Story Magic

by Beth Ball

  “Can you answer their question, Emryc?” Cold fury swirled in Apollo’s eyes.

  Emryc, the fallen immortal who had failed the guardian on his sacred quest many millennia ago.

  The bound man raised his eyes to their master’s. Hatred flared across his face, crystallizing in his forest-green gaze. “Not to your satisfaction, Apollo.”

  Juliet’s sisters hissed at the prisoner’s address of their lord. Few had earned the right to avoid the guardian’s honorifics inside his own domain.

  Apollo bristled, but his anger did not yet break. “I gave you a very simple mission, Emryc.” Daggers clashed in the guardian’s voice. “Protect her, and bring her to me when her mission to Cassandra was complete.” His lips tightened into a thin line, and he snarled. “Because of you, Circe is dead.”

  “She is free.” Each word thrummed as Emryc spoke, a drumbeat and a reprimand.

  Apollo roared, his rage shaking invisible iron bars. He stomped off the stone dais and towered over Emryc’s chained form before turning his back on the prisoner. The guardian faced Juliet and her sisters. “The goddess Cassandra does not idly extend her favor. Those who would serve her and the workings of fate find patterns that indicate the rare position of Cassandra’s chosen. Circe bore these signs, millennia ago. They dance now over Persephonie Arelle.”

  Apollo spun to find Juliet among the crowd of spirit-servants. The gold in his eyes illuminated the chamber surrounding her, and her sisters backed away. “You, Juliet, will serve as her protector.” His jaw ground back and forth.

  Juliet dared not interrupt until he had finished speaking.

  “Emryc, this will be the last chance for you and your cursed line.” Apollo’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  The bound man raised his head, stillness settling over his body as the guardian dictated his fate.

  “Your final heir will guide Persephonie as she serves Cassandra,” Apollo continued. “Your heir will bring her to me when her task is done, her people saved.” The guardian swished his cloak to the side as he strode across the chamber floor. “Doing so will restore your wings to you and cast a new hope over your descendants.” The sharpened edge returned to Apollo’s voice. He settled back onto his throne. Emryc and the vulpine had yet to move. “Fail me again, and you will lose much more than your wings, immortal one.”

  Apollo smirked as his words struck the captive. “You may go.” With a wave of Apollo’s hand, Emryc’s cage once again disappeared. The guardian glanced at Juliet and pointed to the spot before his throne.

  She approached, and her spirit knelt before him.

  “I know you will not fail me, Juliet Evenstar,” her lord said. Apollo drummed his fingers together as he mulled over the tangled threads of fate. “I will place Emryc’s heir outside the city in a position to aid both you and her.” The corner of the guardian’s lips turned up. “Persephonie knows a version of Circe and Emryc’s tale, though it is more, shall we say . . . romantic than what truly transpired.” Apollo glared over her spirit at the swirling shadows where the caged figure had been. “We must play the hand Cassandra has dealt with control and calm.” He lowered his voice as though they were the only two present in the room. “Do not reveal to Persephonie who or what you are. The time for that will come but is not yet nigh.” The guardian bowed his head to Juliet, dismissing her.

  Juliet drifted away from her lord’s audience chamber. She glanced back. None of her sisters were watching. Juliet steeled herself and dashed off to Emryc’s holding cell below.

  “I’ve no desire to speak with a spirit-servant.” Emryc turned his face away from Juliet, avoiding her as best he could despite the gripping binds of his chains.

  “Have we not similar goals, you and I?” Juliet slid closer to the side of his cage and slipped back into her renard form. Perhaps a physical body might make him more comfortable.

  Emryc growled in reply.

  Juliet settled onto the cold stone floor. If necessary, she could wait out the fallen fae.

  The prisoner’s shoulders tensed. Finally, he lifted his face and glared at her. Belief fueled by hatred burned in his dark green eyes. “If your goals dictate that you do as your lord bids, then no, we remain at odds.”

  She scooted closer so that her furry toes touched the outer edges of his iron cage. “But why is that? I wish to understand.”

  Emryc studied her closely. She sensed he would never fully trust her or one of her kind. “Know you the story of my curse, vulpine servant?”

