In the Shadow of a Wish, page 34
“Yes.”
“Is it yours? I’m sorry. I thought–”
He laughed, shook his head, and continued toward her, steady now. “It’s your key.”
“But–”
And then he was finally standing before her, and she took her first easy breath, which was odd considering he was a stranger, this Nix.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
Auri looked up from the key to his face and searched the depth of his dark eyes flecked with traces of gold, looking for something she recognized. Her heart palpitated, a warm glow heating her at the center of her chest and spreading outward. “Remember what? What am I supposed to remember?”
Nix pressed his hand against his heart and studied her. He seemed to want to tell her something, but hesitated. Then he dropped his hand to his side, seemingly at a loss, unsure and unsteady. He took a deep breath, and Auri had the impression this wasn’t how he usually felt about things.
“You said we’ve met before?”
“May I tell you a story?” he asked.
She nodded.
“It’s a bit long. May we sit?” He gestured to the boulders several steps from them.
They sat side by side, not touching. Auri thought it was curious she wished they were and chastised herself because he was a stranger. In the woods!
“It’s a magical story. Maybe you won’t believe it, but when I finish, you can ask me any question you wish.”
Auri nodded. “Okay.”
Nix told her of a magic key on which a spell had been placed. A woman came along and discovered the key, unknowing that the moment she touched it, she became a part of the enchantment placed on the key. Inside, she found a trapped god.
Auri squeezed the key in hand as he continued. She liked the feel of his warmth near her so much so, she wanted to lean toward him, but didn’t. She liked the sound of his voice as he spoke, and her heart danced in her chest with inexplicable familiarity. She liked the story, which was vaguely familiar, like a dream.
He said the woman was given three wishes and forced to pay three prices for making them, but it was the only way she would be able to leave the enchantment. So, she made three wishes: freedom, bravery, and wisdom. To be free of the enchantment, she was given a final test: she could choose her own path and leave the god trapped, or she could choose the hero’s path to free the trapped god.
To finish the story, he asked Auri, “Do you know which she chose?”
Auri thought for a moment, but it wasn’t difficult to choose. “She wished for freedom, bravery, and wisdom. I think she chose the hero’s path.”
“Why do you think so?” Nix asked, looking down at his hands clasped in his lap.
“If you told me she’d wished for things like wealth, long life, or material possessions, I would think the wishes would describe someone who would choose their own path.” She turned her head to look at him again.
He smiled, and his eyes moved across her features. “You are correct.”
“I liked that story.”
“That’s the story of how we met.” He nodded to the key.
“It reminds me of a dream. I had a dream,” she said, then stopped. The dream. His words finally connected: That’s the story of how we met. Her eyes snapped to his face. “I know you.”
“Auri?” Nix reached out and touched her hand.
A spark of electricity ignited a rush of energy from the place his skin touched hers, burning up through her skin straight to her heart and spreading outward like rays of the sun. The light ignited, and images of Nix, of being together, of the spell and the maze, the ocean, the library, his smile, his hands, their kisses, making love, and ‘I love you,’ hit her like a wave.
She blinked, as if suddenly awake.
It hadn’t been a dream.
It was real.
With a jolt, she stood and turned to face him. “What took you so long?”
He stood, and a smile spread across his face. “You remember?”
“Oh my stars, I do. I do. I feel it here.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “What took you so long, Nixus?” Then she leapt into his arms, crashing against him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. His arms curled around her, holding her to his chest as his face dropped to her neck. She could feel his warmth all over now, and for the first time since waking up, her heart was just right.
“In the spell,” she said, “I didn’t know what happened to you. Then I was just pushed out. And when I woke up, I didn’t remember anything. I thought I’d had a dream,” she said, the flow of her thoughts a string that took them from one point to the next. “What took you so long?” she repeated, leaning back to look at his beautiful face.
He laughed, his eyes brightening, now swirling with threads of the same golden light she felt swirling inside of her. “I had some healing to do.”
