by J. Kearston
She catches the ‘I told you so’ face that Dorian and I are both wearing, rolling her eyes. I don’t bother gloating; there’s no need. She was so upset that the changelings put her needs before his, refusing to believe us when we tried to tell her that Atlas would raise hell if they hadn’t and left her to bleed out in favor of healing him first.
“So did you get him to agree?” Dorian asks, hiding his smirk as Atlas’ lips press together into a solid line.
“You planned it?” he demands, looking livid.
We didn’t, but he doesn’t need to know that. Not when it suits all of our best interests to get him as worked up as possible. Dorian just must have been eavesdropping before they made their presence known.
I simply shrug. “Like it wouldn’t be obvious that the person capable of teleporting us would be responsible for getting us to the prison.”
He glares before his eyes widen. “You’re not even trying to use your abilities, you fucking cheater.”
Cambria picks up Loki and sets him on top of the corpse pile to start working his way through the bodies before Raziel comes back. She and Dorian may have gotten to name two of the changelings, but I insisted on this one. There was just such an...intensity to that one, unlike the others, that I clicked with. Far less carefree and ridiculous and more observant, wary. So I named him after the archangel who guards the secrets of the universe, though admittedly, he’s more of a fallen angel of mystery.
Running my tongue over the inside of my teeth to curb my retort, I close my eyes. With having an official deal binding us, it’s not worth fighting over, lest I end up writhing on the ground in agony before long.
Rather than exhale to center myself, to dig deep and root through the convoluted emotions until I can riddle out how they work, I just focus on everything that’s happened thus far. I allow Victor’s cruel voice to echo through my skull, staking a claim on my brother and condemning me for his fate. I recall the screams of everybody that I love, knowing it’ll be a soundtrack to haunt me for years to come. My muscles twitch, remembering the feeling of shattering Achlys’ defenses. I condense all of it, imagining a flaming arrow, and aim it right at where I know Atlas is still standing silently. Everything I have, everything I am, I push into it, and I don’t even have to open my eyes to know that for once in my life, I’m enough.
Enough to piss someone off, but beggars can’t be choosers.
When I finally risk a look, Atlas is standing in the center of a fairy ring large enough to transport everyone back at my office. His neck is mottled red with his suppressed rage, and though I’m pleased with myself for holding up my end of the bargain, I hate being the cause of someone that I care about being miserable enough to create a torture ring. Because those dark red flowers? No doubt it’s what he meant about it being wrong, needing to soak up his blood as tribute.
“Again.”
He glares at me, but doesn’t object, shutting his eyes and trying to focus. He creates two more rings before he collapses, sweaty and pale. Now that Cambria has a better understanding of what she’s capable of, she places her palms on either side of his face and starts humming softly. She coaxes the color back into his cheeks, not even needing to sing this time.
I glance beside me to Dorian, attempting to gauge his reaction to it all. Cambria, Atlas, and I are all practicing our abilities while he still hasn’t discovered his yet. I have no doubt that he has one; if anyone in this universe deserves something magical to happen to them, it’s Dorian. But it’s got to be hard being caught up in the middle of everything he only ever dared to dream of, only to find himself still on the outside looking in.
Despite the magic flowing through his veins now, he and Atlas are still human. If Cambria practices her abilities more, she has the capabilities to sever that connection and render all of us completely human again; even me. All of the creatures on Faerie if she so deemed and had enough time.
I stand up so quickly that the log I’m sitting on lurches and Dorian nearly tumbles onto his ass. “What the hell, Luce?”
“Atlas.” His eyes blink open as I startle him, but I rush on before I lose my train of thought. “Tap it into Faerie instead of yourself. Cambria can pull energy from the earth and channel it, so you should be able to as well.”
Cambria’s eyes widen as she looks over at the three changelings tackling each other and rolling around the small clearing, just horsing around and leaving the four of us to our own, boring devices. “My abilities are tied to the changelings’,” she murmurs, sounding breathless.
