“As you say.” The guard bowed.
I dipped my head. At least that guy was nice enough. Maybe they should promote him for not being a pointy-eared jerk. “Thank you.”
He looked startled by my gratitude, and a real smile lifted his lips.
They should totally give him a medal or something. With a sigh, I walked away, unaccountably weary. I ignored the side-long looks from the violet-eyed Phaetyn as I passed. The Phaetyn seemed unsure of whether I was an intruder or not. These silver robes were like magic.
Emboldened by my disguise, I followed the rush of water through the trees to my right, I adjusted my course and, a few minutes later, sank to my knees beside a bubbling brook. There were many Phaetyn around, some collecting water, some just talking, and others hurrying by to get other jobs done, maybe even to go join the fight happening somewhere in the forest. No one said anything to me, and I stared at the crystal water.
I didn’t want to get involved in all this Phaetyn drama. I felt a debt because of my connection to the trees and Luna, but this wasn’t my battle. Yet several Phaetyn were trying to force my hand, each in their different ways; Kamoi with plans to pitch the fork and do the Maypole dance with me, and his mother . . . Well, I wasn’t sure what her game was yet, aside from trying to bar me from finding out anything else, and the Phaetyn today asking me to look at the tree’s memories.
I wondered if Kamini knew her mother was a turd. No, she was way worse than that.
My presence here with the scheming and calculated interest felt too similar to a game I’d been forced to play before. This place just didn’t have a torture room. Or, at least, not that I could see. Somehow, that fact wasn’t making my palms any less clammy.
I cupped my hands in the water and brought the clear liquid to my mouth. My nose twitched as I recognized the same sweet smell of the water I’d collected outside the forest. I drained the fluid in my hands, and some of my tension eased. “It’s sweet, too.”
I dipped my hands again and drank my fill.
“It tastes sweet to you?” a male Phaetyn asked.
I glanced up to see him kneeling next to me. “Yes,” I said, drying my hands on my silver garments. “I’ve never tasted water like this, well, except for the stuff just outside this forest.”
The Phaetyn smiled and made a lifting gesture with his hand. A sphere of water lifted from the brook and hovered in the air. “There is life in water, as there is in the ground, the air, and in the animals,” the man said. He appeared middle-aged which probably meant he was hundreds of years old. “And Zivost is life itself. The water here is at its purest, and the rivers and streams that flow through this place carry life to those outside the forest. In times gone by, all waterways tasted like this. I’m greatly saddened to hear that is no longer true.”
Oh, boy. If only he knew the whole of it.
Someone scoffed behind me. I turned and saw a narrow-faced woman sneering at the man. “Do not speak to this atrocity, Fabir. She’s not one of us; she should not know our ways.”
The man ignored her, speaking again to me. “Tell me, child, what are your Phaetyn powers?”
I shifted, uncomfortably aware of the attention we were garnering. “Well, I can grow potatoes and stuff.”
“Ah, a plant affinity.”
I shrugged. “I guess. I made a flower once.”
He paused, the creases around his eyes deepening. “What do you mean?”
“I made a flower, a blue blossom that glowed.” My heart squeezed at the thought of it, of Tyr. But then, Tyr was in the rose house right now . . . wasn’t he? The essence of him.
There were gasps.
“I see,” the man said.
I glanced at him in question and saw he was looking at the ground where a single Tyr-flower had bloomed.
“That’s it,” I said. My chest filled as I leaned closer to the flower and stroked it gently with my finger. The luminescent flower bent toward me, even when I straightened.
The man was blinking back tears. “Thank you, child. That is a beautiful thing to see.”
“How dare you!” the narrow-faced woman seethed. “You enter our forest and try to usurp our rightful queen?”
A younger Phaetyn, one of the ones I’d spoken to earlier, snapped at her. “Ertha, she has ancestral powers. She converses with the trees.”
A hush rippled through the gathering crowd.
I slowly got to my feet. Maybe I could slip away before things got too tense.
“Dark does not belong with light,” another male Phaetyn shouted.
“No,” the man beside me said, standing. “That’s exactly where it belongs. Where there is dark, light must always exist. Drae and Phaetyn have always balanced each other as is our responsibility.” He gazed out over the crowd, and then his attention landed back on me. “This young woman is that same balance, just as one.”
“You’ve always been a fool,” Ertha shouted.
“Look,” I said, raising my hands to stop the shouting. “I’m not here to take your queen’s job.” Though I think you’d be interested to know a few things about her. “I came here with Kamoi, thinking your people could help me understand my Phaetyn side. That’s it. Whatever trouble you’ve got going on here has nothing to do with me.”
The young Phaetyn from earlier crossed his arms. “You saw something at the trees earlier.”
I began striding through the crowd. I would not get involved, not yet. I wanted a clear path. I wanted an exit plan. I wanted to know those I loved would still be safe when this was over. I was not going to put anyone else in danger ever again.
“What did you see?” he pressed.
The tension in the air overwhelmed my frayed nerves, and the pressure to do something consumed me. Scales erupted up my arms, and my eyes blazed. I whirled on the young Phaetyn, and the watching crowd reared back.
“You do not want to know the horrible things I saw.” My growl was menacing and filled the surrounding space. They didn’t know how this would end, but tensions would escalate, and people, Phaetyn, would get hurt. I took a deep breath, staring at the young man. He blinked but refused to look away. With a shake of my head, I broke the locked gaze, and then pushing through the last few rows, I strode back in the direction of the Pink House.
“See,” the woman Ertha called. “An atrocity.”
21
The urge to shift was nearly overwhelming, and I rushed through the hallways of the queen’s quartz house, feet tripping in my haste to get to the privacy of our quarters. I all but fell into our room and slammed the door shut behind me, my heart jumping against my ribs, trying to escape.
Dyter jumped.
“Sorry,” I said through my Drae teeth, dropping my head into my hands.
“Are you okay?” he asked.