“The symbols have stopped moving, but I don’t know this language,” Avery said.
Leena tipped her head and studied the revealed symbols. “I don’t either. It’s not Elvish. I can’t—”
“Oh!” Avery yanked her hand back as if the scroll had burned her fingers.
“Avery?” Clarissa caught her sister as she collapsed, her eyes rolling back in her head.
Xavier rushed in and collected her sagging body in his arms. “Whit in God’s name didya do to her?” Xavier ground out, a growl rising in his throat.
Raven cradled her sister’s face. “She’s drained. It’s okay, Xavier. She’ll be fine. She just overused her magic.”
Avery blinked awake and brought a hand to her head. “Mother of mercy, that kicked my ass.”
The others grumbled their relief.
“It’s late,” Sylas announced, his thoughts going to Dianthe. “Everyone break. We’ll give it another go tomorrow. Avery needs to rest, and I need to… think.”
The group exchanged good nights and began parting ways for the evening.
Sylas hooked his arm into Raven’s. “Would you help me with something? It’s about Dianthe.”
Raven’s gaze darted to the door where Gabriel and Charlie were headed out into the night. “Tonight?” She frowned. “She’s the one with the curse, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “Please. She’s in our tent. We need your help.”
Thank the Mountain she agreed.
Chapter Seven
All Raven wanted to do was sleep for a week. After fighting off the tentacled monster, having her boat destroyed from underneath her, swimming to shore, and enduring a battle between her husband and his wicked mother, all with a baby on her hip, she was bone weary. It felt as though someone had replaced her blood with liquid concrete.
And that wasn’t even taking into account the stress of what she had learned tonight. It appeared that the three sisters would play a major role in solving the puzzle that was these orbs. Judging by what happened to Avery, it would not be easy. If she could just have a few moments of quiet to concentrate, she was sure she could come up with a plan to logically address the issue.
But this was important to Sylas. While Raven could put him off, the dragon had once helped her during a dark and difficult time in her life. Clearly, for him to beg for her help, he needed this to happen sooner rather than later. She took a deep, cleansing breath outside Sylas and Dianthe’s tent.
“Knock, knock,” she called. “Dianthe? Are you in there?”
The flap to the tent opened an inch. “Raven?”
Raven frowned at the broken sound of her name. Dianthe had obviously been crying. Whatever was going on with her, it must be painful, but then if Sylas assumed she was cursed, of course it was. She chided herself for her previously selfish thoughts and stepped inside.
“Sylas sent me. Let’s check you out. I’m sure that together we can solve whatever is ailing you.” Her heart broke at the sight of the fairy, sitting hunched on the side of the bed.
Dianthe held a wadded handkerchief in one hand and gazed up at her as she entered the room. “Thanks for coming.”
“So why do you think you’re cursed?”
Dianthe groaned. “I don’t! Sylas is convinced I am.”
“Why would he think you’re cursed if you’re not having any symptoms?” Raven was more confused than ever.
“Because before Everfield was attacked this morning, I helped heal Aborella.”
All the air blew from Raven’s lungs, and she gripped her stomach. Had she heard correctly? “Why in the name of the Mountain would you heal Aborella?” Raven couldn’t stop her voice from taking on a harsh, judgmental tone. “Do you know what she did to me? To my sisters? She tried to kill us.”
Dianthe dabbed under her eyes, her tears increasing at Raven’s obvious anger. Raven hadn’t wanted to make her cry, but hell if she could understand why anyone in the rebellion would help that wicked fairy.
“She was close to death. Eleanor had tortured her and then buried her alive. I had a vision that if I healed her, I could turn her to our side. Specifically, I saw her battling Eleanor on our behalf. Up until recently, my visions were always reliable, Raven. There have been times I’ve misinterpreted a vision, but I can’t ever remember being wrong.”
“But this time you were.” Raven’s heart broke for her. She’d gambled her life to take a risk on a horribly evil fairy, and it had gone wrong. “Did Aborella give you anything? Jewelry? An orb of any kind?”
