by Mary Duke
“Really?” Tork questioned.
Illiah nodded. “These woods have a way of hiding things. My father made them; he used to drop people in here as punishment.”
“Being dropped in the woods is punishment?” I questioned.
“These woods, yes,” Illiah answered. “Another name for Ryrath forest is the forest of solitude. It has a way of making you feel alone… What better form of punishment for a person who drives their power based on how many friends they have?”
I nodded, scanning the trees behind her.
“We shouldn’t stay here,” Illiah said, changing the subject.
“Why?” Kegan asked.
“I don’t know. Call it intuition, but something doesn’t feel right.”
“Okay,” Kegan said, standing up and reaching for my hand,
Interlocking my fingers with his, I pulled myself up, a beam of light shining through the arch catching my attention.
“Shit,” I said walking towards the arch. Kegan following close behind.
“What?” Tork asked, hoisting Zavery over his shoulder.
“It’s cracked,” I said walking beneath the stone arch.
“What do you mean it’s cracked?” Tork questioned.
“There are holes,” I said looking over to him. “See,” I said, raising my hand so he could see the sun shining through.
“Great, just add another thing to the list,” he muttered under his breath, as he started to follow Illiah.
The farther we got into the woods, the creepier it got. I now believed Illiah wholeheartedly about these woods being punishment.
Looking around I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I felt nothing. “This place really is odd,” I said.
Illiah laughed. “This place is more than odd. It’s cursed land, with hexed trees, with wickedly hexed animals.”
“There are animals here?” I asked looking around again.
Illiah nodded. “Not the kind of furry woodland creatures you’re used to.”
“Oh?”
“Nah, these are a bit more demonic,” she said as a smile spread across her face. “Though some of them are cute, in their own kind of way.”
“You seem to know a lot about this place,” Kegan said as he quickened his pace and began to walk beside us.
“I grew up here,” Illiah said. “My mother's house is just up here.”
“Why?” Kegan questioned. “I mean, why would Illian leave his daughter in this forest… And don’t you mean your parents’ house?”
“No,” Illiah responded. “This is my mother’s house, my father doesn’t stay here; it isn’t safe for us.”
Kegan shook his head trying to figure everything out. “Illian is one of the most powerful Gods…”
“He is, my mother is not,” Illiah said cutting him off. “My mother is a Halfling, a Keeper of the Mountain.”
Kegan stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait.”
“There’s no time,” Illiah said, not wanting to answer the next line of questions she knew Kegan was going to ask.
“If your mother is a Halfling…” he began.
Through clenched jaws, Illiah answered his question, “It makes me a half-blood.”
Kegan’s eyes grew wide in disbelief.
“No one knows,” Illiah said. “No one knows who my true mother is…”
Kegan opened his mouth to speak but closed it as her mother's house appeared before us.
“Really?” I said, astonished. “This was not here two seconds ago.”
“Take two steps backward, and you’ll no longer be able to see it,” Illiah said glancing over at me.
Sure enough, when I took two steps backward, the house, the garden, the animals, everything disappeared. “I’ve never seen a cloaking spell like this before. Even the air feels different…less heavy, less dense.”
Illiah nodded and looked around. “Jessy, Harvy!”
“Who are they?” Tork asked looking around.
“Not who, what,” Illiah replied snapping her fingers together.
“Okay, what are they?” he said sarcastically.
“Hellhounds,” Illiah replied. “My hellhounds.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I said, taking a step closer to Kegan and reaching for my dagger.
“They’re not like the hounds you know,” Illiah said, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“They are all the same.”
“No. Jessy and Harvy are the original hounds; my dad raised them as his own,” she explained clapping her hands together. “My dad gave them to me when we moved here.”
“Maybe they’re inside?” I asked, nodding to the open door.
“Perhaps,” Illiah said.
“Be careful,” Kegan said reaching out to me. “I don’t like this place. The situation. Or any of it.”
“Something definitely feels off,” I replied. “Nothing seems to add up.”
“Lies never do,” Kegan said keeping close behind me as I followed Illiah into the house.
The rustic cabin in the woods theme went no farther than the front door. Everything, from the floor, the walls, the ceiling, was white.
Illiah’s pace quickened and she muttered under her breath, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
Illiah rushed through the house, flinging open doors and scanning the rooms. “Jayantha! Jayantha Harlow!”
“Is she somewhere else?” I asked Illiah as she came out of another room.
“No,” Illiah replied. “She never leaves this house. Ever.”
Illiah opened another door, but this time the room was not empty.
A woman sat facing a window, her messy red hair resting on her shoulders, a hound on either side.
The hounds’ ears perked and one of them came running towards us barking.
Illiah fell to her knees and held her arms out, as my hand fell to my dagger, just in case.
“Harvy!” Illiah called as he began licking her face, and the other joined him. “I see you too, Jessy.”
The woman facing the window never moved.
“Jayantha,” Illiah said standing up, as she patted the dogs on the head. “Jayantha Harlow.”
