Elemental Compass (Supernatural Prison Book 7)

by Jaymin Eve

  When the rainbows of my magic portal—how much cooler did magic portal sound than step-through?—faded away, I found myself standing in the center point between the four lands. I always ended up here when I returned home, like this was the welcoming plot of land where all new travelers must cross.

  As they had the few other times, my parents sensed me the second I stepped into their land, and appeared quickly. Thanks to magic. I hoped that one day soon, I’d have that same skill to travel on ruby light.

  "Justice!" they exclaimed when they saw me. Always side by side, always perfect, Queen Deloria and King Jepati of the ruby lands. My mother's hair was the exact same as mine had been before my powers were released: white-blond, long, and thick, with just enough wave to keep it interesting. My father's was more of a honey blond, shoulder length, worn back at the nape of his neck. Both of them had green eyes, in differing shades, and my mother's skin was pale, while my father's was dark. Like a midnight sky without a single star. They were a mess of contrasting colors and patterns, but they were both incredibly beautiful. Like mythical creatures—which I guess is exactly what they were.

  "Hi, guys," I said softly. They stood before me, a little taller than I was, making it very clear where my interesting mix of ethnicities came from. No one could argue we weren't related. It was just sad that no physical similarities were going to fix the gaping hole that existed between us.

  I didn't know them. They didn't know me.

  But that could be changed, and so far all that had been holding us back was me.

  "I'm sorry it’s been so long since I visited, and that last time I barely stayed a few days," I said.

  Neither of them looked angry. If anything, their faces softened.

  "We understand and know that it won’t be easy just to fall into a family dynamic," Deloria said. "We regret that we had to push you away when you were born, missing so much of your life." She choked up and my father put his arm around her in a comforting manner. I had only seen them a few times, but he was consistently gentle with her. I’d always wondered if it was just an act—powerful men usually weren’t gentle. It wasn’t in their nature.

  I guess I had the Compass quads to compare to though, and with their mates they were unfailingly caring. So my father might be the same.

  "How long will you stay?" Jepati asked. "We have so much to learn from you, and so much we want to show you in our lands."

  "I will stay for as long as it takes," I told him, disconcerted by his emerald eyes. Deloria's were more hazel, with light green filtering into gold. But Jepati's were the twin of the eyes I'd seen every single day in the mirror until recently.

  Eyes like perfect gems.

  I cringed at that memory of the male voice mumbling over my eyes, his voice filled with desire. I'd learned to detest my eyes, and secretly loved that the color had changed with my transformation to a jeweled princess.

  The emerald shade didn't seem so bad on my father, though, and maybe that was due to the slightly different shape, or tiny threads of amber that broke up his irises.

  Or maybe it was just that I could look at the color objectively now and know it was not the reason I was abused. Therapy taught me that I needed to assign blame where it belonged and not on everything in my life. It allowed me to put some of my past into manageable places to be dealt with. Right now, I needed to acknowledge that I was focusing on eye color so I didn't have to focus on what was really standing before me.

  My parents.

  Staring at me.

  Deloria, tears on her cheeks at the knowledge I was staying; and Jepati: fine lines framing his face. They were trying, in their own way—from what I knew anyway.

  "I used to think about you a lot," I told them. "No one knew a single thing about where I came from, I didn't have a name or date of birth—it was all just made up by the people who found me. So I’d create these fantasy stories about who you really were."

  This was a heavy conversation to have out in the open, ruby residents doing their thing around us—cleaning the streets, chatting to their neighbors, and using gems to power their world. Most were in the distance and hadn't noticed us yet, but they'd soon realize the "royals" were close by, and they would naturally gravitate closer. I'd seen it before.

  The way they watched and smiled and bowed at me was very disconcerting.

  "I—" Deloria cleared her throat. "I wish I could take it all back."

  "We saved her life," Jepati said with more force, not quite interrupting his mate.

  Deloria gained some fire and spun on him. "We did. But we could have worked it a little better so that she wasn't literally thrown into the wild. What if she’d died before her powers kicked in? It was an ill thought out plan."

  Their gazes clashed and I had this weird, brief hope that maybe some of my own fire was genetic and not just environmentally created. I wanted to think I had some personality traits that were from them.

  "Yes, you're right," Jepati said, visibly calming. His mate placed her hand on his chest, and it was obvious that their bond was strong.

  "It was a terrible situation, and the blame lies in so many places,” she said. “But we need to start looking forward to the future. I don't want us to stop dealing with the past, but leaving the hurt behind is an important part of moving forward.”

  It was easy for her to say;. Most of the hurt was mine; they were trapped as statues for a few decades…

  "Were you aware when you were trapped?"

  Maybe they had suffered more than I thought. I’d heard some accounts from others, but I wanted to know what it was like for them.

  Deloria nodded. "Yes. For a long time, but eventually my mind slowed and shut down. A small sliver of me remained alive, but the rest was in a … a coma-like state."

  "Same for me," Jepati said.

  "I'm glad," I said after a pause. "I can’t think of much worse than being trapped like that for years and still being aware." I wasn't claustrophobic, but the thought had me feeling queasy.