Dorian picks up on it, looking excited and rushing towards Azazel like he intends to make him do tricks for treats. “They couldn’t kill the changelings because Faerie reacted.” He picks up Azazel, currently a rabbit, getting to it before Raziel could. “Because you little psychos created the original fairy rings, didn’t you?”
Atlas nods slowly, jumping on board. “So that would mean Faerie needs that connection to earth or it withers like Achlys said.”
“The rings draw their energy from the land rather than the creatures that created them.” Grinning, I shake my head at the genius of it all. “Because Faerie uses the connection to suck energy from Earth. This place is only magical because it siphoned all of the energy of another world to make it happen.
Chapter 11
Dorian
“This feels like a bad joke. A panther, raccoon, and a murder rabbit walk into a wasteland...”
The three changelings are growing bolder, exploring farther and farther away from us before returning. I’m not sure if they’re testing the waters of their newfound freedom, but I wouldn’t doubt it. If I were in their shoes, I’d be nervous of Cambria locking me back up, now that they’ve realized who she is. But ultimately, everything’s just assumptions and guessing games, reading into their behavior and trying to interpret it.
If this is anything like Lucien used to feel, I owe him an apology. That disconnect he always struggled with, it sounds an awful lot like this; overanalyzing and stabs in the dark.
“Woe be anyone exploring the valley of death right about now,” Cambria agrees, eyeing their fleeting forms through the sparse trees.
No matter Lucien’s threats to Achlys, none of us wanted to risk staying in one spot for too long. With as much energy as Atlas was expending trying to create the rings and Cambria replenishing him, it was betting an awful lot on Lucien and the changelings to protect us if we were ambushed. She attempted rallying some light court fae into her forces once before, so who’s to say she wouldn’t venture to other kingdoms or hidden villages to replace the people she lost in her culty little city?
So now we’re a few miles away from the point we originally left the wasteland on our way to Achlys’ hidden kingdom, just inside of the crumbling tree line with a seemingly endless expanse of solidified ash stretching out before us. Pitted mountains, blocking the view of what lies beyond the desolate terrain, and three small dots kicking up a plume of dust as they explore.
“Not going to lie, I was half convinced the ground would collapse in on us like quicksand on the top of one of those hills.” Gently prodding the tree trunk beside me, a chunk breaks free and falls to the ground with a cloud of dust that makes me cough.
“Why did you guys go over instead of through the center pass?” Atlas asks, looking a little better.
He’s spent days trying to create a ring that might get us to the prison, or hell, back to Earth if nothing else. But no matter how much he tried to connect it to the earth instead of himself, it wasn’t working. I’ve bitten back my theory, not wanting to put it in his head and make him give up, but I’ve seen the same concern mirrored in Luce’s eyes.
Maybe he can’t. Having any ability is a blessing, but it’s entirely possible that that’s the price he has to pay to wield it. Luce might be able to manipulate other people’s emotions like Cambria can, but still, it isn’t the same either. He just has to focus, but it isn’t a musically inclined ability like hers is. So potentially, that me
ans that Atlas’ abilities won’t work like hers either. Hell, we’ve even had Cambria take a crack at it, but it doesn’t look like creating fairy rings is part of her impressive arsenal.
Cambria starts ticking things off on her fingers. “High ground, so less likely to be caught off guard. Didn’t want to be bottlenecked and trapped without knowing what was in there. And three, those caves-“ she shudders “-no clue what might be living in them and we’d have been surrounded with no way out but forward.”
Lucien returns with a singular, bruised, blue apple and a grimace. “Rest were already picked over, it’s all I could find. There’s just too little of anything out here.” We all eye it hungrily, but none of us say a word as he passes it to Atlas.
The man looks positively furious about it when he does, refusing to take it. “There is absolutely no point trying to keep me topped off at this point and you damn well know it. I can’t make the stupid ring do what we need, and even if I could, what good would it be for if the three of you starved to death before I pulled it off?”
