Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

“ W ill you go after them now?” Sigella stared at the place where Keefe and Orlaith had portaled away. Traitor and Trickster, that’s what I’d call them. The daughter-father duo.

The hurt of Orlaith’s betrayal had cut far deeper than I wanted to admit.

I shook my head. “I can’t access the scale realm, and I have bigger things to deal with.”

If Orlaith wanted to be with her father instead of me, then good riddance.

Sigella spun her hand, and a second teacup and saucer appeared. She swirled her tea and gazed into it. “This one is yours.”

She handed it to me, and then picked up her teacup again. I held mine and peered into the amber brown liquid. I found myself hesitating to drink. If Orlaith could betray me, then what of Sigella?

As if she could hear my thoughts and uncertainty, she laughed. “You’re getting smarter, Silver. Trust isn’t something you should give to anyone.”

I studied her over the rim of the cup. “Not even you?”

Her smile was sad. “I wish I could say with certainty that I’ll always be trustworthy, but time and challenges have a way of changing people. Perhaps one day you won’t be able to trust me. But today…today is not that day.” She raised her cup and sipped. “And today we needed something stiffer than a cup of tea.”

I sniffed the liquid and sipped it too. The sharp snap of alcohol rolled through my mouth and down my throat. The burn was pleasant and left a tingle in its wake, warmth in my belly.

Perhaps if anyone had looked in on us, they might have fainted from the sight. The Ríchashaoir’s body lay a few feet away, blood pooling around him, while we drank tea with our backs turned to him.

But he was gone, and of no consequence now, and I didn’t feel one way or another about his departure. He’d played his part in this story, causing as much grief and heartache with his position as anything good.

“Do you have a plan?”

I paused with my teacup partway to my mouth. “Why are you being nice? Why aren’t you calling me a fool for trusting her? I thought you’d have plenty to say about what an idiot I’ve been.”

Sigella sighed and rolled her hands, her cup and saucer disappearing. “Because I was a fool too. I…I believed Keefe to be what he said he was. So we’re both idiots, and it would be ridiculous for me to call the kettle black at my age.”

I tipped my head. “What kettle is black?”

She reached for my cup and saucer, and they disappeared as she grasped them. “What it means is that I can’t chastise you for making the same mistake I did, Silver. I lowered my guard when I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.” Her voice hardened, and in her eyes, I saw a hot anger from a lifetime of romantic disappointment. Keefe had given her hope for something more, then snatched it away.

I closed my eyes, the few sips of alcohol and tea I’d taken soothing the rough edges around my heart. But balance was tugging at my feet, urging me away from the scene. I’d felt my magic urge me to the lake’s edge, but I’d never felt it this directly. Then again, I’d received a massive boost of power.

“We have to go,” I said, then started following the sensation through the Ríchashaoir’s castle, my eyes half-closed. Perhaps I should tell someone the Irish ruler was dead. Another would take his place, a better fae, but it wasn’t a small deal.

And yet I didn’t, because the tugging at my feet was very insistent.

Sigella had quickly fallen into step beside me. “Where to now? You have an unbreakable connection to Unbalance. Can you reach him to take his power? If we can keep his power, then it will render his darkness useless. What’s the next step in this battle?”

I grimaced because neither of those ideas were good—at least not yet. “I could do both, but he’s angry with me right now. Taking his power is not my goal. I wish to find a way through this, with him.”

The words were out, and I didn’t even wish to take them back.

Sigella refrained from scoffing, though she did clear her throat several times as if she were choking.

I glanced at her. “Was your tea full of lumps?”

She’d gone pale, but her lips twitched. “Yes. I think it must have been.” She opened and closed her mouth, but my ‘plan’ seemed to have rendered her mute. I couldn’t complain. She’d taken it pretty well, all things consider.

I strode on, obeying the tugging on my feet.

When we reached the outer doors of the castle, the alcohol-induced relaxation had burned off enough for me to realize how utterly silent the halls were—we hadn’t passed a single fae, human or creature from Underhill on our walk.

I stopped in my tracks. “Where is everyone?”

“Out here,” Kik’s voice echoed in from one of the windows open to the courtyard.

Sigella jerked. “Who’s that?”

