by Linsey Hall
I nodded and stepped up to the chasm, peering into the depths.
The dark magic seeped from deep within the chasm, a black mist that reeked of a familiar scent—brimstone and putrid night lilies.
I gaped and stumbled back. “It’s Unseelie power.”
It was my mother’s.
8
The dark magic seeping from the chasm wasn’t only demonic.
It was also Unseelie.
For some reason, it was easier to read now. As the chasm grew wider and the magic seeped out ever faster, it became more obvious.
And somehow, my mother was involved. Her magical signature was here, along with a demonic signature. Had she sent the strange demon that I’d fought with?
There was a puzzle here, but I couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
My gaze flashed to Aeri’s, and she nodded, her expression serious. She recognized the scent as well. Somehow, my mother had something to do with this.
But what?
“This is the same dark magic that polluted my realm.” Tarron frowned. “With the addition of demon magic. Underworld magic.”
“It’s a totally different scenario, but there’s a connection,” I said. No way I’d mention my mother now. I needed his help to fix this, and I couldn’t drive him off if he hated me for what my mother had done. Or worse, thought I played some role in it because we were related. Guilt tugged at me, and I looked away from him. “There has to be.”
“Our mages are keeping the magic repressed and slowing its spread, but their resources aren’t limitless,” Rose said. “Is there anything you can do to freeze it while you hunt for the solution? At least temporarily?”
“We can try,” I said. Though I had no freaking clue how I’d do it. I looked at Tarron. “Can you stop the earth from splitting?”
“For a little while, perhaps. I didn’t try it earlier because it’s a temporary measure, but maybe every little bit helps.”
“It has to,” Aeri said. “Just try. And then you will go to the Unseelie Court?”
“We’ve found it.” I was more determined than ever to go and master my magic so I could scrub this Unseelie stink from the earth and Tarron could knit it back together for good.
Tarron held out his hand, and I gripped it.
A shiver ran up my arm as I drew in a steady breath and did what I always did when I tried new magic.
I winged it.
So much of magic was uncharted territory. We knew a lot about it, but it was ever evolving and changing. I did my best to connect with the dark magic in the chasm. It made my stomach heave and my skin chill, but I had to understand it to modify it.
Finally, I made a connection with it.
Next to me, I could feel Tarron’s earth magic pouring out of him, into the ground. He was slowly dragging the torn earth back together, but the dark magic was fighting him. I had to remove it before he could do what he really needed to do.
Except I couldn’t. The best I could do was force the dark magic a little deeper into the earth. Together, we managed to partially stabilize the chasm and buy the mages a bit more time.
Panting, I stepped back and dropped Tarron’s hand. “That should help a bit.”
Rose leaned over and peered down into the chasm. “You do have a knack for that kind of thing.”
Dark magic, she meant.
But I wouldn’t take it personally. I was born with it, and it was a bit, ah…weird. But I wouldn’t use it for evil, so it would all be okay. The Council of Demon Slayers wouldn’t kick me out. And the Order of the Magica wouldn’t figure out what I was…or what I’d done here.
And I’d just tell myself that until I believed it. Easy-peasy.
I turned to Rose. “We need to go now. But we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
“Hurry.” The direness of the situation was clear in her voice, and I nodded.
Tarron looked at me. “I have a transport charm. We’ll use it to get to the edge of Mount Schiehallion so that you can save your magic.”
I nodded, grateful. I had a hell of a lot of the stuff, but I’d need to conserve it if we were pulling a rogue operation in Unseelie territory.
Aeri hugged me tight, whispering, “Be careful with him. The way he looks at you makes me nervous.”
“How so?”
“Like he’s going to eat you alive.”
“He might, actually.” I pulled back and stepped away, then joined Tarron.
His energy prickled against my skin as I stood close. He threw the small transport charm to the ground. As soon as the little rock hit the pavement, a silvery cloud of smoke burst upward.
Tarron reached for my hand, then gripped my smaller one in his far larger. A shiver raced up my arm, and together, we stepped through the portal. As the ether sucked me in and spun me through space, I let Tarron choose our final location.
We appeared at the base of a mountain that was shrouded in mist. The sage green slopes were speckled with rocks, and the darkened sky made it hard to see. At our backs, a forest loomed.
We were about an hour from sunset, which didn’t give us much time to reach the Circle of Night.
“Give me a moment.” Tarron stepped aside, and his magic flared to life. A moment later, a huge cart full of rowan berries appeared in front of him. They glistened in the faint light that filtered through the heavy clouds.
“Noble stags!” Tarron’s voice boomed toward the forest. “We seek your aid and bring an offering.”
I waited, my skin tight and muscles tense. Please show.
I scanned the forest, and finally, a bush rustled to my right. An enormous stag stepped through. It was far larger than any I’d ever seen, the size of a huge stallion. Massive horns extended up from its head, and its brilliant russet coat gleamed under the light.
Though it was still forty yards away, I could feel its magic even from here. A sense of noble power and a peaceful spirit. It calmed me, settling my nerves for the first time in what felt like a century.
