Chapter 9
If I’m honest,death hurts a lot less than I thought it would.
The fire has turned into sunlight, enveloping me like a blanket. Nothing hurts. In fact, the opposite. Maybe it’s like the time Misty stepped on my foot and broke several bones. I didn’t realize how bad it was until a few hours later. Cordella told me about how a body can go into shock as she bandaged me in the stables so Joyce wouldn’t see and scold me for getting hurt.
I went into shock over a broken foot. Falling into a raging fire would be a whole different level of numbness.
But I’m not completely gone. There’s shouting in the distance; the garbled words gain a brief moment of clarity before becoming too far off to hear. I’m drifting in a pale sea, being taken out to the great Beyond I have no choice but to submit myself to. I hear new voices, chanting and singing. This isn’t like the feverish words the fae spoke around the fire. This singing is bright and joyous. I hear the chords of a thousand lutes playing and somehow know they’re all strumming for me.
I think I hear my mother’s voice among the chorus. She’s singing for me to come home. She’s singing for me to return to her. Finally, finally, the chorus sings my heart, reunited finally.
* * *
Silence.
Then a woman’s voice. “What are we going to do with her?”
“We take her to Vena,” a familiar voice decrees. I know that voice. How do I know that voice?
“Are you mad?” a man asks. “We can’t take her to Vena. Even if she could survive that long here—which she can’t—we can’t take a human to Dreamsong.”
“Vena is the only person who will know how to get my magic out of her,” the second voice says. It’s deep, like the lowest note of a lyre rumbling in harmony with thunder on a distant horizon. Unmistakable. I try and fight for consciousness.
“Hol has a point,” another man says. “Even if we wanted to, she’ll die before we make it to Dreamsong.”
“Then we’ll have to move quickly, won’t we?” the deep voice says.
“Or, we leave her back in the Natural World; we go to Dreamsong, ask Vena what we should do, and then go back to perform the ritual that will restore the magic to its rightful place,” the woman says.
“Unless you plan on tying her to a chair, I doubt she’ll stay put. That much has now been made painfully clear to me.” That’s the deep voice again. He seems to know me.
Do I know him?My head feels so fuzzy and heavy. I crack open my eyes.
“She’s waking up,” Oren says.
It’s midday and the sun is blinding. I blink slowly as the world comes into focus. Oren hovers over me, wearing a shirt this time. However, two slits must be cut in the back to let out the dragonfly wings that swoop on either side of him.
I jerk away from Oren and from the other four people who are behind him.
“It’s all right, we’re not going to hurt you,” Oren says.
“She’s not going to believe you,” the woman with the butterfly wings says. I recognize each of the individuals now as those who were gathered around the fire.
“Let him coddle the human until he’s blue in the face, then we will force her to do what we want.” The man with ram’s horns folds his arms over his chest, biceps bulging, highlighting faintly shimmering markings that run up them. “I don’t care if she has the magic of the kings of Aviness. She’s not going to know how to use it. We can overpower her.”
“You’re not going to force me to do anything,” I snap. Likely not the best thing to do. But my head is splitting, I’m surrounded by fae, and I’m tired of being spoken about like I’m not here—that’s something Joyce would do to me.
All five of them stare at me in varying degrees of shock. The woman’s lips part and she gapes at me. The man with the stag horns exchanges a wary look with Ram’s Horns before turning back to me. Their leader furrows his brow slightly, dark brown hair cascading into his face with a tousle of the wind.
“I didn’t think you spoke common,” the man with stag horns says to the man with ram horns.
“I don’t,” he replies, still staring at me. “And I bet she doesn’t—didn’t—shouldn’t—speak faeish either.”
“Is it the magic?” Oren looks to their leader.
“Likely,” he murmurs in that deep voice of his, gaze shifting back to me. His eyes are greener than the sunlight canopy around us. Greener than should be possible. A unique shade, almost like a…
“Lime,” I whisper and inhale sharply. “No, no, no, no.” That single word is on repeat. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