“Just leave what you brought,” the woman shrieked in frustration. “I am busy, and I have no desire to converse with you.”
Illiah turned her head back to me and took a deep breath. “Mom?”
The woman in the chair gasped, jumping up from the white rocker. “Illiah.”
“Yeah,” Illiah said. “It’s me.”
“Where have you been?” the woman said frantically, filling the gap between her and her daughter. “How are you? Are you alright? What happened?” she asked mulling over every inch of Illiah. “And who are they?”
A small smile spread across Illiah’s face, as she steadied her mother’s shaking hands. “There is so much I want to tell you. But I don’t know how much time I have here.”
“What do you mean? Where will you be going?” she asked, shaking her head. “You’ve just returned. You needn't be going anywhere.”
Illiah grabbed a hold of her mother's hand and placed it on her chest, just as she had with her gran, so she could feel her mortal heart beating again.
Jayantha pulled a knife from the back of her waistband and stepped between us. “What have you done to her?” she demanded, waving the knife in my face.
Taking my hand off my dagger, I took a step back and looked to Illiah for help, not wanting to do anything I’d later regret.
“Mom,” Illiah said pulling her mother's arm down. “These are my friends.”
“Friends?” Jayantha said shaking her head. “No. They can’t be. The only person I’ve seen you with in the last five hundred years has been Fabien.”
“They’re new friends,” Illiah said trying to assure her mother.
“New, and you brought them here!”
“They saved me, Jayantha. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead right now.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Illiah told
her mother what had happened to her. How she had been kidnapped and drained of her powers. And lastly how we saved her.
For a moment her mother sat in silence, pondering the story that had just come from her daughter's lips before she muttered a single word. “Who?”
Illiah glanced over at Tork, who now sat in front of the couch where he’d laid Zavery. “Ellyra.”
“Ellyra,” her mother repeated in disbelief. “My Ellyra? The Queen of the Faye?”
Illiah’s eyes darted over her mother’s face, as she waited for a reaction.
Before Jayantha could respond, Zavery’s voice drew the attention of the room. “What do you mean your Ellyra?” he asked sitting up on the couch.
Jayantha’s eyes narrowed as though she had been insulted, as she looked over the young man on her couch. “Ellyra and I were friends for many years,” she responded, her eyes focused on Zavery’s. “That was until you were born.”
Zavery’s lips curled and he nodded his head slightly. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“I bet not,” Jayantha replied.
“Why did she ditch you?” Zavery questioned, leaning back on the couch, as he rubbed his eyes with this hands.
For a moment she sat in silence, pondering the right words she wanted to use.
“You’re not going to offend me. When it comes to my mother, hell, when it comes to my family, I don’t think I could think any less of them.”
Jayantha’s lip curled in disgust. “Though your mother and I had our differences, and those differences ended our friendship, I still care for that woman deeply.” She said, “It was Ellyra who decided to part ways, not I.”
“Oh,” Zavery replied, realizing he may have put his own foot in his mouth.
“Alas, the reason is evident, and I’m not the only one who knows, so I do feel it pertinent that you heard it from me before you hear it from someone else,” Jayantha said as she ran her hand down Illiah’s cheek.
“Your mother, like myself, had always been gifted with magic. One of my gifts was being a highly skilled reader. I had the rare ability to read one’s aura. To know what’s pulling their soul, and what will drive or is driving them,” Jayantha’s eyes fell back onto Zavery. “On the day of your birth, I was there. I heard your first cries, I helped clean the blood from your cheeks. From that moment, from your first breath I knew,” she said shaking her head. “I knew what was, was once again.”
“The curse,” Zavery said. “The one my grandfather had brought into our family.”
“Indeed,” Jayantha nodded. “What do you know about it? More so what do you know about your role?”
“The only role I play in the curse is the blood that flows in my veins,” Zavery said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’m afraid you are wrong,” Jayantha said, shifting her weigh back into the chair.
Zavery cocked his head to the side, a smirk growing across his face. “What do you think you know?”
Fighting the urge to slap the smirk from his face, Jayantha turned from him and scanned over the rest of us. “Don’t you find it odd that there have only been girls born into your family in the last, I don’t know, several hundred years? Don’t you find it odd that the day you were born, every single living family member in your bloodline vanished?”
This caught Zavery’s attention.
“A line in the contract between Quint Ryker and your grandfather Archer Blade read: ‘To Any Men Born from the Blade Bloodline, That Bares the Mark of Ryker, Their Souls Will Be Bound, and the cycle repeats.’” Jayantha said, her focus again settling on Zavery.
“What cycle?” he asked, confused.
“One thousand souls are to be paid to Quint Ryker, in exchange for what you want most,” she answered.
“That doesn’t make sense, I made no deal,” he said. “Nor do I bare the mark of Ryker, or know what it is for that matter.”
“You do bare the Ryker mark,” she corrected him. “I’ve seen it. I helped conceal it.”
Zavery held his hands out to the side as he stood up. “Show me then.”
Jayantha slowly rose to her feet, Illiah following her. “Take off your shirt,” she commanded, pointing at his chest.
