Page 127 of Owned By the Fae
Isbeth closes her eyes, looking upset. ‘That’s how he kept it intact for so long.’
Brakil nods. ‘Yes. I’ll have preparations begun immediately.’
‘For what?’ Lia snarls almost angrily. ‘What was intact?’
‘What do you care, human?’ Brakil volleys back, his animosity palpable.
‘Enough, Brakil. The Harbinger has brought our attention to them. We will see that they are safe.’
‘Harbinger?’ Brakil sputters at Lia.
‘You knowmeas well?’ Lia asks on a gasp.
She gives Lia a soft smile. ‘Yes, I know what you are, Harbinger, and we’re honored you’ve come. What I meant was that a fold draws much power. A single mage wouldn’t be able to keep one open without a source.’
‘Varrik used the fae of the fold to power it,’ Dane murmurs. ‘That cunt.’
‘Quite,’ Isbeth nods. ‘It’s the only way he could have kept it open indefinitely.’
Dane shakes his head. ‘He told us the fold was to preserve our kind, to save us. He told us that we were likely the last of the fae, but there must be hundreds here. More than I ever thought possible.’
Lia shakes her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispers. ‘Why would he do all this? What was the point?’
‘What do you know of Varrik?’ Dane asks Isbeth.
Councilor Isbeth sits back and regards us. ‘He was once one of the Five. Long ago, he was banished. He used … unsavory magicks and experiments, and he and another were the ones who betrayed the Underhill. He escaped before his sentence could be carried out.
‘I don't understand,’ Dane murmurs.
‘No,Idon't understand,’ Brakil mutters. ‘How did they get to the Underhill at all? It’s impossible to get here from the DarkRealms now. There is but one portal, and it is heavily guarded after what happened.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ Isbeth asks gently.
She looks at Lia and smiles. ‘She brought them here.’
Chapter Fifteen
Lia
‘Yes,’ I murmur to the shocked gazes of everyone around the table except for Isbeth. ‘The Harbinger opened the Breach.’
Grey, who’s been silent since the revelations of his past, shakes his head as if to clear it. ‘But then why ... Why did you endure ... Why didn’t you ...’
‘The Harbinger was bound,’ I say. ‘It couldn’t help me. And ... it didn’t remember. It opened the Breach because we were going to die. It was an impulse. It didn’t know that it could until it did.’
Kal leans forward. ‘Are you saying that Varrik spent years and gold searching for the pieces of that map, finding a way to the Light Realm so that he could find his way back here .... and the Harbinger, who he had all along, could have just brought him? That fool!’
He begins to laugh loudly, and so does Grey. Even Dane cracks a smile.
‘And now?’ Dane asks. ‘What does it remember now?’
‘It’s jumbled,’ I say, ‘but it began to come back as soon as we entered the Underhill. It was somewhere else for a long time, and Varrik stole it.’
‘The lake,’ Isbeth whispers. ‘The Black Lake.’
I nod.
‘Impossible,’ Brakil says. ‘The lake was lost to the Dark Realms long before Varrik came along.’
