Fragile Eternity

“We will,” he promised. “We’ll figure it out.”

He kept one arm around her as they started walking again. It would be okay. The Summer King claimed that his objection was to Seth’s mortality, to his pulling Aisli

“Riverside?” She glimmered then, her entire body pulsing with sunlight, and he held on to her, his own fallen star. “There’s music tonight.”

He nodded. He didn’t ask how she knew: it called to her. Large gatherings of her faeries were like beacons to her now.

“Can we run?” In her eyes endless blue lakes were shimmering. She might claim to not like being a faery, but part of her liked some of it very much. If Aisli

He nodded, and then he held on to her. His feet barely touched the sidewalk, glancing off the earth like they were flying. If he let go, he’d crash horribly, but he wouldn’t let go of her, not now, not ever.

When they stumbled to a stop at the bank of the river, she was laughing at the joy of speeding over the earth, at the freedom of who she was and what she’d become.

A band was set up alongside the banks. One of the singers was a merrow. She languished in the water, chirping orders at others on the shore. Her skin was tinted moss green, slightly phosphorescent in the dark. She wore a silver cape over a kelp-strand dress that revealed far more than it covered. From the waist down her body was a scaled fishtail, but somehow even that looked elegant. Behind her, a trio of male merrows lolled about with kelpies, but unlike her, the other merrows were hideous. Their faces were those of catfish, whiskered mouths gaping open as they watched their sister with a protectiveness that made Seth wonder if the Dark Court faeries really were the ones to fear. Water-dwelling faeries were creepier.

But then she started to sing, and her brothers joined in on a chorus, and Seth forgot that they were anything other than glorious.

It wasn’t a language he knew. It wasn’t even a proper song, just them preening a little. Every cell in his body seemed to struggle to find a way to align with that music. His breathing found their rhythm. It wasn’t glamour; his charm protected him from that. They were just that good.

He and Aisli

Then the music stopped.

The spell broke; gravity returned to his spirit and anchored him to the earth. Their music was like that, lifting you away from the world only to drop you without warning. The drop ached; the absence was like a physical blow.

“They’re amazing,” Aisli

“More than.” Seth looked away from the merrows. The only time he and Aisli

They’d taken only a couple steps when a skogsrå caught Seth’s attention. Of all the fey creatures he’d met, skogsrås were among the most unsettling. They existed to tempt; it was their sole purpose. Backless and hollow inside—literally and figuratively—skogsrås’ allure was in their neediness. That space was a hungry emptiness both mortal and faery found difficult to resist. Without the charm Niall had given him, Seth wasn’t sure how he’d overcome the temptation.

The skogsrå, Britta, blew him a kiss.

Aisli

Seth didn’t react. He nodded but made no encouraging gestures. The music nights were held in areas declared neutral territory for the event, so the skogsrås would all be bolder. Truth be told, Britta would probably be bold regardless of where they were. Any faery strong enough to be solitary but linger where there were several courts in conflict was not to be dismissed lightly.

Britta walked toward them. Neutral ground meant they were all equal here. Seth liked that, but the tension in Aisli

A few steps away, Britta tripped, and without thinking, Seth caught her. In doing so one of his hands slid over the space where her back should be. Even though the thin shirt she wore covered most of that void, he still felt the tug of that empty space.

“Nice save, love.” She kissed his cheek with a familiarity that was not earned. Then she looked at Aisli

As she sauntered off, Aisli

“You will,” he reassured her. “We both will.”

“Things weren’t easier before, but it seemed like they made more sense.” She rested her head against him.

“It’ll all make sense again. You’re new to this,” he said.

She nodded, and he suspected that it was because she couldn’t answer without trying to twist her words into a misdirection so she sounded less afraid than she was. He was afraid too. If he told her the things Keenan had said, if he told her how much she really hurt him when she forgot her strength, it’d push her away when he wanted to pull her closer. He wanted closer to her, but until she figured out who she was and he found a way to become not just a mortal caught in a world of faeries, distance was inevitable.

Then the merrows began singing in earnest. Musicians joined in from along the river’s edge and from in the trees and farther away in the darkness where mortal eyes couldn’t see them. Thrumming beats and lilting piping, sounds that weren’t made by any instruments mortals had, and voices rising and falling like the fingers of water lapping the shore—pure music was all around them.

Aisli

“Not at all.” He felt the music, the purity of it, like it was a tangible thing. The world of Faerie wasn’t perfect, but it was so much fuller sometimes. Their casual music was more intense, more enthralling than the music that even the best human musicians could make. No one choreographed the movement of the dancers who interpreted the notes with their bodies; no one directed the musicians who blended together in the darkness.

“Come with me.” Aisli

In the boughs, three ravens perched. For a heartbeat, he was certain their gazes were affixed on him, but Aisli

Then she let go of the vine and took his hand again.

As long as he was touching her, seeing her, lost in her, he could move. The music still held him, but she was more than faery magic. Love can give a person strength to break through glamours and magicks.

“Curl up with me?” she asked.

“With pleasure.” He sat back into the vine-net and held his arms open for her.