Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
The only sign of the Fae was the wooden bridge that crossed the creek, made from the branches at the edge of the forest. It had not sprouted out of the branches of the trees but had been Made. She didn’t know how, but she knew that the word was a formal name. Not created with hands, skill, and ingenuity, but Made with magic. The magic of her people.
The want struck her like nothing she had ever known.
If she took one step forward, she would be in Faerie. She would be home. And she would never have to return to this hard, horrible life.
She considered it, felt the pull to return to the motherland like a vice around her throat. And still she hesitated.
Anything that looked too good to be true usually was. Her life was not as horrible as the spell in Faerie made it seem to be. And anyway, here she had friends and family and her love. Her people were gone, but she had found her own people in the process.
All at once, the rest of the world returned in a roaring din. A cacophony that made her want to cover her sensitive pointed ears and blast them all backward.
But it was the voice of her love that rang true. “Step away from the door, Wren.”
Kierse looked at him. Graves. The man she loved. But she didn’t step away. She remained fixed to where she was. Saw the fear in his eyes. In Lorcan’s eyes. And all of her friends. Saw the moment when Gen and Ethan looked like they would jump through the door with her.
She couldn’t let them.
Faerie was for the Fae.
“No,” she said, holding her hand up.
Roots grew up out of the ground and wound their way around Gen and Ethan’s feet. Kierse’s eyes rounded in horror as they remained rooted to the spot.
“Kierse!” Gen gasped.
Ethan tried to use his own magic to make the plants listen to him but to no avail.
“You have to stop this,” Lorcan said. “This is too much magic for you.”
“You’re going to burn out,” Graves agreed. “Please, just…close the door.”
But she couldn’t.
She could see the pleading in their eyes. The terror they tried to mask. But she couldn’t stop. She still didn’t have enough to break the bond. Even with Faerie feeding her magic, she still was lacking. If she just…pulled…
The magic from the otherworld answered her call like plucking the petals off a daisy. At first, one at a time, and then ripped free by the fistful.
Kierse gasped as the Faerie realm went from a trickle to a full deluge, the glistening golden magic colliding with her body in a wave that pulled her physically off her feet. Her arms went wide, her head tipped up, and her body suspended, rising into the air as the voices around her cried in alarm.
The bond was there at her fingertips. Just a shimmery thread that guided her back to her soulmate. The other half of her whole.
And even Faerie recognized it for what it was. The significance of such a thing. Because when she plucked at it, Faerie recoiled. The mating bond to Fae was as important as the otherworld itself. It was sacrosanct, inviolable, and sacred. A fact of their life so profound that no one had ever even asked how to break one.
“Leave it,” Nuala said into her mind.
“I just need a little more,” she said.
There was so much more magic that she could take. So much more that Faerie had to give. Power. She had the power. Just as the stone had told her. It had to be enough. It just had to.
“Kierse, please,” Gen cried, tears trickling down her cheeks.
“We have to break the triskel,” Ethan called.
“We can’t,” Gen said. “I can’t do anything.”
“If you break it, you could kill her,” Niamh said in horror.
“It will kill her,” Lorcan said. “We have to get to her another way.”
“Wren,” Graves said, taking another step toward her. His hair blew backward at the sudden gust of wind, the torrent of her own magic circling the room like the eye of a tornado.
“Wren, can you hear me?”
She could. She could hear him.
But she was too far gone to respond. She could barely comprehend what they said. They were like ants to a human as she levitated bodily at the heart of the bank. Nuala’s branches expanded as if to reach for her and all of her magnificence in the moment.
“Kierse, please, come down,” Lorcan said into her mind.
But she blocked him from her as simply as he had all those months earlier. Removed his access from her.
“No,” she whispered, the last words from her lips.
Blood flowed from her nose and out of her mouth. A warm current that she just dimly recognized to belong to her. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, as a darkness settled over them. The irises blasting out to accommodate her entire line of sight.