Seventeen
Calypso
As Oran and I walked the circumference of the island, he gathered magic and fed it into a spell contained in a coin he had taken out of his pocket. Unlike Azulin’s prickling magic, Oran’s had a different feel, smoother and more soothing.
I waited until he finished the spell and the sounds of the gardens beyond the island hushed before I spoke. “What kind of magic do you have? It is different than Azulin’s.”
Oran turned abruptly to stare at me. “How can you detect my magic? You’re human.”
“I’m a shifter.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh, then you probably also have a mating mark.”
I lifted my right hand and spread it, revealing the golden vine.
“Intriguing.” His dark eyes narrowed as he studied me. “We hypothesized that the curse was set up to be broken by a human. That it was broken by a shifter is unexpected.”
“Finished?” His mother’s voice carried clearly in the unnatural silence inside the spell.
“Yes, Mother.” Oran motioned for me to precede him. In a lowered voice, he said, “Best not share that with Mother yet. There is a general prejudice against shifters among the older generations of fae.”
“Are you asking me to lie?” I asked softly.
“No, just don’t volunteer that information. The fewer who know the better.”
I nodded as we stepped into the former queen’s view. I hated all the secrets. Even living as a shapeshifter among humans, I’d never needed to hold so many secrets so close.
“All sealed up and secure,” Oran announced.
“Finally. We have little time.” The fae woman motioned for me to approach her. “Come. We must cover the essentials before Azulin grows too frustrated with Malkin.”
Oran matched my steps and stood at my side when I stopped before his mother.
“You may call me Tana,” she began.
Oran leaned over and mock-whispered, “Her name is Taneisha.”
“Oran!” Tana straightened up and glared at her son in horror. “We do not share our names with strangers.”
“She is hardly a stranger, Mother.” Oran nudged me with his elbow. “Besides, it isn’t even your full or true name.”
Tana pursed her mouth. “In light of your brother’s recent experience, you should take more care.”
He groaned. “Sharing your name with the woman who freed Azulin is no risk. He trusts her.”
“Azulin is too trusting.” She leveled an icy stare at Oran. “I will share or not share my name with whom I please.”
“Yes, Mother,” Oran intoned without a hint of contrition. “So, Lady Anon? How did you free my brother from the curse that has bound him to the Unseelie king’s whim?”
“I married him.” It wasn’t a secret, and it seemed harmless. However, I intended to hand over as little information as I could manage.
Although my instincts told me to trust Oran, I didn’t know if that was based on his similarities to Azulin or some intangible evidence I hadn’t pinpointed yet. Either way, I wasn’t risking our lives on my instinct alone. Besides, something about Tana made me cautious even without Oran’s warning.
“That was all?” Tana demanded. “I told him he needed to find a wife of good breeding. He could’ve broken the spell months and months ago if he had listened to me.”
“Mother, I doubt it was that simple.” Oran’s tone of warning carried a power and anger that set my nerves on edge.
She pursed her lips. “If Az had listened to me, we would have a real queen instead of an imposter.”
“You are speaking treason.” Oran glared at his mother. “She is his wife.”
Tana waved her hand elegantly in my direction. “She is human, a liability. I could spell her so she couldn’t speak of this to Azulin, and she would be helpless against it.” A cruel smile twisted her features. “Az couldn’t even stop me before it was too late.”
An intensely prickly sensation teased my nose. I held back a sneeze. The ring on my left hand warmed.
Oran’s whole body tensed. “Stop, Mother,” he commanded.
Tana turned and narrowed her gaze at me, her eyes hard. “Don’t worry, human, this will only hurt for a moment, and you won’t even remember it afterward.”
“Don’t you need my true name?”
Tana laughed. The cold sound bounced off the muffling effect of Oran’s spell. “Pathetic human, I need nothing.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. My eyes watered with the effort of not sneezing and I stumbled backward.
Oran moved faster than thought, stepping in front of me. The air thickened with the liquid sensation of his magic. He spoke a word, and a spell formed around us. “Mother, don’t do this.”
My nose burned, but I couldn’t give in. If I sneezed, I would betray my shifter magic. Somehow, I suspected that would make this whole situation worse. I put my hand to my nose and squeezed my nostrils, hoping to subdue the tickle.
Tana’s voice cut through the air, piercing my senses like a magical knife. “But it would be so easy. We could sway Azulin through her.” I could feel a spell pressing on my mind.
My stomach knotted. How could a mother do this to her sons? Twisting, controlling, and manipulating. It seemed like a horrible way to live. The ring on my left hand burned my skin. I was tempted to take it off, but to do so would remove my only defense against whatever spells were brewing in the surrounding air.
