Page 48 of Black Hearted (Cursed Fae #4)

Placing our interlocked fingers over the faestone resting on the ground in front of us, I reached for my power and then used it to scan the plants and trees around us. At least what was left of them. They were low on energy, hurting but not dead.

I sucked in a breath, also feeling an energy in the sky, something I’d never felt before, and wondered if it was Zane’s power. It was electric.

Snapping my gaze over to Zane, I could tell from the look on his face that he was feeling energy unfamiliar to him as well.

“I have no idea what to do,” Zane said.

“Me neither. But you feel the plants as well?”

He nodded, a look of awe on his face. I’m sure I was wearing a similar expression.

“Maybe we just start flooding the faestone with power?” I offered.

“It’s worth a try.”

“And I’m here to assist if needed,” Nellie added, causing both Zane and me to smile.

“Ready?” Zane asked, and when I nodded, we both pushed our magic into the faestone. I gasped when it began to sink into the ground.

“Keep going,” he said with a grunt.

I did, pushing everything I had into the earth. Thunder rolled overhead as lightning crackled in the sky.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“I think it’s you,” Zane responded.

Weird. I did feel a connection to the sky’s energy, but I couldn’t tease it apart from the earth. This was all so new.

A vine grew up from the ground and sprouted a white flower right beside us.

“Good job, Lorelei,” Zane encouraged me.

I smiled. “That’s not me.” I was familiar enough with my nature magic to know I wasn’t making that flower grow.

Zane stared at me in shock.

“Keep going,” I encouraged, just like he had.

It seemed that when I saved him, and my heart turned black, we’d fused ourselves together in such a way that we now shared powers. I could call lightning from the sky, and he could make flowers bloom. In that way, it was actually beautiful that we could share such a thing.

“Whoa,” Nellie exclaimed when a shockwave of energy exploded out from us, instantly turning every blade of grass green and restoring the flowers and trees.

Then, just as suddenly as it happened, our magic cut off.

We stood, looking around in wonder at the beauty we had just created. The trees were now heavy with green leaves and dotted with flowers. A carpet of thick green grass blanketed everything, and the flowers—oh, the flowers—were gorgeous. Pinks, purples, yellows … the colors were vibrant and alive.

I peered down at the earth, which seemed to have taken the crystal as a sacrifice and amplified our powers to create this.

“Thank you,” I whispered to it.

“Can I try at the next court?” Nellie asked, holding up Isolde’s dagger.

“No,” Zane and I said simultaneously, and then we laughed.

We spent the next several days traveling to the edges of the Fall Court and then the Winter Court, my least favorite because it was so cold, to heal the lands. Each time, our combined power caused the crystal to sink into the earth and spread its magic throughout the land, restoring it.

But there was still one place I wanted to fix.

“You guys mind if we take a little detour?” I asked. “Well, actually, it would be quite a big detour.”

Zane gave me a questioning look.

“Where? Somewhere fun? Will there be sweets?” Nellie peppered me with questions as she leaned her head on my shoulder inside the carriage.

Over the past few days, we’d really bonded, and she’d cemented a place inside my heart.

Every morning, I did her hair, and she kept asking for more elaborate styles with braids.

She told me she had always wanted braided hair, but her nana’s fingers couldn’t manage it in her old age.

I felt for the girl and was so glad that Zane had brought her into our lives.

I laughed, looking down at her. “Not only will there be sweets, but there will also be puppies,” I told her.

Zane jerked his head in my direction, realization dawning. “You want to go to the Savage Lands?”

I nodded. “What if we made them … less savage? This is the portal the citizens of Faerie will be able to use to visit Ethereum. What if we cleaned them up and made it a travel hub of sorts?”

Zane’s eyes grew wide. “I love that idea. My men could put in a road. Or maybe I could help the courts build a train system here like the one we have in Ethereum?”

I nodded, feeling my excitement build. “We would need approval from the other courts, but I don’t see why not. Oh, it would make travel so much easier.”

It was settled. We traveled to the town where Zane had bought our puppies first and played with them, promising to return once they were weaned.

After taking a night’s rest in an inn, we set off for the heart of the Savage Lands to show Nellie the tree where Zane had lost his life and saved our worlds.

Since the curse wasn’t trying to stop us, we moved quickly and with far more ease than before, but as we’d traveled, we’d taken in the devastation from the flood of black liquid that had tried to kill us.

Half of the trees and foliage had been washed away.

The areas that weren’t affected by the black flood were wild and unruly, with darkened trees and thick overgrowth.

An ominous-looking place that was difficult to travel through.

When we finally reached the Tree of Transformation, the golden vine arch the Wise Ones had created with their magic was just as beautiful and awe-inspiring as I remembered.

“Whoa, this portal is pretty,” Nellie said as she slid off the back of her horse and took a few tentative steps forward.

“What are you thinking?” Zane asked me, looking around at the dead landscape around us.

I pulled out my dagger—the last one—and palmed it.

“I don’t want this to be used as a weapon ever again,” I told him, kneeling as I set it on the ground. “I wonder if the earth will take it and allow me to … redecorate.” I winked.