“But I thought you were a god?”
“I also had some vengeance to exact and some revenge to take.” He smoothed the fabric of her jacket on her back with his hand. “Then I had to break Luc out of god jail. Then we waited and waited because we couldn’t find you—until today.”
She looked up at him and dove into the familiarity of her dream, into the realization that it had all been true. “I thought I’d only dreamed you.”
“Auri, you saved me. You saved my brother and sister. You saved your family.”
She realized she had. No Marriage Law, though now there were new challenges to face. The emerald had made a difference in their lives. She squeezed the key in her palm. The golden key that had brought her Nix. “I would do it again,” she said. “It brought me you.”
“It’s my turn to save you. I’m the god.”
“Such hubris,” she smiled. “And arrogance.”
Standing chest to chest in the middle of the meadow, she felt shy, suddenly. Tentative. Wanting to touch his face, feel his lips under her thumb, then under her own. Her heart snapped to attention and marched forward, and she pressed her palm to his face. Nix leaned into her touch, his eyes slipping closed as if that had all he needed to remain alive.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I woke up at home.”
“In Elcadia?”
“You remember?”
“You helped me remember.”
Nix released her, and she slid down the front of his body until her feet hit the ground. He pressed a hand over hers as he said her name, his eyes dancing over her features.
“I missed you,” she said. “It hurt.”
With the hand covering hers, he reached out and slid it over her hair, down her braid, curling his fingers around it. His eyes trailed the movement, then jumped back to hers, her braid still in his hand. “It was real? Yes? I was afraid maybe I’d made it up, and the pain in my chest was from something else. That maybe I was just sick. But you… You really said you loved me?”
Tears filled her eyes, hearing his words, feeling that love like a fire under her skin. She nodded. “Yes.”
With the hand holding the braid, he grasped the back of her neck and kissed her, his mouth finishing the story. She grabbed onto his shoulders, steadying herself but also to reassure herself he was there. He was real, this was real and not her imagination. He angled his head, and she hers, seeking depth, more, reorienting, tasting, taking, claiming.
Nix pulled away and pressed his forehead to hers, his hand still wrapped around the back of her neck, keeping her close, the other angled around her back. “Nothing has changed for me, Auri. I could think of nothing else while we were apart, the fear that maybe you hadn’t made it out. Lexa said the last she saw, you were facing down the monster, and–” He stopped and took her face in his hands again. “I feared the spell had broken with you inside, that the sacrifice had been you.” The last word broke off in his throat, and starlight filled his eyes as a single droplet dripped down his cheek. “I was ready to search the underworld for you.”
Auri reached up and swiped at his cheek, collecting the stardust on her thumb. “The spell released me because I had given myself to it, freely, for you. It was my final test.”
He kissed her again. Deeper, with a hunger that awakened the parts of her she’d cocooned to protect her heart. He picked her up, but in her skirts, it was hard to get closer.
“I miss your trousers,” he muttered in her mouth.
She smiled against his lips.
“Auri. You are mine.” He kissed her.
“Yes.” She kissed him.
“I am yours.” He kissed her again.
“Yes.” She kissed him back.
“Come back to Elcadia with me.” He kissed her with a tenderness that stole her breath.
She found her breath to say, “I’m a mortal.” Then she kissed him in kind, wanting him to feel as warm as she did.
He pulled away, his eyes roving over her face, and he seemed to want to say something but didn’t. He waited a beat, then said, “I want you however you will allow me to be in your life. I would like to gift you immortality, but it is your choice. Know that if you refuse me, I will take to following you through the woods just to be near you.”
“That sounds rather unhealthy.”
He grinned. “I am a god. I do self-centered things and make selfish choices, remember?”
“I don’t think I can just go to Elcadia. Not yet. My family.” She paused and grabbed his face as he started to look away. “But, I consent to allow you to court me, Nixus Uraiahs. Until my family knows you–”
“Court you?” His eyes widened.
