by Layla Heart
She nods slowly. “I know. Just picking up random books isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
“How about a spell to keep us hidden? Like the one you used in the town, but in a way that’s less draining on you?” Bane pipes up from the couch, where he’s reading one of the books about plants, making notes on the paper next to him. It would have been nice if his parents had left us a list of all the plants available here, but they haven’t, so we have to figure each of them out ourself. He sits up a little, looking over. “Even if it’s not possible to make it stronger or less draining, at least you’ll have a direction to look into? There are so many books here that we didn’t have access to at the academy that there has to be something useful in them, even if it’s not what you expected to find, right?”
I shrug. He’s right. Finding a hiding spell would probably be a good idea, especially if we’re going to hide ourselves during the night when we’re travelling in the fae kingdom. Then something occurs to me. “Hey, wolf-boy, why were you sneaking into the tower with the off-limit books when you’ve got all this here?” I turn to him while keeping Litha close.
“Wolf-boy?” He glances over the back of the couch, looking way too smug. “Because it’s fun? Why else would I do it? It’s fun to sneak into the tower and other places we’re not supposed to be. Who said it was because I wanted something from it?” He shrugs. “Apart from the prophecy documents, of course, once we realised that it was there. We wanted to get back in to get to them as soon as the new year started, before we knew that they’d been stolen...”
“The prophecy.” Litha stands up straight, her eyes bright, filled with energy. “Will there be books about the prophecy here?” She looks at me and then at Bane. “Do you think there could be?”
Bane frowns, like he’s thinking really hard, but then shakes his head. “Not here, I don’t think. Most of the books about such topics are old. My parents didn’t seem keen on collecting books about a prophecy their own kid was involved in. They have one or two of them, but it’s nothing more specific than you can get in the campus library, probably the exact same books too. Filled with stuff we already know isn’t correct anyway.” He stands up. “That does make me think...” He goes to the far end of the shelves, his fingers sliding over the spines of the books there. They’re really old, like, really, really old. He lets out a victorious sound and takes one of the books from the shelf. “I knew it would be here somewhere. I found this when I was a kid and my parents didn’t really like me looking into it. I don’t think they collected this book themselves, I think it came from one of your parents.”
“What is it?” Litha pulls me along to him, not letting me go, apparently having decided that I’m now part of her or something.
Bane takes a deep breath as he opens the book, his face serious, reading the first page. “The historical account of the end of the rule of witches and the fall of the witch kingdom.” He closes it and gives the books to Litha, his eyes sad. “I think you may want to read this. It may not be useful right now, but I think it’s important to know where you’re from.”
“This is about my family?” Litha holds the leather tome in her hands, not opening it, looking at it like it’s something scary. The book is bigger than any book on the history of the witch kingdom I’ve ever seen, and this says it’s just about the fall of it, not the time it was actually in power.
“Yes.” Bane nods, his voice soft. “It’s about how...” He swallows, meeting my eyes. We both know the history, at least in broad strokes, but Litha has no idea, especially no idea how badly it ends. “It’s about how your family lost its power. How the witch kingdom fell apart and your ancestor, also a queen, disappeared, leaving her daughter to pick up all the pieces, whatever there was left, which wasn’t much.”
Litha lets out a small pained sound and I pull her closer to me. I try to give her my strength, as this was bad enough when I learned about it years ago, but it wasn’t about my family, it’s about Litha’s family. “The centre of what used to be the witch kingdom is where the campus and the town are now. The forest behind the academy used to be an important magical place. Which is probably why the trees and plants there are so...” I look at Bane, trying to come up with the right word.
“They’re very special.” He nods, smiling a little. The plants there thrive on magical power, and the place is filled with it.
“What happened?” Litha’s voice is soft and I help her sit on a couch, Bane on her other side. “Why did the queen go missing? Did they ever find her? Does anyone know what happened to her?”
I slowly shake my head, my heart heavy. “They never found her. But when she went missing, the kingdom was already falling apart. Political stuff going wrong, treaties falling through, trade failing, the kingdom was at the edge of destruction and her disappearance was the final straw. The royal family, both our families, were shrouded in so many controversies that it seemed like it could never regain its power, and there wasn’t another strong witch family to take over.”
“Political problems like what?” Litha’s voice is careful.
“Treaties that were signed that they didn’t keep to. Personal relationships with certain people that shouldn’t exist. All sorts of drama. When the queen suddenly disappeared, her court fell apart, and with it, her kingdom too. After everything was settled, the land was divided among the other four kingdoms.” I squeeze her hand. “That’s all I know, to be honest. We’ve never really been taught about the exact problems they had.”
“It happened about a decade before the fae invaded the dragon shifter kingdom.” Finn is standing in the doorway, looking at us, a pained look on his face. He carefully comes inside and I wince as he sits down a little too fast on the couch opposite us. He’s quiet, but we’re all waiting for him to say more, as it’s obvious that he’s thinking right now, making connections in his head. “There was an urban legend I’ve heard whispered among the staff when I grew up. About a prominent witch, and why she’d disappeared. I never thought much of it, but maybe... maybe there is more to it. Maybe this is actually about the witch queen.”
