When Magic Dares (Darkly Fae Book 2) (7 page)

“I mean that I have been nothing but nice to you,” she said, and he could feel her eyes studying him, “and now you’re acting like a jerk.”

“Nothing but nice?” he echoed with a snort.

She huffed out a breath. “You know I was only teasing,” she insisted. “You didn’t take any of it personally.”

He scowled. She was right, of course she was.

But he couldn’t admit as much without also having to admit what caused his change of attitude.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” she said. “Last night, by the fire…” She ran her hands nervously over the straps of her pack. “I thought we were… I don’t know, getting along.”

He snorted at the thought. He’d been doing more than getting along. He’d been ready to knock down all of his walls.

“And then, poof, you shut down.” Her hands fisted around the straps until her knuckles turned white.

They took several steps in tense silence and he thought—hoped—she would let the subject lie.

She did not.

“Is this about the fox?” she asked.

“What?” he blurted, looking at her with what he was certain was a horrified expression. Horrified that she came so close to the truth.

She released one strap and pulled the fox out from under her coat. “You reacted strangely when you saw this.” She looked down at it, her smile sad. “Do you want me to take it off?”

He didn’t reply. Couldn’t.

Then she started to lift the chain over her head. He reached out to stop her, his fingers wrapping around her wrist and guiding her hand back down.

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?” she echoed, her gaze glued to the spot where his skin touched hers.

He released his grip.

“You don’t have to.” He forced an uninterested shrug. “I don’t care if you wear the sign of my clan.”

He felt her glare, felt her eyes bore into his temple as he determinedly avoided her gaze.

Apparently fed up, she huffed out a frustrated sigh and then picked up her pace. He let her go. He knew he was being confusing and frustrating, but he also knew he couldn’t be any other way.

From the moment he had first seen young Princess Arianne of the Deachair, she a mere seven years old and he a bold boy of ten, she had held a small corner of his heart. A corner that could never be unlocked. A soldier did not dream of the princess. Especially not a princess who had very nearly wed his best friend.

He closed his eyes for a few steps. Shook his head as he walked, hoping to rattle some sense into his mind. Surely he could act like a normal fae without opening his entire heart to her.

He opened his eyes, ready to apologize. Only she wasn’t there.

“Princess?” he called out as he picked up his pace. “Arianne?”

His heart had only just started to race when she reappeared around the corner ahead of him. “Yes?”

Struggling to get his fear under control, he said, “Don’t get so far ahead. Stay in my line of sight.”

She frowned at him. “Then try to keep up.” She turned and kept walking, calling back over her shoulder, “The sooner we get this done the better.”

Tearloch winced at her tone. He deserved that. With any luck, he could go the rest of the journey without doing anything more he would need to apologize for when it was over.

As he hurried to catch up with Arianne, he had a feeling that was going to be next to impossible.

The absolute quiet was her first clue. Since their… whatever it was, she and Tearloch hadn’t spoken a word. But as Arianne led the way up the path, she suddenly realized that more than her companion had fallen quiet. Nature was silent around her. Not a bird sang, not an insect chirped, not a tree rustled. Even the wind had fallen. The entire natural world was still.

It was unnatural.

The realization so stunned her that she stopped dead in her tracks.

Tearloch did not stop so quickly, crashing into her from behind.

“What the—“

She whirled around and slapped a hand over his mouth before he violated the silence further. His silver eyes burned, a clear indication of exactly what he thought of her forcibly quieting him.

Slowly, his fingers wrapped around her wrist and he tugged her hand away. But he did not speak. Instead, he lifted his brows in question.

Arianne raised up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “The silence. Do you hear it?”

He nodded.

“We are near,” she finished.

But she did not immediately lower back to her heels. Without conscious thought, in an effort to keep her whisper as quiet as possible, to get her mouth as close to his ear as possible, her entire body had pressed close to his. Beneath her palms, his shoulders were strong and firm. His chest rose and fell with steady breath—far steadier than her own. And the heat from his body… it filled her with a greater warmth than she could ever remember feeling.

She had not been this close to any other in years. None in the palace would dare to presume such intimacy. Her mother had been gone so long she could barely remember her touch, and even before her father disappeared the madness had stolen his affections from her.

She felt, at once, the simultaneous urge to pull Tearloch even closer and to shove him as far away as possible.

She did neither.

“You need to wait here,” she told him. When he opened his mouth to argue, she added, “I must approach first. It will be safer.”

She could see the battle in his eyes. Still he did not trust her—why should he when she had given him no reason?—but his obvious fear of the witch won out. He nodded.

He leaned down and this time
he
whispered in
her
ear. “I shall not be far. Do not think to double-cross me.”

Arianne rolled her eyes. She’d had plenty of opportunities to escape on the long trek up the mountain. Opportunities to grab the sword that hung from his belt and use it against him. Her abilities with a blade rivaled those of any soldier. She could have killed him twenty times over at least.

She long ago learned how to take advantage of being underestimated.

But now was not the time to disabuse him of his arrogance. Now was the time… to see her sister. Her hands shook as she walked away from him, a mixture of a fear and nerves and thrill and anger—so much anger—coursing through her blood.

Arianne followed a barely discernible trail through the slice of forest. The further she went, the lighter the world around her got. The trees were thinning.

Then, in a single step, she was out of the woods. Crossing into an open glade. It was, in a word, beautiful. An oasis of vibrant green in the wintry gray world of the White Mountains.

Was this where her sister had been hiding? It seemed like a paradise compared to the bleak, powerless existence her kin had suffered over the years.

Then she saw it. At the other end of the glade… sat a small wooden hut. The only habitable structure—if it could be called habitable.

Her breath caught.

It was the saddest little hut, not much larger than Arianne’s wardrobe, perhaps two paces square. The roof sat at an odd angle and several of the siding boards hung from a single nail, providing no protection at all.