“Kik came back from the dead. Forgot to say.”

She muttered under her breath, “Is anything impossible anymore?”

“Probably not.” I picked up my pace, jogging forward.

“You gotta see this, Kiddo! It’s…well I don’t know what in the ding-donging heckles this is,” Kik brayed.

Sigella was behind me as I ran out of the castle gates. I rubbed my arms, looking for Kik and Peggy in the sky. “The sun is above us. Why is it so cold?”

There wasn’t any wind to chill the air today, yet the temperature suggested we were nearly nightfall, not the crest of day.

There was something else too. Something…about the air.

A dryness that reminded me of the Desert of Loss in Underhill, a freezing place without water for a hundred miles in every direction. I’d crossed it once and would’ve died but for finding a bulbous hohu.

I licked my lips, wondering that they felt so dry when the day was chillier than usual. “This is not natural.”

“No,” Peggy said darkly from beside Kik as they landed.

“You should see it from up in the air, Kiddo. The water is gone. Everywhere.” Kik moaned, “What will I do without a drink? I’m a thirsty boy. If I faint soon, it’s dehydration. I’ll need CPR, Peggy. We should get a jump on that.”

Peggy tossed her head. “You’ve defied death once, my love. You’ll be fine.”

He stopped stumbling and whipped around to look at her. “Say that first part again. The ‘my love’ part.”

“That fucker,” Sigella hissed, catching up to me. She slapped her hand against her thigh. “ He did this.”

I dragged my focus from Peggy and Kik. “Andas?”

This didn’t reek of Andas to me. I mean, why would he do this?

She growled. “No, this feels like Keefe. He said something about the most precious thing in our world being water. How terrible it would be if it were taken.”

He’d said that, and she hadn’t thought anything of it? Then again, we’d just sipped alcohol from teacups next to a dead body. It wasn’t exactly a normal day.

I noticed the hundreds of fae gathered in the courtyard for the first time. They lurked uncertainly thirty feet away, their faces fearful at the changes which they could sense weren’t normal. Drought wasn’t unknown in Underhill or Earth, but this was something more. Too immediate and intense, and I could scent a sinister essence on the breeze.

“The waterways are empty?” I asked Kik and Peggy. Each part of nature possessed a unique essence, like fae creatures, and I couldn’t sense any water essence around at all.

“River, creek, lake, and ocean that we could see,” Peggy said in undertones.

If this was Keefe working from the scale realm, then we should all be very fucking worried. He and Orlaith had been gone for less than an hour.

I ignored the court fae, who were likely waiting for their Ríchashaoir to appear and explain everything. “Kik, Peggy, we need to see if this is isolated to Ireland. We need to check the Alaskan court.”

Kik flicked his inky tail. “You got it!” He stomped a hoof and a portal opened. He and Peggy slipped through it, their bodies pressed flush against each other as they disappeared to the other side of Earth, to a part of the world where the ocean should flow heavily into rivers and inlets.

I paused, glancing back at the Irish court. Earth-dwelling fae needed everything spelled out for them. Amplifying my voice, I called out to them, “Remain inside, and do nothing you don’t have to until the water returns. Though the air is cold, you must conserve your energy.”

Terror-filled eyes turned my way.

“What’s happening, Underhill?” one fae shouted.

Not Mistress of Underhill, just Underhill. I blew out a breath. Yeah, even I’d realized the title change might be permanent by now.

“There is great evil that would destroy us,” I answered. “I go to stop it.”

The words felt so formal, and not quite my own—more like something my mother might say—but that didn’t make them any less true, and part of me knew these fae needed to believe I was different and powerful.

I strode through the portal to the Alaskan court, and Sigella stepped through behind me. Kik had delivered us to the main courtyard of the palace, and there was no one to be seen.

A more intense cold slammed into me like a sharp slap to my face, stealing my breath. Too cold.

Keefe’s attack wasn’t isolated to Ireland.

“Silver!” Cinth waved at me from the second-floor balcony. Kallik, in her hooded Oracle robe, stood beside her. “Everyone’s inside in the warmth.”

“Go to them,” Sigella said, then grabbed my arm. “Silver, I can feel the scale realm. I don’t believe Keefe has locked me out of it.”

