Weald Fae 03 - The Aetherfae

  When we crawled behind the trees at the edge of the field, I looked at Freya one last time. She was still hovering in the same place she’d killed the Rogue. It was a horrible risk to take, but I took it anyway. I stretched a tendril of Clóca across the field as Dersha closed the distance between them. I planned to yank her behind the screen when I got the chance.

  Candace sighed, pulling my sleeve. She wanted to get away, and she was right. My gut told me to run. Instead, I kept my concentration on Freya. On the other edge of the clearing, one of the Kabouter streaked toward the trees. The instant he was enveloped in Aether, I wrapped Freya.

  She darted toward me five feet, made an abrupt turn, shooting up over a hundred feet. With unbelievable agility, she shot to the side a few hundred more, and then dove diagonally into the woods three hundred feet away. I fought to concentrate on her erratic, chaotic moves, trying to maintain the barrier around her and us. Bursts of Aether lit the field a few feet from where she made her first turn. Then it expanded quickly in every direction. Just feet from the edge of my shield, the Aether stopped. Three Kabouter transformed into Naeshura and bolted away. Rogues pursued them into the forest.

  Freya settled next to us. “We have to move. Quickly.”

  Two thousand feet away, the flash of a dying Fae briefly lit the horizon.

  “Oh, Klaas, no,” she whispered.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Freya shook her head, tears rolling out from her enormous gray eyes. “Move now. We are not out of danger.”

  Hovering just above the ground, she darted past a tree and then waited for us to catch up. “Can you not fly?”

  “Not very well.”

  She huffed. “You leave your scent on everything you touch. Walking out is not an option.”

  “Sorry.”

  “There is no time. Down.”

  We dropped to the ground and sprawled out on our stomachs.

  “No. I mean down, below ground,” she whispered.

  She dropped to the earth, curling her fingers into the soil. Beyond her hands, the forest floor opened and a dark tunnel appeared below us. My old fear of being trapped below ground returned. My stomach churned, saliva filled my mouth, and my ears began burning. My breathing grew labored and spastic when Ronnie shimmied down the hole. Candace disappeared behind him, stoking my fear of being caught. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my heart.

  “Maintain the barrier around us. I’ll take care of your stench, but you must go now.”

  A green glow reflected in her eyes, and I turned. The Second was spreading Aether through the trees trying to find our position. Above us, I felt Dersha spreading a thin film of Air energy, like a dome. I swallowed hard and crawled down the hole into the dark earth.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TREACHERY

  Two scents filled my nose: the metallic, dank smell of moist earth, and the sweet, slightly musty odor of decomposing plant material. We descended on our hands and knees in complete darkness. My senses told me Candace and Ronnie were just a few feet ahead. Freya followed behind us, transforming the forest floor to hide our escape. Above her, Rogues scoured Veluwezoom and began spreading their search beyond my senses. They unnerved me. Focusing on maintaining Clóca and Air barriers kept my mind off crawling through the tomb-like underground space.

  As the Rogues conducted their search, I began to respect their speed and efficiency. Along the surface of the forest, and in the sky above, they’d scanned every inch for miles in just a few minutes—I felt a blanket of energy everywhere. So far they hadn’t thought to look underground. The possibility they might terrified me.

  We crawled at a frantic pace, blindly scrambling into the dark void. My knees and wrists ached, but that was nothing compared to the searing pain in the palms of my hands. The rough surfaces of the dark tunnel cut into my flesh, and the cold, wet ground made my joints ache. Unfortunately, the temperature was not cold enough to numb the pain. A fiery sting in my left palm, like the sting of a yellow jacket, seared up my arm each time my hand made contact. It hurt too badly. I rolled my hand into a fist and crawled on my knuckles, which began throbbing. With every inch we moved the pain grew more intense, but it kept me focused on something other than my lungs. My fear of caves always centered around suffocating, so I welcomed any distraction. Concentrate on the pain. Just keep crawling.

  Several minutes later, Freya whispered, “Do you need to stop?”

  “Yes,” Ronnie said, after a sharp breath.

  Candace’s reply sounded high-pitched and stressed. “I do, too.”