Technically, the Savage Lands, located at the very center of our converged courts, weren’t part of any one court but were still part of Faerie. The faestones seemed to carry magic we had never fully understood, so I was hoping that the pink moonstone would still work here.

Zane kneeled beside me. “Worth a try.”

“Okay, this time, when we feed it with magic, I’m going to try to guide it to do what I want,” I told him, and he nodded.

I had a vision for this place. I wanted fae to feel welcome here, for it to be a place where all of Faerie could come to embark on a tour of Ethereum, and in return, a beautiful first introduction to our world for the citizens of Ethereum as well.

Nellie was sulking off to the side because in every court, she’d asked if we needed help, and every time, I’d told her no. This time was different. This was the faestone from my court, and I believed that meant I was going to have more control over it than I’d had with the others.

“Nellie, come assist me,” I called out.

“Me?” she said, shocked, her tongue red from gummy candies we’d picked up for her at the last village.

“Yes. Come help me.”

She bolted over, eagerly looking down at me.

“Place your hands on my back, and when I say to, I want you to push some of your magic into me,” I told her.

She frowned. “I don’t usually push—I pull.”

I nodded. “That’s the problem. You take sickness into yourself, but I’m going to teach you another way.”

She pressed her mouth into a firm line, concentrating. “Let’s do this.” She rolled out her neck, and Zane and I smiled at each other.

Zane and I pressed our interlocked fingers over the faestone like we had in other courts, and then, with Nellie’s help, all three of us poured our magic into the stone.

It took Nellie a few minutes to get the hang of pushing her magic rather than pulling, but eventually, I felt a burst of fresh magic feeding Zane’s and mine, and I knew it was time.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and began to imagine the layout of the land Zane and I had crossed over in the past two days, as well as what I knew about it from the maps I’d seen.

I started with the trees, creating a wide path, large enough for two carriages to pass side by side, that wove its way through the Savage Lands to create roads to all four Faerie courts. I then made the trees shift into a variety of species: oaks, maples, weeping willows, and cherry blossoms.

At one point, Nellie gasped, but I kept going.

Next, I worked on the ground cover. Instead of dead brush and gnarled ferns, I arranged things in a more orderly fashion, transforming large sections of the landscape into a well-thought-out garden while still keeping some patches throughout the territory the same.

It was important to me not to completely change the Savage Lands.

There was a wild beauty to this place that I still wanted to preserve.

Next, I made moss flourish along the tree trunks and then covered the exposed ground in a thick blanket of grass or fields of wildflowers.

With the help of Zane and Nellie’s magic adding to mine, I made flowers from all four kingdoms sprout up along pathways and in open fields.

I coaxed trees to bloom and some to grow to almost impossible heights.

By the time I was done, I was utterly exhausted.

“I’m finished,” I said, opening my eyes and pulling my hands away from Zane’s.

When I looked at the result of our combined magic, I gasped. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined.

A wide dirt path lined with stones now flowed through the ravine, straight to the golden portal.

Along its edges were rows of purple and pink flowers, with a second row of blue and yellow blooms behind them.

The mixture of trees in the surrounding area was breathtaking, especially with the vibrant green moss growing along their trunks.

“It’s so pretty,” Nellie said behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder at her.

“And you helped make it that way,” I told her. “I couldn’t have done it without your magic. You’re very powerful.”

She smiled shyly and ducked her head, her cheeks turning as red as her hair.

Still smiling, I glanced over at Zane to see him peering through the portal at the small village thoughtfully.

“You know,” he said, “I’d always intended for one of these outer villages to be a hub of sorts for trading and additional train connections. What if Weldstone Village became the first train station to connect to Faerie?”

I blinked at him. “Connect to Faerie. Are you talking about running a train through the portal?” I never would have thought of that idea on my own, but the portal was huge, so there’d be enough room to lay track and run a train through it.

Zane nodded. “We are one people now. What better way to show that?”

Excitement coursed through me at the thought. I could already imagine where the train platform would go. Just off to our right, near the giant willow tree.

“It’s a perfect idea,” I said, taking his hands in mine.

“You’re perfect,” he muttered, looking into my eyes as he pulled me closer.

“Eww, are you going to kiss?” Nellie said, and I grinned.

Zane shot Nellie a look. “All right, time to head back to the Spring Court,” he said before turning to me. “Then I’m taking you out. Alone.”

Nellie stuck her tongue out at him, but her gaze reflected happiness.

I laid a hand on Zane’s stubbly cheek, looking into his gorgeous blue-and-brown specked eyes, and my heart swelled.

He was so handsome. So kind. So much more than I even knew to hope for.

I couldn’t imagine my future without him, and I was just so glad that now I didn’t have to.

There was nothing I was looking forward to more than spending time with him and getting to know him better.

“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more,” I said honestly, and he smiled, and then a wicked gleam entered his gaze.

“I can think of one thing,” he said, and then, much to Nellie’s distress, he leaned forward and captured my mouth. And just like every other time we’d kissed, the world fell away until it was just the two of us, lost in the warmth and certainty that we were exactly where we were meant to be.