  In her heart, Juliet rebelled at the reminder of her rank in Apollo’s court. Did not the guardian explain himself to her and her sisters? Had he not appointed her to a special task? She wouldn’t let Apollo’s prisoner raise her fur. “I do not, Emryc.”

  “How is it that I find even that small insult a surprise after all this time?” Emryc grumbled, more to himself than her. “No one ever reveals that the most damning part of a curse is that both it and you may be forgotten.” He dropped his gaze, and a shadowy weight descended upon his shoulders where wings had once been. “I failed to return Circe to Apollo’s side when her quest for Cassandra was done.” Emryc’s voice softened, drifting out of his cage toward Juliet on the fickle winds of memory. “She begged me not to,” he whispered, “and I couldn’t find it in myself to refuse her.”

  A single tear plinked onto the slate stone before him. “Breaking my promise to Apollo was the purest penance I could manage, but it was still not enough to atone for my initial betrayal, for her not knowing how I found her, or at whose behest.” Emryc shook his head. “The loss of my wings, the curse of immortality, and the extinguishing of my line are small prices to pay.” His breathing slowed, and his evergreen eyes returned their stare to Juliet. “With everything that I am, my one hope is that my final heir has the strength that I found only at the end.”

  Juliet frowned and leaned closer. Her wet nose sat parallel with the iron bars. “The strength to do what? I do not follow your meaning.”

  The prisoner sighed. “The strength to tell Circe what serving at her side meant to me.” Emryc shook his head, his gaze drifting into the past once more. “I should have confessed the truth of my heart to her every day. That was my ultimate failure, beyond any of the rest. And so every day, from now until forever, I find myself alone, bereft of the companionship I held and hold dearest in the world.” Emryc settled back onto his heels and laid his chained hands on the floor of his cage.

  The prisoner went on to explain how Apollo had loved Circe too, as had several others. But that didn’t matter to Emryc so much as the words he had neglected to say, a nuance Juliet still could not internalize. She and her sisters knew one another’s thoughts. They communicated without words. Were not the actions of physical beings the same as their shared emotions?

  “I came to Apollo in a time of desperation,” Emryc said with a wry smile, displeased, she thought, with himself. “He granted me might and immortality in exchange for a single favor, the protection and escort of a vibrant saudad in whose future he had a vested interest.” Emryc explained how his resolve had cracked as the time to fulfill his bargain to Apollo drew near. He knew Circe would be devastated at her binding to the guardian, another apprehension Juliet struggled to understand.

  Emryc refused to tell her how Circe had died, only that he ensured her spirit would pass on to Astralei. The saudad would not even risk her soul returning to her people to be born anew at a later time. “I did as she wished,” was all Emryc said. His mocking half-smile returned. “I doubt that I need to tell you of Apollo’s anger in the matter.”

  The open scars down his back where the roots of his wings had been said enough to Juliet. She shuddered at the pain her lord would have been sure to inflict.

  “I will tell you one final secret, Juliet Evenstar.” A sudden calm cast a shadow over his face. “Apollo will never forgive me for what I did, though he has no notion of his own hand in Circe’s fate.” A spark of rebellion flashed behind green eyes. “Before and after you mee
t Persephonie, you would do well to consider your own choices, the magic you give, and the surrenders you make in serving the guardian’s will above your own wisdom.” Emryc strained against his chains to peer over his shoulder at the outstretched wings on display behind him. “Wings are but a small price to pay.”

  Chapter 9

  “THE FIRST CHOSEN OF CASSANDRA”

  As Cassandra taught us, dark are the tales of the vast Underland, the interlocking caverns and caves where few mortals dare go.

  But Circe, the only child of the famed saudad Boss Miren, was no ordinary mortal.

  The saudad traveled deep underground on a quest from Cassandra herself, to end a war that had burbled up from the depths some forty years before.

  The goddess of fate had marked Circe as her chosen representative upon the planes of life, casting rainbow strands through her long onyx hair. An iridescent shimmer clung to the saudad’s skin, another token of favor from Cassandra.

