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“What is he saying?” Arkimedes asked, peering at them with a frown.
“Open your mind. It will make communicating much easier.” She repeated the words Ari had just whispered in her mind and pressed her cheek against the rough texture of his chest. “He saw my memories and what the emissary looks like.”
“He isn’t my twin brother, which is what I suspected him to be. But he was a full fae, unlike me,” Arkimedes said. “The Vulcan showed us those scriptures from the earliest days of Caztian. About how the gods and the founders struck a deal of sacrifice. It could be that this emissary is my blood but from long ago. He certainly looked ancient.”
“The Vulcan?” Ari brought his hand to Nava’s arm, poking at the healed scar in the shape of a hand. “Who used the god’s artifact?” Ari’s alarm rang clear in his intonation, and the bees surrounding them buzzed into the air all at once. He studied Nava’s body as if she might grow a second head at any moment. Then he did the same to Arkimedes.
“Devon did, and he isn’t doing well,” she said, wheezing a little. The air had turned so cold, like on a winter evening. “I healed him before we left. Perhaps he will be fine?”
Ari remained quiet. The wood covering his body creaked as he shook his head. Then his gaze swept to the tops of the trees above them, following the wind that moved them to and fro. “No mortal magic can truly heal the poison that comes from a god’s artifact. Yet I cannot understand why we ought to heal him. I thought he was our enemy?”
She’d thought so too, and if Ari had asked her that same question half a year ago, her answer would have been very different. Now the man was not only Arkimedes’s brother but also her friend. And after all that Ark had lost, it would break him to lose Devon as well.
“We shall go inside. It’s not safe for you to be out here.” Ari paused in front of the largest tree Nava had seen in this kingdom. Mushrooms and ferns grew aplenty, sprouting from the crevices in its bark and from in between the rocks at its base.
The massive roots of the ancient tree moved aside like curtains, revealing an entrance to a deep cavern. Giant fireflies hovered before her face, at least as large as her palm. The gentle but uneven flutter of their wings matched her erratic heartbeats.
A cackle of laughter cut through her sluggish thoughts as the brightly lit shapes snatched her hair, pulling it gently and exposing her ears to the bite of the chill night.
Wait. Had she completely lost her mind? Nava blinked raindrops from her lashes and focused on one of the fireflies as it tugged at the bloody bandage around her ribs. It had long, black, human-like arms and even tinier hands. Its elongated face had large, slanted eyes that shone with eagerness.
“Be careful with the pixies.” Arkimedes brushed away the one on her stomach, his voice deepening with his annoyance.
The pixie flew off, screeching in offense, then promptly tried to bat at Arkimedes’s wings. It quickly changed its mind as the shapes of his aura appeared by his shoulder.
“Your soulmate is right. They are the worst nuisance. They eat the nectar in my hive and torment the bees.” Ari sounded unlike himself as he swatted at a few pixies darting around them. Their golden glow left shimmering trails behind them when they flew to the ground after his wooden palm caught them.
They couldn’t be that bad. Right? They were tiny. Nava wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t seem to muster the energy. She hadn’t been that cold until now. Perhaps Ari had been keeping her warm with magic, and their conversation had been keeping her awake.
Now her eyes were drooping, and it was a task to keep them open. Nava couldn’t force another word to her lips. Sleep was pulling her under.
“Bee?” Arkimedes’s palm pressed to her forehead, wet with sweat and rain.
“Mmm…” A clattering sound echoed around her. Wait. Were those her teeth?
“She needs to be out of this rain,” Arkimedes muttered. “Now.”
If Aristaeus answered, she didn’t hear it. She floated in and out of a drowsy state as they moved swiftly into the cave. The roots shut behind them, leaving them in complete darkness.
Ari’s aura illuminated the wide entrance. Huge crystals jutted from the ground and ceiling and began to glow with an orange light as he passed them.
It smelled of dirt and minerals down here, and fresh energy soared through her. Whatever this place was…the magic clinging to every speck of dirt around them helped dull her pain just enough.
She slept.
21
NAVA
Nava filtered in and out of a dreamless slumber for hours, perhaps even days. Who knew how to tell time inside a cave?
The first thing she noticed when she woke up was that her body was swinging in the air. Then pain ricocheted through her from the cut in her abdomen. She groaned.
Her agony meant she wasn’t dead, and that was something to be grateful for.
“Ark?” Her mouth felt drier than ever before. Hadn’t Arkimedes brought her water at some point? Or perhaps she had dreamed, after all.
When no answer came, Nava slowly sat up, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat as she shifted her body across the woven surface. Where was she? Ah. Inside a hammock of sorts, strung up in between two tall gem pillars—and far too high for someone like her to sleep in.
