Aerisian Refrain, page 29
part #1 of Beyond the Sunset Series
The fairy had been watching me sympathetically. “If it helps,” she said, “I do not think Lord Cole mistrusts you as do the other Simathe. Of them all, he alone stood by your side when Braisley brought accusations against you. He spoke for you.”
Ruthlessly, I squashed the flame of hope that flared.
“He was just trying to stay in my good graces so he could keep gathering more information, I’m sure,” I responded bitterly.
My brain hurt, my heart hurt, as memories overwhelmed me of him dashing to my side when the Raven had accosted me, of holding me afterward, kissing my hair…
He kissed me…
My throat closed off. I had to remind myself to breathe.
It must have all been an act. I just didn’t see him as that type. I misread him completely. I was blind and naïve and stupid.
The fairy laughed outright, surprising me.
“You know him not a whit if you think Simathe care about staying in anyone’s good graces. Had he wanted to gather information in secret, he could have watched you for the rest of your life and you would not have known. Were I to venture a guess, I would say he is following duty but at the cost of desire.”
Desire?
My head came up sharply.
Aureeyah shrugged. “I am an ancient being, my dear, nearly as old as the land itself. I have learned a thing or two about humanity—in all its forms—and their ways of love and longing. Long before Hannah ever looked with favor upon the Simathe High-Chief, I warned her where her heart might lead. She laughed at me then. Now she sleeps in his arms at night.
“All I am saying is, do not judge Lord Cole too harshly. I think, were the truth known, he was placed in an untenable position. He is a man of character. He was honor bound to serve Treygon, but he would not have shown you the kindness he has were he not…” She thinned her lips, searching for the right word. “…quite—quite taken by you.”
My eyes stung and I blinked rapidly to hold the tears at bay. Don’t you dare cry, I chided myself.
I didn’t even know why I wanted to cry. Because of the pain, or because of the hope that refused to die, roused by the fairy’s assessment? Overwrought emotions from everything I’d gone through tonight? And it wasn’t even over. Aureeyah hadn’t finished her story. There was more I needed to know.
Roughly, I cleared my throat, determined to set it aside and deal with this later. “Well, none of that matters very much, does it? Not in comparison to everything else. Can you finish explaining why some people could see me and some couldn’t? Why Hannah had no problem seeing me?”
Aureeyah knew what I was doing. I could tell by how she looked at me, with pity. Nevertheless, she went along with it, delving back into our former conversation.
“I suspect Lady Hannah had no difficulty with your magic because she is the Artan, which supersedes all. Either that, or simply because she is from Earth and, thus, not bound to the curse we placed upon the male fairies. The Moonkind could not see you, yes? Our curse worked for them, albeit not for her, who carries Moonkind blood.
“As for the Simathe? They are not human as other Aerisians are. Although mentally they remembered the ravens, when we banished the male fairies and their memory, their magic was banished, as well, and its memory, its power. When you arrived, the Simathe who were alive in those days—such as the Chief Captain—were nearly as susceptible to your magic as the common folk. Perhaps they sensed it, as Lord Norband seemed to sense you, but even they could not pierce the wards we cast.”
“But Cole could.”
“Cole is far younger than the other lords,” Aureeyah explained. “Although his years are considerable, he is but a youth in comparison to some of them.”
Cole, a youth? That description almost made me smile. There was nothing youthful about him, any more than there was anything old about him. Like the other Simathe I’d seen, like the fairies themselves, there was an agelessness to him. Although, to be fair, even in appearance he wasn’t as calcified as his fellow Simathe lords. Whether that was due to his age or him having a slightly different temperament, I didn’t know.
“Then what you’re saying is because he wasn’t born when all this took place, the memory of the magic wasn’t banished for him. He’s not a normal human, so the curse didn’t affect him as strongly as it did everyone else.”
“Precisely.”
“And the Chief Captain guessed from the beginning that my mysterious powers were tied to the ravens, I take it, because of how my magic worked differently on Cole and him?”
The fairy nodded.
“Why not lock me away, or confront me about it from the start? Why wait?”
“He would be sure,” Aureeyah replied. “We all had to be sure before we levelled an accusation of such magnitude against you.”
“So, in the meanwhile, he put Cole on me and decided to hate me for something I have no control over?”
“I doubt the Chief Captain hates you. Fear and hatred are entirely different things.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I muttered, thinking of Lord Norband’s icy demeanor.
“Just what was the Simathes’ role in all this, anyway?” I asked next. “What’s their stake in this? They seem to be every bit as deep into it as you fairies are.”
I could’ve been mistaken, but I thought the fairy’s expression closed off at that question.
“They merely supported us,” she replied. “As one band of immortals supporting another for the good of the land.”
Did I detect some hesitation in her voice?
I didn’t press her. What did it matter, really? What was done was done, and the Simathes’ role had nothing to do with me, anyway. Except for them disliking me and mistrusting me from the beginning. Sic’ing Cole on me to keep track of my movements.
Again, pain blasted a hole through my heart. His little kindnesses: that awful drink in the mornings that helped with caffeine withdrawals, his being at the gates, telling the guards to let me out, his guiding me through the palace during my first days there when I’d had no idea which way was up or down.
