Page 56 of Fae Tithe (The Cursed Courts #1)

O ver the next four days, the family soon fell into an easy routine of travel and camping.

Helena was more wakeful, and she found she could not stay the whole day in the back of the bumpy cart.

By each mid-afternoon, painful spasms would plague her, her skin writhing with burns.

Lance, ignoring Helena’s irritable protests at being able to continue, would stop them for the day.

He would take charge, making sure the three of them were washed and fed, before turning his healing touch to Helena.

By the fifth day, excitement bloomed within her, as she smelt the salt tang of the coast and raised her eyes to the fat gulls squawking overhead.

“Look!” Lance called over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “Portson!” A wide grin split his face.

Helena and Eleanor, snuggled in the back of the cart amongst their belongings, gave a unified cheer.

They avoided going through the city, instead following the fork in the road that took them away from the beige behemoth. Portson had not changed in the family’s absence. It still stood proudly on the estuary of the Sol, the blue provincial banners billowing on the ramparts.

Eleanor had been quizzing Atlas on all the questions she could think of as she sat next to her mother.

Helena felt him preen under all the attention.

The more her daughter and the Dragon spoke, Atlas speaking through Helena, the more she realised that great swathes of his memory were gone.

She understood Atlas even more at that realisation.

Helena’s memories of her later teenage years and early twenties were fragmented at best. She knew that to protect his mind from breaking, Atlas had instead forgotten.

“What do you know about Changelings?” Eleanor asked him, after firing off multiple questions in a row.

Tell your daughter that what has happened to her is not in the scope of my experience, Atlas replied, and Helena repeated aloud. I am very sorry for her though.

Eleanor’s lips tugged downwards, but she moved on to another question. “Tell me about the land you flew from, before you got lost? I always knew there was something beyond the Faerie Isles. There had to be.”

“His home is called Tierra. It is a continent, and much like the land that makes up Carnglaze in size. It is hotter there and the vegetation is thicker. He says the trees are taller than mountains and it rains every day,” Helena answered for the Dragon.

“Carnglaze?” Eleanor asked.

“The true name of this continent, before it was divided into Seelieland and Unseelieland,” she relayed for Atlas.

“I didn’t know that.” A dreamy look passed over the Changeling’s face. “Maybe I could map it,” she said brightly. “Map Tierra… we could find it, Mum! Maybe find Atlas’s family?”

Helena closed her eyes, and plucked at the fractured pieces of the Dragon’s memory as he opened them up to her.

She grasped at the information she sought.

“Dragons do live a very, very long time, but Atlas was in Muspelheim for tens of thousands of years. His family probably died a long time ago,” she explained gently.

Helena reached with her scaled fingers to try to comfort Eleanor.

She squeezed the grey scar she had accidentally left on her daughter’s wrist. She felt a stab of guilt in her chest at leaving that mark in her last moments, before Lance had brought her back.

Helena had no idea what it was, and neither did Atlas.

“Oh…” Eleanor said, and her shoulders dropped.

“That doesn’t mean you still couldn’t go—”

Helena grunted as she braced against a large bump of the cart, a grimace passing over her face.

“Sorry!” Lance called out brightly from the front. “I’m not as good at this as El.”

Helena rolled her eyes at the back of his head before turning her attention back to her daughter.

She removed her hand from Eleanor’s wrist and cupped her chin, tilting her face upwards.

She was very careful not to scratch Eleanor with her claws.

Helena inwardly cursed herself. Of course she had to be left-handed, and it was her left arm that was marked with scales!

“You could still go. Even if it doesn’t help someone, all I ever wanted for you was for you to be able to follow your dreams,” Helena said softly, her gaze meeting her daughter’s. “You can do anything you want.”

“How, Mum?” Eleanor sniffed, tears silvering in the corner of her eyes. “Look at me.” She gestured to herself.

Helena nodded, tapping a finger just beneath her fiery eye with her free hand.

“I understand, believe me. We will figure it out. A way to turn you back, and if there’s not a way, I’ll help any way I can, so you feel more comfortable in your body.

I’m here for you, and so is Lance. Once we are home, Rose and the boys, especially, will understand. ”

More tears ran down her daughter’s cheeks. Helena leant forward and tugged Eleanor into a hug as she shuddered out a sob. Helena knew she had been so brave. She was glad her daughter was finally letting it all out. Tears soaked through Helena’s sweaty shirt as Eleanor wept into it.

