Shadowborn (9 page)

“The elves are telepathic, Nix.” Gallagher leaned closer, longing and regret in his eyes.

My father put his hand on Nix’s shoulder. “I will bind him in illusion.” That was Donovan’s
cumhacht
, the ability to create mirages that went beyond normal fae glamour.

“It doesn’t matter. We are treading on dangerous ground here.” Gallagher shook his head. “These people trust others even less often than Lila does. If we anger them in any way, we could very well die where we stand.”

“Lila should decide,” Nix said.

Liam huffed. “Why Lila? I am king of the Unseelie. Why don’t I have a say?”

We all stared at him before centering on Nix again.

I sighed. “If I were the elves and found you with knives after I’d shown you where I lived, I’d be pretty pissed off. Leave them, and let’s go.”

Nix dropped the knives to the forest floor. Worry lines creased the corners of his eyes.

He’d get over it.

We each chose an amulet without knowing what any of the symbols meant. Mine had a crooked eye with an ivy leaf as an eyelid scratched into it. Nix’s appeared to have an old-fashioned pair of shackles. Donovan’s didn’t look like more than a blob scribed in the center. Liam’s had the shape of a feather—that one I got—and Gallagher’s had a simple stack of wavy lines.

The instant I put the leather strap over my head, and the metal touched my chest through my white shirt, the ground tilted. Nausea gripped me. I retched. Sounds from the others doing the same filled my ears.

Effing hell. I just had to tell Nix to leave the knives. Why do I choose now to be a diplomat?

“Be well now,”
an angelic voice chimed.

The nausea stopped. My dizziness passed—the ground no longer slanted in disturbing ways.

I raised my gaze to find a creature standing before me. Her long hair shimmered, the color of moonlight, a bluish silver, translucent enough the landscape showed through it. Her pale yellow skin had dark brown splotches along her hairline, dipping down in the center of her forehead. Swirls of the same spots wrapped her bare arms. Over her small breasts, she wore a tiny, bra-like shirt made of something that reminded me of white spider silk. A small band of the same fabric wrapped her slender hips, leaving long, slender legs bare. More spots surrounded her ankles and feet. I estimated her at about seven feet tall.

Liam once told me legends never got anything right. I’d started to believe him.

“What did you do to us?” I said.

“The charms you wear both suppressed your fae power and summoned you to our lands. Welcome to Freymoor Wood. Follow us, and you will be greeted properly.”

Most of the elf’s unreadable expression never changed. Her thin lips relaxed, no tightness showed through her mouth, and no wrinkles in her brow suggested her intent. Her large honey-brown eyes told everything—her unease, but also a sense of mischief and amusement.

Great. She fucks us over and laughs about it. I should never have listened to Gallagher.

Almond-shaped eyes turned on me. She tapped her temple in what seemed to be a universal symbol a telepath used to say, “I heard that”.

A few more curses sailed through my head. If they could read my thoughts, I was screwed. Keeping my mouth shut was doable, but stopping the way I thought would be impossible.

“Lead on, fair Galati.” All hoity-toity, Liam bowed. “You honor us with your presence.”

Well, la-dee-da.
How did he know her? I squinted at him, at her, my nape bristling at their shared look.

Galati smiled, only a slight twitch of her pinkish lips, and held her hand out. Liam glanced at me, triumph clear in his eyes as he strode past me and slipped his hand into the elf’s.

Ass
.

I focused on the others, all rubbing their temples. Twinges of discomfort continued to ripple through my head, but I resisted the urge to show it.

We followed after Liam and Galati.

What was he doing? Trying to make me jealous?
I grumbled to myself and folded my arms.
Fat chance.
Against my will, my gaze kept returning to their intertwined hands. Their mutual laughter seized the muscles across my shoulders. If my blood hadn’t ignited, the burning in my veins sure as hell made me think it had.

I halted, hands on my hips. “Are we there yet?” Of all the times not to have a portal.

“Lila!” My father spread his arms wide in a what-the-fuck gesture.

Gallagher palmed his forehead.

“What?” I glowered at him.

