Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) (25 page)

I’m too exhausted to answer even with a slight bob of my head. The effect of the channeled magic has weakened me so completely that I can barely stand without his help. Jacek whisks me off into the darkness, and we arrive someplace new. He arranges me on a chaise, and I tip my head back and try to take in my surroundings.

Somehow, I know that we’re inside the castle now. This room is large and circular, with great arched doors that are open to balconies on almost all sides. Objects line the walls, some ordinary, some unusual, some familiar: A looking glass set on a dais of sapphire, a tablet of polished red stone, a sword, broad and elegant, with a worn grip and my name etched on the crossguard.

My fingers ache for that sword, but I’m too weak even to wiggle them let alone reach for it. It’s so close, too. I could reach it if I could just raise my arm. But then Jacek crosses into my view, and I forget my need for it. He tilts his head and smiles at me with an expression somewhere between amusement and curiosity. His eyes flick to the sword and away again.

“Pity,” he says quietly as he stops before the mirror and strokes its frame, “It was far too easy getting you here. I was expecting a challenge. Still, it was a fun game to fill the time.”

His words are confusing to me. They’re a betrayal of trust somehow. I try to think back as to why I’d feel this way, but all I can remember is Jacek and nothing more. He fills my mind like smoke, snuffing out my past, billowing into my present. I’m tired, so tired, but something inside me warns me not to sleep. Stay awake. I want him to come closer, to sit by me. All I want in this world right now is Jacek. He turns away from the mirror and smirks.

“Far too easy,” he says again. “Tell me, if you could have anything your heart desires, anything at all, what would it be? Ask me, and I shall grant it.”

My sword is forgotten, all that matters is him. My hand drops to the chaise beside me.

“Sit by me,” I say. His thin lips press together in a satisfied grin, and to my relief and my elation, he comes to my side and sits. His voice is velvety soft. It comforts me, lulls me.

“So long have I been alone, commanding creatures lower than myself, never having a connection. But with you, it’s different. With you, I see an equal, a rival. Not in magic, no, of course not. But in depth of soul. A light to balance the darkness. Now that I have you,” he murmurs as he takes my hand, “I’ll show you everything. We can be two halves of a perfect whole. Darkness and light, together. Kindness cannot exist without the wicked. Evil cannot exist without purity.”

His words are too abstract, and my thoughts still swirl amid his smoke. They tell me something is wrong, they try to warn me. I grasp at them as they whirl past, but it’s too difficult. I’m too drained to fight for them, but it doesn’t matter. Soon they’re pushed away, replaced by other memories that aren’t my own. Scenes of another life, of many other lives.

I see a man I once knew, dressed in princely garb, sitting in a dark room while his wife sleeps beside him. Her skin is burnished brown, her belly round and full with the promise of new life. The prince is a perfect specimen. He has been tainted before, so this time it’s easy. This time, I can slip into his mind and manipulate him and no one would ever suspect.

It’s strange being inside, so close to another. He tries to fight but he cannot. I’m too powerful. His hands are strong and capable, but I have no need for strength now. I place them on her stomach and feel the child within, moving, growing, thriving. With contact, it’s easier to slip from one to another. I flick myself toward the child, touch it. Infuse it with myself. Mark it. Slip away.

Something calls me, something filled with light and power. I will the prince away from his bride, into another room where three women sleep. The object is with one of them. She’s beautiful, pure of heart. Kind. Even in sleep, it emanates from her. I know her. She’s the one who thwarted the first plan, who blocked the path to Kythshire and destroyed my work with a wish.

She is responsible for the death of my mother, my father, and all the rest. Her actions loosened my bonds. Allowed me to venture. Broke the spells which held me here. Not all of them, though. I am still bound. Still, they were my parents, and she destroyed them. I lash out at her, bestow her with discomfort, a taste of wickedness, a hint of distress. A punishment. I stretch it out toward those she loves, give them gifts of darkness, just enough to make them tense and unsure.

The alluring object shines with hope and promise, and the prince’s unfamiliar fingers fumble with the pouch that holds it. I glimpse the diamond, glittering and bright, stroke it with my finger, and then it’s gone. Stolen away by fairy magic.

