CHAPTER 22
I knew I was awake because everything hurt.
My skin chafed like it had been rubbed raw with a grater and my throat burned drier than a desert.
My eyelids were heavy, but they opened to reveal a thatch-roof ceiling.
Soft light leaked through the straw. I tried lifting my arm, but something rustled when the limb moved.
I tilted my head, glancing down to find dark leaves wrapped around every inch of skin I could see. The bed I lay on was straw and hay. Uncomfortable, but beggars could not be choosers.
A male tended to a pot over a flame near the entrance of the hut. “You’re awake,” he said, with his back toward me.
“Where am I?” I croaked.
He turned to look at me. His pointed ears told me he was elven. His face was averagely handsome, with a rugged beard and dark eyes which assessed my bandaged arm. “Don’t move those. Your skin has just started to heal. I don’t want it pulling off again.”
He slipped a pair of mitts over his hands before lifting the pot off the flame.
He moved to the left where my field of vision didn’t quite stretch and then came back into view, striding toward me with a porcelain bowl in hand.
He took a seat on a rickety looking chair beside my bed – if I could even call the thing I slept in a bed – and spooned some of whatever was inside the bowl.
He held the spoon to my lips, and I eyed it cautiously.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s safe for mortal consumption. If I wanted to kill you, I’d have left you bleeding outside. Now drink.”
I parted my lips, and warm broth filled my mouth. I sucked on the spoon as the elven drew it from my lips. I was so thirsty. So hungry. So sore. So curious.
I didn’t know which need to address first. I settled for taking the next few spoonfuls of broth, gulping greedily, before asking again, “Where am I?”
He dipped the spoon back into the bowl. “Greyhaven.”
Greyhaven?
“How did I get here?”
“You came through the scry. Don’t you remember?”
As soon as he said it, the memories hit me all at once. Cosanus. The fae. Caleb. The scry. Calendula. Where was Calendula?
“My sprite!” I tried sitting and regretted it immediately. I could feel my broken skin stretch and crack beneath the leaves, and a wave of dizziness consumed me. “Where is my sprite?”
The elven set the bowl on the floor and placed gentle hands on my shoulders, laying me back down. “There was no sprite with you. But I do have some questions of my own. You’re mortal.”
“Astute observation,” I muttered. “That’s not a question.”
“Let me rephrase. What was a mortal doing on the borders of Cosanus?”
My eyes locked with his. “How do you know about Cosanus?” Kilian told me only the elven with special clearance for the Mortal Trials knew about it. Unless this male was somehow involved?
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his ankles casually.
“I’m a bit of a scholar. One of the few who believe the fae still exist. I’ve been examining the borders of Cosanus for well over a decade now, trying to find a weak spot.
A way in. Wasn’t it a surprise when I opened the scry, intending to resume my work, only for you to amble in all bloodied?
So, I’ll ask you again: what was a mortal doing on the borders of Cosanus? ”
This male knew about the fae. He knew about Cosanus.
He wanted to get inside Cosanus. Why anyone would want to go into that demonic place, I had no idea.
The land would devour the elven’s magic.
It would drink him like wine. And then the geysers would melt the flesh off his bones.
And the aching sun would bleach his bones white.
And eventually they would turn to dust and ash on a warm wind.
I swallowed and decided on a half-truth. “I was sent in to survive for an hour. It was the third challenge in the Mortal Trials.”
“Ah.” He leaned forward, intrigue lining his face. “And what did you find?”
Just a cavern full of dried-out fae, before accidentally waking one, then watched as it ripped a sprite’s head from her body and barely escaped with my own life. All for a dagger.
The dagger.
The leaves rustled around my arm as I reached for my neck.
The elven’s gaze went to the hollow dip in my throat, and he clicked his tongue. “The blade. Of course.”
“Where is it?”
“I’m curious, did you find the fae?”
“The fae don’t exist,” I snapped. “I was sent to retrieve the dagger. If you don’t give it back to me, I will have failed the Trial.”
“If the fae don’t exist,” the male said evenly, “then who put the dagger there?”
My mouth snapped shut.
“You should rest,” he said. “Your injuries are serious, and I’m no healer. The mud leaves will help, but they’re slow acting. You should feel better in a few days.”
“Days? How long have I been asleep for?”
“Little over a day.”
Little over an entire day. Calendula was missing. And Kilian had not found me.
