Page 26

Chapter Twenty-six

I stare dubiously at the arch of intertwined vines. Thick and covered in razor-sharp thorns, they defy the laws of nature, twisting up from the ground in two gnarled columns that curve to meet in the shape of a large doorway.

“ This is a portal?”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Something a bit more maegical. This just looks like part of nature.”

“Maegic is part of nature.”

I fight off an eye roll. “You know what I mean. It doesn’t glow, doesn’t pulsate…It doesn’t do anything.”

“I assure you, it does.” He shoots me a bemused look. “Besides, portals are not designed to stand out to any common traveler on the road. Most folks are not even able to see them. They emit a glamour that keeps them hidden from all but those with strong fae blood. To a mortal, to most halflings, this place would appear as nothing more than an empty glade.”

I glance around the clearing. It is set at the very heart of the Forsaken Forest, where the trees are so wide around, it would take a dozen grown men with arms outstretched to encircle their trunks. The ground is thick with moss and ferns, a green carpet that glows faintly beneath the press of each footstep. Thousands of fyrewisps drift in the air, twinkling like living stars until the first hint of dawn chases them away.

It had taken us hours of walking to reach the portal. The journey would have been much quicker with Onyx to carry us, but Penn said he would not risk bringing his stallion into the path of ice giants. Let alone any of his men.

“How does it work, exactly?” I examine the arched vines with sharper focus. A slight shimmer infuses the air of the entire glade but, other than that, I detect little in the way of power.

“The portals are like a network of doors, all connected. You step through one, exit through another.”

“That simple, huh?”

His lips twitch at my incredulity. “The trick is to stay focused on where you want to end up. Only attempt to travel between portals when you know their precise locations. Otherwise…you can get lost.”

“Lost where?”

“In between. Within the fabric.”

“That sounds less than ideal.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Why can’t we just go back to Caeldera on foot?”

“Besides the fact that these woods are rife with monsters…that would take more than a week’s time. Time we do not have. We’ve been away too long already. Fyremas is days away, and one of my most trusted lieutenants is about to become a father—”

“Oh! Carys! ” My heart seizes with sudden guilt. I have all but forgotten my friend during the drama of the past few days. “She must be worried sick!”

Penn’s gaze sharpens at the familiarity in my tone, but he chooses not to comment on it. “All the more reason for us to get back as soon as possible. That means a portal. I assure you, it’s perfectly safe.”

“Unless you accidentally lose focus and wind up wandering the fabric of time and space for all eternity?”

“I’m certain you would find your way out eventually. There are plenty of exit points to choose from—even if you can’t be entirely sure where they’ll drop you.”

“How many portals are there?”

“There’s no way of knowing. Some have been lost to time, destroyed by the blight, or demolished by mortals when they sacked the sacred places of power. But there are a handful of them still scattered throughout the Northlands.”

“Where did they come from?”

“They were built by our ancestors. Ancient fae. They wanted a way to connect the strongest leylines of the land. To travel quickly between the four courts.”

“I’ve heard of leylines, but I’m not certain I truly understand what they are,” I admit.

“If Anwyvn were a man, the leylines would be the veins beneath his skin. Instead of blood, they ferry maegic. Usually, they are invisible to the naked eye. Inaccessible. Except in spots where the maegic is particularly potent.”

“Like the cavern behind the falls?”

He nods. “There are certain spots where the fabric of the world stitches together. Like a seam joining two sides of a garment. Power pools naturally in those places. You’ve likely come across them before, even if you did not recognize it at the time.”

“The Starlight Wood,” I whisper. “In Seahaven. There was a feel to it. A current in the earth. Like untapped power.”

“Probably a portal.”

“If it was, it is naught but ashes now. The wood was set aflame by soldiers the night I fled my home…”

I meet his eyes and find him watching me carefully. I have never before voluntarily shared any information about where I came from, what my life looked like before our paths crossed.

Perhaps it is finally time to change that.

“One of the Midland kings sent soldiers.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “So many soldiers. They overran the entire peninsula, laid siege to every settlement. They killed everyone. My entire village.”

