Chapter 15
For four days, the horses ran hard, and they traveled far. Imani had barely slept during that time.
Her stomach turned over again during the fifth day as the carriage rocked back and forth across the uneven terrain.
Esa and the two maids sitting with her tittered about nothing, but Imani barely heard a word.
She tried to focus on the spellbook on her lap, but her head spun. Dizziness was consuming her.
Up until this point, she’d been doing a decent job at masking her face into cool indifference, but each day, her insides felt like they were slowly burning her alive. A fire heated her veins, and her dress felt suffocating. She tugged on the neckline and wiped sweat from her brow.
Esa narrowed her eyes at her. “That’s the tenth time you’ve tried to rip your clothes off, Imani. Are you ill?”
Imani pulled her hair into a quick braid, tugging harshly at her scalp. She hated to feel uncertain. It was an emotion she avoided whenever possible. People always found a way to use it against her.
A bang and a crack startled everyone. The carriage fell to the right and landed hard on the ground. The women braced themselves against anything they could. Horses neighed and stuttered a bit as the driver halted them.
A footman opened the door. “Ladies, we’ve had a small accident. If you’ll step out for just a moment, we’ll have this repaired soon.”
Each of them slowly exited the coach with the help of the footman. Imani almost toppled over as she stumbled onto the wet grass, shaking.
“Miss! Are you all right?”
She brushed away the man’s help. “I’m fine,” she stammered, standing upright, appearing as regal as possible. Yet as she walked with her book toward the tree line, she flexed her hands repeatedly, played with her hair, and felt her heart pounding in her ears.
It terrified her to be so desperate in front of her former allies. What else would they wring out of her for helping her with feeding? It made tears burn her eyes as she gripped her wand tighter.
Something made her tip her head to the sky. Several crows swooped above, and she fought the urge to silence the awful creatures with her magic. Saints, she hated birds, especially knowing some of them could be people—shifters.
Snow fell in wet clumps that stuck to everyone’s hair and eyelashes. Mountains towered to their east, with jagged, snowcapped peaks stabbing into the clouds.
Despite the chilling wind, she let her shawl hang loose and kept walking.
The cold barely licked her skin. She didn’t want many people to see her like this right now.
Imani was sick. Really, really sick. And she knew it was getting worse.
Would she do anything—anything—to solve her current predicament?
She didn’t know, but tears fell more quickly as she thought about what having the Drasil would mean for her.
Where was it?
Until she found it, there had to be another solution to feeding she could accomplish on her own.
Sitting on a log, she opened the book again, searching for a spell. Flipping through the pages like a madwoman, she read each at a feverish speed. One of the pages tore as she turned it too quickly.
Imani had borrowed it from the royal library in Niflheim, but she’d worry about fixing the damage later. She needed help and needed it now.
The book was filled with considerable flesh magic spells—dark, nasty spells, the likes of which she’d heard about before but had never read about …
one included something called Eldritch Elixir, something she’d heard whispered about at the Essenheim court.
She bookmarked it for later and kept looking, praying there was an answer in here for her that didn’t require her forcibly splitting open someone’s soul.
She preferred to feed the natural way, with small pieces given willingly between two people who held some modicum of trust and respect for each other. That was how Norn elves fed to survive.
Any other way seemed … unnecessarily messy.
There might be whores in the next town they stopped at, but with Imani’s history, she couldn’t just feed from anyone at this point.
She’d let it go too far, take too much, and she couldn’t risk another murder on her hands.
She needed someone strong. Someone who could forcibly push her out of their soul and body if she lost control.
Otherwise, she’d kill them like she had her grandfather.
Imani scraped her hands down her face, dreading asking Esa.
But it was her next realistic option. The weakness of opening herself up to someone like Esa was dangerous.
She liked the pixie—despite their trust issues and spats—but unlike with Tanyl, there were too many secrets between them.
Imani’s mind would be unguarded, and there was some mind reading magic out there she wouldn’t put past Esa to practice.