He complied, tossing his shirt onto the couch, as Tork rose to his side.
She placed her hand on his chest. The moment their skin connected, she fell to the floor in agony. Screaming in pain, she began pulling at her ears, before clawing at her eyes.
Illiah fell to the floor beside her mother, restraining her arms. “What did you do?”
Zavery took a step back.
“Stop it! Leave her alone!” Illiah said, struggling to keep a hold of her mother’s arms.
I fell to my knees beside Illiah, cupping my hands over her mother’s eyes, and looked up to Zavery.
“I’m not doing anything,” he replied, taking another step back.
“She’s been hexed,” I said, trying to focus the magic in my hands and will it to do what I wanted.
Jayantha wailed in pain, flailing around on her floor beneath Illiah and me.
“I need something...a rock, a stick, something I can redirect this into,” I said looking to Kegan.
“Do you think you can?” he questioned, reaching for my bag.
“I’ve done it before,” I reminded him. “Why should this time be any different?”
“You know why this is different; the Queen is more powerful,” Kegan’s voice whispered in my head.
“Do you see anyone else stepping up?” I questioned him forcefully, trying not to actually open my mouth. “If I don’t do this, she’s going to die.”
Zavery knelt down beside me. “How can I help?”
I rubbed my temples and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm my nerves and slow my racing heart.
“I could channel you, but this isn’t going to be easy,” I said looking up at him before I shifted my focus to Illiah. “Nor do I know what’s going to happen.”
“Anything,” Zavery said, his voice shaky. “I can’t let her win, not again.”
“Okay, place your hands over mine; we’re going to start at her chest and work our way to her eyes, I believe that’s where this is centered.
Together Zavery and I cleansed Jayantha, redirecting the dark magic into the stone we held together.
“There has to be another way,” Kegan said reaching out to me.
I chanted louder, hoping he would get the hint.
“Something is not right. There’s more to this than you know.”
“If you’re not going to help, at least stay quiet,” I muttered under my breath while keeping my focus on removing the darkness that filled her body.
I watched as Tork took Zavery’s shoulders in his hands, focusing his energy.
“This is a mistake,” Kegan said copying his brother and channeling his energy through me.
With every wave of darkness Zavery and I transferred into the stone, flashes of Jayantha’s memories skimmed through our minds, too fast for either of us to make sense of them at first, though the closer we got to her eyes, it became clear that we were seeing through her eyes into the memories The Queen had locked away.
The Queen stood alone in her room staring out a large bay window, Zavery playing with some toys in the corner of the room.
Jayantha’s voice cracked in fear. “You sent for me, my Queen.”
“Close the door,” the Queen commanded, her voice calm.
It wasn’t until we could see Jayantha’s reflection in the large window that The Queen spoke again.
“Who did you tell?” she asked, her voice low.
“I’ve told no one,” Jayantha replied instantly, her heart beginning to race.
“I’ll ask you again, as your friend. Who did you tell?” the Queen repeated, maintaining the same monotone voice.
Jayantha fell to her knees beside the Queen and bowed her head as tears began to stream down her cheeks. “I’ve told no one.”
&nb
sp; The Queen turned, the back of her hand landing on the side of Jayantha’s face, knocking her off balance. “Your husband came to see me today. He knows everything,” she said, the monotone gone. “EVERYTHING!”
Jayantha scurried to her feet. “He only knows of the curse,” she tried to explain.
“You swore to me, Jayantha. You swore on your life… You swore on our friendship,” she said as a hysterical laugh escaped her lips. “I trusted you.”
“Your trust was not misplaced. My word remains unbroken,” Jayantha tried to convince her.
“Lies,” the Queen said walking towards her.
Jayantha held her hand out in front of her in hopes to stop the Queen from coming any closer. “I am not lying, I’ve told him nothing, see for yourself,” she pleaded, revealing her palms.
The Queen’s eyes studied her, watching her reactions as she stepped closer and grabbed her hand, diving into the memories she needed to see.
The anger melted from her face as her heart dropped and she returned to the window.
“My Queen?” Jayantha questioned.
“LEAVE,” she commanded.
“Please talk to me.”
“I ORDER YOU to leave,” the Queen repeated.
“You know I don’t take orders, not from my friends.”
“We are no longer friends.”
“No longer friends?” Jayantha repeated, surprised.
“It is not wise for one to be friends with someone who is sleeping with the enemy.”
“The enemy!” she said taking another step towards her.
“Did you know Illian was coming to speak to me today?” the Queen questioned.
Jayantha shook her head.
“Do you know what deal he tried to offer me?”
Jayantha’s gaze fell to Zavery before returning to the Queen.
The Queen’s lips curled into a smirk as she shook her head trying to keep herself from letting loose. “He wants my son. My only child. The only child I’ve been able to carry for the last ten years. I will not give him up.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Jayantha said, taking another step towards her, in hopes of calming her down.
“No,” the Queen said, all the emotion draining from her face.
“I can talk to him, you know he listens to me.”
