Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

I kicked my feet in the freezing blue water of the largest lake on Unimak. A baby rawmouth circled beneath my legs, and as I cast her a warning look, her mother circled her away from the mistake of biting Underhill’s toes off.

Across the lake, visible in the near darkness by the glint of their coins, naga swayed in time to their haunting song. Old Man watched the funeral from his mountain-top perch, and most of the rawmouths had congregated close to the shore by the naga for another reason entirely.

The naga’s song soared to wailing tones and then cut off abruptly. Two of the queens lifted the king’s crown from his head, and a young naga male with barely any tarnish to his scales approached. He seemed impossibly young, no more than a boy. Yet the naga had to have a king.

When the queens set the crown on the small boy’s serpentine head, they pushed their magic into the metal and shrunk the crown to fit. The boy walked to stand beside the dead king’s head and waited there as his naga tribe approached to take a heart piece—a treasured item—from their previous ruler. The group of queens approached their late king first—some picking strings of silver coins, while others picked amulets or gleaming gems. Then the remaining princess and princes of the tribe collected their pieces, from eldest to youngest. The new king’s task would be to earn those heart pieces back in time. When he’d regained all, then he would know his tribe adored him, and his tribe would believe in their king without fail.

I’d become Underhill at twenty-one, and still I’d felt much too young for the responsibility.

I couldn’t imagine what the young naga felt in this moment. Perhaps his youthful mind would protect him from understanding the enormity of ruling.

Standing, I portaled to join the naga.

Swaying with them, I approached the young king. He flicked out his tongue to taste the air at my approach, and though his instincts must have told him to bow, he straightened his scaled upper body and met my gaze.

I smiled. “You will do, master king. I will help you. I am your family.”

There was a tremble in his body that he tried to hide by shifting on the spot. “Thank you, nessst mate.”

“For your coronation, I bring you a gift,” I told him.

Awed whispers hissed behind me. A gift from Underhill.

Whether I deserved the title or not, I’d accepted that I’d be Underhill for a time. Their awe didn’t resonate with me, though I understood a gift from me would be treasured indeed. “I cannot say that you will not meet adversity, young king. I cannot say that people won’t try to hurt you. But,” I said, “you will not meet the same end of your last beloved king.”

I looked to the dead ruler at my left and sent my magic forth. I’d watched enough naga coronations to remember what happened next. Naga, along with most creatures in Underhill, understood that a dead body was just a dead body. Naga liked to keep the skulls of their kings, but I’d add my own twist to that rite.

I pulled the late king’s skull from his head, leaving his flesh and brain behind, as intact as I could manage. I encased the skull in my magic, and soon it glowed a brilliant silver—though the metal itself was something other than silver.

I pulled the king’s shiniest scales from where his torso met his legs and arranged them in a band on either side of the skull. Bending to pick up pebbles from the shore, I used magic to liquify them, then finished my piece.

A cooling blast over the gift set it, and gasps rang out over the lake.

I leaned down to the new boy king and fastened the thick, banded collar around his neck. The skull rested at the nape of his neck and faced outward, and the late king’s scales that I’d set in the rock of his funeral site protected the young naga’s throat.

I told the boy, “He will watch your back and your neck.”

The young king touched the neck plate. “No one will know whichhh is my real faccce. A disssguissse. Thank you, neessst mate.”

Mimicry. I hadn’t thought of that, but he was right, and I enjoyed the insight into how he viewed the world and his survivalist role in it. I had a feeling the naga had picked their next king wisely.

The tribe gathered to look at the king’s first treasure, and some of the younger naga handed over their heart pieces right then and there.

I stood with the queens as the boy king lifted the remains of the last ruler.

The songs had been sung, and the dance had been danced. The new king set the ruler into the water.

He stood at the shore as the rawmouths surged forward, eager to be first to snatch a bite of their promised meal. Not many could stomach naga without the ability to cook the meat properly. Rawmouths could, even if this meal might make their mouths especially raw.

The king’s body was dragged down, and the waves of water cleared to reveal the new king still standing in the same spot.

Old Man roared flame high into the air over the lake, and the naga sighed and swayed, and I felt their hope renew. Underhill had presented their new king with a treasure, and the oldest dragon had given his blessing too. Many queens and kings came and went without either.

I said to the king, “I don’t wish for your tribe to become a target for any vengeful ambassadors. It would be better to leave this place, but I know of another, where the ground is loose enough for a new nest. I believe you won’t be hunted, and in return, you would be doing me a service of guarding this space.”

“Sssspeak it, nesst mate. You will not guide us assstray,” said the king after a glance at the eldest queens, who would advise him until he was old enough to reign alone.

