Page 4 of Mistake of Magic
River’s jaw tightened, as it always did when he was forced to reconcile his personal dislike of the Elders Council with an equally potent loyalty to the Citadel’s mission. “Flurry’s, Slait’s, and Blaze’s court subjects must pledge an oath to their kings. This is little different. As for the magic selecting basket weavers, it’s simply never happened. There is a warrior spark in every chosen being. The magic doesn’t make mistakes.”
“No?” Lera waved a hand over her very human self.
“You aren’t a mistake,” Tye said, getting to his feet and glaring at River. Heat pulsed through his veins as Autumn’s words in the Slait palace library echoed in his memory.Look at your quint now: a child of Slait, Blaze, Flurry, Mors, and now a child of the mortal lands. Doesn’t that seem a bit too neat to be an accident?But the female’s research was only academic proof of what he’d already known in his gut.
“Tye.” Shade’s voice hardened. They were all falling into their hierarchical roles now, with the Citadel looming. Not that Tye much cared.
“Flurry,” Tye said, pointing at the wolf shifter, before cycling through the other males. “Blaze. Slait. Mors. And now the mortal lands. Does thatseemlike a mistake to any of you?”
Silence settled over the quint, the others watching Tye warily as he panted, his hands opening and closing at his sides. Let them dare push him on this. Let them so much as try and Tye’s tiger would feast on their flesh.
River cleared his throat, carefully taking a sip of wine before turning to address Lera. “We may not understand the magic’s intentions, but you—”
“I connected with the four of you and survived,” she said, smoothly taking River’s sentence in her own direction. Her beautiful forehead tightened into a frown. “I think we should try it again before we enter the Citadel. Connect in a safe and controlled manner without anyone watching. See what we can do as a quint.”
River choked on his drink. “Safe and controlled? That’s akin to a safe and controlled fall off a bloody cliff.”
Lera threw him a withering glance.
River studied her, his intelligent gaze incredulous. “Have you gone insane, Leralynn? Your surviving enough magic to kill most immortals was a bloody miracle—we are not going to tempt fate twice.”
“Of course, River,” Lera said in a too-sweet voice that woke every fiber in Tye’s body to yet another realization. Last time the quint was at the Citadel, Tye and his elastic relationship with the law was River’s greatest challenge to overcome. This time, that mantle would be going to someone else.
3
Lera
We switchback up the steep road toward the Citadel, the hard-packed dirt granting good footing to the horses. My mare, Sprite, dances beneath me, sniffing the maples that are growing inexplicably greener the closer we get to the top. Magic. So much of it that even the trees and seasons bend to its will. A cacophony of birdsong rings from the branches around us, and flowering vines dangle from the branches arching over our heads. I wonder what the Gloom looks like here, whether I would still see the maples and large ash trees if we were to step into Lunos’s dark undercurrent.
Not that I’m overly eager to find out.
My stomach tightens with each step, the Citadel rising above us like a white marble sentinel atop a forest-dressed mountain. I’d expected that the decision to remain a quint would bring a calm finality with it. The knot on a braid’s end. It didn’t. If anything, the knot is at the braid’s beginning, with the weave still to come. With snags to be untangled along the way.
Focusing my mind on the current snag, I nudge Sprite to pull alongside River’s dapple-gray stallion, who snorts excitedly.
“You’d be safer downwind.” River pats his horse’s neck. His spine is rod straight as always, the aura of unerring responsibility as much a part of his immortal princely self as his broad shoulders and gray eyes. The latter, all too used to making beings wither from a single glance. “Sprite is going into heat.”
“All your centuries of training and you can’t control your mount?” I say, maneuvering to the other side.
“I can control my mount just fine, Leralynn, but he is still a male and has instincts.” He turns to me, those stormy eyes unnervingly intense. He frowns, his voice dropping to a murmur. “And he isn’t the only one.”
My skin heats. “Should I keep downwind of you as well?”
“No.” River’s eyes flick to the woods, where Shade trots along in his wolf form. The smooth planes of River’s face tighten with worry. He pushes his horse in front of mine.
“What—”
A growl shatters the air before I can finish. With the next breath, Tye, River, and Coal surround me, their blades bared, muscles clenched in defense. My heart stutters at the sudden shift from casual conversation to deadly warriors, and I lick my lips to get moisture back into my mouth. Belatedly, I draw my own dagger, which Coal insisted on pinning to my waist. I feel just as ridiculous with the tiny weapon as I’m certain I look.
Shade’s growl sounds again, and now I hear footsteps crashing through the forest. Whoever it is, they’re no longer trying to shield their arrival from us. And then I see why, as one by one, five armed females emerge onto the trail, Shade snapping his teeth as he herds the procession. The front-most fae warrior, tall with cropped dark-brown hair and keen blue eyes, holds her head high as she approaches us. Like her four companions, she wears a fitted emerald-green tunic and black pants, with brown leather armor buckled over the cloth and vambraces of knives over her forearms.Now that I look closer, I see a single rune tattooed on her neck, just over her jugular. Hers and the other females’ too.
A quint. Autumn told me that female groupings are rare, and I hadn’t expected to run into one anytime soon. Though smaller than my males, the females’ fierceness is so potent I can feel it crackling in the air. Tall, leanly muscled, and sun-kissed from long days in a training yard, they watch the forest, the road, and the five of us with unnerving intensity. Those who haven’t cut their hair short like the leader’s keep it in tight braids that twist and coil over their heads. Their eyes, to a one, are hard as flint.
“I presume that’s your dog,” the tall female says to River, who holds the point of the males’ triangle. “Call him off, First Trial. Now. And sheathe your blades while you are at it.” She surveys the four of us and Shade, who is sitting on his haunches now, his teeth still glistening in the sun. The female raises her chin. “I am Kora, a third-trial quint commander. We will take charge of you from here.”
Tye snorts.
River shoots him a silencing look and sheathes his blade obediently before returning his attention to the females. “First Trial?”
