by D. N. Hoxa
“Yes, sir. And the training session? Are you not feeling well?” He looked down at me as I squatted, picking the best strawberries from the vines that covered the ground. There weren’t that many good ones. Winter was not the time to grow crops, but it was better than nothing.
“I’m feeling great, actually,” I said to Chastin and stood up, basket filled. “But I have somewhere to be. I need to go through the Gateway for a while, but I’ll be back shortly. And I’ll be leaving for longer tonight.”
“The Autumn King?” Chastin asked. So many questions. Then again, he was ordered by my father to report about everything I did, where I went, where I ate, how long I slept—so I didn’t take it personally.
“Yes. He has tasked me with finding some information in another realm. You can handle the battalion for a few hours, can’t you? You know the protocols as well as I do.” I grinned.
“What’s that about protocols?” Trinam said as he came to join us on our walk. We were already by the castle, and I didn’t want them following me inside, so I stopped walking. “You’re awfully fond of strawberries lately,” my friend said, nodding at the basket in my hand, before he tried to grab one.
I moved away. “Pick your own. I have business to attend to through the Gateway for a bit, now and later in the evening.”
“Really? What for? Where are you going? May I join?” Trinam smiled, his boyish good looks making him look a decade younger than he was.
“Not this time, but if you behave, I might take you the next. I’ll even buy you ice cream.” He laughed, but Chastin couldn’t get the shock off his face.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” Trinam said, putting his hand over my shoulder. I knew why he was getting close, so I put the basket in my other hand, away from his reach. “You’re in an awfully good mood.”
“What can I say? The sun’s shining, and it’s still winter. And I need to go.”
“Commander, what about sleeping arrangements when we burn down the barracks?” Chastin called, but luckily, he didn’t follow me.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Chastin. Use your head. You might get surprised,” I said and continued to walk toward the castle with Trinam.
“Is it the elf?” he whispered when we were out of Chastin’s hearing range. “You’ve got a glow on you. It’s the sex, isn’t it?”
I laughed, and all the people who were around me, soldiers and staff, stopped what they were doing to look at me, completely shocked. Was laughter such a big surprise to them?
“You have no idea,” I said to Trinam. Even though he was my best friend, he was still a subject of the Winter King. If I told him the truth, about the elf or the reason why I was here, I would put him in danger because my father would go straight to him for answers if anything happened. And if he so much as suspected that Trinam knew something, he wouldn’t stop until he made him tell.
Knowing Trinam, he’d give his life away first, and I was never going to let him do that. If the price for it was keeping my mouth shut, so be it.
“I haven’t seen you smile like that since all this madness began. You don’t even look wounded. Have you healed completely from the battle?” Trinam stopped by the doors of the castle and looked down at me.
“I’m fine. I’ve healed. Now, I need to go.”
The suspicion in his eyes took me a bit off guard. “You sure you’re okay, Mace?”
“Yes, Trinam. I’m fine.” I patted his back and ran inside the castle.
I dropped the basket with strawberries in my room and spent a few minutes staring at the elf. She hadn’t moved from the bed at all, hadn’t even turned her head to the other side. How was it that every time I looked at her, she became more beautiful? Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, but I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
Eventually, I convinced myself that I needed to leave, and so I did. But the image of her sleeping in my bed never faded from my mind.
Chapter 19
When I came back to Gaena, it was almost dark outside. I hid the bag I carried under my shirt, but people would still be able to see that there was something there. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to bring myself to care. So what if they saw?
My men bowed their heads as Storm and I entered the gates of the castle. By now, they’d have finished training, and most of them would be in the dining hall. Not ideal, but there was no other way to my room except through the hall.
I jumped off Storm and offered the reins to Lila, one of my soldiers. “Hold her for me for a few minutes, will you? I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, sir,” Lila said with another bow and guided a complaining Storm to the side of the castle. I entered the doors, and the sound of music and laughter hit me at once. The smell of stale ale, too, and grease. I was hungry, but I wouldn’t be eating here tonight. I would be eating someplace else, something far more delicious than anything we had here.
“Hey, Mace!” Trinam called as I made my way through the crowd. The people were still mostly sitting—it was early, and not one of them was drunk yet. “Mace, hold on!”
I continued to walk, but Trinam caught up with me before I reached the stairs to my room. Behind him was Chastin.
“Where the hell were you?” Trinam demanded.
“Out,” was all I said, but they weren’t going to let me be.
“I’ve sent men to the King, Commander,” Chastin informed me. “And I’ve made sleeping arrangements for tonight. The barracks are ready to be burned come sunrise.” He sounded proud of himself, too.
“And the training?”
“It went perfectly, sir,” he said with a nod.
“See? Told you, you could handle it. Go eat. You must be tired.”
Chastin didn’t like that, but he couldn’t disobey a direct order from me, no matter how much he hated my guts. With one last look down at my side, where the bag hid under my shirt, he went back to his table with his head down.
“What’s in there?” Trinam poked my side curiously.
“Nothing that interests you, but I’m going to need your help. I need this hall cleared within five minutes. Can you do that?”
