by P. C. Cast
“Hey, guys, sorry! I was just kidding. Everything’s fine, really.” I breathed a sigh of relief as the flame sprites settled back into less frantic flickering and fluttering. I glanced at Sgiach. “Is it safe to call the other elements?”
“Of course, just be careful what you say. Your affinity is powerful, even without being in a place rich in old magick like this grove.”
“Will do.” I drew three more cleansing breaths and was sure I recentered myself. Then I turned clockwise to face the west. “Water, please come to me.” And found myself washed in the element. Cool, slick sprites brushed against my skin, shimmering with aqua iridescence. They frolicked around, making me think of mermaids and dolphins, jellyfish and seahorses. “This is seriously super cool!”
“Water sprites are especially strong on Skye,” Sgiach said, caressing a little starfish-shaped creature that swam around her.
I turned to the north. “Earth, come to me!” The grove came alive. The trees glowed with glee, and from their gnarled, ancient trunks emerged woodland beings that reminded me of things that should be in Rivendell with Tolkien’s elves—or maybe even Avatar’s 3-D jungle.
I pulled my attention to the center of my impromptu circle and called the final element, “Spirit, please come to me, too.”
This time Sgiach gasped. “I have never seen all five groups of sprites together like this. It is magnificent.”
“Ohmygoddess! It’s incredible!”
The air around me, already alive with gossamer beings, was filled with such radiance that it suddenly brought Nyx to mind, and the brilliance of her smile.
“Do you want to experience more?” Sgiach asked me.
“Of course,” I said without hesitation.
“Come here, then. Give me your hand.” Surrounded by the ancient sprites that personified the elements, I approached Sgiach and held my hand out to her.
She took my right hand in her left and turned it so that my palm faced up. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes. I trust you,” I said.
“Good. It will only hurt for a moment.”
With a blindingly fast motion, she slashed the hard, sharp nail of her right pointer finger across the meaty pad of my palm. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. But I did suck in a bunch of air. Though she was right—it hurt only for a moment.
Sgiach turned my palm over and the blood began dripping from my hand, but before it could touch the mossy ground beneath us, the queen caught the scarlet drops. Cupping them in her own palm, she let them pool and then, speaking words that I felt more than heard but did not understand at all, she flung the blood, scattering it in a circle around us.
Then something truly amazing happened.
Each sprite that my blood drops touched, for an instant, became flesh. They were no longer ethereal elementals, only wisps and trails of air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. What my blood touched became reality—living, breathing birds and fairies, merfolk and forest nymphs.
And they danced and celebrated. Their laughter painted the darkening sky with joy and magick.
“It is the ancient magick. You’ve touched things here that have been sleeping for ages. None other has awakened the fey. None other had the ability,” Sgiach spoke and then slowly, majestically, she bowed her head in homage to me.
Absolutely engulfed in the wonder of the five elements, I took the Queen of Skye’s hand, noticing that my blood had stopped running the instant she’d flung it around us. “Can I share this with other fledglings? If you allow them to come in, can I teach a new generation how to reach the old magick?”
She smiled at me through tears that I hoped were from happiness. “Yes, Zoey. Because if you can’t bridge the gap between the ancient and the modern worlds, I don’t know who can. But for now, take this moment. The reality your blood has created will soon fade. Dance with them, young queen. Let them know there is hope that today’s world has not completely forgotten the past.”
Her words worked on me like a goad and, in time to the sound of bells and pipes and cymbals that I suddenly heard, I began to dance with the creatures my blood had solidified.
Looking back on it, I should have paid more attention to the sharp profile of horns that I glimpsed as I twirled and jumped, arm in arm with the fey. I should have noticed the color of the bull’s coat and the gleam in his eye. I should have mentioned his presence to Sgiach. A lot might have been avoided, or at least anticipated, had I known better.
