Page 16 of The Witch's Rite
“If Ilisten, I mightfeelher?”
She giggles, and in the darkness, it sounds like fairy music. “You know what I mean. Listen to the earth and what she’s saying. Now hush. Just try it.”
The air smells sweet and warm as I breathe it in, and then I let it out in a long breath. I still myself, not so unlike the way we’re trained for the guard. Even combat can be like a dance, a flow of energy from the center of your chest to the gleaming end of your sword.
It takes a moment, and maybe I’m just imagining things, but I think I feel a tingling in my feet, a rhythm like the way the snow arrives in winter and rain pours down in summer. A flow like thewaves across the shore, like the return of the barn swallows each spring and their departure each fall.
“I... think I feel her,” I whisper, eyes still closed.
“Whenever I feel that my insides are moving too fast, like I can’t sit still or can’t focus,” Aurora says, “all I have to do is place my feet on the ground, and I find my balance again.”
My eyes are still closed when I feel a gentle touch on my hand. Aurora’s fingers intertwine with mine, and whether I’m grounded on the earth or not, my heart starts to race.
When her hand is firmly clasped with mine, I open my eyes. She’s standing close to me, her head tipped back. She’s near enough that I could count the freckles on her nose, could chart them like constellations in the night sky.
I give her hand a little tug, and as she takes a step forward, I bend to press my lips against hers. She tastes like lavender and honey, and her scent is earthy, probably from working in the garden. Beneath my mouth, her lips are soft and warm.
She pulls away from the kiss and lifts a hand to trail her fingers through my hair.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers.
And even though I’m a grown man, she makes me blush.
“That’s my line,” I say, then press a kiss to her forehead. “Now, where are you taking me?”
“This way. It’s not much farther now.” Still holding my hand, she starts leading me into the forest once more.
I pause to grab my boots from where she discarded them in the grass, and then we proceed. Overhead, birds sing in the trees, and all manner of tiny forest creatures scamper about our feet. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many small animals in the forest before; somehow, I think they’re here because of Aurora, like they’re drawn to her in some way.
Witch, I remind myself.
Looking over at her, with her wavy green hair drifting around her face and her skirt brushing through the long grass, I can understand why the woodland creatures would want to be in her presence.
Aurora leads me to a thick growth of old oaks, and she giggles when my hair gets caught in a low thin branch. With gentle fingers, she untangles my hair from the tree, then presses a kiss to my temple before leading me into a sunlit grove.
As soon as I step into the clearing behind her, my mouth opens with an awed sigh.
Sunlight fills the clearing, dusting everything it touches in gold. Rather than real life, it feels like I’ve stepped into an artist’s painting of the fairy realm. At any moment, I expect sprites to come drifting up and out of the long grass. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Aurora probably dances with them beneath the moonlight.
Aurora moves to stand in the center of the clearing. I remain where I am, watching her. The golden sunlight turns her hair a lighter shade of green, and it makes her sun-touched skin almost glow.
Maybeshe’sthe sprite, the fairy queen. I’d be easily convinced. The thought makes me smile.
Aurora takes a seat in the meadow, and a puff of pollen goes up around her. She collapses back into the grass, spreading her arms out like she’s making an angel in fresh-fallen snow. I join her, settling down beside her, letting the warm grass wrap around me as I lie back to look up at the sky.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“This was my auntie’s special place. She used to bring me here when I was a girl.” She sighs softly. “I’m not sure anyone else knows about it.”
“Yet you showed it to me.”
Shifting, Aurora turns onto her side, and I do the same, propping my head on my arm so I can gaze down at her.
“I think I can trust you,” she says, lips quirking in one corner.
With gentle fingers, I reach out to push a long strand of hair behind Aurora’s ear. She’s wearing silver earrings in the shape of feathers, tiny blue stones embedded in the metal. The more I get to know her, the more surprised I am that her ears aren’t delicately pointed. I’ve never met an elf or a fairy, but if Aurora were to tell me she’s secretly of the fair folk, I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment.
Capturing my hand in hers, Aurora places a kiss to my palm. Then the smile slowly fades from her lips. “I’m glad you came to visit me,” she says, but the joyful tone has gone from her voice. “I wanted to talk to you... about yesterday.”
