The Magical Book of Wands

by Raven M. Williams

  I knew Elandris had other lovers, and a soulmate to boot, but it wasn’t in fae nature to care about such things. Love or lust was never about possession. Even with that being the norm, it had been my luck that Elandris’s soulmate, a simpering waif-like noble man, was the rare sort of fae that did exhibit jealousy.

  It wouldn’t have surprised me if that asshole was the reason that Elandris was exceedingly cruel. I could see them curled up in conspiracy of what violations could be done to me next. It would be some sort of sick pillow talk while they stroked each other’s staves.

  No amount of plotting gave me any clarity into escaping my situation and the weakness of being drained in Saranel did nothing for my mental state. Still, the day came when I had to return to Asphodel once more. The excitement was short-lived as the reality kept its cold throttle on my hopes.

  I knew this would afford me no more freedom than my stay in Saranel. Even returning to Asphodel, my Light Fae escort would be ever present, blocking any chance of escape. It was true enough that once I restored to full power (and theirs was waning away at the same time), I could overpower them and escape, but it would also serve as catalyst to strife between us.

  I couldn’t have foreseen the boon that came next, almost didn’t see it for the opportunity it was.

  Asphodel was erupting then with the rumors of a human, a magician, that had crossed over into our Realm. He was found in the Crystalline Forest and had managed to get through it without dying. It wasn’t unusual for humans to find their way into Fae Realms via fairy circles. On Earth, they were always marked by the mysterious circles of mushrooms tucked away in their forests. However, there were always fae lurking around those portals that would lure humans into being trapped in Fae, either to be held forever as glorified sex slaves or toyed/tricked to their deaths. With fae, love and violence were whims that needed little consideration.

  I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I had distanced myself from caring about anything that happened around me, how the days since I had first set out for Saranel had simply been filled with the desperation to find freedom once more. I might have overlooked the news under any other circumstances, but being captive myself, the repetition of words like ‘prisoner’ pierced through the veil and created a feeling I had never had before: empathy.

  Though I had long ago resigned myself against any hopes of escape, I had decided that insubordination would at least cause no war and was worth any significantly minor consequence by comparison. I had to see this human for myself, pop the cherry on meeting one at all. Humans were nothing I had considered in life before marriage either, simply the delightfully simple-minded species that created useless fairy tales.

  That night, I had taken Orphes to my bed and had used my powers to make sure he slumbered deep after. Despite having become accustomed to powerlessness, I had also become cleverer about concealing the return of my power. I wasn’t quite sure of its strength though so without wasting any time, I had thrown on little more than a silk robe before slipping away to find where the prisoner was being kept.

  Being almost at full power once more, it took me little effort to slip past guards and maneuver my way through enchanted hallways. Unlike in Saranel, these halls were home and they knew their Princess.

  That night I was in possession of no more than rumors so I had struggled simply to find where he was being kept. Showing any interest could have closed any possible doors I had, alerted my father to making sure those doors were properly sealed against me. I had been disappointed that daybreak came sooner than I hoped. I had managed to learn in which tower the prisoner was being kept. Slipping back into bed with Orphes, I struggled with restless sleep, the gears whirring in my brain.

  I wasn’t quite sure what I was hoping would come out of this, but it was an adventure in my otherwise bland existence. I didn’t have an end game, but it didn’t stop each goal from pounding through me with the same necessity as my life’s blood. No longer did I have the illusions that this would lead to my freedom, even if the wink of hope refused to abandon me completely. I had seemed more despondent to everyone around me, but I was never more alive, more aware, and if I was distracted, it was only because I was tingling with purpose.

  I had planned to wait a few more days to search the tower. It would be too suspicious to keep inviting Orphes to my bed. He was a Light Fae and it would only weaken my alliance with the few Dark Fae that didn’t think I was the Golden Court’s bitch. My trysts with Orphes were also the only times the rest of the escorts were not hovering over me. As long as they were under the impression that Orphes alone could subdue me, I intended to use that to my advantage.

