Page 75 of Perfectly Petite Shorts
Agony slammed into my chest, momentarily stilling my beating hearts before they sprang back into action, mercilessly pounding with a ferocity I’d never felt before. I may have screamed, though the pounding in my head made it impossible to hear anything. Within one blink and the next, my body transformed into my warrior state. Leaf wings sprouted from my back as armor covered my body. My eyesight sharpened bringing even the smallest detail into focus.
“What is happening, Hamish? Speak to me. Where is the threat?” Vaydra had been arguing against me. Her work attire was now replaced with her warrior one. Like me, she was in full fairy defense mode. To outsiders, our appearance would have been terrifying.
Despite not understanding why, I instinctively knew thethreatwas not within this room. It was far away on a hilltop overlooking a hotly disputed piece of land.
“Todrik.” His name was little more than a growl.
“Who?” Vaydra was understandably uncertain.
I was incapable of explaining further. Todrik was in pain. He was… I couldn’t even contemplate it. I needed to leave, and I needed to do so now. Raising my hand, I opened an atmospheric rift and stepped through.
I’d seen many horrors during my long life. Fields turned to ash and rivers to blood. I’d seen bloated bodies strewn across battlefields and heard the wails of the dying. I’d been present when Queen Silvidia took control of the Earth, and I’d watched her slaughter the humans who opposed her rule.
All this and more I’d seen, and yet nothing was as horrific as the sight waiting for me as I stepped through that rift.
My hearts stopped until the pain in my chest demanded they beat again. Their erratic thudding only added to unbearableache. Lilibeth’s wails added the musical score, punctuating the agony before me.
“What happened?” It wasn’t my voice asking that all important question, but Vaydra’s. I hadn’t realized she’d followed me through the rift. Her normally cold voice held the slightest hint of emotional concern.
Collapsed on her knees, surrounded by a sea of dead foliage, Lilibeth clung to Todrik’s trunk. His once beautiful limbs hung around her, creating a skeletal curtain. Crispy brown leaves littered the space beneath, equally brown-tinged cherry blossoms adding to the macabre scene.
“Poison,” Lilibeth panted between heaving sobs. “The ground is poisoned. I tried to warn him but…” Lilibeth shook her head sending waves of deep brown hair tossing about her shoulders. “I don’t think he heard me. The walk up was too strenuous and Todrik… He sank his roots deep into the soil and…”
I’d been standing there, lost in a sea of disbelief mixed with incomprehensible pain. I’d been frozen, my feet rooted to the diseased ground. Action invaded my paralysis, and I found myself beside Lilibeth, my knees crunching Todrik’s dead leaves. I rested my palm on Todrik’s trunk, desperately searching for life.
The air rushed from my lungs, collapsing my chest. It was faint and fading, but it was there. The sluggish pull of his sap whispered beneath my fingertips. He was still alive, but had, at most, mere minutes to live. Probably less.
“No.” The word was nearly too quiet to be heard. The harsh sob that escaped my soul was much louder.
“This one is important to you?” Vaydra asked. I had no more idea when she’d moved closer than I’d known she followed me from the courthouse.
Leaning my forehead on Todrik’s dying trunk, I uttered, “He is everything.” I had not realized until that moment just how true those words were.
“Move aside,” Vaydra ordered, her tone once more emotionless. When I did not do as told, she added, “Unless you desire to be frozen as well.”
Rapidly removing my hands, I grabbed Lilibeth and pulled her away as well. Thankfully, she did not protest my rough handling.
With a simple touch of her finger, Vaydra’s cold seeped into the ground and up Todrik’s trunk. Despite what she had said, Vaydra did not freeze Todrik, but she did cool him and his surrounding ground to just above freezing.
“I have slowed the process but not eliminated it. Time still moves forward. I am sorry, Hamish, but this all I can do for you. Without further aid, my efforts will only delay the inevitable.”
I could not afford to allow my emotions to paralyze my actions. Right now, Todrik needed my problem-solving skills, not my broken hearts.
“Can you do anything for him, Lilibeth?” Like fairies, brownies were pure magic. Some had affinities for healing and could do wonderous things.
Unfortunately, Lilibeth was not such a brownie. “I’m shit with healing.” She stomped her small foot as if irritated with herself. “My skills lay elsewhere, and if we get Todrik out of this mess, I’ll be happy demonstrate them.” The low growl grounding those words made me believe Lilibeth would be helpful when it was time to exact revenge.
“You could give him your bond,” Vaydra said. “It might be enough, though I am uncertain.”
I considered the option and discarded it just as quickly. Accepting a fairy bond was no small thing. Todrik and I had not discussed the possibility, and once it was given, there were no returns or exchanges. A fairy bond was forever. I would notcondemn Todrik to a life with me without discussing it with him first. For many, death would be preferable to such a bond.
My hearts sped as my options dwindled. I could already feel the unimaginable emptiness of his absence engulfing my soul. Hands gripped over my chest, I used my last and final resort, praying my queen would hear my agonized plea. My desire was not spoken aloud. Queen Silvidia would never be able to hear my words, but I hoped she could hear my soul’s cry.
The scent of roses engulfed my senses, drowning me in sweetness. The breeze added an array of luscious floral undertones that teetered on being just too much and yet somehow landed on just right.
“Hamish McIntyre, what ails you so that I could feel your painful cry all the way in Fairy?” Queen Silvidia’s voice held the tinkling cadence of windchimes.
Immediately going to one knee, I knelt before my queen. “He is dying.”
