Dark Faerie (Alfheim Academy

by S. T. Bende

  Could we implement something equally simple at the capital?

  Dare to dream, Aura.

  “Hey.” Viggo spoke from the other couch. I glanced over to find him flat on his back, one arm draped over the cushions. “We should probably check in with Elin and Finna. I’m about to pass out.”

  I rolled my head to the side. “You call them. Eight hours of flying made me too beat to move.”

  I closed my eyes, the familiar tapping sound confirming that Viggo was doing the connecting for us. A half-minute later, the room was filled with a light buzz. I opened my eyes to find the holographic image of Elin and Finna huddled close together.

  “There you are. We were worried—you said you’d check in after dinner!” Elin chastised.

  “It is after dinner,” I called.

  “Aura? I can’t see you.” Finna craned her neck.

  “That’s because the princess is too tired to rise from her couch,” Viggo retorted.

  “I told you not to call me that,” I grumbled. But his words had their desired effect. I pushed myself up and shuffled the short distance to sit beside him. “Hey.”

  “Yikes.” Elin leaned closer. “What happened to you?”

  “Flew eight hours, met Viggo’s uncle, discovered there’s another dark faerie, checked into a fancy cave hotel.” I shrugged. “The usual.”

  “Hold on.” Elin raised one hand. “What do you mean another dark fae—?”

  “Viggo has an uncle?” Finna interrupted. “Oh, gods. Is he anything like your uncle?”

  “Forget all of that.” Jande elbowed his way into the frame. “Tell me about the upscale cave hotel!”

  “Hey, Jande.” Viggo nodded. “Any word from Ondyr?”

  “He and Zara got to their destination at midday,” Jande said. “They’ve been running recon, but nothing’s turned up so far.”

  “What’s their strategy?” I asked.

  “They’ve made camp for the night, and they’ll search more in the morning—which we know because they checked in after dinner, as discussed.” Elin arched one brow.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “So, they haven’t found anything?” Viggo pressed his back against the couch. “No leads?”

  “No leads,” Finna confirmed. “They haven’t even made contact with anyone. Apparently, where they are, it’s completely barren.”

  Viggo glanced at me. “If they don’t have anything by morning, call them home. Our sources here say what we’re looking for is in the south—near this camp’s sister colony.”

  Elin’s spine straightened. “Are the senators being held by älva?”

  “I don’t think so.” I leaned into Viggo.

  “Then how do your sources know where they are?” Finna asked. “Wait, is Viggo’s uncle your source? Is he trustworthy? No offense, Viggo.”

  “None taken.” Viggo shrugged. “And I think so. Though since I hadn’t met him before today . . . that I remember anyway . . . who knows?”

  “He’s a good guy,” I said quickly. “I don’t get any bad vibes from him. His daughter, however . . .”

  “Is she the dark faerie?” Elin asked. “Is she like your uncle, Aura?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “She’s got issues, for sure. But she’s no Dragen.”

  “What exactly is a dark faerie?” Jande piped up.

  “She’s half älva, half dark elf. Like me,” I said quietly.

  “Not quite.” Viggo slung his arm around my shoulders. “She’s lacking your signature pluck.”

  I shot him the side-eye. “Pluck?”

  “Your undeterred optimism,” Viggo explained. “Even in the face of near-certain failure.”

  “Rude.”

  Viggo shrugged. “Not many girls would have agreed to break through a dark blocker, without any training.”

  “Hold on.” Elin raised both palms. “Aura, what is he talking about? What did you agree to do?”

  “Let’s rewind. It’s kind of a lot.” I quickly caught our academy friends up on what Viggo and I had learned that day—about the älva being held in camps, their tie to Viggo’s family, and the existence of a secondary faerie colony to the south . . . not too far from the alleged location of our missing officials.

  “So, you have to help this chick free her sister, and then she’ll help us save our senators?” Elin crossed her arms.

  “Pretty much.”

  Finna pursed her lips. “I don’t like it, Aura. It sounds dangerous.”

