JOURNEY INTO THE REALM: The Spell Master (Journey into the Realm Series) (12 page)

Zora wanted me to “take a break” from spending time with Nathan – even though I had known him for less than one week – so I was unable to practice fencing with him the next day. At first, I protested, telling Zora that it wasn’t fair for her to dictate my life. Then I thought about it and realized it would be better to keep her happy than to pick a fight. If I wanted to spend time with Nathan, I would have to do it under Zora’s conditions or risk major problems in the future.

So instead of fencing, I chose to go shopping with Ellie in Birchwood. The city was having one of its annual market days; vendors from neighboring towns and villages came to Birchwood City to trade and sell goods. The whole idea seemed a little olden-days to me, and I was eager to see how it worked. The Elf Realm was diverse when it came to its historical identity. While many customs and manners remained from the past, others were as modern as the Human Realm. I loved the diversity. I never knew what to expect.

I kept imagining what market day would be like as I walked with Ellie to the city’s center, where the vendors displayed their wares. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Nathan completely off my mind. He was always there, even when I was doing or thinking of something totally unrelated to him.

Almost as if she had read my mind, Ellie said, “So you and Nathan…”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Well…It’s not hard to notice the connection you two already seem to have.”

“That’s crazy, Ellie,” I lied. “We just met.”

“Oh, really? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Okay…so maybe school wasn’t the first time we met, but it
was
when we introduced ourselves,” I admitted.

“Wait a minute, back up a bit. What are you talking about?” she asked, her dark, slender eyebrows raised.

“Well, the first time I saw him was outside Aaron’s jewelry shop. Do you know the place?”

Ellie nodded. I noticed we had reached the market. I waited a few moments before continuing so I could take in the sights. I knew Ellie didn’t mind; she was looking around too.

The scene was pure chaos, but it was addicting. I couldn’t help but feel the excitement. Vendors were everywhere, shouting bargain prices and advertising their trade. Elves wandered around, almost bumping into each other as they checked out everything on display. I hadn’t seen such a swarm since my last visit to Tarlore, the most populated city in the Elf Realm.

“So tell me more,” Ellie suggested, while looking at the price on a red skirt.

“Well, I sort of ran into him, literally. I was leaving the shop. I was distracted because I was thinking about my sister and how I was going to find her, so when I came outside I didn’t see Nathan walking past, and I just walked right into him.”

“Talk about embarrassing,” Ellie remarked.

“It really was,” I agreed.

“So that was it? Just that one time?” Ellie asked.

I could feel myself blushing. “No. Another time was in
Songbird’s Bookstore
. I dropped a few of my books, he picked them up for me, and I choked. I could hardly breathe…let alone speak.”

“Why?”

I sighed, brushing my hand through a rack of clothing. “I don’t know. Something about him just got to me,” I admitted.

“Like nerves or something?”

I sighed. “No – it’s hard to explain. Being near him made me feel different. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“And that was the last time?” Ellie asked.

“No, there was one more time,” I said, looking down and trying to hide the shame on my face.

“What happened?” she asked, intent on learning more.

I tried to dodge her by hiding behind another rack of clothing, but she parted the sea of blouses until we were face to face. “Well?”

“It was during the homecoming party for Zora and me. Were you there?” I asked.

Ellie shook her head. “No. I wasn’t in town yet. I moved here a few months ago, actually. Ever since my father was recruited into the war and decided to stay after his two years, my mother and I have been on our own. We used to live closer to Tarlore, but then Mother wanted to live somewhere smaller. So here we are. But this conversation isn’t about me. Finish your story,” she suggested, smiling, her eyes bright with interest.

“There’s not much to say. He asked me to dance, and I said yes. We danced and that was it. I didn’t see him again until school started.”

“Wait, you danced with him without knowing his name?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Looking back, I don’t know why I did. I mean, I was fighting with Stellan. I had recently discovered that he was courting Zora before she was kidnapped…and then when I came along he started courting me....”

“How awful!” Ellie exclaimed.

“It was. I guess my anger got the better of me. I just…felt so low, and Nathan…made me feel better,” I admitted.

“So are you and Stellan…all right now?” Ellie asked as she paid a clothing vendor for a striking top.

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, except for the fact that he is away at war, everything is great.” I winced. That didn’t sound so great.

“What about Nathan?” she asked.

“What about him?”

“You said he made you feel better. You were unable to speak to him before you got to know him, and even I can see the connection you two have.”

“So? I can’t just leave Stellan because of a few weird occurrences with another elf I hardly know,” I told her. I was trying to act casual and unaffected by her words, but inside I was a swirling mess of guilt and anxiety.

“But what if…what if Stellan isn’t the right elf for you? What if he isn’t what your heart wants?” she asked.