I reached for the link, but there was nothing. Only unending silence.
What if Caleb had not made it to the scry in time?
I hadn’t actually seen him cross the boundary.
The scry had simply lit. It didn’t mean Caleb had exited through it.
What if Kilian thought I was dead? He would have no way to know for sure, but the aching silence in the link would certainly give that impression.
My saliva turned sour and hot tears pressed against the back of my eyelids as I shut them against the sunlight streaming through the roof. I let the darkness wash over me once more.
When I next woke, it was no longer day. Navy sky peered down at me from the gaps in the thatch. My skin itched furiously, and I reached for the leaves, grateful to find that my fingers no longer felt like someone was slow-roasting them.
“Don’t touch it,” my nameless savior called. I rose on my elbows, much slower this time to avoid the dizziness. He sat near the entrance of the hut on a small wooden bench, studying something in front of him.
“It’s itchy.”
“It’s supposed to be. Your skin is regrowing.”
I slid against the bedframe, dropping my head against the backboard as I peeled the top layer of one of the leaves away from my arm. The skin was indeed healing, but not well. It was mottled and patchy, raw in some places and plasticky in others. I stuck the leaf back down.
“How long has it been now?”
“Since I found you? Three nights.”
The words clanged hollowly in my chest. Kilian had thought me dead for three nights.
“You have a scry,” I said. “Send me back to Valhan House. I have to participate in the Rite.”
It would be happening any day now. Lana and Moric… I lifted my hand to my mouth. I hadn’t even thought about them. I didn’t even know if they had survived the Trial.
They had to have, I decided. There was no way I would allow myself to think otherwise. Not stuck here with nothing to do but consider the worst possible outcome.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said calmly, like I wasn’t a second away from hyperventilating. “For a scry to open, it needs to have a beacon point on the other side. I’ve never been to Valhan House, so I’ve never set one up there.”
“That’s fucking helpful,” I muttered.
He shot me an annoyed look. “I literally saved your life. I think I’ve been plenty helpful. So much so that one might expect a thank you. When you’re strong enough to walk, by all means, leave. But for now, the only place it looks like you’ll be going is back to dreamland.”
“Thank you.”
He grunted in response and jerked his head to the chair beside me. “There’s soup. It might have gone cold.”
I reached for it, suddenly ravenous. It was cold, but I didn’t care.
I ate so quickly I felt sick. As I ate, the elven shifted in his seat, revealing my dagger and the one from Cosanus on the table before him.
He seemed to be evaluating the pair. Curiosity burned through me just as it had when I’d noticed the similarities for myself.
Setting the empty bowl back on the chair, I asked, “What are you doing with those?”
He looked at the blades. “I’m trying to figure out what magic they contain. It doesn’t look like upper or lower magic.”
That didn’t make sense. “If it isn’t upper or lower magic, then what is it?”
He gave a low chuckle. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
I settled back on the bed, careful not to disrupt the mud leaves as I rolled to my side to keep an eye on the elven. I watched him until my eyes grew heavy again. I yawned as I said, “I don’t know your name.”
Right before I fell asleep again, he murmured, “It’s Aaron.”
A loud clattering jerked me awake and my eyes flew open, then immediately shut again as a ray of sunlight pierced them.
I blinked quickly, pushing up onto my elbows.
I had to be dreaming, or the leaves were making me hallucinate, because Kilian stood in the doorway.
He looked so out of place amidst the thatch and wood that I almost dismissed it as a delusion.
Until Aaron toppled from his bench.
Kilian did not give the elven so much as a glance before striding toward me, fingers outstretched to cup my face. His touch was featherlight, and I knew I was not imagining the cold steel flashing in his eyes. I felt like sobbing. I had never been so relieved to see Kilian Valhan in my entire life.
“Are you okay?” he asked in that soft voice he used only when he spoke to me.
My chin dipped in a nod. I looked at Aaron, who was rising shakily, fingers gripping the bench tightly.
Kilian’s lips curled menacingly as he stared at the other elven. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I choked out. “No. He saved my life.”
Kilian’s gaze softened an inch, but the look of icy wrath on his face did not change as he assessed the leaves covering my body. “This is why the link was silent,” he muttered. “Mud leaves. Can you walk?”
Aaron cleared his throat. “She really shouldn’t. She’s suffered multiple third-degree burns.”