  “What about our lives isn’t dangerous?” I sighed. “If there’s a chance she’s right about where and how our senators are being concealed, we have to at least try. I can’t break through that kind of blocker on my own, and our full-blown Empati haven’t even been able to spot it. How are they supposed to locate the Opprør behind a barricade they can’t even see?”

  “Maja seems to be offering the only tangible solution,” Viggo confirmed. “But I’m with you, Finna. I don’t like Aura being on the line either. I’ll be with her the entire time, and if I think things are going too far I’ll extract her. You have my word.”

  “You’re sure you can do that alone?” Finna asked Viggo. “Do you want us to have Signy send in our warriors?”

  “I don’t think our hosts would approve of that,” I said. “They’re super private. They have all these protections set around their colony. An acid cloud almost ate us on the way in.”

  “Seriously?” Jande balked.

  “Yup,” I confirmed. “We’ll let you know if we need support. I honestly think the best thing we can do is prove to the älva that we’re on their side. There are a lot of them, and they’re pretty intense warriors from what I can see.”

  “And the dark faerie?” Elin’s eyes narrowed. “Viggo, you’ll make sure she doesn’t pull any fast ones?”

  “I’ve got Aura’s back,” Viggo confirmed. “Always.”

  “Okay,” Elin said grudgingly. “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m going to train with Maja—figure out how to break though the different kinds of dark blockers that might be in place.” I looked over at Viggo. “It’s probably going to take a few days, so we’ll check in morning and night with updates.”

  “I’ll run communications for us. And yes,” he said as Elin opened her mouth, “I promise I’ll follow your schedule.”

  “After breakfast and dinner,” Elin reminded him. “If you’re late, I’m sending an alarm to your comm.”

  “I’d expect nothing less.” Viggo didn’t crack a smile.

  “We’ll recall Ondyr and Zara in the morning,” Elin said. “Hopefully they learn something while they’re there. It’d be good to have a full picture of what we’re going against. Or who. Jeez. We still have no idea who’s behind this.”

  “Do the älva have any insights?” Finna asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but we’ll definitely ask,” I said. “I get the impression Maja sees more than she lets on.”

  “Stay on her good side,” Finna warned.

  I rested my head against Viggo’s shoulder and stifled a yawn. “I plan to.”

  Viggo gave my leg a light squeeze. “We’d better go. It’s been a long day.”

  “Check in after breakfast,” Elin ordered.

  Viggo brought two fingers to his forehead in a salute. “Tell Ondyr and Zara to get some rest. Sounds like our next move is going to be intense.”

  “Be safe,” Finna said. “Both of you.”

  “We will.” This time I couldn’t stop the yawn that overtook me. I covered my mouth as I said, “You too.”

  We signed off, Viggo pressing the button on his comm before turning his attention to me. “You about ready to turn in?”

  “I am,” I said. “But there was a lot to unpack today. Are you okay with all of this? Finding out you have a family, and they have an entire colony . . . plus your cousin’s half dark like me? That’s got to be weird.”

  “For the hundredth time, there is no weirdness in you being who you are.” Viggo shoo
k his head. “Your Svartalfheim side isn’t bad. It’s just a place, Aura. Who you are is up to you.”

  “I get that,” I said. And I did. “But all of this would be a lot to take in for anyone. How are you?”

  “Happy to find out I’m not the only Sorenssön,” Viggo said honestly. “Meeting my dad’s brother is like having a piece of him back again. Or, it could be. I don’t know much about Rafe, except that he runs this place and he’s kept everyone hidden all this time. Seems to be a decent guy so far.”

  “He does.” I nestled my head against Viggo’s chest. “And having access to an entire group of älva is a huge asset. If they can keep their colony off Narrik’s radar for this long, they must be really fierce.”

  Viggo and I sat in silence. My thoughts drifted from the acid cloud to the dead forest to the dust I suspected powered Rafe’s subterfuge.

  “Do you think we’re going to get that magic faerie powder stuff?” I asked. “Will we be able to illuminate rooms and do . . . whatever it does?”

