Page 41

CHAPTER FORTY

The Stag Man snarled as a mixture of thorns and green fire rippled across my shoulders, stabbing and singeing his palms. He lurched back a step with a sound of disgust, a gem on his necklace flaring to heal his hands.

But I didn’t attack further. Instead, I asked coldly, “Capturing a spirit will do it?”

His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “A free spirit, so unless you plan to first free the wight in the cloch and then capture it anew—nigh impossible—choose another. One that knows how to fly, preferably.”

“I have another spirit in mind.” Turning on my heel, I stalked for the double doors of the great hall.

“You’ll forgive my skepticism,” the Stag Man said, catching up to me in just a few long strides. “The pixies will stay here if this second attempt proves a failure like the first.”

“It won’t.” The pixies and I didn’t share a bond anywhere close to the one I had with Sawyer, even before the Soul-Bonding Spell, but I had adopted them. I was responsible for them. They were mine , and I was sick and tired of Ossian tormenting that which I loved.

“My lord,” Alec called, hurrying after us. “I need to speak with you.”

“Whatever it is can wait,” the Stag Man snapped. “There is only this.”

“But—”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Alec. If I must, perhaps I’ll let it slip to our guests who Wystan’s true accomplices are. Can you imagine the bite force a beaver must possess to fell trees?”

Red-faced, Alec let the matter go. This time, when hate consumed his brilliant blue eyes, it wasn’t directed at me.

“Where are we going?” the Stag Man asked when we were alone in the hallway, heading for the foyer.

“You’ll see when we get there.”

In a flash, Ossian hoisted me into his arms. Cradled me like a damsel. Manhandled me.

“Before you make good on your warning from earlier,” he interrupted just as green light emanated from my hands, “I am the fastest mode of transportation and we are under a deadline.”

“Head south,” I growled.

He snorted at the imprecise directions but obeyed. The darkening world blurred by at an incredible rate, the effect so dizzying I had to close my eyes. He barked down landmarks at me over the rush of the wind, and after a few more vague instructions, he finally slowed and stopped.

Black pines towered above us, the trees clustered so thickly it was impossible to see within the woods. The storm clouds shifted above, revealing the crescent moon, but even its light couldn’t penetrate the evergreen spires.

“This is Dunstan Forest.” The Stag Man gave me an accusing look. “The sluagh are said to gather here.”

They didn’t gather anywhere other than where they were ordered. Since regaining my memories, I knew that for a fact. Ossian kept his more vicious servants stabled here until events dictated they be released upon the populace as a reminder to put their faith in their all-powerful fae king.

“Are they?” I quipped. “What a coincidence.”

“Clever, Meadow. First Wystan, now the sluagh. It’s like you’re trying to rid the town of the evils you brought here.”

Already within the first line of trees, I spun around to give him a smile full of saccharine insincerity. “And just think, only one more to go.”

Scowling, the Stag Man plunged into the darkness after me.

The trees creaked and swayed before the coming storm, their branches casting shadows into the gloom. Other things within the forest creaked and groaned, shadows moving on their own accord and resembling fae youth and young adults with long tunics and skirts. Instinct found me shrinking closer to Ossian.

I yelped when the Stag Man slung his arm across my shoulders and drew me in close. “The mallaithe will not harm you while I am near.”

With a twist of my shoulders, I shook him off. “You’re despicable, Ossian, releasing those creatures here.”

“How was I supposed to know this mortal realm would mutate them into something venomous? Hmm, perhaps I’ll take one back and unleash it into Callan’s court.”

Chuckling, he called a ball of copper-colored magic to his finger. He flicked it like he was dislodging something sticky, and the ball arced into the branches ahead of us and detonated with a soundless burst. A flare.

The nearby mallaithe, so much closer than I’d originally thought, threw their hands up to shield their eyes. Their hissing filled the wind as their tentacle roots scuttled them deeper into the pines.

His self-satisfied smirk got no reaction from me.

We traveled further in, Ossian releasing two more flares. One revealed a mallaithe sapling with a recently torn arm and sap leaking from the wound. The Stag Man paused then, scenting the air, before moving on. All the mallaithe we’d seen were young, just a few days old. Where were the formidable adults? Did they instinctively know to stay away from their master?

