Legends of Fire (A Dark Faerie Tale #7) Read online

  “Wait, I do remember something else.” Aluse furrowed her brow, thinking about something that brought a startled realization to her face. “There’s a man. He’s a historian of some sort. He collects… artifacts of all kinds. I’ve never met him, and I don’t even know if he still lives, but if anyone had a feather like that, he’d be the one.”

  “Another journey, huh?” I turned toward Rylan, shaking my head. “I’ve been on too many to count already. I hope he’s not that far. Is he?”

  Aluse walked to one of the dusty bookshelves. It was fifteen feet wide and rose to the nine-foot-high ceiling. She yanked out a massive volume, taller than any normal book, and slammed it onto the desk in the corner of the room.

  I peeked over at Trey, who continued to snooze as if we weren’t even there. Even if we did save him, I wondered, would there be anything worth saving?

  “Here. This is a map of the island where he lives. It’s far beyond the western ocean on a desolate isle which connects to fey territory via a portal.” Her long, pale fingers spread across the old parchment she’d unfolded from the massive book. It appeared to be a filled with all sorts of maps along with notes written on loose paper or parchment. “You’ll need help getting there. The oceanic portal is not easily found.”

  I grinned as I fished out a small blue orb from my pocket. “We’ve all the help we need.” The marble-sized sphere gleamed in the candlelight. I’d kept the teleportation orb which summoned Camulus, an elven-pixie who could transport us anywhere in the world in the wink off an eye. I didn’t like the guy—he’d betrayed my sister at one point, leaving her to Corb, the ice king—but he’d made amends and came in handy.

  Aluse gave me a quick nod and a smile, but it failed to reach her eyes. The strain of watching her brother dying was wearing on her. Turning back toward him, her features darkened once more. Luckily, she didn’t let her gaze dwell on him long.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said.

  The look on her face wavered to a glassy-eyed stare as she retreated into her mind. I wondered if she’d heard me.

  “Of course. You still need to speak to the human girl’s mother,” she stated. She closed her eyes. The burden of being queen was hard to pick out on her flawless face. Faeries had the advantage of never aging, with perfect skin as a side effect of immortality. They must have wicked poker faces, I thought, and I made a mental note to avoid any kind of card game with the likes of them.

  “Yes. I need to speak to Zena’s mother before we leave on the journey,” I answered. Zena was a girl who had helped me out at one time. I’d wiped her memory to keep her safe, since she could see past faery glamour—which was dangerous. Her mother shared the gift and was being kept in Queen Aluse’s aerie for protection.

  Aluse visibly shook her body, letting the movement ripple through her entirety until it made its way up to the tips of her magnificent wings. A shiver of air from them passed over me, igniting a tiny spark across my skin. I’d never stop admiring those wings—or her, for that matter.

  “All right then, come along.” She spun on one foot and started for the door. “She’s isolated and won’t be out of her room for dinner, so we must meet her in her chambers.”

  “Is she afraid of open spaces?” Soap asked, a puzzled look on his face.

  Aluse shook her head, chuckling under breath. The previously dark look cleared off her features. She could don the mask of composure in a millisecond. I guessed that would be required of royals. It was no walk in the park to control an entire clan of faeries, but one could never show how hard things really were. They had to be strong at all times, or their reign would fail.

  “No. She’s not afraid of coming out of there. She’s afraid of being spotted by the bounty hunters.”

  Soap coughed and cleared his throat as my mouth dropped opened.

  “Say what?”

  Aluse peered at us, concerned. “The bounty hunters. The ones who kill humans with the gift of the Sight. It’s an old practice, and not done by many of the clans of Faerie anymore. But… there are still those, especially the Unseelie, who refuse to part with the old ways, and preserve the tradition of hunting down humans with such gifts to execute them.”

  “They still hunt them even in the human realm?” Soap asked. He was hanging on every word she said, his shiny green eyes taking in everything.

  Aluse sighed softly and came to a halt at the end of the hall she’d taken us down, deep within the catacombs of her mountain home. She moved her eyes from me to Soap and back again, looking somewhat tired from the day’s events.

  “Yes, especially in the human realm. Which is why she is being safeguarded here, in my own chambers, away from the other Raven faeries.”

  She held out her hand and pressed a finger to the center of the door where a single black jewel sat embedded in the thick wood. It flared to white the moment she touched it, and a rumbling noise pushed against my eardrums. Before I could cover them, the roar disappeared, and the door locks clicked one after another, all the way from the top of the door to the very base. When all the clicking had stopped, the heavy wooden door creaked open, swinging slowly because of its weight.

  “Please… try not to spook her with news about her missing daughter. Like Trey, she’s not quite right in the head.”

  Why did I not like the sound of that?

  Soap and I gave each other a knowing glance before agreeing and following behind. Something told me the woman in that room had a lot more answers than we could ever want to know, and maybe some things we didn’t want to know.

  Some things should never be turned toward light.