I opened a portal to the sapling in Ireland. “This way.”

I stepped through the portal to arrive at the cave’s entrance. The tribe filed through the portal behind me, and in the brief lull—the first I’d had since Unbalance had driven the Canadian ambassador to kill the naga king, I thought about the new weight on my left hip.

Cormac’s sword returned to me.

And why? The naga king had given the blade back to me on his dying breaths. He hadn’t spent those moments uttering goodbyes to his people. He’d returned the blade to me. I wouldn’t disrespect his wisdom by ignoring the significance of what he’d done. Cormac’s sword had to mean something.

“Thissss is the placccce?” the new king asked.

I didn’t turn from the cave. “It is.”

“There issss darknesssss here. Nesssting here cannot be.”

The ground wasn’t right? They must be able to sense something about it that I couldn’t. I turned to apologize, only to find the tribe had spread out and the naga were flicking their tongues along the shingled ground.

“Would not take muchhhh to fix darknesssss in ground,” a naga queen hissed to the king.

He nodded. “Not muchhhh.”

I blinked. “What would fix it?”

“Just a mother’sss touchhh,” the queen answered. “And we have a mothhher.”

Me ?

I almost pressed a hand against my chest in surprise.

“Darkness veinssss from in cave,” another queen said.

“There’s a sapling inside. The tree of life. It’s sick.”

Their mournful sighs filled the air.

The new king walked up to join me, turning his serpent head toward me. “Moossst important that the mothhher touchhhessss.”

I’d tried before, and yet, the naga seemed so certain about what the ground needed. “Who is the best at sourcing new ground among you?”

The new king pointed out a younger queen, then pointed to himself. “We will joinnn you. Wait here, nesst mates. Sssoon, I returnnn.”

I walked inside the cave and felt the heaviness of my steps.

“Thisss placcce hurtsss your heart,” said the young queen.

I glanced at her. One thing I loved about naga? They knew that all beings were born with wisdom, and only knowledge could be gained in life. They assigned leadership to the wisest among them, regardless of age. “Yes, nest mate. I lost part of my heart here.”

“If you had lossst your heart here, darknesss would have a claim on you,” she disagreed.

“You’re right,” I said after a beat. “Part of my heart is adrift.”

“Then you musssst tie it to yourssself again,” said the new king.

If only it were so simple.

We reached the sapling, and the two naga swayed mournfully, gazing at the dark veins in the young tree.

“This is the source?” I asked them.

The young queen nodded. “Darkness poisssonsss from thisss sssource.”

I’d tried to force out the darkness without success. I’d also failed to force the darkness out of living beings. I was missing something and figuring that out felt crucial, but I hadn’t dared to linger here when Andas could still access the scale realm and see my every move. “You spoke of a mother’s touch. What did that mean?”

The new king tilted his head to display his glowing neck piece. “You touchhhed this.”

I’d encased the items with my essence and magic. “That will extract the darkness?”

“No sssuch thing,” said the queen. “Darknesss can only be balanccced.”

Gaia had told me as much, but with the information the naga had provided, the meaning clicked into place. “I must give the sapling more light to balance the darkness within it. The answer isn’t to burn out the darkness, just to tip the scales in my favor.”

A grin broke out on my face that was echoed on the faces of my nest mates.

I hovered my hands over the sapling before it could stab me or strangle me, or both of the above. I pulled from my surroundings in a dragging gulp, then released my magic. This time, I didn’t direct my essence toward the dark veins at all. Instead, I coated the leaves with silver. I coated them in a thick layer of my magic. Then I moved to the fragile branches, wrapping them in the same blanket. The trunk too. The roots next. I slid completely into my magical sight, walking across the ground to trace the roots beneath the soil and touch them with silver, from root tip to trunk. Over and over I did this until not a single tiny hair of a root was without the sheath of my essence.

I lifted my head and blinked a few times to clear the threads of magic from my sight.

“The ground is loossse,” whispered the naga king. “The ground isss worthy of a nesst. The sssapling has been sssaved.”

My knees shook at the sheer expenditure of magic I’d released—I would’ve died five times over trying to carry out such a task the first time I’d come to this cave. I could see what the naga king meant though. The angry, clawing roots had smoothed along the surface and now sparkled with silver, through which the dark veins were barely visible. The sapling had tripled in size already and the trunk was thicker too.

“Thank you,” I told the king and young queen. “You’ve both done the realms a service today.”

“Where nnnext, nessst mate?” the king asked.