His eyes opened wide. It was hard to get Trinam surprised at something, but this time I think I managed.
“What are you up to, Mace? I don’t like where this is going.”
I put my hands over his shoulders and brought him closer to my room, where we wouldn’t be as easily heard. “I need to do business with the elf in another realm. I need to get her out of here without anybody noticing. Can you help me or not?”
If he was surprised a second ago, this time he was properly shocked. So shocked he couldn't find anything to say, but he did decide that he would help me. I’d had no doubt that he would, no matter how insane my words sounded to him.
When I entered my room, half of me was afraid I’d find it empty. It wasn’t.
She had changed back to her dress and the black shirt I’d put on her lay on the bed now. She was standing in front of the middle window, looking out at the darkening sky, like always. Except this time, her hair was made out of moonlight, and her skin glowed white like she had fireflies hidden underneath it.
She slowly turned around to face me when I closed the door, curious, confused, a little bit angry. She held onto the wall behind her, chin up, lips closed.
Was she going to speak to me like she did the night before?
I pulled the bag from under my shirt and left it on the bed. She looked at it skeptically.
“I want to show you something. I think you’ll like it,” I said and walked a little closer to her. Her reaction was to try to lean away, but there was nowhere to go. “It’s a place, far away from here. To get there, I need you to get dressed first.” I grabbed the bag and emptied the contents on the bed.
A good minute passed before her curiosity got the best of her, and she approached the bed. And the clothes.
“These are jeans,” I said and offered the pair to her. I’d had to guess the size, but
it had been easier than I’d thought. She took the jeans in her hands and ran her fingers over the rough denim. “This is a shirt.” I gave her the cotton white shirt, too. “And these are sneakers. You’ve got everything you need here—plus this.” I pushed the clothes aside—a pair of white panties and a bra—and found the glass vial I was looking for. The clear liquid inside looked as harmless as water. I showed it to her. “It’s a potion. It will blur your face out of focus for anyone who looks at you, and they'll forget your face within minutes.”
Her brows narrowed, but she took the vial anyway.
“So…get dressed. I’ll wait for you outside,” I said and turned for the door. I had yet to touch the handle before she spoke.
“Where?”
I turned around again, a smile already playing on my lips. She’d spoken.
“Where are you taking me?” Her voice was lightweight, peaceful, meant to caress the ear of its listener, even though she sounded half afraid, half curious. Just like I felt.
“To Earth. To the other side of the Shade.”
About a million emotions crossed her face.
Then, we heard the shouts outside.
Footsteps, calls, people screaming for a few seconds, and then nothing.
Silence. Whatever Trinam had done, it had worked perfectly.
I opened the door, and sure enough, the dining hall was completely empty—even the bar. “I’ll be right outside,” I told the elf, and I closed the door so she could get dressed.
It didn’t take her longer than three minutes. When the door opened, a whole new person looked back at me, one wearing clothes that were strange to our kind, to say the least. They were all a perfect fit—the jeans, the sneakers, shirt, and the leather jacket—yet none of it changed her aura. None of it diminished the power of her silence. Even now, as she looked at me, having done what I asked her to, she defied me with her chin raised and her brows narrowed. And I liked it.
“Ready?”
She refused to answer. I led the way out of the dining hall.
It only took me two seconds to realize what Trinam had done to get all those people out of the hall so fast. And everyone else for that matter.
He’d lit the barracks on fire.
I couldn’t see it from the castle, but I could see the orange light coming from behind it and the white smoke spreading rapidly in the sky. The sight of it made me laugh. When I came back, I was giving Trinam anything he asked for.
“Let’s go,” I said and scanned the area in front of the gates one last time to make sure no other soldier was around us. Once I was convinced there was only darkness ahead, I went and got Storm from where the soldier had tied her to the other side of the castle. She was happy to see me but wary of the elf standing behind me, looking around, unsure of what to think yet.
“Easy,” I told Storm and patted the side of her neck. She liked that a lot. I hopped on the saddle and reached out my hand for the elf. She looked at it like it was on fire, just like those barracks, but eventually she put her hand in mine. It was soft against the rough skin of my palm from carrying my sword every day. I pulled her up, and she jumped on the saddle with no trouble.
I wrapped her arm around my waist, and she didn’t hesitate. She grabbed me from both sides, her front flush against my back. By the time Storm took us through the open gates and into the darkness, I was smiling like an idiot.
I pushed Storm to go faster because I didn’t want to waste a single second of the night. We rode all around the high walls of the castle to the back of the hill and the ruins below my windows. The entrance to the Gateway was below the hill, through a cave, which was barely visible from the fallen rocks.
Storm stopped running because she already knew where we were going. She liked it when I visited Earth because she was free to run around—the Shade and beyond, all alone. Storm had never been up for much company. She had a bowl of water, half of which she’d drunk during the day while I’d gone to get things for the elf, and a sack of apples, if she had even left any uneaten.