A moment later, another appeared. It had a paler coat, though it was just as big and magnificent.
“They’re interested,” Tarron murmured. “They just need to approve of us.”
“What can we do to convince them?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really.”
Tension tightened the air. Then the stags approached, their strides graceful and confident. These were not beasts to run from a confrontation.
They walked up to the cart full of berries and sniffed it delicately, then turned to Tarron and me.
“We need to get to the stone circle at the top of the mountain,” I said. “And we request your help.”
The darker stag bobbed its head in understanding. Together, the two noble beasts approached us and bent on their front legs.
The palest one was near me, so I climbed onto the back and rubbed the graceful neck. “Thank you.”
The stag snuffled out a breath, then began to walk. Tarron caught up to me quickly, not so much guiding his mount as riding along gracefully. He looked as noble and powerful as the king he was.
“You’re a natural,” I said.
“All the Fae are.”
“And the king, even more so.”
He inclined his head, but it was clear the title didn’t sit easily on his shoulders. “Sorry. I know you don’t want to be.”
“It’s not so much that. It’s a responsibility that I carry with honor.” He hesitated a moment, and I knew what he’d say next. “It’s that I’d rather my brother be here instead.”
“I know.”
“I need to come to terms with it.” The agony in his voice surprised me. He’d never shown me so much emotion. Besides when he wanted to kiss me, of course. And that was another kind of emotion altogether.
“I used the best of everything in my attempts to save him,” he said. “But we weren’t strong enough, and the curse took him instead. I know I need to accept that.”
“I think it’ll grow easier with time.” I wonder
ed if the Fae had therapy. I had a hard time imagining him spilling his guts to a stranger, but it could be good for him.
He nodded, giving me a small smile. “So will your magic.”
“I hope so.” The stag sidestepped an invisible obstacle, and I tightened my legs to stay on. “I just want to finish this damned thing and get back to normal.”
Tarron’s stag shied to the right, and mine followed. The magic in the air changed, growing more threatening as we ascended. It prickled sharply against my skin.
“We’re getting to the iffy bit,” I said.
The stags began to walk in a zigzag pattern, avoiding threats that we couldn’t see. There were boulders scattered here and there, along with a few lone, twisted trees. But otherwise, the hillside was barren.
A chill blasted from my right, and the stag veered away. Farther up, a sense of foreboding came from the left, and the animal avoided it cleanly. The higher we got, the more the stag darted and dodged.
The mist grew thicker and colder, bringing with it more threatening magic. I could hear the sound of rocks smashing together, but couldn’t see them. The stag beneath me leapt high into the air, and I clung to the stag’s neck, holding on tightly.
Not being able to see the threats made my heart pound so hard I thought it might pop out of my chest.
Tarron rode his steed at my side, keeping close. When the creatures began to run, I held on tightly. Wind tore at my hair as our mounts veered and weaved, and I nearly fell off twice.
In front of us, thorns grew up from the ground. Thick and twisted, they created a wall. It rose ten feet in the air. Fifteen.
The stags hesitated.
This was a threat I could see.
That was different.
The stags clearly didn’t like it.
Heartbeat thundering, I shouted to Tarron, “I don’t think they can jump it!”
“They can’t.” He raised his hands, his magic flaring, then directed his power toward the wall of thorns.
They withered into the ground, and the stags surged forward, leaping over the rubble of dead, twisted vines. My mount landed hard on the other side, and the breath whooshed out of me. I clung tightly, barely managing to hold on, and the crazy ride continued.
Finally, we reached the top of the mountain. The wind whipped across the peak, driving gusts of clouds in front of us. It was nearly impossible to see where the sun was setting as there was nothing but a pale, diffused glow.
Eerie, really.
Tarron leapt off his stag gracefully, looking perfectly windblown and handsome. He was a natural.
I grumbled as I dismounted mine, nearly falling. I stiffened my spine, mortified.
That was so not like me.
I was grace personified.
Normally.
But right now, my legs were killing me from the wild ride up the mountainside. If I was a Fae, I wasn’t a very good one, because riding stags was freaking hard.
I turned to the beautiful beast that’d carried me safely up the mountain. “Thank you.”
The graceful animal inclined its head, then turned and raced down the mountain. Tarron’s stag followed, and we turned toward the stone circle.
Magic pulsed from the stones that speared the evening sky. They were jagged and sharp, and several looked to be weeping a dark oil that glimmered in the diffused light.
So, this was my heritage.
Fabulous.
“Now or never,” I muttered.
I approached quickly, determined to get it over with. At the boundary of the stone circle, I stopped and carefully stuck my hand out. If I was going to be zapped by protective magic, I didn’t want to get blasted in the face. Next to me, Tarron did the same.
The magic that flowed between the stones stung, but didn’t hurt abominably. Carefully, I stepped through, shivering at the cold that raced over my skin.
In the middle of the circle, an enormous flat stone lay against the ground. It was carved with the most incredible, intricate Celtic knot I’d ever seen. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of thin lines twisting and turning across the surface that was as big as my living room.