Arianne’s heart crept into her throat.
This
was where her sister lived?

All this time, all these years she had spent angry at Callie. Cursing her for leaving their people so helpless, cursing her for leaving period.

Over time Arianne had built up an imaginary world that Callie inhabited. What great things she would produce with her practically unlimited powers… Sweet-meade fountains and candy-coated cottages. Herds of unicorns. Riches and abundance.

Nothing like this.

No one should have to live like this.

“I neither want nor need your pity.”

Arianne spun around at the sound of a voice she had not heard since they were both young girls. And yet she recognized it instantly.

“Callie,” she gasped.

It took every ounce of restraint not to rush toward her sister, older by mere months, and wrap her in a hug, make her promise that everything would be all right.

Callie was a shell. Her hair—long and dark like Arianne’s, but with looser curls—looked like a knotted mess, as if she had not seen fit to brush it once since leaving home. Not in ten years. Her clothes, an ankle-length dress made of thin black cotton with long sleeves and a front-lace, was torn in several places, worn through in several others.

Arianne took a step toward her. “You must be freezing.”

Callie laughed. Not the joyous laugh of the long-lost sister, but a maniacal cackle that sent shivers down Arianne’s spine. She stepped back.

“The cold does not touch me.”

“I see,” Arianne said in a small voice.

Callie’s tone sent shivers down Arianne’s spine. This was the dark-hearted witch she imagined her sister had become, but it felt hollow. Like it was a show, a shield.

Arianne was at a loss for words. She wanted to say something—to reassure Callie that things would be better now or ask her what happened to make her like this—but she couldn’t form the sounds. The proud tilt of her sister’s chin, the dangerous glint in her eyes warned Arianne that to speak those thoughts would be the end of whatever conversation they might have.

She closed her eyes for a second, drew in a fortifying breath. There would be time for sisterly things later. First, she needed to get to her primary purpose in seeking Callie out. Tearloch would not wait indefinitely. She needed to say what needed to be said before his patience vanished.

Arianne opened her eyes and asked, “Did you get my message?”

Callie squinted, twisted her head, like a wild dog listening for a sound on the wind. When she looked back at Arianne, the expression on her face could have cooled the sun itself. “You are not alone.”

Callie started in the direction from which Arianne had entered.

Arianne shouted.

Then the entire glade exploded in a flash of light.

When Arianne screamed, Tearloch did not stop to think. He burst through the edge of the trees, into the open glade the princess had entered just minutes before.

He did not get two steps into the clearing before a blinding light filled the air.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Could only hear muffled sounds. His vision blurred through a thick layer of… something.

He could make out the shapes of the two sisters. Arianne advanced on the witch. There was a struggle. Muffled screams and shouts penetrated the thick fog.

He clearly heard, “No,” and “Let him go!”

The sisters struggled for a few moments longer and then suddenly his world cleared. His frozen motion continued, propelling him forward, and he stumbled into the clearing.

Arianne rushed toward him.

“Are you all right?” she demanded, her palms pressing into his cheeks, his shoulders, his chest.

There was true panic in her voice. He did not know how to react to such sincere concern—not from her, not from anyone. He was a solider, a warrior. He cared for and protected others, not the other way around.

As he let her concern wash over him, seep inside, he found that he quite liked it.

“Why princess,” he teased, “I didn’t know you cared.”

She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the shoulder. “It’s self-protection, I assure you,” she said, her voice wavering with emotion that her aloof response could not hide. “Wouldn’t want to give your clan a reason to be out for blood. Again.”

He didn’t suppress his smile, and was rewarded with a sunny one in return. In that shared moment, a brief connection, Tearloch felt his heart thud heavily against his chest. There was something more between them this quest. He believed he had been fighting that feeling alone. Now he had reason to hope he had not.

Dark movement caught his eye, and he remembered where they were. And why they were there.

Arianne’s face fell into a scowl and she whirled away.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded of the witch. “Do you do that to every stranger that steps into your glade?”

The witch shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. You are the first two fae who have ever dared to enter.”

Arianne twisted to look at him, her face wide with shock. She turned back to her sister. “Since when?”

Because the witch was half human, her mortal side had the power to feed his fae magic with negative emotions. Though she tried to maintain her air of apathy, Tearloch sensed a deep emotion beneath the facade. A sadness.

His magic rejoiced, even as his heart ached.

“Ever,” she finally said.

“Oh Callie.” Arianne clutched a hand to her chest, just above her heart.

The look on her face nearly broke him.

Tearloch knew without a doubt that, were the princess human, his magic would be fully charged by the pain and guilt that were flooding through her. Even without that magical connection, he could sense her pain.

He didn’t know what urged him to do so, but he reached out and took her hand, laced their fingers together. To reassure her that he was there, and to reassure himself that she was. She rewarded his instinct with a tight squeeze.

“I got your raven,” the witch said, clearly diverting the conversation away from the subject of her isolation. “You said you need my help.”

Arianne took a step back. Maybe surprised by the sudden shift. Tearloch ran his thumb in reassuring circles over the back of her hand. He had no place in this conversation, but he could at least make his support clear.

She recovered quickly.

“We do,” Arianne said, stepping forward once more. “
I
do.”

The witch laughed. “What can
I
,” she said, “a solitary witch, high up in the White Mountains, possibly do to help
you
, High Princess of the Clan Deachair?”

“Callie, please,” Arianne began.

The witch bowed low to the ground. Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she said, “I am your humble servant.”

Arianne looked at Tearloch, clearly at a loss.

“The Moraine are hunting a traitor,” he said. “The Princess thought you might be able to help us locate him.”

The witch turned her dark eyes on him. Studied him so intently that he swore she was reading his thoughts.