by D. N. Hoxa
A look back and I saw his other friends running, too, and no more than ten fairies behind them. Even if they caught us, we could handle ten fairies, but we’d still have to run afterwards. Might as well run now.
When we approached Lynn and she realized we weren’t stopping, she turned around and began to run, too. Smart girl. We reached her in a minute, and she stuck by me until we made it to the abandoned neighborhood.
I’d been on the run before, but I knew exactly where I was going then. Now, I had no idea what to even expect.
I slowed down just a bit to let Julian and his friends get in front and guide the way. Lynn did the same. I wanted to grab her hand to make sure she was okay, but I knew that would just slow us both.
The fairy guards chased us and we ran after Julian deep into the neighborhood full of abandoned houses. I could feel it in my bones—we would make it, even if we had to run for another day.
Twenty two
We didn’t have to run for another day—just another hour. Even after we lost the soldiers, Julian insisted we keep running. He took us through the woods full of burnt trees and dead ground, but I didn’t stop to look around or even memorize the details I saw while running. All of it would just depress me. What mattered was that we got somewhere safe so I could talk to Lynn, have her explain to me how it was possible that she was even there.
Finally, we stopped running.
At first, all I saw was a mountain—the only mountain that looked alive in that place. It was full of large trees, and they were covered with leaves, some green, most red. It was like looking at a 3D painting of an imaginary place inside a fairy tale, pun intended.
Then, I began to notice the fairies.
They hid behind the large tree trucks, wearing large hoods that shielded half their eyes. Exactly like the ones Marva and the other friends of Julian had on. Some were dark green and some were black, and Marva’s was the only red one I could see.
“What is this?” I whispered to Julian.
“Morgana’s Tombs,” he said, completely losing me. “It’s the lowest mountain in the fairy realm. The only one we’ve been able to protect so far.”
“Why tombs?” It made no sense.
“Because of the tunnels underneath it. It’s a real maze down there.”
It was easy to see how excited Julian was, even though his face was dirty and full of dried blood. I didn’t even want to see mine.
“There are a lot of amazing things I’m going to show you one day.”
“Julian, I really need to get back.” Just as soon I spoke to Lynn, who was already walking up the mountain with Julian’s friends by her side. He wasn’t concerned about it, so neither was I.
“I know. I still think you should give me some time to prepare you—”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Pressing his lips together, Julian lowered his head. “Let us eat and heal, and we’ll be on our way.”
We followed the crowd up the mountain. I tried not to be too obvious while I searched the trees and tried to count just how many fairies there were.
“Why did they stop following us?” I asked. It had been strange that the fairy guards had stopped coming after us almost ten minutes before we made it to the mountain.
“They don’t come close to the Tombs. This is where we took our stand from the beginning, and we’ve managed to keep this area protected until now.”
“How? I thought Galladar could go anywhere he wanted in the fairy realm.” He’d sure popped up behind us when we’d least expected it.
“Anywhere except here. We’ve spelled the perimeter heavily.” And there he went, confusing me even more.
“Wait, spelled?” Hadn’t he always said that fairy magic didn’t work with spells?
“Yes, spells.” We were already halfway up the mountain. He was right, it was low. I could already see the top, and it looked like we were headed for it. “Remember the story I told you about the ECU exiling witches to the fairy realm, then using that as an excuse to get the people to revolt?” I nodded. “Well, some of those witches have chosen to stay here.”
I laughed. He really was a comedian. “Uh, that was a hundred years ago.”
“In your world,” Julian said. “Here, it was barely forty.”
“Get out of here,” I said, still laughing.
“No, really. Time works differently in the fairy realm. I thought you knew.”
I stopped walking. He was serious? “You thought I knew?” Why would I even know something like that?
“Because you knew about dragons, remember?”
Dragons. Holy spell, dragons!
I looked up at the sky, my heart racing. Come on, come on, come on, I chanted, ready as hell to see a dragon taking over the clouds, but there was none.
“You’re not going to see one any time soon. Galladar is keeping them as far away from us as possible while he’s away.”
“How the hell can he do that?”
“Because dragons are creatures of power. They serve power. They are power. Galladar is the most powerful fairy in the realm for the time being. He’s the only one they won’t go against,” Julian said reluctantly.
Oh, man, that sucked balls.
We arrived at the tip of the mountain, which was open, and a spiral stairway made of wood led down. It was really steep, too. Looking down at the narrow hole, it made me a little claustrophobic. I couldn’t even see where it went.
“Go,” Julian said with a nod.
“In there?” I mean, it was just so narrow. Like if you moved your arm just a bit, you’d hit the dirt of the side wall, and it would all collapse around you.
“Yes, in there. We’re not safe up here. Come on, grab the stairway.”
The word no was at the tip of my tongue, but I controlled myself. I was just wasting time here. Lynn had already gone down, and we really did need to eat and heal before going back home. So with a deep breath, I began to descend.
It was as bad as I imagined it. Pieces of dirt and dust fell on my shoulders with every stair I took. Focusing on the beating of my heart helped, and the silver lining was, the stairway didn’t go down forever like I thought. No, after about fifteen steps, I began to see the light. Three more, and I’d reached flat ground.
