Faerie Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) (29 page)

“It’s too late.” She swallowed. “The spirits are gone. They went back. I heard them… they opened a way.” Her hand pointed, wavering.

Dread punched a hole in my chest. I looked up.

Across the path, where the back of the circle had been, a haze of grey smoke obscured whatever had been there before. The lights marking the circle had gone out. Instead…

A chill blast of wind struck, like I’d summoned it into being myself. Faces began to appear in the smoke, but indistinct, and fading by the second.

“What… what happened?”

“They set up a trap.” Isabel attempted to push herself up onto one elbow. “Mad guy said he only wanted to lure everyone here—that he already had everything he needed.”

“Who. A faerie?”

“I think he was.” She rubbed her eyes. “I was kind of out of it. But he mentioned your name.”

“I thought he needed my magic.”

No. Any magic would have done. What with the spiritual energy going haywire enough to solidify a thousand spirits, of course there’d been enough energy to open the veil.

The smoke. It’s through the smoke.

The tall, beautiful man had appeared right—right there. I relaxed my grip on Isabel, letting her balance on my knees, as my arms went weak. So did my legs. I wanted to curl into a ball and scream.

Instead, I remained kneeling, and watched, and remembered.

“Come with me. I’ll take you home.”

When he’d spoken, every instinct, every single story about not following strangers had fled from my mind. People were dying all around me. There was nowhere left to run. This stranger had given me an ultimatum.

I’d taken it. I’d followed him into the smoke.

“Isabel,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “Are you okay to stay here?”

She groaned a little. “Yeah. Give me a minute. The healing spell did work, it’s just slow as shit thanks to those bastard creatures.”

I opened my eyes. “Drake over there—he can be trusted. Get to him. I have to go and find those missing kids. They’re behind that smoke.”

In Faerie. Part of me wanted to tell her this was a last goodbye, but if I did, I’d never leave.

I stood. Magic wrapped around me in tendrils, perhaps meant to be reassuring. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand my own magic, but right now, that and my weapons were the only thing standing between me and a faerie invasion.

The iron. You have iron.

I gripped Irene and stepped forward. Then again. One footstep followed the next, the dead grass disappearing, the smoke growing closer. At the same time, the blue smoke around my own body thickened.

Blue light spilled down my wrists to my hands, turning to smoky tendrils that fanned out from my hands. My own magic spilled through the haze, lighting the dark, until an opening became visible. A grey-tinted path into the dark.

I knew what waited on the other side was bad news.

And I knew the children were over there, too.

The gate had opened. They hadn’t needed my magic to do it, after all.

I chanced one brief look over my shoulder, but couldn’t bring myself to meet Vance’s eyes. I had to do this alone. I wasn’t strong enough to stop and say goodbye.

I won’t die. I’ll come back.

A tearing sensation tugged at my heart, until the sound of faint screaming chilled my blood. Children screaming.

For them.

Quiet voices, crying out for help.

I walked, then ran, for the gap, magic surging around me, and disappeared into a familiar darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Welcome to your new home,” a voice whispered. “I’ve made it comfortable for you."

No. Not again.

I lay half in shadow, half in light. Thick trees obscured the view on either side, silvery leaves catching the sunbeams filtering through the canopy. All else was smothered in shadow. The path ahead beckoned, enticing and light.

Behind lay death and confusion. Ahead lay uncertainty. But someone stood there on the path.

Avakis smiled at me with perfect white teeth, and reached for my hand. His pointed ears, porcelain-pale skin and glistening dark hair painted him as far from human. He was too perfect to be anything but a prince from a storybook. The armour he wore was right out of a book, too—silver and black, a sword sheathed at his waist.

I’d never thought I’d ever need a fairytale prince to rescue me. At least, not before the world outside had turned into a horror story.

His smile widened as I took his hand. The skin was surprisingly soft, and up close the armour didn’t appear to be made of metal at all. The texture was wrong. Like bark, maybe. But I was too captivated by his eerily handsome face to do more than follow.

No. Don’t do it. Please.

My past self blurred before my eyes, but in place of the image came worse memories.

It didn’t take long for Avakis to show his true colours. And by then, I was already ensnared in his trap.

Stop. Stop.

Whatever faerie trick this was, they were using
my
memories to trick me. Ghosts didn’t exist here.

This was all inside my head: nothing more.

And I had one memory I didn’t mind reliving.

I watched myself stand before Avakis. A different day. We no longer stood in the forest but inside a high-ceilinged hall. Like every part of his house, shadows crawled from corners and masked everything but the area we stood in. He liked to keep the place dark, so we’d never be able to see anything creeping up on us.

“Avakis,” I’d said. “I challenge you.”

He’d squinted at the small object I held in my hands, and laughed. “You challenge me with that pathetic excuse for a weapon?”

I nodded, head bowed. I’d played my part well for three years. Meek. Obedient. Helpless.

But I’d lived.

Iron was the only way to kill a faerie. It went without saying that Avakis didn’t allow one single fragment of iron to enter his house. He’d been bringing humans into his home for three years now. I’d figured out where he brought them to, where he stripped them of everything they owned and threw their belongings into the dust.

A single, rusty nail was my salvation. The boy it belonged to was long dead. Why he’d been carrying it, I hadn’t known.

Now, of course, I knew it was because the faeries had taken over our world, and the survivors had swiftly figured out the best way to defend themselves. At the time, that small piece of metal was my lifeline.

I was an untalented human, not even a witch or mage with any dormant skill. All I had were my wits and a hell of a lot of luck.

