Chapter Thirty

 

 

 

 

Shade

 

The opening at the end of the cavern finally came into view. Sweet daylight poured in, to my utter relief. I was sick of the darkness; my eyes ached from peering through it to see. I could see better than any human, and the inky blackness was a nightmare unto itself. I’d felt claustrophobic, and the air was so musty, it felt too heavy to breathe. I’d gripped the obsidian giant until my knuckles were white, and my bottom was numb from the hard slab made for me to sit on pressing painfully against my tailbone.

How Aveta liked riding on these horrid things was crazy.

“Here we are!” the dark queen called out, giddy with excitement. I had never seen her so elated; it was rubbing off on me, and I smiled. I felt the same way about seeing the light outside. It meant our journey was over.

The giants bent to the ground, letting us off. I turned to face the one that had taken me through the rest of the maze and gave him a curt nod.

“Thanks for the ride.” I grinned as genuinely as I could, but the faceless thing just stood back up and froze into its stance. Aveta’s giant did the same. They no longer moved, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think they were just crudely carved statues.

“Wow. You can control them, but you have no earth magic?” I pointed out in wonderment.

“I have no earth magic, and I don’t control them; they choose to obey me. They’re my friends.” Aveta puffed out her chest with pride. She turned and headed through the exit of the cavern, where a fresh breeze was blowing and a grey sky hovered above. I followed, shading my eyes from the glaring light after being so long in the overbearing darkness.

The land before us was the color of straw. Dead foliage trembled in the coming storm’s breeze, and mud lined the edges against the boulders of the cavern. I heard no animals nor saw any birds. Trees stood sparsely, with leaves falling in piles and their trunks dried up and withering. It looked like an apocalypse had happened here or at least a severe drought. Either scenario was obviously not what Aveta had expected.

“What happened?” I asked.

Aveta, looking pale as her eyes scanned the horizon, shook her head in disbelief.

“I—I don’t know. The poppies are gone. The trees… they should be green and full. Something isn’t right.” She dropped down from the last boulder, landing in the dirt before taking off, her skirt flying in the wind behind her as her hair, usually pristine and glossy, whipped in the storm’s fierce winds.

“Wait!” I hollered, jumping off the boulder and landing hard. Being an Ancient didn’t make me graceful. I was as clumsy as ever, but I willed my powers to help me off the muddy ground and broke into a run behind the Unseelie queen. She had brought me here for a reason, and I needed to find out what that reason was, besides helping her get here, of course. I needed to find out what this place was.

It felt like Faerie, but not quite, and I took it that it wasn’t supposed to look this desolate.

“Cranston!” Aveta’s voice wailed into the wind, her desperation leeching out into it. As we made it over a hill past the dead poppies she’d mentioned, a cabin appeared, looking decrepit, with part of the roof caving in and a pathetic tendril of smoke rising from its chimney and quickly dissipating in the wind. “Cranston!”

Aveta came to a stop a few feet before it, with me a few feet behind her. I heaved, my chest burning. Running was not something I did often nowadays.

I turned to look at the dark queen to find tears streaming down her face, her hair wild and unkempt. She looked younger now as I stared at her, the mask of a young girl who had sought sanctuary in this place long ago. I guess even queens got disappointed.

“Who’s Cranston?” I asked, hoping I wouldn’t set her off.

“He—he’s my love,” Aveta mumbled as she took an unsteady step forward. At the door, she reached out to knock on the rotted wood, first softly but then desperately as she continued to call out his name.

“Cranston! I’m back. I’m back!” she sobbed, sniffling through her tears. She turned toward me, her eyes beckoning. “I can’t.” She stepped away from the door, collapsing onto her knees and rocking back and forth. “Please,” she begged.

I knew what she wanted. I took a deep breath as I stepped closer, reaching out to touch the knob and turning it, half afraid it would burn me. It didn’t. It was made of something else… plastic? It couldn’t be. I stared at the black knob, dull and scratched with use. It wasn’t metal at all. It was definitely a hard plastic made to look like metal. Why would there be plastic in Faerie?

I decided I’d think on it later and pushed the door open. It creaked, the old wood groaning in complaint. Inside, the cabin was dark, but a small fire cracked and popped in the fireplace, with a chair sitting before it. Soft snores emanated from the chair, and I could see an arm dangling off the side of it. Everything here looked decades old. Was there a human here? How was he surviving Faerie when my own siblings had been forced to leave?