  A small flicker of light wreaked havoc on my vision. At first, ambiguous black shapes outlined by light areas taunted me—my brain struggled to fill in the gaps, to make sense of the shapes. Eventually, my eyes adjusted and I recognized Candace and Ronnie’s bodies and the familiar outlines of their facial features. I couldn’t see color, but that was all right with me—I’d take anything over pitch darkness.

  Ronnie slowly turned and sat stiffly against the wall of the tunnel. Candace eased in next to him, cradling her hands. Freya moved next to me.

  “You are in pain?” she asked.

  “Yes, my hands and knees…” I said unevenly.

  Candace and Ronnie nodded.

  “Maintain the barrier,” Freya said. Duh, I thought.

  The stinging ache melted away from my hands, and then my knees. The pain disappeared from other parts of my body—until the discomfort drifted away, I hadn’t realized how much I hurt.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “How did you know about the Ometeo?” she asked.

  For a split second I wondered why she was curious, but something told me to trust her. “I can project—I can’t remember what the Fae call it, but I can send my consciousness to any person or place when I concentrate.”

  She slid across me and began healing Candace’s hands. “I assumed as much. Can you be detected?”

  “Some can, I think. Mara was able to.”

  Candace exhaled a long, slow sigh of relief as Freya took her pain away.

  “It is a risk, but one we will have to take,” Freya said to herself. “Can you do it now? Locate Dersha or the Second?”

  “I can find Dersha, but I can’t maintain Clóca at the same time.”

  Freya looked up at me as she moved to Ronnie. “I do not sense them now, so they cannot sense us. I believe it will be safe, if you do it quickly. I will rouse you if I sense danger.”

  Freya was right. There weren’t any Fae within my range. They had moved further away.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I closed my eyes and controlled my breathing. The instant my mind floated upward, I concentrated on Dersha. My consciousness made contact with the familiar energy of Clóca. I hovered stationary for a moment, as if caught in a net, and then popped forward, piercing the barrier. Dersha appeared in my mind’s eye, and she stood next to the last being I ever expected to see there. The shock of recognition, of seeing the Second for the first time, tightened the tether between my mind and body, threatening to snap me back into the ground. Nothing made sense, even though I had known the answer for a long time.

  “…in the west, and we’ve also cleared De Steeg, Rheden, Dieren, Eerbeek. There is no sign of the girl or her friends. It is possible they went North to seek protection from the Alfar.” Dersha communicated telepathically.

  “That is possible. Send Cairon and Lorus to the border. O’Shea didn’t learn anything from the Kabouter—she is groping blindly for answers that only I can provide.” Ozara said.

  “Are you certain Geoff told you all he knew?”

  Ozara smiled. “I ripped his mind apart—he hid nothing from me. The rumors of Bastien hiding in Europe are simply rumors.”

  “What are your instructions?”

  “Keep searching like I showed you. If you sense a Clóca barrier, destroy her.”

  “We will find her. Have you located her family?” Dersha asked.

  “Yes, there are distant family mem
bers in Memphis and a few more in Southern Florida—they will be eliminated.”

  “What about her mother, the brother, and the unborn sibling?”

  “My source tells me they are still hiding in Arkansas, just a few miles from the Ohanzee. We’re already moving on them. Very soon the entire line will be eradicated,” Ozara said.

  The tether yanked my mind to the Clóca veil. A few miles away, my heart raced in my chest. Before I snapped back to my body, Ozara made one more command. “Send the trackers back to the meadow, have them check underground just to be sure. O’Shea must be dead before the Winter Solstice.”

  “It begins then?”

  Ozara nodded. “Do not fail me Dersha—Pandora’s triumphant return to Olympus depends on it.”

  “I will not fail.”

  * * *

  Get to him. Find him! Gavin!

  My mind hurled through the darkness and I passed through Wakinyan’s Clóca veil, settling above Gavin. He spun to face me when I pressed my consciousness at him. His expression was as pleasant as always, but I sensed something was terribly wrong. He must have read my concern.

  “Maggie, are you alright?”

