Fae (15 page)

The flurries in my tummy
seep away. Of course I'd misunderstood. I often jump to
conclusions. My mother is always scolding me for coming up with all
sorts of crazy ideas after only hearing something in
part.

And Galen talking with a
Fae'ri is crazy.

I rise to my feet and
brush off the debris on my backside. Now that I know I have nothing
to be afraid of, I realize how silly it is of me to stay in the
forest for so long. In fact, as I stop to take in the heavy silence
of the wood, my skin starts shivering all over again. I've stayed
far too long.

I push through the thick
brambles. My skirt gets caught on a twig and tears halfway up my
leg. I ignore it and plow forward. When I come upon a trickling
stream, I freeze. I've gone the wrong way. The trees are all
thicker here and I realize I've actually been going deeper into the
wild gardens.

I close my eyes and clench
my fists. Fear will not take hold of me. I am brave. I am strong.
I'm the Aurume.

A smile ticks at the
corner of my mouth as I feel the drilium from my wings spread
through my blood, strengthening me. No dark forest can take me.
I've gone through worse in my training alone. The hunger for a
challenge gnaws at my insides. I almost pray for something to come.
Something to destroy.

I call up the red points
of light. My favorite. The heat is there just within reach, ready
to obey me. A group of molecules join and a flame sparks before my
eyes. I send it on a path toward the stream to dance just above the
trickling flow of water. Its warm glow illuminates the dark forest
and a glint of light catches my attention. At the edge of the
stream, just below a clump of leaves, something reflects the light
of my flame back at me.

I pick up the thing and
warm delight wells up inside me. The most beautiful locket I've
ever seen dangles from my hand. An orange flower, as bright as
flame, has been molded above the face of the locket and in the
center of the flower is a rare gem I've only ever heard about. It
is clear, but as I turn the locket, the gem changes colors from red
to violet.

A death stone.

Chapter Two

Blank

The darkness seeped away
to the edges of my vision and I found myself standing under a thick
canopy of leaves, each one bigger than my head. I blinked and
rubbed my eyes. Birds chirped above my head. I watched them in
wonder as they flitted from one branch to another. Somewhere behind
me a stream bubbled. Heat rippled in waves in the air.

"...with bioluminescent
lighting. Ella?"

"Hmm?"

Cailen stared at me with
his head cocked to the side and the hint of a smile on his lips. I
closed my eyes, trying to remember what he'd been saying. The
answer was there, fluttering in the back of my mind, but it felt
like trying to remember a dream.

"Is something wrong?" He
placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "I know it's a lot to
take in.

I rubbed my temples and
tried my hardest to keep the shaking out of my voice. "Where are
we?" Somehow I knew in a vague sort of way that I was in a familiar
place. It felt homey, comfortable, like something I'd known once.
But what bothered me was that I had no clue how I came to be
standing in a rainforest with Cailen.

He laughed.
"What?"

"Cailen, I don't remember
how I got here."

He narrowed his eyes and
studied me. He pulled one of my eyelids up with his thumb, and then
twisted my head to look in my ear. "We should get you to the
infirmary. I might have pulled my wings prematurely." He took one
more cursory look at my eyes before giving me a reassuring smile
and squeeze on my shoulder.

"What do you think is
wrong with me?"

"I'm sure it's nothing too
bad." He shrugged. "You've seemed a little out of it since we
transported here. I thought maybe you were just overwhelmed, but
you might have a concussion."

"And you don't think
that's bad?" My heart raced beneath my chest. Walking around while
daydreaming with no memory of what I'd been doing couldn't be good,
despite Cailen's assurances. What was going on with me?

The room spun and my legs
shook. I couldn't stand. Cailen caught me by the arm and led me
through the jungle to a glowing, green wall. He stopped there and
pulled something out of his pocket.

"The Aurume is with me in
the Transport Room," he said into it. "Bring guards."

I was too tired to try to
figure out what any of that meant, so I stood there and
waited.

A few minutes later, a
door slid open and two lines of at least a dozen men in bright
green tunics and pants and leafy helmets of gold stood on the other
side. They stood still with their backs ramrod straight when, as if
on cue, they released all their wings all at once.

The multi-colored hue
nearly took my breath away, so bright I had to squint my
eyes.

Music from the other room
drifted into the rainforest—what Cailen had called the Transport
Room. Some of it was low and sad, but other parts of it were sweet
and willowy, like wind blowing through a wooden flute.

I took a step toward the
guards and Cailen followed just a step behind me. We passed into a
wide open room at least a mile around with the same glowing walls.
My gaze traveled up to the ceiling, but all I could see was an aqua
blue sky.

"Where are we?"

His eyes pinched as his
lips drew into a tight line. "My ship. Don’t you remember anything
about coming here?"

Applause and shouts of joy
erupted from hundreds of Auri all around the room. All of them wore
varying shades of white tunics, all with beaming smiles on their
faces like I was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. I looked for
children, but found none. Of course not. Cailen's ship was a
warship, and these were soldiers. Many rushed forward and welcomed
me.

All of them released their
wings like the guards as they stood within feet of me. Red, blue,
green, purple, yellow, every color imaginable lit the room up like
a rainbow.

I looked over my shoulder,
leaned toward Cailen's ear, and whispered, "What's going
on?"

He leaned down to whisper,
"They're saluting you."

Goosebumps broke out on my
skin even as my blood warmed. A smile crept up, unbidden. Suddenly,
my daydreaming spell went to the back of my mind. Cailen led me
past the kneeling Auri and I couldn't help but marvel at these gods
among men as they deferred to me, a nobody.

