Page 88 of WitchCurse
“Twilight zone,” I muttered taking in the space. It was beautiful really, like something out of a fantasy novel. How was it even possible to have the house look like part of it was a tree, with flowers blooming inside, and still seem to have electric lights?
But there was no sign of Kiran. The bond still there, surrounding us, seeming to be part of everything, but untouchable. Was this a dream? Maybe Kiranwasprotecting us from being in hell or something.
Nick stepped away to open other doors and looked inside. He paused at one, blinking, eyes wide.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Library. Like the one we had when we first built the sanctuary in Underhill.”
I stepped up beside him and peered through, finding not a big room with bookcases, but a giant space filled with at least a dozen floors going both up and down, all filled with shelves and millions of books. Staircases spiraling from one floor to the next and the scent of paper and old books wafted from the room. If this was a dream, it felt real.
“Holy fuck,” I said, Nick and I staring at each other for a minute or two, the awe I felt reflected on his face.
I headed to the next door, which had been Nick’s room, and inside it was still his room, just as he’d had it before. Giant bed in the middle covered with thick furs for blankets and a raging fire on the other side of the room. The night table still sat with a stack of books on it, not unlike I remembered it having the last time we’d been in it. The only change was that the walls were woven with branches, and flowers crowned the room in an ivy-like growth. “We have to be dead, right?”
Nick turned and headed toward the main door of the camper, both the screen door and the interior one closed. Would we be able to leave the space? What was beyond? He pulled the large heavy door open first, leaving us to stare out the screen into an area filled with trees, flowers, and a thousand dancing lights.
“Will-o’-the-wisps?” Nick asked.
“Uh…what the hell?”
“It looks like a realm,” Nick said. He pulled open the second door and stepped out, me clinging to the back of his shirt, worried it was all a dream and he’d be ripped from me at any moment. My wolf perked up, responding to my anxiety, but sensing no danger. “It has to be a realm,” Nick said. “A court manifested?”
The trees were woven together, colors not those natural to the world I’d spent my entire life in. The sky overhead bright and glowing, but not the normal blue I remembered, more a golden pink, like a blaze near sunset or sunrise, yet I could see the orb of the sun beyond the trees.
“Kiran built a realm?” I said following Nick as we wandered through the area near our camper.
“I severed all the ties with thegodkillersword. It helped that we were close to the court and I could see all of them draining him. Didn’t think it would work. Maybe this is his power unfettered?” Nick said as he studied our surroundings.
The floating lights didn’t get close, but I could hear the buzz of tiny wings, like a thousand bees. And in the distance was the sound of water running, a stream? No running water had been close to the camper before. Now as we wandered away from the living space there were trees, rocks jutting with pretty crystals growing out of them, water in small pools and some snaking streams, and a menagerie of critters like I’d never seen before.
“Fae,” Nick said as we wandered past something that looked a little like a rabbit from anAlice in Wonderlandnovel walking upright on its back feet.
“Did he have a pocket watch? Because that would be cool as shit,” I said as the critter vanished. “Is Kiran building from stories?”
“Can you see the magic?” Nick asked pointing to another batch of floating lights. “The fae are living things, not illusions of fiction.”
I blinked, and let my gaze switch to those magic threads I’d always sort of seen, finding color blaze to life as the little things moved around in tiny oil slicks of color. Everything was alive and pulsing with an insane level of magic. “Holy shit!”
“Real fae. A lot of these we thought extinct. Some I’ve only read about in books.”
“He somehow lured extinct fae to his realm when they used to fear him eating them?” I wondered as we followed the stream. It was frustrating because I could feel Kiran in everything, like I’d turn and any second, he would be there, but it had to be the pulse of his world…realm…whatever this place was.
“Or created them from the remains of their energy which he might have one time devoured.” Nick said.
“Wait…so devouring the fae helped preserve them?”
“Maybe?” Nick grabbed my hand, weaving his fingers through mine to squeeze. “I can’tfeelany particular direction for him. Just that he’s here.” He waved his free hand at everything. “Everywhere?”
I had a moment of terror thinking he’d given up his existence to create a realm for us to be safe inside. Would it still feel like him? I had barely gotten the chance to touch him, and discover the small victories like a rare smile or even an occasional laugh. His wit had always been biting with an edge of humor the rare times he spoke, and I’d come to long for the silence in which he became reflective, listening, and rarely demanding. It had always had a touch of near omega level calm. The hunt we’d been on, and his joy over catching the shadows, had filled me with hope that made me giddy, and stupid.
We’d been caught because of me. My misfortune again.
Nick tugged me close, wrapping his arms around me and leaning in to kiss me. “Stop. We might not be in Kiran’s mind right now, but I can feel yours. Let’s not sink into that chaos. If there is going to be blame, you can place it on me for not demanding you return, or making you stay with us.”
“Kiran wasn’t ready yet.”
“Maybe not, but we would have been together. Who knows if any of this would have happened? If he is free from all the curses, I think it’s worth it.”