Six
NISSA
Ikeep chanting“now or never, now or never” over and over in my head as I shove the bare minimum of my belongings into a small bag. If I focus on anything else, I know I’ll hesitate. I can’t think about leaving Ophe and her family. I can’t think about the fact that I won’t know anyone in this new modern world.
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.Now or never.Nowor I’ll be locked in that castle forever.Nowor I’ll lose my voice, my personality.Nowor I’ll become a silent queen to a male that is most likely not my mate.
It has to benow.
Since our pantheon of gods oversees the Fae, witch, and vampire worlds, my best chance not to be found is the human world. Rumor is that the human god separated from ours when the other species left their land. All I know is that their god supposedly stays out of our Gods’ affairs.
Ophe went with her family to visit the human world about five years ago. I was so fascinated about the idea of another world, one where no one knew me, I annoyed her endlessly with all my questions.
Unfortunately, I remember her telling me that there were Guardians patrolling near the human portal on the Fae side. Maybe they were only there for the scheduled trip, to ensure it went smoothly. I can only hope the Guardians aren’t a constant presence at the portals. I guess I’ll find out.
Each portal is positioned in a different elemental land. The human world’s portal is in the Earth Fae’s sanctuary—Terrania. It was once commonplace for Fae to visit their elemental lands, but I only recall coming here a single time as a child before the royal family deemed the elemental lands too unsafe from the years of storms battering them.
The deeper I walk into my element, the more the air feels electrified, buzzing around me. Despite the fact that fae don’t come into their powers until they hit their majority, I have had small bursts of power for as long as I can remember. Something that very few know.
My heart breaks with each step, my magic alive and itching to heal the brokenness that surrounds me. I’ve heard descriptions of the damage the Goddess has inflicted on all the different elemental lands. But to see the destruction in person is devastating.
The gorgeous trees that should be towering overhead are little more than shattered remnants of their past life. Our Goddess has torn through the area, splintering and snapping the magnificent redwoods and smaller varieties of trees, stripping the few that remain of their bark, leaving them exposed.
I do my best to keep my footsteps light, but with the ground covered with dead foliage, it’s difficult to be quiet, even for an Earth Fae. I watch the area for any Guardians stationed here, but see no sign.
I sit down on a fallen tree that I’ve just climbed over and listen for any movement. Maybe the Guardians were pulled when access here was restricted. Or they could all be watchingover the city during Nova’s memorial. Watching the royals. Watchingme.
I take a deep breath as I run my hands over the soft, spongy moss. Maybe I’m in the wrong place altogether.
The sun is peeking around the clouds and shines easily through the fragmented canopy. I close my eyes and tilt my head up to let the sun warm my face, the smell of nature filling my lungs. The magic here may be diminished, but goddess, what remains has my magic singing. My chest feels lighter as my natural element rejuvenates every cell of my depleted, exhausted body.
This is the first time the sun has fully come out since Nova’s death.Maybe this is a good sign, evidence that our Goddess supports me leaving. My lips twitch up at the thought. Maybe Gaia is on my side for the first time in my life.
As soon as my body adjusts to the calm of nature surrounding me, a twig snaps. My eyes spring open, and I find Cillian casually leaned against a tree in front of me. He’s still in his white mourning clothes from the memorial, but he’s lost the jacket and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up over his toned forearms. I hate how attractive he is.
His head tilts, his steady gaze taking me in. I don’t know how he snuck up on me in the dry brush. The ferns and moss are barely peeking through the dead undergrowth.
“The weather seems to be improving…” he states as he studies the sun streaking my face.
I exhale the wind that’s caught in my chest. I sit up a little straighter as his eyes drop to the small satchel of my things that I’ve placed next to my feet. Cillian being here is just as bad as running into a Guardian.
“Did you follow me?” I demand, narrowing my eyes on him.
No comment on the satchel. Maybe he didn’t notice it.
“A guy can’t creep around the woods for the fun of it, Lila?” He flippantly throws out the nickname that he began using during the last Beltane festival that we spent together years ago.
An unwanted ache fills my chest. Pain that I pretend has passed. But if I’m honest, it still resurfaces at the most inconvenient times. Like now, as a memory of us laying together in the garden a few hours into the gala. Our friendship had finally blossomed into more and I couldn’t have been happier. Even when my mother scolded me for the dirt on my dress at the end of the night. I just smiled through the lecture. The feel of his lips still on mine.
He had come looking for me that night and found me sprawled under a tree making buds on a vine bloom one at a time in the moonlight. I had not told him about my shows of magic yet. Ophe was the only one that knew. I still remember the huge smile on his face as he called me Lila for the first time.
Cillian sawme, and I loved it.I loved him– and the name he gave me. Regardless of the fact that the flower buds had not actually been alila. He only ever used the name in private, and at the time it felt like our little secret. A few months after that year’s Beltane gala he stopped reaching out. He stopped paying any attention to me. I haven’t heard it in years and now it just feels soiled.
I definitely don’t need his attention on me now. “Don’t call me that,” I snap out.
“If I can’t call you Nis and I can’t call you Lila, what am I supposed to call you? I know the last thing you want is to be called isprincess.” His face shows no emotion, but he drawls my new title like it tastes bad on his tongue.
“Maybe my real name? You lost the right to use anything more familiar whenyoudecided to end things between us.” I try to match his indifference. Instead, it comes out more wounded than anything else.