  Chapter Three

  Benton

  An older version of Zena was pacing the library section of Aluse’s chambers. She had creamy white skin, with a spray of freckles across her upper cheeks and a pin-straight but thin nose. Long mahogany-red hair with white strands at her temples showed her age. The long black gown she wore gripped her curves as she shifted from one end of the room to the other, mumbling inaudible, breathy words while wringing her hands continuously; they were already an angry red from the friction. Even so, her long red tresses flowed behind her like a river of flames, rippling in the violent rush of air she created as she wore a path in the floor. I was going to get dizzy watching her.

  “Rachel.”

  Aluse waited patiently for the woman to acknowledge us but refrained from touching her. Rachel slowed her walk to a shuffle and turned toward the Raven Queen. Unfocused at first, Rachel’s crept back to a more normal demeanor, like she’d left her body unattended and had just regained control.

  There was madness here, deeply ingrained from years of terror. I wondered what this woman and her daughter had been through, cursed with the gift of the Sight.

  The Sight. It was an extrasensory trait in regular, non-magical people which gave them the ability to see through faery glamour: the charms and spells woven around a faery’s body to allow them to be perceived as normal in the human realm. Some might see chinks in this armor, with a glimmer or sparkle shining off it, but most humans couldn’t tell a faery from another fellow human, except those born with the gift of the Sight. It rendered glamour useless, making it as transparent as glass to these affected humans, and the horrors they witnessed could drive anybody to madness.

  Monsters were real to them.

  That was the reason most humans with the Sight never lived past childhood. Unseelie bounty hunters tracked down such special persons and either killed them on site or dragged them back to Faerie to be enslaved forevermore.

  I’d never met anyone with the Sight who didn’t have any magic. It must have been quite a feat for Rachel and Zena to elude the Unseelie bounty hunters. The years of running would wear anyone down in the sanity department.

  “My daughter… have you found her?” Rachel asked Aluse, her voice quiet yet hardened with an edge that meant business.

  “We are diligently working to find her.” Aluse motioned for the woman to sit in a chair next to a c
ozy fireplace already lit and crackling with warmth. The woman obeyed without looking away from the queen.

  “Who are these people?” Rachel finally landed her sharp hawk-like glare on us, abrasively studying us from head to toe. Her thorough inspection lacked any kind of magical challenge, but her very human distaste was obvious in her disapproval of our interruption.

  “They are here to help me. There’s much going on, and I can’t investigate everything myself. So I’ve enlisted the help of Benton and Rylan, who are dear allies of my court and are both adept trackers. They have the power to help me not only find magic we’re in need of but to also find your daughter.”

  Rachel swung her eyes over to Aluse, despair welling up in her tear-filled eyes. She reached out toward her, and the queen kneeled down next to her, taking her hands and giving them a soft caress. Rachel’s panic permeated the room and made me antsy as I watched them.

  “You have to find Zena. He’ll surely capture and kill her. There will be no mercy for us in his hands. He has none to give.”

  “Who’s chasing you guys?” I asked.

  Rachel turned to face us again, and this time her tears morphed into those of rage and hate. It only took me a millisecond to realize she wouldn’t be much more help to us, even if her daughter’s life was at stake. She hated magicals. Hated them more than anything in the world. She was human, and her aversion to us had festered over decades. It was obvious being here in Faerie was worse than dying for her. There wouldn’t be much left of her mind once she did get away from here again. If she ever left here alive. Still, she didn’t mind Aluse, and that remained a mystery I decided to save for another day.

  “How would I know who he is? All I know is that I see him—everywhere. He chases us across the world, over water, past the mountains and valleys. All over the place. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t rest. Don’t you see? He will kill us. His whole reason for being is to get at people like us. We are just delaying the inevitable when we run. There’s nowhere else to go now; nowhere Faerie has not touched.” She spat at the ground near our feet, but I didn’t jump away.

  Zena’s mother wanted to see us react, to give us a reason to grab her and shake her. Death was appealing to her after all this time spent on the run. Even the strongest wear out. But death was the one thing we wouldn’t grant her, no matter how much she begged for it.

  So why not let the bounty hunter do it? I thought to myself. I knew the answer to that before I could even ask it out loud.

  Because of Zena.

  Zena was the only reason Rachel had to live. Without Zena, she would let go faster than anyone could talk her out of death. Her only lifeline was a daughter who was missing out in the great big world. No wonder Aluse had secluded the mad woman in this windowless chamber. One window, and I doubt Rachel could keep from jumping to her end.

  Why did they keep her alive? What did it matter if one human with the Sight cut her life short of such torment?

  It matters to Zena, I thought to myself, suddenly shamed for thinking Rachel was better off ending it now rather than later. Zena would miss her, and that was all that mattered. I hoped we got to Zena before the bounty hunter did. My promise had to be kept. I had sworn I’d protect her, and I’d done nothing but fail since I’d wiped her memory. I had never returned to Las Vegas to find her. I’d failed to weave a protection spell around her like I’d wanted to. And worst of all, I was probably the reason why Zena hadn’t returned to her mother.

  She couldn’t remember Rachel.

  It was all my fault.

  Crap.

  “I just thought you might know a name or what he looks like,” I said, trying to hide my guilt. “Anything would help us.”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed, drilling into me. “You need to find my daughter. Not him. He is of no importance to you. You know what Zena looks like. Find her. You owe it to me.”

