Imagining that cold on the back of my neck, I visualized the golden strand of fate that lingered between us, wrapping cautious fingers around it. Caldris flinched forward, wiping the surprise off his face as he shook his head. Every time I grasped the bond within my hands, each time I turned it into something tangible, he gave me more and more confirmation that it was not the norm to do so.
Just another strike against me—another way that I was strange even to the Fae God who had existed for so long and probably thought he’d seen everything. He was the grandson of a Primordial, and yet my actions mystified him as much as they did me.
I wrapped the thread of the bond around my hand, pulling it taut even as Caldris grimaced like it pained him. The bond could stretch across realms. It could stretch across mountains and the sea and still connect us, but for some reason it pained him when I took too much of it toward me.
I fixated on that cold. On the winter breeze that had blasted over my spine when he saw my scars for the first time. On the way he’d summoned the first snow in his fit of rage.
I would not be helpless when the war came. I would not rely on him to protect me when battles raged through the land. A funnel of wind appeared in my hand, swirling above my skin like a miniature storm. It caught the snow from the branches hanging over our heads, pulling it down into the orbit of the winds I created.
The snow disappeared into the void formed on my palm at the center of the tempest. Caldris stepped forward, a smile on his face that faded ever so slightly when he stopped in front of me. Grasping my hands in his, holding them from the bottom and supporting them as he studied the swirling, raging storm I held in my palms, he met my eyes with a bright smile.
“It feels like winter,” he said, but something lingered unspoken. Winter, tainted by whatever made the snow disappear.
The winds fizzled out under his attention, the storm disappearing as quickly as it had come. Disappointment flashed through me that my moment of success had been so short-lived, while in the wake of the magic, my body sagged with exhaustion.
“Magic always has a cost,” Caldris said, dropping one of his hands from mine and reaching up to cup my cheek. “Which is why you take it slow. Build up the resistance to what it takes from you and strengthen it like a muscle. You must be stronger than the magic you call to you, otherwise the cost could be your life. Do you understand?” he asked, and I swallowed back my trepidation.
No wonder he worried so much about me taking too much from the magic we didn’t understand, from the source that I seemed to be able to tap into without even being aware I was doing it.
The consequences could be catastrophic.
“Will that still be the case if I become Fae?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and considering him. I didn’t want to change into the very thing I’d hated so much only weeks before, but I’d seen the worst of humanity as well. Evil existed everywhere—in every species and creature. Were humans really any better?
I truly had to wonder about the cost of magic as a Fae. Caldris was stronger than I could imagine, his magic like something that could only exist between the pages of a book. What was the cost of power like that?
“Yes, but your body will be able to withstand more. When your body changes to match whatever your soul already knows, there will be more for the magic to feed from before it becomes too much. As it stands, it is very possible that what you are is already draining from your body just to exist,” he said, dropping his hand from my cheek. “Your lives have always been short. Even for a human lifespan. It would make sense if it was because your soul was never meant to be trapped within a human body.”
“But we reincarnated. If we aren’t human, why would we have done that in the first place?”
“According to our records, the way the witches severed the realms made anyone on this side of the Veil human and tied them to Nothrek. Creatures and Fae alike. Without the magic of Faerie to refill the magic we all draw from, there was nothing to make them anything more than human. The soul became trapped in the cycle of reincarnation because of it,” he said, glancing down at my hands.
He stepped back, the momentary reprieve he’d given me over as his gaze hardened. “Again,” he barked, the command lashing through me. Gone was the gentle and caring mate who would guide me slowly through the tremulous waters of embracing what I was meant to be as his equal.
This was the Fae male who commanded armies for an evil Queen, and who expected nothing but the best from the woman who would stand at his side in the coming conflict.
I sighed, my exhaustion washing over me as I raised my hands a little higher and shut my eyes to the harsh expression on his face.
And I tried again.
28
ESTRELLA
Fallon grabbed my hand, tugging me away from Caldris’s side the next night and toward the blanket she would share with Imelda beside the fire while they waited for their tent to be prepared. She didn’t speak a word as she laced her arm through mine, ignoring the male glaring at the back of her head.
She guided me down to the blanket, sandwiching me between Imelda and herself. They closed ranks, surrounding me in the warmth of something that shouldn’t have felt familiar. I barely knew the women to either side of me, but there was comfort in feeling the press of them against me.
“What are you up to?” I asked, watching as Fallon got comfortable. She kicked her feet out in front of herself, crossing her legs at the ankles so that the deep brown leather of her pants rubbed with the slightest creak as her boots hung off the blanket.
“What makes you think I’m up to anything?” she asked, leaning back onto her elbows. Her tunic covered her arms, her cloak bunched up behind her back as it draped over her shoulders and hung to the blanket beneath her. She stared up at the night sky, her eyes darting over all the constellations that burned above.
“You’re always up to something,” Imelda inserted, twisting her lips to the side as she glanced toward Fallon out of the corner of her eye. “Which Huntsman are you hoping to snare for the night? I suppose I’ll need to sleep out here.”
“You could always join us,” Fallon said, and there was no artiface in her voice as she spoke the words. They spoke of one-night stands and the freedom to choose a bed partner for the night as if it came without consequences or judgment. “I’m sure the Huntsman would be more than happy to oblige you.”
“What Huntsman?” I asked, snapping my head toward Fallon.
“Don’t you dare pollute her head with your grand notions of a romance. The Wild Hunt are abominations of nature. I would sooner die than allow him to come anywhere near me,” Imelda argued, her nostrils flaring with the slightest irritation.
I’d clearly missed something.
“There doesn’t need to be romance involved for you to sit on his face, Imelda. God’s sake,” Fallon said, and she burst into laughter at the way I leveled an incredulous stare at her. I was no virgin. In fact, Caldris was determined to expose me to all manner of sexual activities, and I was far from against them. I didn’t think I’d ever heard a woman speak of such things so openly, without any regard for the members of the Wild Hunt who snapped to attention and turned to look at her. I flushed, wondering what it would be like to do the very thing she spoke of. I’d felt Caldris’s mouth, but I’d never been the one in charge.