Weald Fae 02 - The Changeling

  “Yes,” he said, sheepishly.

  She turned and walked away about twenty feet. Sara joined her.

  “So,” I started, “Are the Unseelie making you enroll in school?”

  “No, they are not.”

  “Well, then what’s up?”

  His face relaxed and he smiled. “I had to thank you for saving my life.”

  I blushed. “You’re welcome.”

  “I also wanted to apologize again. Mitch all right?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good.” He exhaled and appeared…well, relieved.

  His demeanor surprised me almost as much as his words. “Drevek, I don’t get it. Why is an Unseelie risking his life to say thank you to a human? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I am not Unseelie…at least not anymore.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re a rogue, right?”

  “No, I left them.”

  Faye interjected. “I don’t believe that.”

  He shot her a dismissive look, “It’s the truth. I’m Ohanzee now.”

  “What!” I screeched.

  “It’s true,” he insisted.

  I tried not to shake my head, but I couldn’t help it.

  “I knew I had to leave the clan when the Seelie spared me. The others will never trust me again—they’ll kill me now. That’s the only reason Ozara set me free—she knew what they’d do. I tried to hide, went out west, but they found me—Dresha found me.”

  “And?” Sara asked.

  “And I was saved.”

  Faye shook her head. “That’s not possible. If she intended to kill you, you would not be here. You’re too young…too weak.”

  “By myself, yes, you’re correct, but Tse-xo-be saved me. He drove off Dresha and…”

  “Stop!” I snapped, interrupting him. Sara didn’t know about Chalen yet, and I could not afford for her to have Drevek’s words floating around in her mind for Ozara to see. Drevek paused, appearing completely confused.

  I threw my shield around us, cutting Sara and Faye out of the conversation.

  “Now you can speak without them hearing.”

  He nodded. “Tse-xo-be saved me from Dresha and…well…you know who. They do not know about him, do they?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “The Ohanzee wanted to destroy me as well—I thought Wakinyan would. Tse-xo-be would not let him. He sent me to Europe for several weeks. I’ve just returned. I need to tell you two things.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “Gavin found me.”

  My heart raced in my chest and I felt tears well up in my eyes. “And?”

  “He said to tell you that he is well and still lingers over the words he spoke to you in the locker room. I’m not sure I know what that means.”

  “I know what it means,” I said. It meant Drevek was telling the truth since no one but Gavin, Wakinyan, and Tse-xo-be knew that I had talked to Gavin at Nationals.

  “He also wanted me to tell you to concentrate on Ozara. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He wanted me to give this to you as well.” Drevek pulled a small black leather drawstring pouch from his pocket and held it out to me. Inside the small bag was a gold coin. It was uneven, worn, and looked ancient. On one side a naked man knelt with a bow. I started laughing when I realized it was a depiction of Adonis.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I need to leave before I put you in any more danger,” he said.

  “I’ll see you again won’t I?”

  “Yes.” Emotion filled his face as he stared intensely at me. His eyes were kind and his striking features soft. We had a mutual understanding, connected by circumstance, bound by mutual acts of kindness. It struck me how our views of each other had changed, and it gave me hope that the rift between the Unseelie and humans might not be as irreconcilable as I had feared.

  Drevek transformed into Naeshura and shot away the moment I dropped the barrier. Sara didn’t ask me what he said, but Faye did. I sidestepped everything I thought might be dangerous for them to know. Eventually Faye realized I wasn’t going to divulge anything of value, and she dropped the impromptu inquisition.

  “Mags, why did you spare him that night with Ozara?”

  I exhaled slowly. “Too many people have died. Too many Fae have died—I didn’t see the point in another.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  CHASING DEMONS

  The first few weeks of September flew by and I settled into a routine. Balancing school, friends, family time, and swimming practice would have been difficult if those were the only things I had going on, but I was tracking Fae, too. When any opportunity presented itself, I slipped up to my bedroom and concentrated on Ozara just as I’d done with Mitch. Gavin was right again. Each time I concentrated, I found her regardless of where she was. If only I had known to concentrate on the individual rather than the place, I would have found Mitch months before I did.