  As I’d predicted, the ruby inhabitants finally noticed us, hurrying over to bow in front of my parents, shake their hands, and turn curious eyes on me. "It's very nice to meet you," I told two fey who had eyes the color of the sun.

  If these were my people, I needed to ... be warmer. That was the entire point of me being here.

  Embracing this life.

  "We should head back home," Deloria said when the well-wishers moved on. "More will come soon, and they all want to spend time with our long-lost princess."

  Home. If that word wasn’t a punch in the gut… I’d never really had a home, and she so casually spoke of it. Maybe one day I would have the same privilege.

  My father took my arm and I flinched at the sudden movement. He relaxed his grip so he was barely touching me. “It will be much faster if you let me help.”

  I nodded, relaxing. Jepati moved us both along a beam of ruby light, and we were deposited into the front yard of their gorgeous house. "We had a wing redone for you," Deloria said as she appeared next to us. “We hope you’ll like—"

  "Can you show me how to travel like that?" I blurted out, my mind still on that way of moving about the land. At her startled expression, I winced. "Sorry, I have a habit of jumping in whenever I think of a question. It's rude, I know."

  She waved me off. "No, sweetheart. Please always jump in. I've waited over twenty years to hear your voice. There's nothing you could do or say that would offend me."

  Heat burned my eyeballs and ... she was going to make me cry. Fuck. I was not a crier. Nope, that shit was beaten out of me years ago.

  My parents noticed me struggling for composure, and I could have hugged them when they didn't make a big deal about it. "The moment your power was unlocked, you connected to the power of our land," Jepati said. "But that’s only the beginning. There’s a special trial that all royals undertake, which allows the bond to grow deeper. You’ll connect to the heart of our land, and once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to travel and
use power the same way we do."

  “When will I be ready for this trial?”

  I was slightly competitive and anything that required me to “win” always caught my attention.

  Deloria chuckled. “Give yourself a few weeks to adjust and start using your power regularly. It feels very locked away at the moment. You must free it first; get comfortable using it.”

  Ugh. Well, I guess that was fair. Up until this point, I’d used my energy when forced, but it never flowed about me freely like my parent’s seemed to do.

  Life. Goals.

  "So this wing," I said, "how about a tour of it and the rest of your house.”

  "Your home," Deloria choked out.

  Fuck, her soft heart must get broken a lot. She just put herself out there with no protective armor. My eyes flicked to my father who was watching her closely, and I wondered if he was her armor...

  Time would tell.

  I got the full tour. Their home was large but not as crazy as I would expect from royalty. It was warm and open and very minimalistic—fey were not like humans cluttering up their lives with objects to make them happy. My favorite part were natural springs out the back that were a perfect balmy temperature all year, even during the cold season.

  "We're actually at the beginning of the cold season now," Jepati said, waving his hands toward the sky. “It’s always pinker during this cycle.”

  "You can swim even when it snows,” Deloria told me.

  "It snows here?"

  They both nodded. "Hopefully you stay long enough to see it,” Deloria said with a smile. “It’s not like Earth, it’s not cold in the same way, but it’s very beautiful.”

  Before I could assure her that I’d be here for much longer this time, she moved a few steps away from where we stood in the main foyer area under huge ruby lanterns.

  She returned with a mirror in her hands. “You’re already changing by being here,” she told me, handing the mirror across.

  Lifting it, my reflection was right there, and … I legitimately looked nothing like myself. My eyes were pinker than ever, threads of red cutting through the lighter color—it was the same shade as the mark glittering on my ring finger. Power swelled inside of me, responding to the changes, and instead of fighting against it as was my norm, I allowed it to flow up in a gentle arc.

  “What in the…?”

  A row of jeweled marks matching those on my hand spread across my forehead in swirls of red and silver, and they looked like a crown. The silvers held pigments that glittered when I moved, and the contrast against my dark skin was actually really beautiful.

  “What does this mean?” I said, touching it.

  “It means the land recognizes its princess,” my father replied.

  I felt a swell of more power then, from both of my parents, and just like me, they wore marks across their skin. “Not all the jeweled royalty connect in the same way,” Deloria told me. “We wear our jewels quite closely, and you’ll find real ruby in all your marks and coloring.”

  "My hair is made of ruby?" I said blinking at the long strands that were almost completely red now.

  My parents nodded, gleams of excitement touching their unlined faces.

  "Oh yes," Deloria said. "You’re covered in our stone. The sign of one that will inherit the power of the gems. A true future leader for our people."

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to run far and fast because I was no princess. They must have seen the panic on my face, because the mirror was whipped away, that foreign reflection gone from sight.

  "Breathe," Jepati said gruffly. "Work through the anxiety and find your way to the other side."

  A familiar face always helped during the rare times a panic attack hit me, but unfortunately these two were not familiar enough.

  Jacob.

  I wished he was here with me; he'd know what to do.

  "Are Cam and Gretley in their lands?" I asked, my breathing embarrassingly loud. "I need them."

