Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

“It’s a shadow gate.

“Are you thinking about running? Gods, I hope so. I’ll give you a head start if you like. It’s been an age since I’ve hunted anything.”

Orris.”

New character

“He used to be kinder,” Ren whispered. “But the quicksilver inside of him… It makes it difficult for him to think straight. It wears on him. It’s exhausting for him, shutting out the voices. It’s made him hard.”

The first time Belikon forced him to travel without a relic, the silver infected him so badly that I thought we’d lost him altogether. His mind was so fractured. Let’s just say, it took a long time for him to recover. The healers did their best, but the piece that remains in his eye torments him night and day. His mother’s relic doesn’t seem to be as effective anymore. And now he’s been exposed to the quicksilver twice without it again.

“Hayden’s in the Seventh. I got him papers and shifted him that first night when you were taken up to the palace. He’s now gainfully employed as a store clerk.

Evenlight.

Kingfisher stilled, his fingertips curling tighter around Nimerelle’s hilt. His eyes darted from Carrion to me and back again; then he looked off toward the other side of the room, seemingly at nothing.

Jealous lol

“And what about me?” Carrion demanded. “You’re just going to keep me locked away in here forever?” Fisher snorted. “You haven’t been locked in here at all.” I glared at him over my shoulder. “You didn’t check the door?” “I just assumed…”

Lol

a small creature, only three feet tall, with a round, protruding stomach, glassy amber eyes, and the strangest skin. It looked as if it were formed out of the last dying embers of a fire—rough and charcoal-like, with tiny fissures that ran all over its body, the edges of which glowed, flared, and faded, as if a flame might kindle there at any moment.

Archer.

A massive floral centerpiece with purple and pink blooms sat in the dead center of the table, and it was beautiful, it really was, but I couldn’t even see Fisher around it. Maybe that was the point.

Lol

“We can’t buy more silver. The entire realm’s been picked clean. Belikon has an embargo on it, too. Any silver found within Yvelian borders must be given to the crown. That’s part of the reason why we need to use the quicksilver so badly. Other realms have an abundance of silver. We could trade for more than we need if we could just cross between realms.”

“Don’t share food with that prick again, Little Osha.” “What?” “Swift. Earlier. Back in the war room. You were trading that cake back and forth with him for ages.” “It wasn’t cake.” “I don’t care what it was. Just stop sharing food with him.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice.

“What have you got against Carrion?”

Lol jealousy!! 😂

“We’re at war. That’s what happens in a war. People get hurt. People die. Sometimes they rise again and feed off of the living. It’s a cycle.”

“You were worried about me,” Fisher said roughly. “No! I…” “I saw the look on your face. In the map room when Danya wanted to lop my head off. You were afraid. For me.”

“Malcolm’s a high Fae vampire. The very first. We were cursed thousands of years ago, and the Fae turned into something very like Malcolm.

When a cure was found, my great-grandfather and most of the other Yvelian Fae took it. They were horrified by the monsters they’d become and wanted to return to their old lives. But there were those who liked the dark magic the curse afforded them. They liked the power and the promise of immortality.”

“Aren’t the Fae already immortal?” Fisher chuckled. “No, Little Osha. We’re not. Our lifespans are the subject of much research and conjecture. We outlive your kind by a l...

Malcolm is the strongest of them. Their king. Of all the Fae who chose to remain vampires, he alone is strong enough to fully turn someone and ensure they remain themselves. What makes them who they are. Their personality and their character traits. When his princes bite and turn someone, their victims die and return without their souls, nothing more than mindless, hungry shells. They obey their masters, and they feed.”

“Where do you think most of your kind went? The vast majority of Malcolm’s horde were once human.

Witnessing the strain around his eyes worsen, some part of me recognized it and knew what it felt like. As if he were trying to resist or push through something. As if he wasn’t in control… And there it was. He wasn’t in control. “You’re bound, aren’t you?” I said, dismayed.

Oh shit!

“You don’t hate me as much as you pretend to,” I said. He stepped toward me, leonine, predatory, dangerous. “Don’t I?” “No, you don’t.” “That’s an interesting theory.” “I don’t think you hate me at all.”

“You want to bite me,” I whispered. “Hah!” He threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, you have no idea what kind of tightrope you’re balancing on right now, do you?” “You nearly did it. Back in your tent. You scratched me with your teeth. You drew fucking blood!!”

We were either going to kill each other or fuck each other, and I was glad we were both opting for the latter option.

