That one word hung on the air, a testimony that everything I’d hoped might be between us was just that—a hope. A foolish, impossible hope. I tightened my grip on the dagger and pulled my arm back to throw it at him.
“But Your Majesty!” He jumped to his feet and flung himself to the side to dodge the knife I threw. “I’m not the same fae. My reasons changed, as I told you.”
I formed an ice dagger in my hands and threw it at him, hoping to catch him before he recovered. “You deceived me.” He blocked it with a fiery shield, so I formed another. “I freed you, and you—” He blocked that one too, but I already had another ready. “You mocked me.” I threw another ice dagger. “Over—” Another dagger. “And over—” Another dagger. “And over.”
His cursed shields made my daggers useless. I reached into the sky, formed thousands of spiky little pieces of hail, and rained them down on him.
He shifted the shield to block the hail.
I stamped a foot and a layer of ice coated the rich soil underneath us. Nice of the rainforest to have so much moisture in the air. I waved a hand and coated everything in sight with a thin layer of ice, hoping to distract Andar as I marched up to him.
He raised two fiery shields in each hand, ready to throw them in whatever direction I attacked from.
But I didn’t give him room. I marched so close I could have bitten him, and lifted a new dagger to his throat. “I let you get close to me,” I whispered as my heart quivered, “but I will never make that mistake again.”
I would have ended him right there, but I underestimated his speed.
His hands gripped my arms, just above the elbows, and I couldn’t move. He trapped me with a magic I couldn’t see or feel, but any movement I made—any twitch of my arm or lunge from my legs or even just lifting my little finger—every movement was blocked by a wall of power that had completely enveloped me.
A savage anger burned inside me, and I could not move a single muscle.
He closed his eyes and drew a long slow breath. As he released it, the layers of ice I’d drawn over the landscape faded, returning the forest to its lush greens and browns.
He kept his hands on my arms. “I know you can’t talk right now, so please listen. I’ll only say this once. I just want you to hear it. I care about you. I want to see you happy. I would love to take you to my native island Vitana. I cannot lead you to the Autumn kingdoms or help you find humans that do not deserve your rage because that kind of vengeance will destroy your soul. And you deserve better than that. I’ve shown you how to go home. I think it will take you enough years to find the humans without me that they will finish their short lives in peace. Perhaps then you will find some peace as well.”
I wanted to attack him, but I was perfectly immobile.
“Or,” he added, “you can come with me to Vitana.” He raised his brows like a question and let go of my arms.
I lunged at him. “I do not travel with traitors!”
He caught me, more easily than I’d hoped, lifted me up, and repositioned me so my back was pressed up against a tree. I tried freezing him, but he’d done something to his body to push back against my ice, like a fiery shield. He held me against the tree with an arm across my chest while his other hand pushed my left arm behind me. Something bound my left arm to the tree. I couldn’t move it.
I growled at him through clenched teeth. “What are you doing?”
He pulled my right arm behind me and bound it to the tree too. Then he set his hand in front of mywaist, and an invisible rope tightened like a belt, securing me to the tree.
“I’m not going to keep fighting you,” he said, placing his hand on top of my head. “And I can’t have you freezing the forest in an attempt to make me slip and break an ankle.” My magic pulled away from me, like it was hiding deep in my own chest. I felt it retreat, but I could not summon it again.
For the first time in forty years, true terror gripped my heart. “What have you done?”
He looked guilty, and I was glad for it. “I pushed the strength of your magic away from your control. It’s terribly temporary—”
“How?” I couldn’t breathe right. The thought of losing my magic again overwhelmed my normal senses. I fought the temptation to faint.
More guilt tugged his features downward. “It’s a thing I learned some time ago. You will get control again within an hour. And I set the magic tying you to this tree to also expire in an hour. You will be free at that point. To go home, to hunt me, or to hunt your humans. I hope you’ll consider what I said and not choose the humans.”
He moved the pack with all our food and supplies to the ground next to my feet, and then he turned and walked away.
“Andar!” I spit his name like it was a curse, but he turned back and looked at me. “If you leave me here like this, I will destroy you. I will find you, and I will make you regret this.”
A sad smile turned the corners of his mouth. “I expect nothing less.” He started to turn away again, but stopped half-way. “I am sorry for the pain I have brought you. I know you won’t believe this, but besides my grandmother, I care more for you than for anyone else in my life.”
“Lies!” I yelled at his retreating form.
But he did not turn around again.
Chapter 21: Andar
