Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
“ I ’m sorry,” Sigella drawled from beside me. “Are your portals malfunctioning or did you feel like a hike?”
We crouched in front of the Ríchashaoir’s castle—well, not quite in front. I’d portaled us in a mile from the gates, into the surrounding forest. Orlaith was quiet on my other side as I gazed through the trees at the castle. She hadn’t uttered a word since Sigella joined us.
“I’m deliberating,” I admitted. “Orlaith overhead something about a lake near here. Andas’s third henchman might be there.”
But that wasn’t really the issue. The issue was that Orlaith was acting strangely.
Sigella stepped in front of me and blocked my view of the castle. “All the more reason to figure out why the naga king left you Cormac’s sword. You may need it to defeat the henchman.”
I couldn’t fault her logic. In the battle against Unbalance, that was my next clear move. Yet darkness was trying to take root in Orlaith, and I had to help her. But I was Underhill and my duty wasn’t to her.
So should I enter the castle and investigate the sword, or go to the Lake of Jealousy and get to the bottom of Orlaith’s darkness?
“We left Keefe and Peggy behind, too, are you going to tell us why?” Sigella asked. The ancient fae was suspicious of our behavior, and with good reason. Orlaith never went this long without speaking.
“I can portal them here if we need them.” I frowned. The words were true, and as I spoke them, a thread of magic pulsed within me—my connection to Peggy. I was sure that I could locate Keefe if I focused enough too.
“We should go in,” Orlaith whispered.
The words were so opposite to those she’d uttered an hour ago that I turned bodily to face her. “What?”
She swallowed. “The sword is more important. We should go in.”
I heard no subterfuge in her words. This was Orlaith. And yet I could see darkness in her still. Darkness she was trying to fight by the looks of the battle on her face.
Sigella sucked in a breath, and I flashed her a warning look.
She’d just seen it too.
“Sigella is right,” Orlaith hissed as though in pain. “You may need the sword to help you fight the henchman.” She doubled over slightly. “Go into the castle.”
The darkness in her strengthened, and I flinched, only just managing to stop myself from grabbing her.
I’d run through any number of possibilities in my mind. I’d considered a desperate attempt to burn the darkness out of her. I’d never succeeded with that, but perhaps my new power would reveal something I hadn’t noticed in the past. I’d also considered the opposite—adding my magic into Orlaith to further outweigh the darkness in her, similar to how I’d layered magic onto the tree of life. But I’d done that to the tree of life , an entity more powerful than I could fathom. A normal fae couldn’t just hold the power of Underhill. The most likely result from doing that is that Orlaith would explode in every direction.
No. I had a terrible and sinking feeling that only Orlaith could beat it back. That all I could do was support her. But there had to be some other way to help her. There was always another way, and I couldn’t rest until I knew the answer one way or another.
“I’m going to the lake,” I replied.
Sigella was taking her turn to be quiet.
“No,” Orlaith snapped. “We need to go to the castle.”
And yet when I’d declared my choice, the darkness in her had lessened. She may suddenly want me to investigate the sword, but the evil presence in her wanted me at the lake. If I didn’t choose that, it would root more deeply in my friend.
More than that, I had to find answers. Answers that were selfish and would no doubt carry serious consequences for the realm. Yet Orlaith meant too much to me not to do this.
“Orry,” I said. “Look at me.”
The look she gave me was half glare, and I ignored it.
“An hour ago you were certain I had to go to the lake, and now you’re certain I shouldn’t. I’ve asked you already, but I’ll ask again. Are you well?”
“Yes, I’m well. A woman can change her mind. That’s all,” she said in a scathing tone.
A tone that wasn’t her. Maybe I’d only known her as a bat, but I did know her. That voice belonged to a darker creature.
She was put in the prison realm.
I silenced the quiet voice in my mind, refusing to give it any room. This was Andas’s work—just like how he’d taken over that human ambassador. I would stop him from controlling Orlaith, but perhaps the best thing was that he remain unaware that I knew what he was up to. For now.
I smiled. “Which is what I’m doing. I won’t be long. In the meantime, I want you to start digging up what you can on Cormac’s sword.”
She opened her mouth.
“You’ll need to let me know what the Ríchashaoir says when he sees you’ve returned.” I winked for good measure.
Orlaith’s red hair was perfectly coiled and twisted, and she’d left a few strands loose to catch the breeze. Having dressed to accentuate her curves and highlight the perfect glow of her porcelain skin, she was a devastating beauty. Her eyes called to me most of all in this moment, and almost erased all else.