Wow. I was inside a mountain. Never thought I’d ever be able to say something like that.
Julian had been right. There were tunnels everywhere I turned! Seven of them right in front of me, all made out of dirt, looking more like holes in the ground than anything else. Terrifying.
Fairies with their hoods now down and their mantles wrapped around them waited for Julian to join us. One of them had a large torch in his hand, burning bright orange flames, much like the color of my magic. When Julian made it down, they immediately turned to one of the tunnels—I couldn’t even count which since they were all around me—and grabbing my hand in his, Julian followed. The warmth of his skin slipped into mine, and though you’d think it would be cold underground, it was actually okay.
It was hard not to notice how every step we took made small pieces of dirt fall off the ceiling. I held on tightly to Julian’s hand to keep myself from running. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of all those fairies.
Julian kept looking at me and smiling as if he knew secrets I didn’t, and he wasn’t the least concerned with the fact that we were under a mountain walking through tunnels that were called Tombs. I mean, whoever named them must have had a reason, don’t you think?
When the corridor finally ended, I could breathe a little easier. The ceiling was bit higher, though made of dirt. There were a lot of torches planted all over the ground. The room was round and wide, and a lot of people were in there. I say people because not everyone in there was a fairy, and I’m not only talking about Lynn. Holy hell, Julian wasn’t kidding. There were at least eight witches in there that I could count, three women and five men. All of them with grey hair and wrinkles on their faces, though I couldn’t be sure abo
ut their ages.
Fabric of all colors was laid on the ground, and fairies and witches sat on it. Baskets full of fruit were stacked on one side and wooden boxes on the other. Gerin lay on the ground, and two fairies were trying to heal him. Lynn sat with a fairy woman on one side, and a witch on the other.
I walked over to her, ignoring the stares of the rest. There were at least thirty people in there, and I’d already gotten used to that kind of attention back on Earth. At least that was nothing new.
The fairy and the witch were checking Lynn for injuries, but she seemed to have none—except that she still looked as terrified as the first time I saw her come through the white light. I kneeled in front of her, not even sure what the hell to say, when she jumped forward and wrapped her arms around my neck.
It was so unexpected that I almost fell on my butt. I hugged her to me, too, because she obviously needed it. I only say that because I don’t want to tell you how much I needed physical contact with someone from home. When Lynn pulled away, she searched my face as if she wanted to make sure that it was really me. I offered her a smile, but she couldn’t return it.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.” I did feel tired, and some body parts hurt more than others, but it was nothing I hadn’t gone through before.
“So you’re Winter Wayne,” the witch sitting next to Lynn said, a dumbfounded smile on her face as she analyzed me. “The witch and the fairy.”
Geez, I was already famous in the realm. “The one and only,” I mumbled. I stood up and pulled Lynn by her hands. We needed to talk.
“Julian, can we go somewhere?” I didn’t exactly like the idea of talking to Lynn with everybody watching me the way they did.
“Follow me,” he said with a nod, and giving another reassuring smile to Lynn, we did as he asked.
I kept my head down because I wasn’t eager to find out just what the fairies thought about me by the expression on their faces. If Marva was any indication, they all already hated my guts. I’d rather think about that after I was back home.
Julian took us through another corridor and into another room—hole?—except this one had a piece of yellow fabric in front of what was supposed to be a doorway, I guessed, and no other tunnels inside. The space was much smaller than the one we left, but this one had sponges covered in old looking pieces of fabric on the ground, too.
When we walked in, we weren’t the only ones to follow Julian. Two fairies were right behind us.
“Let them heal you first,” Julian said.
“No, I can do that myself. Let’s just talk.”
“Winter, please. Look at yourself,” he said, looking down at my body.
I did the same. “I’m f…” The word died on my tongue. I wasn’t fine. My jeans were completely torn and bloody and my shirt, too. That wasn’t what concerned me, though. It was the cuts on my skin that hadn’t even closed yet.
“What the hell?” Wounds like that should have been closed a long time ago. It was why I hadn’t even bothered to check them on the way to the mountain.
“We lace our weapons with messir, an oil made of leaves that is very hard on fairies,” Julian said. “And Galladar’s men do the same.”
“So the swords…”
“Yes, these are magical wounds. They’re not going to heal by themselves,” he said reluctantly. One of the fairies offered him a brown bowl, and without even looking, he began to drink from it.
“Just lie down,” Lynn said and pushed me towards the sponges.
Without a word, I did. It felt awkward to have the two fairies inspect my body for wounds, even though one of them was a woman. They avoided my eyes like the plague, almost as if they were embarrassed to look at me. Their hands were clean, at least, so when they touched all my cuts—I had a lot more than I originally thought—with the tips of their fingers, I didn’t even flinch.
Then, Julian offered me his bowl. “Drink this while they finish healing you,” he said.
“What is it?”
Julian grinned. “Dragon blood.”
