Call of Brindelier (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 3)

by Missy Sheldrake

“I will if you want me to,” he teases, lowering me closer to the surf. “Why are you conspiring with the Dusk,” he asks me, “after all I’ve done for you?”

  “I am not Dusk,” Vae’s smoky voice rises above the rush of the sea from somewhere beside my hip. I look for her and find her struggling to hover there. Both broken wings are apparently still working. She winces as she flaps the right one harder than the left, struggling to keep steady in the sea wind. “Leave it to a southerner to assume such things.”

  “I don’t know how I could be mistaken,” Mevyn retorts. “Shall I count the ways I might have come to such a deduction? Living in the keep of the Circle of Spires? Thrall to a Sorcerer? Pit fae?”

  “Don’t you dare,” she hisses at Mevyn, “call me pit fae, you sun guzzler!”

  She darts toward him a little unsteadily, her fists clenched.

  “Hey!” I shout. “Cut it out, you two! Mevyn, put me down!”

  “That’s twice you’ve ordered me to put you down, Tib,” Mevyn huffs. “I’ll do it, if you insist.”

  I glare up at him, then down into the inky swirl of waves. The sea is angry tonight. There could be sharp rocks. There could be sharks. Vae comes back to me. Clings to my belt. Mevyn hisses at her.

  “Valenor!” I call again. I don’t like Mevyn’s terms or his attitude. I’m starting to realize why I hadn’t really missed him until I’d almost forgotten him.

  “He’s busy,” Mevyn drawls, like this whole business is boring him.

  “Busy?” I sputter.

  “Something about a ship,” Mevyn replies.

  I think of our agreement. Ruben. My invention.

  “Can you take me to him?” I ask Mevyn. “Please?”

  “Oh, now you’re polite,” Mevyn smirks. “I cannot. You know that, Tib. I can only travel between your tether and my Wellspring. That is my bond.”

  “Take me to Sunteri, then, I guess,” I say. I don’t really know how it’ll help me to go there, but any place is better than here right now.

  “Let go of that creature,” he sneers in Vae’s direction, “and I shall be glad to.”

  I look up at him. Beyond the toe of my boot I see them gathering at the parapets. Dark figures, cloaks flapping. Rows of sentries sweeping the rocks below the keep. Readying to chase, if they see us. A ray of light tints the waves beneath me sickly green. I see it quickly. A swirl of yellow just below the churning surface. Fins of turquoise. Two choices: Sunteri, without Vae, or the sea, with her. I look up at Mevyn.

  “Drop me,” I say as a flurry of arrows streaks past us.

  “Are certain—?”

  “DROP ME!” I shout. Mevyn lets go. I swipe my free hand to my belt to shelter Vae as I tumble. She wraps herself around my hand, and her tight grasp burns my fingers as she clings to me. I grip the bottle tightly in my other hand as we splash into the churning waves, and kick my feet hard to push myself back to the surface.

  “Kaso Viro!” I scream, sending bubbles of my voice out into the dark water.

  Something hits me, hard. Knocks the rest of my breath out of me before I can get to the top. It grabs my legs and speeds us through the deep. Yellow and turquoise fins. Kaso Viro. He heard me. My lungs burn. I’m out of air. I hug myself, tucking both the bottle and Vae close to me.

  A yellow tendril flicks toward me as we speed through the depths of the sea. A trail of bubbles flows from it. It whips at my face and tickles my nose. Black pinpoints start to flood my vision. If I pass out, I’ll let go of the bottle. I’ll lose Vae. I need to breathe. I struggle against Kaso Viro’s hold. The yellow tendril whips my face again. Vae climbs from my hand to my chest and clings to my bandolier as bubbles rush up my nose and it dawns on me. I grab the tendril and hold it to my mouth. Air rushes in and I cough and gasp for breath.

  I don’t know how long we travel. Not long, but long enough for me to wrap my head around things. We have two now. We can get two more, easily. They’ve got Errie, and I failed him again. Right now, Eron is taking his life from him. What will happen if they raise him? The Dusk is powerful. More than I thought. I was able to get free, but what if anyone else ended up in that keep? Azi, or Rian, or Margy? They wouldn’t have a chance. The Void would destroy them. I wonder how far its reach is. How many people has it gotten already? How does The Void work, exactly?

