Page 28 of Of Pixies and Promises
“No.” Nyra’s heart stopped. As the bustle of activity rose around her, as pixies prepared to defend their gully, her world grew small. Her vision crowded. And what made it worse was that she saw the truth in everyone’s eyes. Sid might not have returned to his people, but his lie would spell the end for their gully. He would have known the humans would be back. There was no way the Well would reward him by giving him power. Sid would float.
But he hadn’t left long ago. Maybe she could stop him before he waded into the depths.
She bared her fangs, screamed at Moss, and palmed his chest to move him out of the way. He staggered and fluttered his wings to stop falling from the branch. She launched into the air, wishing that she missed the last of his words.
“Go to him, and you’re choosing him over the gully.”
It wasn’t until she was a few minutes into the journey that she realized someone must have flown Sid to the lake, and it was a few hours away. Moss had a second pixie helping him, or he’d used a portal stone to transport Sid there instantly. And if that was the case, no matter how fast she flew, she wouldn’t arrive in time to stop him.
Her wings faltered. Gravity pulled her down. A hand clasped her wrist and lifted, helping her regain equilibrium. Nyra looked into Colt’s eyes.
“I thought you left,” Nyra gasped.
“I did. And then I realized you were probably headed in the same direction, and you might want to get there faster than your wings can travel. I have a portal stone.” Colt gave her a small smile as she held the smooth, small stone in her palm. “You were right when you said the Well works in mysterious ways. There have been too many strange coincidences with your story. Ifwhat you say is true, if he’s your one true dick, I’ll take you with me.”
“Even if I should be defending the gully?”
Colt’s eyes met Nyra’s. “Even then.”
Chapter
Twelve
Sid floated in the lake, staring at the sky as the sun dipped beyond the horizon, and it turned from blue to teal to orange and navy. He tried to come to terms with what had just happened. Was he yet to wake from a dream or reality or a nightmare?
The lake no longer called to him.
When Moss had portaled him here, Sid had waded into the water without hesitation. Only a prayer existed in his heart.
Help me belong. Help me protect.
He’d waded into the deep, his legs treading water, and he’d waited. Nothing. No answer to his prayer. No worms rising from the deep. Nothing.
Now the gloaming was starting to fall like a smothering blanket with little fiery holes poked through it. All he could think was that Nyra’s tribe was right. He was human. He was empty. He wasn’t even worth judgment. The divine ignored him.
This cold indifference from their revered Well was Sid’s reward for his selfishness. He wasn’t even afforded the shame-saving ending of not being alive to face his rejection. That cowardly end hadn’t entered his mind before now. He’d justwanted to be with Nyra, to finally give in to that guilty notion that he could belong here in Elphyne.
That he’d been wrong.
That he wanted to make up for it.
He might have floated there, staring at the twilight for hours, minutes, days, thinking about his options. In the end, he came to the conclusion that if the Well wasn’t going to help him gain absolution, then he had to take a page out of Nyra’s book and do it himself. He would swim back to shore, find Silver, and join in her fight. He knew how Reapers worked. He knew how they fought.
He didn’t need mana to protect this world.
He didn’t need permission.
All he needed was—something brushed his ankle.
Sid’s wet skin prickled with alarm. He tried to silence his movements and hear the danger coming. But the sound didn’t come from beneath. It came from across the water, from where Nyra flew toward him, screaming for him to get out.
He tried to wave and say that he was okay, that the worms didn’t want him anyway, but thatslitherhit his foot again. Then his hand. Then it wrapped around his neck like a noose and dragged him down. The last thing he saw before going under was the flare of Nyra’s pink hair and wings moonlit like an angel.
Slick,oily darkness consumed Sid as he was pulled down, down into the deep. Down so far that the light of the moon extinguished. Down so far that there was no hope for him to rise and find air again.
Something like fear ripped through him—not because of the burn in his lungs, or the twisting, slithering lengths squirmingaround his body—but because Nyra had seen him go under, and he’d caught the tragedy in her eyes. She didn’t think he would survive.
Maybe that was why he resisted the slithering things trying to gain access to his mouth. Maybe that was why he panicked when he felt them everywhere, inside his clothes—trying to violate him in horrific ways without his consent. His instinct to survive kicked his legs, made him buck and thrash and mindlessly beg.