“Your family?”

“My mentor. His name was Eli Fleetwood. He was mortal. A healer by trade, and a skilled one at that. He could’ve set up his practice in Bellmere, in any big city, but he preferred to live in a cottage by the sea. People would travel all across the realm for his aid. He’s the one who taught me to set bones and mix salves and brew tonics. He kept me safe—kept me shielded—for years.”

“And…” Penn’s voice is halting, as if he is afraid to push me too far. “Your parents?”

“I never met them. As far as I know, they abandoned me the day I was born. Eli found me squalling in a wicker basket on the shores beyond the Starlight Wood. Left there to wash away with the tides, like some sacrifice to the gods.”

Penn absorbs my story in silence, then murmurs a soft “I’m sorry.”

“About my parents? Don’t be. You cannot grieve something you have never known.”

“Not about them. About your mentor.” His eyes are very dark in the predawn morning. “You must miss him.”

I do not say anything. I merely nod and look away. And Penn, being Penn, understands that there are some things I am not yet ready to discuss. Some wounds still too raw to poke or prod.

“This portal is currently dormant,” he says, swiftly changing the subject. “If we stepped through now, we would merely find ourselves on the other side of this clearing instead of back in Caeldera.”

“So how do you activate it?”

“Blood.”

My brows lift. “ Blood? ”

“Specifically, maegical blood. Blood of a high fae. Blood like ours.”

“That seems a bit barbaric.”

“However you travel, be it by horse or ship or sled, you sacrifice something. Time, sleep, stamina, coin. This particular sacrifice is simply paid up front in exchange for safe passage.” He stares at me, seeing the trepidation in my expression. “Don’t worry. We’ll go through together this time.”

Before I can say anything else, Penn yanks one of the blades from the bandolier strapped over his chest and slashes a deep cut across his hand. He does not even wince. I am so busy staring at the blood welling into a pool in his palm, I don’t realize he’s taken hold of mine until I feel the sudden bite of the blade against my skin.

“Ouch!”

“Come. Quickly,” he mutters, tugging me toward the portal. “Before they heal.”

Clasping his bleeding palm with mine, he jerks me to a stop directly in front of the archway. At this distance, the thorns look sharp as daggers. The vines are more than simply twined; they are fused together. Inseparable, even with the sharpest instrument.

Our interlocked fingers drip red as Penn lifts them into the middle of the portal. It shimmers—once, twice—then begins to glow, a steady flood of light so bright, it is blinding. The whisper of maegic that tinges the atmosphere here at the heart of the forest crescendoes to a thrum that vibrates the air itself. My Remnant tingles, as if absorbing some of the residual power that flows all around us.

I glance to Penn for guidance.

“Whatever you do…” he grins at me, a rare flash of straight white teeth that steals my breath, “don’t let go.”

Without another word, he leads me forward into the light.

Traveling by portal is like being slingshot directly into the sun. It is dizzying. Disorienting. A rushing spectrum of color, a ceaseless buzz of white noise. The world contracts down to nothing, then expands into infinity. It tips sideways, turns upside down. Spins like a wobbling top across a wood plank.

There is no substance—not to the world around me, not to the man beside me. Not to me . My bones dissolve into particles, scattered like dust as we hurl through a beam of pure light. I do not see, so much as sense. Do not touch, so much as feel.

I am sunlight.

I am time.

I am air.

No, not air, but…

Aether.

We hurtle across the network of leylines, gossamer and glowing like a spider’s web in sunlight, intersecting and branching across the whole continent. It is too much to hold in my head at once, too vast to process without fracturing into pieces. I want to shut my eyes, but they are not there to shut. I wonder how it is I can still be holding Penn’s hand when I have no hand left. I wonder how I can wonder anything at all with no mind, no skull, no self.

The journey lasts an eternity and also, somehow, less than a second. A lifetime wrapped within a single blink. With a jarring thud that makes my soul spasm, we slam to a halt. I feel my scattered particles reassemble, dust becoming blood and bone, all that was diaphanous returning to solid form.