There was more she wasn’t saying. “You want to go there.”

“I might be able to find him and stop this.”

“And if I need you here? And shouldn’t we put more thought into your plan to attack Keefe?”

Her smile was a flash of teeth, there and gone. “Call for me, Underhill, and I will come. As for the rest…I don’t know that planning ever got you very far. I wasn’t aware you knew the word.”

That was the truth. “Learn what you can. Don’t endanger yourself.”

Sigella stepped back and fell through an opening that led into the scale realm. I tried to follow her, but my foot froze to the ground. How was Keefe managing that? And against me .

“Be careful.” I whispered to Sigella.

The portal closed, and the cold in the Alaskan court crept up my body.

I strode into the palace, grateful for the immediate warmth beyond the entranceway. Kallik met me in the hall. “This is bad, sister.”

“I know, do you see a future through this? Around? Something?” While I could sense how to navigate interactions and situations to ensure the best balance, my sister’s vision of pathways was unique to her power. She didn’t see the future or past or present in terms of balance like me. She simply saw what could be and what had been. I understood now that her power was limited by her inability to sense balance, and anything she told me should be properly weighed with those limitations in mind. The path to balance often involved tragedy and pain and suffering which the Oracle may believe were futures to avoid.

Her lilac eyes locked on mine. “What I see is that the pathways have stopped. I can’t see anything or anyone. I can’t see the fate of the birds outside, let alone the fate of realms and powers like yourself.”

The oracle couldn’t see. Yes, if Keefe was behind this, we should be very worried indeed. “What does that mean? Has that ever happened to you before?”

I could already sense the answer was no.

She lowered her voice, checking to see whether the hall was clear. “It’s as if the fates of everyone and everything in the world are about to end.”

The pressure, tug and pull of balance around my legs made me stumble. “That…that’s impossible.” Hadn’t I just had a conversation about that word with Sigella though?

Kallik pulled me into a side room and removed her hood.

Cinth, Ronan and Faolan were waiting inside beside the fireplace.

“Water’s the most important thing to this world,” she said. “Few creatures, and no human or fae can go more than a few days without drinking it, but there are deeper consequences. We rely on water currents to move heat from the center of Earth to us at the poles. Any countries close to the poles will be plunged into freezing temperatures, while any countries near the equator will face scathing heat. Here, we might be able to melt any ice or snow we can find, but if there’s no water, then there are no marine creatures, and we’ll be without our usual winter food source.”

“And those at the equator won’t have any water at all.” I added.

Keefe was a genius. I’d kill him, but he was a genius. By putting him in the prison realm, my mother had accidentally taught him a powerful lesson. There was only one watering hole in the prison realm, after all, only one source of life. He was simply scaling that up and applying the same idea to Earth.

But how was he powerful enough to play on this level?

Gaia’s voice whispered in my mind. You should understand the need for balance best of all.

Balance. I was balance. Are you saying that Keefe is a force of balance too?

You are balance. You are Underhill. This one exists to balance that which might be. The direction of his force must be determined.

Oh, good. I was worried she’d give me too many clear answers.

I tensed in case Gaia received that thought, but she didn’t offer any more cryptic explanations. From what she’d given me, I could assume that she—and the other greater forces—were behind Keefe’s sudden rise to power…and maybe the sudden changes in Orlaith too.

“The humans are blowing up my phones,” Cinth said. “Every reserve, every river, even the bottled water is gone. As if it were just sucked dry in a matter of moments.”

“The humans are blaming us, of course,” Faolan said, his face tight and lined with worry. “What will they do when half the world is plunged into a modern ice age and the rest becomes a furnace?”

I pursed my lips. “It is our fault. Or at least, it is the fault of one fae. Their error is in condemning an entire race for the actions of one person. Two people. Orlaith is involved too.”

Kallik gripped my shoulder. “I’d hope she’d turn from that path. I’m sorry.”

“You couldn’t have told me?” I asked her.

“I could have, yes, but there was a chance it would have gone a different way, and now her path is as invisible to me as everyone else’s. Her father included.”

Cinth lifted her hands. “Wait, wait, wait. So Orlaith is controlling the water alongside her father? Who the hell is her father? And how could Orlaith do that to you? She was Team Silver all the way.”

