From the Author
Prologue
Falberain was calling.
The pull of her ancestral home was so strong, Saylee could see its glittering mist surrounding her. The fairy realm of Falberain seemed just as her parents had described--a place so full of magic one could see it, breathe it in. A place where illness and death were so foreign that when her parents entered the human world and her father cut his finger, he exclaimed that he was "leaking," and her mother called the blood "pretty."
Saylee laughed at the thought. Her own pretty, gorgeous blood stained the white rocks under her. Hilarious.
But Alester wasn't laughing. The human wizard pressed the green stone into her hand again, shaking her arm in a desperate attempt to rouse her from her fevered dreams. His violet eyes hovered over her like fresh berries in spring. They were gorgeous, too. Her hand brushed his cheek, feeling the stubble of his shaven face. A human face. Oh, how Marryll hated it. Did that make her love it more? She had always been such a spiteful little thing.
Another giggle bubbled from her throat, coating her tongue with the tang of blood.
That made Alester more upset. "Saylee, you have to heal yourself."
"Keet!" The phoenix, currently the size of a sparrow, squawked his agreement beside them.
Saylee shook her head. She couldn't heal herself, not here. Her brother had stabbed her after luring them into one of the only places where her magic wouldn't work. Besides, her magic didn't heal, it restored things to a former existence--what would that do to the life growing within her?
The baby. Her focus sharpened at the thought. Mouikki, the seer, had promised her a strong son, but Saylee hadn't felt the baby stir since the sword had pierced her through. Darkness and nonsense visions clouded her recent memory, detaching her from the pain.
What if he . . . ?
Her breath hitched. The chill of the wind and frozen ground swept through her veins. "Where is he?"
"Who?" Alester glanced behind him before understanding dawned in his eyes. "The baby? He's fine." The wizard shifted so she could see the answer for herself. "Mouikki has him. We brought you both outside. You can heal yourself now."
"Oh." Saylee settled back on the rock, watching the seer cradle her son a few yards away. The blue sky surrounding them and the green stone glowing in her hand confirmed Alester's words, but she still didn't try to heal herself. "It won't do any good. I failed. I can't kill my brother. Marryll will never let me near him again." The demons he had summoned would destroy everything.
The wind moaned and broke against the rocks. Alester hesitated long enough to confirm her words. "We'll worry about that later. Right now--"
"Right now, we need to protect our people." They couldn't waste time coming up with another plan. She looked at Alester through her amber hair, long curls matted with blood and sweat. "Will you do it?"
Alester pulled away. His cloak fell around him, blocking him off like a wall.
The phoenix also shook his head, but arguing with the bird would be useless. Saylee focused solely on her human companion. "Alester, even if I wanted to heal myself, I'm not sure Atriea would let me." Or rather, Saylee couldn't bring herself to ask after all she had done to fail her goddess. Even Garrad, Alester's cousin and the current leader of the Bearer Council, had seen things better than she. He had told her that Marryll could no longer be reasoned with. Just like she saw the past and Mouikki saw the future, Garrad had the irritating habit of being right about these kinds of things. "We must do this before my death means nothing," she said. "Alester?"
He nodded without looking at her.
Saylee turned her head. "Mouikki?"
"Right here." The dark-skinned islander stepped up the rocks with the swaddled baby in his arms. A sleeping sea snake draped his shoulders and the bracer fastened to his left forearm holding a red stone marked him as the Bearer of Destiny. Bearers showed few signs of aging--his hair had thinned, but the rest of him was the same as the day she met him in the temple to their gods so many years ago. "The baby is fine and the drow have retreated. For now."
Saylee tried not to look at the child. Then she might lose her nerve entirely. Others would have to raise her son, perhaps be called mother in her place. She only needed to know one thing.
"Will it last long enough? Long enough for our people to unite and face him when I could not?" The words caught in a sharp tremor of pain, but there was no reason to explain more.
They had discussed the spell already, a final resort if their other efforts to contain the threat failed.
And failed, they had.
Mouikki's brown eyes flashed red to match the stone in his bracer, and he dropped his head with a shudder. Whatever he saw in the future, it wasn't all pleasant. But he nodded. "Yes. If you do this, the magic will be held by your bloodline until your heir leaves the forest, ready to face him again."
That was a mercy, then. One last chance for redemption. "I'm ready."
And, strangely, she was. Her parents had longed to leave the peace of the fairy realm, have a grand adventure. That decision--reckless and naïve--brought them more pain than they could have possibly imagined, but also more joy. Saylee also enjoyed much of the human world in which she had been born, but as the mist of Falberain drew nearer, she felt almost excited.
Who wouldn't want to go to a place of fairies where things were called into being by a simple thought? A place where her father, the first of her family to die, was already waiting? And where she wouldn't have to deal with the blood and death around her, confident she had done her part to bring it to an end.
Really, her coming fate seemed an easier choice than others she had borne.
Falberain was calling.
Saylee reached for Alester, ready to embrace it all.
About the Author
Jacque Stevens wrote herfirst novel as a stress relief activity during nursing school. Now as afulltime nurse working in mental and developmental health, she continues to write stories filled with elves, fairies, and all things awesome.She lives in Utah so yes, she does have a huge extended family andoccasionally eats green jello, but she does not yet own a minivan.
New friends, enemies, and other visitors from cyberspace can reach Jacque at sjacquebooks@gmail.com and sjacquebooks.com. Sign up for the newsletter to get a free short story and other extras.