And then we are back. Back on solid ground, back in the world. Feet in my boots, breath in my lungs. Penn’s hand squeezes mine, warm and steady. Gulping in ragged gasps of air, I fight off waves of nausea churning at my middle and blink to clear the starbursts from my eyes.

We stand in a round cavern much like the one concealed behind the waterfall, only larger—and significantly drier without a constant blanket of mist to dampen the air. The stone walls around us bear glyphs in the same ancient, etched style, but these do not encircle the entire room. Instead, they form a doorway.

A portal.

It is roughly the same size and shape as the vine arch we passed through in the woods. As I watch, the glyphs fade from a bright red glow to their natural shade of dark ash as the portal goes dormant. In mere seconds, it looks like nothing more than ancient artwork carved into the stone.

“Where are we?” I ask, voice hushed.

“See for yourself.”

Penn does not drop my hand as he leads me to the mouth of the chamber. Stepping out onto a narrow ledge, I find myself staring down at Caeldera. We are at the very top of the crater, with a view of the entire capital sprawled out beneath us. Directly opposite our vantage point, the palace glitters amid the roaring falls. Its turrets refract the first beams of morning light, painting the typically gray facade in the pastel palette of sunrise.

I gasp at the sight, awed by the beauty unfurled like a carpet at my feet.

“This is my favorite place in all of Caeldera.”

Tearing my eyes from the view, I glance at Penn. “It’s not difficult to see why.”

“I come here to clear my head.” His lips tug up at one side. “Or to escape Vanora.”

“Has she always been as she is now? So…calculating?”

“Vanora was born with no fire maegic. She burns with resentment instead. Her need for adoration is a flame that will never go out.” Finally releasing my hand, he reaches up and removes his helm. It hits the stone parapet at our waists with a heavy thunk. I try not to watch too closely as he runs his hands through his hair, mussing the flattened strands. The sight is somehow more riveting than the view of the city.

“She resents me most of all,” Penn continues, bracing himself against the stone. “We share no blood, no true familial bond. She is the daughter of King Vorath—the first Fire Remnant, who was born into the chaos of the Cull and claimed the throne when he came of age. And I was the son of a common blacksmith.”

“ Was? Are you not still?”

“The day I was born, mere minutes after I was delivered, they took me from my mother’s arms and brought me here. To the palace. I was presented to Queen Amitha, Vanora’s mother.” He pauses. “You must understand, here in the Northlands, it was seen as a great honor to give birth to the next Remnant. I was not hidden away like Enid, not abandoned like you. My birth parents were elevated in social rank, lavished with gold, given great jewels and a parcel of land by the North Sea in exchange for producing me.”

“For giving you up,” I correct softly.

Penn shrugs. “Might makes right, as they say. Queen Amitha raised me well enough, for all that she could not give me a true mother’s love. Even in her grief, she was not cruel. She was soft-spoken. Gentle. Too gentle, perhaps, since she joined her husband in the skies only a decade after his soul departed.”

“A pity her daughter did not inherit those same traits.”

“Vanora was born simmering with a bitterness no amount of love could sweeten. I don’t think she ever accepted my sudden arrival in her life—especially as it coincided with her father’s death. His pyre was not even cold when I was brought to Caeldera, a newborn babe, a commoner at that, bearing a Remnant mark…” His expression is torn between amusement and apathy. “At the age of five, she could not understand why I possessed that which she was denied. Why his legacy had passed to me instead of her, a child of his own blood. Her bitterness, already steaming, boiled over.”

“And your birth parents…you never saw them again?”

“No. They relinquished all claim to me. But that is not abnormal. In the fae courts, it has always been so—the strongest of us taking up the reins of rule, steering the kingdoms. After the uprising, when the emperor was killed, when the maegic fled, it became even more essential. There was no one to unite the four elemental courts. No singular power to protect our borders from invasion, to shield our people from slaughter. We were on our own.” His deep voice is reflective. “Two of the strongholds fell shortly after the wars began. To this day, they sit in ruins.”

“Air and Earth,” I murmur. “You told me once before.”