  I concentrated on one thing: “Get my family out of here.”

  “We can’t…it’s not safe.”

  I tried to tell him what I’d just learned, but panic gripped me.

  “I can’t understand what you’re trying to say, Maggie. Please, calm down.”

  The house shook for several seconds leaving the chandelier in the entry swaying on its chain. The lights flickered and went out. What’s happening?

  The tether yanked me out of the house and toward my body. Calm down, I screamed to myself. Control didn’t come easily, like crawling up an icy slope from inside a sleeping bag, but I pushed my way back inside. Concentrate—one thought at a time.

  “They know where you are.” I managed in a moment of clarity.

  “Who knows? The Rogues? The Alliance?”

  Panic gripped me again and once more I fought to maintain position as the tether dragged me backwards.

  My thoughts were chaotic, but I managed three sentences. “Ozara is working with Dersha. There is no second Aetherfae. She’s directing the Rogues.”

  Gavin’s mouth gaped and his eyebrows smashed together in a look of fear and bewilderment.

  “It is true. I projected. Heard her talking to Dersha. They are coming for my family.”

  Wakinyan flashed to Gavin’s side, taking his hulking human shape. “You are sure of this,” he demanded.

  “Yes. Someone is feeding them information. Ozara knows where you are. She knows the Ohanzee are at the Weald.”

  Gavin and Wakinyan exchanged worried looks.

  ‘That would explain a great many things.” Wakinyan growled.

  “Explain what?” I asked.

  The lights in the house flickered back on.

  Gavin tried to speak calmly, but agitation laced his voice as he spurted staccato fragments of what happened. “A fault near Memphis, Tennessee, gave way. There has been a devastating, unprecedented earthquake—we believe it was Fae, probably the Rogues. But now—maybe Alliance—maybe both.”

  Wakinyan nodded quickly.

  “The news is piecemeal, but by all accounts Memphis is gone—destroyed—and St Louis lies in ruin. Huge sections of Little Rock are on fire. Buildings and bridges have collapsed as far east as the Smokey Mountains, and as far west as Oklahoma. An upshift in the mantle is causing the Mississippi River to flood eastern Arkansas—thousands are dead. It’s chaos here, but your family is safe.”

  Hearing Gavin mention my family triggered the relentless tether. It took all of my will to remain stationary. No time—warn them, my inner voice screamed. There was so much they needed to know, so much I had to tell them, the frustration of trying to form complete thoughts made me want to scream.

  “Miami is next. Targeting my relatives. I heard Ozara say so. Please. Get yourselves and my family out of here. Warn Tse-xo-be. Be careful. Ozara has a spy. It was her the entire time.”

  The house lurched again. The electricity went out and Mom called to Mitch. The sound of breaking glass and groaning wood filled my senses as the tug finally grew too strong.

  Back in the earthy tomb, I opened my eyes and ignored Freya’s questions, which began immediately. Instinct took over and I concentrated on recreating Clóca. Candace peppered me with questions too, but I blocked her voice. As far as I could spread it, my mind stretched across Veluwezoom in all directions. Rogues had moved back to the meadow and were spreading out in an expanding circle.

  Candace shook me. “Maggie, why are you crying?”

  “I’m not.”

  That was my immediate reaction, but as soon as I said it, I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks and I was blubbering like an infant. I pulled stale, earthy air into my lungs and wiped at my eyes. “Sorry.”

  “What’s going on?” Candace demanded.

  “We need…we need to move,” I said, struggling with my emotions. My stomach folded, my temples throbbed, and perspiration beaded up on my forehead. What’s happening to my family?

  Candace fought for my attention. “Maggie!”

  Freya wrapped her white fingers around Candace’s heaving shoulder and compelled her to relax. She quickly calmed down, then Freya gently prodded me. “Tell us.”

  “I saw the Aetherfae talking to Dersha just a few miles from here, and…”

  “And?” Ronnie asked breathlessly.

  “It’s Ozara.”

  Freya’s reaction was exactly like Gavin’s. Her lids pulled back and she wrapped both hands over her mouth, muttering, “Impossible…no.”

