When Magic Burns Read online

  Peter couldn’t stand to see his friend in so much pain. Physical pain he could handle. He’d seen fae magic heal all but the most catastrophic wounds. But this? The double whammy of his brother being kidnapped and his clan on the verge of never-ending war—or worse? Peter would do anything to make it better.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “Whatever you need me to do, I’m in.”

  “You must realize how dangerous this is, Peter. The Light Clan will view you as one of us, as an attacker.”

  “You just said they don’t kill humans.”

  “No,” he said. “They don’t kill them.”

  But they could do many things worse than death. Cathair did not have to say the words for Peter to hear them perfectly.

  “I will stand by my oath,” Peter said.

  “This is beyond even the most liberal interpretation of your oath.”

  Peter shrugged, pasting his trademark grin in place. “Whatevs, bro. I’ve lived a good life. I’m prepared to suffer horrific torture for your clan.”

  “This is no joking matter—”

  “Who says I’m joking?” Peter replied. “My eighteen years on this planet have been pretty dull so far. I could use a good shake up.”

  Cathair studied him, probably trying to determine if he was being serious. He was. Mostly. His years as a seer guard had been pretty uneventful. Most of his time was spent watching a bunch of fae-turned-critters scamper around a grassy meadow. The only highlight had been lying to Queen Eimear about Cathair’s absence from the sanctuary when he was spending his la ainmhi outside Winnie’s window. This was just the kind of adventure his boredom had been itching for.

  But just because he was serious didn’t mean it didn’t scare the pants off him.

  And, of course, Cathair could feel that. Peter’s fear would be feeding the prince’s magic right about now.

  Well, that didn’t matter. Scared or not, he would do whatever it took to keep his friends—and their kin—safe.

  “Peter—”

  Before the prince could finish whatever warning Peter would choose to ignore, the door to the chamber burst open and Winnie hurried into the room.

  “The first waves are going out,” she told Cathair. She stopped when she saw Peter sitting across from the desk. “Oh, hi Peter.”

  “Hey Winnie. How’s life in the veil?”

  She gave him a half smile. “Oh, you know.”

  Peter had only met her once, but they had become fast friends. Partly because she was his best friend’s girl, and partly because she was the only other human around—unless he counted his sister, which no sane human would. Bree was more of a handful than even he could manage.

  Winnie moved to Cathair’s side. “They are going to find him. I just know it.”

  “Are you a siceach now, too?” he teased back.

  “No future-sight yet,” she said with a smile. “Just the dreams and the fae. But I’m working on it.”

  Peter was one of the few who knew about Winnie’s gifts. Not only a seer, like he was, but also a dreamer who saw the fae realm in her sleep. She knew more about the realm than many who had spent centuries there.

  He wondered what it would be like to grow up thinking the fae world was nothing more than a fantasy. He couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  Loud bootsteps on the stone floor echoed into the room seconds before Regan stomped back in.

  “The carriage is prepared. We are ready to depart.”

  Peter looked her up and down. She had tied her braids back into a ponytail at the base of her neck, making her look even more like a fierce warrior goddess than before.

  “Carriage?” Peter asked. “Is there a reason you aren’t transforming into your ainmhi? Wouldn’t that be faster?”

  “It would,” Regan said, “if we wanted to be killed instantly upon passing into Light Clan territory.”

  “It is a matter of protocol,” Cathair explained. “Though it will take longer, it will reassure the Light Clan that we are there for diplomatic reasons.”

  Peter held up his hands. “You had me at killed instantly. I’m good with the carriage.”

  Regan looked at him like maybe he had lost his mind. He didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d never had it in the first place. He had a feeling this trip was going to be the opposite of boring.

  6

  At the last minute, Winnie decided to accompany them. The prince had wanted her to remain at the palace, but she insisted.

  Regan admired her for standing firm. But as admirable as Winnie might have been, with her in the carriage, Regan had to share the back-facing seat with the human seer.

  Thankfully, for the moment, he seemed content to travel in silence. Though she knew little of him, she thought he wasn’t the sort to enjoy silence. Whenever she saw him in the sanctuary, he was always talking with someone. Laughing and joking.

  He was even noisy when he was alone. Singing or whistling or talking to some animal or another—not even a fae in ainmhi. Just an ordinary squirrel or songbird. It had always baffled her.

  But today he was, for once, silent.

  She did not sense and true fear from him. Perhaps the gravity of the situation had rendered him thoughtful. The gods knew there was reason enough for him to ponder the immediate future.

  Winnie and Cathair, too, were content to travel in quiet. They had, in fact, managed to fall asleep. She was certain they needed the rest.

  For her own sanity, she counted the number of spruce trees in the passing forest. Counting had long ago become a means of controlling her mind in stressful situations.

  This one certainly qualified as such.

  She had just passed the one-thousand mark when Peter slid across the bench toward her.

  “It all looks the same,” he whispered.

  Regan flicked a glance at the sleeping couple, but his words had not disturbed their slumber.

