Page 17 of Beyond the Mountain (Fae's Captive 4)

“Am I dead?” I sit up and stare around at the black obsidian world.

“Yes.” Delantis sits next to me, her eyes bright silver, and her body clad in a skimpy dress, her necklace glinting in the strange light.

“You’re young.”

She shrugs. “I can choose how I appear.” She gestures toward my body. “You can, too.”

My midnight wings are gone.

I’m back to my changeling form. “Huh.” A creeping fear invades my confusion and bursts like a bubble. “Leander!” I jump to my feet. “He’s in danger. They’re all fighting for their lives. I have to go to him.”

“He’s not here.” She rises and takes my arm. “Let’s walk.”

“Where?” I peer around at the obsidian world, ridges and peaks of black rock as far as the eye can see.

“Anywhere.” She waves a hand and my dorm appears just as I remember it.

“How—”

“So, now you know what you are.” She leads me up the front stairs. “Have you decided who you want to be?”

“I’m dead, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Can we help Leander, please? He needs me.”

“I’m afraid that’s beyond my abilities.” She seems truly sad about it.

I have to stop and lean against the visitor sign-in desk as the enormity of what happened rolls over me. “I’ve lost him.” It feels like I’ve been stabbed through the heart all over. “I’ll never see Leander again.” My knees weaken, and I sink, the cold floor changing to the stone of Shathinor’s throne room. Empty now, it looks as it first did—the white throne intact. My gaze strays to the stairs where I … died.

“I’m really dead.”

Delantis kneels next to me. “Take heart.” She tilts my chin up until I meet her eyes. “All is not lost.”

“It’s not?” I press my palm to my chest. “I stabbed myself with the obsidian blade. I’m here. Leander is—” I look to where he held me, the stairs empty. A sob rocks me. “He’s there.”

“Here you are.” A blue smoke materializes beside me and forms into a woman.

“You again.” I cradle my head in my hands.

“Me again.” It sits next to me. “I would have told you about all this if you’d only come with me and stayed in the otherworld.”

“I’m never supposed to follow the magic.”

“Why not?” It leans back against the bone throne. “I’m not so bad. I’ve been trying to help. I even told Queen Aurentia about you.”

“You mean you’re the reason her soldiers attacked Leander at the border?”

It shrugs. “I told the queen what would happen if you reached the winter realm. She wisely tried to keep you from fulfilling the prophecy. But prophecies are funny things.”

“What does it matter now?” My insides are cold, barren. I now realize how much I’d come to enjoy that link with Leander. Even when it was spread thin, it was always like a warm blanket, reminding me that he was in the world. But now, I’m empty.

“What does the prophecy matter? It matters.” The magic inspects its fingernails. The form it’s taken is almost familiar. “You underestimate me.”

“Who do you look like?”

It blinks. “You like this look?”

“Just tell me who.” I’m tired of its games, sorrow weighing me down as I struggle to keep my tears in check.

“Your mother.” It shrugs.

“Callandra?”

“That’s the one. She’s with the Ancestors, but I thought this would be a nice touch.”

“I met her once.” Delantis smiles. “She was a beauty. That golden hair. But she was sad. I didn’t know about you then. But I think keeping you secret and asleep weighed on her heavily. That’s why she sent you to earth. To give you a chance to blossom out of your father’s shadow. And it worked.”

An idea strikes me, and I turn to the magic. “Can you go to the mountain and help Leander? Help all of them?”

“No.” Magic shakes its head. “It’s more fun in here. This blade is wild.” It waves its hand and we’re back in the expanse of obsidian, sparkling black sky and all.

“But they need help! Please, save them.”

“Why would I save them when you can do it yourself?” The magic shrugs.

“Tell me how.” I reach for its hand, then pull back.

It snaps its fingers. “I will for a price.”

Delantis frowns. “You’re just as bad as a high fae with the bargaining.”

“I’ll pay it. Whatever it takes. I have to go back. I have to make it right. The things I’ve done to Cecile, to the other Taylor. The things I’ve left unsaid with Leander. I can’t leave it like this.”

“You’ll pay it, no matter what it is?” The magic grins like the Cheshire cat.

Delantis grabs my hand. “Taylor, you don’t nee—”

“Done.” The magic stands and stretches. “I’ll be seeing you in the otherworld shortly.”

“That’s the price?” I rise.

“I want to dance beneath the dark moon and tell you my secrets.” The magic starts to sway, its smoky dress moving to some silent music. “You’re the child of prophecy, a changeling but not, a high fae but not. You are the legend. I want you for my own.”

“For how long?” I swallow hard.

“Does it matter?” The magic pirouettes around me. “You already agreed to whatever I asked.”

“I guess it doesn’t.” I take a deep breath and turn to Delantis. “I know who I am now. And I

know what I have to do.”

Delantis sighs. “You didn’t have to make that deal.”

“I can’t leave Leander. Not like this and—”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean you didn’t have to make that deal.”

She points as a silver wisp appears in the air, hanging down from the obsidian sky like a rope.

“What’s that?”

“Your mate bond. Your own magic called it forth.”

“My magic?”

“You have the power of death.” She touches one of my hands and the black swirl of darkness appears above it. “But also life.” She touches my other hand, and a green spell twirls up.

“I thought it could only reanimate the dead?” I lift the green magic and peer at it. “That’s what Shathinor said.”

“Because that was Shathinor’s magic. Yours is something different. Something greater. You have the power of death and life.”

“How?”

“It’s an inherited talent from your mother. Your mate bond activated it.” Delantis smiles. “I told you before. Don’t reject the bond. It will save you. When your soul joined with Leander’s—the love you share awakened your talent. Just as it made his winter powers stronger, it granted you the ability to give life instead of only death.”

“Cecile.” The connection clicks in my mind. “She has the same talent. Giving life.”

“Also from your shared mother, yes.”

I shake my head, then cut my eyes to the still-dancing magic. “You just made a deal with me knowing all the while that I didn’t have to make it!”

It shrugs then shimmies.

“I tried to warn you.” Delantis sighs. “Magic is wily.” Her white light glows brighter, her fingertips almost translucent. “It’s time for me to go and be with the Ancestors. Time for a rest.”

I hug her hard. “Thank you for everything.”

She strokes my hair. “I go to the Glowing Lands, but I’ll see you again.” Reaching behind her neck, she unfastens her soulstone and holds it out to me.

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