by Rebecca Grey
“Why don’t you play a game that you both want to play?” she said with a small smile.
“What about hide and seek?” I snickered, leaning against the tree. Bark transformed and molded over my skin until there was no part of me left to be seen.
“You have an unfair advantage,” Hattie said, sourly.
“Fine, you pick something else then.” The pout was evident in my voice.
Hattie plucked a couple wildflowers from the ground and held them up. “Let’s weave together some flowers and make crowns. Then we can play the princess and the queen. I call being the queen!”
“No, because then you’ll just boss me around the entire time. I want to be the queen.”
My mother shuffled behind us, setting down her work quietly as my father walked toward us through the trees. His hands were clasped around a small wooden box, his face pale and grim.
“Ibarra,” he whispered to mother. “The spell is complete. We just need to bind it.”
Mother glanced at me and Hattie. Hattie was already knotting the ends of the flower stems. My fingers interlaced with the grass as I grew white, delicate flowers around us. I kept my gaze on the dirt before me and so did Hattie, but we both knew we were listening to our parents. They knew too.
“How long will we have with them, Calton?” she asked, her voice heavy with sadness.
“A year at most.” His rough hands stroked down the length of her face. Mother’s gaze drifted between the box he held against him and us, playing cluelessly next to them. “It’s important we do this. The Mother didn’t give us this to let it fall into the wrong hands. It’s meant to be used with its other half, should we need it to protect her holy lands against the other realms of the gods.”
“I know, I know.” She gently pushed his hand away. “I just worry about leaving them alone in this world. I don’t want them to feel burdened by this, just as we have since your family passed this down to us. I wish they would never have to know what this was.”
“And they won't.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made a deal with the burgundy witch who spelled the box. All we have to do to wipe the memory of this from their mind is to complete the spell with our blood. They will remember nothing, unless the spell is broken. I pray that never comes to pass.”
Plucking a few flowers from the ground, I started braiding them together and watched my mother as she pressed a kiss to my father's lips. Hattie hummed in front of me, a crown nearly complete. Her lips didn’t lift with a smile, as she continued to listen to our parents with me. I didn’t want to forget this box. I didn’t want something to be lost to my mind and never even know it. The thought plagued me.
“A year isn’t very much time to love someone” Mother said, her tone growing more mournful by the second.
“A year is adequate if you love them fiercely enough. And I will love you and them with all my might, until our last breath.”
“Okay.”
Father pulled his knife from his belt and slid the blade over his forearm. Blood dripped from his arm and onto the box. Mother extended hers, and she met the blade without flinching as she stared into his eyes with intense admiration.
“This will make this world a safer place for them.” Father slipped the knife back into his belt and set the box behind the log.
Hattie and I blinked at each other. We had been building floral crowns. Mother had been sewing and Father had returned from a long walk.
And nothing more.
The canopy above my bed lifted in the slightest breeze from my cracked windows. Urgent breaths, fueled by sickening waves of released magic, tormented my body. Everything was coming back. Every moment that was erased rushed back to me in confusing flashbacks. Images of colorful leaves and the crisp, early morning sun appeared behind my eyelids as I tried to process the onslaught of information. The box lay open, the jagged half of a large circular coin rested inside. Ganglin had opened the box. And this wasn’t a good thing.
I tried to slow my breathing, to focus on something other than the rising panic and the shit-show that had become my life. I needed to talk to my sister, because this damn thing had more to do with us than we thought. It was our job, our duty to our family, to the Mother, that we keep the pieces of whatever the coin was out of the hands of someone who could use it outside of its intended purpose.
The air was already warm and muggy. Bright rays of the sun crept over the horizon only to heat the day further. My legs felt sticky with sweat as I pulled the blankets off of me and slipped out of bed. Floorboards creaked quietly underfoot, the wooden planks still mildly chilled from the night. I yanked the desk chair over to the wardrobe, flinching as it squealed over the wood.
The top of the wardrobe was dusty. Stones and the varying materials of the gowns pressed against my stomach as I stretched against them. Under me, the chair creaked at my weight. A thick film of grime made my hands feel dirty as my fingers brushed over the stained wood until they met the smooth, cold surface of the crystal.
I gripped it with a sigh of relief and pulled it into view. Light thrummed through it in a glistening flash as I stared down at it. Dark magic rippled through, and it felt immensely improper. Silver, jagged rock budded in small pillars that stopped at many points. Graceson had said as much, when he mentioned the idea, that it was witchcraft.
All I needed to do was say Hattie’s name. Clutching the crystal, I stepped down from the chair and sat in it. I rolled it over in my hand, running my fingers over the sharp points and rough edges. These odd, mystical objects were all that was left of a species some believed to have never have existed at all. It had to be rare and expensive.
“Hattie Avery,” I spoke quietly. The crystal grew warm in my hand, and white light glowed around it. Squinting into the brilliance of it, the shine of the points narrowed on my bed. Flares of it danced over my covers, forming into Hattie’s figure. She sat forward, her legs crossed, and an excited smile on her lips.