Oran jostled me backward with his shoulder. “Close your eyes.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, and the knife pain in my head eased ever so slightly. As Tana kept talking, Oran was muttering something hastily in a language I didn’t understand. The sharp sensation in my brain lessened even more.
However, Tana’s voice pressed in on my ears all the louder. “Now move aside, son. I must do this before Malkin does something impulsive and provokes Azulin again.”
“No, Mother,” Oran replied calmly. “Turn around, Lady Anon. No—don’t open your eyes.”
I turned blindly until I faced what I hoped was the opposite direction.
“Take three steps forward and halt,” he ordered.
I complied, and as I did, the intense thumping of my racing heartbeat replaced Tana’s voice in my mind. Oran’s calm, foreign words became a counterpoint to my heart’s frantic pace; something warm and solid brushed my shoulder.
“Azulin has just arrived. Oh, he’s livid. Don’t open your eyes.” Oran’s voice rasped with what I suspected was suppressed anger. He cleared his throat. “When I tell you, I need you to start walking in a straight line. Azulin should be able to pull you free before I close off the trap.” A slight weary note entered Oran’s voice, and the liquidlike magic around me shifted. “I’ll be right behind you; don’t stop walking until you reach him. Nod if you understand.”
I nodded.
A few more phrases in the other language and his magic shifted again, hardening around us.
“Now!” Oran ordered sharply.
I rushed to comply and stumbled, catching myself at the last moment. Then scrambling forward, I tried to keep ahead of Oran’s longer strides and pushed against the resisting magic. Behind us, I could sense the spell closing.
Then, abruptly, the resistance gave way to nothingness, and I fell forward.
∞∞∞
Azulin
Mate binding magic screamed through me, making the vine mark burn and setting my whole body on edge. Helplessly, I watched Calypso fight forward, eyes closed, through the last remnants of the tightening spell.
Oran moved at a snail’s pace behind her. His expression clearly forbade me from interfering. I knew better than to mess with another person’s spell. Still, everything in me wanted to dive into the time dilation and drag my wife free.
But I couldn’t. Oran’s spell was designed to allow movement only one way, outward. And even that was on a timer that was quickly ticking down.
My chest ached with my panic. Their escape would be a close thing. If the time ran out, both my brother and my wife would be trapped within a prison of time.
I leaped forward the moment Calypso fell free. Catching her around the waist and shoulders, I pulled her into my arms.
Our skin touched, and the magic hummed and warmed, flowing between us as though we were one. With her head nestled beneath my chin, I clung to her, enfolding her in the protective cocoon of my arms and my magic. I breathed deeply as her reassuring scent filled my senses. She was safe. Only then did my panic begin to ebb and anger flow in to fill the void.
“What happened?” I demanded over my wife’s head as my brother pushed free of the spell. “Why a spell of this magnitude?”
“Mother happened.” Oran grimaced in concentration as he cut off the end of the spell and disentangled his magic. By the looks of it, he had tied the spell to the flowing water of the streams circling the island, essentially making it self-sustaining until the water supply cut off or he came back to interfere with it.
“Mother is in the midst of that time spell?” I peered at the hazy center of the island where the time distortion had created ripples around the source of the spell. Even now, I could still see the waves Oran and Calypso had created as they had exited.
“I am.” Oran grimly met my glare with one of his own. “She attempted to perform a mind-control spell on your wife.”
“She did what?” Rage rampaged through me, and my magic flared in response. For a crazy moment, I considered matricide. Then Calypso nuzzled my jaw with her nose, effectively distracting me.
“Oran stopped her,” she assured me. “I am well.”
Behind her, Oran was shaking his head. “Mother does nothing by half measures. I would recommend checking your wife over. The spells I caught were intended to wipe her personality and erase her free will. She would have been replaced with a clone of Mother.”
“As though I wouldn’t notice,” I muttered angrily. “She’s nothing like Mother.”
Setting Calypso gently on her feet, I steadied her as I reached into my pocket for the small carved dragon where I stored my most-used spells. Then I initialized the seeking magic Oran and I had learned in our youth.
Through its filter, my wife began to glow with the layers of magic on her. My gold magic twined with her cooler, silver-toned shifter magic. The blue of the protection magic from her wedding ring ebbed and flowed weakly. My mother’s attack had probably weakened it.
“Any fragments?” Oran asked.
“None. Thankfully.” I cut the spell off and reached for Calypso once more. Drawing her in with an arm around her waist, I pressed a kiss to her temple. My whole being warred between anger and fear.
