Page 42 of The Storm of the Empire (Flyers Of The First Kingdom #3)

FORTY-ONE

LUKA

“ Y ou’re too far.”

“I’m fine.”

“I feel you slipping.” She’d become very attuned to how much of myself went into the visions. I almost had to be there with them, which meant leaving my body and leaving all I was. We fought for my mind. It wanted to immerse myself in the vision while she wanted to hold me back. It left my head spinning while the vision remained no more than trying to peer through a murky lake.

I almost wished they’d all just let me sink into them. Even if it brought on madness, at least I wouldn’t feel like I was barely awake most of my days and denying vital parts of myself.

“It’s gone.” I stumbled backwards, and my shoulders met cool stone. I slid to a seat, calling it good enough until my head stopped spinning.

“Are you okay?” She reached for me.

I held up a hand. “Fine. Just a little dizzy.”

“You’re frustrated.”

“I am. You keep stopping it. It’s almost as bad as a ruined orgasm.”

Hazel winced, but laughter sounded from somewhere near the door. I picked up my head to figure out who it belonged to.

Faolan stood at the entrance to the training room. “Nothing worse than a ruined orgasm.”

“This is a close second.”

“I don’t envy you.” He ventured further into the room, looking between us. “Something tells me you could use a break.”

“Maybe.” Hazel chewed her lip. “We’ve only just begun.”

“I’m spent, and my head hurts.” I looked at Faolan. “What did you have in mind?”

“Want to get a drink?” Faolan offered his hand to help me stand.

“It’s barely noon!” Hazel said.

I grabbed his forearm, letting him pull me to my feet. “A drink sounds good, actually. Especially since we have to sit in on the council for Jaxus later.” I checked my appearance in the windowpane, ignoring the dark circles. “I’ve never done so much paperwork in my life—and I worked in shipping!”

“I don’t envy you that either, mate.” Faolan looked at Hazel expectantly.

“You two go. I need—” She sighed and didn’t finish her sentence. “I’ll see you at the council meeting.”

“Okay,” I said to her back.

“Trouble in paradise?” Faolan asked like he didn’t already know.

“Yes and no. I want to go deeper, but she’s terrified.”

“Have you tried it alone?”

I shook my head. “And have her and Kiera telling me off?”

“I guess I wouldn’t want them on my case either.” Faolan led the way to our favorite tavern, the Flaming Pegasus.

We got a couple of ales and found seats in the back. It was mostly empty due to the hour, so we could relax.

“What made you come find me?”

“I’d like to say it was merely to check on you, but Kol is not getting any better, so Jaxus wanted to see your progress.”

I sighed into my drink. “He won’t ask me himself, will he?”

“Not with Kiera and Hazel playing guard dog over you.”

“I thought Kiera wanted Nyx better.”

“She does, but she’s torn, and they won’t do harm to you to save someone else.” He put his foot up on the bench, watching something over my shoulder.

“So they sent you?” I asked, finding it kinda funny Jaxus didn’t want to anger his mate so he sent Faolan.

“I’m the favorite scapegoat. Haven’t we been introduced? And I don’t mind saying what needs to be said. In fact, I prefer it. I’d much rather get it out in the open than deal with the elephant in the room.” Faolan wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met. He swam against the current and he preferred it. If there was a system to butt, he was doing it.

I actually admired him for it. “What would you do?”

“You don’t want my advice,” he teased goodheartedly.

“Why not?”

“Because my advice generally gets one banished or excommunicated or the like.”

“One day, you’re going to have to tell me stories.” I banged my head onto the back of the booth. “Give me your advice even if I shouldn’t follow it.”

He closed one eye and hesitated. “If I get in trouble with your mate…”

I waved him off. “I will take all the blame for my own actions.”

“Why are you letting any of them dictate your magic?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it felt good in the tunnels when you used it like you wanted. Why aren’t you practicing like that?”

“I shouldn’t be practicing with Hazel?” I asked, a little stunned.

“I’m not saying that can’t help. But power flows down the path of least resistance. Magic, as much as we think we can control it, cannot be tamed. It has a mind of its own. Yours even more so. It speaks to you in a way no other magic has the ability. Why aren’t you following what feels good? None of this ruined orgasm stuff.”

