Once clear of the rocks, another stretch of shore spreads before us. But the kelpie veers away from it and into the water instead. With a splash, he goes under, but the water only reaches my chin. If I thought the kelpie was fast on land, he is a streak of lightning in the open sea. In mere minutes the shore and the palace are nowhere to be seen.
The water is colder the farther we get from the shore, making my teeth chatter. Anxiety fights to overwhelm me, and I wonder if I left too much room in my bargain with the kelpie. Surely, taking us this far out to sea can’t be the fastest way to reach Aspen. All I can do is breathe, persist. Trust the fae creature is taking me where I need to go and try not to die in the process.
* * *
The sky is dark by the time I next see land. It’s nothing but a black shape on the horizon, growing larger as the kelpie speeds toward it. Cool night air greets me as we emerge from the sea and into the dark forest beyond the shore. I lost my cloak sometime during the swim, leaving my sodden blouse clinging to my skin, uncomfortably cold and heavy. My breaths grow shallow, coming out in ragged gasps. Hang on, Evie, I tell myself. You just have to find Aspen.
My head begins to spin, blood leaving my face as my eyes grow heavy. I bite the inside of my cheek to maintain consciousness. Not now. Not now. Just keep going.
Painful minutes drag on. Based on our surroundings, we still appear to be in Faerwyvae, although I swear numerous seasons have passed us by. A sprinkle of snow, bathing the night in blinding white. Autumn leaves and a reddish glow. A dense heat I’ve never felt before. To the left, a blanket of fog covers everything, but I think I can make out a few towering stones of the faewall here and there. Finally, the warm air cools. Flowers grow in clusters, their petals taking to the wind in the kelpie’s wake.
“Your king,” comes the ethereal voice.
This snaps me to attention. I lean forward, seeking any sign of Aspen. There, coming toward us in the distance is an enormous silhouette. A stag. Aspen. Like Cobalt, Aspen’s appearance has shifted drastically. However, there’s nothing human about the king as his stag hooves tear the earth beneath him. It’s a chilling sight.
The distance is closing between him and the kelpie too fast, but my limbs won’t move. The kelpie’s mane has grown so tight over my hand, I’ve lost all feeling in the arm. The other hand feels dull and heavy from the cold.
We’re close enough now, I can see Aspen’s breath puffing in clouds from his stag nostrils.
“I brought you to your king,” the kelpie says. I know what will happen next. He’ll veer away, back toward the ocean or some nearby lake.
With a grunt, I lift my arm, fingers still wrapped around the branch of coral I stole from the cave. I swing it into the kelpie’s mane, severing the black strands until my hand is released. No longer tethered to the creature, the kelpie’s speed knocks me backward. I tumble to the ground, rolling. The kelpie speeds off into the night. I turn the opposite direction, seeking the stag. He’s growing dangerously closer.
I stumble to my feet, every muscle screaming in protest. “Aspen!”
He continues forward, showing no sign of slowing.
I hold out my hand, palm streaked shades of purple and red where the kelpie’s mane strangled my flesh. “Aspen, stop!”
He closes the distance, eyes wild with fury.
“It’s me. Evie.”
The stag snorts, mouth lathering. He’ll be upon me in a matter of seconds, and I’m too weak to move. Tears pour down my cheeks. I’m too late. He doesn’t know me. He’s become the monster I always thought him to be.
“Aspen, I give you my true name!”
His hooves dig into the earth, and dirt sprays over me as he skids to a halt.
My shoulders are racked with tremors. The stag has stopped mere feet away, teeth bared, muscles quivering. He stomps and paws the earth, head down, antlers pointed toward me.
“Aspen,” I whisper. “Did you hear me? I’m here. I came for you.”
His stag eyes are locked on mine, so unlike the ones belonging to the fae I kissed this morning. Only his antlers look the same, yet much larger. I’ve never seen a stag so large or so majestic, so undeniably beautiful. His coat is a russet gold, hooves a glimmering onyx.