“And you think Nathan is?” I wondered. I didn’t wait for her to continue. “Look, here’s the problem. I’m sixteen. I’m not supposed to know exactly what I want, let alone what the future holds. I’m too young for that. Yes, I love Stellan. Do I know for sure that I will be with him forever? No. Maybe I will, but maybe not. Anything could happen.” I cleared my throat, trying to find the courage to carry on with the point I was trying to make. “But when I think of Nathan…”

“All you can see is the future,” Ellie finished for me.

I nodded, unable to know whether I should feel guilty for admitting it or relieved that I had finally accepted it.

“Like you said, you’re sixteen, so don’t devote yourself to one elf. Explore your options. Fairies do it all the time,” she said, raising her eyebrows in mock seduction. She bumped her clothing bag into my hip.

I smacked it away and shook my head. “What do you want me to do, go over and kiss Nathan whenever I feel like it, just to try it out? To compare?” I asked.

She laughed. “I don’t know. Whatever helps you discover your true feelings.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on between Nathan and me. But I do know one thing: I love Stellan. I’m not going to throw away everything we have just because Nathan and I have…something,” I said. “I could be wrong about Nathan. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I mean, I barely know him.”

“All right,” Ellie compensated, “but be careful. Don’t let Stellan’s absence make you feel guilty enough to stay with him if you aren’t sure about the relationship.”

“I won’t, because I want to be with Stellan.”
I think
, I added, but only to myself.

Ellie nodded, but didn’t reply. Instead, her attention had turned to a pair of elf vendors talking nearby. They were beautiful, like all elves, but I could sense an air of maturity about them. They definitely weren’t teenagers. One was a dark-haired elf with slight stubble on his chin. The other was an elfen with long pale hair collected in a large braid.

“Yer crazy if ya think the war’s gonna be bigger than the Dark Times. There ain’t no way,” the elf told the elfen stubbornly.

I had never heard an elf speak so improperly. I guessed he wasn’t from around Birchwood City.

“But, sir, you do not understand what I am telling you. The death toll is rising every day, for both elf and Element fae. How can you argue with what is fact?” the elfen asked.

This elfen spoke as if she were some kind of royal, but not even Brielle talked that way. She once told me that elves in different cities had different dialects because I had asked why so many elves in Birchwood spoke so similarly to humans. Brielle said the dialect depended on location and how many human customs had reached the area.

These two elves were obviously very different, which helped to explain the reason for their argument.

“’Tis the truth, but even still, the other Fairy Realms haven’t even joined in yet. None can go ‘round sayin’ the war’s as bad as the Dark Times until then,” the elf protested.

“How long until that happens, though? Years? I believe it will be shorter than that. Months, maybe,” the elfen said. “Unless….”

“Unless what?” Ellie asked.

I couldn’t believe she had just joined their conversation. It seemed a little rude to me. Then again, the topic the elves were discussing was important to everyone in the Realm.

The elfen turned to Ellie, and at first I thought she would be upset. But she only nodded to her and continued speaking, this time including Ellie and me in the conversation as well.

“Unless the Chosen Daughter saves the Realms from destruction,” the elfen said.

“The Chosen Daughter? ‘Tis nothin’ but a silly old fable,” the elf hollered.

“It is a prophecy of the fae,” the elfen said matter-of-factly. “There is nothing
silly
about that.”

“Prophecy? What kind of prophecy?” Ellie asked.

“Well, it is not a poem or a rhyme. More like a belief many magical creatures support,” the elfen explained.

I almost started hyperventilating right there. I thought back to my first trip to Tarlore, when, after my second connection with Zora through the Mood Diamond, I had almost died from her injuries. Nymphs had come to my aid, giving me a floral necklace that preserved my life until I could be healed in Tarlore. They told me I was the Chosen Daughter. I still had no idea what they meant.

“What is the belief?” I asked, finally finding my voice.

“That a daughter of the Realms, though it never says from which Realm she would come, will determine every magical being’s fate with her power,” the elfen told us.

“Sounds impossible to me! I never heard of such folly! How can one female change the lives of every creature in the Realms? Folly,” the elf stated.

“Do you believe it?” Ellie asked the elfen.

The elfen nodded. “I believe it is true. If not, what else is there to look forward to? To believe in?”

I watched as the three elves before me pondered this, my gut churning with unease. Could I really be the Chosen Daughter? But daughter of what? And how could I be sure?

“I heard the King in Etain – that’s the capital of the Element Fairy Realm if ya didn’t know – wants to kill ‘er,” the elf said.

“King Vortigern wants to kill the Chosen Daughter? How?” the elfen asked.

“They say he got a bounty on ‘er. Sent his best fairies, I reckon,” the elf explained. “Seems to know her whereabouts. I don’t believe it’s necessary. The whole thing is foolish.”

