“How’d it go with Eledan?” Sota asked, breezing up to me as I approached the chamber.
“It… didn’t. Any answers he gave me would have been poison anyway. Where are the others?” I assumed they’d already moved from the room in preparation to leave the knoll.
“Outside. Shinj transported Sirius onto a beach below the knoll. Kellee sent me back up here to find you before he came himself and”—he put on his Marshal Kellee voice—“tears the place apart looking for you. Also, Sirius reported that the Excalibur crew is getting restless.”
I absorbed Sota’s words as he led me through the corridors. I should send Talen back. We’d hijacked Sol Alliance’s Excalibur and brought it, cloaked, to Faerie-space after its captain had tried to steal a piece of the polestar from Kellee. Talen’s unique ability to control human emotions meant he could keep the human crew subdued, but the thought of being apart from him, from any of them, tightened my chest. We were stronger together. Every time we separated, bad shit happened.
Sota and I left the knoll via one of many steep, spiraling staircases and emerged halfway up a cliff face where paths snaked down to a silvery dusk-lit beach. I could just make out the figures of Sirius, Kellee, and Talen on the sands below. Talen leaned heavily against the marshal. His silver-white hair reflected the half-light, while beside him, the marshal’s dark hair absorbed it. Sirius, standing apart from them, looked like a flame in fae form.
Gripping a rail, I welcomed the warm breeze trailing across my face. Faerie’s green ocean was calm. Night still lingered and would probably stay for weeks, its dark blanket covering Faerie in these troubling times.
“I don’t want to see them hurt,” I whispered.
Sota joined me at the rail. “They’re with you because they choose to be.”
His words hit like a punch to the chest. How could I love them all so equally? Was it truly me they loved in return? Not the polestar, not the messenger myth, just the real me beneath all those names? Sirius had somehow admired me from afar for years, and Talen… Talen wanted so badly to be good. And Kellee had made me his messenger long before I agreed to it, but he would never use me, never lie to me. They were all better than me.
Sota’s hand settled on my shoulder—the shoulder he’d always preferred to hover over. “They believe in you.”
I closed my eyes.
“I believe in you.”
I could do this.
I would do this.
We would stop Faerie. I’d return the polestar to where it belonged, and this nightmare would end. Forever.
“C’mon.” I eased out from Sota’s touch and started down the cliff path. “We should get moving before Eledan realizes we’re gone.”
Sota followed. “Can you stop him and his nightmare? Can you stop the war?”
“Yes.” Not a lie, I hoped. First, I needed those answers from someone who knew Eledan better than anyone else alive.
Talen appeared to be regaining his strength. Some color had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes were no longer hooded or sleepy.
“Are you fit to travel?” I asked, arriving at their side on the beach.
He dipped his chin. “Fit enough.”
The wind lashed his long, untethered hair around his shoulders.
All right, so we could make some progress. Kellee nodded, signaling he was ready for anything. His edgy rawness lingered in the way he tapped his fingers against his thigh and in his quick, alert glances.
Sirius stood apart, proud and aloof. The expanse of green ocean offered a startling backdrop to his red coloring. I had to remind myself he wasn’t Oberon’s tool and likely never had been. He served Faerie, and, apparently, he also served me. That was a revelation we hadn’t had time to explore. I’d sparked a wildfire in him with a kiss, but there was no sign of that wildfire now. He looked back at me as restrained and stoic as a soldier awaiting orders.
“Let’s get one thing clear so there are no more misunderstandings.” All eyes blinked to me. “No more plotting or scheming without consulting one another. We do things together from here on out.”
Sota stood at my side, my protector, my friend. Always. “Does that include you, Kesh?” he asked and recoiled under my glare.
“It’s a fair question,” Kellee added. “You’ve been known to scheme, on occasion.”
Talen huffed a gentle laugh.
“Yes,” I conceded, “that includes me.”
“Well, all right, then,” Kellee drawled.
“With that in mind, are there any more secrets you’d like to tell me or each other?”
Talen flicked his eyes skyward, trying to appear innocent. Kellee immediately noticed his body language, and his humor soured. So something had happened between them while I’d been unconscious.
“What is it?” I asked.
“We have the Valand piece of the polestar,” Talen said. “We… I’ve had it since killing Sjora.”
“The thimble?” I asked. Kellee’s eyes widened. I’d known. How could I not? I’d wanted to crush that thing or throw it away every time I’d laid eyes on it. I hadn’t known what I was looking at, and because I hadn’t been seeking it, the polestar had stayed hidden in plain sight. “Eledan crushed your fake. Where’s the real one?”
