“In most cases, not long,” I answered. “She should feel better soon. However, neither of you are accustomed to being tall, nor are you used to moving around without your wings. That may take some getting used to.”
“Then I will do what I can to make this place more comfortable for her,” he said. He closed his eyes and began to sing. His voice, barely above a whisper, reminded me of wind rushing through willow boughs. The song conjured images of quiet ponds at evening time, with fireflies reflected in the dark water. Soon, a fog gathered around him and spread throughout the room. I felt magic in the fog, and goose bumps prickled my skin as it touched me with a warm, energetic embrace.
Shapes appeared in the mist. A silver tree grew in the center of the tent. As Terminus sang, its branches spread overhead and then dipped and curved toward the ground, forming separate rooms. Vines wrapped the tree limbs and tiny orange flowers bloomed, filling the room with their perfume. Soft lights twinkled inside the flowers, casting the room in a luminous glow. Red roses and yellow daffodils sprouted from the ground and bloomed around us. They grew until they were as large as beds.
The song ended before I was ready. Since fairy magic could only be used for good, it was undeniably the most untainted magic in Faythander, and its simplicity gave it power.
Terminus laid his sister on one of the roses. She sank into its petals, and then a small smile creased her mouth.
“You have brought me home?”
“No, of course not. But this is as close to home as I could manage.”
“You have done well,” she said.
“It’s beautiful,” I said as I ran my hands over one of the frilly daffodil petals. I wandered the room, staring at the tree limbs overhead, feeling warmth from the fairy lights on my skin and the softness of the grass beneath my bare feet. I wandered from one room into the next, surprised to find flowers of all varieties in the separate chambers. Sunflowers as large as dining tables sprouted in one room, while the next was filled with giant blue hydrangeas. In another room, I found tulips in a rainbow of shades from red to indigo.
As I inspected the flowers, the thought struck me that the fairy prince must have made these rooms with a specific purpose in mind. But what did he plan to use them for? I walked out of the tulip room into the last room, expecting more colorful flowers. Instead, I found it robed in black vines. They grew along the floor and ceiling, and in the far corner, the vines created a hammock.
Odd.
I entered the main chamber once again to find the princess asleep on a rose. She looked so tiny on the huge flower, and I realized she couldn’t be much older than fourteen or fifteen. Her brother stood watch near her.
“Terminus,” I said quietly as I neared him. “What are all the different chambers for? And why is one room all in black?”
“The rooms are for our protectors.”
“Who are your protectors?” I had a sneaky suspicion that I wasn’t going to like his answer.
“The Wults,” he answered.
Yep. Didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.
“Why are the Wults coming?”
“Because long ago, in a different age, the Wult king stole a fruit from a fairy-flower tree, and by accident, he fed it to a bog-beast. The beast would have killed the Wult man, but the fairy queen took pity and saved him. In exchange for his life, the Wult promised protection to all fairies in any time of need. Whenever called upon, the Wult king must serve the fairies.”
“Wult king?” I hadn’t heard him correctly. Surely I hadn’t.
“Yes, the king and his court will arrive shortly.”
This was bad.
No, this was world-ending, sky-is-falling, pull-the-trigger and drop-dead horrible bad.
“Terminus, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you any longer. If the Wults are coming, then you should have no trouble finding the missing starstone. Wults are excellent trackers, and I’m sure it will be returned before tomorrow evening. If you will excuse me.”
I turned for the exit, but Terminus stopped me.
“That is not all,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at his sleeping sister. “I will tell you outside.”
He led me through the tent’s front flap, our feet crunching over dead leaves as we walked toward the forest. From this perspective, the tent looked like a giant lantern, casting shades of white and yellow over the uneven ground around it.
When I’d come to the Ren Fest, I certainly hadn’t expected this. Or them. Or him. What could I possibly do to avoid that man?
We stopped at the edge of the tree line. Terminus’s silver eyes darted around the field. He looked as if he wanted to take flight but was stuck with walking as his mode of transportation.
He turned his attention to me. “I did not want to speak of this in front of my sister, which is why I have brought you out here. Are you familiar with the bloodthorn?”
“No, I don’t believe so. What it is?”
“He is a creature from a place our people fear. We are forbidden from speaking of this place, for its name is a spell word of the most powerful sort. We call it only ‘the undiscovered land’. Several weeks ago, this creature was spotted on the outskirts of our village, and shortly thereafter, our starstone was stolen.”
“You believe it was the bloodthorn who took it?”
He nodded. “I am almost certain of it. However, my sister knows none of this. My people fear the bloodthorn and those like it more than anything else. They are our mortal enemies. I did not wish to frighten her by revealing this knowledge.”
The wind picked up, howling through the trees and making the branches creak. “Do you believe the bloodthorn is here on this planet?”
“Yes, I believe
