“I am Garrin Branimir,” he said. “Prince of Dark Kingdom.”
The woman blinked several times as though surprised, and then her nostrils flared in anger. “Why have you brought my daughter here?”
Garrin looked down and jerked at the vertigo that rushed through him. “Can we discuss this on land?”
“No,” the woman said.
Now Garrin saw the resemblance. Only Lex dared to defy him, and it seemed this woman did too.
“I am taking Lex to my kingdom,” he said. No need to tell the woman he’d taken Lex against her will. “She is very ill from our journey and needs help. Are you truly her mother?” It was a strange twist of fate to be saved by Lex’s mother inside the Great Ravine.
“Are you truly the son of Casone?” Bitterness filled the woman’s tone, and it didn’t bode well that she knew his father by name.
But Fae didn’t lie, not even to save themselves. “Yes.”
Garrin’s father wanted what was best for his people, but he could be ruthless in his means. Lex’s mother might have been on the receiving end of his father’s wrath, considering from where she emerged.
“Please release me and let me help your daughter.”
After what felt like a century suspended over the ravine, Garrin slowly floated to the alcove ledge, where he finally touched ground.
He bent over, hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He was still power-starved, and just plain starved, after weeks of giving Lex his rations.
He slowly straightened. “Thank you. We must get Lex to my people, where she can be healed.” He hesitated, glancing around. “How did you come to be here?”
The woman sighed harshly, still holding Lex. “Your father, of course.”
Garrin closed his eyes. It was just as he’d feared. “I am sorry.”
“As am I. ’Twas around the time of your birth… What human year did you say it was?”
He hadn’t, but he rattled off the year the humans went by, and the woman’s eyes enlarged.
“No,” she said. “It can’t be… Time runs differently in our realm, which is why I had the spell slow Lex’s age and make her forget…” She shook her head, looking crestfallen.
Garrin took a chance and moved closer. “What did you say your name was?”
The woman blinked and looked up. “I am Isle Meinrad, but we don’t have time for greetings. We must return to the human realm, where Lex will be safe.”
“We cannot,” Garrin said, his brow furrowed. “Do you not see that she is dying?”
Isle’s face winced in pain. She scanned Lex’s body, then glared at Garrin. “What have you done to my child?”
Garrin could fault no one but himself. “I will do everything in my power to get her help. But our only hope is to move forward, beyond the ravine.” His men were somewhere above, but Garrin was so far down that he couldn’t see them. “I don’t suppose you know of a way out?”
“When your father banished me, he froze my powers in addition to my body.” She gently eased Lex onto the floor and stood. Cautiously, she approached the edge of the alcove. “As soon as I sensed Lex, I was able to draw on her powers to regain mine.”
Garrin shook his head. What was she saying? “Lex has no discernible powers. Our hope is that she strengthens as soon as we get her beyond the ravine, where most lose abilities due to the magic here.”
“Most do,” Isle said distractedly as she moved from the edge. “But not my daughter. Her powers are different. They were locked away, waiting until the time we were reunited and the spell was broken.”
“Spell?” Garrin glanced at Lex, noting her coloring had not improved. “We must go. I fear Lex will not survive long.”
Isle moved to her daughter. “Do you not know Lex’s ability? She’s been in hiding, but I assumed you had discovered it if you found her.”
“She is the prophesied one,” he said.
“A prophecy, is it?” Isle sank to her knees and cradled Lex’s face. “The elders have been busy while I was away if they sent you on a treasure hunt. Your father murdered or isolated the only Fae who knew about Lex. It’s why I went to such lengths to hide her. But she is old enough now. And I am here to protect her.”
Isle’s narrow throat bobbed and her eyes glistened. “The others have been trapped for so long…well before you and I were born.”
“Who has been trapped?”
She looked up. “Dark Fae. Your father has kept us imprisoned for centuries.”
Garrin attempted to slow his pounding heart. Isle’s words made no sense, but she wouldn’t say something she didn’t believe. “You’re mistaken. My father has been as much a prisoner of this land as the rest of us. Few have managed to escape. Most who have escaped lost their lives to the hatred of Old and New Kingdom soldiers. And no one has managed to release our people en masse.”
She huffed out a sigh. “We don’t have time to argue this. You are the king’s son. I assume you have power over water?”