  She tried to ignore him, but he persisted. “One tree looks like the next. Don’t you think?”

  “No,” she said as her mental count continued.

  One-thousand-five.

  One-thousand-eight.

  One-thousand-fifteen.

  “Sure, there are different kinds,” he whispered so close to her ear that she felt his breath. “But isn’t a tree a tree?”

  One-thousand-seventeen.

  “Only a human would think so,” she replied.

  One-thousand-twenty-two.

  “Ahhh, she speaks.” He slid even closer, somehow managing to move into her space without actually touching her. “What’s your story, Regan McCrae?”

  She kept counting. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because you intrigue me.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice, but didn’t look away from the forest.

  Until he added, “And I think you are full of secrets.”

  Turning away from the soothing parade of leaves and needles, she speared him with what should have been a quelling look. He winked at her.

  “You’re wrong.” She wanted to turn back to the window, to resume her count, but something about him held her.

  There was nothing particularly captivating about him. He was tall for a human, thin with thick red hair that jumped out in several directions at once. His skin was pale and, like hers, dotted with freckles.

  A memory tickled at the back of her mind. Something her mother used to tell her. Regan could barely remember her mother, so it surprised her to recall the tale.

  “Do you know what these are?” Her mother traced a fingertip over Regan’s cheeks and nose.

  Regan shook her head.

  “They’re freckles,” she explained.

  “How do I get rid of them?”

  “Oh no,” her mother said, “you don’t want to get rid of them.”

  “Why not?” Regan asked. “You don’t have any. I want to be just like you.”

  Her mother hugged her close. “But I wish I did. Do you know why?”

  Regan shook her head again. />
  “Because they are extra-magical.” Her mother squeezed her even tighter. “Every freckle marks a spot where Morrigan herself kissed the magic into you.”

  Lifting a hand to her nose, Regan pressed the freckles into her skin. No longer ashamed. She wanted to make sure they never left.

  Regan found herself tracing her fingertips along her freckled cheek. An echo of the gesture she now remembered her mother doing all those years ago.

  She shook her head back into the moment, free of the memory before the emotion consumed her.

  Peter stared at her, an amused smile on his face.

  That was it. His smile. That was what made him so captivating. It spread so wide it seemed to overtake his entire face, lighting him up brighter than the moon.

  “Where did you go there?” he asked.

  Regan scowled at him. “Nowhere.”

  “You were lost in thought for a minute.”

  He was right, but she did not intend to tell him so. Instead, she turned her attention back to the window and started over on her spruce count.

  They rode for several minutes in silence before he spoke again.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Regan stiffened. “Can I stop you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then please,” she said in a mocking tone, “go ahead.”

  He actually laughed at that.

  “You don’t strike me as the sort of girl—”

  She whirled away from the window to spear him with a fierce glare.

  “As the sort of fae,” he corrected, “who is easily frightened.”

  “I am not.”

  He leaned close. “But back there at the palace, you looked downright terrified.”

  Regan jerked back. This seer was an observant one. She did her best to disguise her emotions at all times. That this stranger, this human had seen through her shield was nothing less than disturbing.

  She fumbled for something resembling an excuse.

  “The Light Clan,” she stammered. “Entering their territory is very dangerous.”

  The human shook his head. “That isn’t it. Nothing so mundane as risking death could scare you.”

  Regan didn’t know what to say. How had this human, in such a short period of time, come to see her so clearly? He was right, of course. It was not the inherent danger of this journey that frightened her.

  Nor could she disclose the true reason.

  He took her silence as an invitation to continue.

  “I’ve been considering the possibilities. If fear of death is out, what could it be? Fear for a family member? But you are clearly a lone wolf. You don’t have any blood relations. Am I right?”

  Regan was so transfixed that she could only nod.

  “So what could it be?” he mused, studying her intently. “And then I hit on it. Romance.”

  “Romance?” she echoed, her voice far weaker than she liked.

  “A boyfriend maybe?” He was feeling her out, looking for a reaction.

  Normally Regan could trust herself to mask her reactions. But judging from the triumphant look on his face, she was not succeeding at the moment.

  “Ah, not a boyfriend,” he said. “A crush then?”

  “Crush?” She wasn’t familiar with the term.

  “Infatuation,” he clarified. “Love from afar.”

  Regan felt her cheeks heat and knew that her blush was betraying the truth of his guess. She had to stop him before he drew closer than she could allow.

  “No, no,” she said in a rush, “nothing like that.”

  He was not deterred. “Is the lucky fae a member of the Royal Guard?” he asked. Then, “No? Palace Watch then?”

  She wished she could bury her face in the seat cushions. But such a reaction would only encourage him, would only confirm that he was on the right path.

  Her best hope was to regain her normal control.

  “Not the Palace Watch? You’re clearly worried about someone. Who else could it—”

  Regan squeezed her eyes shut. But it was too late.

  The human let out a self-satisfied ahhhh.

  She placed her hands over her ears, but it was not enough to do more than muffle his words.