Cambria grabs it, rolling it over in her hands. “Anyone else feel like it might be poisoned? A single, magical apple the only thing left to eat when we’re all hungry and growing desperate?”
Now that she points it out, I can’t really argue the point. It’s too poetically convenient. We already have the evil queens, being hunted through the woods, and a lost chosen one. Cursed fruit would just be the icing on the cake.
“Here-“ she thrusts her hand out towards Atlas “-check and see if it’s poisoned for me.”
He snorts, grabbing it and rolling his eyes. “Geeze, princess, just make me do all the dirty work for you, why don’t ya?”
She fights her smile as her eyes twinkle with mirth. “Don’t worry, if you pass out, I’ll be the first in line to kiss you.”
Raziel dives for Atlas’ head, a small raven landing in his hair and fluttering its wings. After this long studying the three of them, it’s easy to note who’s who no matter what form they’re currently wearing. Each of their personalities shines through, and Raziel? Absolutely as overprotective as Lucien. He drops a worm onto Atlas’ head, convinced he can’t keep himself alive without the changeling’s help.
Atlas just sighs, used to it by now and accepting it as a mild annoyance. He narrows his eyes as he brushes the worm out of his hair, but there’s less hostility in them than before. “I see what you’re doing. I thought you promised never to manipulate us?"
“I promised never to use my abilities to manipulate you,” she corrects, reaching up to pluck the bird from his head. “Not my fault you think I’m charming.”
His eyes soften, marking his defeat as she plays him so flawlessly. He takes a small bite before offering it back to her. “There. Now split it between the rest of you already.”
Realizing he isn’t going to bend beyond that much, she takes it back, slowly bringing it to her lips. “I imagine it would take longer for the poison to hit your system, but fine. You want to make our story into one of star-crossed lovers, I’ll humor you. Who else better to follow into the grave than a stubborn human?”
“I have to be stubborn to handle your nonsense,” he counters, but he’s fighting a grin now, the tension diffused so easily.
Honestly, I think that might be the greatest gift that Cambria possesses. She’s able to make even the most hopeless, shitty situation not seem so bad, just by being there to help bear the burden.
We pass it around between all of us, but it’s gone far too soon, and just leaves my stomach aching even worse from being teased with a slight amount of food. Raziel glares at his spurned gift wriggling on the floor and flies off to pout.
We start walking after the changelings, careful of our footing as the ground sinks slightly beneath our steps like memory foam. There’s nothing left for us in the shadow court but heartache and rage, so the wasteland is a balm to our increasingly frayed patience.
It’d be so easy to break an ankle here, between the ground sucking our feet in and the rocky terrain making each step up uneven. Azazel returns a little while later, his tiny nails leaving scratches as he tries to climb up my arm like he’s still a snake, not realizing the difference right off the bat. After he’s on my shoulder, he seems to curl in on himself like it finally hit him, and makes to amble back down like he’ll seal the wounds, but I reach up to keep him in place.
“All good, buddy. Just stop wiggling so much, okay?” I scratch behind his ears. He repays me with a twitching foot that thumps into my shoulder and nibbling on my hair like its straw.
“Maybe there’s a different solution,” Lucien muses aloud.
Hopping up onto the next ledge, he extends a hand to help Cambria up as we begin the arduous ascent up one of the mountains. We’re heading away from the light court into new terrain, ready to just get the hell away from both of those kingdoms. Staying in the wasteland as much as we can, we’re less likely to run into any fae, no matter where they hail from. Even if they didn’t recognize us on sight, we look rough enough that it’d raise suspicions. We’ll only be able to go so long without venturing into one of them to search for food, but I’m hoping we can hold out until we’re far enough away from Elorie’s kingdom that they won’t have even heard about the bounty on our heads.
“Such as?”