“No.” Dianthe shook her head. “She had nothing. We’d dug her out of an unmarked grave. She didn’t even have her own limbs.”
“What about food… Did she make you anything to eat or drink?”
Dianthe frowned. “We made a batch of cookies together, but I didn’t actually eat any.”
“Good.” Raven sighed. It would be easy to judge her. Aborella had compelled her father using milkwood root and Avery using an enchanted orb necklace. The fairy had also leveled a curse on her sister that had almost crushed her skull. Raven’s list of grievances against the fairy was long. But she also had a healthy understanding of magic in all its forms. When practiced regularly, it became a part of you. There had been many times that Raven’s magic had guided her in directions that Gabriel hadn’t approved of. Could she blame Dianthe for trusting her own second sight about this?
“There’s only one thing to do,” Raven said. “I need to touch you. If she did curse you, I’ll be able to feel it, and if I can discern the nature of the curse, there’s a very good chance that my sisters and I can break it.”
Dianthe released a held breath. “Thank you. I can’t stand another day of this. Sylas looks at me like… like he blames me. Like he doesn’t trust me. Not just the curse but me.”
All the magic in the world couldn’t cure that kind of hurt, but Raven would do what she could. “If you don’t mind lying down on the bed, I’ll start with your feet.”
“Oh. All right.” She leaned back and positioned her head on the pillow.
“Just relax. Close your eyes.” Raven lifted the fairy’s right foot and concentrated. The chance that Aborella would plant a curse in one of her feet was slim, but considering Dianthe was a seer and a fairy, she wasn’t sure if this sort of magical probing would be uncomfortable for her. Raven was diving deep, examining her blood and her bones, sending her magic hunting through her flesh. It didn’t seem prudent to start with what was probably the seat of her own magic, her head.
“It feels cold.” Dianthe shivered. “Like ribbons braiding themselves inside my leg.”
“A curse is cold,” Raven explained. “My magic has to look like a curse to find one.” She set Dianthe’s right leg down and picked up her left. “I’ve gotten better at this over time. If there’s something in you, I’ll find it.”
“Nothing yet?”
Raven smiled. “Nothing yet.” She set down her other foot and slid her hands along her legs to her abdomen. “You have a powerful gut,” she said through a smile. She pressed her hand over her belly button. “You have power centered here.”
“I’ve always had strong intuition.”
“I can feel it.” Raven moved to her lungs and her chest. “Strong heart. You’re a good person. I feel light and warmth. No wonder you wanted to help her. You actually believed you could save her.”
Dianthe sucked in a sip of air. It took a second, but Raven realized what she’d done. Dianthe had thought she could save Aborella. She’d felt it in her bones. And the way Raven had just said those words implied she was stupid for doing so.
“I’m sorry about my tone.” Raven moved her hands down her right arm. “You have to understand that Aborella has been a scourge to our family. She’s the reason Marius is dead. She used my sister and tried to murder my other sister, took my power, and left me to rot in the dungeon. She’s helped Eleanor perform every evil deed. It’s hard to believe anyone would actually want to save her. If I had found her buried in a hol
e, I would have cut off her head and left her there.”
Dianthe’s eyes met hers, but she didn’t flinch at the comment. Raven moved to her left arm and then to her golden gossamer wings, which peeked out from under her shoulders.
“Aborella was abused as a child,” Dianthe whispered. “My late aunt told me stories that her mother would withhold food as a punishment, sometimes for days. Aborella was my aunt’s age, and she’d come to school filthy and hungry. Unfortunately, fairies are not always compassionate toward one another. They treated her worse than a rat. All that negative energy, it ignited her magic. She saved herself from the squalor and the bullying, but it did something to her soul. I just thought I could make it right somehow.”
The compassion in Dianthe’s voice cut to Raven’s soul. She’d never thought of Aborella as anything but evil, a nemesis to be destroyed. It was unsettling to know she was something else, something before. Emotions swirled within her. She could not bring herself to feel sorry for Aborella, but she did understand Dianthe’s compassion.