  However, as cruel as luck was on Earth, it was tenfold more wicked in the lands of the Fae and the word ‘execution’ was being whispered by the servants.

  It wasn’t like my father to act rashly so I knew that the prisoner would not be disposed of quickly if there was any truth to it at all. I still couldn’t risk asking my father the truth of it, of exposing my own interest and rousing his suspicion, so not knowing only created a greater urgency to find the human.

  Once more, I had ridden Orphes into oblivion and donned only a thin silk robe to sneak off towards Moonglow Tower.

  It had been far more difficult to slip past guards here and it was no mystery why. My father had appointed the most powerful Fae Mages to guard the tower and there was no way they would go to such lengths for an ordinary human. It took a great deal of power for any fae to be so cautious. My people always fancied themselves superior, not just among other races or species, but among other fae besides. It was no mean feat to put them on guard and over one insignificant human at that.

  It only quickened my blood to think of what the battle to capture this human might have entailed. Oh, that I could have been born a warrior mage instead! My superior power was wasted on the role of a princess.

  Or so I thought. That night, I would need every bit of it. Even a battlemage would never stand a chance.

  I edged to the last of the ground cover, the pulsating glow of ebonleaf foliage no longer concealing beyond there. The bare dusty expanse stretched to the entrance 30 meters ahead. My former pride might have had me marching to that prominent gate to demand entry, but Elandris had sufficiently given me a lesson in humility. My entrance would be 20 meters and farther to the left, an access grate that had become choked with sand ages ago. My eyes trailed along the massive Moonglow Tower, a languorous sweep like the patient hands of a lover. If only it was admiration and not hesitation that truly held me enthralled.

  I closed my eyes, feeling the uniquely Dark Fae gifts of my blood seep into my restored aura. I wasn’t at full power quite yet so confidence could be my undoing if I did not take care. My aura wavered but I gently tested it with all of the strange patience a toddler might give to the burgeoning possibilities of mischief in their fingers and toes.

  Once satisfied, I threw my aura outward in the same way the sun flared, only this would not emit light but keep the light from reflecting off of my skin, making me invisible. I tiptoed rapidly over the dry surface, counting on my grace and speed to minimize any possible prints or stirring of dust.

  The effort had left me winded and I dropped the taxing demand on my aura as soon as I could, if only to conserve my strength. My hands ran over the crackling dry patches of grass but I felt no trace of the grate. Since every second counted, the seven seconds that passed before I felt the bumpy surface of the oxidized iron of a bar had been sheer torture.

  Again, I had to channel my aura to blast the blockage without sending up a cloud of dust. All the same, I had managed to breathe some in, my efforts to stifle my coughs resulting in painful gagging.

  I slipped down into the dark space. There would be no way to restore the blockage without great cost to my energy so I compromised by murmuring an illusion chant. If anyone touched it, it would disappear but it would look intact at least. No one walked there but no Fae ever jinxed themselves with words like ‘never’. />
  I slipped down the corridor, which I knew was little more than a cobwebbed crawl space that used to be where chamber pots were emptied. Fae technology had long since evolved so the smell and putrid filth was long gone once that system became defunct. The only disadvantage was that the drainage points were not stacked and I would need to weave my way along each floor to find the next drain leading to the floor above.

  Whatever discomfort I felt as I made my way up was replaced by the struggle to concentrate on my waning strength. I had lost count on how many floors I had ascended, but it would have done me little good to know. I had no clue which floor the prisoner was held on. I had planned to make my way to the top, knowing my energy might not permit me to both check each floor and ascend. It would not take as much effort to go back down.

  The murmur of a voice jolted me immobile. I nearly gasped as the fierce aural outline of a dark Fae mage glowed inches from my face. Judging from its shape, the man was a good three feet away. My aura was already subdued, only extending an inch from my own skin. Too close to his. If he were to lean against the wall, the jig would be up regardless.