  We surface in the pool of Kaso Viro’s tower. Loren stands at the edge and offers his master his robe again. He tries a drying spell on me as I climb the steps, dripping, and then shrugs apologetically when it doesn’t work.

  “Try it again,” I say, shaking off the sea water. He does, and warm wind shivers over me, drying me and Vae completely. “Thanks.”

  “Tib has another,” Kaso Viro says to Loren. “That means two. Three, if Kythshire is as willing as they say. The gates shall open for the Dawn soon. Ah, and he has brought a friend.”

  I raise the hand that Vae is still clinging to, and she scrambles up my arm to tuck herself at my shoulder.

  “This is Vae,” I say. “It’s all right, Vae. These are my friends.”

  “How can you be sure?” she asks. “How can you say they’re friends?”

  “We’re working together for the Dawn,” I explain.

  “So? Working together doesn’t mean friends.”

  “Here,” Kaso Viro reaches for her, but she shies away.

  “Come, little one. Look at your poor wings. And the ocean did you further harm, I am afraid.”

  He lifts his hand with three fingers touching, pointing to the ceiling. A fountain of water trickles from his fingertips. He closes his eyes and the water starts to shift. It becomes red, like molten metal. Sparks of yellow crackle from it in sprays that seem to entice Vae very much. The flow of it slows. Globs of the molten stuff drip onto the damp floor and steam as they harden to stone.

  Vae is drawn to it hungrily, but she’s still unsure. I move a little closer and reach my hand nearer to his, and she slowly climbs down my arm to drink in the molten liquid like a hummingbird at nectar.

  The glow of her veins seems to beam from her skin, red under black. Her wings straighten and fix themselves. The stretch out healthy and strong, lined with red and gold. Rays of flame burst from her stony bald head, creating a fiery line of hair from front to back.

  “Wow, Vae,” I whisper. “I didn’t realize how sick you had been. You look so much better.”

  The little imp grins up at me and pats my hand, then pushes off to hover between me and Kaso Viro.

  “Oshteveska furle drulevents. Kerevorna,” she says to him.

  “Oshteveska furle, jusktaviel,” Kaso Viro bows to her.

  “Friends, then,” Vae says. “For now.”

  “You said that to me in Osven’s room,” I say. “What does it mean, that phrase? Those words?”

  “She said,” Kaso Viro explains, “‘Fire burns within the mountain, Kerevorna.’ And my reply was the proper one: ‘May it burn forevermore.’ It is an ancient greeting of the Under-folk. The dwellers within stone.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you,” I say. “But now we need to get back to Cerion. Do you have a way there?”

  “I do. I shall call to Rian via Aster,” he says with a nod to Loren. Without a word, Loren rushes off upstairs, I imagine to greet Rian.

  “Come and rest a moment, Tib,” Kaso Viro offers. “Tell me what you have seen.”

  He leads me to an area that I hadn’t noticed before, with drapes of velvet and mattresses and cushions. I settle into a green one. Vae sits on my knee as I describe the Void, the Keep, and Eron.

  “You must show all that you have seen to Azaeli Hammerfel. This knowledge is essential to the cause, and shall be a great aid to the Champions of Light.”

  “Tib!” Rian’s voice blends with his footsteps on the stone as he rushes into the room. Right away, his eyes go to the bottle still gripped in my hand. “You got another one.”

  “Two, Rian Eldinae. Two for the Dawn, now,” Kaso Viro says with a hint of pride. “It is my recommendation that you not
keep them together in one place. We have seen the folly of that on the part of the Dusk.”

  “Right,” Rian says. “Maybe you should keep that one here.”

  “I shan’t,” Kaso Viro replies matter-of-factly. “It would interfere with my work to have such power so close.”

  “We’ll figure it out later, then,” Rian says, turning to me. “We have to go quickly. Something terrible has happened.”

  “The fall of the king,” Kaso Viro says. “I have seen it in the stars.”

  Rian doesn’t say anything. He just looks at the Mage for a long time. Like he’s really thinking about what he’s said. Like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.

  “What?” I ask, finally breaking the silence.

  “His Majesty was assassinated,” Rian swallows hard. “Right at dusk.”

  “What?” I jump to my feet. “Margy. What about Margy? Is she safe?”