Oh. Fairies used dragon blood to heal magical wounds. Right. As the fairies continued to work their magic on every wound on my body, big or small, I drank from the bowl. The liquid was clear, only a bit thicker than water. The smell wasn’t heavy so that’s why I didn’t hesitate. When I drank it, though, I almost slammed my head into the man in front of me, coughing like a lunatic. It was disgusting! It was like eating dirt, only worse.
“It isn’t tasty, but it’s going to heal all the damage the messir has done,” Julian said, trying but failing to stifle his laugh.
“You should have warned me,” I mumbled. That way, I would at least have closed my nose. I did so and swallowed the whole thing at once. If it was going to heal me, I wasn’t asking questions.
My mouth felt like a toilet afterwards, but Lynn was smiling, so I’d managed at least that.
Not a minute later, I began to feel…high.
The single torch inside the room we were in seemed to grow bigger. Julian looked a bit taller, too, if I wasn’t mistaken. And I’m pretty sure there was a smile on my face, though I couldn’t tell you why.
“Give it a minute. It’ll fade,” Julian said when he saw my face.
“What is this?” I was surprised I could even speak. My whole body felt so heavy, but in a good way.
“It’s the blood’s effect on fairies who drink it for the first time. It’ll fade quickly,” he promised, and sat beside me to hold my hand.
The fairies in front of me, touching my wounds with their fingers and barely even blinking while they worked their magic on me, looked really funny to me. I knew it was bad to laugh so I controlled myself, but only barely. By the time they stood up, seemingly done with me, the torch no longer seemed bigger. And the fairies looked pretty normal, too.
“Thank you,” I said, but they didn’t even look at me before leaving the room with their heads lowered. I looked down at my chest and stomach, at my legs, and found that the cuts had really closed. Thin red lines remained in their place and those would be gone soon, too. That was good enough for me. “Sit,” I said to Lynn and patted the sponge next to me. It was strange to be sitting on the ground like that, but it was better than standing. The ceiling seemed higher that way.
“Tell me everything.”
Lynn no longer looked scared, only slightly uncomfortable, but she did start to speak immediately.
“I came here to find you,” she whispered. “Things have kind of gone to hell back home.”
“How did you come here, Lynn?” Julian asked.
“A portal,” she said.
“There are no portals.” All of them were destroyed a long time ago.
“There are now,” Lynn said, shaking her head. “A fairy opened them, right after he sent everything to hell in the middle of Manhattan.”
A lump formed in my throat and my stomach sank. “Galladar?”
“Yeah,” she said, her hands slightly shaking before she put them under her thighs. “He destroyed buildings. Killed people. A lot of humans and a lot of paranormals, too.” The terrified look returned to her face. “You have to come back, Winter. He’s ruining everything, killing everyone in front of him.” Tears in Lynn’s eyes. I couldn’t even breathe.
“When was this?” Julian asked because I needed a second before I could speak again.
“Four days ago,” Lynn said.
“But I was here barely a day!” Two tops. Four days just didn’t make any sense.
“You were gone for almost two weeks,” Lynn said, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. It sounded so ridiculous, I almost laughed. Instead, I turned to Julian.
“How is this possible?”
Reluctantly, he shrugged. “A day here is approximately five days on Earth. It changes all the time, but that’s usually what it is.” He even kept a straight face, as if he didn’t realize how crazy that sounded to me. “What has the ECU done? Are they
fighting him?” he then asked Lynn.
But she shook her head. “They tried. Now, everybody is pretty much hiding and hoping he doesn’t find them.”
My heart fell all the way to my feet. My aunt Amelia’s face came to my mind, and a shiver broke down my back. “I don’t get it. There are a lot of paranormals on Earth. Always were. The first time around, they defeated the fairies, didn’t they? They could do the same thing now.”
“I haven’t seen him, but they say he can kill you by just looking at you.” Lynn lowered her voice as if she were afraid he could hear her.
“No, I mean, I don’t get why people haven’t joined forces yet. There are a lot of witches on Earth. If they get together, Galladar is no match for them. Lots of Blood, Bone and Green magic. On Earth, he’s vulnerable.”
“On the contrary,” Julian said. “Witch magic can’t kill Galladar. It can hurt him, but not kill him.”
“But you said my Bone magic was the only thing that could get to him.” Wasn’t that why I was even there?
“Your Bone magic can weaken him. It can give you an opening. Now, your Bone and fairy magic together, that should do the trick,” he said.
“Should?”
Julian flinched. “It will. It will work.” Somehow, I didn’t feel like his heart was in those words, and that made me second-guess everything even more.
“Hold on a second. You have fairy magic?” Lynn asked, a dumbfounded smile on her face.
Fuck. Lying sucked.
I looked at the ground. “Yeah…”
“I thought you said you didn’t. Uncle Eli also said that you had no magic.” Her voice broke. She sounded disappointed, and that killed me.
“I know what I said, and I’m sorry I lied to you. I’ll explain everything later, okay? For now, all you need to know is that I do have magic. And I’m going to use all I have to stop that guy.”
“Okay.”
When she said the word, I looked up at her again. Was she mad? Because she didn’t look like it. She looked like her normal self. As much as it sucked, that made me feel a bit better. Once this was over, I was going to have to sit down and talk to her about it. For now, I focused on the situation.
