The Aetherfae (23 page)

“I will learn Aether, I promise. I will free you when I do—or I will die trying.”

Freya transformed back into a tiny sylph body, and darted around us to the field. “Always remember we were a peaceful clan. None of us have ever intentionally harmed your kind, and if we can keep from it, none of us ever will.”

I was stunned by the comment. Was she telling me that I was free to leave? If they weren’t prepared to use force, there was no way I was going to wait on the Rogues to show up. “I will remember that. “

To test the theory, I wrapped Clóca and Air around Candace and Ronnie. Hidden, the three of us began walking back toward the woods. The Kabouter didn’t try to interfere. At the tree line, I stopped walking and strengthened my shield.

“Maggie, what are you doing?” Candace asked.

“I sense Fae coming. Several.”

Streaking in from every direction, the Rogues closed on the Dutch Fae. My stomach lurched. I grabbed Ronnie and Candace and pushed them to the ground, whispering, “Get down, stay silent.”

Just fifteen feet from me, Freya spun and faced an approaching Rogue. The Rogue didn’t sense my shield, leaping over us and transforming into the shape of a werewolf much like the one Cassandra had taken. Candace began hyperventilating and tried to crawl backwards. Ronnie wrestled her to the ground before she reached the boundary of my shield, and diverted her eyes.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered in her ear. She was terrified, and rightfully so.

More rogues took physical form. Freya moved slowly backward toward the rest of her clan. Dersha took her familiar human form—short, bobbed blonde hair, sad angular features, and a dark suit. She landed just outside the circle of snarling wolves. Out-numbered two to one, the Kabouter continued to retreat to the center. In the middle of the field, Elegast stood firm.

A deep, rumbling voice cut through the still night air. “She is not here.”

“
You mean, no longer here
,” Dersha silently snapped.

“That is correct.”

“
How odd. The scent of human is so fresh. Are you hiding her
?”

“No, we are not. She cloaked herself and we lost her.”

“Yes, she has discovered how to shield herself from us—for now. But to elude your entire clan? Either you are lying or the Kabouter are not as valuable to us as I assumed. Neither explanation matters. O’Shea is a Fae killer and she must be punished. Even the enemy is seeking her death and promising retribution to any who aid her.”

“Fae killer?” Freya asked

“She killed Mara.”

“Mara, you say? Good. The Arustari were hardly worthy of being called Fae,” Elegast said.

Dersha’s lips flattened into a thin line and I sensed her channeling power. She glared at Elegast, eyes locked, and took a few predatory side steps as though she was preparing to pounce. In an instant, every Fae in the clearing was wrestling with energy, drawing what they could. It sent shivers down my spine. The Kabouter were not only willing to let me leave, they were prepared to fight for me. The dull ache in my stomach made me wonder whether the Second was hiding just out of sight. If I had not been trying to protect Ronnie and Candace, I would have risked projecting.

My senses, however, were at full power and tracking every being in the clearing. Only one Fae moved.

The Rogue who had tracked Ronnie, Candace, and me in France sniffed the ground forty feet away—the exact place the three of us had stood unshielded just ten minutes earlier. He turned and stared right past us, nostrils flaring, as he tried to locate our scent in the night air. Freya zipped between us, separating herself from the rest of the Kabouter, and created a breeze that whipped the foliage. She was trying to disperse our trail. The werewolf snarled in protest and lunged at the tiny fairy. She spun in a delicate pirouette as he closed, seemingly willing to sacrifice herself. Yellow canines closed around her body but she kept spinning, oblivious to the danger. My heart stopped in my chest when Freya’s entire body disappeared behind black lips and teeth.

Bands of blue light leaked out of the werewolf’s muzzle, and I could swear I heard a yelp. A pinpoint of light pierced the top of his skull, the ray broadening until it looked like a blue ethereal crown, and then Freya emerged, still spinning. He flashed out of existence before his body hit the ground.

“Never mess with a fairy,” Ronnie whispered to Candace.

She whimpered.

Dersha screeched at Elegast. “We had your word.”

Dersha conjured the Fire element and launched blue plasma energy at him. He countered with Quint. The orange substance collided with the blue, and began to envelop it. Before Elegast could land a blow, she added Air. Their energy sparked and snapped, dousing the field with amber light. “You still have our word,” he said, struggling. “He attacked Freya—under Fae law she is permitted to defended herself. Your leader does follow Fae law, does she not?” Elegast screamed to the tree line. “Or have we chosen the wrong side?”