And I remembered this
feeling. I remembered these clothes, these walls, the way the floor
felt like walking on grass. It all felt so natural, like home. My
heart swelled inside me and I wondered why I'd ever wanted to wait
for this.

The energy in the room
crackled with so much exposed drilium.

"And it's all yours to
command,"
a voice whispered in my ear. I
whipped my head around, searching. My heart pounded in my chest.
Cailen looked at me with worried eyes.

I shook my head and faced
forward again.

***

We had to go a long way to
get wherever Cailen had decided to take me. And wherever we went,
people released their wings and thanked me for coming home. All
throughout the ship, the wind music played until I couldn't stand
to hear it anymore. It was too sad, like hope had been lost
forever.

Finally, Cailen guided me
to a smaller room with metal instruments and beds lining each wall.
A young woman in a calf-length coat stood in the center of it, as
if waiting for us. She smiled and saluted with her
wings.

"Your Majesty," she said.
"It is an honor."

I looked around at the
room, at the bland whiteness of it all, wondering what had happened
to the quiet beauty of the glowing walls that breathed
air.

The girl studied me in
interested silence. After a moment, she stepped forward and bowed.
"May I see what is wrong, Your Majesty?"

"What are you going to
do?"

"Merely take in your
vitals with this device. This is not a healing room." She tittered.
"Our wings render that unnecessary. But we do like to study
ailments if we can to determine just what is wrong."

I nodded, giving her
permission to proceed. I still felt a little disoriented by all the
attention.

She shined a light in my
eyes and passed a small palm device that emitted little beeps
around my head. It tingled my scalp and made the hairs on my neck
stand on end.

"There's no swelling," she
said. "You look fine."

"The memory loss?" Cailen
replied.

A twinge of annoyance
erupted just underneath my skin. I was not fine. No, I didn't want
them to know everything about me, but couldn't nifty Auri
technology even see that blackouts were bad? By the way Cailen's
gaze flicked to mine before going back to the woman's, I knew he
felt my annoyance too. A surge of calm spread through my limbs and
my eyelids started to droop. I welcomed the soothing warmth. And I
needed to focus on what really mattered anyway. What I wanted—what
I needed—to know was how I kept going from one place to another
with no memory of the in-between parts.

I had my suspicions and
there was only one way to confirm them. I closed my eyes and let
out a deep breath.

Malik?

"Yes?"

My gaze flickered to
Cailen to see if he heard, but he and the woman were busy talking.
So the voice really was in my head. A shiver ran up my
spine.

Is that really
you?

"Who else could it be,
Ella?"

Cailen's fingers ran down
my arm and I smiled to reassure him. As soon as he turned back to
the woman, I let my body shake with terror.

What do you want with
me?

"Death."

My heart dropped into my
stomach.
Why can't you just leave me
alone?

He chuckled his maniacal
little laugh.
"Because you and I are two
of a kind. You're more like me than you'd ever care to
admit."

I'm nothing like
you.
I cringed just thinking about all the
evil he was capable of. The torture he'd put Meir through.
You're a murderer.
At
least, he'd almost been, tried to be. He had the heart for it and
that made him just as bad.

He laughed again and
images flashed across my mind. A woman holding a baby, both
screaming as a wall of flame descended on them. A whole planet
consumed. The wails. The pain. Malik with his dark, terrified eyes
pinched in agony as he fell to his death, burning on the inside
out.

Stop it!
I doubled over in agony.
Please.

"Ella?" Cailen's arms were
around me in an instant. The girl had her palm device on me again,
scanning. I wondered if her little gadget could find a
ghost.

"I think I just need to
rest," I said through heavy breaths. "It's been a long
day."

"Do you want to go back to
my room or would you rather stay here?" Though he gave me the
choice, the way he said it made it pretty clear he wanted me to
stay in the lab.

"You're room."

He sighed. "Okay." He
helped me straighten, and then turned to the girl in the white
coat. "Thanks, Anna."

My stomach jumped at the
name and I glared at the girl in the white coat. She looked back,
all innocence in her eyes, and bowed. Cailen led me away, but I
kept my eyes on her, wondering...

Surely there had to be
more than one person in all of Auru with that name. But what if it
was her?

No. I decided right then
and there that I would not obsess about this. Cailen had already
promised me—proved to me—that we were bonded. I couldn't just let
something as little as a name get me all upset again.

But the nagging little
doubt kept taunting me. She'd seemed so comfortable around Cailen.
So familiar.

Anger spiked in my blood
and I saw red. There was no way I'd ever let that uptight little
sprite go near him again.

The next thing I knew,
Cailen's hand was on me and calmness oozed through my veins. The
red faded away and the ship's walls returned in hazy relief. He led
me this way through the glowing and breathing halls until we
reached his room and he helped me onto the biggest bed I'd ever
seen—able to sleep six people, easy. I stretched my legs under the
covers. My bare feet luxuriated in the silk sheets and stroked the
fabric over and over again.

"This is amazing…" I
breathed deep and dug my face into the soft pillow. Cailen sat next
to me and ran his fingertips along my spine. I could have melted
there permanently if it were possible.

"How are you
feeling?"

"Tired," I mumbled through
the fabric. I could have fallen asleep right then and there. My
warm muscles felt loose enough to sag into the cushions and stay
there forever, perfectly content. And terrified, but I think he
knew that already.