Page 29 of Of Pixies and Promises
But he gave permission, didn’t he?
That’s why he was there. To submit to being judged. To answer the call. To belong.
He stopped struggling. The burn, the suffocation of the worms, became so intense that he suddenly stopped feeling at all. There was no emotion, no sensation. He floated in a dark weightless space, wondering if this was the calm before death often spoken about. That moment where they saw a light at the end of the tunnel… or the darkest pits of hell.
No.
This moment of floating peacefully wasn’t hell.
When the worms breached him, searching him inside and out, hunting for whatever it was they hungered for, he thought—thisis hell. Not because he deserved the agony, but because he never got the chance to tell Nyra he loved her.
Sid’s eyesfluttered open to darkness. But air. Sweet, glorious air dragged in and out of his abused lungs. He was wet. Water somewhere lapped against the shore. But he was notinthe water.
And it whispered.You’re here. You belong. You are ours.
With a ragged, choking gasp, he jackknifed up.
“Sid!” Nyra’s strangled voice came from his right.
His head swiveled in the dark to find her crawling toward him on the shore, her golden skin luminous, her prismatic wings like diamonds sparkling in the night. He flinched at the brightness.
He was at the lake. No longer in it, but spit out on the shore. Deep night had fallen and now his eyes adjusted to see remarkably well. How long had he been out? How much time had passed?
And why the fuck did everything seem so vibrant? It was night. He knew it. But he felt like he could see almost as if it were day. The air tasted sweet. The ground sparked a sensation against his skin. Nyra scrambled toward him, shouting over her shoulder as she crawled, “Colt! Colt, come quickly!”
She threw herself at him, bowling into him until they fell against the sand. God, even her warm skin was hard to describe. It was like she’d been standing by the fire… no—he ran his hands over her smooth body—it was like the fire was now in him.
She clutched his jaw between her hand and peppered his face with kisses. “You stupid, dumb, amazing, dumb and…” Anger and fury contorted her pretty features. “You lied to me! You broke your promise.”
“I’m so sorry. I—” He shook his head as shame threatened to overwhelm him. “I fucked up and I was too much of a coward to tell you. An apology wasn’t good enough. I had to prove it.”
She pulled back, her eyes narrowing on his face.
He lifted his thumb to smear a glob of blue bioluminescence from her cheek, but it wouldn’t move. He blinked, trying to focus. It wasn’t on her tear-stained cheek. It was a reflection… of light cast from his.
“Sid,” she breathed, gaping at him in awe, touching a spot beneath his left eye with reverence. “You have the Guardian mark.”
Did it work? His hand flew to his face to see if he could feel it. His gaze darted to the lake, searching for evidence of what had happened. Of his acceptance. But those whispers were silent again.
Sand exploded as another pixie landed next to Nyra. She held out her hand, and a glow illuminated above her palm as if she held a firefly or manabee… but it was magic… and Sid could sense it as though he and it were made of the same stardust.
“Colt,” Nyra said, reluctantly scrambling off Sid. “Look.”
Colt’s eyes focused on Sid’s cheek, and she smiled. He glanced at her lower lip, where the same blue teardrop twinkled. A Mage of the Order of the Well. That made him…
“Congratulations, D’arn. You are the first human in the history of Elphyne to survive the Guardian initiation.”
“What did you call me?”
“D’arn. It is the official title of a Guardian,” she explained, glancing around the sand as she continued. “It precedes your new Guardian name. But I don’t see a name in the sand. Most of the time, the Well Worms spit you out with a new name.”
“My name is Sid,” he said, his throat still raw from the invading worms. “Sidney.”
She smiled. “Well, I guess you’ll remain as Sid unless you choose a new name—a rarity but not unheard of. There have been a few other Guardians who claimed their new identities. But there will be more time for deciding that later during your training.”
“Training?”
She cocked her head. “As a Guardian, of course. You will now be amongst the select few who can hold forbidden items and still access your mana.” When he continued to look dumbly at her, she explained. “You have mana, Sid. You will have to learn how to harness that gift and how to fight to uphold the integrity of the Well.”
