Arcane Rising: The Darkland Druids - Book One, R Nicole [suggested reading TXT] 📗

A sharp pain scratched across my chest and I stumbled…

I woke with a start and found Ignis standing on top of me, his claws imbedded in my cleavage. Green eyes narrowed and he head-butted me with an enthusiastic meow.

Breathing heavily, I raised my hand and the crystal light began to glow softly, casting a faint, icy-blue hue over my room. I wrapped my arm around Ignis, glad he was there to wake me up.

“You knew,” I whispered, leaning my cheek against his furry spine. “Owen was reaching out for me, wasn’t he?”

His stripy tail flicked back and forth, his prisms sparkling.

“Rory was right,” I murmured.

Every day I seemed to get closer to something, as if the day I almost killed Owen unlocked a terrible power inside me. Making prisms of plants was one thing, but ascending through the spirit world…? What did that even mean? The Chimera wanted to control me so badly that they just tried to reach me through the Druid’s illusions.

What was it that Rory had told me in the library? Or, more importantly, what hadn’t he said?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised he knew something. Why was he keeping it from me though? Had the Elders commanded him to stay silent?

“He knows something, Ignis,” I said. “I think… I think he knows why my father left the Warren. I bet that’s what he was going to tell me before Jaimie walked in.”

The cat purred, blowing gusts of air out of his nose that made him sound like a snorting horse.

“Don’t worry,” I murmured, spearing my hand through his soft hair. “I’ll get it out of him. I deserve to know the whole story. Especially now that they can reach my dreams.” A curtain of green hair fell over my shoulder and covered Ignis like a mossy blanket. “It’s my prophecy after all.”

14

All I had were piles of questions with no answers…and so much green hair I didn’t know what to do with it.

I looked at my reflection in the glossy walls of the Warren and sighed. I guess you’re a punk now, Elspeth. Maybe you should shave it into a mohawk.

Walking into the main cavern, I looked up at Salle. The willow always looked like a painting to me, the rainbow of green, purple, and blue too magical to be real. Lately, my life had taken on the same sheen.

I spotted Ignis prowling along one of the branches, stalking a sparrow construct. He pounced, but the bird escaped his clutches with a swift flap of its wings. That was a metaphor if I ever saw one.

Sighing, I ventured to the kitchen.

I wanted to talk to Rory and warn him about Owen invading my dream, but as I scanned the tables, I realised he wasn’t there. Jaimie wasn’t either, but I knew he had other duties in the city. It must have been a late one if he was missing out on mealtime.

Gathering the last scraps of my withered courage, I crossed the room and picked up a tray from the mismatched pile at the end of the table. Still feeling guilty over my freeloading, I filled a bowl with a handful of muesli and stepped down the line.

“I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

I bristled at the harsh tone in the unknown voice behind me and steeled myself.

“I’m speaking to you,” the voice snapped.

The whole kitchen fell silent. I felt the pressure of the gaze of every Druid in the room piercing my back like hot pokers. Knowing I couldn’t escape a confrontation, I turned.

It was Darby, the waifish woman with the pixie haircut I’d met the first day, and some other Druids I only knew from their passing glares. I’d given them less than appropriate nicknames because none of them were interested in introductions. They were butt face, arse crack, lemon sucker, and I thought I should stop there before I got bombed with one-star reviews…or accidentally revealed their new names to their faces.

“Can I help you?” I asked, forcing myself to speak.

“You stand there like you don’t know what he did,” she said, raking her gaze over me. “It’s insulting.”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

I scowled. “What about him?”

“No one’s told you?” She laughed and shook her head. “Typical. They’ll do anything to protect the clueless half-blood over their own.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

“It’s all his fault, Elspeth. The Chimera.”

“You really hate me that much that you’ll resort to lies?” I shook my head. “Pathetic. I never did anything to you or the Druids, Darby. I didn’t ask for this.” I fisted my hand into my hair and held it up. “I don’t want it.”

“I’m not lying,” she retorted. “Why would I need to when the truth is so much more powerful.”

She stepped closer and glared. She was shorter than I was, but her presence was still intimidating. Darby was a Druid in full control of her Colour, and I felt it simmer along her skin as she faced-off with me.

“Your father meddled with things he was commanded to leave be,” she said. “He fell in love with a Fae and created something that should never have been.”

I swallowed hard. “But that would have been…”

“That’s right,” she declared with a sneer. “Before you were born.”

In that moment, I felt incredibly stupid. I was twenty-five. My mother was a Fae. The Witches hadn’t re-opened the portals until five years after I was born. The Fae who’d been trapped here were confined to Ireland and were nothing but withered husks without their power. My father must have opened portals to the Fae realm and… He…

“He brought the Chimera down on us,” someone else said. “If it wasn’t for him, they wouldn’t be hunting us.”

“And there wouldn’t be children here without parents,” Darby snarled.

“I— He’d never—” I didn’t want to believe her. My father was kind, nurturing, and strong-hearted. He sacrificed his life to save people from environmental disasters.