He shot me a glare that sent me forward again without another word. My aide had only gotten angry with me once in the previous few months, and I didn’t care to have a replay.

I kept my opinion to myself and fell into step beside Nix, who offered me his arm. At first I ignored it, but another belly laugh from Liam, playing it up for my benefit no doubt, changed my mind.

Yeah. Two can play that game.
I hooked my wrist over Nix’s forearm and smiled at Liam when he glanced over his shoulder. That wiped his wicked grin off in a hurry.
Good.

Ass.

When we emerged from the cover of trees, we stepped into a clearing heavy with humidity and a flowery scent I couldn’t place. The wispy, blue grass striped with white spread along the basin of a valley that dipped down at least half a mile. Lights in small clusters dotted the sides and at the bottom—dwellings I assumed.

From the center of the valley floor, a golden pool of water cast a beam all the way up to the black sky like a beacon. Its illumination shone enough light to make it appear to be day instead of night. A giant, orange moon poked above the treeline, taking up half of the horizon, and another, smaller and paler, hovered above it.

Two moons?
Holy hell, where had we landed? Another world? The thought of how amulets had transported us so far from home gave me a brain cramp. Gnarled, twisted trees thicker than apartment buildings surrounded the perimeter of the valley. Black bark held streaks of lavender and indigo, and the white foliage shimmered and shifted. Whispering about us, probably.
Look at the silly fae.
For a brief moment, I wondered what they ate.

Some sort of critter let out a wail. A chorus of others joined in. Nix crouched into a defensive stance. I mirrored him, caught up in the thunder of my heartbeat.

Galati turned, still holding Liam’s hand. His mischievous stare was all for me. The smirk, too.

I sneered at him, my hand itching to smack him. I sidled up beside my captain and reclaimed his arm so I wouldn’t be tempted. How did Liam know her, anyway? Had they met before? Did his owl master describe her? Why were they holding hands?

Twinges of discomfort danced in my chest.

I am jealous. Fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck. Take that, Gallagher.

Galati’s heavenly voice drifted into my ears like an injection of heroin, inducing a giggle I choked back. “Join hands with us, and we shall hasten our journey to the tribal elders.”

Liam held his hand out to me, but I turned away and motioned to Gallagher with my head. Once he took Liam’s hand, I took Gallagher’s, raising my chin at Liam while I did it. It might have been childish, but I didn’t care. I’d rather have touched a poisonous toad.

Nix slid his hand against mine, and for once, nothing happened. With our Light suppressed, his was just a warm hand. I squeezed it, enjoying the rough texture and strength of it without any distractions. When I looked at Liam, he glared at the ground in front of his loafers. A shred of guilt tainted my satisfaction.

Donovan joined hands with Galati and Nix, completing the circle.

White ate the edges of my vision. Everything disappeared. A momentary dizziness threw off my equilibrium, making me wonder if I’d been turned on my head. My body wouldn’t move when I tried to extend my arms for balance. A scream never made it past my throat.

When it passed, I stood at the bottom of the valley where flat stones made a path through what appeared to be spruce trees, except their needles were light aqua instead of green. A beacon of light from a fountain towered above the woods in front of us.

“That was … fascinating.” Gallagher patted his stomach while sporting a silly, lop-sided grin.

Everyone appeared as green as I felt—all but Galati who looked as stunning as before. Nice to know I wasn’t the only one whose stomach contemplated a mass evacuation for once.

We walked in silence until we emerged in a place I could only call a town square. The stone path spiraled around the pool of teal water and ended at the edge. It reminded me of The Wizard of Oz’s yellow brick road. Maybe the producer was part elf.

Giant trees stood uniform distances from one another in a circle around us. Doors were framed in the lower portion of the trunks, light leaking out around their edges.

Galati and Liam started toward the largest of the black tree buildings. When I tried to follow, Nix grabbed my hand and pulled me back to him.

“I don’t like this, Li,”
he said through our link. “
Something feels … wrong.”

“They’re telepaths.”
I motioned to Galati with my head, hoping he’d get that he had to watch what he said.
“If they had nothing to tell or didn’t care if the Shadowborn destroyed another race, they wouldn’t even be talking to us, right?”