“What?” I blink. I thought I knew what happened to our kingdom, but I’d never heard about a connection with the fae. That never showed up anywhere. But then, history is written by the winners, not by the ones they’ve broken down.
Finn nods. “I don’t remember the exact details. I was really young when I heard it, and my family’s guards were much more careful about the things they’d say around me when they realised I was listening in on them.” He takes a deep breath as he winces, then he slides on the couch sideways so he can lay down, closing his eyes. “According to the urban legend, the witch had gotten pregnant by one of the fae princes. Back when it was common to have more than one heir, especially male ones.”
I gasp, not realising how much something like that would hurt. The witch queen was pregnant? But she already had a kid. She had a teenage daughter.
“Legend says that the witch didn’t disappear, she merely fled from her family and responsibilities because she didn’t want others to find out what she’d done. She’d disgraced her family and couldn’t face the consequences.”
“That makes no sense.” The words are out of me before I even realise I’m thinking them. “She... She wouldn’t do that. Everything we know shows that the queen had been trying to keep her kingdom together that...” I try to find the words, my stomach churning, making me feel sick. This sounds wrong. So wrong.
“I know.” Finn nods. He opens his eyes, meeting mine. “Which is why I don’t believe that the legend talks about just any witch, and also why I believe that my family had something to do with her disappearance. The separate stories make too much sense if you combine them into a single narrative. I’ve been reading up on the histories of all our people, especially from the time around the last fae war, to see if we can learn something from it. And it’s too much of a coincidence that nine months after the witch queen disappears an alchemist appears at the fae court, her bo
dy abused, her face disfigured, holding a baby. We know that nobody has found the witch queen, ever, and that her speciality wasn’t just fire, but she had very advanced alchemist knowledge too, she was famous for it. It can’t be a coincidence.”
I jump up, my stomach rolling and I grab hold of a nearby table, trying to keep my lunch inside. No way. No fucking way. No.
“That’s not all.” Finn’s voice is low, like he really doesn’t want to continue, but feels like he has to.
“No.” Litha’s voice is little more than a sob. “I don’t... I don’t need to hear more. Please. I don’t think I can stand it.”
“You have to. You have to hear this. This may be the most important part of all.” His urgency makes me look back at him, his face is full of harsh lines, his voice pained. He looks at each of us before he speaks again. “The baby wasn’t fae. The baby had dragon blood in her. Anything I can find about the witch alchemist and her baby tells me that no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t shift. Her dragon child couldn’t shift.”
I stare at him, not sure what to say to that. Not sure if I can even understand the implications of his words. No way. No fucking way. Our last witch queen was involved in creating the stuff that the fae use to suppress the dragons’ ability to shift?
He takes a deep breath, now his eyes on Litha. “I hadn’t connected any of this until a short while ago. I hadn’t realised how the different stories all fit together. Until just now, I hadn’t even remembered the urban legend the guards were telling each other when they found out about the prophecy, where I’m a potential king to a witch queen. They thought it ridiculous, as witches were flaky and couldn’t be trusted, especially not to run kingdoms. They mentioned the last witch queen, and her sudden disappearance, and also the urban legend of the witch who got knocked up by a fae prince and left her whole family behind. I’d never connected the two, but I suspect they’re the same story.” He carefully reaches out, and Litha takes his hand in hers. “I believe that my family kidnapped your ancestor. I also believe that she was the one who became the alchemist for the fae king later. And...” He holds her hands tighter. “I believe that your blood may be the key to how we win this war. Every book I find on the subject of how the shift-suppressant was made, tells that there was one time where the young dragon could shift. Once. She must have been about eight years old. She was not having a good day and pushed her mother out of frustration. Her mother scraped her hand on something and she went to lick the cut clean. As soon as the blood hit her system, she shifted into a dragon. Killing her mother instantly. A year later, the fae invaded the dragons.”
My mind goes blank.
Not able to process what Finn just told us. Not able to think about what it all means. If the fae really did that, then...
I shake my head as I sit down on the floor.
This... There’s no way... This can’t be...
9
So, this was definitely not how I expected today to end... One of the bedrooms downstairs is cleared out, apart from a single table, which is standing in the middle of the room. We found an old printer in one of the other rooms, which is now standing in the corner near the closest power outlet we could find, a box with blank paper next to it. Two of the walls now have a timeline taped onto it, going from about thirty years before the last fae war up to this year.
“So, again, how did you get your hands on this research?” Kit stares at me.
