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“Alright then, lad. Let’s walk it off, eh?” Seamus met him at the door and swung an arm over his shoulders.
Rian didn’t look back.
16
“Are you going to heal him?”The mattress dipped as Bianca eased down next to where Terra sat, staring glumly at her bloodied brother.
“I don’t know,” Terra admitted. Once Rian had left the cottage, Cormac had closed his eyes and succumbed to his pain, sliding into unconsciousness. His breathing came evenly, so Terra wasn’t immediately worried for his safety, though she still hated seeing him this way.
Silly, she supposed. Cormac hadn’t cared about hurting her, had he? Instead, he’d done whatever he’d wanted, happy to ruin other people’s lives, so long as he came out smelling like roses.
“You don’t have to, you know. Sometimes…” Bianca trailed off and tapped a finger against her lips.
“Sometimes what?” Terra tilted her head to look at Bianca. A streak of dirt smudged her face, and her blonde hair stuck out in frizzy tufts around her head.
“Well, you know… you reap what you sow and all that. It sounds like your brother had this coming to him. Maybe it’s a good thing that he feels this pain? It might help him to learn and not make similar mistakes in the future. Pain can be a powerful teacher.”
“It can be.” Terra was reminded of the time she’d seen a young rabbit frolicking in the fields, dancing dangerously close to the edge of the river. In seconds, the young animal had toppled over the embankment and into the icy water. By the time she’d reached the river, the rabbit had managed to make it to the embankment and had pulled itself, shivering and soaked, onto the sun-warmed dirt. It had lain there for quite a while, stunned and shivering in the midday sun, and Terra had wanted to ease its suffering. But she’d stopped herself, knowing the rabbit would learn a lesson, and that sometimes it was best not to interfere with nature.
Cormac reminded her a bit of that rabbit, huddled in shock, curled in on himself. Except it hadn’t been a mistake that had almost killed him, it had been his own actions. Maybe the hardest thing to learn when you loved someone was that you couldn’t always protect them from themselves.
“How are you feeling? What happened when you went after Rian?” Bianca asked, bumping her shoulder against Terra’s. A bone-deep exhaustion washed through Terra, and all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for days and pretend none of this had happened. She couldn’t decide what was worse — having her fated mate turn his back on her or learning her brother had betrayed their entire family. Frankly, both made her miserable.
“I got mad at him. He yelled at me. I showed him I was his fated mate. He rejected me,” Terra summed it up as quickly as she could.
“Oh, honey.” Bianca wrapped an arm around Terra’s shoulders and squeezed. “That’s a tough one, isn’t it? Listen … this is all kind of a mess right now. But we’ll get it sorted out. I promise you. These things have a way of working themselves out.”
“I don’t… I can’t…” Terra stopped, forcing herself to breathe past the pain that gripped her heart. She took a moment to collect her thoughts as she twisted a loose thread from the blanket around her finger. Ultimately, her pain didn’t matter. Not really. That was part of the deal with being a leader to the Earth Fae. It had been drilled into her since a young age. She was but one person. The Earth Fae were thousands. As their leader, she had to make choices that best protected them, no matter what it meant for her personally. “It doesn’t matter. Not really. I have to think about what’s best for my people.”
“But Terra…” Bianca began, and Terra shook her head, cutting her off.
“No, Bianca. I can’t sacrifice my people in order to pursue my own personal needs. The reality is that Domnu will come back, and she’s going to come after our amulet. I must secure it and get back to our world before she launches whatever her next step is in this battle of hers to rise to power. We can’t forget — we’re at war here.”
“You’re right.” Bianca slapped her palms on her knees and then stood, biting her nail as she paced the room. “We got a little caught up in the romance of it all, but, knowing Domnu, she won’t be away for long. She’s impatient, impulsive, and obsessive. Which makes her, in some respects, largely unpredictable. The only thing we can rely upon is that she’s coming back for the knife. We need to get the amulet back before she does.”
“We do. I have an idea where it is,” Terra said, tapping her chest. “I can feel it when I’m close. We’re bonded.”
“That’s a nifty little feature, isn’t it then?” Bianca pursed her lips. “Get the knife, get off the island, then deal with your brother? And Rian?”
“Unfortunately, I think that needs to be the way of it. Domnu isn’t going to stop. She’s making her way through all of the Elemental Fae in her quest to overthrow her sister. Families, huh?” Terra’s eyes fell to where her brother lay bruised and battered on the floor. “They’re a bit tricky, aren’t they?”
“That’s an understatement.” Bianca paused in her pacing. “Listen… I think I may have something that can help us down the road. Maybe not immediately, but I’ve been researching ways that we can maybe disarm or neutralize Domnu, and I might have found something. It’s an ancient ritual.”
“Where did you find it?” Terra asked, hope blooming in her chest. “Is it the same as what Lily found?”
“In the library at the castle. Well, Lily and I found it. They let us into the records room. I’ve actually seen it mentioned twice, first in a book that King Callum gave me and the second time in a book that I found in the library. It would require, well, great sacrifice.”
“Which is?”
“I believe, if I’m interpreting it correctly, that the Elemental Fae would be required to melt their amulets together. In doing so, the combined power can create a set of golden cuffs that will bind Domnu’s powers indefinitely.”
“Our amulets?” Terra’s hand went to her chest in shock. As long as she’d ever known it, the one who carried the amulet ruled the people. Without it … how would power be transferred? Was it even possible to use them in such a manner?
“I know. It’s a big ask. And I wouldn’t bring it up unless we had no other choice. But she’s gaining momentum, isn’t she? She’s infiltrated several of the royal houses, she’s creating chaos all over the place, and the more she stirs the pot — well, the worse it is going to get. I think you’ll need a unified front to take her down once and for all.”
“The Air Fae are next, aren’t they?”
“If they’re not already under siege,” Bianca agreed. “I think, when we get out of here, we need to call a meeting with King Callum and Lily. We need to take this option seriously because I don’t think Domnu’s ever going to stop. She’ll go quiet for a few decades at a time, but she’ll never stop. We have to be the ones to stop her.”
