Bite Of Winter (Page 9)

“Thank you, child.” The elderly fae takes Taylor’s elbow, and they turn to leave.

I can’t let her out of my sight. Can I?

“You have things to discuss here, my lord.” Delantis pauses. “So I will make this easy for you. I give my oath to the Ancestors that I will not harm your mate or allow anyone else to harm her while she’s with me.” Her fingers glow bright white, the magic so strong within her that it has to escape. When she gives her word, magic ripples through the air between us, sealing the deal.

“Taylor?” I loathe letting go of her hand.

She steps up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek. “I’ll be fine. Maybe Delantis can give me some information on the stone, or what I am, or what’s going on, or the two million other questions I have.”

I kiss her forehead, my need to keep her near almost overcoming even Delantis’s oath. But I have to let her go. She must be seen as capable of handling herself … No matter how much I want to hide her away and keep her to myself.

“She’s safe.” Delantis pulls her gently. “I know well what it means to have a mate and feel the bond. But you must trust in her. And I can assure you, if anyone threatens her …” She lets the magic seep from her fingertips until a gryphon forms next to them, its body of white smoke, but its talons of silver. Delantis’s feral fae in corporeal form. How old is she? She pats the gryphon on its eagle head. “We will handle it.” The gryphon blinks, and its lion’s claws click on the stone floor.

“A gryphon?” Taylor’s fingers twitch to pet it, but she keeps her hand at her side.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Delantis smiles.

“As soon as you’re done, meet me back in our rooms.” I let go of Taylor’s hand, even though it feels wrong.

“I will.” She gives me a confident look and leaves the room with Delantis on her arm. The gryphon follows, its tail whipping out the door.

I turn back to the Vundi council, the mix of high and lesser fae eyeing Gareth and me with an apprehension that borders on fear. While I admit I will destroy anyone who threatens my people, I’m not a despot. I see the plight of the Vundi. Though the heart of winter beats in my chest, I am not cold, not ice, not unmoving.

Striding to the table, I sit down, though my attempts to put the council at ease don’t seem to have any effect. Half of them still look ready to bolt.

I lean back and graze the hilt of my sword with one hand. “Before we engage in any hostilities—which is exactly what will happen if you continue with your foolhardy plan of kidnapping my mate—let’s discuss possibilities for peace and cooperation between our peoples. Gareth, you have the floor.”

He clears his throat. “As you know, the winter realm does not have the bounty of the farmlands to the west that supply a great deal of the summer realm. However, we are not without means to assist a neighbor in need, especially one that is … let’s say, underappreciated by Byrn Varyndr, as are the Vundi. Now …”

As Gareth launches into our plan for diplomacy, I monitor my subconscious link to Taylor. For the councilors’ sakes, I hope they don’t intend to double-cross me. Because if I get so much as a hint of fear from Taylor, I will turn this room as red as the plains above.

8

Taylor

“That mate of yours is a real bruiser, isn’t he?” Delantis and I walk slowly down a stone passageway.

“He can be sort of aggressive, I guess you’d say.” I glance at the gryphon. “But I guess most fae have some fight in them.”

She laughs, the sound brittle like fall leaves. “You are correct about that, young one.”

I want to rattle off so many questions, because if anyone here has answers, it’s Delantis. Even Leander seemed taken aback by her age and power.

I clear my throat as we turn a corner. “Can you tell me more about the soulstone I wear?”

“It was mined right here under the Red Plains.” She pauses and turns, eyeing the necklace with affection. “I remember when I birthed it from the same gift of stone that my own jewel was created from.”

“Wow, so you recognize it. How long ago was that?”

She cuts her eyes to the side, the silver flashing in the dim hallway. “Is that a classy way of asking my age?”

“No.” Yes.

“Let’s just say it was quite an age ago.” She smiles and pats my hand. “But I can’t forget the stones. And yours has a peculiar history.”

