Page 263 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Seems so, Shorty.” Pete’s eyes misted again.
“Eh hem.”
We peered left to find Sedge eyeing us, brow furrowed. “I’m waiting for you to test your shadows now, you clothead.”
“Ah,” Pete said. “For an immortal fae, you’re unduly impatient, ken.”
“Aye.” Sedge waved him to action. “Get on with it!”
Wryly, Pete raised a hand and flexed. Five bolts of shadow shot from his fingertips.
Something tight inside me eased.
Pete observed the tethers for a moment, waggling the smoky threads here and there until he was satisfied nothing about his powers had changed. “Huh.” He retracted his shadows. “Guess they’re mine now.”
“Hmph.” Sedge stomped toward me and bent to roll up his trouser leg. “Give it a good blast, Shorty. I want Gentian himself to feel the heat.”
My nostrils flared around sulfur as I raised my sparking hands. “Oh, he will,” I promised, then gave Sedge’s tether what for, more ghostly Kobold snickering in my ear.
Onmylastdayin paradise, I woke up alone to a hot, steaming bath. I scrubbed my skin pink, washed and conditioned my hair twice, then air-dried in the warm sea breeze while I sat at the tree stump table in the warden’s hut, eating a breakfast of figs and fish. When I was ready, I dressed in a leafy bustier, a crepey pair of shorts, and stuffed my feet in my knock off Buggs. I threw my damp hair up in a messy bun, shrugged into my backpack, and headed out for the road.
My walk through Eden depicted what the garden was like when just two people lived there. Because everyone else had cleared out much earlier that morning in preparation for the long journey to the Spring Palace. So, I heard every knock, every chitter, every whoop, every burble, and every cresting wave as I stopped in the village square to commit the details of that extraordinary, colorful, welcoming dreamworld to memory.
Though tragedy had found me there in the end, so many amazing things had happened to me in that place that I would always see it as my home away from Earth. And the only place I’d seen my mother in 16 years.
The Kirk of Cara was much repaired when I passed through. The crack in Adam and Eve’s converging faces had been patched, the temple’s rubble pieced back where it belonged. Magic, I supposed.
After one last appreciative gaze up at its magnificent dome, I forged out of the kirk and into the sunshine, where the enormous cavalcade to the Spring Palace awaited, a bustling village of its own.
“Ah, there you are, Amy.” I glanced right to find Briar leaning casually inside the temple gateway beneath Danu’s statue. Waiting there, no doubt, so I’d have no chance at avoiding him. He grinned, dressed in full armor except for his helmet, and the sizzling summer suns glinted in his auburn hair like rubies. Dashing though he looked right then, I struggled not to scowl.
Steeling myself, I forced a half-smile and trod toward him. Then past him.
Chuckling, Briar shoved off the gate and followed me, linking his arm about my waist. I stopped just to eye him.
“Glad you finally showed,” Briar answered my look with his usual crispness. “Thought I might have to hunt you down. Again.”
I wanted to say what a pity that would be for anyone who got in his way. “Did you want something?” I asked instead.
“As a matter of fact, I wanted to show you your carriage.” He motioned ahead to a round, gilded carriage straight from a fairytale. Or a dream I’d stopped having.
Fit for a crown princess, the carriage was externally gorgeous with its scrolling carvings and whimsical construction. And its interior was even lovelier. It was plush, cozy, and spacious enough to sleep in should I tire before we made camp at night. I supposed there might have even been some semblance of a bathroom in there. I deemed it the most comfortable way to travel in Mag Mell. The equivalent of a private jet.
I took one look at it and clicked my tongue. “Nah.”
Briar gawped as I skirted him. “Okay then.” He fell into my step as I started past the rows of armored royal troops toward the head of the cavalcade. He grabbed my wrist to slow me. “If the carriage doesn’t do it for you, Amy, then we have a horse for you.”
I stared at him, disbelieving.
He motioned toward two snowy white horses just ahead of the carriage. One, a thoroughbred warhorse, had legs as thick as some tree trunks. His, I assumed. The other was daintier, prettier, and roses festooned her pastel mane. Her saddle was so thickly padded it looked like memory foam. Perfectly suited for any pampered, prissy ass to sit upon.
“You said you wanted to learn to ride,” Briar reminded me, his lips slanting boyishly.
“Yeah—I did say that. But is now really the best time for learning?”
At my continued rejection, Briar shook his head as if shrugging off a bothersome fly on his neck. “Damnit, Amy, I’m really trying here.”
That remark harkening another morning in a cabin in the woods, compassion overcame me. Compassion for him and the love he’d given up for the distant promise of a queen.