“A bounty, huh? Strange,” Ellie said dismissively.

I wasn’t so calm about it. In fact, I was so shocked by his words that I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the elves around me. There was too much noise, too many things happening at once. I had to get away.

“I have to go,” I muttered to Ellie, the words all rushed together and most likely incoherent.

I didn’t wait for her reply. I sped away from the market, my heart pounding and my body still shaking with incredible fear.

***

Zora wasn’t home when I walked through the door, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to be around anyone right now. I was too freaked out.

A bounty. The King of the Element Fairy Realm had set a bounty on me, a reward for anyone who would kill me. That meant the Element fairies were much closer than I thought. Those elemental attacks weren’t my imagination after all.

The worst part was that I didn’t know what to do. How could I prepare myself? Who could I confide in? Who could I really trust?

I thought of Nathan and found tears of frustration in my eyes. Why did I always think of him? I should be thinking of Stellan instead. But I couldn’t just dismiss what I had heard at the market to think about boy troubles.

What can I do?
I wondered again. I was the one, the Chosen Daughter, but I had no idea what that meant for my future. Supposedly, I would determine the fate of the Magical Realms. But how? Magic was too vague. Why couldn’t the prophecy be a little more specific?

All I knew was that I was stuck in the middle of something I couldn’t run away from or avoid. I could only go forward from here.

Every direction pointed to finding out my secret; that was the only way to move forward, the key to unraveling my destiny.

“Stop being so clumsy! Focus on what you are doing. Think only of what you want to accomplish,” Nathan instructed, watching me with a serious gaze.

Nathan and I had agreed to practice fencing on Friday – the same day as Aimee’s bonfire. Although thoughts of King Vortigern’s bounty still lingered in my mind, I wasn’t about to put my life on hold just waiting around for something to happen. I still didn’t know my secret. Zora refused to say a word, even after I told her about the market scene. I was on my own, but I didn’t know what to do or where to begin.

The only way I knew to prepare for an attack was by learning the art of self-defense, which was why I was currently practicing with Nathan.

I also wanted to spend time with him. He was like a safe haven for me. Whenever I was with him, everything crazy in my life disappeared. He was my personal shield against trouble. I needed a shield sometimes to get through this new life. Being scared all the time wasn’t an option. If I was going to fend off Element fairies in the future, I would need confidence. Nathan challenged me to perform my best, so I decided he was part of the solution.

Although I still felt guilty for thinking of him so much, I couldn’t stay away – nor did I want to – and I couldn’t let my guilty feelings stop me from learning how to better defend myself. I had made up my mind, and I wasn’t backing down.

Fortunately, I was getting better at controlling my thoughts and feelings around him. As our friendship grew, the passion I used to feel at the very sight of him diminished because I was getting to know the real Nathan, and not just the handsome stranger with spellbinding emerald eyes. I could separate the two when necessary.

I felt that whatever we had was controllable. It had to be. If I was to be his friend and build trust with him, I had to have
some
control.

I focused my attention on Nathan once more and rid myself of frightening thoughts of Element fairies and guilt. We had just begun fencing but were using sticks instead of foils. We couldn’t exactly take the foils from Lady Brianna’s class. We had been practicing for less than thirty minutes, and I was already screwing up.

I lunged my stick forward at him again, and he blocked it swiftly. He jabbed at me but I pushed it back. We clashed like this back and forth until I was breathing heavily, putting a hand to my heart because it was beating so fast.

“Keep moving your feet. Don’t just stand in one place. You have to be ready for anything,” he said.

I nodded through the sweat collecting on my forehead and streaming down my face. I brushed back strands of wet hair and started again. I kept my feet moving lightly as I jabbed my stick this way and that, but as hard as I tried, I still couldn’t find an opening. Nathan smacked my stick away and sent it to the ground. I picked it up swiftly off the dirt and tried again. I focused on Nathan’s instructions and thought hard about my task. Then, after taking a deep breath, I lunged my stick forward and hit Nathan’s left arm.

“Ouch!” he yelled.

I dropped my stick and walked closer to him, “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

He lifted his stick and poked me in the stomach. “You lose,” he said with a chuckle.

“That’s not fair!” I protested.

“It’s not my fault you are so gullible.”

I crossed my arms against my chest, angry and embarrassed that he had been able to trick me. “This isn’t a game.”

“You still lost.”

“Fine. Let’s take a break, okay?” I suggested. I was sweating from head to toe and dead tired. I wished for Aimee’s rejuvenating healing.

“Sure.”

I went inside, filled two glasses with iced tea, and brought them out for us. We drank quickly and were just about to start again when I heard Zora calling me from down the street.

“Hey, Ramsey!” she greeted, walking toward us.

I gripped my stick tighter. Would Zora yell at me again for being with Nathan?

