Heart of the Fae: A Young Adult Fantasy (Earth Magic Rises Book 3)

by A. L. Knorr

  I looked into both peripheral corners as far as I could without turning my head, in search of an outline. Sometimes I thought I could see movement, but the harder I looked for it, the more elusive it was. Frustration mounted in my chest, sizzling and ready to jolt my muscles with electricity.

  When another tenticle touched the back of my thigh, I almost bolted, only the repetitive mantra be still looping over and over in my mind kept me from spinning around and swiping at whatever I could reach. Panic mounted and my mind raced. I wasn’t sure if I should attack the otrikar with whatever I could recruit or hope it would go away without making an attempt on my life.

  Nearby trees shook and groaned, and the tentacles stilled for a moment. Maybe I could distract it. I called to the slender-stemmed thistles just off the path and they bent over unnaturally far, searching for the otrikar on my behalf. The prickly stems must have found something because two of the tentacles retreated suddenly and there was a high, curious whistle.

  But the last tentacle slipped across my hip and between my legs, and that destroyed the last fragile tether between me and composure. Loosing a heated curse-word, I snapped a hand down, jerking the tentacle away from my body. Fyfa had faced the otrikar with some unknown power, but first she'd gotten me to safety ... her cottage. Not knowing how to produce the flashes of light she'd conjured, I did the only thing I knew how to do, the thing every atom in my being compelled me to do—I ran.

  Tentacles whipped at the air, some of them slapping painfully across my torso as I bolted for Fyfa's cottage. A scream rent the air, and the sound of disturbed dried leaves and branches just to my left had me wheeling off the path and to the right. I took a flying leap over a fallen log and hit the ground running.

  When something sharp swiped across my shoulder and I heard the sound of ripping fabric, I veered away from the strike, heart and breath sprinting. I felt like a panicked rabbit bounding directionless in a crazy zigzag, avoiding trees and the sound of my pursuer.

  Something sliced across the back of my leg and I cried out in pain and shock. At that moment, everything changed. Before, I was only scared of this thing I couldn't see, but the moment it drew blood I choked on a new level of terror. I realized—as a hot blood soaked the back of my pants—that I was in serious trouble.

  Once I started running, my thoughts shattered. Logic abandoned me, and getting my fear under control seemed hopeless. It was all I could do to keep running, ears trained for sound, eyes begging for an escape to show itself.

  Another hot line of fire raked across my back, from my shoulder to my waist across my torso. The agony of it was immense. I stumbled and almost fell. I no longer knew where I was or where I was going. Tears blurred my vision, and the world went fuzzy.

  Another scream had me stumbling and wheeling in the opposite direction. My shoulder struck a tree and I rebounded, looped an arm around the trunk and swung around it only to trip and fall onto my hip. Rolling over, I was back on my feet in a moment, back and leg on fire. Dizziness swept over me, too strong to have been just from my fall. A foreign substance had been introduced to my system, I could feel it slowly numbing my extremities. I’d been poisoned and I’d no idea about an antidote. Lots of amphibians in my world had poison, why not the otrikar too?

  I broke into a clearing, a world with two stripes of color blurring into one another, the green of an open field and the blue of the sky. My breathing grew labored as my chest tightened. I fell to my hands and knees, too dizzy and blind to keep running. With an ironic mercy, the pains of the cuts on my body were growing numb.

  This was it. This was how I was going to die. In a glade in Stavarjak, meal for an otrikar. Insanely, I took comfort in the fact that Daracha couldn't reach my remains here. I'd never be burned for the magic that my ashes would contain.

  The ground came up to meet my face, and all of me rushed into it, in search of healing and comfort. And the tongues were on me, softly now, caressing, getting to know the shape and make of its meal.

  Another high scream rent the air and thudding sounds filled my ears. Rolling over onto my back, my hands flew to cover my ears as I winced against multiple high-pitched cries. Was there more than one otrikar? I had no hope of making out my surroundings; my vision was not only blurry now, but it was going dark at the edges. Blobs of color moved like pools of paint bleeding into one another across an artist’s canvas. The screaming and thudding sounds continued. They too soon blurred together into a sonic assault as my vision faded to black. Slowly, the volume receded as unconsciousness swallowed me.