Still, she was running out of options.
Esa stood off in the foreground, waving Imani forward. With a shuddering breath, Imani hid any pain from her face and slowly made her way back to the carriage.
As she approached, Esa swiped the book from Imani’s arms and kept it from her grasp. In her weakened state, Imani could do nothing.
“Ah, so this is the book you’ve had your nose in for days,” Esa sneered.
“As you know, we weren’t allowed much reading on the subject at home. I was curious. Purely academic,” Imani said, holding onto the carriage for support. Standing was even getting harder. She needed to lie down.
A few guardsmen and master witches bustled around them. It seemed there was some confusion. Imani tried to focus on their conversation while Esa flipped through the book, tsking. Imani could hear the guards speaking amongst themselves.
“Is that the direct order from the prince himself?” one guard asked.
The other bristled. “No, but Master Heirwyn told me we are to take the west pass and leave immediately.”
“Where is the prince?” A master witch approached. “I’d like to speak with him.”
“The prince hasn’t been seen in days. He’s been otherwise engaged. Master Heirwyn is of high enough rank to speak on his behalf.”
The witch grumbled but agreed.
Brow furrowing, Imani found the exchange odd. Where was Kiran? Somewhere that would keep him from giving direct orders? The man loved to lord over people.
The pixie was still rifling through the pages, her eyes wide.
With a burst of strength she didn’t know she had, Imani shot her hand out and ripped the book from Esa’s hand. Her chest heaved at the effort, but she glared at Esa. “Don’t touch what’s mine.”
Esa held her palms up in surrender. “Calm down. You’ve been on edge lately. I’ll ask you again: Are you ill?”
“I said no, and I meant it,” Imani stated, climbing into their repaired carriage without assistance.
Imani didn’t believe in fever dreams, not exactly.
Perhaps the rational side of her preferred to wait for the real thing, but she did relive the kiss, exactly as it had been—crushing and hungry—and she remembered the spark of essence she accidentally stole from Kiran.
It was bright, and shiny, and beautiful.
Then, too soon, it was over. She woke exactly where she’d fallen asleep before—against the side of the carriage.
It was moving in a rhythmic motion that kept her pain lulled.
She didn’t bolt upright, but lay where she was, lazy and languid with sleep and sweat.
The dream felt different than others; it reminded her of the visions she’d get of Meira. Real. Somewhere else.
At sundown, when they usually stopped to make camp for the night, solitude had typically greeted her in the carriage as she skipped dinner, but not this time.
Opening her eyes, she gave a start.
Two maids and Esa stood over her, two sets of eyes wide and confused; a third, pointed at her in suspicion. Imani tried to sit up but was pushed back down by all three.
“Easy,” the one maid replied softly. “You’ve been suffering fits in your sleep, and you’re running a high fever.”
Fits? I’ve been awake this whole time … or have I?
“Uh, what?” Imani grabbed her head. It ached. Elves didn’t get sick often, not like other breeds, but again, no one knew much about elves anymore.
Except Esa. She seemed to know a great deal about elves. Her discerning gaze ran up and down Imani’s trembling body.
Another jerking of her body stole all her attention from the women and clouded her vision.
“Hold her down again,” one of them said, and Imani felt four hands press against her body as it shook violently. With her limbs locked, Imani had lost complete control of her body.
She hadn’t expected things to escalate this quickly, but as darkness took her again, she could finally admit she needed to ask for help.
After a few minutes, the seizing slowed and Imani came to, coughing. A few droplets of blood landed on her hand and dress. She moved to press herself into a sitting position and shooed away the protests of the maids. Esa said nothing. She simply stood above Imani, arms crossed, face severe.
The pixie knew.
Once she was upright, Imani took a few steadying breaths then reached for Esa’s arm. With a surprising amount of strength, she gripped the pixie’s wrist. Esa tried to pull away, but Imani gritted her teeth.