Nix nodded, raised an eyebrow. “
I hadn’t really thought of it like that. You’re probably right. Maybe they’re afraid of the Shadowborn, too.”

“I’m not afraid of them.”
My fluttering stomach didn’t concur, but I wasn’t about to say it.

Laughing, Nix released my hand and gestured for me to go ahead of him. “After you.”

Down deep in my thoughts, I also picked up what Nix detected. Fear. Black, all-consuming terror. It surrounded the place like a noose ready to tighten around any who might tread a little too hard on their lands.
Not good.

As we walked, Nix invaded my head deeper and in a whisper said, “
You have to overcome your anger for the next part of this, Li. You have to stand with Liam to greet the elders as a royal pair.”
I caught his own distaste before he pulled back.

“I’m not angry, and we’re not a pair.”

“Just be prepared. If what you say is true, that they’re as telepathic as you think, they can see inside you right now, maybe better than I can.”

“Shit. I didn’t think about that part.”

“Yeah.”

I stopped in front of the arched, wooden doors where the others had gone. The top of the tree disappeared into the darkness above and stretched out wide enough it would have taken me a few minutes to walk around its circumference. Carvings of creatures covered the surface of the door. Catlike noses, no ears and spikes along their backs.

Nix squinted and took a slight step back. “You don’t suppose they have any of those in there, do you?”

I laughed at his uncharacteristic unease. “At this point, nothing would surprise me.” Despite the urge to flee, I grasped the black knob. A chill rushed up my arm. When I blinked, I appeared on the inside of the tree, though the door never moved from its closed position. Nix blinked into existence beside me. The startled slant to his mouth reflected how I must have looked.

White light brightened the space, although I couldn’t locate its source. Something from above hovered in small clusters. The wide, round room with polished, wooden walls narrowed at the far end where a tall, spindly, male elf motioned us forward. His raven hair matched the dots decorating his light gray skin. Galati pulled off the splotches and still looked amazing, but he, not so much. He looked like someone had attacked him with a black marker.

Nix and I followed the elf through a corridor into an even larger room that appeared to be a theatre with a stage at the far end. Spiders hung from thick, white ropes of silk as they wove it into fabric drapes on either side of the platform.

Spongy, yellow moss carpeted the area where Donovan and Gallagher stood behind Liam in front of the raised dais.

Two elves waited upon the platform, both taller than Galati. The male, Alogason I assumed, had white skin with subtle splotches of slate grey along his hairline. His hair had the same translucent quality as Galati’s, but from my peripheral vision, it looked light green with streaks of silver through it. He wore little else than a loin cloth, allowing the definition of his arms and stomach to remain visible.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

The female, who had to be Laerni, shot a death stare across the room at me as if she’d caught my errant thought.
Mother loving hell.
I waited for her to sing me to death, but nothing happened.

Her pale mauve skin sported dots of white to match her snowy hair. She wore a similar outfit to Galati, a bra and tiny crotch flap, but hers was yellow with miniscule, amber teardrop gems dangling from the bottom edge of the skirt.

Liam held his hand out to me. Without looking at him, I edged closer and took it but remained stiff. We bowed our heads and said, “
Arinu C’Alina”.
Liam introduced the rest of our party, nods and greetings passing between our fae and the elves.

“Welcome cousins,” Alogason said with a voice that carried like a muted trumpet. “We see why the Shadowborn have been sent to kill you, Lila Gray. Your mind is unlike that of any fae we have met in all our generations visiting the Goddess’s earth. Tenacious, wounded deeply, but still you feel compassion for all life. You view the world as a predator, though you are but a wolf who defends the sheep.”

Weird, but okay.
“Why would that make someone want to kill me?” I straightened and craned my head up to stare at them. “Parthalan is dead, and so is Rourke. They’re the only ones who wanted the humans gone and got pissed off when I stood in their way.”

“You suspect your own people of ordering your death?” Laerni tilted her head as she stared at me with almond-shaped, purple eyes.