“You are not your father.” She licked her lips and pressed a tender kiss to my mouth. “You are not responsible for his shame. Or your mother’s death. Those were his choices.”
I knew these facts. I’d been told the same by Bezaliel. By myself. But it was different, coming from Jessamine.
“You are a good leader, a wonderful protector of your clan. Of your friends.” Another kiss, this time to my cheek, then my jaw. “Of me.”
My heart expanded. I buried my face in her hair, inhaling her deep into my lungs. “Maybe I should mark you now. Not let you go.”
She pulled away. “Ah-ah.” She shook her head with a teasing smile. “You’re going to wait. You want me with no lingering doubts, isn’t that so?”
“It is.”
“Then we wait until winter’s end, when we return to Vanglosa.”
We said nothing more, curling up together beneath the furs a short time later. I felt her body ease, her breaths slowing when she fell asleep. But I stayed awake a long time after, worrying over tomorrow.
Her plan might be the only one we had, but it was also a good one. The grimlocks would be drawn to the magick. They wereconjured and formed by magick themselves, even if it was from some dark master hiding somewhere. So it was likely they would be easily summoned by her syrenskyn powers.
That was why I couldn’t sleep. I had to ensure there was no way this could go wrong. The problem was, no matter how well we planned it, there were a million ways that it could.
Chapter 26
JESSAMINE
I wore onlya blue cloak with a fur collar and soft hide slippers. The cloak draped to my ankles. While Redvyr wanted to protest the fact that I would be traipsing through the woods naked beneath the cloak, it was decided—by me and Tessa—that I was right. This would be the easiest way to use my powers quickly if and when one of the golems showed themselves.
Of course, when Leifkyn smirked and opened his mouth to make a comment about my attire, Redvyr shot him such a murderous death glare that he snapped his mouth shut instantly without a word.
Tessa, Lorelyn, and Shearah had taken every item of clothing and weapon that Redvyr and his warriors planned to wear and use and smudged them in magwort weed before also burning the weed in a tent with all of the items, to ensure the scent of beast fae was fully covered. Apparently, magwort weed grew in abundance in Wyken Woods and the surrounding woodlands. The only useful property of the weed was that its dark purple leaves could be boiled and used to dye clothing. It was moreuseful to us now because its pungent scent would camouflage the beast fae who had entered the woodland an hour before me.
The plan was for them to go in one at a time well ahead of me. Stealthily, they would take a position surrounding the old oak at the center of the woods. Redvyr had given me explicit instructions—thrice—on how to get there. He was beyond anxious. I soothed him, even though I didn’t feel it. Especially now as I stood facing the woods with Shearah, Sorka, Lorelyn, and Tessa beside me, staring into the bleak semi-darkness.
It was midday and yet the sky loomed heavy with a thick, gray pall, promising snow soon. Wolf stood sulkily, his head hanging as I prepared to go without him. We knew none of the wolves could go on this quest. The grimlocks would certainly scent them and know that beast fae were nearby.
I exhaled an unsteady breath. “Well, it is time.” I rubbed my palm down Wolf’s neck. “I’ll be back soon,” I told him, hoping it was true.
Tessa reached out and took my hand as I stepped forward. She pulled me into a tight hug. “I know it is selfish to ask this of you, but by the Goddess Elska, I pray you bring my Saralyn back to me and that you return safely as well.”
I hugged her back, feeling her sob against my chest more than hearing it. When we parted, Sorka pulled me into a tight embrace, whispering only a nearly inaudible, “thank you.”
When I reached out a hand to Shearah and to Lorelyn as a goodbye, in case this was indeed a goodbye, they embraced me together.
“I scried with the snow upon the eastern Sister where the first light of dawn kissed its stone face. I melted it in the cup you used at dinner last night.” She lowered her voice into my ear. “There is danger. There is certain death. But I see bright lights returning from the woods. May Elska be with you.”
I stepped back and looked at the four of them—concern, hope, and fear etched into their solemn faces.
While many of the clan females still snubbed me or gave me a wide berth, these four women had given me something beyond hospitality and kindness. They had given me a sense of belonging. I rallied my courage, but it was more of a pretense than an actuality.
“I will use all the powers the gods have given me to bring the children home safely.”
“May Elska be with you,” Tessa repeated Lorelyn’s blessing.
I smiled with all the confidence I could muster and gave a sharp nod of my head. “She will be.”
Without another moment of hesitation, I turned and marched into Wyken Woods. When I rounded the first corner of the path, my friends no longer in sight behind me, I felt the oppressive air of this place.
It wasn’t simply because it was winter and the trees’ branches reached outward and upward like deformed limbs, rattling in a gust of wind with an eerie sound. Nor was it that the thick snaking of the branches overhead from tree to bare tree blocked out what little light there was in the sky above. There was magick here—dark magick.
I’d met a number of dark fae with magickal powers over the many months I lived in the Borderlands. Their birth didn’t make their magick evil. It was the nature of the individual fae that determined whether their powers were used for good, the way the gods intended, or for more sinister, unholy pursuits.