But that night I danced in innocence and the newness of ancient magick revealed, oblivious to any consequences more dire than me feeling tired and drained and needing a big dinner and a good eight hours of sleep.
* * *
“You were right. It didn’t last very long,” I said, breathing heavily as I plopped down next to Sgiach on her moss boulder. “Can’t we do something to make them stay longer? They seemed so happy to be real.”
“The fey are elusive beings. They only owe allegiance to their element, or those who wield it.”
I blinked in surprise. “You mean they’re loyal to me?”
“I believe they are, though I cannot tell you for certain as I have no true affinity to an element, though I am an ally to water and wind, as I am protector and queen of this island.”
“Huh. So, can I call them to me, even if I leave Skye?”
Sgiach smiled. “And why would you ever want to do that?”
I laughed with her, at that moment not understanding why in the world I would ever want to leave this magickal, mystical island.
“Aye, if I followed the sound of wummen’s chattering, I knew I’d be finding yous two.”
Sgiach’s smile grew and turned warm. Seoras joined us in the grove, moving to his queen’s side. She touched him just for a moment on his strong forearm, but that touch was filled with several lifetimes of love and trust and intimacy.
“Hello, my Guardian. Did you bring the bow and arrows for her?”
Seoras’s lips twisted. “Aye, of course I did.” The old Warrior turned and I could see that he held an intricately carved bow made of dark wood. The matching leather quiver filled with red-feathered arrows was slung across his shoulder.
“Good.” She smiled appreciation at him before turning her gaze to me. “Zoey, you’ve learned much today. Your Guardian needs a lesson in believing in magick and Goddess-given gifts, too.” Sgiach took the bow and arrows from Seoras and held them out to me. “Take these to Stark. He has too long been without them.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?” I asked Sgiach, glancing askance at the bow and arrows.
“What I think is that your Stark will not be complete unless he accepts his Goddess-given gifts.”
“He had a claymore in the Otherworld. Couldn’t that be his weapon here, too?”
Sgiach just looked at me, the shadow of the magick we’d both just experienced still reflected in her green eyes.
I sighed.
And, reluctantly, held out my hand to take the bow and quiver of arrows from her.
“He’s not really comfortable with this,” I said.
“Aye, but he should be,” Seoras said.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew everything that went along with this thing,” I said.
“If it’s that he cannae miss his mark that yur meanin’, then, aye, I know that, as well as the guilt he carries about the death of his mentor,” Seoras said.
“He told you all about it.”
“He did.”
“And you still think he should get back into using his bow?”
“It’s not so much Seoras thinking it as the fact that he knows, from centuries of experience, what happens when a Guardian’s Goddess-given gifts are ignored,” Sgiach said.
“What happens?”
“The same thing as happens if a High Priestess tries to turn from the path her Goddess has paved before her,” Seoras said.
“Like Neferet,” I whispered.
“Aye,” he said. “Like the fallen High Priestess who tai
nted yur House of Night and caused the death of yur Consort.”
“Though in all truthfulness you should know that it’s not necessarily such a dire choice between good and evil when a Guardian, or a Warrior, ignores his gifts from his Goddess and turns from her appointed path. Sometimes that simply means a life unfulfilled and as mundane as is possible for a vampyre,” Sgiach explained.
“But if ’tis a Warrior whose gifts are powerful, or one who has faced Darkness, been touched by the fight against evil—well, that Warrior cannae fade so easily into obscurity,” Seoras said.
“And Stark is both,” I said.
“He is indeed. Continue to trust me, Zoey. It is better for your Guardian to walk the path meant for him than to slink around and, perhaps, get caught in the shadows,” Sgiach said.
“I see your point, but getting him to use his bow again isn’t going to be easy.”
“Ach, well, yu have the magick of the ancients to call upon while yur here on our isle, don’t you now?”
I looked from Seoras to Sgiach. They were right. I felt it in my gut. Stark couldn’t hide from the gifts Nyx had given him any more than I could deny my connection to the five elements. “Okay, I’ll convince him. Where is he anyway?”