With a deep breath, I release the bar of coral, a searing pain shooting through my palm as the jagged shards release from my flesh. Keeping my other hand outstretched toward him, I take one trembling step, then another, each move almost unbearable.
Aspen remains in place watching me warily, but as I move closer, his breathing begins to even, and his lips close over his teeth.
“That’s it. I’m here now.” Finally, he’s close enough to touch. I let my hand fall on the side of his stag face.
“You gave me your name.” It’s Aspen’s voice, but it sounds distant, weak, as if coming from far away.
“Yes.”
“You left me.”
I shake my head. “No, Aspen. You were deceived by Cobalt.”
“Cobalt,” he echoes softly.
“He took me and locked me in the coral caves so I couldn’t come to you, so we couldn’t perform the ritual. He’s the one who took Amelie too. It’s she everyone saw riding away on the puca. She’s under his control.”
“You didn’t leave?”
“No.”
Silence falls between us. Then Aspen says, “It hurt when you left.” His words remind me of those of a child. There’s no wit, no banter, none of his sharp personality. I wonder if that’s part of being in his unseelie form.
“I’m sorry it hurt.”
“I don’t like feeling like that.” His tone carries a hint of anger. “I don’t like to feel at all.”
“I don’t like feeling like that either,” I say. “It hurt to be trapped in a cage, unable to tell you the truth. But I had to persevere. I had to come find you, even if it hurt.”
“You humans have no choice but to feel. I don’t have to.”
“You mean, if you remain in this form?”
“Yes. I could stay unseelie. I could forget your face. Forget what it means to hurt or love or rage.”
I bring my forehead to the side of his face, nestling into his soft coat. “Is that what you want? To forget me?”
A shudder runs through him. Then another. “No.”
I stumble back as the stag pulls away, his massive shape shifting and undulating. Another shudder seizes him, and suddenly the stag is gone, replaced by a familiar figure crouching in the dirt. He wears nothing but trousers and a linen shirt, open at the neck. I kneel next to him, take his face in my hands. “Aspen.”
He slowly meets my eyes. “Evie.”
I bring his lips to mine, reveling in their softness, the feel of them already so familiar to me.
He pulls away. “You’re crying.”
I realize he’s right. Sobs tear through me while tears stream over my face. “Of course I am. I thought I was going to lose you to the stag forever. I thought you would forget me and destroy my village.”
“Why would I destroy your village?”
“Isn’t that where you were going? To exact revenge upon me and my people?”
He shakes his head. “I…I don’t remember. The rage consumed me.”
“But you’re free of it now?”
He nods, but his expression darkens. “Cobalt did this.”
“Yes, and he’s going to try to take your throne. It’s been his plan to trick you into breaking the treaty all along. All these attacks, these betrayals, these mysteries. Cobalt has been behind all of them.”
“Where is he now?”
“Probably taking your place on the council,” I say.
He rises to his feet, helping me up with him. “I have to stop him. We need to get back to the council by midnight and prove we’ve done the ritual.”
“Do you think we can make it?”
“It’s possible if we hurry. You’ll have to ride me.”
“Under other circumstances, that would sound like a highly enti
cing invitation.” I give him a weak smile, but my muscles protest at the thought of mounting another galloping creature.
Aspen must sense my resistance because he puts a hand on my cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle.”
“Are we still talking in innuendo?”
“I’m serious.”
I let out a sigh. “All right.”
“Oh, and Evie?”
“Yes?”
He smiles, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “I know it isn’t candles and kisses like I told you it would be, but I give you my true name too.”
We bring our lips together. Despite my exhaustion, I bask in the feel of him against me and wrap my arms around his neck. It feels like the energy is humming between us, strong and dangerous. Perhaps it’s simply desire, but I can’t help wondering if it’s the result of being Bonded. Is this what it feels like to exchange names with another? To give another your power while making them vulnerable at the same time? Logic tells me it’s impossible. The act of giving one’s name is only significant to the fae. Yet, there’s this odd pull between us. Like a bridge. A bridge between two cliffs with nothing but jagged shards of rock below.
