Page 14 of Seduction of a Psychopomp
I listened, straining for his voice, but he didn’t reply aloud before she continued, maybe in response to some unspoken question.
“Well, there are plenty of people that have more than one type of magic, obviously. Like myself, for instance. Or Jordan, with his vampirism that is layered over the fire elementalism he was born with… But this isverydifferent toanythingI’ve ever come across, Grim.”Grim?Was that my new mate’s name? I felt like it didn’t match the name I’d been told, but my memories were like slippery eels in this dark place and I couldn’t seem to catch them.
A brief pause left me alone in the darkness again before she continued in her thoughtful tone, as if she were analyzing something puzzling and speaking to herself as she did it. “There’s some kind of shifter magic for sure, but I can’t tellwhatkind. Normally I can get a sense of what animal a shifter becomes, you know? Like Sidney simply exudes magpie energy, and her friend Bane justfeelslike a panther to me. But this kind of shifter magic is much broader than that. There’s also something I don’t recognize that feels… defensive? Protective? It’s hard to explain. And an elemental type of magic… maybe earth magic? And there’s something that feels similar to animal communication. But I’ve never felt anything like this, so I could be wrong about all of it. It’s all very scattered and chaotic compared to anyone I’ve ever felt before.” I had a vague notion that she was talking about me, but I didn’t understand the context or what she meant. My mind was having trouble making connections here.
“I don’t believe that’s out of the ordinary for her,” he said, his voice curling through the darkness and sliding over me like a silk sheet. I’d never met anyone who possessed a voice like that. A deep, resonant baritone that made my breath catch and my brain stall out. I could have listened to him read the list that Cook sent out to the shops. “The high fae are the oldest race of mortals from the Boundlands, and the elves, dryads, and all the other races are their descendants. Over time, as the genetic ‘tree’ diverged further from the source, your magic split off from theirs.”
“Really?” the woman asked, sounding fascinated. “So, there was more magic in us the further back you go?”
“Yes, and no,” he responded. “The high fae have more… generalist magic. As your races diverged your magic became more specialized. You are stronger in your specializations than they are, but they have a wider variety of magics at their disposal.”
“That’s so cool! I had no idea. I don’t understand how that would work, though. So they can shift, but… ?” She left her question hanging.
A rustle of fabric and then he said, “Sidney could shift into a bird and live that way for the rest of her life should she desire to.”
“I’ve never understood why shewouldn’tdesire to,” the woman mumbled.
“High fae have a harder time maintaining one specific form other than their true forms, as Celeste is right now.” I wondered how they could see my body when I couldn’t even seem to find it.
“I see. Sorry, Grim. It’s so exciting getting to see a new kind of magic I’ve never experienced before,” she said with a sigh. “My brain hurts from trying to piece that genetic history together. It does seem promising to me, though, that your magic has taken hold of her so thoroughly, especially since it has healing properties, right?”
There was a long pause before I heard him audibly swallow and ask, “But why is she still asleep?”
Her tone was thoughtful and sympathetic when she said, “I can’t be sure, obviously, but excessive magic use made me lose consciousness for a period of a few days like this once. My father swore it was my body healing from me being ‘on the brink of death’—his dramatics obviously, not mine—but I wondered if it might have been some kind of protective mechanism from my body while my magic ‘recharged.’ You mentioned that she was extremely ill before, and noticeably so, but she doesn’t look visibly ill to me now. So, I would say you had to have donesomethingright. Maybe her body is protecting itself while she’s healing, or she’s trying to recharge her magic, or adapting to yours, or… any number of things. We can really only speculate since none of her healers, nor mine, had any idea what caused it.”
He heaved a deep breath and then his voice was muffled, as if something were pressed over his face. “What if I procured another healing potion for her?”
“Oh, Grim. You poor, sweet man,” she said with a good-natured chuckle. “It’s like you’ve been given a potted plant with no tag.” But then she composed herself and added more seriously, “I think I would be hesitant to add anything else to the equation right now, since you don’t know what kind of healing potion they gave her back in Faery and you can’t be sure of how one of ours will affect her.”
“Why are mortals so complicated? How do any of you survive to adulthood?” he practically growled.
The woman’s voice was full of patience and warmth. “You’re doing a great job caring for her, Grim. She’s going to be okay. And if she isn’t, you send for me again and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring you a healing potion for her.”
“Thank you, Elara.” His breathy whisper struck me deeply.
“Of course. Please bring her to meet us when she is well. Lysander has been asking for youdaily,” she said.
“Tell him I’ll bring him a treat.”
The woman’s voice took on a teasing note. “No more treats. Between you and Sidney he’s going to turn out to be the most spoiled child that ever lived.” Her wry chuckle was an indulgent one.
His voice was softer, almost a whisper again when he said, “Thank you for coming. I know it wasn’t easy.”
Their voices were growing more distant as I heard her say, “It only took a few Gate hops to make it to Bhalden’s Post, and your lovely Mr. Blunthorn was waiting for me… ” And then, though I listened, they were gone and I was left drifting alone in the darkness again.
AbirdsongI’dneverheard before pricked me to consciousness, and I was alone when I opened my eyes. I lay in the bed for a long moment listening to the unfamiliar trill coming from outside the window and trying to make sense of my surroundings. The walls were made from a dark gray stone block, not the white stone of my bedroom walls, and yet the quilt that Nona—my paternal grandmother—and all her friends in her sewing circle had made for me as a baby gift lay stretched out across me on the bed that I was in. There was a muted blue velvet chair that sat empty near the bed, and a crackling fire filled the small fireplace to my right, with a stack of logs ready to go in beside it. A brown clay pitcher and washbasin sat on the bedside table. It was daytime, I had no idea where I was, and my bladder was overfull.
There was no bell to ring or rope to pull to summon the help, so I struggled to sit up in the bed thinking I could try to find the lavatory for myself, only to scream and recoil onto the bed again when a voice just to the left of me whispered, “You’re awake.”
Victor—seated in the chair next to me—flinched as if he’d been struck, his expression looking decidedly hunted.
“Where did you come from?” I squeaked, my adrenaline heightened in a way it hadn’t been since I was a child. I lay panting from fear as I clutched at my chest, and his brows pulled down over his deep-set blue eyes as he frowned in confusion at my grasping hands.
“I’ve been here,” he answered, clearly puzzled. A blush crept over his high cheekbones for some reason, the faint stain made all more obvious against his paper-white skin. His hair was another stark contrast, dark as pitch and mussed, as if he’d spent a lot of time with his fingers in it recently, though he currently sat forward with his forearms braced on his knees and his fingers knit casually together between them. Even sitting, he was tall, easily taller than any fae I’d ever met. Everything about him was large—his jawbone, his bold nose, the cheekbones currently tinged pink. It was all in perfect, masculine proportion to the rest of him… but I couldn’t help marveling over the substantial bone structure of his frame. His hands were long, his wrist bones thick, and he carried quite a bit of muscle in his arms and shoulders, yet he still was lean enough to be considered lanky. At least, I had thought so when I saw him from down the aisle.
The wedding came crashing back into memory in an instant. The towering soul-collector waiting for my pledge, who wasnotas lanky as he appeared from a distance once I was standing next to his imposing build. The darkened great hall, so different than every wedding that had ever been held in it before—normally full of bright sunshine. The bare-bones audience of family and what few dignitaries happened to be in the region already. The biting absence of the only person I’d hoped to be there for me. The dark magic that had torn through the room and my own veins before I had finally blacked out.
“What can I get for you?” Victor asked in a gentle whisper, his ice-blue eyes locked onto me with an intensity I was unused to. I could have sworn that chair was empty when I woke up.