Awed, I stepped up to it. “Holy fates, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“It’s a gate of some kind. A lock.” Tarron knelt and ran a hand over one of the intricate stone lines. “We Fae love our puzzles.”
“How do we open it?”
“No idea. It’s the kind of thing that an Unseelie Fae would be taught from birth, so that they could come and go from their homeland. Like our gate.”
I nodded, thinking about how instinct had driven me to open the gate to the Seelie Court. Maybe that same instinct could work here, too. I was Unseelie, after all.
I strode around the stone, inspecting it from all angles. The thin carved rock twisted and turned, a maze with no beginning or end.
Except…
What if that was the puzzle? I had to find the beginning and the end. Perhaps they were one and the same, and it was impossible to see it.
“I’ve got an idea.” It took me a good twenty minutes—every one of which was stressful because we had a strict deadline—but finally, I found it.
The beginning of the knot was also the end, and the spot was marked only by a faint pulse of energy. I could feel it when I ran my hand over the stone. “Do you feel it?”
Tarron hovered his hand in the same place. “I don’t.”
I could because I was Unseelie.
“It’s almost sunset, isn’t it?” I could sense it.
“It is. In one minute, the sun will touch the horizon.”
“You can feel it that clearly?”
He shrugged. “Fae gift.”
It was time, then.
Instinct drove my next actions. I raised my hand and sliced my fingertip with my sharp thumbnail. A drop of midnight blood splashed to the stone, absorbing quickly into the rock.
“Unseelie blood.” His eyes flashed to mine. “I didn’t realize you had their blood.”
My heart rate spiked. “I didn’t know what it meant.”
“Really?”
“Really. I mean, I knew it came from my mother and my aunt said it made me evil, but…”
“She was already trying to manipulate you and kept you in a dungeon. How were you to know if it was true?” He nodded understandingly.
He believed me.
I didn’t want to be happy about it. Not when I knew that there was still a huge lie hanging between us. But I was.
I cut my finger deeper, spilling a few more droplets of blood on the stone. I’d counted thirteen in total by the time the magic sparked on the air.
“Here it goes.” I lunged backward as magic swirled around us.
A portal opened in front of Tarron and me, shimmering and gray.
Tarron dug into his pocket and pulled out the potion that was meant to make us blend with the Unseelie. I did the same, then swigged it back. I winced at the foul taste—fishy and sour—then shivered as the magic raced through me.
Tarron transformed before my eyes. He still looked like himself, but his dark hair became even blacker, his skin paler. His green eyes turned to midnight, and his cheekbones cut deeply. All of his features sharpened, and though he looked a bit different, he was just as beautiful.
“Do I look different?”
“Yes.” His gaze flicked over me. “Like yourself, but sharper. Harder.”
I nodded. “Good. Let’s go.”
I made sure that the obsidian blade Luna had given me was displayed in its thigh holster, then stepped through the portal.
The ether sucked me in and spun me through space, making my heart race and my head pound. It spat me out in the middle of a dark forest, not terribly dissimilar from the one at the Seelie Court. The trees were huge here as well, but their trunks were blackened with silver leaves. Dark magic hung in the air, though it wasn’t as terrible as I’d expected.
Tarron appeared next to me, his stance ready.
; “Who goes there?” a voice boomed from the shadows about fifteen feet away.
I spun, turning to see a guard appear from the shadows. He was as pale-skinned and dark-haired as Tarron, with sharply pointed ears that peeked out from behind his hair. His clothing was all black, with finely embroidered sleeves and neckline. The obsidian sword at his side glinted in the diffuse light that sparkled through the tree leaves.
“Just returning home,” I said, trying to sound casual.
The guard strode forward, his stiff stance loosening as he got close enough to see that we looked like Unseelie Fae.
“I don’t recognize you,” he said.
“It’s been a while since we’ve passed through here,” Tarron said. His kingly bearing made the guard quail a bit, and I nearly grinned.
Then the guard scowled. “I recognize everyone.” He leaned forward, sniffing the air. “Magic smells funny.”
“I don’t know—”
He reached for his sword, cutting off my words. I smacked his hand hard, sending the blade spinning.
“You bitch,” he hissed, raising his hands and calling upon his magic, so fast on the draw that he caught me by surprise. He blasted a powerful electric current right at us.
He was so close that there would be no dodging him.
Panic flared in my chest. I braced for impact.
The electric current slammed right into me, strong enough to kill me. Instead, it lit me up like a live wire and shot right out of me, rebounding to the Fae who’d attacked.
The current hit him full on, making him shake and drop to the ground.
“Crap!” I fell to my knees at his side, pressing my hands to his chest as I checked for any signs of life. “Can you help him?”
“Why? He shot to kill.”
“I want to question him about where to find the seer that Arrowen told us to visit.”
He nodded sharply and pressed his hands to the man’s chest. The Fae gasped, his eyes fluttering open. He still looked half dead.
“I don’t know how long I can hold him.” Tarron grunted.
Quickly, I sliced my fingertip with my thumbnail and swiped black blood across his forehead. “Tell us where to find the Evil Eye.”
The man groaned, words tearing free of his throat. “West of town, violet house. Third level.”