And, since, I had read more about them in Soren’s tome. It was a bevy of interesting information—even if the author’s descriptions were dry and left something to be desired. Just last week, before I’d been kidnapped, I’d read a passage about the slow erosion of maegic, even in the strongholds that had survived the Cull.

Maegical gifts grow rarer with each generation. Even among the oldest high fae bloodlines, where power was once a guarantee, there is no longer an assurance that a child will be born with even the most basic abilities in wielding an element. Several families interviewed for this account confessed, under the condition of anonymity, that their newest offspring cannot spark a candle or fill a goblet, let alone heal after an injury.

Others say they have been in incapable of conceiving at all, leading to rising fears that the entire maegical race may die out within the next century. And while it is speculated that a child born to one of the Remnants—or, perhaps, a pair—might produce a stronger elemental talent, thus far there has been no evidence to confirm those hopeful theories.

In the margins, Soren had scribbled, Surprised he didn’t take the liberty to comment about my legions of potential bastards.

Only he could make a joke out of the total eradication of our people.

“Yes,” Penn says, calling me back to the present. “The Fire Court survived, but barely. Thousands were killed at the hands of Reavers and Frostlanders, who’d joined the mortal usurpers in their bloody regime. Dyved’s armies fought them back, but at great cost.” He stares at his home, brows furrowed, fingers flexing against the stone. “Afterward, King Vorath used what power he possessed to hold the kingdom together. He sealed our borders from all outside the plateau, closed the trade routes in and out. His reign was a time of rigid control and strict compliance. Of isolation and suspicion and fear. So much fear. That was the Dyved of Vanora’s childhood. That was the clay from which she was molded.”

“It does not excuse her actions.”

“Excuse them? No. Explain them? Possibly. She was no more than a young girl when her father pushed his powers too far, trying to keep the wards up. He died in the process. And then…”

“You were born.”

“Yes. The next Fire Remnant,” he agrees with a hint of acerbity. “Vanora was Vorath’s heir by birth. But I have his power. I have his flame.” His hand lifts to his chest, pressing against his bandolier, against the mark I know lies etched on the skin beneath. “There are many who want me to step in and take the throne. It is mine by right—far more than it has ever been hers.”

“Why not take it, then?”

He looks at me, brows high on his forehead. “Vanora may be vain and self-centered, but she has not been a bad steward of the throne. Dyved thrives. The people are happy. For more than a century now, she has been a decent enough ruler. I allow her lavish dinners and ridiculous balls and aggrandizing displays. In exchange, I keep my freedom. Freedom to travel beyond the plateau. To reopen our borders, reestablish our trade routes. To make alliances that once seemed an impossibility.” He glances back at the city. “I was barely out of my leading strings when I set out to the Water Court for the first time with a contingent of trusted soldiers at my back. I wanted to see if it still existed. When I saw that it did, I demanded a meeting with the king.”

“Soren?”

His nod is short. “Gods, he must’ve been amused by the sight of me, half-grown, rattling his gates with my list of demands. But he did let me in. More, he actually listened without dismissing my idea for a treaty outright.” There is a pause. “He may be a miserable, misanthropic bastard, but he is true to his word. We have been allies ever since, sworn to aid each other in war. To hold the Northlands against invasion. To stave off the blight as long as possible.”

“When we were leaving the Acrine Hold, he mentioned your royal obligations to attend his sister’s wedding?”

“Princess Arwen.” Penn sighs. “She is to be married at midsummer. I suppose I will have to make an appearance. Even if she were amenable to the idea, Vanora is now too frail to travel as far as Ll?r.”

I chew my lip. “And me? Am I to attend?”

The air turns static with unspoken tension. “Do you want to?”

“I would like to see Hylios,” I admit. “I am curious about the Water Court.”

The silence lingers for a breathless moment. “As I have told you many times before, Rhya…you are no prisoner here. You may go where you wish. I have no right to keep you.”

My gaze traces the lines of his profile. Two dark eyes, turned away from me. The sharp, straight slope of his nose. That stubborn mouth, so often set in a frown. I have seen but a handful of smiles from that mouth, and far fewer laughs.