“Leave us,” Imani demanded of the maids, her eyes still fixed on Esa’s face.
They murmured a few words, glancing worriedly at Imani’s hand locked around Esa’s, but finally bustled away.
Tugging on her arm, Esa attempted again to get her arm back.
“I need to ask you something,” Imani gritted.
“I already know the question,” Esa spat.
“Then please,” Imani begged, not even recognizing her own raspy voice. “I need your help with this just once until I find a longer-term solution.”
Esa finally pulled her arm out of Imani’s grasp. “I’m not letting another elf feed from me,” she hissed in Imani’s face. “I have a better idea. Come with me.”
A wave of dizziness took over Imani, and her stomach roiled. Leaning over the side of the carriage bench, she vomited.
Then everything went black.
Groaning, Imani felt her body being lifted into the air. Her eyes fluttered, and she caught a glimpse of graying blonde hair.
“When did she fall unconscious?” Imani recognized the voice. Master Heirwyn.
“She’d been out a few seconds before I ran for your help,” the pixie replied.
They jostled her, and a bite of cold air hit Imani as they stepped outside. It felt heavenly on her sweat-covered skin.
“Remind me again why we didn’t get some guards to help,” Esa grumbled.
“Because, unless you have experience feeding from a powerful High-Norn female elf, it’s too dangerous to have anyone around her right now,” Master Heirwyn answered. “Come; let’s take her inside my tent.”
It was suffocatingly warm inside the tent as they gently laid her down on a soft mattress covered in blankets. Imani let out another groan as more fire ripped through her limbs.
“Why didn’t you help her? Put her out of her misery at least until we get to Stronghaven?” Zadie asked with a tone of irritation.
“Because I am not some cattle to be passed around,” Esa hit back. “You can’t ask that of me for both of them. I need my own strength, and I’m rather fond of my soul—my whole soul.”
“The prince comes first, of course. Besides, it’s not like it’s a burden—you know the euphoria it induces.”
There was a long pause.
“No,” Esa stated defiantly. “This is a Norn elf, which makes this situation different—more dangerous—and you know it. I refuse to risk giving up that much of myself—she could kill me. Now, he has a perfectly good female laying right here who needs the same thing, and I don’t even have to give up any part of my soul. ”
Zadie scoffed. “We can’t trust her. Not after what happened to the last two whores.”
“Imani is not a whore,” Esa said. Imani felt her heart warm a little at the defensiveness in Esa’s voice.
The pixie continued, “Look, we can trust her enough; she knows more than most and has her own secrets to protect. Make a binding to keep her mouth shut about anything she learns.”
A sigh. “I’ll be honest, after the last mess with the whore and without his cousin or Saevel … he’s been desperate. It’s why we came to you. I’m not strong enough.”
The volume of Esa’s voice was rising. “I will be damned if I’m going to be passed around, giving pieces of my soul to be fed upon like a carcass thrown to a lion.”
A moment of silence passed. Zadie finally broke it.
“It’s not a bad idea—pairing them up for a short time until Kiran is mated, and we can figure out a more powerful memory spell. But she’ll have unprecedented access to things in his mind and soul that no whore has ever experienced.”
“Well, use a binding. That common Norn elf will be under a binding, too, right?”
“Of course,” Zadie snapped. “But we’re still collecting more intelligence and information on her, so it’s too risky until they’re bonded.”
Imani’s limbs stiffened at hearing about Kiran bonding with another Norn. These visceral reactions were getting impossible to control without someone to feed from, and she just hated that fucking imposter elf.
“And Imani? What will she do then?” Esa said softly.
“That’s her own problem to solve when the time comes,” Zadie said, voice cold.
The temperature in the tent dropped as a frigid whip of wind blew through the open flap. A tense quiet fell.
“Your Highness,” Esa and Zadie greeted.
Kiran’s voice was like a razor blade splitting through the tension. “What in the Six Saints is going on with her?”