I shrug, I just told the story to the others, before we got Rune and Kit involved, so they don’t know it yet. “When my dad took me to one of the facilities for a couple of days this summer, to show off the horrid things he was working on, I started talking to one of the researchers there. I was complaining that I couldn’t research some things I wanted to look into, which had to do with whatever Dad was showing me at the time. I was playing the good son, sort of. At least, I hoped that it seemed that way. What I’d been really after was to be able to check the fae specific research database from their computers, so I could get something, anything, about the stuff they use to prevent the dragons from shifting. I didn’t really care what, I just needed something, as everything was so hard to find. But what I didn’t expect was for the researcher to give me their login code for all of the academic research archives. So, to hide the fact that I was snooping for a specific thing, I downloaded research on a bunch of different topics, all to do with the research fae have done into body modification for war and dragons and werewolves and witches and how to use their powers for their own. All of it. I wanted it to appear like I was just looking at warfare research.”
Kit is grinning at me in a way that isn’t really appropriate right now... “You flirted with the researcher and got a goodie.” He smirks.
I sigh. “No. Not everyone’s like you. Not everyone uses sexuality to get things done.” He rolls his eyes, and I try to remember what I was saying.
Rune looks at the stack of papers in front of him, I already printed off some of the research I found while the others hung the timeline. “You downloaded these to hide what you were actually doing? Did you get what you need?” He meets my eyes, his gaze tense.
“No.” I shake my head. “I found some recent research on how to improve the formula, but nothing about what it’s made of.” Though, since I put the stories together earlier, I don’t think I want to consider what the main ingredient really is... Dragon’s blood, from the witch queen’s child. “I think that this research is just as important, for a different reason, a much more significant reason. Mostly, the topic of the research and when it was done...” I tap on the top page in front of him. “This is about how they harvest the scales of fire dragons to make fire-proof armour that is easy to wear, I saw the final results of it this summer. It was the same facility where I got one of the researchers to give me their code.” And I know now that Rune has seen the results too, when he was following me. “Initial research was done seven years ago. Around the same time, a fire-dragon with a speciality in biology and alchemy graduated Lughnasadh, and promptly went missing. He left the academy but never made it home.”
“What?” Rune’s head jerks up, staring at me, a grey sheen flitting over his skin, the suppressant is starting to wear off. “How do you know? I’ve never heard of this before. I had no idea one of us disappeared.”
“I only realised the connection just now, while I was printing it off. The guy’s final project at Lughnasadh was about fire and heat resistance of specific plants, and substances to protect the plants from heat. I read it last year while I was browsing old theses from students who graduated Lughnasadh, trying to come up with my own subject. The basis of this research is too similar to the thesis to be a coincidence.” I look at my laptop, at all the files I’ve got downloaded on it, so many more connections that we can find... “I suspect that this is a pattern. If it is, we may be able to use it to our advantage.”
“So, what?” Phoenix sighs. “We go through these, and find missing people connected to it?”
“Sort of.” I send another document to the printer. “I think that if we can find the ‘original’ creator of some of their weaponry, we can find the original research those people did that isn’t locked inside the fae kingdom’s research databases. And we can use it to fight back.”
“Like how they were somehow able to use those strong and advanced spells to hide the soldiers in the town?” Phoenix nods. “I get it. Makes sense. Best plan we’ve had yet.” She smiles a little. “There may actually be hope...”
Hope is too strong of a word, but as I watch Rune making sticky notes with the types of research I’m printing off, and Bane putting the notes on the timeline, I feel like we’ve got at least something to hold onto.
Phoenix and Litha are diving into history books, while Kit is getting into other databases, all looking for missing people and other important events.
I feel like we may indeed have some hope... Even if it’s slim, it’s more than we had.
In the last week, we’ve plastered th
e walls of the bedroom with papers and notes, pieces of string connecting similar types of research or research that’s based on the same principles. If my theory of the witch queen’s involvement with the creation of the anti-shifting stuff was just a guess, and the connection to the old student from Lughnasadh could be called a coincidence, this wall makes it obvious that, whatever it is, it’s been going on for a long time.
Not all the research I’ve downloaded can be connected to missing people, but I guess that if the fae can recreate the research with documents that are shared across all kingdoms and research centres, then they may not have needed the person themselves. And then there are the missing people I’m more anxious about. The subjects of their research, or simply who they were, before they went missing were things that make me very uncomfortable. We may simply not have found their research yet...
Litha steps behind me, her hands on my shoulders, rubbing softly. “You know, actually keeping your eyes open helps with reading.” There is a smile in her voice and I carefully lean back, the wound in my stomach still not fully healed, but it’s doing a lot better already.
“I don’t think I’m getting much reading done anyway, my eyes won’t focus on any more letters.” I reach up and put my hand over hers. “You done for the day?”
“Yeah, I’m done.” She comes closer, her lips near my ear. “I’ve got something else I’d like to do instead...”
And now my brain is also done with the day. Because that tone in her voice, it rushes lust through me, even while we’re surrounded by these horrific things. I just can’t help reacting to her when she’s close like this, or when she makes it very clear what she’s thinking of. “Would that something be away from here?” I put my book down, turning to her and she’s grinning at me, reaching out.
