Realms of Fire and Shadow: Fae Witch Chronicles Book 3

by J. S. Malcom

  “I think we're good.”

  Cade's voice cuts through, and the vision fades. I realize that the world has stopped shaking. We start moving fast, trying to make up for lost time as we run down the stairs. We finally reach the hallway and pause to make sure we're still alone. My heart hammers in my chest as I try to catch my breath.

  “It's clear,” Cade whispers.

  I nod, wiping sweat from my brow as I send up a silent prayer. Please, please, please let me get Julia out of here. Even as I think it, Kim's face flashes before my eyes, and I issue another silent vow. I won't forget you, I promise.

  We step out into the hall, looking around again to be sure. We see no one. Like last night, the hall is empty. Except, now, the torches flicker low while all of the doors stand open. Except one, the same door I passed through last night. It’s only at this last moment that I remember. “Cade, the glamour. She won’t know who I am.”

  Cade nods, and then reaches out to spread his hands before my face. A moment later, I feel that tingling sensation again. “There, it’s gone,” he says. “I’ll put it back after.”

  We go to the door and find it locked, but we knew that would be the case. It's just a lock, and even if it's charmed that shouldn't be a problem. I call upon my magic, remembering the power I've tapped into in this realm before. It ignites within me, my chest warming as my veins start thrumming with energy. I try to ignore the fact that it's weaker than I expected. Still, it's enough for now, and a crackling ball of light blooms in my hand. I hurl it toward the door, blowing it open. Julia jumps up from the bed, her eyes wide with fright.

  I want to run to her, to wrap my arms around her and beg her forgiveness for bringing this evil into her life. But there's no time for apologies or tears. “We're getting you out of here,” I say.

  Julia stares back in shock, her mouth still gaping. I can tell she’s not sure what to believe, that she might even think she’s hallucinating. Still, it’s way better seeing her this way than as the hopeless, vacant girl I saw last night.

  I draw in the magic again, this time calling upon it to transform the air before us, to ripple and show the shimmering. I focus with everything I have, telling myself that each time it's been me who has opened the rift between this world and our own. I'm a veil witch and I have the power to do this. Still, fear runs through me, a chilling uncertainty. Again, that image flashes within my mind. I see that fae woman struggling against her chains as they continue to tighten. I feel her desperate anguish.

  Suddenly, the torch on the wall flares back to life. I tell myself this can’t possibly be happening again. Not again, not now! Suddenly, Julia’s eyes go wide again as she looks past me, this time her face transforming into a mask of terror.

  An icy chill ripples up my spine, and I spin around to see Vintain’s jade eyes and the grin splitting his face. “Hello, Cassie,” he says. “Did you really think I wouldn't sense your presence here last night?”

  He thrusts out his hand and the last thing I see is a bright, blue flash of light.

  CHAPTER 24

  My eyes flutter open and I expect to find myself in a dungeon, or strapped down in a torture chamber. Instead, the first thing I see is a massive chandelier of light green crystals. It's beautiful, actually, the most lovely light fixture I've ever seen. Of course, the fact that it glows brightly in a city kingdom powered by magic doesn't exactly cheer me up. Nor does the realization that no sounds come now from outside. No shouts, whistles, explosions or alarms. It has grown eerily quiet, suggesting peace when I know there can be none.

  I'm lying on my back upon a plush velvet divan. I turn my head to see gleaming marble floors, ornate rugs, portraits framed in gold, and giant decorative urns erupting with sprays of flowers. Everything in this space speaks to opulence and comfort. In fact, it looks exactly like a room you’d expect to find within a palace. What it doesn’t look like is where I expected to find myself after getting zapped by magic when attempting a changeling jail break.

  I sit up and run my hand through my hair. I look around again. It seems like I’m alone, but only a moment passes before footsteps approach from behind. I turn just as Vintain walks past, not looking at me until he claims a leather chair on the other side of a massive oval coffee table topped with gold leaf. He casually crosses one leg over the other.