I could see why Aveta didn’t want to come in and find a corpse. I was nearly afraid the person sitting in the chair wouldn’t wake up from their last snooze. As I rounded the corner, I held my breath. A middle-aged man sat there, gray hair peppering his dark beard and scalp, wrinkles etched into the edges of his eyelids and mouth. His hands were worn down, skin thickened and callused from hard work. This wasn’t a faery who conjured up his every need. No, this was a man who worked for his food and shelter.

A drop of water landed on my cheek, and I peered up toward the rear of the cabin, where a hasty tarp had been tied to keep the rain away from the hole in the roof. One corner had come loose, but it was so high up in the rafters, I doubted the man had realized it before he’d fallen asleep.

I flicked my hand, letting my elemental air powers rush up to the opening and tighten the edge of the tarp to the roof, covering the hole. At least the rain would stay out for now. I could fix the cabin later.

“Cranston?” I whispered, softly nudging the man on the arm. “Excuse me, sir, are you Cranston?” Please be him. I didn’t want to face Aveta if it weren’t or if the man told me Cranston was no longer among us.

The man sputtered, shaking off the sleep as he inhaled sharply, startled at my voice. He narrowed his eyes and stared, studying my face.

“Aveta?”

I blew out the breath I was holding. “No. But she’s waiting outside.”

“Who are you? Are you an angel?” He startled and glanced around, a wild look in his eyes. “Am I dead?”

“No, I’m not an angel. And you’re not dead.”

“You’re like her. Like Aveta. But… not.” He squinted, trying to reason what sort of being I was.

“Yes, kind of like her.”

“Cranston?”

A voice behind me made me want to squeal with a start, but I remained quiet. I wished she wouldn’t sneak up on me like that.

“Aveta?” Cranston stood up, a bit wobbly at first, but he gained composure with each step. “Is it you?”

“Yes, Cranston. It’s me.” Aveta took a hesitant step forward, her tears of anguish still staining her face. “I came back. I told you I would.”

“But you look the same. You haven’t aged.”

“I do not age.”

He frowned. “I have.”

Aveta reached out, melting into his arms and squeezing him tightly. “I know.”

“What’s been happening? The crops are dying, the trees are bare. I’ve been living on roots, but even they are sparse.”

“It’s Faerie. The land… it’s dying.”

“I see. We’ll have to leave here then.”

“No, we don’t have to. I know a way to save it.”

My mouth dropped open. “What?” I choked out. “You know how to save Faerie, and you never said anything to me about it?” My anger boiled inside. Maybe I needed to wring out all the secrets from this dark queen after all. “People are dying, and you keep quiet?”

“I had to be sure. I had to come back here and make sure.”

“Make sure of what?”

“That Cranston was still alive. If he were, I can fix this. If he’d died….”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have been so willing to fix it if he had kicked the bucket now, would you?” I grumbled. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“No, I would, but it would have been too late,” Aveta said, never letting go of Cranston. He gently stroked her hair, inhaling her scent as they held on to each other, looking unwilling or afraid to let go.

“Well, how do we save it? There isn’t much time. I feel the magic ebbing away in my bones. We have to do something now.” I had ignored the dread of the fluctuating magic for a while, but now I had to know how to save Faerie sooner rather than later.

“We opened one gate to the Netherworld thanks to you, Shade. You have to help me open the other gate. One gate leads to Faerie. One leads to the mortal realm.”

My eyes opened wider. “What? Why would you want to do that?”

“There are people here, like Cranston, part human, part fae, but without powers. Humans came here long ago and lived in harmony with faeries. Now there are no faeries here and barely any humans, so the land is dying. It’s the heart of the two realms. Without life, it dies. We must bring fae and humans alike back to this place. The power of unity will keep Faerie alive. The mortal world has its own magic too, after all.”

I didn’t understand her, but I was willing to try anything. “I’m not sure about this, but what have we got to lose? What do I have to do?”

“Help me restore Cranston. Our magic will keep him young. Then we can open the other gate. It’s across the poppy field to the west.”

“And you do know how to open it, right?” I asked. Something in the way her face tightened told me otherwise. “You mean you don’t know? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Aveta avoided my eyes as she held Cranston at arm’s length. “I do know how to open the gate, Shade, but you’re not going to like it.”