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“You will,” said the dryad. “Now give her the words, Prince. They belong to her.”
His gaze shifted to Una. As always, it made me stiffen with unease when a male looked at her with scrutiny. I had already been protective before the nightmare with Ferryn. Now, I wanted to cocoon her in our bedchamber at Näkt Mir and never let her leave. But I knew she had much to do on the quest given to her by the gods.
Tor made no protest of any kind. He stalked toward the stone, his giant wings flaring out behind him.
It was late afternoon, the sun falling behind us, the tall trees nearby casting light shadows on Solzkin’s Heart and the circle where we stood. There were no clouds in the sky even though the day was cold and crisp.
And yet, with a soft murmur of inaudible words from Torvyn, the light shifted as if it wanted to get away from the prince. The shadows moved, gathering toward the winged fae holding his palms up and facing the stone as he whispered softly.
The darkness shaded him from any light, a dome of shadow covering him entirely until we couldn’t see him at all, only an impenetrable black space where he once stood.
But above him, the engraved words on the wall shivered. The words were embedded deep in the stone, the letters themselves made of shadow. They trembled as a pulse of magick reverberated from the stone. All at once, the letters fell, sliding down the boulder.
The dryad had her hands cupped beneath the lines of runes. When there were no letters left upon Solzkin’s Heart, the stone smooth and devoid of any engravings, she stepped back and nodded to where Torvyn stood in the well of shadows.
Suddenly, the darkness surrounding the prince fled from him, the normal shadows fleeing to their normal places beneath the trees. The pressure of fae magick vanished, and a calm breeze rustled the trees.
When the prince turned, his eyes glowed even brighter than before, a piercing gold. He glanced at Vallon, who flared open his wings, before the prince turned to face me again.
“Take the words,” he said, voice devoid of any emotion. “They mean nothing to us now anyway. I suggest you take your mizrah and leave our lands quickly.”
He did not say it like a warning, but more like sage advice. Then he beat his giant wings, spanning so wide they nearly reached my Culled circling the clearing. With a slight bend of his knees, he lifted off, leaving a rush of wind in his wake.
Vallon nodded toward me. “We wish you well, King Gollaya. And your mizrah.” Then he lifted off, leaving only a gust of airthat stirred the orange leaves on the ground as the shadow fae flew over the treetops toward the Solgavia Mountains.
Una stepped toward the dryad. On instinct, I followed but kept my distance. The dryad’s business wasn’t with me, and these handmaidens of the gods—for that was what these odd fae creatures were—were testy when it came to their missions.
I thought back to the sprites at Dragul Falls, remembering how they almost refused to let me go with Una. But then my attention was immediately back on the wispy dryad, her bark-like limbs moving toward Una.
She stretched out her cupped hands, a wide smile on her face, flashing her sharp, serrated teeth.
“See. I have them for you. My goddess will be so proud.”
Una peered down in the dryad’s cupped palms. The letters had pooled into swirling black smoke, their markings indecipherable as they had melded into one vaporous mass.
“Why did Elska give this task to me?” Una, who’d been quieter since I brought her back from Windolek, asked softly. “Whyme?”
The dryad shrugged her slender wing-like shoulder. “She did not tell me.” Blinking her gem-green eyes, she then craned her viny neck down and whispered, “but I can guess.”
“Tell me,” pleaded Una.
“My goddess was very sad for a long time.”
“Why?”
“The light fae killed the dark. The dark fae killed the light. So much hatred. So much sorrow. My goddess’s heart was broken.” She widened her eyes, the leaves attached to her barky skin shivering with excitement. “I saw her whisper magick words and divide them into threes.”
“But why do that? Why hide them?”
“Because my goddess is gone. She had to go to sleep. Her heart was too broken to stay awake and deliver the spell. Shegave that job to me and to others you have met. So she hid her spell till the time was right.”
For thousands of years.
“Why me?” Una asked yet again. “It could have been anyone.”
“Yes,” the dryad agreed with a nod of her head and rustle of her leaves. “It could have been anyone. But one night, a brave young girl flew away from her home with only goodness in her heart to cure her people from a foul sickness. Her courage and goodness were repaid with pain and torture and the theft of her god-given gifts. A tragedy. A blasphemy against the gods.”
Tears streamed down Una’s face as she looked up at the dryad and listened to her own story very quietly.
