The Aetherfae (32 page)
Authors: Christopher Shields
“Where are you?” I demanded, my voice weak and hoarse.
“Let’s finish them off and be out of this dreadful place,” Dersha said.
I crawled toward Gavin—I wanted to hold him before it happened. Dersha stood and walked toward me. I felt her hand graze my hair the instant before she yelped and leapt backwards, grasping the burned stump where her hand had been.
“What are you doing, Ozara?” she snapped.
“She’s going to kill us both, you idiot. You didn’t expect her to let you live, did you.” I started laughing. “And you think humans are stupid.” I cackled.
“We have a deal,” Dersha demanded.
“No, we do not,” said a voice I didn’t recognize.
Dersha scrambled to her feet, muttering, “Impossible,” over and over. She spun, lashing out with blue plasma. Slowly, against a thin green veil, it turned to puffs of smoke and disappeared back to her fingertips.
“Goodbye, Pandora,” the voice said.
Dersha’s scream caught in her throat. Flash. Gone.
So it’s down to this? Ozara can snuff me out and leave no witnesses
? I crawled faster until I reached Gavin’s bloody form. With my good arm, I pulled him into my lap and kissed the top of his head. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The chaos that had raged a few minutes earlier seemed more comfortable than the awkward silence that enveloped the area once the fight ended. Ozara remained behind Clóca, dispersing the energy of dead Fae, repairing the damage to the surroundings. She altered the bodies of the hikers, mending their lifeless flesh—I could sense it.
She’s destroying all the evidence.
In a last ditch effort to save myself, I conjured the raw elements and tried to combine them again. Like before, when they made contact they formed pure white light. Despite wanting to be brave, I whimpered. She stood in the darkness watching me—I could sense it. A vision of her smug face worked its way back into my mind. I convulsed, losing the battle with my emotions.
“Just do it already,” I cried.
The mental screen I’d learned to keep in place faltered, and my anguish spilled out into the forest. I clutched Gavin tighter to my chest and heaved. “I’m so sorry…I love you.” I kissed his head again. “I love you, Gavin. I’m so sorry.”
“The answer is in your mind,” she said. The voice was unfamiliar, kind even. Ozara was undoubtedly having some fun with me before the end.
“What answer,” I said through a sob.
“The answer to Aether, of course,” she said.
“You murdering piece of…just do it. Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie.”
“It’s right there.”
“Ozara!” I screamed, “I don’t believe you. Do you freakin’ hear me. I. Don’t. Believe.”
A gentle laugh bubbled up from the silence. “Open your eyes, Maggie O’Shea.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Find the courage to open your eyes,” she said.
I forced my eyes open, angry that she’d questioned my courage. When her Clóca dropped, all the air left my lungs. “You’re not Ozara.”
The tall blonde Fae shook her head slowly and deliberately. Her deep, sapphire blue eyes glanced down to Gavin’s face and then back up to mine. “May I?” she asked with a melodic voice.
I assumed she wanted to help him, so I nodded. It wasn’t like I could do anything to stop her. In three long, elegant strides, she cleared the distance and bent her knees, keeping her back completely straight. Her slender fingers wrapped around Gavin’s, and the wounds in his arm began to close while his legs healed. I felt her healing energy surge across his body. The bones in his angular cheeks reset, the skin above them smoothed and lightened from the deep purple of his bruises to his usual olive tone. His shallow, rapid breathing slowed and I could feel his heart strengthen.
The striking woman healed my wrist before standing in a fluid movement. “He will be fine now.”
I buried my face in his hair and whimpered, “Thank you.”
“He is an old friend,” she said. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
The question made me feel uneasy. If she followed the Edict, the truth might prove fatal.
“You do not need to answer.”
“You’re the one who’s been watching me?”
She nodded.
“It was you on the freighter?”
Red and wet, her heart-shaped lips curved up at the ends. “Yes, Maggie.”
“Who are you?”
“But you know, already. I see it in your mind.”
I shook my head. She smiled and transformed momentarily into a small bird with long yellow feathers tipped in gold.
“Caorann,” I sighed.
She settled back into her human form. “The secret you’re looking for is also in your head. I see it there.”
“To Aether?”
Her mouth drew into a smile and she nodded once. “Your ancestors taught you.”
“Lola’s Ballet?”
She pulled two leaves from the trees above her and handed them to me. “Show me.”