“Oh, Hattie,” I nearly shrieked. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I was hoping Graceson would give you the damn thing sooner so we could talk. What kept him away?” she said, her smile falling slightly.
“It wasn’t Graceson. He gave it to me last night. Some things came up...”
“Sounds an awful lot like what's happening over here. Something is always coming up.”
For once, her curls were not bound in a tight bun on top of her head. Instead they brushed against her cheeks and twisted down over her shoulders. Her hair looked extremely long, a surprising thought. Had it been that long since I’d last seen her?
“Wait, what’s going on there?” Genuine concern filled me, accompanied by the small pang of conscience from putting off what I needed to say.
“Ottack sent some keeper with a nymph. Normally, we just collect them, with no witnesses actually in our court. Windre staged his whole castle just to host them. He is paying nymphs to act as servants in the castle, too. But the issue is, he is actually trying to break this poor girl. A ruse to make sure Ottack continues to believe this whole charade. It’s wrong what they are doing to this girl!” Hattie’s voice grew strident.
“Have you said anything? Have you seen her?”
“No, Windre refuses to let me come to his castle. We got in a huge argument over it,” she sighed, balanced her elbow on her knee, then propped her chin in her hand. “What’s causing strife in your neck of the woods?”
“Something is wrong with Daethian. Graceson is making a trip back to the Acture Court to use Windre’s resources but… it’s like he’s possessed.” I chewed on my lip.
“By an agent of Havala?” Hattie gasped.
“We don’t know. His eyes are black, and when he gets angry, black smoke comes off of him. Absolutely terrifying.” My hand drifted up to my neck.
Hattie narrowed her eyes, her image stood from the bed and closed the space between us. Light brushed against my neck, but I couldn’t feel the touch. “Did he do tha
t to you?”
“Yes.”
Any semblance of a smile melted away to a dark scowl. “That can’t be true.”
“It is,” I started, trying to keep my thoughts on track. There were so many things I could say about the problem with Daethian. Too many worries to even list. “There’s more I need to share with you, too.”
“Oh, great. Hopefully it’s better news than what you just told me.”
“Dace wants me to marry him,” I blurted before I could talk myself out of saying it altogether.
She took a step back, her eyebrows knitting together. “Do you want to marry him?”
“You make it sound easy,” I scoffed. “There is more at stake here than just if I want to do it. Isn’t there?”
“It sounds simple enough to me.”
Everything always seemed so simple to Hattie. Her life was a series of choices, all of which were either black or white. But my choices all felt murky and grey, no easy difference between the good and the bad of what I should and shouldn’t do.
“I would have to live in the Twinity Court. And what of this advantage we took here in the Heathern Court? What of Daethian? What of the war?”
“We can figure it out together,” her voice was motherly. “Honestly, I’m more surprised you’ve made it so far with Dace in such a small amount of time. I’ve been flirting with Windre and going on these dates, for five years, and the man still refuses to kiss me. I’d marry him in a heartbeat. If only he wasn’t so stubborn.”
“I knew you two had a thing!” I smiled.
“As do you and Dace. You like him, don’t you?”
My heart raced at the thought of him. A small space inside of me missed his company. “I like him,” I said slowly, in an attempt to speak some part of my muddled thoughts. “I mean, mother above, he is beautiful, charming, revolutionary in his political stance, he cares for me, and we get along so well. But he is also cocky, vain, and fae nobility.”
“What is so wrong about that?”
“I’m a nymph. I’m just barely not a slave, I don’t have any wealth, and I’m living out of an estate that I stole. Dace is a prince. Totally opposite ends of the spectrum. You should have seen the fae at his bridal proposition. They hated seeing me. They hated seeing us together even more.”
“Stop worrying so much about everyone else. Worry about you. Does Dace make you happy?”
“I mean, yes, I’m interested. The spark between us is everything to me. But don’t you think it’s too soon? You even said it hasn’t been very much time.”
“Stop overthinking,” she laughed. “Yes or no answers only. Do you like Dace?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to marry Dace?”
“We need more time before I’m ready to marry him. That’s a huge commitment, a scary one at that.”
“Yes or no only,” she tsked. “Do you want to marry Dace, maybe not tomorrow, but someday in the future?”
“Yes,” I finally said, weakly. It felt like giving in. Like I was finally admitting the extreme amount of feelings Dace made me feel.
“Then you have an answer.” Hattie's gaze was soft as she looked me over.
“Daethian hates it,” I whispered, touching my neck once more. “It’s why he did this.”
“You don’t really know that. There is something very wrong with him, and it has nothing to do with you and Dace.”
I nodded like I agreed, but my stomach still felt heavy. Something was very wrong with Daethian and it felt so much like it was partially my fault, like my body was going to cave into itself to fill the gaping hole the divide in our friendship had caused.
“What else did you want to talk about?” she pressed.
“Did you have any dreams last night?”
“None that I recall. Should I have?”
When we were young it wasn’t unusual for us to wake up and have gone on the same adventure together in our subconscious. It was one of the fun things that made us feel closer as twins. It didn’t happen every night, but sometimes we would both wake up excited. I hoped this had been one of those moments.