  “Älva dust? I hope so.” Viggo tucked an errant strand behind my ear. “Think of everything we could get done with that. Forget resolutions—we could magic everything the way it’s supposed to be.”

  My spine stiffened. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “No idea. But if Narrik had camps, you can bet the dust—and älva in general—are more powerful than we were led to believe.”

  I bit on my bottom lip. “Why do I get the feeling there’s a lot about us that we never knew?”

  “Good thing we’re in a place to get some answers.” Viggo pushed himself to his feet and held out his palm. “Come on. I’m exhausted.”

  I placed my hand in his, and followed him across the living room. When we reached my door, he bent to plant a chaste kiss on my cheek.

  “That’s it?” I set my hand on my hip.

  “Goodnight, Glitre.” Viggo chuckled. “We’ve got another big day ahead of us.”

  I reluctantly closed my door, and changed into the silky pajama set our hosts had left on my bed. This place really was the height of luxury.

  But as I lay in my king-sized four-poster, I couldn’t block the worry from crowding my mind. In the morning I’d be training with a dark faerie, opening myself to powers I’d never even known I had. As much as this would help Maja’s cause, and if I was lucky, the rest of Alfheim, I couldn’t help but wonder . . .

  What exactly had I signed on to do?

  Chapter 13

  THE NEXT FORTY-EIGHT hours were a crash course in energy. By the end of my second full day with Maja, I could have written a textbook: Everything I Never Knew I Never Knew. Professor Asling’s auras and chakras class, once the bane of my academic existence, had been a walk in the park compared to Maja’s trial by dark-magic fire. I’d quickly learned that drawing on the other side of my abilities required an entirely different access point. While Signy and Professor Asling had trained me to draw light energy from the center of the realm and channel it through the seven centers along my spine, Maja taught me to pull dark energy from an external source. I wasn’t clear whether it originated from Svartalfheim, where my dad had been born, or from Helheim itself. But when I’d opened myself up, it came at me like a horde of angry bees, jabbing intently at the edge of my aura until I parted my blocker and let it in.

  Before doing so, I’d taken extra care to fortify my protections—anchor myself to the realm, fill my centers with light, and mentally gird my bubble in case immediate, forcible bee ejection was necessary. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that dark energy was no joke. The first time I’d let it in, I’d been filled with such desolate despair, it took an hour for Viggo to talk me off the ground. The second time, I’d been so overcome with rage that I very nearly ripped Maja’s arm off. And the third, I’d encountered a trio of terrifying entities within the confines of my mind—a dark elf, a demon, and a bizarro version of my grandmother, each goading me to use my newly accessed power to destroy the colony, and everyone within it.

  After that, I learned to limit the amount of darkness I let in. No way was I going to be responsible for the fall of a quarter of Alfheim’s älva population . . . no matter how much Maja made me want to punch her.

  As promised, my surly counterpart was doing her best to teach me. She’d shown me how to access the bees, which centers to run them through for maximum effect, and had created some simple blockers for me to dismantle. I’d broken through both the dark crystal and the acid fog blockers, but the clearing columns left me baffled. Maja had designed her extraction schematic to overpower them—apparently under the guidance of more than one able-bodied dual energy worker. But while Maja demonstrated an admirable level of competence, the columns remained well above my pay grade.

  “I can’t do it,” I panted as I shot my hundredth hand beam into a seeming abyss. Viggo was somewhere in the meadow, concealed by four columns that simultaneously held him captive and cloaked his location. “Viggo, just come out already. I’m never going to release you.”

  “Blocker down,” Maja called.

  My boyfriend emerged from thin air. He climbed two unseen stairs to step into the grassy meadow. “You were close,” he offered. “The columns were starting to crack at the edges.”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t.” I dropped onto the grass and lowered my head to me knees. “We should just call it a day, Maja. This one’s too hard for me.”

  “Only because you think it is. Get up,” Maja ordered. Her black cloak fluttered around her legs as she held out a hand. “Try again.”

