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“That depends on Aura,” she said firmly, doubt clouding her gaze. “I leave the pagu politics to her.”
A tall, dark-haired figure caught my eye by a firepit set up near the tent, casting shadows across the cave walls. Excusing myself with Nia, I sidled up next to him, wrapping my arms around my body in a comforting gesture in the slight draft of the cave. I looked up at Callan beneath my lashes, not knowing what I wanted to say but knowing I needed to say something. He glanced at me, and he didn’t seem to know either, so we stood there, warming our hands by the fire in comfortable silence. With someone else the quiet might have bothered me, but with Callan, it was peaceful. No expectations, and no pressure. It just was.
A few minutes passed, and then he turned, setting off toward the tents. He stopped, turning to look back at me.
“Betrothed, huh?” He wore his tell-tale stone face, not willing to give an inch away of what he could be feeling beneath the surface. His eyes were dark with something I couldn’t name, and I narrowed a look at him, my calmness replaced by a rabid irritation he always seemed to bring out of me.
“How’s your mate?” I challenged. It was a low blow, but if he wanted to play stupid games, he would win stupid prizes. His question was simple and shouldn’t have enraged me as much as it did. I didn’t have a betrothed, or fiancé, or whatever you wanted to call it. And even if I did, he had no right to ask me about him when he had his own mate out running in the world.
His emerald eyes glared back at me, and without another word he turned on his heel, disappearing into his tent as I glared at his back.
ChapterThirteen
Finn was back to get us early in the morning, or at least I assumed it was since I had no clock and had spent the night in a dimly lit cave. He was an annoyingly chipper contrast to my gloom and doom morning attitude, but after a few sleepy protests we were back on the road as he led us through the cave system. As we walked, he expertly steered us without ever looking at a map.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I complained after we’d been walking for a few hours, moving faster to stand by his side. I avoided looking at Callan as I moved. We still hadn’t talked since our strange conversation the night before, and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the ice. “For all we know you could just be taking us in circles.”
“That would be an extreme waste of my time, Rowan,” Finn said as he turned us through another branch of the tunnel. “And you are not looking close enough. Use your magic and you’ll be able to see the signs. We keep them hidden on the inside of the tunnels in case someone did happen to make it through our enchantments. You only think to look when you know they’re there.”
“I don’t know how to use my magic,” I told him honestly. “I’ve been able to use the lightning, it seems like it wants to come out. But the magic hides from me.”
“You just have to figure out your triggers. The elemental magic in us is wild, untamed. It knows no bounds and jumps at the chance to be used. Fae magic, on the other hand, is gentle. Inherent. You have to figure out what it wants and use that to coax it out of you.”
“I don’t even understand what that’s supposed to mean,” I grumbled, kicking a rock with the toe of my boot as we moved.
“Emotion. Which emotion triggers your magic? Everyone’s reacts differently. Mine, for example, responds to sadness. When I was just learning how to use my magic, I learned that thinking about my mother’s death worked for me.”
“You think of her every time you use it?” That seemed torturous, the kind of thing that made you never want to do magic again.
“Not anymore. I’ve had enough years to practice that my magic and I are very in-tune. But in times that require more effort, like building these tunnels, I do.”
“You said we were best friends, before I left?” He nodded with a sad smile as we walked ahead of the group. I noticed Callan hovering on the fringes, listening to conversations as we walked but not participating. Nia and Oliver trailed behind, heads bent deep in discussion about what we would do once we got to the temple.
“Yes, we were,” Finn replied, his voice tinged with nostalgia. “Our families grew up with each other. One of my sisters even had a thing with Casimir. Dreadful taste if you ask me. Our betrothal was decided before we were even born; it just made sense that they forced us to spend time together.
“As we got older, we stayed friends. We got each other through a lot of messed up stuff. But I don’t blame you for leaving.” A pang of guilt flushed through me. I had no memory of the past, no recollection of this friendship that had clearly meant so much to him. I’d just gone and abandoned my life as a Fae, not even taking my memories with me. “Your mother never treated you well. She regularly threw you in the dungeon when you misbehaved. Which was often.” I snorted at that. Some things never changed, whether I remembered them or not.
“I’m sorry, Finn. I wish I could remember.”
He shook his head, his silver curls bouncing with the motion. “Don’t be. If there is one thing I know about you, it’s that you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t think it was the only way. There was a lot of darkness in you, darkness that I don’t see now. So maybe this was a good thing. You seem . . . lighter.” I said nothing, not sure how to take his comment. I had no frame of reference.
We continued our journey through the labyrinth of a cave system, dimly lit tunnels casting long shadows around us. Oliver formed a fireball which he let hover along in front of us, which helped to ease the dancing shadows. I continued alongside Finn, bursting with my unasked questions until my curiosity got the better of me.
“Finn,” I began, my voice a hesitant murmur, “can you tell me more about how we cursed the Queen? How did we do it?”
His cerulean eyes held a mixture of sadness and determination as he looked at me, and I could see a war waging in his mind as he decided what he wanted to say. Callan shifted in my peripherals, moving ever so slightly closer to us, and I had no doubt he was eavesdropping. “Something was different about you the day you came to find me and ask for my help. I hadn’t seen you for a year, after your mother locked you up in the dungeon again. You appeared to me like a dream—looking a complete mess, might I add—and you already had the ring in hand. You wouldn’t tell me where you got it, but you asked me to help you end the Queen, once and for all.”
“But that didn’t happen,” I said, cutting off his story. “Clearly.”
“No, it didn’t. She was more powerful than we ever expected, and even with both of our magics combined, we were only able to curse her. The ring works like all other Fae-enchanted objects work. Off of your intentions, and using it to kill her would have killed us too.”
“Maybe we should have done it anyway,” I said darkly. But I meant it. The faces of the villagers we had passed swam through my mind. If we had ended her then, maybe the future would have looked much different.
“Possibly,” Finn agreed. “But Casimir still would have been just as powerful, and we’d be in the same boat. With her underground instead of dead, at least he couldn’t fully bond with the realm and gain control of the magic.”
“What was the curse meant to do?”
Finn’s expression grew somber. “To imprison the Queen, strip her of her powers and lock her in a place between realms—a place of eternal torment with your blood as the key. I never expected Casimir to be able to break her out.”
