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He posed there as though this was his throne room, the aire of him as he stood there smiling making all of my magic compete for space.
Vaelar, the Fae King, looked every bit his role. This was not the monster from my childhood, or the warrior from the flop house, this man was dressed in a tunic of delicately embroidered blue, every inch of him scrubbed and laced. His golden hair fell loose down to the middle of his back, sharp pointed ears on display as he stood surrounded by priestesses. Not one of them cared that a Fae was standing in the middle of them.
There were at least twenty, all of them backing away as I entered the Temple, their faces hidden behind large white ruched hoods.
“Ah, I was hoping I would meet you here, Caspyn.” Vaelar smirked, his straight white teeth glinting as bright as the stone walls. It made me want to find a way to remove them from his head, preferably with my fist.
“How do you know my name?” I snarled, I didn’t remember giving him my name before. Everything prickled over my spine as I unsheathed my weapons and stepped closer. I didn’t even care if the priestesses saw, not that they did anything. They simply backed up further, keeping themselves in a wide circle around us.
“Oh, we have met many times since that first encounter.” He was still calm, too calm. “Not that you have walked through those times yet. But you will. How many times have we met for you?”
Why was he smiling? He should not be smiling. Where was that fury from before, that hatred that dripped from him as he vowed to end me. He almost looked happy to see me, perhaps he had forgotten before.
Well, I hadn’t forgotten.
Not the last time.
And certainly not the time before that.
I knew now that not all Fae were bad, Ryndle had taught me that, but this one was. I didn’t care what Ryndle said about him being under Dalyah’s control when I had first encountered him, he had still been the one to kill her.
“Twice,” the ground rumbled below me as I spun my weapons, taking one step forward as he took a step back. “This time I will make sure to be successful in what I wasn’t before.”
“Oh.” His face fell. “That explains it then.” He took another step back, his smile pressing together. The corner of his lips twitched as something brewed within him. “Still, I have a job to do.”
He ran before I could take another step.
Fucking coward! Like hell if I would let him slip by me. At least now I knew his tricks. Now, I was prepared.
I took off running, blades held out before me, only to skid to a stop as the priestesses closed in around me, their jaws moving below those low hoods as they mumbled something that I couldn’t make out. What I did hear was more like gibberish than actual words.
“Let me by!” I roared, the women's chants reducing to screams as I shoved them to the ground. I left them there as I ran, chasing down that power that was pulling me through the Temple as though I was on a rope.
The Temple was not only the main hall, it was a winding maze of white, the stone walls covered with carved panels of women and forests and wars and animals that all became a blur as I ran through them, winding through one hall after another.
It didn’t take me long to realize that even though I had a tether to follow, I had no idea where I was. The bowels of this temple were a maze, and in my fury I had run in blind. He had trapped me. I would be mad, but I was already furious, which is exactly how I had ended up in this place.
I roared as that pull split in different directions, leaving me standing between two different hallways, a mural of three people standing before trees or orbs or who they hell knew what stretched between them. I didn’t care about any of it. All that mattered was that damn Fae.
“Vaelar!” I roared, my fury echoing off the walls and sending everything shaking as the magic of Okivo roared its way to the surface.
“Over here, Caspyn!” His voice came back in an echo that sounded close to a laugh and I turned, racing down yet another white corridor, this one lined with carvings of trees identical to the red Forest of Ok that stretched before the Temple walls, even the tiny buds of golden leaves were cut into the stone.
“Caspyn,” he yelled back again, his voice coming from a completely different direction as his magic jumped. “I hate to do this to you, but I do need you to listen to me.”
I growled as I turned again, running a different direction only to skid to a stop.
“Why would I listen to you?” I snarled, spinning my blades as I imagined the sharp edge cutting through him. My hands ached with the need to spill his blood. To watch it flow over the white of the tile in beautiful little rivers.
“Because I know what’s coming for you, and I know what path you need to travel down, Caspyn Light Bringer.”
I may have branded the name and title on my skin, but I was not interested in hearing it from him.
Never from him.
“Don’t call me that.” My snarl was nowhere near enough to drown out his laugh.
I froze in place as his laugh echoed back to me, the sound of my snarl matched with that of his chuckle as it echoed from who knew where. Every few steps, the pulse of his magic would move, leaving me standing in place before a large mural of what I could only assume was the Goddess, the crown on her head looking like sharp knives, the long dress she wore slinking over what I could only assume were the corpses of Fae.