  Retracting my aura flush with my skin was akin to a human trying to retract their claws like a cat by hammering them into the nail beds. My eyes wept at the severity of the pain which rivaled anything Elandris had done to me. The mage’s aura nudged forward as the muffled voice kept on with an easy cadence, his aura now a hair’s breadth from my navel. I sucked in my already flat stomach, careful not to protrude my ribs in the effort.

  A draft pushed through the crawlspace, making my robe billow towards his aura. There was nary a draft through there until that very moment and I wondered what hateful pixie played its benign pranks now. I shrugged out of the robe, just in time to stop it from alerting the mage with its collision with his aura. The beading of my bared nipples might have been my undoing, but the mage’s aura faded as he and the voice receded down the hallway on the other side.

  I crumpled to the floor, fumbling to reclothe myself, if only to fight the damning chill of fear and relief at such a close call. At first, I could not muster strength in my legs and took to crawling on hands and knees away from that hateful spot, pulling myself eagerly up into the next drain of the ascent.

  There was no telling how many more floors I could take, but luck had been on my side. On the other side of this wall, there was a muted aura.

  It was my first taste of an aura of that kind, almost tempting me into recklessness just to explore it immediately. It swirled with an alien life force, in colors even I had never known, a magic not fae in nature.

  I had placed my hands on the grate and pushed it as carefully as I could. I had still moved with too much haste and it nearly clattered to the ground. I slipped out, crawling warily, my tail flicking with anxiety. I can only imagine I must have looked like some terrifying sort of cat, cloaked in dirty silk and a curtain of cobwebs.

  Even though you don’t remember, Vincent, that is where I first met you. I had never held much interest in humans, even the magical sort that were hidden from the ordinary human world, so seeing you had come as a great shock. To me, the Light Fae were always pale and bright and boring, the Dark Fae were, well... dark, seductive, full of life. I didn’t know what to think of a creature that was both light and dark. To Fae, coloring was a sort of code. Light and Dark should have been grey to me, but you were no grayer than a rainbow scattered through a prism. Your hair was inky like ours, but your skin was alabaster, and those big blue eyes somewhere in between. I had stifled a giggle seeing the small round ears, but I was drawn to your body most of all. Fae are slight creatures, but you were so... broad. So wonderfully, temptingly broad...

  I had meant to be stealthier but my feet had brought me to your cell as I disentangled the unsightly cloak of spider silk. I was still trembling with fear and exhaustion. When your hateful eyes found mine, the last of my energy abandoned me and I had fallen to my knees once more. I wondered what spell you had cast to hold me so completely in your thrall, only briefly because my thoughts became increasingly useless the longer I studied you.

  “What tricks do you have in store for me, demon?” you had asked.

  I shook my head, struggling to chase away the shock and the sting of that word.

  “I am no demon. I am... Gretel,” was all I could say and though the first thing I ever said to you was true, the second was not.

  I didn’t know many human names and that one was from one of your people’s delightfully morbid fairy tales. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I clearly wasn’t human and I wasn’t fooling anyone. I tried not to cringe, standing by the false name and the beginning of my lies.

  I promise we’ll get to that, but there are greater sins than giving a false name.

  I didn’t want you to know I was little more than a Dark Fae Princess and I had decided in that moment that I wanted your trust. I wanted to be just ‘Gretel’ to you and never realized how fully I would realize that role.

  You scoffed at the hesitation of my name and I saw your hands itching instinctively, grabbing for something that wasn’t there. They had left you with nothing but a thin shirt and ill-fitting pants and both were worse for the wear. Even with your back to the wall and your knees drawn up to your chest defensively, you still didn’t look small.

  I saw your eyes go to my tail suddenly and hadn’t realized whatever held me motionless hadn’t extended to that part of me.

  “What are you then?” you spat out, but your eyes repeated the word ‘demon.’

