Deceit of Spirits

Chapter 12

Bloody Hel's Abyss, this had to be the oddest sensation to ever exist.

Being subjected to the fae's Shadow-Light felt akin to having one's innards turned inside out and then placed on the outside of one's flesh for all the assembled Elementi to dissect.

Other than that, it was rather pleasant. A warm hum that traveled from the tips of Matthias's pointed ears to the toes of his booted feet. It numbed his tongue and filled his thoughts with the lazy afternoon light of the setting sun.

It did cause his healing wound to throb, but that could have been due to the oils and herbs Nairol had slathered onto his leg. A bit excessively and with much unnecessary added flourishes.

"Keep your eyes closed," Matthias managed to mutter to Abel, but he couldn't be sure his words had been intelligible. Everything felt muffled. Which said a lot about what the Shadow-Light was doing to his senses because elves' ears could pinpoint the exact drop of first rainfall.

Matthias had never undergone Shadow-Light, but he had heard plenty of horror stories as a child of the invasive transgression used by those of the Court of Avylon. Towards the end of the Purge, Matthias remembered his own mother submitting herself to it; Commander Nimosk had arrived in Lantholen after Davina and Niklaus had set fire to the tree city in their final, desperate attempt to locate the Black Quill. Unfortunately, Nimosk had been too late to strike down Davina, but he had not been late enough to find Matthias's mother, who had been unable to complete the Ceremony of Trees and seal herself into the Willow before the feared commander had arrived. Back then, rumors had spread that Matthias's mother had not only aided Pavel Kyiva in securing the Black Quill in Holalethe Lake but that she had even harbored a fleeing Soleitian priestess when Davina had come looking for her.

There hadn't been time to learn if the rumors had been true or not; Matthias and his sister had already been hurried to Soleita where a portal awaited the fate of Eleanora's two youngest children.

To be fair, Matthias would never put any of the hushed rumors past his mother. She had lived for centuries, and the secrets she kept were almost as numerous.

Just like the Monverta she now hid beneath her twisting roots.

He could sense Earth's threads tugging the small book deeper beneath the soil as Light's threads pulled at his flesh, flaring brightly against the back of Matthias's shut eyes.

"Enough!" Araric demanded. "The children hide nothing. Not unlike the last time you subjected one of our own to this nonsense—!"

"Trickery!" Leolin swore. "The mortal realm taints their souls! It explains how they can lie and deceive us."

"One's blood cannot be tainted unless the Spirits deem it to be so," Nimosk said; it effectively silenced Leolin, though he still fumed. "Pavel's Monverta is not on their persons."

The searching glow dimmed, pulling away first from Matthias's face, leaving flares of red and orange that splashed against his eyelids in dizzying dots. With care, he blinked his eyes open only to find the fae commander watching him with crooked lips. As Light's threads retreated back into Nimosk's veins, it lit his expression in a taunting, ghoulish way.

"Mother and son," he drawled. "Like calls to like." It was an accusation as much as it was a threat. The two stared at each other. Matthias half-wished Nimosk would be reckless enough to attack him, though it would most likely be crazed Leolin who snapped their truce, but then Nimosk cleared his throat and stepped back.

"It appears the halfling misplaced the book."

"As I claimed." From next to him, Abel curled her fingers into fists. "I believe an apology is in order."