Page 12 of A Beastly Court

White, pink, purple, smoke gray, they were always varieties of quartz and none larger than his thumbnail. I was expected to fill them with magic and turn them into little caches—magical batteries. It was a strength test, much like practicing fencing with a heavier sword to build muscle and increase endurance. I had to fill one up, no matter how long it took, before I left the breakfast table and began my real work of the day.

While the process was a drain on my magic, my core replenished itself quickly despite the curse. It was simply the act of using it—the struggle of drawing magic from my core not unlike that of a fly trying to free itself after falling into a pot of honey—that exhausted me by the end of the day.

“You’d think after the fight with the bear you’d give me a break from this little exercise,” I grumbled, finishing the last of my latte and setting the mug aside to pick up the white crystal.

“No breaks,” the fae king said, his lips curving into a fleeting but empathetic smile.

Pinching the crystal between forefinger and thumb, I frowned in concentration. “You never did tell me what you do with all these things.” I knew he squirreled them away in his silversmithy, behind that locked black door, but I didn’t know why.

“They’re for Elfame,” he replied.

How cryptically uninformative. I rolled my eyes and directed what trickle of magic I could tap into the crystal. When it shone painfully bright and refused another mote of my power, I released it with a gasp. Thistle thorns, first the ceiling, then the bear, now the crystal. I was so drained I didn’t know what I wanted more, a nap or a second breakfast.

“Have some more toast, love,” the fae king said, placing it on my plate and scooping up the crystal.

Breakfast was finished soon after—I never liked to linger while the bear was awake and prowling. He’d worn a small dip in the stones with his pacing, his breath blustering with each step and his amber eyes glowing hatefully.

I shoved the rest of my apple-butter-smeared toast into my mouth before the fear could sour my stomach and hastily followed Ossian out of the great hall. Instead of heading right to the foyer and the main courtyard beyond, as I always hoped he would, he turned left. Towards the atrium. As always.

“I can hear you sighing,” the fae king commented dryly.

You don’t have a fae queen ordering you never to step outside every day. The atrium was the closest thing to the outdoors as I could get. I supposed, as always, I’d have to make do. Oh goody.

CHAPTER FIVE

The atrium was small, yet the sunlight streaming in from the frosted glass of the ceiling lightened the atmosphere. A flowering leaf relief coiled around each of the six pillars that supported the glass dome—jessamine. Much like the rest of the castle, the atrium was furnished with only the bare essentials: a damask settee (which wasn’t as comfortable as it looked) and the marble pedestal that bore the cloch na wight.

It meant wight’s stone in Gaelic, and trapped inside the crystalline sphere like gray smoke was a wight from the Moors of Tarsaghaun. A pure spirit. They had many gifts and talents, and this one’s was gauging a creature’s magic. My magic, specifically, and whether or not I had full access to it.

I already knew the answer to that—I could see how much of the interlocking-leaf net remained of Grandmother’s curse—but Ossian wanted an unbiased assessment.

While touching the cloch didn’t hurt in any way, I still inhaled a deep breath before placing my hands gently on the sphere. The stone was warm to the touch, and the wight inside swirled at the contact. It was the gray of woodsmoke, but it would clear to the purest white if my magic core was free.

Unsurprisingly, the wight instantly turned cardinal red, the current of its movement frenzied as it sensed the curse trapping my magic as much as this crystal imprisoned it.

“Well, cardinal red is not apple red, though not by much,” Ossian said. “You’ve been making progress, but it’s not fast enough.”

“Maybe if I could go outside, beyond the castle walls, it would speed up the process?” I ventured. “Grounding is an essential part of being a green witch, and I’ve had nothing beneath my feet than cold dead stone.”

The fae king shook his head with a regretful sigh. “You know I can’t let you leave. Wystan’s out there, targeting supes and Fair Folk alike, draining them of their magic. What happens if he got ahold of you?”

“He’d have to break the curse on me to access my magic. I guess then I’d thank him before blasting him unconscious and bringing him back to face your justice.”

Ossian’s mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile. He brushed the backs of his knuckles over my cheek, and my body hummed with the tingling of that golden haze. Gone was the trepidation of earlier that morning.

“As tempting as that sounds,” he said, “there are worse things out there than Wystan. Mallaithe, sluagh, fiáin pixies… No, you’ll stay inside and train. With me.”

A shudder rippled through me, one I didn’t hide fast enough. The last time I had trained with him had been excruciating. It was also what had caused him to storm out of the castle and disappear for the rest of the day and night, leaving Alec to haunt my steps.

“We don’t have a choice, love,” he said soothingly, that golden haze gnawing away at my inhibitions. “Trust me.”

I did. But not with this. Using the channel created by our fated mate bond, twice Ossian had poured his magic into me. Maybe it was because he was fae and I was a witch, or maybe our bond wasn’t supposed to be used like that, but his magic had burned me. Twice it had scorched through my nerves, my whole body revolting against the foreign power.

He'd told me to relax, that it wouldn’t hurt so much if I just allowed it to happen, but I never could. Then, like the tentacle-like roots of a fae hunting tree, his copper magic had spread over the net covering the oak tree of my magic, bombarding it again and again with piercing strikes. It was so eerily reminiscent of the shadowy tentacle-esophagi that the demonic half-heart on the grimoire had used to feed off my family that it took all of my willpower not to scream and shove him away.

Despite being a fae king, his power was not infinite, and Ossian would eventually grow weary and release me. Annoyed the first time, irate the second. While he’d ridden out of the castle, mercilessly digging his spurs into the flanks of his horse, I’d huddled in a scalding hot bath and bawled. The pain of the water dulled the pain in my core, or at least took my mind off it, and being secluded at the end of the east wing, there was no one to hear my sobs. No one to comfort me, either.

Then, I’d pleaded with the ember.