  The sound of birdsong filtered into my ears, sounding like it was coming through a tunnel. I listened for what felt like days to that song, with no other thought, just letting it carry me. Slowly, sluggishly, my mind found first gear. I wondered if heaven was full of happy birds and thought it must not be so bad to be dead if that was the case. Happy birds were birds that felt safe, birds that were well fed and provided for, birds that had warmth and sunlight and water to bathe in.

  Memory kicked in. Memories of thudding sounds and high-pitched screaming. Memories of painful cuts across my body, of losing rational thought as poison leeched into my system. Movement came next and with it a dull ache across the back of my shoulder. With that ache came other sensations. A pillow under my head and blanket over my body. Some padded surface beneath me, the smell of something medicinal.

  The sound of a soft moan forced my eyelids open. The feeling of a vibration in my throat at the same time as the moan made me realize it was me.

  I looked around, groggy and feeling drugged. A bedroom with no straight lines, like a cave, but with a window next to my head. Diffused sunlight fell across my body and the sounds of birds chirping sharpened. I moaned again and tried to lift the covers so I could get up. I got to my elbow and dizziness knocked me back down with another groan. Clamping a hand over my throat as nausea bit the back of my mouth, I lurched onto my side as the vomit came, trying not to soil my bed.

  Someone had strategically placed a red ceramic bowl on the floor beside my bed, and it perfectly caught the ex-contents of my stomach. There wasn't much to speak of, and the taste of bile made me shudder in disgust.

  Footsteps outside the open door of my room preceded the shape of someone very tall in my periphery. A warm hand touched the small of my back as they sat on the bed beside me.

  "Best to get it all out," said a masculine voice I recognized. "You've been throwing up bile and dry heaving for three days now. I've never seen anyone react this badly to otrikar poison. You must be allergic. Normally it just makes one a little dizzy."

  I spat a last gob into the bowl and turned my head. "Laec?"

  He rubbed the small of my back as I lay down again, feeling like the worst flu in the world had moved in and set up shop.

  "You're lucky, Georjie." Laec bent to pick up the bowl and replaced it with a clean one. "I'll just, uh ..." He made a gagging sound. "I'll be right back. Never been the nursemaid type."

  I tried to ask him where Fyfa was, but the words failed to form properly. I rolled slowly onto my back and closed my eyes, unable to fight sleep any longer.

  I slipped into a dreamy twilight, which at times was full of warm sunlight and twittering birds, and at other times had me cringing as my ears filled with screams and heavy thuds.

  The next time I opened my eyes it was to see Laec perched beside me again, looking intently at my face. The smell of smoke forcefully roused my consciousness, and I realized he was waving a small smudge in my face. When he saw my eyes were fully open, he set the smudge in a little tray and put it by the window. Air seeped in through a crack, and he pushed the window open wider.

  "Lucky?" I croaked.

  "What?" His face began to come together, the edges sharpening, and the details coming into focus.

  "You said I was lucky." I struggled to move into a sitting position.

  "Move slowly." Laec helped me sit up and arranged a pillow between my back and the wall. "Yes, you're very lucky. Alish found
you and kicked that otrikar within an inch of its life."

  "Alish?"

  One of Duirrun's mares. I believe she's helped you before."

  Tears sprang to my eyes at the thought of the lavender mare. So that was her name. “Is she nearby?"

  "Vargilath horses don't stay in one place long. She left after I found you. She was curled up beside you and whinnying. I don't know how long she called before I heard her. Like I said, lucky." Laec produced a plate of food from the side table I hadn't noticed yet. "Think you can eat something?"

  My stomach growled as a savory smell entered my nose. The last of the smoke was gone. I nodded and took the plate.

  "Where is Fyfa?" I asked as I took a bite of sliced apple.

  Laec's expression sobered. "She's across the hall."