“I think we need to test out if this is real, or a product of a stressful situation.
“Oh, Auri, believe me, this is real. You have no idea how real this is.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to prove it to me. On the outside.” She turned away from him and started across the meadow toward her sled.
Nix materialized in front of her. “I read a book about courtship.” His smile—that predatory one that made her throb—pinned her. “Do you remember when I told you I love to play chase, but I always win.”
She smiled. “Yes.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the nose. “I’m looking forward to seeing you try.”
The dank cavern didn’t dissuade the cloaked figure standing amidst the flickering candles from completing the spell. He’d spent a thousand lifetimes hiding his true nature and power, in caves, dark rooms below buildings, towers in castles away from prying eyes, and dungeons, which proved to be the right place to incant. Then he hid in plain sight, smiling at the glory that offered him acceptance and praise among the masses in the light of day, providing him riches beyond measure. Little did they know, he could end them with a wish, a word, and the snap of his fingers.
Within the chalk drawing, he chanted the spell and closed his eyes, and when they opened again, he was seeing through the eyes of the nearest bird while his body remained in the cavern surrounded by stalactites. The whites of his eyes flashed open, the iris and pupil gone. The bird pushed off the branch and flew through the cityscape.
“Find her,” he ordered and incanted the rest of the spell.
This spell had been used in realm after realm, world after world, looking for the woman who’d double-crossed him. The daughter of a god and a goddess, who had lost her immortality for love. She’d made him a deal and then disappeared.
For decades he’d cast spells, scried, traveled, employed darklings, and other magical creatures in the hopes of finding her. She would pay the price she’d agreed to for the power he’d added to her own, and yet, she’d eluded him somehow.
The wizard jumped into the next bird over farmland, and the next skimming the swath of a river, and the next as it traveled across the forested terrain of Kaloma. He was looking for the tell-tale gold dust of magic, the aura of its remnants, for surely with as much power as he’d gifted her, there would be evidence. His possessed vision offered him the beauty of the land, but not the sight he wanted. It wasn’t the magic he wanted back. He wanted what she’d promised him. He would never stop looking. He would find her and take what was most important to her as his own.
He transferred his sight to a nearby crow. The bird swooped lower into a northern wood, and though in the cavern, he shivered at the snow. The bird flew to a branch, and perched, watching a young woman pull a sled over the frozen terrain. It wasn’t the woman—a stranger—that stopped his heart, but the aura shrouding her.
Magic.
The bird cocked its head, swiveling to watch the girl surrounded in emerald. She paused, looked around as if she sensed him there, watching, then moved on.
He was taken aback by the emerald aura, but looking closer, nestled inside its subdued light, the gold dust was contained. A ward, only it was broken, the gold working its way to the surface. So, he sat and watched from the branch. Watched as she disappeared into a glen. Watched as a man—whose power emanated like an actual star fallen to earth—a god—approached her. The cloaked wizard observed the magical threads of their life forces swirl around one another and her emerald surged to join with the god’s starlight, making them difficult to look at.
She was magic.
The watcher wondered if he’d finally found where his power had been taken. It was the first time in all his years of seeking that he had hope that he was finally on the right path. He needed more information, he knew. He needed to know if the thief was here, hiding. So, he sat in the tree and watched, following the emerald girl to a wall in the woods, where she disappeared behind a magical wall, invisible to him once again.
He blinked, leaving the bird, and returned to his tired body. The moment he did, he collapsed inside the chalk lines, the candles burned down to nubs. He wasn’t sure how long he’d engaged the spell, but he was hungry.
He smiled. He knew where he needed to go, and he would make her pay.