I wish I knew. Without Underhill, I’d lost my anchor, and there was a feeling of being adrift that was a first for me. All of Underhill’s creatures must feel this way now, or perhaps I felt it more keenly with two parts of my heart floating around in Andas. “I will be at the Alaskan court for the time being, dealing with any…teething issues between the fae and humans. I will task Peggy and Sigella to check in with you regularly. I hope this nest brings you peace for a time. Guard it from those you can. Abandon it from those you can’t fight. No nest is worth your lives.”

The king dipped his head, and the young queen brushed her scales against me in goodbye.

I portaled away to the Alaskan palace and burst into my room.

Orlaith stood on the balcony in whispered conversation with Keefe.

I ground to a halt. “Am I interrupting something?”

They leaped apart, and Orlaith hurried closer. “No, no. Just getting to know each other better.”

A lie, but I didn’t call her out. Why were they together?

Keefe had smoothed his expression of any emotion by the time he entered the room after her. “Mistress of Underhill.”

I dipped my head at the mysterious fae—and then took a dive into his pathways. There was no sense to be made of the mess. Maybe if I had more time, I could pick apart all of his possible futures to figure out his game. As it was, the paths all seemed to turn into the same outcome—a meeting between me and Andas. In some of the futures, I faced Unbalance in the fae realm. Some of them on Earth, and some in this very room. But in every future, Keefe had turned his paths so they led to that exact point.

“And what do you see?” he asked me.

I focused on him again. “I see that you hold power over your fate.”

Keefe winked. “A man can dream.”

I didn’t say more. This man meant something. Was he here to help me? I couldn’t be sure just yet. I also couldn’t blast him to the most desolate pit in Earth until I knew.

Keefe executed a flourishing bow, then hooked his thumbs in his belt and swaggered to the door. “Goodnight, fair ladies.”

The door closed, and I took in Orlaith’s blush.

“I wouldn’t get involved if not for the tension this tryst could create between you and Sigella,” I said to her.

“There won’t be any problems with Sigella,” she answered, not meeting my gaze.

There was a hint of subterfuge behind her words, but overall she seemed to have meant what she’d said. And while I could interrogate her for answers, her demeanor made it clear that more questions weren’t welcome.

She’d always been truthful, and she’d always been true, so I decided I’d leave her to come clean in her own time. “So be it. I believe you.”

If anything, that made her blush deepen. She walked over to sit at the small breakfast table. “Shit hit the fan, huh?”

I’d seen some of these fans in the palace. I imagined shit hitting one of them and exploding in every direction. The visual was an accurate one, even if the words weren’t as direct as I preferred. “Yes, shit hit the fan. The naga king has been laid to rest, and a new one crowned.”

“They don’t waste time.”

“In Underhill, it isn’t wise to waste time. You never know when one moment might be your last.”

“And Cormac’s sword?” she asked. “The naga king gave it back to you. That means something right?”

She was asking a flurry of questions to take my mind off her and Keefe.

I flopped back onto the bed, weapons, grime, blood, and all. “There can be great power in items like this. Sigella was trapped in Lugh’s harp for centuries.” Faolan had given me his ancestor’s shield, too, which had protected me from a bone from the sluagh’s corset.

“Tell me you realize there’s more to Cormac’s sword than meets the eye,” pressed my silver-dressed helpmate.

“He was very attached to it,” I told her. “You’re right. The naga king wouldn’t have returned it if it wasn’t vital to do so. I must learn more about the sword.”

Orlaith burst upward. “Good. It’s settled. A trip to the Irish court. Oh, I’ve longed to see the Ríchashaoir’s botchy face when I show up in my body again.”

From past comments, I understood that Orlaith was more intimately acquainted with the leader of the Irish court than most. She’d said something about complaining about his size and then hinted at a long story. At the time, I hadn’t wanted to ask her more, and I still didn’t really want to, if truth be told. The Ríchashaoir’s size or lack thereof could remain a mystery to me.

“Yes, we’ll go to the Irish court.” I pulled on the cord that summoned the human staff. I’d leave a message for the queen.

Orlaith had erupted in a flurry of packing. I was quite curious about where she’d procured so many silver garments and accessories in such a short timeframe. And two trunks. One appeared to be for her, and there was a second, smaller trunk that she was tossing leather trousers and vests into, presumably for me. “So you think the key to reaching Cormac and Aaden is in the sword somehow?”

The sword itself? No. But perhaps something attached to the sword. A memory or the history or the others who’d wielded it. “I think there’s only one key to besting a predator, Orlaith. Observing them.” That was the problem. I could only chase so much information before I’d need to go to the source.