“Be good,” I told her when the elf jumped off, ignoring my reaching hand. With a loud neigh, Storm turned around and started galloping toward the forest right outside of the Shade.
One look at the elf, and she seemed more confused than before. I still couldn’t stop smiling.
“Follow me,” I said and headed for the hole in the wall that marked the entrance of the cave. It was hidden by two huge rocks and a few smaller ones. If you didn’t know it was there, you could never find it—especially in the darkness. During the day, the shade of the rocks fell across the opening, too, giving you the illusion that there was nothing there but more rock.
The air grew colder when I entered the cave. I had to turn sideways to fit through, but the elf had no trouble. Complete darkness ahead of us, but I’d done this a lot of times before. That’s why there was a gas lamp on the ground by the rock wall. The orange glow spread inside the cave, revealing rough, bumpy ground ahead and uneven rock walls that seemed to want to fall on your head with every step you took. Even after all this time that I’d used this cave, it still made me uncomfortable to be here, knowing the hill and the castle were right over my head.
I took a few steps before I realized that the elf wasn’t following me. She’d stopped by the entrance and was looking back, arms wrapped around herself. She was uncertain.
Why wouldn’t she be? She was in a cave, alone with the fae who had imprisoned her for days now. That she had trusted me to come this far was a miracle.
“The Gateway is through here,” I said, and the echo of my voice bouncing against the rocks took even me by surprise. I realized I’d never spoken out loud in here before because I’d never taken anyone with me through it. “We have to go to the other side, through a short tunnel, and down a stairway to reach it.” I raised the gas lamp toward the other end of the cave. “There’s no need to be afraid. I promise you, nothing’s going to harm you.”
“I am not afraid,” she said suddenly. It took me off guard because I kept expecting her not to answer me.
“Then come on. We’re wasting time.” I turned around and walked ahead, unsure if she’d follow.
The soft sound of her footsteps relieved me. I took her through another hole in the cave wall and down a perfectly round tunnel. I had no idea who had made it, but we no longer needed light here. I turned the gas lamp off and put it by my feet. I’d find it here when I came back. For now, the Shade lights that glowed blue all over the round ceiling of the tunnel made more than enough light for us to see.
They called them glamoured crystals back on Earth. They glowed green there, for some reason, but here, they were blue. In both realms, they were filled with Shade magic, and they looked like miniature balls floating in the air.
The elf was in awe. She reached up her hands to try to touch the Shade lights, but they were too far up. She still watched them all the way through the tunnel, and for those moments, at least, she had forgotten where she was and who she was with. She had forgotten that she wasn’t supposed to trust me and let her guard down. She was completely infatuated with the lights.
Now, more than ever, I couldn’t wait for her to see where we were going. I felt like a child, about to discover another magical world hidden in the pages of books in my mother’s library. I hadn't felt this kind of rush since then.
We reached the Gateway in no time. The stairway that led to it was rough and uneven, half the steps missing and the rest broken or flattened completely with time. And the Gateway itself was made of an all-consuming darkness. The end of the stairway led to a circle made of thick grey rocks, splintered at the edges, giving you the impression that they were about to fall off. The darkness that surrounded it was dotted with blue lights that looked like fireflies in the distance.
I raised my hands to tap into the Gateway, to tell it where I needed to go. The first time I had come here, it had taken me hours to get it right. I’d only ever read about programming Gateways but never had the chance
to do it myself. Then, I’d used the Shade to form the connection, and it had all gone smoothly from there.
This time, it was no different.
Once my intention was clear to the Shade and the Gateway, I turned to the elf once more. She was still staring at the darkness, at the Shade lights floating in the air, at the ceiling that didn’t exist over our heads.
“Give me your hand,” I whispered and offered her mine. The stairway was made of stone, and it was narrow. Falling into the darkness was not something either of us wanted. Nobody knew where it led, or if you survived it, because those who’d fallen into it had never been seen again.
The elf hesitated, but once again, her curiosity got the best of her. She put her soft hand in mine and let me lead her to the circle of the Gateway.
Taking in a deep breath, I walked into it with the elf by my side.
I hadn’t felt prouder of an accomplishment in a very long time.
The other side of the Gateway was a bit problematic.
Terrans didn’t have the same protocols as we did when it came to Shades. The Sacri Guild that ruled over supernaturals on Earth managed all the Gateways, and they were very serious about who came into their territory.
Thankfully, my being a son of the Winter King granted me access whenever I needed it. This time, though, I had a guest with me.
So, when we reached the other side, we were trapped behind a huge glass wall that separated the Gateway from their control room. Machinery, computers, lights of every kind were behind it—and terrans, too. We had to wait for them to identify me before one of them stepped in front of us and pressed keys on the glass surface to get it to open.
In the meantime, the elf absorbed every single detail of the view in front of us with an eagerness I had never seen before. Her eyes moved fast, and she looked at everything so intently, like she wanted to commit it all to memory.
When the terrans let us through, they asked her questions—her name, her reason for visiting—and she just stared at them. So, I told them she was mute. That she was my cousin, and we were here for pleasure.
