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Then he aimed for a grove of giant black oak trees, taking us back to earth.
Chapter
Five
VALLON
Ilowered us vertically through the top branches of the old oak I’d made my home these past few months. I’d trimmed only a few of the thicker ones so that I could come and go easily enough and see the stars when I fell asleep.
From down below, no one would ever suspect there was a fae aerie stretching across one side of the tree. We were too far up and too many leaf-covered branches hid my makeshift camp.
I set Murgha on her feet and her small bag next to her. I’d scooped it up off the forest floor along with her when I was finally done arguing. Truthfully, I needed to cool off, and going airborne was the best way to find inner balance.
Murgha unsettled me, and not for the reasons I’d taken her away from that so-called father.
She instantly backed away from me, gripping a branch for support. The thick, leafy branches cradled my pallet, almost like a nest. The pallet was bare except for the layers of furs that was my bed near the trunk and the satchel I had hanging on the end of a broken branch that acted like a hook.
She stared, wide-eyed, her pulse beginning to beat faster again. Strange, the flight in the sky had calmed her when I knew it had been her first time in the air. It was only when the realitythat she was in the hands of a stranger had settled in that her fear had returned.
I lifted one of the deerskin hides and spread it out on the other side of the pallet near her. “Have a seat.”
She remained very still, staring at me warily.
“I won’t hurt you, Murgha.”
She held my gaze for a moment longer, then seemed to believe me. For the moment, at least.
After opening my satchel, I pulled out a portable fire-pit. With a twist at the bottom, the bowl opened up like flower petals, sealing into place. I set it on the flat stones beneath the opening in the branches. The stones kept the pallet from catching fire. Then I found the blue-coal in my satchel that I’d managed to barter from some wraith fae at the Borderlands.
“You have blue coal?” she asked, knowing what it was as I lit them with a match and dropped three coals into the metal pit.
“You’ve seen it before?” I asked.
She shook her head and scooted closer to peer into the bowl, reaching out her palms to feel the heat. A small smile lifted her mouth and brightened her face.
I rubbed at my sternum.
“My sister, Tessa, and I heard about it from one of our clansmen after he’d gone traveling to the Borderlands.” She peered even closer. “It really doesn’t give off any smoke?”
“No.”
“But how?” she asked, seeming both fascinated and disbelieving.
I couldn’t help but smile at her keen curiosity. “Something about the properties of Vixet Krone make it the perfect element to provide warmth while never producing smoke. Just like the black steel that comes from there as well. It is the strongest metal on earth.” I unbuckled my belt and set my blade aside.
“Vix’s magick then.”
“Mm,” I agreed wordlessly.
“Why was Vixet Krone so special?” she asked.
Watching the blue light from the coal-fire gild her soft features, I shifted to wrap my arms at my knees, flaring my wings for balance. Her gaze skimmed over my wings then returned to me.
“Vixet Krone was once a volcano that covered a vast territory of Northgall. Legends say the god Vix lived beneath it with his mate, Mizrah.”
“I’ve heard of her. That’s what they call the wraith king’s concubine, is it not?”
“Past wraith kings, yes.” I remembered that last meeting with the new wraith king and that look in his gaze he set upon his Mizrah Una. “However, King Gollaya has become a different kind of wraith king.”