“The laddie is restless,” Seoras said. “I saw him walkin’ by the shore side of the castle.”
My heart squeezed. We’d just decided the day before that we were going to stay here on Skye, indefinitely. And after what had just happened with Sgiach and me, I could hardly bear thinking about leaving. “But he seemed fine with staying,” I spoke my thoughts aloud.
“What’s wrong with him isna so much where he is, but who he is,” Seoras said.
“Huh?” I said brilliantly.
“Zoey, what Seoras means is that you’ll find your Guardian’s restlessness much improved when he is a whole Warrior again,” Sgiach said.
“And a whole Warrior uses all of his gifts,” Seoras said with finality.
“Go to him and help him become whole again,” Sgiach said.
“How?” I asked.
“Ach, wumman, use yur Goddess-given brains and figure that oot for yurself.”
With a gentle push and a shooing motion, the queen and her Guardian sent me from the grove. I sighed, mentally scratched my head, and started toward the shoreline wondering just what the heck kind of word ach was.
CHAPTER TEN
Zoey
Distracted by thinking about Stark, I made my way down the slippery stone stairway that wound around the base of the castle, emptying out on the rocky shore from which Sgiach’s edifice had been built straight up, so that it was cliff-like and totally imposing.
The sun was beginning to set, allowing the sky to retain some of its illumination, but I was glad for the rows of torches that jutted from the stone base of the castle’s foundation.
Stark was alone. His back was to me and I got to watch him as I picked my way across the shore to him. He held a large leather shield in one hand, and a long claymore in the other, and he was practicing thrusts and parries as if he were facing a dangerous, but invisible, enemy. I moved quietly, taking my time and enjoying the view.
Had he gotten taller all of a sudden? And more muscular? He was sweating and breathing hard, and he looked strong and very, very male and dangerous-ancient-Warrior-like in his kilt. I remembered how his body had felt against mine the night before, and how we’d slept all pressed together, and my stomach gave a weird little lurch.
He makes me feel safe, and I love him.
I could stay here with him, away from the rest of the world, forever.
A chill passed over me with the thought and I shivered. At that moment Stark dropped his guard and turned. I saw the alert concern in his eyes that only faded when I smiled and waved at him. Then his gaze went to what I was holding in the hand I was waving, and his welcoming smile faded, even though he opened his arms to me, hugged me, and gave me a lingering kiss.
“Hey, you look hot when you do that sword stuff,” I said.
“It’s called training. And I’m not supposed to look hot, Z. I’m supposed to look intimidating.”
“Oh, you do, you do. I was practically scared to death.” I put on my best bad, fake–Southern belle accent and pressed the back of my hand to my forehead like I was gonna swoon.
“You’re really not very good at accents, ma’am,” he said in a seriously good fake-Southern accent. Then he took my hand and held it against his chest right over his heart, moving close to me. “But if you want, Miss Zoey, I could try to teach you.”
Okay, I know it’s silly, but his Southern gentleman accent made my knees feel all weak—and then his words actually got through the lust fog I was brewing for him, and suddenly I knew how to start getting him comfortable with his bow again.
“Hey, I am hopeless at accents, but there is something you could teach me.”
“Aye, wumman, there’s lots I could be teachin’ yu the now,” he leered, sounding totally like Seoras.
I smacked him. “Be good. I’m talking about this.” I raised the bow. “I’ve always thought archery was cool, but I really don’t know much about it. Could you teach me? Please?”
Stark took a step away from me, giving the bow a wary glance. “Zoey, you know I shouldn’t shoot that.”
“No. What you shouldn’t do is aim for something that’s alive. Well, that is unless the alive thing needs to be un-alive. But I’m not asking you to shoot it. I’m asking you to teach me how to shoot it.”
“Why do you all of a sudden want to learn?”
“Well, it makes sense. We’re going to be staying here, right?”