Tarley, second daughter of Scarlett and Tomas Fareview, wasn’t sure if she liked the man sitting across from her youngest sister Aurielle. As Tarley stood at the barrel of ale, waiting for the last of the four tankards to fill, her eyes drifted to Auri, ensconced at a table in a darkened corner of the inn with her suitor. It may have been the middle of the day, but the inn was shrouded in the dark ambiance of too much stone and wood and not enough light. Despite that, Tarley still attempted to assess what was happening between Auri and her suitor in their dark corner. Tarley was protective of her little sister, and she didn’t trust easily—especially men.
It had been a little less than an hour ago that Auri had shown up at the back door to the kitchen of The Copper Pot Inn, asking for Tarley to cover for her.
“Auri, Mother is going to kill you.” Tarley had lowered her voice so that the words sounded like air escaping from her throat.
“Tarley, please?” Auri had clasped her hands between her breasts, which were nicely displayed in the scooped neckline of her dress, and begged Tarley with her gray eyes. “It’s just an outing, which Mother makes impossible.”
Tarley had rolled her eyes.
Auri wasn’t supposed to be beyond the hedge where they all lived with their parents. Since Auri’s Great Nap Escapade—falling asleep in the woods and losing her red ribbon, a gift from their mother—she’d been relegated to “around the cottage duties.”
“Do you think I want to cross Mother?” Tarley had glanced over her shoulder at the empty kitchen, thinking their mother might materialize. But it had been empty. Even Mrs. Barnwell had been momentarily missing from the room. Tarley had turned back to Auri. “Don’t be daft! She’ll have me as your second in tincture making, relegated to remaining behind the hedge.” Tarley had shuddered. “No thank you.”
Auri had stepped through the doorway and straightened her skirts as if Tarley had already said ‘yes.’ “Mother was called to Denneby and took Jessamine with her. They’ll be gone two days at least. And Brinna won’t tell. Besides, she and Papa and Mattias are out in the woods today.”
Tarley hadn’t liked the chicanery, but she also understood. Auri was a grown woman. How could she blame Auri for needing to get out? She did the same—her overnight fishing trips kept her sane. Tarley was sure Auri felt a bit like a prisoner. She would.
“Are you meeting the mysterious stranger you’ve mentioned?” Tarley had asked, recalling Auri’s giddiness a few night prior. The only question in her mind as Auri had regaled them with minor and evasive tidbits was How? How could her sister have met anyone? And in Sevens!
Auri had nodded as a bright smile lit up her face. “Yes!” She’d grabbed Tarley’s forearms and shaken her with excitement. “You’ll get to meet him. And I’m safe. Nothing bad will happen. I promise.”
“Famous last words.” Tarley had arched an eyebrow. “How did you meet him again?”
“Oh–” Auri had looked away and fussed with her skirts again. “On a trip to town.”
Recognizing her sister’s lie, Tarley had narrowed her eyes. “That you never make anymore.” Tarley had grabbed at her own wrist, grateful the ribbon was still there.
Her sister had looked—begged Tarley with that look—to acquiesce, which Tarley had done with a nod.
Auri had flown against her, wrapping Tarley in a hug. “Thank you. I will owe you.”
“Just so we’re clear, I don’t trust any man.”
“This one, you can.” Auri had stepped away and backed out of the kitchen.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Now, nearly an hour later, Tarley watched the dark-haired man across from her sister smile, lean forward across the table, and touch Auri’s cheek. His touch lingered, his thumb so near Auri’s mouth. It was such a familiar gesture, Tarley almost felt the need to look away due to the intimacy of it, but she didn’t. Worried her sister was being duped by this handsome newcomer to Sevens, Tarley struggled to piece together Auri’s timeline. None of it made sense, and that touch suggested they knew one another. Perhaps better than Auri was letting on. Unless she was a bigger fool than Tarley took her for.
Goodness, he was handsome, to be sure. He could probably sway a blind woman without saying a word. Then he would open his mouth and ensnare the deaf woman too. More handsome than a man had the right to be, with that bronze skin dusted with a day-old beard, dark eyes, dark head of unruly curls, and those unconventional dark clothes. It all added to his mystique.