“On Shinj,” Talen replied.
“What about the acorn?”
“Eledan has it,” Kellee said. “We had to give him something to free you.”
Then we were even, Eledan and I. He had two pieces and so did I. Good. But he’d come looking for the thimble as soon as he realized we’d abandoned him.
“Any other revelations?” I asked Talen.
His old-soul eyes said yes. “A millennia’s worth, but nothing relevant.”
Kellee shook his head. He’d always been honest. And then there was Sirius. The guardian’s jaw fluttered under our scrutiny. “I do not believe so, but an immortal’s memory is an infinite place where pertinent information can easily be lost,” came his typical fae response. It was the best I would get from him.
“As we’re sharing,” Sota spoke up. “Eledan programmed a failsafe into me. It seems, when he disabled me in Arcon, he added some upgrades. He can render me unconscious with a gesture. There may be more he can do.”
Kellee swore. Talen’s brow knitted together, and Sirius continued to glare.
“We should leave the drone here,” the guardian declared. It was a wise suggestion, and it wasn’t ever happening.
“Sota comes with us.” I wasn’t letting any of them out of my sight, especially Sota.
Sota bowed his head. “He’s right. I’m a liability—”
“No.” My tone alone shut down any further protests. “We are together, and we will stay together. If any of you have a problem with that, you can walk away.”
“I pledged myself to you. I meant it,” Kellee said, leaving no room for doubt.
Sirius’s brilliant green eyes narrowed. “Sota is a beacon telling Eledan where you are, but Sota’s tek-presence could shield you from the Hunt, which is likely why Eledan wanted him close during the ceremony. Perhaps it’s worth the risk.”
There was no perhaps. “Sota stays. We’ll deal with whatever fallout comes from it.”
Sota toed the sand with a boot, looking so vulnerable that I wanted to throw my arms around him.
“If you want to go, I won’t stop you…” It hurt to say, but he had the right to choose. “But know how much I need you, Sota. I don’t think I can do this without you.”
He looked up and met my eyes. The wild locks of dark hair swept across his forehead and cheek, giving him a boyish appeal, but inside, he was a long way from his naïve exterior. “I’ll do my best to protect you.”
“I can’t do this without any of you,” I told them. “You are each a part of me, and while I know we have our differences and it will not always be easy, if we’re together, neither Faerie nor Eledan can break us.” The wind picked up and whisked my words away, carrying them to any force on Faerie who cared to listen. I’d seen only a small amount of the wonders and horrors Faerie had to offer. That would soon change.
Sirius, Talen, Kellee, Sota. I loved them with a light as bright as any polestar.
“What’s our next move?” Kellee asked.
“We visit Ailish and the Wild Ones.”
The guardian’s glower intensified. “That is… unwise.”
“Probably, but she told me more in a few minutes than any other fae has in my entire life, so we’re going to her.”
“What you saw of her in her home was the good, but she has many faces, Calla. She trades in deception and dark promises.”
I smiled. So do I. “Of course she does, but we have you and she seemed to like you.”
“She fears me. We have our history.”
Fear was a potent motivator. “It’s time I used all the weapons at my disposal.”
“Is that all I am to you? A weapon?” Sirius crafted the question to sound light and careless, but his steady gaze cut through that karushit.
“No, and you well know it.” A tension had crept onto the beach, the kind that would get worse if left to fester. “How might we find Ailish?”
“She will either sense our summons and come to us of her free will, or, more likely, we’ll have to seek her at her cavern. If she isn’t there, we’ll have to travel deeper into Faerie.”
“We’ll take Shinj there—”
“We cannot. The warcruisers are Oberon’s creations. The Wild Ones abhor them. They will not appear in the presence of such a creature.”
I glanced at Talen. He nodded in agreement with Sirius. Walking to the cavern would take days—days in which Eledan would delight in hunting us. “I don’t suppose you can rustle us up a carriage like you did at the docks?”
Sirius’s lips twitched around what might have been a smile if he’d loosened his stoic mask enough to let it slip through. “I can, but I’ll need some items.”
“Items?” Sota echoed.
“Come, let us leave this exposed beach. I’ll find the necessary elements along the way.” He started toward a section of the cliff that had collapsed onto the beach, providing a gulley through which we could escape the knoll and Eledan. Although, there was likely a reason he hadn’t yet raised the alarm.
“One more thing,” I called after him. He turned, and they all waited for me to speak. “We can’t sleep. Eledan will find us in our dreams. We all know how powerful he is there. He can turn us against each other and make it so we forget his meddling.”
“Then we had better hurry,” Sirius replied and marched on.