Innocent, guileless blue, glittering with…slight malice.
Malice that wasn’t her.
“You’re leaving me behind.” She narrowed her gaze. “Let me guess, Sigella is going with you?”
Sigella stepped closer to her. “Your role is not to question Underhill. Your role is to help her and do as she says. If she is asking this of you, then it is for a reason, you stupid twit.”
The glitter of malice intensified, and the air tightened as if Orlaith might attack.
I cleared my throat, and Orlaith blinked, leaning away from Sigella again.
She glanced at me, then curtsied. “Whatever Underhill commands.”
In a whirl of silver fabric, Orlaith spun and marched from the treeline. Her hurt slashed through me, and I made to step after her, but Sigella whipped out a hand to grip my arm.
Very quietly, she said, “Silver, can’t you sense the darkness in her?”
I watched Orlaith storm toward the castle. “I can. It appeared an hour ago and has already strengthened in her.”
“She wanted you to go to the lake?”
“Initially, yes.”
“Then that tells you everything you need to know.”
But it didn’t. That darkness told me that Orlaith needed my help—that her sentence imprisoned in bat form had ended too soon, and Orlaith was struggling to keep the darkness of her past life from claiming her again. “I’m not about to abandon her to Andas when she needs me most. She’s been there for me more times than I can count.”
“Perhaps that’s why Keefe has joined us,” Sigella said. “To replace her. Balance doesn’t care about your feelings, Silver. Balance will drive a dagger through your heart thousands of times and then a thousand times more. If Orlaith’s time with you is done, then nothing you do will change that.”
A shiver ran through me. “Your theories are premature. I understand the ruthlessness of balance all too well, and I am no stranger to painful choices or painful indecision. She is still within my grasp. If she was beyond my reach, then she wouldn’t care so much about experiencing that darkness.”
Sigella sighed. “So you’ll go to the lake for answers.”
“Just like I walked into danger to free you,” I replied. “Keep up if you can.”
I broke into a run, and Sigella soon caught up and matched the length of my bounding leaps toward the Lake of Jealousy.
On the way, I wove spell after spell, drawing warmth and power to me before tucking the reserves deep within my body. The pallor of the available essences on Earth sent a pang of longing for Underhill through me. Earth had provided fae with a refuge in times of danger, yet we were not meant for this place, really. Here, we couldn’t thrive. Here, magic didn’t fill our chests and steal our breath with its fullness as it had in my vibrant childhood home.
We ran in relative silence for nearly an hour.
“You know this will likely be a trap,” Sigella stated.
I gave her a sidelong glance. “Yes.” Andas was behind the darkness in Orry, and that meant he was behind her original insistence that I come to this lake. Andas was either sending me to be slaughtered by his last henchman, or he’d come to do the job himself.
“If he succeeds? It’s not too late to return to the castle.”
I answered her more honestly than I’d answered myself with the same question. “If I am to learn about him, then perhaps he is meant to succeed.”
She scoffed. “You think he’ll keep you alive and close and just spill his secrets? Fool!”
No, I didn’t think that. I’d answered on a whim—on a deep suspicion that I hadn’t realized had been growing within me.
I could feel Sigella building up to a lecture. I cut her off. “Orlaith has always told me I should just bed him. Perhaps that’s the answer.”
She snorted. “Now you plan to seduce Unbalance? We’re doomed. Have you ever bedded another?”
“Had sex? No, but if a three-legged teekek can figure it out, then so can I.”
How did we get onto this subject? I had a feeling I was to blame.
Sigella grabbed my arm and yanked me to a halt. “Do not for one second think that you can love them through this, Silver. Or even fuck Andas through this. He’s a villain . He is made to be so by the enormous forces of this universe. You’re our only hope, and if you fall into the trap of believing he can be cured by your kisses and what’s between your legs, then you’re a bigger fool than even I realized. You’d be as big of a fool as me . Too many women believe if they love hard enough or deep enough a man will become everything they hope and dream he’ll be. Life and love don’t work that way, and you know enough of my past to understand I know what I speak of.”
I pushed her hand off my arm. “I don’t believe I can change Andas. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I was repeating Orlaith’s thought, not mine.”
Yet how many times had I yearned to give in to Andas?
“I hope so,” she said shortly. “For everyone’s sake.”
I didn’t answer. That would teach me for trying to distract Sigella with a subject change.
My surroundings registered. “We’re nearly there.”
Sigella narrowed her eyes but didn’t say anything further about me seducing Andas.