So I’d thought.

I forced myself to straighten my spine. “Keefe is Orlaith’s father from the prison realm. Orlaith led me into a trap on his orders. He’s a trickster, and he was the third henchmen of Unbalance, but apparently he’s not tied to Unbalance anymore.”

Faolan whistled low. “He fooled us all.”

“Can you stop them?” Cinth asked. “No creature can go long without water. The marine life will be dying in droves. Humans won’t be far behind, and neither will we.”

“I don’t know.” I looked at her, seeing fear, panic, and worry. I wished that I had a better answer.

“Our children will die. We will all die, Silver,” Ronan said quietly. “Tell us what we need to do, and we will help you. But we need to act quickly.”

Each of them was hoping for an answer that I didn’t have. I had to find a way to stop the Trickster directly, but he was safely hidden in the scale realm—inaccessible to me—and killing him would ensure the end of things between Orlaith and me. Apparently, part of me still held out hope for reconciliation.

There was a soft tug at my feet, and I focused on the force of balance there, feeling out what it wanted me to do. Or more specifically, who it wanted me to find.

I lifted my head.

“She’s got an idea,” said my sister.

Andas would be allowed into the scale realm, and lack of water would kill his creatures too. If I could convince him to stop Keefe, then we could figure this out. He might be furious with me, but I could try to convince him that the battle should be between us and only us. Whether that would work was anyone’s guess. I could only see our meeting and everything beyond was smoky and obscured—as unclear as the situation and as uncertain as the decision of all the players involved.

I’d always thought my mother was all-seeing—that she could stare into the endless future. Perhaps she really had possessed that foresight, but I sure as hell didn’t. There was no clear path through the stars because that required all the creatures sharing the path to feel clear about their decisions. As it stood, only Keefe seemed certain on what he wanted to do, and the rest of us were still figuring out our response. Until we got there, there was only the next choice, then the next.

I said, “Sigella is tracking Keefe already, but I can’t reach her in the other realm to help her. Only Unbalance can restore our water source. I need to find him.”

Kallik moved first, drawing me into a hug. Her arms were tight around me as she whispered in my ear, “We rely on your sight now, sister. Balance, follow its lead for us all.”

I pulled back. “You trust me?”

Why did everyone trust me? I was just surviving from one moment to the next, and my life had been this way for long enough that I felt certain it would be this way to the end.

She smiled, though it was sad. “I’ve always trusted you, Silver.”

Kallik kissed me on the forehead, leaving me with more strength than before.

Cinth grasped me in a hug that squashed me into her bosom. “May the goddess speed your journey, Silver. If there’s anything we can do…”

“There is one thing,” I told her. According to my sister, the realms could end at any moment. It was possible I might never see my sister or Cinth or anyone in this room again. I’d learned to never show fear, and I wasn’t about to start now.

The unwilling queen of all fae held me at arm’s length. “Anything, Underhill.”

“Save me some beetroot tickles.”

Her smile wobbled, and tears gathered in her eyes. “You think I’ll be here to bake for you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but if we survive this, then I want one of those pastries.”

Her face fell. “You don’t know we’ll survive.”

I turned from her, and the voice that came from me wasn’t really my own. “The path is chosen. Now I must walk it alone.”

Alone.

Without Kik, without Peggy or Sigella. Without my sister. If Andas was to give up the help of his henchman, then perhaps I would have to do without the aid of my helpmates.

I closed my eyes and felt for my connection to Andas. Finding it was as easy as breathing.

I opened a portal and stepped through.

Dark.

I held up a hand and tightened my power into a tiny flame. “Andas, I need to speak with you.”

I could sense him here, even if I was unsure where here was—a cave, but not the cave where the naga had made their Earth nest. This one was damp, and the moisture was greedily drawn into my skin after the dryness of the air at the courts.

Unbalance didn’t answer.

I moved slowly into the dark. As if there were a compass built inside my chest, I walked straight to where he was perched in the dark.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled. “Should you not be out there, saving the fae?”

I frowned and set my tiny flame into a niche on the wall. “I would, but I can’t reach the scale realm. Your trickster has closed it. But he’d let you in. You’ve probably been able to get in this entire time.”