  Nearly every time I focused on Ozara, she was with the Council. They debated whether the Fae could have been responsible for the rash of recent disasters. A few on the Council believed it was possible, but the others were waiting for more evidence. Even if the Fae were involved, every member of the Council agreed that no single Fae could be responsible for each event.

  On a few occasions, they speculated about which Fae might have been capable of carrying out the various attacks. The question of who it might be always preceded a debate on who it wasn’t. From what I gathered, a majority of the Council feared that if Fae were involved, the Unseelie were orchestrating everything. The rest of the Council, along with Ozara, believed the attacks were the work of rogues. They pointed to the recent series of fatal attacks on the Unseelie, and their willingness to aid the Seelie when the rogues came after me on the lake. I had to admit, it didn’t make sense for the Unseelie to kill their own. If the Council was correct, the Unseelie were weaker now than they had been in centuries.

  But who was responsible for the disasters? After eliminating members of the Seelie and Unseelie Clans, the Council determined that the pool of possible culprits was rather small. Directing and strengthening a hurricane, apparently, could have only been the work of a few very old and powerful Fae. The number of Fae capable of creating a 9.4 earthquake was even smaller.

  The central theme that emerged was the belief that rogues, led by the Second Aetherfae, had changed strategies and were concentrating on weakening both clans by starting a war. None of the Council members knew who the Second was. It seemed the possible number of Fae who could have developed the power was relatively minuscule. Ozara and the Council decided to go on the offensive. They were determined to flush the Second out of hiding and destroy it before tensions with the Unseelie got any worse.

  ***

  On September twenty-fifth, after I left school and before I went to practice, I found the cottage empty and hurried up to my room. It was a rare afternoon when I could track Ozara.

  When my mind raced to her, I realized that she was not in Arkansas. She was in the form of a snowy owl sitting alone in a gnarled old tree in an unfamiliar place.

  With practice and concentration, my field of vision had expanded from a few yards to several hundred. Through the haze, the tree appeared to be in a grove of similar trees, a species I didn’t recognize. It grew on the edge of a rolling hill tucked beneath snow capped granite mountains that were among the tallest I’d ever seen. The hill gently gave way to a narrow valley that wound between the mountains and disappeared from my view in the dense mist.

  It was a beautiful place that reminded me of postcards I’d seen from Switzerland and Austria. The low light of the setting sun cast long shadows across the peaceful valley floor and slowly turned the blue-gray granite wall into a rich shade of purple.

  Ozara didn’t move or even blink. She focused on something well beyond my extended range of vision. A few minutes stretched into several, and then into what seemed like an hour or more. At twilight,
she transformed into Naeshura and disappeared down the hill. Fearing that she’d escape like Cassandra always had, I willed myself back to her. At once I sensed her beneath me and could make out her shimmering essence as we streaked across verdant fields only a few feet off the ground.

  She abruptly changed directions, flashing between two craggy peaks of granite. Ozara took a position just above the shorter peak and transformed back into a snowy owl. She was hunting and, though I could not see it, her quarry was somewhere below. I desperately searched for whatever it was she tracked, but from my vantage, I could only just make out the green color of the valley floor. Clouds and mist blocked my view.

  The unmistakable glow of Aether spread down the mountain wall toward the valley like an avalanche of pure energy, but infinitely faster. I willed myself to the valley floor, and an instant later I was there, reaching it just as three Fae flashed out of existence. They were gone too quickly to make out their faces, and didn’t I recognize their essences, but I did witness their futile struggle for life as each frantically searched for an opening in the green veil before it was over.

  The valley fell quiet except for the whistling sound of tall grass blowing in the wind. Lingering only for a moment, I concentrated on Ozara again and was dizzied by the speed of her movement. She was in her natural form, moving at an incredible speed high above the clouds and away from the Fae she had destroyed. I followed her to a cluster of boulders piled at the base of a mountain. She entered and disappeared. A Seoladán. My connection to her broke and I felt the tug of my body. In a blur I was back in my bedroom staring at the wood beams in my ceiling—it was just late afternoon at the Weald.