The sparse trees cleared, and pebbles crushed underfoot as the Lake of Jealousy came into view.
The lake was still and so calm the surface looked more like ice. I quelled a shiver at the memory of how cold the water had been, though I couldn’t be sure whether that was due to other memories attached to this place. I’d kissed Cormac and Aaden here. I’d stood crushed between them as we’d finally submitted to that pounding power of our fated bond. This was where destiny had bitten into us and swirled deep around and within us.
“There is something here. Something dark.” The power present was so large that balance was nearly forcing me to the water to deal with it.
For good or for ill, this was where I needed to be.
Sigella spoke low. “I sense it also, but it’s…hidden too.”
I dipped my head. “If it’s not a henchman, then I still need to deal with a dark creature of this magnitude. Hide,” I said to her. “No matter what happens, do not try to save me. I mean it.”
She grabbed me by both arms. “Are you sure of this, Silver? We can still choose a different path.”
I felt the pressure of balance around me as if there were a scale under my ribs. “I came here for answers to save Orlaith, but I’m meant to work balance here, too, Sigella. This is right.”
Hopefully for both reasons. I refused to leave Orry to battle Andas’s power alone.
Sigella drew me into a hug and kissed my forehead, and I was too shocked by the display of affection to react. “Go carefully. The water in the lake is sick with darkness.”
She let me go and backed away into the trees, waving her hand over her footprints to erase them until no trace of her remained. She disappeared from sight, and her magic muted a few moments later.
I could feel her watching, and that would have to be enough.
I walked to the lake’s edge and tried to wade into the water. My foot encountered firm resistance. Not an attack, but a barrier. A magical buffer existed over the lake that wouldn’t permit me to enter the water. Was it cast over the surface like icing on a cake or infused in the water itself like tea?
I needed to try a slice to find out.
Unsheathing my dagger, I stabbed at the surface and yelled when my arm and the dagger bounced off the barrier.
Sigella’s soft laughter reached my ears, but I tilted my head and ignored her, a slight frown marring my brows.
I drew out Cormac’s sword and held it in both hands, staring down at the blade. Why not? Wasn’t Cormac currently trapped inside of Unbalance? If the creature in the lake was a henchman of Unbalance, there was a certain sense in the idea that I could only enter with the sword of my wolf, who was now trapped within Unbalance.
The naga king had pressed this blade back into my hands with his dying breath. He’d known I would need this weapon.
In a whoosh of singing metal, I sunk the sword through the barrier and into the water until it lodged in the pebbled lakebed below. The magic in the barrier shied away from the sword, almost screaming in its haste to do so.
Whatever the nature of this creature’s dark power, there was no doubt that its magic detested the sword. Which was good and bad. Good, because I possessed the creature’s weakness in my hands. Bad, because the creature likely wouldn’t face me if I attacked with the sword.
When I pulled the sword free, the hole in the lake’s barrier remained and didn’t close over. Slowly I reached through the hole and waved my hand through the water. My movement under the surface wasn’t impeded.
Perfect.
Looked like an entrance to me.
Then there was the matter of the sword. I couldn’t enter with it. But I’d need the weapon eventually.
I also needed an exit.
Gripping the pommel, I hurled the blade to the middle of the lake.
There was a soft plunk as the weapon pierced the surface, then a last flash of steel. Barely a ripple reached the shore after the sword disappeared.
The ground beneath my feet trembled though. Someone had noticed.
“That’s because you fuckers always pick the darkest and coldest place to live,” I muttered.
I rolled my shoulders and dove through the hole I’d created and into the cold water. The icy jealousy seeped through my boots and pants as it attempted to reach my heart and mind. The envy-inducing power of the lake was intact, and it quickly snaked over me.
I trailed my fingers through the water, and icy rage washed over my skin. Unlike the first time I’d come here, I could feel the push of the lake’s magic. I could feel how it wanted me to conjure visions of Andas with a harem of naked women. The lake whispered that Cormac and Aaden had enjoyed their time away from me. The water wished me to believe that my men were choosing to stay buried in Andas because they’d never truly loved me.
But those spells I’d woven on our walk here? They were buffering me against the lake’s power and preserving my magic too.
I swam deeper, and I let out a hiss as jealousy stabbed at me from a hundred different directions. This was fucking awful. Worse than the first time because my heart ached so badly, but at least I was powerful enough to function through the lake’s attack.
The cold was worse than I remembered, but I gritted my teeth.
If Kik had been with me, he’d have told me to stop being a pussy. While I’d always thought of cats as ferocious, he’d seemed to believe them weak.