  “So, how have you been?” he says.

  I’d command my mouth not to drop open, but it’s already too late. I recover after blinking several times. “How have I been? Are you fucking serious?”

  Vintain shrugs. “Well, we were friends for a while. And, as I told you before, I don’t want to hurt you. In fact, what I said stands. I truly believe our association could be fruitful.”

  I’m literally beyond words. All I can do is stare at him.

  “Would you care for a glass of wine? Or something else perhaps.” Vintain raises his eyebrows. When I don’t answer, he adds, “Please accept my apologies for incapacitating you as I did. I realize it can be a bit disorienting, but I felt nearly certain you wouldn’t otherwise join me for this talk.”

  I glare at him. “Where are Julia and Cade? What did you do to them?”

  Vintain mildly shakes his head. “Not to worry. They’re both fine and comfortable, at the moment in rooms right next to each other.”

  I’m not sure if I can believe him, but relief washes over me all the same. I feared he might immediately kill both of them upon my capture. Or, at best, toss them into some dungeon to rot.

  Still, I try not to let my relief show. “And you think that’s okay.”

  Vintain laces his fingers over one knee. “Perhaps not optimal but, as I said, comfortable enough. A temporary situation, I assure you. The fact is, their well-being is entirely in your hands.”

  There it is. Now we’re getting to work. Fucker. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  Vintain locks his eyes onto mine. “It’s quite simple. You work with us, and we work with you. For example, your friends go home. Would you like to see the others returned to your realm? Not a problem. And that’s just the beginning. There’s way more that could be arranged. Have you even thought about that?”

  It’s such a curve ball that I have no idea how to respond. The best I can do is say, “What the hell are you even talking about?”

  A smile tugs at the corner of Vintain’s mouth. Weirdly, it reminds me of Grayson. Or him as Grayson. A smile suggesting he can’t wait to share a secret. “Cassie, I get the distinct feeling that, by now, you know how hard I’ve worked to find you. As have others before me, for that matter. You have certain abilities which could be advantageous for us.” He perches forward, both of his pale hands still clasped across his knee. “Should you choose to share those abilities, have you ever considered what it might mean for you here? Look around.” He sweeps his hand through the air. “You could live like this. In fact, you could have anything you want. Think about it. You’d never have to work again. Or fear a thing. I realize it’s a bit cliché, but you could live like a queen.”

  As he continues speaking, I feel a numbness spreading over my brain. Almost like I’ve been delivered a narcotic. The strange thing is, I do consider his words. I imagine never having to worry again. I picture myself surrounded by grandness and beauty.

  Shit!

  I shake my head, desperately trying to call upon my magic. I need to break whatever spell he’s trying to cast. I feel this realm’s magic reaching to me, trying to connect. Inwardly, I grit my teeth and think, Come on! Find me! I’m right here!

  I'm not sure if any magic reaches me. All of it seems very much in Vintain’s control at the moment. But my mind clears.

  “I like working,” I say. “You seem to be forgetting that my job consists of kicking supernatural fuckwads like you out of my realm.”

  To my surprise, Vintain laughs. It's another weird moment in that he laughed the same way as Grayson. With that, comes an even stranger realization. For a while, I liked Grayson. A lot, in fact. Which means I actually liked
Vintain. Given what I now know, the idea makes me feel sick.

  “You seem to be forgetting that, in this realm, you're the one who's supernatural. We belong here.”

  I glare at him. “You seem to think you're the only ones who do.”

  The smile fades from Vintain’s face. “And you think, that as a human, you're in any position to judge? Every realm has a dominant class. Yours is no different.”

  Yeah, he has a point, but I’m not playing that game right now. “That still doesn't make it okay. And, by the way, each realm has a faction willing to fight for what's right. That part's the same too.”

  Vintain lets out a weary sigh. “And there I was hoping that the timing of your visit with today's events was just coincidental. That, just possibly, you’d simply chosen to take advantage of the distractions. But it would appear you've chosen sides.”