“You told me you were practicing fencing…so I thought I would sit and watch for a while. I’m finished with work at the orchard today. My schedule is clear.”

“Uh…,” I stammered.

I had no idea how to reply. Zora had just played a very mean and sneaky trick. She didn’t want me hanging out with Nathan, but when she realized she couldn’t stop it, she found another way to ruin it by acting as our chaperone.
How lame
, I thought bitterly to myself.

“All right. Feel free to observe. We were just starting again after a break,” Nathan said.

I mouthed a silent
thank you
to Nathan for replying for me. I hadn’t had any idea of how to respond. I think I would have started screaming at Zora the moment I opened my mouth.

“Are you sure?” Zora asked, looking directly at me.

The distaste in what she had done must have been written all over my face. I bet she was enjoying it.

“Yes, of course,” I assured her, planting a fake smile on my face.

“Good. I’ll just grab some tea.” Zora smiled and retreated into the house.

Left standing with Nathan, I was fuming. Zora watching us? Talk about awkward and intrusive. I couldn’t believe her.

“Let’s continue then, shall we?” Nathan suggested. I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood.

I could only nod and pick up my stick from the ground as Zora returned with her iced tea and made herself comfortable on our doorstep.

In the end, Nathan and I still had a great time despite Zora’s watchful eye. After a few hours, I had improved a great deal. I fake-killed Nathan without buying into his tricks, but he insisted that I was cheating. At the end, I sought revenge when I took him down while his back was turned.

Around four, Zora departed to Aaliyah’s without mentioning Nathan’s lingering presence. I breathed a sigh of relief and watched her leave with a bitter glance.

Nathan and I sat on my front doorstep, our knees touching slightly, so I had to focus more on my control. It took a lot of energy not to blurt out my feelings to him, but I stopped myself from revealing anything too personal.

Our fencing practice had left us tired and achy from so many jabs with the sticks. Time stretched silently between us as we caught our breath.

My mind began to wander, and Nathan’s sigh was the only sound able to bring me back to reality. “I should be getting home soon. I don’t want your sister coming back to make things awkward again,” he said.

I liked that Nathan was so straightforward; his honesty made it easier to admit my feelings of frustration toward my sister.

“I’m sorry about her,” I said, averting his gaze.

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not, Nathan,” I retorted, self-consciously looking at each of my fingers, an excuse not to meet his eyes. “She’s unfair to you.”

He looked at me for a long while. I could feel his gaze burning into me like fire. But then everything shifted, and the air grew cold around us. “I should go,” he decided, his tone suddenly guarded.

“Don’t go because of her.” I could sense the plea in my tone of voice. No doubt he heard it as well. At that moment, I didn’t care how desperate I sounded. I really didn’t want him to leave, and I was afraid that his departure had nothing to do with Zora, and everything to do with me.

His eyes rested on the dirt. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all right. I’ll see you at Aimee’s tonight, right?” he asked.

“Yeah. Zora said I could go as long as there was a group of friends for me to hang out with. Can you believe her?”

He shrugged. “Sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“She worries about you. She’s your older sister as well as the closest thing to a guardian you have,” he reminded me.

“Why does she have to worry so
much
, though? I don’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s not how she sees it, and you know it,” he pointed out.

“She worries for stupid reasons,” I muttered.

“That may be…but she won’t stop,” he said, with a faraway look in his eyes that made me wonder if he truly thought Zora’s reasons to worry were as unnecessary as I did.

I sighed, watching the steady breeze pick up loose dirt. “I don’t want her to ruin our friendship, Nathan,” I told him honestly.

“Neither do I,” he agreed. He paused and his gaze locked onto mine. I knew I should have looked away, but I didn’t. My heart did a little flip as our eyes connected, the silver slashes reaching a depth in me I could barely begin to fathom. “You have to know I would never intentionally try to ruin your relationship with Stellan, right? I know how much you care about him.”

“I know that, and it means a lot to me,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on his.

He put his arm around me, and I was unable to prevent my involuntary intake of breath. “What are we going to do about this?” he asked.

“Ignore my sister?” I proposed, swallowing a lump in my throat.

He laughed. “Sounds great to me.”

It felt nice, his touch. He had a way of making me feel comfortable, and my anger slowly dwindled. The setting wasn’t even awkward, despite our closeness. I relaxed against him, closing my eyes and picturing us somewhere where I wouldn’t have to open my eyes to danger and confusion.

“Can I see your dragon eggs again?” he asked a few minutes later, disrupting the peaceful utopia I had created in my mind.

But the mention of the dragon eggs was enough to rouse me from my alternate reality. “Oh, yeah! You have to see them. There are so many cracks now!” I grabbed hold of his hand and dragged him into the house, my earlier frustration with Zora evaporating because all that mattered was that Nathan was here…with me.