  Fortune had seen fit that a winged warrior join Circe on her quest—Emryc, a fae from the Shadowlands, sworn to serve the saudad and her goddess. Their journey underground together was to be their last.

  Circe had already proven herself to her goddess and her people when dreams from Cassandra bade her to brave the Underland. A powerful fomorian general, Daugath, had seized a thread from the weave of fate. Cassandra couldn’t have such potent magic falling into the wrong hands. “Take care not to fall under their spell, my chosen,” the goddess warned. The lords of the Underland had long been known for their cunning and beauty. It was by these traits that they turned away from the gods themselves. In the earliest days, this ancient race of fae took powers only the gods had known into their own hands. And ever since, the destiny they sought to forge was entirely their own.

  Out of this independence, scorn grew, rooted deep. The fomorians despised those who honored the gods in the lands above. They were quick to charm surface-dwellers away from their sun-kissed homes, most eager for those blessed with magic, a power they sought over all else.

  Circe’s emerald eyes danced as she accepted the quest from her goddess. A plan was already taking form before her. Her unique magical prowess would make her the perfect temptation for a fomorian general. From there, she and Emryc would set their trap. “Thank you, Cassandra. I will not fail you.”

  For three days, Circe and Emryc journeyed deep into the earth. As she kept watch on the third night, a shimmering amethyst gem appeared from out of the swirling black before her. Circe smirked at the jewel. “Who are you, and why have you come?” She softened the trebles of her voice so as not to wake her companion.

  A deep-throated chuckle echoed all around her. “You know who I am, Chosen of Cassandra. But I can allow you and your companion to go no farther.”

  The whites of Circe’s eyes flashed in the darkness. “And why, Daugath, is that up to you?”

  Their banter filled the bleak spaces of the caves. The fomorian tried to entrap the saudad in complex riddles while she wove delicate story threads that would form the tapestry through which to cast her own charm.

  Hours later, Emryc jerked awake beside her, wrapping his hand around the hilt of his greatsword. “What is that?” His wings stiffened as he glared at the floating jewel. “My lady, have you had any rest this night?”

  “No.” Her half-smile soothed his reproof. “I have done something much better instead.”

  The gemstone floated nearer. In a whisper of movement, Emryc placed himself between Circe and the stone.

  But the saudad shook her head. “Daugath does not represent the danger we had feared.” She squeezed Emryc’s forearm, hoping to calm his suspicions. “There’s been a change in plans.” Daugath had convinced her, in their wide-ranging talks through the night, to aid him as he used the thread, altering the weave to their collective best advantage.

  Lavender light flared around the gemstone. It rippled over the darkness of the caves, flowing outward to embody Daugath in ethereal form. His figure towered a head taller than Emryc. Behind his spectral shape, the severed strand from the weave of fate, a piece as long as Circe’s arms and thick as her wrist, pulsed with Cassandra’s amethyst glow.

  Daugath inclined his head to their wide-open eyes. “As I reveal myself to you, I reveal also a problem and a plan.” He turned to Emryc, recounting what he had explained to Circe in the night. “The leader of my people, King Lefre, has grown careless and cruel,” Daugath said. “His endless wars and campaigns against Lightdwellers must come to an end, lest he lead the remainder of our people to ruin.” Daugath had studied the thread of fate, internalizing its intricacies. Many tiny threads, some representing an entire life, others a moment, made up the strand Daugath had seized at his king’s order. “With this,” he continued, “we shall garrote his leadership when he least suspects our arrival.”

  King Lefre, Daugath told them, had mounted many attacks against those who lived in the lands touched by sun. He had ordered his agents to collect the most powerful and beautiful from the settlements they struck and to drag them into the dim depths of his domain.

  Daugath’s hope for a peaceful future bewitched Circe as he spoke. Surely it was for this vision of a new era that Cassandra sent them into the vast Underland. Not three weeks before, the king’s forces had butchered an entire saudad muster. Try as they might, they could find no trace of the few he had captured. The rest, his merciless soldiers left to rot in the sun. Circe was determined to protect her people from such assaults again.