Among other things, Garrin thought. “When I am hale. Which I am not.”
She looked him up and down, taking in his eyes, which he knew were sunken. His beard had grown at least an inch longer too. “Your mind is sound; thus, you are healthy enough. The ravine is too deep for me to lift us to the top. Use your abilities and stair us.”
When strong, Garrin could create stairs of ice to climb the ravine. But not now. Now he couldn’t put together a flurry. “I assure you, I’ve tried. I would do anything to save your daughter.”
Isle seemed taken aback at that. She moved closer, her gaze intent. “Anything to save my daughter?” She laughed humorlessly. “Oh, what twisted irony.” She peered at him skeptically. “Have you any notion why your father entombed me?”
No, he hadn’t, and when he didn’t say anything, she answered for him. “I possessed knowledge your father wished to hide. What he didn’t know is that I’d hidden something from him. Lex. I’ve spent two hundred years waiting to be reunited with her. I will not see harm come to her—not by you, should you change your mind about saving her, and not by your father.”
Two hundred years? Lex had been hidden that long? It was beyond belief.
He shook his head. “What you said about my father can’t possibly be true, but we haven’t the time to debate it. What do you propose we do to get out of here?”
“We use Lex’s power the way her gift was intended.”
Garrin pressed his fingers to his temple, the pounding of his head blocking out the rush of the wind. He’d gone too long without a coat, and Lex’s mother spoke nonsense. “What power?”
Isle’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you, Dark Prince. I will tell you, because we are in a most unfortunate situation, but do not cross me or you will regret it.”
He let out a measured breath. “As I said, I only wish for your daughter’s safety.”
“Which you’ve put in peril!”
The moment required patience, and he had little left. He closed his eyes and said something he never did. “Please.”
She stared for a long moment, then looked worriedly at Lex as though weighing her daughter’s safety against her mistrust for Garrin. “My daughter has the ability to manipulate and magnify powers. All powers.” She looked at him intently. “Do you understand what I am saying, Dark Prince?”
Lex was the one. He’d always believed it, and Isle’s words proved it. “I’ve never heard of such magic.”
“That is because no other Fae possesses it.”
“One needs power in order to magnify it,” he said. “And I have none at the moment, as is the case with my men. How would Lex be able to conjure it?”
“Your power is there. It is merely held back by the exhaustion of your Fae form. My daughter might not be able to control her magic in her current state, but I can.”
Lex’s mother was quite possibly mad. But he’d been plunging to his death moments ago, and now he wasn’t. He was open to discussion. “How can Lex do this if she is unconscious?”
“The same way her power allowed me to melt the ice tomb your father created. I have the power of telekinesis and a minor ability with fire when I exert myself. As soon as I sensed my daughter, I reached for her magic and activated my own, breaking my imprisonment.”
Isle motioned for Garrin to come closer. “You do not know Lex the way I do. I can call to her power because I am her mother. If you want to reach her magic, you will need to touch her. It will be easier that way.”
Not know Lex? She was stubborn. Beautiful. And under the worst of circumstances, humorous without meaning to be. If they survived this, the woman who’d hid in plain sight in the human realm would give him a piece of her mind. And right now, he prayed for Lex’s condemnation. Would welcome it, for he feared he’d never hear her voice again.
He knelt and ran his knuckles along the cold blue-gray skin of Lex’s jaw, his own jaw flexing. She wouldn’t survive much longer out here. This had to work.
He closed his eyes and gently squeezed her shoulder, running his palm toward her hand and calling to his magic.
Nothing happened.
He blinked. “I sense no power.”
Isle sighed. “As impatient as your father, I see. You must envision the magic flowing from Lexandra to you.”
Garrin didn’t want to take anything from Lex. She was already so frail. But she appeared much like she had before her mother melted the ice tomb by tapping into her magic. Presumably this didn’t hurt her.
This time when Garrin closed his eyes, he visualized the essence of his power and the way it looked in his mind’s eye.
And was slammed with heat and energy that ran from his scalp to his fingertips and down to his toes.
Garrin stood, his chest pounding with relief. He splayed out his hands and called to the snow.
And it obeyed. Compacting, melting. Forming stairs leading up, piling one on top of the other, higher and higher.
“Good,” Isle said. “Now we leave this evil place.”