  “She is,” Rian says quietly. He and Kaso Viro exchange a strange look. Like my question confirmed something to the two of them. Mages and secrets. “I’ll take you to her,” he says.

  “What about Vae?” I ask of the imp who has scooted up to my stomach since Rian arrived. His brow goes up and he looks from her to me.

  “Do you trust her?” he asks me.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “We saved each other’s lives.”

  Vae looks up at me and offers me a grateful smile.

  “Perhaps,” Kaso Viro interrupts cautiously, “she could remain and aid me here. I have many questions about the Dusk, and vast unanswered research regarding her home, the fire under the mountain.”

  “That might be best,” Rian offers Vae an apologetic smile. “I trust Tib, and he trusts you, but I’m not sure it would be wise to bring a strange fae into another fae’s territory.”

  “At home, such a breach would be punishable by death,” Vae says, “no matter the reason.”

  “That settles it, then,” Rian chuckles and ruffles the hair at the back of his head. “What about bringing an offering from one territory to another?” he asks Kaso Viro.

  “That is permitted, so long as you keep a distance from their Wellspring and do not allow one to touch the other,” Kaso Viro explains.

  “Easy enough,” Rian nods and gestures to me, and I hop up and grab hold of his sleeve. “Ready?” he asks.

  I nod, and the cobwebs brush my face, and the floor drops away and we fall through the Half-Realm. The Dreaming calls to me while we travel. I see visions of a great ship, fashioned with my wings and bladders. Propellers spin and sputter. The ship lifts from the sea with a great rush of dripping water. Boys cheer. The sounds and images fade quickly.

  We hit the ground hard and tumble right into a weird looking bush.

  “Sorry,” Rian murmurs after he rights himself. “I took that one a little too fast. Azi?” he calls softly, and the flowers on the bush bloom open and hiss at us.

  “Rian?” Azi’s whisper drifts from inside of the bush. “In here.”

  The branches open up and the flowers turn their faces toward the inside. There, Azi kneels beside Margy, who’s sound asleep on a hammock of vines. Saesa is there, too, sleeping in her own hammock, and Flitt and Twig are snuggled together in a third. I shiver at the sight of it. Even though I know they’re good vines, Twig’s vines, it’s still creepy to me. Margy wakes up when we go in. As soon as she sees me, the princess scrambles off of her hammock and throws her arms around me. She starts to cry and I look at Azi, who gives me an encouraging smile.

  “Let’s not wake the others,” she whispers to Rian. “We can talk outside.” She takes him by the hand and leads him away.

  I don’t say anything to Margy. My time in the Void and at the Keep has made me miss her too much for words. I had no idea how much I needed to see her, I’m just grateful that we’re together, now. I let her cry with her head tucked into my chest. That feeling I got before, in her room, fills me up. Warm. Tingling. Fluttering.

  I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s like a spell without being a spell. Like something I want. Something exciting, like a gift. Like Midwinter’s Day. Like the moment I could finally breathe under the water. I want to protect her, to make her happy, to keep her close. She sighs and squeezes me harder, and I rest my cheek on the top of her head. Her hair is soft and silky. It smells like green leaves and sea salt. Holding her calms me. Helps me think more clearly.

  “Margy,” I whisper after her crying seems to have stopped. She pulls away just enough to look up at me. Her cheeks are stained with dirt and tears. Her wide eyes are rimmed with red. “We got two,” I whisper to her. “We only need one more to open the gate.”

  She doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me. Looks closely at my face. My cheeks burn. I think I should look away, but I don’t. I can’t. At first, I’m ashamed. Maybe it was insensitive. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about the offerings so soon after she lost her father.

  “Can I see?” she whispers without looking away. I pull the bottle from my pouch and hold it between us. Its light spills over us both as she reaches to touch it. I hesitate, remembering the shock it sent through me in the keep, but it has no reaction as she puts her hand over it. That spell has been spent. Her fingers graze mine, warm and soft. “It’s beautiful,” she says. “Can you feel it?”

  I look away from the bottle back to her, and it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. Not as Margy, my friend, but as the princess. The young woman who will be queen. One day, she’ll be the most beautiful woman in the Known Lands. To me, she already is. I try to explain it to myself. Try to feel the magic or the spell that’s making me think this way. There isn’t one, though. She’s not doing anything. Neither is the bottle. These are my own, true feelings. I try hard to make sense of them. Slowly, I nod.

