Page 48 of Witchbane
“Ice queen? Liketheice queen?” I made the motion of throwing ice around.
Nick nodded. “I have vague memories of something along that line. Sadly, not that glamorous.”
“You’re the ice prince then?”
“Kitsunes are fire magic, not ice,” Kiran corrected, seeming annoyed. “We are the sun. Creation…”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Nick said. “Great and powerful. We get it.”
Liam wrapped his arms around me. I had a million more questions but didn’t know what to do. The castle flickered again, going black and stuttering back into place.
“Fuck,” Kiran said. He sucked in a deep breath and it was filled with gravel and fluid. That couldn’t be good.
Nick’s humor fled, and he looked as though he were about to pick Kiran up and carry him away.
“It’s all right, master,” a melodic soft voice said. A fae came in through the doorway, stepping around the mess to make their way to Kiran’s side. Thin and made of branches, it didn’t look human, more like an elegant sculpture of branches. Was this a nymph? One of those tree spirits of legend, perhaps? I thought I’d met tree spirits before, though they’d been smaller, more like bugs who claimed a tree. I’d also run afoul of a Leshen, which was sort of a cross between a shaman and a tree, more human-like, yet still a growing thing. This could have been a more delicate cousin of the Leshen.
It, they, stepped before Kiran and bowed.
“Creshna, no,” Kiran said.
“Your strength protects us all. If it fails, what do we have left? My people are gone, long lost to corruption, pain, and death. Use my strength to heal and continue to protect those who remain.”
Kiran looked tired. The rattling in his chest meant blood filled his lungs, and a tiny trickle of gold appeared at the corner of his lip. Did the fae bleed gold? “Creshna…”
“It has been the greatest honor, my Prince. When your mother brought me in to help cradle her babe, and I watched you grow, I knew you’d be a divine thing.”
“The death of us all. It’s all we are,” Kiran muttered. “Should never have opened a door between worlds.”
Creshna bowed again. “As long it serves you, I am yours. Willing in all things.”
Kiran let his face rest in his hands for a moment, silent and tense. We were completely missing something, or maybe it was me. When I glanced up at Liam, he appeared confused too. Kiran looked up and held out a hand to Nick.
Nick helped Kiran stand, and Liam pulled me away.
“What’s happening?” I asked. Had my mate caught what I missed? “Liam?” He held me tight, arms wrapped around me, expression grim.
Kiran shifted. Not to the friendly multi-tailed fox I’d followed to a frozen palace, but some enormous demon of brimming white fire. The cross between a fox and some sort of large cat, with multiple tails and billowing fur. Beautiful and terrifying. He was mostly white, with a few red markings on his face. The spots near his eyes and nose seemed to be actual flames, rather than colored fur.
The palace flickered again, returned, and Kiran lunged, jaws stretching impossibly wide. In those few seconds he became a monster of Underhill and devoured the fae, Creshna, whole.
They didn’t scream, or fight. And Kiran didn’t hesitate. The fae was there and then gone. The room turned eerily silent. I struggled to breathe, the horror sinking in. The white flames around Kiran built into a newly brightened fire, and the room began to change. The giant hand vanished, the ooze eating the floor faded away, books returned to shelves, and Kiran shifted, returning to his human form. He looked healed, but tired, and very grim.
“This is what we are,” Kiran said not flinching away from my gaze.
“Monsters,” I whispered.
The last time I’d been in Underhill, I had eaten corrupted fae because Underhill had cursed me. Or at least that’s what I had thought. Perhaps Underhill had called those twisted monsters to devour me. Underhill hadn’t expected me to be stronger, maybe hadn’t realized I had a newly awakened hunger for magic. Which was why it had kicked me out.
Did awakening the kitsune mean I had to eat fae regularly? What about all that magic in me that still churned with wound up and unusable energy? I struggled to breathe, too much in my head, questions finding answers I didn’t want.
The fae called me the death of them all. Was this why? I could only survive by feeding on them? What would happen when Underhill was gone? Would I be hunting fae the rest of my life to survive? Was I even willing to do that? What if the rest hiding in the mortal realm died? Would I die and drag Liam down with me?
Liam lifted my chin so I could meet his gaze. He leaned down to press his forehead to mine and kiss me lightly. I didn’t feel loved or sexy in that moment. I felt like a monster. I never asked to be the death of a world. Or anyone.
“Are there no other options?” Liam asked Nick. “Nothing in this vast library to redirect this curse Underhill has put on him?”
It wasn’t a curse. Not like werewolves were blood curses. I waswitchborn, it was my birthright. That’s what Kiran had meant about us being monsters. It was in our blood, the root of our existence.