Soon, the temperature of the air grew unnaturally cold. Even with the oak tree’s fiery heart keeping me warm, I shivered. The memory of the white mist with emaciated limbs stretching out to touch my family with the sluagh’s frostbite kiss was still fresh.

“Careful now.” There was nothing patronizing about the Stag Man’s warning. “Not even the King of Beasts can control every hornet if the nest decides to strike.”

Just a few pines separated us from a clearing, and within, a churning white fog. Horrid faces and hands with overlong fingers could be seen breaking past the fog only to be sucked back in to reappear somewhere else.

My guts knotted in revulsion, my breath frosting in front of my face.

Lowering into a crouch, I watched the mass of sluagh circle the same spot like a cloud caught in a slow-moving vortex. Soul-snatchers, they were said to be neither living nor dead. More spirit than creature. Claim one, and I would master the true essence of air.

“It’s not too late to return to the pixies,” Ossian whispered. “You can attempt mastery one at a time. This is a flock that fights like one. You will have to take them all down or none at all.”

His words fell on distracted ears. As I watched the twisting fog, my thoughts returned to Marten. He’d learned to harness his air affinity under the nose of everyone. How many times had he shirked his chores and snuck off to practice? And why?

Out of necessity .

You weren’t elected into the Circle of Nine unless you were powerful in your own right. Whether it was sibling rivalry or his true passion to become a robed elder, he had toiled in secret to master every aspect of his power not just for the coven’s betterment, but for himself. For his own freedom to choose where his life led—out from his talented sister’s shadow.

Then he’d been forced to turn his back on that freedom and take a vow to protect me, to hide me from the Stag Man’s notice by sacrificing the magic he had fought so hard to master. And now he was paying the price for my mistakes, imprisoned in the Unseelie Court.

“I didn’t understand you until now, brother,” I murmured, rising.

The oak tree rippled to life, green roots and red heart and blue veins along its trunk. It called to the final element as I stepped quietly into the clearing, summoning it home.

A moan like the groaning of trees lifted from the sluagh. The white fog spun faster, scraps of mist like grasping hands and screaming mouths reaching for me. Flinging up a glowing hand summoned a shield, and the spectral creatures broke upon it like foaming waves upon a beach.

Then I stamped my foot, a line of green flames zipping along the earth into the heart of the fog. A second later, a tree of green light sprouted from the earth, branches unfurling. No sooner did it bud out than the whole tree ruptured in a shower of flame-like leaves.

The white fog exploded into a flock of shrieking blackbirds—my aim all along.

The same shield that had buffeted the fog now condensed against my skin, turning away their slicing feathers and pecking beaks and shredding nails. I waded into the flock, unharmed, and threw up a flaming barrier along the clearing’s perimeter to prevent any from escaping.

More than dozens tried, burning up before they could pass more than a feather through. The rest shrieked and flapped erratically, searching for escape. In the midst of their chaotic maelstrom, I closed my eyes.

Marten’s voice surfaced, this memory lacking the sneer he’d used months ago. If anything, his voice was earnest. Dad’s got a bit of air magic in him, did you know that? I think that’s what makes him such a good tracker—he can sense scents on the wind better than any of us. Understands the path of air and what kind of route it took to reach him.

The blue veins along the oak tree’s trunk brightened as I called upon the water molecules in the air. They mimicked the path of the sluagh, traced the outline of air currents. I could visualize those until I learned better.

It would have to be an accelerated educational course.

The blackbirds had abandoned their escape to target their tormentor instead.

Their attacks were precise, using their agility and the gusting wind to maneuver. I felt each strike against my shield like Rose was lobbing peas at me from across the dinner table again. Except these peas were sharp. Extending my magical perception, I watched and felt as the blackbirds swarmed, shifted, and navigated the air to destroy my shield.

I felt their singular focus to break free, to reach the open sky above. Traced the path of their flight over and over again until I could anticipate it. Used my nose to sense the shift in scents, the lack of pine sap as the wind pulled away, the assault of carrion as the sluagh swooped near.