  ***

  After practice, I played a couple games of pool with Mitch and then lounged around with Candace and Ronnie in the living room. Sara, Faye and Billy were close, keeping an eye on all of us. Candace and Ronnie kept the conversation completely benign. They had become experts at playing it cool. Doug was equally adept at acting, but football practice kept him in Fayetteville. At ten, Candace and Ronnie left and I headed to my room for another round of astral hide-and-go-seek.

  Ozara was back with the Council discussing the latest attacks by the Second Aetherfae. Asharyu, the Fae who took the form of a handsome African man, told Ozara that four Unseelie had been killed and three Seelie were missing and presumed dead. Guanyin, a Council member who appeared as a beautiful Asian woman with lustrous black hair, black eyes, and porcelain skin, told them how the Ancient Ones, an independent clan I assumed, had prevented disaster at a dam in the Hubei province—I had no idea where that was. She said the Ancient Ones were unable to identify the Fae, but they drove it away before the earthquake it created did any damage to the structure.

  Sadness and fear dominated my emotions as it became clear the Fae were using natural disasters to kill humans. Trepidation followed. The Fae were capable of doing much worse. They could easily destroy nuclear power plants, start wars, or slip into a lab and release some deadly disease.

  Ozara listened silently as several Council members argued that something needed to be done, that it was time to eliminate the rogues who the Council had identified as the most likely responsible. Sherman argued for patience and more evidence. He warned the rest of the Council that the independent clans were carefully watching the Seelie, and he believed that acting without proof would cause irreparable damage to the already pensive relationship between them and the Seelie. Both sides were right. It seemed to me like a no win situation.

  “Wise counsel, Sherman,” Ozara said. “I agree. We should wait until we have more proof. Where is Cassandra?”

  The tether between my body and mind sprang to life and threatened to yank me away.

  Sherman spoke first. “No one has seen her.” Asharyu and Guanyin agreed.

  “Perplexing,” Ozara said. “I know from the rogues we captured that she did not meet at the rendezvous the night the Steward retrieved her sibling. We’ve tracked their co-conspirators—Chalen and Dresha—but no sign of her. Most perplexing.”

  The tether yanked me back several feet the moment she said Chalen’s name. So, she did know that he’d been released from Aether. I assumed she neglected to mention his name the night I rescued Mitch for my peace of mind. Apparently I’d misjudged her—she was trying to spare me any additional grief.

  “I maintain that if we continue to look, we will find her,” Sherman said. “I believe the explanation may be quite simple: when she discovered her plans were foiled, she went into hiding. By now, she knows what fate awaits her.”

  “I am not sure I agree, Sherman. When one disappears, there is always a trace. At the very least, there are scattered reports and speculation among the independent clans. No one has ever just disappeared without a trace. Though they have proven difficult to capture, we have received similar reports on Gavin and the Ohanzee,” Ozara said, slowly turning her head to face him. “Am I incorrect?”

  “Perhaps this time. Bastien disappeared, so did Caorann, and there have been others,” he argued. “We’ve not heard a single report on Gavin’s location in more than six months.”

  Though my body was a mile away in the cottage, I felt it relax.

  “I suspect they have each met the same end as Cassandra,” she said.

  Fear welled up in my mind when her words initially registered, but I knew better. Hadn’t Drevek spoken to Gavin just a month ago? Yes, I told myself, Gavin is fine.

  “I have considered that as well, and you may be correct,” Guanyin said. “Each may have been destroyed. Perhaps the Second didn’t approve of Cassandra’s handling of the boy. She was, after all, outwitted by a human child.”

  I liked Guanyin. It was a good argument. The Second had killed several members of both clans. While I knew the truth about Cassandra, they didn’t. That was as logical an explanation as any, and I would much rather them focus on the Second than on me.