Answers. She is offering answers, and I’m surprised my mouth isn’t watering at the prospect. I try to play it cool. “Oh, it does?” The words come out in a whoosh, not cool at all.

A few Vundi pass by, their eyes glued to the smoky gryphon that stalks along behind us.

She doesn’t seem to fault me for my eagerness. “Your stone was a gift.”

“To whom?” I feel like I would have remembered a glowing old lady with pointy ears handing me a magical necklace at a birthday party.

“Queen Aurentia.”

I stop, confusion gumming up my works. “What?”

“Given to her upon her ascension to the throne. Yes. A gift of the Vundi, one that should have cemented good relations between us. And I suppose it did for a while.” She nods and pulls me with surprising strength. “Keep up.”

I force myself into motion. “If you gave it to her, how the hell did I wind up with it?”

“That’s a good question.” She laughs again, and her gryphon caws lightly behind us.

Here I was thinking I’d finally get answers. Turns out, I just have more questions. Did Queen Aurentia see the necklace when I was there? Why didn’t she say anything about me wearing one of her jewels?

“Do you know what I am?”

“What are any of us?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Don’t do that. Wrinkles.” She smiles again, and despite her age, she’s still beautiful. Also, mischievous.

“So you aren’t going to tell me?”

“I have suspicions. One such as you was foretold, but how can anyone know the object of a prophecy until the prophecy comes true, eh? No one, that’s who.”

“You remind me of a witch I met.”

Her white brows furrow as we turn again, the underground corridors a maze. “Is that an insult?”

“Not at all. I rather liked her. And she helped me out.”

The air becomes heavier, humid and with an earthy scent. We must be getting close.

“I saw Cenet with an Obsidian blade. Was it the witch who gave it to you?”

“Yes. She also gave me a pea that dimmed my sparkle.”

“Hmmm. I did notice your aura is muffled, like someone threw a black blanket over you.” She sucks on her teeth. “She’s the one you should’ve asked all your questions. She’s danced with the magic of the otherworld even longer than I have, and on top of that, has the devious intelligence bred by the Spires.”

“Well, she went back to her cave and she told me to be scared of TMI—too much information.”

Delantis nods. “She was wise, and I’m impressed you made it out of that encounter with all your skin intact.”

I shudder. “I’m good like that, yeah.”

“Can you tell me about the prophec—”

“Here we are.” She turns into a wide carving in the rock and leads me along a walkway a few stories above a wide, flat cavern. Several football fields worth of dirt and crops expand into the distance, and light shines through shafts from above that hit the rows of plants perfectly.

Vundi workers walk along the rows or group around work stations placed at intervals.

My mouth may be hanging open a bit. “This is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“We can’t survive in the plains anymore. This was working for a while, but now we can’t produce enough to feed ourselves. Not since the plants began to die off.”

“What happened to them?” We ease down a set of stone stairs, and the gryphon takes flight and lands below us, its smoky white tail high in the air.

“We don’t know. Mainly because we aren’t farmers by nature. Centuries ago, we sent spies to the western farmlands who brought back basic farming knowledge as well as seeds and a few plants. From that, we were able to thrive. Until it all went bad.” She frowns at the wilted plants all along the rows we approach. “We keep ourselves hidden, never allowing outsiders to enter our caverns, so there’s no help. Only what we can do. And—” She motions to the failing greenery. “As you can see, we’ve reached the limits of our abilities.”

“You let us in. Surely, you could let the western farmers you mentioned come to help?”

She cocks her head to the side a bit. “The king of the winter realm is a little different than just anyone, especially when his changeling is the one thing that could save our people. You’re an exception. The rule is that we hide our numbers. It’s safer that way. No outsiders.”

The scent of rot is heavy here, the withering green stalks limp and barren.

“May I?” I gesture to the nearest plant. I don’t recognize it, but I assume horticulture works the same way here as on earth. After all, the plants grow in dirt, need sunlight, and have a rough irrigation system via narrow water ducts running in a grid through the fields.