“If only we could put Andas in a glass ball, right?” she said, then sighed.

If only. Because I could say one thing with certainty. I wouldn’t learn much more about beating Unbalance from afar.

Orlaith slowed in her packing flurry. Without turning to me, she sighed. “I need to tell you something.”

About Keefe? “Of course.”

“I heard something at dinner, but I don’t want to tell you.”

I blinked as a wisp of black caught my eye. The next instant the wisp was gone. But I was certain I’d seen it in Orlaith. My mouth dried.

I’d just seen darkness in my friend. Just a flash of it. I pressed my lips into a firm line, realizing that I’d greatly underestimated how vulnerable she must be after receiving her body back. “Why don’t you wish to tell me?”

She threw a shimmering garment onto the bed. “Because you’ll charge off and get hurt.”

A wisp of black. Darkness again. Was she lying about not wishing to tell me or the part about not wanting me to get hurt? “You must do whatever you believe is best.”

She turned then and her look was quizzical. “I don’t know what’s best though. You’re Underhill. I’m just… was a bat.”

“And I loved you then, and I love you now,” I told her. “I don’t care what form you hold, Orlaith.”

She studied her hands. “I always longed for my body back.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“I hated your mother for a while,” she answered. “And now, I see her wisdom and can only mourn that it is gone.”

I’ve never heard Orlaith speak like this. Morose. Regretful. “You are what you are, and you are my dear friend.”

Her head snapped up, but her stare was unfocused, though aimed in my direction. “I am who I am.” She blinked a few times. “I must tell you.”

Another wisp of black. “Then I will listen.”

And then I’d figure out how Andas was preying on her.

“A few fae are visiting from the Irish Court,” she half-blurted. “They were discussing some rumors about a sorceress who has taken up residence in a lake close to their court. I didn’t think much of it with all the creatures who’ve come through recently, but then they mentioned the name of the lake.”

I quirked a brow, more focused on watching for the appearance of darkness in her.

“The Lake of Jealousy,” she said.

That stole my focus. “That’s…coincidental.” Both of us knew by now there was no such thing as coincidence. “What’s the sorceress doing?”

“The subject changed, but their tones when speaking of her didn’t imply anything good.”

Shit. “She could be Andas’s third henchman.” I dragged a hand over my face.

Orlaith wrung her hands together. “That’s what I was worried about, but I had to tell you because if we’re going to defeat Andas, then we need to make sure he’s at his weakest.”

I frowned. Her words weren’t entirely true. Neither were they entirely false. She’d never lied so artfully as a bat, and if she’d lied at all, then she’d admitted the truth in the next breath. Orlaith needed my help. I’d need to safeguard her from this darkness while she found her footing in her body again. “We will travel to the Irish Court. I’ll investigate the sword and ask the Irish leader more about these rumors.”

“The Ríchashaoir,” she scoffed, and the darkness appeared again, and this time it stayed. “He’s useless. I doubt he’ll know anything about the sorceress.”

The smear on her essence made my heart stop in a way it wouldn’t when faced with a thousand foe. I said quietly, “What would you have me do, Orlaith?”

She blurted, “You need to go to the lake. If it’s a henchman, then we’ll take her out.” She smacked her fist into her other palm. “She’ll rue the day you crossed her path.”

Orlaith hadn’t wanted to tell me about the sorceress for fear I’d charge off and get hurt, but now she wanted exactly that. Darkness was trying its best to sink its teeth into her. But did darkness want me to go to the lake, or to stay away? Which was really Orlaith?

I crossed to her and took her hands in mine. “With you by my side, she will rue the day we crossed her path.”

Orlaith dropped her gaze and slipped her hands from mine. “Y-yes.”

I lowered my voice as if trying to hypnotise a bell skink. “Are you well, Orry?”

She didn’t meet my gaze. “I’m not a bat anymore, Silver, of course I’m well. Perhaps it happened sooner than anticipated or planned by your mother, but here I am. Be happy for me?”

But she still didn’t meet my gaze. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy,” I said.

“Good then! Now, let me pack. We better get going.”

“I’ll return to collect you once I find Sigella.”

“Oh, look! I’m done. I’ll come with you to find her, shall I?” Orlaith shoved a half-packed bag at me, grabbing the second which was nearly empty. Her cheeks were flushed, and the wisp of black I’d seen in her had taken up a tiny residence within her essence.

She hadn’t been done with packing. Orlaith didn’t want me to speak to Sigella alone.

All I felt was sadness. And panic. Andas couldn’t have Orry too. He couldn’t take everyone I loved.

I held out my hand to the beautiful fae. “Let’s go then.”