From memory, I heard the music from Aunt May’s music box. I gripped the leaves with my mind and began the pattern I’d practiced a thousand times, twirling them independently and then spinning them around each other.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “That is it. You already know the rest, except perhaps, how to use the buffer.”
“The buffer?”
Caorann pulled the essence of each element around us—four deceptively thin threads, flickering in the late evening light. “Combining them creates Lithrel, the buffer, or stem of Aether. With it at the center, you need only pair each of the elements with the other, like this.”
She spun the raw threads independently until each became solid and completely malleable. The frayed tendrils that often interlocked with other energies were woven smoothly into the energy stream. Then she spun them around the core of white Lithrel, performing Lola’s ballet with the first two pairs, Water and Air, Earth and Fire. Caorann separated the pure essences and repeated the pattern with Water and Earth, then Fire and Air. After the ninth combination, she looped the stream back into itself just like the vines and flowers on the tea set, and Aether formed.
“It’s been in front of me the entire time,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “Thank you. But why are you helping me?”
Her gem-like eyes settled on my face. “Gavin told you about Ádhamh?”
I nodded. Ádhamh was the name of her human lover. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do not be,” she said. “I learned Aether eighteen hundred years ago for a very different reason than Ozara. She takes it to a dark place, but I have found another use.”
She turned and extended her hand. I felt a presence move close, like I did when Aunt May used to visit me. “Do you sense him?”
“I do. Is it Ádhamh?”
“Yes. I learned to see him only after I discovered Aether. He followed me after his death, but I could not sense him. I could not hear him, yet for two centuries he never left my side. My agony kept him tied to me. Then, when I reached balance that changed. Balance gave me sight where before I had none. Ádhamh is with me always. We have not been parted since.” Tears rimmed her long eyelashes and streamed down her small straight nose. “Your love for Gavin, and his for you, deserves respect. Ozara is wrong. My kind are wrong. Bigoted, self-righteous, they see no value in human life because they cannot see.” The essence drifted to her side and she relaxed, nodded, and laughed like she heard him speaking.
“Then you’re going to help me?”
“I will.”
I exhaled and began sobbing again, squeezing Gavin to my chest. “Ozara has lost,” I muttered.
“I will help you, Maggie, but Ozara is more dangerous than ever before.”
“When you can tell the clans—“
“I will try, Maggie,” she interrupted.
“They will believe you.”
“I hope they do, but most believe me to be unstable—the long-suffering lover of humans. Do you see the dilemma?”
I nodded.
“When I reveal myself, I will provide Ozara exactly what she needs—an enemy, a face to which she can tie all the devastation she has wrought. When she learns of me, she will have an adversary to complete her plan. She’s sown the seeds very well—the clans are at the brink, and she possesses a force unrivaled in history. She has painted the Second as a monster, and my words may not change many minds. Make no mistake—the war has just begun. But it is a war we can win. Now, fulfill your destiny, Maggie O’Shea, and become a Maebown.”
I laid Gavin’s head on the ground and stood. The dark forest was quiet around me. Tears streamed down my face as the bright glow of Aether punctuated the darkness. My Aether.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing
The Aetherfae
has been a rewarding process, and the resulting book is one that I am proud of. I hope readers enjoy Maggie’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it, and it is to them that I need to thank first. The level of positive feedback has been overwhelming and much greater than I hoped for. Each review sent me back to the keyboard with new energy. Throughout the project, I continued to rely heavily on feedback from my “beta” readers, whose advice and direction I found invaluable. So I extend a heartfelt thank you to Summer Jackson, Dave Woodring, Michelle Patricia Browne, and Brent Klein. Their excitement and positive feedback on
The Aetherfae
drove me forward. I offer a special thanks to Amy McGraw and Rick Shelton, my editors, for the hours of work they spent reading, slashing, and helping me clean the manuscript line by line, word by word, period by period. Their painstaking work, candid suggestions, and expert eyes have made this a much stronger story. For a third time, the cover art amazes me, and for that I acknowledge Derek McCumber. He is a rare talent who has captured the essence of the story through the cover. I think it is the best cover yet. Finally, my friends and family have been incredibly supportive, especially my parents, Patricia and Cliff Powell, and Al and Virginia Shields, but it is my partner, Rick, to whom I owe the most. His continued support and tireless work to market the first two books in the Weald Fae Journals, and his hundreds of hours working with me on
The Aetherfae
have made the difference between an interesting idea that got lost on a hard drive and a finished product I’m proud to put my name on. I am very fortunate to have such talented and wonderful people in my life. From the heart, I say:
Thank you all