Faolan’s words sounded like freedom, and I shouldn’t have wanted them as much as I did.

It took a few days, but I started tapping into my magic when I was alone. Any time I had a minute to myself, I tried to reconnect with it. I didn’t feel anything major, but I took turns when I felt like it and stopped at odd places, any time my chest twinged at all, I followed it. My life and duties didn’t change much, but I felt more like myself.

This made me late for meetings and practices, though. Hazel suspected something was up, but I just would tell her what I’d been doing and move on. I wasn’t going to lie to her. I made her take me out flying, and I missed more meetings I’d probably hear about later, but for now, Jaxus was inundated with his own work, and Nyx was too distracted to notice my absence.

The King had stagnated the military until we had more information, which no one knew how to get, and without Kol waking up, there wasn’t really any way to get more. I still didn’t think they believed us about the base, so it was a mystery where Kol had even come from.

“We’re late. Will you hurry up?” Hazel pulled on her boot, hopping across the floor to stay balanced.

“Do not blame me for this. You didn’t have to sit on my face that second time.”

“You invited me, and it would have been rude to say no!” Her cheeks pinked.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I held up my hand to playfully shield her from my view.

“Why not?” she asked coyly.

“Because we will miss this meeting if you do!”

We got out of our suite with minutes until the meeting, but about halfway there, I stopped.

“Can I meet you there?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“My throat is dry. I’m just going to nip into the kitchens for a drink.”

She nodded and went on her way. I turned towards the kitchen but was pulled off course by a door left ajar. It was one of the side exits to the library. These doors were never left open.

I slipped inside and glanced around. There was no one to be seen. Sometimes, it felt like Kiera was the only one who even used this library as it was mostly ancient dribble no one had a use for anymore. No one had the heart to throw away so much knowledge, either.

I strolled down the rows of shelves, looking for the fae who’d left the door open. I found none, so I walked back, needing that drink more as the tickle in my throat grew worse. I turned to leave, but a thud behind me made me pause. I glanced over my shoulder to find a book had fallen off a shelf. I retrieved it and went to put it back when the bell sounded.

Now I was going to be late. I tucked the book under my arm and jogged there, slipping into my seat to a few glares.

“That’s not a drink,” Hazel said under her breath.

I shrugged. “It fell into my lap, so to speak.”

“What is it?”

“I haven’t even looked. I was late.” I held up the spine for her to see.

“Poisons of the past and future… Do you know what you look like carrying that around?” She shoved at it. “Get it off the table. They’re going to think you’re threatening them.”

I rolled my eyes but put it on my lap. As the meeting got underway, my mind drifted. Hazel might need to hear some of this, but most of it could have been a sent in a note for us to read later.

Why did everything in the palace not only run at a snail’s pace but also feel like a colossal waste of time? I flipped open the book, resting my head in one hand so they couldn’t tell I was anything but bored out of my mind.

I could barely read the book, and what I could, I knew nothing about. Some of the plant sketches I recognized, but the names were foreign to me.

Finally, we were allowed to leave, and Hazel grabbed me, half shoving me into an alcove.

“Is that how the day is going?”

She glared but wore a hint of a smirk. “Where did you find that?”

“In the library. I could show you instead of going to lunch.”

“Why would you need to show me?” she asked.

“It’s empty and quiet.” I dropped my gaze down her curves.

“You’re incorrigible!” But her tone told me she liked it. “Twice this morning wasn’t enough?”

“I think we could set a record here. Go for five. I’m willing to give it a go if you are.” I took a step back, curling a finger at her.

“We have a full day.”

“No one needs us. We can skip?—”

Blackness ate at my vision, and my feet lifted off the stone, sending me floating towards a being of light I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t one being, though; it was two. Two females. They were saying something to me, and I willed myself closer to hear.

One smiled as she saw me, the light dimming a little so I could see her face. She looked like me but not in features. In a way I couldn’t describe. I needed to know what she was saying more than I needed anything before.

She reached her hand out for me, and I tried to take it?—

Someone called my name, pulling me away from the female. I clung to the vision, trying to stay there, to hear what she needed to tell me.

A warm hand cupped my face, snapping me back to the ground. “Luka.”

