“Your ancestors guided you. Do you really think you suddenly understood how to speak and read ancient Fae texts out of the blue?”
I paused, realizing I had indeed thought exactly that. Spells and curses hadn’t been familiar to me several months ago, so suddenly understanding an ancient language out of the blue didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility. Still, I listened as Seer Goddard continued.
“Your ancestors succeeded in revealing the meaning to you. They shared their senses, their sight, their knowledge. There’s a connection between you and your past through these written texts.”
“So, I’ll know it when I see it?”
Seer Goddard pursed his lips. “You tell me.”
I resumed flipping through the pages, once, twice. My stomach began growling with frustration as usual. Eventually, I closed the book and leaned back, letting the sunlight warm my face.
The frustration mounted—I didn’t know what to do. The first time had seemed so effortless, bathed in moonlight.Poof—magic! No matter what Seer Goddard said, magic had definitely played a role in revealing the first spell to me, the spell that had revealed the island’s ley lines.
“Use your connection to your ancestors,” Seer Goddard urged. “You’re the Triune Queen. You deserve your place among the Fae Queens.”
I considered his words. My magic seemed trivial—I could balance a small rock midair and spin a little breeze and water particles around it. It wasn’t the sort of impressive magic that could defeat a kraken or tear apart a crimson lycanthrope.
But maybe I didn’t need to tear apart a crimson lycanthrope. Maybe, in this case, something more subtle was the key. Perhaps I should embrace the magic that came naturally to me and my ancestors and combine it with the manuscript, in the way that moonlight had combined with it the first time.
With newfound resolve, I turned to a page that had persistently drawn my attention but remained unreadable. Setting the book in my lap, I closed my eyes and drew on yesterday’s success. Selecting a rock, I lifted it gently. Then I gathered bits of dew into a small orb and wrapped it around the stone. Carefully, I encircled that combination with air, creating the elemental trifecta unique to the Triune Queens' skills.
I let it hover, holding my breath, afraid to open my eyes and break the spell. But eventually, curiosity and fatigue won. When I looked down, I could finally read the page clearly, just as I had during the full moon ceremony. My intuition had been correct; the page held a spell to enter The Glade.
I whispered the spell, the ancient words on the page, so soft I doubted even the Seer could hear me. As the words coursed over my lips, the spinning orb of elements seemed to falter. Seconds later, I realized it wasn’t falling, but gently lowering toward the manuscript.
As water splashed onto the page, the parchment melted away to reveal an image. A rich image of creeping greenery around the edges of the page, a pool of deep blue water in the center, so real it seemed like I could fall into it head first. My fingers reached toward it, and I knew it was real.
Too late, I knew I had accessed The Glade. The moment my fingers touched the water, a familiar tugging sensation gripped my chest, and in a heartbeat, I was gone. The world around me fell away, and Seer Goddard was but a distant memory.
When I opened my eyes, I stood in a cave. A light hum sounded around me, a vibration that filled my bones and welcomed me to this new realm. The longer I stood there in the darkness, the more I realized that it wasn’t a vibration, per se, but a melody. The melody of a song so familiar it brought me straight back to my childhood.
The song was a gentle lullaby, both soothing and heartbreaking in its sweetness. I’d never heard it anywhere except inside of my head; it would play on repeat on the loneliest nights of my childhood. Almost as if someone, somewhere, had wanted to comfort me. The words that accompanied the notes had been in a different language, one I’d never been able to decipher.
I’d tried to look up the song many, many times, but without knowing the notes or the words or even the original language, it had been an impossible task. At some point, I’d given up, writing it off as one of those strange childhood memories that might not be anything more than a figment of my imagination, like an invisible friend or a strange dream.
But now I knew the truth. Someone had gifted me that lullaby then, someone who was here in The Glade now, someone whohadwanted to comfort me. To give me a sign that I wasn’t alone. Someone who had wanted to give me the promise of more during the lowest moments when I’d felt completely and utterly unlovable. This song had been a promise of better things to come.
I shivered with the affirming realization that I hadn’t made this song up. As I listened harder, however, the tune faded slowly away, leaving behind a silence that wasn’t actually silence. The stillness of the cave was punctuated by thedrip, dripof water sliding rhythmically down the smooth walls.
I took stock of my surroundings, feeling shockingly unafraid to be here. This wasn’t the sort of cave that was claustrophobic and forbidding. It was lush, vibrant like a jungle, a thriving ecosystem where vines climbed gracefully along the walls, framing a crystalline pool at the center. The gentle babbling of a stream echoed softly around me as water flowed in and out of invisible crevices in the cave’s walls.
I noted quickly that I was alone, yet instead of feeling lonely, the cave felt comforting. The air was pure, untouched—cleaner even than the island’s fresh breezes, far removed from the pollution of New York. I felt secure, safe. This place didn’t quite feel like home, but it certainly didn’t feel foreign either.
I took in my surroundings, wondering if this cave was part of the earth’s core or located in outer space. I had no idea, except that I’d most likely fallen through a portal into it. Ipaused, letting my eyes adjust, letting my body sink into its new surroundings.
As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I started to understand that the world wasn’t really as dim as I’d first thought. There was indeed light present, maybe not the harshness of the midday sunlight I’d grown used to over the past few weeks, but something like the warmth of glittering fireflies. A golden glow was visible, the soft light refracting off the water’s surface and twinkling against the lush greenness of the leaves on the trees.
It was with a jolt, a scan of the surfaces reflected by that curious golden light, that I realized I was not alone.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I noticed the massive stone statues, much taller than me, situated in a circle around the cave. The statues were so unassuming and natural that at first glance, they’d blended right into the walls. Greenery grew over them; moss covered so much of the stone that they seemed half-alive with the nature around them. The darkness curled around the edges of the soft curves of them, melting them into the very cave itself.
Black holes existed where the eyes would be. These dark eye sockets shone down on me curiously; I felt watched. I moved closer to the one nearest me, glanced up at the enormous figure in awe. They were real works of beauty.
The figures were not carved in great detail, but were formed from soft, curving lines that lent themselves toward a feminine, nurturing sort of effect. The first figure was of a woman holding a basin in her hands. From the basin, water drizzled in a free fall to the stream below. The statues were well over three times my height. I held out a hand, let the droplets of water trickle over my skin.
Then I moved on to the second statue, making my way around the cave and noting it was much larger than I’d first thought. Thestatues simply took up so much space it had felt smaller, more intimate, cloaked in darkness.
I studied the second figure. This one was of a woman holding her middle finger to her thumb in a small “o” shape. As I stood still and watched, I heard as the gentle breeze inside the cave made a soft whistling sound as it filtered through her hands.Air.I didn’t know how there was air movement in an enclosed space, but then again, I didn’t know how I’d fallen through a portal to get here either.