  My mouth dropped, and I glanced at Soap, bewildered. How did she know I knew what Zena looked like? Had Soap told them of my experience with her already? Soap knew what I was thinking and quietly shook his head at me. If he hadn’t said a word, how could she know?

  My suspicions that Rachel was not all human were starting to be confirmed. If she was more magical than just one with the Sight, why would she pretend to lack magic? She snorted and began to chuckle, softly at first, then slowly ascending into a mad cackle. She threw her head back and rocked as though we’d just told her the world’s funniest joke. Her body shook, and she slapped her knee as the fit grew in intensity. It might’ve been funny in another situation, but the three of us accompanying her in the room were far from laughing.

  She couldn’t be psychic… could she?

  I pondered this as I watched her continue her convulsive laughter. It was all so unsettling, and I knew Soap felt the same as he shifted slightly from foot to foot. I glanced at the queen, waiting for her to intervene, or else I’d be forced to knock Rachel out with a powerful elemental spell. I didn’t want to go near the woman if I was honest. Aluse had to stop this madness. Rachel would laugh herself to death if she could.

  As if prompted by my thoughts, Aluse stepped forward and pressed a finger to Rachel’s forehead. “Sleep.” Her barely audible whisper slipped about the room, quietly echoed by a sweet, haunting lullaby—a faerie spell.

  Immediately, the woman collapsed back into the chair, her eyes rolling into her head as her laughter abruptly ceased. The silence was just as disturbing as her maniacal laughter, but at least I wasn’t feeling it crawl over me like an army of angry ants. She may have been a non-magic or an undiscovered magical, but this human woman had other kinds of extrasensory powers to use against those who might hurt her. I’d never thought a human could be so dangerous without magic.

  I’d been wrong about a great many things before, and this was just another to add to the list.

  Chapter Four

  Rylan

  The water lapped against the shore. Portland. It was hard to believe I’d spent so much time near that shoreline with Shade, when she was powerless after her encounter with the Unseelie Queen Aveta and The Ice King Corb. It was the latter who’d secretly stripped her of her powers, binding them until she returned to him in the Ice Kingdom of The Great Divide. Dylan had been with us too, and we’d taken turns caring for our beloved. But she’d chosen him in the end, a fact that bit at me like the icy wind blasting the shore.

  The burn of that heartache made my mouth go dry as the wind whipped my long golden brown hair around. It was partially tied back, but it had worked its way loose and snapped into my eyes, causing them to water. Every moment I breathed, I thought of her. Why couldn’t I forget her as easily as she’d forgotten me? The sand, the scent of the ocean, and the crashing of the waves all reminded me of her face, her touch, her love. Though I’d tried to forget, my inherent nature as a faery wouldn’t allow me such grace.

  You see, faeries love for lifetimes, not months or years. If our hearts are taken by another, it’s for a very long time. It is not fleeting, the way humans treat love. It is not something given lightly. But I had failed to notice that I’d given Shade my heart. We’d both been so careless with it, and now it was too late.

  Shaking off my thoughts, I returned to studying the shoreline as intensely as Benton. We were looking for an isolated island off the West Coast, near Portland, but there was nothing to be found. It was there, though, according to the ancient map Aluse had given us. It was hidden by a glamour that had kept it almost permanently shrouded in mist for centuries. I’d never even heard of this particular isle, and it was close to the Teleen and Guildrin clan territories where I’d grown up. Still, even humans had found it at some point. We’d discovered that it did appear on their maps, but only as a small, uninhabited rock. They had no idea what was really hidden there.

  “Aluse said it should be here.”

  I tilted my head to study the desolate beach. The air had a biting chill to it, almost frigid from the constant barrage of northern winds pummeling the coast
without remorse. Sometimes it was warm, but this particular beach, at the edge of Faerie and hidden from most of the world, also had a forgotten quality to it. The land was lonely, and the cold emitting from it proved it.

  Benton squinted his eyes toward the horizon. The mist danced along the edges of the water, caressing the surface as though it was a lover whispering secrets to its mate. Nothing else was out there.

  “Guess it’s time to call in reinforcements.” Benton tossed the tiny blue orb into the air and caught it as he spun a circle in the sand, doing his best Michael Jackson impression.

  I gaped at him. “Nice moves. Can we get a move on?”

  “Dude, what’s got your skinny jeans in a twist? Got to stay limber.” He rubbed the sphere in his palms until it turned an opaque, milky white. A stir of air and a flash of light had me blinking as Camulus stepped forward and bowed.

  “Camulus, at your service.” Gone was the jest-filled teleporter I’d known from before his betrayal of Shade. The servant of the Santiran Lands, under the rule of Prince Ursad—another traitorous friend of Shade’s—was Shade’s servant now. He had to make amends for acting against my beloved. Ever since he was forced to leave her at the mercy of the Ice King Corb, he’d lost his sense of humor. I believed he was punishing himself for betraying her, and I didn’t blame him one bit. Still, his glum and lackluster demeanor felt bland and exaggerated, like the real Camulus had checked out, and a shell of the man was left in his place.

  It didn’t matter much to me. I just wanted to get onto that isle as soon as possible.