I leave the prince in his bed and drift along the streets. I long to walk these roads in my own form, with my own feet, unbound by the Dreaming, but I’m still a prisoner. Locked away from the waking world, I can only slip into others here and there. At first it was difficult, but my time here has not been idle. I constantly test myself. Play. In the streets outside of the Inn, I see a man. A palace guard, dozing at his post. Like the prince’s child, I mark him. Place myself inside him. Just a wisp. Just enough to watch, control, and use him to my will. With it, a suggestion, an experiment. Befriend the knight Azaeli. Charm her. Watch her. Do not leave her side.

The scene changes to one even less familiar. Another palace, another prince. This one is tall and strong, with waves of black hair and a neat beard. He stands at a window, watching the night. The air is thick with smoke from towers burning in the distance. The prince is restless. He wants to stop it, but he can’t. He’s barred in for his own safety, just as they told me I was. But he’ll go free, to woo a princess. His thoughts are filled with her. Cerion’s princess. He’s awake, so I can’t touch him, but I can whisper. I tell him to wed her, to make him hers. Then I go to find her, so I can look upon her.

Cerion is too guarded, though. Its castle has wards against me, too strong to slip through. I wait in shadows to find a way. I stretch myself toward it and feel another beacon, like the diamond that was taken by fairy magic. A castle maid passes by. I whisper to her. Bring this item to me. Bring it so I might look upon it. I want to see what it is, to know what it does.

“Azi, you are brave, you are strong. Whatever has you in its grips, fight it. Fight, Azi,”
a whisper edges into the memory, breaking me apart from Jacek. I watch him walk away from me, on to another place. He doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t know that someone else has found me.

My name gives me power. I had forgotten it, forgotten myself, but the whisper reminds me. It bolsters me, somehow. When Jacek turns to me in this strange place, I see him differently. The threat I’ve been feeling is him. He is the danger. The scene around us fades away, and we’re once again sitting together on the chaise. I test my arms without moving them. They aren’t as heavy now.

“What happened?” Jacek’s smoky voice snakes its way toward me again. “I had more to show you.” He reaches for me. Traces a finger along my arm. It tingles warmly, and the pleasant sensation spreads through my body. My eyes drift closed again. It’s different this time, though. This time, I remember who I was and how I came to be here.

I wonder if he knows what I’ve recalled. I try to calm my heart, to keep it from racing. I need to get out of here. If Jacek notices that his grip is slipping, he doesn’t let on. He brings me to yet another place. This time, it’s long ago.

We’re at the edge of a Wellspring, but not in Kythshire. I remember this one. It’s Sunteri, but it’s different from the last time I saw it. It’s ringed with enormous ferns and sheltered by a rich canopy of green. Dozens of fairies dart around it playfully. Now and again, golden jets shoot from it, up into the sky. Magic, being called forth by Mages. A toddling boy claps and giggles beside me, and I know immediately that he is Jacek. On his other side, a woman smiles down on him fondly. She’s the same woman who brought him here, the one Iren killed in the battle. His mother.

“No, no, darling, you mustn’t touch it,” she coos at him as the boy crawls toward the golden pool. She’s distracted, though, and careless with the child. He creeps closer, dips a tiny fingertip into the pool, and is immediately stopped by a strong warrior fairy decked in rich gold armor. He points his spear at the boy and shouts in a booming voice.

“You have done what is forbidden. You are no longer welcome here, Jacek. You are banished from this place. Leave, and never return.” The terrified child wails and his mother scoops him up with a click of her tongue at the fairy.

“He’s just a babe,” she shouts at the fairy.

“He doesn’t belong here, nor do you,” the fairy raises his chin.

“And yet I am here whether you like it or not, Mevyn.” The woman narrows her eyes at him. “Perhaps I shall visit the Great Circle. Tell them of your insolence.”

“You are the insolent one, Mage. Go. You are no longer welcome at the Wellspring.” He raises his spear to her. Others of his kind gather behind him, looming, waiting.

“We were just leaving, anyway,” Dinaea barks. She tips her forehead to the child’s and whispers to him. “One day, it will be yours, my son. You deserve it. You deserve all the world, my beautiful boy.”