How much of that was him being him, and how much was an excuse to get close to me so he could keep an eye on me?
I might never know.
“Tell me something else,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “Why do you call him, the leader of the male fairies, the Raven? Why don’t you call him by his name?”
“You have seen his appearance, yes? You think it is not fitting?”
“It is, but surely he’s got a name, too.”
“Some names contain great power,” Aureeyah said solemnly. “We do not name those we banished, lest we invite them to break free of their prison.”
“He’s already broken free.”
“And he shall remain nameless,” she replied, getting to her feet, “he and all the rest. We will not give them more power than they already have. Come.” She beckoned to me. “The night is not old and I would show you more.”
Chapter 39
The Grotto
By this point, walking through a transporting door felt as natural as breathing. I didn’t understand it, but decided Aureeyah was right: my powers, whatever they were, must be awakening. Not just awakening, but taking over.
“Like a sense,” Aureeyah expounded. “At times, we must strain our senses, but in general our senses are a natural part of us. Without conscious thought, we make use of them.”
“Was it this easy for Hannah to learn to use her magic?” I asked.
This made the fairy chuckle. “Oh no. Poor Lady Hannah. In the beginning, she was like you. Occasionally using it without knowing why or what she did. Even when we began to instruct her in the use of it she had difficulties, but that was because her magic worked in ways unexpected by she, or I, or anyone else. Once we learned that, she grew apace.”
We were standing on a cliff ledge next to the entrance of a cave. Aureeyah didn’t know it, but I was kind of stalling. I didn’t like dark, enclosed places. Not that I’d personally had any traumatic experiences with them, but I remembered Daddy telling stories of exploring caves as a boy, and how one of his friends had gotten separated from the group. They’d spent hours crawling around in tight places, avoiding snakes and other critters, before his friend was found.
That was enough to sour me on caves and tight, dark places. I didn’t want to enter this one, even with a fairy beside me. Both the moonlight glinting on the quartz and the fairy’s soft green aura could make even a creepy cave look magical, but I was still reluctant when my companion said,
“Shall we enter?”
Do we have to?
I bit my tongue, steeling my nerves, and followed her anyway.
“Light,” she ordered, once we’d passed into the stone corridor, and a glowing orb appeared in her hand.
Between that and the glow of her aura there was plenty of light to see by, but I was still unhappy as I trudged after her. Thankfully, the walk was short. We stepped out onto another ledge and an entire new world spread before us. Aureeyah waved her hand, and the orb disappeared. It wasn’t needed. I was gazing at an enormous, underground palace. Only magic could’ve created a place like this, deep in the heart of a mountain. Fairy magic had worked with the cave’s natural contours, twisting stalactites and stalagmites into whimsical columns and rows of colossal pillars.
At the far end of the chamber, a mighty underground river gushed into the cave, pouring through the rows of columns in a blue-green tide capped with white froth. It pooled at the bottom, swirling and restless, until it leaked out and vanished into a wide crevice in the floor, continuing its journey to wherever underground rivers go. Great rocks, shaped like dinner plates, formed smooth, flat steps that ascended into the upper reaches of the grotto, where upper tiers had been sculpted into balconies. In the middle of the chamber floor, next to the pool, was an oval table of stone like polished glass that reflected back the glistening water and the twinkling lights of the hundreds of tiny pixie-fairies that dotted the scene like lightning bugs.
“This is the Grotto, our most sacred place,” Aureeyah informed me, her voice hushed. “It is here we meet to discuss our work and plan for the future. It is here that fairy duties and responsibilities are dispensed. Here do we take the oath to protect and heal this land and never to harm it. Any disputes and disagreements are settled in this place. It a place of harmony where we come to be reminded we are a sisterhood united in a common purpose: the good of Aerisia.”
“Why are you showing me this?” I whispered.
She turned to me, and in her eyes was a terrible sadness. “Come,” she beckoned, and retreated back the way we came. I followed her, even though she didn’t bother to summon a light orb. She didn’t speak again until we were back on the ledge at the entrance to the grotto.
“I showed you this because what I am going to show you next is where our former brothers used to meet. This is where we assembled. I am going to show you where they met, to help you understand what happened to the male fairies, your ancestors, and why. However, I must first see if you are able to call on your magic.”
“Call on it?”
“Consciously,” she replied. “You have been using it without thought. Where I would take you, for you to see what I wish you to see, you must summon it. I cannot do it for you. Rather, I cannot do it alone.”
“I don’t get it. You want to teach me to use my magic? Isn’t that exactly what you all have been afraid of? That I’ll learn to use my magic and turn it against Aerisia?”
The fairy wasn’t put off by the bitterness in my tones, bitterness I didn’t even try to hide. What kind of game was she playing?
“I’ve a feeling, my dear, you must needs learn control of your gifts or your gifts will control you. What I am teaching you is not full possession of your powers. There is a quality to your powers that I cannot teach you. It differs from my own, so you must figure out for yourself. Using your voice, as the Raven told you. Finding your voice. Finding the song…that is their magic. We female fairies work with nature, for we are part and parcel of it. The Ravens? They sought to manipulate the power of magic itself. And they did it through music.”
