Rising Silver Mist

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Rising Silver Mist Page 1

by Olivia Wildenstein




  RISING SILVER MIST

  OLIVIA WILDENSTEIN

  Contents

  Disclaimer

  Title Page

  CHARACTERS

  GOTTWA LANGUAGE

  FAELI LANGUAGE

  I. Earth

  Prologue

  1. The Niece

  2. Long Time

  3. The Confession

  4. Broken Bonds

  5. The Sap

  6. The Spirit Plane

  7. The Barn

  8. The Experiment

  9. The Anger

  10. The Glass Flower

  11. The Knife

  12. The Bargain

  13. Favors

  14. The Broken Ones

  15. Faith’s Father

  16. The Tabloid

  17. New Roommate

  18. Changes

  19. The Castes

  20. Revelations

  21. Birthday Party

  22. The Connection

  23. Sign Language

  24. Devil Incarnate

  25. Drowning

  26. The Swim

  27. Revenge

  28. The Forest

  29. The Proposal

  30. The Lie

  31. Cages And Doors

  32. Locker Number Four

  II. Neverra

  33. First Sight

  34. Purple

  35. The First Ceremony

  36. The Envoy

  37. Air Ships

  38. Middle Month

  39. The Earrings

  40. The Glades

  41. Electric

  42. The Half-Sister

  43. The Punishment

  44. The Truth

  45. The Proof

  46. Wrong Colors

  47. Blackmail

  48. Not Cinderella

  49. The Cage Of Nightmares

  50. Loss, Lost

  51. Darkness And Light

  52. Invisible Ink

  53. Love Potion

  54. Ace And Me

  55. Aftershock

  56. The Elder

  57. Blue Magic

  58. The Trim

  59. Red

  60. First Encounter

  61. The Night Of Mist

  62. Becoming One

  63. Arrows And Dust

  64. Rage

  65. Quiescence

  66. The Faceoff

  67. The Last Bargain

  68. The Impostor

  69. A New Order

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by OLIVIA WILDENSTEIN

  About the Author

  Disclaimer

  The Gottwas are an invented tribe, loosely inspired by the Ojibwe people. I did not want to cause offense to Native Americans by writing about customs that aren't mine.

  To Liana.

  A beautiful light that went out too soon.

  Book 3 of The Lost Clan series

  by

  OLIVIA WILDENSTEIN

  CHARACTERS

  Adette: Taeewa’s mate; the bazash’s daughter

  Adison Wood: Ace and Lily’s mother; Linus’s wife

  Ace Wood: Linus’s son; Maximus’s grandson

  Aylen: Nova’s sister; Cat’s aunt

  Astra Sakar: half-fae; owns Astra’s Bakery

  Bee: Beatrice; owns Bee’s Place; Blake’s grandmother

  Blake: Bee’s grandson; Cat’s friend

  Borgo Lief: Ishtu’s lover; Cruz’s “adoptive” father

  Cassidy (Cass): Cat’s best friend in Rowan; Etta’s daughter

  Catori Price: main character

  Chatwa: Iya’s mother; twin sister to Holly’s mother, Ley; hunter

  Cruz Vega: fae; faux medical examiner; friends with the Woods family; Lily’s fiancé; Lyoh & Jacobiah’s son

  Derek Price: Cat’s father; Nova’s husband

  Elika: Negongwa’s mate; Gwenelda’s mother; Kajika’s adoptive mother

  Etta: real name is Cometta; part fae; daughter of Astra; sister to Stella

  Faith Sakar: Stella’s daughter; bad blood between her and Cat

  Gregor: current fae wariff; soulless narcissist

  Gwenelda: huntress; first to awaken; absorbed Nova’s soul

  Holly: Ley; half-mortal, half-fae; Jacobiah Vega’s half-sister, Cruz’s aunt

  Ishtu: Kajika’s mate; looked like Cat

  Iya: Chatwa’s daughter; Cat’s great-grandmother

  Jacobiah Vega: fae; former wariff; Cruz’s father; killed by Lyoh Vega

  Jimmy: Cass’s brother; Etta’s son

  Kajika: Ishtu’s ex-husband; Gwenelda’s brother-in-law

  Ley: Holly; Chatwa’s “twin sister”; half-fae / half-human

  Lily Wood: fae; mute; Ace’s sister; Linus’s daughter; Cruz’s fiancée

  Linus Wood: King of the fae

  Lyoh Vega: Jacobiah’s wife; Cruz’s mother; killed her husband; killed Ishtu

  Maximus Wood: Linus’s father; ruthless, lawless, bloodthirsty leader

  Menawa: Gwenelda’s mate; Kajika’s brother

  Negongwa: revered leader of Gottwa Indians

  Nova Price: Catori’s mother; Derek’s beloved wife

  Satyana: Aylen’s daughter; Shiloh’s twin sister

  Shiloh: Aylen’s daughter; Cat’s young cousin; Satyana’s twin sister; has the sight

