resentful hiss. Skirting the section that still smoked, I—no,
“Master!” she screamed. “I am coming!”
Higher and higher, we climbed; my Fae keeping our eyes trained upward. Because the old man’s soul—it called to her. She’d felt the tug of his presence since the moment I’d opened my eyes last night in Threall. Hell, she’d been fan-girl over him ever since we’d begun dreaming of Merenwyn.
“Save me,” he pleaded to her.
His soul ball glowed, so fierce, so bright. A distress beacon high in a mostly dead tree. Orange as a setting sun. And yes, even semimortal-me recognized the aching beauty of his dying soul. It was there in the glory of the golden light pouring from it. The summation of all the things thought before death—the loves you remember, the people you’ll miss, all the moments you won’t have in the future, all those sun-dappled days you spent in your past … when you die, that love, that wistful regret … it shines from within.
“I will save you, my liege,” my Fae cried.
No. There would be no thinking, no hesitating, no mulling of options. My Fae’s reckless will pushed us higher, past fear of falling, past fear of losing. My hand slid off, met air, and then, miraculously my knee met something immovable—I didn’t even turn to see what it was. Up, up, toward that glowing orb of light. Four more forks, then just a stretch, an impossible stretch. Doable.
“I’m almost there!” I cried.
But here’s the sad truth: if you’re half dead, you’re only half good.
Mad-one’s well of water was not bottomless. The magic that fed her rain withered, and with that, her gentle rain softened to a light drizzle, which gave way to a damp fog. Which might have been okay; the fire had been doused and we were four fifths of the way toward our rescue victim.
Then Threall’s wind stirred to life.
“Give me a break,” I cursed.
The sweet-scented zephyr of air passed over me like a silk ribbon drawn over my skin then snaked to where tiny pockets of fire drowsed. With sinuous skill the wind breathed air into the mouth of dying embers. A puff here, a blow there, a gentle fan there.
I knew what to expect next; I’d seen what happened to a few dull gray coals after Dad had doused them in lighter fluid and sped things up with the blow dryer.
Below me, a river of yellow wicked up the tree’s spine, in search of that sun-bleached, bare-barked, gray
“Master!” cried Mad-one.
So high! How had we climbed so high? There was no soft landing, there was no simple way down. The trunk was aflame four feet below me and fire was running along each bough searching for more fuel. There remained one window of escape. We’d have to squirm down, perilously close to the branches that hung over the abyss.
She forced our gaze upward. Perhaps ten feet above me, the mage’s cyreath swung with each breath of Threall’s wind. Its ties to the realm precarious—the only thing that kept it tethered to the tree was the thin strand of umbilical cord looped through a spar of wood. Not enough time to climb for it. An image flashed. A man, silvered hair, gleaming robes, backlit by brilliant white light that gave him almost a godlike halo.
She surged up my arm, tore painfully through the narrow channel of my wrist then—without prodding or permission—streamed out of my fingers in a cable of green magic. A serpent of green. A Fae spirit, too long stifled, now unleashed in the Fae realm for which her nature had been formed. She sparkled. She glittered. She glowed.
“Our mage!”
My magic sped upward—beautiful and bright—and hit the Old Mage’s withered soul light with her soft, openmouthed kiss.
I’d touched one of Threall’s soul balls before. Hell, I’d even carried it tucked under my arm. And as I’d done so, I’d felt a tenderness for the soul within. But this—oh, this blissful moment of unity when my Fae met mage— was totally different. She arched our back as old, deep-seated power, beyond any measure I ever owned or expected to, filled us.
It was a heroin fix for my Fae’s deepest cravings.
“I am your servant
Breathing? That got temporarily suspended. Using my knees to hug the limb? Almost forgot that, too. My Fae was larger than life, potent with promise, shivering with damn near orgasmic pleasure.
“Do you vow to be mine forever?” asked the mage. “My nalera?”
“Yes, forever,” she answered with my voice.
Then, before I could tug the controls back to semimortal-me, he said, “Let it be so!”
“Yes,” she said. Let it be so—joined to a mind far more brilliant than ours. Let it be so—earthly woes soothed, mortal worries vanished. Mmmmh, let it be so—this moment of bright white light, this moment of utter joy, this certainty that here, finally, was the job my Fae had been born to do. No longer the misfit among the animals. No longer hidden. No longer imprisoned.
Freedom.
She belonged here. In Threall.
With him.
My Fae’s magic wound a tight coil over that fragile strand that tethered his soul to the flaming tree, then strained to pull it free. One more rush of wondrous heat, as his ball’s tether stretched, reed thin. Then it snapped—
There was the burst of a bright white light; a thousand klieg lights all turned on at once; and then— Goddess
Yeah, yeah, I know.
What was semimortal-me doing? Nothing much. Just experiencing secondhand a joy that transcended anything I’d ever felt before. Me, my Fae, and him might have just stayed there and fried, impervious to pain, in a disquieting mental climax that never ended, body shuddering, senses attuned only to the pleasure of belonging— such a communion, such a marriage of magic and mage—if a section of the burning tree hadn’t suddenly broken with a loud, bliss-breaking crack.
My eyes flew open to hell.
The sizzling firebrand plunged toward the ground, taking with it weaker branches, all in a shower of sticks and branches and splinters of wood. And as it crashed through all that broken tinder, things aflame met things that weren’t.
Tinder, they were.
With a loud whoosh, the entire bottom of the tree went up. Heat and smoke roiled toward us, bringing with it a searing agony, worse than any blistering payback throbbing heat.