“Through music?”
I felt a shiver roll down my spine, whether from the fairy’s confirming my magic and my music were definitely tied, or from a chilly night breeze.
“Music is a most powerful weapon,” she said solemnly, “especially to humans. They are easily swayed by it. A happy song? They are happy. A sad song? They are sad. And so on and on it goes.”
I nodded. I knew exactly what she was talking about. For years, I’d manipulated audiences of thousands, tens of thousands, through the power of my voice, through music. From personal experience, I would agree it was one of the most powerful forces in existence. Was there magic in that alone, even on Earth?
“Do you recall Braisley mentioning your voice and your power and how that was proof of your heritage? The long and short of it is,” the fairy continued, “the male fairies, the ravens, discovered that rather than working with nature as my sisters do, they could manipulate it. I told you the Raven himself was king of all things feathered and fowl, yes? What are such creatures noted for? Flight, birdsong, music,” she answered, without waiting for me to reply. “They have voices and melodies unique in all of nature. The ravens started there and pushed onward. They discovered the music, the rhythm of nature. The sough of the winter wind through frozen branches. The rush of a summer breeze through a bough full of leaves. The individual song of each bird. The chirping of frogs. The droning of insects. The clopping of hooves on bare dirt. The dripping of rain drops. The crash of ocean waves against the shoreline…”
I nodded along to each item Aureeyah listed. I knew those sounds. Although my homes had been in major cities during my career, where the sounds of humanity overpowered those of nature, I’d grown up in the middle of nowhere. Nature and I were old friends. I knew its beauty and its power and its noises. Its voice.
“I could go on and on,” Aureeyah said, “but there is no need. I can see that you understand. In interpreting nature’s music, they were able to combine it with their power, drawn from nature itself. They could then channel it into other forms of music, combining them all, calling on the power of them both.” She looked me dead in the eye. “You are the living product of their discoveries. They worked magic in ways it was not meant to be worked, summoning the power of music to manipulate both humans and nature.”
Considering her words, I thought of all the crowds for whom I’d performed over the years. The headlines about my rise to fame always screamed the same things: unprecedented. Never before seen. Extraordinary. Everyone agreed—they’d never seen an overnight rise to fame like mine that didn’t result in a one hit wonder or falling off the map within a couple of years. My staying power had not only lingered, but risen year by year, keeping stadiums full and my name at the top of the charts.
Manipulation. Sheer and simple manipulation. Not through any fault of mine, but from my ancestors, on both my parents’ sides. Ancestors whose blood carried the latent power of a supernatural race who had figured out how to manipulate music, manipulate power. No wonder, then, in this world my music had summoned fairies. It had called to dragons. Whatever powers flowed through my veins had enabled me to bond with arguably the most powerful beast in nature: a dragon. The potential for such power was astounding. It was frightening.
“Are you saying,” I said slowly, “that through my music, I could hypothetically command not just people and not just elements of nature, but nature itself?”
“I am saying it is possible. The ravens were merely beginning the process when we rose against them. The potential for what they were doing was unimaginable. Consider if they had fulfilled their plan to sire the Artan herself. With those two magics combined, they would have ruled the Powers themselves—the Powers of Good and the Dark Powers, the forces that control and maintain and sustain all. They would have been unstoppable. Nothing could have approached to such might.”
I steepled my fingers, pressing them to my lips, closing my eyes as I tried to summarize this mentally.
The ravens. Hooking onto the music of nature with their fairy magic, drawn from nature. Merging that music with music itself. Combining the two powers into one. Controlling it. Wielding it. Using it to dominate not just humans, not just animals, but both. Added to that, their plan to father the Artan, and seize control of her magic, her destiny. They’d failed in the second part. They hadn’t gotten the Artan. Instead, they’d gotten me.
I wasn’t the Artan, of course. I wasn’t endowed by the Powers of Good, like she was. But maybe I didn’t have to be. My ancestors’ trickery and manipulations of forces they probably didn’t even understand lived in me. Powers that, fully exploited, could probably rival the Artan’s.
“No wonder the Simathe were leery of me,” I mused aloud. “No wonder you fairies did what you did: banishing the ravens and erasing their memory. Nobody is equipped to wield that kind of power.”
“I agree,” Aureeyah said solemnly. “Not unless they are fully committed to the Light and using their gifts for it.”
“Like Hannah.”
“Hannah is extraordinary. She is human and makes mistakes, but there is no misusing of her talents. On the final field of battle, she refused to bend the knee to the Dark Powers, knowing it would cost her life, and not knowing then that her life would be restored.”
“Well…I can’t promise I won’t make mistakes,” I said. “I’m human too. And if everything you’re saying is true, I’m not exactly empowered by the Powers of Good, like Hannah.”
“No, but it is your choice who you will serve.”
“Maybe I don’t want to serve anybody.” I looked Aureeyah in the eye. “I don’t see serving as a choice. What I do see is me keeping my promises. I promised I would never do anything to hurt Hannah. If I keep that promise, I won’t be doing anything to hurt her land, either.”