There was a sudden break in the attacks, in the scents, only for a second. But I knew that was the wind shifting and when it arced back it would bring with it another barrage.

Unless I redirected it.

A faint white light rippled along the leaves of the magic oak tree as I lifted a hand and spun .

The air didn’t pass through my wide-spread fingers like it had on the widow’s walk. It caught .

I pulled what felt like an invisible length of ribbon through the air. The current arced wide, shuttling the attacking blackbirds away from me.

Startled, they broke off from that gust of wind and joined another, diving for my head.

Inside, the white light spread along the oak tree’s canopy like wildfire as I caught that current even faster and swept the blackbirds harmlessly away. Every leaf shone like a silver star, and laughter bubbled up inside of me despite the peril of the sluagh.

The air was beautiful. It was playful and fierce, soft and teasing yet hard and unyielding. Its path made no sense whatsoever because it had the freedom to do whatever it liked. Be whatever it liked. Those were its only constants, its only guiding stars, and I understood them.

Marten and I had been striving for that our entire lives.

The fire barrier vanished.

The blackbirds squawked, racing for their escape.

The air wouldn’t let them. I wouldn’t let them, for their evil existence could not be allowed to endure. Unlike mallaithe and fiáin, they did not belong to the natural order. They were abominations, twisted for the sole purpose of feeding off the living. They were also fae monsters, which had no right to these mortal lands.

At my direction, the air funneled them straight into the hard ground. Each blackbird ruptured into a puff of white mist as it hit the frozen soil. Tendrils of wind whisked that mist away, preventing it from condensing. The sluagh fought against the current, each beat of their black wings propelling them upwards, but the air was mine to command. We would not stop until the threat lingering over Redbud was gone.

Pfft. Pfft. Pfft-pfft-pfft. The sluagh exploded one after the other in rapid succession, the grass blackening from their evil stain. When it was done, I turned to the last evil stain upon Redbud’s land.

The Stag Man gave me a cautioning look and extended the filigree key.

No longer Meadow Hawthorne, I truly was Meadow Ní Violet now. Her heir in full.

I knew it, and the Stag Man knew it too.

I could take that key if I really wanted to, right now. I could take it and charge it and fly upon this wind I had mastered to the portal and—

“The bear,” was all Ossian had to say to dissuade me.

And Sawyer. And Flora, Daphne, and Shari. Cody and Emmett. My family. And . . . the list went on.

Twin currents, as playful as otters, as fierce as wolves, coiled down my arms and shot straight into the last diamond.

The key flashed a blinding silver. When the light faded, the diamonds were all blazing with their respective colors and the filigree shone even brighter than before.

It wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

No longer did the magic oak tree shine with golden-green light. Nor was there a red heart or blue veins, white leaves and green roots. The oak tree was a riot of colors like those of opal: white, gold, purple, green, red, blue, even flecks of glittering black. It stood straight and tall, its roots and branches fanning out and reaching.

The Tree of Life.

Ossian must’ve sensed the change in me for his golden aura shone brighter and soothing thoughts blasted down the stolen bond. They were a balm on the stress of the day, but my heart rebelled against them. These emotions were lies . He had no right to them.

“No,” I murmured, swaying on my feet .

But he had been waiting for this opportunity. Planned for it. At his throat, the light within the blue cloche swirled violently. The Stag Man pumped more of that golden aura down the bond like a firehose, making my thoughts sluggish and dreamy. He’d never given me this much before.

I should’ve been more careful. Should’ve known he’d seize my elation as the perfect opportunity to pounce. Why hadn’t I kept my guard up? No matter how hard I tried to tamp down on the bond, it was still too much.

“Easy, love,” he murmured to me like I was a wounded animal. “Easy.”

I shook my head, the movement upsetting my equilibrium. Magic sputtered along my skin like water droplets cast into a hot pan—a fleeting protest.

The Stag Man caught me and swept me up into his arms. The blue gem at his throat gleamed as brightly as his eyes. Twin emeralds obscured by a mop of copper curls winked once before my eyes fluttered shut.