  “I am... a Dark Fae. Do you know where you are?” I asked with hesitation.

  “Asphodel, though I’ve never heard of this place until...” you started to say before your mouth clamped shut. It was so little but you had already decided you had said too much.

  I wanted so badly to make you keep talking. There is a rawness in human voices that you will never hear in the voice of the Fae. Fae have voices like song, all melody and tone, but humans have something more guttural and primal, a vibration, a beat that harmonized.

  I nodded and, despite the difficulty, managed to swallow enough to shrink the lump forming in my throat. I tucked my hair behind one ear and bit my lip, not bothering to hide my fascination. I might have been content to do little more than memorize you. My first human and, against my own nature, all I wanted to do was possess you.

  My hand drifted towards the bars, but a painful jolt ran through me and I pulled back my arm to rub at the pain.

  You smiled at my error, but tucked that precious gift away just as quickly, that cold wariness returning once more. You narrowed your eyes at the bars and for once I was relieved that your ire had found a new target.

  “They cast a barrier over this room. Overkill since they already have my wand and there’s little I can do without it,” you told me.

  As if to prove it, you bridged your hands as if scooping sand and a small blue flame flickered there, warm but little else. Still, it was some small luxury since you were barefoot in a cold dark cell.

  I didn’t realize I was wagging my tail once more until I saw your eyes warring with amusement and the battle to conceal it where they followed its movement.

  “Your wand,” I repeated, fighting the urge to see what those eyes would do when treated to my bared breasts. My words didn’t have quite the deterrence on those racy thoughts that I had hoped since there was an intimacy and an innuendo in those two words that I hadn’t counted on.

  This time when you smiled, I had scrambled to continue with every ounce of will I had, not even caring how weak I sounded.

  “Y-you’re a mage...” came the stupid strangled words of a tongue-tied simpleton.

  But your eyes had softened, if only a little, at that show of vulnerability. I also saw that human ego rise to the surface, that foolish certainty that you could use me as you pleased. You couldn’t have known that I once had the sort of ego that dwarfed your own and it threatened to explode into a thousand suns. You weren’t wrong about using me, b
ut since I wanted to use you too, it seemed fair trade.

  “The King is putting me on trial for execution,” you accused now, and for a moment I thought you must know somehow who I really was. I had to quell the urge to panic and apologize for how my father treated you.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the abuse I had endured that had made me so self-conscious to the point of being daft, but I had reined in reason once more and looked down at my hands.

  “I will find a way to free you,” were the next genius words out of my mouth and when I looked up, you seemed as shocked as I was that I had said it.

  A silence grew thick around us and you were the first to break it.

  “Why?” you asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied in an instant, disturbed by the truth of that.

  I didn’t know why. Even in retrospect. I could color it with the years I have loved you or make up some feeling I had, but it would all be bullshit. I knew I shouldn’t trust you, that courting this idea could make my life so much worse, but even sitting there immobile and talking to a dangerous stranger had made me feel a freedom I hadn’t known in many moons. Maybe my thousand-million watt ego that fancied dominating you was the culprit, but in that moment, it was everything and nothing.

  It was not by virtue that I wanted to free you either. I might have kept you there forever, if only they would let me in to touch you. I would have kept you as my slave, my prize for tolerating my horrible husband. If ‘execution’ had not been whispered, I might have begged my father for this one favor. I am no saint. Nevertheless, it wounded me to think my new human would die and perhaps that had been all the rationale I needed for my mind to be made up. But then I might have done anything to take my mind away from the inevitable walk of shame back to Saranel. Whatever it was, the ‘why’ wasn’t important—I simply had to.

  You had come closer and even with the bars and the barriers between us, I felt your breath tease at the withheld pleasure of what your hands might offer. I had started to raise my hand towards you again, only to be greeted with a zap once more. I gasped an ‘ow’ sucking my fingers into my mouth and you had been unable to keep from laughing, each cruel vibration of sound thrumming through the origin of my desire.