“That was kind of you.” She moved her hand’s to Dianthe’s head. This was where her power was strongest. Raven’s magic sifted through her mind, her skull, her second sight that glowed like a beacon within her. The soft warm glow of her power couldn’t be mistaken for a curse.
“Believe it or not, by the end, after I’d healed her, I thought Aborella was my friend. What happened in Everfield felt like a betrayal. It hurt me. She hurt me. More than just the loss of my homeland. It hurts to be wrong about her.”
Raven removed her hands and straightened beside the bed.
“What is it?” Dianthe asked. “What did you see?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Cheerfully, Raven held out a hand and helped her sit up. “You are not cursed, Dianthe. Aborella might be the reason Eleanor attacked Everfield, but she did not leave any malignant magic on your person.”
A rustle sounded at the mouth of the tent. Sylas stood in the doorway. “Did I hear you say she isn’t cursed?”
Raven spread her hands. “To the extent of my knowledge and power—which is extensive—your mate is completely free of curses or ill-intentioned spells.”
“What about her visions?” Sylas asked. “If she’s not cursed, why did her second sight fail Everfield? She didn’t see the attack until it was upon us.”
All the joy poured out of Dianthe in a rush. Raven watched her curl in on herself, and Dianthe’s words came back to her. He doesn’t trust me. Raven felt a tide of anger flood her at Sylas’s insensitivity. This should be a happy moment. Instead, he was still searching for a way to place blame on his mate.
Raven’s hands came to rest on her hips. “I’m sure I don’t know, Sylas. I am not a fairy, and I’ve never had the gift of second sight. But I will tell you as a witch that any spell can fail under the right circumstances. It’s really no reason to judge someone’s future abilities or to treat them like a bomb ready to go off.”
The man gaped at her as if she were insane. Dragons! Raven nudged past him and strode toward her own tent, leaving the couple’s problems behind her.
Chapter Eight
“What was that all about?” Sylas asked her, looking completely gobsmacked at the tent door.
“You heard what Raven said, and she’s right. You’ve treated me like I’m a spy for Paragon since the moment Everfield was attacked.” Dianthe stood, bolstered by Raven’s indignation on her behalf. “You owe me an apology.”
Sylas shook his head dismissively. “I’m not going to apologize for a logical assumption that even you must admit was perfectly reasonable given our circumstances.”
Emotionally raw, she crossed her arms against his words. Each one was salt in her wound. “Yes, I recognize that your hypothesis could have been true this morning. I wanted someone to blame for what happened in Everfield, and blaming myself seemed easier than blaming anyone else. But now that I think about it, why would you jump to the conclusion that Aborella caused any of this? You are a fugitive from the crown. The guard was clearly talking about you, yet he did not know which cottage was ours. If Aborella was the source of the raid, they would have known.”
A growl rumbled from his chest. “No one else knew I was there. I’ve spent half the time either here or on the road for the rebellion since I escaped the dungeons of Paragon.”
“If it was Aborella, why didn’t they know our address? Why would you assume she only cursed me? You were with her too, briefly. In fact, you were with her last. Maybe you are the reason Everfield burned. Maybe it wasn’t Aborella at all. Maybe someone followed you to Everfield and reported back to the empress.” As arguments went, it was a low blow, and Dianthe wasn’t surprised when he flinched.
“I guess we know one thing for sure then,” he said in a lethally low voice.
She lifted her chin despite a deep exhaustion that tempted her to crumple. “What’s that?”
His throat bobbed on a swallow, and his eyes glinted with unshed tears. “We know that one of us brought about the end of the Empyrean Wood. Whether it was you or me or us together, when we chose to keep our home there and still be involved with the rebellion, we invited this, and Everfield paid the price.”
Dianthe’s spirit shattered. He was right. She couldn’t deny it. The truth sliced through her and left her in pieces. There was no getting out from under this guilt. There was no amount of twisting that would make his words untrue. She’d been part of something that led to the probable death of her community.
