Black Hearted, page 2
I blew out a frustrated breath. She was right.
“I’m friends with Princess Aribella of the Fall Court. I’m here on a mission to help the Spring Court princess.”
“Liar! Go away. I’d rather die here alone than trust someone from Ethereum.”
I began to walk up the steps. “How do you know where I’m from?”
“My nana told me things. Shadow magic means you’re a bad guy from Ethereum,” she called from a room off to the left.
I sighed. I couldn’t deny that I was from Ethereum. She’d seen my magic for herself, but maybe I could convince her I wasn’t bad. “I’m going to the Spring Court. Would you like a ride there? I can use my magic to get us out of this oil.”
I stood in the open doorway of the room I’d heard her voice come from and stared at the closed closet door. Black footprints covered the upper floor, along with plates, dried food, and clothes smeared with oil in the corner. No one should have to live like this, let alone a child without an adult to depend on.
“I have powerful magic,” she called back, her voice muffled from the closet. “And if you don’t leave right now, I’ll jump out and blast you with it.”
The little fae might have great power, but she sounded terrified. I didn’t want to scare her any more by taking her by force.
“Please don’t hurt me. And I promise I won’t hurt you,” I said. “I don’t know anything about this land, and I really need to get to the Spring Court to see Princess Lorelei.”
Silence.
“So you can kill her?” she asked.
I huffed a humorless half-laugh. So I can marry her was more like it. “No, so I can bring her a letter and help her destroy the curse.”
The door handle turned, creaking open. The little girl poked her sweaty red face out of the closet. “Destroy the curse?”
I nodded, holding my hands up in a gesture of peace. “I’m here on strict orders from Princesses Dawn, Aribella, and Isolde to help destroy the curse.”
She frowned. “But all those princesses are dead. That’s what Nana told me. Otherwise, the curse would have stopped by now.”
I shook my head. “They aren’t. They’re alive and doing everything they can to end the curse forever—not just for another hundred years.”
She looked me up and down, as if sizing me up. “What’s in the bag, huh?” she asked skeptically.
I opened my satchel and let her see the meager belongings inside. “The things I need to get to Princess Lorelei. Will you help me?”
She chewed her lip. “I have an aunt in the Spring Court. If you get me there safely, I won’t kill you.”
I had to control the smile that threatened to spread across my face. “Absolutely. I’d love to return you to your aunt.”
She lifted her hand, palm out, and aimed it at my chest. “I mean it. I’m really powerful. If I think my life is in danger from you at any time, I’ll kill you.”
I held my hands up again. “I will not harm a hair on your head. But I’d like to get down this mountain before night falls. I imagine it gets very dark here.”
She shivered. “Unnaturally dark.”
Squaring her shoulders she peered up at me with a steely look of determination. “Okay, fine. Let’s go. But remember—”
“You have super scary powers, and you’ll kill me if I try to hurt you,” I finished for her, and she nodded.
“Yep.”
“I’m Zane,” I said, holding out my hand and dropping the lord from my title so as not to scare her even more.
“Nellie.” She shook my hand quickly.
“Shall we go?” I offered her my hand again, but this time to help her step up out of the closet. But she shook her head and climbed down herself.
She walked over to a cupboard, grabbed something that I couldn’t see, and then tucked it inside her clothes. It must have been small.
“You okay?” I asked.
She swallowed and looked around the room and although we really had to move on, she paused and said, “It’s just my nana’s favorite necklace. I want to keep it with me.”
I realized how hard this must be for her, leaving her home in fear of what might happen to her if she stayed.
“Okay, take a few more minutes if you need it.”
But then she shook her head.
“Okay, I’m ready,” she said. And with that, we left the house.
When we reached the porch, we both stood there, black liquid almost up to Nellie’s knees and my shins. Going to the railing, I glanced out over the edge of the cliff, where the oil poured over like a dark waterfall.
Nellie hooked her hands into the straps of her backpack. “How are we getting down?”
“You ever ridden piggyback?” I asked.
She made a sour face. “Not since I was five. And that was a long time ago.”
I shrugged. “Well, how about just this once because I can’t think of another way?”
She didn’t look at all impressed with me but nodded, and I crouched down to make it easier for her. When she climbed onto my back, she pinched my ribs with her knees and hooked her arms around my neck.
“Hold on tight and close your eyes,” I told her. She did exactly that. Actually, she held on so tight that she squeezed my throat and restricted my breathing.
“Could you just release your grip a little bit?” I asked in a bit of a muffled voice.
“You just told me to hold on tight!” she huffed.
Phew, this was going to be hard work in more ways than one.
“Fine,” she said, but there was a wobble in her voice that betrayed her fear.
I hated that I didn’t know what was on the other side of this cliff. How far down did it go? How flooded was it at the bottom? I had no idea, but we couldn’t stay here, so what other choice did we have than to descend?
When I went to pull for my magic, it didn’t come at first. Fear knotted my chest, but before I could panic, a bolt of lightning grew from my palm, and the knot of dread loosened. I threaded the black lightning’s edges with shadows even as I grew it and then lassoed the large willow tree next to the cottage.