  Silas: lucionaga

  Stella Sakar: part fae; daughter of Astra; sister to Cometta (Etta)

  Taeewa: Gwenelda’s youngest brother; the 13th hunter

  Tony: Aylen’s husband

  Woni: Iya’s daughter; Nova’s mother; Cat’s grandmother

  GOTTWA LANGUAGE

  aabiti: mate

  abiwoojin: darling

  adsookin: legend

  baseetogan: fae world; Neverra; Isle of Woods

  bazash: half-fae, half-human

  bekagwe: wait for me

  chatwa: darkness

  debwe: truth

  gajeekwe: the king’s advisor, like a minister

  gatizogin: I’m sorry

  Gejaiwe: the Great Spirit

  gassen: faerie dust

  gingawi: part hunter, part fae

  golwinim: Woods’s guards, fireflies

  gwe: woman

  ishtu: sweetness

  kwenim: memory

  ley: light

  ma kwenim: my memory

  maagwe: come with me

  maahin: come forth

  Makudewa Geezhi: Dark Day

  manazi: book

  mashka: tough

  mawa: mine

  meegwe: give me

  meekwa: blood

  Mishipeshu: water faeries, Daneelies

  naagangwe: stop her

  nockwad: mist

  nilwa: defeater

  pahan: faeries

  tokwa: favor

  FAELI LANGUAGE

  adamans: glass flowers as tall as wheat stalks

  alinum: rowan wood

  astium: portal, door

  calidum: lesser fae; bazash

  caligo: mist

  caligosubi: one who lives below the mist, aka marsh-dweller

  caligosupra: one who lives above the mist, aka mist-dweller

  calimbor: skytrees

  captis: magnetize

  clave: portal locksmith

  cupola: cage of nightmares

  Daneelies: water faeries, Mishipeshu

  diles: venomous Neverrian creature, a cross between a frog and a crocodile

  draca: first guard; wariff’s protector (dragon-form)

  Duobosi: coupling ceremony

  enefkum: eunuch

  fae: sky-dwellers

  Forma: underground-dwellers, bodiless, Unseelies

  Fias: child

  gajoï: favor<
br />
  Hareni: grotto

  kalini: fire

  lucionaga: faerie guards

  Lustriums: clusters of stars

  mallow: an edible plant, faerie weed; doesn’t affect humans the same way it affects faeries, and hunters are immune

  Massin: Your highness

  Mea: mine

  Mikos: Neverrian snake coated in sharp quills

  Milandi: marvelous

  Neverra: baseetogan; Isle of Woods

  Obso: please

  Potas: I can’t

  Plantae: plants

  Quid est: Who is it?

  Runa: Neverrian gondolas carried by faeries

  Seelies: light faeries, Fae

  Sepula: ceremony of the dead

  stam: giant flat shells that bob in the glades

  ti ama: I love you

  Unseelies: dark faeries, bodiless, Forma

  Vade: go

  Valo: bye

  Ventor: Hunter

  Wariff: equal to Gajeekwe

  Part I

  Earth

  Prologue

  I traced the braided gold band of my mother’s engagement ring, running my fingertip against the chiseled planes of the inset rubies. Dad had given it to me two weeks before, and I hadn’t taken it off since. Like gleaming pockets, the red stones held memories of my mother. Some days, those memories were painful and I fisted my hands; some days, they were joyful and I eagerly dove inside the red depths.

  Tonight’s memory was a joyful one.

  “On my eighth birthday, I wanted sugar cookies instead of a cake. While Mom made the dough, I rifled through her box of cookie cutters and picked a ghost. She asked me, why not a flower? I reminded her that my name meant spirit. So ghosts were more accurate than flowers.”

  I held my ring up to the faint beam of light spilling from my desk lamp. The rubies winked at me.

  “You should’ve seen my mother’s face. She paled and sat me down, then explained that Catori didn’t mean ghost; that it meant a powerful force, a supreme being. Which of course prompted me to say, you named me God?”

  Mom had laughed.

  She had the most wonderful laughter. It filled all of her, from her eyes to her mouth to her chest. I would’ve given anything to hear that sound again.

  The warm fingers combing through my long black locks stilled. “Never has a name suited a person better.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  The hand wrapped around the mass of my hair and tugged gently to pivot my head. “Cat, I may be endowed with an incredible sense of humor, but I do sometimes set it aside. I don’t think your parents could’ve named you better. You’re a force to be reckoned with.” A crooked smile settled over Ace’s lips. “Supremely sexy and powerfully addictive. A goddess in her own right.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I bet you can’t say those things with a straight face.”

  “Am I not allowed to smile at my gorgeous girlfriend?”

  I searched his eyes for humor but became sidetracked by their exquisiteness. There wasn’t much I didn’t like about Ace, but those eyes…those eyes completely undid me. Bluer and more brilliant than the iridescent veins in the opal pendant I abandoned at Holly’s farmhouse the night I learned the hunters had killed her.