I catch myself wondering what the formidable Pendefyre of Dyved might be like, had he been born without that mark on his chest, without that inferno raging beneath his skin. Had he grown up the son of a common blacksmith instead of a child of the prophecy. A sudden image of him—strong shoulders unburdened by the weight of destiny, bright smile in a soot-streaked face, handsome enough to capture the attention of every girl in his village—flashes through my mind, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat.

“It is still months away,” I say in a thick voice. “Let us first see if I survive Fyremas.”

My words are only meant to lighten the mood, which has turned decidedly somber, but they jolt Penn into action. He pushes away from the stone parapet and grabs his helm. “We should be getting back. The sun is rising and it’s going to be a long day.”

I open my mouth to say something— anything —to keep him standing here with me a little while longer, to prolong this fleeting moment of transparency between us. But I have no earthly idea what to say, and besides, he is already in motion. I fall into step just behind him, a silent shadow following him back into the rock chamber. We bypass the dormant portal, now almost undetectable against the far wall, and move into a narrow passageway that leads deeper into the earth. It is so dark, I can barely make out the silhouette of Penn’s broad shoulders three paces ahead. But I can feel him there, even without sight, the bond between us tugging me along like a new colt on a training bridle.

When he stops at the end of the passage, I follow suit automatically. He lifts his hand and presses it against the wall. There is a brief red glow of a ward activating in the darkness. An instant later, I hear a deep rumble in the earth and the floor beneath our feet drops out. I shriek as my hands fly out and twist in the fabric of Penn’s cloak.

“Penn!”

“Relax.” Mirth threads through his voice. “It’s a lift, built into one of the old mine shafts. There’s a whole network of tunnels surrounding the crater. A few are still in use for storage and the like, but the rest are sealed off from the public.”

My hammering pulse slows somewhat as the lift lowers, a surprisingly smooth descent. I force my fingers to release their death grip on his cloak.

“My ancestors mined the earth around the old volcano for generations, but as Caeldera flourished into a more cosmopolitan city, the practice fell away,” Penn informs me. I get the sense he is talking mainly to keep me distracted. “Most of our gemstones and minerals now come from the foothills near the Cimmerian Mountains and the salt flats in the upper provinces.”

I nod, only half listening as I wait for the journey to end. Taking shallow breaths of stale air into my lungs, I envision open sky, clear dawn breaking through the clouds. Claustrophobia claws at me viciously as the moments tick on. At last, we thud to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. The earth beneath my boots is blessedly solid as Penn guides me down another short passage and, finally, into the light. I suck in a deep breath, filling my lungs to capacity.

“I see a future career in mining is out of the question for you.”

I glance over at Penn’s sardonic remark. He is leaning back against the rock face at the base of the cliff, eyeing me with a mix of concern and amusement.

“I’m fine now.” I exhale a shaky breath, feeling steadier already. “I have never been overly fond of confinement.”

“Mmm. The deep earth is the antithesis to all that you are. You will never feel at home in places where there is no open sky. Just as I am not destined to turn my hand to sea captaincy. There are some things, for all our power, we cannot overcome.”

I ponder this as we make our way back to the palace, moving through the quiet streets of Caeldera as they slowly come alive. Dawn breaks in full, bathing the clean-swept cobblestones with light. Roosters stir awake and announce the start of a new day with creaky crows. Soon, their owners will emerge, bound for the mills and the forges and the storehouses that dot the lanes around us. But for now, all is quiet. All is still.

I had once thought I might never return here, to this place. Yet in this moment, it feels like an indisputable homecoming. If I’m honest with myself, that may have more to do with the man walking beside me than it does with the city itself.

I do not share this sentiment with Penn. But between us, the invisible tether sings with such strength, such surety, I think if I dare lift my fist from its tightly clenched position at my side, I might run a hand across it, pulling music from our taut silence like a finger down the string of a harpsichord.

By the time we reach the palace, my fists are clenched so tight with the effort to keep them at my sides, my fingers have lost circulation.