Page 74 of Wind and Water
The thick liquid sluices from my hands, and the horrors of dark magic fade away as I’m dumped in a heap on the hard floor in front of the pool.
Venora lifts my chin, and her hideously beautiful face is only inches from mine. “Tell me what I want to know. How does human magic regenerate?”
The blacks of her eyes blur. My head feels as if it might explode from the pressure building within.
Pushing my face away, she growls. Standing over me, her expression softens, and she smiles. “Take her back to her cell. We have nothing but time. Perhaps tomorrow this exercise will loosen her lips. I can do this every day, and if it takes ten of your human years for you to break, I’ll still have more time, Wren Martin. Day by day, night by night, I will torture you until you are encouraged to give me what I want to know.”
Ciaran lifts me and throws me over his shoulder.
My head hangs, and the blood rushes there with my arms trapped between his back and my stomach. The burning in my shoulders is nothing compared to what I suffered at Venora’s hands and the power of that pool—a shiver runs through me. Every day, she said. I’ll pray for death. Perhaps my magic will grant me that.
I must have blacked out because a second later, I’m tossed into the cell where Liam pulls me into his arms and shouts something incomprehensible at Ciaran.
“I’ve got you. It’s just us now, my love. Don’t cry. I’m going to kill them for what they’ve done to you. I promise you that.” His voice is soft but filled with passion.
Forcing my eyes open, I find him holding me in his lap like a baby.
He unties the bindings at my wrists and tosses the slime-covered rope across the room. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
Shaking my head hurts, and I close my eyes. “They’ll be back for me tomorrow. I can’t relive it now and then go through it all again.”
With the gentlest touch, he brushes my hair from my face.
The silence feels equally oppressive. I search for the song of his soul, but my mind is too full of the memory of those voices in the pool. “Tell me about something in your world that is good. I can’t bear the silence, but thinking about war is too hard right now.”
His deep voice is a balm to my soul. It vibrates like a bass against my head as he holds me close. “There’s a fairy glen about a day’s ride from my home. They are not always visible, and nothing evil can enter the glen. They reveal themselves when needed. At least, that’s what the old texts say. I’ve only ever seen one, and it was pure light magic. I’d been riding a long way and was tired both body and mind. The glen healed me as I slept.”
Closing my eyes, I listen. “Are they magic? What did it look like?”
“In a way. The fairies make them and cannot be seen by those who do not live in the light. Venora would walk right past and never see the glen. As for what it looks like, it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
“Tell me.” I lean in tighter. My limbs shake from the aftermath of the pain I endured.
Liam brushes his fingers over my hair and down my arm. His magic tingles along my skin, taking away the sharper bits of agony, but not all. He must conserve his magic in the absence of the sun to rejuvenate.
He kisses my forehead. “At first, it just looked like a small stand of trees, but when I drew closer, I felt the warm comfort of pure light magic. I stepped through the trees, and it wasexactly as the books had said. Deep green grass with flowers and mushrooms of every color spread out before me, much larger than it looked from outside the trees. At the center, a spring bubbled with cool, clean water. Sunlight shone through the canopy of leaves like a dappled painting.”
“What did you do there?” The agony in my gut eases to an everlasting ache.
“I tied my horse to a tree, though I don’t think he would have left the glen. The animal sensed the safety and goodness within as much as I did. Once I’d divested him of his saddle, I stripped out of my clothes and stepped into the spring. It healed my aches and pains and knitted together the scrapes on my skin. Once I was clean, I lay back in the warm, soft grass and let the fairy magic lull me to sleep. It was the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had.”
I wish I could feel the warmth of the grass and know the purity of the water in the fairy glen. I want to sleep without worrying that I’ll be tortured when I wake. Reaching up, I touch his temple. “Can you show me?”
The image flows into my mind. I reach for it—magic prickles along my arms, legs, and at the back of my neck. With what little energy I have left, I focus on the image he’s sending. “I want to go to the fairy glen.”
Liam’s arms tighten protectively around me. “Wren, what are you doing?”
“I want to go to the fairy glen.” It’s all I can say or think about. If I let go of the image, all that will be left for me is pain and heartache.
“By the old gods,” Liam breathes. Standing, he lifts me like a precious treasure. “You’re doing it.”
I try to open my eyes. “What am I doing?”
“Hold on.”
As he steps forward, I manage to crack my lids and see the spinning vortex of a portal.
Liam jumps in, and I clutch around his neck, bracing myself for the agony of another portal and wondering if my poor body can survive another battering.