  I almost spat the apple out in an effort to get to my feet. "Why didn't you say so?"

  Laec put hands on my shoulders and gently forced me back down. "She's sleeping, otherwise she'd be here herself. I've got two sick Wise on my hands. Never thought of myself as very nurturing, but aside from bowls filled with sick, it’s not so bad."

  "What's wrong with her?" Concern threaded itself around my stomach, pinching off the desire to eat.

  "I'm guessing it’s the curse, but I was hoping you'd be able to tell me." Laec rubbed his hands together, hopeful eyes on my face. "Has something changed without? What is our vile friend up to these days?"

  My heart almost stopped, and I stared at Laec. "She's killed another Wise."

  Laec's cheeks paled, and he rubbed a hand across his forehead. "That is not good news. That means she's stronger than ever. That explains why Fyfa is doing so badly."

  Horror crawled under the covers with me, slipping its skeletal arms around my waist. "Daracha gets stronger, and Fyfa gets weaker." The realization was like finding no solid ground under my feet where it had been a moment before. My mind staggered.

  Laec was nodding.

  "Wait." I reached for Laec, and he took both my hands. "How long did you say I've been asleep for?"

  "Three days."

  I shook my head and wheezed. I had lost too much time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Throwing back the covers, I pushed Laec out of the way, putting my feet on the ground. "I don't have time to be sick." A draft swept over my legs, and I realized I was in a nightdress. "Where are my clothes?"

  Laec was on his feet. "There." He pointed to a pile of folded items on a chair in the corner of the room. "I tried to mend the holes and washed them for you."

  "Thank you," I said but then clamped a hand over my mouth as I remembered the note and the rosehip in my pocket. I began to cross the room at high speed when it tilted and swayed and I had to reach for something solid. I was too far from the wall, but Laec stepped close and caught me. I put my hands on his biceps and took a breath.

  "You really need to eat something," he said, guiding me back to the bed and sitting me down.

  "My pockets," I rasped, "I had a note and a rosehip ..."

  "You mean these?" Laec reached into an inside pocket in the tunic he was wearing and produced both. He held them out to me.

  I gave him a grateful look and took them. "You’re amazing. Thank you."

  He looked uncomfortable at the praise and changed the subject. "If you didn't know Fyfa was ill, then why did you come?"

  "I came to show her something and ask if she knows what it means." I unwrinkled the note, made sure the hologram was still there, and then handed it to him. "What can you tell me about a note written roughly a decade ago that suddenly changed?"

  Laec took the slip of paper and stood, holding it in the light. A quick glance and his brows hiked to his hairline. He shot me a startled look and back down at the note again. "Where did you get this?"

  "The original one was from someone I thought was my father, but whom I've recently learned is not. The 'j' in emergencies is new, and the five digit number used to be a nine digit number. The way it glimmers and pops out of the page is also new. It has to be fae magic. Am I right?" I got up and stood next to him unsteadily, scanning his face.

  A heavy silence filled the room as Laec processed this. Finally, he handed the note back. "It's the number for a vault in the Brejarvak's Treasury. They have two digits separated by this symbol for secrecy, followed by three more digits."

  Adrenalin bolted into my bloodstream like thoroughbreds off the starting line. "I knew it had to be something big," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I knew it. Someone is trying to help me, but why?"

  Laec waved a dismissive hand. "Fae do all kinds of strange things, we are not like humans, so you can't expect to see the logic behind our actions so easily." He pointed at the note. "But clearly, your next move is to visit the treasury and open the vault connected to that number."

  "Where is this treasury?"

  "It's part of Queen Elphame's castle."

  "I didn't see any fae bank attached to the castle." I'd been around the entire building, I was sure I would have noticed some secret entrance, unless ... "It's protected by magic, of course." I felt dumb. Taking a steadying breath, I crossed the room a second time and began to pull my pants on underneath the nightshirt. I paused when I saw the gash across the back, sewn up with fine tight stitches. A stain darkened the denim where I'd been cut, and I reached my hand to the back of my thigh. There was a small, uneven ridge there, but no pain. Pulling my pants up and fastening them, I gave Laec another grateful look.