Andas didn’t answer.

“That’s why I am here.” I continued. “I…will you stop your henchman? He’s unleashed chaos on Earth, and he’s surely doing the same to Underhill. Millions will die without water, not only fae, but humans too. Your people and mine.”

The shadows cast on Andas’s face made his expression difficult to read. “And what would you give me to stop him?”

He hadn’t responded with a no. That was better than nothing. “What do you want?”

“My power back.” He cupped my face with one hand. “Give my power back to me, Balance.”

I’d felt how bonding to him had equalized our power. It made sense that we were destined to war over a finite amount of magic. When he had more, he ruled the realms. When I had more, I ruled the realms. It was simple, at least to me. And this time, a power trade was reasonable. “If you stop Keefe and promise the water will never again be used like this in our battle, then I will give all power I gained at our binding back to you.”

His hand pulled my face toward him. “Swear it.”

Our lips were so close that just by speaking they brushed one another. “I swear it.”

He exhaled, and the warmth of his breath pulled a groan from me. “On something of value. Someone you love? Perhaps your sister?”

His words settled on me, cooling my growing desire. I didn’t gamble with the people I loved. “No. Take my words or leave them. I swear that if you stop Keefe and save the realms from this drought, I will return the power you held before our binding. Or you may take it back, I don’t know how that works.”

I’d known that one of us would tip the scales to become more powerful soon enough.

Andas yanked me forward so our lips were pressed tightly together, his tongue snaking into my mouth as if tasting me. I returned the favor. Smoke and ice, he tasted different now than before our binding.

As quickly as the kiss started, he broke it off and stood. “You’ll regret giving up my power, Underhill.”

He sounded irritated with me, and I stared at him from where I sat crouched on the ground. “I regret nothing, Andas. Not even you. If I don’t make this deal, then no one will be alive to feel anything, including regret. You can congratulate your henchman on a job well done.”

His eyes had widened, but he smoothed his expression. Had he thought about what I’d said earlier? I was willing to take a gamble that we could share a future together. An unprecedented, maybe impossible future together. Had he considered taking that gamble with me?

We held each other’s gaze for a leaden beat.

“Will you go to the scale realm then?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I haven’t been able to access it for a while now.”

I frowned. “Keefe locked you out too?”

“First as a ruse so you’d believe he was on your side. Though I do wonder if it was ever a ruse, really.”

“What—”

Andas strode through a portal and was gone.

“—do you mean?” I trailed off and waved away the sulphur from his portal.

Still crouching, I let my hands drift down to press against the rock, wet with moisture while the rest of the world was dying of drought. Of course Keefe wouldn’t leave Unbalance without water, even if something was going on between them.

I sighed, wondering if I’d just traded one misery for another. Andas would stop Keefe and then…then I’d be back to where I’d started—so much weaker than Andas. But at least those I loved would be safe and alive while I figured this all out.

How long would it take for Andas to find Keefe and stop him? He’d said he couldn’t go to the scale realm any more than I could, but I assumed that he could summon his remaining henchman to him the same way I could call Sigella, Kik, and Peggy to me.

Warmth flowed through me from the wet rock—a comfort, perhaps from Gaia herself. There was no tug on me in any direction, no indication that balance wished for me to move, which kept me still. That was a rarity, and it reassured me that this had been the only choice.

Whatever darkness that resulted would need to be born.

I opened a small portal to check on those I’d left behind, kind of like those annoying looking orbs that Cinth kept floating around the palace. Maybe the drought had already been reversed. Kik and Peggy were inside the Alaskan palace now, with Kallik and Faolan. They were all wrapped in blankets by a roaring fire.

The temperatures in the poles were plummeting fast.

“She’ll kick his behind good and hard. Very hard.” Kik bobbed his head, shivering.

“Hopefully soon,” Faolan said, drawing Kallik closer.

Peggy lay on the floor covered in a blanket, her wings tucked and her nose resting. She was breathing hard, which suggested the lack of water was affecting her even worse than Kik despite his dramatic stumbling. “Underhill will save us.”

