Chapter 38 Weapons & Wanting
Chapter thirty-eight
Weapons & Wanting
When Ceres returned with Myrtle and Vale, they brought a basket full of tiny, steaming pies filled with mushrooms, wild carrots, and potatoes.
She directed Jon, Devil, and Larch to carry Aliena’s table outside so that we could all enjoy a meal together, since the biting cold of the past week had softened, and the rain clouds had rolled south.
Devil’s concern that she might catch wind of our new plan seemed to be allayed by the offer of a home-cooked meal, and he adorned the clearing in undulating streams of golden light.
While Jon and Will went to fetch extra plates and cutlery from the oak tree, and Ceres recruited Larch to collect berries for dessert, Aliena and I were left to sit at the table.
We sipped hot, mulled cider and watched Myrtle and Vale chase Devil’s magyk fireflies around the clearing.
“Did you know…about Jon and Will?” I asked her quietly.
“Yes,” she answered, “and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when we were gossiping anyway. Jon swore me to secrecy. He thought you might rip his head off with those shadows.”
She smirked and I burst out laughing. “Oh, as if I could!”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been learning with Oberon? How to beat a man into submission?”
“Well…no,” I admitted, rolling my eyes. “He says my power wasn’t meant as a weapon, so I have to learn to control it fully before I do anything else.”
“I suppose he’s right, but…I don’t think Devil will let you anywhere near this job if you don’t know how to at least defend yourself.”
I swirled the dregs of cider in my wooden cup, then grinned at her. “How much do you think he can teach me in nine days?”
“I’m not sure,” Aliena chuckled, “but I can’t wait to find out.”
For the rest of the night, her words danced around in the back of my mind.
Even though banishing the Rot should have been my priority, I wanted to be able to use my magyk in other ways that might be helpful too.
Since Antenor’s attack, and our brush with the Unseelie fay, my feelings of helplessness had only increased, and I hated it.
I hated that I couldn’t protect the people I cared about, despite carrying such a powerful weapon inside me.
By the time supper was over, and Ceres brought out an enormous bowl of sweet cream topped with forest berries, I knew what I needed to do. Now, I just had to convince Devil.
While everyone else laughed and sang and shouted at each other after dessert, I pulled out a tiny tendril of shadow and attempted to sharpen it into a point like I’d seen Oberon do.
But the several minutes I spent attempting to spear a large hunk of leftover pie crust were wasted.
Every time my shadows hit something solid, they went straight through.
Even though I’d avoided the faerie wine Jon produced for everyone to drink, a surge of violent anger overtook me and I flicked the pie crust off the table.
Devil, who had been sitting with his arm around the back of my chair, talking quietly with Larch, leaned his head toward me.
“What offense has the innocent crust caused you, my princess?”
“It is my magyk that offends,” I huffed. “It will not obey me.”
“Hmm,” he mused, angling his body so our legs pressed together, “perhaps it wants something of you before doing your bidding.”
“What does that mean?”
“Our gifts do have minds of their own, May. They are not mere tools or servants, but extensions of the Arden, of the Huntress, and of ourselves. Sometimes, gifts can demand things of their wielder too, just like your healing gift saps your physical strength.”
I held up my hands and let out a few more tendrils. “What could my Shadowspinning…want?”
“Would you like me to help you find out?” Devil asked, his breath brushing against my neck in a way that made me shiver.
“Yes.” I turned my head and watched his expression change when our eyes met—awed, as if he still could not believe I was real. “If Oberon will not teach me how to turn this power into a weapon, then you must. I refuse to be defenseless in the face of another attack.”
“As you wish, Mayhem.” He tilted his head to kiss the top of my shoulder, then ran his fingers along my arm to cup my hand.
When I let out a soft cloud of shadows, he released a dozen pinpricks of light to adorn it.
They twisted and danced together in the air, like smoke and sparks coming off a bonfire.
“Your sky and my stars…” he murmured.
I did not reply, just intertwined my fingers with his and squeezed gently.
When the moon hovered directly overhead, Larch declared that it was finally bedtime for Myrtle and Vale, so he and Ceres gathered them up to begin walking home.
Aliena and Will washed plates in the creek and I dried them with a clean rag, while Devil and Jon moved the table back into the cottage.