“Yes, of course,” Dersha said, dropping her attack.

Elegast reeled back the Quint and glared at Dersha. “The Second is not even here, is she?”

Elegast straightened to an erect position. His eyes widened as Aether ripped through him. Freya shrieked a curse in the Fae tongue as Elegast died. Candace whimpered next to me and I added my hand to Ronnie’s, pressing against her mouth.

The Kabouter were stunned. Several tried transforming into Naeshura, but as each did, they burst into a flash of light.

“Has she been here the entire time?” Ronnie asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know.”

I began inching backwards. The Fae couldn’t hear us under the Air barrier, but it was terrifying to move anyway. Candace gained composure and stayed between Ronnie and me, matching our speed.

When we crawled behind the trees at the edge of the field, I looked at Freya one last time. She was still hovering in the same place she’d killed the Rogue. It was a horrible risk to take, but I took it anyway. I stretched a tendril of Clóca across the field as Dersha closed the distance between them. I planned to yank her behind the screen when I got the chance.

Candace sighed, pulling my sleeve. She wanted to get away, and she was right. My gut told me to run. Instead, I kept my concentration on Freya. On the other edge of the clearing, one of the Kabouter streaked toward the trees. The instant he was enveloped in Aether, I wrapped Freya.

She darted toward me five feet, made an abrupt turn, shooting up over a hundred feet. With unbelievable agility, she shot to the side a few hundred more, and then dove diagonally into the woods three hundred feet away. I fought to concentrate on her erratic, chaotic moves, trying to maintain the barrier around her and us. Bursts of Aether lit the field a few feet from where she made her first turn. Then it expanded quickly in every direction. Just feet from the edge of my shield, the Aether stopped. Three Kabouter transformed into Naeshura and bolted away. Rogues pursued them into the forest.

Freya settled next to us. “We have to move. Quickly.”

Two thousand feet away, the flash of a dying Fae briefly lit the horizon.

“Oh, Klaas, no,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry.”

Freya shook her head, tears rolling out from her enormous gray eyes. “Move now. We are not out of danger.”

Hovering just above the ground, she darted past a tree and then waited for us to catch up. “Can you not fly?”

“Not very well.”

She huffed. “You leave your scent on everything you touch. Walking out is not an option.”

“Sorry.”

“There is no time. Down.”

We dropped to the ground and sprawled out on our stomachs.

“No. I mean down, below ground,” she whispered.

She dropped to the earth, curling her fingers into the soil. Beyond her hands, the forest floor opened and a dark tunnel appeared below us. My old fear of being trapped below ground returned. My stomach churned, saliva filled my mouth, and my ears began burning. My breathing grew labored and spastic when Ronnie shimmied down the hole. Candace disappeared behind him, stoking my fear of being caught. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my heart.

“Maintain the barrier around us. I’ll take care of your stench, but you must go now.”

A green glow reflected in her eyes, and I turned. The Second was spreading Aether through the trees trying to find our position. Above us, I felt Dersha spreading a thin film of Air energy, like a dome. I swallowed hard and crawled down the hole into the dark earth
.

TWENTY-FOUR

TREACHERY

T
wo scents filled my nose: the metallic, dank smell of moist earth, and the sweet, slightly musty odor of decomposing plant material. We descended on our hands and knees in complete darkness. My senses told me Candace and Ronnie were just a few feet ahead. Freya followed behind us, transforming the forest floor to hide our escape. Above her, Rogues scoured Veluwezoom and began spreading their search beyond my senses. They unnerved me. Focusing on maintaining Clóca and Air barriers kept my mind off crawling through the tomb-like underground space.

As the Rogues conducted their search, I began to respect their speed and efficiency. Along the surface of the forest, and in the sky above, they’d scanned every inch for miles in just a few minutes—I felt a blanket of energy everywhere. So far they hadn’t thought to look underground. The possibility they might terrified me.

