“What do you see?” Seer Goddard asked.
I took a deep breath, steadied myself. Looked up just long enough to say my answer. “Earth, water, air.”
Seer Goddard’s head jerked toward me so quickly that I truly feared for his life. “Is that so?” he asked quietly, curiosity infusing every beat of his tone.
“Are you looking for something more specific?”
“I wonder if it’s true. There hasn’t been a Triune Queen for many, many lifetimes.”
“The Fae Queens have been extinct for centuries, so that’s not surprising, whatever a Triune Queen is.”
“Even before that,” Seer Goddard mused. “In the lifetimes of Fae Queens, a Triune Queen was still a truly rare entity.”
“What’s a Triune Queen?”
“Triune,” he said, like that should be helpful.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with three,” I said. “Tri, tripod, trinity.”
“Indeed.” Seer Goddard glanced back out over the waters. “Typically, a Fae Queen rules over her court, and that is all. Different courts have different strengths, and they’re directly linked to their queen’s strength.”
“Are you talking about strengths being linked to earth, water, or air?”
“Yes. I will admit, The Court of Isles is a somewhat unusual court due to its location, but historically, the Fae Queens who have ruled here have favored water.”
“Makes sense. We’re kind of surrounded by it.”
“You are also surrounded by air and earth.”
“That’s also true,” I said. “But since that’s true, why weren’t more of the Fae Queens the specialty kind, the Triune Queens?”
Seer Goddard gave a soft huff. “It’s a gift.”
“Ah.”
“A Triune Queen is a rare gift to the world. She can use earth, air, and water equally. She may favor one, but she has access to all of them. She is the most powerful sort of creature, even among the Fae Queens. Because of this, she can access the heavens and the seas. The ground is her putty, the air her breath, the water her blood. The amount of power a Triune Queen can tap into is enormous.”
I shuddered, goosebumps running down my legs. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It most certainly is.”
“What makes you think I’m a Triune Queen?”
“I don’t know for sure. We won’t know until we begin our training. So, we’ll start. We shall begin with earth.”
“Okay. Are there spells I need to learn? I’ve been reading my Fae textbooks, but it’s slow going since I can’t understand a lot of them yet.”
Seer Goddard finally took a step back. I breathed a sigh of relief I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I took a step back from the edge of the cliff too, following Seer Goddard toward his hut as his white robe swished across the dusty ground.
He led me around to the other side of his abode, a side I hadn’t seen before. There, a small rose garden formed a circle around a dusty patch of dirt and gravel, much like the road I’d walked to get here. There were tiny stones, larger ones, some crushed to dust, all mixed together.
“Sit,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
I moved to the middle of the circle and sat cross-legged on dirt that reminded me of country roads. I’d left my shoes at home, but I figured I wouldn’t need them. According to Liza, it worked better if I could feel the earth between my bare feet, feel the vibrations.
“Feel the earth,” Seer Goddard said. “Focus, and concentrate.”
I closed my eyes, focusing as instructed, on the vibrations in the earth. I’d started to tease them out after my interaction with Liza, and it’d been easier this morning when I’d healed the patch of earth. I could pick out a faint pulse here, different than the grassy area I’d felt earlier. It was harder to feel the vibrations of rock than it was through grass, even long-dead grass.