  “Obviously, the right one,” I say.

  Vintain nods in a manner signaling disinterest, a boredom suggesting he's heard all of that before and still doesn't care. Any memory of once liking any part of him fades, to be replaced by a freshly galvanized sense of hate.

  “Well, I guess that decides it,” he says. “Either way, getting to what we believe is inside you was always going to involve a certain amount of work. What remained in question was how much pain would be involved.”

  Whether it's coincidence or dramatically timed for this moment, I can't know, but doors at the far end of the room swing open. Queen Abarrane strides toward us, her regal head held high and her long legs carrying her forward with catlike grace. Only the slightest hint of annoyance in her cold gaze hints toward the fact that a short time earlier her entire world seemed on the verge of collapse.

  Vintain, watching his queen until now, returns his attention to me. “As High Mage, I'm highly proficient in all kinds of magic. However, the High Queen holds mastery of a special kind. Try as I might, I've never quite managed to reach her level of skill.”

  Sweat prickles my brow at his words as my pulse escalates. There's no doubt as to who will be the target of that magic. I also suspect “magic” is much too kind of a word. I struggle to keep fear from showing in my eyes.

  Queen Abarrane still doesn't look at me, or speak, as she draws close. She simply extends her arm and splays her fingers. A fiery heat envelopes me and I'm thrust into the air, where I hang like a broken marionette. She drops her arm, the burning quits and I crash down hard against the marble floor, the air getting sucked out of my lungs.

  Queen Abarrane walks slowly to where I lay curled up and gasping for air. She flicks her wrist and an unseen force rolls me onto my back where I lay pinned and helpless.

  Finally, she looks at me, gazing down with a sneer of utter disdain. “So, this is our veil witch,” she says. “Our all-powerful veil witch, who can come and go from our realm as she pleases.”

  “This is her,” Vintain says. His tone is similar to hers now, that of someone regarding a lower life form.

  Queen Abarrane holds out her claw of a hand, quickly pulling it up. Pain sears through me as I lurch into the air again. I’m drawn up hips first, my back arched and my limbs dangling.

  Queen Abarrane finally meets my eyes with her frigid gaze. “So tell me, veil witch, do you hold within yourself something of value? To look at you, I'd think it unlikely.”

  I can't speak or move, as I remain helplessly suspended. All I can do is narrow my eyes with hate.

  Queen Abarrane laughs as she walks slowly around me. “Oh, Vintain,” she says. “I believe our little trespassing mouse is angry. Do you see?”

  “They're often ruled by their emotions,” Vintain says. “It's part of what makes them so easily manipulated.”

  His words are chosen carefully, a deliberate and cruel reminder. It was those very same human emotions he used to gain my trust and affection in his attempt to ensnare me.

  Queen Abarrane continues to circle me until she stands behind the top of my head. She places her hand on the crown of my skull.

  “Well, on the off chance there's anything in there worth finding,” she says, “I guess we better have a look.”

  I can't speak, but that doesn't stop me from screaming as a blistering pain shoots through me. I buck in the air, my body convulsing, as images flood through my mind. My entire life starts reeling backward, starting at this moment and flashing through every preceding moment successively. It's an explosion of imagery and emotion a thousand times too overwhelming to withstand. It feels like I'm being torn apart.

  That's the start.

  She digs deeper, consuming everything that I am, before going back from there into my sister's life, my mother's and my father's. I scream again and writhe in the air, while some distant part of my brain wonders how even the darkest magic will allow this. She's literally mining my DNA. Within seconds she's dug deeper yet, and I see an old woman alone in a padded cell, who becomes middle-aged, then young and then a girl. She has jet black hair, pale skin, and freckles across her nose. She's the spitting image of me and Autumn, and I instinctively know she's our most recent veil witch ancestor.

  I let out another wail as I'm flayed open more, going back beyond my great grandmother, and beyond her and beyond. Queen Abarrane keeps boring deeper in a series of impressions beyond comprehension to track or consciously perceive.