“You asked for this. When you’re sore from coming so hard and you can’t recall your own name, remember that, Little Osha.”

“My, my. So worked up already? You’re slick as hell. What do you taste like, mm? Are you going to scream for me like a good girl when I have you ride my face?”

“When you take all of me, remember to breathe.”

All I knew was that it was coming from him—the same smoke that had shoved a horde of vampires below a sea of ice—and now it was swirling over my body, like… It evaporated just as I was starting to tense. And with it, every stitch of my clothing disappeared, too.

Lol used his powers to get rid of her clothes

“I can’t wait to hear what kind of sounds you make when I thrust into you for the first time,” he purred. “I’m going to make you pant for me, Little Osha. And when we’re done, I’ll close my eyes and replay the sound of you moaning in my head every time I stroke myself to completion.”

“No arguments, Osha. I’ve driven myself half-crazy wondering what you look like. I need to fucking see. Put me out of my misery.”

“Perfect. You’re absolutely fucking perfect. If Danya does rip my head off tomorrow, at least now I’ll die happy.”

“You smell so, so fucking good,” he said thickly. “Back in the forge at the palace, I caught a hint of this. I knew then I had to taste you. This smell has been haunting my fucking dreams. I haven’t been able to think straight for remembering the scent of your need.”

“Witch,” he accused. “You do have magic.”

I could feel it—a still, deep well inside him, its surface rippling as he grew harder and harder inside me. I would drown in that well. Sink down into the dark depths of it, never to break the surface again. And I would be glad.

“Gods and fucking martyrs. Holy fucking shit. That’s right. Come. Show me how pretty you are when you fall apart.”

“I did not ask for a tattoo, Fisher,” I hissed. “I definitely didn’t ask for a bird to be permanently inked right above my fucking boob.

Um, a tattoo?! Oh we all know what that means 👀

“I can’t have children, Fisher. I was cleansed when I was fourteen.”

Wow!

“What? I figured you’d think that was good news.” Clenching his jaw, he spun around, his eyes searching the horizon for gods only knows what. Had he heard something? Some promise of danger that my inferior human hearing hadn’t detected? “Fisher. Hey! What’s wrong?” When he faced me again, his eyes were almost fully black, his pupils blown wide open.

Cause those would have been his kids!

“Did you know, the Yvelian Fae are the youngest of the Fae houses? By a thousand years. There was a dispute between these two brothers, and they splintered off to make their own court.”

Well, that was unexpected. Where the hell had a book about the Fae come from? Madra had burned any literature that even mentioned the Fae or magic a long time ago. It was a curious thing—to find out that Carrion had, in a way, been brought up to believe that this would happen to him at some point. I didn’t have time to ponder on that now, though.

Yeah his grandmother took a big risk! It must mean more, something we still don’t know about Carrion

What would have happened to Carrion if he had opened the box? The quicksilver was in its inert state, solid and sleeping, but there was a chance Carrion might have accidentally triggered it. Why not? If I was able to do it, then there was a chance he could, too. I had no idea why I had been born with the gift to work the quicksilver. Perhaps it was a latent gift that hadn’t manifested in Carrion yet. His hand had prickled when he’d held the box. Maybe that meant something.

Interesting theory!

“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”

Danya’s sword was special. It was like Nimerelle once, imbued with old potent magic. It’s…” He winced at the bristling spines of metal protruding from the stone wall. “It was a precious Fae heirloom. Danya’s birthright. A god sword forged by the ancient Alchimeran masters. Such swords are religious icons to the Fae. It represented Danya’s rank and marked her as an original member of the Lupo Proelia.

“Lupo Proelia. Kingfisher’s wolves,” he said, sighing. “There are eight of us, usually. Though our numbers have been reduced of late. We fight as a team, working together, just as wolves do. I’m sure you’ve noticed the wolf on some of our armor.”

So you’re saying that I was in camp for less than five minutes and I destroyed an ancient weapon that has profound cultural importance for all of Fae kind,”

“That makes you the most powerful Alchemist ever recorded,”

We have one year, Danya. Twelve months. If we don’t figure this thing out, by this time next year, Malcolm will have won.”

Gods, what the hell was wrong with me? This realm was paused on the brink of total destruction, and I was angry and plenty afraid of what that might mean for me and everyone else in Yvelia… but I was also jealous. And that? That made me feel pathetic. I swallowed the questions I wanted to ask Lorreth—Are they together, Te Léna and Fisher? Does he like her? Do they have history?—