  "Don't look at me like that," he said. "It's simple magic, healing cuts like those. It was the poison that gave you the most trouble. But I'm not so sure I should let you go anywhere, you've been so sick."

  "I have to, Laec. I've no choice. Thank you for saving me." I made a mental note to find Alish if I survived all this and thank her too.

  As I dressed, too distracted and rushed to care that Laec was in the room, I told him about the offer Queen Elphame had made and that I only had until the next full moon to lure Daracha to the garden. I'd just lost three days, and I still didn't have a plan. My hope, perhaps foolishly, currently lay in whatever might be hidden in the treasury.

  I fastened my jacket with trembling fingers. "Please don't get in my way, Laec. I'm feeling much better now anyway. You have to take me to the treasury, right now."

  Laec picked up the plate of unfinished food and handed it to me. "Eat this. All of it. If you do that, then I'll take you. But you can only get into the vault if there is actually something for you inside."

  I took the plate and began to shovel food into my mouth, not tasting it, and barely chewing. Between mouthfuls, I said, "I'm not even going to ask how that works. Tell me we don't have to wait until opening hours."

  Laec laughed and it was a beautiful sound. After telling him about Elphame's promise, perhaps he was feeling some level of the hope I was now feeling.

  "No, it’s not manned except by magic. There's no reason we can't go right now." With this, he glanced at the hallway leading to Fyfa's room.

  "Can I see her?" I asked as I set down the plate and swallowed the last bite.

  Laec nodded and I followed him across the hall to the loft I had slept in on my first night in Stavarjak. Presumably Laec had put her here so he could monitor her from downstairs.

  She was a long slender lump under the covers. Keeping my footfalls soft on the wooden plank floor, I crossed the loft to get a better look at her. I knelt by her head and gazed at her sleeping face. Her complexion was not just pale but dull as well, her normally dewy skin now diminished. Blue crescents bruised the skin beneath her eyes, her lips were no longer the soft petal pink but the same colorless shade as her cheeks. My nose burned with unshed tears as I made a silent promise to do the best I could to save her from the curse that had her so tightly in its embrace.

  I stood and returned to the hall where Laec waited, looking sober. I followed him down the stairs and to the door. As I closed it behind me and we headed down the path toward the castle, a new thought struck, and not a
happy one.

  "There isn't any way this could be a trap, is there?"

  "No, that's the beauty of the magic of the treasury. Brejarvak, the genius who created it incorporated something we call na agaih drok-rùn into his spells. It roughly translates as 'against malice'. He didn't want anyone using his creation for devious means. Only treasure can be kept inside, but not just precious metals or jewels, also spells, information, messages, and other gifts. One cannot, for instance, hide poison inside a vault and lure someone to take it, or leave a nasty spell for some intended victim."

  I stepped over a tree root and scampered to keep up to Laec's long strides. It was unusual for me to have to speed up to keep pace with someone but I wasn't exactly feeling sprightly yet. Perhaps the last vestiges of the poison had yet to be metabolized. At least the food in my belly had bolstered my energy. "Are the contents of the vaults always left for someone other than the person who put it there?"

  Laec noticed that I was out of breath a little and adjusted his pace. "No, it’s a typical bank the fae use for safe-keeping. But sometimes things are held there for so long they are passed down through the generations. Brejarvak first made it for his own use; he was wealthy, and one of the most brilliant magical minds of his generation. He was friends with Queen Elphame. Some say they were lovers and that's why she allowed him to use part of her castle. The magic was so cleverly done that aristocrats from both the seelie and unseelie courts wanted to pay him for the right to use it for their own valuables." Laec's hair glinted in the sunlight as we came out of the woods and into the open road leading to the castle.

  "Does that mean whoever left this treasure for me is an aristocrat?" I fell into step with Laec as the path widened out. The outline of the castle cut starkly against the sky, and the sound of drumbeats and flutes drifted over the air. It seemed as though parties were a common occurrence at Elphame's court, day or night.