  “We will attack in two phases,” the saudad continued with her eyes aglow. She turned to Emryc. “I do not think you will like our plan, but you must trust me.”

  Emryc’s gaze darkened. He had heard similar warnings from her before. Each led to her putting herself in unnecessary danger.

  Daugath’s gemstone guided the travelers through the winding routes of the caves, the amethyst drifting before them and lending its light. The general showed them the safest passage up the river and warned them of the many-legged dwellers of the Underland’s intricate caverns.

  “Wait there,” he said as they neared a large opening.

  A heavy form shifted behind the nearest cave wall. Footsteps caused tremors in the earth.

  Shing. Emryc whisked his blade from his back and positioned himself in front of Circe.

  Cassandra’s Chosen waited quietly. Her lips curled as the magical amethyst drifted forward. A towering figure emerged from the cave, and Circe’s breath stuttered in her throat. The gemstone returned to its rightful place in the fomorian’s chest. Circe met Daugath’s eyes for the first time. The scent of damp, underground mosses swirled through her nose, the deep-set roots of an ancient oak mingling with firesmoke on a rainy citrus breeze. She stumbled a half-step forward and laid a hand on Emryc’s broad back, steadying herself. Daugath’s physical form possessed a gravity all its own. He emanated a sense of destiny, a heart’s call, the likes of which she had only felt once before.

  The general stared down at the two of them as he stepped outside the entrance of his cave. Like his spectral form, he could have fit Emryc beneath his chin, and Circe barely came to the center of his torso. Shadows shifted across his dark skin, and the amethyst heightened the purple tones of the swirling mist.

  She stood eye-to-eye with the shimmering gem. “General,” Circe purred, sweeping into a low curtsy.

  He bowed in return. Daugath’s icy blue gaze pierced the darkness and cast a white light over their upturned faces. “Allow me to welcome you into my abode.”

  Daugath spread before them an elaborate sketch of the fomorians’ settlement, an extensive system of caverns and chambers carved, over millennia, from the rock of the earth.

  Emryc studied the parchment while Circe observed the general’s makeshift room. A few notches in the walls served as shelves while others held glowing lavender stones, paler than the one the general wore embedded in his chest.

  Her fingers glided over one intricately carved stone. “What are these?”


  “Don’t touch that!” Daugath snapped.

  Circe yanked her hand back.

  White light blazed in the fomorian’s gaze.

  “I am sorry,” Circe whispered. “I meant no offense.”

  Daugath lowered his head and slowed his rapid breaths. “It is I who should apologize.” He sighed. The gem in his chest pulsed, a thudding heartbeat. “They are the souls of my companions. I must return them to the halls of our ancestors.” The fomorian ran his tongue over sharp, canine teeth. “Our fool of a king wasted their life-energy in his endless quest for power. But by their sacrifice, I will put an end to his bloated, foolish reign.”

  The fomorian general explained how he and his companions had overpowered the general assigned to retrieve the thread of fate from the saudad muster. Circe steeled herself, holding tight to Emryc’s hand as Daugath described the slaughter they had inflicted. “I could not risk sparing them,” he said with eyes lowered. “Lefre’s thirst for power is too great. He will keep attempting to destroy your people for your influence over the weave of fate.” Daugath had convinced several fellow soldiers to turn against the general on their mission and seize the thread for themselves. They had fallen in the fighting that ensued, Daugath the only one of their number who survived.

  Though he had taken the thread from the general’s possession, Daugath had been unable to prevent several of the other soldiers from returning to the king. “This puts us at a severe disadvantage,” Daugath said, “one I hope the thread can help us to reverse. I have studied it for the last several days,” he continued. “With your help, we can manipulate its influence to remove Lefre from his position of power.”

  “And who will rule in his stead?” Circe’s mind still reeled from Daugath’s tale of violence against her people, suffering she herself had witnessed. How long would Lefre keep the survivors alive?

  Emryc understood the fomorian’s expression before she did. “Ah,” he said, shaking his head. “You will, of course.” The winged fae’s scowl had not lessened since they first encountered Daugath in the flesh. “How do you know that we can trust him, Circe?”