  “And I can say it with a straight face.” His hand released my hair, traveled down the side of my body, and settled on my hip where his other hand already rested. Applying the gentlest pressure, he pivoted my body to face his. “You are supremely sexy and powerfully addictive, Catori Price.”

  A shiver crackled through each one of my nerve endings. Yes, his hands were on me. And yes, the fire running through his veins heated my own blood. But it was more than that with Ace. His very presence turned me into a livewire.

  I wasn’t sure how I could ever have been immune to him. I often thought of our first encounter in the county jail, where he’d come to bail out his best friend Cruz Vega. The meeting—the handshake—felt like eons ago.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Laundry,” I deadpanned.

  “Really?” His eyes bored into mine. “My declaration made you think of laundry?”

  I licked my lips that suddenly felt cracked as though I hadn’t sipped water in days.

  He watched my mouth, dark eyebrows slanted over his straight nose. The caged dust that girdled my neck like an inked rendition of barbed wire throbbed underneath my skin.

  A second heartbeat.

  I touched the pulsating flesh with my fingers. Even though Stella’s confiscated dust was locked underneath my skin, I always worried it would leach into my throat and choke me, like it should’ve done when she’d unleashed it on me back in the hospital.

  Ace lowered his face to my neck and kissed his way across my collarbone. When his lips brushed my knuckles, my hand sprang away. “Would you like me to get your mind off your very human tribulations?”

  I shivered. Before I could speak, he kissed the thin skin sheltering the dust.

  I forgot about Stella then. I forgot about my mother. About the meaning of my name. About the ghost cookies I’d baked. About my father sleeping across the hall from me. I forgot I was part faerie and part hunter, and that dating Ace was not only a terrible idea, but also a dangerous one.

  His mouth skimmed my jaw. “Still thinking about laundry?”

  “No.” The word leaped out of me—hoarse, loud, rash.

  He kissed my mouth, and the heady warmth that had enveloped my skin swathed my veins.

  A long moment later, when our lips broke apart, my pulse felt like it had escaped my body and scattered across my bedroom.

  “I want you to teach me to resist captis,” I blurted out.

  Ace’s hands, which had slipped underneath my gray T-shirt sometime during our make-out session, stilled on the base of my spine. “Why?”

  Ever since Mom died, stress limned everything in my life. I was terrified my father would find out that magic existed in our world and be punished for knowing. I feared my best friend Cass would be killed in the crossfire of the hunter/faerie war simmering in our town. I dreaded that Stella would return to Rowan and carve her dust out of my neck. I worried that Gwenelda and Kajika would plow my backyard to awaken the rest of their hunter family—my family. Not that I considered myself a hunter these days.

  Neither did I consider myself a faerie for that matter.

  I favored another term: human. I’d even gotten the word tattooed over the brand Cruz had seared into my flesh, the one that had morphed into a W for Wood—Ace’s last name—and glowed each time my pulse hastened.

  “Why do you want me to teach you to resist captis?”

  I traced the faint white lines of the W, then balled my fingers into a slack fist and raised my gaze to Ace’s. “In case a faerie other than yourself decides to use it on me.”

  His jaw ticked.

  “I want to become stronger, Ace. Help me become stronger. Fighting something I can see is difficult enough. But fighting something invisible feels impossible. And yet I remember you telling me I resisted it a bit back in Detroit. The first time you used it on me. Were you stroking my ego, or did I really manage?”

  “You really managed, but I don’t know how you did it. I just felt you blocking me.”

  “Use it on me and tell me when you feel resistance, and I’ll figure out what I’m doing.”

  His features were all hard lines.

  I touched his brow to smooth it. “I’m not trying to resist you.”

  With a gravelly sigh, his features loosened. “I hadn’t even considered anyone else using it on you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to imagine anyone seducing you either—with or without magic.”

  “That wouldn’t happen.”

  “And yet, I find myself imagining this more often than I like. Ever since you told me faeries weren’t monogamous—”

  “I would never cheat on you, Cat.”

  I wanted to believe Ace, but it felt idealistic, romantic of him to s
ay this, and stupid and naïve of me to trust it. We’d been together all of two weeks. What would happen in a couple months when I was no longer new and shiny?

  Although the consideration rattled me, I shoved it away. Now wasn’t the time to focus on potential risks. Now was the time to focus on real risks: faerie allure. “Please teach me.”

  His chest rose and fell.

  “Think of all that time we’ll have to spend practicing.” I smiled to sweeten my demand.

  “I don’t like using it on you.”

  “Would you rather I ask someone else to teach me?”

  His blue eyes ground into my black ones. “Absolutely not.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  He loosed a heavy sigh. “Yes, but not today.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  He kissed my nose, then the corners of my mouth. “You are supremely sexy, powerfully addictive, and incredibly”—he gave me that cocky grin of his—“incredibly stubborn.”

  “My father says he pities the man I’ll marry. So consider yourself lucky you’re already engaged.”

  His smile vanished. “I hope you don’t believe him.”

 

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