All at once, her memory filled with the smell of burning trees. Guilt crashed down, heavy on her shoulders. She had to change the subject or she’d be sick. “What did Colin say? What did he show everyone tonight while I was relegated to my quarters?”
Her mate rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward the door. “Why can’t you just let it go?”
“Let it go? Why would I let it go? I don’t even know what there is to let go thanks to you. Tell me what he shared. Maybe I can help.”
“You don’t need to help.” Sylas grabbed the sides of his head. “Can’t you see this is your chance to get out? My entire family is here. Even Colin is back. You’re safe. Stay safe, Dianthe. You don’t need to be involved in this.”
Jaw clenched to the point of pain, Dianthe gave a frustrated cry and stormed past him. “The only thing I don’t want to be involved with right now is you.”
She marched toward the end of the row and a tent at she’d noticed was empty earlier in the day.
“Dianthe? Dianthe!” Sylas called from behind her.
“Go to bed, Sylas. Leave me alone.” She was relieved to find that the tent remained vacant. She slipped inside and zippered the door closed, then climbed under the covers on the camp bed near the back. For several minutes she waited, wondering if he’d come after her. And then the horrors of the day caught up to her and she cried herself into sweet oblivion.
Sylas hated sleeping alone. As a mated dragon, his inner beast had longed to go after Dianthe, to throw her down on the nearest bed and show her exactly how he felt about her. His beast, if it had full control, would never allow her to walk away from him. But the long-term consequences of acting like an animal were being treated like one. Dianthe had asked to be left alone. She needed time to process everything that had happened. His beast was part of him. It wasn’t all of him. And his logical mind wrestled those base desires until they were under his control.
Still, he hoped she’d come around quickly. He didn’t sleep well without her. He kept waking up to feel her side of the bed, his protective instincts driving him to prove she was safe.
Protective instincts. Fuck. Why couldn’t she just enjoy the island and stay away from the war? Part of him wished Raven had found something. A curse would give him an excuse to keep her separate from all this. Things were heating up, becoming dangerous. Soon someone would have to go in search of the other orbs. Leaving this island carried risks he didn’t want to think about. With Aborella working with Eleanor again, she’d like
ly see them coming.
He still believed Aborella was the cause of the Everfield raid. She had to be the reason Eleanor had known they would come here and had tried to intercept them. Only Aborella could have seen that and shared it with her.
Aeaea was the only place Dianthe would be safe now that her identity was known. If Sylas had his way, his mate would stay here, under the goddess’s protection, until the war was over.
He tossed and turned until the wee hours of the night, thinking about her, longing for her, until finally exhaustion overcame him, and he slept.
Late morning, he awoke to the sound of voices. Quickly he dressed and hurried to the central tent. Colin would want to strategize about the orbs over breakfast. Afterward, he hoped Dianthe would be over her anger and he could talk some sense into her.
“Look who finally decided to join us.” His twin snarked at him from over a bowl of eggs at the center table.
Leena was by his side, the dark circles under her eyes a telling sign of how she’d slept. Across from her, Dianthe sat with her back to him. His mate slowly turned to face him as he approached.
“What’s going on here?” A prickly heat crawled up the back of his neck to his ears.
“Filling your mate in on what she missed last night,” Colin said. “Think we’ve made a breakthrough—”
Sylas grabbed his brother by the collar and lifted him out of his seat, a difficult task considering Colin had a good hundred pounds on him. Fortunately, his twin got the hint that he was upset and came along willingly. He dragged his twin out the door.
“Why would you tell her without speaking to me?” His dragon chuffed and twisted inside him.
“Because she asked and she’s an important part of the rebellion.” Colin narrowed his eyes. “Why wouldn’t you want me to tell her?”
That was a harder question to answer. Why was he so angry? Even Sylas didn’t know for sure, only that he was. After a moment of consideration, he supplied the first thing that came to mind. “She lost her homeland yesterday. The Obsidian Guard burned the Empyrean Wood to ash. I was trying to give her time to grieve and recover. We’re finally safe here. Why does she have to be involved with this mission right now? I think she’s earned some time off.”
Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) Page 6