I took my time braiding the thick rope of magic so that it would hold our combined weight. I was more proficient with my lightning magic than I was with the shadows, so it had taken me a long time to figure out how to do this, but I was glad I’d had the patience to learn. This shadow-coated lightning rope was going to save both of our lives.
“Okay, don’t be afraid. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” I said as I began to wade further into the deep, oily water.
“My nana said that right before she died,” Nellie sniffled in my ear.
“Did your nana have shadow powers?” I asked her as the current of the thick substance rushed past my knees and up to my thighs as I walked down the porch steps.
“No,” she answered, and I could hear a touch of disgust in her voice. “Nobody here has powers like that.”
I was about to respond when I lost my footing, and we went down. Nellie screamed. Keeping my grip on the lightning rope, I twisted onto my stomach so that Nellie was above the liquid as it pushed us toward the edge.
“We’re okay. We’re going to go over the edge, but my lightning rope will keep us from falling. Don’t be afraid.”
“We’re gonna dieeeeee!” Nellie screamed in my ear so loudly as we went over the edge and began to free fall so quickly that I winced.
But then, just when I was hoping that the lightning rope would pull taut, it suddenly did, stopping our descent with a sharp jerk that made my shoulder ache.
We hung in midair, black oil raining down on us. Concentrating, I slowly extended the rope, trying to look down to gauge how far it was to the bottom, but every time I did, black oil dripped into my eyes.
Nellie sputtered behind me.
“Don’t swallow it,” I warned her.
“I’m trying,” she snapped, and then I felt one of her hands fall away from around my neck. She cried out.
“Keep both hands on me.” Fear gripped me as her legs slipped down my waist.
“I’m slipping! Zane!” she cried, and then she was gone—no longer hanging onto me.
A surge of desperation slammed into me, and I felt sick. It was as if time stopped, and my brain processed a million thoughts in a single second. The way she had said my name clawed at my heart. I had promised nothing would happen to her, and now …
I did the only thing I could think of.
Keeping the lightning rope connected to the tree above, I released the tension, allowing myself to plummet downward as I frantically searched the falling water below until I caught sight of Nellie, about to smack face-first into a lake of thick oil.
I pulled harder than ever before for my power. As I felt my gift respond, I flicked my free hand quickly toward her, wrapped another rope around her waist, and yanked her back up to me. The second I had her in my arms, I pulled the upper shadow rope taut, slowing our descent before jerking to a stop.
But something was wrong. I felt it briefly, and then, perhaps because my conjuring the two ropes had been too much, the one connected to the tree above snapped. We both began to fall again. Nellie’s scream didn’t last as long this time.
Luckily, we were only ten feet from the lake of oil, and we went in with a splash.
I bobbed up immediately, searching for Nellie.
“Zane, I can’t swim,” she called out, flailing in the thick oil a little ways from me.
I still had one rope attached to her, so I pulled on it, and she came closer as I treaded to keep us from sinking.
She reached me and frantically climbed onto my back, clinging to my neck. “I thought I was a goner,” she sobbed.
“You’re okay,” I said. I tried to console her, but I was shaken myself. Why had my power failed? Two ropes should not have been too much. But I hardly had time to think about it as I searched for the shore.
The lake that we’d fallen into funneled us into a river of oil. Since I could keep our heads above the thick substance, I decided to let it carry us farther down, away from the mountain. As we traveled, Nellie held on tightly, and I tried to imagine how scary this was for her. She was a young girl stuck with a strange person from another place, and she was unable to swim in a thick river of black oil. I spoke calmly to her, and eventually, she seemed to become less tense.
It wasn’t long before I saw a town with a desolate landscape. It wasn’t as bad as what we’d just come from—there were withered crops, but oil didn’t cover the ground as it had the mountain.
Pulling us from the river, I rolled onto the shore, panting as Nellie lay beside me, both of us covered head to toe in the foul stuff.
Her chest heaved as she stared at me wide-eyed. “We’re alive.”
I chuckled at her assessment. “We are.”
She peered at the town and shook her head. “Sad that Orange Hills looks like this now.”
I perked up, remembering Orange Hills on the map.
“How far is the capital of the Spring Court from here?” I asked her.
“Three or four days’ walk. Less by horse.”
We needed a horse. Lorelei was so close.
I helped her up. “Come on, let’s see if we can find some people that can help us get a horse.”
Chapter Two
Lorelei
The creaking of metal had my eyes snapping open.
I pushed myself to a seated position just as Queen Liliana strolled into the small stone cell and peered down at me.
“Oh, what a mess you’ve forced me to make.” She clicked her tongue.
I don’t think I’d ever hated anyone in my life until this moment. Dawn’s mother was positively evil. She’d kidnapped me and forced me into a cell.
“When my mother—”
Queen Liliana laughed, the sound grating on my nerves. “Your mother and father are about as useless as you are, dear. Your magic makes the world pretty, but it won’t stop this curse.”
I reached for my magic, testing the earth beneath me, searching for a seed, a root, anything I could make grow and wrap around Queen Liliana’s throat. But there was nothing. Almost like she’d taken me to a barren wasteland on purpose.