Calypso rested a palm against my chest. Instinctively, I covered it, pressing it firmly in place. Everything within me wanted to do more, but now was hardly the time. I had to deal with my mother first. Suddenly overwhelmingly weary, I held back a groan. The beginnings of a headache blossomed in the back of my head.
“So that’s the way it is.” Oran smirked.
I glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me Mother was plotting something?”
Oran’s smirk dropped instantly. “I didn’t know. She has been discontented for some time, as you know. But I saw no indication Mother planned to try to control you.”
“And what did you do once she revealed her plan?” I tightened my grip on Calypso’s fingers. My chest burned at the thought of what could’ve happened.
“Oran tried to persuade her to stop.” Calypso tugged on my tunic and glared at me. “Stop treating him as though he was the one who attacked me.” Her obvious distress made me pause.
“It could’ve been all part of an elaborate farce,” I protested.
Calypso rolled her eyes. “I doubt you truly believe that. If Oran wanted to betray you, there were much easier ways to do it. He could’ve let me go off with your mother without a defender. I would’ve been an easy target, and he wouldn’t have been implicated at all. Instead, he went with us, begged her to reconsider, and then helped me escape.”
I grimaced. She had a valid point, but I wanted to take out my frustration on someone. Pressure was growing behind my eyes. If I didn’t take a moment to rest soon, it would explode into a migraine.
“How was Father?” Oran asked. “Did he appear to be trying to keep you occupied?”
I snorted. “He threw me out.”
Oran nodded as though he’d suspected as much. “So they weren’t conspiring together.”
“You sound disappointed,” Calypso observed.
My brother offered her a rueful smile. “Father committing treason would make some aspects of my life much less difficult.”
Calypso frowned as she studied him and then me. “Are all fae families this cold?”
My eyebrows rose. She had a lot of gall. “At least our parents didn’t disown us for not fulfilling their expectations.”
Calypso flinched. She lowered her face and took a step back. She tried to tug her hand away, but I refused to let go.
Why had I said that? I studied her, but she refused to meet my gaze. The throbbing in my head increased.
“Az?” Oran glared at me. “That was uncalled for.” He turned to Calypso. “My apologies for my brother. He has been known to speak without thought at times.”
“I am sorry, Callie,” I whispered. Releasing her hand, I rubbed my forehead, massaging the pain growing there. “I shouldn’t have.”
She nodded as she stepped away from me, folding her arms around herself and turning her face away.
I watched helplessly, pain pounding beneath my breastbone and a throbbing beginning in my temples. To make matters worse, the vine around my left arm throbbed, making it impossible to ignore the fact I had hurt her. Everything in me wanted to reach out and offer comfort, but how could I when I was the one who had inflicted the verbal wound in the first place?
“The issue still remains,” Oran declared, pulling me from my inner turmoil. “What do you want me to do with Mother?”
“I need to speak to her.” My thoughts were sluggish.
Oran grimaced. “Easier said than done.” He stared over his shoulder at the slightly moving spell cloud over the island. “What do you need to know?”
“How far does her betrayal go?” My chest ached strangely. “What does she want? Does she have allies? Has she attempted something like this before?” I regarded my brother. “How does the law demand I punish her?”
“Are you certain you’re up for this right now?”
I turned toward Calypso’s voice. She stood next to me, close enough that I could smell her subtle scent. I wanted to reach out and pull her close again. “It’s just pain,” I replied. “A headache. Probably from not resting enough.”
The pucker of her drawn brows barely registered before I had to close my eyes again because the light hurt. “How can I help?”
“We can do this later.” Oran’s voice moved closer. “Mother won’t be aware of the passage of time until I release the spell.”
Calypso’s cool fingers interlaced with mine. Instantly, the throbbing behind my eyes eased. “Perhaps if he rested. The past weeks have been difficult for both of us.”
“I can only imagine,” Oran replied, amusement tinging his voice. “Come. Follow me.”
I let my wife guide me as we walked back toward the palace. She expertly warned me of obstacles while somehow still keeping up a witty dialogue with my brother. Meanwhile, I struggled not to trip over my own feet.
Finally, Calypso tugged my arm, pulling me to a halt.
“Rest well,” Oran said. “I will inform Ghost where you are. No one will disturb you for an hour or two.”
The sound of a door closing signaled that he had left.
“Sit,” Calypso commanded as she pushed me backward.
My legs hit the soft edge of a bed and I collapsed onto it. Letting out a relieved sigh, I stopped fighting the exhaustion. My last memory was the feeling of Calypso tugging off my shoes.