  Ozara nodded, “That is a possibility, but Sherman’s explanation is just as plausible. We should continue searching for her. Do we agree?”

  The Council agreed.

  “And the meeting at Caer Bran?” Guanyin asked.

  I had no idea what she was talking about, and made a mental note to Google “Caer Bran.”

  “I have decided that I will personally attend the meeting with Zarkus and the Elders. Our paramount concern must be to still the tension with the Unseelie while it is still possible to avoid a confrontation. My presence, I feel, is necessary.”

  “Is it your desire that we all attend?” Victoria asked.

  “No. I think it prudent to not show up en masse. I propose to take two of you with me, and a minimal security presence.”

  “If you are intercepted by the Second while traveling with such a small number?” Guanyin asked, more animated than ever.

  “That would be a most fortunate turn of events, would it not? I could end this conflict before another life is lost. The Second has not faced me for a reason. It has attacked only the weakest among us for a reason. It cowers in the shadows, like a Pyksie, plotting for a reason. It does not yet believe that it is powerful enough to directly challenge me. It has not challenged any of you, either. I realize that you may be correct, Asharyu. It is possible that the Second is exceptionally powerful and we will find it lying in wait for us and the Unseelie Elders at Caer Bran. Should we not learn what we are up against sooner rather than later—to draw it into the open?”

  “Ozara, I am concerned that if anything happens to you, all will be lost. The child does not know the secret to Aether and none of us can change that,” Guanyin said.

  I focused on Ozara’s next words as nothing else in the world seemed to matter.

  “Do you suggest I teach her Aether prior to our meeting?”

  “I would be more comfortable,” Guanyin said pointedly.

  “So would I,” Sherman agreed.

  “I would not,” said the exotic Middle-Eastern Fae with dark olive skin and braided black hair. She walked forward, taking a central
position in the gathering. She surveyed each member with her huge exotic brown eyes, waiting for a reply.

  “Anuket, surely you are not concerned about Maggie’s intentions. She has shown considerable restraint and followed our law to the letter,” Victoria said.

  Anuket shot Victoria a stern look. “I’m not convinced. The O’Shea girl is duplicitous. She follows our laws because she must. With Aether, who among us, including Ozara, is going to say no to her?”

  She was right, of course. If I could create Aether I probably wouldn’t listen to the Council. I certainly wouldn’t bend to their will on every issue like I had been.

  “I agree,” said the dreamy Latin-looking Fae with dark skin and hair. At every Council meeting, he had made it clear he distrusted me.

  “I disagree. I believe the girl has shown us her mettle,” Guanyin said. “She has been deceitful, but in her shoes, would you not have done the same, Anuket? The Jinn, I’m sure you will admit, were never known for their candor.”

  “Guanyin, sister, neither were the Ancient Ones. Self-deification? You are not in a position to cast stones,” Anuket replied in a tone that sounded polite on the surface, but didn’t hide the venom underneath.

  “How completely evasive and utterly predictable. You did not answer my question. We could debate the mutual failings of our original clans until time stands still and not resolve anything,” Guanyin said.

  “You are both correct,” Ozara said. “Our original clans failed miserably, but this clan is founded on the indubious principle that we can and must do better. Right now I agree that we must be careful with whom we share the secret of Aether. I do not believe that Maggie O’Shea is ready. Yet. But Anuket, you do realize that we may have no choice, and that time may yet be upon us.”

  “Yes. I am confident that if the threat grows, the human child will fulfill her role,” Anuket said. Her fierce look remained.

  “Ozara, you intend to wait?” Sherman asked.

  “Yes, for now. I think it is best to protect her. But there is another reason. If we teach her Aether, we may yet prolong the aggression. Given the history of Maebowns in the past, I believe the Second will avoid direct contact if Maggie becomes a Maebown. This conflict, I fear, may be drawn out even longer, until after Maggie’s death, if the Second learns that she has completed the fifth trial. Is it not better to take steps that may bring about a quick resolution than to teach her Aether and protract the danger?”