Page 23 of Beasts of Briar
“That’s it?” Driscoll perked up. “He’s just taking our shadows? Oh, thank the bloody earth. I thought we were going to die.”
He couldn’t take my shadow, and he couldn’t kick me out of his castle. I needed that nettle weed. Leoni and Driscoll might’ve been relieved, but I was terrified. We had to escape.
Everything in this prison that wasn’t stone was made of iron, which dulled elemental magic. My father had always told me the dangers of iron, that a long time ago, when humans warred with the people of the Old World, they’d make all their weapons out of iron, and it was very effective in hurting elementals. Of course, now we were at peace with the human lands. We had been ever since our direct ancestors came to Arathia and founded the seven elemental courts.
My father had told me that elementals still used iron to fortify their prisons, to control those who didn’t follow the law, but otherwise, iron was outlawed in Arathia.
Purple and pink threaded through the sky. The sun was sinking. Spirit Shadow said he’d take our shadows tonight. But if the stars emerged, if I could use them to somehow help us... I started pacing again.
“What is she doing?” Driscoll asked. “Can you please sit?” he called out to me. “Just watching you is exhausting. Once we get thrown back out into the jungle, we can come up with a plan, okay?”
I cut him a look. We were not getting thrown back out into the jungle. I just needed to find someone who I could put to sleep. Someone whose dreams I could enter, someone I could force to sleepwalk here and let us out. But the only person I knew of who lived in this castle was Spirit Shadow. That felt like a risk.
I stopped abruptly.
“What?” Driscoll asked, then spread out a hand, gesturing to the ground. “Are you going to join us down here finally? It’s not comfortable at all, but I have some good gossip that might distract you. It’s about a castle maid who was caught making peepholes in the soldiers’ sleeping quarters.”
“She doesn’t want to hear your gossip, Driscoll,” Leoni said.
“Everyone wants to hear my gossip.” Driscoll scoffed.
“That is definitely not true,” Leoni said. “How can you actually think that?”
I waved my hands to get their attention, then pointed out the window.
Driscoll looked up. “What? I see a few stars. So are you going to put yourself to sleep or something? Can you even do that with your star magic?” He gasped. “Are you going to put me to sleep? Because if you do, I will never share good gossip with you again.”
“Spirits below,” Leoni muttered.
“No,”I signed.“I’m going to put Spirit Shadow to sleep, and I’m going to make him let us out of this prison cell.”
Driscoll and Leonistared at me with opened mouths.
“That’s a horrible, horrible idea,” Driscoll said. “Besides, there’s iron everywhere.” His eyes brightened. “You won’t beable to use your magic. Thank the spirits we solved that problem.”
He could be right, but being born in the Wilds had always made me different. At an early age, I’d realized my powers, my brothers’ powers, had never been like everyone else’s. Star elementals had the ability to put others to sleep, to enter their dreams, to create nightmares or paradise. The most powerful star elementals could occasionally enter the mind and explore other areas than the dreaming part. They might be able to access memories or see through the person’s eyes, spy on them. But that was very rare and it drained them immensely. My brothers and I could do all of those things with no problem. My father always said it was because the Wilds changed us, shaped our magic differently.
So maybe iron wouldn’t affect me like it did other elementals. I wouldn’t know. I’d never been exposed to it. The faint outline of stars called to me in the sky above.
Either way, I was about to find out.
I shoved out my hands.
Driscoll shot up and ran to me. “What are you doing?” Panic laced his voice. “I thought we settled that this is a very stupid idea. And that it won’t even work.”
I pushed him aside.“If you’re so sure it won’t work, what do you have to be afraid of?”
Leoni translated, and Driscoll whirled to face her. “Why are you not doing anything about this? Help me restrain her or something. Use all that muscle to do something!”
Leoni eyed me. “I don’t think there’s much we can do if Bellamy wants to try this.”
“But he’s going to kill us if she tries to enter his dreams. Right now, he’s only taking our shadows. We can get those back, but if he takes our lives, there’s no returning from that. And he will take our lives after this kind of attack.”
“Or it could actually work.” Leoni lifted a shoulder. “You said yourself the Wilds made her powers different. Maybe her powers are so different that she could pull this off.”
“You both have lost it.” Driscoll groaned and slapped his hands over his face. “Don’t come crying to me when Spirit Shadow descends on us and lops off our heads. I’ll just be telling you, ‘I told you so.’ And believe me, I am petty enough that I will throw it in your faces as I’m losing my head.”
“Oh, we know,” Leoni said.
