Frey (The Frey Saga, #1)(39)

She had me at once, towing me beside her as she covered us with cloaks.

Chevelle was still instructing, “Steed, watch the front, stay inside. Grey, take the rear, out of sight. Anything, no matter how trivial, signal the wolves.”

Wolves. They had been wolves, not dogs. I immediately had more respect for the tall, slender elves. Men who tamed wild wolves.





We were back at the house in what seemed like a heartbeat. Steed watched the village from the front room. Ruby sat with me on her bed, the door closed.

“This will calm you,” she said, and a sprinkle of glitter hit my face before I had the chance to protest. “Just a touch,” she assured me, “just a touch.”

It was too late, I was already completely relaxed. I lay back on the bed and she did the same. We stared at her ceiling unspeaking for an immeasurable amount of time. Probably immeasurable because of the fairy dust. I rolled on my side toward her, dimly irritated she’d poisoned me again. Though it was much less severe this time. I was simply enveloped in tranquility.

“Ruby...” My question fell short as I was distracted by her ears. Her hair had fallen back as she lie beside me.

“Hmm?” she answered.

I reached up to feel my own ears as I considered hers. I had always hidden mine behind hair, never braiding it back or putting it up to expose them. Not that I could have pulled off the intricate braiding and designs of the other elves. But my ears were clearly more rounded than everyone else’s, almost blunt. Ruby’s were different, too. Hers were more angular though, almost pointed at the tip. Neither of us matched the norm, hers were one extreme, mine the other.

She turned to look at me. “Feeling okay?”

I realized I had been asking her a question. “Mm hmm.” And I got lost in the hum of my reply. She smiled at my satisfied trance.

I faded off to blackness then, though my dreams were vivid and wild.

I was a hawk, flying high above the mountain. My wings stretched, I soared through the sky, endless and open. Through keen eyes I watched below, surveying a massive structure of dark stones. Then I was a wolf, running through those stones, hunting, searching, guarding. My shoulders were muscular, I could feel them tense and release with each stride. I was myself again, though strong and confident. Two statuesque elves, twinned in white, glided past me. Lightning struck around me, cracking the dark stones of the walls. Reed of Keithar Peak stood before me and suddenly I was on a pedestal, looking down as he wagged his tongue at me offensively. I scorned him, burning a chunk of it off, and he smiled at me.

I jolted awake, the smell of burning flesh still lingered in my nostrils, and was staring at Ruby’s ceiling. Damn her. I was alone in her bed, but could hear an exchange of low whispers from the open door as she and Steed conversed in the front room. I wasn’t about to announce I had woken. My head didn’t throb as before, no sour mouth. It was overall a much better experience. But who could stand the dreams? I rolled to my side.

There were a few books on the side table so I reached across and pulled the top one to my pillow. I flipped through the pages and abruptly became more alert, it was about magic. I hurriedly read through, wanting to learn as much as possible, but slowed on the section marked exchange. This book claimed using magic consumed your energy. Not just immediately available energy, but life energy.

I’d never known a book to lie, but I couldn’t imagine its applications in life. Ruby was giving part of her existence to draw me a bath? Chevelle and Steed forfeited time for a silly instructional match? It couldn’t have been right. I tried to recall, though still clouded with fog, the magic I’d seen in the village. The youngsters played, careless with the use, often until they collapsed from exhaustion. But the elders, they were reserved. I couldn’t think of them using it for anything that could be done with less physical energy. They hunted with weapons, wrote with their hands, worked as if they took pleasure in it. Was there no energy left for the magic? Or was it not important until you reached the close of your years and realized it was almost gone? I remembered how long a thousand years seemed to me before I planned on spending it in a prison.

Ruby walked in and I snapped the book shut, positive I shouldn’t have taken it from her table without permission. She glanced at it and I knew I from her stifled reaction I'd not be able to ask her about what I’d read.

“Sleep well?” she asked.

“Oh.” My voice was hoarse so she handed me a glass of water, which she smoothly traded for the book. “Dreams,” I complained.

She smiled as she sat on the bed beside me. “Some seek out the breath. They say it is foresight.”

“Foresight?”

She nodded. “What did you see?” She raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Not the future.”

She laughed. “Have a bath. You’ll be good as new.” The water was coming in the window again and I wondered at what I had just read. Surely the dust and fog were meddling with my thoughts. “Chevelle will be swapping with us for the evening,” she explained.





The bath refreshed me but, unfortunately, it also cleared my thoughts. No wonder Ruby had drugged me. I tried not to think about the tracker as I dressed. The smell of cold and morning hung in the air and I felt a pang of guilt, though I couldn’t help but use the fragrance, knowing Chevelle would be there. I appraised myself in the mirror and smiled. Yes, the dust was still influencing me.