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“Have you searched toward the mountains?”
“Go there, I’ll go this way.”
The rushed voices faded as they ran back toward the heart of the camp, leaving me with my back to the blood covered carriage and my focus toward the endless tall grass and those lights off in the distance. They were calling to me, pulling with nearly as much force of the Fae.
I couldn’t move, however, not with the sensations that were now rumbling through me. The feeling of air, of light, of everything. It was the open wonderful vastness of the world flooding into me.
It was as though the world was made of light. The stars and moon that hung high in the sky made of nothing but suns for how bright the world grew, for how much all of the heat and bright fury ran through my skin.
The light exploded in a blaze I was sure would not go unnoticed. I should run, run from whatever beacon I had set into motion, but I couldn’t move. I was trapped as I faced the carriage, that gold light blasting through drapery covered windows before it all faded into nothing but a few stars and embers floating in the ebony night.
Something inside the old carriage shifted, the whole thing rocking before hushed voices seeped through the wood.
As they spoke the flood of glowing, burning, energy faded away, leaving me staring as I felt something that could not be.
Everything.
I felt everything.
Every branch of magic. Requisite, Catalyst, Fae, and twisted amongst them that same dense darkness that I could not place.
“Shhh. I’ll make it go away. Everything is alright,” a male voice hissed through the wood and I stepped closer, wishing there was a way to see through the wood, to see how eight people could fit into such a tiny carriage. But there was only one voice, one man speaking to someone who never answered.
“I will keep you safe. I promise. I’ve always promised. I’ll find a way, even if I have to kill her myself. I can’t let her stop me anymore. I can’t leave you. Please don’t go, not yet, not until I can follow.”
The words were pained, full of longing and heartbreak that I think I was only truly starting to understand. I stood there, trying to pick apart all of the magic that appeared to be so perfectly interwoven I couldn’t tell where one ended and one began. I waited for a response as I was sure the man inside did, but none came, there were no more whispered words, only silence that was carried away by the wind in the tall grass.
I stood, letting that magic twist around me, letting that feeling that I had heard in each of those words connect itself to something deep inside of me. Some kind of longing I had been refusing to accept. To understand.
I stood for too long.
The sound of steps returned, the pull of the Fae racing back toward me. This time they knew exactly where I was.
I needed to go.
Pulling myself away from the carriage, I ran, racing back to those tiny specks of light and the woman who I realized was filling me with as much longing as I heard in that man's voice. The woman who I prayed to the Goddess would have answers to what I had seen. To the tattoos, and to how I could use them… or stop them.
If I was going to face the queen, if I was going to survive this, I was going to need more help.
For the first time, I think I wanted to survive this.
I think I wanted to see what came after.
Chapter 43
Caspyn
“Lyani!” I yelled her name the moment I lifted the heavy canvas flap to her tent, barging in and instantly freezing in place at the wide expanse of bare skin that greeted me.
Lyani stood in the center of her tent, her back to me as she pulled that threadbare dress over her hips. Her back was bare, the smooth skin revealed from the beautiful curve of her hips to the nape of her neck, and every inch of it covered in swooping and swirling lines of yellow, one word set amid all of them: Alenya.
The word glowed as I entered. She gasped and turned, clutching the dress to her as she scowled. Her fury reached me in a wave, but I didn’t move, my heart setting an agonizing beat in my chest as her scent hit me head on.
“Please tell me you didn’t lose an arm or something?” She sighed in an attempt at exasperation, but I didn’t miss the worry in her voice.
“No… I just… I need…” I cleared my throat, trying to force composure. “I need you to tell me how the tattoos work.”
“Last I checked, that is not a valid reason for entering a tent so untowards.” Her tone held as much rage as her eyes did. Seeing that fury there hit something in me and my shock turned to something just as fiery as she was.