I concentrated on the memory above all else. Savoured the taste of the triumph as I held the faerie’s sword in my hands, looking down at him.

“You traitorous bitch.”

I brought the blade across his throat in a crimson smile.

His head fell back, blood spilling out—and blue smoke, too. Magic. His magic, the energy he’d drawn from all those tortured souls for the past three years—and god knew how much longer.

The magic wrapped around me, and I cried out. Not that it hurt, but because the magic was
inside me.
And I couldn’t make it stop. I screamed as the walls of the grand room fell apart on either side of me, screamed as bars fell off cells and dazed humans stumbled free, crawling into the sudden burst of blue light flaring from every part of me. I felt their pain, their fear, and yet I still couldn’t make it stop.

He’s powered by it. That’s why he needs us.

The thoughts had crossed my mind, but I was too busy running to dwell on it. I ran harder, bare feet pounding on the leaf-strewn path, heart thudding.
Please let me escape. Please. There must be a way out.

The smoke formed threads like fabric, stretching up through the trees and twining around my wrists.

“Let me go!” I screamed. “Let me out! I shouldn’t be here. I’m human, mortal. Please let me go back home.”

The magic writhed and tangled, forming a wall between the trees.
I didn’t know how to control the magic, only that he gained more power the more people he captured. The more misery he caused.

I thought about the misery, all the years of pain and suffering at his hands. I thought of the pain, and the blue smoke thickened around me. Faces began to appear in the fog.

“Please.” I reached out a hand. “Let me back. Please.”

Hands grabbed me, and an unimaginable coldness numbed my whole body. The forest was replaced by a torrent of smoke filled with indistinct faces and whispers.

“You don’t belong here,” one of them whispered.

“It isn’t your time.”

The faces faded in and out.
Am I dead?

“Please,” I moaned. “I want to go home.”

Magic was a light in the dark, a blue cocoon protecting me from those nebulous, floating figures. Ghosts. Even then, I knew what they were. I even thought I recognised some of them.
Are my parents here?

I spun around, desperate, but the faces faded away, and the numbness became complete.

Then sensation rushed back. I lay on the ground. No, grass. And above… Sunlight. Real sunlight. I ran, not caring about the magic anymore—because here was a path, a way I’d opened, and I needed to get out—to get home.
Home.

My eyes flew open.

I lay on a path shadowed by trees with silvery leaves. All was silent.

Here we are
. Here I was. The same place I’d landed. The same place I’d escaped.

But were the children here? Or were they still in Death? Either way, the person responsible must be here. He’d be waiting for me.

He’s not Avakis.

Avakis. His magic… no wonder it had always felt so cold. From the other captives, I’d learned he was a Winter Sidhe who’d committed the ultimate crime and murdered a fellow lord. As punishment, he’d been exiled.

Others had been here, of course. The place between had had other lords divide up territory, but not in an organised way like Summer and Winter. Any lord could kill another, and when they did, they took their power. Avakis had killed both Summer and Winter. His magic was incomprehensible.

And now mine.

I pushed all thoughts of Avakis away, concentrating on the path. I never did learn the way around here. Faerie didn’t go by the usual rules of directions, shaping itself around whoever entered. It gave you what you asked… for a price.

When I’d escaped… I knew how I’d done it now. But not why Faerie had let me escape, and nobody else. Nor why the doors had closed behind me, cutting off the faeries forever.

Nor why this Velkas seemed to be the single exception to the rule.

I walked down the path, turning a corner into a clearing, and sure enough, someone waited ahead.

This faerie had jet black hair at shoulder length, and piercing blue eyes. Like most faeries, he wore armour. As he belonged to neither Summer nor Winter, his armour was jet black edged with silver.

I knew that armour. He must have stolen it right from Avakis’s corpse.

He smiled. “Ivy Lane,” he said. “I thought you’d come to me. What kind of creature are you?”

“Human. You know that.” I glared at him. “Why bother waiting here for me, if you can walk into my world whenever you feel like it?”

The faerie laughed. The sound was like tinkling water, like the gentle pressure on piano keys, and my magic blazed brightly in response. He smiled and shook his head. “Surely you’d have worked out that this is my territory. I’d rather have the advantage. Wouldn’t you?”

Not when you’re at the mercy of my iron blade.
I gripped Irene tightly. He must know I carried a hell of a lot of iron weapons which could reduce him to ash in a second. What was he playing at?

“So what’s the point?” I asked. “You promised half-bloods immortality, right? Your blood. Any reason? Or were you just fucking with them, like every goddamn faerie I’ve ever met?”

He laughed again. “You know a lot about faeries for a mortal. I shouldn’t be surprised, seeing as you killed Avakis.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. “And I’ll kill you, too.”

“I don’t think so. Avakis might have been blindsided by a mortal, but I’ve spent a lot of time amongst your kind. You’re weak. Even that Mage Lord of yours.”

I blinked. “So you’ve been spying on me. And trying to lure me here. You’ve succeeded, haven’t you? There’s a path open between here and the mortal world, just as you wanted. The summoning circle took care of it for you. You never needed my magic.”

“You believe that?” Velkas smirked. “You believe I wanted your magic to open the ways between our realms? I intended to take Avakis’s magic for myself long before you were born, human. You aren’t worthy to wield the power of a Sidhe lord.”

“What, a lord of nowhere?” My heart thudded faster. He didn’t want to use my power at all. I’d been so fixated on the idea that the faeries wanted
me,
I hadn’t stopped to think of the value of Avakis’s power itself. Of course I hadn’t. I’d never, not in ten years, stopped to think what having their magic
meant.