Fever Mist

WYRD AND FAE BOOK THREE

Fever Mist

l.k. rigel
Also Available in the Wyrd and Fae Series

Give Me
(Wyrd and Fae 1)

Bride of Fae
(Wyrd and Fae 2)

Fever Mist
(Wyrd and Fae 3)

A Glimmering Girl
(Wyrd and Fae 4)

Fever Mist (Wyrd and Fae 3)

Copyright 2014 L.K. Rigel

Published by Beastie Press

Cover design by eyemaidthis

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Wyrd and Fae series:

Give Me

Bride of Fae

Fever Mist

A Glimmering Girl

Goblin Ball

What people are saying about Give Me:

I think I'm in love...Yes, this hardened feminist shell that I wrap around me like a coat-of-arms melted as I read this delightful piece of pure romance.
~The Romance Reviews (top pick)

Rigel ... masterfully infuse(s) a very intricate magical history ... with today's inclination to disbelieve anything that can't be logically explained ... she makes you believe in magic.
~ Kindle Obsessed

If you are looking for witches, fairies, royalty, mystery, catty French girls, and a bit of lusty love - then this book is for you.
~ Fictional Candy

What people are saying about Bride of Fae:

COULD.NOT.PUT.THIS.BOOK.DOWN!! Rarely does a book grab me like this one did. This story whisks you away to London and you become entranced with the fairies, pixies, goblins and the humans who interact with them. You get to see the light and dark side of the fairie world and their inner politics and workings. L.K Rigel eloquently describes the scenery and paints such a picture in your head that you want to run away to Faeview. 
~ Jenn's Review Blog

I cannot wait for the next book. The way that Rigel started with the present in Give Me and then is going back into the past with Bride of Fae and the next book is really interesting. I don't know if I've read a series like that before, but I'm glad that I am reading the Tether's series. 
~ Reading It All

I love reading stories about Fae and Rigel's description and detail that she put into this fantasy world was amazing. I felt like a piece of me was there. The author also captured a very good sense of time travel within the story. 
~ Amanda Blogs, Tales of a Bibliophile

Table of Contents

Sorrow’s Prisoner

Kaelyn

A Goblin’s Heart

Merlyn

Desire is the Fire

Mistcutter

Goblin’s Curse

Fever Mist

The fever mist first came to Dumnos in the 5th century, just before the time of King Artros of Round Table fame. It came again at the end of the 11th century, and found Elyse at Glimmer Cottage.

~ Lydia Pengrith Bausiney,
Countess Dumnos

« Chapter 1 »
Sorrow’s Prisoner

Eleventh Century Dumnos. Elyse at Glimmer Cottage

I
WAS ON THE ROOF
the morning the fever mist rolled in.

Like rolling thunder made visible,
I thought.
The mist was black and gray and white… unnatural.
What kind of magic is in this?

Of course I dearly wanted to go to the cliffs for a real look, to be near Igdrasil, but there would be people on the road.

Even then, a woman scurried through her fields, dodging the sheep as she made her way toward Tintagos Bay to see the strange phenomenon. I recognized her and picked up the glimmer glass for a better view.

Yes, it was the salt-tosser, Mrs. Thresher. She once accused me of being a fairy and tried to frighten me out of my own house. I didn’t like the farmer’s wife, but I knew her name, and that’s all that mattered. I put down the glimmer glass. Where had I put the satin pouch of dust?

I have to know a person’s name to use glamour dust on them. I sit in a quiet place—usually the roof of Glimmer Cottage—and say the name three times while tossing a handful of the stuff in the air. As the dust settles, the person’s living image appears, complete with surrounding sounds and smells, the clarity and scope depending on the quality of the glamour dust.

Of course it’s easier to sit in the chaise with a glass on my lap, but the three-dimensional view from the dust goes to a different level. I can tell if the people in the dust view have been enchanted and whether the source is wyrd or fae.

I wanted to know if that mist did something to the salt-tosser.

And that’s when I discovered I’d run out. I went down to the kitchen to look for what I had in store, but there was nothing in the cupboards, no spare hidden pouch in the worktable drawers. A glimmer glass lay under a tea towel in its usual basket on the counter, but there was no dust.

Warm, fresh spring air wafted in from the open window. The day promised to be lovely, this sweetest season of the Dumnos year. Outside, the flower garden was a riot of color. Lilacs, roses, wisteria, lilies, peonies, iris, tulips—any bloom you can think of was on display.

Being a wyrding woman had to have some advantages. The Dumnos mist penetrated my cottage boundary only when I allowed it.

I’d started the garden ten years earlier when I returned from the faewood, right after I threw those dreadful, salt-tossing squatters out of my house. Not to worry. No one ever notices the floral phantasmagoria. To confound Idris, and others, I keep an obscuration boundary going continually, all around the cottage perimeter.

It isn’t the fae alone I fear. I can’t risk human visitors either—can’t risk anyone making contact with the two souls captured in my ring. But having to forego the world doesn’t mean I like it. The loneliness is soul-crushing. It may kill me before I find the means to atone for what I’ve done.

To fight despair, I use glimmer glasses and glamour dust to keep up with the comings and goings of the people of Tintagos Castle and its surrounds. There are no kings in Dumnos anymore, but a baron is ensconced at the castle. He’s descended from Saxons who invaded Dumnos hundreds of years ago, his father made baron by the invading Normans while I was gone.

Lord Tintagos has no Oracle, but he’s friendly to the wyrd. I often hear him defend our kind against the rantings of priests secure in the patronage of House Normandum. Our local monks and nuns are as sweet and as benign as ever they were, but the bishops out of Sarumos have grown strong in the world, and their influence increases daily. They don’t bother to hide their contempt for the wyrd or their wish to see us disappear.

No wyrders live in the open now. In the glimmer glass, I’ve heard people mention a local wyrding woman, Kaelyn. I’ve never seen her, but I’m sure she does exist. One time I watched a banquet where Lord Tintagos waxed poetic about her healing powers—though he may have exaggerated his tale to anger the prior sitting on his right side.

I’ve narrowed the location of Kaelyn’s cottage to the Small Wood east of the castle, near Nine Hazel Lake, but all my spells have been useless in pinning down the exact place. I’ve searched with the glimmer glass and summoned her with dust, all for naught.

Sometimes I swear Brother Sun and Sister Moon thwart my efforts. I can’t believe they would be so cruel, though I have no right to complain. Loneliness is my punishment for the unspeakable things I’ve done; I accept that. Most of the time.