We crawled at a frantic pace, blindly scrambling into the dark void. My knees and wrists ached, but that was nothing compared to the searing pain in the palms of my hands. The rough surfaces of the dark tunnel cut into my flesh, and the cold, wet ground made my joints ache. Unfortunately, the temperature was not cold enough to numb the pain. A fiery sting in my left palm, like the sting of a yellow jacket, seared up my arm each time my hand made contact. It hurt too badly. I rolled my hand into a fist and crawled on my knuckles, which began throbbing. With every inch we moved the pain grew more intense, but it kept me focused on something other than my lungs. My fear of caves always centered around suffocating, so I welcomed any distraction.
Concentrate on the pain.
Just keep crawling.

Several minutes later, Freya whispered, “Do you need to stop?”

“Yes,” Ronnie said, after a sharp breath.

Candace’s reply sounded high-pitched and stressed. “I do, too.”

A small flicker of light wreaked havoc on my vision. At first, ambiguous black shapes outlined by light areas taunted me—my brain struggled to fill in the gaps, to make sense of the shapes. Eventually, my eyes adjusted and I recognized Candace and Ronnie’s bodies and the familiar outlines of their facial features. I couldn’t see color, but that was all right with me—I’d take anything over pitch darkness.

Ronnie slowly turned and sat stiffly against the wall of the tunnel. Candace eased in next to him, cradling her hands. Freya moved next to me.

“You are in pain?” she asked.

“Yes, my hands and knees…” I said unevenly.

Candace and Ronnie nodded.

“Maintain the barrier,” Freya said.
Duh,
I thought.

The stinging ache melted away from my hands, and then my knees. The pain disappeared from other parts of my body—until the discomfort drifted away, I hadn’t realized how much I hurt.

“Thank you,” I said.

“How did you know about the Ometeo?” she asked.

For a split second I wondered why she was curious, but something told me to trust her. “I can project—I can’t remember what the Fae call it, but I can send my consciousness to any person or place when I concentrate.”

She slid across me and began healing Candace’s hands. “I assumed as much. Can you be detected?”

“Some can, I think. Mara was able to.”

Candace exhaled a long, slow sigh of relief as Freya took her pain away.

“It is a risk, but one we will have to take,” Freya said to herself. “Can you do it now? Locate Dersha or the Second?”

“I can find Dersha, but I can’t maintain Clóca at the same time.”

Freya looked up at me as she moved to Ronnie. “I do not sense them now, so they cannot sense us. I believe it will be safe, if you do it quickly. I will rouse you if I sense danger.”

Freya was right. There weren’t any Fae within my range. They had moved further away.

“Okay,” I said.

I closed my eyes and controlled my breathing. The instant my mind floated upward, I concentrated on Dersha. My consciousness made contact with the familiar energy of Clóca. I hovered stationary for a moment, as if caught in a net, and then popped forward, piercing the barrier. Dersha appeared in my mind’s eye, and she stood next to the last being I ever expected to see there. The shock of recognition, of seeing the Second for the first time, tightened the tether between my mind and body, threatening to snap me back into the ground. Nothing made sense, even though I had known the answer for a long time.

“…
in the west, and
we’ve also cleared De Steeg, Rheden, Dieren, Eerbeek. There is no sign of the girl or her friends
.
It is possible they went North to seek protection from the Alfar.
” Dersha communicated telepathically.

“
That is possible. Send Cairon and Lorus to the border. O’Shea didn’t learn anything from the Kabouter—she is groping blindly for answers that only I can provide.”
Ozara said.

“
Are you certain Geoff told you all he knew
?”

Ozara smiled. “
I ripped his mind apart—he hid nothing from me
.
The rumors of Bastien hiding in Europe are simply rumors.
”

“
What are your instructions?”

“Keep searching like I showed you. If you sense a Clóca barrier, destroy her.”

“We will find her. Have you located
her family?”
Dersha asked.

“Yes, there are distant family members in Memphis and a few more in Southern Florida—they will be eliminated.”

“What about her mother, the brother, and the unborn sibling?”

“My source tells me they are still hiding in Arkansas, j
ust a few miles from the Ohanzee. We’re already moving on them. Very soon the entire line will be eradicated,”
Ozara said.

The tether yanked my mind to the Clóca veil. A few miles away, my heart raced in my chest. Before I snapped back to my body, Ozara made one more command. “
Send the trackers back to the meadow, have them check underground just to be sure. O’Shea must be dead before the Winter Solstice.
”

“
It begins then
?”