I pressed my eyes closed, biting back a scream of frustration. My breathing was like I’d run a marathon, and as it slowed, the frustration bled out of me. I kissed Hazel’s hand. “How long was I gone?”

“Five minutes maybe?”

“Did I say anything?” I whispered into her hand.

“No. You were reaching, I thought it was for me. I tried to pull you back, but you wouldn’t come. Not until I touched you.”

I nodded because it was all I could do as I tried to make the vision stick so I could write it down later.

“Where did you go?”

“A female was trying to tell me something.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her, but she needed to say something. I need to get back to her.” I felt like I’d left a part of me in the vision. Maybe more control wasn’t good if remembering meant littering pieces of myself in unknown realms.

“You can’t do it here.” she said, glancing around.

“I won’t stay. I promise.”

“What if you do? Kiera found accounts. The ones before you—that’s how they were lost. They cling to other futures and live there in their minds.”

“What if I don’t? And what if this saves more fae? We got Alora’s egg, didn’t we?”

“You can’t keep making yourself worse to heal other wrongs. You have to fix yourself first before you can help anyone else, or you’ll crash and burn, and no one will be saved.”

“I know.” I clung to her. “But why does it have to be so painful?”

“I don’t know how to handle losing you.”

“I don’t know how to either, but all we can do is try to bear it.”

Her face haunted my dreams. They weren’t visions, they were nightmares about not being able to get back to the fae and hear their message. I didn’t want to sleep. Night after night I tried, but after Hazel gave into the exhaustion, I got up. I paced or looked through the library book.

Tonight, I gave up trying to find my way back to the vision and dug through the boxes of my things I’d abandoned to one side of the room. We’d never found time to unpack them, always pulled in a hundred directions or more during waking hours. Even my little side quests had become few and far between, bogged down with reports.

If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn the King was trying to bore everyone to death.

I put the rest of my clothes in the space she’d made in the wardrobe then found my pendant in the bottom of the box with the storm opal I’d taken from the temple.

“What are you doing awake?” Hazel’s fingertips brushed over my shoulder.

“I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d finish unpacking.” I stood so she could see the empty boxes.

“What do you have left?” She held out her hands.

I placed the pendant in one and the opal in the other. “I was just going to find a place to display these. They feel like they should be a shrine to how we began.”

She plucked the storm opal out of my palm and met my gaze. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in the temple. The first time we were there. It was in one of those hidden closets. I guess I never mentioned it. There were dozens, but something told me to pocket one, so I did.”

She didn’t say a word.

Did I upset her by taking it? Had I made some massive mistake and offended her people?

“I’m sorry. If you want to give it to your family, say where I found it?—“

She put her fingers to my lips. “Shh. No. You didn’t do anything wrong. But do you know how valuable these are?”

“You kinda suggested that, but I wouldn’t sell it.”

“It’s priceless. Like I said, the Far North doesn’t export them anymore.”

“So we keep it a secret or sell it to get rich?” I laughed a little, testing her mood.

“You keep it as a focal stone.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a place to store extra magic when you need it. But I have an idea.” She rubbed it between her fingers.

“What?” I asked, drifting my touch up her arm. Sparks jumped between us. “What are you doing?”

“Charging it for you. Remember how I told you the storms open the hearts of the stones, allowing them to charge?”

“So because you have storm magic, you can open this one?”

“A little since it’s small. I couldn’t give enough power for a large one, but this one I can.”

“So it’s like giving me a little piece of yourself?”

She lifted her face, gaze leaving the stone to meet my eyes. “Storm magic disrupts other magic. My lightning disrupts magic. When I touched you the other day, it pulled you back—” She seemed unsure of herself. But I waited, giving her time to find her words. “My touch pulled you back from the vision, but I won’t always be with you, and I saw what it did to you when I pulled you out of it too soon.”

I nodded. There was no denying it.

“So maybe if you have a part of me with you to pull you back, maybe you’ll never fall too far in the vision.” She searched my face while moonlight cast a sliver of light over hers, drawing out the lovely undertones and freckles on her skin. She was the most beautiful fae I’d ever encountered.

I brushed my lips over hers before whispering into them, “If I wear it around my neck, I’ll have it with me always. Do you think we could have it made to replace my pendant?”

She smiled against my mouth. “We’ll find someone tomorrow.”