  “I do,” I say quietly. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  “Stay with me,” she whispers. “When I go back to Cerion, through the Rites of Vigil. Please? Stay with me.”

  “The Rites of Vigil?” I ask, and she hushes me and pulls me to the far side of the bush, away from the others who are still sleeping.

  “In Cerion, the Rites last one day for each year of reign. Paba was in his twenty-sixth year. As his successor, it’s my duty to keep vigil over his pyre for twenty-six days, to honor his reign. Mum will be there sometimes, and Sara toward the end, but I’m allowed to choose someone to stay with me. Someone who supports me. It would mean so much if it was you, Tib,” she whispers tearfully.

  “Twenty-six days?” I murmur in disbelief. I think about the Dusk, the offerings, the archway that only I can see. I think of the Sorcerers and the Void. They have one now. They need two more, and they need to be able to see where to go. It might take them that long to get what they need. But then, there’s Eron. He’ll be ready by then, for sure. I wouldn’t be able to try to save Errie again. I’d have to sit and wait and do nothing and trust that Azi and Rian can do it without me.

  “Tib?” Margy whispers, looking up at me again. She takes her hand away from the offering. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked you that. It was selfish of me.” She tries to move away, but I hold her closer.

  “Of course I will,” I whisper. “I’ll stay with you, Princess.”

  “Margy,” she whispers.

  “Margy,” I sigh into her brown curls.

  Chapter Forty: Kythshire’s Offering

  Azi

  “The elves came back,” Rian says quietly. “They caught three of them, but they swear there was a fourth. They said the one who got away was dressed in black, and had a patch over his right eye.”

  “That assassin from Maisie’s house,” I whisper. Rian nods. “So it was definitely the Dusk. What else?”

  “His Majesty,” Rian clears his throat, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. “They’re readying him for the Rites. We need to get Her Highness back to Cerion.”

  I nod, and we stand in silence for a long time. A soft breeze whispers through the leaves of the forest. Fairy orbs drift
past, just like any other night in Kythshire. Nothing has changed for them. For us, our world is collapsing. My mind is swirling with thoughts of what will happen to His Majesty’s Elite now that His Majesty is gone. I can’t fathom Cerion without Tirnon’s steady hand to guide it. I can’t shake the feeling that with his death, a golden age has ended. All of these thoughts were coursing through my mind when others went to bed, and they’re the reason why I kept watch instead of trying to sleep.

  Rian moves closer to me and takes me in his arms, and I rest my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat.

  “Tib got the second offering,” Rian says softly. “We just need one more for entry.”

  “It’s not the time,” I start, but Rian stops me with a hand on my cheek.

  “It is the time, Azi. If what’s coming is as bad as they say, then we need to press on and secure Brindelier for Cerion. Because if the Dusk claims it first, there won’t be a Cerion anymore.” I know he’s right.

  “Where’s Shush?” I ask, eager to change the subject. I already know the stakes, and I can’t bear to dwell on them.

  “He stayed in Cerion,” Rian replies. “He’s shown me a new skill. A link. It’s weak now, but it’ll be stronger when we become Ili’luvrie.”

  “When?” Not if?” I ask, surprised by his change of heart.

  “Most likely it’s a ‘when’, yeah,” he sighs. “Anyway, this link is remarkable. If I focus on him, I can see through his eyes and hear through his ears. So it’s like I’m in two places at once. Sort of like Da, when he’s the fox. It’s very useful, but has to be done with respect and caution.”

  “That’s amazing,” I whisper, and wonder why Flitt has never mentioned it to me. A bright blue orb drifts past. It pauses near my face and giggles softly.

  “Hello,” I say to it with a forced smile.

  “Hello, gold-face,” it replies in my mind. “Paladin.”

  Another orb, a yellow one, comes to bob beside it.

  “Champion of Light,” it giggles.

  I nod, “hello, little ones,” I say softly. Their presence soothes me and entrances me. “Are you simply light, or are there little fairies in there?” I ask, raising my hand to cup it under the blue one. To my surprise it settles in my palm, soft as a puff of cotton. Within the blue glow, a sweet little face smiles up at me.