Kheelan lay back down on the floor, weak with pain. The fire in his back and legs was unceasing. This time he fought blacking out, afraid if he closed his eyes, his old childhood friends would disappear. A terrible thought invaded the pain fog. Perhaps he was hallucinating about help coming. He hadn’t been with Hefeydd and Ealdun in over ten years, not since he was about twelve years old.
“Ack, here she be Kheelan,” Ealdun said, patting Kheelan’s shoulder.
The air shimmered and stirred and a refreshing draft, like a spring meadow breeze, blew across his burning body. He picked up the scent of lily of the valley and knew who had come.
Annwynn.
She materialized slowly. First came the glowing outline of her human-sized body and her mass of multi-colored, waist-length hair. Next, her raspberry wings that spanned her body from shoulders to mid-thigh were visible, and then he beheld all the details of her opalescent splendor. Annwynn’s violet eyes focused on him, soft with sympathy. Kheelan was ashamed of lying there, in pain and stinking of burnt flesh, even if she brought relief. Pride was the one thing he held onto all his life, through all his trials. Something he refused to let them kill.
Annwynn knelt beside him. “Kheelan.” As she said the words, her fairy breath was a balm of comfort. She’d always had this effect on him, ever since he was a child, the first Guardian in his memory. If only she had been the last. The Seelie Court Council had removed Annwynn from her post, claiming she’d become too attached and soft with the young human.
He struggled to sit up but she placed a cold hand on his shoulder.
“What’s Finvorra done now?” She scanned his body, her violet eyes smoldering with purplish-black sparks when they reached his burnt legs. “Hefeydd, fetch me some aloe and feverfew. Ye do still keep herbs here don’t ye, Kheelan?”
He nodded, face perspiring with the effort to withhold a whimper. Hefeydd and Ealdun scampered below, then return with the needed medicine and a large wooden bowl.
Annwynn hastily threw the herbs in the bowl and produced a willow wand from her diaphanous silver gown. She muttered words unintelligible to Kheelan, Fae words, and stirred the concoction with the wand.
Kheelan kept his eyes fixed on Finvorra, wondering how much longer his Guardian would remain frozen.
“Don’t worry about him,” said Annwynn, never looking up from her ministrations. “The Council is finally starting to realize his cruel treatment of ye can only hinder yer investigation in the pixie murders. I bring news to Finvorra from Queen Corrigan’s assistant that he cease at once.”
Kheelan kept silent. Grateful though he was, he realized the Council acted in its own best interest and not out of any concern for his personal well-being. He was here to do a job for them.
Annwynn’s cold hands on his burned calves brought welcome relief. He breathed easier as she continued smoothing his skin with the aloe salve.
“She’ll have ye good as new in a trice,” Ealdun said in his cheery brogue.
Hefeydd wiped Kheelan’s face with something resembling a moss sponge. Its tangy, grassy scent helped clear his fuzzy brain, the tartness more bracing than ice water. Slowly, he sat up and watched Annwynn finish her treatment. When done, the burnt, blistering skin had transformed to a soft pink. Tender, but more uncomfortable than painful. He breathed a sigh of relief. He had too much to do over the next few days to be stuck in bed incapacitated.
“Thank you,” he told them.
Annwynn pierced him with those purple eyes. “Just because ye can’t see us doesn’t mean we are gone from yer life. But we cannot come to yer aid unless Queen Corrigan and the Council give us permission to interfere.”
How quickly he could be swept up in her kindness and the sympathy of his old friends. But no, it was too little too late. He couldn’t entirely trust their motives.
“What did ye do to make him lose his temper like that?” Hefeydd asked.
It would be so easy to tell them. Indeed, he felt compelled to spill his guts. Whether this compulsion came from a fae spell or psychological manipulation on their part, he didn’t know.
“I read the Fae Records of Birth.” A half lie, but maybe it would be enough to satisfy them.
“But they aren’t fer human eyes,” said Ealdun, clearly shocked. “I didn’t think a human could even read them.”
Annwynn watched Kheelan intently. “They can if they know to use a hagstone and fairy ointment.”
Hefeydd slapped his knee and chuckled. “I always knew ye were a clever laddie.”
Kheelan’s dark eyes focused steadily on Annwynn’s violet ones, careful not to break contact. “And I found out you lied to me. My parents never died in a car wreck, they’re alive and well. So is the Fae child you exchanged in my place.”
She nodded, face devoid of guilt. “The Fae cast a glamour spell on him so he would look like ye physically. I’d hoped ye would never find out the truth. Ye must believe I told ye yer parents were dead for yer own peace of mind. I didn’t want ye longing for them when such hope was foolish.”