“Right.”
“And Warriors have been trained here for, like, zillions of years. Right?”
“Right again.”
I grinned at him, trying to lighten things up. “I really like it when you admit that I’m right. Again. Anyway, you’re a Warrior. We’re here. I’d like to learn some kind of Warrior skill. That’s too darn heavy for me.” I pointed at the claymore. “Plus, this is pretty.” I lifted the elegant-looking bow.
“No matter how pretty it is, you need to remember it’s a weapon. It can kill, especially if I fire it.”
“If you fire it and aim to kill,” I said.
“Sometimes mistakes happen,” he said, looking haunted by memories from his past.
I rested my hand on his arm. “You’re older now. Smarter. You won’t make the same mistakes again.” He just stared at me without speaking, so I lifted the bow again and went on. “Okay, show me how this works.”
“We don’t have a target.”
“Sure we do.” I thumped the worn leather shield he’d laid on the ground when I’d joined him. “Prop this between a couple rocks down the beach a little way. I’ll try to shoot it—after you prop it up and get back here out of my line of fire, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” he said.
Looking resigned and miserable, he walked a few paces away from us, hefted some rocks around until he had the shield held semi-steady between two of them, then came back to me. Reluctantly, he took the bow and set the quiver of arrows at our feet.
“This is how you hold it.” He demonstrated gripping the grip-thingie while I watched. “And the arrow goes here.” He rested it across the side of the bow, point down and away from us. “You nock it like this. These arrows make it easy to know which way to do it because the black ones should be turned like this, with the one red one up this way.” As he talked Stark began to relax. His hands knew the bow, and knew the arrow. It was obvious that he could do what he was showing me with his eyes shut—do it quickly and well. “Plant your legs firmly, about hip-width apart, like this.” He demonstrated and I checked out his excellent legs, which was one of the many reasons I liked the fact that he’d started wearing the kilt all the time.
“And then you lift the bow and, holding the arrow between your first two fingers, pull the string back, taut.” He explained what I was supposed to do, but he’d stop
ped demonstrating. “Sight down the arrow, but aim a little low. That will help adjust for distance and the breeze. When you’re ready, let loose. Be careful to bow your left arm or you’ll smack it and give yourself a nasty bruise.” He held the bow out to me. “Go ahead. Try it.”
“Show me,” I said simply.
“Zoey, I don’t think I should.”
“Stark, the target is a leather shield. It’s not alive. There’s nothing alive even vaguely attached to it. Just aim for the center of the shield and show me how it’s done.” He hesitated. I rested my hand on his chest and leaned forward. He met me halfway. Our kiss was sweet, but I could feel the tension in his body. “Hey,” I said softly, still touching his chest. “Try to trust yourself as much as I trust you. You’re my Warrior, my Guardian. You need to use the bow because it’s your Goddess-given gift. I know you’ll use it wisely. I know it because I know you. You’re good. You’ve fought to be good, and you’ve won.”
“But I’m not all good, Z,” he said, looking totally frustrated. “I’ve seen the bad part of me. It was there—real—in the Otherworld.”
“And you defeated it,” I said.
“Forever? I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Hey, no one’s all good. Not even me. I mean, if some smart kid left his test out in geometry, I’m telling you—I’d look.”
He smiled for a breath of a moment, then the tension was back in his face. “You joke about it, but it’s different for me. I think it’s different for all of the red fledglings and even Stevie Rae. Once you’ve known Darkness, real Darkness, there’s always a shadow on your soul.”
“No,” I said firmly. “Not a shadow. Just a different kind of experience. You and the rest of the red fledglings have experienced something we haven’t. It doesn’t make you part of the shadow of Darkness—it makes you experienced with it. That could be a good thing if you use your extra knowledge to fight for good, and you do.”
“Sometimes I worry that it might be more than that,” he said slowly, staring into my eyes like he was looking for a hidden truth.
