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“Prove your words then,” I said. “Get us to the shore.”
“Hold steady. We’re close enough you may be caught within the removal.” She splayed her fingers over the shrubs and sand.
In the next breath, I was bound in cold, a breeze like frost. Speckles of damp misted over my face, tossing me this way and that until I landed face down on the forest floor.
I coughed and sat up. Nothing seemed to have changed. The sea remained fifty paces away, the forest unmoved.
“It’s gone.” Behind me the woman stood, hands clasped, starlight hair whipping around her features. A sheen of mist recoiled into the lines of her palms. With her chin, she pointed at the limb she’d tossed.
Hells, where it had been sunk in hardened earth, now it was free and coated in soft sand as though it had fallen there with intent.
Without pause, we stepped from the trees and onto the shore.
“You broke the ward?” The question came as a whisper, more a musing for myself, but the woman nodded.
“Now we’ll be able to cross from the trees to the shore without incident.” The woman strode toward the water’s edge. “Well, prove what I say. Give it a go.”
Tucked in the back of my skull, I knew, logically Iknew, she was being truthful. There was no way I would be allowed to flee. Still, I could not resist; there was nothing I wouldn’t risk to get back to Erik Bloodsinger. I darted for the sea. When water struck my knees came the sharp jolt of pain.
I screamed and fell back into the lazy lap of waves.
Gentle hands scooped under my arms, lifting me from the sea. “As I said. The first thing that was done when you entered the borders of Natthaven was ensuring you remained within them.”
“So take it away as you did the other.Please.”
A shadow burdened her features. “Blood spells are another sort of matter. They are always removed with pain, anger, cruelty, all manner of viciousness. I cannot take in such a way. This ward—” She faced the sea again. “I dare not touch.”
I shook her off. Seated in the shallows, I hugged my knees to my chest, and screamed—pain, rage, despair. All of it rose to the pink clouds. Throat ragged, I reeled on the woman. “Why are you doing this? Let me go, and I swear to you, the loyalty of the Ever will be yours. We will help you.”
Without a care for the water, the elven sat with me. Her knees and gown hugged against her chest much the same. Almost friendly.
She studied the bloody gleam on the horizon, the last remnants of day, as purple dusk with the earliest stars speckled the upper skies. “Natthaven is a peaceful isle. Some have even named it the fading isle.”
“Why is that?”
“The isle can fade into the mist.” The woman smiled. A touch of pride crinkled the corners of her eyes. “A gift from the gods, I like to think. Should we be threatened, we can take the whole of our clan tosafety. Or, I suppose, if we are . . . forced to relocate . . .” She hesitated, smile fading. Something about the last words seemed to grate at her. “Natthaven will shift elsewhere.”
“The land itself holds magic?”
“Doesn’t every land?” She tilted her head. “I am told your ability comes from the soil. You’ve accomplished feats in your realms and the sea. I would believe there is magic in all lands.”
A wicked curl pulled at my lips. “Perhaps I will destroy yours with my fury if it gets me free of here.”
“I think Natthaven would be rather offended should you try. You’d be better suited to call to the gentility of the affinity in our soil to aid you, rather than destroy it. Magic is fickle across realms, is it not? Offend it, and it seems content to punish for the sin. Take your sea kingdom’s blight as proof.”
“How did you know?” I shook my head. It didn’t matter how she knew things, not really. “That was a sea witch curse that lost control.”
“Oh, true. In a sense,” she said, almost indignantly, “the witch and Larsson were not ready for the consequences of their dark spells. Like I said, blood spells and dark magic create a different sort of physical matter, or remnant. The blight you see is a dreary remnant of what was done to bring us to this moment.”
“What was done?”
The woman considered me for a breath. “I told you, fae. This is not an attack that has been built on a whim. It has been planned, executed for turns, and the sea kingdom is no simple thing to overthrow. Dark spells, clearly, were needed.”
The darkening was potent, damn near painful, when my fury slid into what was done to cause it. Death, agony. I’d known something in the soil spoke to me whenever I dug deep with my fury. It made a bit of sense that wretched magic would leave behind cruel remnants that ached.
“You speak like it is nothing, yet I see the disgust in your eyes.”
She hesitated. “I may disagree with some actions of others, butI’m in no position to fret about your troubles when I have my own folk to consider.”