  “She’s going back to the Alliance and leaving the Rogues to track us down…” I gasped for air, there didn’t seem to be enough to fill my lungs. “…they think we went north, but Ozara told them to search underground—we’ve got to get out of here. I can feel them coming.”

  “Let’s go now,” Candace said, rolling back onto her hands and knees.

  “No. Dersha will have Fae waiting further out. That is what I would do. They are trying to flush us,” Freya said.

  Candace slumped over and ran her fingers through her matted hair.

  “It’ll be alright,” I said to her.

  She nodded and closed her eyes, mumbling incomprehensibly to herself.

  “What else did you see?” Freya asked.

  “They know where my family is hiding—I warned Gavin and Wakinyan.”

  “Gavin is in Arkansas—he was supposed to come back and help us. Why is he—“

  “There’s been a terrible earthquake.”

  “Where, Eureka?’

  “Near Memphis I think—Gavin’s with my family.”

  “New Madrid,” Ronnie whispered to himself

  “What is that?”

  He shook his head. “The New Madrid fault? You couldn’t have lived in Arkansas for two years and not heard of the New Madrid fault. They’ve been predicting the big one for years.”

  “Well, sorry, Ronnie, I’ve been a little busy trying to figure out how to save the world from immortals. I missed the part about earthquakes.”

  “Don’t snap, Mags, you asked. I’m just saying…”

  Candace winced, pushing her hands to her ears. She continued to mumble to herself.

  Guilt came fast. What am I doing? I’ve got them hiding in a hole in the ground thousands of miles from home, we’re being hunted, and I’m biting their heads off.

  “I’m sorry…I…I didn’t mean to yell at you. Well, I did, but I didn’t have the right.”

  “It’s okay—you’re stressed. How bad is it back home?” Ronnie asked.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell them what I knew, at least not while we were buried in a rabbit hole. They needed to be focused, ready to move. “I’m not sure. I’m sorry. I didn’t have much time. Candace, are you alright?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Candace?”

  She shoo
k her head and kept her eyes closed—it made my heart sink.

  “Candace, please, hold it together. We’ll get out of this.”

  She looked at me and huffed in disgust. “Of course we will, if you’ll shut up long enough for me to think. Ozara’s gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are they searching for us underground?”

  “With energy…” Freya said, “…an extension of our essences. We cannot detect Clóca with our senses, but we can feel it with direct contact.”

  “So they’re groping in the dark?” Candace asked.

  “Essentially, yes, but our reach can be extended quite far.”

  “How close are they?”

  Freya cocked her head. “Dersha is closest—she is more than a kilometer away and drawing closer.”

  “Maggie, you can draw energy from the ground?”

  “Yeah, sure. So?”

  “The simple energy barrier, hello?”

  “What barrier?” Freya asked.

  “I can create an energy barrier that blends into the surroundings, but I’m not sure if it will hide us. Can we test it?”

  “No. There is no time.”

  Freya was right. I sensed the Fae moving closer—Dersha would be directly over us in less than a minute. My heart raced into overdrive. I closed my eyes and tried to calm my breathing. Candace and Ronnie were embracing when Freya killed the illumination and everything went pitch black. With panic tearing at my emotions, I connected to the energy in the ground and filled the void around us, allowing the Clóca to dissipate into nothing.

  Silence was my enemy. It invited my mind to focus on horrible images. Breathe—just breathe. Fear and uncertainty about what I’d seen in Arkansas snared my imagination. Was that an aftershock that rocked the house, or were the Fae attacking my family?

  “Maggie, concentrate. Your barrier is failing,” Freya whispered.

  Dersha slithered closer. Should I create Quint? Could I take her out before she kills Ronnie and Candace? I should be in Arkansas protecting Mom and Mitch… Thousands of people died today? Oh god. A sob rattled through my chest. I was petrified, and I desperately wanted to know what was happening back in Fayetteville. Could I have prevented this? Which of the Ohanzee is a spy? What if everyone is dead? The muscles in my body began convulsing, rattling my bones in the dirty hole. I tried to turn my fear to anger, but I couldn’t concentrate long enough.