“Everything leads back to that,” Jacek whispers. “I deserve, it, you see. All of it. My mother’s words were prophecy.
One day, it will be yours, my son.
And so I help it along. Little puppets in a play, and all of them dancing for me.” Jacek’s adult voice drifts over me, pulling me away from the rest of it, back to the chaise in the castle.

“Have you ever touched the Spring, my lovely?” he asks. I try to look at him, but my eyes are too heavy. I’m so sedated by him, so tranquil I can barely make sense of his words. His fingertips brush my jaw and I feel the power that surges from them. They are the same fingers that dipped into the golden pool. The magic they hold gives me strength to open my eyes, to look into his. “Have you?” he asks.

I shake my head, “It’s forbidden.”

“But you have seen Kythshire’s? Been to it?” My eyes drift closed again. I let my head bob lazily. Jacek charges me again with his power.

“Look at me,” he says with an urgency that brings me to my senses. I force my eyes open and meet his. “You have their trust, their welcome. You will touch it. Just once. Dip your hand into the glittering surface. Feel the power I have felt, then come back to me. Come and tell me what you’ve seen. You will understand, and we will be joined. Swear it to me.”

“You’re strong,
” the other voice echoes. It’s a girl, someone I don’t know. She’s close, though. So close. Jacek’s eyes pull me in again. They’re dark as the night sky, with flecks of ash that dance and float within them. I watch the random patterns as they drift close and far. They hold me and guide my thoughts. The Wellspring, yes. Just once, I would like to touch it. Just once feel what’s so forbidden, what’s so guarded.

“Y
ou can overcome this,”
the girl whispers firmly.

“I will,” I whisper, more in reply to the echoing voice. Jacek takes it as my vow, though. His eyes widen with triumph. Then, with a wave of his arm and a rustle of his cloak, he’s gone and I’m falling, falling into darkness, falling away from him, tumbling into nothing.

My shoulder hits the ground first hard and without warning, and then my head. It cracks painfully on the cold stone, sending stars bursting across my vision. These injuries, this agony is nothing compared to the loss of Jacek. He left me, he cast me away. Now I’m alone in the darkness, blind and helpless in his vast world. I feel empty, discarded. Finished. I could die.

“
Wake up,”
the girl whispers to me.
“Just wake up.”

“Who’s there?” I cry. I try to see, but it’s too dark. I should stand up, but my legs are tangled in my gown and I can’t be bothered to fight free. My head pounds so much that I fear it will split open. I press my palms to it as if trying to keep myself from breaking apart.

“Who’s there?” I call again, and my voice is wracked with sobs.

“Just wake up,” she whispers once more, but I can’t. I’m tired now, so tired. So heavy. I press my cheek to the cold stone floor. My eyes close again. This time when I sleep, I don’t know for how long.

I dream of strange things and even stranger places. The gold fairy appears to me more than once. He shows me people and places. There is a man, and there are children, and there is Jacek. Faces flash before me. Red hair, black hair. Jacek, the boy who became Dreamwalker. He’s angry. Jealous. Dangerous. He lashes out, causes pain. His power is more than they can control.

They have to do it. With Mevyn’s help, they send him away. Someplace distant, someplace safe. Guard the others, the other children, the ones who stole his father away. The ones who deserve pain. Ward them and guard them until Mother and Father can stop him. It’s confusing, frightening. I can’t watch his pain anymore. I turn from it and find myself safe in my bedroom, facing a small, circular hatch. My hatch. Our hatch.

Rian, oh, my Rian. Oh, my Rian. My love, my only love. I reach up and push the door open with a shaking hand. Will he understand? Will he forgive me? I peer inside at his usually rumpled bedroom, but it’s stripped bare. Nothing remains but an undressed bed and a cleared off table. Downstairs, our housekeeper, Mouli, is singing. The aroma of her cooking makes my mouth water. I go to my door, try to open it, but it’s locked from the outside. I shake the handle, pound on the door, shout for someone to let me out, but no one comes. The house is empty, the Elite are no more. The smell of her cooking is gone, and so is she. I’m alone, all alone, trapped in my room where they think I’ll be safe. Trapped and alone. Alone and forgotten. Rian has left me. They’ve all left me.