Page 39 of Terragnata and the Heir of the Earth

Ezren spat a frosty reply. “If I ever hear you call her that again, I will make sure that Fire of yours burns you from the inside out.”

Then Jana’s voice cut through my cries, which were now alternating between whimpering and screaming. “I think there must be a small part of the cleansing that we couldn’t complete in the human realm. The spell must be trying to finish itself now. Ezren, can you see if Terra’s power rejects you? It needsoutside magic to fuel its working. I fear Terra’s power is feeding on itself.”

Tears streamed down my face, and I wished desperately to lose consciousness. “Please, stop it, Ezren, just end it,” I begged, hysteria bleeding into my voice. A thousand knives shot through my skull, the pain reverberating down the rest of my body. I should have been numb or passed out, but it seemed the spell was determined to make me feel every slice, every ounce of pain. “Or just kill me if you can’t,” I whispered.

He pulled me into him, cupping my wet face and forcing my dull eyes to meet their antithesis in his. “You are a fighter, Terra. You need to help me, so I can help you. Can you do that?”

I nodded, my eyes shut tight, and tried to open myself to his power. It was difficult, unlike just hours before. We had been intimate then, and my guard was down. Now, I had walls thrown up in reaction to the most excruciating physical pain I’d ever experienced. I cried out and panted, battling to force them down and let him in. It seemed the more I fought, the less ground I won.

“She needs to open, Ezren, and she’s exerting herself too much,” Jana said. “You need to join with her.”

“No,” Ezren replied.

“It isnotenough just to send your Fae power into her, and you know it. You have to take hold of hers and join them; it is the only way she’ll feel your strength,” Jana protested.

“You know I can’t do that, Jana,” Ezren hissed.

“Oh, for the gods’ sake, it’s not a coupling, it’s a joining, and it’s the only way to end her pain,” Jana shot back. “Unless… there is one other way,” Jana said bitterly. “You could grant her request.”

I was shaking now, my voice hoarse from screaming, my face streaked with tears. Ezren looked at me, and I looked back through hooded eyes as he brushed the moisture from mycheeks. “Forgive me,” he said to himself, or to me, I wasn’t sure. And then he bent his face to mine and tilted up my chin in his thumb. He kissed me, hesitantly at first. And though my pain remained, the rest of my body reacted, and I relaxed. At that opportunity, I felt all of his magic flow into me. His magic took mine into his, weaving them together in what felt like a more… deliberate way than before. It had been an accidental exploration of our magics when we kissed last. This was more intimate—like an intentional claiming.

I felt a disturbance deep inside of me, a small well of power that must have still been buried there. My mind seared with pain again at that power fighting for release, but I didn’t scream or cry out or resist. I just kept focusing on Ezren’s touch, his exploring tongue in my mouth, his arms tight around me, and his magic flowing through me. And I pulled on that magic more, needing his strength, which he gave willingly. I was giving and taking, and so was he. Our magics churned together, to the point I did not know what was his and what was mine. And then, as if they’d always been, our powers were one, and a shock reverberate through him and me. The pain was gone, just a small throbbing whisper of memory.

He held me there, our sweaty foreheads pressed together while we panted for minutes before untangling our magics. And when it felt safe to pull away, I saw more than my tears on his face. He looked at me in disbelief, like I’d changed somehow.

“You have,” he whispered, and I was too confused to realize he’d answered my silent thought.

I scanned the group—everyone else stared at me, too. Ezren reached up, outlining the shape of my ear. My hand shot to the other.

And felt the soft but distinct point of a Fae ear.

We resumed our descent,but this time Ezren held me at his front, Blackjack tied off the back of his stallion’s saddle. I ensured them all I was fine to ride, but he’d insisted.

Not just my ears changed. I could feel additional length on my limbs, and the strength they now carried. I never possessed a fully human body, just a constrained Fae one, Jana said, so the change was not so extreme that I grew a foot and multiplied my strength by a factor of ten.

But what Jana hadn’t realized, she told me with an apology, was that during the cleansing, she should have freed more than just a Witch’s Earth magic and memories. Fae magic lingered there, buried by Fayzien, which demanded release the moment we entered the Fae realm.

What that magic was, what it meant, remained unknown to us all.

I hadn’t fully appreciated the advantage the Fae held over me when we fought, just because of their bodies, so being several inches taller and stronger than before made a vast difference. Ezren still stood a head above me, but he didn’t have to bend more than a small tilt of his head for his eyes to meet mine. And there were my ears, which now formed sharp points. No streams of water presented themselves, nor pools, nor mirrors, so I had no opportunity to admire them. Ezren, however, indulged himself. Many times on our ride, I found him smiling at them, or reaching up to give them a gentle touch.

“What is thematterwith you?” I demanded, half annoyed, half delighted, turning around as much as I could after the third caress. I was also being driven a bit mad by the hand that rested firmly on my belly, holding me close while we rode. That was theissue with a single saddle; given we shared it, my womanhood pressed into the pommel far more than it typically should have.

I sighed, attempting to think of anything to distract my mind from the massive male body pressed into my back. “Your turn to ask a question.”

I could almost feel his smile radiate from behind me. “I believe I’m owed two questions,Bellatori.”

“Fair’s fair.”

“What was your favorite thing to do in the human realms? In your free time, I mean. Chase boys? Knit quilts? Or perhaps you were a skilled carver, always whittling by the fire.”

I snorted. “I think I was more likely to chase frogs than boys.” I paused a moment. “I loved to read—stories mainly, but anything I could get my hands on. We were a small town, but so many passed through to buy our silver. The head schoolteacher knew I was one of the few girls whose family had bothered to teach her literacy, and he always found new material for me.”

The arm that wrapped around me tightened almost imperceptibly. “A curious mind, then,” he murmured into the back of my head.

I grinned. “Always.”

“So you know—silver is a magic suppressor… it is made and spelled in the form of cuffs, chains, binds.” The Dragon-shifter’s tone darkened slightly. “You should know that if you don’t already.”

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