I closed the small portal and tried to open one to the scale realm to see Sigella. When that didn’t work, I opened another to check on my people. The naga appeared least affected by the drought, although they kept very still in their underground nest. Old Man was curled up tight—against the unnatural cold. The Irish and Alaskan courts…

Everyone was miserable. Some were already sick from dehydration.

My chest tightened at the sight of children lying still and lethargic. Andas would stop Keefe. He had to. If for nothing else than to get his power back.

Only, when I checked the rivers, they weren’t refilling.

What about my home realm?

I opened a portal and stepped through to Underhill, not far from the Old Man’s cave. Unlike near the poles of Earth, heat slammed into me here, as if I’d walked into the flames of the dragon’s mouth itself.

I stumbled away, eyes squinting against the blazing suns. Next, I portaled to the purple sea, only…there was nothing there. No water. Heart sinking, I stood on the bottom of what had been a vast, dangerous ocean. I could only be happy that most of the creatures who’d lived here had made it through to Earth, or their decaying bodies would surround me now.

Except…

I could feel them dying on Earth. Their pain and suffering clawed at me, and I cut it off quickly, so I wasn’t dragged into panic and insanity. I covered my mouth with a shaking hand. The rawmouths, the kraken, Earth’s water creatures. Millions of creatures would die in this way. I’d feel the loss of them. After, there would be a void in me, and I couldn’t bring myself to portal and see such a horrific sight as well as feel it. What would this mean for the future when the realms were deprived of their crucial roles in the life cycle?

And why would Andas allow Keefe to destroy Underhill like this? I didn’t understand, but I had to save those that I could.

I turned on the spot, shading my eyes. Without much hope of finding anything better, I portaled to different parts of Underhill. The Cloud Forest. The Hopeless River. The deep jungle. Every place was dry as if deprived of water for years, though some locations were cold and some were scorching hot.

A hand clamped onto my arm and yanked me through a portal and back to the dark cave. The repeated location of our meeting surprised me because Andas constantly leaped around. I’d felt it through our bond as well as experienced it firsthand. He didn’t usually go to the same place twice.

“Did you stop him?” I faced Andas in the dark, his hands sliding to my waist as he held me steady.

Despite everything, my entire being yearned for his touch and love. “Why isn’t the water back?”

Andas tightened his hold. “I cannot reach him. He’s no longer tied to me, Silver. I’d felt it happen, but I’d hoped I could still draw him back under my power.”

No. Keefe’s musing words before he’d left for the scale realm gained clarity, and I grabbed hold of Andas’s arms. “How is that possible? How can he have so much power?”

“Just like your Orlaith betrayed you, so has the Trickster betrayed me. Your decision to bind us has come with consequences.” Andas didn’t let me go despite the accusation in his words. Maybe in the dark, when he couldn’t see me, then submitting to his desire to hold me was easier.

I pressed my forehead to his chest and considered the theory. “The trickster and traitor were pushed into this role when I healed the rift in you.” My heart sank as I said the words because they were correct. This was what Gaia was talking about.

“And so you were wrong about what we might become, as I expected,” Andas answered. “There is no way for us to co-exist. The greater forces will not allow our alliance. See the message they have sent us?”

He was right in part. In comparison to the actions of Keefe and Orlaith, Unbalance suddenly seemed the lesser of two evils. I’d tried to draw Andas and me together, and now everyone was in mortal danger from a trickster who’d been given the power to stop us, and by goddesses and gods, no less. “Then we have one choice. We must find a way to stop Keefe together. As for the bond…I’m not willing to give up on that yet.”

“Not even to save everyone you love when Keefe makes his next move?” Andas’s tone was mocking.

But I didn’t know if I could give up our tie, not even for everyone else. And what did that say about me ?

His mouth dropped to the edge of my ear, and he grazed it with his lips. “You will give me my power back if I help you stop the trickster and the traitor. The deal hasn’t changed.”

“Depends. Is that all what you want from me?” Lugh’s left nut, had I really just asked him that? Had I lost all dignity? If Andas was correct, pursuing this bound I’d forged between us could kill billions. How far was I willing to take this?

I couldn’t say.

All I can say is that his next reply hurt far more than it should have, even if the words were a lie.

“That is all I want from you,” Unbalance stated, cold and unmoving.