Eventually, the Changeling pulled back from her mother’s hug and sniffled, red-faced. Helena awkwardly shifted in the cart, hissing through her teeth as she pulled at her tender, healing skin. She leant over to haul out a water bag, handing it to Eleanor, who uncorked it and guzzled some water.

I wish I could help her, Atlas said.

Me too, Helena agreed. All I can do is be here for her. An ear when she needs to talk and a shoulder when she needs to cry.

That is helping her, Len, the Dragon said firmly. Besides, whose shoulder do you get to cry on?

What do you mean? she asked.

It was an unintended side effect when you were cursed, but has something similar not happened to you? Has your body not also changed?

Helena flushed with the Dragon’s observations. Of course it had, but she could not bring herself to address that right now. She had Eleanor to think of. Helena turned her attention back to her daughter, who resealed the water bag and handed it back.

“There it is!” Lance sang from the front.

Helena shifted. In her periphery, just peeking on the horizon, she could see the sapphire blue of the ocean.

Her heart fluttered with joy. Home.

Eleanor was bubbling over with excitement.

All she could feel was the butterflies in her belly by the time Goliath clopped onto the stone causeway that led them from the mainland of Archipelago of Sol to Majora, their home island in the Clusters.

She fidgeted next to her mother in the back of the cart, and could no longer concentrate on asking Atlas questions.

She ached to be home. She craved some sort of normality.

If even Atlas doesn’t really know what I am or how it happened, I think it means I will be staying this way. She wrung her hands, distracting herself by observing the patterns in the landscape.

Blue-green grasses carpeted the rocky soils, with small blossoms of white peppered through like tiny stars.

Oleander bushes interrupted the swathes of grass with their pastel pink flowers, the beauty hiding the poison within.

Rosemary and thyme grew in clumps along the rocky road, their fragrances mingling with the salt tang of the sea.

Eleanor sniffed appreciatively, letting out a contented sigh as the familiar scent reached her nose.

Lance steered Goliath through another village, and Eleanor felt a jolt of excitement tingle down her limbs. They had one more settlement to pass through, and their home villa would be in sight.

“We’ll move quicker through this one,” Lance called over his shoulder.

“Until I figure out how to hide this...” Helena held up her obsidian arm and pointed to her Dragon eye with a claw. “…it’s for the best the villagers don’t see me.”

Eleanor brushed her fingers over her ears. At least I look like a Fae. How is Mum going to explain what happened to her? I could at least hide the ears under my hair, maybe explain the rest somehow. What’s she going to do?

The teenager heard Lance click his tongue against his teeth, and the Seelie Stallion shifted from a fast trot to a canter as they entered the boundaries of the ramshackle village.

Eleanor studied the settlement, keen to see any changes, anything new. How long was I gone for? Maybe a month? A little longer? Why would anything be different? She sighed, shaking her head. Just because I’ve changed, doesn’t mean everything else has.

It was later in the afternoon, and many shops were beginning to close, the narrow streets beginning to thin out from crowds.

A group of human children were tossing a ball over the road to one another, quickly darting out of the way as Goliath thundered up to them.

Eleanor giggled at their open-mouthed awe at the sight of the mountainous stallion.

She leant forward and spoke into Helena’s ear. “They’ll be home, right? School would have finished a while ago. Aunty Rose would have had time to pick up the boys and take them home?” she asked eagerly.

Helena nodded. “Yes, the timing is perfect. I can’t wait to see them. I’ve missed them so much.”

Eleanor leant back and bounced her knee as the cart jostled on. The rocky road made the ride rougher. A particularly bumpy jolt sent a jar up her spine, making her shift with unease.

C’mon. She tapped her foot anxiously against the wooden bottom of the cart.

Then, Eleanor flared her nostrils at the scent of the rosemary hedge and her ears twitched at the distinct crash of waves at the bottom of the cliff.

Excitement finally took over and she launched to her feet, bracing her legs against the sway and bounce of the cart.

Eleanor was careful not to step on her mother, but she stood tall, her keen eyes searching for the rest of the family.

The Changeling could see a wide-brimmed hat bobbing up and down in the garden, and then heard the distinctive huffing bark of Biscuit.