Sigella had been right earlier. The water here was sick, and I held my breath, though I could have breathed the lake in and survived as all fae could. Today, that seemed like a bad idea. The weight and press of the unnatural cold was like a living thing.
The creature causing this was close. I could feel it in the surroundings watching me and monitoring my progress…waiting for the water to weaken me.
I had to get to the sword before this darkness broke through my buffers.
I pulsed my magic outward and found my exit point. Above and to my right. That meant the sword was below.
Nothing for it. I swam for the bottom of the lake.
The resistance was immediate. My movements became harder the deeper I swam. I struggled to cut through the vise-like grip of the liquid as I pushed deeper. No creature lurked in sight, and yet, closer to the creature, I could sense this force was old. Very old. More like Gaia.
I squinted ahead at a faint glimmer. Was that the sword?
Cold daggers sliced through my skin , and bubbles poured from my mouth at the suddenness of the creature’s attack. It didn’t want me to reach the sword.
Icy bands of magic tightened around my chest, squeezing me tightly and driving an icy chill into the marrow of my bones. Tiny, sharp pinpricks stabbed through the icy bands and into my skin.
Shit.
Guarded as I was by all my woven spells, the poison didn’t kill me in seconds, but it worked quicker than I could spin a spell to burn it out of me. What the hell was this thing?
I cried out as poison seared through my veins and essence, and screamed bubbles escaped my mouth as I pushed hard to reach the lakebed. I had to get to the bottom. Cormac’s sword had sliced through this creature’s power like butter. Perhaps throwing it wasn’t my best idea, but this creature never would have attacked otherwise.
There is always someone stronger, someone older, little one. Remember this moment.
Gaia’s voice wasn’t soothing. She’d picked a shitty moment to warn me.
Whatever had a hold on me didn’t ease an inch, and the poison in my system had started wrapping its way around my heart, around my lungs and muscles.
My eyes opened wide when my fingers brushed the pommel of the sword. Hardly believing I’d found it again, I gasped and grabbed hold of the blade. I wasn’t capable of more. My body was unresponsive to my urges to swim and fight. To use the blade to stab.
Sigella was right, I was a fool.
I’d been incapacitated well and truly.
A warm hand curled around my wrist, and an explosion of light gave me my first view of what had attacked me as I was ripped from the water and high into the air.
Power rippled out from the creature in waves. It had the appearance of a massive ventipus, only bigger and with glowing red eyes. And it had a hold on me too.
I was yanked downward again, and a distant part of my mind understood that I was being dragged to the creature’s mouth. From here, I could see its rows upon rows of teeth. This was a creature of darkness, of malevolence—one that even Underhill had never tried to take on.
The kraken.
“Help me fight it!” A male voice roared through the dark. Was he kidding? I was literally poisoned and nearly dead.
Couldn’t a woman die in peace?
Then again, I wasn’t entirely sure what peace was, only that it was a fleeting thing.
I pushed what power I had left toward the man who had hold of me—because what did it matter now if I gave him my strength?
The reserves I’d tucked away slammed into him. Our power tangled, light and dark, and he raised his hand as he conjured a spear made of pure power. He hurled it at the kraken.
The monster bellowed and flailed, and I felt the crushing weight on my body ease. That hardly mattered. I could already feel my life force slipping away.
The hand that had a hold of me yanked me upward as the last of the tentacles slid off my body. I was limp in body and mind, unable to do anything but grip the sword, and only that because my hand had frozen around the pommel.
Stars sparkled around me in the darkness, and I was sure I saw Kik, my old friend. I smiled at him and said softly, “Come back for me, Kik. Take me with you.”
“Don’t you dare!” A voice bellowed as power slammed into me.
There was no daring left in me. I could go now. There was no point in fighting the poison that the monster had shoved into me. Maybe the battle could be fought by someone else. “I lost them.”
The words slid out of me.
Lost Cormac. Lost Aaden.
“No. No you didn’t. Powers be damned, it would be easier if you had.”
Power, so much power rippled around us, and I should have feared what was happening, but I was warm now, and I could see my friend in the darkness, so I had nothing to fear. I didn’t need to fear the rough hands that gently held me either.
I’d meant something to them after all. He’d said as much— Andas.
Lips pressed to mine, and I felt the heat of them distantly.
They are still here, Silver. Live for them. Live for me.
I couldn’t recall who the man referred to. I couldn’t recall who he was, though I enjoyed his warmth.
Live , he’d said.
I just had to live.