Page 21 of The Fae Girl 1

“Fine.” He replied standing up and pulling his own cloak off his shoulders and passing it to Marke. “She can have mine.”

Marke nodded in response and took the cloak placing it carefully around my shoulders in a way that made it clear he didn’t want to touch me. Like I was dirty, or infectious, or something worse.

I grimaced as he did it. I didn’t wanthiscloak on me, I didn’t want anything from him but I couldn’t deny the warmth of the robe and it brought me back to my senses.

I glanced over at the Prince but he was talking to one of the other men. Ridley I realised, the man who’d helped bandage my arms. Without his robe I could see the thick muscles of his arms as his shirt clung to them and I was only too aware of his smell on the cloak that now surrounded me. In any other situation, he’d be attractive, irresistible even despite the hardness of his face but right now all I could see was the hate I felt for him and the hate he evidently had for me too.

Marke handed me some stew, again careful not to actually touch me but I was too hungry to care. I wolfed it down. Once again burning my tongue. If they offered me seconds I would have taken it, not because it was good, although it wasn’t bad, but I was starving, and the heat was doing more to warm me than the fire was.

“I’m sorry for what’s happened to you.” Marke said quietly next to me.

“Which bit?” I retorted because as far as I was concerned every moment of the last two days had been an ordeal I wanted to forget.

“Lord Ghosh for one. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have tried to take you like that.”

I looked away. Feeling the shame rise at the memory. He’d tried to… no I wasn’t going to dwell on it. At least the Prince had helped there. Though his actions afterwards showed he had no compassion, no empathy.

“And the soldier who attacked you.” Marke added. “The Agnai.”

I frowned at the unfamiliar word. Fain had called him that too. “What are they?”

Marke let out a low breath before he spoke. “They’re a bunch of fanatics. Crazy people. They think anything but human is dangerous. If they could, they would kill all of us Magi as well but we’re too well protected.”

I let out a low breath. There were people more crazy than this lot? But of course there were. “What are Magi?” I asked. Marke had called him that so many times now. But the word meant nothing.

“You really don’t know anything do you?” He said though it didn’t sound like a criticism, he sounded almost sympathetic. “Magi are humans who can channel magic. But we have to have a receptacle, a way of channelling it.”

“What?”

“Like this.” He said pulling a dark crystal no more than a few centimetres in length. Clearly interpreting my disbelief for misunderstanding. “Usually we use crystals because they were formed when the world formed and are filled with the same elements. Sometimes we can use other things though, if they are very old, but they have to have some link to the world. Some of the world’s essence in them.”

“Right.” I said hoping my face didn’t show how absurd this all was. The scary thing was he actually looked like he believed it.

“So I could channel magic through that?” I said reaching towards the crystal. Marke flinched away from me like I’d done something offensive. “What? What did I do?”

“You can’t touch another Magi’s crystal.” He hissed before he calmed himself. “Crystals retain the energy of their user. If another person where to touch this it would be like touching my soul.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I replied.

“Besides you’re not human, you’re Fae and that changes everything.”

I rolled her eyes.Here we go again.“So what is Fae?” I asked. Worse case I might be able to use some of this information to my advantage, especially if people were willing to kill me over it.

“Fae are humans who’ve crossed over from another world. In making the journey your soul mixes with the same magic that created the world and you become magic.” Marke stated.

“But that’s the same as Magi.” I replied confused.

“No. No it’s not. Magi are humans from this world that can channel magic. Fae are magic.”

I shrugged. “Sounds like a difference in semantics to me.”

“It’s not. Fae have the ability to enter and leave worlds. No other creature has that.” Marke said.

“So you’re saying that I’ve somehow left my world and entered yours?” I half laughed.

“Exactly.” The serious look on his face said it all.

“But that’s absurd. Surely I’d know if I left my world?”

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