  My mother nodded. "Yes, they're both learning how to take their place as the next leaders of their jewels. I’ll contact them through the jeweled system."

  She turned to do whatever she had to do, and I closed my eyes, searching for a place of solitude. I couldn't be here with this level of pressure on me. I wasn't in any position to control jewels and take responsibility for actual living, breathing fey. I couldn’t even keep a fish alive for fuck’s sake.

  I could barely take care of myself.

  "You're stronger than you think," Jepati said, somehow reading my mind.

  He didn’t know me well enough to make judgement calls like that. Not yet.

  "You have no idea what I've done in my life," I told him harshly. "The shit I’ve lived through. The many, many, ways I fell. I have fallen so fucking far that at times I couldn't even see the sky, I was that deep in shit. Now you want to tell me I'm a princess who will control jewels and lead our people to a bright future?" I sucked in a deep breath. "I'll tell you what will really happen ... you'll end up in the shit with me. It's best you never rely on me to lead anybody."

  His face was creased in disappointment. There was concern there too, but I could tell I was failing him, and that was just great. One more flaw to add to my list of fuck-ups.

  "There’s no rush,” he said stiffly. “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

  By now Deloria was back from her jeweled call and overheard the last of our conversation.

  “Let’s start with building our family relationship," she said. "Really get to know each other. The rest will work itself out."

  "My friends?" I asked, swallowing hard. I was being rude, but part of me thought it was rude of them to expect I would just jump right into the life they expected of me. Maybe I’d been born a princess, but then life fucked me for many years, and now, I was no longer fit to rule.

  They’d figure it out soon enough.

  Reaching out to take my hand, Deloria squeezed it tightly. "Both girls are on their way," she said in her low, lilting voice. "They'll meet you in the center of the lands, since the jewels don't tend to allow too much crossover between our people…"

  "Thank you," I said in a rush. "And … sorry."

  A glimpse of their fallen faces was enough to have me running from the room. My damage was seeping into them, like an insidious weed that sprinkled its seed everywhere I turned. I should never have come back here, but I would see it through now. I couldn’t disappoint my parents by bailing so quickly, and it was best they understood the truth of me before they planned a coronation, or whatever it was called here.

  If they cared about their people at all, they’d better start thinking up a plan B.

  I had no trouble remembering my way back to the main entrance, and then on to the common area between the four worlds was a fairly straight path. My parents’ place wasn’t too far from the edge of ruby city.

  As I ran, getting closer and closer, the joy at seeing my friends grew inside of me. It had been too long, and I still considered my time with them in the sanctuary as some of the best of my life. Like I had a family.

  We all screamed like dumbass chicks when we saw each other.

  "I missed you," I yelled, running into their open arms.

  "We missed you so much," Cam cried, hugging me with all of her strength. She was a gorgeous, tiny fey, with a rocking accent that was music to my ears.

  "You look great," Gretley said when Cam finally let me go. "This land agrees with you."

  "Oh my God," I said, looking them over. "This land agrees with both of you too!”

  Cam used to be a brunette, but now her hair was a wild mass of sapphire curls, her eyes a deep rich blue. Gretley was the emerald princess, with sparkling green eyes. A stunning color on her tall, statuesque figure. Neither had crowns on their foreheads, and I wondered if it was because they weren’t using their power, or if their lands didn’t do that.

  “Is there a crown on my head?” I asked, running a hand over my face.

  Cam peered c
loser, eyes squinting. “Not unless it’s super tiny.

  Gretley snorted.

  Summoning my power, I was both excited and terrified at how quickly it surged forward this time. “How about now?”

  “Holyfuckingshit!” Cam exclaimed, always the more exuberant. “That’s super hot. How do I get one?”

  Gretley nodded. "She’s right. You were always otherworldly stunning, but add this ruby coloring, and … hot.” She held both hands up in front of her like she was praising the gods.

  I snorted out some laughter, my heart so light at being with them. “My parents think that the ruby lands are closer to their gems, wearing them all over our skin. This is some sign that I’m the next princess. I mean, whatever. We all know I can’t do that job, so it’s kind of ironic.”

  The power fell away when I released it, and I could feel the difference on my skin as the crown disappeared.

  My sisters watched me closely, and I wanted to squirm, but instead I acted like a grownup and waited patiently for whatever they were going to say.

  “You have to stop running yourself down,” Gretley said, in her calm reasonable tone. “You don’t see what the rest of us do. That you’re strong, smart, capable, and a hell of a lot more…”

  I was barely breathing, desperate to hear what she had to say. Even if at the same time I didn’t want to know.

  “You’re a survivor, Justice.”

  Cam nodded. “You are. More so than any of us. I have no doubt at all that if you decide to take on the role of ruby princess, you will outshine all of us and do such a fucking good job they’ll put a statue up in the town center.”

  I waited for their laughter … for the obvious joke to emerge.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  “We were scared too.” Cam sighed, her petite nose crinkling. “I about pissed myself ten times in the first week—every time my family put any sort of pressure on me. But it got easier. My power is comforting now rather than terrifying. You will get there too.”