Before I can explore the strange sensation more, an ethereal voice calls out behind us, “The human is mine.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Aspen and I pull away, finding the black kelpie before us, head lowered as he stomps his front hoof in challenge. The king leaps in front of me, hiding my body behind his. “She is not yours,” he says.
“Twice she has escaped me without a taste,” the kelpie says. “First, she was saved by the pretty prince. Second time, she escaped through trickery. We had a bargain.”
“I only promised you could go wherever you wanted after you took me to Aspen.” My voice comes out with a tremor. “I never said you could take me with you.”
“Human trickery. That is why I hate your kind. You come to my home, invade my land, swim in my waters. The stupid ones have the gall to get lost, polluting everything with their stench, their recklessness. The menacing ones come with iron shackles, with traps and blades and tricks.”
“She is neither stupid nor menacing,” Aspen says, “but she is my mate. She is under my protection. If you try to harm her, you face my wrath.”
“Wrath,” the kelpie hisses, taking a step closer. “Such a human reaction.”
“It will be my reaction nonetheless.”
The kelpie’s eyes blaze brighter, the red growing deeper. “Why should I care about your wrath? We aren’t in Autumn but Spring. You don’t rule here.”
“I am still a king.”
“I am unseelie. I bow to no king.”
Aspen squares his shoulders. “The water in you is the water in me. If you won’t respect me as king, respect me as one of your kind.”
“Water,” the kelpie hisses. “You’re Autumn through and through.”
“Yet water swims in my blood.”
The creature cranes his neck to peek at me behind Aspen. “What about her blood?”
“Her blood is not up for discussion. She made you a bargain that you accepted, and she bested you. It is not her fault you agreed to it. Now you will let us go without further argument.”
The kelpie stomps its hoof, creating a furrow in the ground beneath him, teeth peeling back. Aspen’s posture grows defensive. He leans forward, hands clenched into fists as a snarl escapes his lips.
The kelpie paws the earth again, then freezes. His head swivels on his sinuous neck toward the fog in the distance and the faewall I know is behind it. I follow his line of vision and see figures moving in the mist. When I look back at the kelpie, it’s gone.
I remember what Cobalt had said about sending guards to stop Aspen from killing too many humans during his rage. “We need to leave. Now.”
Aspen doesn’t utter a word as he shudders from head to toe and shifts back into a stag. He lowers himself for me to climb on his back, then we take off. I don’t dare look behind me, terrified of what I’ll see. I can only hope Aspen is fast enough to outrun Cobalt’s guards. To my horror, Aspen doesn’t run away from the faewall, but parallel to it. The dense fog remains in my periphery as we speed through the forest.
“How will we get back in time?” I ask him, arms wrapped around his neck as I lean into him. “In fact, how did the kelpie get me here so fast? It took nearly a full day to get from Sableton to Bircharbor by carriage. How will we get there by midnight?”
“We’ll get there.” His words sound far away again, but his tone is more alert, more aware. “Each section of the wall falls on a different axis. Each axis belongs to a different court. Sableton is near the Spring axis.”
“What exactly does an axis mean in this instance? Is that just where a court’s lands touch the wall?”
“Perhaps a better word for a human would be portal. These portals run along the length of the wall and allow us to travel quickly to and from courts that, without them, wouldn’t be anywhere close to the wall. When you first came here, Foxglove had the carriage bypass the axis line to take you to Bircharbor by traditional means in what’s considered the long way to Autumn.”
“Why?”
“To give you time to adjust,” he says. “I didn’t want you bombarded with interaxis travel on your first day. That’s what we’re doing now. We’ll travel along the wall until we reach the Autumn axis.”