Ozara nodded. “
Do not fail me Dersha—Pandora’s triumphant return to Olympus d
epends on it
.”

“
I will not fail
.”

* * *

Get to him. Find him! Gavin!

My mind hurled through the darkness and I passed through Wakinyan’s Clóca veil, settling above Gavin. He spun to face me when I pressed my consciousness at him. His expression was as pleasant as always, but I sensed something was terribly wrong. He must have read my concern.

“Maggie, are you alright?”

I concentrated on one thing: “
Get my family out of here
.”

“We can’t…it’s not safe.”

I tried to tell him what I’d just learned, but panic gripped me.

“I can’t understand what you’re trying to say, Maggie. Please, calm down.”

The house shook for several seconds leaving the chandelier in the entry swaying on its chain. The lights flickered and went out.
What’s happening?

The tether yanked me out of the house and toward my body.
Calm down,
I screamed to myself.
Control didn’t come easily, like crawling up an icy slope from inside a sleeping bag, but I pushed my way back inside.
Concentrate—one thought at a time.

“They know where you
are
.” I managed in a moment of clarity.

“Who knows? The Rogues? The Alliance?”

Panic gripped me again and once more I fought to maintain position as the tether dragged me backwards.

My thoughts were chaotic, but I managed three sentences. “
Ozara is wor
king with Dersha. There is no second Aetherfae. She’s directing the Rogues
.”

Gavin’s mouth gaped and his eyebrows smashed together in a look of fear and bewilderment.

“
It is true. I projected. Heard her talking to Dersha. They are coming for my family
.”

Wakinyan flashed to Gavin’s side, taking his hulking human shape. “You are sure of this,” he demanded.

“
Yes. Someone is feeding them information. Ozara knows where you are. She knows the Ohanzee are at the Weald
.”

Gavin and Wakinyan exchanged worried looks.

‘That would explain a great many things.” Wakinyan growled.

“
Explain what
?” I asked.

The lights in the house flickered back on.

Gavin tried to speak calmly, but agitation laced his voice as he spurted staccato fragments of what happened. “A fault near Memphis, Tennessee, gave way. There has been a devastating, unprecedented earthquake—we believe it was Fae, probably the Rogues. But now—maybe Alliance—maybe both.”

Wakinyan nodded quickly.

“The news is piecemeal, but by all accounts Memphis is gone—destroyed—and St Louis lies in ruin. Huge sections of Little Rock are on fire. Buildings and bridges have collapsed as far east as the Smokey Mountains, and as far west as Oklahoma. An upshift in the mantle is causing the Mississippi River to flood eastern Arkansas—thousands are dead. It’s chaos here, but your family is safe.”

Hearing Gavin mention my family triggered the relentless tether. It took all of my will to remain stationary.
No time—warn them,
my inner voice screamed. There was so much they needed to know, so much I had to tell them, the frustration of trying to form complete thoughts made me want to scream.

“
Miami is next. Targeting my relatives. I heard Ozara say so. Please. Get yourselves and my family out of here. Warn Tse-xo-
be. Be careful. Ozara has a spy. It was her the entire time
.”

The house lurched again. The electricity went out and Mom called to Mitch. The sound of breaking glass and groaning wood filled my senses as the tug finally grew too strong.

Back in the earthy tomb, I opened my eyes and ignored Freya’s questions, which began immediately. Instinct took over and I concentrated on recreating Clóca. Candace peppered me with questions too, but I blocked her voice. As far as I could spread it, my mind stretched across Veluwezoom in all directions. Rogues had moved back to the meadow and were spreading out in an expanding circle.

Candace shook me. “Maggie, why are you crying?”

“I’m not.”

That was my immediate reaction, but as soon as I said it, I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks and I was blubbering like an infant. I pulled stale, earthy air into my lungs and wiped at my eyes. “Sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Candace demanded.

“We need…we need to move,” I said, struggling with my emotions. My stomach folded, my temples throbbed, and perspiration beaded up on my forehead.
What’s happening to my family?

Candace fought for my attention. “Maggie!”

Freya wrapped her white fingers around Candace’s heaving shoulder and compelled her to relax. She quickly calmed down, then Freya gently prodded me. “Tell us.”

“I saw the Aetherfae talking to Dersha just a few miles from here, and…”