirty summers, but I’m still considered one of the new ones.”
A smile spread on my lips that he’d readily offered that much personal information, and I decided to try for another tidbit. “So which kingdom were you born in?”
I waited for him to say Faewood, since I knew he had an air element, but he glanced ahead and said slowly, almost cautiously, “I wasn’t born on the Silten continent. My parents moved around the realm a lot when I was a kid.”
My head cocked in surprise. “Yet, you have Faewood magic?”
“I do.”
“That’s interesting.” Normally, the land’s magic was what imbued Silten fae with their abilities, but it wasn’t impossible for a Silten fairy to acquire another kingdom’s magic, as I had, even if they hadn’t been born upon that land.
I figured that was what had happened to Kole, even if his parents were overseas. “In that case, where were you born? If not on our continent?”
He opened his mouth to reply, and my stomach dipped at learning such an intimate detail about the stoic warrior, but a sound ahead snagged his attention.
Kole growled, and his aura spiked.
I followed his gaze, and my eyes popped, because lining the road just ahead of us were six fae, standing shoulder to shoulder, blocking the Wood’s road.
And they all held weapons.