My hand slips as the chunk of rock beneath my fingers disintegrates. Atlas snatches my collar before I can so much as blink and I grip his arm like the lifeline it is. With a grunt, he hauls me up enough that I can get a new handhold, my heart thudding heavily in my chest.
Breathless, I hurry away from the edge and closer to the rest of them. “Thanks.”
He smacks my shoulder without a word before turning to start working his way up the next section. Lucien hovers, and I’m not stupid enough not to see through the silent plan the two of them agreed upon in that brief moment they exchanged a loaded glance. Atlas will pave the way and test where’s safe or not, Cambria and I will follow his lead, and Lucien will go last in case one of us falls so he can save us from breaking our necks.
I should be annoyed that they deem me such a weak link, but they’re treating Cambria with the same caution despite being the most immortal one of us all. It’s just how they show they care, and I’m not about to throw a bitch fit and snap my neck out of spite.
It just sucks that I haven’t figured out what ability I’m able to manifest. I’m not about to entertain the thought that I drew the short straw and can’t access any magic, because it’s just highly improbable. Lineage may have played a factor where Lucien was concerned, but not Atlas; he and I are the same in this.
It’s more likely that I just haven’t found my trigger to jumpstart it. Lucien has to get pissed off, only really discovered what he was when someone tried to slice Cambria’s arm off and he hulked out. And Atlas had to be desperate enough to bleed himself dry before he conjured the ring to save us.
As much as I want a cool power, I’m not sure I’m ready for someone else trying to kill us so that I can discover it. I’m hungry, thirsty, and so mentally tired. A good night’s sleep before I’m forced to rescue someone is needed, or I very well might fuck it up and fail anyway, powers be damned.
“So-“ Cambria scales the terrain with more ease than any of us, accustomed to hiking the mountain back home “-what new solution were you thinking, Luce?”
She bites back a startled shout as she flinches, a small scorpion emerging from one of the crevices and skittering onto her hand. There’s a blue shine to its black body, fading into gold at its claws and the end of its tail. Cambria completely stills, not wanting to make it strike out in fear. Her jaw clenches as she wrestles with the instinct to shake it off and run screaming, taking shallow breaths through her nose.
I tighten my grip enough to hold on with one hand, slowly reaching over. Swallowing, I strike, gripping just beneath the stinger on its tail and lifting it up before it snaps at her. Two options, and I don’t like either, but I settle for the smarter on
e.
Tilting my head to the side and shutting my eyes, I bring it far too close to my ear for comfort and Azazel lurches forward, devouring it. The warm, fluffy body on my shoulder changes to skittering feet that makes a shudder of disgust snake down my spine.
I could have thrown it as far away from us as possible, but with as little food as can be found out here, we need to capitalize on whatever we can. We might not be able to eat it, but the changelings don’t care. And as much as we have their temporary allegiance now, as proven by how we found them, starvation could have them turning on us, any former loyalties aside. Hunger drives people to do desperate things.
“You okay?”
She nods rapidly, quickly scaling the cliff. We take a break on the next ledge, and I have to force myself not to swipe a hand over my shoulder to brush Azazel off as he moves, all of my nerve endings screaming and crawling. Trying not to hurt his feelings, I hold out my palm for him to crawl onto and gently set him on the ground, wiping my palms on my pants and joining the others, keeping my eyes out for anything else to feed him as soon as possible.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lucien restarts now that things have settled down. He steals Cambria’s hand to kiss the back, casually attempting to check for injury, but being incredibly transparent. “Cambria mentioned before that she’s instinctively drawn to the rings. Maybe it isn’t because fae are naturally drawn to them; just her, because of the connection to the way the changelings manipulate the energy of Faerie.”
“Makes sense,” she agrees, leaning against him and resting before we have to tackle the next section.
We’re nearly to the top, and it should be smoother sailing then, hopefully, so long as we don’t run into anything else. This high up, we’d have to pray for death if we fell, because none of us would want the hell of trying to heal from that sort of damage.
“So you want to find another ring?”
