18. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Ilay there staring at the ceiling, my pulse racing. Bile threatening to spill up my throat.
Fucking Fae magic. That’s what this was. Had to be. That and this godsdamned bond.
It had nothing to do with him wrapping me in my sheets like I was a fragile little lamb. Or the way that his chest had felt when he held me.
Or the way he had shown more emotion tonight than I'd ever seen from him.
My feelings were all simply side effects.
That’s all.
I rolled onto my side, fists twisting the sheets. Anger was easier, an emotion I understood. But the warmth of his arms still clung like a phantom weight.
“No,” I whispered into the dark, flinging the covers back. “Absolutely the fuck not.”
The floor was cool beneath my feet as I swung my legs over the side. I didn’t want to think about Tairngire anymore tonight, or ever again for that matter. How he looked at me, how he touched me like even the Sight bent to his will.
I needed a distraction or I’d never get to sleep. Not with the nerves that I felt about traveling between realms tomorrow, or any of my other conflicting emotions.
My gaze landed on my pillow where I’d shoved the book, The Chronicle of Eryndor Vale. Its spine gleamed faintly, as though it was waiting. Almost like it was watching me. Maybe there were more hidden answers to my questions in the margins.
Curiosity won out. I reached for it. The vellum was warm against my palms, I cracked it open—
The world shifted.
Not like Sight, not the sudden lash of a vision. This was...different, like the turning of a key in a lock I couldn't see. The ground dissolved. Air filled my lungs, thick with an exotic sweetness. I blinked once, twice.
And when my eyes opened—I was no longer in my room.
I stood at the edge of a riverbank. Its waters shimmered pale gold beneath a swollen moon, too luminous for Anamcroí. The current sang, thrumming in my bones. Every inhale carried that heady scent I had gotten from Davorin's magic—honeysuckle laced with wildflowers.
Movement flickered at the edges of my Sight. Tiny creatures darted past on wings of gossamer light, leaving trails of stars in their wake. One zipped close enough to brush my cheek. Its wide eyes gleaming before it chattered in a high, musical tone.
A dozen of them gathered before me, circling and sniffing. Their clicks and lilting tones were both beautiful and unnerving.
The clearing ahead revealed itself slowly—vines heavy with blossoms glowing faint across the grass, the river’s song joined by the whispers of trees, their branches bending and swaying as if in an eternal dance with the breeze.
Every instinct I had screamed I shouldn’t be here. And yet I couldn’t move. I was rooted in silence, the dizzying sensation worsening.
This was what I felt in the vision I’d had when Davorin grabbed me. This was Aeos Sítheann. It had to be. It felt so familiar.
But how? I had felt its essence in the vision the tome had given me, but there was an undercurrent of something else I couldn’t quite grasp.
The winged creatures still fluttered, chirping, swooping in spirals. And though not a single sound made sense to me, I understood them. They wanted me to follow.
Up close they looked almost mortal—delicate faces lit with mischief. Their wings beat too fast to follow, darting ahead, bickering mid-air, chattering in high-pitched voices. One tugged at my hair before zipping off, triumphant.
Despite the fact that I should have been searching for a way out of this strange place I found myself in, I smiled…and followed.
The forest wrapped around me like a familiar cloak, glowing with strange blossoms whose petals pulsed faintly, lantern-fruits swaying in a breeze I couldn’t feel. Each glow painted the world in silver and gold, even the grass glinted as though starlight clung to every blade.
My steps slowed, body unmoored, thoughts slipping from my grasp.
I didn’t know how long I'd been walking. Time seemed to bend there. The river’s hum guided me, steady and low, until the pixies darted ahead one final time and burst into a different clearing.
I stopped. Before me was the waterfall at the heart of Anamcroí—in the temple I’d passed every day of my life. The same curtain of water. The same impossible stillness.
But it wasn’t the same. The air was wrong. Not the fresh scents of pine and moss drifting in from the forest. It was more delicate, more…potent. Nectar and honey tangled with blossoms, making it difficult to breathe properly. This felt even older than the temple's waterfall.
“How curious.”
An intrigued voice rolled through the clearing smooth as velvet. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once. I turned my head slowly and was able to make out the shape of a man standing there, leaning against moss-slick stone. I squinted my eyes as he slowly came into focus.
Gods, he was blinding.
His hair gleamed gold, threaded with feathers that shimmered like they belonged to some celestial bird.
A violet coat hung low around his waist, rich as twilight before night.
It looked far more expensive than anything I'd ever seen in the Seventh Realm.
He wore nothing beneath the jacket, revealing his golden chest that looked like it had been chiseled by the Old Gods themselves.
Amused laughter filled the air. "Now, now. Eyes up here, darling."
My eyelids felt weighted. It was difficult to drag my gaze up to his face. But once I did, wine-colored eyes pinned me, flickering between humor and something darker. Everything about him felt…ancient. Beautiful. Impossible.
Godlike.
“I—” The word stuck in my throat. “Who…?”
“Names are such fragile things,” he said, studying the faint glow on his fingertips as though it pleased him. “But if it comforts you…” He lowered his gaze, smile revealing the whitest set of teeth I'd ever seen. “You may call me Caelith.”
“Caelith,” I repeated, narrowing my eyes.
The name was ridiculous in its drama, as if born for ballads or battlefields.
I feared that it was a false one, it didn't fit the man in front of me.
And quite frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if it had been.
Nobody seemed to go by their real one anyway lately.