  “The young prince himself.”

  This wasn’t happening. For nearly a dozen years, Regan had kept her feelings for Aedan a more carefully guarded secret than the location of the entrance to the Everdark. No one—absolutely no one—knew about her infatuation.

  And yet, in less than a few short hours, this human had pinpointed her feelings—her crush as he had called it.

  She felt his hand wrap around her wrist and slowly pull her hand away from her ear.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice a mere breath. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  Regan suppressed a shudder. Her secret was no longer her own, it was now in the hands of a human she barely knew. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life.

  7

  Peter was pretty impressed with his deductive skills. He read people well—it was a matter of pride and also self-preservation. Given his fondness for pushing people right to the limit, it helped if he could guess where exactly that limit was.

  But this one was impressive even for him.

  He’d seen his sister Bree in looooove with some guy or another enough times in his life to recognize a girl with a crush at a thousand paces. Still, he couldn’t have seen this one coming.

  The soldier in love with the prince. It would make a great fairy tale—pun absolutely intended.

  Clearly Regan kept her infatuation a carefully guarded secret. From the mortified look on her face when he’d pinpointed the truth, she’d been keeping it a long, long time. She didn’t believe him when he said he’d keep her secret to himself.

  Another lesson Bree had taught him.

  Regan would learn that he was worthy of her trust.

  The carriage came to an abrupt stop, sending Winnie and Cathair tumbling to the floor. Peter flashed Regan a devilish grin as the settling carriage knocked him into her side. He wasn’t complaining.

  She may have had her eyes set on the young prince, but he wasn’t going to give up on turning them his way.

  He heard—or more accurately felt—Regan growl. That had him rethinking his guesses about her la ainmhi. A lioness maybe? Or wolf?

  “What in the Everdark is going on?” Cathair boomed as he helped Winnie back up onto the seat.

  “The carriage stopped,” Peter offered—he thought helpfully, but judging from Cathair’s scowl the prince didn’t seem to think it was.

  Regan had the door flung open and was leaning out before anyone else in the carriage had recovered. “Flann!” she shouted up at the driver. “What happened?”

  “Dunno,” the driver yelled back. “The horses, they just stopped.”

  “That’s what I said,” Peter offered.

  That earned him a trio of glares.

  Regan leapt down to the ground and Peter hurried after her. She was already up front with the horses, studying the harness, when Winnie and Cathair emerged.

  “There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the rig,” she declared. She moved from horse to horse, lifting their feet. “No stones in their hooves.”

  “Then why did they stop?” Flann asked.

  Regan shrugged. “I will check everything again.”

  While the experts looked for a problem with the horses or the carriage, Peter took a look around the spot where they’d stopped. Something about it felt strange, out of place. After hours of endless forest—tree after tree after tree—the horses had decided to stop in a clearing that appeared to be a perfect circle.

  Peter frowned. There was no such thing as geometric perfection in nature.

  He left the carriage and walked to the edge of the trees. As much as he’d complained about all the trees being the same, these were decidedly different. They looked like ordinary birch, but the bark was all wrong. Instead of forming horizontal lines p
arallel to the ground, the lines on these trees ran vertically.

  He’d never seen that before.

  The glint of something in the corner of his eye made him turn. What he saw almost took his breath away.

  “Hey guys,” he started to say.

  “There is nothing.” Regan sounded exasperated. “No reason the horses should have simply stopped.”

  “Guys?” Peter tried again.

  He watched as Regan moved back to the front of the rig and grabbed one of the horses by the halter. No matter how hard she pulled, the beast wouldn’t budge.

  “Won’t do no good,” Flann said. “They ain’t moving no how.”

  “Guys,” Peter said louder than before.

  Cathair tried his hand at the horses, with the same result. Even Winnie tried petting them under the chin, coaxing them with whispered words.

  Nothing.

  “Guys!” Peter shouted this time, and finally they looked at him. “I think I know why the horses stopped.”

  Regan crossed her arms over her chest as if to say, Oh yeah, why?

  Instead of answering, he pointed to the spot behind them in the woods.

  Winnie gasped. “That’s a—”

  “Great Morrigan,” Flann exclaimed.

  Peter shook his head, trying to make sense of what his eyes were telling him he saw just behind the line of vertical birch on the other side of the clearing. But the image didn’t change.

  Finally he asked, “Is that a unicorn?”

  The beast was taller than a normal horse, purest snow white from tip to toe, with a two foot long horn in the center of its forehead. The horn glowed with an unearthly light that cast rainbows on every surface it touched.

  He half expected the others to tell him he was insane—he wouldn’t have blamed them. Clearly they were just as awed by the ethereal beauty of the mythical creature.

  But the awe only lasted a moment before Cathair muttered a truly impressive fae curse and both the prince and Regan drew their weapons.

  “What?” Peter asked at the same time Winnie said, “Cathair?”

  The high prince pulled her behind him. “The Light Clan.”

  “The unicorn is their clan symbol,” Regan explained.