“You’re sick,” I spat. “How fierce and loyal Dawn could be your daughter, I’ll never know.”
The hurt that crossed her face had me regretting my words instantly. Losing Dawn must have been hard on her, and my words were cruel.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
But just as fast as the hurt had been on Queen Liliana’s face, it was replaced with stone-cold anger. “Lorelei, I never want to hear ‘I’m sorry’ from your mouth again. It’s weak. Like Dawn, like Aribella, like Isolde. You’re all weak,” she snapped so loud I jumped.
Reaching down, she grabbed my arm and hauled me into a standing position. The second her skin made contact with mine, I became aware of her headache. When touching people, I could detect their maladies and then heal them, but even though it went against my nature, I didn’t allow myself to heal her headache; she could live with it for how she was treating me.
As she marched me out of the cell, I glanced down at the heart locket at her throat. The glass casing held the smallest shriveled black heart I’d ever seen. A tiny purple glow emanated from it, and I felt sick now that I knew what it was. The heart of a mate of Dawn’s great-great-grandmother Mae.
If what Isolde told me was true, the princesses of Faerie had been going to Ethereum for centuries and killing their beloveds. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Queen Liliana gave me a side glance, looking disgusted with me. “You’re crying.”
I felt bad for Dawn, for what it must have been like growing up under this woman’s rule. Yet somehow, the Summer princess still managed to retain her decency.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked as we moved down a dark hallway. I had no idea where we were, only that there were no flowers or trees for miles around us. If there were, I would have been able to feel them, but instead, the energy of this place was dark, desolate, unforgiving.
When we finally stepped into the underground stone room, Queen Liliana released me, and I skidded to a stop.
We were in some sort of study. There was a desk and shelves packed with books. Texts and papers were strewn about, and in the center of the open space was the mirror portal—the one that normally sat polished in the Spring Court’s throne room. My pink moonstone dagger lay on the floor beneath the mirror.
“Did you hurt my parents? My sisters?”
My knees felt weak. I couldn’t remember much about my abduction. She’d knocked me out before I even knew what she was up to, but she would have had to fight half the castle staff to get the mirror portal out.
She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t need to. They were dumb enough to give me the mirror for training purposes.”
Training purposes …
My stomach dropped. Did my parents know she’d taken me? Had she convinced them that I was off training?
The one hope I’d been clinging to was that my mother and her guards would burst in here any moment and rescue me, but now that hope was dashed. I did not know how I would escape. But I did know what I was capable of.
Lifting my chin, I crossed my arms over my chest and leveled the queen with a hard stare. “I won’t kill any of the Ethereum lords. So asking me to go through that will be pointless.”
The look that washed over her face was nothing short of evil and caused a full-body chill to creep over my skin.
“Oh, I know that, dear.” She reached out and grasped my shoulder hard, pushing me down and forcing me to kneel before her.
“That’s why I’m going to do it. If your Ethereum lord doesn’t come for you like I hope, I’ll go into his realm and carve his black heart from his chest myself.”
Zane. The handsome man I’d met only briefly already had my heart beating frantically just thinking of him.
“Or any of the others. It’s nice that I have so many to choose from.” She grinned as she dug her nails deeper into my shoulder, and I whimpered at the pain.
“You can’t. Only a Spring Court royal can go through our portal when it opens,” I told her.
“Yes, that’s what you’re here for, dear.” Bending down, she picked up my faestone dagger and fisted it in her palm, and my heart rate spiked.
“You know, there is a lot about these daggers that is unknown— how they are capable of harnessing the power of Ethereum to open the portal home, among many other things. But I read a curious thing recently …”
I felt a tug at my navel and then a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach that caused me to keel forward, splaying out my hands to catch myself. The dagger in Queen Liliana’s fist glowed a light pink, the same color as the moonstone embedded in the hilt, and I gasped as I felt my magic being sucked from my body.
“They can also transfer power from one fae to another.” She grinned, her eyes going from blue to … purple. Like mine.
5 No.
I writhed out of her hold, trying to kick out, but it felt like someone had sliced my stomach open, and I was bleeding out all over the floor. Except it wasn’t blood, it was my magic.
I wasn’t prepared for the sudden weakness that washed over me, making my eyelids droop. My breathing slowed, and I struggled to stay conscious.
Fear flashed in Queen Liliana’s eyes when she saw how weak I was getting, and she released my shoulder just as the darkness took me.
Chapter Three
Zane
It was unnaturally quiet as Nellie and I left the oil river behind us and headed toward the town of Orange Hills. There were no birds flying through the air, no leaves rustling in the trees, no insects chirping or detectable life of any kind as we walked over the blackened, dead grass. Even the wind itself seemed to be holding its breath.
As fae, we shared a close relationship with nature. We respected and nurtured it. Some even had their magic rooted in the life-giving properties of nature itself, which I was told was the case with Lorelei and the fae in Faerie, who had seasonal-based magic. But as I looked around, it was obvious there was no life here anymore, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