When all our clean-up was finished, I looked around for Devil and noticed him waiting for me alone at the edge of the clearing.
“Come home with me,” he said once we were standing face-to-face.
“To what end?” I asked, searching his face for the answer I knew he wouldn’t say.
“So your kiss might be the first thing I taste when I wake up.” He cupped my face in one hand as he said it, and I very nearly gave in right then and there.
“And absolutely no other reason?” I asked instead.
“None whatsoever. On my honor.”
“Hardly a promise, given how little honor you possess.”
Devil’s grin just widened. “I am as close to a liar as a faerie can be, and feel no remorse for it. You must brand me a lost cause—irredeemable—and pass judgement on me yourself.”
“Hmm…” I moved closer and leaned against him, threading our fingers together. “In order to offset your duplicity, you must tell me something painfully, terribly true.”
He brushed a finger along my cheek, then leaned in to kiss the sensitive skin beneath my ear. “I love you,” he whispered. “That is the only truth I have ever known, or ever will know.”
“No,” I breathed. “It must be something new, something you have never told anyone else before. Not even me.”
His rumble of a laugh tickled my neck, making me squirm.
“Very well. I love you, May, and so I would die a thousand deaths to see you safe and happy…but I would also suffer an eternity of torments to spend just one night in your arms. I would fetter myself in iron to feel you move against me while you sleep, and tear the skin off my bones to hear you—”
I went up on my toes and silenced him with a deep kiss, encircling his neck with my arms. He lifted me off the ground with one arm as his fingers tangled into my hair, but I broke contact before either of us could get carried away.
He slowly lowered me back onto my feet, keeping his arms around my waist, and I swept some of the copper curls out of his eyes.
“Must you be so dramatic with your words all the time? This isn’t a storybook, you know.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked. “Well, perhaps you make it feel like one…”
I was glad of the dim light, because my cheeks burned white-hot.
“You are absolved,” I told him quietly. “But I will still be staying with Aliena, so I suppose you are free to do whatever mischief you usually get up to.”
“Mischief?” he cried, looking offended. “Where would you get such an idea?”
I smiled, shook my head, but still moved in to kiss him one more time. “There,” I whispered against his mouth. “Will that sustain you until morning?”
“I did not truly know hunger until the first time you kissed me, May,” he answered, drawing me closer with his hands around my waist. “And now I starve each moment you are out of reach.”
“You are ridiculous,” I laughed, gently extricating myself and walking backwards toward the cottage. “Good night, my demon.”
“Sleep well, Mayhem,” he called after me, “because tomorrow I am going to work you, and your shadows, to the bone.”
“Darts. Dagger. Shield. Whip.” Devil ran quickly through the list of shadow-weapons I’d been able to conjure. I formed each one in rapid succession before he took a few steps away and held up his arms. “Alright, now use them.”
I ran through the list again.
The darts were thin, obsidian-like shards, which I could call up five at a time.
I launched them toward him from my palm, but on their way across the clearing, they turned back to shadows, merely tapping his bracers.
Frustration bubbling in my chest, I formed a small knife and threw it.
That one missed entirely, bouncing off the tree behind him and immediately dissipating.
Perhaps I needed to work on my aim as well.
My buckler shield of shadow worked, but only against the soft ball of light he hurled at me.
We had not yet tested it against anything more dangerous.
The whip seemed to be the only thing I could keep solid for more than a few minutes, but wielding it effectively as a weapon was nearly impossible.
I gripped the handle and jerked my arm, sending it cracking out through the air, but all I managed to do was nick his boot.
Even after ten futile attempts, he just stood there with his arms crossed, frowning.
“You can’t even keep a solid form,” he griped, stomping toward me. “If it isn’t solid, it won’t protect you from anything, and it can’t do damage to anyone else.”
“The darts are solid…until they make contact. And the whip too. I can feel them in my hand!”
“But I can barely feel when they hit me. Your power is soft, and so are you.” He looked angry, but I knew it was just concern.
We’d been at this for five days now. Every morning, I had my usual lessons with Oberon, and then after lunch, Devil would try to teach me everything my grandfather refused to.
“I am not soft,” I growled.
He leaned in only an inch from my face and hissed, “Then show me.”