He bowed low, arms swinging wide as though the whole forest were his stage. “Caelith, at your service, little mortal who should not be here.”
Mockery laced his words, but a silent threat lurked beneath the grandiosity. He knew what I was. What it meant that I stood in this forbidden realm.
Still he didn’t approach, just lounged there, both absurd and menacing at once. “Well?” His brows lifted. “Are you going to tell me your name in return? Or are we doing the whole mysterious stranger act? Because if it’s the latter, I can assure you, I do it better.”
He winked, and whatever spell I seemed to be under suddenly lifted. I felt my anger rushing back to the surface so forcefully that I gasped. Caelith's gaze darkened as he smirked, never taking those strange-colored eyes off me.
I was so tired of being toyed with, and none of this was as amusing as he clearly thought it was.
I found myself in agreement with Tairngire for once, Fae magic was certainly no kindness.
It was trickery disguised as a sweet high, a bliss that no mortal should be capable of feeling. Lest they get addicted to it.
“Enough with the theatrics. You want my name?” I snapped.
“Earn it. Names are gifts, and the one you gave me is obviously a false one. You’re not the first god to do so and quite frankly, I’m beginning to lose my patience with all of you.
I won’t give gifts to liars or riddlers who drape themselves in feathers and call it divinity. ”
For a moment, I swore I caught a hint of surprise in his eyes.
Then his smirk widened to a grin. “Ahh,” he snapped two fingers together, “there it is. A spark. Most mortals come here docile, drunk on the air. But you…” His gaze lingered, full of unabashed curiosity.
“You bite. Ferocious little thing, aren’t you? ”
“I don’t bite,” I shot back, though my tone betrayed me. That was exactly what I was doing. He knew it, I knew it. “I ask questions. And you gods never answer them.”
I could smell the citrusy scent of divinity on him. Whether he was Fae or not, it shimmered bright gold. He didn’t bother hiding it.
He started to pace in front of me, hands behind his back. “Hmm, perhaps that is our way. Direct answers spoil the delectable taste of desperation, after all. A hard-solved riddle lingers pleasantly about the tongue, feeding off the sweet chaos that it creates in a fragile mortal mind.”
Just when I was starting to think there wasn’t a divine out there worse than Tairngire, Fate puts me in the path of one.
My nails dug crescents into my palms. “Then riddle me this, asshole. Do you know Eryndor Vale?”
His mask slipped—the faintest falter of his mouth. His lazy pacing ceased. His wine-bright eyes turned black in an instant.
“Now what,” he said slowly, steel threading through each word, “would a mortal know of that name?”
Apprehensiveness clamped down, but the words had escaped. My throat dried up, I should’ve lied. Should’ve deflected. Instead—
“The book,” I admitted too quick. “I was reading it before…”
My brow furrowed. I had given him truth—and instantly regretted it.
His smile coiled back, slow and serpentine. “Ahh,” he murmured, stepping closer. “The book. How…fascinating.”
Then, with a flick of his wrist, the thread of conversation vanished.
His eyes shimmered with mischief. “Such anger. It drips from you like sap from a wounded tree. Very…” he waved his hand and sniffed the air with a flair, “Seventh Realm trauma.
You wear it like a badge when truly it is only another chain. "
I scowled at him, how could he have possibly known anything about my chains?
“You said mortals come here,” I shot back. “But Aeos Sítheann doesn’t take visitors, not mortals, nor gods not born of this land. So…how did I get here?"
For a flicker, that look of surprise flashed across his face again. He nodded once. “And they do not,” he cleared his throat, continuing his pacing. “Not anymore. I spoke of days long buried.”
My pulse was thundering in my veins. Did he mean before the Thread Wars? The temple scrolls never named those years, only hinted at them. Questions burned like fire on my tongue. What role had Aeos Sítheann played? Who was he really? And again, the one he hadn't answered, how did I get here?
His poisonous smile returned. “Enough questions.”
“I’m not finished—”
“You are,” he cut in, tone firm. “What you seek cannot be given freely. Not yet.”
Frustration swelled in my chest, but before I could force another word, something changed in the air. A scent—soft, sweet, curling under my nose and down my throat. Jasmine. But richer, muskier.
My limbs grew heavy, my eyelashes weighted once more. The anger I’d been clinging to slid from my grasp like sand through fingers.
His discordant voice followed me into the blur. “Sleep, mortal.”
I jolted awake.
The rafters of my hut loomed overhead, moonlight cutting through the lattice window. My chest heaved as if I’d been running. For a moment I expected honeysuckle skies, fireflies, and the golden-haired stranger waiting in the clearing.
But no.
I was in my bed, in Anamcroí.
My hand slid under my pillow closing around the chronicle, resting there as if I’d never opened it. As though I hadn’t stepped into another realm or spoken with a god who gave me a false name.
My fingers trembled on the leather cover.
I frowned. Dream? Vision?
Yet no dream left the taste of honeysuckle on my tongue, or a river’s mist cooling my skin. No vision had ever clung to me with the sound of riddled laughter echoing in my ears.
I set the tome on the small table beside my bed, staring as though it might open itself.
Had I truly gone to Aeos Sítheann? Or had the book pulled me somewhere between?
Or…had I simply gone mad?
The worst part was that I didn’t remember coming back. Didn’t remember lying down. Didn’t remember tucking the godsdamned book back beneath my pillow.
My hands fisted in the sheets. Whether dream, vision, or truth, one thing I knew: Aeos Sítheann had touched me and I’d touched it back.