  Then suddenly everything stops, the images freezing to a halt as a woman comes into focus. I gasp at seeing her, that same woman who I've seen within visions and the pages of a history stolen by the fae.

  Queen Abarrane purrs with satisfaction. “Sativola. There you are.”

  The frozen moment starts to play forward again, moving at a normal speed, and I know where we must have arrived at in time. Sativola rides on horseback across a field of battle, strewn with the bodies of men and women, both human and fae. Smoke rises into the sun as the remaining fae nobles, those who survived the slaughter, ascend upward through a shimmering rift. Sativola charges toward the closing aperture, her lips moving silently as she recites an incantation. She narrows her eyes in hate, then thrusts out her raised hand. A lightning bolt shoots from her fingers to close the final rift as thunder cracks against the sky.

  Queen Abarrane’s words come as a hiss. “She didn't say it. She didn't say it out loud.”

  I can't help it. Despite the agony, I laugh.

  A searing white hot flash of pain tears through me again as she gets her revenge. “So, you think that's funny. I'm not done. I'll find it. You'll be a hollow shell before I'm through.”

  My suffering resumes, as the images start flickering forward again, moving by days, then weeks and months of Sativola’s life. Suddenly, the visions freeze once more at a moment within which she lies upon a pallet, her hair drenched with sweat, her legs spread as she screams. Then a baby’s cry rises in a room lit by torchlight. Sativola reaches out, taking the child into her arms.

  “Here it is,” Queen Abarrane whispers. “This is it.”

  In the past, Sativola speaks softly into her daughter’s ear. “In the name of your father, Galen, High Prince of the Fae, he who embodied the greatness his people have turned away from, these words are yours to carry. As I speak them, they will bind with your soul, and those of our line going forward. This key will be our legacy, that I entrust to you first.”

  Suddenly, another voice cuts through, that of a woman I hear within me. Her voice is low, desperate and searching, just barely a whisper. Galen. You carry the blood of Galen.

  The magic burning me alive starts to cool and wrap itself around me. I feel as if I’m being held rather than trapped suspended in a web.

  “Vintain, get control of it,” Queen Abbarrane says. “Now.”

  The other voice comes again, rising now, soothing and soft as it resonates out from my core. I’ve reached out to you before. Do you remember?

  I look around, suddenly free to move my neck, as Queen Abarrane and Vintain also search the room. There’s fear in their eyes, bordering on panic, and I realize they can hear her to
o. She’s not just within me, she’s all around us.

  She speaks once more, her voice stronger now, louder. You, human witch, you carry the blood of Galen.

  I recover the capacity to speak. “I don’t know,” I say. “I might.”

  Queen Abarrane’s voice rises in both pitch and volume. “Vintain, you need to get this under control!”

  But even her screeching is drowned out by the voice of the ley line. I see her now, her vision replacing the room around me. She’s standing, the chains pooled at her feet. Her long blonde hair flows to the shoulders of her shimmering white gown. Her sky-blue eyes gaze into mine and mine alone.

  Descendent of Galen, last of the true Tuatha Dé Danann, upon whom I bestowed my powers. As one of that line, you hold true claim.

  Somewhere in the background, as if a million miles away, I hear Queen Abarrane’s muffled scream. “Stop her! Stop her now!”

  Descendent of Sativola, most noble of the witches, you are the one foretold. Fae witch, I find you worthy, and I can no longer be bound. While you remain in this realm, you alone shall access my power.

  I’m gently lowered to the ground and set upon my feet, as she steps back and away from her chains. She keeps her eyes on mine, spreads her arms, and a surge of power bursts through me unlike anything I’ve ever imagined. It feels like each of my cells holds starlight, and that light keeps spreading outward to become me. Entrusted with her power, I hold within me not only the key to the realm, but the power of the ley line herself. Nameless because she needs none. She is elemental. She is magic. And she and I have become one.

  “You have to stop this!”