“I had a dream… but it felt more like a memory… about that box Ganglin had.”
“Oh?” Her voice was soft.
“It contains half of a coin thing, a token, is what our parents called it. They said that it contains unthinkable magic, and it was created by mother nature to protect us against other realms of the gods.”
“I know.” Hattie took a step back, her eyes squeezing shut, like she was anticipating that I would smack her or scream at her. Part of me wanted to.
“You know?” I didn’t yell, but any trace of humor, joy, or concern had left my voice.
“I never forgot.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. The spell never worked on me. After mom and dad died, I kept the box in my bag that I always carried. You asked about it a few times, but always forgot about it less than ten minutes later, no matter what I told you about it. The magic clearly worked on you.”
“Why didn’t you say something after you knew Ganglin had it?” A hint of anger now tainted my words.
“I didn’t want to burden you. You already seemed so stressed out with everything else, I thought I could manage this one thing alone.”
“Since when are we not doing things together?”
“Don’t try and guilt me, Ryker,” she whined.
“I’m not,” I lied. “I’m genuinely concerned. I think there's a chance Ganglin is in the Acture Court, too.”
“How? I followed him to the Obtune Court.”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. A glimpse I saw, once the magic released my memories. I saw the box and the background… it looked like the Acture Court. Maybe he is traveling.”
“I better tell Windre.” Hattie chewed on her nails, her attention drawing to the floor.
“I need to check on Daethian anyway. I can contact you like this whenever, right?”
“Yes, it goes to the necklace I’m wearing.” She pulled a smaller crystal pendant out from under her shirt.
“Perfect. Now how do I make you go away?”
“That didn’t sound rude at all,” she lifted a brow. “Just let go of the stone and I’ll vanish.”
“Easy enough. I’ll reach out again soon, promise.”
“Okay. Love you, Ryker.” Hattie took a step back waiting.
“Love you, too.” I set the stone on my desk. The light faded from the crystal and Hattie’s image evaporated. As she disappeared, a desperate loneliness gripped me. A shiver ran down my back and I tried to shake off the terrible feeling.
I needed to go check on Daethian. But what kind of condition was I going to find my friend in today?
TWENTY-FOUR
Ryker
Light didn’t make it to the dungeons like it did the rest of the castle. There were no windows to offer reprieve from the darkness. Fae firelight still glowed at the end of torches that lined the rough rock walls. Daethian was in the largest of cells, his door only bars. When I was brought down here, I was shoved into the smallest cell with a thick iron door.
Cold seeped through the stones that never seemed to warm, no matter how long you curled against them. Some things, like that, came back like haunting nightmares as I walked down the narrow staircase. My fingers brushed against the cut stone walls, my mind wondering how many times Daethian had thrashed and pushed against them on his descent to his cell.
At the bottom of the steps, I took the glowing torch and touched it to the two wooden sticks on either side of his prison door. They lit, a sunny hue of orange that shifted to a soft yellow-white glow. Both of his muscular arms hung through the bars, leaning down against one of the few bars that ran horizontally. Big brown eyes looked up as the sudden brightness illuminated his dirt-covered features.
“Ryker?” he whispered, pulling himself up with a groan. “Why am I here?”
The urgent need to hug him, to soothe his confusion and fear, tormented me
. Silently, I wrapped my arms around my body and stepped closer to him. There weren’t any sickly snakes of dark black magic curling off of his skin, and his eyes were a somber bronze color.
“Do you remember anything?”
“The last thing I remember is heading to my room. I was going to visit with Randsin while I waited for you to come back home.” He rubbed at his tired eyes, smudging more dirt in messy rings against his skin.
Home. He used that word so sincerely. And in some ways he was right. The Heathern Court had become my home. It housed terrible memories, but it also contained good ones, filled with friendships that felt more like family.
“You tried to kill me last night,” I finally said. I just needed to rip the sticky bandage right off, no need to let the anticipation build. Carefully, I reached out and touched one of his hands, calloused and scarred, but still familiar.
“No, that’s not possible. No, no, no,” he said on a fading breath. He took my hand in both of his through the bars. Water gleamed on the edge of his eyelids, the whites tinted with red.
I nodded, closing my eyes and squeezing his hand. Just seeing him in this cage, and feeling the strength of his panic, made me nervous to open them again. I didn’t come down here to cry. I’m stronger than this, I can cry alone in my bedroom later. Daethian didn’t need to see how badly this affected me too. He didn’t need any more guilt.
“I love you Ryker, I would never hurt you.” His hands ran roughly over my palm, the back of my hand, and up my arm. Trailing fingers filled with remorse. His touch became static closer to the top of my shoulder as he took in the bruises that had already faded a bit from yesterday, on my neck.
“No, no, no,” he quietly cried, pulling back into the cell. His forehead rested against the cold bars. Fisting his hands, he beat against the door. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
“Stop.” I grabbed his hands to keep him from hitting the metal anymore. He was already in rough enough shape. “Suzetta already looked at you and she doesn’t know what’s wrong. What's in you is… unnatural.”