“That must be what the kelpie did as well,” I say, trying not to dwell on the missing logic and just be grateful instead. If this strange method of travel hadn’t been available to me, Aspen would have crossed the faewall into my village.
“I don’t think I would have hurt your people,” he says as if he can read my thoughts. “I was looking for you. That’s all I remember.”
I stroke his neck but say nothing. There’s no use wondering what might have happened if I hadn’t stopped him, and there’s no use holding any maybes against him. Cobalt is to blame for this. I’ll save my anger for him.
We fall into silence, and my eyes begin to grow heavy.
“Sleep,” Aspen says. “I’ll make sure you stay righted on my back.”
I close my eyes and let nightmares of blood and waves take me.
* * *
“I can see the palace just ahead.”
I jolt awake, craning my neck to look around Aspen. Soon I can see the palace too. It glows gold in the moonlight, bright against the black sky. You’d never know by looking at it that a dangerous coup is taking place inside. Once we reach the front steps of the palace, Aspen lowers himself to the ground so I can dismount, then shifts into his seelie form. I grimace as I shake out my aching limbs.
Aspen takes my hand and we dart inside. Guards stand at attention as we enter, expressions concerned. “Is the council in session?” he barks at them.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” one says, brow furrowed.
“Should I carry you?” Aspen asks under his breath.
I remember how good it felt to be in his arms, head against his chest. Was that just this morning? Part of me wants to say yes. “No,” I say with a sigh. “I want to stand on my own two feet when we confront Cobalt.”
“And I want to tear his head off,” he grumbles.
I shiver at his tone. It occurs to me I have no idea what to expect of the confrontation. How do fae handle situations like this? I’ve seen Aspen send his servants to the dungeon and order their execution, but will that be punishment enough for his brother? I can only imagine this ending in blood and teeth.
“Where is the meeting held?” I ask as we move higher in the palace.
“The balcony,” he says.
We climb higher and higher until we reach the staircase that leads to the balcony. Before we take a step, we pause. Two figures are seated at the middle of the staircase, huddled close together in whispered conversation.
“Your Majesty!” Foxglove exclaims when he sees us. He and Lorelei all but run down the stairs. Their expressions are horrified as they look from Aspen’s furious face
to my bruised hands and torn clothing.
“Pardon me saying this, Your Majesty,” Lorelei says, “but what in all the rotting oak and ivy is going on?”
Aspen ignores her question. “Is Cobalt sitting with the council right now?”
“Yes,” Foxglove says. “He seemed most certain you wouldn’t be returning for the meeting.”
“And you!” Lorelei narrows her eyes at me. “You ran away.”
I shake my head. “It’s a long story.”
“One we don’t have time for right now,” Aspen growls, pushing past them and ascending the steps two at a time. I follow behind at a much slower pace, with Foxglove and Lorelei at my side.
“You need a bath,” Lorelei hisses in my ear. I can tell she’s angry with me. I understand her feelings, considering she was one of the few who saw me—Amelie—riding away on the puca.
“I need more than a bath,” I say.
I hear chattering voices up ahead, followed by Aspen’s roar as he crests the stairs to the balcony. Picking up my pace, I enter behind him.
Aspen’s chest heaves as he stares at the far end of the balcony where Cobalt sits in Aspen’s throne, the throne at his right remaining empty. In a semicircle around him sit ten other fae in elegant chairs, including Melusine. I recognize none of them as the ambassadors I saw at the mate ceremony, which tells me these are the court rulers. Their appearances are even more unique and varied than their ambassadors had been, some wearing gowns, others in suits. A few wear nothing, their forms more animal than human. The council fae turn, and Melusine’s eyes widen when she sees us. A wolf with snowy white fur and red eyes snarls, while a female fae with pale blue skin and flowing hair hisses, the sound like the wind through the trees. Cobalt, however, keeps his expression neutral.
To Carve a Fae Heart (The Fair Isle Trilogy Book 1) Page 26