  “I’ve tried fifteen times,” I groaned. “I can feel it’s there, but I can’t break through the shield hiding Viggo.”

  “You need to shift your mindset.” Maja wrapped her hand around mine and pulled me to my feet. “You’re trying so hard to keep the darkness from overtaking you that you’re not letting enough of it in.”

  “Yeah, well, you didn’t see Bizarro Constance,” I muttered. “She’s even scarier than the real one.”

  “Then use her.” Maja released me, and flexed her hands, waving them through the air in front of my body. “Use all of the things that frighten you. Intolerance, destruction, Narrik, spiders . . . huh. What are clowns?”

  “Ugh. These creepy things Midgardians bring out for birthday parties. Hey.” I placed my hands on my hips. “How’d you know I was scared of clowns? Did you scan me?”

  “Somebody has to do something, or we’re never getting any sleep.” Maja tilted her head at the indigo sky. We’d been working for so long that dusk now blanketed the meadow.

  “Fine. What do you suggest?” I brushed the grass from my palms and squared off against the invisible columns. They were out there somewhere, nestled among the sleeping sheep.

  Lucky sheep.

  “You can feel the blocker, right?” Maja asked.

  I raised my hands and waited until tiny needles pinged against my palms. “Yup. But I can’t break through it.”

  “Enough with the can’ts. Thoughts hold power, and you’re ceding yours to incompetence.”

  “Hey.” I crossed my arms.

  “Am I wrong?” Maja challenged.

  I bit back my retort. “Once I feel the blocker, what do I do?”

  “Call in both of your energies—the light and the dark. Draw the light in through your feet, and the dark through your palms.”

  “I’ve been doing that. It doesn’t do what you—"

  “I wasn’t done,” Maja interrupted. “Once you’ve let in equal parts of both, allow them to mix. If you’ve blended correctly they’ll form a double helix, the light and the dark intermingling until they bond together to form a third energy—a neutral energy.”

  I closed my eyes and did as Maja instructed. The angry bees jabbed at my space, rushing in and smothering the light until it was barely discernable. Bizarro Constance appeared in front of me, her bony fingers reaching out as if she intended to choke me.

  “It’s too much dark,” I gritted. “Let me just—” />
  “It’s not enough dark.” Maja countered. “Let in more.”

  “No! She’ll kill me!”

  “Let. In. More.” Maja placed her hands on my shoulders. “I’ll guide it into place.”

  “Aura?” Viggo’s voice carried an edge. “You okay?”

  “I won’t let it hurt her,” Maja promised. “But she has to get over this edge. Let it in.”

  With a deep breath, I did as Maja instructed. A second surge of black bees flew at the light, entwining it in a cloud of darkness. My throat clenched, and nausea roiled in my gut. But Maja’s hands pressed against my shoulders, and a calming stream filled my body. I breathed through my discomfort, and the black swarm morphed into a dizzying, grey spiral. The light expanded, gradually overtaking the dark until a shimmering, silvery helix spun inside of me.

  What the actual Helheim?

  “That’s the balance you need to draw,” Maja said. “Now, Viggo, step inside the columns. Once you’re in place, Aura will break them down.”

  With my eyes closed, I couldn’t see what was happening in the meadow. But soft footsteps let me know that Viggo was on the move. And when I raised my palms to the place Maja had set the columns, I sensed his comforting presence somewhere on the other side. “Now?” I asked.

  “Now,” Maja confirmed. She released her hold on me, and I drew a slow breath.

  Here goes nothing.

  I focused on the double helix in my chest, pulling lightly on its strands and channeling it through my arms. Sparks burst from my hands like a garden hose on full blast. My mind saw the energy split into four streams, attacking each of the columns and hammering at them until cracks began to form. My arms trembled as the columns split apart and tumbled to the earth. When I opened my eyes, Viggo stood slack jawed atop a shimmering platform on the grass. The remains of the columns glittered in dust-like particles all around him.

  “Whoa,” Viggo whispered.